Chapter Six
The following day proved to be as strange and unsettling as its weather. Hot and humid, with a heavy cloud cover, the morning was pregnant with a foreboding sense of repression.
Ignoring the uneasy atmosphere, I delighted in the fact that I looked well in the full-skirted white muslin gown, trimmed with hand-embroidered pink roses, chosen from my new wardrobe.
“You shall accompany us to church, my dear,” Abraham informed me at breakfast.
“Of course,” Colin agreed as Caroline sniffed her contempt. “I want to show the village my beautiful bride.”
“You’re a Presbyterian, I assume?” Abraham asked, signaling Marie to bring more coffee.
“I don’t know,” I said. “My mother and I never attended church. But,” I hastened to add as I saw his appalled expression, “she did teach me to believe in God and to pray.”
“Then we’ll assume you are of our faith.” He added cream and sugar to his freshly poured cup.
“Perhaps she’s a Roman Catholic,” Barret Madison, impeccable in white linen shirt and dark frock coat, vest, and trousers, interjected from his place beside me.
“A papist like you?” Abraham scoffed. “No daughter-in-law of mine will ever kneel to false idols or bare her soul in confession to some supposedly celibate creature in black robes. She’ll never wear a crucifix about her neck, as I’ve been informed you do at sea, to ward off evil spirits.”
“Your grasp of the Catholic faith never ceases to amaze me, Abe.” The captain shook his head.
“Mind your smart tongue, or not even your shipboard icon will prevent my pulling your command from beneath you,” my father-in-law warned. “Now come, family. The carriage is waiting. Reverend Prescott won’t start the service until the last Douglas is seated in the pews.” Patting his mustache with a snowy linen square, he got to his feet.
“Barret,” he continued as he turned to lead us from the room. “You may ride to that log temple in the bush, the place you call a Catholic Church, on the back of that brute Lucifer. I’ll not have a Douglas carriage seen before a pagan place of worship.”
“Aye, Master.” There was a taunting tone in the captain’s voice. “I’ll say a prayer to the blessed Saint Anne on behalf of Colin and his bride. Perhaps she will intervene and see to it their union is blessed with fertility.”
“Damn you,” Abraham muttered. “I can only thank God you’ve never proven yourself capable of breeding. The last thing this village needs is another French Catholic. Come, family, let us proceed to church before this man makes me further blaspheme on the Sabbath.”
He flung his napkin onto his plate and strode from the room.
“Miserable old cur!” Randall muttered. “Barret, I’m sorry about…”
He did not get a chance to finish. Marie, who had been waiting to clear the table, sank to the floor unconscious.
“Sweet Jesus!” Barret knelt beside her, Randall close by his side.
“Don’t touch her until I make certain she’s not broken any bones!” Randall stopped the captain as he started to gather her up in his arms.
“Right.” Barret moved aside to let Randall get closer. “She took a bad fall.”
I moved to Colin’s side and looked down at my new friend. Her face was deathly pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
“Well, well,” Caroline taunted as she joined the assemblage about the maid. “Morning fainting spells. I hope none of you gentlemen have been trifling with her.”
“For God’s sake, be quiet, Caroline,” Randall snapped. “The girl is ill. Barret,” he said as he completed his cursory examination and arose, “take her to her room. As nearly as I can ascertain, she had a simple bout of lightheadedness. Working in this cursed humidity is enough to make anyone ill.”
As Barret gathered the young woman up in his arms and stood, her eyelids fluttered open. She stared up at him, confused at first, then distressed. She gasped something in French and began to struggle from his arms. He stilled her effort with soft words in the same language and a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“Rest, Marie,” Randall advised. “Let Barret take you to your room. I’ll look in on you after church. Don’t worry. We’ll see to it everything is all right.”
He smiled reassuringly at her, then nodded to Barret to take her away. When they’d gone, he slammed a fist into his other palm, his face filling with outrage. “Damn!”
