by John Jakes
As the coach swung out from the alley and turned to pass a row of lighted windows, her face glowed. It was as if all the time since Quarry Hill had never existed.
She looked at him, too moved to speak. The radiance of her face was in part due to the contrast with her widow’s weeds: all black, from the skirt to a modish feminine variation of a man’s tricorn. Strands of tawny hair glinted at the collar of her cape.
In the dim light from the homes going by outside the slow-paced coach, he saw again the blue eyes that had once gazed into his with such heat and pain. But the longer he looked at her, the more aware he became of subtle changes. A strained set to her mouth. A faint coarsening of the texture of her skin—too many damaging cosmetics?
And her voice had the ever-so-faint slur of too much wine:
“Dear God, there are still miracles in this awful world!” Her cheeks glistened with tears as her black glove sought his face.
Trying to ignore the changes he’d detected, he slid closer on the velvet coach seat. His hands circled her waist while she held his cheeks and brought her mouth to his, hungrily.
The kiss was long, full of the wine taste of her breath when she opened her lips to caress his tongue with her own. At last, laughing in a peculiar fashion—a lilting laugh, yet one with tears in it—she broke away.
“Hold me. Just hold me a while.”
He cradled her against him, her face buried on his shoulder. Her small gloved hand pressed his arm.
Finally this embrace ended too. She pulled his hands into her lap, simply staring at him in silent joy as the coach rattled along. Stark shadows of still-bare elm branches flickered across the interior. He could now see her clearly. Her black clothing lent her face the quality of a shining cameo. As she ran her right glove down the side of his face, her blue eyes welled with tears again.
“You’re not a boy any longer. There are marks on you.”
“A long time’s gone by, Alicia.”
“You’re looking at me in such a strange way—”
“I never expected you to come this soon. In fact, I had some doubts you’d come at all. I wondered whether this whole business might be a trap.”
“Didn’t my letter convince you?” she exclaimed softly.
“To be honest—no, not completely.”
“I suppose what I wrote was terribly incoherent. That’s how I felt the night Roger spoke your name. The old one. But Philip Kent’s a fitting name too, considering who your father was—”
All at once she hugged his hand to her breasts. Even through the layers of her clothing, the touch triggered sensations in his body; a memory of how much he’d loved her.
Did he still?
She started chattering, her delight almost girlish:
“According to the proprieties, I should have waited a week or more before setting one foot outside the Trumbull house. I simply couldn’t. And I don’t care whether my aunt and her husband are scandalized. Nothing matters except finding you again.”
“Where do these relatives of yours think you’ve gone this evening?”
“For the air. To escape from that stifling house—nothing but the stench of candles burning by Roger’s bier. I’ll have to take him home for burial. I don’t know whether I can endure that—” Her voice broke just a little. “How did you come to bring him down?”
“Must we talk about it?”
“I’m curious, that’s all. Roger never explained.”
“I’d rather not explain either. Unless it matters greatly to you.”
She shook her head. “He never mattered. I knew that the last time I saw you. But I went ahead. The marriage—”
“Children?”
“No, none. Though not for his want of trying. I made a frightful mistake in England, Phillipe—do you mind my calling you by that name?”
“I suppose not.”
“I’m glad. I really can’t think of you any other way.”
“You spoke about a mistake.”
“Yes. I should have come with you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Oh, darling, I told you on Quarry Hill—I didn’t have the courage. But after you left, I felt nothing for him. Nothing—ever. It may be a mortal sin to say that, with him dead no more than a few days. I can’t help it.” A pause. Then: “But let’s not talk of grim things. I had no idea you’d emigrated. I was astonished when Roger spoke your name. When did you decide on the colonies?”
“When I was in London. It seemed a better choice than crawling back to poverty in France.”
“Tell me what’s become of you, living in that seditious Boston. Philadelphia’s full of talk of armed rebellion—perhaps coming very soon. Have you been caught in that?”
“Some.”
“And your mother? How is she?”
“My mother,” he said slowly, “died on the voyage to America.”
“Oh, I am sorry. How did it happen?”
“Your hus—Roger hired killers to find us. In London, we got away. But they followed us when we took the coach for Bristol. The fear—the running—destroyed my mother’s health and sanity.”
“What became of the men?”
“There’s no need to go into that.”
Alicia looked at him, unblinking. “Did you kill them, Phillipe?”
“Let’s just say we managed to escape them.”
“I heard nothing of any such schemes after the household men lost you that night in Tonbridge.”
“I’m sure it’s something Roger preferred to keep to himself. I wouldn’t doubt Lady Jane knew about it, though. I think she was the one who feared me the most.”
“Feared? Perhaps. But she never hated you a tenth as much as Roger did after you ruined his hand.”
Philip shrugged: “As you said yourself—why dwell on grim things? It’s over. What happened to Roger was the natural consequence of his own desire for revenge. His fault, not mine.”
“Ah, you’ve turned hard,” she breathed. “The marks on you aren’t only on the surface. Well, I have some of both kinds myself, my dear.”
Looking past her, Philip saw that the team had borne them to the riverfront. Warehouses loomed. From the other window, he saw the lights of trading vessels riding at anchor. The tang of the ocean drifted into the coach on the warm April wind.
