Now Face to Face

by Karleen Koen

  His voice was purring, rich, touched with his foreign accent. Eyes narrowed, the Duchess faced him arrogantly, this man who had hurt Barbara. He has a proud face, proud eyes, and he was cold, thought the Duchess, cruel. Barbara had said he was the cruelest man she ever knew. Yes.

  “How kind you are to honor me with your invitation, Your Grace, but alas, I’ve a long journey ahead of me, for I return to my home in France. I cannot tarry. I never saw where Lord Devane, who was my friend, as perhaps you know—”

  Does he mock me? thought the Duchess.

  “—was buried. And I thought, before I left England, to do so. Forgive me if I disturb the quiet of your village. I hope I have given no offense by entering the chapel. If I have, again, I ask forgiveness, for the manners of an uncouth foreigner. One letter is from your grandson, the other from his mother. I warn you they carry news which may be disturbing.”

  “I know of the duel. How does my grandson do?”

  “The man, Masham, died. London, as you must imagine, talks of nothing else.”

  “Ah.” Tony would take it hard. He had a kind heart.

  “I believe the young Duke’s mother asks you to visit, but that would be a hardship, would it not, for one of your years. Your influence would do much good now, but…” Philippe shrugged.

  Did she imagine it, or did his eyes challenge her? French toad. Of course, it would be a hardship. She seldom traveled, being old, being infirm, as anyone with eyes in their head could see. But if need be, she could travel to London…if the family needed her. Well, of course they needed her. Where was her mind? Lost in its fog and old memories. She ought to have started out for London the day after she received Tony’s missent letter. That way, she’d already be there. Her presence, her name, would restore decorum after all these despicable antics. She could call upon Lord Holles in London, settle everything between their two families once and for all. And she would call upon King George, talk to him about the large amount of Roger’s fine, its ruin of Barbara. Yes.

  “The marriage between your grandson and Lord Holles’s daughter has been put back a year. A pity. Have you word from your granddaughter yet?”

  “No.” A year? What was this? Why on earth had Abigail not written immediately, by special messenger? Because she thought she could manage everything herself, that was why. Bah. Abigail was a proud fool. The Duchess had never liked her.

  “Such a long way, Virginia. I make you my respects, Your Grace. The bust of Lord Devane is very fine, as is the inscription.”

  There was in his face a momentary glimpse of sadness, deep and frigid. Then he was wishing her well, wishing her good-bye. Good riddance, Frenchman, she thought. Richard ought to have slaughtered you all. Marriage put off a year? That would never do. A bird in hand was worth two in a bush.

  It took all her determination not to hang out the window to watch him walk back to his carriage. As it was, she made Annie do that work for her, describing every movement he made until she heard the sound of his carriage wheels on the road. Then the Duchess moved to the window and watched with her own eyes, staring until even the dust from the wheels settled back to earth. She hadn’t turned to a pillar of salt, had she? And neither had he.

  “Shall we go home now?” Annie asked.

  “Yes. Home.”

  The Duchess sat back against the leather carriage seat, the letters in her hand. Soon they would be off to London. Annie would not be expecting that, would fuss and flutter at the break in her routine like the stubborn stick she was. It would do Annie good, do them all good. One needed to do the unexpected, sometimes. Speaking of the unexpected, how surprised Abigail would be. She and the Duchess had never gotten along.

  Ha.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE WAIL OF BAGPIPES, HARSH, JARRING, FILLED SLANE’S EARS and made the flesh on his arms crawl. All around him, men’s mouths had opened to scream the call of their clans, wild cries that set every man’s legs into motion. The enemy was massed ahead, formation solid, unyielding. Slane kept step with the man on each side of him, screaming out his family name, Duncannon, as a battle cry, though he’d never seen the home of his father in Ireland, and a clansman who had second sight said he never would. The soldiers toward whom he ran raised muskets as horses in the calvary behind them reared and screamed their fright at the sound of the bagpipes.

  Slane woke with a start, heart pounding, fear a knot in his insides.

  It took him more than a moment to know where he was, the small chamber in the outer buildings of Westminster Abbey. It took less than another moment to know he was not alone. Someone else was in the chamber with him, waiting, on the other side of the screen.

