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Ainsley lifted his snifter, swirled the liquid a time or two, then sipped. With the glass still in front of his face, he looked at Chance over the rim. “Once more, Chance, my condolences on the loss of your wife. Or perhaps you didn’t receive my letter. The others would have come to you—”
“If I’d let you all know in time. Yes, I’m aware of that. Arrangements were necessarily rushed. Beatrice was interred in her family’s mausoleum in Devonshire.”
“I know her father died a few years ago, but didn’t her mother offer to take Alice for you while you’re so busy in London?”
Chance held his own snifter, pretended a great interest in the swirling brandy. “Priscilla wed again last year. Beatrice’s brother holds the estate now, and Priscilla is off traipsing some moor in Scotland with her new husband.” He looked at Ainsley. “But if you don’t feel Alice can stay here, I—”
“Alice will be fine here. The girls can’t wait to see her, spoil her. I only worry that she’ll rarely see her papa. When were you last at Becket Hall, Chance? I believe that was when Alice was a mere infant in arms. She’s—what—five now? Six?”
“Five,” Chance said, still looking straight at Ainsley. “Beatrice didn’t care for the country.”
Ainsley smiled one of his rare slight smiles. “Don’t blame a dead woman, Chance. That isn’t gentlemanly. How long have we two been together?”
Chance turned his gaze toward the fire. “I was nine or ten when you bought me from Angelo, seventeen when…when we left the island.”
“So now you’re a grown man of thirty years, and I’m nearing fifty. Thirteen years, Chance. I won’t ask you to forget, but can’t you find some forgiveness somewhere? I lost her, too.”
Chance put down the snifter and got to his feet, turned his back to the man. “You make it sound as if I was in love with her.”
“Weren’t you? With all the ardor of a seventeen-year-old boy? That’s nothing to be ashamed of. She was only two years your elder.”
“And your wife,” Chance said. “You let Edmund—”
“I did, yes,” Ainsley said, also getting to his feet. “Look at me. Look at me, Chance. No more running, no more hiding from the truth. I accept all blame. None of it is yours. I had everything. At last, I had everything. But I wanted more, and that’s what destroyed us. Not Edmund. Edmund was what he was. I am responsible. For her, for all of them.”
“God. Oh my God.” Chance collapsed into the chair, pushed his fingers through his hair, not even aware that the ribbon holding it in place had slipped off so that his darkly blond hair now was thick and loose to his shoulders.
The years fell away.
Ainsley felt a stab of regret, once again seeing Chance as he had been. Young, strong, unafraid. Before pain and loss had turned him inward, before civilization had smothered all his fire. The Chance he’d watched grow to young manhood could climb the rigging like a monkey, a knife between his teeth to slice away sail in a storm, then triumphantly yell into the wind, dare it to blow him into the sea. The Chance he’d known had loved life, every moment of it. Ainsley felt the loss of that boy, he felt it keenly.
But now the past was here with them, in the open at last. Now, maybe, they could finally make their peace.
Ainsley sat down again, folded his hands in front of him or else he knew he’d be unable to restrain from leaning forward, stroking the boy’s hair. “What’s wrong, Chance?”
Chance turned troubled eyes to Ainsley. “I didn’t know you knew. Did she know?”
Ainsley didn’t make the mistake of thinking Chance was referring to his last statement, his acceptance of his own guilt. “Yes, Isabella knew you loved her. She loved you, too. She loved you all. But she was my wife. That sort of love is different, the love of a woman for her husband, a husband for his wife. You know that, you’ve been married.”
Then Ainsley watched for Chance’s reaction. He saw a tic begin in Chance’s left cheek, a sure sign that the boy—no, the man—was holding his emotions in check only with great difficulty.
“I failed Beatrice,” Chance said at last, quietly. “We married for mutual convenience. Her family needed money—even the London residence they gave us was heavily mortgaged—and I wanted her family’s name to get me into society, through the right doors. Even to the War Office.”
