Suzanne Robinson (6 page)

“You little squit, keep your voice down.” Ophelia opened her parasol and positioned it so that they were concealed from the backs of the coachman and groom. “You said you didn’t mind. All you have to do is drive about for an hour and then come back for me.”

“I don’t mind, but I think you’re a fool. My maid says that since he recovered from his Crimean wounds, he’s
spent most of his nights somewhere else besides his own bed.”

“With maids and kitchen girls, I’m sure. They probably throw themselves at his feet or drag him into haystacks.”

Kate couldn’t see the difference between entertaining Alexis de Granville in a musty old Tower and allowing him liberties in a haystack. She didn’t say so, however.

“You don’t like him because you and Aunt Sophia have been here a whole week and his mother hasn’t called,” Ophelia said. “It’s most unkind of you to mock him when he’s only now recovered his health. He nearly got his arm blown away rescuing Mr. Beaufort when the poor man got shot off his horse in the war.”

Kate cast a sidelong glance at the righteous Ophelia. “That was six months ago, and his arm wasn’t nearly blown off. You’re always exaggerating. He probably got a bad case of dysentery and still suffers from the runs.”

“Katherine Ann Grey!”

Kate grinned. “Did I turn your stomach? Sorry.”

“Oh, hush. You’re just angry because Lady Juliana won’t call.”

Kate sighed and shook her head. “Mama wants to be invited to the castle, not me. I told her what you said about Lady Juliana not having anything to do with Americans and that she considers Mama an American.”

Ophelia leaned closer to Kate. “I have to have him.”

Her cousin’s voice quivered, and Kate was surprised to see tears glistening in her eyes.

“He thought I wanted his title,” Ophelia said. “I did, and that’s why I lost my first chance with him. But I don’t care about that anymore. After all, I’m Lady Swinburn now. But his mother hates me. I think she suspects that I’ve given myself to him. If she ever finds out for certain, she could ruin me. Please, Kate. Don’t make trouble.”

Kate grumbled, but shrugged when Ophelia besieged her with pleading looks.

“If it was me,” Kate said, “I’d rather be stranded in Hangtown on a Saturday night with a bunch of miners who just struck color. But if you want him, you can have him. Just don’t expect me to bathe him in that melted-sugar flattery like you do.”

The fierce hug she got for her compliance pinched her shoulder blades together. Their talk turned to the Crimean War again; it looked as if it would never end, and the British government appeared stalled in its own incompetence while young men died by the thousands. Then they went on to discuss the latest attack against slavery in the American Congress. When Turnpenny drove the carriage down the path to the old Tower, Ophelia ended the conversation abruptly. Kate leaned back against the cushions, aware that her cousin didn’t want the marquess to catch her discussing politics.

They arrived at the deserted Tower, and Ophelia made a great show of having the groom place her painting materials in the right spot. She and Kate climbed the interior stone stairs of the ruin to look at the view from the top. The Tower was on a bluff that commanded a lookout over the valley that lay between the lands of the de Granvilles and the Maitlands.

As they stood shivering in the cool April breeze, a figure shot down the valley toward the Tower. Kate’s eyes widened as she beheld the speed of the horse and rider. The stallion swept through a stream as though it weren’t there, hurled himself over a hedgerow, then plunged headlong down a steep gully.

“You’d think he’d have had enough of that after Balaclava,” Ophelia said.

Kate winced as horse and rider jumped a fence everyone else in the neighborhood rode around. “As we say in San Francisco, the marquess is a ripsniptious rider. I’d better go before he gets here. But remember, I have to be
back to meet with Mr. Poggs about the railroad shares I’m buying.”

Alexis dismounted from Theseus and led him to the old keep. He’d walked the horse up from the valley to cool him. Removing blanket and saddle, he began rubbing the animal down using handfuls of the long grass that grew at the base of the Tower. He knew Ophelia was waiting for him inside, but he was in no hurry to join her. She’d wriggled her way back into his good graces and his bed for her own reasons, and she knew he hadn’t wanted her there to begin with.

“Alexis?”

