The Chocolatier's Wife (47 page)

“It
is
late.
Do
you
think
I
will
have
better
luck
with
the
stone
this time?”

His
fingers
lifted
her
chin
gently.
“I
mean
home.
Your
home.
To
the North. Leave
me;
this
is
too
much
for
you
to
have
to
live
with.
It
will
soon be too late, and
you will never
be able to escape.”

She
looked
at
him
a
long
moment,
applying
his
words
of
escape,
of implied
e
n
trapment
to
him. A
man who
ran
away
to
sea, a
man who
could not
stand
to
be
on
land
and successful
if
it
meant
being
under
his
father’s thumb,
a
man
who
had
not
asked
for
his
wife.
He
was
not
a
man
who
could stand
being
trapped.
“You
don’t
want
me
here
at
all.”
He
flinched,
but
she did not give him
a
chance to reply.

He
caught
up
with
her
and made
sure
she
got
home
safely,
walking
a pace behind her.
They spoke not a
word.

Chapter
1
5

Auguro fifth
Gold Mn.
Qtr. 1789

Tasmin,

We
have
been
at
our home
port for several
days,
yet
I
have
not had
time to take
quill in hand
to write you,
for father wishes me to leave
immediately to deliver a
cargo
that
will take
me through
the
Vining
Sea
and
into the
very
waters that the
infamous Pandora
sails. She
has
become
the
terror of
the waters,
even
though
the
Navy
has
sent
its best
ships after
her.

She
possesses some cunning
that
makes
the
men
speak
of
magic. I
pray
that
you
will not be
worried, for I
am not.
I
have
hired
a
small contingent
of
half-pay
soldiers who
will help
with any fighting,
and bought more guns, which even now are being levered into place.
I
only
speak
of
it at
all for I
know you
will hear of
it in any
case,
and
I
want you
to know I
am prepared.

The
last voyage
ended
well,
but ‘twas not easy
going.
We ran into Shronese
raiders and
acquitted ourselves well enough, though
I
would have
rather
avoided the
matter a
l
together.
Still, the outcome was not without some profit.

Do you
recall
my
First Mate,
Isan
Deitson?
I
do not know if
I
mentioned,
but his i
n
tended
died as
a
young
girl in the
Capital during the
fever
that
swept through
it many
summers ago.
He has
wed a
woman from the
Stairs of
Alessyn.
She
will make
him
a fine
wife, I think, despite her tendency to take everything far too lightly.
(Which
wore on
me quite a
bit,
I
must confess,
and therefore am glad to have put her, and my first
mate, ashore to begin
their lives.)
I
will miss Isan,
but I
do believe
he
is quite happy,
and
ther
e
fore
I
am glad.

I must close for now. My new first
mate wishes me to inspect the new guns, as I see they have finally
set the last in place.

Yours,

William

He
would
not
see
her
that
day.

He
determined
it
that
morning
when
he
awoke.
He
shaved and
dressed
and
poured
more
milk
for
the
sprites,
then
set
out to his brother’s
house.

The
accusation
in
her
eyes,
quiet,
to
the
point,
cut
him deeply,
and the fact
that
it
affected
him
at
all
annoyed
him
even
more.
He
hadn’t
asked her
to
come, to
set
up
shop
in
his
home, to
leave
her
sprites
to
vex
him,
to make the
bed
smell
like
her
hair,
to
put
her
things
in
his
closets.
Just
this morn he’d
found
a
summer
cloak and
boots
with
tiny
little
buttons
in
the back
of
one,
and
he’d
found
himself
bringing
the
cloak
to
his
nose,
seeing if
it
carried
that
odd
smell
of
hers,
of
wind,
and
rain,
and
drying
herbs.
The realization
of what he was doing had not changed his mood for
the better.

But
he
didn’t
want
to
send
her
home,
damnation. Couldn’t
she
see
he was
trying
not
to
be
selfish
and
to
think
of
her
reputation
and
life?
He
liked her
well
enough;
he
just
resented
the
idea
that
he
couldn’t
choose
anything. From
the
day
he’d
been
born,
people
had
chosen
what
he
would
wear,
and
what he would eat, and
what he would learn,
and
how he would spend his life.

Even his spouse was not his choice. Not that he wouldn’t choose her, himself,
given
the
chance,
but
it
was
unimaginable
to
him
that
there
wasn’t somewhere
in his
life
he
could
pick
to
do
as
he
would.
He
supposed
it
was why
he’d
wanted
to
open
his
own
shop.
He
was
rebelling
to
the
point
of
self destruction.

He
could,
even
now,
be
sitting
in
some
comfortable
chair, watching Tasmin
fussing
about
their
home
on
this
very road,
a
place
with
a
study
of its
own,
and
servants,
and
bedrooms
enough
for
a
man
and
his
wife
and
their
children.
The
thought
made
him
sigh,
just
slightly
disgusted
with the
perverseness
of
his
nature. By
now
he
knew,
had
he
not
rebelled,
he doubtless would have
had children of his own.

He
stopped
at
the
wrought
iron gate
that
opened
up
on
a
neat
stone path
leading
up
to
a lovely,
many-windowed,
stone
cottage.
Up
until
his rebellion,
this
house
had
been
meant
for
him
and
Tasmin.
He
forced
himself to
stop
gritting
his
teeth
and pushed
the
gate
open.
Part of
his
annoyance with
her
was
that, now
that
he
had
met
her,
he
was
wondering
if
he
had made a
mistake in
waiting.