“Sweet Jesus, are you sure?”
“Yes. Barret, please watch over her until I recover. I’m afraid he might try to harm her again. She says he didn’t recognize her, but I’m not so sure. I can’t enlist Father’s help. You understand why.”
“Don’t worry.” Barret’s tone was cool and reassuring. “It will be taken care of. You just rest and get well.”
****
The following afternoon I went to the Douglas store in the village for oranges, for which Colin had developed a sudden craving. As I was about to leave the building, Abraham summoned me to his office at the rear of the huge mercantile establishment. As I entered, I was surprised to see Jared Fletcher and Barret Madison already there. A business meeting had been in progress, it appeared.
“Sit down, my dear.” Abraham indicated a chair and returned to his seat behind his massive oak desk. As I took the proffered place, Jared and Barret, who had arisen at my entrance, resumed their seats.
“We were discussing Colin’s beating.” Abraham reached into a humidor on his desk and drew out a long, slender cigar. “I would like you to explain again how it came about.”
“Why?” I asked, hesitating as I watched him snip an end off the rolled tobacco, then use a small lamp burning on his desk to light it. Something was afoot here, something that gave me an unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I’ve already told you all I witnessed. Captain Madison was present for a good deal of it. He can give you details.”
“I want Captain Fletcher to have a first-hand account of how it began.” He leaned back in his chair and blew smoke. “I also want to make certain you omitted no details in your first, highly emotional account. Now, please. I’m sure you don’t want to be kept from your husband any longer than necessary.”
“Very well,” I said haughtily, catching the nuance of a demeaning threat in my father-in-law’s softening tone.
I finished my story a few minutes later with the understatement, “And then the sailor began to kick my husband.”
“The brute disabled Colin and then tried to cripple him with kicks to his privates,” Barret said impatiently. “It’s as simple as that. I’ve seen a good many fist fights in my life, but this was the first I’ve witnessed that was purposely designed to sexually incapacitate a man.”
“But why?” Abraham faced the captain. “I know I have enemies, but they’re mine, not the lad’s. Why would anyone try to disable Colin in that despicable way?”
“Someone who knows how much a grandchild means to you; someone who wants your dream of a dynasty destroyed.”
“But this Simon fellow? He’s merely a sailor, a sea tramp. He only recently came to this valley aboard the Linnet, as a replacement for one of Jared’s men who contracted yellow fever in Haiti. He has no reason…”
“He was simply the instrument used.” Barret arose and went to lean against the mantel of a massive fireplace against the back wall. “Someone paid him to do their dirty work.”
“Barret’s probably right.” Jared Fletcher spoke for the first time since my arrival. “The man is scum. I wouldn’t have hired him if I hadn’t been in desperate need of a hand. He’s lazy, drunken, and foul-mouthed. As soon as I docked in the village I discharged him.”
“I must know who is behind this infamy!” Abraham banged a fist on his paper-covered desk. “Barret, you and Jared pay a visit to this fellow Simon in jail. Convince the guard to take a little fresh air while you talk to his prisoner. I want the name of the despicable cur who would disable my son and destroy my hopes of a grandchild.”
“Of course.” Jared Fletcher stood. “We’ll wring a name from the scum tonight, Mr. Douglas, never fear.”
He nodded to me and left. Barret straightened up and rubbed a fist into the palm of his other hand. The gesture was crude and suggestive of the brutality Abraham had authorized. Violence was breeding more violence.
“Mr. Douglas, isn’t there some other way?” I got to my feet. “Having two of your employees beat another man hardly seems…”
“Go home, Starr.” Abraham’s words were an order. “Go home and care for my son. Leave justice to me.”
Recognizing the futility of protesting further, I started toward the door, but my father-in-law stopped me with another command.
“You’ll not travel about alone any longer,” he said. “Barret, I appoint you my daughter-in-law’s bodyguard while Colin is ill. I’ll not have my hopes of a family further impaired.”
