Laura Kinsale (26 page)

Gryf examined the tiny, pearl-handed gun, and then handed it back with a wry smile. “As it happens, my wife is probably a better shot than I am. I’ll let her pick her own firearms.”

With a nod and tip of the hat to the few curious onlookers, Stewart resumed their leisurely stroll down the street. “I think we’ll postpone our visit to the palace,” he said quietly. “You’re interested in the news my two friends might bring back?”

“I’m interested.”

“Good. Good.” He looked sideways at Gryf with piercing black eyes. “Let me thank you for your prompt action. Did you see anything?”

Gryf shrugged. “I heard the hammer.”

“You must have a fine survival sense, my friend. An excellent sense. I can’t persuade you into the Marquesas scheme?”

Gryf let silence communicate his reluctance. There was a new tone in Stewart’s voice, a tone that augured a better offer. The unthinking instinct that had made Gryf carry Stewart down with him as he hit the rocky street might prove a lucky break.

Stewart nodded. “I thought not.” He stopped at the corner they had just reached. Scattered lamps had begun to glow through the clear dusk, lighting the interiors of houses and a few shops. “You know my warehouse—Tahiti Cotton and Coffee, near the intersection of Rue Brea and Rivoli? Wait there. I shall be along in an hour.”

Gryf obeyed that offhand order, more because he hoped to ship a load of Stewart’s cotton than because he wanted to know who was taking potshots at the man. He found his way through the evening depths into the center of town, past the pretty little spired cathedral, and into the commercial district along the quay. The French
gendarmes
kept good order in this town, and the sound of laughter from the few sailors’ haunts did not extend past the long fingers of light that poured out their open doors and windows. The streets were almost empty.

He leaned against the rough plank wall of the warehouse and examined his palms, scraped raw at the base by pulverized coral. He did not care; the stinging annoyance was more than worthwhile if it bought him a way off this island. He wanted to be back at sea. He wanted to be moving. He wanted to forget the sight of the French ship steaming out of the entrance to Papeete’s harbor.

He was, he thought, a coward. He made things hard
for himself. Slave trading and deflowering virgins should have been right in his line: the whole Pacific to hide in and no questions asked. But he was afraid to lay awake at night. He needed his sleep—God knew, he needed his sleep. To stare into the dark and see Louisa Grant-Hastings, dishonored and desperate, and know that he had done the same to Tess was beyond his power to endure.

So he had been stupid again, out of his cowardice. The best thing would have been to clear off entirely, no strings. The next best was what he had tried, which was to give her the paper protection of a name—his name, not worth much, except that she could put a Mrs. in front of it if she pleased. He had gotten that far, and then his resolution had failed him. When he asked her to marry him, when he saw the joy on her face, his callous speech about conditions and reservations had simply died in his throat. Instead of a quick, cauterizing cruelty, he had let her imagine that things were not what they were, and so in the end had hurt her more.

She would understand eventually. Why he had forced her to go. It was all so impossible—she had to see that—in a way that went far beyond their outward differences. She was so full of life, so ready to love and be loved; while he was ice inside on his better days, and suicidal on his worst. He could not cope with that kind of emotion anymore. He wanted at least to stay alive, and he was somehow sure that to remain near Tess would kill him. It almost had, once. He didn’t need a second lesson.

Gryf straightened as the sound of footsteps echoed along the dark street. Stewart appeared out of the obscurity of shadow. He gave Gryf one brief, intense look, and then unlocked the door, saying nothing. Behind him, the two Tahitian stalwarts supported a battered-
looking figure between them. Gryf couldn’t make out the prisoner’s face, but he saw enough to tell that Stewart’s brand of interrogation probably hadn’t made the fellow any prettier.

Stewart fumbled inside and turned up a lamp, beckoning to Gryf to sit down on a makeshift chair of cotton bales. The cavernous interior smelled of overripe bananas and dust. There was still no word spoken, which made Gryf uneasy; he looked around as the
mutoi
hauled their man inside. In the dim yellow light, Gryf finally saw the culprit’s swollen and purpling face.

It was Stark.

Gryf whistled softly. “Is this your man?”

“I believe you two are acquainted?”

“I ran him off my ship,” Gryf said, and looked toward Stewart. The man’s eyes were very black and alert in the lamplight. “I hope you don’t take that to mean I’ve anything to do with this incident.”

