Elyse Mady (13 page)

“I see I have no choice in the matter. You have arranged it most neatly between you both. I must accept the fact that my sister is being kept for my comfort.” He looked at Hester, his dislike palpable, and Thomas saw her flinch.

“You speak as though I had a choice in the matter,” she began, but her brother cut her off.

“Enough,” he cried. “I have said I will not interfere with your decision but that does not mean I must like it. You have made a very bad choice, sister, and I fear you will live to rue the day. I am only glad our parents are dead that they do not have to see you now.”

* * *

Robert’s comment hit its mark. Hester felt faint but she tried to rally. “If they could see you now, I am sure they would feel likewise of you.”

She looked at her brother and wondered when he had become the stranger she now saw. His face and form were the same, but the spirit peering at her so malevolently from his eyes, eyes that bore such a marked resemblance to her own, was foreign. His spite and his scorn chilled her to the marrow. Newman seemed unmoved by the charged atmosphere. Given the man’s occupation, a family spat must be a minor inconvenience when laid against the depravities most of the inmates were capable of.

“Excellent,” the keeper mused jovially, blithely dismissing their charged words. “Your friend seems a sympathetic sort. I’m sure he will stand true, eh?” He winked at Thomas. The hint couldn’t be broader.

“I will pay for Mr. Aspinall’s bed in the master’s side,” Thomas said. Hester was mortified. She had not agreed to living with him that he might be touched for her brother’s expenses.

Mr. Newman smiled, no doubt toting the sums in his head and relishing the results it would mean for his pocket. Garnishes for bed and bedding, coal and candles. Everything a boon, for every penny spent, himself a ha’penny richer. Hester would have been sickened by the man’s avarice in the normal course of things but now she could barely bring herself to care.

“When do you meet my lawyer?” Robert asked the question with little inflection. Hester answered it in kind.

“Tomorrow.”

“Good. See that he is paid,” Robert said baldly.

“Yes.” What more could be said that had not already been touched upon so painfully in the interview?

“Goodbye, Robert.” She stretched out her hand but he turned away and she dropped it to her side.

“Send word when you have met with him.”

The turnkeys unlocked the door and he was led away without another word. Hester watched him go, waiting until the sound of his footsteps had died away completely.

Chapter Eleven

“Are you all right?” Thomas asked. They had been travelling in his carriage a quarter of an hour since leaving the prison and Hester had spoken not at all. She was peering out the window at the streetscape outside. She turned, as though startled to see him.

“I am fine,” she assured him, but her words rang hollow.

“You are not fine,” he said, taking in her pale, drawn face. “You are the furthest thing from fine.”

She smiled a watery smile. “I will grant that I am not at my best, but surely it is not as bad as all that?”

“Your brother’s words hurt you, didn’t they?”

She looked again out the window. He knew it was so that she could avoid meeting his eyes but he still relished the opportunity to watch her.

“A little.”

“A great deal.”

A small, quiet snort of laughter. “A great deal, then. But it is not just his words that hurt. It is his inability to believe that I am a capable woman on my own terms. That I can make decisions for myself.” She paused, her cheeks colouring. “There was a time, after my parents’ death, that I needed Robert. Needed his guidance terribly. And he gave it. But he persists in seeing me as I was then, not as I am now. You heard him speak of Jamie?”

“Yes.” He waited quietly, not interrupting as she gathered her thoughts.

Hester smoothed her gloves over the back of her hands. “Jamie Dainton and I were engaged.”

“Nothing came of it?”

She smiled but her eyes were sad, lost in memory. “He died at sea enforcing a blockade against the Coriscan’s fleet.”

The grief on her face looked startling fresh and he wanted to say something, anything, to ease the moment. But what could he say? He’d never loved anyone as Hester clearly had.

He amended the thought: as Hester clearly still did.

“When did he pass away?”

“Four years ago. The news was delivered the day Robert and I said goodbye to our parents.” Her voice broke for a moment, but she took a deep breath and recovered herself.

Four years.
That explained so much. It must have happened just before the siblings’ remove to London. Thomas remembered what she had looked like then. Wan. In mourning. Now he knew why.

“And since then?” It wasn’t his business to pry into her private life but he felt compelled. He wanted to know this complicated woman better. The kiss they had shared yesterday still preyed on his mind. He’d spent half the night, alone in his bedroom, remembering it. Fantasizing about what might have happened had it not been for Mrs. Lytton’s provident arrival.

“Since then what?”

“Has there been anyone else?” He paused, searching for the right words. “Anyone you have cared for?”

Hester’s eyes widened and she looked panic stricken. As though his innocent question meant more to her than he could comprehend.

“No. No one.” She laughed, her grief forgotten for a moment. “A man named Mr. Maudsley proposed, although I never gave him any encouragement. Thirteen children and two wives buried.”

