The Last Killiney (23 page)

“Come on, then, tell me,” he urged, sipping his wine.

So she tried to explain it, now that she was sure he wanted to know. She told him about her grandfather who’d originally bought their island property. Paul worked on the pastries as Ravenna recounted how she and her grandpa had walked the beaches, how as a little girl, she’d been told of the wondrous things she might find among the rocks.

As she said these words, described the island’s high cliff walls eroded by storms and spring tides, Ravenna began to remember certain things. The life of these memories slowly enveloped her, and she lost herself in telling of the hours she’d spent on those well-loved beaches, searching the clam beds, the tide line, the bushes, for the wonders her grandpa had told her about.

They’d been woolly mammoth bones she’d been hunting for. Grand beasts that had lived off the fields and conifers twelve thousand years before, their fossilized remains could be found on those beaches, her grandpa had said. To prove it, he’d taken Ravenna to the base of the soft-sand cliff where, freshly brought down by a winter squall, a landslide revealed a ten-foot tusk buried long ago by an Ice Age glacier.

“They’re just like the bones in the Natural History Museum,” she explained, “and they’re there on my island, hidden in the cliff. I know we’ll find them if we go with Vancouver.”

She could tell by the look on Paul’s face that he didn’t understand, couldn’t fathom why fossils would be important to a girl, but he didn’t say so. “And what’ll you do with your trophies, these bones?” He drank the last of his wine, regarded her curiously. “Give them over to the British Museum or stash them away?”

“I think if I wrapped them up carefully, they ought to last two hundred years in a forgotten corner of Wolvesfield, don’t you? Maybe someday I could show them to my children, get them interested in archeology and history…”

Ravenna faltered, for she knew Paul would question the paternity of those children.

Yet rather than appear uncomfortable or angry, he only smiled. “Maybe,” he said.

On Monday, he took Ravenna to the opera.

It was
The Siege of Belgrade
by a composer Ravenna had never heard of, a man named Storace. Although it wasn’t Mozart, with Paul beside her, Ravenna was melancholy from the first note, even though the story was comic. The divine quality of the singers’ voices and the weaving of the melodies had the extreme effect of dousing her mind with romantic thoughts. When Paul whispered close to her ear, explaining to her this part of the story or that, she knew she loved him.

How could she not? With his engaging eyes misted by candlelight, his hair loose from its ribbon and his patient, playful explanations, how could she be unmoved by these things? When he leaned into her shoulder to point out something, a strand of his hair fell against her neck. Feeling it, she found herself clinging to his earlier drunken compliment while at the same time, telling herself she could not,
must not
, stray too close. As much as her need for him weighed on her soul, it would drive him away if he felt it.

And yet, by the end of the opera, she’d surrendered. She nestled close. She let her hand around his arm, and to her surprise, he didn’t seem to mind. Paul kept whispering, and soon she felt his head next to hers, the sensation sending a quiet shudder throughout her body, making her giddy and reckless with wanting him.

When the opera was finished, she tried so hard to put away these feelings. Paul uncurled himself from her embrace and she let him, pretended to be unaffected by his touch, but she knew she was no good at pretending. For the rest of the night she was lost to staring at him when he wasn’t looking, and did he notice?

If it mattered to him how she pined that night, he kept it to himself.

Tuesday brought James’s arrival.

They were playing cards when he came in, set his two-cornered hat on the table. Taking the chair opposite Sarah’s, he ordered the maid from the room. Ravenna didn’t like the brusque tone he used; it made her fear the worst, that Vancouver had said no.

Yet when he settled back in his chair, James seemed content. He met Ravenna’s gaze placidly. “Can I assume you’ve had the drawing lessons proper for a marriageable lady?”

Confused by his question, still Ravenna nodded.

“Very good. Vancouver welcomes you both to the Navy.”

With these words, Paul’s shoulders relaxed; he reached for Ravenna’s hand across the table.

“However,” James continued, “you should be aware of what the captain demands of you. He asked me specifically if the two of you are…cohabitating.”

Paul’s fingers stilled ever so slightly. “What’d you tell him? Did you say we’re engaged?”

