Treasure

by W. A. Hoffman

  “We should help her escape,” he said seriously.

  “Oui, that I am willing to do. I will not attempt to rescue her by marrying her again, though.”

  He sighed and smiled wryly. “Non, because your matelot is mad.”

  I grinned. “Non, because I love my matelot. Now let us see our room and make use of this lovely tub.” I went to the stable and retrieved our things.

  He did not follow me. When I returned he was standing where I had left him. I handed him his weapons and bag.

  “Will you marry Agnes?” he asked quietly.

  I shrugged. “If it is your wish, after we decide what to do about the Damn Wife. And I do not know what to do about that.”

  “You must either have it annulled or get a divorce,” he said, not as if I were a fool, but as if he were curious that there could be another outcome.

  “And then what do we do with her and the babe?” I asked without rancor. “At this moment, I feel I will be very lucky if she dies giving birth.”

  “The Gods should make it so easy,” he snapped, but his ire was not directed at me.

  “Not that I wish that on her or the child,” I sighed. “In truth, I find I feel some sympathy for her.”

  “Go and speak to her. I am sure she will dispel it,” he said.

  I smirked as I thought of my prior encounters with the woman. “That is true.”

  He shook his head in apology. “I would not wish it on the child, either.”

  “I suppose we should see her today.”

  Gaston was incredulous. “We? That will not please her.”

  “We need not please her now,” I scoffed and walked to the stairs. “And I would have her know I make no decision without you. If she wants to continue to have dealings with me, she will also deal with you.”

  I heard snoring when I reached the top of the stairs. I was minded that open windows and walls that provide ample access to the breeze also provide ample access to sound. We would not have as much privacy as I desired, though it would be more than we would have while roving. Thankfully, few here spoke French except for Sarah and Rucker, and she lived on the other side of the house and he at the front; so essentially, we could discuss anything we wanted as long as we did not raise our voices.

  And then I realized who was snoring in the room we were passing: the Marquis. I stopped, and found Gaston had not been so self-absorbed. He stood at the top of the stairs, regarding the guest room’s louvered doors with trepidation. I wished to say something amusing and light, but I knew Gaston would be alarmed if I spoke at all. Instead, I motioned for him to follow. He did with careful quiet steps, as if he were tiptoeing past a sleeping monster. I did not tease him on the matter as we finished walking to our door.

  It occurred to me that I have never heard my father snore. For that matter, I had never seen him take a piss. The only things of a bodily nature I had ever witnessed of him were eating, drinking, and smoking.

  I opened the wide double doors to our room, and we stood like curious cats in the doorway, letting our eyes wander while our feet remained still. Our room, being on the end of this wing, was a large white-washed square blessed with two windows in addition to the louvered doors that opened onto the balcony. It was dominated by a large, ornately-worked, iron, posted and canopied bed set in the center of the floor. Instead of being hung with curtains to keep the heat in, as it would have been anywhere else in the world, the bed was hung all about with gauzy pieces of netting to keep the insects out. With its white linens and white netting wafting in the breeze from the two windows, it appeared like a cloud captured in a cage of black filigree.

  I found amusement in the fact that it had been situated in the middle of the floor and not up against the interior wall; because, of course, that wall was shared with another room. Placing the bed away from a wall would serve to minimize any sound the bed might make when being used for something other than slumber. I wondered who had thought of that: my sister or the wolves.

  My trunks from the old house, a tall chest of drawers, two small tables set near the bed, and two chairs completed the furnishings. They were all painted white, except for my trunks, and with the pale wood floor and ceiling, the room reminded me unpleasantly of the white rooms we had occupied at Theodore’s and Doucette’s. I ever felt dirty and unsuitable in comparison to them.

  Gaston regarded it all, seemingly as I did, with a degree of dismay.

  “I wish to paint the walls another color,” I said. “Or perhaps dye the bed linens.”

