Mistress of Darkness (34 page)

And there his ambition had encountered its very first check. Rose Tascher had no longer been in Martinique. She had married, above herself indeed, for de la Pagerie had been of little account, and in fact he had been one of those bankrupted by the storm. But Rose had become the wife of young de Beauharnais, son of the governor general and an officer in the army, and had departed for Paris. He had almost followed, but changed his mind. Louis Corbeau was no chaser after other men's wives; he desired only possession, when he desired. To share was quite beyond his nature, a fault he well recognized in himself, except that he preferred to regard it as a virtue.

So then, throwing himself into the reconstruction of the Trois Islets' plantation with all his energy, while feeling utterly disheartened, it had seemed no more than a logical, lime-consuming adventure to go to war, when de Grasse and de Bouille had summoned the youth of the Indies to their colours. A war which had ended so suddenly and so abruptly in a shark-infested ocean, from where he had been transplanted, in a quite miraculous fashion, to this stronghold of the plantocracy.

He was envious, certainly. Planting was in his blood. He knew no other way of life. And Rio Blanco was several times the size even of Hilltop; there was more land to be had in the vastness of St. Domingue. But was Rio Blanco as efficiently run? That he doubted. His rides with Georgiana had been quite a revelation. Here was concentrated wealth, being continually reconcentrated. And fate had chosen to plant
him
in the very centre of it. There was an interesting consideration. Especially as fate had also elected to plant an Eve in her garden of Eden with him. And also a serpent? He had not been able to discern one, as yet.

'You are very thoughtful.' Once again Georgiana reined her horse. 'You have been unusually thoughtful ever since Matt and Sue departed.'

'Perhaps I worry for them. I regard them both as my benefactors, you know. And with all these privateers...'

'Oh, rubbish. Robert says the war will be over this time next year. They are already discussing peace.'

'Oh, indeed, Miss Georgiana. But who is to convince the privateers of that?'

She glanced at him, and her tongue, red and wet, showed between her teeth for just a moment in a gesture which was peculiarly her own. ‘I don't believe you are thinking of them at all, Louis. I believe you are thinking of me.'

He had been warned that she was an uncommonly direct young woman. 'Would that displease you?'

She guided her horse into the paddock beside the stand, and slipped from the saddle. 'On the contrary, sir. It would displease me, intensely, were you
not
thinking of me. Am I not beautiful?'

He joined her on the ground. 'Indeed you are.'

She pouted at him. 'But you think Sue is prettier? Don't trouble to deny it. Everyone thinks Sue is prettier. And do you know what is so amusing? They think Sue is much nicer, too. They think Sue is a poor lovesick fool who has been led astray, just as they think I am a whore. But really she is the whore, running away after her own cousin. Wouldn't you say?'

She was very close, her face upturned towards him, no longer shaded by the broad-brimmed hat. And they were alone in the paddock, half a mile from the house or the village, on a still, hot morning; he could watch beads of sweat forming on her upper lip, and had the strangest desire to kiss them away. But then, this girl continually aroused strange desires in him. As perhaps she intended to do. He would really be unwise to fall into any trap she might be laying unless he was sure that he had dug the deeper hole.

'I think,' he said, 'that you are jealous because it is she Matt has taken off with.'

Her frown was genuine, he was sure. 'Me? Jealous of that ... that lout? Oh, really, Louis, if you knew...'

'Why do you hate him? Why don't you tell me?'

'I absolutely refuse to discuss him for one moment longer.' She turned away with a flounce, started up the steps to the lowest tier of the stand, and missed her step. She gave a little shriek and fell backwards, but the whole thing had been so patently planned that he was ready for her, and caught her round the thighs, discovering to his delight that his suspicions were no more than justified, and she wore but a single shift beneath her gown. His fingers slipped on the flesh beneath, and then lodged under her breast; he could feel each rib.

She turned, in his arms, dragging her nipples across his palms. 'Upstairs,' she whispered. 'There is a couch.'

He tightened his grip and swept her from the ground, started up the steps, while her arms went round his neck and she kissed him on the mouth again and again, licking his lips, his nose, his eyes, his chin, seeming to count his teeth. She was utterly abandoned, and gurgled with delight, as she was a delight to hold. So then, he thought, as he emerged on to the floor level, I have after all fallen into her trap. Or has she fallen into mine?

