Lady Anne and the Howl in the Dark (7 page)

“Really.” She examined the castle and began to walk again, asking as she went, “So the castle keep is from those days, but what about the rest?”

It was a novelty, someone asking him about his family history, so he spoke while they walked, examining his home with fresh eyes. “The keep was to protect Geoffrey Destaun and his family. Or families. He had many children, not all of them with his wife.”

“He was that kind of fellow, was he?”

He ignored her comment and pointed to the long wall to the left that merged into the ascending hill beyond the castle. “That is the ruined part of the castle from the earliest time. The wall joins with the keep and was part of the fortification. The dry moat—at one time it was a fully functioning moat fed by spring water—has been mostly filled in over the years with earth. Within the walls were the laundry yard, the butchery, the buttery, the milk shed, even the vegetable gardens, everything necessary to keep the family and servants fed during long sieges.”

“Did your ancestors indulge in many quarrels with their neighbors?”

“Oh yes, they were a hot tempered, irritable lot.” Grimly, Darkefell thought of his own problems of late and muttered, “Time changes nothing, it seems.”

She glanced over at him. “I noticed this morning in the breakfast room that Mr. Hiram Grover, who so thoughtfully brought my bags up to Ivy Lodge, ignored your arrival. It must mean you two have nothing of which to speak—either that, or there is some barrier to conversation between you.”

Sharp and sharper, he thought. Lady Anne was a noticing female, of all types the most inconvenient to have staying at Darkefell Castle right then. He had deep reasons not only to despise Grover, but also to dislike the man’s friendship with his mother. “You’re correct in thinking he and I have never gotten on,” he said, keeping his tone light. “I corrupted his son when we were of an age in school, and I fear the man has never forgiven me.”

“I think you are deflecting my curiosity, Lord Darkefell.”

“And I think we have strayed from any topic in which you may have an interest, my lady.”

Anne gazed into the marquess’s dark eyes. How amazing that chocolate brown could look so frosty! “I understand, my lord.” She took a deep breath and broke the connection between them; if she stared into his eyes any longer, she feared she would just stop breathing altogether. The whole time he had her arm secured against his body, she had been fighting to keep her breathing even, for she was seized by an unladylike urge to move even closer. He was attractive—intensely so—in a way she seldom saw. Intelligent. Forceful. Magnetic.

And her bodily perturbations were
completely
inappropriate.

Toward them, at a distance of about fifty feet, came Mr. Boatin with a troubled expression on his lean, dark face. He said not a word until he approached, then he swept off his hat, bowed, and said, “I beg your pardon, my lady, but I must speak with the marquess.”

“Of course.”

The secretary drew his employer aside and muttered something. The marquess, his expression dark and his mouth a grim slash in his face, angrily replied then clapped the other man on the shoulder. He turned toward her, strode three paces, and said, “My lady, I’m afraid you must excuse me, for some business has arisen that demands my immediate attention. If you do not object, Mr. Boatin will see you back to Ivy Lodge. Your exploration of the castle must be put off for today.”

“Of course, but I can walk back on my own. Mr. Boatin,” she said, meeting that man’s calm gaze. “You need not concern yourself.”

The man bowed but diffidently said, “I would deem it a favor, my lady, if you would allow me to accompany you.”

Anne stared into his dark eyes, behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, and saw through the diffidence to how many times he had been rebuffed by unthinking folk since his arrival on the rainy shores of their island. She had not rejected his company for such a vulgar and thoughtless reason but merely because she would not trouble him to walk all the way back to Ivy Lodge with her if he had other duties. His concern spoke well of him, and so, for two reasons, she smiled and said, “Mr. Boatin, it would be my pleasure if you would escort me.”

The first reason was satisfied when, relief on his face, a faint smile curved his lips upward. He was conscientious. After the horrors of the night before, his concern for any woman alone was not far-fetched, she supposed. But her second reason was, if she was to find out about his relationship with Cecilia, who better to ask than the man himself?

Lord Darkefell said, “I’m relieved you’ll accept his company, Lady Anne. Nothing has yet occurred during daylight hours, but after last night, I’m not so sanguine that I would risk your safety. I must go—the magistrate awaits.”

Anne glanced toward the castle and noted a phaeton with a standing horse; she hadn’t noticed it before, as her attention was turned toward the ruined section. She was terribly curious as to what the magistrate’s business was, or if the murderer had been seized, but since the marquess himself didn’t know yet, she must satisfy her curiosity at some later time. “Good day, my lord.”

“I will see you for dinner, my lady, at Ivy Lodge,” he said and bowed.

