Never Call It Love (36 page)

"I
hear you are not unacquainted with the establishments along that street."

"I
have gone there solely as a sightseer," he said blandly. "But the
point is this. When he issued that warning, I wonder if it occurred to him that
you and I might—"

"I
am sure it did not," she interrupted coolly. "And in fact, I am
really rather surprised at myself. You are a beautiful boy, Christopher, but
compared to Patrick, or even Victor Serraut, you are an inadequate lover."

"He
said, "Inadequate? I should think that thrice in one evening..."

"It
is quality, rather than quantity, which counts."

"Perhaps,
although other women have not found me inadequate in either respect. But then,
most of them were less experienced than you." He had not really expected
her to take offense, and her shrug told him that she had not He went on,
"Besides, having me in your bed brings you another satisfaction, perverse
though it may be."

"What
satisfaction?"

"Revenge.
I'm the brother of the woman you hate. You hate her because she is Patrick's
wife, and you hate him for the same reason. Oh, yes, Moira, I have seen you
looking at them, and I know you hate them both. You've probably been obsessed
with loving him, and hating him, for a long time. What better revenge than
pleasuring yourself with me, a man he'd like to kill?"

That
word again. She lay motionless, too angry to speak.

"Perhaps
even before this you enjoyed another kind of revenge. Who was it, I wonder, who
told the English that your neighbor Sir Patrick Stanford plotted treason?"

"You
prate of things you know nothing about" she said coldly. "You must
swear not to talk of such matters again, not if you want to continue coming
here."

He
said swiftly, "I swear." Moira was not only beautiful. The wines and
Port-au-Prince pheasants, brought by Lieutenant Serraut from the fort to his
mistress's house, were excellent indeed.

"And
now you had best leave. It must be getting on toward dawn."

"
'Oh, no,'" he said, fingers playing with a lock of her
silky dark
hair, "'it was the nightingale, and not the lark.'"

"What
nightingale? What nonsense are you talking?"

He
leaned over and kissed her. "Sometimes your beauty makes me forget you are
not an educated woman. I quoted Shakespeare.
Romeo and Juliet,
act
three, scene five."

"I
may not know Shakespeare, but I do know Victor Serraut. If he ever learns that
you have been coming here, he will kill you. Now, go."

For
the first time since her arrival on the island, Elizabeth found that the very
perfection of the weather in the dry season had begun to fray her nerves. Each
day the sun shone from a cloudless sky, and the placid sea shimmered, and the
lush vegetation around the little white house rustled in the faint breeze that
blew ceaselessly from the west. She began to long for the sight of leafless
elms and beeches against a gray English sky, and muddy roads with crusts of ice
in the ruts.

But
she knew it was really not the monotonous perfection of the weather that
oppressed her. It was the presence of both her brother and Moira Ashley. True,
she was almost certain that Patrick did not visit Moira Ashley's house. True,
she knew that her brother, under Colin's alert supervision, was performing his
work satisfactorily. And yet she had a sense of impending disaster, almost as
if she could hear rumblings from inside the
long-extinct volcano that formed the
island's central peak.

When
disaster came, it came swiftly, and on a morning as bright as any that had
preceded it Tramming back the ilex and hibiscus bushes that always threatened
to engulf the garden paths, she heard the swift beat of horse's hooves along
the drive. She straightened, Patrick reined in beside the stable entrance, his
face dark with rage.

The
garden shears dropped from her hand. She said, hurrying toward him. "What
is it?"

"Your
brother." His voice was thick. "He's disappeared. So has almost six
thousand dollars in gold coins. He broke open the strongbox at the distillery
sometime during the night"

She
whispered. "Oh, no!" Then: "Are you sure? Perhaps some of the
blacks—"

"Don't
be absurd, Elizabeth. It's your brother who has disappeared."

She
said, still dazed. "Six thousand dollars. So very much money..."

"Yes!
A lot of money, full payment for the last two shipments of rum. Enough money
that if I can't recover it we will be about as poor as when we arrived here.
The American agent came up to the distillery after dark yesterday. Only Colin
and I were there. We decided to leave the money in the strongbox
overnight"

"But
how did Christopher...?"

"He
must have passed the agent on the road, and guessed he was carrying money.
Colin's gone over to the cove to see if he can find a trace of him."
Elizabeth knew what cove he meant, a shallow one on the southern shore of the
island from which small boats in the interisland trade sailed. "I am going
down to the waterfront to learn if he managed to sneak aboard some ship in the
harbor."

As
he whirled his mount, the skirt of his coat fell back, and she saw the pistol
he had thrust into the waistband of his breeches. She watched until he
disappeared around
the corner of the house. Feeling numb, she walked to the kitchen door.

The
brief tropic twilight had fallen by the time Patrick returned. From the parlor
window she watched him tether his horse to the gatepost. She could not make out
his facial expression, but frustrated rage was evident in his very stride as he
came up the walk.

She
met him just inside the front door. "What—?"

"Has
he come sneaking back here?"

"No."
All day she had feared that he might All day she had wondered what she would do
if her handsome, monstrous young brother came slipping into the house, pleading
for her protection.

Patrick's
dark gaze searched her face. Apparently satisfied that she told the truth, he
said, "There's no trace of him. We've searched everywhere on this side of
the island. The police
commissaire
and I even went aboard that
Portuguese ship in the harbor and those two American merchantmen, and searched
them from stem to stern."

"Did
Colin, over at the cove...?"

