Salem's Daughter

by Maggie Osborne

  “Without this marriage, Queen Mary ultimately will have to send Diana to Bedlam,” he said quietly as the carriage pulled into a Sunday traffic of sedan chairs, hackneys, and other coaches emblazoned with crests and scrolls. “Mary will have no choice.”

  Bristol shuddered. “Couldn’t the queen lock Diana into a comfortable private residence instead? Provide her with a... a keeper and a decent surrounding?”

  Jean Pierre shook his head. “There’s danger to the throne in an arrangement like you suggest. Once Diana was locked away privately, her madness would become a secret of greater importance than Mary can afford. Keepers can be bribed. Secrets have a way of becoming public. But in Bedlam, every second person claims high connections. And none are taken seriously; it’s considered a symptom of the delusions. In Bedlam, Diana could claim to be Mary’s sister if the notion struck her, and no one would pay the slightest attention.” His eyes darkened. “In other words, the best way for Mary to protect this secret is by not allowing it to become a secret. Do you see?”

  Miserably Bristol nodded. “But wouldn’t it be difficult for Mary to explain Diana’s disappearance if she committed Diana to Bedlam?”

  “Nothing could be simpler. A death is announced, and some poor wretch is spared the potter’s field and given a quiet but decent burial while Diana disappears into the blackness of insanity, registered under another name.” He shrugged. “No one would believe her if she insisted her name was other than what appeared on the register.”

  Bristol closed her eyes.

  Jean Pierre continued quietly, “And without this marriage, a fine old gentleman will be stripped of lands and title, rewards he has earned by a lifetime of service to crown and country.” Jean Pierre spoke flatly, no emotion in his voice. “Now do you understand that my marriage has nothing to do with you?”

  Bristol’s emerald eyes filled with anguish, and she looked at him across the small space. The sun’s dying rays slanted past the window, painting his face in golden shadow. Her heart twisted.

  “And you? Will you ultimately have to send Diana to Bedlam?”

  “Never!” His face hardened. “Never. She may one day have to live an isolated life, but she’ll not live it like an animal.”

  They stared at each other in the golden light of a dying day. “I love you,” Bristol blurted. Dropping her face into her hands, she whispered, “I love you.”

  The carriage rattled through the lanes, the driver’s whip cracking above the horses’ heads, his shouted curses mingling with those of other drivers.

  When Jean Pierre spoke, his voice was hoarse and pained. “I respect your beliefs, little one; and I admire your strength. When I look at you my resolve crumbles and I want you. No matter what my desires would do to your life.” His gray eyes burned into hers. His jaw tightened. “Keep your door locked, Bristol... you must have the strength for two.”

  The coach rocked to a halt before Hathaway House, and the driver sprang to open the door, stepping back respectfully. Jean Pierre dropped to the ground, and his powerful hands reached to circle Bristol’s waist. He lifted her from the door of the carriage and held her against his body for an instant before he set her on the ground, so close she felt a beckoning heat. Hands remaining on her waist, he stared soberly into her green eyes. “My door is always open,” he said softly. “If your conscience allows it, come to me. Come to me, Bristol.”

  Bristol stumbled from his arms, and ran up the stairs, fleeing inside and dashing up to her room. Throwing herself on the pink bed, she hid her face in handfuls of soft spread and felt the torments of a breaking heart.

  Later, she ordered dinner in her room, unable to bear the thought of sitting politely near Jean Pierre in Lord Hathaway’s study. She lacked the strength to hide her feelings in idle chatter, to resist if he followed her from the room. Tonight she drank her wine from the pewter cup, but even this talisman of staid New England values brought her no relief. Her body ached for Jean Pierre. When they were on the ship, she’d conquered her background and her guilts. But now... The lax attitudes of London society could not obliterate a lifetime of indoctrination. She could not go to him; could not vanquish an overpowering sense of sin, could not compromise herself in a situation that led to damnation and ruin. But when she blew out her candles and lay sleepless in the large lonely bed, Jean Pierre’s image rose to haunt her, and her body betrayed her need. Every nerve longed for his touch; her thighs and stomach tensed with desire. Bristol ran shaking hands over her long nightgown. “Jean Pierre.” Beneath sweating palms, her nipples rose, remembering his lips. Bristol tossed upon the rumpled bed in tortured longing.

