The Duchess and the Dragon (17 page)

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Authors: Jamie Carie

BOOK: The Duchess and the Dragon
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Drake nodded. “Of course. We will be married.”
Serena stepped forward. “It was my doing, Father. I came to him.”
Leah stared at Drake, slowly shaking her head. “Do not marry her unless thou truly loveth her. We can forget tonight and find thee other work.”
Drake knew what she wanted from him. A promise, a reassurance. This was a mother, a woman who knew what committed love looked like. “Have no fear, madam; I shall cherish her all of my days.” Some of the old sarcasm had crept into his voice, but he wished it hadn’t. He meant it to the best of his ability to believe it was possible.
Serena smiled into her mother’s strained face, her happiness apparent in her shining eyes. “Thou must not worry.”
Josiah sighed. “From the looks of things, we must make haste.” He turned to his wife. “How soon can they be wed?”
Leah lifted her hand, the gesture hopeless. “We must seek a clearness committee concerning matters. Serena, upstairs with thee.” She nodded to Drake. “Good night.”
Drake bowed his head and realized he meant it out of deep respect, not to be perfunctory. “Good night, madam.”
They closed the door taking the candle—and the light of his heart—with them. Drake turned toward his empty, rumpled bed, waiting for the despair to come . . . but it did not. Serena would be his wife! For better and worse, she would know him, the good and the evil.
For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, he prayed.
A whispered plea in the darkness. “Do not let me hurt her. Please . . . God, do not let me hurt her.”
AS SOON AS the girls had left the breakfast table the next morning, Josiah asked Drake the question that had kept him and Leah up all night. “Drake, what feelings dost thou have for the Friends?”
Drake gave himself time to truly consider his answer. He did not want to respond lightly to what he knew was a serious inquiry. “I have the utmost regard and respect for them, sir. I have met few people in my life who are as kind, honest, and selfless as the Quakers I have met here in Philadelphia.” He sat back in his chair and continued with feeling. “I have watched you help the poor, the sick, the destitute, the prisoner and the slave. I know firsthand your kindness and I know it saved my life. You live, instead of preach, what you believe. Living among you has given me . . . new sight.” He smiled a little sadly. “I was brought up to believe the world owed me gratitude just for being born into it. In the short time that I have known you, sir, you have changed how I look at humanity. ’Tis no small thing, I assure you. And I am grateful for it.” Nodding at Leah, he included her. “I must apologize for taking advantage of your trust in me last night. The responsibility lies solely with me.”
“No, not thy fault alone, Drake.” Serena put down her heavy silver spoon and looked to her father. “I went to him. He did not invite me there.”
Her father nodded. “I am not surprised. Thy feelings have been clear to us for some time, Serena.” He focused again on Drake. “I am glad for thy admiration for the Quakers. But I would like to ask thee an important question. The commitment is not a light one, and I would not voluntarily ask it except that my daughter loves thee. She has chosen to make thy life her own.”
He glanced at Serena, a mist glistening in his eyes. “If thou shouldst choose a different life than that we have chosen, I fear, in the end, we will lose her. And so I ask thee, Drake, wouldst thou join the Society of Friends and embrace our life?”
Drake stared at the man that he would be honored to call father. A man he felt more respect for, in their brief acquaintance, than he’d ever felt for his own father. A man he wanted to please . . . but was destined to disappoint.
“I am sorry.” He put as much sincerity into the words as he could. “I have thought about this, and find I am not ready to commit to a particular religious belief. I feel there are many unanswered questions that I must discover on my own, not by another’s opinion or even most excellent example. But be assured in this. I will continue to seek out God. And I will not let the life I choose hurt Serena.” Even as he said it he knew it was a promise that he should not make. How could anyone predict the future? His own had been so certain, and now look where he was . . . what he was.
With sudden clarity he realized he wasn’t being fair or truthful with Serena. She didn’t know him, all that he had done in his life. And he couldn’t tell her. Would never tell her.
She didn’t even know his real name.
Yet he was asking her to give up everything—her family, her friends, her way of life—for a stranger. He looked at her in concern. How could she still love him if she knew everything there was to know about him?
“Serena, I know my decision makes yours difficult, impossible perhaps. I will leave, find another situation, if that is what you wish.”
Josiah reached out his hand across the table for Serena to grasp. “It will be hard. I wish I could take the excommunication for thee, but if thou choosest to marry an outsider, thou wilt be asked to leave the Society of Friends.”
Serena grasped his hand, looking from her father to Drake, and then back at her father. “I . . .” She looked down. “I know.”
Leah spoke up, her voice tight. “Josiah, they have spoken their convictions with truth. We cannot ask for more. Come, we will leave them alone to discuss it.”
Serena’s parents left the room and shut the door behind them. Drake stood and walked around the table. Taking the seat next to Serena, he took her hands into his and squeezed lightly. “Love, there are things you don’t know about me. Things that might not please you.”
She looked into his eyes. “I know there are secrets hidden in thy heart. I had hoped thou wouldst tell me.” She gave him a wavering smile that melted his heart. “But I must say this: I would not force thee into marriage because of my recklessness last evening. Do not take me as thy wife out of duty.”
Drake wavered. She was giving him a way out, and a part of him screamed that he should take it. Not for himself, but for her. What kind of life could he provide for her? “I am not a Quaker, Serena. Nor am I a silversmith. I am . . .”
