The Maidenhead (16 page)

"Myself. John Holloway, Esquire.” Jack removed his plumed hat, gave a half bow, then sprawled in the chair with the insouciance of an aristocrat. "And I represent interested planters.

Below the white crest of hair, unblinking bloodshot eyes inspected him. "By taking large orders for items, you can purchase them more cheaply—is that it?”

He waved a languid hand. "And thereby add pounds to your coffers."

Now the eyes flickered with interest. "Perhaps you would like a glass of Alicante while we discuss business.”

"Tis a fine Spanish wine," Jack said. "But I prefer the Portuguese Madeira or Fayal.”

The lashless lids slid half-closed, as if to conceal the thoughts behind the reddened eyes, but Jack knew his offhanded remark had not gone unnoticed. His unpleasant stint with a Spanish galley had served him in good stead.

After that, Radcliff was most cordial, even to the extent of showing him around the estate. The clever man had a purpose in mind. That, Jack did not doubt.

His practiced eye took in the storehouses filled with hogsheads of tobacco, as good as ready cash. He noted the elegant furnishings, and was reminded of comfort long denied. He observed the numerous indentured servants and five black slaves, all guarded by equally starved English mastiffs.

"A ship that will deal in slaves can bring untold profits to its master," Radcliff told him.

Jack calculated that the estate represented wealth beyond what his trade would ever bring him.

Wealth. The word enticed him. As he knew Radcliff was doing. The word "wealth" warred with that other word, freedom. Freedom that went with the danger of the high seas. Go over to Radcliff’s side, and wealth could be his for life.

He was almost tempted to divulge Mad Dog’s plan. It was a heady feeling to know that it was in his power to play off the two sides against each other. Modesty’s role in it however made him waver, as well as the fact that Radcliff had almost succeeded in having her burnt as a witch.

Having finished the tour of the estate, Jack and Radcliff were beginning to climb the horseshoe staircase when a man in tattered clothing came running around the comer of the building. He had been badly beaten. Something, a whip most likely, had laid open one gaunt cheek and his left forearm.

Panting, he addressed Jack. "Please, m’lord. I ask for your protection!"

Obviously, the man, pitifully thin, did not recognize him. With horror, Jack realized that this indentured servant was one of the men with whom he had been transported the year before. Elias Johnson. Then Elias had been a strapping man.

Radcliff glowered down at the servant. “You forget your place."

At that moment, Munger showed up with his cane. "There you be. You’ll pay mightily for this." He tugged at his hat brim. "Me apologies for the disturbance, your worship.”

Without thinking, Jack asked, “What has the fellow done?"

"A laggard servant, he is!" Munger replied. "And disobedient, as well. He deserves more than a beating with the whip."

“Sire," Elias implored. “My master is inhumanly cruel. As God is my witness!"

Elias, Jack knew, was not one to whine. The fellow had won his spurs in 1603 battling the Turks in Hungary and certainly knew about hardship.

"Another servant," Elias hurried on breathlessly, “Alice Abbot, died two months ago from beatings. By my troth, I counted five hundred lashes inflicted on her at one time! Her body was full of sores and holes—that were rankled and putrefied.”

At that moment, Jack knew with which side he would align himself. “The fellow has arms that look like he once rowed in a galley. Fatten him up, and I could use him aboard my ship.”

Radcliff’s mouth curled in anticipation. “'Twill cost you. The bondservant is a hard worker.”

"Not according to Munger here,” Jack commented dryly. “A laggard, did he not term the bondservant?"

He was thinking quickly. In the past five months, he had learned about the widespread practice of gambling among the Virginians. All ranks seemed to be desperately given to it, even to the point of putting up their servants as stakes.

Gambling, whether over cards or horses or humans, brought together in a single focused act the planters’ competitiveness, independence, and materialism. All based on the element of chance.

Wagering represented a social agreement in which each individual was free to determine how he would play, and the gentleman who accepted a challenge risked losing his material possessions as well as his personal honor.

Not that either he or Radcliff had personal honor.

Five months and a thousand miles had devoured all the pounds and notes Mad Dog had advanced him. Unless . . ..

"Still and all, I shall wager with you at a game of whist for the old chap.”

"Your stakes?”

“This." Jack drew from his embroidered waistcoat the black silk hatband with its gold buckle, of which five months earlier he had relieved the right Reverend Patrick Dartmouth.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"More than once, you know, it has crossed my mind to wager with you at a game of cards."

Modesty grinned. "Yew’re only saying that because yew’re losing.” She discarded the queen of spades and drew from the stock the five of diamonds.

"Or to sell you off to Arahathee,” Mad Dog mumbled and played the jack of spades and took a card from the pile.

