Assassin's Honor (9781561648207) (20 page)

I found out there was no break. The United States hosts thirty-six foreign embassies and legations in Washington, and that of Her Majesty Queen Victoria is the most senior, ornate, and prestigious. When the British give a party, all the others attend, to stand there idly and to see and be seen. Therefore, the line of landaus, coaches, phaetons, and cabriolets reached all the way around the block. There was no way I could walk inside while the ladies and gents of the glittering class were making their grand entrée. Even I knew that would be
tres gauche
. I must wait to enter with the sycophants, hangers-on, posers, and assistants of the middle level.

So there I stood, next to the stone columns of the embassy's portico, the sole representative of the United States Navy present. Trying to stay out of the amber glow of the giant lanterns I felt, and no doubt looked, like some uniformed minion waiting for someone to tell him what to do. Someone finally did, in a charming accent.

“Please rescue me for the second time, Peter. I am shamefully without an escort, for he has not appeared yet and no one seems to know where he is.”

It was Maria, alighting from an open landau with another couple stepping down from the other side. The man of the couple was in an elaborate uniform but I couldn't make out his rank.

With apologies for my lack of fashion knowledge to any lady
reading this account, I will endeavor to describe the exquisite vision Maria presented that clammy, windless evening. Amidst the turmoil in the portico, she was an oasis of cool, confident beauty, the beau ideal of a modern lady. Dressed in a green silk gown trimmed in white lace, with golden necklace and earrings, I saw she did not use a bustle or a long trailing hem, a look which I had learned was
passé
. Her hair was done up in what I believe is called a chignon, with a gold comb fastening it. She managed to actually look somewhat comfortable, unlike the other ladies, who wore harried and painful expressions when they thought no one was watching.

My perusal was completed in mere seconds and I was by her side in a flash. With a bow, I took her hand and said, “Doña Maria, it would be a great honor and pleasure to escort you inside. And, I must say, it is I who has been rescued, from a night of abject boredom among pretentious men, by a beautiful lady.”

She curtsied and took my arm and, treated as a couple, we strolled past the liveried doormen in style, smiling generously to the servants the whole way. It was immense fun play-acting a grandee, and even more fun when the real Spanish grandee from the landau cast a worried look toward us.

In the outer parlor, we were shown to the refreshments—gin cocktails, even the smell of which I dislike—and then ushered into the main ballroom, where a red-coated majordomo announced our presence to the assembled diplomatic world. And oh, how the assembled world reacted. Ladies whispered knowingly and gentlemen opined to each other with furrowed brows. The content of their discourse was obvious—a mid-level American naval officer escorting a Spanish lady of noble connections? Why had she sunk so low?

By the little giggle she made, which only I could hear, I knew Maria was enjoying the fuss. The constant stares began to wear thin for me, however. I suggested to Maria we retire from the limelight to somewhere less noticeable, to which she said, “Why Commander Wake, that sounds like an attempt to get me alone.”

“Good, it's what I wanted it to sound like.”

I reconnoitered behind a large hanging tapestry of an eighteenth-century English king and queen—otherwise known as a musty old rug on the wall—and found a servant's door, which opened onto a garden. There was a dim glow by lantern light, just enough to walk by. Beckoning Maria to follow, I led the way through the manicured hedges to a group of chairs by a table. We sat down amid some pink flowers I guessed were azaleas.

Overhead, the stars were emerging as a powdery dusting across the night, barely visible in the loom of the city. Inside the building, a string quartet had begun a French-sounding tune, the music wafting in the air, which was sweetly scented by Maria's perfume and some Confederate jasmine nearby. The romance of the scene, the years of loneliness, and an unfamiliar feeling of uninhibitedness, all combined in my psyche to reduce its usual reticence with ladies of wealth in social situations.

In a state of pure abandon, I put my hand over hers on the table and said, “You are truly stunning tonight, Maria, and I am very glad I came. You made it worthwhile.”

“Was this an assignment to be endured, like last week?” she asked as she put her other hand atop mine. “You certainly did not appear to be having a pleasurable time back in the ballroom, Peter.”

“Yes, it was,” I admitted. “And I couldn't get out of it. But if I only had known you'd be here, I would have immediately volunteered and fought off all others to have the pleasure of this moment.”

She smiled shyly. “I did not want to attend, either. But I was asked to come because the chargé d'affaires's wife, Madame Sagrano, is ill and they needed another lady to balance our party. I think that is a silly reason to be here, but now I also am glad I attended.”

“You are? When we last parted, I got the impression by your comments you thought me crude.”

“Well, you
were
, Peter. But I knew you were not trying to be
crude. Actually, I was intrigued by you. My final words last week were for the benefit of the man who interrupted us. I needed to protect my reputation and knew he would repeat them around the embassy, for that fool gossips like an old woman.” Maria grimaced as if she'd touched something disgusting. “He is a worthless toady, and nothing more.”

“We have our share of those too. I really wasn't trying to be crude.”

“Yes, I am sure of that now. You were merely being
real
. It is a quality quite rare at these events. Most are so busy posturing they do not know how to be genuine anymore. I may be wrong, but you appear to be as sincere a person as I have ever met—though I think there is still much you have not told me about those medals.”

Her look was one of curiosity and challenge, and extremely alluring. I surrendered to the moment. “There are times not to talk, Maria.”

Leaning close, I took her face in both hands and kissed her gently. She responded in kind at first, then more fervently. Soon we were entwined and oblivious to our surroundings.

