A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (29 page)

But,
she was neither. She was a plain country goodwife who was supposed to be
appalled by this scurrilous little piece of ill-advised wit, and instead she
was the daughter of a rebel commander who would have hunted down the
perpetrator and shot him, the niece of a rebel poet, and the wife of yet a further
rebel officer with a most unforgiving and vengeful nature, where such abuses
were concerned. Truly, she could do without her first visit to court ending
with her husband imprisoned and incurring the King's displeasure for mutilating
his courtiers.

On
the other hand, she owed it to him to show him the wretched thing, since it was
his honour that was being maligned, not hers, so far as the world was
concerned.

In
the end, he was not angry. He unfolded it, where she had had it screwed up in
her hand, and she saw his eyes move over the paper without so much as a flicker
of emotion on his dear, half-handsome face. And then he inclined his head with
his old frigid grace.

"Thank
you for bringing it to my attention, Thomazine."

Not
Zee. Not his tibber, or any of the other private, sweet endearments he had for
her. Thomazine.

"Apple,
it’s silly, it's not important, don't let it bother you."

Folding
his hands on the paper and smiling at her, his careful, polite company-smile.
"Of course."

"I
only showed you - I didn’t want - no secrets. I didn’t like to think that we -
that I - that you should be laughed at, if you didn’t know -"

"Rather
than laughed at, if I did know?" And he looked up at her, and his face was
still calm and impassive, and his eyes, his lovely dark eyes, were full of rage
and pain, his lashes spiky with tears he would not shed. "I am twenty
years older than you, Thomazine. I cannot change that. My lord Rochester was
born the year your father and I were appointed Agitators to our regiment. I imagine
he was cutting his first teeth when we sat at the Debates in Putney. And no, I
do not for one minute believe that the Earl of Rochester has singled you out
for his particular attentions, though I suspect it's exactly the kind of merry
stunt that debauched young ass and his colleagues would pull in the name of
humour. I do feel it, Thomazine. Every time one of those young bucks runs his
eyes over you, I feel every one of those twenty years, and then some."

"Because
I am evidently so flattered to be ogled by penniless drunken wastrels who talk
to my bubbies," she said dryly. And then, because she was honest, added,
"Such as there is of them."

He
snorted, which was both undignified and lamentably unromantic. "One of the
things I shall love about you till the day I die, my tibber, is your ability to
make me laugh at the most inopportune moments. I thank you." And then he
gave her an apologetic shrug. "I still feel like a very old man, in their
company. I do not find them funny, I do not find them clever, and what they
pass off as erudition any schoolboy could scrawl on a wall. I left the Army to
get away from their like, and now I find court infested with them."

She
kissed the top of his head. "You're right. You’re getting old. And
intolerant. You need to spend more time with young people."

"Thomazine,
I will not be sweethearted into a better humour," he said sternly.

"No,
dear."

"And
as soon as we may be granted audience at the Royal Society, I would like
nothing better than to return to my own hearth, with my own dear girl, and
-"

"The
advantage of our lodgings here," she said, "is that court is such a
place of depravity -" she felt him shudder, "such a place of
depravity, indeed, that a man may take his wife to bed in the middle of the
afternoon and none raise so much as an eyebrow."

There
was a pause. The fire crackled, and the spring rain pattered against the
windows, and outside in the streets someone was shouting wares for sale.
Thomazine slipped her arms round her scarred, ageing, formal, and very much
beloved husband's neck. Toyed with the buttons on his waistcoat briefly, and
then - "That is
not
my eyebrow, Thomazine," Russell said.

"Surely,
dear. I merely use it to illustrate a point."

"Your
point being?"

He
sounded somewhat distracted, which had been her intent, and was her delight.

"That
a man may take his wife to bed in the middle of the afternoon and none raise so
much as an eyebrow. Obviously, Thankful, do keep up. Whatever did you think I
meant?"

Oh
yes, that vile poem had got under Thomazine Russell's skin. No pleasure or
profit in her darling's bed? She'd show them. Show him as well, the dear,
foolish man, not to take any notice of a troop of braying topers with more hair
than wit, the most of both being borrowed.

She
wondered if the Earl of Rochester, at the tender age of nineteen, knew how to
kiss a woman till her skin sang, or whether he considered his exalted company
sufficient pleasure. If Charles Sedley would take a maidservant's care over a
woman's disrobing, kissing each inch of her bare back as he unlaced her stays.
"Stiff as a cuirassier's breastplate, madam," Russell said
disapprovingly. "I do not care for such tightness.  It cannot be
healthy." And then kissed her just below her ribs, which tickled.

If
anyone had ever sat cross-legged on an unmade bed and traced the cross of hair
between any of the Merry Gang's nipples and down his belly, running her
fingertips over old scars and solid muscle.

She
doubted it, personally.

"Thomazine,"
Russell said sleepily.

She
gave a little sigh of pure pleasure. "Mm?"

"More
than a handful's a waste, tibber," he said, put his arm about her waist,
buried his face in her loose hair, and fell asleep.

52

It
had seemed like such a good idea at the time, right until someone had directed
him to the darkest, coldest corner of the great draughty dining room in the
company of the least liked, least popular men at His Majesty's court.

(Know
your place, Major Russell. This is your place in the world now. Bear it.)

She
looked tired, and pale, and very young, and he felt guilty that he had brought
her, but there it was.

Lord
Crediton was helping her to a further slice of chicken breast, which she didn't
want, and her eyes met Russell's across the frigid expanse of glittering tablecloth.
She looked as if she might cry, and he wanted, very much, to be at home at Four
Ashes with her. Safe. Not slinking around Whitehall, being fed chicken drowned
in sickly cream by some fledgling rake. One of the other things he loved about
Thomazine, had always loved about her, even when she was tiny, was her
essential
cleanness
. There was a greasy handprint on the glimmering
charcoal silk of her sleeve. He wondered, idly, if he ought to kill Crediton
for it. It was a temptation.