  “Oui,” he said tightly. “The netting is an excellent thing, but it is… disturbing.”

  I sat my things upon a trunk, and conscious of the footprints I left on the scrubbed floor, made my way to the bed. The mattress was of down, and I thought of the joy of sinking into it until I remembered the heat. Why could one not suspend a hammock from such a frame? The mattress was of a fine height, though, being just below my hips. I found more amusement in that as I thrust against it vigorously several times. It did not squeak. I took hold of a post and shook the canopy. It was all quite solid.

  I grinned at Gaston and found him flushing and looking at the floor.

  “Do you think of anything but trysting?” he hissed.

  “Non,” I teased. “And you, truly, what did you think of just now?”

  He shook his head with annoyance but at last whispered, “That I could bind you to it,” as if the admission pained him greatly.

  My cock stirred at the thought and I regarded the bed in a new light. “Oh, oui. It offers many possibilities.” Then I looked back at him with concern. “What is wrong?”

  He pointed in a commanding fashion, with his entire arm, toward the room with the snoring occupant, and regarded me as if I were daft.

  I sighed. I had encountered this before with a young lover I had in Vienna. He had invited me to his family’s estate for a fortnight, and I had gone, happy to be free of the city and expecting many lovely nights of trysting. The man’s parents had been in residence, though, and he had refused to engage in any activity while sharing a roof with them. And that man had gotten along quite well with his parents.

  Once more I bit my tongue to stop the light-hearted things I could say, such as observations about the need to keep me very quiet. We did not know how long his father would be about, and Gaston could not know how his feelings on the matter might progress. There was simply no point in arguing.

  “Let us bathe,” I said, and began to rummage through our things for a clean pair of breeches and a tunic.

  “Do you have anything I can wear?” he asked. “Not like… Proper clothes.”

  I found almost as much dismay in that as in his concern over trysting – almost.

  “My love,” I said gently. “I have shirts and proper breeches, and I believe you have those soft leather boots, and I have my less than comfortable ones, but if you insist that we take to wearing wigs and coats or removing our earrings, I shall smack you.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it and awarded me a rueful smile.

  The snoring stopped. We stood tense, our breath held, but the sound did not resume before I was forced to breath. Gaston hurriedly closed the door.

  “Well,” I said lightly but quietly, “if we wish to bathe and dress before seeing him, I suppose we can climb out.” I looked out the window in the end wall: we could indeed climb onto the cistern and down. “And I believe we could return the same way,” I noted with delight. “It will make it easier to sneak away if we have the need.”

  “I will not be fucking you on the Palisadoes when we have this fine bed,” he hissed with the Horse’s anger. He immediately shook his head and cursed silently. “I am sorry. I am…” He sighed bitterly.

  “Running amuck,” I whispered. “Oui, he has you spooked. But, my love, it is… to be expected, at least by me. I understand. And we have the cart of our love, and it is sturdy and can be dragged almost anywhere, and I am lashed in the traces to it and you, not to anything else
we must strain against. I am with you. I will go wherever you go.”

  “Until I kick your legs out from under you again,” he said with guilt.

  I smiled and embraced him. “And then we will fall together and yet we will still have the cart. Our love will not roll away if we are both lying on the ground holding it still. We have proven that.”

  He relaxed in my arms. “Do you think me the fool for wishing to please him?”

  “If I had not once sought to please my father, we would not have met.”

  He nodded, but he was deep in thought as I gathered the clothing he wished for us to wear and dropped it out the window. He followed me out the window and we made quick and easy work of dropping to the ground.

  “WePut ALadderUp,” Pete said from the stable’s door.

  I chuckled. “Then let us do the same on this side.”

  Striker poked his head around the flower trellis. “There are Frenchies out front, and militia men watching them. The French arrived last night. One of them demanded to see the Marquis.”

  “And?” I asked.

  Striker shrugged. “I told him his Lord was fine and would be spending the night as our honored guest, and then I put a pistol in his face and told him to piss off.”

