Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (9 page)

My temper had not run away with me; I had let my Horse have the bit. My Horse had wished to run the man down in the name of countless injustices, many of which he had not committed. And my making such an outburst was not a thing common in my life: not until recently, when I had learned I must let my Horse run on occasion too, just as Gaston did. There was a time when I could have exchanged pleasant-sounding jabs with a man I wished to kill all day and into the night in the name of propriety, but those days had passed.

I hoped Gaston would understand, or at least not be terribly disappointed that I had driven the man away before he could say such things himself. But perhaps he would not have said such things; and that made me sadder still, that I had not spoken for him as I should, in that I had not honored his wishes, perhaps. But, it also concerned me that he might not ever say what truly needed to be said to the man. And thus, perhaps the entirety of it had not gone poorly at all. This thought did nothing to assuage my feeling troubled, though.

I followed Theodore back to the gaol. I looked about, truly aware of my surroundings for the first time since the encounter began: I had been so intent upon the Marquis I had not deigned to notice much else.

Several men were looking at me from the deck of the ship, but as she was an English vessel, I took heart that they probably did not speak French, and thus were merely curious at the angry exchange and not now in possession of secrets of Gaston’s past. The same was true of Theodore and the men from the militia who stood outside the gaol.

There were now a number of Frenchmen inside the gaol who might have understood the angry words, and not the ones we had wounded.

These newcomers were busy helping the wounded who could walk to their feet and putting the man who lost his leg on a litter. Gaston was busy speaking with a man in French.

I waited outside until he finished; guilt and anger still roiling about in my belly. At last I was able to go inside and help him with his medicine chest. He appeared much calmer than before, and he immediately sensed my duress.

“What is wrong?” he asked urgently in French as we carried the box outside to where Theodore and Striker were waiting.

“I have met with your father,” I whispered with guilt. “My Horse had a great deal to say.”

He stopped walking and regarded me with neither amusement nor recrimination across the chest. “Is he dead?”

I gave a short bark of laughter. I supposed that would have been a far worse outcome. “Non, not when last I saw him. I did not strike him, but I hurled a great many words, such that he fled the battlefield. And then I found I was so overwrought I spewed my belly in the bay.”

His gaze was sympathetic and filled with love. It made my heart ache and brought tears to my eyes.

“I am sorry,” I whispered. “But I cannot unknot him from my father in my heart, or forgive him for how you have been treated.”

He leaned across the chest and kissed me gently. “I forgive you. Let us find the puppies and see where we will sleep, and then you can tell me of it,” he said calmly, and returned to walking toward our friends.

As Striker led us to the new house, I mused that all the love I felt for Gaston was truly warranted, and that I could do no wrong in defending it.

Theodore parted our company at New Street.

“Please thank Mistress Theodore for her patience and forbearance in doing without you these last days,” I told him as we embraced in parting.

He snorted. “That will do little to calm her, but I appreciate the sentiment. And I was glad to be of such service to my friends. And… it is nice to get away on occasion.” He grinned and began to leave us, only to pause and turn. “And thank you for the bump on my head.”

I chuckled. “Well, it is often a thing that happens when a man is unused to combat. You do not know where to move or stand, thus you get struck by something.”

He laughed and left us.

We continued down High Street until we came to York, and then walked down it until I saw a wide two-story building with a balcony that I was sure must be Sarah’s: it did not resemble the white-washed frame structures surrounding it.

Striker stopped before the narrow and towering three-story house next to it, though. “This is your… wife’s house.”

I sighed. I had forgotten about her yet again. “I will pay her a visit on the morrow.”

“I thought as much,” Striker said with a grin.

I ignored the dwelling place of matters I did not wish to face, and studied Sarah’s house as we walked up to the double doors set deep upon a low stoop. The walls were stone for the first floor, and the second floor wood. On the street side, the entire width of the second floor was fronted by a balcony, with tall louvered doors opening onto it from what must have been several rooms. It formed a nice shady overhang before the entranceway.

Striker opened the door, and light spilled out to greet us, making me realize how very late in the day it was.