Stewart leaned against a wooden desk scattered with ledgers and bills. He said, in a very level voice, “I am afraid you do, old friend.” He picked up a lead pencil and began to toy with it. “I am much afraid that you do. It appears that your marriage has brought you into the line of fire.”

Gryf stiffened, and stared at his companion.

Stewart smiled regretfully. “I dislike to be the bringer of bad news, but it seems this fellow has been hired to murder your lady wife.”

D
over fog hung at the hotel windows and dripped down the panes. It had been the same in Calais, a raw, rough sea that had delayed Tess’s Channel passage for two days. She was no longer a sailor: the heave and throw of close cabins had made life a misery for three months, and when she had finally come ashore she found that she was no longer a landsman, either. The solid ground was as sickening in its unfamiliar stability as the lurch of the decks had been, and she had the constant and unpleasant impression that the chair she was sitting in was slowly pulling away from the nearby table.

This seasickness had taken her by surprise some few weeks out from Papeete, and it had not abated since. If not for a sympathetic fellow passenger, a retired whaling captain’s wife, Tess thought she might well not have survived the voyage. But with persistent suggestions for Tess to “take a bit o’ duff” or “a little lime” or “hove down” for a rest, that estimable lady had been—in her own words—a windward anchor for a sad and storm-tossed vessel.

At first, even the realization of what was causing the
unfamiliar illness had not raised Tess from her depression. But under the care of the captain’s wife, she had gradually regained the will, if not the desire, to eat. She must eat, the good lady explained. It was Tess’s duty to the new life growing inside of her to stuff herself with vegetables and fruit, even though the very sight of a potato came to be unnerving.

So Tess had eaten, and somehow lived through the coldest storms around the Horn, the hottest equatorial doldrums, and the fiercest Atlantic hurricane that she ever remembered from all of her travels. She had wept every day from wretchedness, but it was not the weeping of grief or defeat. With each awful pitch and roll of the ship, she became more angry, and more determined that she
would
survive, if only to spite the man who had seen fit to put her through this torture alone.

She frowned out the window of the hotel onto the foggy quay. At midday, all the gas lamps were lit; the dark bulks of carriages rattled slowly along the shining street. She had asked the manservant to arrange a ticket for her on the London rail: it was ten o’clock, the train left at half-past, and she still sat in her robe and tried to stomach the sausage and egg that had long since gone cold on her breakfast plate. The captain’s wife had promised this illness would eventually disappear, but there was no sign yet of that happy day. She wished abruptly for coconut milk, the fresh, clear, tangy juice that had no resemblance to the rancid white stuff found in the nuts that traveled as far as England. The wish brought a vivid picture of Tahiti, and she began to cry again.

A light tap on her door made her sit up and wipe at her face. She called for the maid to enter, ready to be rid of the sight of congealing grease on her untouched plate. But the girl only cracked the door and said softly,
“Your husband, mum. He’s come for you. He’s waitin’ in the private sittin’ room downstairs.”

Tess leaped to her feet, and regretted the move as soon as she had made it. She sat back down quickly, her arm across her stomach, and drew a steadying breath. “My husband—” The gulp of air did not clear the dizziness from her brain. “Oh, my. In a moment—tell him I’ll be down in just a moment!” As if he might grow impatient with a few minutes’ delay after so many months. She did not stop to think of anything else; she fought back the nausea and dressed, glancing in the mirror and cursing her haggard looks.

There was no overt sign yet of her pregnancy, but she surely appeared to have been ill. She fingered the signet ring, hung on a chain the whaler’s wife had bought for her in Valparaiso. She had worn it inside her dress, but now she pulled it proudly free. She had forgiven everything, in the first instant of hearing that he had come for her.

Down the steep steps, she heard male voices, and the firm staccato of the proprietress. They stopped speaking the moment Tess appeared, and the trio in the entryway looked at her: two constables and the landlady. Tess gave them a quick and uncertain smile; she knew very well that the mistress disapproved of her for traveling alone, and now there was something in the woman’s expression which seemed smugly satisfied. Tess said questioningly, “My husband—?” and then trailed off, unsure what name Gryf would be using.

The mistress bobbed her head. “His Lordship’s in the parlor, my lady.”