He pushed his hair away from his face again, sighed. This was hard, so very hard to say, so he’d say it quickly. Not because he’d loved Beatrice, because he hadn’t. But he had failed her. “My wife took a lover shortly after Alice was born, and we never shared a bed again. She…she died a few days after some back-alley drab got rid of his baby for her.”
Chance picked up his snifter. “There. Now you know. I wanted to leave it all behind. The island, you, everyone. I wanted to find a new life, a calm, ordered life. A normal life. I wanted to forget who I was, what I was. But it seems we have more in common than you think, Ainsley. We both let our wives die to feed our own ambition.”
Ainsley remained quiet, and for some time the only sound in the room was the crack and sizzle of the fire.
“You have Alice. I have Cassandra and all of you. We live for them, Chance. We can only hope to live long enough to make up for our mistakes.”
Chance’s head shot up and he glared at Ainsley. The past was the past. They’d talked. They’d even discussed. Now it was time to move on. More than time. They were both grown men now and at last on an equal footing.
“How, Ainsley? How do you make up for past mistakes? By making the same mistakes again? What happened to all your fine plans to come here, keep the girls safe, at the very least? Bury the past, you said, let the past lie, let it die. Did you become bored stuck out here in your self-imposed exile? Did you feel the need for another adventure? Don’t tell me you need money.”
Ainsley put down his snifter. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Really? I’m supposed to believe that?” Chance drew his hands into tight fists, as if to rein in his temper. “Then explain to me, please, why one of the boys I dragged here with me tonight talked about the Black Ghost Gang.”
“What?”
Chance sat back, stunned. No one could fake that look of complete shock, not even Ainsley. “You…you don’t know? Billy didn’t tell you?”
Ainsley stood up slowly, suddenly feeling very old, very tired. “He told me what happened on the Marsh, about this Miss Carruthers of yours whom Billy seems to have cast in the role of heroine. But that’s all.”
Chance also got to his feet, his mind racing, racing toward one particular name. “Then you’re not riding out as the Black Ghost, you’re not running a gang of smugglers here on the Marsh? I know that’s what you were about in Cornwall, before you had to run or be hanged. I assumed you—”
“Excuse me,” Ainsley said coolly, already headed for the door.
Chance followed all the way to the second floor and down the hallway, until Ainsley stopped in front of the door to Courtland’s bedchamber.
So they’d both had the same thought.
Ainsley tried the latch, but the door was locked. He pulled out his timepiece. Nearly midnight. “The young fool,” he said, brushing past Chance and back down the hallway, down the staircase, not even breathing hard as he pushed open the double doors to the main drawing room. “Jacko? Damn you to hell. You knew, didn’t you?”
Chance watched, reduced to no more than a spectator, as Jacko leaned over the low table in front of the couch, throwing dice one hand against the other one more time before pocketing the dice in his coat.
“Well, look who’s come up for air. Maybe it’s a good thing you came back, boy, shake things up a bit here in the backside of beyond. What’s the matter with you, old friend, you couldn’t find a way to bury yourself tonight? No taste for Milton’s dreary poetry? No interest in Greek primers? No sackcloth and ashes to be found?”
“Point taken, Jacko, thank you,” Ainsley said, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m a dull stick who has spent too many years grieving, sulking and turning my face from the world. I’ll grant you that. But, by God, man, how could I be so blind? How long has this been going on? Courtland’s out there, isn’t he? Are the others with him? Spencer? Rian?”
Jacko nodded, his great head all but touching his chest. “Rian and Spence are gathering up some babes and their mama, to bring them here before they’re sent out of the Marsh. But that’s all, I swear it. Court? Nobody knows what Court does and nobody asks. He’s his own man and has been for years. Or would you rather they were all kept in leading strings? Or run away, like that one there did, turn his back on every one of us.”
“Feel better now, Jacko, with that off your chest?” Chance asked silkily.
Ainsley began to rock slightly on his heels as he tapped his hands against his folded arms. “I’m an idiot. A blind, selfish idiot.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Cap’n,” Jacko said, and Chance raised one eyebrow. Jacko never called Ainsley “Captain” anymore, not since they’d arrived in Romney Marsh. That title had been reserved for Geoffrey Baskin and had been buried along with him. “But you might want to give a thought to this one here. Told the boys he found he was going to take them to Dover Castle. It’s him you have to worry about, what he might take a mind to do to his own.”