Outside, rain fell steadily. To Modesty, it seemed that enough had fallen during April to float Noah’s ark. With both her and Mad Dog confined to the cabin, boredom had driven her to suggest a game of piquet with an old deck that had been found aboard the
Röter Lowe
.

She played her king of hearts and, spreading her remaining cards face up on the board table with a flourish, announced, "Carte blanche!”

He scanned the cards, then narrowed his eyes on her. “You cheated.”

She mustered an indignant look. "I did not! Tis a curmudgeon yew are. Now hand over another tanner."

In the last three days, she had amassed enough sixpences to replenish her pens and brushes when she got back to London. She would set up a stall and charge the pudding-heads for letter writing and document deciphering. She might end up as poor as a church mouse, but she wasn’t about to play blind man’s bluff with bailiffs ever again.

“Yes, you did cheat," Mad Dog said, each word distinct. He folded his arms and fixed her with his flint-eyed gaze. “Now you can either show me how you rooked me or you can clean the privy.”

Just the thought brought a sour fluid to her mouth, but she managed an indifferent air. “So, build another privy."

He lifted a brow, and she knew he wasn’t about to buy her bluff, that at the first sign of the rain letting up, he’d send her to the outhouse with a scrub brush and a bucketful of lime.

She sighed. "All right." Never one to surrender without trying to strike a bargain, she added, "But in exchange, yew got to take me to the fair at Henrico come May Day."

“So done.”

“Watch.” She shuffled the cards. “Cut them."

Eyeing her suspiciously, he did so.

"I'll tell yew now that cutting a deck has naught to do with preventing yewrself from being swindled. Tis just a formality the card swindler allows yew. To distract yew.”

With a flourish, she ribbon-spread the cards, face down, fan-wise across the table. "Now this one”—she tapped the card with her finger—“is the high card, the king of spades.”

She flipped it over, and his brows yanked up at the sight of the king of spades.

It took her the better part of an hour to show him how to watch for the designated high card while shuffling, and to drag his left thumb across it to palm it in the left hand, and then bring it back to the bottom of the deck. "See, yewr left hand crimps the card so that it lies bowed when all the other cards are flat."

She indicated the concave card. "When yew perfect yewr rhythm, the other players will be watching the eye-catching way yew brandish the cards and will not look for the little things."

She glanced at Mad Dog and could tell she had once again managed to impress him with her peculiar skills. "So what do yew think about advancing me passage fare back to England?"

He rose from the table and stared at her as if she were one of those colonial insects never seen before. "I think you would swindle your own mother, wench."

“Modesty. And remember. Yew promised to take me to May Day at Henrico."

"I’d like to take back that promise and the one I gave when I pledged to take you for my wife."

She watched him stride from the room. She sighed. Well, she had failed to get the passage fare from him.

Now what?

Chapter Fourteen

During her brief residency at Jamestown, Modesty had learned that cargo ships sank, tobacco prices fell without warning, bondservants suddenly sickened and died, and storms and droughts ruined crops. Nothing could be counted on—except change. Modesty knew that Mad Dog relied on the remoteness of Ant Hill to prevent it. And yet here he was, committed to leave his sanctuary all because of her caprice, the wench he had taken for a wife.

On this first day of May she rode pillion behind him. His bay mare trotted along the river road, bordered with jack-in-the-pulpits, anemones, dogwood, and violets. "Rose must have her baby by now. I wonder whether 'tis a boy or a girl. By me faith, 'tis even possible Clarissa is in the family way. I bargained with the good reverend for celibacy in his marriage to her, but me doubts that the two have kept the pledge.”

"Egad, wench, you chatter like a magpie.” She latched onto a handful of his hair and tugged sharply. “And yew, me lordly lion, art a dullard. 'Tis May Day, a time for fun and frolic." She firmly believed that his problem was that he didn’t know how to unbend.

From the sounds of revelry drifting downriver, Modesty knew that the inhabitants of Henrico had started early with bending the elbow to raise a bumper of ale. Now at midday, they should be well in their cups.

The top of a towering eighty-foot maypole, bedecked with hawthorn blossoms and streamers of colored ribbons, came into view before the river road opened onto the village green. It had been transformed into a maze of stalls, stages, and game areas. Settlers from outlying areas swelled the population that had turned out for the holiday.

Youths wrestled, a man who looked like an old satyr played a German flute, a plump young woman displayed her handicrafts of quilts and rugs, and merchants hawked their wares. A steady stream of carousers poured in and out of the chicken coop known as the Bloody Bucket, where spirits like ale, beer, and wine lightened their own.

Next to the tavern was a stable, its floor strewn with fresh straw for the holiday. With a less than optimistic expression, Mad Dog dismounted and held up his big hands to assist her down.

She braced her hands on his shoulders. Her smile teasing, she said, “Careful, yew might betray yewr fear.”

