by Edith Layton
But the most amazing thing was that no matter how hot the food he ate or how tight his new shoes or how often he secretly pinched his own arm, nothing woke him from this dream. This must be real, he thought in a daze of happiness. He doubted it only because it was so much more glorious than his dream had been.
There were flaws in the realization of the dream, of course, if only because it was no longer a dream, but only one flaw he could think of right now: Fiona was his brother’s fiancée. Yet tonight, the way she laughed with him and hung on his arm and smiled at him as she introduced him proudly around the room, even that relationship seemed flexible, as capable of change as anything else in a dream would be. And yet this was reality. No, it was better than reality—it was happiness. He hadn’t known much of it in his life. He’d never guessed how good this would feel; there was more to it than he could have imagined, because there were more triumphs in life than a poor abused boy could have known about and included in his dreams of glory.
For example, Jared thought with pleasure, Dr. Franklin, the most famous man in the Colonies, stood only steps away, with his son, holding court. Jared knew both of them from home—from the place he’d been exiled to and had come to think of as home, he corrected himself. Jared straddled both worlds. He knew the unofficial guest of honor and he was meeting the finest gentlemen and fairest ladies in Mrs. Comely’s elegant assembly rooms, the most fashionable place to be in all of London at the moment. And all of them were waiting breathlessly for his every word, hoping for a clever saying they could repeat the next day, as if he were the celebrated Benjamin Franklin himself.
The gentleman from Philadelphia had been the rage in London for three years, ever since he’d come here on some mission from the Colonies and stayed on. But the new earl of Alveston was the latest rage. Jared was interested by the first fact, but was overwhelmed by the other. All he wanted to do now was to share the joy of it.
“They’ve turned Poor Richard’s head,” he whispered to Fiona from where they stood watching Alfred chatting with Dr. Franklin, waiting for a chance to introduce the ladies to him. “Which is a pity for us—for everyone in the Colonies. They say he’s looking for a permanent home here. He finds more birds of a feather in London than at ho—than in Philadelphia—” To Della, he said, “So I’m a little confused—stop giggling at me. Go—Alfred’s beckoning to you; time to make your curtsy, Mistress Torment.”
“You, too. Come with me,” she whispered back, tugging his hand. “Or do you think he won’t want to talk to you now that you’re not a colonial anymore?” She teased him, knowing everyone in London was dying to talk to the newfound earl. Dr. Franklin himself hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Jared since they’d come in.
Jared’s story was popular knowledge now; the news had spread like wildfire. It was a staggering story, romantic as it was exciting, and everyone in Jared’s party was being stared at and whispered about—Jared and Justin especially. Everyone wanted a look at the fellow who’d come out of nowhere to replace his brother. And everyone else wanted to see his brother’s reaction. They seemed to think it was astonishing that Justin accepted Jared so well. Della heard one man whisper to another, “Giving up an earldom, after all, to a fellow who just walked in and said, `Howdja do’?”
In the few days they’d been in London, the table in the hall of their townhouse had been flooded with invitations, and Justin was set on Jared’s accepting every one of them. And Jared tried to, making sure that Della came along with him wherever women were included.
Now Della grinned up at Jared, took his arm, and went to meet her father’s famous friend. Justin and Fiona followed. They went everywhere Jared went. But Della felt better about herself tonight, in every way, than she had at her first party. Only a week had passed since then, but many things had changed. Now, a new low-necked, dark-red gown flattered her, and she’d gotten used to the foolish notion of powdered hair—had even begun to like it a little for fancy occasions, if the truth was told, because it made her seem so sophisticated. Justin had become an amusing friend, and she needed one. And best of all, he was keeping Fiona close by his side tonight.
Della felt like an actress on a bright stage as she stepped beneath a glittering chandelier filled with flaring candles, all the guests ringed around them. She and Jared joined her father, but Fiona stood behind them in a circle outside their own bright one, with her fiancée, where she belonged.