We entered a tiled foyer with benches that opened into an atrium – or courtyard as Striker called it, though it was not technically one – containing awnings, wooden settees, tables, a pond, and many flower planters. Rooms ringed it on three sides, and the back was open to the cookhouse, stable, and other assorted outbuildings. I gasped with pleasure. She had indeed duplicated what I had described of Doucette’s house in Cayonne. The rooms on the second story were even fronted by a balcony that ran all the way about the structure in a horseshoe shape, with stairs in the interior corners. All of the second floor rooms opened onto the balcony with louvered doors.

We were set upon by happy women before I could see much else. Sarah was every bit as large as Pete had described, such that I wondered if she carried more than one babe, but her pale blue eyes glowed with life and in all she looked happy and healthy. Agnes was thin and fidgety as usual, but she embraced Gaston and me with fervor.

Behind them I was happy to see Theodore’s slave, Samuel. Though, since he was here, I thought it likely he was now Sarah’s and not Theodore’s. He smiled and bowed for us.

“What happened?” Sarah asked. “Pete said you were set upon by French fools, and that it has to do with Theodore and his message to you? What is amiss?”

I looked to Gaston and he shrugged.

“Gaston’s father, the Marquis de Tervent, is in port,” I told them. “He has come all this way to see Gaston. His method of inviting us to that meeting, or rather, Gaston, left a great deal to be desired, though. They apparently thought they could just collect Gaston upon the street and haul him before his father.”

She embraced Gaston yet again. “I am sorry for you. Pete said they were rude.”

“My father’s men were as they have always been toward me,” he sighed. “I feel they think me still a child.”

“Them That Were There Don’t No More,” Pete said and handed me a bottle of wine. “So We Be Meetin’ With This Lord?”

“We?” I teased him, but I quickly sobered. “I have met with him. I do not know now…”

“Where are the puppies?” Gaston interjected.

Agnes waved for him to follow and led him to the stable.

“You met with him?” Striker asked quietly after Gaston was beyond hearing. “How did he seem?”

“Everything and nothing like I expected,” I said and took a long pull of wine. “I do not know what will come of it. I told him many things I wished to say and he did not wish to hear.”

“Good,” Striker said, and Pete nodded agreement.

Sarah was studying all of us intently. “Does Gaston have a relationship with his father similar to the one we have with ours?”

“Aye and nay,” I sighed. I was actually surprised Striker and Pete had not divulged more of what they knew. “Gaston’s father exiled him here. He disinherited him due to his madness, and even went so far as to have him declared incompetent to manage his affairs and gave him over to Doucette as his ward.”

Pete and Striker exchanged a look, and then they frowned at me.

“I will not tell you why the other occurred,” I said.

“What other?” Sarah asked.

I took her shoulders and spoke quietly. “Gaston’s father flogged him almost to death before sending him here. It is complicated, and I am not at liberty to speak of why.”

“That is horrible,” she said sympathetically. “And now you have seen this man. What does he want?”

“According to his letter, to make amends,” I sighed, “but we did not speak of that this day.”

“So what will…?” she began to ask.

I cut her off with a shake of my head. “No more tonight. I wish to see the rest of this fine house you have built. I am very pleased with what I have seen so far.”

She smiled and looked about happily. “Thank you, and I have been waiting most anxiously for you to see it.” She turned to me and sobered.

“But there are other matters we should discuss, though I doubt you will wish to do so tonight.”

“I know, I know,” I sighed. “Was there word from our father before the storm season?”

She shrugged and then shook her head. “Aye and nay. Mister Theodore received a letter, which he shared with me, bless his heart, but it was very succinct and spoke little of me or you other than to inquire of Lady Marsdale, and I think that was primarily a bid to have Mister Theodore corroborate her continued existence and the marriage.

He also sent a letter to Uncle Cedric, but it said nothing of import, or so our Uncle says.”

“He would not let you read it?” I asked.

“Nay,” she sighed and moved to sit. “And there was no missive for you or me.”

“I hate them,” I said.

“Who?” Striker asked as he sat next to his wife and put an arm about her shoulders.

