Silent Surrender (14 page)

“I go America with you. Money, no money, I go,” she reassured him. She had never seen Jude behave with such open, hostile emotion as he had done in Poole’s office. That it had been on her behalf overwhelmed her. If that was not proof enough of his love, of his willingness to do whatever was necessary to keep her safe and happy, she couldn’t imagine what would be.

* * * * *

As Honoria slept beside him, Jude lay awake, staring at the canopy overhead. They had made love with as much passion and vigor as the very first time, but he could not help but worry the entire time, was he doing something that would remind her of Poole? Was he hurting her in ways she would never admit to him?

There had always been something about Honoria that had appeared mysterious, untouchable. He’d thought it was her beauty or the tragedy of her condition, perhaps both combined to make her the creature of secrets that she was. Now that he knew the truth, he much preferred the mystery.

That wasn’t fair of him and he knew it. How he could even consider that she should keep her secrets to keep his comfort? He rose from the bed and pulled on his robe, and paced the hall for a few turns before he realized that if he did not go out and walk and think all the thoughts he needed to think on the subject, he would run mad before the sun rose. Not wishing to disturb her sleep, he went to his own room and opened the neatly packed trunk at the foot of the bed. He extricated some clothing and shoes and dressed quickly, then left the house silent and dark behind him.

The streets of Plymouth were not the safest at night, but a man alone did not need to fear for his person. If anything, shadows going about their shadowy business tended to avoid other people, and if anyone meant to rob him, they would find him a poor target with empty pockets. He followed the sidewalks around the park, drawn inexplicably closer and closer to the dockside. He had known his feet would lead him there eventually, but he did not know the reason. To find Poole and wring the old bastard’s neck? Now there was a thought, but it would complicate matters more and Honoria would never see a dime of her money.

Nevertheless, he stopped in front, stared up at the façade that had once looked so proud and clean in comparison to the salt-brined buildings around it. Mr. Poole had made a mess of things and would continue to, Jude suspected, until the day he died.

What would Honoria’s father have thought if he could have foreseen the events that had transpired so shortly after his death? Perhaps he would have sent her away to France much, much sooner. Wallis had not expected to leave his daughter an orphan at such a young age. The deathbed arrangements he had made had been born of fear—not of his own mortality, but for the helpless woman he left behind. And though Jude knew Honoria to be made of stronger stuff than her parents had suspected, he could identify with their worry.

What if something happened to him in America? Jude didn’t like to think too much on that, but he knew he must. If he were to take ill during the crossing, how would Honoria establish herself? Worse, what if some accident befell him years from now? What if they had children? Who would provide for them? Oh, there were things she could do, that much was certain, but everything would hinge on the willingness of others to do business with a woman, a deaf woman, and a foreigner at that.

He began to realize keenly what Wallis might have been thinking on his deathbed, and he pitied the gentleman even more.

It was his love for Honoria that turned him in the direction of the low-rent neighborhood behind the docks. Though he didn’t know how he intended to find him, he knew the answer was to seek out Esau. That man had survived against considerable odds, Jude knew well enough. Anyone who spent any small amount of time with him wanted to dash his brains out, so the fact that it hadn’t happened yet spoke in favor of the man’s ability to thrive in the face of hardships. Jude stepped into one pub, and then another, asking for Esau with the scar on his face, turning up only blank stares or disinterested shrugs.

“Why?” one man asked, turning away from the bar, a dirty, half-empty glass in his meaty fist. “He owe you money, too? We can look for him together, all right?”

And with that Jude excused himself and hastened away from the place.

Outside one darkened residence, he saw a woman on the stoop, glowering at the world from small dark eyes, puffing on a pipe. When she drew in, her whole, considerable body hefted upward, and when she exhaled, she sank slowly down, bobbing like some obese cantina. There was a huge flesh-colored mole on her cheek, and hairs sprouting from her upper lip, which curled back in a sneer as Jude approached. “Whatcherant?”

It took Jude a moment to understand the words she spit around the tightly bitten stem of her pipe. “What do I want? Oh. Ah, I’m looking for a man named Esau Coal. He said he lived in this part of town. Do you know him?”

