“Not just here, back home. You’re still close to him.”
“Yes, I am, an’ I always will be, but there’s nothin’ more to it. We don’t love each other, not in that way, but we ’ave a…a…a connection. You know all this, Edwin.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, you’re just…I don’t know what you are. All this business with your mum, it’s unnerved you.”
“I’ll never be like him, you know. Like Duncan. I’ll never matter as much to you as he does.” He paused to drain another glass. “I’ll never need you like he does.”
“If you really think so, then what are we even doin’ together?”
“That’s what I’m wondering as well.”
Robin rose from his seat and stood by the archway in the centre of the room.
“Maybe there is somethin’ in your mind, somethin’ that’s been lyin’ there in the darkness, waitin’ to pounce. But if there is, it’s a cub. A kitten. A pup. You can still beat it. Sylvia’s animal is a beast. It pounced on ’er a long time ago an’ it’s got ’er in its teeth an’ it’s never goin’ to let ’er go. Instead of ’elpin’ it do its work, maybe you could ’elp ’er fight it.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you ’ave changed. Because you are a better person than you were. Because it’s the right thing to do. And you know if your places were switched, it’s what you’d want ’er to do an’ all.”
And with those words, Robin marched up the steps and out of the bar, out of the inn and out into the cold night air.
THE MOON WAS high and bright when Robin arrived at the harbour. He stood there, on the pier, gazing down at Bucca’s Call as she floated on the soft tide. Every instinct he had was telling him to jump on board and sail away. Away from that place, away from Edwin, away from his heartache. A few months ago, it was exactly what he would have done, but instead he stood there watching his breath turn to mist in the cool night air. Was it really happening again? Was he losing the one he cared about at solstice, just like when his relationship with Duncan ended? He jumped down into his boat and was immediately soothed by the familiar bobbing motion she made on the water. He settled himself on the thwart to the stern of the craft and sat there, breathing in the salty air. Robin Shipp, always accustomed to striding through the world a giant, was suddenly very small within it. Very small, very lost, and very alone.
He was abruptly stricken from his thoughts by a loud thump as a huge, shadowy figure landed in the little boat in front of him. The bow of Bucca’s Call dipped sharply into the water under the heft of the unexpected arrival, but she quickly righted herself. Robin gathered his wits and clenched his brawny fists, ready to defend his life and his vessel. He stood up, expecting the usual reaction to his immense bulk and height, but instead he found himself face to face with a man of almost equal stature, yet trimmer round the waist. Robin’s height was unusual for these islands and he was rarely forced to resort to physical violence, his stature alone was usually enough to take the wind out of any would-be assailant’s sails. He sensed immediately his visitor was not so perturbed, not so unused to action. He also sensed the man didn’t use his size as a deterrent but rather as a distinct advantage.
The visitor was dressed in a similar manner to himself—long overcoat and thick jumper but wearing a tricorne instead of a flat cap. In the darkness, it took Robin a moment to realise where he’d seen him before. It was the same man he’d met in the Roost.
“You’re Robin Shipp, yes?” the man said.
His voice was low and gravely but it had the oddly lyrical quality common to the island. It rose and fell like a wave crashing against rock. It took a trained ear to hear the difference between his accent and the Merryapple cadence, but it was there.
“I am,” Robin replied, steadying himself for a fight. “You’re Vince, aren’t you?”
“Need to talk to you. Mind if I sit?”
Robin nodded his consent. He reached under his seat and pulled out a lantern and some matchsticks. Clockwork strikers weren’t used much on boats as their fine mechanisms were useless if they got wet. He sat the light between them, getting his first proper look at his visitor. Vince had a round face with hooded blue eyes, a bent little bulbous nose, and a more or less neatly trimmed beard with hints of blonde but was more silver and white than anything. There was a palpable air of menace about him and Robin kept himself ready for trouble.
“Been watching you and your friends since you got here,” Vince said, the sing-song quality to his voice belying the threatening undertone.
He snarled as he suddenly leaned over and swiped the cap from Robin’s head.
“Oi, give that back!” Robin said.
With a thick, callused finger, Vince traced the unusual anchor pendant, following the curve of the rope as it emerged from a spindle in the crown and wound its way around the shank and through the eye. He stared at Robin intently before setting the cap on the seat between them. He stood up then, throwing his tricorne on the deck, revealing a full head of hair, the same mix of blonde-flecked silver as his beard and just as short. Next, he removed his sheepskin coat and pulled his thick woollen jumper off over his head. Even though he was unsure what, precisely, was happening, Robin didn’t move an inch. Vince began to unbutton his thin linen shirt, revealing his barrel chest and firm, round gut, both decorated with myriad tattoos. Ignoring the chilly sea air, he pulled the tails of the shirt from his trousers and laid the garment across the others before sitting down again. His broad, muscular chest rested on the curve of his stomach. Picking Robin’s cap up, he held it next to the vast, smooth swathe of painted flesh which was his upper left arm and leaned forward into the light. Amidst the renderings of mermaids and whaling ships and fantastical monsters, there was a large, clear depiction of an anchor. An anchor with a spindle in its crown and a rope wound tightly around its shank.
