For Her Love (17 page)

Edmund’s face relaxed in obvious relief. “I was a little worried. I thought perhaps, the incident with Jacques…”

Grace flushed deeper. This topic was strictly taboo. Her parentage her father might speak of from time to time, but from the morning after he had expelled Jacques from their home until now, that event was treated as though it had never happened. Not even Matu ever brought it up. Grace had not been breached. No damage had been done.

“Forgive me,” Edmund said. “I shouldn’t have broached the subject. Doubtless you’d forgotten all about it.”

Oh, aye, forgotten all about it. Grace laughed, but the sound was strained and harsh. Suddenly nothing in the world was more important to Grace than boarding
Reliance
and sailing into her future. She just had one loose end to tie up.

“Promise me something, Father. Keep Iolanthe away from Matu.”

“Matu will be fine, dear. You’re too attached to her anyway. ‘Tis just as well that you separate.”

The taste in her mouth was literally bitter as Grace contemplated his words. “I cannot possibly give this marriage my full attention if I must worry about Matu. Whatever you may think of our relationship, it is what it is. I must be absolutely certain that Matu is safe.”

Edmund nodded tersely. “I’ll send her back to the slaves’ quarters. She can tend to the children again. That should keep her out of Iolanthe’s sight and mind.”

She wasn’t entirely comforted, but it would have to do. It wouldn’t be for long. “But make sure Keyah knows that she is to be fed well. She must have meat and vegetables, not just cassava and corn. And you must swear to me that she will never be put in the fields or have anything to do with sugar production.”

“She’ll be well cared for. I swear it,” Edmund promised.

That settled, Grace returned to the rowboat and her husband.

“Are you all right?” Giles asked.

She gave an exasperated gasp. “Fine! I’m fine! Shall we go?”

She didn’t look back, not even to see if Matu might be watching from one of the windows.

*

Indeed, nothing could have prepared Grace for Port Royal. Several times a year, a tall ship would stop at Welbourne to take on sugar and rum, and such an event was always met with some fanfare. Now,
Reliance
sailed into a harbor packed with vessels, and each was crawling with men. People sporting clothes of every hue milled about in a tightly packed throng that swelled and receded like waves on the shore.

Stalls lined the docks, filled with cloth, spices, perfume, lumber, exotic pets—from bright and noisy parrots to clever little monkeys—dishes, wine, and trinkets of every kind. People called out greetings, haggled loudly over prices, shouted insults, and bellowed instructions from the docks to sailors on ships. Mixed in with the stalls were pens, some filled with livestock, others with frightened Africans fresh from the terrifying journey across the ocean.

In strange juxtaposition, still other Blacks swaggered past them, wearing velvet jackets, coins jingling in their pockets. There was little camaraderie between these free Blacks and the many Whites, but no great animosity either. They chiefly seemed to ignore one another.

Leaving Grace’s trunks to be sent after them, the group disembarked and made their way through the crowd. Faith walked next to Grace, chatting airily into her ear. “There’s a wonderful bakery just up the hill from Giles’s home. He has no proper kitchen. Geoff and I lived in the apartment at first, but ‘tis much better suited to a bachelor than a couple. I do believe there’s a parcel of land close to us, and you can build a house there. Still, the apartment will do for a while. There’s a cheese shop and a butcher all on that street…”

Baby Jonathan sat atop his father’s broad shoulders, pointing and squealing at myriad things going on about them. Giles and Geoff laughed at his antics and teased the boy playfully.

Grace paid scant attention. Her nostrils filled with the odor of sewage and unwashed people, along with spices and perfumes in the stalls, and food cooking in the inns and taverns lining High Street. She clung to Giles’s hand and tried to keep track of her own thoughts amid all of the confusion.

“This way,” he said, pulling her with him up the street, past ruffians and drunks.

Women leaned casually against tavern doorways or out of the upper windows of buildings on either side of the road. Their bodices were laced tightly at the waist, but left to gape open at the neck, spilling out mounds of generous flesh. These women beckoned to men with smiles and jaded taunts.

“Pay no attention,” Faith said. “They are most shocking, but you will see fewer of them as we reach the outskirts of town.”

