Paxton Pride (70 page)

Gown and party forgotten, Marie stared in horror and disgust as the lean lad named Johnny grabbed Arabella by the hips and hauled her up on her knees before sinking his length between her legs. His lean stomach slapped against the woman's cushioning buttocks.

Animals. No, worse! She had seen animals, whose coupling was untainted.
And they scorn me because I won't indulge in their lewdness? I will never be as they. I will yield to love alone.…
The night grew colder, the sky darkening with northern clouds. Marie's cheeks were wet, tear-streaked. Her feet fled along a familiar path across the garden, leading to a friend, a friend to ease a troubled spirit. Few save Lord Penscott knew she visited Behan. When first she arrived at Penscott Hall, a bedraggled, lonely, homesick child, the Englishman had taken her one day to the tutor's cottage, only a few paces inside the garden's sculpted hedges. A former scholar turned buccaneer, Behan had escaped the gallows through a whim of the duke, who granted him a type of freedom if he would teach French, swordsmanship and what he could of ships to the Penscott sons. Valuing his neck above all else—the life of a buccaneer had suddenly become excessively dangerous—Behan had agreed. Besides, a fifty-year-old man had no business at sea anymore, especially as a pirate.

But the sons were gone. One was a major in the Colonies, one dead in France, the third in London. Behan continued to reside at Penscott Hall by the grace of his benefactor, who still appreciated a good game of chess from time to time—even if it did degenerate into fiercely contested discussions on the relative merits of French and English privateers, sloops, brigs, trade winds and tactics. Behan had befriended the orphan of Mysteré on her arrival. Charged with improving her English, he did so, and in the process became the one person in the world she trusted.

Over the next two years, Marie had made a point of using every opportunity to venture to the cottage. Thrush had greatly helped matters by assigning her the task of putting the cottage in order twice a week. Luckily, Behan's conception of order was far different from Thrush's—in fact, he wouldn't allow Marie to disturb any of his “mementoes”—so there was extra time for lessons in reading and writing. As the two became closer, Behan found Marie a willing listener to tales of the old days when the Brothers of the Coast ruled the Caribbean. On her first Christmas at Penscott Hall, he presented her with a short sword. Within a month, she was an ardent pupil.

The door was never locked. It responded to the pressure of her hands and swung open. Comfort waited inside. Junk. Treasure. Memorabilia of countless adventures. An astrolabe near the door. Intricately inked maps helter-skelter on the walls. A grizzled old cat named Fair Weather on the hearth. Cheese and bread on a nearby shelf over a sturdy hammock, relic of nights at sea. Frigates, sloops, Dutch
freibotes
and Turkish carracks wrought from salvaged wood and perfectly rigged from main-truck to martingale. Cutlasses, long swords, claymores and rapiers. Flags and pennants, pistols and philosophic works in Latin and French. A pair of rocking chairs faced each other across a small table and chessboard. Along the wall, shelves held a Bible, small wooden kegs and pitchers. A jack of peasant beer stood upon the table. Nearby lay a pair of eyeglasses, hastily placed beside parchment, quill and ink for memoirs begun too late.

Behan bustled about, happy to have company. He heated some chocolate, knowing the servants received few such treats. Cream and sugar he combined and filled a stout clay cup with the deliciously rich brew, much too hot to drink. Setting the steaming cup on the table, he wiped a kerchief over face and beard, scratched an equally snowy crown of thinning hair. Hardly taller than the girl and almost as agile despite nearly seventy years, Behan was used to both outburst and silence from this young woman he loved as a daughter.

“It's too hot.”

“Of course. As are you. Tuck up your skirt.”

Marie glared in surprise. “I don't feel like fencing.”

“I know. You feel sorry for yourself. The exercise will help. Tuck up your skirt and defend yourself.”

“But the hour—”

“—is late and getting later,” he replied, sliding the table to one side. Marie pulled the back hem of her dress between her legs and tucked it at her waist, giving the effect of a feminine Pantaloon. Behan pulled down the practice swords from their place on the wall, offered Marie first choice.

The sordid scene occupying her room faded from mind. Attention riveted on Behan's circling blade. “We will see if you've practiced your new riposte, my girl.”

Marie grinned, responding to the heft of good steel in her hand. “Well, enough, Uncle, as you'll find.
En guarde
!”

