“What must you do as harbor master?” he asked, as the coach set off for a place called Fraunces Tavern, to which Weddington had directed the driver.
“Much more than I had anticipated, for far less reward than I had imagined,” Weddington replied. “I must log all ships in and out, ascertain that all persons arriving here in America register with the security officers. I deal with all the major men of trade in New York, and naturally, I give information and aid to those who request it. And, most assuredly, my men and I must be on the watch for contraband.”
“Of course,” Sean said. “But what do you mean by ‘far less reward’?”
“Precisely that. Pater forbade me to join the service in India where great sums can be made. Still, I was pleased when he was able to arrange my current appointment. But we must acknowledge facts. A harbor master thrives when his waterfront is filled with merchant vessels. I receive a share of all docking tolls, you see. But I do not receive such tolls from naval warships.”
His tone was rueful. Sean responded to it with a query that demonstrated his merchant’s imagination.
“The sailors and soldiers here?” he asked. “How are they clothed and fed? What is the source of their provisions?”
“Why, most of what they require is sent from the British Isles.”
“Would it not be less expensive, and far more effective, to buy foodstuffs and uniforms right here in America? There is an army to be provisioned, and a navy…”
“Sir, while many of the Americans are loyalists, about a third of them strongly in support of King George, the others are divided among those who support the rebellion and those who are neutral. In order not to stir the passions of the citizens who are not loyalists, the military has been reluctant to provision itself entirely with American goods. After all, a loyalist farmer looks much like a rebel farmer. The loyalist is often afraid to sell to a military buyer because his rebel neighbor will not be blind to the transaction. Barns burn easily in dark of night, after the soldiers have gone. And the rebels themselves sell very dear, or not at all. This is a different country, very independent in its ways. The farmers in the Hudson Valley, and on Long Island, do not like to see troops marching across their fields.”
“It occurs to me,” Sean said, “that a civilian merchant might buy supplies in large quantities from all the farmers, whatever their political leanings, and sell them to the British Army and Navy at less than it would cost them to ship provisions from England.”
Dick Weddington was silent for a moment. “Sir,” he said then, “I believe you are going to have a splendid future here in America. Let us have an ale on that future at Fraunces Tavern.”
Sean settled back, clearly pleased with himself, but Selena worried about supplying the British forces. One worry led to another, and she remembered Flanders’ advice.
“Don’t we have to register at the fort?” she asked.
“Oh, you can do it tomorrow,” Weddington said. “Lord Howe’s head of security is something of a fanatic, but both of them know Pater, and both of them know me. I’ll accompany you to see him in the morning. I believe we can be of use to one another. Now tell me, sir,” he said to Sean, “you also mentioned an interest in banking and real estate…”
The two men began to talk again. Davina, wiggling and curious, climbed all over them, trying to see out of both sides of the coach at once. Selena looked out at the rude, winding streets through which they were driving, and at the crude, unpainted buildings. Animals roamed freely, and the streets were spotted with their droppings and with other debris. Then they were away from the piers, and into a better area, clean and well-organized, heritage of the Dutch sense of order and propriety. Now she could sense the energy in this new place, but it seemed ridiculous to her that buying real estate here would ever turn much of a profit. There was simply too much room. It would take a thousand years to fill up all the space. About the purchasing business, though, she could sense potential. But Sean would be involved in feeding and clothing an army and navy that were committed to the eradication of a tiny band of men who shared, somehow, a dream—half-patriotic, half-vengeful—that still lived within her.
She was—she and Sean were—on the right side this time. There seemed no way they could possibly lose.
Yet why did it feel so wrong?
Selena was delighted, however, with the tavern—it was really a restaurant—and the accompanying hotel. Weddington waited for them in the taproom, and they went upstairs. Selena arranged to have a Dutch girl named Traudl stay with Davina, and ordered for the child a light meal of broth, bread, and warm milk. Then she and Sean went back downstairs to dine.
