Written in My Own Heart's Blood, Page 97

  general.

  John listened, his face quietly intent, though the corner of his mouth twitched when I described Richardson’s plan to influence Hal’s political actions.

  “Yes, I know,” I said dryly, seeing that. “I don’t suppose he’s ever actually met Hal. But the important thing …” I hesitated, but he had to know.

  “He knows about you,” I said. “What you … are. I mean that you—”

  “What I am,” he repeated, expressionless. His eyes had been fastened on my face to this point; now he looked away. “I see.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  John was a distinguished soldier and an honorable gentleman, member of an ancient noble family. He was also a homosexual, in a time when that particular attribute was a capital offense. For that knowledge to be in the hands of a man who meant ill to him and his family … I wasn’t under any illusions about what I’d just done—with three words, I’d shown him that he was standing on a very narrow tightrope over a very deep pit, with Richardson holding the end of the rope.

  “I’m sorry, John,” I said, very softly. I touched his arm, and he laid his hand briefly over mine, squeezed it gently, and smiled.

  “Thank you.” He stared at the brick paving under his feet for a moment, then looked up. “Do you know how he came by the—information?” He spoke calmly, but a nerve was jumping just under his injured eye, a tiny twitch. I wanted to put my finger on it, still it. But there was nothing I could do.

  “No.” I looked back at the distant bench. Fanny was still there, a small, desolate figure, head bent. I turned my gaze back to John; his brow was creased, thinking.

  “One last thing. Hal’s daughter-in-law, the young woman with the odd name—”

  “Amaranthus,” he interrupted, and smiled wryly. “Yes, what about her? Don’t tell me that Ezekiel Richardson invented her for his own purposes.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him, but probably not.” I told him what I’d learned from Mr. Jameson.

  “I told William day before yesterday,” I said. “But what with everything”—I waved a hand, encompassing Fanny, Jane, Colonel Campbell, and a few other things—“I doubt he’s had time to go to Saperville to look for her. You don’t suppose that’s the errand he spoke of, do you?” I asked, struck by the thought.

  “God knows.” He rubbed a hand over his face, then straightened. “I must go. I’ll have to tell Hal a few things. Not … that, I don’t think,” he said, seeing my face. “But obviously there are things he needs to know, and know quickly. God bless you, my dear. I’ll send word about tomorrow.” He took my hand, kissed it very gently, and let go.

  I watched him walk away, his back very straight, the scarlet of his coat bright as blood against the grays and faded greens of the winter garden.

  WE BURIED JANE on the morning of a dull, cold day. The sky was sodden with low gray clouds, and a raw wind blew in from the sea. It was a small private burying ground, belonging to a large house that stood outside the city.

  All of us came with Fanny: Rachel and Ian, Jenny, Fergus and Marsali—even the girls and Germain. I worried a bit; they couldn’t help but feel the echoes of Henri-Christian’s death. But death was a fact of life and a common one, and while they stood solemn and pale amongst the adults, they were composed. Fanny was not so much composed as completely numb, I thought; she’d wept all the tears her small body could hold and was white and stiff as a bleached stick.

  John came, dressed in his uniform (in case anyone became inquisitive and tried to disturb us, he explained to me in an undertone). The coffin-maker had had only adult coffins to hand; Jane’s shrouded body looked so like a chrysalis, I half-expected to hear a dry rattling sound when the men picked it up. Fanny had declined to look upon her sister’s face one last time, and I thought that was as well.

  There was no priest or minister; she was a suicide, and this was ground hallowed only by respect. When the last of the dirt had been shoveled in, we stood quiet, waiting, the harsh wind flurrying our hair and garments.

  Jamie took a deep breath and a step to the head of the grave. He spoke the Gaelic prayer called the Death Dirge, but in English, for the sake of Fanny and Lord John.

  Thou goest home this night to thy home of winter,

  To thy home of autumn, of spring, and of summer;

  Thou goest home this night to thy perpetual home,

  To thine eternal bed, to thine eternal slumber.

  Sleep thou, sleep, and away with thy sorrow,

  Sleep thou, sleep, and away with thy sorrow,

  Sleep thou, sleep, and away with thy sorrow,

  Sleep, thou beloved, in the Rock of the fold.

  The shade of death lies upon thy face, beloved,

  But the Jesus of grace has His hand round about thee;

  In nearness to the Trinity farewell to thy pains,

  Christ stands before thee and peace is in His mind.

  Jenny, Ian, Fergus, and Marsali joined in, murmuring the final verse with him.