Their blades touched and the brittle music of rasping steel broke the silence. Marie lunged, Behan knocked the wax-tipped blade aside and riposted, his hand a blur as he moved to his right. Marie yelped as the second stripe of the day was laid across her rump. “Ho, then! A score, poor mistress. She'll not sit for a week,” he laughed.

Marie, not dismayed by the taunt, sought redress. Behan was again too quick. Teacher's blade deftly turned student's and plucked the maid's cap from Marie's head. Luxuriant ebony tresses spilled about her shoulders. “Why, this is no vagabond, ruffian nor assailant I fight, but a girl! A mere girl, a wisp of a thing …” Behan teased.

Marie's lips thinned. She tossed the hair back out of her eyes. “That's the last time for tonight, Uncle,” she said in a low voice, at the same time launching an attack. The room rang with the fury of the blades. Steel played in darting whirls, jabs, loops and arcs in the candlelight. Lunge … Parry … Riposte missed and lunge again. The whir of slashed air. The dance forward and back …

“A third. A third, now!” cried Behan jubilantly, controlling a stab as the blade neared her ribs.

Marie grunted with effort, turned her wrist inside. The base of her blade sent his astray and she riposted. The wax-blunted tip caught just below his ribs, bent in an upward arc. “There, poor knave, you're dispatched. By a mere girl!” she panted.

Behan looked down, beamed with pride. “And one with a tongue sharper than any blade, by my oath,” he grumbled, trying to sound angry.

“Luckily for you,” Marie good-naturedly retorted, wiping the perspiration from her forehead.

Behand was breathing deeply. “By God, but I'm too old for this nonsense. Give me your blade. I'll put it up. You've learned well, my dear.”

Marie straightened her dress, piled the long hair beneath her cap and sat down to the chocolate, cool enough now. Behan pretended to fuss with the rapiers while watching her from the wall. Her fragile beauty had captivated even him, and 'twould be a lie not to admit the existence of feelings other than familial. At that moment he would have sacrificed a dozen years to be young again. Dark tresses, the proud, impudent thrust of still-firm breasts, the delightful contrast of pale flesh, gray eyes and lips the color of rich deep cherries—and as moist …

“You know, Uncle? I'm glad I came.”

Behan smiled, moved to sit. “So am I. I always am.”

“I wish … I could stay here with you.” She looked around the familiar room, a wistful smile lighting her face. “I'm alive here, at ease and free.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “I wonder if I'll ever see it again.”

“What, dear?” Behan asked, a little alarmed.

“Home. Mysteré.”

Behan relaxed. There was no answer for such a question. Home was a futile wish long ago forgotten in the face of a totally harsh world. “Perhaps.”

Marie sipped the chocolate, leaned forward to pull a tiny string on one of the models. A mainsail dropped into place. She puffed gently, filling the light canvas. “I think not, Uncle. I think not ‘perhaps.' 'Twere better said, I
will
.”

Chapter III

Jason Brand rode at the rear of the party. The position boded ill for his mission, but he refused to be discouraged: the plan to salvage peace
would
be presented to the king. An uprising and major bloodshed in Scotland could still be averted, given men of good will on both sides, and Jason was determined to do everything in his power to that end. As for those who opposed him, the self-effacing flatterers who had fought for places closer to the king, to the devil with them.

The black mare strained at the bit, eager to be off and run after three days of rest followed by a long, constrained walk. Jason, with his usual sense of brashness and every bit as bored with the slow pace, decided to let the animal have her way. She needed no more than a nudge to the flanks before bolting to the right and into the woods. One of the dragoons in escort noticed the Scot break from the party. “See here,” he cried stuffily. “No one is to—” The cursed Lowlander had disappeared in the woods.

The soldier started to give chase, but a bewigged companion caught his reins. “Let him go, Hubert. Damn good riddance, I say. Anyway, we're near Penscott Hall. I doubt he'll get lost.” The first soldier shrugged and regained his place in the line of march.

The mare rejoiced in the exercise. Time and again Jason ducked a low-hanging branch or jerked to one side to avoid being brushed against a trunk. Horse and rider cleared the trees. At a dead run, Jason pulled off hat, wig and coat, rolled the lot into a ball and stuck it in his lap. Now he needn't fear another tree-lined path.

