Whether he married Maggie or not, denying his true nature had stopped being a viable option. He would eventually give in to the flesh because no one could continue on in this perpetual state of wanting without madness consuming him wholly. But stealing moments of false affection with random men would never give him the happiness he sought.
Even before meeting Rief, the desire to have a close male companion for more than just sexual pleasure had been growing into a full-on desperate aspiration. He wanted a man to love him the way he was supposed to love Maggie. He longed for a friend and a lover, a partner in his life. Someone he could just be himself with, no more hiding and no more lies. A man he could wake up beside in a bed they shared like a husband and wife.
He sniffed in disgust.
Surely a black man would be running this country before society would ever allow such a thing. Sex was one matter, but to build a life with a man?
What a fool he was to even allow himself to dwell on such nonsense!
“The Light was built about twelve years ago.”
With a gasp, Mathew whirled.
As if conjured from his thoughts, Rief Lawson stood beside him.
“Y-you startled me,” he managed, barely remembering to tip his hat in greeting. “Good morning, Mr. L-Lawson.”
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Rief replied, the twinkle in his eyes belying his words. “I was just headed to the inn to see you.”
“You were?” Mathew grinned wide, then hastily cleared his throat, reining in the overwhelming desire to giggle with happiness. Dear Lord, how did this man do such things to him? “I mean, what can I help you with, Mr. Lawson?”
“Call me Rief, please, my lord.”
“Y-yes, Rief,” he corrected. “And I am not a lord, least not while my father is living. He is the baron, and I’m simply Mr. Weston. Mathew, if you prefer.” He felt his face scorch at the intimacy of using each other’s given names.
“All right, Mathew.” He smiled, undoing Mathew’s confidence completely. “I just got back from the wreck, and I wanted to see how you were faring. Sometimes those coral scrapes can fester long after. But I see you don’t have the crutch anymore.”
“Yes, I am quite well,” he said, longing to add, now that you’re here. His heart raced, and he held his breath, waiting for Rief to say something else, and praying he wouldn’t respond foolishly.
When Rief fixed his attention on the lighthouse, Mathew took the chance to drink in his appearance. Clean-shaven, he had neatly combed his sandy-brown curls, and his boots were polished. His blue shirt and brown trousers were clean and pressed, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal strong forearms. The entire effect was rather striking, but Mathew missed his tousled hair and the sight of all those tanned muscles.
“You’re wearing a shirt,” Mathew observed.
Rief shot him a look.
His face bloomed with heat. What the Devil is wrong with you, fool?
“Yes, I am wearing a shirt.” As if enjoying Mathew’s embarrassment, Rief’s mouth twitched into a smile and that single dimple on his left cheek appeared. “Want to see inside it?”
His jaw dropped. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was talking about the inside of the lighthouse.” Rief slanted a coy grin his way. “I know the keeper. She’d let us climb to the top. That is, if you’re not afraid to be alone with me, Mathew.”
Was the man flirting with him? He fumbled for a reply. “Why should I be afraid to be alone with you?”
Rief shrugged and began to walk toward the tall white structure.
Should he follow?
Mathew didn’t know why fate kept putting Rief in his path, but after the incidents with Father and Maggie, he needed the diversion. More importantly, the man had the power to erase his panic and anxiety with his very presence. The moment Rief had smiled at him, that persistent ache in his stomach had all but disappeared.
He didn’t know what such serenity meant, but he didn’t want their one conversation to be the last.
Damming the risks, Mathew hastened after him.
Though it seemed like Rief had been flirting, perhaps he’d only been joshing him. It was unthinkable that a hearty man like Rief shared his proclivities. Yet why had he initiated this overly familiar use of their Christian names? Was it just the way of men in this area of the word, or did he have another veiled intention?
Cautioning himself to be careful, he maintained a polite distance as they walked.
“This is such a peculiar place, Key West,” Mathew observed as a thin goat wandered lazily past.
“Bet it’s real different than where you’re from.”
