Black Gold (10 page)

All the rooms on the first floor bustled with guests eating, gambling, singing, and dancing. There wasn't a quiet spot to be found. “Let's go to your room,” said Paul, a note of alarm in his voice. Still gripping his arm, her heart pounding, Anne nodded.

He closed the door behind them and drew chairs up to the fireplace. After stirring the embers, he sat opposite her and took her hand. “What has shocked you, Anne?”

“When Jeffery opened the door to the study, I could see Sir Harry standing by his desk.”

“Yes?”

“He was talking to Jack Roach.”

“Do you think Roach recognized you?” He slowly released her hand and sat back in his chair.

“No. But he might have seen me earlier.” She stared into the fire. “What could Sir Harry and Roach have been talking about? About me? Or, someone else?”

“We must find out quickly. But what concerns me now is whether Roach might attack you tonight.”

The fire slowly died down. Paul drew a deep breath, then rose to his feet. “I'll ask Jeffery if Roach is still with Sir Harry in the study. And, whether he's a guest in this house. Georges will have Roach followed until we're sure he's no danger to you.” He knelt by her side and put an arm around her shoulder. “I'll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“I'll check on little Charlie,” she said, regaining a measure of calm, “and lock myself in.”

***

Downstairs, Saint-Martin found the black slave in the entrance hall awaiting calls for his service. As the colonel approached to ask him about Roach, he saw a man step out of the study, turn around, and bow to someone within, presumably Sir Harry. The door closed behind the departing visitor, a large fleshy man with sandy hair, slack-jawed, wearing a red coat and tight buff breeches.

“Jack Roach?” murmured Saint-Martin. “The Red Devil?”

“The same,” responded Jeffery, barely moving his lips.

Roach crossed the hall, peered into the parlor, then walked toward the ballroom. He's looking for someone, Saint-Martin thought. For Anne? He asked Jeffery to call Georges Charpentier to the entrance hall.

Georges arrived just as Roach left the ballroom followed by a tall thin man with lank hair and ill-fitting dark clothes. “I know the thin one,” Georges whispered. “Mr. Critchley. Recently hired to tutor William Rogers. Serves also as Sir Harry's personal clerk—and spy. The cook says he's a petty thief.”

Roach turned, said something out of the side of his mouth to Critchley. The thin man nodded and stepped back into the ballroom. “Watch the man in red,” Saint-Martin whispered to Georges. “That's Jack Roach.”

Roach walked through the entrance hall and out onto the dark portico, passing by them with a preoccupied air.

“It's cold, damp, and windy out there,” said Georges. “He'll have the place to himself.”

“Wait,” the colonel cautioned. “He'll soon have company.”

In a few minutes, the thin man left the ballroom, passed through the entrance hall as preoccupied as Roach had been, and joined him on the portico. “You can be sure Roach is dealing in mischief,” said Saint-Martin. “We'll wait for them.” Ten minutes later, the thin man left the portico and returned to the party, a smile on his face. Shortly afterward, Roach also left, but he went directly to the main entrance and out the door. “See that he leaves Combe Park, Georges. I'll wait for you here.”

Georges returned to the entrance hall in twenty minutes. “A servant and I followed him to the river and watched him cross the bridge into the city. The servant will keep watch on him. But I doubt he'll come back tonight.”

“What can he be doing with Sir Harry's clerk?” Saint-Martin asked.

“Critchley's nose is in everything,” Georges replied. “He must spy for Roach as well as for Sir Harry.”

“That means Roach is aware of Miss Cartier and planning to harm her. Find out where he lives. Have someone follow him for a few days. We may discover what's going on in this house.”

Chapter 9

A Curious Invitation

Saturday, March 31

The night fell eerily quiet. No sound came from her footsteps. She approached the dirt lane to her cottage and grew anxious. A light shafted fitfully through her hedge. Darkness pooled between its thin rays. Suddenly, a huge figure leaped out into the light in front of her. A ray lighted his face. Jack Roach! He leered at her, bared his teeth. Slowly he drew near. His mouth opened wide, his teeth were long, sharp, like fangs. She was stricken, couldn't move.

Then a voice came from a great distance. Roach's face froze in grotesque surprise. The voice again. Her name. Roach vanished. A rap sounded on her bedroom door. The maid was trying to come in with breakfast. Anne now dimly recalled having latched it before going to bed.

Dazed, half-awake, Anne stumbled barefoot in her scant nightdress to the door and unlatched it. Georges strode in with a tray. “I told the maid I'd bring your breakfast. Thought I'd make sure you're all right. Why didn't you answer?”