Black mane and red-gold hair streaming in the wind, horse and rider broke onto a path paralleling the bank of the Thames. The king's party, by now far behind, stayed to the left and the high road, separated from the river by trees. To the right was a swatch of diamond-dappled ribbon rolling to the sea. The air was cool and clear, free of the appalling grime and soot and filth of the festering slum, as Jason called London. Better yet, the farther east they traveled, the more like Scotland herself, he thought. Clear as a bell on a winter morn.

With a sharp hand laid to her rump, the mare spurted ahead, at one with the racing wind. A deep creek ahead promised to block the path. Hooves churned the soft loamy bank. Water and flying mud slowed the pace. With a laugh and a wave to a trio of boatmen on the river, the Scot reined left, back toward the trees.

The animal refused the path indicated, fought the bit and won. Swerving between two trees to find a path of her own making, iron-shod hooves ravaged dried goldenrod, shattered autumn-brown grass and dashed through bewildered shrubs in a flurry of rusted leaves that gave testimony to an early frost. With a great laugh of pure joy, Jason braced, tightened his hold and leaned forward as the mare leaped a fallen tree and took the breadth of a narrow creek in stride. Immediately they bolted across a small meadow to charge a second barrier, a tree split by lightning. One half arced along the ground, the other rose upright, sprouting a decidedly ominous array of low hanging branches. Jason read the mare's mind, realized the curse of refusing to own any animal entirely broken in spirit. The damned fool mare, with a stubborn mind of her own, was going to jump through the arch formed by the two parts of the tree. Hauling on the reins, his lean, muscular body stretched upright in the saddle. The mare defied the cruel pressure of the bit and charged the high curve of the tree. Unable to halt her, Jason surrendered, lay as flat as possible on her neck. If the damned black was determined to jump, there was no point in complicating the issue. “Well then, up and be done with it, Bess,” he shouted.

Front legs tucked, rear legs following, Bess erupted gracefully to take the split tree in stride. One dead branch, hooked and hanging down, snagged under the collar of Jason's shirt and plucked him from the saddle. The mare continued without so much as a pause, disappearing from under the rider.

For a second, Jason hung helplessly in the air, arms and legs flailing in a futile search for nonexistent support. Across the small meadow, Bess halted, turned and tossed her head, whinnying proudly. Jason hurled a few choice maledictions against horsedom in general and one sway-backed, bone-brained devil's beast in particular.

The sound of wood cracking brought him up short. He looked down. A good eight feet to the broken half of the tree on the ground. Suddenly he stopped moving, held his breath. “Oh, damn!” he swore in sudden realization. The branch above him cracked again, dropped another half inch. Jason looked to either side. If he could just reach …

Laughter? Was someone laughing? Swinging gently, he twisted to the right, caught his breath. A girl in servant's garments stood under an old hawthorn. Her hair was long and black, beautiful to behold. Her laughter was bright and clear, limpid as running water.

The branch gave way with a sharp crack. Jason barely had time to fling out his hands and try to break the fall, still landed with a bone-jarring thud, the branch below driving the wind from him as the branch from above smacked his skull before falling off to the side. Somehow he crawled off the log, lay in the grass, half-dazed and gasping for breath. Running through his mind was the sound of the bright laughter. Had it stopped? He couldn't hear.…

Marie ran forward, terrified. She'd laughed at a nobleman, for surely he was a great lord to have such fine if somewhat torn clothes. But he had looked so funny, dangling in the air. Now amusement fled as she hurried across the grassy meadow to try to help.

Jason struggled upright, unwilling to take his eyes from the deep red, sensuous lips which had framed such delightful music. Slowly, he absorbed every feature. Soft, untouched ivory skin glowed with the flush of youth and embarrassment and confusion. A Spanish nose, without a doubt, hinted of higher blood somewhere in her past as the oval nostrils flared ever so slightly with each breath. High cheeks, sloping in sharp, elegant planes to a determined yet tamed jaw betrayed a lack of the confidence that would come with time and age. Most of all, the eyes. Slate gray, they spoke of curiosity as well as wisdom. Deep and luminous as mist on a quiet, secluded pond, they could not hide the questioning, defensive attitude of one who has learned not to trust too quickly.