Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (45 page)

Standing next to Jason, Peter, the solider, maintained an unflinchingly correct and straight-backed posture. His chiseled chin and clear green eyes spoke of discipline and determination. Flaming orange hair peeked out from beneath his wig. His face was covered with freckles, giving him a strangely boyish quality further contrasted by his uniform, a blood-red coat decorated with silver lace, and tight white breeches tucked into jet-black boots. He was wrapped in a campaign cloak of Mazarine blue whose deep rich exterior added to the somber effect. His leather helmet sported a scarlet plume from its brass crest. The helmet's black facing provided a distinct background for the skull-and-crossbones insignia worn by all members of the Seventeenth Light Dragoons.

From Jason's lips emerged a simple melody that broke the silence between him and his English friend.

“Writing something new?” Peter asked.

“Not really. I'm not sure where it comes from.” Perplexed, he tried to shrug it off. “One of those melodies that comes from … somewhere … and then sticks with you.”

“Jase, I swear that your tombstone will carry the inscription: ‘He died in the middle of a new melody!' Back home, when I had one of the loveliest ladies in all Londontown awaiting your company, you were holed up in your room with your bloody flutes and lutes—composing!”

“But I'm not composing, Peter. Just listening. Remembering, perhaps, but if I have heard it before, I can't figure out where.” Poignant and evocative, the seductive lilt carried him back to the hot summer evening when he'd brought Casey, one of his, father's favorite hounds, to Dr. Roy McClagan's farm beneath the high hill overlooking the Atlantic. Casey had been inexplicably dragging one hind foot for days, and while McClagan examined the dog in his study, Jase happened to glance into one of the side rooms and see Colleen.

He'd known her, of course, as everyone in Brandborough knew each other, and though the brightness of her eyes had attracted him he'd never seen her as more than an alert, inquisitive child who was forever asking questions about his music. Suddenly, though, his perception of her changed radically. Sitting before an oval-shaped mirror no larger than her hand and silently brushing her silken blond hair ever so slowly, ever so deliberately, her head fell back and dipped forward with each elongated stroke. Candlelight gave her skin the color of rich gold, soft and pure, and accented the amber color of her eyes. He was fascinated by her beauty, and though he knew he should turn away, he couldn't.

That she had seen him, too, was obvious, for the soft sway of her body was clearly calculated. Her calculations worked. When she rose from her chair to acknowledge his presence with a greeting and invite him to the porch, where they might view the star-filled summer sky, he was unable to refuse. Nor could he, minutes later, refuse her advance—or was it his?—when, under the silver light of a crescent moon, he felt her heart beating madly against his, felt her lips, moist and warm, felt … But her father's jubilant announcement that a long, sharp thorn embedded near Casey's spine, and undoubtedly pressing against a nerve, had been successfully removed, separated them with a start.

In the months that followed, they became friends. Five years younger than he, only fourteen at the time, she was amazingly well read for a country girl and could discuss William Shakespeare or Roger Bacon, Dante and Molière, and even Jason's favorite—a secret they shared between themselves—the French essayist Montaigne. Her interest in his music was gratifying, and she learned quickly the names of composers and, with his tutelage, the rudiments of reading music. If he had deeper feelings for her, he wasn't inclined to explore them. Rather, being careful to maintain their friendship on a strictly platonic plane, he looked upon her as a companion, and a younger companion at that. And it wasn't until the day of his departure for Europe that he'd tasted her lips again. Yet, suddenly, four years later, that final kiss, along with the first one, had come back to haunt him.

For Peter, the music led not to the past, but to the future. Two years earlier—already they were close friends—Jason had shown him a pair of miniature portraits he had received from his home. “My sisters,” he'd said, laying them on the table. “Were my descriptions apt?”

Why, he could not say, but Peter's heart had raced even as he effected a nonchalance he didn't feel. “Not at all. They're far prettier than your words indicated. Far prettier,” he drawled, indicating the first. “This would be, what's her name? Hope?”