“I’ll ignore that, Jacko,” Chance said tightly as he stood beside Ainsley. “This time. But never again. Court isn’t the only one who is his own man. Now let’s hear you tell the captain what in bloody hell is going on around here.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
JULIA AWOKE ALL AT ONCE, realizing that something—or someone—was on the bed with her. She opened her eyes, expecting to see Alice sitting at the bottom of the mattress. “Hello. Who are you?” she asked the child of twelve or thirteen who was still bouncing as she grinned at her.
“I’m Cassandra, except that everyone save Papa and Chance calls me Callie, which is a wickedly common name, but I like it. And you’re Julia. Don’t tell anyone I’m here. I’m supposed to be in bed with a horrid cold.”
“Your nose is a little red,” Julia said, pushing herself up against the back of the bed as she smiled at Callie. She reached for her father’s pocket watch that she had put on the bedside table, opened it and saw that it was nearly eight o’clock. “I’ve slept entirely too long.”
“You’re worried about Alice? Don’t be, please. Edyth has already fed her and washed her and dressed her, and now Alice is downstairs, where my sisters can fuss over her,” Callie said. “Edyth’s very competent, Papa says. She was my nurse when I needed a nurse. I don’t now, of course, because I’m all grown-up. I haven’t been in the nursery for years.”
Julia couldn’t help but smile at this. What a pretty child, with a small heart-shaped face, her high cheekbones still nicely padded with baby fat. Huge brown eyes dominated the face also remarkable for its full, pouty lips. And Callie Becket had enough light brown hair for any two people, much of it in long, loose ringlets that bounced as she bounced.
“My nose is only red because it will insist upon running all the time,” Callie informed her, then tilted her head to one side. “I wish I had hair like yours. It’s so wonderfully straight, isn’t it? I have more curls than Odette, but she’s supposed to have them. At least, that’s what she says.”
Julia blinked at the name. Odette. Wasn’t that the name of the servant who’d been put to taking care of Dickie? “Is Odette your housekeeper?”
“No, silly.” Callie put her fists on the bedspread and leaned closer. “Odette’s our mambo. She is very powerful, but not so much as her father was. He was a houngan and he could turn people into animals for days and days. She said she’d change me into a pigeon and roast me for dinner before I could change back if I got out of bed again. So you won’t tell, will you?”
“I…I probably shouldn’t, should I?” Julia said, wondering if it was possible she was still asleep and caught up in some strange fantastical nightmare. “Why is Odette a mambo?”
Callie rolled those huge, expressive eyes. “Because she’s a very special voodoo priestess and very powerful. Everyone knows that.” She sat back on her haunches and opened the top two buttons of her night rail, then pulled out a thin golden chain. “See this? This is a real alligator-tooth amulet Odette made for me.”
“Is that so?” Julia said, looking at the rather brown, stained thing that, yes, was most definitely a tooth, thankfully too large to be human. “And why do you have that, Callie?”
“It’s my gad, of course, my guard. We all have one.” Callie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s very, very special and keeps me from harm, keeps the bad loas away. I never take it off, never, except one time a year to soak it again in the mavangou bottle, of course. It needs to feed on the magic to keep the bad loas away. Odette is very put out with Chance, because he hasn’t allowed her to soak his gad in a prodigiously long time.”
“Really?” Julia was becoming more intrigued by the moment.
Callie rolled her eyes again. “Oh, yes. We’re just lucky he’s still alive. It’s really very reckless of him. Odette becomes fatigued, always lighting candles and saying prayers for him.”
“Prayers, is it?” Julia slid her feet out from under the covers, stood up and reached for her dressing gown. “I think I understand now,” she said, slipping her arms into the gown, then tying it tightly at the waist. Her father’s education had been centered mostly around things religious, and he had told her about the rituals of many other religions, most especially the “poor heathens” who worshipped strange gods, indulged in magic and other “fanciful nonsense,” as her father had termed it. Wearing an alligator tooth seemed to fit this description. “Odette came here from Haiti, didn’t she?”
