Mistress of Darkness (3 page)

'Privateers,' the vicar said sombrely. 'The French are making a slaughter off the west coast. And all the fault of...' he glanced at the Duke. 'No politics, your Grace. No politics.'

'We'll not waste the afternoon.' Dorset agreed. 'You'll call, Mr. Hilton. Beckford claims you're the most forward-thinking planter in the West Indies, as well as the wealthiest. We could use your brains, and your money. You'll call. Matt, my thanks again.'

He climbed into his carriage.

'By God,' Hilton said. 'Is this how he spends his time, with a war on?'

'A man must have leisure, Mr. Hilton,' the vicar said. 'Now, you'll dine with me, of course.'

‘I am returning to town this instant, sir. I but sought my cousin. And having found him, I will take him back with me.'

'But...' Matt glanced at the parson, and received a quick shake of the head. 'You will give me time to fetch my things? I have been spending the holidays here.'

'If you make haste,' Robert said, limping towards the phaeton. ‘I doubt there is room for three. He will have to ride on the back.'

'Oh, fie on you, Robert,' Georgiana said. 'After six years? We shall squeeze in, I have no doubt at all.'

'Cricket/ Robert Hilton cracked the whip, and the phaeton gathered speed. 'By God, I could believe neither my eyes nor my ears. Is this what they taught you at Eton? It was different in my day.'

'I'll construe you a Greek sentence, if you wish.' Matt was pressed against the outside of the coach as it rumbled towards London, his right arm round Georgiana's waist; she huddled against him, her hat askew, her head resting on his shoulder. 'But it is so good to see you all again. Six years. Georgiana, why you were ...'

'Skinny as a rake,' she said happily. 'I've filled out, wouldn't you say. Matt?
^’

'Well...'

'She's a right hussy,' Robert grumbled. 'We'll talk of it later.'

'But what has brought you all the way to England, with the French privateers so active? And with the Yankees, I've heard, no less busy amongst the islands.'

'That for one thing,' Robert said. 'They are costing me money. Why, do you realize, boy, that better than nine hundred of my blacks starved to death over this last year? Taking both Hilltop and Green Grove, you understand.'

'Starved to death?' Matt was incredulous. 'But ... how did you survive?'

'Oh,
we
survived well enough,' Robert said. 'The food can be got, at a price. Ships do get through. But the price is not economical for feeding blacks. Of course I went for the old ones, but had to let some of the piccaninnies go too. There's part of our future, your future, Matt, just frittered away by this tiresome government of ours.'

Matt discovered that his hand was embracing something soft, as Georgiana had shifted her position. Hastily he removed his fingers to her arm, 'But... you mean you
let
them starve to death? Near a thousand people?'

'For God's sake boy, would you have me sacrifice my profit? I didn't like it. By God, with the privateers active fresh blood is damned difficult to get. So I'm joining the West India lobby for a season. Billy Beckford's idea. If the government really means to roll up the colonies from Georgia north, it will take them ten years, and that will bankrupt the lot of us.'

Matt looked down at Georgiana to see if the thought of deliberately allowing more than nine hundred men, women and children to die of starvation distressed her in any way, and she smiled and pouted at him,' allowing her tongue to appear between her teeth for a moment before withdrawing it. Georgiana had been thirteen when last they had met, and they had played together in the dust outside the Great House in the shadow of the Blue Mountains. 'And how is Suzanne?'

'Contented, I am sure,' Robert grunted, pulling on the reins as the phaeton entered another village and sent sparks flashing from the cobbles. 'She has a husband, a comfortable home, and the Dutch are neutral. What more could a girl want.'

'She doesn't love him,' Georgiana muttered.

'God's teeth,' Robert declared. 'What has that got to do With it, you stupid whore. Dirk Huys is my oldest friend. By God, I'd call him my only friend. He's a good man, and Sue will make him a good wife. I wish to Christ you had as much sense.'

Georgiana shrugged, moving her entire body up and down Matt's vest.

'Whore,' Robert growled. 'That's what she is, Matt. A damnable whore.'

'I'm sure ...' Matt began, somewhat uncertainly, as Georgiana did not seem unduly disturbed by the stream of invective.

'She's to be whipped every day for a year,' Robert said, trying out his arm on the horses' backs. 'If I'm not here, you must do it.'

'Eh?'