  The dream fading, he stood, quietly, coolly, not a gesture wasted or awkward, and put his hand to the window, which opened soundlessly. The courtyard below yawned open like the mouth of a dark well.

  “Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. I hadn’t the heart to wake you.”

  In Rochester’s voice Slane heard the verdict. Still standing on the cot, he put the heels of his hands to his eyes in relief.

  Thank God, oh, thank God. Such nightmares he’d had these last nights. Now or never, the voices in him said. Come home, his mother urged in dreams. Leave Jamie. It can never be.

  “Come out and show your ugly face,” said Rochester. “Send couriers off, immediately, to France and Italy.”

  “And tell them what?”

  “That I accept the plan. That I lead it.”

  You’re certain? Slane wanted to say, but did not. Impossible, irascible, cruel, Rochester had been in his floundering, though one would not know it, now. There was no sense in telling Rochester he had done real harm, been among the most divisive, pointing out the flaws of the plot with brilliant clarity. Several key men had removed themselves, saying they would give their time and trust to God and the coming election, thank you, rather than to King James. They might have stayed if Rochester hadn’t openly argued his fears.

  “No New Year’s gifts this year, Slane,” Rochester said. “All our coin will go instead to King James. Come drink a cup of wine with me, to the year in which King James assumes his rightful throne. Long live the King, hurrah the King, but who that King, is quite another thing—”

  “To revolution,” Slane said, quietly, wanting to calm Rochester. He swung too high after being so low.

  THAT EVENING, as planned, Slane met the Duke of Wharton late, in a tavern. To his surprise, Charles, Lord Russel, sat with Wharton. Slane bowed stiffly, thinking, Why are you here? Wharton and I were supposed to speak privately. Then, his brows drawing together as he looked Charles up and down: I still think I’d have been better for Barbara than you.

  “Charles, I have the honor to introduce the Viscount Duncannon,” said Wharton, “King James’s most trusted adviser.”

  Slane was caught completely by surprise. No one was to know his name. That was imperative. His anonymity was the only thing that protected him.

  Quickly, smoothly, a muscle in his face working, he recovered enough to say, “The Duke flatters me. I am simply Laurence Slane.”

  Struggling not to show anger or dismay, he thought: How dare Wharton be so foolish, so cavalier with information that he was privileged to know? Not an auspicious beginning to rebellion. I depend on a fool.

  Wharton laughed wildly, his narrow, ugly face flushed. He’s drunk, thought Slane.

  “His Grace isn’t himself,” Slane said to Charles. “And neither am I. He confuses me with someone else.”

  “Don’t fret about Charles,” said Wharton, leaning toward Slane to whisper loudly. “He is one of us. I will swear to his loyalty. He is my most faithful lieutenant, directly under me as to the counties which are mine to maneuver. Look over there, Slane, in that corner. See that stalwart old man? That is Sir John Ashford, as staunch a Tory as the day is long. No Jacobite he. He stands for Church and home and God save the King. If you could convert him, Slane—What? What is it?” For Slane had leaned his hands onto the table and brou
ght his face close to Wharton’s.

  “Come outside with me, now. Come outside, or I will drag you out. You, too,” he said to Charles.

  Once outside the tavern, Slane shoved Wharton into a wall, hard, and the younger man slid down it, his dark, brilliant eyes bewildered. Charles made a movement, but Slane said, “I’ll fight you, too, not with pistols at dawn, but right here and now, with fists, if you try to interfere. This is not a game.”

  Slane looked down at Wharton. “This is life and death. If you cannot hold your drink, then do not drink. And if you ever introduce me to anyone else to whom I do not ask to be introduced, I will kill you.”

  “I meant nothing, Slane. You can trust Charles—”

  “I trust no one, and neither should you.”

  Slane looked over to Charles, who was not drunk like Wharton, and who was standing with one shoulder against the wall, listening, his expression serious. You are handsome, thought Slane. Was that what she liked? “You and I have never met, except as Laurence Slane and Lord Russel. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Quite clear,” said Charles.

