HF - 03 - The Devil's Own (36 page)

God curse the invention of wine.

'I will wish you good night,' she said, and made to step round him. His left arm moved, and she stopped, his hand just brushing her thigh. 'Why, Papa,' she said, 'you have found a clean nightshirt after all.'

'It is old, and mere linen,' Dag confessed. 'Yet will it cover your nakedness, Kit.'

He took the garment. 'And I am again grateful. If I can ever repay this kindness, you have but to ask.'

'Debts, repayments, are for enemies, Kit,' Dag said. 'A friend is just happy to help a friend. Now we shall bid you good night.'

He changed his clothes, put on the borrowed nightshirt, blew out the candle, and lay on the bed. What torture. It also smelt of her, and wherever he moved, whenever he turned from side to side, his body touched sheets which only twelve hours before had brushed against her. Yet surely would he soon be asleep, and awake, sober and controlled, once again.

He settled on his back, staring at the darkened ceiling, listening to the creaking of t
he stairs outside as the Christ
ianssens mounted to their bedroom. What did Quakers do, in bed, together? Was there an abandonment of humanity, a realization of the joys of being animals, such as existed between Marguerite and himself? Such as had existed. And would again. Today she was angry. She was ambitious. And because she was a woman, she could never realize her ambitions in herself, and so desired them for her husband. What cruelty, what a waste of talent, was caused by the historical conception that women were inferior. What a magnificent Speaker of the House would Marguerite make. And had she not already proved herself without an equal at that most masculine of tasks, plantation management?

But was she not also the possessor of that most feminine of attributes, an imperious, unforgiving rage? Which was now no doubt in full flow.

So then, was he afraid of her? He sat up. By God, why should he be? He was her husband. She belonged to him. To his bed, whenever he chose to summon he
r. To his will, whenever he
chose to make it known. To his hand, if he chose to inflict it upon her. By God, and he had run away from her this morning. As she had herself pointed out, time and again, he was unable to recognize his true stature, his true place in the world. But she knew it. Then she could expect nothing less than to feel the weight of his anger. And soon.

He stood up, found himself swaying, and steadied himself against the wall. He had no tinder, and could not relight the candle; he found his clothes by feeling towards the chair where he had left them. Yet was he making too much noise. He scooped them under his arm, opened the door, and blinked. Out here was much lighter; there was a full moon, shining through the skylight at the top of the stairs. And reaching all the way down to the foot. This was safer. His last sway had all but set him tumbling downwards.

He descended the stairs, cautiously, hugging his clothes to his chest, grasping the rail with his left hand, and saw Lilian, standing below him.

'Kit?' she whispered.

'Oh, Christ,' he muttered. 'Oh, Christ.'

'I heard you move,' she said. 'The office is beneath my room. Is something the matter?'

He reached the floor, and could pause for breath. But surely this was a mistake. A sway of less than a foot to his left would carry him against her. 'I want to go home,' he said.

'Now?'

'I must ...'

'You did not feel that wa
y earlier, Kit.' 'Then the wine
spoke for me.'

'As it is doing now,' she said severely. 'But in a different voice. I doubt you could sit a horse the distance.' And then her face broke into a smile, so relieving when set against her normal solemnity. 'And you have none, unless you will take Papa's mule. Then will you ride until this hour tomorrow.'

He leaned against the wall, gazing at her. The moon shone full on her nightdress. Not through it, certainly. Her body was a dark shadow. Yet it was there.

'I must go,' he said. 'And so must you. Back to bed. You do not know me, Lilian. You do not know of my crimes.'

'I know you well enough,' she said. 'I know the goodness in
you, Kit, which you are constantly trying to bury beneath some assumed characteristic of villainy. I think I know the true Kit Hilton. Now come, I will assist you back to your bed.'

Her hands closed on his arms, and he sat down on the steps. Perhaps his weight was too much for her. But not enough. His clothes slipped to the floor, and he found his fingers on her thighs.

'Kit,' she whispered. 'Let me help you, Kit.'

He pulled her down, on to his knee, and his right hand searched the front of her nightdress.

'Kit,' she whispered, suddenly alarmed. 'No, Kit, you cannot.'

Here was softness. Softness he must know better. There were ties at the neck of her nightdress, neatly bowed. He wrapped his fingers in them and pulled them apart, carrying the material with it, laying her bare to the waist. She gasped, and pushed against him, found she could not get free herself, and swung at his face instead with her closed fist. He ducked beneath it, and found his face against her breasts. He nuzzled them and kissed them, sucked the nipples into his mouth. The arm swung round his head and came to rest on it, for a moment hugging him yet closer.

'Kit,' she whispered. 'Kit, in the name of God ...' she bit the words back. Because God was not present here. Kit was already slipping from the step, turning as he did so, completing the ruin of her nightdress as his mouth moved from her breasts to sink lower. Her legs closed, but too late; they only enveloped his neck, and now her body sank forward, over his head, and he felt her fingers on his back.

Nothing had changed. Green Grove was basked as ever in the warm morning sun, flooding out of the eastern coast of the island to bathe the western, brilliantly illuminating the bright green of the young cane shoots.

He rode into the compound, slowly, because the mule would go no faster, and the dogs raced forward, growling and barking, to greet him. The mule stopped, and scraped at the dust with its hooves. But George Frederick was also running forward, to take the bridle, and Kit was dropping from the saddle, to stroke
and slap the eager mastiffs.

