Secrets of the Chocolate House

by Paula Brackston

  “For his beloved astrolabe he would do anything. Just as he would sacrifice anyone. Do not forget that.”

  Nodding, Xanthe pulled her cloak around her, paused to bid a brief farewell to Edmund at the counter of the chocolate house, and then left for the stagecoach that would take her to Laybrook, to the abbey, and to Fairfax.

  16

  Snow lay frozen to a crisp rime upon the ground and the night sky shone with stars. The coach was only half full, so that Xanthe was able to sit in a corner, her hat pulled low over her eyes, her bag on her lap, and avoid conversation with her fellow travelers. The journey to Laybrook was not long, but long enough for her to resolve never to take Fairfax at his word. However much she had convinced herself that she was going to give him something so wonderful he would have no reason to want more from her, Mistress Flyte’s words had struck home. He was a man of no principle. A man who had set himself apart from others already by changing allegiances and serving only himself. Who could say what he would or would not do once he was in possession of his astrolabe? She comforted herself with the knowledge that she not only had a plan involving the coin, but the words of the Spinners book to help her. For the first time she felt a part of something, as if she were being supported and helped instead of either thrashing around on her own or battling on without any real understanding of what she was doing or how things worked. She had learned to be cautious and to be ready. This time her encounter with Fairfax would be very different. She would remain in charge, in control, even if he was unaware of that fact, right up until the last moment. She had to make sure the Applebys were safe, and that she herself would be free to return home.

  The weather was still sharply cold, with a wind that sought out gaps in garments and holes in teeth. Xanthe dismounted from the stagecoach and stood a moment, watching the swaying carriage as the six dark horses took up the strain and cantered on out of the village. She felt little nervousness now. She was clear in her own mind of what she had to do, and she had come too far and risked too much to turn back. She replaced the strap of her bag over her shoulder, turned the collar of her cape against the wind, and walked the short distance to the abbey. If the servant who answered her knocking on the grand front door was surprised to see her he disguised it well and took her to a reception room off the main hall without so much as pausing to take her cloak and hat. This did strike her as a little strange until she entered the room and found Fairfax standing with his back to the fire, waiting. It was clear he had been expecting her, a thought that made the hairs at the nape of her neck bristle. How much did he see of what she did? How much could he know of what she had planned?

  “Mistress Westlake.” He made a polite bow but offered her no chair. His bandage had been replaced by a padded eye patch and the side of his face showed signs of swelling and bruising. Xanthe wondered, briefly, how much pain he was suffering. To apologize for what she had done to him seemed both pointless and insincere. She hated the thought that she had damaged his sight, but she knew she would do it again if she had to. It gave her some inner strength to realize that he would know this too.

  “Master Fairfax, you were expecting me, I think?”

  “I may not have your skills, but I am still able to detect the whereabouts and activities of a fellow Spinner, should I choose to do so.”

  Xanthe had never thought of doing this, but she remembered how she had seen Fairfax’s face before she had ever met him. Was that a part of it? If she tried, would she be able to discover where he was when she needed to? To watch him? Much as she wanted to, she could not press him for details of how he did this. She had to maintain her position of strength as best she could.

  “Tell me, mistress, have you reconsidered my proposal? I am hopeful that your coming here indicates, perhaps, a change of mind, if not a change of heart?” When she hesitated he went on, “I am not expecting a love match. It matters not. In point of fact, I have no interest in love. I care only for an alliance, and one sealed by matrimony would be both binding and more, shall we say, socially acceptable.”

  “I think you should understand this: even if I did not have a life and a family in my own time to return to, nothing and no one would ever induce me to be your wife.” She watched his face register this, watched it sour at the insult and the refusal, and then she continued. “However, I do have a proposal of my own to put to you. A bargain to strike.”

  “And what, pray, do you have in your gift other than yourself that I could possibly want?”

  Xanthe waited a beat and then answered simply, “Your astrolabe.”

  Fairfax revealed a fleeting glimpse of excitement before covering it with skepticism. “You have it?” he asked, taking a step toward her.

  Xanthe instinctively tightened her grip on her shoulder bag, but did not move and did not let it show how much being close to the man who had attacked her unsettled her.

  “No,” she said. “But I can take you to it.”