Della knew it was mean-spirited of her to be pleased with that, but knowing it didn’t change it. Tonight she could be truly happy for Jared; there was nothing to mar her pleasure at seeing his joy at taking his place in the world to which he belonged. He tried to act as though it were something he was doing for Justin’s sake. But she knew him better. He radiated happiness. It showed in his easy smile, his posture, the way he moved. She rejoiced for him. Tonight she didn’t have to share him with anyone, just everyone. That was easy.
She made a low curtsy and looked up into Dr. Franklin’s eyes, which were twinkling with interest behind his spectacles. He was a stockily built middle-aged man with a kind face. He was dressed in the height of fashion, with rings on his fingers and silver buckles on his shoes. His mouth was narrow, his cheeks round, his chin double, and his eyes alive with humor. He smiled at her; she grinned at him. And then by mutual silent consent, they played the game. Colonials were considered interesting specimens, so the two of them had to prove they were more than that.
“My dear, how lovely you look,” Dr. Franklin said as he took her hand and raised her up. “Here is my son; William, what do you think of this little beauty? You were too slow, my boy, not finding her in Virginia, whilst you had a chance. Now you must fight all the English gentlemen for so much as a minute of her time. Alfred, she’s grown to be a beauty! How are you, my old friend? And how do the two of you do here in wicked London town?”
Della smiled; she knew every comment and question was for the benefit of his audience. Benjamin Franklin was many things, and the most famous man in the Colonies, but he was a diplomat first and a celebrity foremost. She answered sweetly and was careful to say everything in a low soft voice, with perfect diction. She too would try to show these English how cultured a colonial could be.
“So,” Dr. Franklin said, looking beyond her, “the fellow I knew as the most clever tobacco and sugar trader in all the Colonies now appears to be the luckiest one, too. Do I behold my friend Master Jared Bellington of Virginia—who is also the famous earl of Alveston, restored to his homeland at last?”
Jared smiled and opened his mouth to answer, but another voice spoke first, from a dim recess of the room. “So he says, at least.”
The room fell still. All chatter from those who hadn’t heard the statement stopped as they were told of the words that had just been uttered. Jared froze. Then he spun around, his head to the side, listening to something no one else had heard. His eyes narrowed, and Della noticed that he was suddenly sickly white beneath his tan and that a fine dew of moisture appeared on his upper lip.
“Now, I’m from Virginia, too,” the voice drawled, “and I have a different tale to tell. Indeed, I do. The earl here and I, we know each other well. Oh, very well, indeed. That’s my boy, you see.”
Several in the company gasped, and Jared bared his teeth in something like a snarl. His hand went to his side, but he wore no sword tonight, so his hand curled into a white-knuckled fist instead. His eyes were narrowed, glittering, searching the crowd for the man who had spoken.
Jared drew in a breath when he saw the man at last. “Yes. So I thought. Tonight’s my lucky night. I’ll kill you,” he said conversationally as he strode toward him. “Now that I can, I will.”
“Yes, of course; fancied you would say that,” the man drawled insolently, with an arrogant smile on his thick lips. He was a big man, tall and broad and beefy, and his eyes were reddened, with pouches under them. He was a man who clearly loved the bottle and the serving board. While there was something coarse about him, he wore g
ood clothes and had a heavy, opulent, gold-headed walking stick in his thick hand. He gripped the stick tightly and stood his ground as Jared neared him. But when Jared got close, the man saw his eyes and broke and ran to the door, pushing astonished guests out of his way.
“Yes, I will certainly kill you, but not quickly,” Jared snarled.
He reached the fellow in three long strides, grabbed him by his shoulder, spun him around, and hit him hard in the face. The man’s head snapped back and he staggered, but he didn’t fall, though he’d taken a heavy blow. He took another, and another, as Jared’s fist crashed into his face again and again. Then everyone saw that the only reason he didn’t fall was because Jared was holding him up with one hand as he kept smashing the man with his other hand, which was knotted into a fist.