“I said that, as I’m the head of this family, she will obey me in all things, regardless of where she’s come to us from. Of course, I won’t tell either of you what to do, but it’d be best to comply with Vancouver’s wishes. He’s assigned Ravenna in place of a young man he knows well, Jonathan Sykes, who’s recently taken ill and fears the sea will be the death of him. You’ve been promoted to master’s mate, Ravenna.”

“So what will I have to do?”

“Keep a journal in Sykes’s name until he arrives with the store ship next autumn. For you, this should be easy enough.”

Releasing her hand, Paul sat back. “And where does the artwork come into it, then?”

“Vancouver will publish his findings after the voyage, as I will for the Royal Society. Illustrations will boost his sales.”

“What about your sales?”

James threw Ravenna an affectionate glance. “I trust you’ll give me the best pictures, yes?”

“And that’s it?” Paul asked. “Apart from her warning where the reefs are?”

“Other duties will probably be assigned. Vancouver’s sent on the master’s mate’s uniform, but for your maid we’ll have to go through the trunks upstairs; George was Sarah’s size, I believe. But then you wouldn’t remember George, would you?”

She wasn’t wondering about George in the least. She was looking at James in astonishment, searching for any hint of emotion. “Sarah is going?”

“In the guise of a midshipman, yes. Does your history mention our older brother?”

“No,” Ravenna said, trying to figure out why he didn’t respond to Sarah’s name. She hadn’t asked for the maid to go. Yet James had finessed her inclusion as well; had he assumed a lady would need her companion? Or was it James who needed her?

Whichever the case, his intense brown eyes gave up nothing. “Well, no matter. We’ll have plenty of time for family history on the voyage. You do understand that if the Admiralty learns about any of this, Vancouver will suffer the loss of his career? Nothing must be said.”

He looked particularly at Ravenna. She shrugged her shoulders. “Who would I tell?”

“Our favorite cousin.” James’s eyes darkened. “Should he find out, the very seams of the world might come undone.”

She was left to wonder about this terrible cousin as James rose from his seat and called for Sarah. Pacing before the fire, listening with growing impatience to the sound of her footsteps crossing room after room, James rubbed at his temples. Paul peeked at Ravenna’s hand of cards as they waited, and again she wondered if he really thought of her the way he’d said those few nights past. Did he really think she was beautiful, now that his vision was not colored with drink?

Then her mind filled with thoughts of another sort, for a change had come over James in that moment.

Sarah had arrived.

Hurrying through the final door, the girl made the perfunctory curtsy, something so common among James’s servants that by now Ravenna had watched him brush off the formality of it a dozen times.

This time it was different. James gave her submissive gesture every ounce of his attention. He watched respectfully as Sarah bowed her head. It was as if they vented the chemistry of their attraction into the motions of this ceremony between maid and master…and they hadn’t seen each other in days.

With gingerly chosen words, James told her of how Vancouver was allowing Ravenna to go on the voyage. Then he asked her, not ordered, but asked if she would join her mistress.

What was Sarah’s immediate reaction? To beam at Ravenna, of course. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was there on her cheekbones just the same, for she thought Ravenna was responsible.

She wasn’t about to admit otherwise.

Once Sarah had gone, James spent several seconds with his back to them. How perfectly charming, to see the tiniest smattering of joy escape his eyes when he turned around to speak again. “So what should be done before our departure?” he asked, obviously stalling as he tried to regain his pre-Sarah composure. “We have but seven weeks. Will you be ready?”

“You’re the one who has things to do, not me,” Ravenna said, thinking slyly of the maid.

“My responsibilities are well underway. I was thinking more that you, being a woman and from a different culture, might need for the voyage something more than the usual sailor’s issue.”

His mention of the future made her wonder, what
would
she need for four years at sea? Normally, she’d have taken her hairdryer, her compact disc player, and every stitch of clothing she owned, but in the eighteenth century? A comb and toothbrush, paper to write on, and to play the midshipman, she’d need—

“Art supplies.” Paul spoke up. “So far I haven’t seen anything of the sort in this town.”

“The navy has furnished the expedition already, but you can purchase your own materials, of course.”

