Poetic Justice (27 page)

"No, I won't have done. I thought we had done with this years ago, before Tatiana and I married."

John straightened and walked back towards the beach. When he felt the sand under his boots he stopped, but Devlyn remained a dozen feet back on the pier, leaning against the rail. The wind had lightened and the waves were only a whisper, so Devlyn's low voice cut across the distance. "But you couldn't acknowledge it. Couldn't live with it."

"Is that so hard for you to understand? I will not attach scandal to my mother's name. And I will not deny my father."

"For God's sake, John, they're long dead. And besides, you are denying your father."

With triumph as well as anger, John seized on this. "That's it, isn't it, for you? This father of yours—why do you think I would want to claim him?"

"You did once. When we were boys. You were the one who brought all this up."

The guilt stirred in him, even after so long. He had been a wild boy, and his father—his real father, the only one he had—was coming the tyrant, as might be expected. And, as might be expected, John had considered alternatives. "That was only because I didn't want the father I had. And there was some glamour in it, some notion of nobility." Sardonically, he added, "I learned better as I grew older, what real nobility is. And it has nothing to do with the sort of father you had."

"Our father's been dead these twenty years."

"Not our father. You see, you insist on that tie. And I won't ever accept that. God! Have you forgotten? How can you forgive him? He left you destitute and alone like a stray dog. I remember stealing food for you, because I knew you'd never do it yourself, till my father found out and took to giving me shillings for you. Poor little Lord Michael, he used to say. Doesn't have a father."

It was brutal, John realized when Devlyn sucked in his breath and stepped back, pressing against the rail. To remind the man of the boy he had been, an object of pity for his social inferiors. It wasn't fair, and yet it was true.

Then Devlyn forced a laugh, a harsh sound against the gentle surf. "How very like him you are. I never was. Never had that anger that you have, that he had. He was a sailor too, do you remember? He used to take his yacht out every summer, until he lost it in a cardgame. You got that from him also. You just don't take your risks on cards."

"You're wrong. You're wrong. I have spent my life doing all I could not to be. No. I won't accept kinship like that."

"Oh, but you did. You've got his signet ring." There was quiet triumph in Devlyn's voice. "It was all he left, and you've got it on now."

"That's not why I took it, and you know it. I never meant to claim kinship with him. Here." John wrenched the ring off. "If it was his, it wasn't yours to give away."

Devlyn caught the ring as it spun through the air. He held it in his fist for a moment, then spun on his heel and hurled it into the water. For an instant it sparked blue in the dying light, then fell with a quiet splash and disappeared.

John reached out as if he could somehow grab it back. But it was gone, fathoms deep in the dark water. "Michael—"

"God, that hurt." Devlyn's expression was hidden by the sudden dusk, but his tone was almost normal. "I must have thought myself trapped in a melodrama, to do that. But it's done. Good night."

And he strode up the beach path to his house without another word.

***

The princess was waiting for John in the stableyard, a slight figure in the dimness, a silk shawl trailing heedlessly from her arm. He dismissed the grooms with a jerk of his head. In her usual imperial disregard, Tatiana hadn't even noticed them skulking about, their ears aprick, their hands busy with small tasks.

She couldn't speak English quickly enough to suit, so she slipped into French, and even then sometimes words failed her and she had to make do with angry chops with her hands. But her intent was clear. She was fierce when she loved, and he knew how she loved her husband. "He asks so little."

"He doesn't ask. He demands. And it's stupid, what he asks, it's trivial. It means nothing."

"It means something to him. And," she leaned forward and grabbed his wrist, "that matters to me. So you must do as he wants."

He wrenched his arm from her grasp and started to saddle his horse. "I know you are used to getting whatever you desire, princess. But this is not your affair. You will only complicate matters, with your high-handed ways."

"No. I will simplify matters." She shoved him out of the way with a small shoulder and efficiently unbuckled the stirrup he had just buckled. "You are not going till you hear what I say."

