Wolves

by W. A. Hoffman

  Gaston smirked. “She is jealous. She made comment that… the squishy hole, or Pete’s entry into one, was a thing he had promised to her. She did not say it precisely; but, that was the gist of her outburst.”

  “Oh, Gods,” I sighed with amusement and threw myself on to the bed. “I feel the ambuscades along the road will be manned by our own damn people. We will ever be smoothing ruffled feathers and sorting things out… and making amends.”

  He was thoughtful as he joined me. “I choose to be thankful we have people for which we must do that.”

  I heard his words as gentle chiding, though I thought it likely he had not meant them in that manner. I smiled at the ceiling and told the Gods. “I am truly grateful for them. I will endeavor to whine less.”

  He snuggled against me with his head on my shoulder.

  “How tired are you?” I asked.

  He tensed, and then rose to kneel astride me. “I have been thinking all day,” he said with surprising huskiness.

  “About tonight?” I teased as his tone reached my cock and gave it stir.

  “Non, about the House of Venus. I cannot wait until it is ours and we can go and explore it thoroughly before anyone else. And christen the rooms…”

  “Ohhh,” I said with a grin. “How?”

  With more grin than hard glitter in his eyes, he leaned down to whisper in my ear. We took to exchanging outrageous suggestions until we were stirred stiff and I lie gasping with laughter beneath him as he pounded away at my arse with happy abandon.

  In the morning, I wished to escape to our future home for another reason: this house was filled with people; and then my sister Elizabeth came to call with her husband. Rachel made quite a fuss shooing people out of the parlor where several of our friends had slept the night, and clearing the front hall so that our very proper sister could be greeted by a lord and not a band of buccaneers. Unfortunately for Striker, he was not shooed out. He was Sarah’s husband and expected to join us; and thus he was hurriedly stuffed into a proper shirt and coat.

  My sister Elizabeth appeared far plumper than I remembered, but she was still quite attractive. Her husband, Baron Beaucrest, appeared to be a serious and haughty young lord. He displayed a superior and knowing look at Gaston’s introduction, and a sneer at Striker’s. I wanted to hit him. His wife seemed oblivious, though; and after a brief greeting to me—a brother she hardly knew—and a perfunctory exchange of condolences about our father—who she had never been close to—she retired to the settee with Sarah—the sister she had grown up with—to speak happily of babies.

  Gaston, Striker, and I were left with her husband.

  Beaucrest had noticed Striker’s empty sleeve, and it was now obvious he was trying not to stare. “Might I ask, sir, how is it that you came to be so injured?” he asked with discomfort.

  I reined in my ire as I recalled I had once felt as he did about the maimed. The more I had traveled, the more I had grown inured to seeing battle-scarred men. Beaucrest had surely never seen battle, and it was doubtful he had ever traveled. Actually, he should probably be commended on feeling distress at another man’s misfortune. I must remember that every noble in England was not a man such as myself, Whyse, Thorp, or Rochester—or my father: who though he had not seen battle or ought else of the world to harden him, still would not have cared that a man was wounded.

  As I was musing, Striker was happily telling the tale of the ambush that cost him his arm. I watched with amusement as this tale of heroism elevated him in the eyes of his new brother-in-law. Striker’s mention of our involvement in the battle gained us a curious glance, but then we too began to rise in the young lord’s esteem as he apparently realized we were not whatever he had assumed us to be. When that story was finished, Beaucrest began asking enthusiastic questions and we relaxed and began to regale him with our adventures.

  “We must visit often,” Beaucrest gushed when Elizabeth had all but demanded they leave—after hinting it several times in the preceding hour.

  “We will be delighted to do so,” I assured him sincerely. “Or you must visit us. I feel we will be quite busy becoming settled these next months. Will you be joining us at Rolland Hall for the burial?”

  “We had not planned…” Elizabeth began to say.

  “I believe we can,” Beaucrest said and earned a frown from his wife.

  Once they were in their carriage and pulling away, Sarah laughed. “Well, I see I shall be inflicted with her vapidness quite often.”

