The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (30 page)

He decided to play along with it. ‘It was indeed the Durrants’,’ he told her. ‘But they weren’t too good at being planters, so they mortgaged the place to the hilt, and it ended up with old Addison Traherne. A couple of decades later I bought it.’

‘Why?’

‘Why did I buy it?’

She nodded.

He hesitated. He didn’t want to mention Ainsley. ‘It was cheap,’ he said. ‘It had been a ruin for twenty-four years.’

‘Why in ruins?’

By now he was convinced that this wasn’t small-talk. Beneath the generalities she had more personal concerns. He longed to know what they were. And he had the sense, too, that she was circling some taboo subject; some question that she wanted to ask. ‘Oh,’ he said lightly, ‘the usual story. The price of sugar collapsed and the slaves were freed.’

She gave a slow nod. ‘And you live there on your own?’

‘Yes. Well. I have a cook, and a stable boy.’

Another nod. ‘And you love it there.’

‘Yes.’ He frowned. ‘How did you know that?’

She threw him a glance. ‘It’s not hard to tell.’

They were silent. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you ask me what you really want to ask?’

Again she flicked him a glance. Then she turned and gazed at the distant lights of the steamer. She laid her black silk fan in her lap, and put a hand to her temple and smoothed her hair. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Is Grace McFarlane your mistress?’

Jesus Christ.

There was a taut silence. A gust of wind rustled the lime trees, and carried the scent of English lavender and cinnamon.

He cleared his throat. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She isn’t.’

She opened and shut the fan, and smoothed its black silk tassel over her knee. ‘Was she your mistress in the past?’

He swallowed. ‘Yes.’

Her profile remained impassive. He had underestimated her ability to conceal. Was she shocked? Presumably she would be. Wouldn’t she? He wished she would turn and look at him.

‘When?’ she said, still looking down at her lap.

‘About five years ago.’

Colour rose to her cheeks. ‘How long did it last?’

‘About a year.’

‘Who began it?’

‘Grace.’

‘Is Evie your daughter?’

It was his turn to colour. ‘Of course not. She’s twelve years old.’

‘Is Victory your son?’

‘No. He’s six years old.’ He was beginning to feel giddy. It was bizarre and unwomanly of her to question him like this. He didn’t want it to end.

‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she,’ she said. ‘ Grace, I mean.’

So are you, he told her silently.

‘Isn’t she?’ she repeated, frowning slightly.

‘I – suppose so. Yes.’

Still she wouldn’t turn and look at him. He wished she would. He needed to see her eyes.

‘Why are you always so honest with me?’ she said at last. She sounded almost accusatory.

He ran his hand over the balustrade. ‘I think’, he said, ‘that’s one question too many.’

For the first time she turned and smiled at him. Not her meaningless social smile, but a proper one that made him catch his breath and want to do anything, anything in the world, to keep her from harm.

He told himself that he ought to leave right now, this very minute. Instead he went and spoilt it all. ‘I think’, he said, ‘that it’s my turn to ask a question.’

She inclined her head in silent assent.

‘However did you come to marry my brother?’

Her smile faded. She looked as wary as she had at the Burying-place: as if there were more behind his enquiry than mere unforgivable curiosity. ‘He lived in the parish next to ours,’ she said. ‘I went and asked him for money.’

God, she was blunt.

‘Our guardian had died,’ she went on. ‘We had nothing. I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘So you applied to the Church. And the Church asked you to marry him.’

‘Yes.’ She frowned. ‘I still don’t know why.’

Cameron stole a glance at her face and thought, Well, I could hazard a guess.

A breeze stirred the lime trees. The torchlight made the shadows leap in the royal palms.

She raised her chin and met his eyes. ‘I married Sinclair for his money,’ she said. ‘That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? Well, that’s the reason. That’s the truth.’

But not the whole truth, he thought. She hadn’t mentioned her sister. She seemed to be trying to shock him: to present the absolute worst of herself. He said, ‘Why do you make yourself out to be worse than you are?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Yes you do.’

She rose to her feet. ‘You don’t know enough about me to have an opinion. No-one does.’

‘What does that mean?’

