Paxton's War (24 page)

Ethan Edward Paxton blew out the candle and closed his eyes. He had broken a promise made to himself years ago. He had just reread the letters written to him by his deceased wife when they were still courting. So many decades ago. Why, of all times, had he chosen now to relive those memories? What a foolish act! What sentimentality!

As he struggled toward sleep, he wondered why he had changed his mind. Why hadn't he visited the widow Jarvis? God bless that woman, always so willing and anxious to take him in. Her generous bosom and warm, wide thighs had satisfied him on many a cold and lonely night. Her carnal appetite was nearly as large as Ethan's, just as her demands were small—a bit of affection and a few words of appreciation for the hot apple pie she never failed to bake him. Why, then, hadn't he seen her in so long? Why hadn't he ridden to her place that very evening and comforted himself with simple physical pleasure? Perhaps it was because she was too simple, or because having once known the meaning of love, it was difficult for Ethan to settle for less. His wife had the soul of a poet, the sensibility of a true artist. In that way, Ethan had to admit, she was very much her son's mother. Her son, he thought, her lost son, giving recitals for the conquering generals, aiding and abetting his fiercest foes.

Ethan turned on his side, and still sleep wouldn't come. Where was Joy? Why hadn't she returned from Charleston? When would Allan be released? And would the Paxton business ever recover from the grueling hardships imposed by this war? Production was down by a third, and another quarter of their agricultural output had been requisitioned by the greedy British. The Paxton ships had been out of service for months. Rather than acquiesce to the Crown's choking taxes and and trade restrictions, Ethan had decided to dock his vessels and wait until he could operate when and how he damned well pleased—which wouldn't be until the scoundrels were sent a-swimming back to London. Soon, Ethan decided, no matter how great the odds, no matter how strong their hold on the South, it would happen soon. And as far as sentiment went—his wife's old love letters and his son's sweet sonatas—the hell with it all! There was work to do and a war to be won. The dead and deserters were to be forgotten. Half enraged, half heartbroken, Ethan Paxton finally fell into a shallow, uneasy sleep.

Downstairs and out back, on a ridge overlooking the moonlit grounds behind the Paxton home, Joy Exceeding and Captain Peter Tregoning shared a hammock that rocked silently between two sturdy trees of aging oak. The summer night smelled of flowers as they lay side by side, whispering so that the sound of their voices blended with the croaking cicadas. From time to time, their mouths would meet. Their flesh perspired as desire inflamed their bodies and quickened their breath.

“We mustn't,” Joy insisted.

“He doesn't know you're home yet,” replied the red-haired soldier.

“I must tell him.”

“He's already asleep. Wait till morning,” he urged, watching the moonbeams play with the wondrous curls of Joy's long chestnut-colored hair.

“And where will you stay?”

“With you, my love … here in the hammock, there on the ground … please …” he entreated as he looked into her softly sloped green eyes.

“'Tis all in vain, Peter. You promised if you saw me home, you'd turn right around. You're needed back in Charleston.”

“I created an excuse, a job to be done in Brandborough.”

“Please, Father can't know. Jason's been enough for him to contend with.”

“And yet,” Peter reflected, “there seems more to your brother than meets the eye.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Only that his heart belies his actions.”

“He's not a Tory, is he?”

“Oh, God, no. We practically lived together in London, and if it's one thing I'm able to judge keenly, it's a man's political character. No, your brother's no follower of the Crown.”

“I've always known that. I could read his heart when I was with him yesterday. I've tried to convince Father and Hope of his patriotism, but to no avail.”

“Perhaps Jason wants it that way.”

“But why?” asked Joy.

“I'm not certain. With Jason Paxton, one can't be certain of anything.”

“All this confusion, Peter. Are you really certain that you want to keep seeing me?”