“Aye. Hope Elaine. And the other's Joy Exceeding.”

Jason had spoken at length about his sisters, but nothing had prepared Peter for seeing the portrait of Joy Exceeding. She was, in a word, beautiful. Her face was thin and of a patrician cast, with a slight upturn to her nose. Her hair was similar to Jason's, light brown in color and gently waving. She was the second born, he remembered, and got her name from her mother's exceeding joy at the sight of a second girl. It made no sense whatsoever to him for she was certainly no more beautiful than many women he had known, but he was stricken, and from that moment on, though keeping his true feelings hidden for over a year, found it impossible to keep her from his thoughts.

And finally, he would meet her, see her in person, hear the sound of her voice. Each spin of the taffrail log brought him closer. How ironic that his first trip to the new world was to land him at Brandborough, the very home of his friend, and of Joy Exceeding. And how ironic, too, that the reinforcements he led were being sent to help subdue and secure the Carolinas, in direct contravention to everything Joy Exceeding's father, Ethan, believed. “You haven't forgotten your promise to introduce her to me,” Peter said aloud, suddenly breaking the silence between him and Jason.

“What?” Jason asked. “Oh, Joy. No. Of course not.”

“And your father … Damn it all! I can see it now. The English captain calls on the patriot's daughter. What a fine mess!”

“Perhaps you're right,” Jason said, tongue in cheek. “It might not be a very good idea—”

“Now wait a minute.” Peter laughed. “I've looked at her picture until I'm blue in the face, and read every word of her letters until I'm sure I know her. You can't go back on me now, old friend.”

“And so I shan't,” Jason said. His eyes met Peter's, and his hand gripped his arm in a firm clasp. “You have my word,” he promised solemnly. “And beyond that, you have my friendship.”

The sincerity in Jason's resonant, baritone voice was unquestionable. For the three and half years Peter had known him, he had proven to be a man of easy humor, gentle manners, and uncompromising honor. They had met at the home of Peter's maternal uncle, Sir Walpole Gatley, a distinguished harpsichordist, and, as Peter was an amateur violinist himself, they had struck up an immediate friendship.

The friendship had ripened with each passing day. Peter stood in awe of Jason's talent: Jason was Peter's apt pupil in the ways of a society new to him. Together often, their favorite hours were those they shared strolling along the Thames. On one such stroll, on the day after Jason had conducted his concerto for two violins at the Court of St. James—astoundingly, the king had stayed awake for the entire performance—Peter had seemed disturbed. “Doesn't it bother you at all,” he'd finally blurted out, “that your father can't be here to witness your success?”

Jason had laughed. “Father? My God, no. He's the last one I'd want here. The very notion that I'd conducted before the English monarch would appall him.”

“But he's the king!”

“You have to understand,” Jason had said gently. “My grandmother was a pirate—an incredible woman who any one of three kings tried, in vain, to hang. My grandfather, her husband, and for whom I was named, was a renegade Scottish nobleman who was outlawed and whose properties were confiscated by a king. With a father and mother like that, you can understand why my father doesn't hold much with kings.”

“But what's that have to do with music?”

“Your brother manages your family's estates and is a member of Parliament. What would your father have said if Charles had given up all that for music?” Jason had asked in return.

It was Peter's turn to laugh. “He wouldn't have said anything,” he chuckled. “He'd've either choked Charles—or choked on his own bile.”

The chimes of St. Paul's rang out over the London landscape. “Father enjoy's music,” Jason had gone on in the relative silence that followed, “but he considers my talent somewhat of a curse. Music might be tolerated as an avocation, but when it interferes with work, he becomes furious. Of more importance are cotton and tobacco—and shipbuilding these past few years. He's a businessman, you see, and Paxton business—and profits—comes before all else.”

“I've noticed that the colonists tend to be a wee bit tight-fisted when it comes to money,” Peter had replied dryly.

“That's not the point. Father feels that our holdings have been earned through the sweat of our brows, and must be protected. Against everyone, including kings.”

