Laura Kinsale (13 page)

“’Ave a care, Mr. Gryphon,” the valet said, as Gryf
stumbled on the narrow stairs of the cab. The manservant held the cab door open for a second longer. “Where you be goin’, sir, if I could ask?”

“West India Dock.” Gryf had to struggle not to shout.

The valet had a quick conference with the cabbie in incomprehensible cockney accents. “’E’ll take you as far as Fenchurch Street, sir. The rail goes from there straight to Blackwall. Hit’s the fastest way.”

“Thank you,” Gryf said. Somewhere in the frightened turmoil in his mind, he realized that the valet was truly concerned.

“Hit’s noffink, sir. You take care, Mr. Gryphon. You do take care.” The man motioned to the driver with a sharp chirrup, and the cab swung into jolting motion.

S
he was there, in Berth 75, her tall masts as familiar to Gryf in the forest of other ships as his own face in a mirror. The weedy, tarred odor of the docks pervaded his senses, the smell of home, the sounds of home, the universal bustle of a busy port, this one bigger and busier than any on earth. In his tailored city clothes, Gryf was an object of jeering admiration, but he ignored the calls, striding blindly through the organized chaos of barrels and stevedores and stray dogs, dodging a shower of coal from an unloading collier by instinct.

The
Arcanum
presented a lull in the tumult: her cargo discharged, she lay quietly waiting when she should have been swarming with the activity of preparation for another voyage. The thrift ingrained in his subconscious by hard years of struggle made him momentarily regret the money that ticked away with each minute spent idle on the dock. He shook off the thought, not caring. All he wanted was to see Grady, alive and irascible and complaining about the delay, discounting the note as a figment of some dockworker’s drunken illusions.

Gryf bounded up the ladder, announcing his arrival
with a shout. He headed for the cabin, and a tall, dusky figure arose from the shadows of the companionway.

“Captain,” the massive Negro said, his cultivated accent at odds with the savage tattoo on his cheek and his canine teeth sharpened to vicious points.

“Mahzu!” Gryf exclaimed in relief. The deserted ship had thrown him into panic, but the sight of the big African was reassuring. Mahzu was one of Gryf’s original crew, one of the strange assortment of men that Grady had gathered on the east coast of Africa so long ago. The truth of Mahzu’s past was as misty as Gryf’s: the man never spoke of who or what he had been, but he made good use of the intimidating combination of tribal tattoos and educated speech. Curious bystanders and suspicious customs agents thought twice before they passed Mahzu to peer into the
Arcanum
’s dark holds.

“Where’s Grady?” Gryf demanded. His fear of the answer rendered the question harsh and abrupt.

“Below, Captain.”

There was something in the black man’s emotionless response that conveyed much more than the simple words. Gryf felt his heart turn.

“No,” he said. “Dear God—”

The sailor’s head moved, the faintest shake. “Go on, sir. He asked for you.”

Gryf spun on his heel and clambered down the companionway. He was at Grady’s cabin door in one stride, slamming it open and coming up short at the sight of a man in dark clothes, standing over the bunk with a prayer book in his hands.

“Get out,” Gryf said softly, and moved toward the berth.

The stranger looked up at him. He nodded briefly and murmured, “Amen” as he turned away to leave. The moment the door closed Gryf turned to the still
form on the berth, heard the slow, painful breathing that meant Grady was still alive.

In the watery light from the porthole, Grady’s face was hollow and chalky beneath his ragged beard, ashen except for two burning spots of color over his cheekbones. Gryf fell to his knees, grasping the mate’s clammy hands, intertwining his fingers with Grady’s and squeezing, willing his own life into the lifeless form beneath him.

“Grady,” he whispered, bending over the limp body and pressing their tangled fists to his mouth. “It’s Gryphon…it’s Gryphon, Grady. I’ve come.”

There was no answer, no sign of awareness. Only the sound of rasping breath in a silence that seemed eternal. It was unreal, impossible that this was happening. Grady was sick. He was sick, he wasn’t dying. He couldn’t be dying.

Gryf stared down into the frighteningly still face, clenching his teeth in a fierce and silent prayer. He thought of years, of good luck and bad, and in every memory was Grady. He thought of loyalty and courage, and felt his own hopeless lack of it, holding on to his friend with every straining fiber of his being. For minutes, for hours, he had no idea how long he knelt there and begged God for each labored breath.

But Grady’s shallow sighs became weaker, and the two bright spots of color in his cheeks began to fade. Every breath came shorter, farther apart, rattling in his throat.

