Laura Kinsale (23 page)

She squinted at the horizon, blue on blue, and then looked back at his face. She hated the strain there, hated being the cause of it once again. “I love you.”

That was all she knew to say. To explain everything.

“For God’s sake—” he mumbled, and then fell silent, as if further words failed him.

“I know you’re angry,” she said quickly. “I know you have every right to be. Last night—I didn’t plan for that to happen, but I’m glad it did. I’m so glad, because now—”

“Now I tag along with you like some pet lapdog? I’m sorry, Tess, but I’m not that besotted with your charms. I won’t be your fancy man.”

“No!” she protested. “I didn’t mean anything like that. I love you. I thought we—well, I mean, don’t you—after last night, want to—”

“What?” he asked painfully. “After last night, what?”

“Won’t you marry me?” she whispered, dismayed by his apparent perplexity.

His face changed. The anger faded, replaced by a kind of stupefaction. He seemed struck utterly dumb by the idea. Tess stood for a long time, waiting for him to say yes. It slowly became clear that he would say nothing. The realization seemed to seep into her limbs like melting ice, a horrible disappointment, a wound that caused her chest to ache and made it hard to breathe. When she could not stand his silent answer any longer, she turned away and plunged into the water, swimming hard for the shore. By the time she reached the dry sand there was salt on her cheeks and in her mouth—seawater or tears, she did not know.

Hina was unwilling to accept that the outcome of their scheme had been disaster.

“But he loves you, Tete,” she said for the tenth time, as she caught at the skirt that Tess was trying to pack. “I saw him, when he thought you were lost.”

“He doesn’t.” Tess tugged the garment from her friend’s hands and threw it into the case. “He had every chance to say so—Believe me, Hina, he doesn’t want me. And I’m tired of throwing myself at him.”

Tess had been back in Tahiti for one night: a long and sleepless one. The first thing this morning she had gone to the harbor authority to find out which ship would be leaving at the earliest moment. There were none for
three days except whalers, but the day after that, a French square-rigged steamer was shipping with a load of island cotton directly for Calais. It was not where she wanted to go, but she really did not know where she wanted to go, except away, and so she had already booked her passage.

“Tete,” Hina pleaded. “Don’t go. Think of Mr. Sydney—he’ll be so sad!”

“I’ve already talked to him. He’s going to stay, as long as he likes, and ship the collections home. I have to go.”

Before Hina could resume her solicitations, there was a sound of small feet skipping up the stairs. “Mama,” exclaimed the oldest of Hina’s little ones, a bright-eyed five-year-old girl. “Moana tane says come. There’s a man. He wants Tete.”

Tess felt her heart squeeze. It couldn’t be…

Hina turned on her in triumph. “It must be Rifone. Who else would come looking for you?”

Tess forced herself to go on folding the blouse she had in her hands. “It will be a message from the French captain. I asked him to send me a confirmation of my booking.”

Hina snorted. She grabbed a hibiscus flower from the little vase by the window and tucked it behind Tess’s ear before propelling her out the door. Tess descended the stairs under the same coercion, and wished that she had resisted when she saw that Hina had been right.

He stood in the open entrance hall, dressed in a dark morning coat and neat neckcloth, looking as if he might have just stepped off a London carriage except for the windblown bronze of his hair. He had in one hand a bouquet of flowers, red and white and pale yellow. He did not smile when he saw her.

Tess stopped at the foot of the stairs. Hina rushed past and gave him an impulsive hug, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “I knew you would come,” she said softly.

He endured the embrace, looking all the time at Tess. Hina stepped back, and Tess was hardly aware of it when the island girl collected her daughter and slipped away. Tess kept gazing at the flowers, fear and a crazy hope warring in her breast.

“Sydney told me you were leaving,” he said.

She nodded.

“I came—” He stopped, cleared his throat. He held out the flowers. “Do you want these?”

The offering was not particularly graceful. She looked up at him, into serious, silver-gray eyes, and for a moment she could have thrown herself down and begged him to ask her to stay. Then pride returned. She said, “That wasn’t necessary.” But she stepped forward and took them anyway. Her hand touched his in the transfer. He caught at it, holding her from retreat.