Tess blinked at the newly formal address, but she was too agitated to pause. She did not even knock at the parlor door; her damp and trembling fingers slipped on the porcelain doorknob and then finally made it move. She stepped inside.

Before she could distinguish anyone in the dim recesses of the room, he said, “My darling.”

She froze.

It was not the voice she had expected to hear.

“Now—why did you run away, love?” he added in a gentle tone. “You’ve put us all in a state.”

“Stephen,” she whispered. Only the door held her up under the combined impact of shock and fear. She clung to the knob, her spine rigid, and her other arm came up in instinctive protection to her waist.

He stepped forward from a place near the darkened grate. “Dearest. You must come home now.”

She let go of the door. She tried to speak, to tell him not to be absurd, but the smiling welcome beneath those familiar ice-blue eyes was terrifying. She took a step backward. “Leave me alone.”

“You know I can’t do that,” he said, as if it were the most reasonable of statements. He walked toward her. “You must come home with me. Think of the children.”

“Are you mad?” She was shaking with the need to turn and flee. “Don’t you dare touch me. There are officers of the law here.”

“Yes, of course there are, love. But you mustn’t be afraid. I only brought them along as a precaution.” He reached out as if to take her hand. “They understand how sensitive your nerves can be.”

Tess whirled away, too late to avoid his fingers closing on her wrist. “Let go of me!”

He did, and she stumbled backward, turning to the policemen. “Has he told you he’s my husband?” she cried. “It isn’t true!”

The two men looked uncomfortable. Stephen had followed her into the entryway. “Gentlemen,” he said softly, “please understand. She isn’t well. Darling—”

“No!” Tess jerked away again as he put his hands on
her shoulders. She gulped for breath and reason. “I’m not your darling. I’m not your wife. That’s over, Stephen, and this charade won’t change it!”

The landlady’s face was pinched with disapproval. Stephen looked at her sadly. “My good woman, I apologize. She has done this before.”

“No matter, my lord. You take her home now, to her little ones where she belongs.”

“He’s lying!” Tess cried, reading complete agreement on all the faces before her. “I haven’t any children! The marriage was anulled—” She rounded on Stephen. “I’m married now, but not to you!”

He shook his head. “My love, must you do this to me again and again? There is no Gryphon Meridon. You are not Mrs. Meridon, you are Mrs. Eliot. This fancy of yours—I know you cannot help yourself. I want to help you. Come now, and don’t make this so painful.” He glanced at the landlady. “Perhaps you will have someone ready her things.”

“Nooo!” Tess wailed, routed to complete panic by his unaccountable knowledge of whom she had married. “I won’t go with you!” She felt the stair at her back, but there was no escape there. Stephen, with his calm, awful smile, reached for her again. She darted around him and made a dash for the front door.

A large hand caught her arm, one of the constables. She cried out, and began to struggle in earnest. “He’s not my husband—he has no right! Let me go—Oh God, please let me go!”

The man’s fingers tightened painfully, but he sounded sympathetic as he mumbled, “Now, now, ma’am, don’t take a fret. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

“He will! He’ll lock me in.” She tried to wrench away, and then threw herself toward the man, going down on her knees with her cheek against the rough wool of his
trousers. “He’ll lock me in the dark. You can’t believe him, you can’t—please listen. The marriage was anulled. There are no children. It’s all a lie, a lie. Please!”

“Oh, Tess. My dearest love,” Stephen said, and she knew the grief in his voice would doom her.

She covered her face and shrieked, “Don’t listen to him!”

“God bless you, little mum.” The constable raised her by the shoulders. She looked up into his ruddy face, sobbing, and almost succumbed to the fatherly concern there. Then the cunning of fear saved her. She put out her hands to the man, as if accepting his protection. When he loosened his hold on her in response, she tore herself free. She rushed for the door and flung it open, stumbling out onto the dew-slick walk. A passerby halted in surprise and she went headlong into him, knocking him entirely off his feet. The sound of shouting spurred her, but encumbering skirts and wet pavement made running perilous. It was so foggy—if only she could vanish into the fog…

She tripped, went down on one knee, and scrambled up again. She heard pounding feet close behind her. A cab rattled by; she darted out into the street as it passed, waving at the startled horse that pulled an omnibus going the opposite direction. The horse shied; the driver shouted and she sprang onto the landing, trying to push her way onto the moving bus. The conductor gave her a hand, but when he asked for two pence and received only a wild look, he suddenly seemed to become aware of the pursuit. The bus was already grinding to a halt under the loud demands of the two constables. Tess jumped off, far beyond rational thought, and fell hard onto the pavement. Before she could rise, conductor, constables, and several passengers had converged to prevent her.