  “How do you propose to do that?”

  Xanthe took off her hat and dropped it onto the table beside her.

  “I’ll tell you, but it will take some time.” She undid her velvet cape, the heat from the fire beginning to make her uncomfortably hot. “How about some bread and cheese while I explain?” She sat at the head of the table, looking at him expectantly. She had learned to eat when she could while journeying, and though she would not enjoy sharing food with Fairfax, she wanted to keep up the pretense that she was calm, in control, and confident of her plan. She needed to convince herself every bit as much as she needed to convince him.

  Although Fairfax was plainly impatient to hear what she had to say, he summoned a servant and sent for food.

  It took nearly an hour for her to outline her plan and for them to argue the points. Fairfax had been first excited at the prospect of possessing once again his precious found thing, but was, not surprisingly, appalled at the idea of mounting the scaffold for a second time. As Xanthe explained the details of her proposal he unconsciously rubbed at his collar, loosening the button, exposing the livid scar on his neck. Food was brought, good bread and two different cheeses, with pickled walnuts, which were both sweet and sour and delicious. Xanthe ate partly to cover her nervousness. Fairfax ignored the supper altogether. He questioned her on every point of her idea, shaking his head as she parried his queries, responding with further what-ifs and hows. Xanthe let him ask, let him challenge. After all, it was, quite literally, his neck that was being risked. At last he began to see that there was no other way of getting the astrolabe back, and that, if he and Xanthe combined their talents and energies, there was a better than fair chance of success. A servant came in to add hefty logs to the fire. Fairfax was silent while the young man did his job. As the door closed behind him he leaned forward on the table, his damaged face ghoulish under the light of the candelabra.

  “Do you not see how together we could achieve so much? Does the idea not tempt you? Can you truly tell me that a part of you, that part that is Spinner above all else, does not long to see what you could do? To test your abilities, your gifts, to their very limits?”

  Xanthe dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “I am not staying here. We are not going to be a partnership of any kind beyond this task. It is important you understand and accept that,” she told him.

  He leaned back in his chair, disappointed, cross at being thwarted, but, she could see, prepared to settle for what she was offering. At least for now.

  “And you would have me do what with your dear friend?” he asked, not even bothering to name Samuel.

  “I want your word that the Applebys—all of them—will have the threat of prosecution lifted from them. That they will be free to get on with their lives and their work without any stain on their reputation. And I want it in writing.”

  “Just this? Nothing more?”

  “We are not all like you, Master Fairfax.”

  “Indeed.”

  He sent for vellum, quill, and ink and wrote, under Xanthe’s instruc
tion, a document exonerating Samuel, vouching for the good standing of the family, declaring them all to be God-fearing men and stalwart supporters of the king. He signed it, blotted it, folded it, and applied his seal. Xanthe took it, getting to her feet.

  “I will give this to Samuel myself,” she said.

  Fairfax surprised her by giving a small, thin smile at this. “As you wish,” he said. “You will find him in the morning room.” He rang a bell to summon a servant, who arrived breathless from scampering up the many stairs from the distant kitchen of the great house yet again. Fairfax addressed the young man without for one instant taking his gaze off Xanthe. “Escort Mistress Fairfax to the morning room. Wait for her there. She will return momentarily.”

  “Not here,” Xanthe said. “I will join you in the observatory in fifteen minutes. Be ready.” A thought occurred to her and she added, “And I have a coat. I left it here. I wish to use it. Have it taken to the observatory.”

  When the servant hesitated his master nodded at him, and he held the door open for Xanthe.

  She was surprised to find that Samuel was not in the new wing, working, nor in his own quarters, which by all accounts served as his jail. Instead she was led back through the cloisters to an older part of the abbey and a small but well-positioned room toward the front of the house. She was more surprised to find that Samuel was not alone. In the elegantly furnished morning room with its blond oak furniture and fine blue-gold rugs and tapestries, Samuel stood silhouetted against the tall window and beside him was a slender, well-dressed woman, holding his hand. On seeing Xanthe, Samuel self-consciously and abruptly let go of his guest.

  “I had not thought to ever see you again,” he said, moving a step toward her before stopping awkwardly. With his back to the light it was impossible for Xanthe to see his expression, but the tension in his posture suggested this was not an easy situation for him.