“Marry me,” he said.

Tess froze. His fingers closed around hers. His grip was warm and strong, and held her fast.

For some outrageous reason, she could not speak. Perhaps it was her shock, or the sudden way her breath failed. Perhaps it was the bubble of pure joy that welled up and blocked her throat. She felt the flowers sliding from her hands; he caught them, a sudden, easy move, a contrast to his awkward proposal.

She ducked her head, and mumbled at the floor the only word she could manage to say.

“Yes.”

They were married in an English ceremony by a French minister in a Tahitian church. They could have had their choice of any other combination they might have liked, but to Tess, the little chapel and the simple decoration were perfect. The church was full, not only with Hina and her family and Mr. Sydney and the
Arcanum
’s crew,
but with a crowd of well-wishing islanders who were thrilled to have a party on short notice. Tess stood before them in a flowing waistless robe of white taffeta, loaned to her by Hina, and had not the least regret for the elegant satin gown and massive train she had worn in that other, ill-fated ceremony. This was her real wedding. The other had been no more than a troubled dream.

She listened to the
pasteur
’s voice, and could not help a blink of surprise when she heard him intone in lilting accents, “I, Gryphon Arthur Meridon…”

Gryf repeated the name, without the slightest hesitation. She looked up at him, and lost the thread of her curiosity in the wonder of seeing him there, taking a vow to love and cherish her for all the rest of their lives. His name was unimportant. Under any name, she would love him. She repeated her own vows with wholehearted sincerity.

But the question came back to mind that evening, after all the guests and nonguests had wandered away, full of roast pig and the Frasers’ gin. Hina had thoughtfully arranged a trip for herself, her children, and Mr. Sydney to visit relatives on Moorea after the party, and Mr. Fraser was absent for several days, as usual, on some business of his own. Tess and Gryf had the two-story thatch-roofed house in Papeete to themselves.

As they walked up the porch steps, Tess said tentatively, “So now I am Mrs. Meriton.”

He gave her an ironic look. “Spelled with a
d.
” He held open the door. “Meridon.”

She had no desire to mention Stephen, or anything to do with him, but the coincidence was startling. She tried to think of an oblique way to approach the question, and finally asked timidly, “Did you know that was the family name of the marquesses of Ashland?”

“Yes.”

The shortness of that answer warned her off the subject, but as she stepped inside she turned, and asked lightly, “Surely you’re not related to them?”

It was growing dark. In the dim light in the hall his eyes were unreadable. “In a way.”

“I see,” she said, and was certain that she did. A natural son…it explained a lot of things. He stood stiffly, a little distance away. She put out her hand and took his, wanting him to know that it made no difference at all. “I love you,” she said.

He pulled his hand free. “Will you be all right here by yourself?”

“By myself?”

“I’m going out.”

“Going out! Going out where?”

“Tess,” he said flatly. “It’s been a long day. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“But—”

“Good night.” He was already out the door. He turned before he closed it. “I’ll come back before morning. I promise.”

Tess was left standing in shock inside the hall. A moment later, she recovered enough to throw open the door, but he had already vanished in the growing dusk. There was no one in the empty, coral-dust street but a small group of children playing at French bowls and a dog that trotted in and out among the thick overhanging trees.

She called his name. One child looked up, and waved. There was no other answer. Numbly, she stepped back inside and let the door fall closed. Going out? She could not imagine…Where was he going? The promise to be back before morning was more disturbing than reassuring. Why should he have left her at all?

She twisted her hands together and went slowly upstairs, changing rather sadly into the pretty light gown and peignoir that had been another present from Mahina. Tess did not really believe he would be gone long, so she sat in a chair near the window and read by the light of an oil lamp, a book of French love poems that she had planned to give him. She did not take down her hair, but left the creamy white flowers in it. She read through every poem, and when she came to the end, she turned the lamp down to nothing and remained by the window, staring out into the tropical night.

