by John Jakes
Franklin’s words struck Philip like a blow. Struck and drove deep into his mind. An image of Marie Charboneau drifted through his imagination. Her views were certainly in marked contrast to Franklin’s. But as a result of the man’s quiet, forceful words, Philip found himself agreeing silently.
A sudden, wrenching insight came to him: What my mother wanted was no less than bondage of another kind. Voluntary bondage to the ways of the Amberlys. Not a fulfilling bondage, as Anne called it. A destructive one. Only my mother never saw that—
Against the murmur of talk that had resumed at nearby tables, Franklin said something else. Philip looked up. The doctor’s eyes were hidden by the sun-glaring spectacles. Yet Philip had the uncanny feeling that Franklin was looking through him, toward some deep sadness.
“I beg your pardon, Doctor, I didn’t hear what you said.”
“Oh, I was only thinking of my Billy.”
“Your son?”
Franklin nodded, said with faint bitterness, “His Excellency, the Royal Governor of New Jersey. Each man, as I say, takes a stand. Billy’s taken his. I helped him obtain his position. Pulled every string I could in London, back in the days when relations with the colonies were more cordial. I wanted Billy to have an important post! But I also thought I’d drilled some sense into him when he was young—”
Franklin’s hand clenched, white at the knuckles. “I sailed home only a few weeks ago with the highest hopes. I prayed I’d step off the ship and hear Billy had resigned in protest against the Crown’s actions. Well, Mr. Kent, he hadn’t. And I’m informed he won’t. I love him above any person in this world save my dear departed wife, and I’m not ashamed of that. But, God help me, I love liberty more. Billy, it seems, does not. I hear he’s grown extremely fond of the perquisites of his splendid life. It’ll drive a wedge between us. Forever, if he persists.”
Once more Franklin pulled down his spectacles, and once more Philip saw the sadness. Now he understood another reason for it.
“It’s all choice, Mr. Kent,” Franklin sighed. “How much are you willing to pay for the whistle?”
“The what, sir?”
“Oh—” A gentle smile. “That’s just an old expression of mine. When I was growing up in Boston, a visitor to our house gave me some pocket change. Later that day, in the streets, I met a boy playing a whistle. I’d never heard such a sweet sound. I offered the boy all the money I’d been given—and tooted that whistle mighty proudly when I got home. My brothers and sisters broke out laughing. It came like a thunderclap when they, with my father’s corroboration, convinced me I’d paid the lad four times what the whistle was worth. The whistle instantly lost its charm. As soon as I heard my family laughing, and thought of what I’d squandered, I cried with the vexation only the young can summon. Ever since, the incident’s stuck in my mind. Whenever I’m tempted toward a comfortable but wrong judgment as opposed to the one that’s difficult but right, I say to myself, ‘Franklin, do not give too much for the whistle.’ That’s what Billy’s done, you see. I—” Franklin seemed to speak with great effort then. “—I will very likely never see him again unless he resigns. And I don’t think he’ll have the courage. He’s still enchanted with the whistle for which he’s paid too dear a price.”
Philip stared at his own hands. After a moment, the doctor let out a long sigh. “Well, that’s all beside the point—we were talking of broader matters. I really wish I know where all the turmoil will end. We’re a powerful people here in America. Unique in many ways. Should the ministers decide to test us to the limit, I think they will be mightily astonished—at first, anyway. In a long war—” A doubtful lift of the shoulder. “I’ve expressed my views on that.”
“Do you think the ministers will test us, Doctor?”
“Given George’s determination—yes, I believe it will happen. His Majesty’s not an evil man. But he’s a bad, misguided king. And there’s not a person in his administration who’ll gainsay him. Not North, not Dartmouth, not Kentland, not—”
Franklin stopped, clacked down his mug.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Kent? You’re white as ashes.”
“You spoke a name—I’m not sure I understood —Kentland?”
