Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  Selena was a little nervous on the drive downtown, and her mood was not improved when Beauchamp contrived to turn down the wrong street, snarling several coaches and hansoms at an intersection. Disgusted, Selena poked her head out of the window and inspected the scene.

  “My God, Beauchamp,” she called out to him, “have you no brains at all?”

  The big black man turned and scowled at her.

  “Hit war Binlow and Bowers’ fault, ma’am,” he claimed, accusing the horses. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do wit hit.”

  But the fault had clearly been Beauchamp’s, and the other drivers were yelling at him, and telling him to get a move on. A crowd was starting to gather, laughing at the big driver’s ineptitude and, now, his refusal to accept responsibility for it. Selena felt the red flash of anger dart through her brain.

  “Don’t lie to me,” she told him. “If you’d been a servant at Coldstream, I’d have you stretched to your toes and flogged down a peg or two.”

  She shouldn’t have said it, regretted it instantly—especially because of the fate she herself had endured as a mere object for the use and pleasure of others—but the crowd on the street loved it, and called their encouragement. Beauchamp, however, did not react likewise.

  “Ma’am,” he said, with a good measure of outrage, “I’se a free nigger, an’ you got no call to talk to me that way.”

  So saying, he got down from the cab, tossed the reins on the seat, and stalked away.

  Damn, she thought, sitting there. The other drivers were still shouting, and the crowd, having lost Beauchamp as an object of amusement, now turned to her plight, which they found quite entertaining. No gallant strode forth to give her aid.

  So be it. She climbed out of the cab, holding her skirts carefully over the muck in the roadway, and climbed to the driver’s seat. To hell with Beauchamp, she thought. And, with the gathered crowd cheering her on—they were more than a little surprised—she grabbed hold of the reins, sawed the horses to the left, and slashed at their rumps with the leather ends of the reins. Startled, the horses made a tight turn, practically under the very hitches of another team. They reared, neighing in protest. The cab nearly turned over, righted itself. The turn was complete. Shouting, she slashed at the horses again, and Binlow and Bowers, Sean’s prized harness team, dashed off in the direction they’d come.

  The crowd along the street murmured appreciatively and called their congratulations after her.

  “That was some woman, eh?” the men said to one another. “Doesn’t take anything from horse or nigger, did ya see? Spirited gal’d give a man a ride, too, I’ll wager. An’ a looker. Did ya see that golden head o’ hair?”

  Everyone had seen it, truth to tell. Selena’s scarf had fallen free in her climb up to the driver’s seat.

  Everyone including a thin, hard-looking man, with darting, intelligent eyes and a predatory mouth. And a hat pulled low over one side of his head. It gave him the aspect of a hawk with its head cocked to one side, calmly considering the best strategy of attack upon its prey.

  Someone else had seen her, too. Big and rugged-looking in his beard and coarse dockworker’s clothing, Will Teviot concealed his surprise. Since leaving Kinlochbervie and fleeing Scotland, he had learned to hide his emotions. It was a skill he had had to learn in order to survive. And it was a skill he would need more than ever now that he had come to New York. While at work on the docks in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to which he had fled after leaving Scotland, no one would have particularly cared that he had been a Rob Roy. But it would be different in New York with a war against England in progress, a, war that stirred Will’s fighting blood again.

  My God, the little spitfire made it to safety, Will thought, remembering the shame of his attack upon her in the Kinlochbervie hut, and curbing an impulse to go after her. That was an expensive team of horses, too.

  He wondered if Selena was still the fiery young girl he had rescued from McGrover’s men in that peasant’s hovel. He hoped so. But there was no time to think of it now. He was in New York to seek out the man who had helped him escape from Scotland and, by way of repayment, to offer his services. Will Teviot shambled off down the street, a little self-consciously. Passersby always noticed him, and looked up at the big man who was heading their way.

