Suzanne Robinson (35 page)

“My mother killed people. Fulke thinks women are God’s mistake.” He began to shake her with each word. “You have to leave me alone.”

Kate felt her gown tighten and heard a rip. Disoriented from being shaken, she could only cling to Alexis’s arm while he groped between her breasts. He found the key and thrust her to the floor. She heard the lock click while she was still fighting her way clear of her hair. Alexis was standing on the threshold, regarding her with a cold stare. Tossing the key on the floor beside her, he smiled.

“I thank you for the offer of your body, but I’m afraid I have already promised mine to Carolina Beechwith. She tells me she wants a child, like Hannah. And this time I’ve decided to oblige.”

Kate stayed on the floor long after Alexis left. Too shocked to cry, she held the shreds of her bodice together and tried not to hate Alexis de Granville.

Alexis swirled brandy in a snifter and stared into the flames in the fireplace without seeing them. He didn’t hear Fulke leave the drawing room. He didn’t hear Val come in until his friend spoke.

“You know she’s gone.”

“I know.”

“You’re a fool,” Val said.

“I don’t wish to discuss Kate with you.”

“You’re going to unless you care to fight. I’ll gladly do either. Now that I think of it, I’d rather sink my fist into your gut.” Val stepped farther into the room. “Come on. I’m feeling much stronger, and I promise not to mess up your pretty face.”

Alexis put his snifter on the mantel, then leaned on the
mantel himself, resting his chin on his arm so that he could stare at the brandy.

“Well?” Val asked.

“I won’t fight you, and I’m not going to talk about Kate. What I did was best for her.”

“What you did was run away. By God, Alexis, it’s beyond me how you can face Russian bayonets and dance your horse through mortar fire, and yet lose control of your bowels at the sight of that bundle of contrariness and fascination.”

Alexis whirled on his friend. “Shut up. For the last time, I’m telling you to leave it. I won’t give her a heritage of perversion. There are plenty of women who are blinded to all else when they catch a whiff of my position or my money.”

Val marched over to a sofa and sat on it. He was grinning, and Alexis didn’t like it.

“So!”

“What does that mean?”

“So,” Val said again. “It’s as I said, old school chum. You’re afraid of her. Because she isn’t blinded, to use your own word. She doesn’t see a marquess when she looks at you. She doesn’t see Richfield and all that it means. No, she sees Alexis, and you’re not used to that. You’re afraid that once she sees all of you, she won’t like what she sees.”

“Enough!”

Alexis grabbed the brandy snifter and hurled it at the fireplace. The glass shattered; brandy made the fire spit. Shards flew back at him and buried themselves in his tailcoat. He lifted his hand to brush droplets of liquor from his sleeve. He was bleeding. He was still staring at the blood when Val took his hand and wrapped it with a handkerchief.

“It seems that one of us is always patching up the other,” Val said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me. But I wonder how you’re going to feel.”

“What do you mean?”

Val continued winding the handkerchief around Alexis’s hand. “When Cardigan or some other man tries for her. Don’t look so appalled. You saw how that bastard drooled over Kate. She’s gone to London, and in London she’s bound to meet him again. And then there’s Lord Snow, recovered nicely from his dysentery and hot for a woman, by all accounts. And of course there are the artists and writers and musicians. They will adore Kate, and she will adore them. Where are you off to?”

“Somewhere where you can’t get at me,” Alexis said. “It won’t work. Let her bed Cardigan, or Snow, or a musician, or all of them. And damn you to hell, Valentine Beaufort.”

After Val’s scolding, Alexis tried to avoid his friend. He hated the way Val smiled at him as if he enjoyed Alexis’s suffering, as if Alexis deserved the pain of losing Kate. He threw himself into the renovating of Maitland House and stayed with his wounded soldiers for hours. Sometimes, when a man died, perhaps, he could forget one source of pain for another. He kept himself so busy he didn’t realize that over a week had passed.

On the tenth evening after Kate left he was too exhausted from work at the Dower House to dress for dinner. He had some food brought up on a tray, then bathed and donned a dressing gown. Huddling on the rug in front of the fireplace, he took long swigs from a wine bottle and sulked. That afternoon Fulke had congratulated him on escaping the temptations of Adam.

