Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (37 page)

Fear roiled in my belly, and excitement burned the drug from my body, but not my head. I felt quite disoriented, as if I had suddenly been transported to another time or place. I had woken to such scenes before: whether they were of my orchestration or not, they always ended in either someone dying or my running away in the night, or both.

Pete was laughing; Striker was regarding Christine incredulously; the Marquis awarded me a resigned sigh and roll of his eyes as if to say, now see what having her here has done; Rucker was, as ever, quite curious as to what would occur, as if this were all some entertainment staged just for him; Theodore appeared quite concerned; Sarah did not appear surprised so much as angry – at me; and Modyford gave me a sly smile. My greatest concern, Gaston, looked as if he were ready to fight or flee if I should but give the word.

“There you are, you brigand!” Sir Christopher shouted at the sight of me.“What is this about?” I asked with bravado as I crossed the atrium.

“You have trifled with my daughter’s affections and brought her to ruin!” Sir Christopher railed.

“He has not!” Christine roared. “And I am not ruined! How dare you!

Summon another damn midwife if you must be sure, but do not speak that way of me.”

Her father colored and snapped, “You be quiet! This does not concern you!”

“What?” she yelled.

“If you will not be silent I will have them take you outside,” Sir Christopher said.

“So they can make lurid comments and ogle me as they have already?” she roared. “You are the one bringing me to ruin, Father! You are the one casting aspersions on my character!”

This seemed to flummox him, and he stood indecisive for a moment, his mouth opening and closing, and then he crossed the distance between them and slapped her quite smartly.

That was enough for my matelot. He stepped from the doorway and downed one of the men holding Christine with two quick blows, and moved to step between her and her father. Then Gaston had her safely behind him, and her father and his other man were backing away.

Christine touched her cheek gingerly, and regarded her father with angry eyes filling with sudden tears. He, in turn, seemed suffused with guilt over what he had done, and oddly, turned to seek Modyford’s support.

“My Lord,” Modyford said smoothly to me. “I must ask: have you had carnal knowledge of the young lady?”

“Nay, I have not,” I said firmly.

“Who will believe that?” Sir Christopher bellowed.

I knew he was correct. “Quite possibly no one, sir. So the matter must rest between me and the Lord.”

“That may be,” he rumbled, seeming to be coming to a boil again.

“But what am I to do with a ruined daughter?”

“I do not know, Sir Christopher. What would you have of me?” I asked, sincerely curious as to what he sought. Most fathers in his presumed circumstance kept the matter as private as possible and quietly found someone to marry the girl. They did not show up at a married man’s house – with the governor – and make demands.

Something was amiss. I tried to push the remaining fog of the drug from my head and think.

“I wish for you to make her an honorable woman,” Sir Christopher said.

“Sir,” I said with incredulity, “I am a married man. What do you suggest?”

“Bah,” he said. “Everyone knows your marriage to that trollop is a fraud.”

“Do they?” I asked with amazement at his audacity. “We were legally married in the eyes of God and man, sir. She has borne me a child.”

“It is not yours,” he said, but there was fear in his eyes, as if he was amazed at what he spoke.

And then I caught his eyes flicking to the governor again.

A hand closed on my shoulder, grinding the rough fabric of my tunic into my burned skin. I looked, and saw the Marquis’ signet ring on that hand, his blue eyes quite somber above it.

He whispered in French, “They are plotting something.”

“I know, I know,” I murmured.

Sir Christopher seemed even more uncomfortable now that the Marquis had made his presence obvious. Modyford watched us with speculative eyes.

“Who stands to gain from your marriage being annulled?” the Marquis asked.

“Vines, if I pay him a dowry, but he is quite wealthy.”

I looked to Gaston: he was whispering earnestly to Christine. Her face was a mask of anger, but she was responding with tight little nods.

My gut clenched. I knew what those two might be plotting: it was a way out of this thicket, one which we did not wish to take, but it would see us through. I had to ignore them for the moment, and tackle the real question of how we got here.

