The Randolph Legacy (35 page)

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Authors: Eileen Charbonneau

BOOK: The Randolph Legacy
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“Ethan taught it to me,” Judith blurted out her pride in him.
“He doesn’t sew!”
“Better than I. He mended the sails—”
“Knew it! My Del knew he was a seaman from the wide-stance walk on him, but I knew it from the eyes!”
“He was, yes.”
“Navy, or merchant marine?”
Judith prayed for guidance in her silence.
“In the war, was he, little one? Del says his back’s horrible scarred, the likes of which he’s only seen on slaves.”
“I—don’t mind them.” Stitch. Lock. Stitch. Judith felt a trickle of sweat at the small of her back. No more questions, please.
“Your trunk’s in order, I hope?”
“Trunk?”
“Just beside you, child. Del left it this morning.” Judith stared at the fine, leather-bound trunk poised at the end of the porch. So Ethan did know where they were going, and had sent a trunk. “Must admit, we were puzzled by it,” Ida Burnett continued, keeping a watchful eye on her, “all the way from a Virginia coachstop keeper, transport paid, no explanation with it. Where is your husband now?”
“Asleep.”
“Asleep? Does he sleep around the clock?”
“We had a very wearying ride.” The image of Ethan above her, his face suffused with delight as she moved, squeezed his thigh—that ride invaded her mind, not their journey here. “Yesterday, the days before … wearying,” she finished quickly as her cheeks flared red.
“The escape from your doting relatives.”
“Escape, yes. I would ask thee in … but my husband needs his rest so desperately now, I think.”
Thee.
Had she said “thee”? Had Ida noticed?
“Ah. Desperate is he, this bridegroom who beds you till noon, pulls his knife on my poor husband, then roams about fetching flowers in the mist?”
“Ethan didn’t mean—”
“He fetches something else to you as well, I’ll warrant, before he takes to his napping.”
Judith hid her hands within the folds of his shirt as she felt the fresh flush at her cheeks.
Ida Burnett laughed. “Ah, the men. It takes everything out of the poor creatures, don’t it?”
“Does it? Have I … Oh, Mrs. Burnett, have I hurt him?”
The large woman threw back her head and laughed. “Lord love us, little one! Don’t you be thinking you’re doing him any harm! Didn’t your mother tell you the ways of them?”
“I lost her early, and never thought I’d marry. My knowledge is so limited,” Judith shook her head, and felt the warmth of Queen Ida’s fish-scented fingers against her cheek. “But I do wish to be a good wife in all ways. I love him so much!”
“Aye, I’ve gathered that. Is your sea-crazed husband treating you well in return?”
“Oh yes,” she proclaimed fiercely, “Ethan is the best of men. You’ll see. You will not regret your kindness to us, Mrs. Burnett!”
“Well. Your horses are not so bad off as first they looked. And my Del knows human nature better than me. So I trusted his judgment, though you’re confusing, the two of you. I thought your man a mite touched when first you came in with the storm, that is, after I got over his look.”
“Look?”
“How old is your husband, Mrs. Blair?”
“Three-and-twenty.”
“Yes.” The word came out of her like a sigh before she turned no-nonsense again. “He yanked you out of the plain folk with that fearsome weapon of his, didn’t he?”
“I came freely, Mrs. Burnett.”
“Ida. Ida and Del. We are friends of the Friends here.”
“We are Judith and Ethan only. And pleased to be among you.”
The gruff woman rose and wound her way over the dunes without ceremony. Judith discovered a wrapped loaf of oatmeal-scented bread on the porch’s step. The door behind her cracked open.
“She’s gone?”
“Yes.”
“If we’re going to have our first proper, roof over-our-heads meal together, you’d best give me my shirt.”
Judith tried to smile away the catch in her throat she felt at the sight of her tousle-haired husband leaning against the doorway. She faced him at the threshold. “I’m bereft of undergarments, myself,” she announced.
“Here.”