They sat a few moments in silence. With his leg touching hers, Philip felt the familiar reaction stirring him. He wanted to hold her again. But he made no move.
An open tavern doorway lit her blue eyes briefly. He wasn’t sure what he saw in that gaze. Love? Or speculation—an attempt to judge him? For some reason, he was disturbed.
Then he recalled that Alicia Parkhurst was nothing if not deliberate. She had proved that in England, by her decision to remain with Roger even when she professed that she loved only him— A first stir of suspicion came. He asked:
“Can these coachmen of yours be trusted?”
“I would hope so! Else I’ve squandered several expensive bribes. But I want to hear more about Boston. Have you really become involved with those treasonous people?”
“Wouldn’t you suspect that, from what happened to Roger?”
“Yes.”
“There’s your answer.”
“But where do your sentiments lie?” She squeezed his hand. “Not that it’s of any great importance, you understand. It’s just that so much time has gone by, I can’t help wanting to know everything. How have you lived? Have you taken up a trade?”
“I learned a little about printing in London. The experience got me a job in Boston. I worked for a man who publishes a newspaper that—well, is not exactly popular with your General Gage.”
“The military governor?”
Philip nodded.
“He’s not my General Gage! I got fairly sick of Roger’s ranting letters. All about the necessity to punish the partisans of the so-called liberty movement—”
“I’d expect that of Lady Jane’s son,” Philip observed.
“Well, I’ve no conc
ern for politics—or the past. There will have to be the necessary observance of mourning in England. But when that’s done—” She leaned near, a strand of her tawny hair loosening and falling against his skin. “—I can be with you. That’s how it should have been after we first met. You remember I thought of it—”
“Of course I remember. But as you said a moment ago—you hadn’t the strength.”
“Time changes people—”
Stiffening abruptly, she sat back.
“Phillipe, what’s wrong?”
The swaying of the coach over the riverfront cobbles filled him with a momentary dizziness, a gut nausea he couldn’t control.
“Phillipe—tell me!”
“There is something damnably wicked in all this, Alicia.”
“Wicked? Why?”
“Because I killed your husband!”
“And I told you it doesn’t matter! Of all people, why would you be guilt-stricken? You told me how many times he struck at you. More than I ever heard of, certainly—”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“All right, what is it? Did you attack him by surprise? Waylay him?”
“No. We met by accident.”
“Then forget him. He’s gone! He can no longer hurt you—or claim me. I was a sham wife to him anyway.”
“In what sense?”
“The most important one. I took lovers. And every one was you. I’d close my eyes and see your face—always yours. Now that I’ve found you again, I won’t let you go.”
“Not unless I’m apprehended,” he said with a humorless smile.
“No one here knows who killed Roger! He repeated your name only to me, I’m positive of that. So there’s no danger. Provided you weren’t detected in Boston—”
“I don’t think so.”
“So the secret will be buried with him. We’re free!”
“Alicia—”
Again he stopped. Shook his head.
“Speak what’s really on your mind, Phillipe. I don’t believe it’s Roger.”
With those words, he caught a new, harder note in her voice. A lantern over the front of a chandler’s store highlighted tiny pits in her cheek. His earlier judgment hadn’t been wrong. Young as she was, her face was already showing the ravages of the pastes and ointments that had to be worn by ladies of fashion, no matter what the cost. For a moment, her blue eyes looked like agate—
Or so he imagined, as the coach rolled by the chandler’s into a gloomier section.
All at once she clapped her black gloves together.
“Dear Lord, I forgot the most obvious question—which in turn gives me the answer.” Her smile was the kind of coquetry at which she was so skilled. “You’ve wed some other woman!”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Very well—promised yourself. Who is she? Some coarse little merchant’s daughter?”
Her mockery angered him. His mouth set. “Anything of that nature, Alicia, has no part in this talk. You say Roger’s death can be forgotten. But there’s no way of overlooking this. I’m still what I’ve always been. A commoner. Whatever—” Sarcasm crept in. “—presumptions I may have had at Kentland are gone. I’ve been forced to make my way without a title, or wealth, and I’ve done it. Not handsomely. But I haven’t starved. Suppose we do feel about each other as we did in England. That doesn’t change my circumstances—or my prospects.”
“Nothing but excuses!” Alicia breathed, caressing his face with her lips. “I know the truth—you’re involved with another woman.”
“Alicia, listen—!”
“Do you think I can’t make you forget her? I love you, Phillipe Charboneau. I’ll love you as Philip Kent, if that’s what you want. But I am going to do what I should have done long ago, and that’s love you completely—”
Soft and moist, her mouth pressed his face while her gloved hand stroked the back of his neck. He felt the heat of her now. And strangely, he was both excited and appalled.
“I plan to marry you, Phillipe,” she whispered. “I’ll make you forget any other woman. Every day—and every night—”
Her gloved hand was on his hip, questing. He was aroused.
“—for the rest of our lives.”
Alicia’s mouth found his, open, hungry. The hand in the glove reached between his legs and closed, holding hard.