“Darling, such vehemence,” Caroline purred, going to slip her arm through his. “One would think you were in some way responsible for the little French girl’s illness. You weren’t, were you, my love?”
He shot her a belittling look before striding from the room, his wife trotting in mock obedience at his side.
****
In the small but well built and decorated church on the edge of the village, I became the object of interest for the entire congregation.
“They’re admiring my beautiful bride,” Colin whispered, leaning close and squeezing my gloved hand.
His words did not reassure me. I knew the truth. This was the villagers’ first opportunity to view Colin Douglas’s sudden wife. How had I managed to seduce the most eligible bachelor in the valley into marrying an unlikely creature like myself, they must be wondering.
****
After the noon meal that followed our return home from church, Colin asked if I would object to his going riding with Randall and Captain Madison.
“Of course not,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll look in on Marie, if she’s feeling well enough to have visitors.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that,” my husband surprised me by replying quickly. “She’s been sent home to her parents. Randall thinks she needs complete rest for a few days. One of the grooms drove her there while we were at church.”
“I hope she’s well soon,” I murmured. “I shall be quite lonely without her.”
“As soon as I can find a suitable horse for you, we’ll ride together.” Colin had changed the subject. He kissed me on the cheek and hurried off to change into riding clothes.
****
As I sat in the side porch swing later in the afternoon, I heard their yells and the drumming of their horses’ hooves. I joined the servants and grooms who had gathered in the stable yard to watch their approach.
Taking fences and brooks like steeplechasers, the three horsemen thundered across the long expanse of cleared fields behind the mansion and its outbuildings at full gallop. I recognized the big black animal in the lead. Lucifer ran flat out, setting a tough pace for the chestnut and bay at his heels.
Caught up in the excitement, the servants and stable hands cheered them on, each supporting one or the other of the three. Their exuberance was contagious.
“Faster, Colin! Give him his head! Let him run!” I yelled.
I was seized by an arm and spun about to face an enraged Abraham Douglas.
“Do not support this nonsense!” he roared.
“I’ll do as I please,” I snapped back reflexively, then immediately was aghast as I realized what I’d done.
“How dare you stand there, arrayed in finery my money paid for, your belly stuffed with my food, and defy me!” he bellowed. “You’ll do as I say, missy, or be sent packing like the baggage you truly are.”
Before I could reply, Randall, Colin, and Barret thundered into the yard in a cloud of dust.
“Get back to work, the lot of you,” Abraham yelled at the servants. “Don’t ever let me catch you encouraging those boys’ debauchery again!”
They hurried off like a pack of beaten dogs.
“Get down!” Abraham turned to roar at the horsemen as they milled about on their prancing, foaming horses. In his hand he carried a riding quirt, slapping it against his high leather boot. “Get down, God damn you!”
They dismounted and stood holding their sweating, blowing horses in check. Clad in riding boots and breeches, with shirts open well down over their chests, they were a handsome trio.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” my father-in-law bellowed, cracking the quirt in outrage. “You could have gotten injured or killed…especially you, Colin, you young idiot! And you, Barret and Randall, encouraged this madness? Damn you both, I should have Burt and Harry whip a little sense into your stupid hides!”
“Father…” Colin began, but he was cut short as his father walked up close to him.
“You reek of cheap ale,” Abraham spat. “You were at the Black Horse Inn, I’ll wager, and on the Sabbath. Barret, if you introduced him to one of your whorehouse sluts, I’ll see you tarred and feathered!”
“Take it easy, Abe.” Barret turned his attention to loosening Lucifer’s girth. “We only had a couple of tankards of ale. Colin’s as pure as he ever was.”
The quirt flashed out and cracked across the captain’s shoulders as a single bolt of lightning rent the dry, dark sky. The blow tore the linen shirt and left a fine, red cut in the exposed flesh beneath.
Barret whirled as an explosion of thunder filled the hot, heavy air. For a moment I thought he’d strike my father-in-law. But he didn’t. He simply faced him, gray eyes smoldering as the sound lessened to a disgruntled rumble.
