The de Wolfe of Wharf Street

by Carter, Elizabeth Ellen

  The silence stretched on.

  At length, Gabriel gave his answer. “You’re asking questions I haven’t yet figured the answers to.”

  Reverend Makepeace nodded, as though that was the answer he was already expecting.

  “I make no judgement,” he said. “Indeed, I make no comment at all. Suffice it to say that I know you to be a good man.”

  He started to walk away.

  “I love Cassie,” Gabriel called after him, and the expression came as a surprise even to him. He had not consciously known it before this moment. When he spoke again, it was softer, almost as if telling himself as much as reassuring Makepeace. “I would not do anything to hurt her.”

  Uriah stopped and turned back, his gaze searching.

  “Aye,” Gabriel offered, “it is the truth.”

  The reverend nodded his acceptance.

  “Then I’ll tell you why I wanted to speak with you and, hopefully, you will not think of me as a mere busybody priest or needlessly protective relative,” he began.

  “When Cassie was much younger, not more than a girl, there was a man who inveigled his way into my cousin’s home and into his daughter’s heart. Then it was discovered that the man had a wife and children in another town. Cassie was bereft. It was only after she had become… ill… that anyone comprehended how far the relationship had gone.”

  Gabriel felt cold. “There was a child?”

  The man shook his head. “No. A miscarriage which almost killed her. She was so under his spell that it took her nearly two years to accept he would not be returning.”

  Gabriel’s hands turned to fists and squeezed tight. He only become conscious of the tension in his body when he witnessed the priest’s sympathetic tilt of his head.

  There was nothing more to say. Makepeace walked back up the path, leaving Gabriel alone.

  A spring coiled tighter in his gut.

  He decided against returning to the warehouse. He couldn’t rehearse if he couldn’t concentrate.

  Gabriel followed the River Taw downstream. At the moment, he had no destination in mind. He wanted to run. Run, run, run until the anger that boiled within him amounted to nothing.

  The wicked flee when no man pursueth.

  When he was sure he had passed the last cottage outside the town, Gabriel broke out into a run, lifting his legs higher to force more energy into his stride, his arms pushing harder and harder to keep up with his legs.

  The wind tugged at the brim of his felt hat but it remained stubbornly firm on his head.

  Didn’t Cassie try to warn him after he had kissed her?

  We cannot begin an affair that will wither on the vine in time.

  His run attracted the attention of a dark grey mottled horse grazing in a field. The beast raised its head. Gabriel made eye contact with it briefly as he passed. A moment later, he heard hooves over the pounding of his heart.

  Gabriel put on a burst of speed, running as fast as he had ever done, willing his body to ache as much as his soul ached.

  Finally, his hat flipped up and off his head. He let it fly away, catching out of the corner of his eye a glimpse of the horse as it galloped past, easily besting the man on foot. The animal stopped at the end of his fenced field and watched his opponent far behind in second place.

  Well, there was one thing that he could do that a four-legged beast could not.

  Gabriel readied himself to launch into a forward running somersault when his foot slipped on loose gravel. He lost his balance mid-leap and fell onto his back hard, a winded, a graceless heap on the side of the road.

  His heart hammered in his chest, his lungs nearly painful with their demand for air. He started to rise but dropped onto his back, closing his eyes as he did. There were new bruises he would be sporting as the price of his misstep.

  Only when his breathing returned to normal did Gabriel open his eyes and found dark brown eyes and a long face looking down at him. The horse chewed grass in unhurried meditation.

  Gabriel raised himself to his elbows and looked up at his equine companion.

  “You might be a horse, but I am an ass,” he said.

  To add further insult to injury, the horse bobbed its head once, as though in agreement.

  Getting up on his feet revealed soreness to his right knee and hip, but no grazes, thank God. That would require clothing to be mended on top of wounds, as well as an explanation to his brothers.

  Gabriel reached out and patted the horse’s neck, feeling hollowed from the inside out.

  The truth be known, he hadn’t considered the idea of marriage until Uriah raised it. Now he thought about it in light of what the man had told him. No wonder Cassie rejected him. She was right to but, by God, the passion in that kiss made him crave her like a drunkard craves drink.

  Yet, what kind of prospect could he offer her as a husband? He had nothing he could call his own, nothing to support a wife on.

  If she was of a mind to marry, she could do a lot worse than the curate, Williams. He was a decent man with a good living.

  The thought soured his stomach.

  Gabriel began an unhurried walk south, back in the direction of the town. He soon found his hat in the grass by a fencepost. He picked it up, inspecting it as he walked, and finally putting it back on his head to curb the glare of the sun sinking in the western sky. The sun’s rays poured color – peach, saffron yellow, grey and purple – into the lines of cloud that stretched long across the sky.

  He stopped to take it in – the light touching the patchwork of tilled and fallow fields that ended in the hills behind the sea.

  Was he wrong for wanting more for himself than living hand-to-mouth? Was there a reason he shouldn’t dare? He lived in towns made rich by men who worked and traded for their fortunes.