"He
talked to freedmen who live in the shacks there. They said that only one
trading vessel had sailed from the cove since yesterday afternoon, and that
there had been no one of Christopher's description aboard it"

"And
the people at the inn?"

"They
have not seen him since yesterday morning, although he must have been there
sometime last night He left that hired mare of his at the inn stable and then
just... disappeared."

Because
she could think of nothing else to say, she asked, "Have you had food? I
have made some—"

"I
want no food," he said, and turned toward the door.

She
cried, "Where are you going?"

"I
don't know. Perhaps to St. Amalie." That was the settlement on the Atlantic
side of the island. "Although how he could have gotten there on foot,
through fifteen
miles of jungle..." Not completing the sentence, he went out the door and
closed it behind him.

Unable
to eat the supper she had prepared, unable to do anything except sit in the
parlor, hands clasped in her lap, she waited until almost midnight for his
return. Then she went to bed and stared, wide-awake, into the darkness.

***

Christopher
lay on the sagging bed in the tiny top-floor room, hands crossed behind his
head, and watched the girl. She sat with his coat across her lap, fingers
stitching still another tiny pocket in its lining. Light from the oil lamp on
the rickety table beside her gleamed on the gold coins stacked around the
lamp's base, and on her bent dark head and the needle she plied so awkwardly.

Her
name was Solange. Her mother was a quadroon, and so she knew she had at least
some African blood, but as to the nationality of her various white ancestors,
she had no idea. She looked fourteen, was actually sixteen, and had been a
prostitute for more than a year. Christopher liked her, not only because she
was pretty but also because of the childlike awe in her face whenever she
looked at him.

For
almost fifteen hours now, ever since he had left his horse at the inn stable in
the predawn darkness, crossed the deserted square, and walked down the alley to
the rear door of this brothel, Solange had been sewing those pockets into his
coat lining. There had been interruptions, of course. Several times she had
slipped downstairs to fetch him food or brandy. Once the brothel-keeper, a
stout man with a cast in one eye, had looked in and said apologetically that
Solange must come down to a room on the floor below. Otherwise, a favored
customer would make trouble. And less than an hour ago Christopher himself had
slipped out into the alley, made his way onto
the beach and then the wharf,
and struck his bargain with the master of the Portuguese ship.

He
looked at the stacks of gleaming coins. They numbered a few less than when he
had taken them, in their stout leather bag, from the distillery strongbox. He
had given two coins to the brothel-keeper. Even though he knew it was not
necessary, he had given one to Solange, who had stared down at it with her
usual awed expression, either not understanding or not believing him when he
told her that it was more than she could hope to earn in several months. And he
had given three gold pieces to the Portuguese captain. Just before the ship
sailed with the predawn tide, he would slip aboard.

Uneasily,
he frowned. He did not entirely trust that captain. There was at least a chance
that once the ship was well out to sea the Portuguese colors would come down
and the death's-head flag go up. But Christopher thought not. What cargo he had
seen, sugarcane and West Indian mahogany, was that of an honest merchant ship.
And even if the captain did demand an additional bribe, Christopher would still
reach Lisbon, and eventually Paris, with enough that he would need no Yvette
Cordot this time, and no employment. He would be able to live comfortably for
five years, or, if he chose, luxuriously for half that long.

Solange
bit off a thread with her sharp little teeth. Christopher rose, took his coat
from her hands, and spread it, lining up, on the bed. Swiftly his eyes swept
over the rows of awkwardly stitched little pockets.

"All
right, Solange. I'll put the coins in, a few at a time, and you will sew up the
pockets."

***

Elizabeth
came groggily awake in the dawn light, aware that she could not have been
asleep for more than an hour. Patrick was in the room, taking off his coat. She
said, memory rushing over her, "Patrick..."

"No
trace of him." His voice was harsh. "I want to get some rest if I
can. Now, go back to sleep."

She
lay back down. Dimly she was aware of Patrick getting into bed beside her. Then
exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she slept.

She
awoke to early sunlight The clock on the bedside stand pointed to a little past
six. Patrick could not have rested for long. He was gone from the bed, and as
she discovered a few minutes later, from the house as well. Had he gone to the
distillery, she wondered dully, or had he set out on another search for
Christopher?

She
forced herself to dress, brew tea in the kitchen, carry her cup and saucer back
to the parlor. She had taken one sip and was just sitting there, staring down
into the cup, when she heard a vehicle stop out in the road. She went to the
window. The Burgoses' wooden cart, drawn by a spavined gray horse, stood just
outside the gate. Jules held the reins. Jeanne was running up the walk.
Elizabeth felt bewilderment. Never before had either of the part-time servants
come to the front entrance.

She
hurried into the hall just as Jeanne began to knock, and opened the front door.
The maid's café-au-lait face beneath her white turban held frightened distress.

"Oh,
milady! Monsieur Montlow..."

She
broke off. Elizabeth said, her stomach knotting with fear, "What has
happened to him?"

Apparently
Jeanne could not bring herself to say. "Oh, milady! Come with us."

Elizabeth
hurried down the walk. As she climbed to the wooden-plank seat, it did not
occur to her to think of how anyone abroad at that early hour might react to
the sight of her riding between her two servants in their cart. The vehicle
lumbered down the road, across the empty square, down the slope past the
shuttered grog shops and brothels. Now she could see, not far from the foot of
the wharf, a group of people gathered around something on
the crescent
beach. They appeared to be blacks, mainly, barefoot men in white cotton
breeches and shirts, barefoot women in brightly colored dresses and white
turbans. Elizabeth found herself out of the cart and running awkwardly over the
sand.