“Don’t ever do that again!” The threat in his voice sent a shiver up my spine.
“You deserved it!” the older man snarled. “I don’t care if you break your own neck or end up crippled by some whorehouse disease. You’re the best commodore I’ve ever had, but you are replaceable. My sons are not. I’ve been too tolerant, allowing you to eat at my table and sleep in my house. You’ve become too familiar with my boys and the family in general. Get your gear. You’ll be joining the stable hands in their quarters above the carriage shed.”
“Abraham, don’t talk like a fool!”
I turned to see Gram stumping down the back steps of the house, her black eyes flashing fire.
“This boy”—she pointed to Barret with her cane—“Provides the only decent conversation at the dinner table each night and helps me up to bed with a great deal more compassion than you or any of your cowering servants. He’ll leave this house over my dead body.”
“Mother!” Abraham looked at her in exasperation. “He had the boys steeplechasing and debauching at the tavern. He…”
“Quiet!” she snapped. “Barret, come with me to the kitchen, my boy. I’ll make a poultice to keep that wound from festering.”
Barret hesitated only a moment. Then, a wicked grin spreading over his face, he swept Gram a deep, gallant bow and moved forward to offer the little old lady his arm.
“I always did like the smell of horse sweat and ale,” I heard her say with a chuckle as he helped her toward the house. “Reminds me of Abe’s father, the swashbuckling pirate. Made his fortune privateering in the War of 1812, didn’t I tell you? But Abe’s too respectable to admit that now.”
Silence reigned until the pair disappeared inside the mansion. Then Abraham turned to the two remaining riders and myself.
“Well, don’t stand there gaping. Randall, get those horses tended to before they become ill. Colin, go bathe. You, young lady, help him. Perhaps once he’s clean and sober, if he has any strength left, he’ll act like a husband and not a drunken fool. Damn it, why doesn’t it rain and get it over with?”
He turned and strode off toward the mansion. Randall, with a resigned, good-natured shrug, gathered up the reins and led the three wet horses toward the stable.
“Starr, I wasn’t with a woman.” Colin’s face was grim and nervous beneath dust and sweat. “We were just letting off a little steam. I only had a couple of tankards of ale at the tavern, I swear.”
“I know,” I said, taking his arm. “Let’s go get you a bath. Your father was right about one thing. You do reek.”
At that instant it began to rain, a great, drenching downpour.
“You’re good for me, Starr,” Colin grinned, looking down at me, water streaming down his face. “We’ll have a fine life together, wait and see.”
But as we ran to the shelter of the mansion I noticed mud soiling the hem of my elegant dress.
****
Later, as Colin was bathing and I sat alone reading in our bedroom, I heard Reverend Prescott and his wife arrive, with Mary Constable. I’d overheard Caroline telling the cook to prepare for supper guests and now assumed they were the minister and the two ladies. Caroline and Gram took the ladies to the library while Abraham drew the clergyman into his office below me. I found my attention straying from my book to the conversation rising through the floor grate.
“Adam, I have a plan I wish to discuss with you,” my father-in-law began. “A plan I believe will prove beneficial to both of us.”
“That sounds most intriguing, although I cannot imagine what it could be,” the vicar replied.
“The young woman you have living with you, Mary Constable, she’s still unattached?”
“Why, yes. She’s been here but a short time, and she still mourns her young man.”
“But she can’t live with you and your good wife forever,” Abraham said. “Another mouth to feed is always a burden, even when it’s done in the spirit of Christian charity.”
“What are you suggesting?” The clergyman’s tone was suspicious.
“A solution that will benefit both of us, Adam.” I heard booted footsteps cross the room. “Would you care for a drink?”
“No…no, thank you. Please continue.”
“One of my captains, Jared Fletcher, has been showing a good deal more interest than I deem healthy in my daughter-in-law, Caroline,” Abraham startled me by replying. “He needs a woman. Since I don’t intend to allow him to upset Randall’s marriage, I propose to marry him off to Mary Constable. Respectable young women of marriageable age are few and far between in this valley. A marriage between these two would solve both our problems.”
