“You did not do wrong,” I assured him, and wrapped my arms around him as much for my comfort as his. “I know you sought to rescue her, and me. Neither of us would have wished this outcome, but the Gods move in mysterious ways. Perhaps all will be well. We have so much to do. And damn it, I am finding it so hard to think now that the crisis is past.”
He cursed quietly, and held me such that he ground my rough tunic against my tender skin.
“That hurts, that hurts,” I whispered.
That served to elicit more cursing and tears, but he released me.
“Oh, stop,” I murmured as I pulled away and leaned on the back wall. “It was glorious, and I woke happy.”
He stood trembling, and I was alarmed to see how very lost he was.
I tugged him to me by his tunic, and took his face in my hands. “I love you. We will be fine,” I murmured.
“What have I done?” he gasped.
“Nothing, yet. You need not do it.”
“But…”
“Let us be calm and think of what we have to do that we wish to do. Later, we can consider the other.”
He took a ragged breath and nodded between my hands.
“First,” I said lightly, “and I say this not to cause you guilt, because I will not have you feel guilt over the matter, but however shall we disguise my wrists?”
I looked down. There were indeed livid purple marks around my ankles as well.
“And ankles,” I added.
He smiled grimly. “Boots.”
“Oui.” I nodded. “And I suppose I should dress as a gentleman for church; but damn, I cannot see wearing a shirt or coat for all the days these will take to heal.”
“You cannot tell anyone,” he said with sudden desperation. And then he spoke with the Horse’s growl. “It is not their concern.”
“Non, non, never,” I assured him. “My love, can you calm yourself?”
Fear dimmed the Horse’s fury in his eyes. “Non,” he gasped, and sank to his knees to wrap his arms about my waist and press his face into my hip.
“Do not worry, my love,” I whispered, and rubbed his head.
A shadow fell over us, and I looked up to see his father. He met my gaze with concern. I shook my head and waved him away. He left with a nod.
After a time, Gaston’s breathing steadied.
“What should we do, my love?” I murmured. “We should return the baby to Rachel, non?”
He nodded mutely.
“And I must speak with Vivian,” I added. “So perhaps you can do the one while I do the other?”
He nodded again, but he did not move.
I gently prodded his arms from around me and lowered myself to sit beside him. He would not regard me: his mien was sad and guilty as he gazed upon the puppies.
“I wish you could keep me on a leash,” he said quietly.
“To keep you from roaming, or to keep you safe?” I asked lightly.
He shook his head. “Both. I feel the need to do as we did while sailing to Île de Vache last year.”
“To be chained to me so that you might frolic in the field without care?”
He nodded. “But I cannot – now.”
“I wish we were chained together as well,” I sighed.
His gaze was earnest. “Am I behaving so poorly?”
“Non, non,” I said and kissed his cheek. “I feel I would find comfort in it: not to keep you with me, but that we were safe together.”
He seemed to find brief respite from the fears gnawing at him, and then his brow was knotted once again. “Then, I gave myself to my Horse; now, I feel the need to do the opposite. I feel I am very much in the light; and it is bright, too bright, perhaps, and I wish to hide in the shade for a time.”
I sighed, as I could feel the call of what he sought. “I understand: we either need to expand our metaphor to explain such a need, or we have been viewing it wrongly. Whichever, I know not if this morning is the time to consider it. And I regret that. I feel I wish we were sailing, without… our needing to be at the beck and call of the needs of others. I guess we yearn for escape.”
He nodded and truly seemed relieved. “We keep loading things in the cart.”
I grinned. “Oui. Neither of us is familiar with pulling such a load. So let us take time to frolic when we may. Like last night.” I poked him teasingly.
He smiled and nodded, but his gaze became serious. “I am afraid I will fall.”
The image of our being collapsed upon one another on a steep road, chained to a slowly rolling cart full of screaming women and children, being dragged ever closer to a cliff, filled my mind’s eye.
“I am afraid of falling, too,” I sighed. “We must find a way to manage all this, and pick a road that is not steep.”
He frowned. “France would be the definition of steep, non?”
I nodded with great agreement.
“Negril is level, roving is level, but this damn place is all hills,” he noted thoughtfully.
“Oui, with people who keep tossing loose gravel into our path.” I shrugged. “But… I cannot see how we shall return to Negril soon, and I feel we would regret abandoning all to go roving. So we must level the ground here. Or at least build a brake upon the cart to keep it from running us down as we continue to load it with babies and women.”
“It would be lighter without the women,” Gaston sighed ruefully and stood.
I chuckled and joined him in standing so that I might embrace him again. “Feeling better?”
He nodded. “I felt I was being pursued, and I wished to run very far and fast,” he sighed.
“By a runaway cart?” I teased.
“By the Fates.”
“Ah,” I sighed. “I feel we are being pursued by the Gods.”