  Finally she, kicked out of the sheets and paced her room, stopping at the back window to throw open the draperies and stare out at a warm, scented night. A lover’s moon gentled London rooftops and shaded the Hathaway gardens into secret trysting hollows.

  Then a movement in the shadows caught Bristol’s attention, and she lowered her troubled eyes to a slender figure, the face lifted. With a cry of misery Bristol twisted from the window and ran to her bed.

  How could she endure this? How could she withstand this terrible burning passion? Would the fires of hell be any worse than the torture of wanting him and knowing the hopelessness of it? Could the sin of action be any worse, any more damning, than the torment of intense desire? She moaned and writhed on her tangled sheets.

  Then she whispered his name and swung down from the bed. She ran to the window, calling under her breath, “Jean Pierre. Jean Pierre.”

  But he was gone. Only dappled moonlight shone where he had stood. Slowly Bristol stumbled back to her bed, a sob breaking against her throat.

  16

  Jean Pierre did not reappear in the garden beneath Bristol’s back window. Or if he did, he arrived after Bristol abandoned her vigil. She could not get him out of her mind. The days passed in a blur of misery; Bristol alternated between moods of despair and periods of flushed hyperactivity. Nothing helped. Always she felt the bittersweet ache of loss.

  To occupy her mind, she threw herself headlong into Aunt Pru’s activities. Together they called on England’s aristocratic women and received visits from these haughty ladies in return. And wherever they called, Jean Pierre’s upcoming marriage found a place in the conversation. There was no escaping his name, his memory—no possibility of forgetting her pain for even the space of an afternoon.

  Nearly every night, parties were held to honor the engaged couple. However, if the truth were known, invitations were prompted more from a respect for the Hathaway name rather than any joy in the upcoming nuptials. Court gossip being what it was, few of England’s reigning families remained unaware of the circumstances leading to the wedding. But under William and Mary’s somber rule, parties were not encouraged, and a legitimate excuse found a ready welcome. The invitations were issued.

  Bristol accepted them all. In part she was relieved to escape the intimate dinners in Lord Hathaway’s study; but her heart yearned for those rare moments of Jean Pierre’s company. If she understood she could not run from him forever, or from herself, no trace of such knowledge suggested itself in her behavior.

  She danced beneath the glittering chandeliers in London’s finest houses and flirted desperately with the men who vied to fill her dance cards. She swirled in their arms and laughed at their witticisms and indiscriminately encouraged their attentions with a nearly hysterical need to fill an aching emptiness.

  All the while knowing such was impossible. No matter how vast the ballrooms or how large the dining areas, Bristol knew where Jean Pierre was at every moment. And each night she waited in gathering tension for that magical moment when he bowed over her trembling fingers and claimed his dance. For the length of one allemande, Bristol lost herself in the strength of his arms, grew warm under his intense gray eyes, and felt weak at the touch of his firm guiding fingers on her waist.

  For Bristol, the evening ended when Jean Pierre returned her to Aunt Pru’s side. The remaining hours crawled by
, dull and long, an unending duty to be endured. And the pain of watching Jean Pierre with Diana Thorne sliced through her heart like a sword.

  Every empty day brought the wedding nearer. Nothing Bristol did eased her anguish. She played with Willie, the calico cat young Master Boyd had presented her when he called. She walked in the Hathaway gardens. She went riding with new friends. She accepted dinner invitations from the men who clamored for her attention. Nothing lessened the bitter ache in her heart. Not even hiding in her room, trying to bury her thoughts by writing long letters home.

  At first, letters from home had produced a wave of homesickness, but gradually the packets elicited a lesser reaction. Problems on the Adams farm seemed distant and unreal—part of a life that no longer affected Bristol. Being nearly two months in transit added to an impression of growing unreality.

  Bristol read of New England’s last snows while sitting beside an open window fragrant with the scent of lilac and June breezes. Charity wrote of tender buds beginning to open on the rosebushes when Bristol had only to lift her head to see waves of summer blossom and miles of billowing trees in full green leaf. The problems of downed fences and wandering livestock and the endless details of Salem’s ongoing squabbles seemed small and insignificant when Bristol compared them to the scope of her own experience, or to conversations of court intrigue and Irish battles and the recent French invasion of the Channel.

