The Marquis was frowning. “Telling her of his madness should be done, I agree, but I do not see why any mention need be made of that night. If, in time, Gaston feels he wishes to tell her of those events, that is his prerogative, but…” His words trailed off. He was looking at his son.
I looked to Gaston and found him furious. As I was quite incredulous that his father could think the matter could be viewed so nonchalantly, I was not surprised my matelot was angry. Nor was I surprised when Gaston stood and doffed his sword belt and then his shirt.
Dupree gasped in dismay at the sight of him. The Marquis was silent, but it was the silence of a man stunned beyond words.
“How am I to explain this?” Gaston growled.
His father shook his head and pressed his hand to his mouth, and then he was standing and stumbling to the door. He disappeared into the street. A concerned and confused Dupree followed him, carrying his master’s cane.
Gaston sat heavily, his eyes pressed tightly closed.
“What are these yellow cakes called, or rather what are they made of?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“Corn meal. Corn. It is a grain of the New World,” he said slowly.
“Ah, now I will know how to ask for it. They are quite tasty.”
“I love you,” he said.
“I know,” I said.
He smiled weakly.
“Puppies?” I asked.
He chuckled and massaged his eyes and temples. “Oui.” Then he shook his head and regarded me. “How could he not have known what he wrought?”
I shrugged. “Did he see you after his rage and madness passed? And Vittese obviously did not tell him.”
“I should have killed him,” he grumbled.
“Which one?” I asked.
“Vittese,” he said with a frown. “Though perhaps I should kill my father, too.”
“That will solve nothing. Your father’s death, not Vittese’s”
He nodded and stood, and we went to visit Bella and the puppies. He left his shirt off, and at the sight of him, Agnes stared.
“Um, Mi… Gaston, might I sketch you again?” she asked.
He sighed and smiled. “Aye.”
Pete joined us in the stable, and Agnes soon did too, with her sketchbook and charcoal in hand. She had my amused matelot move twice before she was happy with his positioning in the light from the doorway.
As she settled in with the paper in her lap, she asked, “So, was Christine there?”
I sighed. “Aye, she was, and we spoke, and she is relatively well, though I feel she is not happy living with her stepmother, or vice versa.”
Gaston and I exchanged a look.
He spoke. “Agnes, there is talk of my marrying her.”
She looked up sharply. “Truly? Would she live here?”
“What?” Pete asked.
“Well,” I said. “Gaston’s father announced him as the Comte de Montren to everyone of note on Jamaica last night. And as he is naming Gaston his heir, he wishes, like all damn noble fathers do, that Gaston marry and produce his own heir.”
Pete swore and shook his head. Then he shrugged. “StrikerBein’ MarriedHasn’t BeenSoBad.”
“Because the three of you were able to come to an arrangement that suits you,” I said. “We will not manage the same thing.”
Agnes was frowning and looking from Gaston to me and back. “So you will not both marry her in the buccaneer way?”
“Nay,” I said with a smile. “Gaston will not share me. He does not share well,” I teased him.
He snorted.
“Neither does Christine,” Agnes said, and turned her attention back to her paper.
“Was she truly enamored with me?” I asked the girl.
She nodded and sighed. “She always said that if she must marry, she wished for it to be as her parents were, that she be in love with him and he with her. And she did not want children until after she had seen some of the world.” She frowned with thought. “That was why she did not wish to marry. She says the only thing men want from women is trysting and children.”
Gaston and I exchanged a look and sighed as one. We had no reason to doubt the girl, and it fit with what we knew of Christine; and though it was possible Christine’s desires had changed this past year, it was more likely they had not.
“Well, then, it is unlikely she will marry Gaston,” I said. “Because all we want from a wife is… children.”
Pete smirked.
“Aye,” Agnes sighed, “because you do not even need a woman for the other.” She began sketching. “I feel sorry for her. Christine will never get what she wants, and she is too stubborn to do what she must. But then…” She frowned and shook her head and concentrated on what she was seeing again, her hand scratching across the page.
“Fortune has a way of visiting the strangest things upon people, Agnes,” I said. “You may yet find that which you seek.”
She smiled ruefully. “’Tis true. I never thought I would live such that I could spend my days playing with lenses and puppies and drawing naked men. My poor mother probably rolls in her grave.”
“LifeCanBeDamn GoodWhenYaLeast ExpectIt,” Pete said with a chuckle.
An hour later I owned a very fine drawing of Gaston with a puppy cradled in his arms, and I felt much better about the world; though the Gods had thought it clever to throw Christine in our path, Their plan would surely fail.
Striker finally woke: as was ever his wont, he had drunk far too much at the party and been only vaguely conscious since. Pete, Gaston and I wished to go to the beach and spar, and Agnes wished to come too, along with the dogs, and Sarah did not wish be left at home alone, despite it being during her lying in, and thus the entire pack of us – including a grumpy Striker – went to frolic in the surf. It proved to be a very enjoyable afternoon. We decided that on the morrow we would dress Agnes as a boy and teach her to swim. Sarah wished to learn as well, but it was determined we should wait until after she birthed.