“Mr. Douglas…” I tried to protest, but he hushed me with a decisive flourish of his hand. “The matter is settled. Take her back to the house, Captain Madison.”
He clamped his cigar between his teeth and turned his attention to paperwork on his desk.
The walk back to Peacock House was silent, the captain seeming no more delighted with the prospect of being my guardian than I was.
****
Simon had disappeared from the jail. I overheard two of the maids discussing the incident when I passed them on my way to breakfast the next morning. Someone had broken him out of his cell, they whispered. Perhaps, they speculated in even softer whispers, someone had disposed of him for harming Mr. Colin. It would save Mr. Abe the trouble of having to bind him over for trial when the circuit judge arrived. As the valley’s magistrate and the victim’s father, he would have been in an awkward position, they speculated. When they became aware of my presence, they scuttled away.
With a churning stomach. I continued on into the deserted dining room and, with trembling hands, poured a cup of strong, black coffee. The scene in Abraham’s office the previous afternoon flashed like lightning bolts across my mind. “We’ll wring a name from the scum tonight,” Jared Fletcher’s voice echoed across my reeling thoughts.
“I see there’s another tardy riser in this house.”
In the quiet room, his voice startled me. Coffee splashed down the front of my blue linen gown as I whirled to face Barret Madison. Perfectly groomed and dressed in tan coat and breeches, cream-colored vest, and spotless white shirt and cravat, Barret Madison was the image of a refined gentleman. His appearance infuriated me. He might at least have had the good grace, like Simon, to look the brute he really was.
“You killed him!” I cried. “You and Jared Fletcher took the law upon yourselves and murdered him. I overheard Colin telling you who Simon was and asking you to take care of me.”
He strode past me and poured coffee as I scrubbed at the front of my gown with a napkin. Cup in hand, he went to stand by a window and look out into the fruit orchard beyond.
“Jared and I didn’t kill him,” he said. “He was gone when we arrived at the jail. The jailer will confirm my story. When Jared and I entered the lock-up, he’d just discovered Simon missing. The person or persons who released him did so while the guard was outside watching a ship navigating the river at low water.”
“I don’t believe you,” I snapped, flinging the napkin aside, overwhelmed with anger and loathing. “I hate Colin’s father’s ambition! I hate your ruthlessness! I hate…”
“This house, the gowns, the food, that fancy mare in the stable, the leisure to do as you please?” He looked over at me, a sneer curling one corner of his mouth. “No, I thought not. Well, my lady, all this elegance has a price. Sometimes that cost is high and cruel in human terms. You must either learn to accept that fact or get out.”
Chagrined to the point of being unable to respond, I whirled and left the room, my stained gown rustling over the thick carpets. I felt unclean and mercenary, soiled by the truth I had found in the captain’s words.
****
That afternoon, news arrived at the mansion that horrified me more than the possibility that Jared Fletcher and Barret Madison might have murdered Simon. Marie had died, as the result of a miscarriage, at her father’s house downriver.
The emotional scene I’d witnessed between Barret Madison and the young French woman took on poignant new meaning. They had been arguing about her condition, their predicame
nt. That poor, innocent girl who had become my trusted friend had died losing Barret Madison’s bastard.
Incensed to the point of irrational action, I pulled on the boy’s clothing I had bought as my fishing outfit and rushed out to the stables. With shaking hands I put a bridle on Lady and led her from the barn.
“Where do you think you’re going?” As I stood on the mounting block about to straddle the bare back of my mare, Captain Madison's voice made me whirl.
“Away!” I cried. “Away from you, you remorseless brute!” I scrambled onto the startled palomino and slapped her to a fast trot as I headed out of the yard.
“Starr, wait! You can’t go alone!” he yelled, but I nudged Lady into a canter in an effort to get beyond the sound of his voice.
Nearing a favorite fishing spot of Colin’s and mine, tears streaming down my face, I heard hooves pounding up behind me. I turned to see Lucifer and his master charging after me. Angered at the captain’s temerity, I kicked my mount to a run.