“From Saint-Domingue,” Callie said. “There were many problems there, many wars, but Odette doesn’t like to talk about Saint-Domingue, or what is Haiti now—or anything that happened on the island. Very bloody times. I don’t remember them at all, because I was just a puling infant when we left there and came here. That’s what Jacko said. A puling infant. I don’t think that’s nice, do you?”
Julia remembered Jacko. “That was probably only friendly banter,” she said, hiding a wince. While Callie jabbered away like a magpie, Julia gathered up the underclothing and the gown she had thankfully taken the time to lay out before at last crawling into bed last night. She stepped behind the screen in the corner and hastily dressed herself, trying to pretend she was unaware that nature was calling to her.
Callie shrugged as she climbed down off the bed. “Jacko loves me,” she said, buttoning her night rail once more. “And Odette says people can’t help what they look like, so even if Jacko looks like he eats little girls for breakfast, that doesn’t mean he does. I have to go now, before someone comes to see how I feel today and I’m not there to tell them. You really should go downstairs, Julia. We’ve got coddled eggs today. Aren’t you hungry?”
“I’m famished,” Julia said, realizing that was true. “How do I get to the kitchens?”
“Why would you go there? I heard Edyth tell Birdie that she’s supposed to move your things downstairs to the bedchamber next to mine so that Edyth can stay up here with baby Alice, like she did when I was a puling infant. Papa’s orders.”
Julia’s heart managed a small hiccup in her chest. “I’m…I’m to be moved downstairs, with the family?”
Callie nodded. “Papa says you’re Chance’s very good friend and our guest and you’re going to be a wonderful companion to us girls while you and Chance are here. I’m going now. Remember, you didn’t meet me yet.”
Julia gave the girl a small, weak wave, then sat down on the bed. Guest? Wonderful companion? Very good friend? Good God, it was happening. She was being introduced to this family as Chance Becket’s mistress. What sort of ragtag family was this?
And she shouldn’t tell anyone she’d seen Callie. Of course not. She hadn’t seen those boys on the Marsh. She must pretend she doesn’t know that there’s something decidedly havey-cavey about Jacko and Billy. She shouldn’t ask questions about anything, anyone.
No, she shouldn’t. What she should do is finish her toilette as quickly as possible, pack up her belongings and demand to be taken to the nearest coaching inn. That’s what she should do!
But she wouldn’t.
“I’ve never been quite so fascinated in my life,” Julia told her reflection in the mirror above the bureau as she dried her face after splashing it with—how wonderful!—the warm water she’d found in the pitcher.
Although even the presence of that warm water bothered her. How had the servant who’d brought it done so without waking her? Did the servants in this household wrap their footwear with strips of blanket to muffle the sound?
“Stop it, Julia,” she told herself as she rummaged through her bag for her brush. “You’re being fanciful. You were exhausted and you slept like the dead. Someone could have run through this room shouting that the Frenchies were coming and you wouldn’t have budged.”
She sighed, decided she’d convinced herself, and then brushed her hair, smiling at the thought that straight-as-sticks pale hair could possibly be better than Callie’s marvelous tumble of warm golden-brown curls.
She pulled back her hair with both hands, preparing to twist it into a bun, then stopped. If she put up her hair, Chance—dear Lord, she was now very easily thinking of the man as Chance, not Mr. Becket!—might decide to tug it all loose again.
Was that a good thing or a bad thing? And would she go straight to hell for even asking herself that question?
Hastily tying her hair at her nape with a green grosgrain ribbon that matched those on her three-year-old gown, Julia made up her bed and packed up the remainder of her belongings, not much caring for the idea that anyone else would see her meager wardrobe with its discreet patches and darns.
Before heading downstairs, she then pulled back the heavy drapes on one of the large windows, her breath catching as she saw the sand-and-shingle beach not one hundred yards away and the Channel beyond, brilliant sunlight dancing on the water and not a hint of mist in sight.
How beautiful. How wonderfully, wildly beautiful.
