Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (42 page)

I gazed upon her feigned haughty mien and wondered what I could say, or for that matter what I wished to say. I did not wish to divulge any secret of my matelot’s to the little bitch standing before me; yet, I knew this adopted demeanor was a mask to hide her pain and anger.

Beneath it lay a girl I had once thought I could fall in love with. That girl was still there, and my initial appraisal of her had not been misguided.

I felt she would feel compassion for Gaston’s woes, but I also felt that I would see little of it, as she was angry enough to kill the messenger this day. She waited impatiently while I considered and discarded several versions of the truth. She had begun to turn away with annoyance when I at last decided what I would say.

“Gaston suffers from a malady of the mind. He possesses a great sensitivity of spirit and very poor control of his emotions once they are aroused. This malady is often seen as madness by those who do not know him well. We even refer to it as madness; but, depending on what you might know of madness, that definition might not be accurate in your interpretation. Suffice it to say that he has always suffered from it, and that it has led to his being abused by nearly everyone he has known, especially while he was young. And that has resulted in his being badly scarred, both physically and in his heart.”

Compassion replaced the anger in her eyes: as I had hoped it would, both for Gaston’s sake, and for the sake of validating my appraisal of her character. The tension drained from her, and she leaned against the doorframe with a thoughtful mien.

I continued. “His mother suffered the same malady, as did his sister, and we feel any child of his is likely to as well. That is why we wish to raise them personally, to insure that the effects of it are mitigated as much as possible, and that they are never ill-used because of it.”

She nodded, but did not raise her eyes to meet mine. “I understand about the children now. How will this affect… a marriage?”

I shrugged. “If he becomes distraught or is behaving in a strange manner, you should urge him to seek me, or you should seek me. He can be quite… dangerous when he is in that state.”

“And what if you are not available?” she asked with a little of her earlier rancor. “Can I not aid him?”

I thought of the Marquis’ thoughts and wishes on a wife being a more suitable caretaker, and I suppressed a sigh. “Not unless he trusts you, and that trust will take time to gain.”

She frowned, but acquiesced, only to frown anew. “How is he scarred? I have seen no evidence of…”

“It is easily hidden beneath even a buccaneer’s garb. He bears deep whip scars from his shoulders to his knees.”

“Whip scars…” she breathed. “How? Was he imprisoned? I thought the buccaneers never used the lash.”

“It happened before he came to the West Indies. If he someday wishes to share that tale with you, then he will,” I said firmly. “Until then, you must not ask. It was a very dark day for him, and recalling it… often leads to his madness.” That was not necessarily as true now as it once had been, but I hoped it would stave her off.

She did not appear to be pleased about letting that matter drop, but she changed her questions readily enough. “What does he do when he has gone mad? Or is suffering from his madness, I suppose?”

I sighed. “When he has completely lost himself, he lashes out at all around him, caring not if they are friend or foe. And to those that even in his madness he does not wish to strike, he will often say things that wound far worse than any blow he might have landed.”

“Is it as if he is possessed?” she asked, finally meeting my gaze.

“Aye and nay,” I sighed. “In a manner of speaking, he is, but not by some otherworldly demon, but by the darkness that lurks in his heart: a darkness placed there by others. When he is thus, he sees all around him as the ones who hurt him. That is why you will not be able to help him or control him if he loses himself to it.”

“How do you control him?” she asked with a touch of challenge that raised my hackles.

“Damn it, girl,” I sighed. “This is not a game or contest. He loves and trusts me now, even when he is at his worst. It has taken us years to achieve that. He has stabbed me and struck me and we have fought one another with swords. He has said things to me that made me wish to die.”

She crossed her arms and awarded me a look that said I had just thrown a gauntlet before her.

I leaned close to hiss. “If you truly loved him, you could, of course, weather all that as well as I have – and gain his trust. But you are not marrying him because you love him, and he is not marrying you for love, either. And if he doubts your sincerity when he is in that state, he will likely kill you.”

She flinched and turned away. “If I am to marry any man, I wish to be a good wife and do all for him that I can.”