  “Perhaps you can share the misery with Agnes and Yvette,” I said.

  Gaston frowned. “What if someone asks how Yvette became scarred?”

  I sighed, but Sarah was waving the question away.

  “She has already concocted a tale,” Sarah said with a smile and launched into a dramatic recitation. “Her ship was attacked by pirates as she sailed to meet her betrothed, the esteemed physician, Dominic Doucette, in the New World. They cut her face because she refused to tell the location of her jewels; or to surrender other things…”

  “Oh, very good.” I applauded the tale and my sister’s telling of it.

  Gaston appeared relieved. “That is wonderful. The people here will surely believe it.”

  “From what we have seen, aye,” Sarah said. “So she is a young lady from a good family who was recently widowed by her elderly husband.”

  “Who will now marry another physician,” I said. “If she agrees to it,” I amended quickly.

  “I cannot see why she would not,” Sarah said with a shrug. “It will make it very convenient for the four of you.” There was melancholy in her tone and I caught her gaze and raised a brow. She sighed. “I do not think…” She frowned at her husband and bit her lip.

  “What?” Striker asked.

  “I wish for us to have a house… somewhere else,” Sarah said. “Your offer of quarters at this new house is very kind, but…”

  Striker was shrugging to Gaston and me.

  “I assumed as much,” I said congenially. “I thought it likely you would wish to live in a port, and… We have not had opportunity to discuss this yet, but I am to inherit everything—according to what Theodore has been told. There are a number of businesses that I must divest myself of in order to be a more proper lord.”

  Sarah frowned at that, but she nodded. “Father was not a good nobleman in that regard, I suppose.”

  “Nay, and the king apparently frowned upon it. So… Theodore said there are several shipping concerns among these businesses, and the plantation in Jamaica among other things. I think they would be best in the capable hands of the R and R merchant Company.”

  Striker appeared quite surprised, but Sarah nodded knowingly.

  “Shipping concerns?” Striker asked. “Warehouses and goods, or actual ships?”

  Gaston and I shrugged. “Go ask Theodore,” I said. I was very glad he had forced me to have that discussion several days ago.

  Striker left us. Sarah smiled after him.

  “Thank you,” she told me. “I know you need not…”

  “Oh, but I do,” I said. “I want everyone to be happy.”

  “We cannot all have what we want,” she said with a sad smile.

  “Damn it, Sarah, what would you have of me?” I asked with a smile and more frustration than rancor.

  “Something you cannot grant,” she said. “I would be the eldest, and a man.” She shrugged.

  I sighed. I supposed I was hearing the truth and perhaps the thing that drove her Horse. It was sad: it was a thing I could not grant. I smiled. “Well, you can make the best of what you do have, or you can live miserably and die bitter as our father did.”

  She frowned. “What did he say? At the end.”

  “That I could not have everything I wanted. That the world as it is—that society and the ways of other men—would not allow it.”

  She awarded me a sad and weary smile that said she agreed with him.

  I snorted. “Sarah, I will live as I wish, take what I want,
and leave the rest.”

  She snorted. “Spoken like a buccaneer and not a lord.”

  “Perhaps.” I smiled at her, but my thoughts were stirred and muddy. There was a time when I would have thought I had spoken like a lord and not a buccaneer—like a wolf. Now, I supposed it was truly spoken like a centaur; and oddly, it made me feel very tall in a world of wolves, and dogs, and other four-legged beasts without the heart and head of a man.

  Striker rushed in. “Four ships!” He held up his hand for emphasis. “The damn frigate we sunk would have been the fifth.”

  I laughed and looked to Gaston. “I told you Pete sank my frigate.”

  He frowned and shook his head thoughtfully. “If we had only known then…”

  That sobered me. “Oui, but… Non, the Gods had not written this future, yet, had they?”

  He smiled. “Non, because we had not set out to reach it.”

  The meal and evening passed with Striker, Cudro, and Pierrot—who was now a partner of the R&R Merchant Company, apparently—engaged in delighted discussion about this treasure that had been delivered unto them.

