“Mess? And here I thought this little adventure was your wedding present to me. I am quite disappointed, William.”
He rolled his eyes. “Nay, my dear, I am supposed to slay dragons for you, not deacons. But you look like you could use a rest. The guard has my personal effects. If you please, tell him you have my permission to claim them all, and among them you will find the key to the front door of the shop. My brother will bring me dinner at a quarter after four. Were you to come and meet him, I’d be quite grateful.”
“I would be most honored. I shall return then. Have you any wish for aught, while I’m at your home?” There were two books on his bed; he took one and handed it through the bars. She took it: Creighton’s Mysteries volume one. “Reading about the unseen world, Mister Almsley?”
“It is part of your world, is it not?”
She shook her head. “Haunted temples and people who claim to have been able to step back into time is not exactly my field.”
“Says she who has never read it. There’s a whole chapter on stone lore in that book. He traveled the world and wrote down all these stories that happened but could not be rationally explained. It is diverting, if nothing else, to see the patterns of it.”
“Are there more than two volumes?” It was hard to be entirely approving of his choice in reading material. Magic should be rational, not the province of well-meaning crack-pots who collected shiny bits of information like a jackdaw.
He shook his head. “Nay, but I was hoping you would bring me another book, I am almost done with the second Creighton’s. He wrote a rather lurid chapter on ancient cocoa rites that I’m in the middle of now, so I would like something gentler, perhaps some verse?”
“Of course. I shall return presently.” She smiled and raised her hood again.
“Tasmin...”
She peered at him from the depths of her cloak.
“Thank you. And please, take care. You will promise me?”
She laughed despite herself. “Oh, William. All I’m doing is supporting you. I shall be utterly safe.”
Chapter 7
Junair fourteenth, Gold Moon Quarter 1788
Dear William,
I have not been able to write for lack of words. The necklace you sent is the most marvelous, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! I simply never believed I could possess something so fantastic. I have tried it on but once to experience it, for the temptation was more than I could bear, but now have determined to place it aside in a safe place, so that the first time the world sees it upon me is the day I become your wife.
Thank you for your letter detailing your exploits with the pirates. I had heard rumors of the battle, but heard no word as to how you survived it. I have been quite worried, I own, and am so happy to know you came through unscathed. Really, I wish they would ask my permission before they begin poking holes in my future intended.
Yours, eventually,
Tasmin
The place looked more like a foundered ship than the interior of a chocolate shop. In fact it was only the sweetness—a faded aroma of the cocoa—to remind one of what it was meant to be at all.
She stepped inside and closed the door. Two large windows, made up of diamond panes, framed the door. Randomly a pane would be a different color, a red, or a green, or a blue, which made puddles of color on the polished dark wood floor. The walls were partly paneled in dark wood and in some places the panels only rose half way, leaving pale-green painted wall. In one of these spaces a mural of a ship at sea as seen from an exotic land had been painted. Round tables and chairs had been shoved against one of the walls, and one of the tables had been shattered, the top splintered in half. The split was clean enough so that repair was possible, she hoped. At least the glass panes of the display case and the main counter were untouched. She ran her hand along the smooth green marble that topped the counter, and sighed. The stone had been a good choice; it radiated comfort.
The kitchen was an even greater mess. In the middle of the room sat William’s huge table, topped with slate, on top of which lay the contents of his now empty cabinets. She picked through and stacked the molds, some looking like cats, or sea shells, or little castles, and stepped over the pans and pots and pestles and stones and bowls and serving plates enough to suit any chef, to reach the pantry beyond the wall of racks, a dry sink, and a stove.
She righted a bucket and knew already that every scrap of chocolate had been confiscated, but still she opened the door. The front had stores, a bit of smoked ham, bread so stale it had been transfigured to stone, and other food stuffs she could not bear to look at for feeling bad at the sheer waste, plus stacks of plates and other china. At least the place, as evidenced by the bread, was fairly dry and cool. She opened the door at the back and saw empty shelves where William had keep his cocoa. Someone had been careless with a jar of cocoa powder: there were a few bits of crockery and cocoa between the stones of the floor.
She lugged her things upstairs to the extremely plain apartment. William had a table and a pair of chairs, a clothes chest, several book cases, and a bed. The shelves and table were covered with books, maps, papers, oddities in jars, dried oddities, and oddities in boxes. The chest had his initials burned in the top, and she knew it had been with him to sea. The table, chairs, and shelves looked worn, second hand. She couldn’t find a space for William’s book, so she set it aside for later, much more interested in the newest and largest piece of furniture.
She sniffed the pillows on the bed; they and the blankets were clean enough, but smelled of sea salt and wood smoke and cacao bean. She smoothed the pillows gently with a slight smile. The bed was by far the nicest piece of furniture; the ropes were tight and new, the carvings fresh, and the polish unblemished.
