HF - 03 - The Devil's Own (60 page)

'Ah, you were always nine-tenths of a Quaker, which is why your true interest always lay in the direction of that Danish beauty. She waits to see you now.'

'Lilian? Here?' Kit dragged at his clothes.

'Easy, Kit. Easy.'

'You do not understand. It has been all but a year, and in that time I have not seen her. More, she has not left her father's house, except privily, and at night. I do believe that you are jesting.'

Parke smiled. 'I never jest, about women, Kit. She has obeyed the summons of her Governor, and gladly. But before you go rushing off to her soft arms, we must finish our discussion. I need you, Kit. Will you serve me?'

'I am distressed you find it necessary to ask again, old friend.' Kit buttoned his shirt.

'Then understand what you do. I have commanded a fast revenue cutter to be built, and the work is already in hand. There is an old saw, is there not, set a thief to catch a thief? I remember how well you commanded the
Bonaventure,
and how with your skill and speed and a few sharp teeth you evaded all attempts at capture by that clumsy frigate. I shall put a stop to the smuggling, Kit, by using a similar sort of vessel. All I need is a man who will sail her, and fight her, if need be, as ruthlessly as I would myself. Do I possess such a man?'

A ship, at last. And to be used for striking at Chester. 'Aye, Dan,' Kit said. 'You have such a man.'

'Then am I content. But listen to me carefully, Kit. You and I, we shall bring these proud planters to heel. But it must be done by the strictest adherence to legality and the wishes of the Queen. This point I must make before you offer Lilian any promises you will not be able to honour. You hate these petty upstarts, and perhaps one or two in particular. But you will fight no duels, and you will make no visits to Green Grove, sword in hand.'

'You cannot have heard the full story of that affair.'

'Believe me, Kit. I
have
heard the full story of that affair. Marguerite is your wife, and a wife's jealousy commands respect everywhere. And you did kill a man. Oh, I have no doubt he died with a sword in his hand, yet where Kit Hilton is concerned that is too close to murder. And should we reduce matters to a straight choice, these people may become desperate. No, no. You know, and I know, that these creatures are sufficiently criminal for us to bring them down without resort to personalities. They smuggle, and that is against the law. I put that in your charge. Hale me a planter to court on a proven charge of smuggling, and by God I will fine him all of next year's crop. I know, and you know, that they habitually talk treason. That will be my charge. And the answer there, once proven, is the gallows. Let those be our two objectives, undertaken with the consent, nay, with the blessing—why, what rubbish do I speak—undertaken at the express command of Her Majesty. "Bring them to heel, Mr Parke," she said. And smiled.' Parke smiled.

And Kit stared at him. There could be no doubting his intention. For where Kit's hatred was all anger, to be expiated in a blow, he understood that he was here witnessing a cold and deep-seated venom, not to be alleviated either by success or pleas for mercy, supposing any planter would ever bring himself to that. And inspired entirely because he could not at this moment reach those he really hated. There was a terrifying thought.

'I will let the matter drop, for the time,' he said.

'Spoken like my old friend. Then I have one last charge for you. As I intend to make St John's my headquarters, and I cannot spend the rest of my term of office in these scurvy rented quarters, I mean to build a new residence for the
Governor, on that hill outside the town, overlooking it and the harbour and the sea beyond. An eyrie for an eagle, Kit. That will be your first responsibility, as you know the people here, and your ship is not yet commissioned. Build it high, and build it strong. You know the planters' houses. Eclipse them. Fear not the expense; they will be paying for it in their taxes. And build yourself a wing. Your best protection against careless challenges is the certainty that you and I walk shoulder to shoulder all the while.'

There was a knock on the door. Parke glanced at Kit to make sure he was dressed, and then called, 'Enter.'

The Negro servant bowed. 'Begging your pardon, Your Excellency, but there is a lady to see you.'

'A lady?' Parke frowned.

'Lilian,' Kit said, making for the door.

'Easy, Kit. She has been here this past hour, and patiently awaits your presence. Who is this lady, Jonathan?'

