HF - 03 - The Devil's Own (29 page)

She turned away from him, almost violently, to signify the conversation was at an end. So now she would have me kill a man, he thought, no doubt just to prove to herself that I am capable of that. Sometimes he almost hated her, a quick eruption of temper, which he knew was mainly the result of her inexpressible arrogance. But did she not only wish that he would show a similar awareness of his own power and superiority? Was that unreasonable in a woman, and such a woman, born to such power and such dominance? And would he not be a fool to risk her disrespect, when her love was all that sustained him?

And besides, how much was he wrapped up in the words, her love. Already, twenty-one unforgettable nights, when only exhausted sleep had separated their mouths, their bodies, their very hearts. He had but to think of her, of her legs and her belly, of her ever-damp love forest, of her swelling breasts, of her always-hard nipples, of her ever-welcoming lips, and his love was renewed, again and again and again.

He leaned across the seat and picked up her hand. Her head started to turn and then checked.

'Be sure, my darling, darling Marguerite,' he promised. 'No one shall ever again offer you the slightest insult, whether direct, or implied, or through your husband. At least in my hearing or to my knowledge.'

Now her head did turn, and she smiled at him. 'You are the best and truest of men, dear Kit. I knew I had but to mention the matter to have you understand.' She blew him a kiss. 'Now let us purchase ourselves some lusty blacks.'

For they had arrived in St John's, and were already
rumbling down the main street, bringing people out of shop doorways and to their windows, for there were not that many carriages in Antigua. And once the couple were identified, the spectators grew. Captain Hilton and his bride. Or would it be more correct to say, Mistress Hilton and her husband, Kit wondered? But then, she had jus
t taught him the way to alter th
eir positions. It was a way he knew well, even if he had not thought to pursue it in these delightful surroundings. But was any aspect of life any different to any other?

George Frederick pulled on the reins, and Henry Bruce came round to release the steps and hold the door for his mistress. They were outside the only building in town which approximated the Ice House in size, and already a crowd was gathered at the steps, gossiping and exchanging views, and prospects for the sale as well, for if the planters came to buy in batches from ten to fifty, there were invariably some slaves who would be cast aside for a minor defect, and these would be sold cheaply; it remained always the ambition of the poor whites to own at least one black, if only to establish a superiority over their fellows.

But they separated into two sides of a lane quickly enough, nodding and touching their hats to Mistress Hilton, and winking and grinning at Kit, whom they had known in less prosperous days. He prayed that there would be no ribald comment, lest Marguerite should feel that she was being insulted, but this day the remarks were confined to congratulations.

The door closed behind them, and they were in a vast warehouse, well enough lit by great skylights in the roof, and large enough to permit the air to circulate from the jalousied shutters over the lower windows, but yet containing to an incredibly distressing degree the scent of humanity, anxious, lustful, and more than anything else, afraid. Already there were more than a dozen planters here, and already the slaves were grouped at the far end, an entire shipload of them, perhaps two hundred and fifty from an original cargo of four hundred, Kit realized with a turning belly. They gazed about themselves in fear and amazement, happy enough at the moment to be off the dread ship, where they would have been confined for several weeks like living corpses already in their coffins, and fortified as well by the swallow of rum which would have been given to each of them before entering the auction hall.

'Marguerite, how good to see you at an auction.' Edward Chester, as bustlingly exuberant as ever. 'Can this mean that you are once more going to be seen socially? My word, Kit, old fellow, but should you have accomplished that miracle, you will be the most popular fellow in Antigua.'

'Am I not already?' Kit asked, quietly.

Chester, bending over Marguerite's hand, straightened and frowned. Marguerite also frowned, for just a moment, and then gave a quick and delighted smile.

'Indeed, you shall see me socially, Edward,' she said. 'If only for a short while.' She stepped round him and made her way towards the blacks.

Chester removed his tricorne to scratch the back of his close-cropped head. 'Now what the devil did she mean by that?'

'I should ask her, old fellow,' Kit said. 'Whenever she can spare you a moment.'

'The devil,' Chester said. 'A month's bedding that gorgeous creature has changed your stride, by God.'

'By God, it has,' Kit agreed. 'And you'd do well to keep a civil tongue in your head, dear Edward, or be sure I shall twist it out for you.'

He followed his wife. By Christ, had that been Christopher Hilton speaking? By Christ, how Jean would laugh. If he still lived. Naught had been heard of that carefree buccaneer in a year. But Daniel Parke would also laugh, with sheer delight. And Agrippa? Or Lilian Christianssen? He checked, frowning. And then squared his shoulders, and walked on. Was he then to undertake his every action in fear or desire of approbation or criticism? There was only one person in the entire world that Kit Hilton needed to please, and that was no hardship.

'Stand back. Stand back.' The auctioneer was snapping at the men who had quickly gathered about the only lady in the room. 'Give Mrs Templeton space.'

Marguerite all but froze him with a stare. 'Mrs Hilton, Darring. And by God if you forget again you'll have no more of my business.'

'My apologies, Mrs Hilton. My apologies. I am such a

thoughtless fellow. And the Captain is here as well. Good morning, Captain Hilton. Good morning to you.'

'And to you, Darring.' Kit leaned on his cane and watched Marguerite step up to the blacks.

'This fellow,' she said, regarding a large young man, who rolled his eyes as he gazed at what must have been the most splendid apparition he had ever seen. And then jerked as Marguerite poked him in the belly with her cane. But his breathing remained even. 'Your mouth, man, open your mouth,' she said, slapping him lightly on the cheek with the cane. His jaw dropped open, and he pulled back his lips to reveal a splendid set of teeth.

