The Lost Duchess (23 page)

The Governor nodded and walked away, his lips drawn tight.

‘Master Kit.’ She raised her hand to stop him following.

He smiled wryly at her.

‘Mistress Murimuth. I hope you will be happy here.’

‘I am sure I will be. I am enchanted by Roanoke already. The work you have done here is …’ She searched for a word that would encapsulate her gratitude. ‘… Magnificent,’ she said, and smiled apologetically. She hoped he understood.

‘Magnificent?’ His eyes twinkled as his smile stretched to a grin. ‘Thank you. But we have all worked hard, and the work has just begun.’ He inclined his head. ‘I doubt it will ever end.’

‘I suppose it won’t. I …’

She looked round and noticed Rob and whatever she had thought to say was suddenly gone from her mind.

Kit put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

‘Go and help the woodsmen, Rob. I’ll join you in a moment.’

The boy darted away, and Kit gestured for her to walk with him to the back of the house. They stood in the shade, facing the forest, against a cob wall without windows, and by their feet were piles of vegetation that had been cut from the building. Beyond were ox-eye daisies and cow parsley taller than they were, flower caps like the lace bonnets of tall ladies bowing in the sun. He pulled off his woollen hat and tucked it in his belt, then pushed back his hair with a sweep of his hand. He must have been labouring, probably hewing wood. She could see a band of dirt across his forehead and that his shirt was so sweat-soaked it concealed very little, from the open ties at his neck, where she glimpsed tight springs of golden hair, to the bulge of his chest muscles and down. She looked up quickly with a twinge of embarrassment, and took in his shadowed face as he leant against the wall. His tanned skin was glowing, and his chin newly shaved, so she could follow every angle of his lean strong jaw and every contour of the perfect shape of his mouth. Her gaze moved to meet his, and the blue of his eyes seemed alight as if charged with pale fire.

He held his hand out, open towards her.

‘What did you want to say?’

She brought her fingertips to his hand until they were just resting on his palm, breathed deeply and closed her eyes. She could bear this kind of touch, and it was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he reached for her hand once? She longed to sense again that he still
had regard for her, despite the hot words that had passed between them weeks before. She wished them forgotten, and she no longer needed an apology, because Kit had earned her gratitude by delivering her to this island safely. She only hoped he didn’t think she despised him. He had been solicitous with her off the cape when he had shown her how to read the stars, and she wanted to show that she welcomed that kind of consideration, all the more so since they would be together in the New World for some time. They should be good companions.

She looked at him again.

‘I wanted to thank you for helping us arrive here safely. I am more glad than I can say to be in Virginia at last, and able to look forward to building my future in this place. This is my home now. I will never go back to England.’

‘But you must.’ A crease deepened between his brows. ‘This land may not be as hospitable as you think. Remember Lane’s soldiers couldn’t wait to leave, and the fate of Coffin and his men remains uncertain. We do not know what has happened here …’

He turned towards the fort, though nothing of it could be seen from the seclusion of the overgrown garden.

‘I know,’ she said, thinking of the blistered black timbers she had seen being dragged from the earthwork. She tipped her head on one side and regarded him quizzically. ‘Perhaps something that might “alarm” me, something that happened “nearly a year ago”?’

She looked straight into his eyes and saw that he was troubled, as if a deeper shadow had drawn over his face.

‘I overheard what you were saying to Governor White,’ she explained. ‘But, Kit, I do not care. Whatever it was makes no difference to me. It is over. This is where I will stay.’

He cradled her hand in both of his very gently, as if it was made of glass, and the sensation was not unpleasurable; she enjoyed the feel of his delicate touch. He was being attentive as she had hoped, and she sensed he might not have lost his tender feelings for her. But had she confounded him? He seemed not to know what to do.

‘You are one of the Queen’s ladies,’ he said. ‘I know you have promised to return …’

‘The Queen has many ladies. I doubt my absence will trouble her much.’

Then the set of his jaw hardened and his tone became more insistent. He squeezed her hand a little as he spoke, and that made her tense, but she did not pull away.

He spoke firmly.