She pressed her lips together. ‘Please, I think you should go now. And this time I really mean it.’

Standing, she came no higher than his chin. He had an urge to lift her and place her on the step next to him, so that they could look one another in the eye. But he knew that it wouldn’t end there. He needed to kiss her, and he could sense that she wanted him to – although if he tried, she would push him away.

‘Cameron,’ she said. It was the first time she had spoken his name. ‘This isn’t helping.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I do know.’ The urge to touch her was almost overwhelming.

She said, ‘ You’d better go in first. I’ll follow in a little while.’

He nodded, but didn’t move. There was one last question he had to ask her. He knew that if he didn’t ask it, it would haunt him for weeks. ‘About Grace,’ he said. ‘Are you – shocked?’

She glanced down, turning the black silk fan in her fingers. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘I suppose I must be.’

It wasn’t the answer he wanted.

He turned on his heel and left her in the parterre, with the shadows leaping in the royal palms, and the wind from the sea stirring her amber skirts about her.

He went back through the garden almost at a run, and fought his way through the throng on the upper terraces, and took a hasty leave of Rebecca Traherne. Then he went out to the stables and called for his carriage, and wished to God that this infernal fancy dress hadn’t forced him to bring the pony-trap instead of his horse. He wanted to put his spurs to Pilate and take him down the carriageway in a flat-out gallop, and to hell with them both if they broke their necks.

Why
had he told her the truth about Grace? Why hadn’t he had the sense to lie?

At that moment he saw his brother making purposefully towards him. Sinclair was pale, and there were red patches on his chin as if he’d been rubbing it.

God damn it to
hell
, thought Cameron.

‘Off so soon?’ said Sinclair.

‘It’s two in the morning,’ snapped his brother. ‘I’ve got to be up at five.’

Yes of course you must, thought Sinclair. For you are the man of action, aren’t you, my brother? The soldier, the planter, the lover of Negro whores. The defiler of other men’s wives.

He smiled. ‘How commendably hard you work. I have no doubt that you shall reap your reward.’

His brother snorted.

In his mind Sinclair saw again what he’d just witnessed in the parterre. His wife and his brother together. Close, but not touching. Although they wanted to touch. Sinclair could tell.

He felt better than he had done in weeks. Clearer in his mind and more certain of his purpose – for at last he understood what had been going wrong. He understood why he had been unable to possess his wife. It was because she was unfaithful. Therefore, God would not
allow
him to possess her.
It was God’s way of keeping him pure.

Looking back, he realized that she had seduced him into marrying her. She had concealed her true nature and made herself appear innocent and in need of protection, when in fact she had no true feminine softness about her, no natural obedience or desire to please. She was not a proper woman.

He turned back to his brother. ‘I am glad’, he said, ‘that you decided to brave your critics and attend tonight. It is the dearest wish of my heart to effect a reconciliation between yourself and the old man.’

‘I wouldn’t put money on that happening any time soon,’ said his brother.

Oh indeed? thought Sinclair. So you are
not
plotting your way back into his affections? You are
not
scheming to cheat me of my inheritance? That is merely an idle fancy of mine. Of course.

A stable boy ran up with the pony-trap, and his brother went round to the other side to check the harness. Sinclair watched the horse turn its head and nuzzle its master’s shoulder. His brother gave it an absent caress.

That single gesture seemed to sum up everything Sinclair loathed about his brother. The physicality. The lack of reflection. The ease.

He licked his lips and forced himself to appear calm. ‘It is a great pity’, he said, ‘that this evening you did not have the chance to become acquainted with my wife.’

His brother did not reply.

‘I had particularly hoped’, Sinclair went on, ‘to introduce you to her.’

His brother adjusted the farthingale. ‘We’ve already met.’

Yes indeed, thought Sinclair. And what legions of untruths are concealed behind that simple statement. ‘Because you see,’ he said as if his brother hadn’t spoken, ‘my wife requires – protection. Yes. Protection.’

‘From whom?’

‘Why, from herself.’

His brother straightened up and looked at him across the horse’s back. His face was expressionless, but Sinclair was suddenly glad that they had the animal between them. ‘What do you mean?’