'Oh, you must,' Georgiana said. ‘I am a very naughty girl.'

'By God,' Robert shouted. 'She thinks it is a game. She's had a ramrod up there, Matt. By God she has, and not a husband in sight. That were bad enough. But it was a nigger. By Christ. I all but puked my guts when I learned of it.'

'Good Lord.' Watt looked down at his cousin. Georgiana winked. 'You're joking.'

'Joking? Joking? God's teeth, I wish I were.' 'But ...' Matt scratched his head, 'Georgiana? What of the man?'

'Boy,' she said sulkily. 'Robert hanged him.'

'But I taught him a lesson,' Robert snorted. 'Gelded him myself, I did. And then took him to a tree. By God, he was lucky at that.'

Matt found a handkerchief and wiped his brow. 'You have a strong stomach.'

' 'Tis a thick skin I need the more. Do you know I've been pilloried in the Jamaica press?'

'Well,' Matt said. 'I suppose the boy needed punishment, and should have been whipped ...'

'Whipped? By Christ, boy, but I despair. Truly I do. When I am dead and gone I see this sad world dissolving into ruin. Whipped, for raping a white woman?'

'It was not rape,' Georgiana said. 'If anyone should have been hanged it should have been me.'

'You mean you
wanted
to?' Matt asked in amazement.

'You should have seen his tool,' Georgiana said. ‘It was a dream.'

'Hussy!' Robert shouted, dragging on the reins. 'I'll have at her now, by Christ. I'll take the skin from her arse. I'll...'

'I'm sure she
is
joking,' Matt said. 'And the hour is late. We'd best be getting on. There are footpads on these heaths close to town.'

'Ah, bah,' Robert declared. But he flicked the whip again. 'I've pistols. And so have you, no doubt.' 'I'm afraid I do not,' Matt said.

'Eh?' It was Robert's turn to be amazed. 'You've no weapons?'

'I've my fists. They serve for most purposes. I train with Mr. Broughton.'

'Mr. Broughton? Mr. Broughton? God Almighty, what is to become of us? The government intent on ruining us, a sister who is a whore, and an heir who is scarce better than a macaroni? Father will be rolling in his grave.'

'What did you say?' Matt finally disengaged himself from Georgiana and sat up; the carriage slowed to enter the suburbs of Westminster.

Robert's face was flushed, not entirely with exertion. 'Aye, well, you'll be twenty-one soon enough and 'tis time we sorted things out.'

'I was not aware there was any sorting to be done,' Matt said. 'With Father dead, I supposed I would come back to Antigua once I graduate, and assume the managership of Green Grove. You've a change in mind?'

'Have you no ambition? Oh, aye, you're Grandmother Lilian's branch of the family, and Grandmother Lilian's branch has always managed Green Grove, just as Grandmother Marguerite's branch has always managed Hilltop. But the fact is, boy, you're the only Hilton left, after me, now your father is dead. Sue's children will be Dutchmen, and this harlot... God alone knows what she'll produce. But we must find a husband for her, Matt. An English gentleman. That's what she needs, and we'll keep that nigger boy a secret. By Christ, that a sister of mine could have sunk so low.'

'Oh, you should have seen him.' Georgiana snuggled up to Matt. 'He had ten inches, Matt. I swear it.'

'For God's sake,' Matt muttered. 'Control your tongue.'

'Harlot,' Robert said, waving Iris whip and scattering passers-by. 'Whore. Tainted, you are.
^‘
Tis a fraud I will have to practise on whoever looks at you twice. But 'tis you I'd talk about, Matt. Think about it, boy. Because old Ned Hilton wouldn't marry until he was near past it, there's twenty years between us. I've no right to expect more than another twenty, and what with this war and my troubles, and my harlot of a sister, I'd not be surprised if I had a seizure tomorrow. Then they're yours, Matt. Hilltop and Green Grove. All that Kit Hilton and Tom Warner fought for and killed for, make no mistake about that. Who heads the Hiltons must be a man, not a muling ball-player or a practiser of fisticuffs. You've a good eye with a pistol? Every Hilton has a good eye with a pistol.'

‘I have no idea,' Matt said. ‘I have never fired such a weapon in my life.'

'By God.' Robert shouted. 'By God.' The phaeton rolled dangerously from side to side.