Diffidently, Mr. Boatin held out his arm to her, and she took it as he clapped his hat back over his neat wig. She watched the marquess stride away, and then turned with the secretary and began to walk back toward Ivy Lodge. She glanced up at her companion. He was tall and thin, garbed in a dark gray frock coat and breeches, and walked with a slight limp.

Their stroll would likely take only fifteen minutes or so, and she must make use of each second. “I was alarmed, Mr. Boatin, by your reaction to the terrible news of poor Cecilia’s death. You must have been fond of her.” Interesting; even with his dark skin, she could see a blush mount his weathered cheeks.

“I knew her only a short time, but she was a kind young woman.”

His tone was solemn and didn’t invite further questioning, but she was not one to be put off. He had committed himself to walking her all the way back to Ivy Lodge, and she judged he would never be rude to a lady.

However, a change of topic would set him at his ease, perhaps. “How did you come to be Lord Darkefell’s secretary?”

He took a deep breath, and some of the tension left his thin frame. “It is a long and tedious story, my lady.”

She paused, but then, judging that no story could be so long as to take fifteen minutes or more, said, “I have time and interest.”

He smiled, a rare glimpse at a great deal of personal charm that he guarded carefully, doling out small amounts when least expected. “I was born on the African continent but sold into slavery in my sixteenth year.”

“Oh, no! Sold by your own people?”

“No,” he said patiently, “not by my own people. For some years our people had been struggling against others, for my race, like yours, is not united as one people.” He showed a brief smile again. “I am of the tribe called Fante. The conflict goes back and forth, and one occasionally defeats the other. Our enemies—those your people call Ashanti—swooped down on us unexpectedly and defeated my village. They killed many, including my parents, and sold the rest of the men and some of the women to slave traders on the coast, keeping a select few for themselves. Those who sold me were
not
my people.”

Subtly instructed, she appreciated the distinction he was making and how gracious he was. Having the same skin color did not make those who captured and sold him his own people any more than she was of the same people as an Italian or German. Excepting that they were all of the human race, each nation’s people, each tribe’s intimates, were accounted their own people. Had the English not been separating themselves into warring factions for millennia? And instead of uniting, they divided themselves into still smaller groups.

“I stand corrected,” she said, gently. “So you were sold into slavery? How terrible, your family killed, taken from your home.” Her voice broke, and she shook her head. “It’s despicable.”

“My sister was sold at the same time, but she was taken by a different ship. I do not know if she even survived.”

“How awful.”

He was silent for a moment then said, “I was on a ship. I had never seen such a thing before and thought we were to be sacrificed. I could not imagine what those white men wanted with us all, except perhaps as some kind of offering to their gods.”

“Men who would do such a thing have no God… not truly,” she said.

“Ah, but they claim to understand all about God and his wisdom and say that my people are not men but beasts of burden.”

Anne was familiar with that argument. “I hope you know that most English citizens of thought and conscience do not believe that’s so,” she said with quiet ferocity.

“I know there is a mix of people here, some savage, some civilized, for I have experienced both. And I cannot claim that my people have superiority, you know,” he said, anxiously gazing down at her, “for the richest among my tribe, and that was my own family, held slaves, too. Only now do I see the wrong in it, for at the time I merely accepted it as the way of life, as did we all.”

“Your family owned slaves?”

“Yes. We are chieftains, royalty, you might say. The slaves did our work, cooked, planted. Much like slaves in Jamaica and America.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It is so,” he said. “The difference, as I see it, is that somehow your people have decided that skin color determines a man’s eligibility to be a slave. For why else do you not enslave a Russian or a Pole captured in war, as you do those of my color? I know of the system of indentured servitude, but it is not the same, for an indentured servant at least has the hope, however faint, that he or she will one day be free. Hope is a wonderful thing.” He glanced over at her. “I confess I still do not understand why only dark-skinned people are to be enslaved among the people of your race, and not your own kind? If slavery is to be suffered, why not any man captured in war?”

“I can’t answer that, Mr. Boatin. My only answer, I suppose, is that no man should be enslaved, nor any woman or child. Any lines we draw are surely artificial.”

He guided her gently over a hillock. “Though we held slaves for the domestic chores and farm work, I was not raised in idleness but in warcraft, for it is an honorable occupation among us, like soldiers here, you see. Your royal dukes, some of them are warriors, and that is what I would have become in another year, with a wife and slaves of my own.”

“I see.” It was an adjustment, thinking of Mr. Boatin as a slaveholder. But her quick mind saw how it was, and she asked, interested, “How do you think of it all now, Mr. Boatin, having seen it from the other side, I mean slavery and such?”