  That night, in the privacy of our room, Gaston was thoughtful. “It seems odd that we are now perceived as civilized and heroic battlers of the Spanish and pirates, and not… pirates. We still think like pirates.”

  I laughed, but quickly sobered. “It is as if we have gone to a new world: one in which we are different people.”

  He sighed. “Oui, but let us not become different people.”

  I recalled my initial dislike of Beaucrest. “Perhaps there are some habits we can dispense with.”

  He was placing a pistol on the stand next to the bed. He turned to frown at me, his fingers still resting on the piece.

  “Not that,” I said quickly. “This new world is as dangerous as the old; but non, our attitudes—well, my attitudes—my assumptions.”

  Gaston nodded thoughtfully. “Mine as well. So let us do as we always have, and always continue to change the way we think, but let us not change that we do think.”

  “Just so,” I agreed with a grin.

  There was a quiet knock on the door. We were both stripped to our breeches but not naked. I swung the door open and found Chris. She looked quite odd with her short hair in the ill-fitting dress Rachel had loaned her.

  “Pete is talking with Striker,” she said with a shrug.

  “Well, they have not talked in a long time,” I said and ushered her in.

  She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “And I begrudge no one. Truly. I think it will be good for him.” She smirked as she flopped onto the bed to sprawl like a boy despite the dress. “With the baby, I’m not feeling as hearty as he likes me to be.”

  I laughed. “Well, as it has been a long time, Striker might not be as hearty as Pete prefers.”

  Chris laughed raucously, and Gaston gave a sympathetic grimace before asking with concern, “How are you feeling?”

  “Much the same as last time,” she said seriously. “Sick every damn morning and tired. I vomited so often on the voyage here we were afraid I would starve. But it’s been better since I got my feet on solid ground. I swear I will never sail again while pregnant, even if Pete’s father were threatening him.”

  “Well, things should be better now,” I said.

  “It seems that way. But now I had best be a woman,” she sighed.

  “I am sorry for that. You made a fine boy, after all.”

  “Oui,” Gaston added. “It is odd seeing you in a dress.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. And it is odd being in a dress—especially an ugly one. Don’t tell Rachel that.”

  “Well, she has… conservative tastes,” I said. “We should have a dressmaker soon, though.”

  “That will be wonderful.” Then she frowned. “I have… expensive tastes, and I don’t know if catering to them will be warranted. There’s no point in my having fine dresses to wear around the house.” She chewed her lip. “What exactly is our place to be in this new household? Pete feels he is responsible for all matters of security. What am I to do?”

  I grinned. “You and I are truly the only two people in this household with any experience concerning the exigencies of a court. Gaston and I shall require your assistance.”

  “How? I cannot attend with you.”

  I frowned. “Well, my initial thought was that you could assist with the gathering and organization of information concerning our enemies and allies. I do realize that would be better accomplished if you could actually meet the people in question.” Then the answer occurred to me, and I laughed. “I suppose we could always have you pretend to be my mistress if the need arose.”

  Gaston frowned and then smiled.

  Chris was laughing. “Oh, that will be… We shall bedevil them all! They will not know in the Gods’ names what we are up to within our walls.”

  We laughed.

  Gaston finally dropped onto the bed beside her to sprawl and grin at the ceiling. “We will do as we will; and if the dragon dislikes it, we shall leave.”

  “Dragon?” Chris asked.

  “The king,” I said.

  “Well, let us not do that if I’m pregnant again,” she said.

  “Ah oui,” I teased. “We will try to plan for that. Is it likely?”

  She grinned. “I am happy about it this time—very happy. I am proud to be Pete’s wife and to bear him children. Sometimes it surprises me how happy it makes me. And he does not make me feel like a woman in the way I fear. He makes me feel strong.”

  Gaston rolled up onto his elbow and touched her shoulder. “I am very happy to hear you say that. I am still…” He looked away with lambent eyes.