'Mistress Chester, Your Excellency. She is the wife of the Speaker of the House, and calls to bid Your Excellency welcome to Antigua.'

'By God,' Parke said. 'Mary Chester. Why, when last I was here she was just wed, a child of sixteen.'

'She scarcely seems more than that now,' Kit said. 'Despite the high office her husband has attained.'

'Indeed?' Parke demanded. 'Well, well. And she has come to call. As indeed she must, as her husband is Speaker. I must greet the lady, obviously. You'll excuse me, Kit. Jonathan, you will return here immediately, and show Captain Hilton to the chamber where Miss Christianssen waits for him.' He went to the door, looked over his shoulder, and raised his glass. 'To our mutual success, dearest Kit.'

'Tread carefully, I beg of you, sir,' said Wolff the engineer. 'The seed is but freshly laid. But in a month there will be a lawn, stretching from the patio, here, right across to that bluff. Is that not splendid?' He had short legs, and scurried in front of Kit as they crossed the freshly smoothed ground.

Fifty yards from the patio the rocks and earth had been hewn sheer, to make a drop of some twelve feet to the land below, thus creating a glacis on this side. Truly was Daniel building a fortress, Kit thought. The only breach in these defences was the great tree-lined drive running up the side of the hill, and mounting the man-made terrace through a sloped escarpment.

He turned, looked back at the house, already roofed and gleaming with paint. And Lilian, waiting for them in the trap beneath the shade of the great trees which fringed the drive, while the horses plucked foliage from the bushes at the side of the road.

'A splendid sight, is it not?' Wolff was still looking down at the town. 'A commanding eminence, fit for the ruler. Oh, yes, 'twas well chosen.' He discovered Kit already on his way back, panted as he caught up. 'It has been said the verandahs are too deep, Captain. But a house needs deep verandahs, in these climes, to trap the breeze. And what think you of my doors, eh? Three inches thic
k, Captain. They'll catch a can
nonball. You'll see that I have left a good twenty feet between the kitchens and the house itself, although my covered passageway will make sure the Governor's food does not get rained upon. No house of mine will ever be destroyed by fire from within.'

'An admirable concept,' Kit agreed. 'Perhaps you should also build a covered passageway from the barracks, to keep the guard dry into the bargain.'

'Now there is a plan, sir. I will see to it immediately.'

'Then I shall leave you to your duties.' Kit walked beneath the trees, got into the trap. 'What do you think of it, sweetheart?'

'It is a beautiful spot, Kit,' Lilian answered. 'I remember when I was a girl, how I used to walk up this hill, and lie on the grass over there, and look down on the town, and the harbour.'

'And think, about what?'

She glanced at him, and then away again. 'I do not remember thinking at all, Kit. It was just sufficient to lie on the warm glass, and feel at peace.'

And do you think, now, he wanted to ask her? There were so many things he wanted to say, and to do, and ask. Looking at her, seated in the trap, wearing a light muslin gown in pale green, and her favourite broad-brimmed hat, with her fine hair loose and floating in the faint breeze, with every last blemish gone from her complexion, it was impossible to suppose that anything so tragic, so disgusting, as that night had ever happened to her. Yet it lay between them like a brick wall. She was the same woman he had always known, and always loved. With but a solitary difference. For whereas before, when not talking, or smiling, or loving, she had revealed a continual interest in what was going on around her, now, when he left her to herself for but a moment, her gaze and clearly her mind returned into some private sanctuary of its own.

He could gain no inkling of what thoughts she sought in that privacy. Did she give way to hatred of Marguerite, to thinking of the wildest and most hideous ways of revenge? Or did she surrender to a memory of the brutality and obscenity to which she had been subjected? Or did she remember her feelings when she had lain, naked and debased, in the centre of St John's, waiting to be discovered?