  The man with the tilted hat waited on the street corner, too, until Selena was out of sight. He did not follow her, either, but instead turned down toward the Battery, walking swiftly. In moments he was at the Battery fort, and not long after that he was seated in Lord Ludford’s dry, chill, Spartan office, speaking hard words, very quietly, deliberate as a judge. The question: whether to move right away, or wait and see how much else might develop that would be of use to His Majesty’s forces?

  Haste was ruled out; the men decided to wait. His Majesty, this morning, could use as much good information—and good luck—as he could get. The news, even now, was spreading like wildfire throughout the city, received by rebel supporters with a joy that was hard to suppress, and causing many a fence straddler and sunshine patriot to give this whole matter of independence another thought.

  Because, on the previous evening, Christmas night, General Washington had lashed out with a craftily fashioned attack, crossing the Delaware River and capturing a thousand of the Hessian mercenaries fighting the British cause in New Jersey. And, even more sanguine to the rebel cause, the Virginian had managed to preserve his own army, once again evading the pursuing British, retreating safely to the easily defensible heights near Morristown. It was as Dick Weddington had explained to Selena: As long as you have an army in the field, you cannot be considered beaten. Selena understood that feeling very well: You are not defeated unless you believe it.

  Gilbertus Penrod seemed in high good spirits when Selena entered his real-estate offices that morning. She had hitched her team outside and climbed down from the driver’s seat under the appreciative gazes of several fast-walking businessmen. Inside, she opened her fur coat, to show the dress better, and unwrapped the scarf from around her neck.

  “I’m Selena Bloodwell,” she said.

  Penrod looked up with interest and, after a moment, approval. He was a man of average height, with sandy hair and the ruddy complexion and slightly swelling paunch of a man used to roast joints of beef, potato dumplings in gravy, and a healthy jolt of strong porter with his meals. He certainly looked like a man who enjoyed a party, and his well-tailored suit bespoke prosperity. It ought to, Selena thought. Gilbertus Penrod was the biggest landlord in New York, and just lately—people were calling him a fool—-he had acquired a three-hundred-acre tract of land on the East River. Sean, however, was not calling Penrod a fool; he had wanted the land as well, but he’d underbid. It was his first real setback since arriving in New York.

  Selena stood before the man who had bested her husband, and she saw that his curiosity had been aroused by her appearance. He stood up and motioned her to a chair. His manner was cordial and gracious, as befit a man who was doing well at his work and enjoyed it, too.

  “Mrs. Bloodwell. Of course. What can I do for you?” he asked. “Is this a business or a social call?”

  “A business call,” she answered. Then, thinking of the glittering parties the Penrod’s were known to give, she added, “Afterward, if all goes well, who knows?”

  Penrod pressed his well-manicured hands together, and smiled in genuine delight, inspecting her closely and with no lack of appreciation.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Now, as we say in the trade, what can I do for you, Mrs. Bloodwell?”

  For the next ten or fifteen minutes, she explained what she had in mind. A small shop for high-quality women’s fashions, with an area, either upstairs or in the back, in which seamstresses might work. “It will have to be well-lighted,” she specified, “so they can see what they are doing. It improves the work and increases the amount of work they can do…”

  Penrod nodded, impressed by her judgment.

  “…and I’d like it to
be a brick building in a good area. That way it will be accessible, not dangerous to go to, and, as for the brick, cool in the summer and easily heated in the winter.”

  “Well,” he said, when she had finished, pressing his hands palms down on his desk, “you are certainly a thorough woman, Mrs. Bloodwell, just as—I have heard—your husband is. But why have you come to me? Surely he…?”

  He kept his features blank. Too blank. Was he thinking trouble in the family?

  “I have my husband’s full support,” she said, with a reassuring smile. “It is just that I wish to proceed from the very beginning.”

  “The best possible way,” Penrod agreed. Already, he was taking her seriously. “The best possible way, indeed. And, I might as well tell you, I think you’re on to a good thing. At home, I seldom hear Mrs. Penrod or any of her friends speak of the local couturiers—if such they may be called—with anything but the most profound sadness.”