He handed her the snowy-white shift casually draped over his arm. It was clean, dry, without a trace of bloodstain. And scented sweetly of hyacinths, just as his was.
He snatched his shirt from her hands and reentered the house. “Good seam,” he conceded.
Ethan watched the sand for signs of life below. He was good at
clamming, even Ida said so. And it kept him away from Del and his sons urging him on to the Atlantic. Why did his mother send him to the shore with a promise not to set foot on a vessel? Was there any way around it? Stop. It was ridiculous, to feel deprived here.
He heard Judith’s laughter behind him as she rode Two Hearts across the dunes. How she and his bride gift had taken to each other. Dr. Foster’s horse was still wary of him after their wild journey. But they were all less skittish these days. The trail to them had certainly gone cold. Surely Prescott Lyman had gone back to his farm, his family, his widower’s life. And the arrangement the magistrates made with Ethan’s brothers had been a private one. Officially, there were no charges against him in Eli’s death. Suspicions would remain, of course. Most of Judith’s people thought she’d married her father’s murderer. All but the murderer himself.
After their first two weeks with the lightkeepers, Ethan had sent the letter to his sister in Richmond as Dr. Foster had instructed. Judith began sewing a gown for herself from his mother’s gift of rose-colored
cambric and one of his shirts, refashioned. It lay across the foot of their bed, almost complete, yet there had not come a reply. Sometimes that made him feel cast adrift, here at the edge of the world.
There: a small hole in the shape of a key. The clam sign Ida had schooled him to find. He dug with the double-pronged instrument she’d bestowed on him once he’d demonstrated his interest. Now she teased him about his newfound skill. “If that physician loses his patience with you, Mr. Blair, you may return and clam for Del and me.”
Sometimes Ethan sensed the ghost of remembrance between himself and the lightkeepers. Their kind eyes would drift sad then, and he would turn away, in case it was the look of him that caused it.
The scrape of shell. Ethan dug deeper, then pried the clam loose.
“That’s enough to carry back between us,” Judith said.
He looked up. The bright sun was blocked by one of Ida’s hats, shielding both Judith and him in its shade. On the grassy ridge behind her, their horses grazed with only loose rope halters assigning them to human masters. Judith’s skirts were drawn up over her waistband from her barebacked ride. After three weeks, the indigo was fading, but her petticoats seemed whiter.
They both dressed for the weather instead of any notion of convention. Ethan had packed Jordan Foster’s clothes in the bottom of his trunk and wore his own. But he’d gone coatless for days. He wished for an even stronger nor’easter than the one that had blown them to this place, one that would separate their little home from the mainland. Then they would need no clothes at all.
“What are you grinning at?” Judith demanded.
He stood, hitching slightly as his right knee protested the action’s swiftness. “That hat. I’m hoping it won’t fly you away.”
The mirth in her eyes darkened with mischief. “You’ll keep me grounded, will you not, husband?”
He caught her waist. “Grounded, yes.”
She opened her mouth under his kisses. The taste of her did what it always did. Yes. There were very few layers between them. And his need was so urgent.
“These clams,” he said at her ear, “they’ll keep in the shade.”
“But there’s no—”
“Your hat’s shade,” he said, pulling free the tie, sailing the hat backward. It missed its bucket of clams target by three feet. They didn’t notice.
Easy. Slow down. No more tears, stitches, patches in their clothing, he told himself. Judith’s deft fingers were helping keep her gown intact
this time. They unlatched his way to her as they reached the tall grass. He didn’t deserve this woman, her beauty, the power of her lovemaking. But feeling undeserving had never stopped him from pursuing his heart’s desire, not as a Randolph or Fayette’s Washington. It would not as a Blair.
The grass shielded them completely once they were on their knees, teasing themselves with nips, kisses, licks at sun-burnished, gloriously salty skin.
“Marsh maiden,” he whispered as she went down beneath him. The grasses flattened like a halo around her white braid, her indigo-lavender skirts.
“Not a maiden any longer,” she whispered hot, dusky, without a hint of regret.