I rode madly, wildly, the pain in my heart driving me. The thunder of Lady’s hooves drowned all other sound from my ears. In an instant I was swept from my mount and onto the bare back of Lucifer, his master’s powerful arm about my waist.
As soon as he was able, Captain Madison reined to a halt and let me slide to the ground. Lady went pounding off on her own.
“Have you no common sense, riding bareback at that speed with as little experience as you’ve had with horses?” He turned on me, his face contorted with anger. “You could have been killed!” The elegant outfit he’d appeared in at breakfast and which he still wore was coated with dust and horse sweat. I was glad he’d ruined his finery. He deserved much worse. I swung at him with my flattened hand. It connected with his clean-shaven jaw.
Before I realized what was happening, I was seized by the wrist and my arm twisted behind me. I was forced to turn against him, my back held against his flat, hard belly and powerful chest.
“That’s no way to treat your hero,” he breathed against my ear.
“Hero?” I cried, tears of chagrin and rage coursing down my cheeks. “Whore master, you mean. You don’t care that Marie and your baby are dead! You don’t care that you made her pregnant and—”
“Stop it!” He spun me to face him, his eyes bright with anger. “I didn’t father Marie’s child. She was my friend, nothing more.” He released me, and his hands fell to his sides. “She was a good girl,” he muttered. “She didn’t deserve to die.”
“You weren’t her lover?”
“No, but it would have been better if I had. I would have taken care of her.”
The emotional stress of my wild ride and the following confrontation hit me in a rush. I staggered.
He caught me in his arms and eased me down to sit on the grass with him.
“I thought…I thought…”
“I’m sorry,” he said, with a tenderness surprising in the face of my accusation. “I understand how you might have come to such a conclusion. My reputation isn’t good when it comes to women. But let me tell you, it’s also exaggerated.”
“But you must know who the father of her baby is,” I said.
“No,” he said. “I don’t. She simply told me she was in trouble, the kind of trouble that can only come from a man.”
“He must be made to pay.”
“He will, rest assured,” he said. “Just as soon as I find out who he is.”
He stood and pulled me to my feet to stand beside him. “I was on my way to pay my respects to Marie’s family when I saw you at the stables,” he said. “I think you should come with me. That is, if you truly were her friend.” There was a definite challenge in his last sentence.
“Dressed as we are, as I am?” I looked down at my fishing outfit.
“Marie’s family are poor people, Acadian fisherfolk. To go there attired like a pair of London dandies would be the greatest faux pas of all. Now will you come, or was your concern for her only lip service?”
“Of course not. Marie was my friend. Certainly I’ll come.”
“Good.” He pulled off his filthy coat, vest, and cravat, opened the top buttons of his shirt, and whistled for Lucifer. When the great black horse trotted up to him, he threw the clothing he had removed over the animal’s back. “They’re only fit for saddle cloths now,” he said. “Later, we’ll both need a good bath.” I turned away and pretended to ignore any suggestive implication in his remark.
Gripping the animal’s mane, he vaulted onto the stallion’s back. Then he held down a hand to me.
“Get up behind me,” he said. “Dressed as you are, you don’t need to be held in front of me. At any rate, I’m taking you to the LeBlancs’ as Starr, my friend, not as Mrs. Colin Douglas. Abe’s people are not considered amis among the fishermen and their families. And it’s reputed that Barret Madison’s women don’t ride like ladies.”
I grasped his proffered hand and scrambled up behind him.
“Hold on,” he said, and nudged the big horse to a canter.
As the horse forged ahead, I had to clasp the captain’s waist to retain my seat. I should have been outraged, but once again I became overpowered by those intense feelings that close encounters with the man always brought rushing over me. Our thighs were pressed together, moving hard and fast in harmony with the horse’s gait.
I tried to fight down the sensations coursing through me, but my hands were splayed out over his chest, enjoying the ripples of his muscles, the solidness of his ribcage. I wanted this man. I needed him.
