God only knew what sort of expression Allen had on his face. March stared at him until Allen, realizing he loomed over the sick man, fists clenched, stepped away.
“I beg your pardon, Allen. I seem to have offended you. Please tell me what it is that upsets me so.”
“I discovered yesterday she’s my mother.”
“What?” He stared at Allen. “You’d best tell me.”
As Allen told the story he found himself standing, pacing. He poured more wine, tapped spilled papers on the desk into shape, gazed out of the window. Looked anywhere except at March, while he tried to subdue the shock and sadness of his story. He ended with an attempt at humor. “… And so, you see, I am by law your property, as far as I can tell from the wording of the sale, now I am returned to the island. You know me as the Earl of Frensham’s son and an English gentleman, but you must understand, I have concerns for my mother, to whom my family must make amends.”
When he ended, the room was almost in darkness, shadows lengthening.
“Yes,” March said. “I see.” And then in a softer voice, “So you are mine.”
“By law only. Shall I call for some light, sir?” Allen said, unnerved by March’s statement. The dim room, March’s stillness and hidden face, added to his discomfort.
“Yes, yes. And have them send for Blight.”
“For Blight?”
“Yes, indeed. We must find our copies of the bills of sale and make sure the wording is as we expect.”
“I’d rather Blight didn’t know of this,” Allen said.
“I’m afraid I must insist,” March said. “It is a matter of a business transaction, after all. And that is what Blight is hired to do.”
After what seemed to Allen an interminable amount of time, with slaves padding in and out, lamps lit, Blight was sent for—and a message, at Allen’s suggestion, sent after him, so that he could bring the ledgers for the appropriate year.
Blight, carrying a stink of sweat, horse, and tobacco with him, held a ledger as dusty and thick as Frensham’s. He laid it on the desk and stepped back, eyes bright with curiosity, glancing from Allen to March.
Allen leafed through the ledger and waited for March to dismiss Blight.
“Here you are, sir.” Allen pointed to the same line he’d read in his father’s records. Amos, Jenny, Hiram, Peter, Grace, and their children.
March said, “Jenny—that was she. I remember now. We changed her name.”
“You’re after buying Ceres, Mr. Pendale?”
“No, Blight, I wish to buy her freedom.” Icily polite. “I will return tomorrow with a manumission for Ceres and a more than generous sum for the transaction, if that is convenient for you, March.”
Blight laughed. “Haven’t you forgotten something, Pendale?”
“I don’t believe so.”
Blight stabbed a finger onto the ledger.“… and their children. I’m thinking you’ll need some more money, Pendale, and another manumission.”
“How did you know of this?” Allen demanded. Blight knew. Blight, whose eyes were now bright with malice, whose demeanor had changed from bare civility to downright disrespect.
“’Course I know. It’s all round the kitchen—how Ceres’s gentleman son, as white as a lily, has come back for her. You weren’t fool enough to think they weren’t listening? She don’t say anything, but the rest are talking. And I’ve been in this business all my life, Pendale; I sailed aboard my first slaver when I was ten. Soon as I see you, I knew. There’s black blood there, I said to myself. For all your fancy manners and education and you being the son of an earl—or so you claimed—I knew you for what you are.”
“How dare you!” Allen shouted, fists clenched.
“That’s enough! Allen, for the love of God—” March’s hand closed on his arm, his breathing fast and agitated. “Blight, Mr. Pendale is an English gentleman and you will treat him as such. I will tolerate no less. You will see to Ceres leaving—I hope I may keep her as a servant, if she wishes, Pendale? A good cook is hard to come by.”
“Certainly, so long as you pay her fair wages.”
March nodded at Blight. “Very well. You may leave.”
“Why do you employ him?” Allen said after Blight swaggered out, the door closing behind him.
“He’s good at his job. Reliable overseers are hard to come by.”
“Good at his job? Good at working your slaves to death, you mean.”
“It is the way things are done,” March said. “Allen, I am feeling somewhat fatigued; let us not quarrel. Will you pour me a glass of wine?”
“Certainly, sir.” Allen poured the glass of wine and handed it to him, not sure whether March’s request was that of a friend or—but no, that was unthinkable.
“Come sit by me and do try not to look so ferocious.” March gestured to a footstool beside the sofa and Allen sank onto it, lowering his face into his hands.
“I suppose I must bid you farewell,” Allen said. “I should return to my father’s house and in a few days my mother and I will sail for England. You must understand that my position on the island is precarious. I would like to see Clarissa before I leave.”
“Of course.” March’s hand rested lightly on his head. “You love her, do you not?”
“I do. But she’s in love with you.”
March laughed. “For the moment, a little. But it is not the same as the love she feels for you.”
“It’s a damned strange way of showing it. Becoming someone else’s mistress.”
“Ah, we all three have a damned strange way of showing what we feel for each other for that matter. It has been an adventure, Allen. I wish it did not have to end quite so soon. And all this time, you’ve been mine, as much as you have fought it.”
He nodded, soothed by the tender touch of March’s hand on his head and neck, but disturbed by the reminder that now he was the older man’s property. “I’m sorry I could not give you what you want. It is not in my nature, I suppose.”
