Now Face to Face (51 page)

“A dance, nephew-in-law.” Diana walked forward, drawling out the words. “Mary, allow an aging woman a dance with a young man, if you please.”

“This dance is promised,” said Charles, and he led his wife toward the dancers. But when he looked at Diana, she was smiling, a cat’s smile, and he felt his heart beating faster, and memories were in his mind that made him stumble.

He and Diana made love standing up in a corner down a dark hall. It was dark and bitter and too fast and better than any in his life. And this time, Charles did not call Barbara’s name.

Later, when he told Wart, not all of it, but the essence, Wart laughed so hard he nearly choked.

Chapter Twenty-five

F
RANCIS
M
ONTROSE AND
C
AESAR
W
HITE, BOTH OF WHOM HAD
once served the Earl Devane, shivered in a drafty warehouse in London, which held the contents of the Devane estate—those contents Parliament had allowed the estate to keep after assessing penalties for Lord Devane’s part in the South Sea scandal. There were paintings, mirrors, gilded chairs, tables, marble statues, books piled atop one another, dishes from China to serve fifty, even a hundred, silver forks and goblets, silver bowls—the remnants of a man who might have achieved the reputation of a great collector, had he lived.

“It could be anywhere,” Montrose said. “The Duchess desires the impossible.”

“She always does,” said White, who was by now inured to the Duchess’s requests. “And we always oblige her. Here, I think I have found it.” He lifted a thick cover. “Yes.”

“Dear God,” said Montrose.

“This harpsichord isn’t going to bother that tobacco ship’s captain,” said White. “But I would give a shilling to see his face when he views the bees.”

Chapter Twenty-six

O
DELL
S
MITH PULLED ON THE REINS OF HIS HORSE AND STOPPED
a moment to watch the river, easily seen through the winter trees. It was not yet the placid, lazy curl of downriver. Here there were small islands in it, which the water flashed around, showing white, rough edges before joining it again. The astonishing roar of the river’s cascade could be heard. There were bluffs behind him, where the land rose up abruptly, punctuated by God’s design of falls, rapid, swirling through rocks and more islands. This was World’s End, except the world did not end. It did not precisely begin either, though there was more settlement than ten years ago. Colonel Byrd had a trading post and small plantation here. Past the falls, the Huguenots farmed in placid little quarters. A Randolph brother had the beginnings of a prime plantation.

The sky above was as hard a blue as he remembered Lady Devane’s eyes being. It might have been a summer day, but for the cold, the drifts of snow, the bitter brown of the trees. The woods were silent against the dull roar of the river’s cascade as he and his horse picked the way through them. Every now and again, he would see the tracks of a hare in the snow, or the slow circling of a hawk above. The winter was long for him. On the Bolling quarter where he lived there was a cabin, as required by law, but not much else.

I will send slaves to you first thing in the spring, Colonel Bolling had said, fresh off the ship, fresh from the Ivory Coast. We can make a late tobacco crop and corn and wheat. Life was at its simplest, a round of chores, morning to dusk, a little hunting now and then in early morning or late evening to keep fresh meat, an evening pipe. Solitude had become hard to bear because of the news, heard from Tom Randolph, that the body of a slave boy had been found, a body thought to be that of Lady Devane’s boy.

Lately, Odell had had the same dream over and over: the sight of the boy running toward him; the way he had taken the boy by the shoulders and shaken him, pushing him again and again into the trunk of a tree; Klaus behind him, pulling at him, telling him to stop, only he couldn’t stop. I will handle it now, Klaus had said, snarling the words, as he, Odell, had stared down at the body. Go away. Now. And he had, glad to leave the scene, still stunned from the swift rush of violence that had risen up inside himself. That night he had slept deeply, with no dreams, waking the next morning to a queasy feeling inside. He’d gone to the second creek, but there was no sign of the sloop, or of the boy—save one, which he had taken care of. Then, not knowing had been good. Now, he had to know what had happened. Klaus had to tell him, so that the dream would stop.

His horse snorted and shook its head, cold. He slapped his reins smartly on his horse’s haunch, and the creature fought him, rearing suddenly—stubborn, purposefully stupid, the way a horse can be. The action caught him by surprise. Before he knew what was happening he was falling backward. He held the reins in one hand only; there was no time to harden his thighs to control and calm the horse. It was not the first time he had fallen from a horse. It was not the first time he had been thrown. Everything would have been fine, except that as he fell backward, a leg bent under him.

His body met ground, the leg between. He heard the snap of bone even as a pain dark and red throbbed enough to make him cry out, make him almost faint. His other foot hadn’t come quite clear of the stirrup. His horse shied and danced, upset, to drag him a few unbearable inches, grinding the leg into agony before somehow, he was loosed.