Behind him he heard his door close and looked over his shoulder. Carolina Beechwith was sweeping toward him. She wore an evening gown that barely covered her breasts, and diamonds nestled in her cleavage.

“I invited myself to dine,” she said, “but you weren’t there.” She knelt on the rug beside him.

“I was tired.”

“You haven’t come to me.”

He took another pull on the wine bottle. “My mother is dead. I’m in mourning.”

“Then let me comfort you.”

For once Alexis didn’t care one way or the other. He let Carolina kiss him, and found within himself a strange detachment. She took the wine bottle from him and slipped her hands inside his dressing gown. She caressed his chest and kissed him again.

Alexis felt as if he were a god looking down upon two foolish mortals. He could see them touching, see the woman pull the man’s robe apart, lean over him, press him to the floor. The woman cupped the man’s genitals in her hand.

He was jolted back into his own body by Fulke’s shout. His cousin slammed the door behind him and bawled at Carolina. Carolina scrambled off Alexis, tripped on her gown, and went sprawling onto her back. She lurched to her feet, sputtering at Fulke.

Alexis raised up on his elbows. He didn’t bother to cover himself while he listened to Fulke’s wrath. He watched Carolina wrestle with her skirts and snarl at Fulke at the same time. Both of them shut up when he began to laugh. He lay back, chortling at the ceiling.

“It’s no use, Carolina,” he said when he could talk. “My virtue is defended by a hulking duenna who spouts Scripture. He’d fit me with a chastity belt if he could.” He laughed again.

“Ooooooooooh!” Carolina tried to kick him, but her long skirts got in the way.

Fulke was trembling and red faced. He pointed a finger at Carolina. “ ‘For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the
things of the Spirit./For to be carnally minded is death …’ ”

“He’s found you out, Carolina. You’re carnally minded.”

Carolina bent down and slapped him. Alexis leaped to his feet so swiftly, his dressing gown flapped out behind him. He grabbed Carolina by the hair and headed for the door. Along the way he grabbed Fulke’s arm and hauled his cousin with him. Snatching the door open, he shoved both intruders into the hall, then slammed the door in their faces. He locked it as he yelled at them through the wood.

“I’m not in the mood to be raped nor to be scourged, so you can both take your nasty desires to bed with you, preferably as far from me as possible.”

This time he hadn’t come after her.

Standing on the deck of the clipper that would sail for America in the morning, Kate hugged her shawl closer to her shoulders and walked toward the prow. It was evening and there were few crew members about.

Mama had advised forgiveness and perseverance, but Kate was too hurt. She had offered her love and her heart, delicate, sparkling jewels suspended on the fragile necklace of her trust. Alexis had thrown all of them into the hypocaust of his guilt and watched them burn into ashes. And it had happened in less time than it took to pour tea.

Val came on deck from taking his leave of Mama and joined her at the prow. They watched the moon turn from gray to silver and white.

“Stay a few more days,” Val said. “I’m sure he will come.”

Kate grasped the railing in front of her and stared at her hands. “I don’t want to be hurt again.”

“But it’s only been a couple of weeks, my dear. And
Alexis has dug a monstrous deep hole this time. It will take him a while to get sick of standing at the bottom and staring up at the light.”

Wetting her lips, Kate asked the question she’d wanted to ask since Val came to say good-bye. “Mrs. Beechwith?”

“I’m sorry. Alexis can be intimidating when he doesn’t want to be cornered, and I’m afraid he is playing the grand seigneur. I don’t understand it. There’s something in his character that enables him to make one feel like a squire who spilled wine on the king’s mantle, and do it without saying a word.”

“You should have kicked him.”

Val smiled and took her hand. “If he doesn’t come to you, I will.”

Bowing, Val kissed her hand. Kate stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. He whispered a farewell and left her.

Kate stayed at the prow listening to the sound of ropes scraping against wood, of water lapping at the sides of the ship, of beams creaking. There was so much to do, she thought. Correspondence had to be read, reports on shipments and profits had to be checked. Work had been piling up since she’d gone to Maitland House all those weeks ago, but there was a deadness inside of her that kept her from attending to it. She would stare at a column of figures and see a sinuous body and luminescent black hair.