“Good, that will be appreciated if you still wish to marry him.”

“I do,” she said with conviction.

I wondered what reason she employed in that decision: because it struck me as being madness. Where was her Horse trying to go? Where did her mind think the path lay? And what the Devil did her pussy want? I felt she was as much at odds with herself as we were on the matter, and yet she was calming her Horse and marching on. Or was her Horse the part of her that wished to pick up that gauntlet?

Answers to those questions were boons I felt the Gods would never grant.

Sixty-Six

Gaston anxiously awaited me in the foyer. Without speaking, he led me outside and down the street, well beyond the hearing of anyone we knew. I soon determined we were actually on our way to the Theodores’, and not merely avoiding eavesdroppers, and he seemed oddly reluctant to ask the obvious question concerning my meeting.

“She still wishes to marry you,” I told him. “She is sympathetic to your malady, and to your being scarred because of it.”

He nodded, and continued to regard me with the eyes of a man fearful of bad news.

“What?” I asked.

“Why are you angry?” he asked. “What else did she say?”

I sighed. “She wishes to assist you in your times of madness, in the name of being a good wife. I instructed her that she should seek me if you behave in any extraordinary fashion, but… Well, I feel she views my warnings of the danger you pose as a challenge.”

He was shaking his head emphatically. “Damn her! Is she a fool?”

“Perhaps. Or mad in her way. As Pete said, we cannot know, can we? We cannot know her heart, or Horse, or… We can only see what she does. And I did not understand the warnings of others concerning you when first we met, either.”

We stopped in front of the Theodores’, and Gaston sighed and closed his eyes. “I wish you could be there to guide me. Then I could give you the reins and have nothing to fear.”

“We could do that…” I said carefully.

“Non,” he growled. “She will not have it her way.”

I smiled, and pulled him to me so that I could whisper, “I love you.”

He shrugged me off irritably, but his smile was genuine when at last it came. “You must stay near.”

“If you wish, I will wait outside the door,” I said sincerely.

“That will not be close enough,” he sighed regretfully.

“You can curtain the bed,” I offered, “and I can sit inside the room…”

I could not picture her accepting that in the least.

He shook his head sadly. “It will be a thing I must brave alone.”

“Do you truly feel it will be a test of your riding skills?” I asked with concern. “Do you feel when presented with… a woman, with… that in the offing, you will lose yourself?”

He met my gaze with earnest eyes. “I do not know, Will. I only know that the more I consider the matter, the more riled I become.”

“What if she is not your first?” I asked.

“She will not be my first!” he hissed.

I openly cursed my stupidity. “I am sorry. That is not…”

“I know!” he snapped quietly. “I know what you meant. But Will, why should it matter whether the next is Christine or any other? I feel it will be just as bad.”

“But, with any other, your Horse might not take offense at my presence,” I said carefully.

He took a deep breath and looked away to study the wall and worry his lip with his teeth. “I will not… with a whore,” he sighed at last. “I will not.”“Well, that limits our options then, somewhat,” I said lightly.

“What were you thinking?” he asked accusingly.

“Nothing!” I hissed. “Prior to a few moments ago, I had not given the matter any thought at all, and when first presented with it, I thought we might locate a rather clean and expensive whore.”

“You would have me bed some damn woman?” he asked, thankfully with more curiosity than rancor.

I shook my head. “I would have you wet your wick in one with me at your side, so that you might be calm and assured when it is time to bed your damn bride, so that you might make a child. The hand of reason, my love, the hand of reason.”

He sighed long and hard, and sat on Theodore’s front step with his back to the door. I could envision Hannah with her head to the same door, listening to the madmen outside, and I thanked the Gods she did not appear to speak French.

“Let us retrieve the child,” I said calmly, “as that is what I assume we are here to do, and go and fetch my wife, go to the church, have the baby baptized, return them all to their proper places, and then discuss this tonight in private.”

“I am sorry,” he whispered.

I squatted so I could meet his gaze. “I am not angry, my love,” I murmured.