“Does Vines have such influence with your governor?” the voice of reason at my shoulder asked.

I looked to Theodore. He shook his head subtly, almost as if he answered the Marquis’ question for me, though he could hear none of what we said. His eyes told me he did not know what this was about.

“I think not,” I murmured. “But Modyford may well have enough influence over him to arrange this… show.” And that was what I had been seeing: Sir Christopher was playing a part.

“Who would exercise such influence on the governor?” the Marquis asked. “Surely not her mother’s family. Despite her uncle, she holds too little value for anyone to care.”

And then I knew. I gasped at the surprise of it. “My father,” I hissed.

“Ah,” the Marquis said, as if the matter were now resolved and he was pleased there was some order to it after all. “It must not be politically expedient for him to tell you to put her out.”

I was nauseated with the implications of my father conniving with Modyford.

Sir Christopher had been conferring with the governor, and now he squared his shoulders and turned on me with feigned outrage again.

“What is your answer, sir? Will you do the honorable thing?”

“I will remain honorably married to my wife,” I said.

“I will marry your daughter,” Gaston said.

My gut twisted as if it would leave my body.

“What?” Sir Christopher sputtered. “That is…” He glanced at Modyford, who frowned.

The Marquis stepped forward, Dupree at his shoulder to translate.

“And we will pay no dowry: not for a girl who runs about in men’s clothing, despite her uncle, the Duke of Verlain, being an old friend.”

Modyford tweaked his pursed lips thoughtfully, and nodded. “Well, then, that is settled, Sir Christopher. Your daughter will be properly married.”

“But nay,” Christopher sputtered and turned beseeching eyes upon his daughter. “I do not wish for you to marry someone you do not favor.

I did this for you. You wished to marry Lord Marsdale.”

Christine shook her head with a mix of confusion and anger. “I no longer wish to marry Lord Marsdale. And you have gone mad. And you have ruined my name. I will marry anyone to leave your house. Lord Montren has made me a very fine offer, and I will marry him. If I am the harlot you have made me out to be, you have nothing to gain or lose, no matter who I marry.”

Gaston was regarding me with anxious eyes. I smiled weakly and nodded, and he seemed greatly relieved.

Modyford was walking toward the door.

“Governor!” I called.

He stopped, and turned to me with a curious look.

“Is my sister safe?” I asked.

Everyone became very still, and Modyford frowned.

“I know of no one who intends to harm her,” Modyford said carefully after some thought.

“That is good to hear,” I said. “I am pleased you are so well apprised of the situation: as the last we spoke of such things, I only had poor news to give you, and could only implore you to aid in her protection while we sailed.”

This caught him off guard; and I saw the mask of diplomacy shift a little, first with fear he had been caught, and then angriness at it.

“Due to your concern I made inquiries,” he said quickly. “I have come to believe your concern was unfounded.”

I smirked. “Give your regards to my father, would you? Tell him we wish to hear from him, and not merely feel his presence in our lives.”

He took a deep breath and his pleasantly amicable mask settled into its accustomed position. “If I should ever have the honor of corresponding with your father, I shall relay that.”

He looked to Sir Christopher, who appeared quite confused over our exchange. “We should be going. You should perhaps have your daughter’s things boxed and sent here so that she might have a dress to be married in.”

Sir Christopher gave his daughter one last beseeching look, but she kept her eyes steadfastly on the tiles of the floor. He left with his head hanging low between his corpulent shoulders.

Everyone descended on me as the door closed in their wake. I sat heavily under the onslaught of their questions and my own dismay.

Gaston came to sit beside me and take my hand, and pull it beneath the table to hold it tightly with both of his. I did not wish to meet his eyes: I wished to think.

There was a livid purple bruise about my left wrist. I imagined there was a matching one on my right, which Gaston now held in his lap. I was scared to view my ankles, and as I now sat, could think of no way of doing so without drawing attention to the matter.

Sarah was before me, and she pounded the table with both hands.

“What is happening, Will?”