“No,” Gryf moaned, feeling the life drain out of his friend beneath his hands. “Don’t leave me, Grady. Grady, I need you…oh, God, I need you. Please…”

The faint rise and fall of the mate’s chest faltered. The wheezing sound diminished, became inaudible. Gryf held his breath—waiting, praying, willing…

A minute passed, and then two; endless silence while Grady lay unnaturally still beneath him.

Gryf squeezed his eyes shut. His head bowed, leaning on Grady’s still-warm hands, and his mouth strained open in a soundless cry of denial as he pressed Grady’s limp palm against his face.

Someone moved behind him; a hand laid on his shoulder, light, but firm in its message. Gryf held his cheek to Grady’s hands, going numb, feeling life turn into darkness. A vast emptiness filled him, an ache beyond words. He moved mindlessly, letting Grady’s fingers slip from his grasp as he rose. Behind him, the other’s hand closed on his arm.

“’Twas his heart, lad,” the little man said kindly. “It just—gave out on him.”

Gryf looked at him, seeing nothing.

“I’m Dr. Stebbins. We’ll need to write a certificate.”

Gryf nodded dumbly. He could not speak. It was as if his insides had been torn from him, leaving hollow desolation where once there had been life. He went to the door and opened it, not looking back at the motionless figure on the berth.

Outside the cabin he stood for a moment, stared blankly around him. His mind was muddled, as if someone had asked him a question for which there was no answer. Or a thousand answers, none of which made sense. Finally he moved on, walking in silence, the hollow sound of his footsteps as empty as his soul.

It was one thing to follow her heart, Tess found, and quite another to announce her intentions to do so. She sat in the library for a long time after Gryf left, gazing out at the point where he had disappeared into the green depths of the park.

After his gallant offer—or grudging surrender, Tess
corrected herself with an indulgent smile—she had held out her hands and presented herself for another kiss. Of course, mere civility had required him to comply. He had done so with a complete lack of graciousness, as if the act galled him, but as soon as he touched her, the sullenness vanished. Impulsively, his arms enfolded her, and he claimed her mouth with the gentle, swift intensity that she had seen once before, that first night in Brazil, in the wild gray depths of his eyes by candlelight.

It was that kiss that reassured her, that permeated her like a golden mist and banished all lingering doubt. When he left her, she hugged the memory to herself like a miser with a secret horde of treasure, doling out bits and moments of remembered passion to sustain her through the trying day. “I love you,” he had said, and when Anne came complaining of her cousin’s practical but inelegant stitchery, Tess closed her eyes and remembered. “I won’t let you,” he had said, and when Aunt Katherine scolded Tess for hesitating over Stephen Eliot, she thought of Gryf’s stubborn face and smiled. “I’ll marry you,” he had said, and the promise wrapped around her: an invisible comfort, a loving embrace, a bulwark against all unkindness.

She sat down after lunch to write a note to Mr. Eliot, asking him to call on her the next day. She sent another, to poor Mr. Bottomshaw, for the day after that. After considerable thought, she decided to wait to tell her family the pleasant news, since they would undoubtedly not consider it at all pleasant. Tomorrow she would find the courage to face them. She knew it was cowardice, but she nourished a small, wistful hope that Gryf would be there with her for the first revelation.

She spent the afternoon in the little conservatory her father had built in the rose garden behind Morrow House. There, in the hot, sweet air, she hummed to her
self and pollinated orchids, taking careful notes on color and form. She came across an old notebook of her father’s, stored away and forgotten in an unlocked metal box under one of the benches. Eleven years old, that meticulous, boxy handwriting. She bit her lip and smiled sadly, reading an entry which described the lovely yellow Aerides hybrid he had named Lady Sarah, after her mother.

You loved her, Papa, Tess mused. I know you did.

Lady Sarah had been as fair as Tess was dark, a laughing sprite, a living image of the fairies from Tess’s nursery tales. There had been tragedy in her mother’s life, miscarriages and scarlet fever and tiny graves in the churchyard in West Sussex, but she had never shown those hurts to her only surviving daughter. All Tess remembered of her mother was a mischievous giggle, and the affectionate way she had listened to her husband when he waxed eloquent over the sex life of dung beetles at the dinner table.