  “I … I needed to come back,” she said simply.

  Samuel nodded to the woman standing beside him.

  “But I am remiss.… Mistress Westlake, permit me to introduce to you Mistress Henrietta Shelton. Henrietta, this is the friend I have spoken of.”

  Xanthe watched the couple together. The way Samuel used the woman’s first name, the way he had been holding her hand, and the fact that they were alone together, meant that this had to be his fiancée. Here was the woman Samuel was to marry. However much she told herself it was an arranged match, that this was normal for the times in which he lived, that he was marrying for his family’s future, there was no escaping the fact that this was the woman he had chosen for his bride. It was she who would be the one to share his life, his home, his bed.

  Henrietta moved forward and bobbed a polite curtsey to Xanthe. Now that she was no longer silhouetted against the window, the young woman was revealed in the soft light of the room. She had a pleasant face, not beautiful, nor particularly memorable, but there was a warmth about her smile and a softness about her hazel eyes that was truly attractive. Xanthe found herself thinking that this was a face Samuel could grow to love. Her clothes were of good quality, modest but not boring, the colors quite bold and the lace and braid details eye-catching, suggesting a confidence and flair in the wearer.

  “The minstrel?” Henrietta asked. “Samuel has spoken so highly of your singing. And he told me how you helped him with the screen at Great Chalfield. He is fortunate to have such an ally.” Her voice was sweet and sincere. It was impossible not to like the woman.

  “Oh, I did very little,” Xanthe said.

  “Helping Samuel with this beloved building?” Henrietta laughed lightly. “I cannot think that he would see anything connected with his work as insignificant. I am indebted to you. His work is his passion.”

  Xanthe glanced at Samuel before saying, “Forgive me, Mistress Shelton, I don’t wish to appear rude, but I cannot stay long. I came only to tell Samuel, that is, to let him know…”

  “You are leaving again?” he asked. “Must your visits be always so mercurial? You have returned, and yet you must depart almost at once, it seems to me. To place yourself in such peril, and to no purpose. Would it not have been better had you stayed away?”

  Xanthe held out the letter Fairfax had written.

  “I needed to give you this,” she said. “I could not trust it to anyone else. I had to make sure it reached you.”

  Samuel took it. He raised his eyes when he saw the familiar seal.

  “Fairfax guarantees your safety,” Xanthe explained. “Yours and your family’s. He clears you of any charges of treason. With this, you will be safe. All of you.”

  She heard a gasp of relief from Henrietta.

  “Welcome news indeed!” she said. “Samuel has lived beneath such a dark cloud of injustice. You have lifted that from him. From us all.”

  Xanthe smiled at her. It was a measure of the woman, and of her family, that they had stood by Samuel when he was under threat of prosecution. She wondered if Henrietta had put herself and her own family in danger by doing so. Or could it be that, as they were engaged before he was forced into residence at the abbey to complete his work, before his arrest, that the connection was already known? In which case if she broke the engagement she would surely have been making Samuel look more guilty, more unacceptable, more likely to be abandoned by those he had called friends.

  Samuel tensed. “What did you have to promise him in order to obtain such a thing?”

  “There is something he wants and I’m going to help him get it. And then that’s it. We will both be rid of him.” Even as she said it Xanthe knew her task was not as simple nor as definite as she was making it sound.

  “You returned to do this for me?” Samuel asked, his voice showing how moved he was. “And I can offer you nothing.”

  Henrietta took a step back, feigning interest in a silver inkwell on the table, tactfully allowing her fiancé to speak with the unconventional woman who clearly meant a great deal to him. Xanthe could see why he had chosen her to be his wife.

  She looked at him again, trying to commit to memory once more the face that she had loved. She was relieved to find that she felt a distance from him that had not been there before. She had put what there had been between them in the past. She had moved on. Samuel looked drawn and tired and she wondered what it must be like to watch a person you cared deeply about disappear in front of you, not knowing if they were alive or dead, fearing that they would never come back.

  “I’m sorry, Samuel,” she said, “for leaving you like that. I didn’t mean to. It was the locket, and the fight, I…”

  “Do not concern yourself. I was content that you were out of harm’s way.”