  One more season on the road with a quality troupe would give them a start, but the three of them would have to do a lot better than their paltry effort this morning to persuade Zagorsky to take them on.

  Chapter Eleven

  Cassie wiped the surface of the writing slates and stacked them on the shelves waiting for tomorrow’s group of young pupils. The reading primers, too, were collected and put away. Although it was late afternoon, the early spring sky was still bright.

  Would Gabriel return today for his lesson? He hadn’t yesterday, nor the day before.

  She was ashamed at how she’d reacted to his kiss. She should not have given him encouragement.

  More importantly, she shouldn’t have given herself so recklessly. What happened to the sensible woman she had become, thinking herself immune to cunning words and idle flattery?

  But never did she expect to feel the surge of desire run through her so hot. She had to send Gabriel away, lest she be completely undone. And yet, she could not deny how her body felt when he touched her.

  Cassie made her way back to her desk and picked out a book from the shelf beneath it. The slim leather volume was an indulgence. A book of sonnets by the popular playwright William Shakespeare.

  Now that Gabriel had mastered the rudiments of reading and writing, he had no need for the children’s texts. Soon, he would have no need for her tutelage either.

  She sensed rather than saw a figure in the doorway and the words to greet Gabriel were on her lips but halted at seeing Uriah there instead.

  He rapped on the door jamb quite needlessly and entered.

  “I was wondering whether you’d heard me,” he said. “You looked as though you were away with the fairies.”

  Cassie offered a half-smile but said nothing as she returned the book to its shelf and continued to clean the room.

  “I received a letter from our great-aunt, Patricia, in Ireland today,” he said. Patricia O’Connor was one of the last remaining relatives she and Uriah had in common. The woman outlived her brothers and many of their own children, too. And it was she who suggested to Cassie that she make contact with her cousin, Uriah, in Barnstaple.

  “Uncle William is ailing,” Uriah
continued, “and Aunt Patricia, too, is feeling her years. I thought you might consider staying with them for a few months.”

  “So soon after starting the school?” she asked. “Is that your way of telling me that I’ve failed in my duties as a teacher?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Uriah’s dismay was readily apparent.

  “No! That was the furthest thing from my mind. You are always welcome to teach, but since you’ve asked me so directly, then I will tell you that I do have a motive for making the suggestion.”

  Cassie knew Uriah’s objection, even before he raised it.

  “Gabriel Hardacre.” As soon as she said his name aloud it seemed some kind of spell had been broken.

  “I know that you and he have been spending a lot of time in each other’s company, and I wonder whether that attachment is for the best considering his plans for the summer,” said Uriah. “You were aware of them, weren’t you?”

  We cannot begin an affair that will wither on the vine in time. Her very own words came back to taunt her.

  There was no censure in Uriah’s voice, no disapproval or unkindness. If there had been, it would have made Cassie feel better. Then, there would be something to rail against. She would tell her cousin to mind his own business, that she was over the age of majority, and was quite capable of using her own judgement about who she consorted with.

  Yet Cassie knew her cousin was not unkind and had only her best interests at heart.

  In the end, a nod was answer enough.

  “Have I made such a great fool of myself?”

  “No, not in the least.” Uriah approached and took her hands in his.

  “You have always had my support to manage your affairs as you wish, but as family and as your priest, I urge you to think and pray about your feelings for this young man, especially considering that when Gabriel and his brothers leave Barnstaple, there is no guarantee when, or if, they will return.”

  “And you are so certain that the brothers will leave? Reverend Williams told me that he was hopeful Raphael would stay and apprentice himself to old Somerson as an apprentice.”

  Uriah shook his head. “Gabriel told me they were going when he came to see me this morning. They have auditioned with a prestigious cast of players with the opportunity to tour the Continent.”

  Cassie shook her head to clear it, as much as to deny Uriah’s words.

  “I see the news is a surprise to you?”

  “Yes, well, no… I mean I knew there was a possibility, but…”

  The sound of booted footsteps entering the room broke the spell.

  Gabriel stood just inside the door, but said nothing. Uriah squeezed her hands once more.

  “Remember our conversation,” he whispered. “The opportunity to go over to Ireland to spend time with Aunt Patricia is there if you wish to take it.”

  Uriah and Gabriel exchanged a nod, and the priest left.

  “Will you walk with me to the river?” asked Gabriel. “We need to talk.”

  Cassie squared her shoulders, an illusion of self-assurance.

  “Indeed, you are fortunate that I am free this afternoon, Master Hardacre. It seems my pupil no longer attends my lessons. But anything you can say to me can be said equally well here.”

  Gabriel inwardly winced at her censure. To be sure, he’d played to a hostile crowd before, but none more critical than the woman before him now.

  However, the more he thought about it, the more Gabriel believed he had nothing to apologize for, so he didn’t. He knew he could have asked Uriah to stay and attest on his behalf. But the rightness of his actions and the intentions behind it gave him leave to speak to her directly.

  “Cassie, take a seat. There is something I wish to speak to you about,” he said. The look of surprise on her face and her compliance with his request was enough to judge himself right.