“You had no wish to be number three?”

“Decidedly not.” They smiled at each other, both struck by the humour of the situation. He liked her face when she smiled, he decided. He’d like to see her do it more often.

He was surprised how well he could relate to her situation with her brother. It was much the same for himself and his family. They had seen him as a boy in need of guidance and sure of the path they had chosen for him. That he wanted different seemed impossible for them, his father in particular, to comprehend.

“You have known great sadness. And I suspect you will know more before your brother’s trials are resolved. But know this. I think you capable of anything you put your mind to.” And it was no flummery. She struck him as the type of woman who could achieve limitless success, if she decided on a goal. They had that in common too.

This time her smile lit her face and he found himself a little short of breath. God, she was breathtaking. And without the least notion of it, either. “There are times when I’ve considered running away. There’s something so appealing about striking out to a new part of the world, where no one knows you and there are no expectations of behaviour. Does that sound selfish?”

Selfish? He could think of no one less selfish than Hester Aspinall. He laughed. “Why do you think I went to sea?”

“You wanted to escape?” The disbelief in her voice was palpable.

“Desperately. As only a fourteen year old can.”

“You are lucky then,” she said wistfully. “You have made your escape. I am not so fortunate. Even if I had the means, I could not leave Robert. Not now.”

A notion occurred to him. “Perhaps. But who knows what the future will bring? And while you wait, mayhap I can bring a little of the world to you.”

A small crease between her brows relayed her confusion as he banged on the carriage roof to attract the driver’s attention.

* * *

The warehouses of Ramsay and Hannay were located near the docks. This close to the river, Hester could see the rivermen plying their trade amongst the heavy-bottomed scows and elegant seafaring ships.

“Are any of those yours?” she asked, pointing towards the wharf.

Pausing to unlock the door, Thomas smiled. “No. Not at the moment, I’m afraid.” He pushed open the door and the heady smell of spices and tea drifted out, filling her senses. She breathed deeply and followed him into the building. “We took possession of an shipload of cargo two weeks ago and it will be two months at least before the next ship will dock on these wharves.”

The large space was darker than she’d expected, the high-set windows letting in the light in a paltry pattern of rectangles. Everywhere there were boxes and casks, piled high with what she suspected was deceptive disorganization. Her eyes took in one enticing label and another, and she could scarcely make sense of the first before a third had caught her eye.

“You have gathered the world and shipped it to London,” she cried, twisting and craning, the better to make sense of it all.

He smiled. “Hardly that, I’m afraid. But we do business in the far corners of the world and there are few ports of call that either Hannay or myself have not called into at some point in our wanderings.”

“Such as?” she challenged, eager to hear of his adventures in distant lands.

“Bombay and Ceylon, of course, for we do a great deal of our business with the East India Company. Teas. Coffee. Spices and fabric,” he enumerated as he strode towards a wooden crate, pointing at various boxes as he went. He stopped at the large box and began to pry off its lid. “But I’ve been to Korea, Nippon and China—some once or twice too—and they are as different from England as it is possible to imagine.”

She let herself admire the play of his muscles as he wedged a thick iron bar beneath the slats and began to work the nails loose. She had tried to deny it but every time she was with him, her body seemed more alert, more alive. Yesterday was proof of that. She had forgotten everything at the first touch of his lips. Some sort of alchemy was at work and she was helpless to act against it.

“When I was a young boy, I read
Gulliver’s Travels,
” he admitted as he worked. “I thought the lands of the Lilliputians and Houyhnhnms were real places and that one could travel to them as one might the West Indies or China. I made up my mind to visit them, just as soon as I was old enough. No doubt, it contributed to my desire to go to sea.”

“A worthy aim.”

“Yes, but I must admit the discovery that there were no such countries after all was not wholly welcome. As if my world were a little colder and a little…” His voice trailed off, and the iron bar stilled.

“A little?” she prompted.

“A little less magical, I’m afraid.”

“The price one pays for growing up, is it not?” She thought of what she had sacrificed on her own journey. If she could change the past or hold the future at bay, would she? Before she met Thomas, she might have said yes. Now, here in this exotic place, with him close enough to touch if only she dared, she thought she might give a different answer.

“Perhaps. But I admit to liking the world better when I though such places were in it.” She wondered what thoughts drew his mouth into that unhappy line. For every confidence he shared, he seemed to erect another barrier. She did not know how to overcome it.

“So did Shakespeare’s Miranda.”

He laughed ruefully, shaking off his gloom. “But we do not live on an enchanted island. Though many of our fellow Englishmen seem to have more than a little of Caliban’s propensity for riotous disorder.”