“I thank the Lord that I have been shown how life is for those who have lost their freedom. It is a terrible thing, not worthy of humanity, and my one wish is that all people of the world will eschew it. I cannot be judgmental of your people, when mine are much the same. I fear for us all.”

“But I have hope,” she said, glancing up at him and lifting her skirts to step over a rocky outcropping. “I have hope, because where education shines a light on such a thing, it exposes it as beneath us all.”

He smiled, briefly, radiantly, but then sobered. “I pray you are right.”

“So you were on this slave ship… ” she said, encouraging him to continue his story.

“I was. We were packed in so tight in the hold of the ship, and many were ill.” He shuddered. “Even now I can smell the terrible odor of illness all around me, and I can hear the cries, the moaning, the sound of vomiting. I became ill myself, retching and shivering like the others.” He sighed deeply. “We endured a long voyage. Many of the ill died and were thrown overboard, food for the sharks, no proper ceremony, no family to mourn them, just as if we were animals, our carcasses merely to be disposed of.”

She took in a deep, shuddering breath; she could feel it, the heave of the waves, the creak of the wood, and the odors: vomit, diarrhea, the uncleanness. Mr. Boatin was fastidious, and it must have been wretched.

“I will never judge your people as I do the sailors on that ship, because if you knew what they did, how they treated us…” He trailed off and shook his head. “Our family slaves were at least properly buried when they died. But I cannot call that more than a faint vestige of humanity.”

Mr. Boatin paused, his gaze set on the distant tree line on the ridge above Ivy Lodge. “I was close to death and welcomed it, for I could not imagine any good ending other than to join my ancestors and my parents beyond the veil. But many of us were then wrenched from the hold. The sailors left behind only those who were not yet ill. I thought, ‘Perhaps these white devils will give us some fresh air and let us clean ourselves.’ I felt hope. If I could only smell fresh air and drink clean water, I thought I would recover.”

Anne trembled, and bile rose up in her throat as hot tears scorched her eyes; fear of what came next assailed her. She dropped his arm and stopped, facing him, willing herself to see his pain. She examined his face, shadowed as it was by his hat brim, the lines, the pitting of his skin, which should not be there in one so young, for he was younger than she, she realized with a start—probably only twenty-two or three. “What happened, Mr. Boatin?”

He met her gaze, his dark eyes curiously deep with knowledge. “When we were brought above board, I saw, for the first time the other ships with which we were sailing.”

“Ships seldom travel alone, with all the trouble there is on the high seas,” Anne said, swallowing back her tears. “Do you know now where you were headed?”

“Yes. We were on our way to the West Indies, to labor at the sugar plantations, but were not yet in sight of land. One ship in particular was close to us, so close I could see the people lining the deck, the women in pretty, colorful gowns and with sunshades, both ships becalmed for the moment.”

She swallowed again, gulping back emotion, willing herself to calm. “Go on, Mr. Boatin,” she said, fearing the worst but ready to hear it.

He met her gaze. “You are a singular lady, to invite such a disclosure, for I believe you suspect what is coming. There has been only one other who heard my tale, and that was Cecilia Wainwright.”

It was an opening, but at that moment she chose instead to listen to what needed to be said. “Tell me.”

“The sailors were laughing and joking. I could not understand their language, but I remember their smiles. I thought, ‘Ah, here are some good men who are going to help us.’ Then I saw the first one of us go over. They took a frail old man—one sailor at his feet and one at his shoulders—grabbed him, swung him, and threw him overboard.”

Anne felt her breakfast rise up. “How awful,” she moaned, not even recognizing her own voice. She put one gloved palm over her mouth as tears burned her eyes, blurring her vision.

“After the second or third—at first I thought they were going to make us swim for a while and then pull us out—I realized they were disposing of us. I saw the people go under, flailing, drowning, and then it was my turn. I was thrown, so weak I could not even fight the sailors, and I felt the air, an odd feeling of weightlessness, and then I hit the water, and it was like hitting the ground. Who would think water could be so hard? I knew in that second that I wanted to live. I began to thrash about and call out to the others. Only some were Fante and could understand me.”

“What did you do?”

“I think I would have drowned. I had been ill for days… weeks… I don’t know how long. I went under, water closing over my head like dirt over a grave. Then someone grabbed hold of me, and I fought him. I thought, ‘Now these devils are going to hold our heads under water,’ but I soon understood that this one was trying to save me. It was Lord Darkefell who grabbed me and held me up, then took me back to the ship upon which he traveled, one of the convoy. He and his brother saved several of us that day, as many as they could before the waves and sharks claimed their victims.”

“Lord John Bestwick?” Anne asked, trying to imagine the pale, plump young man she had met the previous evening leaping in the ocean to save lives.