Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (54 page)

“This cousin of yours: he may not inherit the title… while you live,”

Theodore sighed as he answered his own question. “You do believe your father sent you here to be rid of you.”

I thought on it. “I did not wish to at first, but as time has passed and I have viewed matters more clearly, or perhaps rather from a different perspective, what was once merely a cynical and passing thought has become a thing I put faith in, aye.”

“What brought about your change in perspective?” he asked.

“Experiencing love, or rather, experiencing being loved by another. It was a thing I thought I knew, but prior to Gaston I truly knew nothing of it.”

“You know you will never inherit,” he said sadly.

It was not a question, and yet I was compelled to consider an answer. He was correct: it was not a question, despite all hope Gaston might hold, it was a thing I had long known.

“Nay, I will not.”

“Then why…?” he asked.

“Because Gaston places value upon it, and because, as you have always been quick to note, my title and the promise of my future inheritance is coin in many realms. And in truth, there are times when I still hold some forlorn hope that… my damned father might find value in me someday.”

That last had been a thing it pained me to admit, and I found myself wrought with emotion. I stopped and turned to watch what I could see of the sunset over the buildings.

Theodore put a clumsy arm on my shoulder and patted me self-consciously. I chuckled mirthlessly.

“Might I ask, were you loved as a child?” I asked.

“Aye, I believe I was,” he said. “I am the oldest son of four children.

My father was a banker, and he was very proud to send me to the university. My mother was loving, and though we had servants, she always cared for us. They are dead now, along with my brother. My sisters married well and have comfortable lives. I would not have remained here if my parents had not passed before I left England.”

“You are a very lucky man,” I said, “and a tribute to your parents.”

He smiled. “They would be pleased to hear you say so, as I am.

Thank you. And aye, I know I have been blessed with good fortune. But I feel the most important lesson I learned from them was that one must work for anything one values.”

“Ah, I have learned that is very true,” I sighed. “That is the problem with men such as my father; they truly need work at nothing to have more than almost all others. And then they have ambition which spurs them higher still, to stand upon the backs of others and scrabble at one another. They are wolves: all hunger and teeth. I thank the Gods I am not like them; though, I labored from the misconception over much of my life that I should have been, that I was lacking in some capacity because I was not as they are. Gaston put that to rights, too.”

“I see even more why you love him,” he said thoughtfully. “You have a good soul, and someone must have done well with you in your youth, as you grew to be a good man despite your father,” he said kindly.

“Aye, the Mister Rucker that arrived with my sister can be blamed for much of it. He was my tutor, and he filled my head with many a liberal thought. My father would have hanged him if he had known half of what Rucker taught me.”

Theodore chuckled. “I will now regard the man in a different light.”

A strange new thought occurred to me. “I will have him teach my children. They will not be raised by wolves. I would rather they were raised as you were.”

He smiled. “I feel you will need to keep them from their dam if it is to be Miss Barclay.”

“She vows she wants little to do with them and… Damn, she requested I provide a wet nurse. Is that possible here with women so scarce?”

“It can be arranged.” He sighed and shrugged. “Many now turn to Negresses.”

“I take no issue with that.”

“I did not think you would.” He smiled and began to steer me toward the church again.

The good pastor was indeed pleased to see us despite the hour.

He expressed great honor in being able to perform my ceremony in the afternoon. I made the necessary donation, and then he expressed concern over not having met me before. Theodore explained that I was a buccaneer as well as a Lord, and the man quickly decided to keep the money and ask for nothing more.

I left Theodore at his home, and walked alone to mine. I was plagued by visions of little blond tots sitting at desks listening with rapt attention to Rucker’s recounting of Aesop’s fables.

Upon entering the house, I was greeted by the very real vision of Gaston sitting on one side of the table regarding Striker and Sarah with alarm. My friend and sister were writing on the wall with charcoal: lists and notes of cargos and costs and things I could not decipher. Agnes was sitting at the other end of the table sketching. Other than Gaston, none seemed to take note of my entrance.