“I like to think that I could have fully seduced you, my dear, given time.” That was the old March, dry, ironic. “I am grateful for what you and I have had. Believe me, this news of your parentage does not alter my heart. How could it? But I shall not bore you with any protestations of my love. I grieve only that we must part. Go make your farewells to Clarissa. My daughter is quite fond of you too, although I am not so perverse that I would attempt to arrange a match between you and her.”
“Oh, I think she could do better than the youngest son of an earl. And certainly better than the bastard, part Negro son of an earl.”
“You should not be shamed by your origins,” March said.
But March did not disagree.
They dined quietly these days, the occasions on which March joined them becoming more infrequent. Tonight Clarissa sat alone in the drawing room, her embroidery laid aside. Celia was still dressing, dawdling and reluctant to abandon a novel she had started to read.
Dinner, it appeared, would be late anyway tonight, following some fracas in the kitchen.
Masculine boots thudded outside on the verandah, accompanied by the scent of a cheroot.
“Allen!” She sprang to her feet and flung open the French doors. “I regret March is indisposed still, but I am sure he will receive you.”
He took her hand. “I have spoken with him already. Will you walk with me?”
They strolled out together into the garden. He carried the scents of horse and leather and sweat, and his skin was darkened by the sun.
“Is all well with you?” she asked.
He started at the commonplace enquiry. “Well enough. I have come to tell you that I am returning to England in a very few days, at my father’s request. In view of some recent events, I—” he hesitated and braced his shoulders.
“But you’ve barely arrived!”
He nodded. “My father and I think it best.”
Had his father discovered the truth of his relationship with March and herself?
<
br /> “I am sorry indeed to see you go,” she said, matching his formal tone. “Will you dine with me and Celia tonight?”
“I will be glad to,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “What will you do, Clarissa? It is as well March has provided for you. He does not look well.”
“I think he will not live long,” she said. “But I have a contract with him. I shall not ask to be released. Is that what you wanted to know?”
Somber, he shook his head and tapped pungent ash onto the soil of a flowerbed.
Dinner was served late, and Clarissa was glad to see Allen’s mood improve, despite the sadness of this last evening together. Celia responded to his usual teasing affection with giggles, but shed a few tears at the news of his departure.
“I daresay I’ll see you in London before long,” Allen said. “Where else would your father send such a beauty to husband-hunt after you’ve broken the hearts of all the officers in St. James?” He cracked a nut for her and handed her the kernels. “I’m sure you could hold your own in any polite English drawing room, thanks to Miss Onslowe’s tutelage.”
“I can speak French now,” Celia said.
“Vraiment? C’est formidable, ma’amselle. Dits moi, quel est ton roman préféré dans cette langue?”
“What he say?” Celia said.
“Pray do not tease her, Mr. Pendale. He asks you which your favorite novel is in French, just to provoke you.” She smiled at Celia. “I daresay the next time we all meet, you will chatter away in French like a native.”
She did not say, and neither did Celia seem to realize, that the next time they all met their number would not include March.
The evening passed pleasantly, Clarissa accompanying Celia in a song at the pianoforte after dinner, and they played cards as they drank tea, Allen allowing Celia to win. When it grew late, Allen announced he must leave and kissed Celia’s cheek as though she were a younger sister. Clarissa’s eyes filled with tears as Celia wept and Allen promised he would write to March to let him and his daughter know of his safe arrival in England.
“Will you walk with me in the garden?” Clarissa asked when Celia had gone upstairs to bed.
“Surely.” He took her arm and led her outside, lighting a cheroot at a candle to keep insects at bay.
They strolled in the fragrant darkness together, Allen subdued and quiet. So they were to part at last, with much left unsaid. Would the chains of love and desire be finally broken? She doubted they would all three meet again, given March’s condition.
He paused. “Listen.”
She listened carefully and heard beyond the buzz of night insects a distant, rhythmic thrum. “What is that?”
“Drums. It’s how the slaves talk to each other, as they do in Africa.”
She shivered. The sound was mysterious, foreign. She wondered if any of the slaves would explain it, if she could persuade another one of the household to talk to her.
“Allen.” She took his hand. “I must speak of this. I regret that I have injured you. Please tell me you forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive.”
“Even though I chose March rather than you?”
He puffed at his cheroot and spoke from behind a cloud of smoke. “I offered you all I could. He offered more. And you love him.”
“Then let me offer you this. A farewell.” She led him into the quiet dark house and up the stairs to her bedchamber where the moonlight played on the floor, patchy and shifting with the movement of trees outside.
Clarissa tried not to remember the only other time they’d been together in this room, the unsatisfactory, angry coupling. They’d parted then, too.
He dropped his coat onto the floor and nodded at a wooden box atop the chest-of-drawers. “More jewels?” Said without rancor or bitterness.
“Not quite.” She opened the box. “On March’s orders. Finch has taught me and Celia how to load and shoot in case we are ever in danger.”
He lifted a pistol from the box, examining it with the ferocious intensity most men seemed to assume when looking at a weapon. “Very nice. Are you a good shot?”