She sat on it and looked at the canopy and curtains, which were the exact, lush color of blue that she’d once said in a letter to him was her favorite. She lay back and stared at the canopy and realized this bed had been bought by a man who was thinking that marriage would be very soon, and that the marriage was important enough to him that he paid quite a bit to have a new bed, with all new bed clothes that she might like, rather than buying something secondhand to tide him over.
She leapt up and opened the window so that the wind sprites would know where she was, humming the calling song. One of them flew around her, happy and pleased, and then threw itself through the curtains of the bed.
Mayhaps he wasn’t putting it off. Mayhaps he truly had been going to call for her. She didn’t know, but looking at the exquisite bed, she felt wanted, and the feeling made her look forward to the night when she would be sharing the bed with him.
She looked over her shoulder. One hopes. She had no idea just how dire the situation was but perhaps, when she joined William and Andrew for their meal, she would get a better idea.
But first, it was time to get cleaned up. She ran downstairs and looked around outside until she found a young man who was willing to earn a coin by fetching Cecelia and telling her that her new mistress wanted to speak to her. Then she turned her attention to getting water from the well in the courtyard in the back. At least it was not far away; she might even be able to have a full bath once in awhile. Once back in the kitchen, she put a basin in the middle of the floor, deciding not to even bother heating the water. She undid her dress enough to keep it from getting soaked, and took the pins from her hair before kneeling over the basin.
“Hello, hello!” a delicate, sweet voice called out, and Tasmin grimaced. That was fast. If she wasn’t already on her way, I’m a blue-winged water fairy. She lifted her towel enough to cover her bosom, and said, “In the kitchen.”
The woman who came in was light of foot, with skin the color of pale chocolate and honey. She knelt quickly, so they were across the basin from each other and so that she was not in advantage over the other woman. Tasmin could see blue and green swirls of tattoo across the h
ollows of her skin, in a necklace around her neck, in her temples fading back into her hair. “Why is it that the women men bring home from exotic ports are always beautiful?”
A slip of smile before Cecelia said, quite seriously, “Because where I come from nearly all women are beautiful and elegant. So much so in fact that our men are quite bored with us and it is the plain women who get married first.”
Tasmin laughed out loud, and the woman pushed her shoulders down so that she was bent over the basin, then took the cloth and began scrubbing her. “Your husband-to-be is a very good man, and he did me a very good turn, but I swear, his eye is not on me or any other woman. I have traveled long enough to know that his honor of you is more important that any passing relief of his desires.” She spoke with a lilt that invoked the islands of the far south, of the Selki and the Dayne. Of exotic lands that people spoke of in dreamy whispers.
“Why are you telling me this? I barely know the man enough to be jealous, and he is not yet my husband. I didn’t even know what he looked like until an hour ago.” Besides, he tried to give me the impression that he barely knew you.
Cecelia finished scrubbing her and took the basin, dumping the water in the sink. “We shall wash your hair now with what is left in the bucket. The dust from your journey is sticking to it.” Tasmin glared, but allowed herself to be pushed and prodded into position. “William is familiar with the ways of people, and he wanted to make sure that there would be no doubts. ‘Cecelia,’ he said to me, ‘Cecelia, now that I have been so kind as to hire you and give you an income, I do not want any doubts in my wife’s heart as to where my loyalty is.’ And so I promised him I would make certain that that was so. I need a comb. I shall use mine, if you don’t mind, it is clean.” She began to do so, and then said, “You came here fast. Why, for a man you do not know, eh?”
“Because it was my duty,” she said stiffly, though it was hard to be too upset with someone who had just washed and was now combing her hair.
“Duty, duty. See? Now you cannot doubt your intended, for as you do your duty to him, he does his duty to you.” She was silent a moment, working out a particularly bad knot. “It is sad, is it not? That you always knew who you would marry? You have no chance for passion, no excitement of the chase or the capture.”
“Certainty is a good thing,” she said, now finally allowed to sit up. Cecelia began drying and combing Tasmin’s hair.
“Is it?” She placed her chin on Tasmin’s shoulder. “You and William thought you were certain about everything that would happen next. He laid everything out step by step and now, well, things aren’t so certain anymore.”
“You sound concerned.”
“Your husband is a good man. He did me a good turn.” Cecelia finished combing and began braiding. “I would not see him hanged for this nonsense.”
Tasmin decided this was as good a time as any to change the subject. “How did you meet William?”
The braiding stopped, and then began again, slower this time. “I grew up near the Stairs of Alessyn, a mountain range that dominates the island of Galubrey. I was married to a very boring man, a fisherman by trade, and I was the sister of a shaman. The youngest sister, so I was of no account. I hated my life.” Her voice was soft, distant. “But I hated it worse when the pirates came. Many fled, but some of us were too clumsy of foot to manage that, and were captured.” There was another pause. “Anyway, there was nothing left for me. I caught the eye of his First Mate, who needed a wife, and when he asked me if I would marry him, I said I would. Now I am a second time widowed; perhaps I shall give up altogether?”
“I doubt it has been as easy as all that.”
