Diana caught her fingers. “Oh, no, you must stay, we need you.” She smiled up at Bristol, her face rosy with pleasure. “Please, Bristol, we can win this time, I just know it.” Everyone laughed.
“Thank you, but I...” Bristol stopped at the sudden swirl in Diana’s eyes. “Please, Diana, I’d rather not.”
One of the cards crumpled in Diana’s fist, and the mood suddenly changed. In the silence, Diana stared down at the ruined card; then her head slowly rose and she looked at all of them, her eyes pleading. “What’s wrong with me?” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to tear the card. Something happens in my head, and I...”
“Chérie, don’t think of it now,” Jean Pierre said, kneeling at her side. “Enjoy your evening. Here...” He reached for the cards. “I’ll deal.”
Before he rose, Diana laid her palm gently against his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. Her glance included them all. “I’m sorry that I ruin things sometimes. I don’t mean to.”
Lord Hathaway cleared his throat. “We know,” he said gruffly. “Now, then, if I’m to win a kiss, we must begin.”
Diana smiled gratefully. “Perhaps I’ll find you irresistible enough to give a kiss no matter who wins!” The color returned to her cheeks and a lovely smile lifted her lips.
During such evenings, Bristol suffered deep pangs of crippling jealousy. She tormented herself wondering about the significance of Diana’s dewy glances toward Jean Pierre, agonized over each touch, and wondered if Jean Pierre made love to his wife when Diana was well. Ruefully Bristol admitted that at her best, Diana was as lovely a woman as ever graced a drawing room.
Bristol decided, ill or well, it was best to avoid Diana—peace of mind for both women seemed to demand it. Often, when Bristol hid herself in her room, Willie purring in her lap, she worried which was worse, watching Jean Pierre’s torment when Diana lapsed into a lengthy spell, or enduring the moist radiance in those golden eyes when Diana seemed well. Bristol rubbed her temples and shoved at a lock of shining red hair. Daily her own position grew more impossible.
She felt like a child craving sweets who is forced to gaze upon a sugary confection every day, all the while knowing the impossibility of ever tasting it. She was so close to Jean Pierre... and yet a universe away. Sometimes his gray eyes touched hers, and hunger and yearning slumbered there. Sometimes, when he didn’t know she saw, Bristol felt him watching, and she had to leave the room lest she run into his arms. When they accidentally brushed, a wave of dizziness flooded her body, and she had to catch the nearest item for support.
Stroking Willie, Bristol leaned her head against the chair back and watched fat, lazy snowflakes drift past her bedroom window. Willie yawned and nested into her lap. Smiling down at the warm ball curling into her skirts, Bristol thanked God for Willie. All the frustrated love and possessiveness she repressed, she’d lavished on Willie. She knew she’d spoiled the cat outrageously. But Willie was her salvation. Willie was something to write about in her letters home; Willie amused her when she hid in her room. Willie belonged to her.
Bristol sighed and reread the latest letter from Hannah. The events described had happened months ago. Hannah’s cramped pages told of the labors of fall harvest and the trials of putting up winter supplies. Noah wrote the harvest was better than expected; he’d slaughtered eight hogs this year. Charity glowingly told of crisp New England autumn, and Bristol detected an unaccustomed lightness in Charity’s broad script. Idly she wondered at the new happiness in Charity’s words.
Dropping the letter beside her chair, Bristol absently scratched Willie’s ear. A sudden storm of homesickness broke across her thoughts, as severe as anything she’d experienced during the first days on board the Challenger. She clearly saw the Adamses’ modest house and Noah’s ripe fields; she imagined the smells bubbling from Hannah’s autumn pots. Bristol saw the brilliant fall colors and pictured friends and neighbors gathering for the hog slaughter and the celebration that always followed.
And all of it had happened two months ago—old news before her eyes read it. The new year was only a few days away. Salem’s harvest a thing of the past. She swallowed a bitter lump and her green eyes settled on the pewter cup across the room. Molly had placed a sprig of red heather in the cup, and Bristol suddenly saw it as a fitting combination. The heather and the pewter cup symbolized her life. She was a blend now, her old existence joined to a new. And she didn’t feel as if she belonged in either world.