“Tolerable. I don’t know if I could shoot someone, though. Particularly a slave.” She took the pistol from his hand and laid it into its velvet surround. “I hope I never have to.”
She unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt and rubbed her face against the curl of hair exposed at the open placket. So dear and familiar, his touch on her as he unfastened her gown and fumbled with drawstrings and laces. The last time, the last chance to touch him, to offer him comfort and pleasure, because she could not love him as he loved her.
“I shall never forget you,” he said and touched her breast with a reverence that was new to them both.
“And I you.” She traced the hair on his chest and belly, stroked his cock and arse the way he had taught her, took him in her mouth and heard his familiar growl of arousal. This was no place for pretense or artifice, just a man and a woman who desired each other and knew how to please. He filled her, touched her where she needed, and sent her into a dizzying spin of pleasure.
He came soon after, having turned onto his back so she could take her pleasure astride him, and she thought she saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes. When he called out her name, it was a cry of pleasure and despair.
“No tears,” he said, raising a hand to wipe wetness from her own eyes. She hadn’t realized she wept too.
She stroked the familiar tangle of dark hair on his chest. “Is there something that troubles you, Allen? Something other than our parting?”
He shook his head. “No.” He paused. “Only this. You told me once you could not love me because I did not know who I am. What if I had found out what I am?” He placed a finger on her lips before she could answer. “No. It’s too late, isn’t it?”
Clarissa drew his head to hers. She could not answer any other way.
CHAPTER 22
The sky was a hushed violet, the first light appearing, as Allen left Clarissa and headed for the stable where he had left his horse. As he entered the stable yard, a dark form emerged from the shadows.
“Pendale!”
He turned in surprise and apprehension. “What the devil do you want, Blight?”
Blight strolled forward. He carried his whip, coiled lightly over one arm, a cheroot clamped between his teeth. “I’m reclaiming some property of the estate. Your choice, Pendale—you may accompany me quietly, or these gentlemen will persuade you to be docile.”
A clanking sound came from the shadows. Two large, man-shaped shadows separated themselves from the darkness and moved toward Allen—he saw the gleam of their eyes and teeth, the gleam of metal. Castor and Pollux, Blight’s muscle-bound assistants, carried shackles and ropes.
“What the devil are you up to?” Allen demanded. A terrible, cold fear gripped him.
One of them—he couldn’t tell Castor or Pollux from each other—laid a large hand on his arm.
Allen stepped back, outraged. “Take your hands off me!”
“Chain him up, boys,” Blight said in a casual sort of tone.
“The devil you will!” Allen dodged away, and kicked his assailant hard on the kneecap. The man staggered back, cursing. “You’ll have Lemarchand to answer to for this.”
Blight laughed. “Indeed? Who do you think gave me my orders?”
Something lashed out, like the flight of a bird through the air, a bird that clawed the side of his face and eyebrow. He clutched in terror at his face fearing blindness, before he shook the blood off and prepared to defend himself. Castor and Pollux advanced on him, fists like dark lumps of meat.
Blight removed his cheroot from his mouth. “Your choice, Pendale.”
“I’ll see you in hell!”
Blight nodded to Castor and Pollux.
Darkness. A pain in his shoulders, something hard and gritty beneath him, and the taste of dried blood in his mouth. He couldn’t move—not his arms, at any rate—was he dead? Or blind? Probably not dead.
He could smell the stink of human waste and hear the whine of a mosquito and the chitter and scratch of rats.
He stretched his legs out cautiously. Grit and sharp things that were probably stones—and he could feel them so distinctly because he was stark naked. Other hurts began to make themselves known, tender areas on his face and ribs, and the devil of a headache.
Castor and Pollux had done a thorough job.
Now he remembered. March had betrayed him. March, who had once begged for Allen’s love, whom Allen had come to care for in a way he didn’t quite understand.
He moved his head and shoulders and was rewarded with a burst of nausea that left him weak and sweating. Something clanked. His arms were manacled behind his back, the iron already rubbing his wrists raw, a small and humiliating pain. Something scrabbled in the dirt behind his back, and he lunged out of the way—of course, the rats could smell his blood—and crashed into what felt like a stone wall.
Now he knew where he was—the slave dungeon on March’s estate, where disobedient slaves were held captive for days at a time. No one would hear him if he shouted, or come to help him if he did. No one would think of looking here for the Hon. Allen Pendale, youngest son of the Earl of Pendale.
He could die in this place of thirst and despair, a nameless slave.
A bar of light glowed gold, illuminating an inch or so of dirt and stones—daylight at the crack beneath the door. Because Allen felt he must, he crawled over to the door and thudded his shoulder against solid wood that did not yield.
Think, he urged himself. Keep alive. Keep those damned rats away. Don’t sleep or they’ll eat you alive. Don’t think about the cramps in your shoulders, or all the bruises and cuts you’ve doubtless suffered, and particularly don’t think about how thirsty you are.
Cool beer in a pewter mug, handed to you by a woman in a smoky kitchen, a woman who shares your hands and eyes. The purl and bubble of a small brownish stream edged with marsh willow, sedge and meadow rue in the English countryside. Red wine shared mouth to mouth with Clarissa, licked from her breasts and belly.
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