Thus occupied, I failed to notice an intruder slipping up on us in the dark. Well, I say intruder, but we were in
his
embassy. It was the assistant Royal Navy attaché, a congenial fellow with whom I had spoken occasionally in the past. He discreetly cleared his throat and whispered, “Good evening, Commander. Ah . . . hem, His Excellency and some other people will be coming along through here very soon.”

I heard someone conversing behind him. It turned out to be the ambassador himself, Sir Julian Pauncefote, who was showing off the embassy's garden to some of his guests.

Suddenly, servants were padding around hastily lighting lanterns and torches, and our hideaway transformed into an illuminated display of flowery splendor. We quickly disengaged and, led by the naval attaché, headed off into some convenient shadows, far from the ambassador's party. It was a close-run
thing, but Maria and I managed to escape the attention of our esteemed host and his bored-looking guests when he began a detailed monologue on the growing cycles of the Chinese flowers in the garden. My Royal Navy friend waved goodbye to us and then dutifully joined his boss.

That left the lady and me standing in the dark, feeling decidedly juvenile. She giggled first, and before I knew it, we were both trying to stifle our mirth as we made our way, hand in hand, down the path in the dark. It had been years—decades, actually—since I had giggled, and it felt wonderful to know I still could.

Another seating arrangement appeared and we took advantage of it, cuddled in a kiss that was all the more delicious for its furtive nature amid the distant voices. Everything about Maria aroused my passion and interest, and as I sat there I didn't want to let her go. By her behavior, she agreed wholeheartedly. So we stayed there together a long time, saying nothing and yet saying it all.

Finally we had to leave, for the soiree was ending, but not before promising to meet for lunch the next day at a little tavern I knew in Georgetown, far away from the disapproving stares of Washington's diplomatic elite at the Willard or National. There was so much to discuss, to learn about each other.

As she turned to leave, Maria's words were like music to my ears. “Now I know you are very real, Peter Wake, and I rejoice you have entered my life. Until tomorrow . . .” She touched her lips and smiled. My heart melted again, completely smitten.

Any doubts about her feelings for me were gone. In some way which I have never fathomed, Maria was in love with me, albeit at second sight.

Key West
Late Wednesday evening
14 December 1892

My departure from Useppa and her beau was accelerated by a squall line blasting down Duval Street. Making my way block by block north toward the harbor, I registered the wind was clocking to the northwest. That meant it would be rising in velocity soon, into a full gale. And it meant no boats would be able to take me back out to
Bennington
.

At the wharf,
Chicago
was ablaze in lights and a hive of activity as officers and men made preparations for her to get to sea, for the wind was pushing her hard against the wooden fenders in a shrieking cacophony of pain for the steel hull. I could see and feel the wharf recoiling each time the big cruiser smashed into it. Among the officers on her bridge, I saw Rear Admiral Walker, standing there like Noah with his beard flapping in the wind. If Gardiner was there, I didn't see him.

My coxswain didn't hesitate when I reached the boat landing,
where the waves tossed the launch up and down four or five feet. Jumping down as the boat rose up, I felt a strong arm pull me with a blue curse from sliding off the gunwale into the water. The instant I collapsed on the thwart we were away from the wharf, with additional language from the coxswain as foul as the weather to which it was addressed.

The wind had piped up fast into a full gale, a wall of solid air and rain, with gusts blasting even stronger. Pulling hard against the seas and wind, the men were exhausted in minutes, but we still had a mile to go. I took an oar from a sailor who suddenly cried out in pain and was clutching at his ribs, and yelled for the coxswain to keep the bow into it. I'd been ashore far too long and now the anchorage was a maelstrom. If we tried to turn back, the launch would broach and swamp, and we'd all be in the water and swept away into the Gulf of Mexico to our north by the current.

That flood tide current was helping to kick up the seas, but also helping to move us against them. After what seemed an eternity, a shaft of light reached out from somewhere ahead. Sweeping across the cauldron of the anchorage, it moved toward us, before settling on the boat. Bathed in an otherworldly light, every movement of our straining arms and contortion of our anxious faces played out as if in the limelight of a stage. I had the ominous feeling God was in charge of that searchlight Himself and this was the judgment day, with the verdict on my life very much undecided.

While trying to synchronize my oar with the others, I took quick glances over my shoulder to search ahead for our ship. Through the spray and rain I saw several steam vessels in the anchorage ahead moving, most heading south, which was downwind toward the Straits of Florida. One was moving north, toward Northwest Channel and the Gulf of Mexico. A couple ships were staying put, with every deck light burning brightly and black clouds roaring out their stacks. They were steaming at slow turns of the propeller to ease the pressure on their anchor
cables. At our distance, I couldn't make out which one was ours, but the coxswain spotted her a quarter-mile away.

It was a quarter-mile too far for the men in our boat, for we were all completely emptied of strength. Of the ten men in the boat crew, six, including me, were crumpled along the thwarts, arms and legs no longer functioning. The four left, including the coxswain who had left the tiller and was working an oar, were failing fast.

Someone yelled, “That ship is coming for us!”

One of the vessels heading north had turned, a dicey maneuver in those conditions with reefs all around, and was steaming our way. She slowed and formed a lee close so we could get alongside. I heard orders in German and realized she was
Gneisenau
.

Blau's voice boomed through a speaking trumpet. “You want to come aboard?”

“No,” I answered, wondering if he realized I was in the boat, “but we could use a tow to
Bennington!
”

“Ya, vee do that!”

A line snaked out in the air and the bowman secured it just before the tow took strain and the boat surged ahead. The German ship circled toward
Bennington
and we cast off the towline just to windward of our ship, to drift down the remaining fifty feet to our home. Both ships exchanged blasts on their steam whistles, ours in “thank you” and theirs in “good luck.”