He felt her fingers weave through his hair as he gently suckled her breasts. Her back arched, she urged him on. Now, if he could find her through the petticoats. One, two. Bless you, Judith, only two today. Wet, ready. Inside. There. The rich, red promise of her. Whispers at her ear as he toiled at his favorite labor. Where would it take him this time? Love words, phrases in two languages, punctuated by her demands for translations, his inability to think of them.
Her skittering laughter burst forth, sea-siren music. His imagination turned her a glistening green, there below him. It webbed the fingers that explored his thighs. She was beautiful green. What was he, this time? Not a man with a stiff, aching leg. One who could fly. As high as the sun itself. Then swoop down, capture this astonishing creature. Deep moans told him she was ready for his deepest plunges, the wildest flight of his imaginings. She welcomed him with a high-pitched wail as he crashed like Icarus into her sea. Then Judith’s arms drew him close, though he was wet with the sweat of his effort. Fingered again, she combed the hair back from his brow.
“Sweet Ethan,” she whispered at his ear.
Yes. He would touch a thousand suns to die such deaths.
Through his contented drowsiness he sensed their horses approaching, restless and frightened. He opened his eyes. The sun was gone, the sky no longer blue. Thunder. Drops of rain on their upturned faces. Judith slipped out of his arms. She closed the portals of her clothing, then spun away, chasing her hat as a gust of wind blew it toward the sea. She tied it to her waistband. Ethan yanked on his trousers. He placed her cloak over her shoulders.
“Lightning. This is not good,” he said quietly. “Come. We must bring the horses to shelter.”
“But the clams, Ethan.”
“They will keep. Mind me, woman, I’m a lowlander.”
He hoisted her aboard Two Hearts, pleased by the sure grip of her thighs, her instinctive command of the white mare. He called Dr. Foster’s horse and mounted. The rain pelted Judith’s skirts. She raised her hood around her head. They rode a steady gallop across the dunes and toward the lighthouse.
The horses stabled, they found the house and grounds deserted, though the tower’s reflector oil-lamps were lit and shining against the encroaching darkness of the sudden storm. At the pier, Ethan saw four horsemen approaching two huddled figures on the edge of the dock. “Judith. Is that … ?”
“Del. He’s protecting Ida from those men.”
“Yes. That’s how I see it too.” He grasped her hand.
They had not seen any but Ida and Del and their sons for so long. Was that why the hard-faced intruders looked barely human? One, the leader, pointed a tobacco-stained finger.
“Who in hell are they?”
Del raised his head defiantly. “Our guests. They have nothing to do with this.”
Out on the ocean a vessel struggled against the sudden storm. That was the source of their argument. It was overloaded, Ethan could see that. The single mast was down, both sails flying in shredded tatters.
“For the love of God,” Del said, “allow me to sound the alarm!”
“And let your nest of abolitionists take flight in the warning? Stay where you are. I’ve got everything I need now, including the constable in attendance.”
“Mr. White—” Ida appealed to the one who didn’t smell of bourbon.
“Sea’s too rough to send out a boat, anyway, Miss Burnett,” he said, without looking at her.
Scrambling to keep the vessel afloat were eight people. A family, Ethan thought, from their differing sizes.
“Dear God,” Judith whispered beside him.
The small boat disappeared behind a swell. It came into view again, accompanied by high-pitched screaming. Ethan counted only seven aboard now. A dark head bobbed above the waves nearby. Gleaming streaks swarmed around it.
“There’s one for the sharks,” an amused voice intoned behind them.
“Them in the boat won’t leave him. They’ll all go down.”
Ethan had promised his mother to stay off boats, but not out of the
sea itself. He pulled off his left boot, then his right. Judith’s strong grip took his arms. “No!”
“They’re not sharks, Judith, they’re dolphins. They’re trying to help. I’m a good swimmer. I can hardly do less, can I?”
She nodded, but whether it was in acceptance or despair, he couldn’t tell. Tears streaked down cheeks already wet with rain. He pulled off his vest and placed it and his boots in her arms. “I follow my light, Judith Mercer,” he whispered at her ear. He kissed her, then dived off the pier.