  Wharton moved to stand, and Slane pushed him down again, hearing the breath go out of Wharton’s body, hearing the raggedness with which he now took in air. He knelt, took the man’s long chin in his hand. “Beware. Beware of yourself. And beware of me.”

  He stood. He must leave. He was so angry that he would do something he would regret if he didn’t leave this moment.

  When he was gone, the sound of his steps clear and harsh on the cobbles, Charles reached down to help Wharton up. “That was very foolish, Wart.”

  “Yes.” Wharton brushed himself off, some of the drunkenness gone now. “It was. He is right, and I was wrong.”

  “We’ll win,” said Charles. “With men like him, we’ll win.”

  “If men like me don’t ruin it.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE SLOOP SEEMED AS IF IT, AND IT ALONE, EXISTED IN ALL THE world as it cut its way through the waves, its sails billowing out with wind. There was nothing else as far as the eye could see, save water and sky. The line of the sloop’s prow, the shape of its hull, were sleek, moving through the waves with the grace of a filly as she runs. The vessel known to Virginians as a Bermuda sloop, after the Caribbean island of that name, was known for speed—necessary in these waters, where pirates lurked. Spaniards, Frenchmen, Englishmen, they had been commissioned to pillage by their respective governments when war was on, but many remained to menace shipping whether there was war or not. The Caribbean was a haven for such predators. No government of Europe sent the number of ships that would have been necessary to patrol it. It was nothing to them, a sea dotted with islands on a map, a piece of territory to concede or war over, a place to send flotsam: restless younger brothers, and military men with no war to fight or money to buy promotion.

  “He says he hears a ghost. Some of the others believe him. I thought you ought to know. He wants to offer sacrifice tonight,” a mate was saying to Klaus, who stood at the big wheel that kept the course of the sloop.

  The sight of the sails unfurled above them was magnificent, and the sound they made was music to men who sailed the seas, something Klaus missed on shore. On shore, sailors woke from dreams in which sails forever unfurled, white and grand, and the creak of rigging and rope was like a choir’s chorus.

  “Sacrifice of what?” Klaus said.

  “A chicken.”

  “Give him his chicken. We’ll be putting in at Spanish Florida soon, and we’ll buy more fowl then. You’ll be there tonight when he does it? Tell him to ask the ghost for good winds while he’s at it.”

  The deckhand grinned and clicked his bare heels together in imitation of Klaus, who was liked by his crew. Once his stint at the wheel was done, Klaus went belowdecks, made his way past the narrow passageway to his cabin and stopped there for water, which he carried carefully, walking easily with the sway of the sloop to where the cargo was. The rows of barrels held some actual flour and pork, as well as tobacco. Bolling was nothing if not careful.

  “Boy,” he said. “Hyacinthe. Answer me.”

  He waited, but there was only silence. Having satisfied himself, as he had to do over and over again, that there was no way the boy’s presence could be perceived other than through an African’s percipience—one of the crew was a slave—he lit the lantern he carried and made his way among the barrels. The boy was hidden behind them, and the gag was still around his mouth. He stared up at Klaus with a slack, vacant expression. Klaus untied the gag, rinsed the boy’s face, then carefully poured water into his mouth.

  “Swallow,” he had to say, before the boy would do it; it was as if the child had forgotten how to survive. Klaus tore some bread to pieces, soaked them in water, put one in the boy’s mouth.

  “Eat,” he commanded, and the boy chewed a little before turning his head away and refusing. It was possible he would starve before they reached a port. One side of the child’s face was still swollen, bruised to the texture of pulpy fruit so that it must hurt him to chew, but the bleeding from his ear had stopped.

  “Do you know who I am?” Klaus kept his tone friendly, patient. “Tell me your name. What is your name, boy? You heard me call it, do you remember?”

  The boy didn’t answer. He never had, not since that moment Odell knocked him to the ground.

  “I have to put this around your mouth now.” Klaus redid the gag. He untied the boy’s hands and feet to move the arms and legs a little. It was like moving a large cloth doll.

  “Can you stand? Do you want to walk awhile?”

  There was no response, but he asked anyway. He bound the boy again, even though he was certain the boy could not escape, had no thought to. In fact, Klaus wondered if the child had any thought at all. But if he didn’t that was best—a blessing, really.

