Brace stood and went to the mahogany cabinet where he poured more brandy into the snifter. As he raised it to his lips, he heard hoof beats approach the house.
Putting the snifter down, Brace went to the front door and stepped onto the veranda, just as his father dismounted. Angel appeared magically to take the horse from Charles.
“Good afternoon, Father,” Brace said, not letting his surprise show.
“Yes,” Charles replied, “a wonderful day for a ride.”
Brace laughed. The love he felt for his father warmed him in a way that brandy never could. When his father reached the top of the veranda, he spoke. “I take it that you want to speak to me.”
“At my age, I don’t ride for five hours for mere pleasure.”
“Brandy?”
“And a bite to eat; I missed lunch.”
Again, Brace smiled. He led his father into his study, poured him a brandy, and then called his housekeeper. A moment later, the two men were sitting on a finely tooled leather couch.
“Did you want to wait until after you’ve eaten to tell me what you’re here for?”
“It won’t spoil my appetite to tell you now.”
Brace nodded.
“I understand you’re leaving us—this time there will be no turning back?”
“That’s right.”
“I want to know something,” Charles said, his tone suddenly tight. He waited a moment until Brace’s eyes met and locked with his. “Do you love her?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he stated.
“Damn it boy, answer my question!” Brace’s eyebrows arched. His father hadn’t used that tone, or that phrase, in fifteen years.
“Yes.”
“Then why are you running away from her?”
“Running away from her? I’m not running away from her, I’m saving her life!”
“Since when were you proclaimed to be God?”
“Since I learned who and what I am!” Brace snapped back, his anger getting away from him.
“She loves you, Brace.”
“And that hurts more than anything else. I tried to stay away from her. I really did.”
Charles took in his son’s tortured face, and emotion choked his words. “Brace, if it was meant to be, you cannot run from it.”
“What else can I do? I’m the son of a debtor, which is the same, if not worse than being a debtor. How can I love her and then let her become an object of ridicule? Can I let her be as despised as I am? I owe too much to her father to let that happen!”
Charles nodded his head slowly. He put down the snifter and entwined his fingers together, resting both hands on his lap. “Do you remember when Elyse went to England? When you begged Harlan to send you, also?”
“As if it were yesterday.”
“Harlan took me aside that day. He told me that only his own love for you stopped him from doing just that. He knew that if you went to England, your life would have been worse than it was here, which was why he sent you to school in America. He loved you as if you were his son. Still, he must have had a premonition about the future, because he told me that he would not be surprised if Elyse and you fell in love. ‘Brace will become a good man, a strong man’ were his words.”
“He said that?” Brace whispered.
“He did. The idea didn’t bother him at all.”
“But if he were alive now? How would he feel about his daughter marrying the...”
“Son of a debtor?” Charles finished for him. Then he smiled. “Harlan Louden hated England. He hated the overly structured society into which he was born. He hated the way everything was done, and came to Jamaica to find a better life.”
“Only he found the same life he had left,” Brace stated.
“With one small difference. Devonairre was his country—not Jamaica, not England. He lived as he pleased on the plantation, and cared not what the others said of him.”
“Then why did he send Elyse away?”
“To learn about her heritage. To see where her roots came from. To see that what she had in Jamaica was better than what she had been born into.”
“Was he right?”
“Elyse is back, isn’t she?” Charles had decided not to tell Brace of his newly found knowledge about Elyse’s life in England, nor the battle she had fought to return home. If she wanted him to know, she would tell him herself.
“But that changes nothing.”
“Sometimes you’re as stubborn as a mule,” Charles declared. “All right, run away if you must. Sacrifice for no reason what could be yours.”
“No reason?” Brace slammed his palm on his thigh. “Every morning when I awaken, I am faced with that reason. It is I!”
“Has nothing I’ve said penetrated your thick skull?”
“Everything has, but it makes no difference. Harlan is dead. If he were alive, I would go to him, seek his permission, and if he gave it—if! Then Elyse would have the protection of his title.”
“Is that so important, a title?”
“When you are the son of a debtor.”
“And you hate me for that.”
Brace blinked away the shock of his father’s words. He stared at him, willing the words to come to deny the accusation. When he was finally able to speak, his voice was low and intense.
“I have known only love for you and Mother. We have argued and fought, we have disagreed on many things, but I’ve never hated you.”
“Only the mark I placed on your head.”
“You had no choice. You are not to blame for that.”
Although no mention had ever been made of his father’s transgression in England, Brace was all too aware of the hordes of people who had ended up in debtor’s prison, people sold like slaves to others who paid their debts in order to get cheap labor.
Times had been bad in England when they put his father in prison. Poverty had been, and still was, rampant in London, a fact Brace well knew. In his own mind, he knew his father had fallen into debt in order to survive and he did not blame his father for his position in life, only the society that had put him there.
Before anything else could be said, Brace’s housekeeper entered with a tray and placed it on a table near the men. Without a word, she withdrew.