He glanced sharply at her. "What are you talking about?"

She took her hands from his shoulders. "Yew’re afraid yew might have a good time with other people. Then yew would need them, wouldn’t yew?"

“Ply your tawdry art trade, wench," he growled, "and leave thinking to the intellectuals.”

His words cut deep. She whirled from him and stalked from the stable into the sunlight and the mass of people.

Her name was called out, but not by Mad Dog. It was Rose who hailed her. The swarthy young woman cradled a baby in her arms. “Modesty! I 'ave missed ’oo so!”

"Oh, let me see yewr baby, Rose. A boy or a girl? When did yew have—"

"Before Christmas.” With a mother’s pride, she passed the baby to her. “Jack be 'is name.” Modesty gazed down at the cherubic face with unblinking eyes as large as Spanish doubloons. “Why, he’s a splendid lad.” She peered at Rose. "Yewr marriage—'tis a good one?”

"’Oo did well when ’oo bargained with Walter for me.”

Modesty noted that Rose had not exactly answered her question.

“The boys?” She glanced around, searching for Mad Dog rather than the Bannock boys. Where had he gone?

“They be with Walter, watching a juggler."

She passed the baby back to Rose. “And Clarissa and her husband?”

Rose pointed to the church. "Decorating it with flowers. Come on along. The Lady Clarissa will be filled with joy to see ’oo."

Accompanying Rose, she drifted toward the church with reluctant footsteps. The desire to see Clarissa warred with her distaste for religion.

Inside, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust after the bright sunlight. Then she saw Clarissa. The aristocratic woman stood beneath a boxlike pulpit set high on a pedestal and reached by a small flight of steps. She held an armful of spring flowers that she passed, one by one, to her husband.

It took a moment for Modesty to realize what he was doing—braiding the flowers around the stair banisters. “A mite pagan, isn’t it, Reverend Dartmouth?”

His gaze searched the back of the room. "Good morrow, Mistress Bannock.” Then surprise came to his face. "Mistress Jones? How farest thou?"

"Modesty!" Clarissa deserted the pulpit and headed down the aisle toward her. Her husband followed in the wake of flower petals shaken from their stems.

Modesty kissed her cheek. "Yewr beauty puts the flowers to shame, Clarissa.” She nodded at the yellow violet the minister still held and asked him, “Yew’re not afraid the villagers will burn yew for such sacrilege?"

His smile was gentle. “Does not the Bible say that as a flower of the field, so a man flourishes?"

"Does God say anything about a woman flourishing?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Modesty, ’oo 'ave not changed a whit."

The minister held out the violet to her. “For you. Like the wildflower, you have flourished here in this garden wilderness. Or don’t you see it yet?"

With suspicion she eyed the flower, then him.

Clarissa smiled. "Give up, Modesty. A man of God is impossible to argue with.”

Memories of harsh lessons taught by her Bible-quoting stepfather set her mouth in a grim line. “Aye, I know.” However, she took the violet and tucked the stem underneath her cap, so that the yellow blossom peeked out just above her cheekbone. With three pairs of eyes upon her, she felt self-conscious. “Well, me husband has wandered away. I shall see yew all anon.”

With Mad Dog, she never knew what to expect. If he were like any of the other menfolk that day, he could be drinking, gambling, or wenching. But he wasn’t like any man she knew.

She refused to go in search of him like a scold. Instead, she would make the most of enjoying the celebration. She mingled with the people, taking in everything. The smell of wild goose turning on a roasting spit. An unpinned dog in heat. Boys pitching horseshoes or participating in foot races.  Girls playing tag.  Old men competing in ninepins Young men staging bouts with cudgels.

Watching grown men foolishly contend to catch a greased pig brought laughter to her lips—which was her undoing.

A pug-nosed man in a flat cap, obviously inebriated, grabbed her hand. "Here she is! Our comely queen for May Day!”

She tried to tug away, but he held fast. He was adamant about proclaiming her the May Day Queen in an even louder voice. “May Day Queen! May Day Queen.”

Others took up his refrain. She found herself being led by a procession of revelers toward the May Day pole, standing in a field of strawberries. Their gaiety was contagious. Off came her coif, down came her hair. Laughing, she let one country maid crown her with a wreath of flowers.

Then, holding one of the ribbons streaming from the pole’s top, she joined with a dozen other merrymakers dancing and frolicking around the Maypole until it was covered in bright ribbons.

Gasping with laughter, she collapsed on her back in the strawberry-scented field alongside a reveler, the very man who had proclaimed her queen.

The mirth bubbling on her lips died away as she stared up into Mad Dog’s glowering eyes.

"Are you finished cavorting?”