  “I’ll be back again. There’s no need to be afraid of the dark—” Even as he spoke, the boy’s eyes were closing. Klaus stood and stared down a moment, anger and a kind of sorrow fighting with common sense and self-preservation. Damn Odell. It would have been better for the both of them if the child had died as Odell stood there looking down at what he’d done, aghast, one dog snarling at them, one moaning. Then it would have been upon Odell’s head; now, somehow, it was upon Klaus’s. There was nothing for it. If the child didn’t die, he would pay one of the slave merchants in Spanish Florida to come aboard and take the boy away in secret. Then Odell’s sin would be his sin; but wasn’t it, already?

  “I have no choice,” Klaus said aloud, angrily, to the boy.

  The boy shouldn’t have spied and sneaked. Odell shouldn’t have panicked. The boy should never have charged Odell, like some little maddened beast of a child. Klaus thought of Lady Devane, of Barbara, of her face and the way she had looked upon the rooftop. The kiss between them would remain forever unfinished, the passion between them never acted upon. The boy stood between.

  Winter

  For now we see through a glass,

  darkly; but then face to face…

  Chapter Eighteen

  IN THE EARLIEST HOURS OF MORNING, THEY HUNTED FOR game. Barbara’s breath expelled itself unevenly; she tried to move more silently, easily, the way Colonel Perry’s slave did, but to her own ears she was loud and clumsy. How could she not be, with frost on the ground, but Cuffy, Colonel Perry’s slave, to her right, moved silently. Captain Randolph, Mrs. Cox’s grandsons, the others hunting—none of them were to be seen. They’d gone on ahead of her, and she’d lost sight of them. She rested a moment, then walked on, to the sound of her boots in the frost-edged grass. After a time, she saw a clearing—and then, suddenly, she saw the stag, grazing in grass that glittered with frost.

  “Look,” she whispered to Cuffy, a white puff of air coming out of her mouth with the word.

  Not a gesture wasted, Cuffy knelt, poured powder into the musket he carried, tamped it down. The stag lifted his head and looked from one side to another, suddenly wary, scenting the air. H
is head and antlers were etched in clear lines against the winter-bare trees behind him. The sight was magnificent. Barbara raised the musket and took aim, but the gun was heavy and she could not hold it steady.

  “Help me,” she said to Cuffy.

  With a quick movement, Cuffy walked behind her, his hands going up under her arms.

  “Yes,” she said. The moment was perfect. She had only to press back the trigger.

  “Now, Lady,” Cuffy breathed into her ear.

  The musket kicked hard against her shoulder, hurting her, and her ears rang at the loudness the gunpowder made as it propelled the musket ball out of the long barrel. Through the smoke rising from the barrel, she saw the stag rear, run wildly a few feet into the clearing, then drop.

  I’ve killed him, she thought.

  Within a few moments, Colonel Perry, his head protected from the cold by a battered hat tied down with one of Beth’s scarves, ran out from the woods and joined Barbara and Cuffy at the fallen animal. The sun had risen, unmarked by clouds. Its light streamed down strongly through the bare branches of trees. The scent of pine was strong in the air, and Barbara took it inside her lungs like some kind of perfume; it mingled with the strong sunlight and the stag upon the frosted, glittering ground, as if he had fallen among dropped diamonds. I will remember this forever, she thought.

  “A most fortunate shot,” said Perry, and then, after Cuffy had said something to him in a mixture of his own language and English and Spanish, “Cuffy says he gave you his eyes with which to shoot, but the heart that pulled the trigger was yours. And it is a warrior’s heart.”

  Barbara met the slave’s eyes. Respect was in his face, and she smiled.

  Beth was walking out of the woods. Perry called his daughter. “Come and see the stag Lady Devane has killed.”

  Cuffy had pulled out a knife from his belt, held it, his eyes on Barbara, up before his face, the blade flat. With an easy, violent elegance, he bent and cut the stag’s throat. Out of the woods had come some of the men who were hunting, and their slaves. Shouts, like war cries, rose up from other slaves as the fresh, dark blood streamed in the cold. Looking at Barbara, Cuffy dipped his fingers in the blood, then held his hand out to her.