“Do you think you can trust him? Weddington?” she asked.
“Absolutely. His connections are superb, and he seems a gentleman as well.”
“Where are the jewels?”
“On my person. In the morning, I’m going to find out the name and location of the biggest bank in town. I’ll trade one for ready capital, and vault the rest. If that’s all right with you.”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
“But it can’t be this easy.”
Sean laughed. “What are you talking about?” he said. “Easy? Nothing’s been easy at all. If I were you, I wouldn’t get confident just yet.”
“You needn’t worry about that,” she snapped, but then quickly gave him an apologetic kiss. It was the first trace of a harsh word they had exchanged, and it unnerved her not simply because it was their first night here, but more because—Face the truth, Selena!—she wanted not the slightest wedge to come between herself and Sean, lest the memory of the man who rode the bridge of the Selena intrude to disrupt her future as he had disrupted her past.
Royce is still what he always was, and always will be. A reckless, instinctive rebel. He was right when he said that trouble follows him. He wants it, needs it. It is too bad. Anyway, you are wiser now.
It had been Royce, of course. Hadn’t it?
She began to go soft with memory, confusion. If he had named the ship for her, he must care so much…
Weddington, watching for them from the bar in the taproom, came out to join them, and they entered the dining room. It was very modern, with fine wooden furniture, and the latest in weaponry displayed along the walls. It was crowded, too, but immediately—in spite of the laughter and chatter—Selena sensed an undercurrent of uneasiness. It vanished almost as quickly as she had perceived it, and at first she thought it might be her own nerves. But she trusted her intuitions now—as she had certainly been forced to—and they were usually reliable.
“Is something the matter?” she asked Weddington quietly. “Why did everybody seem…nervous? Just a moment ago.”
“Oh, that.” Weddington dismissed it with his easy grin, and waved for a waiter’s attention. “Lord Howe has just departed. He’d been dining here in one of the private rooms.”
“Howe? Is he particularly fearsome?” The Howe brothers had reputations as fairly reasonable men, at least insofar as military men are reasonable.
Sean accepted a menu and waited for Weddington’s response.
“It wasn’t Howe so much, I daresay. He had that new security officer with him, however…”
Instantly, Selena thought of Darius McGrover. She felt a chill crawling over the skin at the base of her neck.
“…and the man’s a bit on the zealous side.”
The menus were handed around. A barmaid came in from the taproom with three huge mugs of ale.
“Thought you’d appreciate these,” Weddington said. “I ordered them for us when I was at the bar…”
They raised the mugs, clicked them together, and drank the strong, cold ale.
“Well, Selena. Do you see anything interesting on the menu?” Sean asked. His upper lip was wet with the thick foam of the ale.
“Everything,” she answered enthusiastically.
“Let’s try the venison,” Weddington suggested. “It’s perfect right now, in
the fail. I say, how about venison steaks all around? They’re better here than in the best game preserves in England.”
Sean looked up and nodded. Selena could tell he was thinking about something of considerable importance to him. After a few more swallows of ale, he spoke.
“Sir,” he said to young Weddington, “do not be offended that I approach this matter at table, but I have reason to make haste with my affairs. As you know, I seek profitable ventures. You have indicated that you have considerable knowledge of New York and the tradespeople here. If, as you have also said, you are interested in profit yourself, I would be pleased to have you as an adviser.”
Weddington gave him a long look.
“I can assure you that your aid will be as well rewarded as it is genuinely sought.”
Weddington continued to look at Sean, not so much trying to decide upon a response, Selena thought, as attempting to resolve certain unspoken considerations. Then he smiled.
“By all means,” he said, and raised his mug. Sean lifted his, too, as did Selena. “I believe I have been seeking just such an opportunity as this,” Weddington said.
They drank. Selena could read the satisfaction in Sean’s expression. He believed that he had secured the aid of a man who could give him entrance into New York’s trading circles, and it seemed that he was right. Now I am on my way back to the top, he must be thinking.