‘Your duty is to serve the Queen, above all others. You cannot remain here. You must carry out whatever tasks have been entrusted to you and then you must return as Sir Walter has asked …’

‘No, Kit.’ She brought her fingertips close to his mouth, as if she meant to close his lips. She would have liked to, but she did not touch him. She spoke softly. ‘I was one of the Queen’s ladies in another country, not this one which is now mine – and yours. We have a whole new realm here – ours for the glory of our Queen and God: a virgin land in which we can build new lives, freely and fairly without fear or censure.’

He sighed and bowed his head then looked away towards the trees.

‘It is a fine country, I will grant.’

‘It is beautiful.’

He held her hand as if in prayer, between his two palms, bringing it close to his heart. Poor Kit, she felt his concern; he was only
trying to protect her. Perhaps also, she hoped, he did not really want her to go.

‘But consider what you have undertaken,’ he reasoned, ‘what is expected of you back in England.’

She looked at him levelly.

‘All that is over. It is part of the past I have left behind. We are here to start again, and it does not matter what you were or I was, here we are washed clean. I am a woman, nothing more or less, and you …’

He drew her to him, bringing his face close to hers, whispering as if his words might easily destroy them both.

‘I am a man who fears he loves you.’

She tipped back her head and half closed her eyes. She felt herself shaking though she tried to hold still.

‘Do not fear it because I do not,’ she said.

It was a lie.

She felt his lips meet hers, soft and sensual, then urgent and hard. His arms enfolded her and his hands held her head, pressing her closer, not letting her go, and her response was to shiver like an animal overpowered, submitting to him completely because, at that moment, she did not want him to move away. She surrendered to her passion for a man whom she loved: the finest man she had ever met, better than all the courtiers in all of London, and all the mariners who sailed the seas, and all the gentlemen, and all the lords. He was an angel in her arms, Gabriel brought to Earth, and she did not care about anything else except to have him close by her, his smell on her skin, his taste in her mouth, and his touch overwhelming her, bringing tears to her eyes.

Then someone called for him and the kiss came to an end.

He seemed to sense what she yearned for and hugged her tenderly before he left.

*

Kit watched Emme helping with the supper, chatting with the other women by the open fire, keeping the lid on the cauldron in which the crabs were boiling, those that had been caught that afternoon along with the clams and mussels which would make a dainty feast. There was even the promise of fresh bread, baked in the oven he’d helped to build, made with the flour from Spicer’s flyboat which had reached Roanoke safely three days ago much to the Planters’ relief. This was contentment indeed: the sight of the woman he loved more than he’d thought he could love again, the smell of hot bread along with the aroma of steaming crab, his son by his side, part of a community taking root: the City of Raleigh, now with everyone together, and enough supplies to see them all through their first winter in Virginia; his body aching from a day of fruitful labour, his stomach craving to be filled, but his heart brim full. He was in a land where he could shape a future, build a house, till the soil, make a home, and, though the work was hard, the land was bountiful with much of the promise that White had described, certainly deer and fish aplenty. Perhaps he could believe that Emme might stay, and accept what she’d told him: that she would not go back, despite her promise to Raleigh which must have been made with the knowledge of the Queen. Perhaps he could convince himself that with him she would be safe. He was sure he could look after Rob, so why not Emme as well if she chose to remain? Had he imagined dangers where none really existed? White’s Planters had been on Roanoke for over a week and they’d not seen a single savage apart from Manteo and Towaye. Why fear what a broken skull might mean when in
London the cemeteries were full of such things? There was nothing else to suggest that anything sinister had happened to Grenville’s men, nothing apart from the damage to the fort, the burnt timbers and broken earthworks. But a violent storm could have caused all that: fire from a lightning strike and the wash of heavy rain. The cottages had survived intact, so why not conclude that Coffin and his men had moved elsewhere of their own volition? Maybe they’d left on a long hunting trip and were now on their way back, about to appear at any moment. There might soon be an explanation, and if Emme freely wished to stay, without any persuasion on his part, if she truly cared for him as she’d led him to believe, then why shouldn’t he contemplate a future shared with her?

