Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (124 page)

The horse had trampled about, trying—he later realized—to avoid stepping on him, but he still remembered the huge black hooves coming down so near his head that he could see the nails in the shoes, and one of them had scraped his cheek. Once he’d got enough breath to scream with, there’d been a great fuss, his father and Mac the groom rushing down the stable aisle in a clatter of boots and calling out.

Mac had crawled into the stall, speaking calmly to the horse in his own strange tongue, and pulled William out by the feet. Whereupon Lord John had quickly checked him for blood and broken bones, and finding none, smacked him a good one on the seat of his breeches, then pulled out a small flask and made him take a gulp of brandy for the shock. The brandy itself was nearly as big a shock, but after he’d got done wheeking and coughing, he had felt better.

He was actually feeling slightly better now, finishing his second glass. Papa saw that his glass was nearly empty and, without asking, picked up the bottle and refilled it, then did the same for himself.

Amaranthus had barely sipped hers and was sitting with both hands wrapped about the small goblet. She was still pale, but she’d stopped shaking, William saw, and seemed to have regained some of her usual self-possession.

Papa was also watching her, William saw, and while a small tingle of apprehension went down his spine, he realized that his sense of restored calm had as much to do with Lord John’s presence as with his brandy. Whatever was about to happen, Papa would help deal with it, and that was a great relief.

Amaranthus seemed to think so, too, for she put down her goblet with a small
clink
and, straightening her back, looked Lord John in the eye.

“It’s true,” she said. “I told William that I knew about Ben—I mean, I told him just now; he didn’t know before. That really is what happened to Ben.” She took a visible gulp of air, but finding no further words to expel with it, breathed audibly through her nose and took another minuscule sip of brandy.

“I see,” Lord John said slowly. He rolled his own cup to and fro between his palms, thinking. “And I suppose that you were afraid to tell us—to tell Hal, rather—because you thought he mightn’t believe you?”

Amaranthus shook her head.

“No,” she said. “I was afraid to tell him for fear he
would
believe me.” The dark indigo of her gown had turned her eyes to a pure, pale blue.
The picture of sincerity,
William thought. Still, that didn’t mean she was lying. Not necessarily.

“Ben had told me a lot about the family,” she said. “After we met. About his mother, and his…his brothers, and you. And about the duke.” She swallowed. “When Ben made up his mind—to—to do what he did, he sent for me. I came to meet him in Philadelphia; Adam was with Sir Henry there, and Ben meant to tell him—Adam, I mean, not Sir Henry—as well.”

“Did he, indeed.” It wasn’t a question. Lord John’s gaze was fixed on Amaranthus’s face. It was a perfectly pleasant expression, but William recognized it as his father’s chess-playing face, rapidly envisioning possibilities and just as rapidly discarding them.

“Ben and Adam…fought.” She looked down and William saw her hands clench briefly, as though she would as soon have joined in that fight.
Likely she would,
he thought, aware of a mild amusement, in spite of everything. “With their fists, I mean. I wasn’t there,” she added, raising her head and looking apologetic, “or I would have stopped them. But when Ben came to me afterward, he looked as though he’d gone a few rounds with a professional boxer.” The corner of her mouth twitched.

“You’ve seen a professional boxing match?” Lord John asked, diverted. She looked surprised, but nodded.

“Yes. Once. A boxing barn in Connecticut.”

“Well, I hadn’t thought you to be squeamish,” Papa said, breaking into a smile.

“No,” she said, with a small, rueful smile of her own. “Benjamin said I was tough as shoe leather—though he didn’t mean it as a compliment.” She noticed the half-full glass at this point, picked it up, and drank deeply.

“Anyway,” she said hoarsely, putting the glass down, “he’d told me about his father, and after the fight with Adam, he said a lot of things about his father, and how it would serve the old man right when Washington wiped his eye in battle, and how wild he’d be—the duke, I mean—especially when he realized that his own bloody heir had…I’m sorry,” she added apologetically. “I’m quoting Ben, you see.”

“So I assumed,” Lord John said. “But when you said you were afraid that Hal
would
believe you if you told him about Ben…?”

“What do you think he’d do?” she asked simply. “Or rather, what do you think he
will
do, if I—if I go ahead and tell him?” She’d started looking pale again, and William leaned forward to snag the bottle and top up her glass. Without asking, he refilled his father’s glass, as well, and then poured the dregs of the bottle into his.

Lord John sighed deeply, picked up his fresh glass, and drained it.

“To be honest, I don’t quite know what he’d
do.
But I do know how he’d feel.”

There was a brief silence. William broke it, feeling that someone had to say something.

“You mean you thought that if you’d told him the truth about Ben, he might become so distressed—well, insanely angry—that he might just toss you and Trevor out on your…um…ears. Tell you to go to the devil with Ben, I mean. I suppose he might disown Ben, for that matter; he has other sons.”

Amaranthus nodded, her lips pressed tight.

“Whereas,” William went on, not without sympathy, “if you were Ben’s widow, he’d be more likely to receive you with open arms.”