His hand stilled on Theseus’s flank, but he didn’t answer her. What was he doing there? He shouldn’t have come again. It still hurt too much just being home. Home was too green, the air too clear and fragrant. It hurt for home to be so beautiful when inside he was still on a battlefield sodden with mud and blood, stinking with burning flesh, gray with smoke from artillery that chopped men into bits of flesh-covered bone.

Crumpling a fistful of grass, Alexis hissed under his breath. “Stop, damn you. Don’t think about it. God, don’t think about it.”

That was why he was there, because Ophelia would help him not think, and because if he didn’t keep busy, he might give up. Sometimes he felt so dead inside he couldn’t even hear the shrieks of his old devils and sins. Their quiescence was Fate’s ultimate insult. A shared horror had silenced his private demons. Dear God, he craved peace at almost any price, even the price of nonexistence. He couldn’t give up though, for Val and the others needed him. He may have given up on himself, but he couldn’t abandon them.

“Alexis, what are you doing?” Ophelia appeared in the doorway of the Tower. “Alexis.”

Only Ophelia could contrive to plead and scold at the same time. Wearily he resumed his swirling motions with the makeshift brush. He needed time.

“I’m busy.”

She floated over to him. Theseus gave her a contemptuous snuffle and shook his head. She watched Alexis groom the horse for perhaps forty seconds before she put her hand on his to stop him.

“You’ll get all smelly from doing that.”

Alexis looked at his mistress and raised one eyebrow. “It never stopped you before.”

She touched a damp lock of hair that clung to his forehead. “No.”

He shoved the hair out of his face with the back of his forearm, then led Theseus to the stream that ran behind the Tower. Ophelia tripped after him. Her presence annoyed him. What did she know of the real world, the atrocity that was his own life?

“You might at least speak to me,” she said.

Feeling guilty for his rudeness, Alexis glanced over his shoulder and tried to smile at her. Her response was all out of proportion to the amount of enthusiasm he had to offer. She fluttered and almost danced as she came to him. Standing on tiptoe, she offered her lips. He kissed her lightly and stepped away to tie Theseus to a tree. She was waiting for him when he finished. He took her hand and started walking toward the Tower while she chattered to him.

He was used to her empty conversation, used to ignoring it, and he let his own thoughts wander to the wounded men under his care back at the castle. Val and the others had suffered more from the incompetence of the high command than from the enemy. One man had gone without
water for two days before someone bothered to help him.

He shouldn’t be thinking of the men. There was Ophelia to consider. Alexis forced his mind away from the wounded waiting at home.

“Alexis, you aren’t listening,” Ophelia said.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I said that your mother hasn’t called. You know how much it means to me that she approve of me. And until she calls, I can’t come to Richfield. What must I do to gain her approval? After all, every leading family in the county receives me.”

Alexis bowed before the door to the Tower and allowed her to precede him up the stairs to the roof. He found himself smiling as he listened to her. At least she was a consistent little blight. As she informed him of how high she stood in the estimation of the social paragons of the neighborhood, he leaned against the wall that topped the structure and surveyed the landscape.

“Alexis, answer me.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “My mother and I have little in common, but one trait we do share. We dislike being used.”

Ophelia put her hand on his arm, and he looked at her for the first time since gaining the roof. Her usually bright expression had vanished.

“I’m not using you,” she said. “Or if I am, I allow you to use me in return.”

“I know what you want from me.”

“Perhaps, but you don’t know it all.”

“Oh?”

“Do you know what a pleasure it is merely to look at you?” she asked. “If a magician turned your Theseus into a man, he would look like you, all black fire and vibrancy. I revel in the possession of that fire.”

“You’re more believable when you harp about my
mother calling on you.” He watched her lips. The lower one was caught between her teeth, and she was chewing on it.

She suddenly threw her arms out wide. “I do want you. It’s not my fault that I need other things as well.”

“No.” He was speaking more to himself than to her. “I shouldn’t complain. What you want is no more than I deserve.”

He turned his back to the wall and fully faced his anxious mistress. “Show me. Show me how much you want what I can give, and I’ll speak to Mother.”