  Sleep, O sleep in the calm of all calm,

  Sleep, O sleep in the guidance of guidance,

  Sleep, O sleep in the love of all loves,

  Sleep, O beloved, in the Lord of life,

  Sleep, O beloved, in the God of life!

  It wasn’t until we turned to go that I saw William. He was standing just outside the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the burying ground, tall and somber in a dark cloak, the wind stirring the dark tail of his hair. He was holding the reins of a very large mare with a back as broad as a barn door. As I came out of the burying ground, holding Fanny’s hand, he came toward us, the horse obligingly following him.

  “This is Miranda,” he said to Fanny. His face was white and carved with grief, but his voice was steady. “She’s yours now. You’ll need her.” He took Fanny’s limp hand, put the reins into it, and closed her fingers over them. Then he looked at me, wisps of hair blowing across his face. “Will you look after her, Mother Claire?”

  “Of course we will,” I said, my throat tight. “Where are you going, William?”

  He smiled then, very faintly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, and walked away.

  Fanny was staring up at Miranda in complete incomprehension. I gently took the reins from her, patted the horse’s jaw, and turned to find Jamie. He was just inside the fence, talking with Marsali; the others had come out already and were standing in a cold little cluster, Ian and Fergus talking with Lord John, while Jenny shepherded the children—all of whom were staring at Fanny.

  Jamie was frowning a little, but at last he nodded and, bending forward, kissed Marsali on the forehead and came out. He raised one eyebrow when he saw Miranda, and I explained.

  “Aye, well,” he said, with a glance at Fanny. “What’s one more?” There was an odd tone to his voice, and I looked at him in inquiry.

  “Marsali asked me if we’d take Germain,” he said, drawing Fanny in against him in a sheltering hug, as if this were a common thing.

  “Really?” I glanced over my shoulder at the rest of the family. “Why?” We had all discussed the matter at some length the night before and concluded that we wouldn’t wait until spring to leave Savannah. With the city occupied, there was no chance of Fergus and Marsali resuming publication of their newspaper, and with Colonel Richardson lurking behind the scenes, the place was beginning to seem distinctly dangerous.

  We would all travel together to Charleston, get Fergus and Marsali established there, and then the rest of us would go on north to Wilmington, where we would begin to equip ourselves for the trip into the mountains when the snows began to melt in March.

  “Ye told them, Sassenach,” Jamie said, scratching Miranda’s forelock with his free hand. “What the war would be, and how long it would last. Germain’s of an age when he’ll be out and in the thick o’ things. Marsali’s worrit that he’ll come to harm, loose in a city where the sorts of things happen that do happen in wartime. God knows the mountains may be no safer”—h
e grimaced, obviously recalling a few incidents that had taken place there—“but on the whole, he’s likely better off not being in a place where he could be conscripted by the militia or pressed into the British navy.”

  I looked down the gravel path that led to the house; Germain had drifted away from his mother, grandmother, Rachel, and his sisters and joined Ian and Fergus in conversation with Lord John.

  “Aye, he kens he’s a man,” Jamie said dryly, following the direction of my gaze. “Come along, a leannan,” he said to Fanny. “It’s time we all had breakfast.”

  AMARANTHUS

  Saperville

  January 15, 1779

  SAPERVILLE WAS DIFFICULT to find but, once found, small enough that it was a matter of only three inquiries to discover the residence of a widow named Grey.

  “Over there.” Hal reined up, nodding toward a house that stood a hundred yards back from the road in the shade of an enormous magnolia tree. He was being casual, but John could see the muscle twitching in his brother’s jaw.

  “Well … I suppose we just go up and knock, then.” He turned his own horse’s head in at the rutted lane, taking stock of the place as they walked toward it. It was a rather shabby house, the front veranda sagging at one corner where its foundation had given way, and half its few windows boarded over. Still, the place was occupied; the chimney was smoking fitfully, in a way suggesting that it hadn’t been recently swept.

  The door was opened to them by a slattern. A white woman, but one clothed in a stained wrapper and felt slippers, with wary eyes and a sourly downturned mouth whose corners showed the stains of tobacco chewing. “Is Mrs. Grey at home?” Hal inquired politely.

  “Nobody o’ that name here,” the woman said, and made to shut the door, this action being prevented by Hal’s boot.

  “We were directed to this address, madam,” Hal said, the politeness diminishing markedly. “Be so good as to inform Mrs. Grey that she has visitors, please.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed.

  “And who in tarnation are you, Mr. Fancy Pants?”