And she hoped, with all her heart—for him, for herself, for little Davina—that he was right. Disaster could not occur all over again, could it? Disaster, and loss, and being on the run? Lightning never strikes twice.
It doesn’t have to.
The dinner was excellent, and enlivened by Sean’s air of adventure and Dick Weddington’s good spirits. The young merchant seemed to know or know of almost everyone dining at Fraunces, and he spoke of personalities throughout the colonies who, he said, “might have had a chance to make something of themselves if they hadn’t gotten involved with that fool revolution.”
Selena had all she could do to hold her tongue, especially when Weddington actually revealed that “…now, in the long run, the principles of freedom are immutable, just as that fellow Jefferson said—big, shambling guy, falls all over his feet, looks like a farmhand—but the British Empire is the British Empire…”
He seemed a little wistful when he said that. Selena thought he was thinking of home. It was a feeling she could understand.
Sean steered the conversation away from politics, wanting to know if Dick knew of any parcels of land immediately available for purchase. He also sought an office for business, and a suitable residence.
“What were you thinking of?”
“One of those mansions down on Bowling Green.”
Dick leaned back slightly, not so much surprised as admiring.
“For a start,” Sean added.
“We shall see,” he replied. “There is a turnover of residents, particularly older men who’ve come out from home. They don’t like the place, sometimes, and go right back. And what were your plans?” he asked Selena.
It suddenly occurred to her that she had not thought of her plans. Yes, she was free now. She could make plans.
“Well, there’s Davina, of course…”
“Your daughter?”
She and Sean spoke simultaneously, almost with vehemence. “Yes.”
Dick looked startled but said nothing.
“Well, I haven’t given it much thought,” Selena said. “Not yet, that is…”
But Weddington’s words had struck a spark. It was true. Freedom was not an end in itself. She had not considered this before, because her entire effort had been directed to the attainment of freedom. But once freedom was possessed, once a person was secure—and Selena was secure now, wasn’t she?—then there were a thousand things one could do.
The thought was as exhilarating as the ale. Nor had she eaten such solid fare in some time, and the combination of the two soon made her drowsy. Lucky that there was no long distance to travel, only to go upstairs after the rich slice of chocolate cake with whipped cream in a frothy mound on top of it. She felt totally relaxed for the first time in so long, and the mood carried through Dick Weddington’s leave-taking—he would join them again in the morning to accompany them to the fort—and it was still with her when she settled into bed.
“Sean, what if it’s true?” she asked suddenly.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Dick Weddington mentioned the new director of security. What if he’s…what if he’s Darius McGrover?”
The bed was soft and warm. Sean was beside her. Darkness surrounded them. Davina slept peacefully on a trundle bed. They were all safe, but Selena was frightened.
“What if we go down there tomorrow, and it’s Darius McGrover…”
“It won’t be,” Sean said forcefully, as if by the authority of his words he could banish the possibility. “And, even so, we are here legally. We are people of means, as well. Even McGrover can do us no harm if we do not become enmeshed with the rebels.”
“But don’t you see? With Darius McGrover and myself, the situation is changed. Different. It is as if we were trapped in some deadly game. You see, at Foinaven Lodge I had my chance to end the game, and I should have done so. I see that now. I should have killed him. But I didn’t, and this time it is his turn, and…
He put his arm around her, and she felt his strength and love.
“I’ll take care of you,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
She settled in close beside him. He was right. Of course he was right. McGrover was dangerous, and her impression of his diabolical interest in her was accurate, but there was no point in letting that fact intrude upon them now, when everything was beginning to go so well. Traudl, the girl who had stayed with Davina while they’d dined, would come by again in the morning, to play with the little girl while Selena looked at houses and Sean did his banking. After they registered! She was thinking of hiring Traudl permanently, as a companion for the child. She had, already, a still-vague but increasingly strong suspicion that she was going to be very busy.