Women screamed, and men murmured, and some shouted for Jared to stop. But it was Justin who thrust through the crowd and caught Jared’s arm and forcibly held it back. When Jared swung around with a growl to see who was holding him, he let go of his prey and the man dropped like a stone to the floor at his feet. Justin grappled with Jared but managed to hold him fast, for although he struggled, Jared didn’t seem willing to hit his brother. Then Justin shouted for help. Strong as he was, he realized it would take three men to hold his brother—or this crazed man who resembled his brother—who was fighting like a mad creature to be free so he could kill the one who’d challenged him.
The guests gaped, watching avidly and with open mouths. It was Della who finally stopped it all. She picked up her heavy skirt and raced through the room, elbowing people aside, shoving them out of her way, pushing at chests and stomachs, stepping on toes, clearing a path for herself. She stopped only when she was in front of Jared. Then she cried, “Jared! Stop—stop it!”
And he did—instantly. He paused, panting, his hair disheveled, his knuckles covered with blood, the wildness dying in his crystalline eyes. It was replaced with a look of pain and fury and something too deep and lost for her to understand, but even through it, he saw her.
“It’s him,” he told her in a strangled voice. “Brown.” Della’s hand flew to her mouth.
Jared looked at Justin. “Let me kill him,” he said, and it was a plea.
“But everyone will think it’s because of what he said,” Justin said hurriedly in a low voice, turning so that he put himself in front of his brother, trying to shield him from all the curious eyes. “Think it over. Rest awhile and take it slowly. You don’t want everyone to believe what he said, do you?”
“Why not?” Jared said, anguished. “It’s true.”
Many in the crowd gasped, then shuffled their feet and muttered to one other.
“I was his boy,” Jared said with a mixture of shame and hate, clenching and unclenching his fists with the force of his inner agony. “He was my master. That master.”
Justin grew very still. “Oh,” he said, understanding more than had been said. “No, brother,” he said, looking down at the man at his feet as he began to dare to try to crawl away. “No. I can’t let you kill him. Let me.”
*
They got the man into the library. Once there, they promptly threw out as many onlookers as they could and closed the doors so they could have privacy with him. Jared hovered over the man where he sat crumpled in a chair. Justin stood by Jared to watch over him so his passion wouldn’t get out of hand again.
“Steady, steady, brother,” he told Jared in a low, urgent voice, “we don’t want to kill the bastard just yet, only question him. Punishment will come later, I promise.”
Alfred had been allowed to stay, because he was family; Della, because they couldn’t remove her with hot pliers, as she said. The uncles stayed, along with Dr. Franklin, because he was so fascinated nothing on earth could keep him away—and his son remained with him. Four English noblemen were there, too—one because he was a magistrate, the others because they were too influential to remove. Fiona had been too terrified to move. When at last she did, her father stopped her and stepped forward himself. But by the time he got to the doors, they were firmly locked.
The man Jared had called Brown sat in the chair they had thrown him into, holding a hastily obtained towel to his bleeding mouth. But his eyes were now bright and rat yellow, filled with fury along with pain. And they were fixed on Jared.
“So, now you know how good it feels, too, don’t you? Boy,” the man spat at Jared.
“Mind your manners, fellow,” the magistrate said harshly. “You are addressing an earl of the realm.”
“Oh, to be sure,” Brown mumbled through his broken mouth. “I was only congratulating his lordship for finally discovering the pleasure of dealing out what he used to receive.”
Jared’s face went white, but his mouth curled in disgust. “I made a mistake,” he told the man fiercely. “I should have killed you straight out. I’d forgotten why it was I hated you more than anyone on earth.”
“Forgotten?” the man asked with a chuckle. “Why, lad, I had hoped you’d never forget me. I certainly haven’t forgotten you; you provided some of my only happy moments in that God-rotted place,” he added with a leer.
Della shuddered at the expression on the man’s face, and looking at Jared, she swore she could feel the tremor that passed through him, too. His hands had closed to fists again, not to strike Brown, but to conceal their fine trembling at the sound of Brown’s voice and the secretive smile the man gave him, as though they shared something.
