Enemy In The House (2 page)

“How do you answer?”

“I don’t hear the hints,” she said wearily. “To the questions I say my father is alive—there’s no question of his will.”

“Good.” Simon said it tersely but with an approval which sent a glow into her heart. “So the Grappit family is pleasantly situated here for the duration of the war.”

“It’s not pleasant at all. Charles Carey is here, too.”

“Charles—oh, China’s brother? I remember meeting him when your father and China were married. I thought he lived in Charlestown.”

“China sent for him.”

“Does China know how your father’s will stands?”

“She may have guessed something of it. When my father said good-bye, he told her that he was putting her and Jamey in my care. Between us, of course, China and I never admit that my father—oh, Simon, I’m afraid he is dead!”

“He may not be, Amy. Don’t lose heart. Does China’s brother Charles know anything of your father’s will?”

“He would never speak of it to me.”

“Oh—a gentleman, I’m sure. Why don’t you marry him, Amy?”

“For one thing, he hasn’t asked me,” she said shortly.

“A trifle. Put your mind to it.” She knew he was smiling.

“Don’t tease,” she said again. “He’s not—I’m not—” She caught herself; love was not to enter this practical discussion. “Besides, he’s a Loyalist,” she said primly.

Simon laughed. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire, is that it? But surely Charles Carey could see to China and Jamey.”

“He couldn’t stop confiscation. And I promised my father to see to China and Jamey myself.”

“That’s a weak argument against marriage.”

“But I don’t want—Charles doesn’t want marriage. Oh, Simon, what can I do? Everything has changed. You don’t know—”

“I know you are frightened,” he said, suddenly grave. “Why?”

“N-no. I’m not exactly frightened. It’s only—well they watch so—they—” She said, surprising herself, “It’s like knowing someone is near you, in the woods, yet not hearing so much as the crackle of a twig!”

His red head jerked up, startled. He said, though, after a moment, quietly, “Surely you don’t feel as if your Uncle Grappit, Madam Grappit, Neville or China or this, no doubt charming, brother of hers is—creeping up on you with a scalping knife.”

“Oh, no! It’s only—well, things are so different.”

“Where are they all, by the way? The house seems very quiet.”

She felt color come up into her cheeks. “Uncle and Aunt Grappit took the coach and drove to visit friends. They’ll not be back till late. And—and I suggested that Charles and Neville ride to Blackstable, in the hope of getting some news. We are so very isolated here. They’ll be delayed—that is, at the tavern there may be more men, more drinking than usual because it is so near Christmas.”

“Amy, Amy! Such guile!” He chuckled but then added soberly, “It doesn’t seem like Christmas. I remember the house in the old days.”

She remembered it too, too well; the wreaths and the great punch bowls and the lavish hospitality.

“How did you find me, Cousin? I was curious.”

“Lawyer Benfit told me that someone said you were back in Savannah. So I sent Willie with the letter.”

“It was good to see a face from home. I ought to tell you that Willie offered to go to war with me, take care of my horse, valet for me, starch my neckcloth and polish my boots.”

“The servants always liked you. Let him go with you.”

“A valet in the Continental Army! You don’t know how funny that is. We’re lucky if we have boots. … So you didn’t want the Grappits, or Charles Carey, to see me.”

“No. Not until—” She stopped, her cheeks flaming hot.

“Until you had extracted a promise from me?” He laughed again. “But, Amy, didn’t it strike you that if we were to wed, I would require some promises from you, too?”

“That’s beside the point, now.”

He sprang up from the chair and went to kick the smoldering back log in the fireplace. It flared up in red and blue sparks. She could see his tall figure now, clearly. He was the same, she knew his every gesture, yet he was strange too, clad in his uniform, blue coat with buff facings and buff breeches and shining boots, his red hair pulled back, clubbed and tied with a narrow black ribbon after the new, sober fashion. Gilded epaulettes glittered on his shoulders.

He said, staring down at the fire, “I wish I could help you. But I can’t prevent confiscation, Amy, as cousin or husband. I’m sorry—I’ve got to leave. It’s nearly night and it’s a long ride back to Savannah.”

In another moment he’d be gone. Well, she had known that from almost the first moment of the interview, which had gone all wrong.

“You must have something to eat, a hot drink before you go.”