  “I’m a man of plain words, so I’ll tell you what I feel and I’ll leave it to you to judge how we go from here. It’s true that I saw your cousin today. I wish I’d been able to see you straight afterwards so you might hear it first from me. Nonetheless… I want more for my life than I have at present. I want a house, a wife–” Did she nearly turn to look at him at those words? “–and a business to keep us, and I cannot do it without money to set up.”

  He joined her on the bench and she looked at him now. He watched her hands spread on the desk, one on top of the other, outwardly composed. But the way she ran a thumb across the back of her other hand hinted at her discomfiture.

  At least it wasn’t indifference.

  “You might be having second thoughts but know this: I don’t regret our kiss.” He saw Cassie squeeze her hands once.

  “Far from it. In fact, it had me thinking more about what I want in the world. And I have you to thank for that. You didn’t just teach me how to read, but you also opened my eyes to the possibilities an education could bring – not just to me, but my brothers also.”

  The breath of her sigh reached him. “I’m glad to help you do it,” she said, “although I feel I have done little enough. You were of a mind to learn and anyone could have taught you the rudiments of it.”

  “But only you did. Only you didn’t look at me as a vagabond and a thief, and it was only through you that I could see what more I could become.”

  Gabriel braved placing a hand over hers. She did not pull away. That was an encouraging sign. There was that color on her cheeks, once again, that highlighted her alabaster skin. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d reached across and stroked her cheek.

  “I love you. I want to marry you,” he whispered. “I want us to have a life together. But I have no right to ask you to wait, not if there is another who could make you content.”

  Cassie was as still as a statue, giving him no clue as to what was behind her eyes. Normally, they revealed so much to him, but now they were shut off behind a wall he could not reach. Gabriel closed his eyes instead.

  “I can’t offer you a token of my intent, only my word. I will return, but only if that’s what you want.”

  If his eyes had been open, he might have seen her nod.

  “I believe you,” she whispered. “I believe in you.”

  Gabriel opened his eyes and found her hands were now holding his.

  “When do you leave?”

  “Next month.”

  Cassie nodded and took a deep breath.

  “Write to me, tell me how you and your brothers fare when you are gone. Describe the world as you see it. That can be your promise to me,” she said.

  Gabriel was not expecting the touch of her lips on his, but he opened them nonetheless and allowed her to lead.

  “Are you sure you want this, Cassie?”

  “Shhhh,” she said, rubbing a thumb over his lips. “I want you. I want the way you make me feel. Be mine – body and soul.”

  Chapter Twelve

  July 1627

  They walked well out of town following the River Taw down to the sea. Cassie kept up the steady pace Gabriel had set across the fields. He carried a wicker basket heavy with provisions but it did not slow him down.

  Here, there was not another living soul. It was as though the world was theirs alone. Here, she could try to pretend that their parting was not two days from now, that they had all the time in the world.

  Cassie breathed in deep, the breeze bringing with it the tang of salt air from sea just beyond the hills.

  Their day together was a gift and they knew it. Another four seasons – perhaps more – would pass before Gabriel would return home.

  He found a place that seemed to suit him. He set down the basket, took up the blanket that rested on top and lay it on the grass. It was shaded by a tree here. The ground gently sloped to the river; the sun on its surface glittered like jewels before them.

  Gabriel took off his hat and placed it on top of the basket before sitting on the blanket. He held his hand out to her.

  His devilishly handsome face suddenly made her ner
vous. She wanted him to kiss her and she was afraid that she wanted so much more than that.

  “Read to me,” he said.

  “Read? What makes you think I brought a book?”

  “You always have a book,” he said.

  She conceded the point with an incline to her head and joined him on the blanket. “I thought you might like to know more of Shakespeare the playwright. I found a poem of his I’ve not yet read.”

  “Then sit up against me so I can follow over your shoulder,” he said.

  Cassie picked the volume from the basket and did as he suggested, leaning her back against his chest.

  Cassie started to read while Gabriel’s hands roamed freely about her waist.

  “And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety,

  But rather famish them amid their plenty,

  Making them red and pale with fresh variety,

  Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:

  A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,

  Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.”

  And they played a sport of their own as he hands now strayed across her breasts. How long could she pretend his caresses were having no effect on her? Yet she knew that even if she lost this game, she would win.

  She gasped as he reached down and wrapped his hand around her ankle to draw it up to her thigh. His chuckle in her ear sent shivers down her spine. Cassie leaned into him. The hand at her ankle inched up her calf, the warmth of his palm through her stocking sent a charge up her body, arousing her.

  His other hand swept aside a stray lock of her hair before sweeping down her arm. His lips trailed kisses down the column of her neck to her collarbone.

  Her breath came out as a hitch and the words trailed away. No longer could she see the print in the book. Cassie let the volume fall to her lap and allowed his hands to roam where they would.

  There was no hurry in his lovemaking, as though they had this to look forward to today, tomorrow, and forever. It was a delightful illusion and she gave herself to it.

  His hand reached her stocking, his fingers played with the be-ribboned edge of it, a tease which was part torment, part pleasure.