“Certain beyond reason, sweet Joy,” he whispered as he kissed her ear, her mouth, and her throat, pulling her blouse below her shoulders, and lower yet, bathing her hardening nipples with kisses, pulling her to him, easing her from the hammock to the damp earth. There, hidden behind a grove of high, dense bushes, she surrendered to his ardent yearning, his probing fingers, his swollen passion. Slowly but surely, he drew moisture from the heart of her desire as he tasted the soft, smooth skin of her thighs with the tip of his tongue, his open palms caressing the small of her back and the curve of her buttocks, as he pressed his hard need against her undulating loins, as he kissed the side of her neck, kissed her half-closed eyelids, as he followed the shape of her delicate breasts with his lips, whispering warm words of love in her ear while gently, sweetly, inch by precious inch, entering the deep ecstasy of Joy's most private and sensual chamber.

Ethan Paxton, dressed in coarse work pants, the muscles in his arms bulging against his snug, half-sleeved cotton shirt, his eyes bloodshot from a night of restless, troubled sleep, listened to his daughter with suspicion as they sat at the breakfast table. Sometime during the night she had arrived, escorted by an unknown and elderly merchant traveling all the way from Boston. A likely story.

“And the English soldier?” asked Ethan as he sipped his freshly brewed coffee, trying to contain his anger.

“What soldier is that, Father?” she asked, sensing the controlled rage in her father's voice, which alarmed and frightened her.

“Please, don't play games with me. You know precisely which soldier I mean—the one you took a fancy to at the picnic.”

“Oh,
that
soldier. I think he's in Charleston.”

“Think? Are you saying that you haven't seen him?”

“I'm saying that I think I need to bring you more coffee, Father—that and a sweet roll.” Joy got up from the table and started for the kitchen.

“Stay where you are, young lady. I asked you a question, and I want an answer.”

She froze in place. “I … I …”

“You've been seeing him. Isn't that the truth?”

“The truth …” She couldn't complete the sentence.

“The truth is that I must have done something gravely wrong in bringing up you and your brother,” said Ethan, feeling as if the world were crumbling around him. “Neither of you have a modicum of pride for our family or our family's independence. First Jase went over to the other side, now you. Deserters both.”

“You're wrong,” Joy answered, her voice trembling with emotion. “We have pride, great pride. You've taught us that, Father, and we love and respect you with all our heart. It's only that …”

“You don't understand the meaning of respect.” Ethan cut her off, his anger building. “If you did, you'd tell that English dog to go back where he came from.”

“Dog? Why, he's the most perfect gentleman …”

“Then you do admit to seeing him.”

“Am I not free to see whomever I please?”

“Not when your friend is pointing a musket to our heads. God gave you more sense than that.”

“God gave me the sense to know a true friend when I see one.”

“Damned impertinent daughter!” Ethan exploded, shouting and rising as he swept his coffee cup from the table. It smashed and splashed against the wall, and yet the noise of its break paled in comparison to Ethan's shattering voice. “If you're to whore for the British, at least get them to pay you well!” His eyes flashed with fury as he pointed his finger directly at his daughter's quivering lower lip. “Go back to Charleston. I'm in no need of you here. Hurry and perhaps you can catch your soldier boy. I saw him riding away at daybreak. He'll not have gone far. He looked tired. The poor swine had obviously been laboring all night.”

Sobbing, Joy ran from the room.

Chapter 6

There were three great Somerset plantations in South Carolina—the one run by Buckley himself in Brandborough; the one overseen by his father and mother, Marble Manor, halfway between Brandborough and Charleston; and the grandest of all, the most splendid in the colony, or, as some claimed, the entire South: Somerset Hall. Just a few miles away on the outskirts of the city, it was the immense estate on which Jason had paused to hear the song of an elderly slave. The slave population of Somerset Hall was, in fact, larger than in most Carolina villages.

At eighty-five years of age, Hugo still lived there with his wife, Paulina. Both invalids, they nonetheless made certain that their yearly masked costume ball, an event that had assumed legendary proportions among the region's aristocracy, was carried out with the same extravagance for which it had been known since its inception some five decades earlier.

That was the year, 1730, when Colonel Hugo had sworn that his new home would be the city's undisputable showplace and a monument to the glory of his name. A half century later, that distinction remained unchallenged. It wasn't merely the grandeur and serene beauty of the main house that so dazzled the eye; it was also the gardens, themselves a wondrous testimony to the human cultivation of nature.

