A Certain Latitude (28 page)

“I like to think that I could have fully seduced you, my dear, given time.” That was the old March, dry, ironic. “I am grateful for what you and I have had. Believe me, this news of your parentage does not alter my heart. How could it? But I shall not bore you with any protestations of my love. I grieve only that we must part. Go make your farewells to Clarissa. My daughter is quite fond of you too, although I am not so perverse that I would attempt to arrange a match between you and her.”

“Oh, I think she could do better than the youngest son of an earl. And certainly better than the bastard, part Negro son of an earl.”

“You should not be shamed by your origins,” March said.

But March did not disagree.

They dined quietly these days, the occasions on which March joined them becoming more infrequent. Tonight Clarissa sat alone in the drawing room, her embroidery laid aside. Celia was still dressing, dawdling and reluctant to abandon a novel she had started to read.

Dinner, it appeared, would be late anyway tonight, following some fracas in the kitchen.

Masculine boots thudded outside on the verandah, accompanied by the scent of a cheroot.

“Allen!” She sprang to her feet and flung open the French doors. “I regret March is indisposed still, but I am sure he will receive you.”

He took her hand. “I have spoken with him already. Will you walk with me?”

They strolled out together into the garden. He carried the scents of horse and leather and sweat, and his skin was darkened by the sun.

“Is all well with you?” she asked.

He started at the commonplace enquiry. “Well enough. I have come to tell you that I am returning to England in a very few days, at my father’s request. In view of some recent events, I—” he hesitated and braced his shoulders.

“But you’ve barely arrived!”

He nodded. “My father and I think it best.”

Had his father discovered the truth of his relationship with March and herself?

“I am sorry indeed to see you go,” she said, matching his formal tone. “Will you dine with me and Celia tonight?”

“I will be glad to,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “What will you do, Clarissa? It is as well March has provided for you. He does not look well.”

“I think he will not live long,” she said. “But I have a contract with him. I shall not ask to be released. Is that what you wanted to know?”

Somber, he shook his head and tapped pungent ash onto the soil of a flowerbed.

Dinner was served late, and Clarissa was glad to see Allen’s mood improve, despite the sadness of this last evening together. Celia responded to his usual teasing affection with giggles, but shed a few tears at the news of his departure.

“I daresay I’ll see you in London before long,” Allen said. “Where else would your father send such a beauty to husband-hunt after you’ve broken the hearts of all the officers in St. James?” He cracked a nut for her and handed her the kernels. “I’m sure you could hold your own in any polite English drawing room, thanks to Miss Onslowe’s tutelage.”

“I can speak French now,” Celia said.

“Vraiment? C’est formidable, ma’amselle. Dits moi, quel est ton roman préféré dans cette langue?”

“What he say?” Celia said.

“Pray do not tease her, Mr. Pendale. He asks you which your favorite novel is in French, just to provoke you.” She smiled at Celia. “I daresay the next time we all meet, you will chatter away in French like a native.”

She did not say, and neither did Celia seem to realize, that the next time they all met their number would not include March.

The evening passed pleasantly, Clarissa accompanying Celia in a song at the pianoforte after dinner, and they played cards as they drank tea, Allen allowing Celia to win. When it grew late, Allen announced he must leave and kissed Celia’s cheek as though she were a younger sister. Clarissa’s eyes filled with tears as Celia wept and Allen promised he would write to March to let him and his daughter know of his safe arrival in England.

“Will you walk with me in the garden?” Clarissa asked when Celia had gone upstairs to bed.

“Surely.” He took her arm and led her outside, lighting a cheroot at a candle to keep insects at bay.

They strolled in the fragrant darkness together, Allen subdued and quiet. So they were to part at last, with much left unsaid. Would the chains of love and desire be finally broken? She doubted they would all three meet again, given March’s condition.

He paused. “Listen.”

She listened carefully and heard beyond the buzz of night insects a distant, rhythmic thrum. “What is that?”

“Drums. It’s how the slaves talk to each other, as they do in Africa.”