“No. People talk, because he is a man and I am beautiful and a widow and from a far away land. All things, you know, that must mean I am utterly without morals or self worth, aye?” She picked some pins up and coiled the braids against Tasmin’s scalp and pinned them neatly.
“People are creatures of envy, and it makes them cruel.”
“Which is why it does well not to give a fig for what people think,” Cecelia said with certainly.
“But sometimes you have to. I know it has always been William’s way not to care, but when one owns a store it pays to care, very much.” Tasmin rose and straightened her clothes. “Well. This place has been quite neglected. Shall we begin to clean?”
Chapter 8
Odtorio 26th,
Scarlet Moon Quarter 1788
Dear Tasmin,
Forgive the shortness of this reply, I am holding up a merchantman heading for your climes specifically for this note. You will hear, or have heard, of a great battle off the strait of Gallis. Despite taking great damage our ship has not only survived, but taken the lead pirate ship, the Sylphie. The pirates were not interested in your previous claims, and have wounded me, but not grievously—I shall be walking with a crutch for a few days, no worse.
I just wished you to know, since you have been so kind as to concern yourself for my safety.
Yours,
William
P.S. I am most deeply gratified that you liked the necklace.
Andrew’s limp had worsened, which meant he must have walked a great deal that day. William smiled at his brother and returned the bow that Andrew proffered.
Andrew sat down, a basket in his lap. “Mum’s still not cooking for you, but Bonny’s cook doesn’t do stew badly,” he said by way of greeting as William pulled his seat closer to the bars.
“Tasmin Bey will be joining us,” William said, as if this was a common thing. “Forgive me, but will you please bring her a stool?”
Andrew frowned, but did so. “That name is awfully familiar. Have I met her? Shall I call for another fork and bowl?”
“That will not be needed,” Tasmin said as she arrived. She looked better, more rested, than she had earlier. She was not classically beautiful, but he thought in time his eyes might think so. She had a slight sternness to her that her large brown eyes, which should have made her look rather innocent and gentle, could not possibly soften, but despite that, William thought her quite pleasing.
“But, surely you should like to partake in the stew with us?” Andrew said, looking a bit lost.
She placed a basket on the floor and took a seat on the stool. “I can use one of my own, or share William’s, if he wishes.”
Andrew blinked. “Good Lord. That’s where I know you from. Oh, Good Lord. Why are you here, now? Mother will have a fit that she’s not been warned. I mean, told, so she could prepare a proper place.”
William felt his face heat a bit, and drawled, “Don’t worry, Tasmin, they like you much more than they like me at this point.”
“Considering that you are under arrest for murder, I find slim, if any, comfort in that statement,” she said, sitting ramrod straight and looking completely unfazed. She turned to Andrew. “As for why I am here, I am here to support my intended husband, which I think is a fit and proper thing for any woman to do, no matter where she comes from, would you not agree?” she looked back at William and gestured toward Andrew. She knew who he was, of course, but if he was going to act prim, she would as well, and force an introduction. Without a proper introduction she could not speak to him on the street.
“Ah, forgive me. This is my brother Andrew.”
She stared at him for a long moment before offering her hand, and William found himself trying to measure his brother through her eyes. His hair was a tad lighter than William’s and thinning, which, like his limp and his perpetually drooping shoulders, were more a legacy from a childhood illness than from their parents. If one would have had to guess which was the elder, one would not have picked William. He did not think, for all that, that his brother was unattractive, really. Andrew took Tasmin’s hand, and bowed over it with quick, shy movements.
“Ah. Yes, your brother has told me much about you, Andrew. Please, relax and
allow me to serve the food, before it gets cold.” She went about it with brisk efficiency. Tasmin did not allow the ideas of grace or elegance to hamper her movements as she opened the basket. The top of the basket acted to hold the bread, while below was a section for two bowls and spoons, and below that a metal lid, which she pulled off to reveal the meal. First she handed Andrew a bowl, as she would have had they been gathered around the table in their own home, and then served him. Two of the bars were bent so that a bowl could be handed through, and William propped the bowl there as she took a spoon from her own basket.
“You’re not quite supposed to be doing that yet, sharing a bowl.”
“She’s making a point,” William said, scooting a rather choice looking piece of beef to her side. “She’s showing solidarity towards me.”
“But it’s … still, you’re not married, so you should not be sharing like that. ‘Tis grossly intimate.”
“You were too kind about your brother’s inclination to fussiness in your reports to me,” she said, pushing the meat back firmly. To Andrew she said, “Shall we use this time to familiarize me with the details of what has happened, or do you wish to waste time worrying on the off chance someone besides your good self might actually care how I choose to eat?”
“If you will finish feeding my poor brother,” Andrew said, bridling a bit, “then perhaps he can tell us when he is quite done.”
Her cheeks pinked slightly, but she smiled, her eyes lightening a little. “That sounds quite fair to me. Then we can have dessert.” At William’s direction she gave some bread to the neighbor.
And this is the story, eventually, that William told.
The Chocolatier's Wife Page 4