Upon returning to Maitland House with Ophelia, Kate found her mother and Aunt Emeline entertaining old friends, the ladies of Gresham Priory. She was forbidden by good manners from attending to Mr. Poggs at once. She sat in the drawing room with them, stirring sugar into her tea while Mama chatted with the women. Mama was happy. Kate knew her mother loved Emeline and Ophelia, and Maitland House, and the elegant life she was leading once more. She moved gracefully from lady to lady, dispensing refreshment and sincere compliments.

Seeing her mother amid the lace curtains and brocaded furniture of Maitland House brought a memory back to Kate. The desert. They’d lost their way and been caught at sunrise. Papa had stopped the wagons, and they’d broiled beneath the fireball sun until nightfall when they could travel again.

Kate woke drenched in sweat to feel a cool breeze on her skin. She stumbled out of the wagon into the welcoming night. When she saw Mama, she almost climbed back into the wagon. Sophia had dragged a crate from one of the wagons while the men were hitching the oxen. She was smoothing a lace tablecloth over the box. The cloth was one she’d brought from England.

She bent to the ground, picked up a silver candelabra, and placed it in the center of the cloth. Kate eyed the silver piece with dismay. Papa had said they must cast off all their heavy possessions. Kate backed up and slid around the wagon, then peered around the corner at her mother.

Sophia was pouring tea into a china cup when Timothy Grey walked by with a harness. The harness dropped. Timothy stared at his wife. Sophia paid him no attention as she set a small box beside her makeshift table. Seating herself, she lifted the china cup to her lips and sipped.

“Sophia,” Timothy said.

“I must have my things about me, husband. I must have my linens and my silver. I may be in the devil’s wilderness, but I’m still a gentlewoman.”

Timothy shook his head and picked up the harness. “We have to go. Now. The oxen will die if we don’t get them to water. If they die, we’ll be next, and you waste water on tea.”

Sophia’s lips trembled. She took another sip from the china cup. “It’s probably teatime back home.”

“Dear Lord.” Timothy closed his eyes for a moment before turning away from his wife. “We’re almost ready. You can bring the china or the silver. Not both.”

Sophia bit her lip, then drank more tea. Kate watched her father walk away from her mother. Tears made her eyes sting, so she wiped them away. Sophia remained seated, drinking from her china cup while about her men and women prepared to battle the desert for their lives. Weary and frightened, Kate slipped out from behind the wagon and over to her mother.

“Mama. Mama, we have to go.”

“I know, dear. Just a few more minutes. You know how I am. After my tea, I can face anything.”

Kate had been fourteen years old, but that night she learned that courage was a mutable thing. Some people
shouted to stoke up bravery, some quietly endured. Mama clung to her gentility. Kate would spit in death’s face; Mama served tea. And because Kate understood her mother’s loneliness and bravery, she was willing to put up with stuffy English gentility and boredom. But she wasn’t sure how long her endurance could last.

The meeting with Mr. Poggs took most of the afternoon. Conducting business across an ocean was cumbersome and frustrating to Kate, but she’d promised Mama to stay in England at least six months before declaring it a second Hades and settling permanently in San Francisco. Since they’d arrived initially in London more than a month ago, she’d managed the family business affairs by correspondence. Control of the Grey fortune had been left in Kate’s hands in accordance with her father’s will. She had to oversee investments in a shipping firm, in ranches in California, in a New York bank, and now in a railroad. If there was one thing her father had believed in more than the value of learning, it was that wealth should be spread around. Kate remembered his lectures.

“My family in Virginia raises cotton and tobacco, Kate, with the labor of slaves. That’s why I left. I couldn’t live with slavery, and my family couldn’t live without it. We’re going to put our money in different places so that no matter what happens, we won’t be dependent on one or two sources. There’s a fight coming, Katie Ann, and it’s going to be a bad one, because the South has put all its eggs in one rotten basket.”

Kate sat behind a cherry-wood desk while Mr. Poggs finished his notes on the railroad purchase. The only crack in his dignified façade she had detected in the weeks they’d been acquainted was on the day they met. Kate had shaken hands and immediately started reeling off instructions about correspondence with her lawyers in New York
and San Francisco. When she finished, the man gawked at her, openmouthed. Then he closed it and burst into speech.

“I assumed that there would be an advisor,” he said.