And does it matter? She is Suzanne's sister. And Suzanne is unavailable. Presently. Pie wondered how long it would take that gorgeous creature to grow tired of that over-solemn little boy.

His knees hit the couch before he realized how close it was, and he fell forward. Georgiana gave a little shriek of pleasure and landed on her back, and seemed to bounce back into his arms as he sat down. Her skirt rode up, and his hands, starting at her ankles, and sliding past the leather of her boots, were already touching the sweat-damp warmth of her flesh.

'Oh, God,' she whispered. 'Oh, God, Oh, Louis, how I have waited ...' her own hands came down to seize him and fumble at his belt, as she then guided him to his goal, arching her body and rolling her tongue round and round her lips, seizing his mouth with hers and forcing her tongue into it until she filled every millimetre of space, throwing her legs round his thighs to hold him closer, tearing at his shirt with her nails, and ripping through the material to scratch his back, and then uttering another little shriek, and this time the pleasure was mingled with pain. Then it was too late for him; he was imprisoned and could not have withdrawn, except to thrust again, had he been commanded at gunpoint. But even as his body sagged on to hers, and he felt her legs relaxing to fall beside him, and her head lolled backwards to allow her mouth to flop open, and her eyes drooped half-shut, although she continued to stare at him with an almost frightening intensity, the alarm bells were jangling in his brain.

He pushed himself on to his elbow, gazed down at her. 'They said you were wanton.' 'Who said?'

'Well ... does not your brother always refer to you as a whore?'

Now her eyes were wide again, and her tongue was returning into her mouth, and her nostrils were dilating as she breathed. 'No doubt you'll have heard the story.'

'Indeed I have.'

'And now you will know it to be untrue. My maidenhead belongs to you, dearest Louis. No one else. Did I not say, that it is Sue who is really the whore in our family?'

He stared at her for some seconds. And then burst out laughing, his chest thumping against her breasts. 'I have been out-generalled, sweet Georgiana. And I accept my defeat gracefully, as I must. But then, who could wish for a sweeter captor.' He kissed her on the mouth, slowly. And surely, he thought happily, all these roads also lead to Rome.

'Again?' she begged. 'Can you do it again? This time it will not hurt. Will it?'

‘I have no idea,' he said. 'Certainly it will not hurt me.'

'Oh, you are a wretched man.' She pouted, and smiled, almost in the same instant. 'Are all men wretched?'

'It seems so,' he said. 'You may count upon it that I am an utter scoundrel, mademoiselle. As my wife, you will suffer untold agonies. I promise you.'

Her tongue slowly circled her lips in that anticipatory gesture he was coming to recognize. 'Then begin now. I count myself as your wife from this moment.'

'Alas,' he said. 'It will be necessary to wait, for at least a few minutes.' He rolled off her, and held her in the crook of his arm while he rested on his elbow. 'You can while away the tedious moments by telling me why you hate Matt.'

'Constellation,' bellowed Robert Hilton. 'Constellation,' screamed Georgiana Hilton. 'Constellation,' shouted Sir Archibald Campbell. 'Eclipse,' roared Louis Corbeau. 'Eclipse,' called Lord Cranstoun. 'Constellation,' bawled Sir Charles Douglas. 'Eclipse,' said Sir George Rodney.

'Suzanne,' whispered Lady Campbell to Mistress Ellison. 'You remember Suzanne. A lovely girl. But my dear...'

'He's her cousin, you know,' Mistress Ellison said darkly. ‘I mean my dear Harriet, they ought to be locked up. It's positively criminal.'

'And that poor man Huys,' Lady Campbell said. 'What a position to be in. Oh, I do wish this noise would stop.'

The horses swept up to the stand. There were six of them altogether, but only the Hilton mare and Sir Archibald's stallion were in it. And now the roars of the competing parties seemed to raise the very heavens; it was four in the afternoon, and this was the last event of the day, as it was the premier event of the day, and the very sun, now beginning its stately decline in the west, seemed to be gathering itself together for a last burning effort as it bore down on the flying dust, the sweating horses, the straining Negro jockeys and their varicoloured silk shirts, the stand, crowded with everyone who was anyone in either Kingston or Spanish Town, a kaleidoscope of pale greens and pinks and blues belonging to the ladies, sombre browns and blacks of the gentlemen's coats, dotted with the brilliant blue of the naval officers or the even more brilliant scarlet jackets of the officers of the garrison and the marines, and then the slaves themselves, for race day at Hilltop was a holiday, gathered in a vast crowd, well over a thousand strong, all in clean white cottons, in the cleared area beyond the paddock.