She felt at loose ends. Her admirers braved fog and cold to call at Hathaway House, and even though Bristol flirted automatically, there was a vacancy behind her sweep of dark lashes. None of the men meant anything to her—in Bristol’s mind they were identical, interchangeable pieces. As long as Jean Pierre La Crosse occupied the same world as Bristol, as long as his strong male dominance haunted her dreams, there could be no other man. She resisted seeing anyone, went out reluctantly. And she avoided Jean Pierre as well—her pain was too great.
Black braids swinging, Molly poked her apple cheeks around the door. “Hungry?” She bustled into the room and waved two fingers, her signal to Bristol that the house seemed quiet. “I think Mrs. Diana be good tonight, but it be iffy.” Molly assisted Bristol into a blue wool gown and dressed her hair. “Bridey said she don’t be certain. Mrs. Diana threw a perfume cask against the wall, then wouldn’t let Bridey clean the mess for over an hour. Stinks bad in there.” Molly shrugged. “But when Bridey went to dress her for dinner, Mrs. Diana be smiling.”
“Thank you, Molly. Sometimes it helps to know what to expect.” Before leaving for Lord Hathaway’s study, Bristol leaned back into the room. “Let Willie out after his dinner, will you? He could use a bit of exercise—he’s been cooped up in here all day.”
“Aye, miss. Willie do be a favorite of mine, but I wish you’d have named him Sam.” Molly’s eyes sparkled, and she touched a small band of braided hair she wore on her finger. “Sam do be the loveliest name.”
Bristol smiled and closed the door. At least Molly made progress with her Sam. Perhaps there was hope for the human heart.
But for her own? During dinner, Bristol cast small quick glances at Jean Pierre, wondering if he remembered, if he ever thought of the moments they’d shared. Yes. His eyes told her so. How might the two of them have responded if...? But “if” was a fruitless game. There were no “ifs” in life, only harsh realities.
Slowly Diana lowered her fork, and an instant tension sparked the study. She leveled a whirling golden stare at Bristol. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at my husband,” she hissed. Everyone recalled the duchess’s flaming skirt. Aunt Pru and Uncle Robert stiffened, and Bristol heard their intake of breath.
Spots of color dotted her cheeks, and Bristol’s food turned sour in her mouth. “I... I’m sorry to offend you, Diana, I assure you that was not my intention.” Her voice sounded hollow and unconvincing.
The golden eyes flickered, and Bristol’s blood chilled. Diana smiled, and the smile was more terrible than her rage; her golden eyes pierced to bone. “I don’t like you,” Diana said deliberately, coldly, testing the words on her tongue.
Jean Pierre’s laugh sounded hoarse and strained. “Now, don’t tease our little cousin, chérie. What has she done to offend? Bristol hides in her room with her books and her cat. The only time she appears is when Charles or Louis or James or one of the others appears in the parlor with yet another desperate plea.” He attempted to make a joke of it, but Diana’s stare didn’t move from Bristol’s face. Swiftly Jean Pierre removed the tray from Diana’s lap.
Not an instant too soon. Diana jumped to her feet and turned on her husband; splotches of color darkened her face, and her fists clenched at her sides. “And you, Robbie? Do you make desperate pleas for her too?” Diana whirled toward Bristol, her pale mottled face ugly with hatred. “Whore! Don’t you think I know where he goes at night?”
“No, Diana, we haven’t—”
Diana screamed, “Do you think me so
stupid I can’t read your eyes when you signal each other?” Passion soared in the whispery scream, and Diana shook violently. Her angry eyes swept from side to side, seeking a weapon.
“Robbie!” Lord Hathaway gripped his wife’s hand, and they both looked toward their son, fear jumping in their eyes.
Jean Pierre moved quickly. He scooped Diana into powerful arms and strode from the room. They heard her shouts and obscenities until Jean Pierre carried her from hearing.
Aunt Pru fell back in her chair. No amount of rice powder or artful cosmetics could halt the ravages of the past months. Her eyes were old and helpless. “What are we to do?” she whispered. “That poor demented creature is making us all miserable!” She stared at her limp hands, twisting the rings on her fingers. “And Robbie! I can’t bear to think of Robbie. He’s covered with scratches!” She dropped her face into her hands.
Staring into the fire, Lord Hathaway nodded soberly. He too had aged since spring; seldom did he leave his study, even when his foot could bear weight. “Robbie. Have you noticed the weight he’s lost, Pumpkin? And so haggard!” The fire snapped in false cheeriness. “Mr. Aykroyd confessed Robbie’s business suffers from his absence.” A deep sigh emerged from Lord Hathaway’s brocade jacket. He adjusted his shawl and patted his wife’s hand. “We knew it wouldn’t be easy, Pumpkin,” he reminded her softly.