Franklin nodded. “Aye, James Amberly, the Duke of Kentland. A member of the little clique known as the King’s Friends. He’s an assistant secretary for overseas affairs, in Lord Dartmouth’s department.” The jowly man peered over his spectacles. “You’re acquainted with him?”
“I—I heard the name at Sholto’s,” Philip said quickly. “They said he was highly placed—but I also heard that he had died. Could there be two noblemen with that name?”
“There is one hereditary Duke of Kentland and only one, Mr. Kent. Come to think of it, though, I do recall that Amberly was gravely ill a few years ago. For months, he never left his country seat. He did recover eventually. Came up to the town and took a place in the government. That, I believe, had been his plan before an old war wound caused the illness.”
“He’s alive? Today?”
“I can’t speak for today. But I conversed with the Duke outside the House of Lords a fortnight before I sailed. A wise, humane man in all respects—save for his blind loyalty to King George. His wife’s another case entirely. A regal bitch, with the emphasis on the latter. I’ll admit Amberly didn’t look too healthy when we spoke. But he’s certainly able to get about and assist Dartmouth in the execution of foreign policy. I also understand his only son is serving in the military somewhere in these very col—good heavens!”
Philip had stood up suddenly, nearly overturning the table. His face was stark with the disbelief hammering in his mind.
They said he died. They told us he died.
The implications of the treachery left him in a cold fury, shaking. He could barely speak:
“Dr. Franklin—you’ll pardon me—there’s something I must do—”
“Wait, Kent! I remember what you told me in Craven Street—your father not married to your mother—was Amberly—?”
Leaving the doctor’s question unanswered, Philip tore out of The Sovereign and broke into a run. He understood some if not all of it. But most important—the knowledge was like a white iron searing him—he thought he understood Alicia.
There would indeed be a confrontation now. One that would rattle the Tory teeth of the whole Trumbull family!
He ran through the streets to the City Tavern, dashed across the public room toward the stairs. First his surtout and saddlebags. Then his horse. Then Arch Street—
The landlord stopped him at the foot of the stairs:
“Mr. Kent, you’ve a visitor upstairs. Came in the back way, just after dark.” The man’s smirk widened. “The same benefactress, I believe, who’s handling your bills while you’re here. I’m not anxious to be known as a man who takes a lot of Tory money. But when a woman’s as fair, and as rich, as the one who—”
Philip was gone up the stairs.
He found the door to his room locked. He pounded the wood till Alicia freed the latch to admit him.
ii
Her shoulders shone golden in the glow of the single candle burning beside a pewter tray. The tray held two goblets and a decanter of shimmering claret.
Alicia stepped back to let him enter. Her tawny hair, unbound, hung down over her shoulders. She clutched a woolen coverlet she’d wrapped around herself, holding it at her breasts. But not so high that he couldn’t see the pronounced shadow at her cleavage. One raking glance at the room revealed all the details she’d so prettily—and carefully—arranged.
The bed was turned back. The shutters were closed against the spring dark. Her clothes were a lacy spill in one corner.
Her bare feet whispered on the floor as she glided toward him. The sudden way he slammed the door banished the heated glow from her eyes.
Her mouth went round. She started to frame a question. He was faster:
“Why didn’t you tell me Lord Kentland is still alive in England?”
“What?”
The woolen coverlet slipped, showing her right breast. He closed his fingers on her forearm.
“Why didn’t you tell me my father never died?”
The aroused pink tip of her breast shriveled. She seemed unable to speak. His voice savaged her:
“Why, Alicia?”
“I meant to when the moment was right—” She struggled, backing away. His grip held her. His fingers left livid white marks on her skin. “Who told you?” she breathed.
“A gentleman recently arrived from England—if that matters. My father wasn’t dead when my mother and I were turned away from Kentland. It was all a fraud, a hoax! The mourning servants, the pretended grief—good Christ, how stupid they must have thought us! Peasant clods from France. Willing to eat whole any story they fed us!”