“Come now,” Sean was saying into her hair, “we’ll get established here, and I’ll make the right connections. No body will support Great Britain in this war as arduously as I will, and I will be recognized for it. And the time will come when…”
The peerage. The return to Scotland. The restoration of his good name, and all that went with it. Trumpets blasting in the high caverns of Westminster. Lord Sean Bloodwell. Sir Sean. Sir Sean Bloodwell. Lord and Lady Bloodwell. Of Edinburgh and Coldstream. Yes, that was what he saw. That was his dream, and she had given her solemn vow to share it. Already he could see it rising up out of the blue sea in greeting, welcoming and praising him: glorious, mighty Britain, the jewel set in the sea.
Too tired to make love, they drifted into sleep. And Selena did sleep, but the room was too warm, or the feather mattress oppressive. Because, although she slept, she dreamed. A constantly shifting series of impressions came down upon her. The dagger was in her hand, poised above the maharajah’s heart, except it wasn’t the maharajah anymore. It was Darius McGrover, with hollow spaces where his eyes ought to have been. She tried to bring the dagger down, but he laughed—gapingly, silently, like Gayle’s skull!—and brushed her hand aside. Captain Jack Randolph was screaming somewhere in a golden cow, and, in the garden at Coldstream, Father showed her where the sky was, his face looming huge and tragic in her warped field of dream vision, and the gray rat, blood clinging thickly to its whiskers, crawled up over the tatters of Slyde’s shoulders, winking at her, one ear gnawed off at the root. It had to stop; she tried to make it stop. But, too far from wakefulness, too far into tossing sleep, she failed. Ku-Fel’s face was upside down; Sherpas were laughing and pointing; the elephant whip was cutting through the air. Chandeliers spun in a lost land, and the Highland fling rose from the crying of the instruments and pipes. Royce Campbell’s dark face, then, which became
Sean’s, which became Royce’s again. Wolf in the Highlands. Eagle against the sky. A coiled serpent. Waiting.
And the great dark ship sliding soundlessly across the all-erasing, all-embracing sea. Poor Marinda in that sea, her bones washed white and lonesome.
“Selena,” a voice called, hollow and premonitory in the distance.
“Selena!” the voice called, over the vastness of the deep. To the north, the sky was royal blue. Father’s face, smiling in benediction, there.
Grandmother’s coffin jounced on the roof of the coach. Horses thundered down the rocky roads. A manic coachman leered and drooled and cracked his whip.
“Selena!”
Candles burned around a coffin somewhere. Great sadness. Someone had died, or something was dead. No, not that. No, something was lost! Something precious had been lost almost before it had been possessed. Candles, coffin, were in memory of that. The great ship slid into the night…
“SELENA!”
The voice was urgent now, and right beside her. Some-one was holding her, she could not get free, she was tied into the chair in the cabin of the Meridian, and Roberta was laughing, in a white gown…
She came awake, hot and confused. Sean was holding her. Seeing that she had awakened, relief sounded in his voice.
“You must have had a nightmare,” he explained.
She nodded in agreement and said nothing. The strange, distorted impressions of the dream lingered, and it took minutes to shake them off. And yet, even when she thought she had rid herself of those impressions, the tinge of an unpleasant emotion remained, faint but definite, far back in her mind. She knew what it was. The black ship. Royce. Guilt.
And she turned to Sean with an ardor that, while genuine and loving, was inordinately sudden, too, as if by quick, hard love she could erase a memory. And she did.
Man and wife now, and used to each other, still they loved with passion. Selena knew now without thought just how long he wanted to wait, after their first deep kiss, before he wanted to be touched. So she made him wait longer. This he understood, and understood, too, that her delay in stroking him was not in the least reluctance, but rather a wish that, when the touch came, it would deliver tenfold ecstasy and tenfold promise of more delight. And Selena knew that his touch was withheld as well, and for the same reason, and she cried out not when it finally came, but rather when she knew he had ceased teasing and would certainly touch her now.
Flames of Desire Page 45