There was no use arguing with her, if he hoped to leave tonight. Resignedly he stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Say on."

She wasn't expecting such a quick capitulation, and for a moment couldn't put the words together. Finally, she said, "You have another brother, someone bound to you by blood and not mere friendship. But Michael does not. You are all the family he has."

"But I have never wanted that. We were friends. That has been enough for me."

"But not for him. You have always known that, from the first. And you have used that, to suit your own purposes."

"That's not true! What I have, I've earned, my own way, and God knows, he's never thought it the right way."

"Oh, not that." With a wave of her hand she dismissed his ships, his commissions, his acquisitions. "No, you are too proud to use him that way, and you would have got all that regardless, I've no doubt. I mean that you kept him—oh, as a replacement. For that other family that wasn't like you, that never understood you, that you never really wanted. When you wanted understanding, camaraderie—fraternity—you would come to him. And then, when you'd had enough, you'd leave."

He bit back another angry denial, because something she said struck a chord of memory in him. He closed his eyes to the awareness in hers, and laughed bitterly. "I recall—on that voyage with you, when he was losing his heart, I saw it coming. He couldn't even help himself. He said he didn't, but he did. He wanted a family so badly. And I told him I never did, never wanted all that tangle that families bring. I should have been the one orphaned. Even now, when I am, this family is too tangled for me. But Michael—"

"Yes. He is not like you." The princess reached up to finger the buckle of the bridle, but the mare stirred, disturbed by the jerky motions of the princess's hand on her mane. Tatiana stopped and looked at her hand, then let it drop to her side. "He wants connection. He can't cut off as you do, not once he's committed. He can't leave it behind as you do."

"But I meant for you to do that. That is your job, to give him that family. To make him happy."

"Then I will."

All the pleading had vanished from her voice. He had never seen her so cold, so remote, not in all the years they had been friends. "As much as I love you, John, I think he is right now to end the debate. Perhaps it is only boyish sentimentality after all to want a brother. But he'll never be like you, nor like his father. He cannot come and go with his caring. I know he won't tell you—he is too much the gentleman. But I have no such scruples. He will do better without your friendship. So don't visit any more."

"Tatiana—"

He thought for a moment that her iron control would break, that she would give that tremulous smile and say,
Well, perhaps not.
But instead she only nodded, stepped back from the saddle, and said with regal cool, "You may go."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?

Love is a familiar; love is a devil; there is no evil angel but love.

Love's Labour Lost, I, ii

The guard at the library door snapped to attention when John came down the corridor. The brother of John's boatswain, Petrus was a powerful man whose coat gapped open to show a knife in his belt. "There you are, Cap'n. Been expecting you anytime. T'other one, the one with spectacles, just tried to pass me by."

"Wiley? The librarian? He was supposed to have left town."

"Well, he hasn't, that's for certain. Been here every morning since you left, trying to get in. Offered me ten pounds, he did."

"Ten pounds. Well, there'll be that much for you in bonus, then."

"No need for that, Cap'n." Petrus scuffed his foot against the sun-dusted parquet floor, absurdly abashed for a man of his bulk. "It's enough to have a position at all. Ha'en't any work at carpentry since I lost my hand."

"You kept the knifehand, and that's what I need from you. I don't mean for you to use it, you know. Just take the knife out for a polish next time Wiley comes up, will you?"

"Yessir. I've been sleeping here, you know, just down the hall there on that bench. Lord Parham said it was best. Not that the night man isn't a good man, but—

"But ten pounds is ten pounds. Well, tell the night man he'll have it, and his skin still too, if Wiley's kept out of here till the twenty-third."

John brought out his ring of keys and unlocked the two new locks on the library door. So as not to cause suspicion, he ought to have someone with him as he went through the collection, but he didn't want to take Petrus from the door. He could send for Jessica, he supposed, but he wasn't in any mood to see her.

"Come inside here, will you, Petrus?"