“Phillipe, let me explain—”
“They were right, weren’t they? Who arranged it, Alicia?”
“If you’ll stop hurting me—”
He bent her wrist. “Tell me, God damn it.”
“Please, Phillipe—” She was almost whimpering. “Let go.”
When he didn’t, she bent her head, the tawny hair spilling across her forehead. She tried to press her mouth to his hand, kiss it, even as she brought her other hand up to stroke his arm.
“Please. Please don’t hurt me, darling—”
He shoved her, hard.
Stumbling, Alicia collided with the bed. She shot out one hand to cushion her fall. The coverlet had dropped to her feet. By the gleam of the candle she was like some carved figure, nipples and belly and triangle of tawny hair sculpted and shadowed by the light—
She started to get up from the edge of the bed. She looked at his face, thought better of it. Her quick, breathy speech revealed her terror:
“Lady Jane hatched the scheme. She never stopped fearing you and your mother and that letter the Duke wrote. When—when it became evident you wouldn’t leave until you saw your father, Lady Jane decided to arrange things so you’d have no further reason to stay. No hope of a meeting—”
“And it was easy for her to buy black wreaths for the door of Kentland. Easy to buy the mournful looks of the servants. Pay them enough and they’d go through any mummery—Lady Jane can buy anything or anyone, can’t she? With money or with threats. Wealth and station—that’s all it takes to create a little show to fool the stupid French boy and his mother.”
“She was afraid! She knew her husband would acknowledge you publicly as his son if he ever met you face to face. She realized she had to use desperate means to get rid of you—”
“Meantime letting Roger pursue his own preventive measures!” Philip said, acid in his voice. “After she’d convinced us Amberly was dead and we’d run to London, she let Roger make sure we never walked out of the city alive. I never realized I had such power over her! Oh, my mother claimed there was great value in the letter. But I don’t think I ever understood the full value until today.”
He walked toward her slowly. Still huddled on the bed, she seemed to grow smaller.
“What I found out today also explains several other cloudy issues. Up in London, we could never pick up any word of Amberly’s death.” His dark eyes narrowed as he remembered the willow grove beside the Medway. “And when you warned me about Roger; just before my mother and I fled from Tonbridge, you said something that struck me as very odd. Something about preparations for the burial. They could wait, you said. While Roger finished his business with us. Yes, of course they could wait.”
He dug his fingers into the scented skin of her shoulder. Her breasts shook as she tried to writhe away, crying out softly. He refused to let her go.
“You knew then that my father wasn’t dead. You had courage enough to warn me about Roger—but not enough to tell all the truth. I thought you were hiding something. I never guessed what it was.”
Tears flooded her cheeks. In an almost hysterical voice, she begged him to release her. He did. But it was an effort to keep his hands off her throat.
She wept softly as he walked to the shutters, thrust them open a little way. He fixed his eyes on the April stars. He was fearful that he might do her physical harm.
Soft footfalls. Hands slipped around his waist, clinging. Her breasts, her thighs were fierce against his back and buttocks.
“Don’t hate me too much. I tried to tell you about your father but I couldn’t bring myself to it. I’m no more than what I was raised and taught to be. If you’d stayed—if you’d discovered the hoax—I was sure you’d meet Roger another time. Perhaps be killed—”
He seized her hands, broke the hold, whirled on her.
“Or kill him? And ruin your precious future? Lady Jane wasn’t the only one who wanted me gone!”
“Phillipe, I love you—and I loved you then. Only the other night, I told you I’d made the wrong choice. It took years of living with Roger for me to appreciate that. I know I should have given you all the truth before. I couldn’t because, in my own way, I was as fearful as Lady Jane. Yes, your accusation’s true. But that’s over. That’s the past, sweetheart—”
She slipped her arm around his neck, brought her mouth near his, whispering:
“You’re the only one I care about!”