A long silence lengthened before Bristol released her breath and looked up at her aunt and uncle. “I think perhaps it would be best if I took future meals in my room. I upset Diana.” She rose and smoothed her skirt, unable to meet the sorrow in their eyes.
“Bristol...” Aunt Pru reached a hand to her. “We hardly see you as it is. Must you hide in your room?”
“You’re as much our family as anyone here, Miss Bristol.” Robert Hathaway’s attempt at gallantry was English valor at its best. “We’d like you here with us.”
Bristol bit her lip and directed her eyes toward the fire. “I... there is a grain of truth in what Diana thinks,” she blurted in a low voice. “If Jean Pierre and I...” She couldn’t go on.
“We know,” Lord Hathaway responded quietly. Bristol turned to him with a sigh; it didn’t surprise her. No censure lay in his kind voice, only a deep sympathy. “We’d hoped something might come of it before the wedding, but Robbie is not a man to back from a commitment.” He shrugged, and compassion clouded his eyes. “This must be terribly hard on you both.”
Bristol raised her white face to the ceiling and blinked rapidly at the moisture filming her eyes. I won’t cry! she vowed fiercely. When she could master the quiver in her voice, she whispered, “I look at him, and my heart breaks.” She wanted to promise them she’d never do anything to disgrace their house, but she could manage no more. Clutching her blue skirt, she ran from the study and sought the cold solitude of her room. Surely, she told herself, things could not get worse.
In the morning, she found Willie. He’d been carefully laid before her bedroom door, his neck twisted to face backward, his eyes grotesque in death. His four severed paws lay in a neat row beneath his opened belly. Willie’s tail was stuffed in his mouth.
18
Protestant England did not celebrate Christmas; the day passed like any other, quiet and unremarked. Instead, the populace reserved their winter frustrations, their pent-up tensions, for an explosion of rejoicing on New Year’s Day. Despite a bitter cold and a leaden sky, joyful bonfires appeared throughout the city and dotted the countryside. Those that could, exchanged small gifts and prepared a bountiful table. Church bells pealed from every belfry, and the snow-packed lanes rang with a jingle of sleigh bells as sleighs and carriages dashed about the city filled with laughing, shouting celebrants.
The merry sounds penetrated Bristol’s closed windows, but they did not reach her thoughts. She sat before the fire in her bedroom staring dully at the flames, acutely conscious of the empty hollow in her lap where Willie should have been. Leaning her glossy curls against the chair back, Bristol closed her eyes. Tears would not restore Willie to life. Tears would not summon his warm weight to her lap. Though she repeated these words until they whistled in her head, still her eyes felt gritty and her throat tensed with unshed tears.
A week had elapsed since Bristol found Willie outside her door and had run screaming down the corridor. A bitter week during which she’d refused to leave her room, refused to admit anyone but Molly and Aunt Pru, and refused to examine the stack of invitations for New Year’s Day. Bristol saw nothing to celebrate in the dawning of 1691, no reason to dash about in the snow at the side of someone she cared nothing for. Listlessly she stared into the flames until Molly knocked at the door.
“They be a visitor asking for you,” Molly said, leaning into the room, her black braids swinging. Her eyes measured Bristol with concern.
Bristol returned her gaze to the fire. “I don’t want to see anyone. Send them away.”
Molly chewed the tip of a braid and frowned. “I do wish you’d reconsider, miss. I don’t be wanting to tell him anything. He be a fierce man; I don’t be liking the looks of him.”
Bristol didn’t move or look from the flames.
“Bridey said this man comes often, and he do be a friend of the family... but he looks to me more like a pirate, miss.” Molly shuddered. “All them scars! I don’t know what he be wanting with you.”
Bristol’s fiery head snapped up, and her expression glowed with more animation than she’d displayed all week. “Mr. Aykroyd!” she cried. “Oh, Molly, it must be Mr. Aykroyd!” She jumped up and peeked hurriedly into the mirror, pushing impatiently at her hair. “Molly, tell him... no, no, never mind. I’ll tell him myself.” She fussed with her gown, then rushed past Molly, a smile for the amazement on Molly’s face. She patted Molly’s hand and hastened down the corridor; if there was one person who might cheer her, it was Mr. Aykroyd.