Anne let out a sigh of exasperation. “I'm fine,” she muttered crossly. “The maid could have told you that.” She glared at him and pointed toward the table. He hastened to set down the tray, muttered an apology, and backed quickly out the door.

Anne shuddered for a moment, reliving her nightmare, then shook it out of her head. She stared in the mirror, her face wild and angry. She burst out in a fit of laughter. “Poor Georges,” she exclaimed. He guarded her like a nervous sheep dog.

After breakfast, she dressed in a pale green morning gown. She had just finished combing her hair when she heard a knock at her door. Paul was there, affection brimming his eyes. He'd also come to check on her, Anne thought. She led him into the room.

“Are you well?” he asked, searching her face.

“Yes,” she replied. “After the initial shock, I'm back to feeling I can cope with Jack Roach.” She took his hand and drew him close. “I regret we've been too long apart.”

He brushed his cheek against hers. “But a kind Providence has brought us together again.” He cupped her head in his hands. She clasped him tightly and they kissed.

She gently eased back from him. “Late last night, Sir Harry sent me a message.” She picked up a folded paper on the dressing table and handed it to Paul. “I'm to bring Charlie to Lord Jeff's training session this morning. Sir Harry insists the boy must learn what it means to be a man.”

She mimicked the father, growling, swaggering around the room, pounding her fist into her hand. “Charlie needs toughening up, he says. Hasn't been to a session since Miss Campbell died.” She paused while Paul read the message. “What do you think of it?” she asked dubiously.

“It might not be as bad as you imagine, Anne. I understand these training sessions are much less brutal than bare knuckle battles. The fighters wear padded mittens so they won't hurt one another. In London even gentlemen take part. Builds courage, they say. That may be what Sir Harry has in mind.”

A maid arrived with towels and warm water. From behind a screen Anne finished her toilette and chatted with Paul as she dressed. Her reservations about taking Charlie to the training session decreased if they did not entirely disappear.

Shortly before ten, they found the boy at his desk. He turned from a book he had been reading and glanced uncertainly at Paul. Anne introduced him to Charlie, who smiled shyly. Paul signed a greeting he had learned from Anne. The boy beamed with pleasure. Then she said his father wished him to watch the training session. His lips quivered. Anne grew alarmed. She was of a mind to plead with Sir Harry to excuse the boy, but Charlie put on a brave front and insisted on going.

***

It was a cool, damp morning. In the distance, a gray haze shrouded Bath. Anne and Paul, with Charlie between them, hurried over a gravel path toward the tennis hall in the park. A grove of pine trees hid it from view until they reached a clearing. Before them stood the large honey-colored stone building, simple in its lines and well-maintained.

The main entrance opened into a hallway with pegs on the walls for coats and hats. As they entered, Charlie looked up anxiously and reached for Paul's hand. Sporadic volleys of loud shouts and thuds drew them through an antechamber into a training room off to the left.

Jeffery stood in the middle, stripped to the waist. Fine beads of perspiration glistened on his body. At his feet lay two large iron cannon balls. Behind him stood Sir Harry, who ignored the newcomers and barked out a command. Jeff lifted and lowered the weights again and again, the muscles of his chest, shoulders and arms rippling gracefully. His skin shone like polished ebony. Anne's flesh tingled at the sight of it. She recalled Louis Fortier from Sadler's Wells, the “French Hercules,” as large and perhaps as powerful as Jeffery but with nothing like his inner grace.

Sir Harry shunted the visitors off to one side while he exercised the slave with increasingly heavier iron weights until Jeff's muscles seemed strained to their utmost. The training continued with a series of progressively lighter weights and then a brief rest.

Meanwhile, Sam the Bath butcher arrived, stripped to the waist, stretched, and also exercised with the iron. He was Jeff's height but thicker in the body and much heavier. Sir Harry came to Anne's side and pointed to the butcher. “He lifts the carcasses of oxen as if they were chickens and does it all day long. Lord Jeff needs to train hard to gain that much strength. Before you came, he had run down to the river and back twice.”

For the sparring match, the two men donned padded mittens and moved from the training room to the tennis court. Servants had laid out a large thick pad in the center of the court to lessen the danger of injuries from slipping or falling on the hard wooden surface. The spectators gathered at a safe distance.