When he felt the cold Atlantic’s assault, he wondered if it was such a good idea to tell her that. If he died, would she ever trust her own Light again?
His head broke the surface, closer to the distressed sloop than he’d thought possible. The smooth, strong strokes Aubrey’d taught him returned, making him feel powerful in the water. An illusion, Ethan realized, when a wall of water plunged him under the depths.
He opened his eyes to the flash of silver. The dolphin was about his own size and not nearly as bothered by the churning sea. The animal nodded its head twice, almost playfully. Ethan grasped the dorsal fin. It was smooth, but he could hold on. How many times had he imagined what was happening now?
There: a shadowy figure descending, lifeless, below them. Ethan remembered Judith’s tear-stained face. He released the dolphin and grabbed. He caught cloth, closed his fist around it, and kicked for the surface.
Water. Only water, no light. How deep had he gone? He couldn’t keep his breath locked inside. He expelled it. Slowly, until panic set in. Then it gushed in great bubbles. There was nothing to replace it but water.
He sent a message out toward the returning flash of silver. He had not told Judith who to go to if he should die, he explained. He had not told her so much of what he stored in his heart. He must not die now. His grip began to quake.—
No. Not let go,
came the command. The dolphin’s smooth coldness. Under him. Rising. Speaking? Propel.
—Kick.
Legs kick, rise.
Ethan’s head cleared the surface. He gasped and coughed and breathed air. Behind him he heard the calling voices, saw the boat. And he could see the shore. He lifted his burden higher above the waves. Homespun shirt. A head. A boy. Still, lifeless. No, not lifeless. Harry, Aubrey, Fayette, Clarisse, Eli. No more death. Ethan swam as if both their lives depended on it.
The boat followed. The storm past its peak, the forks of lightning receded eastward out to sea. Judith stood in the water at the shore. Everything would be all right now.
 
 
A
bove the waves, Ethan held a boy of twelve or thirteen, Judith guessed as she waited, shivering. He’d need help once his feet were on the ground, this wondrous swimmer who could not walk without his boots. The wave buffed her back, but she recovered her stance. She caught one of the boy’s arms. Together they dragged him to the shore.
Ethan shifted the gray figure gently to his side. If there had been panic beneath the waves there was no sign of it left. The boy’s face was beautiful, serene. The men rushed forward.
“This one’s dead,” the first announced.
Another man spit in the sand. “Risked your neck for a dead nigger, you bleeding idiot,” he informed Ethan, then followed the others who were pulling the sloop ashore and counting their remaining captives. Judith heard the hesitant step of the sad-eyed constable.
Ethan ignored them all. He gently prodded the still form.
They were soon surrounded by women’s high wails, men’s searing, silent grief. Behind them were the slave catchers, knowing only that they’d gotten seven out of eight. Judith wanted Ethan away from them all. He was pale and shaking and his eyes frightened her. She called.
Nothing. She touched his sleeve. He pushed her away.
He crawled around the boy. Quickly, the way he used to scramble about below the decks of the
Standard
, before he could walk. Completing his circle, he squatted beside the still figure. They were all watching him now.
“Aubrey!” he summoned. “Breathe!”
The heel of his left hand shot out. It thumped the boy hard between his shoulder blades.
Judith thought the resulting sound was the mother’s shock. But it had burst from the boy himself. A cough. Another. Then a green wad projected onto the sand. Flickering eyelids. Movement. “Good Lord,” Del said behind her.
The woman surged forward, but Ethan stayed her hand. They all watched as the boy vomited, then took in great gulps of air. He pulled himself to his knees, then finally looked up at them, blinking.
Ethan released the woman. He tried to stand, but forgot his boots were not on his feet. He fell. For the first time, Judith smiled at the sound of one of his soft French blasphemies as she covered him with her
cloak and took his head in her lap. His teeth were so white against blue lips. Behind them, the clang of the metal chains.

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