The Marquis was sitting in the atrium when we returned. “Might I speak with you?” he asked Gaston.
My matelot nodded and followed his father into the parlor.
I sat at a table near Dupree, who was fanning himself and appeared somewhat troubled. Agnes and Sarah retired upstairs to change out of their wet clothing. Pete and Striker pulled up chairs near mine.
“What is going on?” Striker asked. “You were the talk of the party last night. Everyone, and I mean everyone, seems to think you will put your wife out and marry Miss Vines.”
Pete snorted derisively and laughed.
“Aw Lord,” Striker sighed. “What have I missed now?”
I smiled. “All of the maneuvering that people witnessed last night involved the possibility of Gaston, the Comte de Montren, marrying Miss Vines.”
“Oh, bloody Hell,” Striker said. “Can we not go a year without some God-damned disaster?”
This set Dupree chuckling behind his fan.
I had to laugh with him. “Nay, it does not appear so. Yet, I feel the Fates will be cheated in their mischief this time.”
Dupree was frowning at me.
“Unless there is a new development…” I said.
He shook his head with guilt.
The parlor door opened and Gaston stuck his head out. He was furious, and nearly spat my name. “Will.”
I went to him, and he took my arm and pulled me inside.
The Marquis appeared dismayed at my entrance.
“What has occurred?” I asked my matelot.
“He is trying to make amends,” Gaston snarled. “So he has gone and spoken with the Vines. He has spoken with her, for me!”
I looked to the Marquis. “What did you say?”
He sighed heavily. “I told them that as fine as their daughter obviously is; that a marriage would be unwise at this time: that I had been foolhardy in speaking as I did last night. That there were… aspects of the matter that I was unaware of, and that, though I dearly wi
sh for my son to marry, he is not yet prepared to do so.”
Relief flooded my heart. I sat and looked to Gaston.
My matelot was still furious. “It was my decision to make! You do not speak for me!” he growled. “If anyone speaks for me it is Will, not you!”
“I am sorry,” the Marquis said heavily. “I did not wish to anger… to hurt you further. But I seem to be unable to do anything correctly where it concerns you... or your brothers… or…” He shook his head, and regret seemed to pool around him in the dim room like smoke.
I felt sympathy for the man, but Gaston still wished for blood. I stood and laid a quieting hand on my matelot’s arm, hoping he would calm or at least hear me.
He met my concerned gaze, and the realization that he was not in control flickered in his eyes. He pulled away and looked about with frustrated anger.
“Let us go and talk,” I whispered.
He took several deep breaths and nodded slowly.
“Puppies?” I asked.
“Non, I will scare them,” he snarled.
I was so very proud of him.
“Pete?” I asked.
He shook his head. “If I give Pete this anger, he will kill him.”
“Our room?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Will you go up first, and allow me to follow, or should I accompany you?” I asked.
His gaze flicked to his father and he snorted. “I can see myself up.” He left us.
“We are used to managing our own affairs,” I said quietly.
“I am used to repairing the havoc my impulsive nature sometimes wreaks,” the Marquis said softly with a rueful smile, “but… I have done so much harm in this instance I can never mend it, can I?”
“Not quickly, perhaps not ever, but surely not quickly,” I sighed.
“I do not feel I will ever be granted the time: not by God, or nature, or even… him.”
“You are not gravely ill in some fashion, are you?” I asked with concern.
“Non, non… Nothing so… But I am not young, and after the deaths of his brothers, I feel my age in ways…”
“Must you return to France this winter?” I asked.
“Oui,” he said sadly.
“Will you be able to return here?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “But… Fate is fickle and life fragile, is it not?”
I smiled. “Especially when none of us are peasants who never raise a sword, do not travel, and expect to die of old age in their beds.”
He gave a snort of mirth. “I am going to Hell.”
“If that is true, then we all are.”
I left him, and went to our room.
Gaston was thankfully sitting quietly on our bed: naked, with his legs crossed like a tailor and his elbows upon his knees, so that he was a sculpture of triangles. He appeared calm, and his eyes were soft and sad.
I knelt beside the bed with my elbows on the mattress and gazed up at him. “What exactly did he say before you called me in that made you so angry?”
He shook his head. “It is a jumble. I do not know. His presumption. That…” He regarded me with guilt.
I raised an eyebrow.
“I will never lie with her now,” he whispered. “Not that she would ever consent to it, but now even her choice about the matter is gone.”
I smiled and pulled his hand to my lips.
He sighed. “You are ever too kind, and it is… It is such a stupid and trivial thing: I do not truly want her so much as… It is as if he took it away from me: the possibility of it.” His frown turned thoughtful. “It is as if he took everything from me. He seeks to give me what he wants, but not what I want. He can never give me what I want. And… taking anything from him threatens the few things I have: things I value; things I have worked very hard for.”
I crawled on the bed to sit before him and take his hands in mine. “It does not threaten my love for you. And it is too soon to tell how this play will end. Neither of you can expect to put all of it behind you in a matter of weeks. This will take years to resolve, if resolution is indeed what you wish for.”