I sat next to him at the table and poured myself a cup of wine.

“The wedding is set for tomorrow afternoon,” I said quietly in French.

“Your sister is a wolf,” Gaston whispered back.

“I am not surprised, or perhaps I am. How do you mean?” I asked.

“She is a kind soul; but to her, sheep are to be eaten, not shepherded.”

“Ah,” I sighed, “she did not receive Rucker’s liberal instruction as I did, nor has she traveled and seen other than her own kind. She has learned at my father’s knee.”

I looked about. “Where is Pete?”

Gaston shook his head sadly. “He is displeased and playing with the dogs. I would be with him, but I thought it best not to leave them alone.”

I watched Striker and Sarah argue over the costs associated with a voyage to Boston, Striker from the standpoint of pessimism and knowing how much free men required to make such a voyage, and Sarah from the cynical ground of profit verses unnecessary expense.

Gaston was correct: Sarah was a wolf in that regard. But I found what I saw and not what I heard to be of far graver import. Despite arguing, or perhaps because of it, Striker and Sarah were deeply smitten with one another.

“This is a disaster in the making,” I muttered.

“Oui,” Gaston breathed.

He turned to me with a curious look. “Is this how we first appeared to others?”

A smile spread across my lips as I realized he was right. “Oui, I think so.”“Will, someone is going to be hurt,” he said seriously.

That tore the smile away. I sighed. “Oui. We must mitigate what we can.”

“I am going to play with puppies now,” he said carefully.

“I am going to prize Sarah out of here and return her to the King’s House.”

“That would be wise.” He slipped into the back room.

I cleared my throat loudly. When that did not get their attention, I flung my empty cup at Striker, who caught it.

“What?” he asked.

“I need to return Sarah to the King’s House, and inform Miss Barclay’s people as to the time of the ceremony tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Sarah said, and sighed heavily. She turned away and busied herself cleaning charcoal from her fingers.

Striker appeared crestfallen.

I mouthed to him, “Pete.”

His eyes widened and he cast about.

I pointed at the next room.

He swore silently.

I mouthed, “I love you as a brother.”

He frowned and turned to Sarah, who was now admiring Agnes’

handiwork. “Excuse us, ladies,” he said, and then he was hauling me to my feet and out the front door.

“Will…” he gasped once the door was closed behind us.

I chuckled. “I know. I am not blind. If another were not involved I would be pleased to have you court her, as I would be honored to have you as a brother-in-law if she would accept you.”

He stared at me with incredulity and whispered with such force he might as well not have bothered trying to keep his voice down. “Truly.

Will, I’m a pirate. She’s an Earl’s daughter.”

I shook my head. “My father is a bastard by design and you are an honest man in your own way. I feel you could honor her intelligence and…”

“My God, Will, she is smart and she knows… and, and, she’s bloody beautiful. Damn it, Will, and… And good God, Pete is going to fucking kill me.”

He punched the wall with frustration.

I winced in sympathy. “He will if you do not deal with the matter now. Go and speak with him. Gaston and I will take Sarah to the King’s House.”

He grabbed my shoulders. “Truly, if she would have me I could marry her?”

“I do not see why not. I am sure my father would have much to say on the matter, but I do not know if she will put any stock in that. I will talk to her and determine her thoughts. Of course, if my father is totally displeased, he could try and have her widowed or force her to annul the marriage but…” I shrugged.

He had released me and was now staring at the door with his arms tightly crossed as if he embraced himself.

“I want this, Will,” he whispered. “Pete has to understand.”

“You will have to make him. Then he will have to choose between staying with you while you are married, or leaving you to her.”

“I don’t want to lose him,” he whispered.

I shook my head. “Choose what is most important to you.”

He stood there indecisively for a moment, and then turned and hopped over the gate beside the house to go to the back door.

I went in the front door. Sarah was alone in the room, perusing Agnes’ sketchbook.