Now Jared remembered what had been worse than the pain of the beatings. He remembered what still happened in his most awful nightmares, the thing some kindly portion of his brain made him forget each morning. Now, as Brown’s voice met his ears again, he remembered the man’s sawing breaths, his growing excitement, the ultimate pleasure he gave voice to whenever the pain in Jared’s back had become too much for Jared to bear—when the boy Jared had been finally broken and sobbed or cried out at last, and in that way gave his tormentor his own release.
It was why Jared had endured so much, why he had so many scars. Each time that moment came—when the whip fell to the floor and not on his back, when he heard his persecutor suddenly cry out in wild mingled pain and pleasure, he hated himself for causing that cry as much as he hated the man who had had the legal right to call himself Jared’s master. Jared had been too young to fully understand the meaning of that cry, but had known on some level, even then, that it was a shameful thing, and that he was in some way party to it.
Thus, whenever he was beaten, Jared had always tried to suppress his outcries out of shame. And so he suffered more, and provided more pleasure by doing so. It was a wonder, he thought now, that he had ever lived to be sold to someone else.
Brown and he had never touched, except through the lash. Although Jared had felt nothing more than blessed surcease from pain when the beating ended, he’d known something very wrong had happened. Even more than that, he knew that he’d given a man he hated something that man wanted, something that still made him feel filthy.
“The man took his pleasure through beating others,” he said wearily now, because there was no hope of hiding it all with Brown here, and because bad as it was, he didn’t want Justin to think it was worse. “I’d forgotten how he enjoys it—or else I’d never have beaten him.”
“But I don’t like being beaten myself,” Brown said slyly. “I quite understand your lack of enthusiasm now, my lord.”
“Be quiet!” the magistrate shouted. “Oh, I will hang him high, my lord, given half a chance.”
“I was seven,” Jared said abruptly. “I’d never have been eight unless he sold my papers to Higgins, the man Alfred bought me from. Brown knew he’d have some trouble with the law if I died. I think I was coming close to it. He’d have had to pay more than he had to cover it up. Bond-boys are cheap, as you know, doctor,” he told Dr. Franklin, who had made a strangled sound, “but not free, in any sense.”
Dr. Franklin looked down at his silver-buckled shoes. He had begun his caree
r as a shopkeeper as well as a printer, and it was well known that he had once traded in indentures, buying and selling papers of unfortunate people who still had time to go in their terms of servitude.
“We have much land to be worked at home, industry to be built and run,” Dr. Franklin said quickly. “We need helping hands, as many as we can get. But bond-servants are not slaves. They gain their freedom in time, by dint of work and by way of payment for it. Most come from far worse circumstances and most are not treated ill. Many prosper. They are given a nice bit of money to start out in life when they leave their servitude. Many get even more. Why, I’ve a friend at home whose mother was such a servant. She married a rich man when she had worked out her bond. There are many such.”
Jared said nothing, but his lip curled. He knew many women who were not so lucky.
Dr. Franklin saw his expression and went on hastily. “Peter Williamson, from Philadelphia, was just such a fellow—you know who I mean,” he told his son. “He wrote that book about it, too. He prospered in time, but first he was kidnapped and sold into bonded service—why, he’s even now in Scotland, seeking a way to sue the very shipowners who carried him to Philadelphia when he was a lad. Some servants have a hard row to hoe, to be sure, indentured or not. But no man—no sane man,” he said with a glowering look at Brown, “holds with the beating of children.”
“Maybe not,” Jared said with a shrug, “but the law does, so long as they aren’t killed outright.”
“Not economical,” Brown said smugly.
Dr. Franklin turned to scowl at him. “What were you doing here tonight?” he demanded, glad to change the subject, one he felt uncomfortable discussing among his English friends. The practice of buying indentures had gotten its start in England, but it wasn’t common there now. England didn’t need workers as badly as the Colonies did. Pennsylvania still had many bonded servants, but it wasn’t something on which a man sent to England to promote the progress and plenty in his homeland wanted to dwell.