  “That is what I had hoped,” said Selena.

  And Gilbertus Penrod laughed with delight.

  “Mrs. Bloodwell,” he said, “I think you and I are going to get along well. Very well, indeed.”

  Selena sat there for a moment. She said nothing, nor did she show any emotion. But she sensed already that the life she and Sean had thought they wanted here in New York—the life Sean still wanted—was about to end before it had fairly begun. Something was missing in her life; something had been missing. Coldstream, of course, but…

  “Don’t you agree?” Penrod was smiling. Only a second had elapsed, and he was not yet aware that Selena, sitting there before him, was trying to fit things together in her mind.

  …but we can’t have Coldstream yet. No, the house on Bowling Green is not enough and…and pretending to be something I am not will never be enough…

  Even if it wins you Coldstream? asked that tiny, galling voice.

  Selena stopped short at the thought. It was true: she could never have enough until she possessed Coldstream Castle once again. She was doing the right thing. The dress shop would hold at bay those dark feelings with which she had been oppressed. Her instincts had been correct. She needed something—temporary, of course—to ward off that other feeling…

  “Well, Mrs. Bloodwell? Shall we move forward?” Penrod was asking.

  …the feeling that something was missing!

  This knowledge was accompanied by the usual dollop of guilt. Ingrate! Whiner! taunted the tiny voice. You were never as happy in your life as you were with Sean on the Blue Foray.

  “Mrs. Bloodwell?” There was just the faintest touch of concern in Penrod’s voice now.

  Yes, her instincts had been right. This shop would fill the empty feeling. It was a feeling that ought not to be there anyway, merely the shadow of anxiety that is always experienced by those who have survived great dangers. It was natural, but it meant nothing. Your problem is that you have more than enough, she admonished herself.

  “Let’s take a look at some locations,” she told Gilbertus Penrod.

  Symbols of Sorrow

  Winter of 1777. The rebel army was encamped near Morristown, New Jersey, to which Washington had retreated after his successful surprise attack on Trenton. Everyone agreed that there would be at least another year of war. Dick Weddington, who paid Selena periodic visits to her shop—and she needed cheering, with the rush and chaos there—was very pleased at the prospects. “A hundred plans are in the wind on both sides,” he told her. “And a hundred rumors for every plan. It’s my job to deduce what is true, and pass the word to our forces. By the by, Alex sends his greetings from Morristown.”

  He would always watch her closely when he mentioned Hamilton, to catch her reaction, as if he suspected more than mere attraction between the two. Selena thought that she had successfully refrained from showing anything but polite interest. After all, what else was there to show? Besides, she was too busy to engage in frivolous conversation. She had enough work to keep her occupied, and in gray, depressing February the work seemed more of a burden than usual. When April came, and she opened her shop—she had named it La Marinda, in memory of the poor Spanish girl who had chosen death before dishonor—the incessant activity would slacken. She would be able to enjoy the fruits of her accomplishment, and no longer feel so harried, her time divided between family and shop.

  And, with the summer, everything would be fine again.

  Wouldn’t it?

  The light of dull February dawn pushed thin wedges of pale sun through the storm shutters outside the bedroom windows. At long last. For the past hour, Selena had been lying in bed, fully awake, her mind on the coming day and all that had to be done at La Marinda, where six crotchety and often recalcitrant seamstresses were busy fashioning a line of clothing Selena had designed.

  Then Sean shuddered into a stretch, turned over in the bed, and came drowsily awake. He had been keeping long hours in his study during the winter evenings; he wanted his pleasure in the morning.

  “It feels much keener then, anyway,” he said.