At a signal from Sir Harry, the butcher went on the attack, charging Jeff like a bull. The black man dodged nimbly, peppering the butcher with jabs. The butcher then advanced more cautiously, throwing powerful punches from the shoulder at Jeff's head, which he parried with ease. For an hour the two men worked their way through a repertoire of punching, grappling, and feinting.

Anne watched with more interest than she had expected. She had acquired a visceral dislike of the sport from seeing large, rough men bloody one another in Islington's market place. But she had to acknowledge Lord Jeff's remarkable stamina and skill. Paul stood fascinated, face taut, arms akimbo. Little Charlie averted his gaze and pressed up against her side.

Exasperated, Sir Harry shouted at the boy to be a man. To no avail. Charlie began to tremble. His father left the pugilists to fend for themselves. He seized his son by the arm, dragged him away from Anne, and struck a fighter's pose—left foot forward, fists clenched and raised, eyes cold and hostile. “Do as I do,” he shouted to the boy.

Charlie stood stock still, staring blindly, hands at his side, paralyzed with fear.

The father glared at Anne. “Tell him to fight, damn it!”

Anne tried to sign but couldn't get Charlie's attention.

“Bloody coward!” shouted Sir Harry, and threw a left jab that grazed the boy's cheek. He cowered in front of his father, tears streaming from his eyes.

With a hand raised in protest, Anne walked quickly up to Charlie and wiped his face, then turned to his father. “He's too young and too frightened, Sir Harry. Let him be.” Without waiting for a response, she drew the boy away. “I'd better take him back to his room.” She gave Paul a warning glance over her shoulder and left the hall.

On the path back to the house, her arm around the boy's shoulder, Anne reflected on the scene she had just witnessed. Sir Harry's irritation with Charlie, in the beginning perhaps that of a stern father with a recalcitrant son, had escalated into something sinister, a passion akin to hatred. She detected it in the man's face, though Sir Harry himself was probably unaware of it. For a moment, when he threw that punch at the boy, it looked to Anne as if he were striking out at Fitzroy, like a man seeking revenge.

***

When Sir Harry began to bully his son, Paul was standing at the edge of the pad, close to the fighters. He observed the incident out of the corner of his eye and was preparing to intervene when Anne took the initiative. He remained by the fighters but alert to Sir Harry's moves. As Anne and Charlie were leaving, Sir Harry took a step as if to pursue them, then stopped, apparently sensing Paul's presence. Fists still clenched, Sir Harry glared at the departing figures until the door shut behind them.

With a mumbled curse, he turned to Jeff and the butcher. During this incident, they had merely gone through the motions of attack and defense, glancing sideways at the father and his boy. “That'll be enough for today,” barked Sir Harry and waved them out of the room. Still fuming, he walked over to Paul, paused for a moment, drew a deep breath. “I need a game of tennis. Singles. Will you join me?”

Paul nodded. “Gladly.”

***

Near the end of the tennis match, Paul sensed that Sir Harry had finally spent his wrath, or at least gained control of his feelings. Up to then, he had wielded the racket like a club and struck the ball as if he meant to kill it. As a result, he played badly and lost. Paul had to perform well below his usual game to keep the score close.

“That wasn't my best effort, Colonel. I apologize. Training Lord Jeff is too much on my mind. We'll have to play again soon.”

“I'd be delighted, Sir Harry. I understand the challenge of making a champion of him.”

The two men left the court and walked to the dressing room across the antechamber from the training room. While they sponged the sweat off their bodies, Paul sensed that Sir Harry, eyes cast down, had something to say to him and was pondering how to say it.

Finally, he looked up. “Colonel, I think I'm a good judge of men. I've hired many a ship's captain. Though I've known you for little more than a day, I see that you and I have much in common.”

An overriding interest in Captain Fitzroy? Saint-Martin asked himself. How does he imagine I can be of use to him?

Sir Harry paused for a moment, meeting Saint-Martin's eye. “I wish you to be my guest at Combe Park during your stay in Bath. Be as free as you like. Make use of my stable and the servants.” He extended his hand. His voice took on an enigmatic tone. “You'll find Combe Park most convenient for your purpose.”

“I'm pleased we share so much, Sir Harry. Your kind invitation is most gratefully accepted.” The men shook hands and finished dressing. On leaving, Saint-Martin opened the door for Sir Harry. “Shall we play tomorrow? I must offer you an opportunity for revenge.”

Rogers stopped instantly in his tracks, probed Saint-Martin with narrowed eyes. Then, smiling wryly, he replied, “Yes, Colonel, an opportunity for revenge. I look forward to it eagerly.”