“You mean use poor, innocent, little Mary to satisfy a sailor’s lust?” The clergyman’s voice rose in disbelief.
“Calm yourself, Adam.” Abraham’s tone was placating. “She could do a deal worse. Jared is a captain, second in command of my fleet. He’s handsome, well-to-do, intelligent, literate, and, more importantly, a good Presbyterian. I might have suggested marrying her to Barret Madison, a raving papist. Think, man! You’d be bringing her securely back into your fold. She was about to marry that Irish Catholic Kevin O’Brien and become a member of that pagan sect.”
“I cannot agree to such a match,” the reverend stammered. I guessed it was taking all his courage to stand up to Abe, and I admired him in spite of his faltering words. “I couldn’t force that innocent child into the bed of that big, experienced sailor. She needs someone gentle and kind…and Kevin O’Brien, for all his papist faith, was just that. He and his sister Bridgit are…were fine people, full of love and compassion. Bridgit spent every free moment she had nursing my wife over her last illness. Religion was no barrier to her. She…”
“Don’t talk to me about that fish-shed slut!” Abraham roared. “She’s a whore who satisfies men with her body as easily as she guts salmon with her knife.”
“I will not have that good, kind girl defamed!” Reverend Prescott startled me by barking back. “She’s already solved Mary’s problems. Tomorrow Mary Constable will move in with her. Bridgit feels that Mary, as her brother’s intended, should be her responsibility. Mary will not be a financial burden to Bridgit. Captain Madison has given her a job as clerk in his shipping office in the village. He’s so often at sea, and such a great number of new vessels are being produced in your yards, he says he needs someone to keep up with the paper work—the insurance contracts, the cargo lists, the destination of each Douglas ship, registry papers, and the like. Mary is literate and good with figures. She’ll do admirably.”
He paused for breath, then continued more slowly, measuring his words. “And since Bridgit’s cabin is small and allows for little privacy, I doubt your son will have many opportunities for intimate visits—if indeed such they were—
to Mistress O’Brien.”
“My son? I said nothing of my son,” Abe huffed. “My sons both love their wives. I’m shocked, yes, horrified that you, Adam, could even suggest such a thing. And as for Barret Madison’s giving Mary Constable a job—”
“Supper is served.” A maidservant interrupted Abe’s tirade to make the announcement.
The men fell back into their roles as host and guest.
“Shall we join the ladies, my friend?” Abraham said. “I’m sure Cook has an excellent repast waiting for us. We’ll continue this discussion later.”
“Of course, of course,” Reverend Prescott murmured, and I heard them leaving the office.
I leaned back into my chair, astounded by the lengths to which my father-in-law would go to control his family. If he had known of the encounter I’d had with Barret Madison, would he also have found that captain a wife, or, as he’d threatened that afternoon, sent me packing?
****
That night, as we were preparing for bed, I told Colin about his father’s verbal attack on me in the stable yard. I expected my husband to agree with my outrage. I was appalled when he sank down on the edge of our bed and slouched forward, elbows on his knees, to stare at the rug beneath his bare feet.
“Don’t defy my father, Starr,” he muttered. “He’s not a man one can trifle with.”
“Colin, he raised his voice to me!” I cried. “He grabbed me by the arm. He had no right—”
“Listen to me, Starr.” My husband was on his feet in front of me, his expression pleading. “Don’t antagonize my father. He’s a dangerous man. Believe me!”
“Colin…?”
“Please, Starr! Do as I ask.”
“As you wish, Colin,” I said, touching his tense cheek. “I did promise to love, honor, and obey.”
At my reassuring words, he let a smile twitch at his lips.
“Thank you, sweetheart.” He brushed my forehead with a kiss before he released me and went into the bathroom to prepare for bed. I was left alone to puzzle what could make a son so fear his father.
Shadows of Love Page 11