Wildly, her mouth pressed against his. Her breathing was strident as she kissed him, then again, moving her body so the points of her breasts rubbed against him—
“Lie with me, Phillipe. Now—on that bed. Let me show you the past doesn’t count any longer. Roger’s gone—your father is alive—we’ve found each other—please, Phillipe. The bed—”
A final, icy comprehension spread through him. Once more he shoved her away.
“I think, Alicia, the past counts very much in your case. Especially the way it’s linked to the change in your circumstances. Roger’s dead. The Duke is living in England. And I’m his only heir.”
“That’s your strength! Your advantage!” she cried, a false joy on her face, an enthusiasm too bright, too insistent. “If you return to London secretly—if you locate your father before Lady Jane gets word of it—and show him the letter—Phillipe, you do still have the letter?”
He noticed a sheen of perspiration on her upper lip. She no longer looked soft in her nakedness.
He said, “What if I answered no? Suppose I sent it down to the sea with my mother’s body?”
“Tell me the truth!” Alicia cried, running at him, one small fist raised to strike.
A half-step away, she checked, sensing that she’d betrayed herself. Her tone turned pleading. “Don’t twist words and make sport, Phillipe. Not when that letter can mean a whole new world for you—”
“And you.”
“You said you wanted to be what your father was! It’s within your reach!”
“I realize that.”
And it was a grievous burden.
A lifetime of longing—of being turned aside—of being wounded and counted no more than a cipher—all that could be erased. Canceled forever. His pledge to Marie could be fulfilled. And his savored dream of seeing England again, this time as a man of property—
No, more than that. A man of property and title.
It was all possible.
To such fulfillment could be added the bounty of this sleek, golden-breasted girl. A woman to teach him. To counsel him, and smooth his passage into the courts and the salons where his mother said he truly belonged.
If all that was his, why in the name of Almighty God did something in him turn aside?
As if in answer, the fragmented past leaped to mind—
He thought of Girard and his promise of the new winds that would blow away the tottering structure of a society gone corrupt, a hierarchy past its time.
He thought of plain Ben Edes and the power of his clattering wood press, of the meaning of so many of the pieces by Patriot and the others that he and Edes had labored long into the night to set and proof and print.
He thought of the liberty medal, and the
night of tea sifting into Boston Harbor.
And he thought of all Benjamin Franklin had said only an hour ago.
Philip stared at Alicia, his eyes remote, strange. She was beautiful. Beautiful. But in his mind, a voice mocked—
And how much are you willing to pay for the whistle, my friend?
Alicia crept back to the bed, abruptly conscious of her nakedness. She covered her breasts and her pubis with the coverlet, her shoulders prickled with goosebumps. Philip smiled an odd smile. The spring air drifting through the half-open shutters was not all that chilly.
In the silence of his mind he said to Marie, You were wrong. The greatest crime a man can commit is not bowing to poverty and obscurity but bowing to slavery. Allowing another to put you in ruinous bondage. Bondage of the body. Or bondage of the soul. Forgive me, if you can.
Weight seemed to lift from him, a vast, encrusted weight of doubts, sometime hopes, vengeful yearnings. The weight broke and crumbled and he knew what Alicia was—
A creature exactly like the Amberlys.
How long, then, before he was transformed himself? Enslaved—and enslaving others in turn?
Slowly, he repeated the thought of moments ago:
“I do realize what’s in reach, Alicia. But for some peculiar reason, I have a small doubt. One tiny doubt—”
He approached the bed. With one swift motion he stripped the cover from her body, hooked his hand down between her thighs, holding the hair of her, and the lips of flesh, for what they were—a marketable commodity.
“The doubt tells me you wouldn’t offer this unless I had the letter. You wouldn’t offer this, or all your endearments, or your vow that nothing else matters but our being married—”
She wrenched away, tumbled off the bed, fell to her knees. She was weeping again, this time in desperation: