Phoebe felt a tug, deep down in a part of herself she’d never explored, never been conscious of before, and barely kept from running across the rows of carrots and potatoes and string beans to fling her arms around his neck and sob for joy merely because he was alive. On some level, she realized, she’d feared that he would not return.
“I started in the laundry room,” she said, knowing the words were ridiculous even as she uttered them and speaking anyway because she couldn’t endure the silence. “That didn’t work out, so I was transferred to the veggie detail.”
Duncan laughed and shook his head. He was impossibly attractive, tall and sun-bronzed, with broad shoulders and the clean, briny smell of the sea about him. “I have yet to discern which language you speak,” he said. “Not the King’s English, to be sure.”
Phoebe smiled, but she was already counting the nights Duncan had been at sea, and picturing him in Simone’s arms, making up for lost time. The image turned the pit of her stomach ice-cold, and her heartbeat outran itself and skittered painfully. “No,” she said. “I speak the American version, circa 1995.”
Duncan looked solemn, all of the sudden, and boneweary. Certainly her presence was as much a mystery to him as it was to her, and he plainly did not like unsolvable riddles. It was a pity he couldn’t simply write her off as crazy and go on about his business, but of course her watch and driver’s license and other wondrous possessions complicated matters.
“You are well?” he asked, at last. It meant something, she supposed, that he lingered, but she couldn’t guess what. Maybe he was still trying to come up with a rational explanation.
“Yes,” she answered, too proud to tell him the truth—that her arms and legs and back ached from hard work, and that she would have traded her right kidney for a couple of aspirin and a hot-water bottle. “I guess your mission must have succeeded.”
It was a mistake to mention the recent foray against the British, but the damage had been done before Phoebe realized as much. Duncan visibly withdrew from her; his eyes were narrowed, and he folded his arms across his chest, unconsciously erecting a barrier between them. “That it did,” he said distantly, as if Phoebe had taken up arms against him and his men herself. “But at great cost.”
With that, he strode away toward the house, leaving her standing there in the turnips, dirty and sunburned and full of pain. She understood why her body hurt, but what ailed her heart?
Duncan reached his room to find the big copper bathtub on the hearth. Simone and another servant were pouring buckets full of hot water into it.
He did not speak, but instead went to his desk, where a decanter of fine brandy waited, and splashed a quantity of amber liquid into a snifter. The captain and crew of the British ship, the India Queen, had put up a valiant fight, and the decks of that vessel had been awash in the blood of both sides before the battle was over. He had lost three men—he’d forgotten that, for a few blessed minutes, watching Phoebe in the garden—but the memory would live in his dreams for months, or even years, beside the other recollections that haunted his sleep.
And Alex, his closest friend. Dear God, Alex had taken a lead ball in the knee. He lay at that moment in another room, on the opposite end of the house, with Old Woman for his physician, delirious with fever and with pain. Even if Alex survived—a miracle, should it happen—he would be a cripple, unable to ride and fight. Perhaps unable to walk.
Bile rushed into the back of Duncan’s throat. He had forgotten about that, too, talking with Phoebe. Forgotten. Sweet Jesu, what was wrong with him?
Simone touched his arm, and he started, for he hadn’t realized that she’d crossed the room to stand before him. “I will stay and give you comfort,” she offered softly. The other servant had gone, he noticed, for it was no secret that he had already taken solace in Simone’s embrace on innumerable occasions.
Duncan yearned for what she would so willingly give him, ached for the release, both mental and physical, that such a union could provide. The problem was, he wanted someone else lying beside and beneath him, someone he dared not trust.
Phoebe.
“Be gone,” he said with gentle cruelty. “My bath grows cold.”
Simone’s splendid hazel eyes blazed with passion and some lesser emotion that he did not trouble himself to identify. “You want her,” she accused in a fierce, bitter whisper. “Look at her hair—she is like a boy! Perhaps your tastes have changed, Captain?”