She shivered. The sound was mysterious, foreign. She wondered if any of the slaves would explain it, if she could persuade another one of the household to talk to her.

“Allen.” She took his hand. “I must speak of this. I regret that I have injured you. Please tell me you forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive.”

“Even though I chose March rather than you?”

He puffed at his cheroot and spoke from behind a cloud of smoke. “I offered you all I could. He offered more. And you love him.”

“Then let me offer you this. A farewell.” She led him into the quiet dark house and up the stairs to her bedchamber where the moonlight played on the floor, patchy and shifting with the movement of trees outside.

Clarissa tried not to remember the only other time they’d been together in this room, the unsatisfactory, angry coupling. They’d parted then, too.

He dropped his coat onto the floor and nodded at a wooden box atop the chest-of-drawers. “More jewels?” Said without rancor or bitterness.

“Not quite.” She opened the box. “On March’s orders. Finch has taught me and Celia how to load and shoot in case we are ever in danger.”

He lifted a pistol from the box, examining it with the ferocious intensity most men seemed to assume when looking at a weapon. “Very nice. Are you a good shot?”

“Tolerable. I don’t know if I could shoot someone, though. Particularly a slave.” She took the pistol from his hand and laid it into its velvet surround. “I hope I never have to.”

She unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt and rubbed her face against the curl of hair exposed at the open placket. So dear and familiar, his touch on her as he unfastened her gown and fumbled with drawstrings and laces. The last time, the last chance to touch him, to offer him comfort and pleasure, because she could not love him as he loved her.

“I shall never forget you,” he said and touched her breast with a reverence that was new to them both.

“And I you.” She traced the hair on his chest and belly, stroked his cock and arse the way he had taught her, took him in her mouth and heard his familiar growl of arousal. This was no place for pretense or artifice, just a man and a woman who desired each other and knew how to please. He filled her, touched her where she needed, and sent her into a dizzying spin of pleasure.

He came soon after, having turned onto his back so she could take her pleasure astride him, and she thought she saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes. When he called out her name, it was a cry of pleasure and despair.

“No tears,” he said, raising a hand to wipe wetness from her own eyes. She hadn’t realized she wept too.

She stroked the familiar tangle of dark hair on his chest. “Is there something that troubles you, Allen? Something other than our parting?”

He shook his head. “No.” He paused. “Only this. You told me once you could not love me because I did not know who I am. What if I had found out what I am?” He placed a finger on her lips before she could answer. “No. It’s too late, isn’t it?”

Clarissa drew his head to hers. She could not answer any other way.

The sky was a hushed violet, the first light appearing, as Allen left Clarissa and headed for the stable where he had left his horse. As he entered the stable yard, a dark form emerged from the shadows.

“Pendale!”

He turned in surprise and apprehension. “What the devil do you want, Blight?”

Blight strolled forward. He carried his whip, coiled lightly over one arm, a cheroot clamped between his teeth. “I’m reclaiming some property of the estate. Your choice, Pendale—you may accompany me quietly, or these gentlemen will persuade you to be docile.”

A clanking sound came from the shadows. Two large, man-shaped shadows separated themselves from the darkness and moved toward Allen—he saw the gleam of their eyes and teeth, the gleam of metal. Castor and Pollux, Blight’s muscle-bound assistants, carried shackles and ropes.

“What the devil are you up to?” Allen demanded. A terrible, cold fear gripped him.

One of them—he couldn’t tell Castor or Pollux from each other—laid a large hand on his arm.

Allen stepped back, outraged. “Take your hands off me!”

“Chain him up, boys,” Blight said in a casual sort of tone.

“The devil you will!” Allen dodged away, and kicked his assailant hard on the kneecap. The man staggered back, cursing. “You’ll have Lemarchand to answer to for this.”

Blight laughed. “Indeed? Who do you think gave me my orders?”

Something lashed out, like the flight of a bird through the air, a bird that clawed the side of his face and eyebrow. He clutched in terror at his face fearing blindness, before he shook the blood off and prepared to defend himself. Castor and Pollux advanced on him, fists like dark lumps of meat.