Bristol ran into the downstairs parlor and threw her arms around his neck. Then she leaned back and smiled into Mr. Aykroyd’s beaming face. He truly was the ugliest man... and the dearest, she thought affectionately. “You look so... different.” She smiled. This was the first time she recalled seeing him without a knit cap; his thinning white hair was plastered neatly across his ruddy forehead, making him seem not quite as tall as she remembered. And he wore clothing Bristol had never expected to see him wear, looking cramped and ill-at-ease in his formal attire, as if afraid he might burst the seams of satin breeches and a fitted frock coat.
Mr. Aykroyd looked down at himself and shrugged. Then he grinned, rippling the scores of ridges and valleys pocking his weathered face. “Ye look a mite different yerself, gel.” Blue eyes glowed appreciatively. “More mature somehow, and thinner in some spots, rounder in others.”
Bristol laughed and sat down, patting the settee beside her. Molly’s hair arrangement added an illusion of sophistication, and the gray wool gown she wore was nothing similar to the drab Puritan designs she’d worn on board the Challenger. Of finest quality, this dress dipped to display a generous cleavage and molded her small waist. Blue ribbon threaded the sleeves and sash, and the soft material clung to her body when she moved. “I’m a lady now,” she teased, “a grown woman of high quality.”
Mr. Aykroyd smiled and nodded; then he sat gingerly on the edge of the settee, careful lest he soil or break it. Fishing in his pocket for the clay pipe, he cast a guilty glance at the parlor doors. “Do ye think Lady Pru will mind a pipe?” he whispered.
Thinking of Aunt Pru’s dainty pipe and the enjoyment she derived from it, Bristol shook her head with a smile. “No, Aunt Pru won’t mind in the least.”
In a moment Bristol inhaled a pithy blend of sweet and sour, and suddenly she realized how very much she’d missed Mr. Aykroyd. “I’m glad to see you,” she said simply, squeezing his hand.
“Well, I be asking after ye, and each time ye’re out gadding with a duke or a lord or a marquis or some such.” He smiled, his blue eyes examining her face. “It seems ye’ve taken London by storm, not that
I ever harbored a doubt.”
Shaking her curls, Bristol laughed. “London has taken me by storm.” They gazed fondly into each other’s smiles. “How have you been?” Bristol asked softly.
Mr. Aykroyd sighed and tugged a lock of white hair, disarranging the careful combing. “As good as any salt can be when the sea calls and hears no answer.” He glanced into the clay pipe. “The captain and me, we be together a lot of years... and I tell ye frankly, this isn’t one of the good times.” A disgusted snort blew out his lips. “They be a widow in Southwark what cast her eye on me and my house. If captain don’t put to sea soon, the widow will be planting her spring garden outside my kitchen door!” Bristol laughed and clapped her hands. Mr. Aykroyd scowled. “It ain’t good to put a seagoing man in the way of plump widows! And it ain’t good for a seagoing man to be heading up a business!”
“Both Jean Pierre and Uncle Robert say you’ve been wonderful. Jean Pierre couldn’t manage right now without your help.” Bristol hid a pang of emotion at the mention of his name. “It’s been... difficult for him.”
Mr. Aykroyd met her eyes with a shrewd nod, and Bristol dropped her face. “I know what it’s been for the captain. Now, tell me how it’s been for ye,” he said gently, and drew on his pipe. He leaned back on the settee, his eyes on her face.
Bristol drew a breath. “Oh. Well. it... it’s been wonderful!” Color flushed her cheeks with rosy warmth, “Just look around us.” Bristol waved at the opulent room. “Could you dream a parlor like this, even if you tried? I never expected such...” He watched her, holding the bowl of his pipe. “And my room! Mr. Aykroyd, you should see my room! It’s huge, and all done in pink, and...” He said nothing.
Bristol drew another breath and failed at a smile. “The parties!” she rambled desperately. “I’ve been to so many parties and I’ve danced out my slippers, and I’ve chased a fox and gone to picnics along the river.” Her voice sounded brittle, artificial, and she wished he’d say something, anything. “I have more gowns than I can count, and... and I never do any hard work. Aunt Pru says ladies don’t do hard work.” She shifted her eyes from his steady clear gaze. “I’ve had dance lessons and voice lessons. Aunt Pru says my voice...” The babble died on her lips. She stared into the silent sympathy in Mr. Aykroyd’s eyes and knew he saw past the unconvincing falsity. He saw the truth.
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