  Whatever misgivings Selena felt about the demands upon her, she and Sean still shared pleasure happily, cherishing their bond. She watched him come out of sleep, with his needs and desires and dreams. First, his needs. He rolled over and cupped her breasts, pushed up close to her with a drowsy growl. They made love slowly, affectionately, with high delight. Sleep had refreshed their bodies, which responded joyously to every sensation, and the quiet peace of dawn offered an aura of security in which they confirmed their union, rekindled their love. Selena put her concerns somewhere far away, and gave herself to his skill and the wonder it aroused in her body. Soon, too soon, she felt her mind fading, felt the delicious itch glowing in her flesh, and then intolerable pleasure assaulted her in waves. The pleasure held her in its grasp and she belonged to it and to Sean who gave it; the love and the pleasure owned her, shook her to the end of all desire.

  But she did not forget.

  “You’re pensive this morning,” Sean said a little later.

  “Not really. I was thinking of all I have to do.” But she had been thinking, guiltily, of Royce Campbell. Making love to Sean was wonderful, but the memory of Royce intruded sometimes in the afterglow. Selena did not let herself wonder why this should be so. It was not that she would be afraid of the answer, but rather that the answer itself would evoke more questions.

  “Are you going directly to Wall Street after breakfast?” she asked, to take her mind off the subject.

  “No. Some bankers are calling on me at the house, and I expect to be busy with them here until noon. They wish to appoint me to their board. They also desire some of our capital. Have Otto drive back here to the house after he takes you to the shop.”

  She agreed, and they both got up and began dressing. Otto Kollor was their new driver, a Hessian mercenary who had been wounded, captured, and then released by Washington’s forces after the debacle at Trenton. His wound had left him with a limp. He could no longer be a soldier, and he had not wanted to return to his repressive homeland. Selena thought him dull and overbearing, but even though he was very slow, she could not bring herself to admonish him. Not after what had happened to Beauchamp.

  “Don’t blame yourself for that, Selena,” Sean kept telling her.

  True, Beauchamp had blundered that morning after Christmas, and Selena had reprimanded him justly. That had been that. It was not her fault that, later, some thugs had apparently gotten hold of him—angry, no doubt, at his public insolence to a white woman—and beaten him to death. His body had been found in the Harlem River. But Beauchamp’s death led to certain unsettling implications. Dick Weddington, who made it a point to examine all untoward deaths for evidence of espionage activity, told her: “Selena, don’t blame yourself. But from the markings on the man’s body, I’d judge that Beauchamp had been tortured. There was a rumor, just after Christmas, that a Negro was being interrogated at the Battery, but I haven’t been able to attain corroboration. Anyway, what could Beauchamp possibly
have known?”

  “Just a terrible coincidence,” Sean had said. “Knock on wood.”

  Nevertheless, the event disconcerted Selena, and the effect was a lingering, distasteful one. Sometimes, when she was especially afflicted with the winter doldrums, when even work could not drive cares from her mind, she would feel that the blood of three people was on her hands: Davi and the maharajah, and now Beauchamp.

  Selena ate a hasty breakfast, and barely had time to listen to little Davina, who chattered about the snowman she and Traudl had made yesterday. Selena had returned home in darkness on the previous evening, and had not seen the creation. Now she went to the window, saw it, praised it, but had to rush off so quickly that the little girl seemed vaguely disappointed. Kissing Davina and Sean, she hastened outside, out into the damp cold. The seamstresses would already be waiting in the snow outside the shop, and how they would gripe and complain when she arrived late!

  She looked around for the coach, but it wasn’t there. Otto, late again! Perhaps they should try to hire yet another driver, but it was difficult to get people to sit out in the cold, urging a team of horses down icy streets. Also, Sean had reasoned that it would serve to bolster their reputations as loyalists to have as their driver a soldier who’d fought Washington. Impatiently, she went around the corner of the house and down the alleyway to the stables. The coach was out front, and just as she approached, Otto led Binlow and Bowers from the stable.

  “Otto, could you please hurry?”

  His wide, flat face displayed an instant of wisdom.