Rage seized Duncan’s weary mind, blinding and white-hot, and only by a supreme act of will did he restrain himself from slapping Simone. He, who had never laid a hand to a woman in anger. “Get out,” he muttered, “I will not tell you again.”
She searched his face, and he saw regret in her eyes and a great suffering, and although he did not stir, or utter so much as a breath, he was not unmoved. There had been no promises between them, but she had given him pleasure, and the sweet, fiery distraction he’d believed he could not live without.
Simone started to speak, then stopped herself. With a small sob, she turned and hurried out.
Duncan locked the door behind her, lest she suffer a change of heart, finished his brandy, poured another, and stripped off his clothes. His bathwater was only lukewarm by that time, but he sank gratefully into it. Although he was tired to the very center of his soul, he dared not close his eyes, for if he did, he would see his men fall, Alex bleeding on the deck of the vanquished India Queen. He had been silent, Alex had, but Duncan, who knew him well, had heard the agonized screams his friend withheld and had wanted to cry out himself.
Presently, Duncan downed the last of his drink, washed, dried himself off, and took a triple portion from the decanter. He was mildly drunk by the time he’d donned fresh clothes, and grateful for that anesthetic state, rather than repentant. His father had been right, he reflected, sitting on the edge of his bed to pull on his boots. If there was such a place as hell, Duncan Rourke would find his way there presently and make a name for himself.
To any casual observer, Duncan would have looked quite normal as he made his way along the hallway toward the back of the house and the quiet room where Alex lay. He knew, however, that he was unsteady, and if called upon to fight, he’d get his throat cut.
He hesitated outside Alex’s door, wishing he could offer a prayer. But he was, alas, a pagan and a rebel, and although he did not disbelieve, neither could he profess an honest faith. He did not make a petition because he did not expect to be heard.
His surprise, when he stepped over the threshold and found Phoebe in that room, instead of his aged servant, was profound. She had drawn up a chair and was holding Alex’s corpse-gray hand and biting her lip as she watched over him.
“You didn’t tell me,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.
Duncan closed the door gently and went to stand on the opposite side of the bed, looking down at Alex’s still face. He could not bring himself to admit that he had forgotten about the battle, about the men who had died, about his best friend, while standing at the edge of the garden watching her. Wanting her.
“There are a great many things you don’t need to know,” he replied, without sparing her so much as a glance. In truth, he feared he might be caught in her enchantment, lose himself in her again, if he took that risk.
“Will he die?” Her voice was small, mirroring all the terror Duncan felt but could not reveal.
“Probably,” Duncan answered.
“Why haven’t you sent for a doctor?”
At last he met her eyes, but only because he had no choice. Her gaze had drawn his, somehow, the way the warmth of the sun finds seeds nestled in the earth and causes them to stir and struggle and seek the light. “This is an island,” he reminded her grimly. “We are miles from anywhere. And even if that were not so, I would not permit the bloodletters who call themselves physicians to lay one filthy hand to my friend.”
Phoebe was pale, and shadows had appeared under her eyes in the short time since he’d enc
ountered her outside, in the fresh air and sunshine. She seemed to be wilting, like some exotic blossom taken from its natural element. “Yes—I had forgotten what medicine was—is—like in the eighteenth century. I guess there isn’t much we can do for him, is there?”
Duncan waited a few moments to answer, for he was on the verge of weeping, and would have died before showing such weakness in the presence of another person—most notably this one. He had given way to his emotions before, of course, but only in private; he generally grieved—and celebrated—through his music. “No,” he said at last. “There isn’t much we can do to ease him. What brings you here, Phoebe?”
She smoothed Alex’s sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead, as if soothing a fretful child after an ugly dream. “I don’t know,” she replied, without looking at Duncan. “He was kind to me the night I came to this house.”
“Unlike myself,” Duncan said. He touched Alex’s hand with the tips of his fingers and hoped his friend knew he wasn’t alone, that someone, however helpless and guilty, was keeping a vigil.