  Nonetheless, she commented on every incident mentioned in her family’s letters, pausing to gaze at her pewter cup and to smile when Willie batted a paw at her moving quill. Bristol filled pages with her flowing script, telling Charity of the local flowers and describing the sights of London for her parents. Aunt Pru remained shadowy in Bristol’s letters; she didn’t mention Jean Pierre or Lord Hathaway at all. Nor the numerous balls she attended, or the beautiful gowns Collette had created.

  As safe topics dwindled, Bristol began inserting bits of Reverend Cornwell’s sermons, always with a guilty twinge of remorse. And always her fingers longed to pen Jean Pierre’s name, to pour her frustrated love onto the blank pages.

  Thankfully, Jean Pierre was now seldom in residence; little chance existed of meeting unexpectedly in the corridors. The Challenger was being heeled and scraped and refitted in Gravesend and new cargoes had to be arranged, all claiming much of Jean Pierre’s time and attention. La Crosse Shipping, Jean Pierre’s company, had purchased additional ships in Jean Pierre’s absence, and these needed to be inspected and made ready for sea duty. A multitude of details had accumulated while Jean Pierre captained the Challenger. His company suffered his absences. The cost of sailing the seas, of momentarily escaping the duties of a large business, were timely and demanded long hours on his return.

  Bristol couldn’t write to her family of such matters. Her letters kept her day-to-day life in shadow, vague and indefinite. And slowly it began to seem as if Salem were a faraway place she’d read of in a vividly written book. Interesting but dreamlike. Her own life lay here, in Hathaway House, with Aunt Pru and Robert Hathaway... and Jean Pierre.

  “Sorry to interrupt, miss, but it’s time to dress for dinner.” Molly bustled into the bedroom and pulled open the wardrobe doors, selecting a golden-red gown the color of Bristol’s hair. She shook it across the bed and bent to find matching slippers. “His lordship be feeling somewhat improved, and they’s planning to eat in the dining room. There be fresh vegetables tonight, Bridey said.”

  Bristol laid the quill in its slot and folded her letter. She preferred Lord Hathaway’s study to the vastness of the dining room. However, downstairs meant she’d not have to sit close to Jean Pierre, and it also meant Uncle Robert’s gout had improved to the point of bearing some weight on his foot.

  Improved or not, tonight Uncle Robert was uncharacteristically testy. He sipped his wine near an enormous buffet, looking over the green-and-cream room with an expression of distaste. “I almost relish a swollen toe,” he grumbled. “Then we can avoid this cavern!”

  Seating herself at one end of the, long polished table, Aunt Pru glared at her husband with a wounded look. “What’s wrong with this room? I thought you liked what I’d done with it.” She nodded curtly at an army of waiting servants, and they entered carrying heaping platters.

  Lord Hathaway took his seat. “I do, Prudence, I do.” He shouted down the length of the table, peering past elaborate candelabra and bowls of flowers. “But it’s big! Everything in this house is four damn sizes too big! Look at us,” he fumed, “strung out like coins in a pauper’s purse! We can’t possibly have a conversation!”

  “We’re here to eat!” Aunt Pru snapped. “We can talk later, and hopefully without profanity!”

  “Well, I like to eat in my study. There dinner is pleasant, and not a bloody formal affair!” Uncle Robert scowled at his plate.

  Jean Pierre leaned forward and rapped his knife against his glass. “Come, now, this isn’t like either of you. May I propose a toast?”

  Uncle Robert and Aunt Pru raised their glasses, glares still pinching their faces. Bristol turned an expectant gaze toward Jean Pierre, hoping he could ease the tension. The wedding was tomorrow. The closer the wedding had drawn, the more her aunt and uncle had found fault with everything around them. Both became irritable and easily upset by small annoyances they would have overlooked a short time ago.

  Jean Pierre rose from his chair and inclined his dark head toward the door. Bridey entered and placed packages in Lord and Lady Hathaway’s hands. “Please accept these gifts as small offerings of my appreciation for your tolerance and acceptance of a situation I know you both find difficult. I hope the love and friendship we’ve shared through the years will continue to grow and expand to include the woman I bring you as my wife. Diana needs your care and understanding.”