  She touched his chin and brought his eyes back to hers. “I forgive you. Truly. I think…” She smiled. “I think Will’s right, the Gods move in mysterious ways.”

  My man appeared relieved, and he took her hand and kissed the back of her fingers.

  She sighed and relaxed to grin up at me with a shrewd mien. “Now, my lord, what exactly has the dragon and his minion, Whyse, told you?”

  I dropped on the bed on the other side of her and began to recall and relay everything the king and Whyse had told us.

  When she finally left us, Gaston made much of thrusting his head out the window and perusing what he could see of the night sky.

  “What are you about?” I asked with sleepy amusement.

  “Do you feel it is after midnight?”

  “I have no idea. Why should it matter?”

  He grinned. “I saw the date.”

  I frowned. “What is it?”

  “Well, if it is past midnight, then it is the fifteenth.”

  I wondered what I was forgetting, and then something about his mischievous smile recalled my looking at him in much the same way because… it had been his birthday. “June fifteenth, sixteen hundred and seventy one. I am thirty-one years of age.”

  “If it is past midnight,” he said and joined me on the bed.

  “If you saw the correct date.”

  He grinned anew. “We thought this would be resolved by your birthday.”

  I chuckled. “Oui, we did, and it has been. By the Gods, it has been.”

  I recalled my birthdays over the past few years. At this time last year, we had been on the dinghy with Gaston wounded and fevering and giving me rings. The year before that, I had just been rescued from Thorp. The year before that had seen us sailing to Porto Bello: we had not thought to celebrate my birthday much at all. The year before that we had just returned to Port Royal after the wreck of the galleon our first time roving together. The birthday before that had been a drunken orgy with Alonso and Teresina—in another world and time—another life.

  “I supposedly have only known you for less than five years,” I said with wonder. “I feel that a lie. I have surely known you forever.”

  He appeared thoughtful. “You are correct: it cannot have been only four years and a few months. Our memories must be poor.”

&n
bsp; “Oui, we are suffering delusions: imaging some strange life wherein we were not together.”

  He smiled. “I cannot even imagine it. I sometimes find myself wondering what you were doing—why you did not aid or succor me—during some event in my life.”

  I nodded solemnly, as I sometimes did the same. He had become a ghost lurking in all my memories. Had I not been worried about his jealousy when I cavorted with Alonso? Had he not helped me burn Goliath?

  “I wonder what we will be doing five years from now,” he said.

  “I wonder if we will be here—in England—next year,” I sighed.

  He shrugged. “We will be together, wherever we are.” He met my gaze with mischievous eyes. “I did not get you a gift.”

  “Surely you jest,” I teased. “How could you be so cruel?”

  He shrugged and lie back on the mattress. “You did not tell me what you wished.”

  I laughed, unable to continue my jest. “I truly have nothing left to want. I have everything.”

  He shook his head with wonder and smiled. “Is that not true?” Then he frowned and smiled at me. “What would you want if you had nothing?”

  I plundered him mercilessly for the remainder of the night.

  The next day I smiled at the irony that my father’s funeral service—and the reading of the will—should be scheduled for my birthday. Surely the Gods were in a fine humor. I surely was.

  We spent the first hours of the morning drilling Striker on how to bow and greet people appropriately. Then we dressed and filed out to the carriage. I was delighted to discover I owned a fine barouche and team. I chided myself for not investigating the stables sooner. Pete and Liam were following us on two very fine riding animals—not that one could tell from the looks on their faces, since neither of them was an accomplished rider. I reminded myself my father had always had the good sense to hire excellent grooms and buy good horses. Truly, he had possessed excellent taste. I probably owned many fine things.

  Whyse met us at the church, and whispered in my ear a great many things about the men seated around us until I felt as overwhelmed as I ever did when Rucker presented me with lengthy translations. In time I knew I would learn everything my new associate wished to impart, and I would be able to wield that information like a fine rapier; but for now it merely made me tired. I wished Chris was here to save me the trouble of memorizing it. I was only going to relay it all to her, anyway.