These were bad. But there were possibilities which were worse. For did she, in that privacy, blame him for his failure? He had failed so very often, by setting off in anger and haste, bent on doing only what seemed to him to be necessary at the moment. Or then again, did she merely retreat into a world of despair, a world of which she could not help but be continually conscious, for if there was no man dare offer her an insult or even a smile, while she walked by Kit Hilton's side or was so clearly under the Governor's protection, yet was there not a man who did not turn to stare after her, imagining, or worse, remembering. And the women, who feared no physical interference with their pleasures, were more openly interested in her survival, the brazenness, as they regarded it, of her existence, the effrontery of her apparent triumph.

And yet she accepted his embraces, with the same shy reserve which so suddenly blossomed into passion. Whenever he could find an opportunity
to
embrace her. By tacit agreement she had remained these two months in her father's house. But now the Governor's new residence was all but completed ...

'You have inspected our apartments?' he asked.

'Indeed I have. And I congratulate Mr Wolff.'

'I have already done so. What I meant was, will you be pleased to take your place in them?'

'I will be pleased, Kit, if that is what you wish.' 'Believe me,' he said. 'I wish it could be different." She continued to gaze at him.

'But as it cannot,' he went on, 'and as I must leave you from time to time, if I am to give my support to Daniel, I could not contemplate abandoning you anywhere else but under his protection.'

'And I shall be safe, under his protection,' she said, half to herself.

Kit flicked the whip. The horse turned and the trap made its way slowly down the hill. It was the middle of the afternoon, and the heat was intense. 'I suspect that you do not much care for our Governor,' he suggested. To have her speaking, about anything, would be a blessing.

'I am sure my feelings are irrelevant,' she said.

'They are most relevant to me, sweetheart.'

'Well, then, I will say that he is a good friend, Kit. I think he must be about the best friend that a man could have.'

'The best friend that ever this man could have, certainly,' Kit agreed.

'And yet, he is not a good
man,'
she said.

Kit frowned. 'I do not understand you. So he killed a man over a card game. I have killed at least a dozen. Am I then a very bad man?'

'You, I would describe as a good man, Kit,' she said. 'The crime is surely not so relevant as the thought, the emotion, the ambition which inspired it. Mr Parke is a man who seeks to kill, in some form or other, whether it be by sword or by word. He seeks the contest, continually, like some wild bull, galloping round and round his herd, daring another male to look him in the eye, daring any female not to beckon him with hers. Life without contest, without challenge, and without victory, is for him stale and uninteresting.'

'Now that is remarkable,' Kit said. 'Marguerite used similar words of him, oh, a very long time ago.' He bit his lip in anger. How easily words slipped out.

'Like me, I think, your wife is a good judge of character,' Lilian said.

'My wife,' he shouted, dragging on the reins. 'My God, what meaning you put into that. Lilian ...' 'I would not speak of her, yet, Kit.' 'But it must be done.'

'Please,' she said softly. 'I made a mistake, once. All of my life, I think. I wished only to yield, as a young girl, to a man of whom I dreamed, a formless creature, yet one I never doubted would appear. And then I met you and my dream became reality. Yet still the decision was only to yield. I sought to escape the brunt of life, by belonging. I had not realized that no human being can, or dare, escape the brunt of life. Hear me out, please. In this business you are but the bridge between two spirits, Kit. Even you are no more than that. Yielding, as I thought, I yet put out a mortal challenge to your wife. I thought no more of it, then. I said to myself, it is between Kit and Marguerite, and if he now loves me and not her, then I am content, no matter what sin we commit. Yet how wrong I was. It was never between you and Marguerite. It was ever between Marguerite and me. So she reacted, with the passion and violence which is the part of her character, and, I suspect, first made you fall in love with her. Can I quarrel with her for revealing her true self in such a situation? Would I have acted differently, granted her wealth and position and upbringing? Do you know, I encourage myself with the thought that I would have been more straight with my rival. I would not have had the deed done by stealth, at night, when I was a thousand miles distant. I would have faced her, even had I ordered others to do the deed. But there is flattery, if you like, of myself. I lack her wealth and position, and thus I do not know for sure
how
I would truly have acted.'