  Bristol’s eyes filled, wavered, and she dropped her gaze.

  Jean Pierre’s rich, deep voice continued, expressing his affection for his father and stepmother. At the conclusion of his speech, Aunt Pru rushed to enfold him in a massive lavender-scented hug, and Lord Hathaway blew his nose.

  The remainder of the meal passed in fond silence. Not until they assembled in the parlor for sherry did the tension again make itself felt.

  “Pumpkin...” Uncle Robert began. Bristol read censure in his clear gray eyes, the first she’d seen since her arrival. “It seems an unnecessary cruelty to restrict Miss Bristol’s cat to one room. We’ve all enjoyed hearing of Willie’s exploits, but I have yet to glimpse Willie himself.”

  Aunt Pru bristled. Without providing a reason, she’d requested Bristol to keep the cat in her bedroom and refused Willie the run of Hathaway House.

  “Nor have I enjoyed the honor of meeting the wonderful Willie,” Jean Pierre teased. He extended a glass of sherry to Bristol, his fingers brushing hers with a jolt of heat. For an instant their eyes met, then slid away.

  “That cat is not worth seeing,” Aunt Pru insisted stubbornly. “It has no breeding whatsoever—it’s a stable cat, a mixture of questionable parenthood!”

  The men laughed, and Bristol managed a weak smile, uncomfortable with the commotion Willie evoked. “If you find Willie objectionable, Aunt Prudence, I’ll... I’ll return him to Master Boyd.” Bristol stared into her glass. In the last weeks she’d developed a deep affection for Willie, undistinguished as he was. He purred across her desk while she wrote letters, amused her by chasing strings of yarn, and curled at the bottom of her bed while she slept. But she would willingly relinquish Willie if Aunt Pru would smile again and be happy.

  Prudence Hathaway sighed, not relishing her role as villain. In her generous heart, she suddenly recognized Willie was not the true issue. She’d allowed herself a transference of feelings, a rejection of the newcomer. But it wasn’t Willie that she rejected; it was the idea of Diana Thorne. Aunt Pru patted Bristol’s shoulder. “No. No, dear. Keep Willie, and you may let him out of your room on occasion.” A deep sigh fluttered the lace at her bosom. “You can’t return him to Willie Boyd
now; young Willie would be crushed. He was so pleased you named that silly cat in his honor.” She shrugged at Robert and Jean Pierre, and a hint of her old sparkle gleamed in her eyes. “Keep him. Regardless of his parentage.”

  “Well,” Uncle Robert said when politics and fashion had been exhausted as topics, “have business and being the toast of London kept you two from getting acquainted?” A hint of disappointment and faint hope lay in his tone. As if to say that even now, as late as it was, there still was time for his son to find someone else.

  Not trusting herself to answer, Bristol turned large green eyes to Jean Pierre. But Jean Pierre’s mood had darkened as the evening progressed; he lacked the will to keep the conversation light and impersonal. His brooding eyes shot a tremor through Bristol’s heart. “My cousin avoids me.” He made no attempt to soften the bluntness in his voice.

  Aunt Pru lifted her hands, and Lord Hathaway’s sad eyes steadied on Bristol’s pinkening face. “A pity,” he murmured, and drained his glass.

  Bristol looked from one to the other. “I... it isn’t that I...” There was no possible way to finish the stammering sentence. She did avoid him. Only by escaping him could she make life tolerable. Seeing Jean Pierre only intensified her pain, her loss. Even with limited exposure to his strength, his face and eyes, his overwhelming maleness, she still couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. Jean Pierre haunted her thoughts and heart.

  Aunt Pru broke an uncomfortable silence by announcing what each thought and no one wished to mention. “Well, the wedding is tomorrow.” She blinked into space. “This is our last night alone together. Tomorrow evening, Robbie, we’ll welcome Diana into our midst.” An awkward pause followed her sigh.

  Lord Hathaway cleared his throat, and he arranged his face in lines of interest. “Have you given thought to a wedding trip, Robbie? Has Diana found a house for the two of you?”