“You were a complete bastard,” Phoebe said, almost as an aside. “I thought I’d wandered into some kind of roleplaying weekend for perverts.”
Duncan grasped enough of her convoluted English to be chagrined, but his attention, like hers, was focused on the patient. “Alex was furious with me that night. Sometimes I wonder how we ever became friends—I’ve always been a libertine, while he is the most decent of men, living by standards I don’t even aspire to reach.”
“Maybe he thought he could save you,” Phoebe said.
“Maybe,” Duncan agreed and smiled ruefully. “He should have known it was an impossible task.”
“Are you so terrible as all that?” Phoebe asked. Alex was stirring, and she soaked a cloth in cool water and bathed his forehead as she spoke. “Granted, you are an extremely moody individual, and you’re not entirely sober at the moment, I think, but you obviously care for your friend and for your cause. You are a gifted musician, and you must love beauty or you wouldn’t live in this wonderful house.”
He was touched by her matter-of-fact assessment and supposed that what had happened to Alex was making him unusually sentimental. “Do you think the devil doesn’t love music, as much or more than any angel in heaven could?” he asked quietly. “I should think he makes angry tunes sometimes, and more often sad ones. Perhaps he plays because he cannot weep.”
She watched him in silence for a time, then asked in a reasonable voice, “Is that why you play, Duncan? Because you can’t cry?”
He stood and left Alex to stand at the small window, which Phoebe or perhaps Old Woman had opened to a salt-scented breeze. He gazed, unseeing, at the sea, which had been his soul’s lover, his life’s blood, his sanctuary, throughout his adult life. This time, it did not soothe him.
“Alex is dying,” he murmured. “Because of me.” He turned and knew by the expression in Phoebe’s eyes that his face was terrible to look upon, but silence, however prudent it might have been, was beyond him by then. Something in her made him want to confess the deepest, most wretched secrets of his soul. “God in heaven, look at him! Do you think Alex needed a devil to cause this suffering, this waste? No. All that was required to bring a good man to his end was to call Duncan Rourke his friend!”
He had said all those things in whispers, but he might have shouted, for the room fairly quaked with the force of his fury and his pain.
Phoebe rose to her feet and rounded the bed to stand glaring up at him, her eyes glistening with tears of outrage. “Stop it! Alex wasn’t forced to fight with you, he chose that life for himself.” She sniffled ingloriously, wiped her face with the back of one hand, and went on. “If you want to salve your bruised conscience and wallow in the singular tragedy of your existence, then at least have the decency to do it somewhere else. This time belongs to Alex, not you.”
Duncan retreated a step, aware that she was right. Before he could think of an answer, Alex stirred again and murmured something.
He’d asked for water, and Phoebe went back to his bedside and, using a spoon, gave him one sip and then another. He opened his eyes briefly and looked at Duncan. That one glance held a plea that struck Duncan like the point of a lance.
Alex wanted to die.
“No,” Duncan told him, hoarsely. “No, damn you.”
All that night, Duncan sat beside Alex’s bed, waiting, watching, willing his friend to live. At some point Phoebe left the room, and Old Woman took her place, bringing poultices and muttering odd, reverent incantations. She did not speak to Duncan, and he did not speak to her, and yet they were in perfect accord.
At dawn, she gathered her medicines and went out, and Duncan got up to stand at the window and watch the sunrise fling shards of crimson and gold and fiery orange over the waters.
“Duncan.”
He turned and saw that he had not imagined the sound; Alex was indeed conscious, though deathly pale, and Duncan’s relief was so great that, for the moment, he could not utter a sound.
“What kind of soldier will I make now?” Alex asked in quiet despair.
Duncan found his voice and sat down again, after drawing his chair up close to the bed. “There are other callings besides soldiering,” he said gruffly. “You could go into business, or read the law. You could marry and sire a flock of children ….”
Alex’s lips moved in a parody of a smile. “A woman wants a whole man for a husband, not a remnant.”