  “Tall man with sharp features, very arrogant manner?” I asked.

  “ThatBeTheOne,” Pete said.

  I sighed and eyed the Marquis’ door. The snoring had still not resumed. Resigned, I marched upstairs.

  There was no response to my polite knocking, so I pounded on the door frame and called out. “Lord Tervent! Tervent! It is Marsdale. Are you well?”

  I at last heard movement and soon the door opened. He greeted me with bleary eyes and no wig. What remained of his short cropped hair was white, and I noted it had the same tendency as his son’s to stand on end. I was more interested that he was not completely bald, however; perhaps Gaston would keep his hair well into his middle years.

  “The sun is well risen,” I said pleasantly. “You should drink the water, there. It is clean.” I gestured at the onion bottles Sam had left inside the door. “I believe we have bacon and eggs to break the fast. Vittese is across the street. There are men from the militia watching him. Should we tell them anything?”

  He looked slowly from me to the sky and then down at the bottles and sighed. “That I should not drink rum.”

  I smiled. “I do not believe that will assure him as to your well-being.”

  He snorted. “Have him… Bring my translator, Dupree, in, please. He can relay messages to Vittese. Dupree is unctuous, but at least… Well, let us say I have little good to say to Vittese this morning. And I will gladly accept your kind offer of food.”

  “All right, then,” I said.

  Pete joined me at the bottom of the stairs and followed me to the door. I was pleased in this, as I was not armed and Pete was. Vittese was halfway across the street when I opened the door. Apparently he had begun to move from the shady place his men occupied at the sound of our removing the bar. At the sight of me he stopped.

  “Your Lord has risen,” I said with my best wolf’s tone of command, “along with the rest of our household. He wishes to see his translator, Dupree, and no one else.”

  Vittese eyed Pete, who leaned on the doorjamb, a pistol held loosely at his side, and then the men of the militia who had moved closer as he approached the house. I could see him cursing but heard none of it. He turned smartly and went to the shaded alley across the street. Dupree scurried from the shadows a moment later. The poor courtier appeared quite disheveled, and I wondered if Vittese had forced him remain in the alley all night.

  “Good morning, Monsieur Dupree,” I said pleasantly as he approached.

  “Good morning, my Lord,” he said, with apparent relief that I should smile upon him.

  I ushered him through the door and Pete closed it firmly behind us. I told Dupree where to find the Marquis and then I went to find Gaston.

  He was in the bathing room, filling the tub. There were already hot coals in the tray beneath it, and I supposed Sam had anticipated our need and lit the brazier some time ago.

  “How is he?” Gaston asked quickly.

  “Rum-bleary, but awake.” I quickly relayed all his father had said.

  “I am pleased he is angry with Vittese,” Gaston said thoughtfully as he doffed his clothes.

  I was, too; I felt the man was far too arrogant for his own good. But I also felt some pity for him: he was doing his job, and I remembered the Marquis’ words on the dock.

  “Your father, when we spoke outside the gaol,” I said carefully, “said that we owe Vittese your life: that he would have beaten you to death that night, but Vittese suggested the whip, and later, Vittese suggested you be exiled rather than sent to an asylum.”

  Gaston stirred the water in the tub with a thoughtful mien. I watched the glide of muscle beneath the deep scars on his back. I could understand his father’s anger on that night, and perhaps even before, especially when it was housed in a body and soul that were perhaps as volatile as my matelot’s. I thought Gaston had not inherited madness from his mother alone. Yet, it still filled me with sorrow and rage to look upon him and know the whole of it could have been avoided.

  “I do not feel Vittese ever did anything for me out of kindness,” Gaston said softly.

