The Night Angel (4 page)

The Gavis had taken a two-bedroom suite that overlooked the Center Market. Serafina’s parents, in their brocaded finery and powdered wigs, caused a small stir upon entering the hotel. As they started toward the central staircase, Serafina said, “Please, I must have a word with Falconer.”

Her parents shared an anxious look. Her father searched for words. “Are you sure that is wise?”

Serafina saw Falconer step away. A small motion, meaningless save to one who knew him and cared for him. Which she did.

“It is not only wise,” she replied, “it is vital.”

Falconer said, “I went by this morning and spoke to the agent. Your new house should be ready on Wednesday.”

Alessandro Gavi sought to express a genuine gratitude. “You have been so very good to aid us in this manner.”

Falconer accepted the words with a stiff nod. “You will take advice?”

“From you? Always.”

“There is a man who has been courting Mary, Serafina’s maid. Gerald Rivens is his name. I have taken his measure and feel here is one we should trust.”

“I shall hire him immediately.”

Serafina said to Falconer, “Perhaps it would be best if I first accompanied my parents upstairs, but for a moment only. Would you wait, please?”

“Of course.”

Serafina did not speak again until they were in the suite’s main parlor. She waited as her parents packed away their wigs. Her father took considerable care over his coat, and her mother fiddled with the pins holding her hair. She knew they were searching for a means of finally saying what had been on their minds for so long.

Serafina returned to their native Italian and said, “Please sit down and allow me to make this easier for you.”

“Serafina, my darling . . .”

“Let her speak, Alessandro.”

Her father dropped into a chair with a sigh.

“You have every right to be fearful about letting my heart rule my head and choosing the wrong man again. I made such a terrible mistake before, how can you trust me to do better now?” She felt a burning at the back of her eyes but used all her might to suppress the tears. She had cried enough. It was time to move beyond tears.

Her mother seemed to sense Serafina’s struggle, for she said, “You have apologized and we have accepted. Enough of that.”

“Yes.” Serafina wished for a handkerchief, anything to occupy her hands. But there was nothing. She clasped her hands and remained standing before her parents. She took a deep breath and declared, “I do not love John Falconer.”

The look her parents shared with each other was etched with a relief as strong as fear. Serafina hurried on. “I deeply care for him as a friend, as a Christian brother. But I do not love him romantically.”

“He loves you,” her mother now said. “Very much.”

“I have known this since before we left Mr. Wilberforce’s home in London. I had hoped that with time I might come to share his love. For I am certain he would make a good husband.” She raised her hands to still the protest both parents were ready to offer. “But I will not permit this to happen, for I can see that you do not wish for me to wed him.”

“He is . . .” Alessandro Gavi restrained his objections with great effort. He was, after all, a diplomat. “Falconer is a strong ally and a trusted one. But he . . . well . . . Daughter, surely you must see . . .”

“He is not appropriate,” Bettina Gavi finished. “He does not suit your background, your station, or your family.”

“I will not argue such points with you,” Serafina quietly responded. She had wondered for weeks how best to approach the subject and found herself relieved that it was now out in the open. “I will not argue with you over the choice of husband at all. I have sought to go my own way. It almost destroyed us all. It will not happen again.”

She could see her parents were taken aback by her declaration. Bettina Gavi recovered first. “You sound so . . . so . . . what can I say? So deliberate, so unemotional.”

“Which is exactly how I feel. My heart has been cauterized. At night, when I lie awake and consider my future, or at dawn in my prayers, I wonder if ever I shall be able to fully love a man again. Most times I doubt it very much.”

Tears sprang to her mother’s eyes. “It breaks my heart to hear you speak so.”

“I pray I am wrong. The Scriptures speak of God’s power to soothe all such wounds of the heart. But even the apostle Paul carried something that pained him deeply all his life. I wonder if perhaps this is my thorn, if my heart will remain so small that I can only know fondness for a man and nothing more.”

“Daughter . . .” Once more her father, normally so ebullient and vocal, looked at a loss for words. “It troubles me to hear you speak so intensely of religion.”