A clammy breeze invaded her shawl, and she retreated to her cabin. Donning a high-necked nightdress and a dressing gown, she settled into bed, opened a book, and tried to read by the light of one lamp. In the past weeks, she hadn’t fallen asleep until well after midnight.

Her eyes were fluttering closed when a rumbling sounded on the deck above. Kate blinked and looked up at the ceiling. The rumbling skittered across the deck, down below, and into the passageway. There was a loud crack, and her door crashed open.

Kate gawked at the sight of Val being propelled into
her cabin by a furious Alexis de Granville. Once inside, Alexis hurled his friend to the floor. Val sailed toward Kate, hit a chair, and landed under it near her bed. He grunted as he shoved the chair off his chest, then he laughed. Kate found her tongue.

“What do you think you’re doing? Get out. Go settle your little-boys’ quarrels somewhere else.”

Alexis was out of breath. He charged across the cabin to stand over Val like a circuit preacher over a sinner, and pointed at him.

“He’s not sailing tomorrow. I’m taking him to France where I will challenge him and put a bullet through those bright curls you like so much.”

Kate folded her hands in her lap and examined Alexis from head to toe. He was beginning to remind her of the marauding Phillipe de Granville. “You’re babbling nonsense.”

“Uh.” Val sat up and touched his fingers to his bleeding mouth. “It’s no use, my little mouse, I wrote Alexis the truth. It was the honorable thing to do.”

“Little mouse?” Alexis growled and reached for Val.

“Stop that,” Kate said.

He turned on her. “Mouse, is it? If he has touched you, I’ll kill him. I’ll take his head in my hands and snap his neck, as I would a mouse’s.” He shouted at Val. “All the time you were jibing at me about Cardigan and God knows how many other men, it was you I had to fear.”

Kate got to her knees on the bed and put her hands on her hips. “Do you have brain fever, or do you always plunge about imitating Othello?”

“I am not imitating Othello.” Alexis jabbed a finger at her. “No man would stand his best friend making off with his fiancée.”

“Your fiancée,” Kate said, her voice rising to a raven’s cry. “You presumptuous, tyrannical, conceited man, can’t you see Val tricked you?”

Alexis had been glowering at Kate. He now transferred his ravaging scrutiny to Val. There was a sudden quiet in the room, and Kate joined Alexis in studying the man on the floor.

Val adopted a grave expression as he maneuvered himself to his feet and limped to a chair near the door. Two pairs of eyes followed his progress. Fishing in his coat pocket, he brought out a handkerchief and dabbed at his bleeding mouth. Something dropped into his hand, but it was too small to be seen.

Alexis broke the silence. “You haven’t much time to explain before I stuff you in a sea chest.”

Val stood up and began folding the bloodied square of cloth. “Ah, well.
Varium et mutabile semper femina
, my friend.” He held a key up before their eyes and chuckled.

He was through the door and slamming it shut before either Kate or Alexis could move. Alexis swore and launched himself at his friend too late. Hitting the closed door, he jerked at the knob as the lock clicked. Alexis pounded at the wood and yelled.

“Val, you miserable excrescence, open this door.”

“Good night,” Val said over the noise. “The crew have orders from Mrs. Grey not to let you out, so don’t bother yelling.”

Alexis rammed his shoulder into the door and bounced off it. He kicked it, and Kate covered her ears.

“Stop it!”

Hopping on one foot, Alexis glared at her. “Bloody everlasting hell.”

“You won’t get out without a key.”

He limped to the chair near the door and groaned while he nursed his foot. Sighing with exasperation, Kate got out of bed and went over to him. She caught hold of his ankle.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Taking your boot off, simpleton. Your foot is going to swell.”

“Leave my boot where it is.”

She put one hand on his chest and shoved him back in the chair. “Mulishness isn’t one of your endearing qualities.”

She took hold of the boot and pulled hard. It came off, and she threw it at Alexis. It landed on his chest. He grunted and dropped it on the floor. She ignored him. Padding back to her bed, she sat on top of the covers, folded her arms, and scowled at him.

“What did Val say?” he asked.

“He said ‘Woman is ever a fickle and changeable thing.’ Ha!”

“Ha, yourself. He was right.” Alexis pulled off his other boot and tossed it in a corner.

Kate clenched her fists. “Do all women a favor, Alexis, and adopt celibacy as Fulke wants.”