  “What did Fairfax do to you, after I went?”

  “He was enraged at having you slip from his grasp.”

  “I was worried. I wanted to return but I couldn’t. My mother…”

  “I am, as you see, unharmed.”

  “I have to go now,” she said, turning to address Henrietta again. “It was a pleasure to meet you, mistress,” she said.

  “I am glad to have had the opportunity to meet someone who has done so much for Samuel.”

  “Will you return?” Samuel asked. When she did not answer he nodded, and she saw both resolve and resignation in his expression. “Then things will be as they should be,” he said, without knowing how much those very words had come to matter to Xanthe; to be her reason for doing what she did. He gave a low bow. “I am ever in your debt, mistress. Fare thee well.” And she saw that he too had accepted the way things were. His future was with Henrietta. He must let Xanthe go. As if to underline this point he held out his hand to Henrietta. She stepped over to stand at his side and put her hand in his. There passed between them a look, while not of passion, that told of commitment, of loyalty, of true affection, and of strength. All the things they would need for a future together in the turbulent times in which they lived.

  Xanthe moved toward the door and then paused, taking one more look at Samuel, o
ffering him her brightest smile. “Look after each other,” she said quickly, leaving without waiting for a response.

  She found Fairfax in the observatory in a state of agitation. He was rifling through papers on his desk, picking up this book, discarding it, snatching up a map or other document, talking about the necessity of choosing a place to make a journey, of what he should equip himself with, of what measures to take for a safe and swift return. Xanthe let him do what he felt vital to his survival. She was attempting to maintain the quiet presence of someone confident in their own abilities and unfazed by what they were about to do. It was, for the most part, a bluff, and she was surprised Fairfax believed it. The fact that he did reminded her how readily people believed what they wanted to be true, however unlikely, when it truly mattered to them. Her army coat had been laid upon a chair. She picked it up, comforted by its warm wool and the familiarity of it, the smell of woodsmoke from the chocolate house still discernible, but the smell of home, her own home, a little stronger. She removed her cloak and slipped the coat over her shoulders instead. Giving up something of Samuel’s felt significant. She trod her own path, with her own duties and responsibilities and attachments now. As did Samuel.

  After a further hour of bluster and discussion Fairfax at last stood still. He could find no more reasons to delay and think of no other preparations to make. The moment had come. For the first time, Xanthe believed she saw the shadow of fear cloud his face.

  “No one is making you do this,” she told him. “This is what you want, remember?”

  He frowned. “I would remind you, mistress, that you alone hold an alternative course within your gift. It is your refusal to agree to a partnership of two Spinners, a rebuttal of my marriage proposal, that has brought us to this action. You must accept your part in our fate, whatever it may be.”

  Thrown for a moment by the truth of this statement, Xanthe busied herself with her own preparations. There were not many to be made. She opened her shoulder bag and removed from it the chocolate pot she had persuaded Mistress Flyte to lend her. The copper was cool beneath her fingers and in it she saw her own blurred reflection. She felt the dent in the lid with her thumb. The dent that she had made. The dent that she had felt when she first found the pot in Laybrook in Esther Harris’s collection, more than four hundred years from the moment at which she now stood. The pot vibrated in her hands, starting up its piercing song. The connection was still strong, but would it be strong enough? The words from Spinners had given her safeguards to help her travel with, but she had not tried them before. They should not only protect her, but guide her journey, giving her a greater control, more accuracy, and a better chance of a successful spinning. Would they work? Her greatest fear was that by going somewhere, somewhen, other than that chosen by the chocolate pot, she would somehow unravel that connection so that it could not bring her back. Either to this time or to her own. If she wasn’t where she was supposed to be, wasn’t where the found thing had wanted her to go, might that affect her locket? Could she end up marooned in a third time and place? It was a possibility. She pushed the thought from her mind and set about her task. Mistress Flyte had recommended she make Fairfax the central point of the ritual. It was his extreme moment they wanted to travel to. She was also to avoid touching the locket or thinking about Flora or anything connected with home. Xanthe instructed Fairfax to empty his pockets, which he did without question. She then had him stand in the center of the room at a point removed from objects and clutter. Xanthe rebuttoned her coat, slipped her bag over her shoulder, and replaced her hat upon her head.