I met her angry and scared gaze. “It is possible Father wishes for me to abandon the current Lady Marsdale in favor of another, and he made arrangements with the Governor to insure it.”

I looked to Theodore.

His expression was grave. “That is possible. I did not make mention of it before, because the governor is prone to gossip and finds delight in it, but he has often asked me of your intentions toward your wife. This morning it was his first question as they came to fetch me here. I said I felt you had made a decision, and that it was to keep her. Modyford was not pleased with that answer, and I thought it very odd until I heard that Vines knew his daughter was here. He had her followed when she left his home. I was quite surprised the governor would wish to become involved in the matter, and the only explanation I could muster was because you are a lord. But, in viewing the matter from this new supposition, I think it offers their behavior far sounder reason.”

Sarah slumped into a chair across from me, her face a mask of horror. “If it is true, then aye, I have no protection when Striker roves. I should have expected such… but…”

“The governor seems as prone to curry favor with lords as he does to gossip,” I said. “We should have expected it, but… would he have contacted our father, or did his inquiries alert our father?”

“Nay and perhaps,” Theodore said quickly. “I do not think he would have contacted your father directly.”

“My father had me followed?” Christine demanded.

“Aye,” Theodore said with a shrug. “He was quite proud of it.

He thought it likely you would attempt to run away again after this matter of the possible marriage to Lord Montren, and so he apparently arranged things so that you would have the opportunity to escape, and he had someone in place to see where you would go.”

“He would not have,” she said with a perplexed frown. “He could not have,” she added arrogantly. “I saw none of his men and I was quite careful.”

“Miss Vines,” Theodore asked with a pleasant smile, “could you recognize all the men the governor might employ?”

“Nay, of course not,” she said quickly. “But my father is not the governor’s man. The one time the governor asked my father to intervene in a matter of the council, my father considered it at length and only decided to do as the governor bid because it was truly the course of action he himself would take.”

“Your father wished for you to marry me,” I said. “Because that is what he thought you wished. You called him mad this day. Was he acting as he normally does?”

“Nay, nay,” she said quietly.

“So,” Sarah said, “our father quite possibly contacted Modyford and asked him to… discover whether you planned to put her out? Or was it to insure that you put her out? I can see why he might not wish to write and ask for such a thing. Committing such a request to writing with his seal might not have been in his best interests, and he is ever so careful about putting ink to paper if he cannot control that paper. So much so…” She frowned. “That it makes me wonder what means he might have used to convey the information to Modyford.”

Theodore shook his head. “Many people in England and here employ couriers or men trusted to relay things best not committed to paper.

Any ship traveling to England usually contains several such men. Many of the captains and officers make a handsome sum of money providing that service. Your father likely has employed someone to bring messages here.” He sighed heavily. “That I was not involved in the arrangement of such services, and have not received letters or directives from such a person, indicates that your father does not feel I am his man.”

“Now that you know of the possibility of it, can you make discreet inquiries?” I asked.

Theodore nodded. “Oh aye, now that I know if it.” There was anger in his eyes.

“Why would he want her out?” Christine asked. “Your father, not mine.”

I sighed. “From what we have been able to suppose, the marriage was arranged so that my father could pay some, if not all, of her father’s debts in exchange for her father’s compliance in the House of Lords or elsewhere with some matter. Perhaps that relationship is no longer necessary. Or, perhaps, my father truly wishes for me to produce an heir that is actually of my blood – as damn near any grandfather would

- and feels that her reputation will always cast doubt upon that: but because of the arrangement with her father, and his lack of trust of me– in that I might divulge his request to others – he did not wish to ask me to put her out directly. I have been waiting for some order from him concerning the matter, but he has not chosen to correspond – that we have received – with Sarah or me since her arrival here. Of course, if I put my wife out without his agreement to it – in writing – he can use the matter against me to weaken my claim to my inheritance.”

“I remember you mentioning that things were complicated with your father in that regard, but I did not realize…” Christine said. She appeared embarrassed.