“And an open purse,” Lord John murmured, looking into the depths of his brandy.

Amaranthus turned her head sharply toward him, eyes gone suddenly dark.

“Have you gone hungry a day in your life,
my lord
?” she snapped. “Because I have, and I would happily become a whore to keep that from happening to my son.”

She rose, turned on her heel, and hurled her glass very accurately into the hearth. Then she stamped out, leaving blue flames behind her.

Savannah

DONE. BRIANNA STOOD IN
the quiet light of a late afternoon, slowly cleaning her brushes and taking leave of her work. It was an odd process, letting go of something that had lived in her for months, gradually pulling free of the growing tentacles that had gripped her brain, her heart, her fingers.

People—people who didn’t usually do such things—likened it to childbirth. Writing a book, painting a picture, building a house—or a cathedral, she supposed, smiling a little. There were for sure metaphorical parallels, especially the mingled sense of relief and exultation at the conclusion. But to her, having painted pictures, built things,
and
given birth, the difference was pretty noticeable. When you’d finished a work of art or substance…it
was
finished, while children never were.

“Right
there,
” she said, with a deep sense of satisfaction, pointing the handle of a damp brush at the four portraits lined up against the wall before her. “You’re all right there. You’re done. You’re not going anywhere.” She heard the echo of her father’s voice, and laughed.

Meanwhile, her more mobile creations were yelling in the back garden and would shortly be clattering in with demands to be fed, cleaned, re-dressed, soothed, listened to, fed again, read books, undressed, and finally crammed into beds, where she could only hope they would stay for a good long time.

Thought of Roger, though, lifted her heart. He’d come back from the battle grimy and exhausted—and changed. It wasn’t a drastic change. More the solidifying of a change he’d begun a long time ago. He was quiet, but he’d told her why he’d felt he had to stay, and what had happened, and she could tell that while he’d been shocked (
who wouldn’t be?
she thought), it was a shock that had left him more visibly determined. And with an odd, quiet sort of light about him, that sometimes she imagined she could almost see.

“Encaustic,” she said aloud, and stood still, squinting at the portraits but not seeing them. Her fingers had twitched the brush she was cleaning into position, wanting to paint.

“Not
now,
” she said to them, and put the brush into her box. She could feel the painting she wanted to do of Roger. An encaustic painting; one done with pigments mixed into hot beeswax. It gave you a vivid image, but one with a peculiar sense of softness and depth. She’d never done it herself, but she was seized by the conviction that this would be the right medium in which to catch Roger’s light.

Any further thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of the front door, a murmur of male voices, and then the clumping of Henrike’s wooden-heeled shoes on the pineapple floorcloth and the louder clump of heavy boots, following.

“Ist deine Bruder,”
Henrike announced, throwing open the door. “
Und
his Indian.”

“THE INDIAN” BOWED
to her and came up grinning, though she was sufficiently familiar with his face by now to recognize bravado covering anxiety. She smiled back and impulsively took his hand, squeezing slightly in reassurance—about the situation, if not the painting.

He blinked in shock, then fumblingly raised her hand, evidently thinking she meant him to kiss it. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do that, though, and merely breathed on her knuckles in confusion. Brianna glanced up and met her brother’s eye. He was keeping a British officer’s straight face, but let a trace of humor show in his eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Cinnamon,” she said, gently detaching her hand. She spread her skirts and curtsied to him, which made him blush like a very large plum and made William look hastily away.

William could wait, though; she had a sitter who had come to see his finished portrait.

“Come see,” she said simply, and beckoned Cinnamon—he wouldn’t let her call him by his first name, nor would he call her Brianna, evidently thinking that was improper. William must have been giving him etiquette lessons—or maybe that was Lord John.

She’d hung a thin muslin cloth over the portrait to keep off gnats and mosquitoes, which had a fatal attraction for linseed oil and drying paint, and now stepped to one side and pulled it deftly away.

“Oh,” he said. His face was completely blank. Her heart had sped up when the young men had come in, and more when the moment of revelation approached; she wasn’t as keyed up as John Cinnamon was but undeniably felt an echo of his nervous excitement.

He stood staring at the portrait, mouth slightly open and eyes wide. A little worried, she glanced at William, whose gaze was also fixed on the portrait but wearing an expression of surprised pleasure. She took a breath and relaxed, smiling.

“You did it,” William said, turning to her. “You really did.” He laughed, a soft rumble of delight as he turned back to the painting. “That is amazing!”

“It—” Cinnamon started, then stopped, still staring at the portrait of himself. He shook his head slightly and turned to William. “Do I—really look like that?”

“You do,” William assured him. “Though not as clean. Don’t you ever look at yourself when you’re shaving?”

“
Oui,
but…” The blankness was fading into fascination, and he drew cautiously nearer to the portrait.
“Mon Dieu,”
he whispered.