“Fathers,” I said.

“Aye,” Pete said.

Sarah smiled with bemusement. “We would not exist without them.”

“I was fond of mine,” Striker said. “I wish I had known him when I was older, but from what I saw of him as a boy, and what my uncle and others said of him, he seemed a good sort, and he left me his name and what he could. Yours is a right bastard, though, and Pete’s, whoever the devil he was, and Gaston’s too.”

“Poor fathers then, I hate poor fathers,” I said.

“We shall not be poor fathers,” Striker said with a grin at Pete as he placed his hand on Sarah’s belly.

“Nay. We Be RightGood,” Pete agreed.

Sarah smiled at both of them with love, her hand moving to cover Striker’s; and then the baby kicked, much to their amusement, and they cooed in harmony. It curdled what little bile remained in my stomach and I felt the winds of melancholy sweeping toward me. I would not be a good father, not to the babe that would soon be born with my name upon it, and that was only if I chose to claim the bastard. I was sure he or she would curse me to Hell and back just as I did my own father, and I felt helpless to do anything about the matter, even though it had not yet occurred.

I could imagine, at the very edges of my fancy, just such a scene with Gaston and I cooing over some impending child, but I could not see any woman beneath my hand: it was as if that part of the image were a hazy clouded thing and I placed my hand on a rounded piece of mist and smiled up at him while sitting next to nothing.

“I need to find Gaston, and our room,” I told Sarah.

“It is the one at the end on that side.” She indicated the right leg of the house’s horseshoe.

“How many rooms are there?” I asked, wondering how much space would separate us from the others.

“There are three chambers along there,” she said with a knowing smile. “The two between your room and our Uncle’s room in the corner are empty, and he is rarely in residence.” She then pointed over her shoulder at the left side of the upper floor. “My chamber is at the end here, and we have a second room next to it, then the nursery, and then Agnes’ room in the front right corner. Mister Rucker has the room between Agnes’ and Uncle’s. Samuel has that room there.” She pointed at a door at the end of the lower floor.

“You have built quite the house here, my dear,” I said. “Why so many rooms?”

“We plan for a great number of children, and guests,” she said with a smile.

“The more children we have, the less guests,” Striker said with a grin.

“So in due time you will kick us all out on the street,” I teased.

“Where you belong,” he said.

I awarded him a rude gesture and went to find Gaston. I located my matelot and Agnes with Bella and the puppies in the stable. Sadly, as the structure had never been occupied by one of my favorite animals, there was no comforting horse smell about the place. Bales of straw had been delivered, though, and several of them had been broken open and spread about to form a nest for the dogs. Bella was chewing on a juicy bone, the puppies were nursing, and Gaston and Agnes were reclined in the straw on either side of the nest, speaking of telescopes and lenses and things seen both big and small. I shed my weapons and joined them, lying on my back with my head and shoulders on Gaston’s hip, and listened to the contended sucking of puppies and Agnes complaining about the haze and how you could only see the stars tolerably well after a big storm.

All the bile fled my stomach and the winds blew the brooding clouds of melancholy away. I felt more contentment than I ever had upon the cay of Port Royal.

“Master Will?” Sam called from somewhere outside the stable.

Gaston and I sighed heavily and Agnes chuckled at us.

“In the stable,” I called.

Sam’s dark face appeared in the doorway. “Master Will, there be a gentleman ta see you and Master Gaston. He doesn’t speak English. I put him in the sittin’ room. And dinner be served. You want I should give the man some rum and let you eat?”

“Did he give a name?” I asked.

“With him not speaking English I don’t know what he said, Master Will. I’m sorry. I heard your names.” He frowned. “He’s dressed nice, and he has a wig, and a cane.”

Gaston was as tense as I, and I gave him a questioning look. He nodded tightly.

“We will see him before we dine,” I told Sam. “Wait, is he alone?”

Sam nodded.

I donned my sword belt and shoved a pistol into it. Gaston considered his weapons where they lay heaped near the stable door. He at last shook his head and squared his shoulders.