“You are whole,” Duncan insisted. “Or you will be, once you’ve had time to heal. Give yourself a chance.”
“The leg is worthless,” Alex said. “I felt it die.”
Duncan squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. It was a struggle to keep his tone of voice level, to hide his own sorrows and misgivings. “You will be strong again,” he said. “In six months, a year—”
There were tears on Alex’s face, and the sight of them silenced Duncan.
“I will try,” Alex murmured. “But I must have your word on one thing, or there will be no such bargain.”
“What are you saying?” Duncan asked. “What bargain is this?”
“If I could do as I wish at this moment,” Alex said, “I would put a pistol to my head. Because you believe I can recover, I shall make every attempt to do so. If, six months hence, I still want to end my life, you must help me to die.”
Duncan’s stomach rolled. “Great Zeus—”
“Promise me,” Alex insisted. He was weak, drifting toward sleep.
“I cannot!”
“Duncan.”
“Damn you—how can you ask me to do murder, to kill my closest friend?”
“For exactly that reason. Because you are my closest friend. ’Tis a hard journey that lies before me, Duncan. I haven’t the strength to try, knowing I might be condemning myself to a lifetime in a broken body that is, nonetheless, too strong to perish.”
“Are you telling me that you will give up the ghost if I refuse to make this vow? But you cannot make yourself die simply by willing it so.” Even as he made this desperate speech, Duncan knew he was wrong. He’d seen other men embrace death, men far less grievously wounded than Alex. It was often a simple matter of turning one’s mind toward the grave, and the peace that waited there, offering an end to pain and fear and regret.
Alex did not reply; there was no need. He simply looked at Duncan and waited.
“Do not ask this of me!”
“I can ask it of no one else,” Alex said.
Duncan was silent for a long time. “Very well, then,” he spat at last in an agonized whisper. “You have my promise, damn you. But I do not give it willingly.”
Alex smiled, closed his eyes, and rested.
Duncan strode out of the room, along the hallway, down the broad staircase. He moved swiftly, though blinded by his thoughts, and made his way to the drawing room, where the harpsichord stood, innocent, inanimate, vulnerable to the violence of his emotions. He co
uld not think, he dared not speak.
He sat down before the exquisite instrument and spread his fingers over the familiar keys. He was not aware of what he played, could not hear the music, did not know its character. He lost track of time.
Presently, Duncan raised his eyes from the keyboard, though the notes continued to flow from him, like a river of thunder, stemming from the loneliest, most barren regions of his soul. Phoebe stood close by, watching him, listening. Weeping.
He saw her mouth shape the word “stop,” but he shook his head. She didn’t understand; he couldn’t control the music because he was not its master, it was his. He lowered his gaze again and went on pounding at the keys, and the furious concerto filled the room, the house, the universe with its pulsing chords.
Phoebe touched him then, something no one else had ever dared to do while he was in such a state. She stepped behind him and laid her hands on his shoulders, and the shock of that struck him with the impact of a storm-tossed ship splintering upon the shoals.
He stood and whirled, oversetting the stool.
She did not retreat, though he must have looked like a demon in his anguish, but rested her light, cool hands upon him again, this time on his upper arms, then his face.
“Duncan,” she said. “Oh, Duncan.”
It was more than he could bear, her tenderness. He wanted nothing so much as to lift her into his arms and carry her to his bed, there to lose himself in her sweet fire and be consumed by it, but he would not seduce her, much less use force. He left the drawing room by way of the French doors that opened onto the main garden and did not return to the house until darkness had descended over the island and lamps had been lighted in the windows.
5
Duncan’s terrible, beautiful, and singularly anguished music echoed in Phoebe’s ears and trembled in the very marrow of her bones, long after he had hurled himself from the keyboard, overturning the bench in the explosive violence of that motion, and stormed out of the drawing room. The wires of the harpsichord still hummed a feeble lament when a door slammed soundly in the distance.
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