Abruptly, he abandoned his hesitation. Reached beneath her cape to feel the warmth and fullness of her breast. She began to moan and twist a little on the seat of the coach, the glove opening and closing, making his arousal almost unbearable.
He had an impulse to take her here, in the coach, with the bribed men riding above. Who gave a damn if they smirked at the sounds they heard in the windy April night? Wealth could buy anything. Their silence, conspiracy to defraud him of the inheritance that was his; murder—
She felt him go limp. She lifted her hand away. He heard rather than saw her rage.
“So it’s not the same after all. You’ve forgotten your own promises back in England.”
“Alicia—” He caught her hands again, feeling the tension in her fingers. “When you touch me like that, it’s as if nothing’s changed. No years have gone by. But I’m still not a rich man like Roger! I have no tide, no money to speak of—”
“Surely you have ambitions!”
“Of course. But this plagued war they keep talking about may well ruin them all. Even if it doesn’t, there’s no way on God’s earth I could ever match the wealth you were born to—no way I could buy you the kinds of things you grew up with—and that you take for granted. After six months of a marriage like that, I doubt you’d say any of the things you’ve said tonight.”
She tried teasing him: “Are you so afraid to put me to that test?”
“Alicia, in Boston I lived in a cellar room. A small, grubby cellar room—with one candle for light! That’s what you’d have living in America, at least for a few years—”
“You’re not thinking clearly, Phillipe. What’s to keep us from going back to England? I must take Roger there—surely we can find a ship before the trouble breaks out—”
“And what would your family think of that? I can just see them when you walk in with a printer’s devil with one good broadcloth suit to his name.”
“I don’t care what they think, Phillipe! That’s what I keep trying to make you understand!”
“But I care. Because eventually, the poverty would destroy everything between us. Suppose I were to become a reasonably successful printer. That would still be meaningless compared to the station of the men who’ve surrounded you all your life.”
She dismissed him with a wave. But her strained smile was clearly visible against other lamps passing outside the oblong of the window.
“England’s changing,” she said. “My father detests the idea—refuses to admit it’s happening—but it is. It’s the mercantile class that’s coming to power, because they control more and more of the money. Marriages between prosperous businessmen and daughters of peers are becoming commonplace—oh, you don’t seem to see it at all! We needn’t go to England! I’ll bury Roger and come back to you here. Nothing is of any importance save one fact—I love you!”
She threw her arms around his neck, kissed him—and he felt himself begin to surrender, his arguments melted by the warmth of her body, the touch of her hands and her hungry mouth. He forgot his suspicion that somewhere, somewhere in this patchwork-puzzle of frenzied emotion, there was an explanation she had not made clear. He forgot—and kissed her again, with passion, while the coach creaked on through the dim Philadelphia streets.
When they separated, she dabbed her eyes. Her laugh sounded both gay and sad.
“How amused they’d be at home. Parkhurst’s daughter weeping like some ribbon girl over her swain. I could almost hate you for that, Phillipe—if I didn’t love you so much.”
Another long, deep kiss. Then, tear-traces gone, she said:
“I do see there’s still a battle to be fought.”
“With me?”
“Yes! To batter through all those defenses you’ve raised. Well, I warn you, Phillipe, you’ll find me a fierce combatant. Because you and I are going to be husband and wife.”
Her directness left him startled and silent. She reached up, rapped the roof twice. The coach began to pick up speed, the heavy iron tires clanking noisily over the bricks.
“However, there are a few proprieties to be observed,” she told him. “Can you stay in Philadelphia a few days?”
He came close to saying no. There remained some element that troubled him deeply—and eluded his understanding. Was it Anne? Or feeling like a kept creature at the City Tavern? Damned if he knew—
She touched him. “Phillipe?”
“Yes,” he said, “I can stay.”
“I’ll come to your rooms next time. I can’t do it immediately. But I’m sure it can be arranged before too long. Since the burial services must be held in England, I can move about the city making arrangements to transport the body. Aunt Sue’s husband feels a new widow should remain indoors, grieving. I shall convince him he’s wrong. At least in my case.”
She sounds supremely confident, he thought, marveling. It reminded him of the first day he saw her, fresh from the sunshine at Kentland, accompanying the man she was to marry and he was to kill. In his mind he’d called her an elegant whore. A woman who manipulated men to her own ends—
Her remark of a moment ago showed she hadn’t entirely changed.
Why, knowing that, had he agreed to stay? He couldn’t fully explain it. She had a power to weave spells—wake emotions—that overcame all reason—
She was whispering again:
“I want to be alone with you, Phillipe. I want us to be alone the way we were before. There are years to be wiped out. And more things I want to ask about you than I can begin to think of now.”
Her blue eyes picked up the gleam from the leaded windows of the City Tavern. The coach swung past the front of the building, on the way to the alley. She laid a gloved palm on his cheek.
“I’ll marry you, Phillipe Charboneau, and God damn what any of the rest of them say.”
She brought her face close. The moist tip of her tongue crept into his mouth for one last caress. The coach stopped, swaying. He heard the tall servant grumble something to the driver. Boots crunched on the ground. The door was levered open.