“Irentahim,” she replied, raising one eyebrow suspiciously. Pulling the pipe from her mouth she leaned forward. “You’re awfully fine to be in this part of town, ain’t you?”

“I have business with Mr. Coal. You rent to him, you said?”

She puffed on her pipe a moment, studying him with open and impudent derision. “What kind of business brings a man out at this hour of night? And don’t think I don’t know. He comes back here with fancy clothes, won’t say where he got ’em. I won’t have that kind of back door business going on under my nose. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. Not under my roof! Not in my house!”

Jude’s stomach turned a bit at the thought. He hadn’t even liked having the other man present when they’d made love to Honoria, but he’d done it for love of her. This woman didn’t need to know any of that, though. He owed her no explanation. “I have a job for him, and I happened to be passing this way. If he rents from you, you don’t want him to go about unemployed, do you?”

“If he couldn’t pay, I wouldn’t rent to him.” The woman considered, gnawing the stem of her pipe. After a long moment, she gestured to the door. “Go up. Third floor, first door after the landing. But I’ve got ears all over this place, and don’t think I don’t. Anything immoral and I’ll chuck him out the door, and then you can keep your fancy boy in his fancy clothes in your own house.”

Jude made his way past her, choking into his sleeve as he passed through a noxious gout of pipe smoke. The inside of the house was shabby and worn, and it did not boast the cleanliness that would make such threadbare carpets and peeling paper livable. Indeed, as he ascended the stairs he wondered if they were creaking or if he trod upon a rat with every step. Either seemed likely enough.

The first door past the landing was shut and no sound came from within. He rapped on the door once, then again, and when there was no answer, he pushed it open. At once, a great clatter ensued, and a body vaulted from the bed, pushing him against the door. Something winked in the darkness and pressed against his throat as he threw his hands up and stammered, “It’s me! It’s Jude!”

The blade retreated and Esau released him, hurrying away for just a moment before a match struck and a lamp lit the room. Jude would have almost preferred the darkness. The bed was nothing but a dirty mattress on a rusted frame, tucked beneath a sloping, sagging ceiling stained from numerous leaks.

“This is where you live?” Jude ventured cautiously. He had never really felt sorry for the man before, hadn’t liked him enough to, but no one should live like this.

“Not all of us have fine houses,” Esau reminded him.

“I don’t have a fine house,” Jude bit back. This defensiveness would not serve either of them, so it was pointless to bicker. “I came about Honoria.”

“Did she go to France?” Esau’s expression seemed caught between worry and amusement. “She’s a spiteful little thing, isn’t she?”

“That she can be,” Jude agreed. “But she isn’t going to France. I’m taking her to America.”

“As you should. She’s a real gem of a girl, you should be happy to have her.” Esau wore only the blanket around his waist, and he seemed suddenly conscious of it, for he reached for the trousers folded and resting below the windowsill. “Sorry, I don’t have anything to offer you to celebrate.”

“You didn’t take the money.” Jude didn’t need to ask him, he already knew. “Why?”

“Why would I?” Esau fastened his trousers and slipped his hands into his pockets. “I think I got more out of the deal than she did. Getting to be with a lady, a real lady, every night. The women I’m used to…they’re not like her.”

“No, that I don’t doubt.” Jude mentally scolded himself. He hadn’t come here to shame the man, or to act superior. None of that would do either of them any good. “Do you have feelings for her?”

“Feelings?” Esau frowned, casting his gaze down. When he looked up again, his cheerful smile was forced. “Nah. Not her. I won’t forget her, that’s for sure. She’s a spark, that one. But I’m a simple man. I’m not looking for the kind of life that has love and a devoted wife waiting at home. Hell, I couldn’t afford it.”

It was a lie. Jude would have seen through it even if the man had been a good liar. “She was willing to have you. To take you to America with us. Why did you turn her down?”

“I’m not one for sailing, I told you that.” Esau shook his head. “Besides, she needs someone else. Someone like you. You know how to talk to her, in her language. You don’t confuse her with your jokes or make a spectacle of yourself. She’s a good girl, she deserves you. She doesn’t need to be chained to a man like me. Me, I’ll live and die here in Plymouth, and my time is likely to be short.”