Blight removed his cheroot from his mouth. “Your choice, Pendale.”

“I’ll see you in hell!”

Blight nodded to Castor and Pollux.

Darkness. A pain in his shoulders, something hard and gritty beneath him, and the taste of dried blood in his mouth. He couldn’t move—not his arms, at any rate—was he dead? Or blind? Probably not dead. He could smell the stink of human waste and hear the whine of a mosquito and the chitter and scratch of rats.

He stretched his legs out cautiously. Grit and sharp things that were probably stones—and he could feel them so distinctly because he was stark naked. Other hurts began to make themselves known, tender areas on his face and ribs, and the devil of a headache.

Castor and Pollux had done a thorough job.

Now he remembered. March had betrayed him. March, who had once begged for Allen’s love, whom Allen had come to care for in a way he didn’t quite understand.

He moved his head and shoulders and was rewarded with a burst of nausea that left him weak and sweating. Something clanked. His arms were manacled behind his back, the iron already rubbing his wrists raw, a small and humiliating pain. Something scrabbled in the dirt behind his back, and he lunged out of the way—of course, the rats could smell his blood—and crashed into what felt like a stone wall.

Now he knew where he was—the slave dungeon on March’s estate, where disobedient slaves were held captive for days at a time. No one would hear him if he shouted, or come to help him if he did. No one would think of looking here for the Hon. Allen Pendale, youngest son of the Earl of Pendale.

He could die in this place of thirst and despair, a nameless slave.

A bar of light glowed gold, illuminating an inch or so of dirt and stones—daylight at the crack beneath the door. Because Allen felt he must, he crawled over to the door and thudded his shoulder against solid wood that did not yield.

Think,
he urged himself
. Keep alive. Keep those damned rats away. Don’t sleep or they’ll eat you alive. Don’t think about the cramps in your shoulders, or all the bruises and cuts you’ve doubtless suffered, and particularly don’t think about how thirsty you are.

Cool beer in a pewter mug, handed to you by a woman in a smoky kitchen, a woman who shares your hands and eyes. The purl and bubble of a small brownish stream edged with marsh willow, sedge and meadow rue in the English countryside. Red wine shared mouth to mouth with Clarissa, licked from her breasts and belly.

None of that. You’re not thirsty. Keep awake.

With infinite, delicate slowness, the light beneath the door faded to gray and then disappeared, leaving him in total darkness. He had endured one day.

You’re not thirsty. Keep awake
.

If he slept, the rats were kind enough to wake him with their teeth.

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee.

Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily.

He was dying, or would die soon in the stifling, cruel heat.

My heart is smitten, and withered like grass
.

When the gap beneath the door became visible once more, he heard the thump of hoof beats outside and, for a moment, thought rescue had come, before he recognized Blight’s voice easing his mount to a halt.

The harsh metallic sound of the bolt being drawn back filled Allen with unreasonable hope.

Blight, whip in hand, leaned from the mule’s back and regarded him with a sneer. He reached for the cropper of the saddle and tossed something toward Allen.

Water. Allen caught the scent of it, the sweetest smell in the world, and saw an arc of precious silver in the air before the leather bottle landed and spilled its contents into the dirt. Allen flung himself at the bottle, getting a precious mouthful before it soaked away. Enough water, at any rate, to moisten his mouth and rasp a stream of obscenities at Blight.

The door slammed shut, the sound of the bolt shoved home terrifyingly loud.

The bar of light brightened and later, much later, began to dim again.

“Not so much of a gentleman, now, are you?” Blight said.

Allen blinked at the light. A lantern.

“Fuck you, Blight,” he said, or tried to say. His mouth was too dry, his lips cracked and bleeding, to say anything.

Someone, either Castor or Pollux, hauled him to his feet. His knees buckled and he fell down, but outside, thank God, where he could see the last flare of the setting sun. He lay on coarse clumps of grass, wondering what Blight had in store for him next, but not caring. Not any more, now he’d seen the sky.