“Who are they?” Grace asked.

“Oh!” Faith exclaimed. “Uh—”

Giles shot her a quizzical look. “I thought you had heard of such women.”

Grace shook her head. Then she saw one allow herself to be swept up into the arms of a disreputable-looking man in a tattered jacket. He put his mouth on hers and seemed to devour her, but the woman didn’t pull back. Instead, she twined her fingers in his filthy hair. His hand plunged into her bodice, and she slapped it away playfully.

“Where’s your coin?” she demanded with a lecherous grin.

The man withdrew a fistful of coppers from his pocket and dropped it down her neckline. The woman pulled it open farther, examining the coins that had fallen in and giving the whole street an ample eyeful of what lay beneath.

“I don’t see no silver in there,” she chided.

The man extracted a few more coins from his pocket and dropped them in one at a time. The woman smiled and said, “That’s more like it.” She rubbed her nearly naked bosom against him, then led him inside the building behind them.

“That’s what they look like?” Grace gasped. This was a far cry from her image of terrified children.

Giles blushed. What must she think of him? He had openly admitted to employing the occasional prostitute, but never ones like her. He had always prided himself on spending a bit extra for women who were more discreet and less hardened. Now, it seemed a pitifully minor virtue. He could hardly save his wife’s opinion of him by telling her that.

Grace struggled to make sense of it all. That woman had not been afraid. She had been crass and immodest, but she was not even slightly afraid. Grace turned to Faith, her need for answers overriding her awe of Geoff’s fair wife.

“Do you think that she knew that man? Might he employ her often, so she knew what he was like?”

Faith shrugged. “It may be, but ‘tis just as likely that the first time she e’re encountered him was when he kissed her there in the street.”

“Why was she not afraid of him?”

“Well, you or I would be terrified, of course, but she is accustomed to such a thing.”

“Do you think she likes it?”

“I doubt it,” Faith replied. “But who’s to say?”

Do you like it?
Grace wanted to ask.
Does your husband kiss you like that, and do you pull him to you like that woman, or do you hold still and will it to be over?
But she had already asked too much. Giles was looking at her strangely. He seemed embarrassed. He was probably mortified that she had asked Faith such improper questions.

She had to smile when they finally reached the office and stepped inside. A huge, double-kneehole desk, sitting in front of a plate-glass window, dominated the room. Down the center, an imaginary line separated one half that was clear of everything except an inkwell and blotter from another half that was scattered with odds and ends. It wasn’t a disorganized disaster, but there were stacks of parchment and a dismantled sextant. A child’s wooden boat sat on the corner.

“Bo!” Jonathan shouted, reaching toward the desk. “Bo!”

“There it is!” Geoff called. “See Faith, I didn’t lose it.”

Faith huffed indignantly. “By the grace of God, you didn’t. My father made it,” she explained to Grace as she went to fetch the plaything. “‘Tis part of a whole set with little wooden naval officers and all. I told Geoff that if he’d lost it, I’d be quite put out with him.”

“Well, we’d best be on our way and let you two settle in. I’ve paid some of the more pressing bills, but you might want to look through the rest,” Geoff said.

“Right,” Giles replied. He perused the stacks of paper on Geoff’s desk. “Have you filed anything? By the saints, Geoff, I spend more time sorting through your piles than drumming up clients, or possibly even sailing!”

Faith took Grace’s hand. “Come for dinner tomorrow night. Geoff sails the day after.”

Grace and Giles agreed to dinner the next day, and the Hamptons headed out to seek passage across the harbor to Kingston. The journey to the other side of the long, narrow bay was much too far by land.

When they left, it seemed eerily quiet. With the door closed, the street noise had faded. Grace could have sworn that she could hear her heart beating.

“Come upstairs,” Giles said. “I’ll show you the apartment.”

The apartment, such as it was, consisted of one very cramped room with windows opening to the front and rear of the building. Unlike the window downstairs, these had no glass, only wooden shutters. A modest fireplace and hearth stood in one corner, neatly swept, with a small pot hanging on a hook inside and a pail for water in front. There was cupboard containing four each of cups, plates, and essential flatware. There seemed to be no sign of flour, salt, or cooking staples of any kind. In the same general area were a table and four chairs. On the opposite side of the room stood a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. As in the ship’s cabin, there was also a broad bed, immaculately made.