An image of her brother’s face, bruised and swollen from the crowd’s unshakable fury, that first day in Newgate, rose before her. And what of her own failings? She had sinned too. First with Jamie. And now, here she was, living with Thomas. It was prudent to keep some formality between them. She had only to think of yesterday’s kiss to remember how easily things could become heated. How quickly she could lose her way.

“Is that why you have displayed such understanding with Robert? Because you too know what it is to transgress?” A hot blush worked its way up her cheeks at the temerity of her question.

“If that is your way of asking if I have ever been tempted similarly, the answer is no.” Thomas shrugged. “I make no claims to the truth. My own past—my own present, even,” he said with a crooked grin, “is far too chequered to allow me to accept without question many of the truths we accept for immutable. There is much in this world that we cannot hope to understand. All we can hope for, I think, is to extend compassion to our fellow man and to ask for it in return. We have all of us, at one time or another, done wrong, in the service of needs we could not deny.”

“I find it hard to believe you count yourself among such peoples. You are a good man and—”

He turned away from her praise, setting his bar into the next box. His voice was so low in the cavernous building that she could barely distinguish his next words over the popping of the square nails.

“I count myself leader of them, Hester. I count myself their duly appointed patron.”

His admission stunned her.

What could he have possibly done to merit such recriminations?

But when the box fell open, her attention was diverted by the contents of the crate. “Oh, Thomas. How lovely,” she exclaimed. It was full of bolts of tamboured muslin, intricate floral trails meandering across its impossibly fine surface. When she pulled out a length to drape across her hand, she gasped at its translucency, for she could see through the yardage as though it were as ephemeral as smoke. She’d never even imagined such beautiful fabric—nothing in either her past or present wardrobe would hold a candle to this gossamer stuff—but she strove to keep her awe hidden. It would not do to remind him of the great gulf that existed between them, of his connections and wealth, and of her infamy and common upbringing.

“What other treasures do you have to tempt a soul to vanity?”

“Vanity? I hardly think you need fear that charge,” he said. “For I have never met a woman less given to it than you.”

“I am well aware of my shortcomings,” she replied, a little piqued when he laughed heartily.

“And equally unaware of your strengths.”

“My strengths? I am sure that you exaggerate.”

“I don’t believe so.” His voice as he spoke was harsh, as though the words had to be torn from his throat. “I’m speaking of the glory of your hair, when it catches the morning sun. Of the beauty of your face when you smile.” His eyes were heated and tortured in equal measure. “Of the delicate lines of your throat as I kiss it.” This last was whispered so quietly, Hester could almost believe she had imagined it.

For a moment, she let herself be distracted by his compliments. Did he really see her like that? It hardly seemed possible. But quickly, sanity returned and she turned away. “That is too much flattery.”

“Is it?” he replied with a sardonic tilt of his mouth, but he let her rebuttal stand, moving instead to another crate. Hester was grateful for the reprieve for it allowed her time to recover her equanimity.

“And what do you think of this?” Thomas asked, his strange intensity temporarily redirected. Rich silk tumbled out in a cascade of jewellike colours. Even in the dim light, they glowed, their sheen unmistakable, and Hester could not resist. The heavy silk was smooth beneath her sensitized fingertips. A memory of visiting the woollen mills with her father when she was a very small girl, rose up and she smiled. Nothing could be further from that loud, bewildering place than this shadowed, mysterious warehouse, and yet the excitement she experienced as she admired each new length of fabric recalled the past.

Somehow, Thomas made everything seem fresh and alluring.

“Heavens, you could outfit a queen,” she said, drawing out a length of finely worked silk that resembled nothing less than a garden, so densely patterned was it. She drew it around her shoulders, its lustrous surface smooth beneath her hands. “Salome, perhaps. Or an Indian ranee atop an elephant. I have only seen an elephant in books of course, but I understand they are quite magnificent.” She laughed at her whimsical fancies but Thomas did not.

“I would outfit you,” he said, his voice rich with intent. “I would give a great deal, to see you arrayed in silks, your hair loose and unbound.” He reached around her to pull out another length of silk, draping it carefully around her shoulders. She looked down and saw a few pieces of straw had snagged the delicate strands.

She lifted the pieces away and they spiralled down, onto the floor, insubstantial.

She felt that way too.

Hester could not meet his eye. When he spoke to her like this, her entire body sang. She wanted nothing more than to succumb to his enticements, to believe the magic spell he wove. She felt beguiled, like Prospero’s daughter, unsure of what was real and what was an illusion.

“Atop an elephant?” she said, trying to keep her tone light. She made to put back the fabric but he reached out a hand to stop her.

He shook his head, not answering.

“Where?” Hester asked again. She didn’t know why she was insisting on an answer. Thomas stepped away, his broad back towards her. His hands were clenched and his whole body radiated with inquiet. She laid a hand on his coat sleeve and slowly, he turned to face her.