After the clock downstairs struck midnight, she began to get angry. By the time it was one, she was furious. She stood up and began to pace the dark room, asking herself over and over where he could have gone, and why, and how he could be so heartless as to leave her on such a night. In the two days since he had come and proposed, she had hardly seen him at all. Hina had thrown herself into making all the wedding arrangements. All Tess had known of it was that he was so anxious to have the ceremony as soon as possible that he’d obtained a special license, an impatience which had flattered her enormously. So why now had he said good-night and left her in the hall, as if they were little more than strangers?

She fumed over it, and entertained herself for some time in thinking up cutting responses for when he came back and tried to apologize. Just let him try to apologize! Then she sat down and began to be afraid, and by two o’clock, she was certain he had been knifed and robbed on the waterfront. It was when she was deep in the throes of that agitation that she noticed the red spark in the shadows below her window.

She stopped her pacing, and peered down at the tiny light. It glowed brighter, and then faded, and then in a
moment it grew brighter again, illuminating a pale mouth and bearded chin. Her hands tightened on the windowsill. Memory clutched at her, the dreadful recollection of another place—another darkness, and someone watching.

She fought back a whimper of panic. It was a
gendarme,
perhaps, making his rounds. It was some sailor, stopped for a smoke and a last swig from his bottle on the way to the beach. She shrank to the side of the window, holding back the curtain. The red spark made an arc downward, winking out. She waited. A minute went by, then two, as she strained to hear whether the figure was walking away. White spots swam before her eyes as she tried to see into the shadows.

After an infinity of silence, with only the sound of rustling leaves and the distant low murmur of the surf to break the quiet, she almost convinced herself that the loiterer was gone. But she stayed by the window, wishing mightily that Gryf had not left her there alone. Every tiny noise in the house seemed loud.

The clock downstairs struck half past two, and she jumped at the first hollow peal of its chimes. Oh—where was Gryf? Why had he left her? She pulled her robe tightly around her and crept to the stairs.

At the top of them she stopped. It seemed very dark below. She almost went back to get the lamp. After a moment, she carefully placed a slipper on the top step, avoiding the creaky spot she knew would be in the middle. She took another step, and another, slipping down in silence. It was as if her feet knew something that her mind refused to accept. She was not alone in this house. With a certainty that came from no rational reason at all, she knew she was not alone.

At the foot of the stairs, she turned back toward the kitchen, hardly allowing herself to breathe as she
slipped along. She stopped just outside the door, and leaned forward, then dug her fingernails hard into her palms to keep herself from screaming.

Inside the kitchen, the quivering glow of a match illuminated a man’s silhouette, throwing his long shadow across the floor. He was facing away from her, bent over the kitchen hutch. She stood there long enough to see the flash of metal as he eased something from the drawer. That was enough. She did not wait to see what it was. She broke and ran, down the hall and out the front door, and did not stop running until she had pounded down the hill above the harbor and reached the empty streets of the waterfront.

The
Arcanum
lay only a few hundred feet from the beach. Tess could see the ship, a dark, unlit outline against the starshine on the water. She trotted up and down the cool sand, looking for some way to reach the ship, but there were no boats small enough for her to handle on the beach. She threw a nervous look over her shoulder at the town, and imagined that she saw the shadow of a figure emerging from behind a nearby warehouse. The vision galvanized her: she kicked off her slippers and took off her robe, rolling it into a bundle. Holding it above her head, she waded into the black water. It wasn’t cold; it felt warmer than the fresh night air. The nightgown floated out around her and tangled in her legs, so she worked it off her shoulders and left it to wash up on the beach, a slightly whiter shape within the small white waves that broke regularly on the shore. Naked, holding her head and the robe above water, she slid into the bay and stroked for the ship.

By the time she reached it, both arms were exhausted. She floated, trying to rest, while she stared in dismay at the curving wall of freeboard. The deck might as well have been a thousand feet up, for all she could reach it.
She touched the hull beneath the waterline with her feet, and jerked back instinctively from the slimy tendrils of algae that covered the surface. She called out, softly at first, then louder, and received no answer. Slowly, she worked her way around the side, held on to the chain cable beneath the sharp spear of the bowsprit to rest, and then went on. With profound relief, she spotted a dinghy on the other side, tied up to the boarding ladder. Reaching it seemed to take the last of her strength; she tossed her robe inside and held on to the gunwale, breathing hard.