'The mi
stress does be aback, Captin,’
George Frederick said. 'But she going come home soon.'

Kit nodded, walked up the steps, stopped to look along the verandah to where Miss Johnson was leading Anthony in his Latin grammar while Rebecca played by herself at their feet. But Anthony had also seen his father come in, and now jumped up and down in his seat. 'Papa, Papa, you're home.'

'Hush, child,' Miss Johnson insisted. No doubt she was not as old as she looked and pretended, but she was older than either Kit or Marguerite, and was severely conscientious in her duties as governess; her father was the manager of the Ice House, and so she occupied a privileged position, by no means a planter's daughter, but by no means a poor white either; she approximated Lilian on th
e social scale, he sup
posed, although she would never have admitted to equality with a Quaker.

'Aye,' he said. 'You'd best obey Miss Johnson, or she'll have her stick to you, I've no doubt. I'm back, Tony. I'm back.'

He took off his hat, and went inside. Lilian, Lilian, Lilian. Then what was he doing here? There was an unanswerable question. Save that here was the fount of his strength, and if he was to put this behind him, then must he be sure what he was doing.

If he must put this behind him. There was the opportunist speaking.

Ellen Jane waited at the foot of the stairs. 'Is good to see you home, Captin,' she said. 'You going aback?'

'No. I'll have a bath, I think. And a jug of sangaree.' He went upstairs, into the great bedroom. The bed was made, and the room might never have been touched by human hand. But Marguerite's perfume filled the air. Was he afraid of her? Of her reactions? Of her denunciations? Or was he more afraid of what he had done to Lilian? Of what he had caused Lilian to do to herself.

He took off his coat, threw it across the bed, and sat beside it, staring through the window at the canefields. Now he was sober, and sufficiently tired to be dispirited. Thus true evaluation of the situation should wait until he had had a rest, and
a chance to think. And before these, a hot bath. There was the solution.

He stripped off his shirt, turned to face the still open door, and gazed at Marguerite, hatless, her coat open. 'Welcome home,' she said.

He licked his lips. Christ, how nervous he was, on a second. 'Am I then, welcome.'

'Silly darling,' she said, coming into the room and closing the door behind her. 'I apologize for yesterday, without reservation. It was the one thing I was determined we should never do, air our differences in public. Be sure that on our next appearance in St John's I shall be the most contrite of wives.'

'I disappointed you,' he said. 'You were entitled to anger.'

'No wife is entitled to do anything but support her husband,' she insisted. 'I had forgot that.' She picked up his shirt, held it close for a moment, and then put it down again. 'Was your dinner satisfactory?' Her head half turned. 'I had George Frederick return to oversee the situation. I should also ask, was her bed soft?'

Kit inhaled. There was never any possibility of subterfuge or dissembling, with Marguerite. In that she was superior to any of her sex.

'I returned to speak with you of that.'

'Indeed?' She sat on the bed, her hands on her lap. 'Your bath is ready. I will assist you, and you can say what you want, then.'

'Will you want to listen? It must be mainly goodbye.'

A slight frown, but gone in a moment. 'Is she then, so much softer than I? So much more willing than I? So much more passionate, than I?'

He cursed the flush on his cheeks. 'None of those things, Meg.'

'Is she, then, insistent that you declare your love, and make an honest woman of her to the world?' 'Of course not.'

'Are you, then, bent on becoming a Quaker yourself?' 'Good lord, no. But ...'

'But you fear my displeasure, my jealousy, will remain ever between us, like a bolster across our bed.'

'I ..." he chewed his lip.
'No doubt you have said it.'

'Then tell me this, my darling. Do you love your Danish mate?'

He sighed. 'I wish I knew. God, I wish I knew. I have liked her, admired her, perhaps even have I wanted her, since the day we met, and this is a long while ago. I have felt guilty in my friendship with her, because I am not of her people, her faith, even her persuasion about life.'

'And you have loved me since the day
we
met, which was well before you knew that creature existed. Or can a man's love only burn for a limited number of years?'

'I told you,' he shouted. 'I do not
know.
I do not know anything, for certain, at this moment. Last night I was drunk. I got drunk because of our quarrel. And then there was Lilian ...'

'And you are still the buccaneer,' she said. 'When drunk. Oh, do not suppose I am carping. That is why I love you. But when you are sober you are the man who would set the world to rights, and you imagine this particular world can be set right by leaving me to live with that girl.'

'Can you suggest an alternative?'

'To such folly? That would be hard. I told you, when first we lay together in this bed, Kit, when the time comes, you may lie on whom you please. Only do not love her as you love me. I do not believe that you do love this girl as you love me. If you must have her body, then do so. Build her a house, and set her up as your mistress. If I may offer a word of advice, do it down in Falmouth, where she will be removed from the immediate criticism of the Quakers or those who thoroughly dislike them. Visit her as you please. But be sure you come
back to Green Grove when you are
done. And be sure that I will be waiting for you.'

'You would accept such a situation?'

Marguerite smiled at him. 'You are my husband, my darling. Those children down there on the verandah are yours as much as mine. This plantation is held in our joint names, our joint strengths, for our joint purpose. I have had the best ten years of your life, and you have had the best ten years of mine. We shall come together again, God willing. I shall not throw you over for the first hole that attracts you, when drunk. And I shall expect you to possess, or to cultivate, a similar sense of