“It is not religion, Papa. It is faith. It resides in the core of my being.”

He opened his mouth to say more but was halted by his wife’s hand settling upon his arm. Bettina asked, “You wish for us to select a husband, my dear?”

“In truth, I would prefer never to marry.” Serafina raised her voice to stop the protests before they could be expressed. “But I know this is impossible. So I ask you for more time, in hopes that normal emotions will be restored.”

“How much time?”

“I would wish for years if you would grant them. Decades. A lifetime. But I will merely ask for as long as you will grant me, and not a day longer.” Again the burning behind her eyes threatened to overwhelm her. This time a single tear did manage to escape, for she knew this agreement would further wound a good and trusted friend. “Now if you will excuse me, I must speak with Falconer.”

“Serafina . . .”

She was reluctant to turn back, for she feared her resolve would collapse and she would sob away her control. “Yes?”

But her mother merely said, “Be gentle with him.”

John Falconer was not pleased with himself, his station, or his future. All was bleak. He could not even say he had served God well this day. He was sitting in the farthest corner of the hotel lobby, his head leaning against his fists.

He was angry with himself for having spoken and acted so brutishly in the legate’s chambers. It did not matter that no one else condemned him. Falconer was harsher with himself than he would ever be with another. Today, though, he truly had erred. No matter how foppish and arrogant the prince might have been, no matter what insinuations he might have cast in Serafina’s direction, Falconer knew he had acted irresponsibly and recklessly. His ire had little to do with the legate.

“Commander Falconer?” came a voice above him.

Reluctantly he raised his head and found himself looking at the young man who had doffed his hat as they departed the legate’s chamber. “I have never held the honor of such status, sir.”

“Might I inquire of your proper rank?”

“Captain, but in the merchant navy only. And that was some time ago.”

“Would you mind if I joined you, sir?”

Falconer wished only to be alone. But his solitude offered no comfort. He was moored here in this hotel lobby until Serafina returned. Just as he was anchored to this futile state until she bade him depart.

“Sir?”

“Of course.” Falconer watched as the young man seated himself across the low table from him.

“Nathan Baring at your service, sir. Might I say how deeply impressed I was with your response to the legate this afternoon.”

His shame deepened. “I was wrong in what I said and how I said it, and worse still were my actions.”

“On the contrary, sir.” The man’s admiration was clear in his softly spoken words. “Long have I dreamed of confronting Prince Fritz-Heinrich in just such a manner.”

When Falconer merely shook his head in reply, Nathan Baring went on. “Your patron’s daughter, did I understand that she is an artist?”

Of course. Now the reason for the young man’s enthusiasm came to the fore. Falconer examined him more closely. Nathan Baring was tall, slender, clear of eye, fervent of manner and voice. He was dressed in elegant shades of charcoal gray— striped trousers and diplomat’s morning coat, grey silk vest, ruffled cravat. Clean-shaven and dark haired, he was a young man of status and means. Falconer felt utterly common in comparison.

“She is indeed a lovely lass,” he said now, keeping his voice as even as possible.

“Yes, I suppose so.” Baring clearly noticed Falconer’s astonishment at the words. “I mean no offense, sir. But to be frank, my profession has brought me into contact with every manner of loveliness. Yet what Miss Gavi has revealed, if she is the artist I seek, is unique.”

“Your profession?”

“I have been in my government’s service since I was seventeen, sir. First in the American army, then as a member of our ambassadorial service. Istanbul, Saint Petersburg, and finally London.” Baring shifted forward until he was perched upon the edge of the seat. “Tell me, sir, did Miss Gavi do the sketches of your good self and the British court that appeared in the antislavery pamphlet issued by the Powers Press?”

Falconer saw how people in the lobby began turning toward the central staircase. It was always the same when Serafina appeared. He rose to his feet. “Perhaps you’d care to ask her directly.”

Serafina stepped into the lobby, her eyes only for him. And in her gaze, Falconer found his answer.

She did not love him.