“So, you’re…protecting her?” Jude didn’t like the taste of that particular truth. He’d been more comfortable with an image of Esau Coal, opportunist, seducer of young women. But then, why had he come here if he didn’t want to find exactly the opposite. “That’s what I’m trying to do, Esau. I’m trying to protect her.”

“Then you’re right to get her away from Poole,” Esau said, his gaze going hard and steely dark in the dimness of the lamplight. “There’s something wrong about that man, dead wrong. You get her as far away from his control as you can.”

Jude sucked in a breath. “Did she tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Esau shook his head. “No, she didn’t tell me anything, I just don’t like the look of him. Men like him… I’ve seen men like him before.”

“He touched her,” Jude stated plainly before he lost his resolve. “When she was a child. There were…improprieties.”

Esau sank down on the bed, his head in his hands. “I wanted to kill him. When I was there, in his office. I wanted to kill him. I thought, ‘no, you’ll make a mess of things for her, control your temper.’ I thought it was because of what he was doing, taking her money, treating her so poorly. I should have known.”

“How could you have known?” Jude knew what the man was feeling, or thought he did. The knowledge that the old man had been hurting Honoria, under her parents’ own roof, under their very noses, sickened him. It was love for Honoria that made him feel that, and Esau could deny his feelings all he wanted but Jude saw in him the same helpless defeat he had felt that morning.

“I just should have.” Esau lifted his head. “I had an uncle, a bit of a fiddler himself. He put his hands on me one time, and I told him I’d cut his cock off and shove it up his arse. I should have known the look. How could her father have let that go on?”

“He didn’t know.” Jude leaned against the door, would have sunk to the floor if he hadn’t been afraid of catching some horrible disease from the landlady’s housekeeping. “She never told anyone, until she confronted him today.”

“And you’re worried about her,” Esau said with a bitter laugh. “You don’t think she can protect herself?”

“I think that she is very capable. I don’t think the world is capable of trusting her to her own ends.” He straightened and tugged on his coat. “Come with us. Honoria, for whatever her reasons, wants you. She wants you badly enough that she would have thrown me over out of spite. Every moment I’m with her, though she’s smiling and happy with me, I know there is a part of her that is with you. Wishing she was with you, wondering what you’re doing. If you were with us—”

“She won’t have me now,” Esau interrupted. “She’s too proud.”

“She isn’t,” Jude insisted. “She has let go of a great deal of her pride to be with me, after that argument in the dining room. Perhaps the thought of losing both of us scared her enough to cling to me. But I’ll take her, any way I can have her. If that means sharing her with you… I’m willing to do that.”

“And how will it be, then?” Esau asked, his hands clasped together, elbows on his knees. He looked like a man in prayer, but what a profane prayer that would be at this moment. “I’ll be your servant? In your employ?”

“No. You’ll work, as will we all. Honoria wishes to run a shipping company as her father did, and I think Poole will work with us, now that she’s threatened to make his actions known.”

A smile touched Esau’s lips at that. “Threatened him, did she? Good girl.”

Jude smiled in reply, but he could not wait for the man’s answer. “Will you come with me? Back to the house? To Honoria? I want her to wake and find you there.”

“Do you?” He raised his head, looked up at Jude with a queer sort of aggression, as if daring him to answer truthfully and expecting it all the same.

“I would rather be with her, just the two of us. But she wouldn’t.” Jude swallowed. “And I will do anything to make sure she’s happy.”

Esau rose slowly and reached for the lamp. He clapped a hand over the top to douse the flame. “I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

The relief Jude felt was tempered with regret. If he’d never come here, if he’d never sought Esau out, it would have been just him and Honoria. But that was why he’d come. For her to be happy, she needed them both. And for his own peace of mind, Jude needed Esau as well.

Chapter Eleven

The walk to the house was surreal. Esau had thought about making such a trip, but he’d expected to do it alone and when Jude and Honoria were both long gone. He’d thought it might do to make peace with what had happened, to put it all behind him.