“Indeed.” Coconut and lime trees created a sweet smell on the morning breeze. The sky was dotted with splashes of white clouds, the rising sun promising a beautiful day.
“Are you from London?”
“I suppose I am,” Mathew said.
“Don’t you know where your home is?”
“Home is a relative word for me, as I have lived many places. Pembroke Manor is in the country, but I only spend the summer there. In my youth, I spent holidays with my aunt before she passed. The rest of the time I was at different boarding schools around London. I just graduated from Cambridge,” he said, hoping to impress Rief, make him see Mathew as more than just a fop who fell overboard.
“What did you study?” Rief picked up a few stones from the ground and tossed one down the street, like a boy skipping rocks on the water. It was both charming and childish.
“Mathematics and business,” he said, sighing. “But apparently I am to be a merchant.”
“You don’t want to be a merchant,” Rief surmised.
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” he admitted, feeling strangely comfortable sharing things with this man. “I’ve recently inherited quite a bit of money, but it just feels wrong to let my education go to waste and live frivolously. Being a merchant sounded exciting. A way to see the world.”
Unsure why he told Rief so much, Mathew glanced over, his gaze making a beeline to the glistening hairs peeking out from Rief’s shirt collar. Before he started to imagine the crispness of them between his fingers, he quickly looked away, heat spreading up his neck and making him sweat a little.
Needing conversation to distract him from dangerous thoughts, Mathew asked, “Have you always lived here?”
“With a name like Rief?” he joked, tossing another stone. “What do you think?”
Mathew sniffed a laugh. “That your parents must have possessed a bizarre sense of humor to name their son after a lump of rock in the ocean. It’s not a proper name at all.”
“No, I reckon it isn’t.” Rief chuckled. “But then again, the name Key West isn’t proper, so we’re a matched pair.”
“How so?”
“It’s Spanish name is Cayo Hueso, or Bone Cay because the Indians used the island as an open graveyard, leaving bones everywhere. When the Bahamian wreckers came here speaking English, the way they said it sounded like Key West, so the name slowly changed.”
Mathew spoke the foreign name aloud. “I can see how that sounds like Key West.”
“And to answer your question, yes. I’m not a Conch, but I was born and raised on the island. My dad settled here when America bought the Keys back from the Spanish in ’22. He was a fisherman from Maine who salvaged here in the off-season for the Havana market.”
“A Conch? What’s that?”
“You’ve seen those knobby shells in the market, the big white ones?”
“The ones with the orange clam inside it?” he clarified.
Rief flashed a smile which crinkled his eyes and dimpled his one cheek. “Those are conchs. The Bahamians were mostly Loyalists who fled to the islands during the Revolution, and they were some of the first organized wreckers in these parts. They ate so many conchs and even put the shells outside their door to announce a new baby that the Spanish nicknamed them Conchs. American wreckers like my dad drove most of the Bahamians out because they didn’t want t
he wrecking competition. They wanted the goods to come back here to Key West not to Nassau. A few of those Bahamians still live in a quarter called Conchtown.”
“I don’t know if I should like to be nicknamed after a slimy mollusk.”
When Rief threw back his head and laughed, Mathew felt like he had achieved some sort of victory, making him laugh like that.
“Here we are,” Rief said when they arrived at the gated yard of the lighthouse. He stepped back and gestured Mathew through the gate as a little brown lizard scurried across the path and disappeared into the spiky grasses along the fence line.
A woman’s voice startled him. “Hallo there, Rief!”
The old woman who called a greeting was pinched faced with a neat chignon and spectacles. Mathew was beset by visions of a crane as she approached.
“What’s got you to this side of the island?” she asked Rief, giving Mathew a piercing stare over the top of her spectacles.
He felt his face heat but assured himself that there was nothing peculiar about two blokes checking out a local landmark. Just because Mathew had a sexual fixation with Rief, didn’t mean an old woman would suspect.
The lighthouse keeper’s name was Mrs. Mabrity, and Mathew removed his hat and offered her a small bow as Rief introduced them.