Charles looked at the tray of food, and then back at his son. “Perhaps I spoke too hastily. I feel my appetite has indeed fled.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Father.”
“It’s not you, or your words; rather, it is the ridiculous circumstances life puts us into. Brace, I want you to know about my life in England. It’s time you knew why you have been so damned.”
“I haven’t—” But Charles cut off his protest with a single gesture of his hand.
“Let me speak.”
Brace fell silent.
“My name is not Charles Denham. It is Charles Denham Wadworth. I was born to Charles Wadworth, Earl of Gloucester, Duke of Wittaker, and first cousin to King George III.” As Charles spoke, his voice low and faraway, his eyes never once wavered from his son.
“I led a sheltered life in Gloucester, pampered by servants, spoiled by an adoring mother, watched over by tutors and instructors. When I was seventeen, I made the mistake of falling in love with an older, more experienced woman, who was everything I was not.
“The affair went on for a year, undiscovered by anyone. During that time, my passions burned endlessly, and only when I was with her did my life seem to have some purpose. I loved her desperately, or at least I thought it was love. It was only after I met your mother, that I learned what love truly is.
“This highborn woman refused to marry me, laughing that I was still but a boy, and she was not ready to give up the life she led for me. I was devastated. Never once in my short life had I been refused anything. Then I began to think she was being unfaithful to me.”
Charles laughed sardonically. “Such a young fool I was that the idea of her faithlessness became an obsession. I had to know. On a night, this titled lady
of the world told me she could not see me when I went to her chateau. Jealousy clouded my thinking and made me do things I would never have dared. Her servants tried to stop me, but I pushed them aside, entered her home, and went up the stairs.
“I burst into her bedroom, and found her…” Charles paused for a moment to bring out the memory and all the pain it had inflicted on his eighteen-year-old mind. “I found her in bed with a lover. I went insane! I screamed and raved, and finally issued the man a challenge.
“At first he laughed at me. He was twenty years older than I was, and not only a big man physically, but his powers at court were awesome. Being the reckless boy that I was, I refused to back down. I went to him, as he lay naked next to her. I slapped him twice.
“‘Tomorrow at dawn!’ I told him. ‘As you wish, fool,’ he replied.
“I spent the remainder of the night deep in thought, my anger and jealousy keeping me constant company. My mind was alive with hatred; nothing anyone might have said would have swerved me from my path.
“When dawn came, it found me standing on the lawn of the lady’s chateau, waiting. Before the man emerged from the house, the lady came out. She begged me to apologize to him. She was afraid that I would die, and that my death would bring scandal and shame to her name.
“I would not back down. A few moments later, the man came out of the house. Although his manservant accompanied him, he carried an intricately carved box, and when he reached me, he stopped. ‘Will you apologize?’ he asked. ‘When I see you in hell!’ I replied. Without another word, he opened the box and offered me my choice of dueling pistols.
“I took the first one, checked its load, and then nodded my head. We turned, our backs touching lightly. The man’s servant began to count paces. When he reached ten, we both whirled. I fired an instant before he did, and was rewarded by seeing him fall with my ball lodged in his heart. He was dead before his body touched the earth.”
Charles stopped to take a deep breath. He saw that Brace’s face was expressionless as he waited to hear the rest. “The man was the king’s most cherished advisor. They arrested me within hours. My father, as powerful as he was, could not persuade his cousin, the king, to show mercy; instead, I was held in prison until my trial.
“While I awaited trial, my father died, and I inherited all his titles and lands—for whatever good they would serve me in prison. When my trial came, it was fast and decisive. Two hours after it began, the judge sentenced me to death and stripped me of my hereditary titles: the crown confiscated my family lands, and sentenced me to hang as a commoner.
“The hanging was to take place in public, at Newgate prison. But, as you were born twenty-seven years ago, you are ample evidence that I did not hang,” he told Brace with an ironic smile shadowing the corner of his mouth.
“I didn’t die because of the love of other people for my parents. A group of my father’s closest friends petitioned the king for mercy. He granted that petition in his own particular way. He kept my lands from me, and withheld my titles. I was allowed to live, but not as befitted my rank. Rather, the king, my cousin, sent me to debtor’s prison. . . .
“There, I was chosen by Harlan Louden and brought to Jamaica. As I worked in the fields, I gave much time to thinking about my life and the way I had ruined it. I thought about the man I killed, and the reason why. My punishment for my crime was light in comparison to what I made myself see and understand. Never since then have I raised my hand against anyone. To this day, I regret my actions that led to another’s death, and I do not absolve myself of the responsibility of killing a man.
“Yet at the same time, if I had not done so, I would never have found the opportunity to realize just how much I love life.”
“Father,” Brace began, but again Charles cut him off.
“There is nothing further to be said. I wanted you to know the truth, for you are about to change your life. If being a debtor’s son is the cause—being lowborn—then at least you know you are higher born than any man on this island, save myself.” With that, Charles rose and started out.