Suddenly he came to her and pulled her up, out of the chair. He put his arm around her and with his other hand tipped up her chin so he could look directly into her eyes. He was intent, frowning a little as if he was trying to read her very heart. “Amy, do you really want this marriage? It’s unwise, you know. A marriage of convenience. An arranged marriage. Would you have married a man your father chose for you?”

“No!”

“Don’t you see that this is the same thing? It may be very sensible. But I believe in marriage for love. In your heart, Amy, don’t you want to marry for love?”

His voice and hands were gentle but his eyes were too keen. She turned her face and suddenly, without intending to, put her head close against his shoulder as if it were a refuge. He held her for a moment; she thought his arms tightened; she knew she felt the hard warmth of his face upon her own. Surely now, now the scene she had imagined was on the verge of coming true. His arms held her so close; surely it would be now.

Instead his head jerked up. There was the sound of hoofbeats outside. He laughed softly. “Your relatives or Mr. Carey must be returning sooner than you expected!” His arms now held her merely as a gesture. She moved away from him. She’d been wrong, a fool, to think that something expectant, something about to happen had hovered between them for a moment.

“No, it’s the parson, Dr. Shincok. And Lawyer Benfit.”

“Old Shincok! And Lawyer Benfit? Why, my dear! Then you did mean marriage! Today!”

Disappointment and a sense of irretrievable loss at once chilled her like a cold wind and sharpened her tongue.

“What do you think I’ve been talking about?”

“Well, but—I thought you meant at some future time. A betrothal only until—” he paused to listen again. A woman’s high heels tapped along the hall outside the closed door. A woman’s voice rang out, in musical and surprised greeting.

“So you were prepared,” Simon said and laughed. He laughed so gaily that Amity unwillingly laughed too, although the joke, a wry one, was on her.

There was the sound of voices, of feet shuffling in the hall, and China flung the door open and came in, bringing with her a stream of light from the candles in the hall. “Amity!” she cried. “Dr. Shincok and Lawyer Benfit are here and they say you told them to come—” She saw Simon and stopped. Her lavender corded silk swirled around her, her coquettish mull cap set off her lovely fair face, with its piquant little nose and baby blue eyes and her dazzling clear pink and white skin. “Simon Mallam!”

Simon bowed and kissed the hand China dazedly extended. “Your most obedient, Madam. Let Dr. Shincok and Lawyer Benfit come in. Amity is doing me the honor to marry me.”

China’s rosebud mouth fell open.

Amity’s mouth fell open, too.

Simon sent her one glance. “She is to marry me,” he said, “now, at once. She will then go to Jamaica.”

“Jamaica!” China’s round eyes popped. “But Simon, surely Amity has told you that my husband is—may be—”

“There seems to be only one way to make certain. If he’s alive, as indeed I hope he is, then Amity will find means to inform you. Pack summer clothes, Amity. You’ll find the climate warm. Tell Willie to get out the small carriage. He will take you to Savannah and bring it back.” He strode into the hall.

China got her breath. “No—you can’t! Amity, you’re to wed Charles!”

Simon had ears like a fox. He appeared in the doorway—grinning like a fox, too, Amity thought in irritated confusion. “No. Madam. She’s to wed me. And then go to Jamaica.”

His gray-green eyes were bright with laughter but he meant it. It sounded like, indeed it was Simon’s side of the agreement and so Amity understood it.

It was also so sensible a move that Amity wondered why she had not thought of it herself. But then she couldn’t have secured a passage from an American port to a British port. She wondered just how Simon proposed to do that.

“Make haste, Amity,” Simon said.

Then she thought, it’s true. She had intended to be Simon’s wife; she wanted it. Now she was to be Simon’s wife but he didn’t want her.

“IF ONLY CHARLES WOULD
come back. He’d put a stop to this marriage,” China moaned, and swayed her plump, tightly stayed little body back and forth.

Amity flung a dimity dress into her small trunk.

“Why, you’re in love with Charles,” China cried. “He’s in love with you. It’s all settled.”

“He’s not in love with me, and certainly I’m not in love with him. Nothing is settled or ever was.”

“You’ve been playing with Charles, then. You led him on. And all the time you knew you were going to wed Simon.”

“I did not know I was going to wed Simon,” Amity said with grim truth. She closed the trunk.

“Amity, you cannot do this. I’m your stepmother. I forbid it.” China tightened her pretty lips and lifted her round chin.