“Mind if I show him the view from up top?” Rief said.
She eyed Rief strangely, then shrugged. “That’d be fine, but come on. I ain’t got all day,” Mrs. Mabrity said impatiently, leading them across the yard. “You still stirrin’ up trouble with all that drawin’ nonsense?”
Rief opened his mouth but only made a brief sound before clamping it tight. His cheeks crimsoned. “No. I work for Uncle Richard and sometimes dive for Cole.”
Mrs. Mabrity gave a sharp nod. “Yer mother would’ve liked that. It’s better for everyone if ya don’t do that drawin’ no more.”
Mathew turned a questioning look on Rief, only to see a cloud of blackness wash over his face. Then it was gone almost as fast as it had come. Chambers had acted strange at the mention of Rief’s art too. Admittedly, not everyone found drawings of dead sharks a suitable pastime, but why was such a thing a source of secrecy and trouble?
Rief wore a stiff smile as they stepped into the long shadow of the lighthouse. Craning his neck, Mathew held his top hat in place and looked up at the tower. Whitewashed, it gleamed in the Florida sun. It would be blinding in the peak of the afternoon. There was a window on the one side, and perched on top sat a black crown that housed the light.
“Shame what happened to yer mother.” She unlocked the door at the base of the lighthouse. “’Course it’s a shame ’bout my own children too.”
Jaw clenched, Rief agreed, “Yes, it was.”
After telling Rief to let himself out, she said an abrupt farewell and returned to her gardening.
“I’m the same age one of her sons would’ve been if he’d lived,” Rief said once she was out of hearing range. “Most of her children died when the old lighthouse collapsed.”
Mathew glanced again at the old thin woman who suddenly seemed stronger than her fail frame. “That’s sad about her children. No wonder she’s so... pleasant.”
Rief chuckled, the sultry sound sending tremors to Mathew’s toes like the tingle of a heavy English wine. He gestured for Mathew to lead the way into the small round interior of the lighthouse. “You’ve no idea. When this light was finished back in ’48, the whole town was celebrating and lots of folks came from ships and the other keys. I met this boy from Havana and we reckoned we’d do some celebrating of our own, so we swiped a bottle of rum and she found us, three sheets to the wind.”
“I imagine she was not pleased.”
He laughed, hearty and loud, the sound echoing in the cylindrical structure. “Oh no! Didn’t matter that she wasn’t our mother. She took a belt to our hides worse than anything my dad ever doled out.”
“Ouch,” he said, wincing in sympathy. For all Father’s blustering and yelling, he’d never bothered with corporal punishment, and Mathew’s nurses and teachers had never seen the need.
Rief shrugged dismissively. “We were just glad she only found out about the rum. If she’d found us fifteen minutes sooner, she would’ve caught us with our hands in each other’s pants.”
Mathew faltered on the steps. Flustered, he clutched the rail and began to climb, refusing to look at Rief.
Why would he mention that? Was he trying to get Mathew to reveal himself? Or was Rief trying to tell him something?
No! That couldn’t be....
Suddenly the air inside the lighthouse felt a whole lot warmer, and he began to sweat. He took off his top hat, hoping to cool his increasing body temperature. His heart started beating uncontrollably, and he was all too aware of how isolated they were.
Maybe he had made a mistake in coming.
Opting to ignore the comment—what in heaven’s name would he say anyway?—Mathew focused on the staircase spiraling high above them. When he passed the window and peeked out, he was surprised they’d climbed far enough to see the sun-kissed treetops.
“The Light is the most important structure in Key West,” Rief said, his melodious voice ricocheting lightly around them. “The trade routes between the Gulf and the Caribbean are powered by a strong current, bringing ships damn close to the reef. A storm or an inexperienced captain can easily founder offshore.”
“Or an experienced captain, for that matter,” Mathew added with chagrin as he thought about how highly Father had recommended Torino.
Rief cleared his throat, then said after a pause, “Yes, sometimes that can happen too. There were so many wrecks happening, they started building lights so ships could pass through safely.”