Brace watched him go, accepting his command and not trying to stop him. His father had given him much to think about, more than he had wanted.
*****
Colleen knocked on the door and, an instant later, the door opened. Stepping inside, she glanced at the three faces who stared intently at her.
“Well?” asked Elizabeth.
Colleen looked at Hollingsby. “I have your word?”
“You do,” he promised.
“The carriage and the guide will be waiting for us tomorrow night. I will take you to Devonairre and make sure that no one sees you.”
“Good.”
“The coins,” Colleen said.
Hollingsby nodded, and Elizabeth withdrew a small leather purse. She flung it at Colleen, who scooped it out of the air. “Make sure this guide doesn’t run off with the money.”
“He won’t.” she looked at Hollingsby and saw his barely perceptible nod.
With that, Colleen left, a smile on her face, her pale eyes sparkling brightly.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Brace arrived at Devonairre well after sunset, unsaddled his horse, and walked toward the west wing and his parents’ apartment. Before he reached it, he saw that their windows were dark.
He had wanted to speak to his father and mother, to ask more questions and learn more of their past before he left, but he decided to wait until morning.
Skirting the main house, Brace went to the stone path leading to Bluefish Bay. As he walked, he stopped frequently to look at the nighttime shapes of the trees and plants lining the walk.
He had not taken half a dozen steps when he stopped; the sensation of someone watching him made the hairs at the nape of his neck stand out. He searched the shadows, but found nothing out of place. Shrugging, he started walking again, his mind once more fixed on his troubles.
He’d spent an endlessly introspective night and a long day thinking about his father’s tale and of the true state of his birth. Yet no matter how much he pondered the vagaries of fate, he wondered if what his father told him mattered. It must, he decided, because Brace knew how costly his father’s admission had been.
Now that he was back at Devonairre, he wondered if he could face Elyse with the same strength his father had shown him and tell her that he was indeed going. Suddenly he was remembering the way she had walked so regally from the gazebo. With that image, he knew he must go to her and tell her his heart.
Did the knowledge that he was not a debtor’s son make any difference? Would the inhabitants of Jamaica look upon them any differently if he were to stay with Elyse?
No, he told himself. They would still sneer and shun them like lepers. How could he allow Elyse to be a part of that?
As he thought these things, he also realized that he was doing more than making a decision for himself. He was making Elyse’s decision, too.
Brace tried to rationalize his emotions by believing that what he was doing was for the best; but in the back of his mind, a thread of doubt wove its way into the very foundation of his willpower and resolution.
For too many years, he’d watched the high and mighty planters go about their lives, making decisions for all those who worked for them and those who lived with them.
They were the God-players he had sworn not to emulate. Yet now he found himself doing exactly the same thing. He was deciding not only his future, but Elyse’s as well.
Am I any different from them?
Knowing he had been highborn did him little good when he could not lay claim to it. Yet the knowledge served an important purpose—it had made him rethink many of his older, more deeply ingrained opinions.
He looked back on the many aspects of his twenty-seven years, picturing the differences between the planters and himself, between his father and the other men on the island, and realized the status of his birth made no difference. With a sudden and foreign easing of his mind, Brace und
erstood the one thing he had never before allowed himself to think about; that he was an individual, a person with his own mind, unbound by the rules of a society he despised. His father had shown him this, in the way he had raised him, loved him, and educated him to the world.
Turning, he looked back at the main house, his eyes seeking Elyse’s bedroom windows. The house was dark, no lights shone, but he found her windows and let his gaze rest upon them. For an instant, he thought he saw a light flicker in her window, the low, fluttering glow of a candle. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and he knew he had been mistaken.
Go to her now!
He heard a branch snap behind him and whirled at the sound. Stiffening, he stared unbelievingly at the sight that greeted his eyes.
“Hello, Brace,” Colleen whispered.
“What do you want?” Brace asked, forcing his voice to stay level.
“All I’ve ever wanted…you.”
“No, Colleen—”
She closed the distance between them before he could say more, and pressed herself to him. Her arms locked around his body, trapping his arms to his sides. Her lips covered his neck with kisses. “Please, Brace, don’t turn me away again. I love you.”
Flexing his arms, he broke the lock she held on him. Then, grasping her shoulders, he held her at arm’s length. “No, Coleen, we are done.”
She snarled and pushed toward him. He flinched at the ugly caricature of what had once been an alluring woman. Her face was a mask twisted with hatred. Where once gentle planes graced her features, only harsh and angular lines remained. Her drawn back lips bared her teeth animal-like, and her breathing came in sharp gasps. Her eyes were wild, shifting everywhere, never staying still.
“Do you think she can offer you more than me?”
Brace remained silent, refusing to reply.
“She’s gentry! You’re dirt beneath her boots. You’ll be nothing but a stud from her stable, trained to her ways. She’ll use you, Brace, and then she’ll throw you away. That’s the rules for people like us, and you know it as fact!”
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