She displayed the deep affection of a very dear friend. But it was not romantic love. They had grown to know each other so very well. For eight months, Falconer had spent part of nearly every day in her company. He knew her well enough to know the message she bore before she even opened her mouth.

She was coming to say good-bye.

Oh, it would not be a farewell in the physical sense. They were bound together for life, unless he chose to walk away and never see her again. She would always welcome him. She would keep a room in her home and her life for him. Wherever her future might take her, he would be welcome.

If only he could bear to be with her as a friend. And nothing more.

The young man cleared his throat.

Falconer forced himself to form the words, “Nathan Baring, may I present Serafina Gavi.”

She turned to him and said calmly, “Now is not a good time, sir.”

“No, of course not.” But he did not back away. “Might I ask you one question only?”

“Some other day, perhaps. I would ask that you wait—”

“Serafina,” Falconer said quietly.

She acquiesced as he had known she would. She would deny him nothing. Except the one thing Falconer desired above all else.

“Very well, sir,” she said. “Your question.”

“Did you, that is, were you the artist who drew the Crown’s men into the slave vessel? The drawing used in the Powers’ antislavery pamphlet?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Oh, I say.”

Something in the man’s voice caused Falconer to look beyond his own pain. He saw a young man who genuinely seemed affected not by Serafina’s beauty but by her
character
.

“I understand the Powers remained with William Wilberforce during that period. Did you happen to speak with the gentleman?”

“I had that honor,” Falconer replied.

“Oh, sir.” The man clasped his hands in front of him. “Might I ask, what was he like? William Wilberforce?”

Serafina responded, “That is three questions, sir. Not one.” But her voice held no acrimony.

“Of course, ma’am. You are quite right.”

“William Wilberforce was a man already connected to heaven,” Falconer said. “He was the best part of blind. He did not have the strength to hold a glass to his own lips. Yet . . .”

Nathan Baring held himself with the eagerness of a young lad. “Yes?”

“He was the most powerful figure of a man I have ever met. He spoke to me, and it seemed as though I heard a voice speaking with heaven’s authority. Time held little meaning while I was in his presence. And after, I felt as though I walked away a better man.”

Nathan fumbled with his hands and his words both. “This means more than I can say. When I learned that I had been assigned to London, I wrote a dozen letters begging to meet with Wilberforce. My father admired him above all others.”

Serafina asked, “Your father was an anti-slaver?”

“Indeed, Miss Gavi. And his father before him. They were merchants. I lost my father last year.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I wanted to go into the ministry, but my father wanted one son to become a diplomat and perhaps a politician. The other, my younger brother, has taken over the business.”

“Do you know the Langstons?” Falconer asked, naming their closest allies in the Washington area. Reginald and Lillian Langston ran a Georgetown emporium and owned a fleet of merchant ships, one of which had carried Falconer and Serafina across the Atlantic.

Nathan Baring replied, “I count the Langstons among some of the finest people God has ever created.”

Serafina seemed drawn to speak by the young man’s clear-eyed enthusiasm. “They have asked Falconer to join them. We met with them just last week, and they asked him again.”

“Oh, sir, but you must. The Langstons are goodly people, known to treat their staff as family.”

“I am first held to aid the Gavis with an urgent matter of their own.”

“Of course. I certainly understand duty’s call. Well, I shall not keep you longer.” He offered them each a card. “If there is any way I can be of service, you must please not hesitate to call upon me.” He bowed to them both, then said in a lower voice, “Might I say, if you are interested in finding others opposed to the slave trade, we meet after Sabbath services at Saint John’s Church on Lafayette Square.”

As the young man departed, Falconer reflected on how Baring had noticed Serafina’s beauty yet counted it as insignificant. Falconer tried to recall another young man responding in such a way, as though utterly immune to her appeal.

Serafina said, “I had hoped to have a private word.”

Falconer turned back to her. She kept her hair covered by the lace mantilla. Her dress was modest, a long-sleeved formal gown of linsey-woolsey. The color was blue and the weave was as soft as sea-foam. Unlike the other women Falconer had seen at the legate’s gathering, she wore no jewelry. He swallowed hard. “There is no need.”