'For God's sake,' Georgiana whispered, a gleam of amused malice in her eyes, 'Control
your
tongue, or he'll have his seizure right now.'

But the phaeton had turned through a pair of wrought iron gates, and was once again surging to a stop before a four-storied house; two yardboys were hurrying forward to seize the bridles.

'Step down,' Robert bawled. 'Step down.'

Matt assisted Georgiana to the gravel. 'Why, 'tis a mansion. And hard by the park? It must be costing you a fortune.'

'Bah,' Robert said. ' 'Tis only for a season, and we must show our mettle. These prancing dukes and duchesses, they could live off my charity. I'm a Hilton, boy. So are you. They call us nabobs. There's no one in all this miserable wet country controls our income. Remember that, and act the part. Cricket, Bah.' He stamped up the steps, and the door was hastily opened by a curtseying parlour maid. 'But the wenches are pretty.' He dug his fingers into the girl's head, removing the white linen cap to ruffle the yellow hair beneath. 'Aye, pretty.' He turned her round, slapped her backside, and clapped his hands. 'We'll have some of this poison you call claret. You handle a sword, no doubt. Matt? All Hiltons handle a sword.'

'Perhaps if I could try yours ...'

'You've none of your own? By God, but I feel old age overtaking me, minute by minute.' A butler stood in front of him with a tray on which waited a silver decanter and three goblets. Robert seized one and drained it. 'They smuggle this, by God. Give me a glass of rum, any day. You'll come with me, Matt. I'd speak with you in private.' He seized the decanter and climbed the stairs.

'Am I not included?' Georgiana demanded. 'Matt's future is my own.'

'Begone, harlot,' Robert bellowed. 'Get to your needlework. I'll see to your backside before this night is out. By God, I will.'

Matt, already at the foot of the stairs, hesitated, and Georgiana smiled at him; once again her tongue came through her lips. 'Oh, be off to your secret conclave, I'll learn of it soon enough.'

Hastily he followed his cousin. But suddenly he was aware of how tired he was, and realized as well how bemused he was by the remarkable events of the evening. Certainly he should be happy, he reflected. Today had been a triumph. For the village to beat the Hambledon men, and for him to notch forty-seven runs against Lumpy Stevens, there was fame. How magnificent it would have been if Gislane had been there to see it. He had hoped. The Hambledon men did not appear close to London every day, and the match had been well publicized. But her absence was his only disappointment. And then to have Robert and Georgiana descend upon him as if from heaven, when he had not expected to see them again for at least another three years ... except he was not sure that it wasn't a case of having ascended from hell.

The fact was, the West Indies was a different world, and he had forgotten that. Perhaps he had never known that. He had been born on Green Grove in Antigua, the oldest of the Hilton plantations, owned by Kit and Meg Hilton in the early colonial days, long before the great boom in sugar prices had raised the planters from the level of country gentlemen to the wealth and power of a landed aristocracy. He had taken money and power for granted, had never thought about slaves as other than a vast dark cloud at the bottom of the hill on which stood Green Grove Great House, or as a host of white clad soft-footed females who cleaned the house, and prepared the food and weeded the garden. And any notions he might have retained of his own innate superiority had been knocked into perspective at Eton, where he had shared the same discipline as the sons of earls and the pauper students. He had, of course, always known that he was destined to manage Green Grove one day, one day soon since the tragic death of Papa at sea three years ago, but he had not really considered what would be involved. No doubt Robert was right, and when it came to a choice between profit and lives, it was the lives which had to be sacrificed, supposing they were only slaves, but he wondered if he would have had the backbone to take such a decision, or the conscience then to travel across the ocean and rent a most expensive house. As for personally mutilating and then executing a black youth who had tampered with his sister - well, no doubt he was fortunate in having no sisters, and even supposing he would be left head of the family, Suzanne was safely married and Georgiana soon would be.

But what was he to make of Georgiana? His old playmate, who had sat on his shoulders and driven him as her horse round and round the rose garden during his visits to Hilltop?

So then, he was not happy, after all. The sudden appearance of his family had reminded him that he could not play cricket or spar with Jack Broughton for the rest of his life. But Robert was surely being unduly pessimistic.

He knocked on the door of the master bedroom.

'Come.' Robert was alone, and undressing himself. He had already removed his boots and his coat and shirt, to reveal a torso any pugilist might have envied.