Look at her: cheeks rosy with the sun, chemise rolled up above her elbows and open at her pretty throat, down to the beginning of the crease between the full roundness of her breasts. He’d take that thought no further, but observe how she moved, and spoke and smiled. Didn’t she seem happy? Her laughter was like sunshine, brightening everything around her. Even one of the old dames laughed along with her as well, and the woman’s usual scowl would have frightened a ghost.

Emme was a lady, at ease in the palaces of the Queen, who was prepared to turn her hand to anything she encountered. She was undaunted by hardship and what was strange and fearful. Few people suspected she wasn’t used to keeping house, though he’d seen her puzzle the Governor with the shrewdness of her questions, and her mistakes often caused amusement. Take the time she tried to find wood for a dish when told to bake venison in a coffin, which she plainly didn’t know should have been hard pastry. But her mistress was too unimaginative to think that her maid was any more
than incompetent at times, and Emme had learnt to accept criticism with good grace, and to ask when she wasn’t sure then make up her own mind, and, in this new land, she was as good as most in making use of what she found.

She was cheerful and resourceful, clever and unassuming. Her faults he could accept. If she was headstrong, then wasn’t he too? If she was over-bold for a woman, then he considered that a virtue. He’d never met her like, nor would he ever again. She could never displace what his Ololade had meant to him, but Emme was not the same and his love for her was different, fresh and sharp, keen enough to hurt. Maybe the time had come for him to laugh again and join with Emme in the enjoyment of this New World. To each was its season, and there was a time to let go, just as there was a time to love, and sometimes love more than once in the span of a man’s life. Perhaps, for him, a new time was beginning. He did not know what would happen next, but he’d relish his good fortune in being with Emme in this place, treasure the affection she had shown him and savour her with his eyes. She was beautiful and she roused him. O, she roused him. When she began to sway in a mime of dancing, to some private joke she was sharing with her friends, he had to look away to let his blood cool.

He turned to White sitting beside him on one of the tree trunks round the fire. The Governor was hunched over his pocket desk with an air of rapt concentration, hair ruffled, tongue tip just showing between the line of his lips. The lid of the box lay open in his lap to reveal a sheet of paper and an array of mussel shells each aglow with a different pigment. In his right hand he held a tiny brush, and in his left was an oyster palette on which he was mixing colours, dipping his brush into another shell half full of water, then
blending the hues on the mother-of-pearl. Kit leant over and saw that he was working on a life-sized limning of a striking yellow butterfly, about a child’s hand in size, striped black on its forewings, but rather tattered and clearly dead. Manteo had it resting on his knee, wings spread between his fingers.

White pointed to the lower areas of the creature’s wings, parts that looked much battered, as if pecked by birds.

‘Does the frilling continue here?’ he asked Manteo.

‘The wings have tails. They are like this.’ Manteo gave a little sweep of his finger.

‘Curling? Hmm … Is this right?’

White mixed a very watery grey and drew a small curved elongation to one lower black border.

‘Yes, I think so,’ Manteo nodded.

White dipped his brush in a shell smeared with a residue of black and gave a small grunt; he’d obviously run out of pigment. He proceeded to place a smooth piece of round crystal on the log by his side; then he took a small paper envelope and poured out a tiny amount of black powder, and sprinkled it with white powder from another paper wrapping.

‘What’s that?’ Manteo asked, peering over.

‘The black is from charred cherry stones and the white is gum Arabic; it’s the best binding for limning,’ White added, shooting Manteo a smile. He tapped the picture with his little finger. ‘That earth yellow you gave me has worked very well.’ He passed his finger over the vivid wings. ‘As good as the best ochre from Italy.’

‘I am glad.’ Manteo grinned back.

Next, White added a few drops of water and began to grind the mixture to a black paste with a small ovoid stone.

‘Let me hold that for you,’ Kit offered, placing his hand around the crystal.

‘If you would,’ White said, glancing up and raising an eyebrow, as if he’d noticed Kit beside him for the first time. ‘Keep it steady.’