He locked the door behind the guard. "Now stand over here in the entrance and watch me as I go back. I want to check on the vault, but I want you as a witness that I didn't take anything off the shelves."

Petrus shook his head, as if this was a jest. "You wouldn't do that, Captain. I know that."

John couldn't help but be pleased with this testimonial, however misguided it was. "Well, watch me anyway. Wiley's likely to complain if I'm back here alone."

The wax on the vault's locks was unbroken, and the bulky shapes inside seemed unmoved. John stared at the block that held the treasure and thought, only eighteen more days. Then I'll see it, and hold it in my hands—and hand it to Jessica.

And, if all went well in his interview with Parham today, she would be able to keep it.

The thought of how he was going to accomplish that brought the bile to his throat. He swallowed hard and went out to ask permission to pay his addresses to Jessica.

Parham was waiting in the drawing room, a room with space enough to pace in. Not that John meant to pace, or that, after so long as a sailor, he had developed a fear of enclosed spaces. But he needed some distance between him and Parham, the whole expanse of the Persian carpet perhaps, to disguise any tension he couldn't suppress.

Parham was all that was gracious, gesturing him towards a chair, offering him cigars and brandy. John refused the smoke but accepted the drink. As he waited for the familiar warmth to soothe his unfamiliarly frayed nerves, he noted that Parham was quite genial. The prospect of refusing another suitor no doubt put him in a fine mood.

In fact, Parham got the process going expeditiously. "I expect you want to speak to me about my niece."

"Yes." I should be standing, John thought distractedly, and rose. "I would like your permission to pay my addresses to your niece." That wasn't so hard. "I know I'm not the sort of husband you would wish for her." That was hard. The rest was easier, since he had written it down this morning and memorized it. "But my regard for her is so strong that I felt impelled to approach you, even knowing that you would not grant my request."

"You knew that already, did you?" Parham jerked his head towards the abandoned chair. "Sit down, young man. I don't like staring up at you. So why is it, do you think, that you're not good enough for my niece?"

Though he had expected nothing else, John knew a sharp sense of injustice. Not good enough, was he? If he hadn't a promise to fulfill, he might argue with that characterization. But it mattered naught. He might reject those values and this sort of people, but not before they rejected him.

So he resumed his seat, trying to damp down his anger. Let Parham have his fun. If it helped to secure Jessica's inheritance, John would enumerate what Parham already knew. "First there's my background. I've never made any secret that I was of the—"' He started to say "lower classes," but then he remembered his mother and her two-story brick house, the carriage his father bought near the end of his life, the pride they took in those achievements. "Of the middle class."

"Yes, I recall. Apothecary, am I right? You grew up above the shop, did you?"

"No, we had a house and acreage outside the village. My father had a shop. My brother owns it now."

"Salt of the earth, your brother, I suppose?"

"Dennis? No. He's a businessman, not a farmer."

"I meant, a sturdy, stalwart, English sort."

"Well, yes, I suppose." He couldn't stay seated. No pacing, he told himself, so he walked to the window and opened the drapes. The sunlight was dense, filtered through the London soot, and warm against his face.

"I was wondering. You look foreign to me. Sound it a bit, too, but I suppose it's all that traveling you do. Glad to hear your family is British to the bone."

"Right. British to the bone." John pushed open the casement and let the air fill his lungs, buoying up more differences between him and the poet. "I work for a living. I expect to do so for the rest of my life."

"You look like you need some sort of occupation. Can't stay still for a moment, can you? Jessica's the same way. Tires me out just to watch her. You don't need to work, though, do you?"

John cranked the window closed again and leaned back against the sill, turning back to look at Parham. There was no hostility in the man, but somehow that made the casual dismissal sting all the more. "I suppose not. I have seven ships carrying finished goods, mostly to the New World. There's enough in that to keep me. But I can't imagine giving up command of the Coronale. She's the one that carries the art I buy."

"The art you buy for the Regent."

"Among others."