'He's a right buck, Mrs Hilton,' Darring said anxiously. 'You'll find no defects in him.'

'No doubt,' Marguerite agreed. But she intended to be sure for herself. The top of the cane lightly touched the man's penis, to jerk away at the first reaction. 'Aye. He seems fit enough. Now what of that woman?' She moved along the line, to repeat the careless yet knowledgeable examination, and Kit felt his belly roll some more. Suddenly the heat and the stench were oppressive. And he was no more than a spectator, here. Marguerite needed none of his assistance in choosing her slaves.

He walked to the back of the room, and thence on to the steps outside.

'Why, Kit,' Philip Warner said. The Deputy Governor had just arrived. 'Can you find nothing suitable?'

'I am afraid as yet I lack the experience to make a decision either way, sir,' Kit said. 'But Marguerite seems to find them much to her requirements.'

'Marguerite, here,' Philip cried. 'By God, that is good news. You'll excuse me.' He hurried through the door.

'Too much for your stomach, eh, Captain Hilton?' Dutton asked, dismounting from his horse and giving the reins to the slave who had ridden in with him. 'Aye, a slave auction is not the prettiest of occasions.'

The crowd outside the auction house had not diminished, and many were grinning. In sympathy or with contempt? But it would not have mattered which. Because how angry Kit was, on a sudden. With Dutton? H
ardly. With Marguerite, for
being able to treat other human beings, however inferior, as lumps of flesh? Or with himself, for loving her at all? For knowing that his love, allied to his ambition, would keep him at her side, always?

But Dutton was here, and Dutton had a considerable history of sly contempt as regards his new master, and Dutton was the man Marguerite had spoken of, in the carriage.

Kit swept his hand, up from the thigh, and backwards, slashing across the overseer's face, cutting his lip and bringing blood smarting to his chin, sending him reeling across the step and to the earth three feet below, with a jar which all but knocked the breath from his body.

His gasp was scarcely louder than that of the assembly. They gazed from the fallen man to Kit, and back again in utter consternation.

'You'd do best to keep a civil tongue in your head, Dutton, when addressing me in the future,' Kit said, and turned away. He walked up the street, in the direction of the harbour, and the ships, and the breeze, and the life for which he had been intended, and heard a sudden shout.

He stopped, and turned. Dutton had scrambled to his feet and pulled from its scabbard the double-barrelled blunderbuss which always rested by his saddle. Now he uttered a bellow of rage, and came down the dusty road, shouldering people apart, and none would make a move to stop him. This was overseer against master, but also planter, of however inferior a species, against buccaneer. And now the shouts and the noise had brought even more people on to the street, and filled the windows, and the doorway of the auction house itself. But for Kit there was only Dutton, slowing now, trying to control his breathing, the firearm thrust forward, the muzzle moving from side to side. There could be no mistaking his intention; his face was deep red, and his eyes stared.

'Roll me in the street, by God,' he said. 'Roll me in the street, you pirating bastard. You bitch's litter. I'll blow you into little bits.'

He was thirty feet away, feet braced as he brought up the blunderbuss. 'Or would you like to start running?' he invited.

It occurred to Kit that he was about to die. That he had no choice. To run from Dutton would mean the end of his life,
as Christopher Hilton of Green Grove, just as much as if he stood here and took the charge. But to die, at this moment, when life was opening so entrancingly in front of him ... 'Kit.'

He half turned his head. Agrippa stood on the side of the street not twenty feet away, and held a pistol. Now he tossed the weapon through the air in a gentle parabola. Kit leapt to one side, and the blunderbuss exploded. The noise was tremendous, and a stinging pain in his left arm told him that at least one of the pellets had struck home.

'Fight me, would you, scum,' Dutton shouted, turning and sighting again, with his undischarged barrel looming large and round and deadly.

But Kit had reached the pistol, scooped it up, turned, and sighted all in a single movement, as he and Jean had practised
so
often in their youths. And as the pistol came into line with Dutton's body, long before the overseer could fire a second time, it had exploded. The bang of the blunderbuss followed half a second later, but Dutton was already dead and his muzzle was pointing aimlessly at the sky.

The sound of the three shots continued to echo over the houses, only slowly fading, while an immense hush clamped on the street and the town itself.

Agrippa was first to speak. 'By Christ,' he said. 'You have lost none of your skill.'

'And yet it was a lucky shot,' Kit muttered, and looked at the blood trailing down his sleeve.

The crowd surged forward, to stand around the dead man and stare at him in horror, to gaze at Kit in wonderment.

'Did you see that?' they asked each other. 'A single shot, fired without a proper stance? Man, did you see that?'

Did you see that? Kit gazed over their heads at Lilian, standing on the steps of her father's house, staring at him with a stricken expression. But surely she had been looking from the start, and seen that he had fired in self-defence, that it had been his life or Dutton's, that Dutton had been out of his mind with anger. If she did not know these things, then must she be convinced of their truth.

He stepped towards her, and was checked by the voice behind him.

'Kit. Kit? Oh, my God, you are wounded.' Marguerite touched his arm, allowed the blood to dribble over her glove. 'We must have you back to the plantation.' She pulled the skirt of her gown up, and ripped a length from her petticoat, while the onlookers gaped, and tied the linen round the wound. 'Oh, Kit, what a
man
you are.'

He looked down at her. 'I but obeyed your instructions. I had not expected it to go this far.'

Her head came up as she looked at him. 'I saw the shot,' she said. 'I reached the doorway as you fired. I have seen nothing like that in my life. No one on this island can have ever seen that.'

'And suppose I told you that it was no more than luck? I took no proper aim. I but wished to make him miss a second time, so that I could close with him.'