Amity gave China a half-indulgent, half-defiant look and reached for the diamond-framed miniature of her mother. China misinterpreted the gesture. “Oh, heaven knows I’m too young to be your real mother. Why, I’m only six years older than you—”

“Nine,” Amity said and slid the miniature into the frivolously jeweled etui her father had ordered from Paris for her. “China, once I get to Jamaica we’ll know the truth.”

“You’ve always insisted that your father is alive and well! You told me to pay no heed to Uncle Grappit’s horrid, gloomy talk!”

Because of her youth China had always referred to her elderly husband’s sister as Aunt Grappit, and her brother-in-law as Uncle Grappit. It had seemed natural. Amity rather wished that her father had been a little less indulgent with his young and pretty wife.

But then, it was easy to love and indulge China. “This is a way to make certain.”

“I forbid you to marry without your father’s consent. And besides,” China said fretfully, “you cannot possibly be married in that dress.”

Amity glanced down at her green challis dress with its small red rose pattern. “There’s no time to change.”

“If you’re determined to do this rash, this silly thing—well, it
is
a wedding, in a hole-in-the-corner fashion, and there’s your pink brocade—” China ran to the wardrobe and said coaxingly, “You look so lovely in the pink brocade. It’s a ball gown, of course, but still—please wear it.”

China could always change her tactics as swiftly and with as little apparent reason as a leaf floating on an unpredictable stream. China was a child. But a shrewd child. She was also irresistible. And in truth, Amity thought, it
is
my wedding, unreal though it seems.

As the rustling silk slipped over her head she thought that it was strange that Simon should have changed his mind so very abruptly. The point was, though, that she had somehow, she didn’t know how, induced him to change his mind. So she was going to go straight ahead on her determined course and let nothing like scruples, nothing that had the uneasy prick of conscience about it, stop her. If there was to be an inevitable day of reckoning she wouldn’t think of it now.

She eyed herself in the mirror. The candle lights seemed to turn her dark blue eyes still darker, her black, smooth hair still blacker, with shining lights. The shimmering pink dress had wide skirts over vast panniers at the sides; the neck was cut low and square and edged with lace; in the back a Watteau panel swept from her shoulders to the floor. It was a stately dress but a dress for a ball, not a wedding. Still, Simon would not be ashamed of his wife.

“Wait,” China said. “The fastenings—and your hair—”

She then perceived belatedly that China’s little fingers hindered more than they helped, blundering and fumbling while China cast listening glances toward the window. She was of course listening for Charles, hoping for his return, or the Grappits’ return.

Amity pushed away China’s hand, as it grasped for the powder sifter. “No. There’s no time. But thank you.”

“I still forbid it,” China said puzzled. “Why are you thanking me?”

Amity laughed. “Because you made me put on this dress.”

“But you
can’t
go on with this.”

“I am going on with it. Come, China dear. They’re waiting.”

Her silk skirts rustled on the stairs. China followed her. “You’ll regret this, Amity.”

“I don’t care! I’m going to marry him.”

Candles were now flaring in the library, where she and Simon had sat and talked, and where years ago they had had their lessons—letters, arithmetic and the use of the globes, Latin taught by her father, French and dancing lessons from old Monsieur LeCoeur. Simon had had his canings in that room, followed always by a peace-making glass of Madeira offered by her father, who could never stay angry very long. Amity thought that Simon’s eyes lighted when he saw her. Suddenly shy, she looked away and then reminded herself that every man takes pleasure in seeing a pretty woman.

At the last moment, with the papers ready to be signed, which she herself and Lawyer Benfit had prepared, making Simon the legal owner of any estates accruing to his wife, Lawyer Benfit balked.

He was a saturnine man, with a sour, long face below his elegant white wig, and flashing dark eyes. He had quarreled with half the county at one time or another but he had a name for unyielding integrity just the same and he didn’t approve of secret weddings.

“Being nothing but trouble,” he said, settled his snuff-colored broadcloth coat on his narrow shoulders with an angry jerk. “Why only today a poor girl wrote to me wanting help—couldn’t substantiate her marriage—husband married out of his class, refuses to recognize her. A very shocking case, indeed. Very painful. My duty is clear. I must establish the truth, see that this girl is established, too. Very difficult in every way.” He looked at Parson Shincok with thin-lipped distaste. “Parson Shincok will bear me out. I understand you advised her to appeal to me, Parson.”