That was love. Laughter and camaraderie, heads bent together over a newfound bud on a favorite plant or hands locked in silent comfort…that was what Tess wanted. And with an inner certainty, she knew that neither Mr. Bottomshaw, nor Stephen Eliot, nor any of the other London gentlemen would give it to her. She had promised her father to marry well…but what did “well” mean? Did it mean a title, did it mean blue blood and money? She had assumed so, when he had been pressing her. But she had misunderstood. He had wanted her to be happy, that she knew from the depths of her heart. He would have wanted her to love, and be loved in return. If he had urged her to accept a man of wealth, it would have been for her own protection, rather than for the money alone. The Lord knew, Tess
had learned to live without luxury. Her father would have understood that it made no difference to her.

Happiness. Love. Freedom. She had almost forgotten what those things felt like in the time she had spent under her aunt’s supervision.

Only with Gryf did the words become real again.

She carefully replaced the notebook, content in her reasoning, sure that if her father had been there, he would have given his blessing. And her mother…there was never a moment’s doubt in Tess’s mind that her mother would have laughed and hugged her daughter and wished her every happiness that life could offer. An incurable romantic, Lady Sarah, and through the layers of rationality that the earl had instilled, Tess knew that she shared the fault.

“Good afternoon,” said a lilting voice, and Tess jumped, scattering a little golden pile of pollen that had taken her twenty minutes to collect.

She turned and frowned at the visitor, saying “Good afternoon” in a voice that was chilly enough to tell Louisa Grant-Hastings that the intrusion was not welcome.

“Larice said you were out here alone.”

“Yes,” Tess agreed. “As you can see.”

“I thought perhaps you might like some company.”

“It isn’t at all necessary for you to trouble yourself, Miss Grant-Hastings. I’m quite busy just now.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. You see, I have been looking for a chance to speak with you privately.”

“Have you?” Tess dropped her cotton-tipped applicator and turned a cold look on her visitor. “To tell me more prevarications?”

The arrow hit its mark. Louisa reddened, and lowered her eyelashes. “I had wished to apologize for that.”

“I am not prepared to accept an apology, Miss Grant-Hastings. I beg you will go away.”

“You must listen to me,” Louisa said, in a very different voice. Her white-gloved hands clenched. “You must. I beg you. There is an explanation…”

“Of course.” Tess gathered her equipment in a neat pile and prepared to leave. “There always is, isn’t there?”

As she tried to brush past, Louisa caught her arm. “Lady Collier, please!” There was a little catch in her voice that Tess thought very convincing. “You don’t understand.”

Tess stopped, and looked down at the other girl’s’ distressed face. “I understand that you told me a complete fabrication about yourself and your cousin. He has never ‘declared himself’ to you, as you tried to make me believe.”

“Is that what he said to you?” The hand let up its insistent pressure, and Louisa turned away. “I should have expected it.”

Tess had been stepping toward the door; at this, she stopped and whirled in indignation. “Are you trying now to say that it is he who lied to me?”

Louisa’s face was hidden; she put a hand to her mouth, covering a barely audible sob as she sank down in her daffodil-yellow crinoline onto a dirty workbench. Tess frowned at that, realizing that the fastidious Miss Grant-Hastings was indeed upset. The other girl’s slender shoulders shook, and she fumbled in her reticule, drawing out a handkerchief and pressing it to her lips. “Oh, I am so ashamed,” she whispered. “I cannot bear it! I only c-come to you, Lady Collier, to save you from the s-same folly!”

“What are you saying?” Tess demanded sharply.

Louisa looked up, her face reddened with very real
tears. “I
have
lied to you, Lady Collier, I have, but it was only my shame that made me do it. It is all lies, all ruin, and oh—I wish that I had never seen him!”

“Seen who?” Tess’s voice was slightly less firm.

“That man—that vile man who has passed as my cousin!”

“Gryphon Everett? What do you mean, ‘passed’—”

“I mean that he is
not
my cousin, Lady Collier!” Louisa cried. “He is an impostor, and I and my family have helped him in his dreadful schemes, and now I see that I must pay for it! I only wish that you may escape the same fate, or worse!”

“Not your cousin—” Tess repeated numbly. “I don’t understand. Who is he, then?”

Louisa covered her eyes and shook her head. “I do not know! He came to us with a letter, from my Papa’s dear friend Abraham Taylor, asking that we take him in as one of our family. It was for
your
sake, Lady Collier! Mr. Taylor thought he was protecting you! He thought that he was sending that—that man to watch over you until you married.”

“Protecting me? Protecting me from what?”

“From fortune hunters.” Louisa gave a peculiar little sob, almost a laugh. “He couldn’t have known he was setting a fox to guard the henhouse.”