He lay on the ground like a fish pulled out of water, gasping for air. In the distance, he could hear his horse. The ground he lay on was as cold as the grave must be. Into his gasping came a shivering that shook him ruthlessly. He fought it, fought the pain, fought the weakness, willed himself to think clearly. Carefully, he lifted himself up to his elbows. Pain made him light-headed. He was bruised all over, but it was the leg, the leg…

He saw his horse, watching. Odell breathed in and out for a while, until finally he had summoned the stamina to push past pain and make the small, clucking sounds that would lure his mount to him. Sure enough, the animal came, nosing at him a little.

“Bastard,” he said, but whispering, careful not to frighten. He lunged and caught a stirrup. The movement shifted the leg bent under him. For a moment, he thought he was going to faint dead away, going to lose the stirrup and fall back. But he didn’t. He waited until the pain lessened enough for him to think through it. He knew what he had to do. Grunting, he pulled himself up along the length of the girth. It was a slow thing; the pain in his leg radiated whitely, hot enough to make his body shiver. His horse sensed it and moved restlessly, bringing fresh bouts of agony.

“Bastard, bastard, bastard,” he sang softly to his horse.

His strong fingers dug into the leather; his hands, powerful, seasoned with years of work, locked themselves around the soft hump of the pommel.

“Be good,” he told his horse, hoarsely, breathlessly. “Let old Odell rest awhile. Be still, boy.”

He had pulled himself up enough so that he was standing on his good leg. The other leg was useless. Leaning on his horse, he thought out the next moves carefully. He would put his weight onto the muscles of his arms and shoulders and lift the good leg in the stirrup, letting his thigh push him up and into the saddle. Somehow, he had to get the other leg over. It was going to be hell. He might faint and fall right off the horse. All right, he could face that. He must do it quickly, not ruminate upon it.

He counted off to himself, one, two, three. His muscles bunched. His leg was in the stirrup, but that effort frightened his foolish horse. The beast whinnied and trotted off. He couldn’t hold himself on. He tried, grimacing, panting, praying, cursing. But in spite of his efforts, his hands were coming loose from the pommel. No…not again…

He fell back, into a soft drift of snow and the baleful branches of some shrub.

For a while there was just the pain. He did not fight it. He had not the strength. Then he became aware of cold upon his face. He opened his eyes, looking through branches to sky. Snow was melting on his face, snow that had dropped from the branches of the shrub he fell into. Snow was all around him, like a soft pad, like the beginnings of a white shroud, the drift into which he was sunk. The cold burned. He heard his horse in the distance, restless, impatient, fretful without him. Sometimes he thought that day at the second creek was a dream he had dreamed. Maybe, this, too, was a dream. He saw, far above, a hawk circling in the sky, that sky the color of Lady Devane’s eyes.

In his mind were words the slaves sang, a song he’d never understood, only now he did. The dead are not dead, they sang. They are not under the earth. They are in the rustling trees. They are in the groaning wood. They are in the moaning rocks. The dead are not dead.

The boy had his revenge.

Spring

…now I know in part

Chapter Twenty-seven

S
LANE SAT UP, HIS WHOLE BODY ALERT
. H
E LIT A CANDLE AND
stared at the flame. He was on the last leg of his journey, near Tamworth, plotting the rising with Sir John. He’d been all over the south of London this last month, talking with Jacobites, ascertaining support, priming them for Jamie. He was exhausted. But he was glad he’d left the intrigue of London and gone to the country, where love for Jamie was still clear and clean in people’s hearts, where without a second thought, women sold family jewelry to give to the cause, and saw their men ready to march to London.

Something was wrong. What was the time? Not dawn for several hours. He tried to slow his breathing, so that his mind would be clear. Was Rochester ill? Dead? Was it Jamie? What made the flesh on his arms tingle this way?

He pulled the blanket from the bed, sat down at the chair by the window, and stared out, closing his eyes, willing his mind to quiet.

It was a false quiet. Before light had done more than etch the horizon, he was in the stable, saddling his horse, coins left in his chamber for the innkeeper. The day was misty and cold, and the March sleet yesterday had turned to ice in places. There was a saying here: “March damp and warm doth the farmer much harm.” What about March damp and cold? His horse picked its way through the muddy, churned paths, pulling its hooves out at every step, and Slane pulled his collar up, flattened his hat down. Italy was in his mind—the thought of the sun shining down on a bay dotted with fishing vessels, himself swimming in water that was warm and tasted of salt.