  “Non, I suppose not,” I sighed and gazed upon the matter through the glass of wolfish cynicism. “He was probably doing much to mitigate the situation his Lord found himself in. Your sister was expected to die. Your death would have had to be explained in some fashion, though. But, of course, many already believed you mad, so saying you took your own life would probably have sufficed. And as for sending you here. Well, if you were in an asylum in France, your father’s enemies could have located you. So, non, it was not for you most probably, but for your father. Still, a deed in your favor is a deed in your favor.”

  Gaston nodded. He turned to face me, and unbidden, my fingers traced the ragged scar across his chest that I had made, as they often did. I do not know why I was so compelled to touch it.

  “I forgive you,” he whispered. “Because I did much to earn this, and I forgive my father, because I did much to earn his wrath that night, though… I know not how I feel about the rest of what he said last night. But Vittese I do not forgive.”

  I shrugged. “Good, I do not wish to defend him. I hope your father lets him sleep in the street for the rest of his stay here.”

  I let my hand trace over the rest of his scarred chest, and brush lightly over his unscarred nipple. He grabbed my hand and held it fast.

  “Do not,” he whispered, his gaze beseeching. “Promise me you will not attempt to arouse me this day.”

  I sighed and nodded. “I will not. Yet… I would say that it is for your benefit: we have not followed our morning regimen and trysting often calms you when you are troubled. But that would be disingenuous. I actually seek reassurance. I am concerned that we will not do anything until your father leaves, and that troubles me, as it stirs my ghosts to life. I am sorry.”

  He smiled sadly. “I do not know if I can, and you know it is not you.”

  “Oui, I know. It is him, and that minds me of my father and then…” I sighed. I knew I surely could not tell him of his father’s feelings about sodomites now.

  He sighed and frowned. “I feel… I tell myself that he begged my forgiveness; that he gave the answers I have ever wondered at; that all is well; that… I am not evil; that his hatred of me had cause, the cause of his own angry heart; and that was caused by my mother’s madness; and that there is cause for all of the evil done to me, and it is not me; but I do not feel any different, Will.”

  I caressed his cheek with the hand he did not hold. “How do you feel?”

  He shook his head. “I do not know. Sad. Angry. Hurt. I wish for something, but I cannot name it. Proof of his sincerity, perhaps, or absolution. Something. Some end to it all, because I do not feel it is finished and done with
and laid to rest.”

  “Then let us keep him here until you receive it,” I said softly.

  “Non,” he said sadly. “I do not know if it is a thing he can give.”

  I nodded solemnly. “I understand, truly.”

  “I know.” He smiled with resignation and kissed my cheek. “Let us bathe.”

  He gingerly climbed into the tub. He had only filled it partway, and the water was only as high as his lap. He could extend his legs somewhat ,though, and I thought we could both fit into it if we desired; though it would be cozy.

  “How is it?” I asked.

  He grimaced. “Rather like being in a stew pot. The metal beneath me is warm and the water is still tepid.”

  I was disappointed. “I feel more engineering will be necessary, then. We will have to determine how to heat the water before it is added to the tub. Perhaps some of the water could be diverted into a boiling pot that could then be emptied into the tub. We will likely have to summon Fletcher here again.”

  Gaston was frowning at the spigot above his head. He turned his gaze to me and smiled. “You know I love you.”

  “Very much.” I grinned.

  We bathed quickly, not because sitting in the tub was very much like sitting in a stewpot, but because we wished to avoid all eroticism we had come to associate with the act of bathing. Still, I could not help but see how very handsome he was in the clothes I had found for him. I think it was because I had seldom seen him attired in boots, or anything other than our buccaneer tunic and breeches. The ecru shirt he wore was not overly ornate or ruffled, but it was tight across his chest with long loose sleeves, and I had forgotten how such a thing could make a man appear wider in the shoulders and more muscular. The same was true for the light brown suede breeches he borrowed. He was a little thicker in the thigh and buttocks than I, and so the pants fit him in ways they did not fit me before tapering to blend with the soft dark brown boots he laced up his legs to the knee.