“Mind telling me,” Vince said, his voice rumbling like thunder, “why you’re wearing my father’s cap?”
Chapter Twenty
THE SWAN MASK rested on a mannequin head behind the glass of a specially made cabinet. Eva lined up her reflection with its eyeholes. The noise of the fire crackling in the hearth competed for dominance with the ticking and clacking of her father’s clockwork chair. Outside, the wind had picked up and it, too, howled for attention.
“The wolf, Father,” she said.
“What about it?”
She tutted. It was perfectly obvious what she meant. “What a childish attempt to upset me, to upset us. It’s beneath you.”
“I am quite sure I have no idea what you mean,” he sniffed.
“You know exactly what I mean. Against your wishes, I marry a woman named Wolfe, so you get her namesake stuffed and mounted on the landing. It was a tawdry gesture. And it did not work.”
Eva turned a little looped key and opened the cabinet doors. Carefully, she lifted the mask out, surprised, as always, by how light and delicate it was.
“It is not yours yet, my dear.”
“Whoever said I still wanted it?”
Eva turned to her father, holding the mask up to her face, its elegant velvet lining so soft on her perfect skin.
“You have wanted nothing else since you were a little girl.”
“Well, it is so exceedingly pretty,” she said, setting it back on the papier-mâché head and closing the door.
“Coyness does not become you. You know what it represents.”
“To be in charge of all the shipping on Blackrabbit. Quite the useful thing for the head of a shipping company to be,” Eva smirked.
“You would have been assured of it too, if only you had married who you were supposed to. Now, who knows who I might give it to?”
“I keep telling you, Father, it wouldn’t have worked—I’m not romantically drawn to men.”
“Neither was your mother, particularly. But her family understood the importance of a strategic union. And she understood the sacrifices one makes for family.”
; “And just look how happy the union made her,” Eva said. “Trapped here, day after day, year after year. Keeping up appearances, making all the right connections, charming all the right people, all to keep you where you are today.”
“All for you, you mean.”
“Oh, please,” Eva scoffed.
“What do you think all of this has been for? For you! For my legacy!”
“Those aren’t the same thing though, are they, Father? You’d have done it all just the same, with or without me.”
He ignored the remark. “The alliance between Chase and Mudge would have been mutually beneficial.”
He started coughing horrendously. Eva crouched down, setting her hand on his shoulder and rubbing it gingerly, without any affection.
“Fox and Swan,” he croaked. “Can you imagine what the two of you might have accomplished? The dynasty I would have created?”
“Settle yourself, it’s done. Your legacy will not be quite as you pictured it, but it will endure.”
“What on Earth do you mean? What are you even here?” he barked in hoarse tones.
“I came to tell you the good news,” Eva said, settling herself in an armchair.
“Which is?” he asked. He sounded impatient.
“Iris and I are planning to have a baby,” Eva said with a smile.
Her father coughed. “You are adopting?”
“No, we are going to try the traditional way.”
“Are you not both lacking the necessary tools?” he laughed.
Eva turned her head and smiled again. “They are not so hard to find.”
“And where might you go looking?”
“We have asked a friend of ours to do the needful. You met him last night. Mr. Edwin Farriner.”
“What?” he shouted.
“You heard me.”
“The baker? The baker! It is bad enough you ran away with a blacksmith’s daughter and now you are telling me the father of my only grandchild will be a baker?”
He coughed again, holding a silk handkerchief to his face as he did so. “I will not have it, Eva, I will not. It is too far.”
“It is not your decision to make, Father,” Eva said, soothingly.
“First, you marry that woman, sully your name with hers—you could not even put our family name first—and now you tell me this?”
“We thought Wolfe-Chase had a better ring to it.”
“And you knew it would annoy me!”
“You may certainly think as much.”
His body shook, with pain or rage Eva couldn’t tell.
“You are really going do this?” he wheezed.
“I really am.”
“Everything I have worked for. And you are just throwing it all away.”
“Is this the part where you try to make me feel guilty?”
“I have never been able to make you do anything! That is the damn problem! If you feel guilty it is because you know you have done wrong,” he said, pointing a withered finger up at her.
“I did what I had to do in order to be happy, Father,” Eva replied sharply.
“Happy. What about my happiness? Hmm? What about it?”
“You don’t know how to be happy. You could have been, once. When Sada was here, but you drove her away.”
“I did no such thing,” he said, coughing again.
“You were never here, never attentive, never loving. She was just another prize for you to win. You drove her away and she took my sister, my only sister, with her.”
“I loved her. I loved her more than I loved your mother. But it was not enough to keep her.”
“It wasn’t just your love she wanted, it was your time. Time you wouldn’t spare for anyone—not for her and certainly not for your children. How many more wives have to leave you for exactly the same reason before you acknowledge the problem?”
“Your mother did not leave, she died.”
“After she said she was leaving you. I know you don’t like to remember that part.”
Her father coughed and coughed, and shook and shook.
“I worked hard for this family!”
“You sacrificed this family! Sacrificed it for your own sake, for your own vanity, for your own legacy. You built your empire so no one who sails by these islands could ever forget the great Marley Chase!”