And now the horses were past, and the dust filtered slowly through the still air, coating faces and arms and expensive gowns, causing the onlookers to cough and sneeze.

'Constellation,' Robert said. 'Now there, Sir Archibald, is a filly for you.'

'Aye,' Campbell said. 'Only a short head, though.'

'Enough, sir, enough,' said General Lake. 'That is fifteen hundred pounds.'

'Gad, sir, I'll have my whip to that jockey,' Campbell grumbled.

'And now,' said Lady Campbell, 'they are installed at Green Grove, if you please. Living openly together, in the utmost sin. Do you know, my dear Marjorie, I very nearly refused to come this afternoon.'

'It makes the blood curdle,' Mistress Ellison agreed. 'But what was poor dear Robert to do? I feel so sorry for that man.'

Lady Campbell snorted. Marjorie Ellison had lived in Jamaica too long, that was her trouble. So once upon a time she had had hopes of becoming mistress of Hilltop; no doubt it had been a fortunate escape. ‘I doubt,' she remarked, 'that he is any better than either his sister or his cousin; they all come from the same tainted stock. And as for that child Georgiana...'

Georgiana was leading the route down to the paddock, where the steaming horses were being unsaddled, and the jockeys were receiving their rewards.

'Here's a purse for you, Abraham,' Robert bellowed. 'A hundred guineas, by God. You rode well, well, by God, sir.'

'I thanking you, Master Robert, suh,' Abraham grinned, and held the bag to his ear to hear it jingle. 'You going to sell me free, suh?'

'I will not, you black devil. You'll ride for me until you drop, by God.'

'Wretched nigger,' Sir Archibald shouted at Eclipse's rider. 'The whip, man. The whip. Have you never learned how to use the whip?'

'Man, Excellency, sir,' explained the boy. ‘I did think he would take she. I really tliink so.'

'Ah, bah, you'll come up to the house, my dear, for sangaree?' He had discovered his wife and Mistress Ellison at his elbow.

'I suppose we must,' Lady Campbell said, but her eyes gleamed as she watched Georgiana, arm tucked through Louis Corbeau's, head against his shoulder as she chattered away.

'I'm afraid my officers and I must decline your kind invitation to dinner, Robert,' Rodney said. 'We must catch the tide.'

'It's an outrage,' Robert declared. 'An outrage. Why, George, so to treat the nation's hero ...'

Rodney's smile was sufficiently confident to dispel any fears for his future. 'I imagine our Whiggish masters dispatched the frigate before the news of the battle can have reached them,' he said. 'They have accused me of monstrous crimes. Statia is only the half of it. No doubt your impeachment stands amongst them.'

'But I have written to abandon the action,' Robert protested.

'And no doubt that also has not yet gained London. I find the whole thing more amusing than disturbing. There'll be a great to-do when the Count and his officers reach Plymouth, and the news gets abroad.' He took Robert's hand. 'Meanwhile, my month here has been of the happiest. No doubt I shall not return. Sixty-four is a shade too old for active campaigning, and this gout gets no better. You'll give my best regards to your young scoundrel of a cousin, and his so beautiful lady.'

'I'll do that,' Robert promised. 'You do not then join in the general condemnation of the pair?'

Rodney shrugged. 'He would appear to be one of those men who has been destined either for greatness or disaster. It is too early to decide which.' He laid his finger alongside his nose, 'You'd do well to remember you have another sister.'

'That wretched girl.' Robert frowned at the pair, leading the procession back towards the carriages. 'Aye, I'll remember it, by God,' .

But it was midnight before the last of the guest equipages went rumbling down the drive, and Maurice led the servants round the house to accumulate the glasses and the devastated plates of cold meat and jellies, and to douse the candles.

'Georgiana,' Robert bellowed, stamping on the verandah. 'Georgiana.'

'She has retired,' Corbeau said. 'It has been a long day.'

Robert peered at him through an alcoholic fug; the Frenchman's cravat had been released, and he had discarded his coat. 'And did you tuck her in, sir?'