Sinclair hesitated. ‘There are aspects about her character,’ he said, ‘and about her background, which are – little short of indelicate.’

His brother opened his mouth to protest, and Sinclair raised his hand. ‘No, no, do not ask me to elaborate. It is too painful. Suffice to say that I know her somewhat better than you.’

His brother threw the reins on the seat and came round to his side. He was a good head taller, and Sinclair was forced to take a step back. ‘All right, Sinclair,’ he said, ‘let’s stop circling, shall we, and tell the truth.’

Sinclair blinked.

‘You saw us together,’ said his brother.

‘“Us”? Who is “us”?’

‘Come along, little brother. I know a jealous husband when I see one.’

‘
Jealous?
’ Sinclair could hardly breathe. ‘
Jealous?
You could scarcely be more wrong!’

‘Indeed. Well, be that as it may, you have nothing to fear from me.’

Sinclair was still struggling for self-mastery. ‘
I
have never had anything to
fear
from you. I came out here to warn you, brother.’

‘About what.’

Again he licked his lips. ‘About my wife. She is not – not as innocent as she seems.’

His brother’s grey eyes became glassy. ‘You mustn’t speak of her like that.’

Sinclair took another step back. ‘And you’, he said, ‘must not speak of her at all.’

For a moment they faced one another in silence. Then his brother dropped his gaze. He opened his palm and studied it, and Sinclair felt a shiver of alarm. He remembered the way his brother had used his fists when they were at Winchester together. Once, Cameron had taken on a trio of prefects for ‘greasing’ his younger brother: for spitting in his face until he was covered in slime and screaming for mercy. Two of those prefects had ended up in the infirmary for the rest of the term, and Cameron himself had come very close to expulsion. And Sinclair had hated him. For being stronger. For protecting him.

His brother raised his head and met his eyes, and looked at Sinclair as he had once looked at those prefects. Then he turned, and put his foot on the board and jumped up into the pony-trap. ‘You’re right,’ he said shortly. ‘But it was my fault that I met her tonight, not hers. I sought her out. She didn’t want to talk to me. It won’t – it won’t happen again.’ He snapped the reins on the horse’s rump and the trap moved off. He did not look back.

Sinclair had to draw back sharply to avoid being spattered with dirt. Yes, go, he raged at his brother’s departing back. But you cannot run from me for ever.

Jealous?
Jealous of you?

It won’t happen again
, you say. Ah, my brother, in that you are more correct than you can imagine. I shall see that it never happens again.

The pony-trap swept down the carriageway and out onto the coast road, and for a moment, as the boy waited in the shadows by the gatehouse, his heart lurched, for he thought he’d spotted the parson at last.

Then he realized his mistake, and swore under his breath. It had only
looked
a bit like the parson. Same fair hair and that. But this bloke was bigger, and drove his horse at a lick that’d rattle a churchman’s teeth. And his face was anything but godly. The boy knew that look, he’d seen it back home on the faces of dockers and costermongers. It meant, get out of my way, for I’m in a mood to break heads tonight.

Spitting with disappointment, the boy settled down to wait.

Still, he told himself, drumming his thin fingers on his knees. There’s no rush. You only come to look, remember? Not going to do nothing tonight. Just mark your target; that’s what they call it. Mark your target. And watch and wait.

And waiting was something Ben Kelly knew all about.

Chapter Twenty

It was four in the morning by the time the carriage swept through the gates of Fever Hill and started up the carriageway.

‘At least that’s over for another year,’ said Jocelyn, drawing off his gloves.

Madeleine, sitting opposite, glanced at his liver-spotted hands and thought how old he looked. He was usually so upright and authoritative that one forgot that he was in his seventies. But tonight every line showed.

Beside him Great-Aunt May turned her head to survey the darkened cane-pieces. ‘I could not but remark’, she said, ‘that Cameron was among the guests.’

At her side, Madeleine felt Sinclair tense.

‘Did you speak to him?’ May asked Jocelyn.

‘Of course not,’ he replied.

Serenely, May resumed her study of the fields. ‘I cannot imagine’, she said, ‘why Cornelius thought it appropriate to invite him.’