His body convulsed, spittle flew from the corners of his mouth. “No. No. You do this, you do this and we are through.”
“What do you mean?” Eva asked.
“It means you get nothing. Not the money, not the company, not the house, and you certainly will never be Swan. It will all go to Alnet’s children—to your cousins.”
Eva stood back from her father.
“I warn you, Eva. If you go through with this idiocy, you will get nothing.”
Her heart pounded in her chest and she clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles turned white. Only her father could make her so mad she became lost for words. She stormed out of the drawing room and up the wide staircase, slapping the stuffed wolf as she passed by. Had she the strength of Mr. Shipp, she’d have shoved it down the steps and out the front doors. She burst into her suite and flung herself onto the bed.
“Eva!” Iris shouted. “Whatever is the matter?”
Iris had been preparing to go out and held one long, fine glove in her hand.
“That man!” Eva replied. “That horrible old man! He said if we have this baby with Edwin he will disown me! I won’t be Swan, I won’t have the company, and, worst of all, I won’t get the house!”
Iris sat by her side.
“Surely he can’t mean it.”
“Oh, he can. Never underestimate the spite of a Chase.”
Iris rubbed her wife’s shoulder. “Well, even if he does, it’s not the end of the world, we still have my family money, we still have Wolfe-Chase lodge. After all, this is only a house.”
“Only a house?” Eva exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “It’s my home!”
Iris stood and finished putting on her gloves.
“My mistake,” she said curtly, avoiding Eva’s face. “I thought your home was in Blashy Cove. With me.”
Without another word she left the room, slamming the door behind her.
DOWNSTAIRS AND ALONE, Marley coughed. He coughed so hard red dots appeared on the silken handkerchief he held over his mouth. He coughed, and he coughed, and he coughed.
And then he stopped.
WHEN IRIS ARRIVED at the Lion Lies Waiting, she found Edwin in the dank library bar, swirling in a drunken haze. The air was thick with smoke from the pipes of the regulars who were clearly enjoying the sight of the Merryapple man making a fool of himself. They’d evidently goaded him into climbing onto a table and he was singing a ribald song about a fisherman, a mermaid and a suggestively shaped eel. They hooted and cheered at every sway, every wobble, at every smutty double entendre. Iris stood at the top of the flight of steps, staring through the gloom. The fat little candles offered a sallow light and received no help from the pitiful fire crackling in the far wall. Calling the gaping hole in which it sat a fireplace would have been overly generous.
“Edwin?” she called, nervously.
He stumbled clumsily from the table.
“Iris!”
He shooed away an old man whose long, ragged beard housed the crumbs of at least the last several meals and beckoned her to sit on a chair. “Go on, make room for the Lady!”
She descended into the bar and perched herself carefully on the seat, having resisted the urge to first take out a handkerchief and wipe it clean. She was glad she had planned to leave the Manor and call round to the inn as it would give Eva a chance to cool down and regain her composure after their spat. She knew her wife well enough to know talking to her in that state was pointless.
She thought if she could spend time with Edwin, away from the sarcasm of Eva, she might be able to twist his arm a little. On the carriage into town, she realised she was heading towards a conversation set to chang
e the course of her life and the excitement overrode her trepidation at coming into the heart of Port Knot alone. She couldn’t begin to imagine why anyone chose to drink here—a dark, squalid little room at the bottom of an inn—instead of one of the larger, brighter pubs by the waterfront.
“What’s going on? Where’s Robin?” she asked.
“I drove him away, like I always knew I would. It’s for the best. I haven’t time to be with him and deal with Mum. Deal with all this,” he said, wiping his tired face in his hands.
“I’m sure you haven’t driven him away. He cares for you a great deal, I’m sure if you just talk to him—”
“No, he’s gone. He’s gone. You see what happens to me when I can’t cope?” Edwin said with a hoarse voice. “This! I run straight back to the bottle, without hesitation.”
He raised his arms and called out: “I am my mother’s son!” which prompted a cheer from the crowd.
“But my animal, Iris, my animal is a thirsty beast.”
He swallowed a huge mouthful of whiskey. Iris could scarcely believe what she was seeing. She knew of Edwin’s past, of course. Though they hadn’t been friends back then, she knew of him and the gang of men he drank with. She had never seen him so drunk, however.
“You’ve seen what my mother is like,” he said, slurring his words ever so slightly. “She let my brother die, Iris. She just sat there and let him die.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It is! It is true. Hester told me so. My mum let my brother die.”
He repeated the fact, looking confused by the words coming from his own lips, as though he’d hadn’t expected then, as though it were another person speaking from them.
“There’s a flaw in us Farriners,” he continued. “A weakness of mind and spirit. I can feel it. And now I think I always could. How can I agree to be a father? How can I risk passing…this…on another person, the way my mother passed it to me? I’m sorry Iris, but the answer is no. It has to be. No.”
So taken aback was she by the harshness of his response, Iris could feel herself tearing up and she prepared to leave, but first she stopped by the door and turned to face him, her eyes fixed and sharp.
The Lion Lies Waiting Page 16