  John’s estimation of the woman’s nerve rose considerably at this, but he thought he ought to intervene before Hal started wheezing.

  “This is His Grace the Duke of Pardloe, madam,” he said, with maximum politeness. Her face altered at once, though not for the better. Her jaw hardened, but a predatory gleam came into her eye.

  “Elle connaît votre nom,” he said to Hal. She knows your name.

  “I know that,” his brother snapped. “Madam—”

  Whatever he would have said was interrupted by the sudden shrieking of a baby, somewhere upstairs.

  “I beg your pardon, madam,” Lord John said politely to the slattern, and, seizing her by the elbows, walked her backward into the house, whirled her round, and pushed her into the kitchen. There was a pantry, and he shoved her into this cubbyhole, slammed the door upon her, and, grabbing a bread knife from the table, thrust it through the hasp of the latch as a makeshift bolt.

  Hal had meanwhile disappeared upstairs, making enough noise for a company of cavalry. John galloped after him, and by the time he reached the head of the stair, his brother was busily engaged in trying to break down the door of a room from which came the siren shrieks of a baby and the even louder cries of what was probably the baby’s mother.

  It was a good, solid door; Hal flung himself at it shoulder-first and rebounded as though made of India rubber. Barely pausing, he raised his foot and slammed the flat of his boot sole against the panel, which obligingly splintered but didn’t break inward.

  Wiping his face on his sleeve, he eyed the door and, catching the flicker of movement through the splintered paneling, called out, “Young woman! We have come to rescue you! Stand well away from the door!

  “Pistol, please,” he said, turning to John with his hand out.

  “I’ll do it,” John said, resigned. “You haven’t any practice with doorknobs.”

  Whereupon, with an air of assumed casualness, he drew the pistol from his belt, aimed carefully, and shot the doorknob to pieces. The boom of the gun evidently startled the room’s inhabitants, for a dead silence fell. He gently pushed the stem of the shattered knob through the door; the remnants of the knob thunked to the floor on the other side, and he pushed the door cautiously open.

  Hal, nodding his thanks, stepped forward through the wisps of smoke.

  It was a small room, rather grimy, and furnished with no more than a bedstead, dresser, stool, and washstand. The stool was particularly noticeable, as it was being brandished by a wild-eyed young woman, clutching a baby to her breast with her other hand.

  An ammoniac reek came from a basket in the corner, piled with dirty clouts; a folded quilt in a pulled-out drawer showed where the baby had been sleeping, and the young woman was less kempt than her mother would have liked to see, her cap askew and her pinny stained. Hal disregarded all matters of circumstance and bowed to her.

  “Do I address Miss Amaranthus Cowden?” he said politely. “Or is it Mrs. Grey?”

  John gave his brother a disparaging look and turned a cordial smile on the young woman.

  “Viscountess Grey,” he said, and made a leg in courtly style. “Your most humble servant, Lady Grey.”

  The young woman looked wildly from one man to the other, stool still raised, clearly unable to make head or tail of this invasion, and finally settled on John as the best—if still dubious—source of information.

  “Who are you?” she asked, pressing her back against the wall. “Hush, darling.” For the baby, recovered from shock, had decided to grizzle.

  John cleared his throat.

  “Well … this is Harold, Duke of Pardloe, and I am his brother, Lord John Grey. If our information is correct, I believe we are, respectively, your father-in-law and your uncle by marriage. And, after all,” he remarked, turning to Hal, “how many people in the colonies do you think there could possibly be named Amaranthus Cowden?”

  “She hasn’t yet said she is Amaranthus Cowden,” Hal pointed out. He did, however, smile at the young woman, who reacted as most women did, staring at him with her mouth slightly open.

  “May I?” John reached forward and took the stool gently from her unresisting hand, setting it on the floor and gesturing her to take a seat. “What sort of name is Amaranthus, may I ask?”

  She swallowed, blinked, and sat down, clutching the baby.

  “It’s a flower,” she said, sounding rather dazed. “My grandfather’s a botanist. It could have been worse,” she added more sharply, seeing John smile. “It might have been Ampelopsis or Petunia.”

  “Amaranthus is a very beautiful name, my dear—if I may call you so?” Hal said, with grave courtesy. He wiggled a forefinger at the baby, who had stopped grizzling and was staring at him warily. Hal pulled his officer’s gorget off over his head and dangled the shiny object, close enough for the child to grab—which he did.

  “It’s too large to choke him,” Hal assured Amaranthus. “His father—and his father’s brothers—all teethed on it. So did I, come to that.” He smiled at her again. She was still white-faced but gave him a wary nod in response.