Mathew slanted a look behind him, surprised wreckers would try to stop wrecks. Using the rail to pull himself up higher, he asked, “Why isn’t it on the coast, then?”
“The old lighthouse was on the beach, but it got washed away in the Havana Hurricane. They built this one inland on higher ground.” It seemed Rief intended to play tour guide, and seeing as Mathew didn’t trust his own mouth, he listened quietly.
At the top they found a smaller set of stairs that led to the watch room. “A new lens came in from Paris last summer,” Rief went on.
“Paris? Really?”
“Yup. It’s a third-order lens, and it increased the Light’s visibility for a long ways out to sea.”
Knowing that was the latest in scientific advances, Mathew tried to see the lens hidden in the room. Stepping out onto the platform used to clean the outside, a strong breeze struck his flushed cheeks, cooling him. He glanced up, the large, thick glass lens catching the sunshine and creating a stinging glare. Such a marvel of ingenuity seemed out of place here.
Just one more surprise, he supposed.
The view demanded attention, overshadowing the contradictions he kept uncovering in this town. From this height, he could see the waves breaking on the shore in a gentle rush, splashing over the fingerlike tendrils of mangrove plants that grew all over the coastline. Small islands littered the water, some little more than a mass of mangroves and a tree for flocks of pelicans to roost upon. To the other side, out at sea, a mighty stone sentinel guarding the port, sat Fort Zachary Taylor, named after the American president who’d died in office.
Mathew locked his gaze on the skiffs and boats traveling back and forth from the island to the fort, trying to act nonchalant as Rief joined him at the railing. He kept a firm hold on his top hat so it didn’t blow away.
Finally Rief broke the silence. “Did you hear about the debates between Douglas and Lincoln?”
“Oh yes.”
During their sojourn, it seemed the two politicians’ spirited debates over slavery were all anyone could talk about. Douglas was a fierce defender of slavery, and while the known abolitionist Lincoln tried to defend his position, he couldn’t fully agree that the black man should be equal to white men in regards to having a say in politics and govern
ment. When Mathew had read Lincoln’s most recent statement that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” to Father and Mr. Kirkwood, they’d found the notion quite amusing, as it seemed this country was on the verge of a real division.
“And which debater would you side with?” Mathew asked.
Placing his elbows on the railing, Rief shrugged. “Well, I don’t abide by slavery. It isn’t right to control another man, take away his freedom, and punish him because he’s different than you.”
“I wholeheartedly agree.” Mathew reclined against the rail beside him, hat in hand. England’s Slavery Abolition Act was law before Mathew had been born, and witnessing the antiquated system on this journey had been quite unsettling.
“Then again,” Rief began. “Douglas has a good point about needing to keep the Americas a confederacy of sovereign states, each equal but able to make their own decisions. Lincoln might be a moral man, but he supports a federalist empire, and if you don’t mind my saying so, we Americans already decided we didn’t want one power controlling us.” He winked at Mathew. “Otherwise we’d still be a British colony.”
Smiling, he agreed with a “Too true.”
“The Americas were founded on freedom so that each man could decide for himself what he wants from his life. And what’s good for Illinois isn’t necessarily good for New York or Florida, you know?”
“No, I don’t suppose it is. But don’t you think it’s a fair trade to surrender a few state rights in order allow your fellow man the freedoms unjustly stolen from them?”
“I cannot disagree with that, either.”
Mathew remained thoughtful for a moment. “It sounds as if this debate will force your citizens to make a difficult decision in the near future.”
“Sure, but a man sometimes has to make hard decisions.”
“Indeed,” he managed, pulse thumping.
Like the blurred lines of the debate tearing apart the morality of the Americas, a conflict had been brewing within Mathew for years. He couldn’t continue on the path he’d laid out for himself, one of restraint and deprivation, just because it was safe and expected. Legal. But would he ever have the courage to go after what he wanted when the odds were not in his favor?
Wrecked Page 8