“And there’s other things we’ll need,” Paul went on. “Warm clothes, good shoes, and could we get a piano on that ship, d’ya think?”

“
A piano?”
Ravenna couldn’t help laughing. “What are you going to do with a piano? Learn to play so you can be Liberace when you get home?”

Paul didn’t smile. He looked up at James steadily. “Could we?” he asked, a choke in his voice.

As if it were nothing, to mention this piano, he waited obstinately for James to answer even as Ravenna’s mouth dropped open. She thought about his comments at the opera, when he’d displayed such an impressive knowledge of music. She remembered that moment on the train when he’d shown an interest in Killiney’s playing.
Liberace indeed
. Wasn’t it enough he was the very image of her dreams, that his voice tinged with Dublin inflection had said she was beautiful? Now there would be music.
Killiney’s
music
.

But James had nodded. “We’ll see what we can do to persuade Vancouver.”

Swallowing, eyes deep with guilt, finally Paul dared to look at her. “You know why I didn’t tell you.”

She couldn’t make a sound.

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d get all funny on me.”

“Then why do you tell her now?” James asked.

“She knows why.” Standing up, Paul brushed her arm as he passed, went to the piano. She felt overwhelmed to see him sit down behind it and, with his hand lifted, beckon her to the seat beside him. “Come here,” he said.

And of course she did. Never taking her eyes from his, she crossed the room until she’d sat down on the small space he’d left for her. “Except you’ll have to give me more room with those skirts.” She moved her legs aside. James pulled up a chair before the fire and waited for the music, as if this were a matter of routine for him, but Paul merely sat with his gaze fixed on the piano’s top.

“Mightn’t some written music be in order?” James asked.

Paul shook his head, spoke not a word. He only closed his eyes, managed a prayer and without looking, began to play.

Immediately Ravenna was just as he’d claimed, entranced and smitten, for he played Mozart knowing she’d take the romance from it and apply it to him. As she watched him lean into the notes, she understood now what it was she’d been waiting for. Not just Killiney all these years, not just an Irishman, but someone with this intensity of presence—a man with an artist’s mind, a gentle disposition, and a soul brimming with Irish passion. He maneuvered the keys with such carefulness, bringing out the lightest melodies and then crushing them, striking with such a force that the violence of the passage was chilling. Ravenna loved it. She loved him more. Bathed in his music, she wasn’t sure she could pretend any longer.

All too soon the piece reached its end. Paul didn’t open his eyes, nor did he move when the last of the sustain died away.

Before the fire, James stirred. “Again you prove you’re not Killiney.”

Paul ran his finger along the keys. “How’s that?”

“Killiney didn’t possess the depth of character to play the way you do. His was always a superficially perfected music.”

“He didn’t have any soul,” Ravenna said.

“He didn’t have a tortured soul,” James corrected her, “and I think that’s needed to make meaningful music. He was comfortable with his accomplishments, good and evil. He felt no remorse.”

While James spoke, Ravenna watched Paul carefully. He seemed unprotected, exposed somehow. He didn’t talk, didn’t look up. He stared at the keys with heavy eyes and held perfectly still.

She pressed close to his shoulder anyway. “Thank you,” she said, next to his ear.

After a long, exhausted moment, finally he whispered, “Only Mozart for you, Ravenna.”

James didn’t seem to notice Paul’s mood. Sprawled in his chair, he was quick to break into their quiet exchange. “And what piece was that, my friend?”

“Something I learned from Aidan,” Paul mumbled.

“It was Mozart’s Fantasy in D Minor,” Ravenna told him. “I have it on CD…or at least I did.”

“
Mozart?”
a familiar voice whined. “Who has ever heard of Mozart but you?”

Ravenna jumped and James was out of his chair in an instant, for standing at the door was the owner of that voice, appraising them loathingly, his hands on his hips.

Though slight of build, he walked with a swagger, his face like a choirboy’s with blond hair to match. The contempt in his expression stifled any beauty Ravenna might have remembered, so arrogant he looked, so sinister as he approached her. She stood to meet him, and she caught the scent of his perfume long before he’d come close enough to tell what color his eyes would be, but she knew, didn’t have to look.