I heard Striker enter through the back door and saying cheerily,

“Well, it looks like we might have an agent to put the Bard’s plans into action while we rove.”

Sarah looked up and met my gaze. Her smile was sad, and she turned Agnes’ sketchbook toward me to display a number of quick sketches of herself.

I sighed and asked quietly, “Where is Agnes?”

“She went to fetch a few things,” she whispered in return. “She wishes to spend the night at the King’s House with me.”

I shook my head. “You might not realize, but…”

She shook her head. “I am not blind. I will endeavor not to hurt her feelings. I am already causing enough trouble elsewhere.”

She turned the page in the book to reveal a beautiful portrait of a very pensive Pete.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I did not mean… It is just… And I would not have thought he would be… as he is with me… but…”

“I know,” I said. “He is as smitten with you as you appear to be with him.”

Her breathe caught at that and hope suffused her features. “Truly?”

I sighed and was nearly overcome with the urge to pound my head against a wall.

“It is complicated,” I said calmly. “There…”

Agnes came skipping down the stairs before I could say more. She paused upon seeing me.

“Are you ready?” I asked her pleasantly.

She nodded, and Sarah did as well.

I stepped past Agnes to the passage to the back room, and found the three of them silent and sitting with their backs to separate walls.

Gaston looked up at me with a sad and resigned sigh and a large puppy cradled in his arms; Pete was a seething pool of anger surrounded by sleeping dogs; and Striker sat alone, staring at the ceiling with a pained and frustrated expression.

“I am going to escort the ladies to the King’s House. Do you wish to accompany me?” I asked Gaston.

He nodded solemnly and deposited his burden near the others.

Neither Striker nor Pete looked at us as we left.

Sarah fell in step beside me, with Gaston and Agnes behind us. I was not sure what I would say to Sarah, but thankfully she relieved me of that concern as soon as we were past the front door.

“I did not mean for things to progress as they did,” she said quickly, before continuing in a more thoughtful manner. “I do not know if I explained much of… It matters not. I will explain now. Prior to Shane’s wooing me, I thought I would be a spinster. I felt I would be content with books and what little business Father allowed me to do. I would stay in the manor, and, as I thought it unlikely you would return alive, I was sure Father would one day pass, and Shane would be his heir perhaps and someday marry, and I would be this curious figure living in that house until I died. There were times when such thoughts made me quite sad, but for the most part, I did not choose to dwell upon them. I told myself I did not wish to marry, as I did not have any interest in living that sort of life. But in truth, it was merely because I felt no man would want me as I am, and I was determined I would not become that which they did want for a wife even if I could.

“And then Shane courted me and awakened all those womanly desires.” She sighed.

She continued after a pause. “I have spent a great deal of my life ruminating on all manner of things; and as you well know, a sea voyage is a particularly fertile time for rumination. And so, in the figurative wake of the events of that night, I spent a great deal of our journey here watching the literal wake of our passing and thinking. I came to several conclusions: the first being that Father’s expectation would no longer be the arbiter of my fate; the second being that here, where women are somewhat rarer flowers, I might be a desirable bud and not just a pale bloom in a busy arrangement; and the third being that I should cease being a dormouse and have a little ambition about those things I desired.”

She stopped and turned to me. “That is why I was initially flirtatious with Mister Striker. In truth, Will, based upon what you said in your letter I did not think he would respond as he did.”

I chuckled sadly. “Striker has been with Pete for over ten years, but it is happenstance that drew them together, not mutual lust. Striker favors women quite heartily. He had a wife and child once when he was very young. They died before he came here. He wishes to have children again, now that he is a man and no longer a boy. For the most part he ignores such longings, I feel, because… Well because Pete hates women and Pete is an excellent matelot for a man with Striker’s life, and because he loves Pete. But… Talk of my marrying and producing children has stirred such things within him again, and then you appeared…”

“Oh Lord,” she sighed.

“Are you truly enamored with him, or is it just that he is an attractive man who showed you attention?”