She leaned closer to the glass. Yes, that was a ship out there, moving parallel to the shore. “I can almost make out the flag….”
“It’s French. But not to worry, we’re not about to be invaded. They just like to sail back and forth out there beyond the range of our guns and make a grand show once and again.”
Julia spun around, one hand to her chest, to see Chance Becket standing not three feet from her. “Does everyone tiptoe here?”
Chance smiled. “Your eyes look even more green this morning. I imagine it’s the gown. Pretty. Did you rest well?”
“I did, yes, but I will probably never sleep again, unless I find a key for the door,” she told him, doing her best to ignore the fact that Chance had forgone his city attire in favor of fawn nankeen breeches above shiny black top boots, his full-sleeved white shirt open at the neck. He wore a dark brown leather vest he’d left unbuttoned. It looked as soft as newly churned butter.
She could see a thin strip of well-worn dark leather hanging around his neck and wondered if an alligator tooth hung at the end of it, then realized she’d been staring. Would like to continue staring. She folded her hands in front of her, then looked at those hands with some intensity.
Chance watched as Julia bowed her head, the sunlight streaming in through the window setting off small sunbeams in her hair. No bun today, which was a large improvement, but all her glorious hair still, alas, swept tightly away from her face. His fingers itched to release that confounding ribbon. Amazing how women could drive a man nearly wild by showing themselves to be so obviously chaste.
He’d been too long without a woman. Either that or Julia Carruthers was a witch.
“Yes,” he said, turning his thoughts away from treacherous territory, “I know you had a visitor. I stopped to see Cassandra on my way up here. She told you Ainsley has stuck his thumb in my business?”
Julia busied herself in taking off and folding up her paisley shawl that she’d believed she might need downstairs. Silly. It was warm in Becket Hall. Excessively warm. At least in this suddenly very small room. “I’m to be moved to a bedchamber downstairs, where I, as your very good friend, will be treated as a guest while I amuse your sisters. Yes, I know. Will you provide me with a tambourine? Trained monkeys usually have those, I believe.”
“Such a sharp tongue. I don’t know what made either of us believe even for a moment that you had the makings of a nanny.” Chance sat down on the edge of the bed, patted the smoothed coverlet. “Didn’t you sleep in here last night?”
She rolled her eyes. “Some people take care of their own needs. I slept in that bed and I made up that bed this morning. I’m more than capable of caring for myself. And while we’re on the subject of acceptable manners—you don’t belong here.”
“Here being this room, sitting on this bed? Or here being Becket Hall?” He stood up. “No, don’t answer. I’ve come up here to tell you that Dickie and Johnnie, their mother and the remainder of her brood are already traveling north to my estate. They were escorted on their way after a fine but necessarily short moonlight service for the departed Georgie, who now resides in an unmarked grave on the Marsh. Harsh but unavoidable, for planting him in the local churchyard would raise too many questions. Better they all merely disappear.”
After all, Chance thought fleetingly, that had worked well enough for the Beckets. Up until now, at least.
“That…that was both cruel and good of you, I suppose,” Julia said, knowing how much her father would have disapproved. “Thank you for telling me.”
Chance tugged at his earlobe. “I’ve more to tell you, although you’ve already guessed, with Cassandra’s help. Thanks to Jacko’s eavesdropping ways and, yes, my impromptu thought to divert him, Ainsley believes the two of us are…shall we say, involved. Because that misconception places you under my protection, I’ve decided to allow him to continue to think that way. You’ll be safer here at Becket Hall than you were in your mother’s arms.”
“My mother handed me to my father when I was but three months old and ran off to France with her second cousin,” Julia told him, the memory too old to cause her any pain. “Perhaps you have another comparison?”
She held up her hand. “No, please don’t bother. And please don’t tell me I’m being treated as a guest as a result of your very deliberate lie. I’m being kept where I can be watched, to make sure I don’t go haring off to the local Waterguard to turn you all in for a king’s reward. Feed me well, house me royally and gain my silence. I suppose nobody wanted to dig a second grave on the Marsh today?”