“You are correct, as always,” he sighed. “I have just lived with it all so long that I wish for it to be finished. And yet… it scares me. I am afraid I will have to abandon my dreams. Though I have wrestled with that since his arrival. Last night, when they called me Lord, and… It was not as I had always imagined, yet it was. I always wished to grow up and have the schoolmasters and other children respect me. As terrifying as it was, it felt good to stand with him on those steps and feel them all gazing up at us. I just wanted you there beside me, though… not… near, but with me.” He shook his head sadly. “I did not know to envision someone with me when I was a child: that I would want such a thing. And now, it will not be worth it without you.”
My heart ached and I cursed my foolish worries about choices and opponents and all matter of silliness unworthy of his love.
We kissed. That tentative caress led to the next until we stormed Heaven so that we could drift to sleep in its bowers.
I woke smelling smoke: not the oily smell of the lantern, or the greasy smell of wax, but wood burning. It was not emanating from our room. I quickly disentangled myself from Gaston, who woke when I moved. He smelled it as soon as his eyes opened. It was drifting in the window over the alley: the one facing my wife’s house. We scrambled clear of the bed and netting and peered out into the night. We could see little in the darkness, and then I looked up and saw the moon was obscured by thick smoke, and then the flicker of flame from one of the ground floor windows of her house caught my eye.
We managed breeches alone. Gaston went out the window and onto the cistern and down: it was the fastest way to reach the alley. I ran out onto the balcony and yelled until Pete and Rucker threw open their doors. Then I was following my matelot.
The blaze was racing up the stairwell in the center of the house. We found Henrietta and Vivian in the back room. The poor housekeeper was struggling to tow my damn drunk wife out the back door into the yard. Vivian was screaming that she wanted to see it burn. We pulled them out and across the alley.
“What happened?” I yelled.
Vivian was twisting in my grasp, trying to see the flames.
Henrietta was in tears. “She be drunk,” she wailed.
I shook Vivian until her head wobbled.
She glared at me when I stopped. “She is not getting this house!” she roared and laughed. “You can do whatever the Devil you want, but that bitch is not getting my house!”
I shoved her at Agnes and Sarah before I hit her.
Then we fought the fire. Within minutes everyone in town seemed to have gathered, and bucket lines were formed to the yards and cisterns at the surrounding houses. One group doused the roof and walls of Sarah’s house with water – as it was downwind – to try to keep sparks from taking hold there. The rest of us battled the flames themselves with dirt and sand scooped from the yards. Gaston and I stood side by side in the searing heat and threw bucket after endless bucket at the conflagration that seemed to take on a life and purpose, as if it wanted to consume the house and us with it.
Her lighting the fire in the stairwell was both a blessing and a curse. It meant that by keeping the wood wet on the outside of the ground floor we could keep it from spreading out into the yard or trying to leap directly to the house on the other side, where there was less than a foot between the walls. But, the stairs also gave the flames the chance to climb to the upper floors, where we could not fight them directly. Eventually, we were forced to withdraw as the building began to collapse in on itself. Then all our efforts were turned to keeping its neighbors from catching. By this time, all the nearby cisterns were dry and water had to be passed from more than a street away.
Gaston and I staggered in the front doors of Sarah’s, planning to get to the roof and continue slinging water, but Agnes grabbed us as soon as we cleared the foyer. The place was thick with smoke and busy men. When I rec
ognized the girl, I wondered why the women had not been moved elsewhere.
“Gaston!” she cried. “You must come.” She tugged at his arm, pulling him toward the parlor door.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He had little voice to begin with, and the smoke had taken the rest.
“Lady Marsdale!” Agnes yelled. “She is birthing. We cannot find the midwife.”
“Go,” I rasped and pushed him after her.
I was up the stairs and shouldering my way past the bucket line to reach our room a moment later. I hauled the medicine chest downstairs myself, not wanting to interrupt anyone else’s work to ask for help. They were saving our house from a blaze my Damn Wife had lit.
The women were all huddled in the parlor, which was relatively free of smoke. I supposed if the house did catch, we could get them out quickly enough. The room reeked of rum, and I wondered who had let her drink, and then I saw that my matelot’s arms were free of soot from the elbow down – where he had washed them in rum. The rest of him was as black as Samuel, and I knew I looked the same. They had Vivian on the floor in the corner, and Gaston was examining her. She kept cursing at him and trying to hit him with her free arm – Henrietta was holding the other, tears still streaming down her round face. Agnes and Sarah had her legs: my sister was actually sitting on her pinned limb, and I thought that best, as her own distended belly would not get kicked that way. I set the chest next to Gaston and dove atop my wife’s flailing arm.
“What happened?” I asked Henrietta.
“Oh, my Lord,” she cried. “She’s been drinkin’ since she saw ya. She were na’ drinkin’ before, na’ like this. An’ then we heard o’ ya’ courtin’ the other young lass…”
“What?” I asked.
“The one they say ya danced with at the party. The one ya be courtin’ afore my Lady arrived.”
I swore vehemently, and the woman winced.
“Nay, nay, damn it!” I growled. “I am not courting Miss Vines. There was talk of Gaston doing so.”
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