“Yes?” Her eyes urged him to confide in her.
“I am a man between lives.” He shook his head. “I feel I am without purpose really. I could take on your Quaker beliefs, but I know that would be wrong. I would wake up years from now and be miserable and perhaps even resentful. I cannot do that to either of us.”
“Thou must not want me then.” Her voice was flat. Her eyes full of pain.
“The only thing I know for certain is that I want you.” He gripped her hands. “If it had not been for you, I wouldn’t have survived the fever. Death was beckoning me and you came, you gave me hope. I owe you everything. But I have nothing to give you . . . except my body and the sane part of my mind. My heart and my soul, they are . . . shattered I fear, but they are yours also, if you want what is left.”
Serena’s face reflected all the innocent love she felt for him—and the confusion. “I want nothing more. But to leave the Friends . . . my family . . .”
Drake released her. “You must consider it all.
You
have to decide.” He closed his eyes and kissed the top of her head, then rose. He allowed himself one last lingering look, taking in the way her neat, plain cap fit her head so well, then he left her there, alone.
It was the hardest thing he had ever done.
Chapter Twelve
Serena watched him go, wanting nothing more at this moment of confused distress than to paint his tall form.
She rose and went upstairs to gather her paints, her thick canvas, and the wooden frame that she would stretch it over. The walk to the shore of the river seemed short, the grassy patch she always went to when she needed to be alone was easy to find and waiting for her, like a comfortable spot on the earth made just for her. She sank down, arranging her supplies just so. A flat, square board served as her palette.
She tilted her head to one side as she mixed her paints, enchanted as always with color, how it blended and changed into precisely the shade in her mind’s eye. She knew just the shades she would use, even though she was still unsure of the subject. Sometimes it came to her like this, an explosion of color, of mood, but no real idea what to paint until she lifted the brush to begin. Today she would have blues, lots of blues, from robin’s egg to deep sapphire. She mixed the paint, slowly adding purples and reds as they beckoned to her. A deep green. Some orange and several shades of bright yellow. And then brown. A big glop of brown in the middle of her board.
She gazed out at the river, its gray-green tones and the gray-blue of the sky . . . not right and painted so many times before. Turning from that, she looked at the buildings on the wharf, whites and blacks, stable and solid and so . . . man-made. No. Not today. Closing her eyes she beckoned her imagination . . . and saw Drake. Saw his face and then his back. With a sudden breath, she knew.
Taking up her brush, she began. It took shape quickly. Men’s coats and women’s skirts, all brown, all with their backs toward her, the backs of their heads showing some small color of skin under somber hats and bonnets. So much brown, she had to replace the glop on the pallet several times. Then came the black. Stark outlines surrounding the browns, so harsh and so hard, it was easy. It was known.
Cleaning her brush, she felt a lingering pulse of anger and wondered why and how it should be. She’d never felt anger toward the Friends before. Taking up the brush she dipped it into the richest hue of blue, the one screaming decadence. With small, delicate strokes she made another coat. Long, strong lines of color filled one side of the canvas. Purple, deep and bright, edged the blue, then some red, here and there, so loud against the other.
It was taking the shape of a man.
His face was unclear and she struggled, wanting to capture Drake, but unable to see how his face should be, what he might be feeling. She wanted his face to be as bright as the coat, but it wouldn’t come. It was only a soft blur on the canvas . . . handsome . . . dark . . . but shrouded, half-turned away from her. She stared at it. Why couldn’t he be everything she believed him to be? Bright, full of life, and loving her . . .
But it wasn’t to be.
She set down her paints and tools and stood, leaving the work to dry in the wind. The breeze blew tendrils of her hair free of its cap, which she unpinned and tossed aside, letting her hair unravel and wrap around her. She contemplated the sky, watching as a thin cloud made its way eastward. She looked back at the painting . . . sat back down, reaching for the yellow.
The top of the canvas was bare, white and stark. She stared at it, deep in concentration, her brows knitted together. Her whole being strained, wanting this piece to be greater than anything she’d ever done. She wanted it to represent what she felt for God. “Help me!” Her cry was carried on the soft wind. “I want to capture Thee.”
She closed her eyes as she did in meeting, coming at last to the place of peace. “Help me capture Thee.”
Behind her closed lids she saw it. A sunrise, a new beginning. Yes! Taking up the yellow-drenched brush, she slashed it across the top of the canvas. “Bigger than the rest. Better than all of this!”
It started yellow and bright, as she thought it should be, but soon, she added the orange and then the red, turning the scene passionate. A sun, swirling and magnificent, a sky like none she’d ever seen, drenched in color. A horizon that ended in the purple, seeming to go on forever . . .
Suddenly spent, she sat back from the painting, staring at it. It was beautiful. The best work she’d ever done. It didn’t matter if no other eyes but hers saw it, for she knew this wasn’t her work alone.
“How great Thou art.”
She stood, staring at the man in purple. “I love him. It shouldn’t be so, but I do.” She looked up into the sky, seeing a dim pink near the sun. “I have to love him.”
She turned, leaving the painting at the shore to dry but picking up her precious paints that were so costly, and then walking toward home.
The walk home was strange, as if it might be her last along this path. She watched the dry grass flatten against the earth. She saw the street where she grew up, each pebble and stone, each wood and brick house. And a little cry rose to her throat knowing that home . . . was no longer her home.

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