The colonel had employed no less a figure than Michel Henri LeBlanc, Europe's leading landscape artist, to design the grounds. LeBlanc had accepted the commission only on the provision that he have fifty slaves at his disposal for three years, and Somerset had agreed. The result was breathtaking: a dozen terraces rose in subtle gradations before reaching a high plateau upon which a gushing fountain, an exact duplicate of the masterpiece sculpted by Giovanni Bernini in the Piazza Navonna in Rome, was serviced by two separate spring-water wells. From the third floor of the great house one could gaze down upon a system of butterfly lakes that appeared just as lovely and graceful as the winged creatures upon which they had been modeled. The three acres of formal gardens had the frozen elegance of Versailles. The lush grounds were bejeweled with a potpourri of exotic bushes—lime, strawberry, ginger blossom, and pomegranate—lining the walkways with thousands of exotic flowers that changed monthly. Every day for the past fifty years, a dozen slaves roamed this botanical marvel, removing fallen leaves and petals from the paths, maintaining the grounds in a meticulous and perpetual state of beauty.

The house itself had taken six years to build. More than six thousand tons of brick had been brought over from England. The work of the president of the Royal Academy of Architects, Sir Hanford Alexander, Somerset's was the first and only commission he had accepted in the colonies. For three years, at Hugo's expense, Alexander and his assistant lived at the Prince of Wales, Charleston's foremost inn. There he ate, drank, and drew renderings—all to great excess. Like a master chef scrutinizing the ingredients of a subtle soufflé, he personally selected each piece of hand-sawn lumber. While Alexander labored away at the inn, Colonel Somerset grew nervous. Whenever he'd visit the famed architect, the great-girthed gentleman would inevitably be at his desk in his room, red-nosed and slightly tipsy, a frothy mug of ale in hand and a buxom wench by his side. Somerset had been told that Sir Hanford was married to a distant niece of the king, a Teutonic iceberg of a woman not known for her great beauty. He understood that the architect was inclined to abuse his liberty in this far-off colony, but couldn't help worry that his house, like Sir Hanford's gait after a half dozen ales, might be lopsided.

The colonel's worries were unfounded. The house did not tilt; it was a sturdy and magnificent structure. The main portico was supported by four Ionic columns of Tuscan stone. A juxtaposition of rose-shaped windows lent a delicate, dignified aura to the edifice, the pure white color of which was preserved by a yearly coat of fresh paint. The massive front door, sculpted of polished mahogany, opened to a wide oaken parquet hallway that ran three hundred fifty feet to the rear of the house. Everywhere one looked, one was dazzled by opulence—inlaid tables of black marble and gold, long silk drapes of burgundy red, sapphire blue and emerald green, huge English landscape paintings by William Hogarth and Joseph Highmore, and portraits of the Somerset family painted in the somber Dutch and Flemish schools of Jan Vermeer and Han van Meegeren.

To the east of the downstairs hallway was a drawing room, to the west a library and map room. Toward the rear, the dining room was large enough to accommodate a state dinner, and the furnishings, many carved by Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite themselves, stood like stately pieces of sculpture. A mahogany-and-pine stairway led to the second floor, which contained, in addition to a half dozen drawing rooms, a grand ballroom in which the famous Waterford chandelier hung.

The enormous chandelier was created in two tiers, from each of which extended twelve solid cut-crystal arms. On each arm was a series of blown-glass figurines—fawns, foxes, blue jays, flamingoes—developed by Venetian craftsmen on the Adriatic island of Murano and shipped to Charleston over a period of two years. At the rear of the ballroom, a white-stoned balcony, as wide as the room itself, looked out on the vast gardens and hundreds of acres of Somerset land beyond.

For the past two weeks, the estate had been a whirlwind of activity as preparations for the masked ball gradually intensified. At last, with the Saturday sun setting and the musicians arriving, everyone, from old Colonel Hugo to the woman cleaning crystal in the kitchen, felt the tingling drama of this fabulous evening beginning to unfold.

“Would you please make certain my tail is in order?” Piero requested with something close to hysteria in his voice. “If it falls off, I'll be mortified.”