There
was a sharp crack over his knuckles, and he withdrew his simmering gaze from
the ill-deserving attentions of Lord Harry Crediton - who was stupid, but
amiable, like a slobbering puppy. "Your attention is wandering, Major
Russell," a cracked old voice said at his elbow, and he very deliberately
tucked some loose hair behind his ear so that the scars on his cheek showed
full in the unkind candlelight.

"On
the contrary, Lady Endsleigh. My attention is fixed exactly where it should
be." He glanced down at her. Not an edifying sight, the old harridan,
three inches thick in powder and rouge, and hung about with pearls the size of
duck-eggs. "On my wife."

She
chuckled. "So there
is
some blood in you, Major. Despite the
rumours."

"Rumour
is a lying jade. As ever."

"New-married,
then, I take it? Since we've not had the pleasure of your marred face at court
this six months and more."

"A
little more than a month, madam. I prefer not to discuss my marital affairs
with all and sundry."

"Heh,
hoity-toity, sir! You were keen enough to discuss your marital affairs when you
were tendering your resignation from the Army, young man. Very keen that all
and sundry might know you were leaving the business of the defence of the realm
to go scampering back to Buckinghamshire and get on with the serious business
of begetting some heirs, now the place is your own -" she cackled again.
"Well, God bless you both, Major Russell, for I declare you blush like a
maiden, so she must be doing you
some
good." She had dreadful
teeth, too, and he wasn't actually sure they were her own, for they seemed
somewhat too large and numerous for her withered mouth. Of all women, he should
have preferred to be trapped in a broom cupboard with the Castlemaine, who had
the advantage of being an
honest
whore, than with Kitty Endsleigh, who
was solicitous and affectionate and had wandering chicken-claws for hands, and
a marked partiality for vulnerable young men.

She
was kind, though, and he had been glad of her kindness, once, though perhaps
not as glad as she might have liked him to be. His gratitude had never gone as
far as sharing her bed - although there had been times when he'd been so
miserable and so lonely, in his first days on Monck's staff, that he would
have, if she'd asked him openly. "Looks like a nice girl, mind," she
said, following his gaze. "If you've got any sense, major, you'll get her
as far away from this sink as you can, get her bred, and keep her hands full
with managing a household and her belly full with nice rosy fat fair-haired babies."

He
dropped his eyes and said nothing, because he did like to maintain the illusion
that he was a stern and upright gentleman in charge of his own destiny, rather
than his wife's fond and rather foolish cavalier and no more in control of his
own household than a mayfly. Lady Endsleigh chuckled again. "I take it we
won't be seeing much of you, either, sir, when you go to become a turnip in the
country." And then she sighed, which was unexpected, and almost dislodged
her pearls. "There's not many will say it, major, but I'll miss you at
Whitehall, your funny ways. You're honest, and that's rare."

"
Too
honest," he said, and meant it, and she looked at him thoughtfully and for
the first time did not rattle her society-laugh, but simply looked.

"I
note you don't ask if I believe the tales, then, sir. Which I don't. There's a
lot of bloody fools that do, ain't there? Not the tales that you are a
turncoat, which is ludicrous, and nor yet the tales put about by that equally
rattle-pated ninny Fairmantle, that you are being groomed for execution by some
anonymous black-cloaked ne'er-do-well who seeks your downfall." She
snorted. "He over-eggs the pudding, that fool. If he would have the world
believe your innocence, he'd do better to keep his blabbing mouth shut, for having
him
bleat your innocence does you no favours, young man. What a world,
Major Russell, what a world we live in where a man is passed over for an excess
of honesty, and yet John Mennis, who is a delightful gentleman and an utterly
inadequate administrator, remains Controller of the Navy."

"No
one has ever suggested that Sir John is dishonest, madam," he said gently.

"No.
Well. An old fool, perhaps, but not dishonest, except by omission. Nonetheless.
You will be much missed, major, by those who value intelligence and plain
dealing. Which is to say, not many." She shot a glance of loathing across
the table at Crediton, presently endeavouring to force another morsel of
chicken between Thomazine's lips. "What in God's name possessed you to
leave that poor little maid sitting next to that one-man boarding party?"

"A
lack of alternative? What would you suggest, madam, that I challenge him to a
duel? Hardly, at this court. Nothing short of ravishment across the table would
shock this party - and that only if the wine were spilled."

She
nodded. "I believe you're right, sir. Perhaps I should follow your
example, and likewise rusticate. This dreadful place! The end of days, I swear
it! First the murders, and then the sweating sickness, and now the Dutch - I
swear, sir, damme if those of us who don't die of a fretting leprosy won't be
burned in our beds by those infernal Butterboxes, pox on 'em!"

"Ah?"
he said, only half-attending, watching Thomazine stiffly take a morsel of
chicken from Crediton's fork, followed by a grape from the man's greasy
fingers. "That would be a great grief to your family."

She
gave him a forlorn look across the table, and he was already half out of his
seat. "I must go to her. My poor girl, she is unwell."

Kitty
Endsleigh gave a filthy cackle of laughter. “She ain’t unwell, you ninny, no
more than women have been since Eve! Leave her be, and stop fussing, Russell!”

53

Thomazine
put her head against his shoulder and whimpered, and it was all he could do not
to pick her up in his arms and carry her from this hot, stifling, overstuffed
room, stinking of sweat and perfume and over-rich food growing cold untasted.
"Oh, husband," she murmured piteously, "I beg - take me hence,
lest I faint, and disgrace myself in such exalted company -"