  “What is the little fellow’s name, my dear?” John asked.

  “Trevor,” she said, taking a firmer hold on the child, now completely engrossed in trying to get the demilune gorget—half the size of his head—into his mouth. “Trevor Grey.” She looked back and forth between the Grey brothers, a frown puckering her brows. Then she lifted her chin and said, enunciating clearly, “Trevor … Wattiswade … Grey. Your Grace.”

  “So you are Ben’s wife.” A little of the tension left Hal’s shoulders. “Do you know where Ben is, my dear?”

  Her face went stiff, and she clutched the baby tighter.

  “Benjamin is dead, Your Grace,” she said. “But this is his son, and if you don’t mind … we should quite like to come with you.”

  UNFINISHED BUSINESS

  WILLIAM SHOVED his way through the crowds in
the City Market, oblivious to the complaints of those rebounding from his impact.

  He knew where he was going and what he meant to do when he got there. It was the only thing left to do before leaving Savannah. After that … it didn’t matter.

  His head throbbed like an inflamed boil. Everything throbbed. His hand—he’d probably broken something, but he didn’t care. His heart, pounding and sore inside his chest. He hadn’t slept since they’d buried Jane; would likely never sleep again and didn’t care.

  He remembered where the warehouse was. The place was almost empty; doubtless the soldiers had taken everything the owner hadn’t had time to move out of reach. Three men were lounging by the far wall, sitting on the few remaining casks of salt fish and smoking their pipes; the smell of tobacco reached him, a small comfort in the echoing cold fishiness of the building.

  “James Fraser?” he said to one of the loungers, and the man pointed with the stem of his pipe toward a small office, a sort of shed attached to the far wall of the warehouse.

  The door was open; Fraser was seated at a table covered with papers, writing something by the light that fell through a tiny barred window behind him. He looked up at the sound of William’s footsteps and, seeing him, put down his quill and rose slowly to his feet. William came forward, facing him across the table.

  “I have come to take my farewell,” William said, very formally. His voice was less firm than he liked, and he cleared his throat hard.

  “Aye? Where is it that ye mean to go?” Fraser was wearing his plaid, the faded colors muted further by the dimness of the light, but what light there was sparked suddenly from his hair as he moved his head.

  “I don’t know,” William said, gruff. “It doesn’t matter.” He took a deep breath. “I—wished to thank you. For what you did. Even though—” His throat closed tight; try as he might, he couldn’t keep Jane’s small white hand out of his thoughts.

  Fraser made a slight dismissive motion and said softly, “God rest her, poor wee lass.”

  “Even so,” William said, and cleared his throat again. “But there is one further favor that I wished to ask of you.”

  Fraser’s head came up; he looked surprised but nodded.

  “Aye, of course,” he said. “If I can.”

  William turned and pulled the door shut, then turned to face the man again.

  “Tell me how I came to be.”

  The whites of Fraser’s eyes flashed in brief astonishment, then disappeared as his eyes narrowed.

  “I want to know what happened,” William said. “When you lay with my mother. What happened that night? If it was night,” he added, and then felt foolish for doing so.

  Fraser eyed him for a moment.

  “Ye want to tell me what it was like, the first time ye lay with a woman?”

  William felt the blood rush into his head, but before he could speak, the Scot went on.

  “Aye, exactly. A decent man doesna speak of such things. Ye dinna tell your friends such things, do ye? No, of course not. So much less would ye tell your … father, or a father his …”

  The hesitation before “father” was brief, but William caught it, no trouble. Fraser’s mouth was firm, though, and his eyes direct.

  “I wouldna tell ye, no matter who ye were. But being who ye are—”

  “Being who I am, I think I have a right to know!”

  Fraser looked at him for a moment, expressionless. He closed his eyes for an instant and sighed. Then opened them and drew himself up, straightening his shoulders.

  “No, ye haven’t. But that’s not what ye want to know, in any case,” he said. “Ye want to know, did I force your mother. I did not. Ye want to know, did I love your mother. I did not.”

  William let that lie there for a moment, controlling his breathing ’til he was sure his voice would be steady.

  “Did she love you?” It would have been easy to love him. The thought came to him unbidden—and unwelcome—but with it, his own memories of Mac the groom. Something he shared with his mother.

  Fraser’s eyes were cast down, watching a trail of tiny ants running along the scuffed floorboards.

  “She was verra young,” he said softly. “I was twice her age. It was my fault.”