Fortunately we did not have far to go. Shortly, the rutted wagon road we were following emerged into a clearing on the edge of the river. The captain slowed the horse to a trot, while I fought my racing desires back under control.
The small settlement into which we’d arrived consisted of weathered shacks and cabins scattered along the waterfront. Nets, traps, and small boats along the shore marked this as a fishing community. Beside the shabby houses, ragged vegetable patches struggled to grow. Ill-clothed, barefoot children paused to stare at us as Barret walked the horse among them.
The wretchedness of the place brought back memories of my life in the mines and the sudden realization that these were the people who provided my father-in-law with the fish he packed and shipped abroad for handsome profits. Did Abraham Douglas and Sir Harry Blackwell have more in common than I wanted to recognize? Were he and his family, which included myself, living in luxury at the expense of these fishermen and their families just as Sir Harry and his family enjoyed the income provided by the coal harvested by enslaved children? The thought sickened me.
At the last ramshackle structure, which had, like all the others, a stovepipe chimney and badly weathered shingles, Barret Madison halted the stallion.
“Get down,” he said.
Beneath my hands, he expelled a breath. Had he also been affected by our sensuous ride? Perhaps the experienced Captain Barret Madison had gotten more than he’d bargained for, I suggested to myself, and found bitter comfort in the idea.
I swung my leg over Lucifer’s rump and slid down the horse’s side. The captain dismounted as well, his clothing we’d used as a saddle falling into the dirt. As he bent to retrieve the garments, one of the children who had been staring at us broke ranks and ran to him. Babbling in French, tears streaming down his little sun-browned cheeks, the child flung himself at the captain. Barret knelt to take him up into his arms. The little boy buried his face against Barret’s neck as he babbled and sobbed. Somewhere in his tirade I caught Marie’s name.
Stroking the child’s unruly curls and speaking softly in French, Barret soothed the child. Then, wiping the small, dirty face with his handkerchief, he picked him up in one arm and stood.
“This is Claude,” he said, turning the child to face me. “Claude is Marie’s brother.”
“Hello, Claude,” I smiled at the little boy, but he cringed back against Barret.
“He’s not accustomed to English,” Barret explained. “Ma
rie was the eldest of a family of fourteen children. These people are French Acadians and adhere to their Catholic faith, which denounces all forms of contraception and emphasizes the sanctity of a large family. Marie worked for Abe to help repay the large deficit her father had run up at the store over the years buying fishing gear and family necessities.”
“But Randall told me his father makes a handsome profit from the fish these people catch and his Irish workers process in his shed. Surely he must pay these people a fair return for their catch, surely—”
“Surely he does not,” Barret retorted. “Look around. Abraham Douglas has made veritable bondsmen of these people. He pays them next to nothing for their catch, gives them credit at his store instead of money, and forces them into debt to him by charging exorbitant prices for the necessities of their trade, which are available in this valley only at his mercantile. Add to these conditions the large families, no schools to improve their education, and you have a desperate cycle of grinding poverty.”
The door of the shack opened and a bent man with a weather-darkened face and thinning gray hair came out, his gaunt body clad in a threadbare white shirt and dark trousers. When he saw Barret, he paused a moment. Tears trickled down his leathery face. He limped toward my companion, a gnarled hand extended.
Barret put the child down to seize it. The older man lost control and embraced the captain, sobbing.
When he regained control of himself, he moved out of Barret’s embrace and squinted at me. Barret spoke softly to him in French. When the captain had finished speaking, the man extended his hand to me, struggling to force a smile over trembling lips.
“Starr, this is Michel LeBlanc, Marie’s father,” Barret said.
As I accepted the older man’s greeting, I was amazed at the strength in his grip. Thin and gaunt though he might appear, Marie’s father was a man as rugged as his weathered skin suggested.
He spoke to me in French, then limped back toward the house.
“He wants us to go inside and speak to his wife,” Barret said. “He wants us both to say goodbye to Marie. I’ve told him you were her friend also.”
Shadows of Love Page 15