Gasping for breath, she let them haul her to her feet. Her hair was streaming down her face, her skirt was torn. She stood with her head lowered and fought the need to retch. Then she heard him: Stephen, quietly issuing instructions. The hated voice tapped her last reserve of terrified strength. She began to kick and scream, fighting every inch of progress toward a waiting carriage, so that they had to lift her bodily, three hefty men who swore as she scratched and bit. She saw Stephen, standing by the open carriage door with a look of sorrow. “Liar!” she howled at him. “Let me go! You can’t—” She braced her feet against the steps and struggled. It was dark inside the carriage; dark, but they threw her inside as if she were a bag of flour. Her head hit the sharp edge of the opposite handle and for a moment hot agony sparked through her brain. Then Stephen was inside, and the door slammed shut. She lay on the floor at his feet and curled herself into a ball, clutching her head as the carriage rocked into motion.

The sounds of the crowd that had gathered receded, except for the shrill cries of street urchins who chased the vehicle for a little way, hurling incoherent insults. Then even they dropped behind, and there was only the growl of the wheels on the stone and Tess’s muffled sobbing.

“I shall have to record the names of those fellows,” Stephen said calmly. “Should I ever need witness you’re truly a madwoman.”

Tess made no answer. She was hanging on to consciousness by a thread. Her knees and her hands throbbed, and the bouncing of the hard floor made her teeth rattle. Her empty stomach heaved. She turned her face into her arms, swallowing bile.

“Get up,” he said. “You’re making yourself quite disgusting.”

The tone of voice was one she knew. She would dis
obey it at her peril. She raised herself onto trembling arms. As she did, the ring swung free on its chain and hit softly against her breast. She clutched at it. Suddenly, she was glad of the darkness in the carriage. With a sharp yank, she pulled at the chain, disguising the move by shoving herself upward into the seat opposite Stephen. The tiny gold links dug into her skin and then snapped at the clasp. The ring fell free into her palm.

She held on to the cool metal, unable to think where to conceal it, or even why it seemed so imperative that she should. But the need to concentrate helped: her head began to clear. The place where she had struck the door handle ached and stung, but that helped, too. It made her angry. It made her remember that she was not helpless. She was no longer in Stephen’s legal power. This was an abduction, a criminal act, and nothing less.

Stephen had taken her by surprise once. His actions after their wedding had been so unexpected and unbelievable that she had not understood soon enough to save herself. But she knew him now. She had to keep her wits about her. They were not at Ashland—there would be chances to escape. She bit her lip and held on to the ring.

“Are you prepared to be rational now?” he asked through the stuffy murk of the closed coach.

She took a deep breath. “Yes.” She could see just enough to tell that he was looking at her. “Why, Stephen?” She kept her voice as steady as she could. “Why have you done this?”

“Because you’ve made yourself an embarrassment to me. And it’s clear you intend to make yourself more of one if I don’t take you in hand.”

“An embarrassment.”

“I should tell you,” he said, “that for all intents and purposes the annulment has been overturned.”

“That’s impossible.”

“My dear, don’t delude yourself. It is entirely possible. The incident has been erased and forgotten by those few who ever knew of it.”

“But Mr. Taylor—”

“I’ll see to Taylor. He won’t trouble us further.”

The statement was made with perfect equanimity, as if he spoke of nothing more than exterminating a rat. Tess felt a renewed burst of panic. “What are you planning?”

He did not answer. A stray glimmer of light through the shade lit his pale eyes as he looked at her. Tess was suddenly afraid—far more afraid than she had yet been. She could not bring herself to ask again. It was something Stephen would try to do, she told herself, undermine her confidence with half-answers and insinuations. She put a false boldness into her voice as she asked, “How did you know where to find me?”

“I had a telegram. From Calais. A message that arrived on the same ship as yourself. You did me the favor of pursuing the obvious course of crossing to Dover, and the local constables were helpful in searching the town. No one sympathizes with a runaway wife, I fear.”