“I'll drink to that,” Jason had replied, just as relieved as his friend to quit the subject. “And the one best able to walk a straight line two hours from now pays for dinner after next Sunday's hunt.”

For all the satisfaction that their friendship brought, however, the sticky issue of politics and the American revolt could not be avoided entirely. One winter night, shortly after they'd met, Jason seemed unusually glum.

“You're acting distracted, old chap,” Peter had said, pulling up his collar against a freezing wind that nipped at his ears. “Something bothering you?”

“A letter from Father. This time he's irritated about the corn.”

“The corn?” Peter had asked, not understanding.

“Aye. They had a wet fall, there was mildew, and they didn't get the crop in on time. It's my fault, of course, since I wasn't there to help.”

Incredulous, Peter had stopped short. “Surely, old boy, you don't actually work in the fields yourself.”

“But of course I do. Or did,” Jason had said.

The very thought was appalling for one of an aristocractic family, and Peter said so. “I should've thought he'd have simply gone out and bought another slave or two. Surely—”

“Slave?” Jason had snapped with surprising anger. “No Paxton has
ever
owned another human being.”

“I only thought—”

“It's the freedom of the colored people who work our lands that enables us to compete so successfully. Free men work harder—that's one of the Paxton creeds.”

“So you're a proud Paxton, after all,” Peter had said, stepping back to regard this new aspect of his friend.

“I'm proud of the accomplishments of my forebears, if that's what you mean. I'm equally proud of our colony. You'd like Brandborough, Peter, and you'd be impressed with the cultural life of Charleston.”

“Charleston or Charles Town?” Peter had asked. “I was under the impression that the city was named for one of our illustrious sovereigns.”

“And so it was. But the locals pronounce it Charleston nonetheless.”

“Locals?” Peter had inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Or rebels?”

“Names change, Peter. Just like everything else.”

In the months that followed, though there were differences of opinion, the friendship grew. Jason studied hard, learned his way around the music world of London, and increased his reputation. Peter's father, under pressure from the crown, bought him a captaincy and outfitted a company for him to lead. Both men enjoyed the hunt, and they were superb riders and marksmen. Both, in the manner of their time for gentlemen, were avid readers and conversationalists, and they educated themselves in a wide range of disciplines. Each learned to respect, as well as like, the other. And when, after Jason's return from Italy, they learned that they were to sail on the same ship, both were intrigued as well as delighted: Peter because he had seen Jason live and work as a foreigner in England, and was curious to see what would become of his friend once he returned to his native soil; and Jason for exactly the opposite reasons.

Excitement rippled through the ship as the call came from the masthead, and a quarter-hour later America became a thin line of blue-green on the horizon. Word was sent below to Peter's men to prepare to disembark. Sailors rushed about polishing brightwork and greasing the anchor chair and capstan. Alert, the pungent smell of salt water assaulting their senses and the sea's fine spray refreshing them with a cool, pleasant mist, Jason and Peter stood at the rail and stared hungrily at the growing line of land.

“A hot day ashore,” Jason said finally, breaking the hypnotic melody that he couldn't get out of his mind. “Not too muggy, though, I shouldn't think.”

“Mosquitoes?” Peter asked, having heard too many exaggerated stories about the American variety.

“Shouldn't be too bad during the day, as long as the shore breeze keeps them in the swamps. Tonight, though …” Jason shrugged. “Who knows? You'd best be ready to sleep under your netting.”

The conversation seemed inane to both, but perfectly suited to relieve the growing tension that gripped them. “An American song, I gather?” Peter commented waspishly, tiring of it.

“I suppose so.”

“Based, of course, on your long-standing conviction that there really is some musical tradition in your homeland.”

The best of friends could argue when nerves were strung too tightly. “Why you insist on maintaining this skepticism, I'll never know, Peter. We'll see it shattered soon enough, though, mark my word. Tomorrow I'll take you on a tour of Brandborough, where you'll hear flower vendors selling their wares with charming songs. On the plantations, you'll hear workers sing of their toil and sorrow with—”