Though he was calm now, he had come close to tears. His hand shook as he reached for me. I took it and kissed the backs of his fingers.

“I am a fool, Will,” he said earnestly. “I cannot… act like a sane man.”

“Non, non,” I said. “You can act like one, you cannot think like one: there is a difference. We will sort this through. Now, come. We have a baptism.”

I stood and pulled him to his feet.

“I cannot act like one without you,” he said as I knocked on the door.

Hannah was indeed just beyond the door, as it opened before I could speak. She nodded politely, and, like any good servant, ushered us in without any telltale expression that she knew we had argued on the step.

Theodore sat in his office. I wondered what he had heard. His mien was thoughtful, and when his gaze met mine, he smiled ruefully. I stopped in his doorway, and recalled why our friend might be in such an introspective state: the trouble the events of this morning had revealed was not ours alone.

Theodore waved Hannah away, and my matelot and I entered the room and seated ourselves in the chairs before the desk. I noticed the usually neat and clean teak expanse was cluttered with paper and chalk boards, many with little notes and diagrams upon them.

“We need to locate your uncle,” Theodore said without preamble.

I nodded. “And what shall we discover when we do?” I asked. “If he has been communicating with my father? My sister said he received a letter.”

“Aye,” Theodore said with a knowing smile. “I never saw it, as it did not pass through me. And I should have realized…” He sighed. “All your father’s prior correspondence has come to me to distribute, or rather, the correspondence we know of. So, I need to know who delivered that letter to your uncle, and it would behoove us to discover what else he knows.”

“I do not trust him,” I said. “He is gullible, and… my father thinks him a fool. Thus, any information my father might have imparted to him, even if my uncle will relay it to me honestly, is suspect.”

Theodore nodded, and his mien became somewhat guilty. “Must not his room be cleaned at the house? I imagine it is quite smoke damaged and…”

Surprised, I grinned. “Aye, and we should have thought of that…

hours ago. Of course, since he is not here to see to the matter himself, it would be a kindness on our part to undertake the cleaning for him.

Perhaps tonight, after the baptism. We could procure a good bottle of wine and actually do some work by putting my uncle’s room… in order, since we have been shirking our duties concerning the cleaning all day.

Would you wish to assist us?”

“I think that I will find studying the effects of such a fire to be very illuminating,” Theodore said with good cheer.

“We shall make a fine time of it, then,” I said. “I would also invite you and Mistress Theodore to the baptism.”

Gaston frowned at me, and I patted his arm reassuringly as I continued.

“My wife will not be pleased, as she wishes to see no one, but I feel if you were to meet us at the church, perhaps…”

Theodore nodded. “I feel Mistress Theodore would like that very much, and… it would behoove you to have witnesses beyond the clergy.

Are you going there now?”

“Aye, will this pose a problem?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nay, I should truly abandon this… supposition I have been engaged in, else it will surely drive me mad.” He gave Gaston a guilty glance.

My matelot awarded him a good-natured smile and a shrug.

We went to collect the child and inform Rachel of our plans. She handed Gaston a sleeping bundle, and frowned at her dress and apron, and then at her husband, before sighing and informing us she would change into something more suitable for church. We agreed to wait on the baptism until they arrived, and we hurried out the door.

As we walked home, Gaston cradled the tiny bundle in the crook of his arm and pushed her blanket away to reveal her face. He touched a cheek with his fingertip and smiled in a manner that warmed my heart considerably. I put my arm about his shoulder to steer him while he was thus enraptured. I did not feel any other would view that little girl with such adoration, nor did I feel any would ever view my matelot as I did.

I was beginning to feel Christine should be added to the list of people I should have killed long ago.

Vivian was ready when we arrived, and Henrietta looked none the worse for it: no teary eyes or strained expressions on either of them.

There was an awkward moment when Vivian went to reach for the child and it became obvious Gaston would not relinquish her. My matelot appeared somewhat guilty over the matter, but resolute, and my wife took it well enough and made much of saying it was probably best he carried Jamaica, as she was not accustomed to doing so.