Sixty-Five
Wherein We Are Considered Mad
The atrium was empty when we emerged: I viewed it with relief, as I did not wish to encounter anyone in our initial errands. Gaston went upstairs to find my boots and coat, and I went to the cookhouse in hopes of finding Henrietta. She was not there, but Sam told me she could be found working with some of the others on the rooms: where, of course, Gaston had just gone. I swore and sprinted to catch up with my matelot. Thankfully, I discovered everyone working on painting the cleaned rooms and not cleaning ours. Gaston had slipped by them, seemingly unnoticed.
And then I found Striker speaking quietly to Gaston in the far corner of our room. He regarded me guiltily when I entered. Gaston appeared perplexed.
Striker gave one last look at Gaston – who nodded some understanding – and crossed the room to join me in the doorway. He patted my shoulder reassuringly before slipping around me and back to the other room.
I regarded my matelot with a raised eyebrow, and he shook his head with bemusement.
“What was that about?” I asked Gaston quietly in French as I joined him.
He smiled ruefully and sat on the corner of the bed. “He wished for me to know that if you are suffering bouts of madness, and I am having difficulty with you, that I might trust them.”
“Damn, does he feel I will suffer so at your being married?”
He snorted and shook his head. “Non, he feels that will lead to more trouble, as I have obviously already had to restrain you before that decision was made.” He touched my bruised wrist.
“Gods,” I barked with amusement. I collapsed to sit next to him. “That is ironic.” It was also deeply disturbing.
“I was worried when he came to speak with me, but…” Gaston shook his head. “I am sorry, Will, but I would rather have them think that than know what we have been about.”
“Because then they would consider us mad,” I sighed, but I nodded. “I agree. There is somehow less embarrassment in their thinking you have lovingly cared for me by binding me in my madness, than in my surrendering to you as I do.”
“Oui, or that I have tortured you lovingly,” he said, “as that is a thing they will surely never understand. It is
still a thing I…”
I put my fingers to his lips and then followed them with my mouth. He returned my kiss with great love.
“I suppose I must pretend to be very sane these next days,” I sighed when we parted. I recalled our sailing home from Porto Bello: all who had known of the debacle there had eyed our every expression with speculation. It had worn on us.
And by the Gods, we needed nothing else wearing on us now.
“It will not help,” Gaston said in sad echo to my thoughts.
“We must be careful when we play so in the future,” I said.
He nodded resolutely. “Thank you.”
“For?”
He shook his head and his rueful smile returned. “For playing with me.”
I grinned. “Non, thank you.”
“Does your chest hurt?” he asked.
I nodded. “This tunic is quite rough against it.”
“Then let us find you a softer shirt.” He stood and began pawing through a trunk. He stopped and turned back to me with teary eyes. “I should marry her, Will. Though she lacks the deportment of a dependable broodmare, and… We have said it will be done; and it aids her, even though she is a stupid… And, it will save us having to wait to see what my father might send. I can allay his fears if I get her with a child now.”
I nodded, and went to kiss him lightly. I had known it would be his decision when I saw him make the agreement with her. I found I thought it inevitable, somehow: the Gods had chased us down and tossed her into the cart.
“It need not be as horrible as we fear,” I said. “Look at Vivian.”
He regarded me with a perplexed frown, and then gestured at the smoke-stained room around us.
“Well, I am just saying she is not so very bad as we thought,” I sighed.
“I will forgive her if Jamaica lives,” he said solemnly, and handed me a soft cotton shirt.
Despite our dressing quickly in boots, proper shirts, and coats, I was not so very sure Vivian would forgive us – whether Jamaica lived or not – by the time we at last arrived in the parlor. I realized we had left her alone for quite a while this morning. She was pacing, and greeted us with panicked, teary eyes and invective. The child was wailing: wrapped in a blanket and propped carefully in a chair.
“She is hungry!” Vivian shouted at Gaston when she stopped cursing. “I dare not feed her! How dare you leave her here this long? I cannot bear her crying. And I cannot please her. I am a horrible mother!”
I swore quietly and moved between Gaston and her. He did not need her screaming at him this day.
Gaston seemed more surprised than anything at her words. He shook his head, said, “Non,” quietly, and scooped the child up and hurried out the door.
“I am sorry,” I said with sincere guilt. “We should not have left you so long alone, and…”
She met my gaze with a scared little girl’s eyes, and sank to the floor with a ragged sob. “Your father wants me gone. Why are you keeping me? Why?”
“So you heard everything?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.
“Aye,” she gasped.
I sat on the floor in front of her, and wiped tear-matted hair from her eyes with my thumb. “You will be well,” I said softly. “We will have Jamaica baptized, and then no man may put the matter asunder. They had no right to suggest it, even now.”
“Unless your father decides he wants me dead,” she said.
I would have denied her if I could, but I could not. “You probably only need worry if you do bear me a son,” I said with a kind smile.
She snorted, then the horror of the matter gripped her again and she put her hand over her mouth and whispered, “They kill people.”
“I know,” I sighed. “I am sorry you were dragged into this.”
She shook her head with frantic little motions and clutched my arm. “Nay, I am better here. I mean… I can be better here. I mean my life can be better here.”
“I am pleased to hear you feel that about it,” I said.