One room. Iolanthe and Edmund had separate chambers. Separate beds.

“‘Tis a bit small, I know,” Giles said, “and the furnishings are naught to admire. I’m not without means, though it might look it at first. You see, I’ve never spent all that much time here, so I never gave it much thought. But we’ll have a house built, and you can furnish it as you like.”

Grace looked around her and suppressed a sigh. “‘Tis fine. Cozy.”

“Not what you’d hoped.”

She had two trunks that were easily large enough to store a half a ton of sugar each. Even if Giles’s clothes didn’t take up much space in the wardrobe, it would never hold her voluminous gowns. There was no vanity, only the chest of drawers.

And there was only one room. One bed.

She smiled uncertainly. “I hope you shan’t feel I’ve taken over the place entirely once my things arrive.”

Giles’s heart sank. She hated it. One more reason he should have waited. He should have had a real home for her to come to.

“Your trunks should be here soon. I saw my first mate speaking to a man with a wagon as we left the docks. My men will load them, and someone will drive up here as soon as possible.”

“No rush.” She cast another glance at the bed.

Giles came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “No rush.”

The trunks came, but they left them packed while they dined in the common room of a nearby inn. It was one located farther up the street, farther away from the less savory sections of Port Royal, but still well within hearing of the drunken revelry down the hill. To Grace’s relief, all the women present looked much like her, fully clothed and quite respectable. The beef stew was passable, the ale warm, but she was ever so grateful to be in a public place. She dreaded a night alone with her husband in their tiny abode.

But she also felt a little disappointed when they walked back and Giles suggested that she go inside and get settled in without him. As much as she had no desire to consummate her marriage, neither did she wish to sleep all alone. She wanted him to hold her again, mayhap comb her hair. But he told her that he must check in with his first mate and then look in on things with
Destiny
. Doubtless, he explained, Geoff had everything under control for the upcoming jaunt, but he would feel better if he double-checked. It was hard to let go of being Geoff’s first mate.

After looking over the roster of men hired for
Destiny
and insuring that all watches were covered on board
Reliance
, Giles walked back through the city. Lights shining from the windows and doors of taverns and brothels illuminated the way. Both types of establishments were doing brisk business, and laughter poured out into the street. He kept his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his cutlass, staring down more than one miscreant with both murderous and larcenous intentions. The trick in Port Royal was to look sober and determined. Drunks and nervous newcomers were plentiful and far easier marks, so Giles made a poor target for criminals.

He was eager to get back, but he had been gone for over an hour, and he was sure that Grace would be asleep, or at least pretending. After the previous night’s difficulty, he had thought it best to give her some time alone. Once back at the office, he saw the light of a lamp glowing from the stairs above, but he didn’t hear a sound. He tiptoed quietly up, thinking to gaze on Grace’s slumbering face, but when he got there, his eyes were utterly riveted to the scene surrounding him.

The top of the chest was littered with things, do-dads and whatnots, bottles and jars, hair ornaments and ribbons, a comb and hand mirror. Next to it, no part of the wardrobe was shut properly, its drawers and cabinet spewing frothy lace and fine fabrics. Both of Grace’s trunks sat on the floor, lids open, more clothes spilling over the edges. A cup had gone from the cupboard to the table, but somehow had not found its way back again. Instead, it sat forlornly next to an embroidery frame and sewing basket. One glance at the needlework suggested that disarray was not an uncommon state for things where Grace was concerned.

Finally, he looked toward the bed. Damn him if she wasn’t well and truly asleep, the utter chaos around her having no ill effect on her complete repose.

With a mental groan, he undressed and dug through layers of feminine fripperies in his wardrobe drawers to find his only nightshirt. It had been a gift from Geoff. Apparently Faith had made two for her husband, but Geoff couldn’t fathom when he’d use even one, so he’d pawned the other off on Giles. He folded his clothes, only to discover that he’d nowhere left to put them. Gritting his teeth, he set the stack on the seat of a chair and climbed into bed.