She’d painted him in his gray suit—he owned only one—with a snowy-white shirt and a neckcloth with a lacy fall over the manly chest. William had contributed a small gold stickpin in the shape of a flower whose heart was a faceted pink topaz, surrounded by green-foil petals.

She’d persuaded him not to wear a wig and to abandon the bear-grease pomade with which he sometimes attempted to plaster down his curls, and had painted him with his distinctive red-brown hair left loose to riot over the lovely broad curve of his skull and the faint reflection of it in the skin of jaw and cheekbones. He’d done his best to keep a stoic, reserved expression on his face, but she’d spent enough time talking to him while she sketched that she’d been able to catch the light that danced in his eyes when he was amused. And it danced in his portrait, in a tiny fleck of white touched with lemon.

“That…” Cinnamon shook his head and blinked hard; she could see the tears he was keeping back and felt a wrench of sympathetic feeling for him, though her joy at his response overwhelmed almost everything else.

His own feeling overwhelmed him to such an extent that he turned suddenly to her and seized her in a crushing embrace.

“Thank you!” he whispered into her hair. “Oh, thank you!”

HENRIKE, SUMMONED ANEW,
fetched a bottle of wine and three glasses, and they drank the health of John Cinnamon and his portrait.

“Can you drink the health of a portrait?” Brianna asked, doing it regardless.

“Healthiest portrait I’ve ever seen,” William said, closing one eye and squinting at the painting through his glass of red wine. He turned and raised the glass to Brianna. “We can drink to the artist, though, if you’d rather?”

“Huzzah!” Cinnamon said, raised his glass to Brianna, and drank it off at a gulp. His eyes were bright, his hair standing on end, and he couldn’t stop beaming, stealing looks at his portrait every few seconds as though to ensure that it hadn’t gone away or suddenly started looking like someone else.

“It should dry for a few more days,” she said, smiling and lifting her own glass in salute. “Do you still mean to send it to—to London?” To his father, she meant. “I’ll pack it for you, if you like. So it won’t be damaged on the ship.”

John Cinnamon stared at her for a moment, looked at the portrait for a long minute, then turned back to her and nodded.

“I do,” he said softly.

“Papa would arrange for it to go home with a diplomatic friend, I’m sure,” William said. “Would you like me to ask him?”

Cinnamon paused for a moment, considering, but then shook his head. The glow hadn’t left his face, but it had retreated a little way.

“I’ll ask him,” he said, and stood up abruptly. “I’ll go now. I can’t sit still,” he explained apologetically to Brianna. “I’m
so
happy!” The glow returned, lighting his face like a flare, and he bowed hastily to her and took his leave, clapping William on the back as he went with a friendly blow that nearly knocked him over.

She’d expected William to take his own leave, and he did take up his hat, but then he stood for a moment, kneading it absently.

“What are the other portraits?” he said abruptly, and nodded at the three portraits still veiled in muslin. “If you don’t mind me seeing them, I mean,” he said, apologetic.

“Of course not. I’d love to have your opinion, since you know what all the subjects really look like.” She lifted the cloth from the largest piece—the portrait of Angelina Brumby—but kept her eyes on her brother’s face, to see his initial reaction.

He looked briefly at first, as though not really caring, but then blinked, focused, walked closer—and broke into a wide grin.

“Got her, didn’t I?” Brianna said, laughing. That was the expression on the face of every man who met Angelina in the flesh.

“You did,” William said, still smiling. “She’s…how did you make her look like she’s…shiny? Sparkly, I think,” he corrected. “Yes, that’s it—she sparkles.”

“
Thank
you!” she said, and would have hugged him if they had known each other just a little longer than they had. “You don’t really want to know the techniques, but it’s basically color. Tiny dabs of white, with an even tinier bit of reflected color from the surface behind the sparkle.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” William said, still smiling. He turned back to the row of portraits. “You said I know all the subjects—is one of those the American general? The cavalryman?”

She nodded, and without words, turned back the veil covering Casimir Pulaski.

William’s face was instantly sober, but he moved toward this painting, too, and stood before it for a long time, not speaking. Brianna was still watching his face and could see on it the memory of the long hours he and Cinnamon had shared with her, standing behind her, protecting her through the dark and the sorrow of that night.

She had struggled with this portrait. Her memories of the dark tent and the endless procession of somber men, many of them wearing the blood and powder stains of the lost battle, had hung about her while she worked, pervasive as the smell of gangrene and unwashed bodies, the occasional gust of wind off the marshes the only relief.

“I couldn’t find my way in at first,” she said quietly, coming to stand beside him. “There was too much—” She waved a hand vaguely, but he’d been there, too; he knew just what too much was. He nodded, and without looking at her, took her hand.

“But you found it, finally.” He didn’t say it as a question, but his hand tightened on hers, warm and big. “What was
‘it,’
though?”

She laughed, even as her eyes were full of tears.

“Lieutenant Hanson.” She swallowed, but knew her voice would shake. She spoke anyway. “When he—when he stopped. Afterward, when the rain started and we were all coming away from the tent? He said—I can’t say it, it was Polish…”