She nodded, and gazed upon me in a fashion I found uncomfortable, as I had seen its like before, and it heralded emotions I did not wish to have directed at my person.
“You kept me,” she sighed.
I sighed. “Vivian, you are a dear girl and you are my wife. Aye, I kept you. But… It is not due to love. Please do not misunderstand.”
Her eyes hardened. “Why the Devil would I ever think that?”
I smiled and spoke lightly. “See that you do not. I have one girl already enamored with me, I do not need another. That will have me put you out if nothing else will.”
She snorted. “Miss Vines is infatuated with you?” She considered the matter with a cock of her head. “Aye, her father seemed to think so.”
“I feel I did much to dash it last night,” I said. “But I… cannot always understand the workings of a woman’s heart.”
“We are far meaner scorned,” she said, as if I were some youth in need of a lecture.
“Aye, aye,” I said with a grin. “Hell hath no fury, I know it well.” I stood. “Have you eaten? Do you need anything?”
She nodded and then shook her head. “Your… Lord Montren saw to my needs this morning. He said you were indisposed,” she said accusingly. “Too much drink?”
I grinned. “No drink. Too much fucking.”
She smirked. “So you did ruin her?”
I let the full measure of my incredulity show upon my features. “With my matelot, you silly chit.”
She colored and looked away. “Oh, of course. I forget that the two of you…”
“What, do you feel we are lovers in name only?” I teased.
“Surely not now,” she said archly.
I chuckled. “Come now, we have much to do today, and it is no longer young. I am going to the church.”
“You have arranged the wedding already?” she asked with surprise. “I wondered why you were dressed.”
“Nay, I know not when that will occur,” I sighed. “I wish to have our daughter baptized. I will see if the good father can see us this afternoon.”
She nodded reluctantly. “Has Henrietta found me a gown?” she asked.
“Oh, bloody…” I sighed. “I forgot to speak to her about that matter yesterday, and I have not located her this day. I will do so at once.”
Vivian rolled her eyes.
I left her, and went in search of Henrietta. When I found her, the woman complained that anything she could find on such short notice would not be to her lady’s liking. I told her I did not care, and to do the best she could.
Gaston returned as I was shooing Henrietta out the door. I led him back onto the street and toward the church.
“How is the baby?” I asked him quietly in French.
“Well enough. She is nursing.” He regarded me with a guilty mien. “We must endeavor to take better care of them.”
“Did Rachel chastise you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Non, I was just thinking that…we are ever sitting about pondering… things. We have others who rely on us now.”
“Oui,” I said softly. He was correct, but the things we pondered were often his madness, or my own. Things that – like his loss of control in the stable this morning – made us incapable of seeing to anyone else while we dealt with them. Still, either we were responsible husbands and fathers, or we were not. I supposed that would be the true test of whether we could accomplish hauling anything else in the cart.
“It will take time for us to become accustomed to it,” I said. “I recall it took me many months to care for you as I felt I should: I was ever berating myself for some manner in which I had not put your needs before my own. I was so very familiar with only seeing to myself.”
“Oui,” he said. “I had to learn the same in caring for you. But Will, I would not have us put their needs before our own; I feel we merely need to be more mindful of them.”
Still thinking of our long adjustment to one another, I asked, “Do
you feel caring for them will chafe, as I did?”
He shook his head quickly. “I do not feel chained to them as I feel chained to you and the cart. They are merely in the cart. And…” He gazed upon me earnestly. “I enjoy caring for them. It feels as it does when I tend the sick or wounded. I feel I have some use and purpose.”
“Even Vivian?” I asked quietly.
He gave a self-deprecating snort. “Even her. She is not my enemy.”
I thought of her gazing at me as she had for that moment and I sighed. “I hope Christine will not be mine.”
He frowned, and then his fractious anger flared again. “I will not allow that.”
I awarded him a raised eyebrow. “How do you mean that?”
His glare became a thoughtful frown once again as we came to stand before the church.
“If she hates me, there is little you can do to alter her heart,” I said. “And the same is true if I come to revile her for some reason.”
“I will give you no reason,” he said. “She will not be your opponent.” He regarded the church and turned back to me. “I will place no other before you.”
I recalled all my foolish fancies after the party, of her being a worthy opponent by which to see if he would truly choose me. Once again, I cursed my stupidity. My heart ached, and I caressed his cheek.
“I know,” I whispered.
He kissed me, there, on the doorstep of the church. I grinned. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder echoed through my mind, and I chuckled at the irony of it all. Gaston frowned at my humor.
“What the Gods have joined together, let no woman put asunder,” I said.
He smirked. “Amen.”
The pastor was quite pleased to see us, as always. He made great suggestion that he should see me in church more often; and then offered the same advice to Gaston, once my matelot was introduced as the Lord Montren. He very nearly bounced with glee when we told him of our need to arrange a baptism and a wedding; though his pleasure was diminished somewhat when we said it would not be a grandiose public affair that would show his true ecclesiastical talents. Despite that disappointment, he was apparently at our disposal at any hour or day, as long as it was not during Mass. We told him we would return later this day for one of the ceremonies, if not both.
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