He always had to go and ruin everything. She sprang to a sitting position and tugged her skirts down over her stockinged calves. "Aye!" Anger boiled up inside her and scalded her tongue. “I am finished with yew!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thoughts of a prurient nature occupied Mad Dog’s mind. Persistent visions of Modesty’s lithe, nubile body had been there for a month now, since May Day.

He had spent that May Day in conversation with John Rolfe, discussing important matters. After a year under Yeardley’s relaxed rule, the colony was being given a new governor, Francis Wyatt. What the planters were most afraid of was the restoration of the arbitrary government that had existed before the General Assembly of 1619, when the king could do what he liked.

Mad Dog realized that, like the planters, the outside world could and would intrude upon his self-imposed isolation and would affect his life. He realized that he could no longer remain apart from humanity.

He also realized that he found his wife highly desirable, since that May Day when he had watched her abandoned dancing. She was no longer the spitting cat with claws unsheathed in protection. She purred, she stretched languorously, her tiny tongue licked her lips as if in replete satisfaction. What had happened to her anger?

He could not take his eyes off her, and he knew she knew it.

Instead of moon watching, he watched her.

Watched her budlike breasts. Were they fuller these days?

Watched her taut stomach. Was there a slight curve to it?

As if his thoughts summoned her, he spotted her moving down the grass-worn path toward the springhouse. He remained sitting, his back against its stone wall. He had chosen the spot because it was the coolest, with the water running through shallow troughs dug into the springhouse’s dirt floor. The “brummph" coming from inside told him that a bullfrog had found a home for the warm June evening.

"Wot are yew doing?” she asked. He couldn’t tell if she was surprised or not by his presence. In her arms she toted a crock of butter.

He removed the long pipe stem from between his lips. “Moon watching."

“Wot?" Real curiosity underlay her question. She drew nearer, only an arm-span away. Her stocking-clad ankles could be seen from beneath the hem of her underskirts. He raised his gaze to her face. Did her cheeks seem to have a soft glow? Were her eyes more radiant? Or was it his anxious imagination?

“Moon watching. I would think that surely fairies, even ordinary ones like yourself, would be thoughtful moon watchers."

She hesitated, then lowered the crock and dropped down beside him. Her blue serge skirts clouded around her. "Remember, 'tis not wise to mention the fact I am a fairy, or I shall disappear.”

Was she teasing or had she gone as mad as he and truly fancied herself a fairy? He could never quite tell about her. She could be a damnable irritation.

"So what is this business about moon watching?" She drew her legs up against her and folded her arms around her knees.

“’Tis serious business here in the colony," he said with a straight face. He, too, could indulge in the fancy of the backwoods people. "For instance, the best time to cut brush is in the months of June through August, when the old moon that day is in the sign of the heart."

She nodded, as if prompting him to continue.

"Well, pole beans should be planted when the horns of the moon are up, to encourage them to climb, but a building must not be roofed then, for the shingles will warp upward.”

He glanced at her to see how much of what he was saying she fully believed. Her face was turned partially away, her gaze, raised to the moon. Her hair was gathered beneath her coif, and her neck was bare to his avid eyes.

He cleared his throat and went on. "During a full moon a slaughtered cow will give juicy meat, and during a waning moon a slaughtered pig will produce only dry meat. Under a new moon a man should hay his meadows, but not—”

"What about during the dark of the moon?" She shifted her gaze to him. “What should a man do then?” Waiting for him to speak again, her eyes lingered on his mouth.

His voice sounded to him like the bullfrog’s just inside the springhouse. "A man should plant his root crop.”

"And have yew done that?”

“Aye.” He met her gaze and held it. “More than two months before, when I took you on the board table."

The moon’s muted light could not conceal her heated blush. Swiftly she lowered her chin to her knees. “Wot if the . . . seeding . . . did not take?”

He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her gaze to meet his. It seemed as though not a breath of a breeze stirred the sultry evening air. “I would plant again. And again.”

She stared back at him. "Wot if I tell yew me body has already accepted yewr seed? Then would yew leave off planting?" Once more, her voice was inflected with curiosity.

"I know your body very well. Better than you." He searched her face and regrettably found his answer. He released her chin and touched her bottom lip with his forefinger. “You are still ripe for planting."

Her wide triumphant grin revealed bright teeth. "But 'tis not the dark of the moon."

He ran his thumb over her bottom teeth, so charmingly uneven, as was her breathing. “Mayhaps not, but by the days I have reckoned, 'tis nonetheless your fertile time."

Her eyes grew wide.

He grazed his lips against hers and whispered in a voice that was husky with urgent desire, "I had thought to come to you later tonight, in our bed, but here is just as well, where the soil is fecund and the moon can watch.”

Her eyes were smoky with the same desire that possessed him and which he knew he had awakened within her. “I think I would not conceive if I truly found your touch distasteful."