Raised By Wolves 3 - Treasure (28 page)

He turned to regard me and sighed as he scratched a bite on his neck. He went to the medicine chest and – to my relief – used the same unguent I had.

“We discussed Christine,” he said. “He feels she is an excellent candidate. He thinks we should pay a call to the Vines’ tomorrow. He too, thinks we should see to this quickly.”

He sighed again as he stood and propped his leg on the chair to unlace his boots. “He wishes for us to return to France with him. I told him I am not ready yet. And… he seemed to understand that.”

“So what is wrong?” I prompted, when he did not speak as he finished doffing his breeches and folded them as well.

He regarded me sadly. “He understands that you are very important to me, but he wonders if another could become just as important. If someone else, a wife for instance, could help mitigate my madness as you do.”

I sagged back on the bed to gaze at the ceiling. I could not look at him. “That is… reasonable advice, I suppose.”

“It made me… sad,” Gaston said. “That he should view that as the only reason you are important to me.”

I raised my head to gaze at him again. He was scratching his chest absent-mindedly, and gazing out the window.

“I had thought our discussion was going well,” he continued. “But the last time I had a pleasant-seeming discussion with him was that night, and by morning…”

He looked down at his chest with bemusement, and then tears; and I saw the Horse take him. I knew, as if I could see his very thoughts, he saw the scars that marred him from shoulder to thigh as he thought she might.

I cursed my foolishness. They were so familiar to me now – so much a part of him – that I had not considered how they would appear to another, or even that he must reveal them.

I went to him and took his shoulders. He regarded me with a child’s wide eyes.

I spoke gently. “If she is so damn concerned with vanity that she cannot see beyond them as I do, then to the Devil with her. She will not be a proper dam to our puppies.”

“But what can I tell her?” he asked desperately. “I will not have her know…”

I put fingers to his lips. “Tell her nothing. Tell her you will not discuss it, and if she cares for you she will not ask, as you told me when you first revealed them.”

“That will not appease her,” he said. “You loved me enough not to ask and still it troubled you. She… will have no reason not to ask…

others – not that they know, but… And what of my madness? What will we say of that?”

“That you are mad,” I sighed, “and that if she feels you are behaving oddly, she should tell me of it and I will deal with you.”

He nodded slowly, but he was becoming more agitated. “I will not have her tend me or be around me when I am mad. You are the only one my Horse will trust. She will not decide if I am to be bound or drugged or…”I silenced him with a kiss. “No one but me will ever do that again,”

I whispered against his lips.

“My father will not, either,” he hissed.

“Non, of course not,” I said soothingly.

We could not go to France. I must have a long talk with Christine.

I led him to the bed and bade him lie down. “We are tired,” I whispered. “Can you sleep? Or should I make it all go away?”

“Please make it go away.”

I found the oil, and massaged his back and arms until he drifted to sleep beneath me.

I wondered what we would tell Christine. My ire rose that we should have to tell her anything at all, but I was too tired for it to grow into anger. I could not see where she would know how to handle him: she was just a girl; what could she know of madness? But perhaps his father was right, and I was giving myself airs to think I was the only one. Exhausted and melancholy, I arranged our weapons and pulled the netting about the bed before curling next to him.

I woke to a light rapping on the door. At my call, Dupree answered and apologetically explained that it was quite late in the morning and the Marquis wished to speak with us.

Gaston obviously drifted in the bowers of the restorative sleep he often experienced after a bout: he had not stirred at the knocking or voices. I relieved myself and drank water. He had still not moved. He looked so peaceful in repose. I caressed his cheek and brow with a fingertip. At that, he stirred a little, and I widened my gentle touch to include his neck and shoulders until he opened an eye to regard me with annoyance and curiosity.

“You are very beautiful when you sleep, but it is late in the morning,” I whispered.

He snorted and rolled onto his back to reveal his piss-hard member.

“Am I beautiful at no other time?”

I grinned. “It is much like your eyes: they are ever green, but the shade and hue changes with your mood and the light. Such is your beauty: it is ever there, but it varies so that I am often struck anew by it.” “You never cease to amaze me,” he said with a smile, and caressed my cheek. He fingered his member.

I kissed his palm. “I will gladly take that.”

He frowned and looked down at his cock, only to smile and make the happy humming sound I so adored.

I was soon mounted atop him, gripping the headboard and staring out the window at a wheeling gull as I pleasured us with slow measured strokes. His hands ranged over my body; and my cock, though it had risen quickly for the occasion, bobbed happily between us without the pressing ache of need. It took a long and peaceful time, as it ever did when the prick involved is filled with as much piss as seed; and I savored it, thinking of the Marquis waiting below. We were not at his beck and call, and he would never own Gaston.

When at last my matelot came with a long happy grunt, he quickly rolled me beneath him, and pinned me while he plundered my mouth and exercised a strong hand upon my member until I exploded on my belly.

We laughed, only to have him sober quickly and hold me with great earnestness.

I sighed in his arms, wishing we could have staved off the matters of the day a little longer.

“You must speak to her,” he said. “You must tell her she will not find love here. That if she wishes to wake to a man who loves her that she will need to look elsewhere. I will give her a name and she will give me children and then she can have her freedom to seek what she will, but I will not love her.”

I wondered how I would say that diplomatically when I knew how very much his love meant to me. For a moment, I wondered how anyone could accept such conditions, and then I remembered that nearly all noblemen did when it came to marriage.

“I will speak with her if you wish it,” I said.

“I cannot… tell her such a thing,” he sighed. “I have difficulty speaking to her at all.”

“You did not last night,” I teased.

He rose to his elbows to regard me. “That was… we were discussing things of…”

“I understand,” I said. “You were speaking of things you know, and telling some damn woman that she will not be loved in her marriage bed is not a thing I would wish for you to ever do so often that you will become comfortable with it.”

He smiled grimly, and gave me a brief kiss before easing off the bed to find the chamber pot.

“Should I also broach your madness or scars before she makes a final decision?” I asked.

“Oui,” he sighed. “I wish her to know that there are things… she will never know about me, and that I do not need another matelot. If that is unsatisfactory to her, then we will not marry.”

“All right, let us dress and eat and go and find the Vines. Oh, and Dupree knocked earlier: your father wishes to speak to us.”

He appeared rueful, and then he grinned. “I am pleased you made him wait.”

I stretched languorously. “As am I.”

I dug cleaner shirts and breeches from the chests for both of us, and we dressed like buccaneers pretending to be gentlemen once again.

The Marquis and Dupree were seated at their usual table in the atrium. They appeared relieved to see us. Pete and Agnes were playing with the dogs in the yard. No one else was to be seen, though the door to the room I now knew to be Sarah’s office was open. There was a plate of fried fish and the grainy yellow cakes that I did not know the name of on the table, with butter and hot chocolate. With barely a nod of greeting at his father, Gaston and I sat and helped ourselves to the food.

I ate a piece of fish and washed it down with water before asking the Marquis, “In all your speaking to Sir Christopher last night, did he mention where they were residing this week? I believe they have a house in town as well as several plantations.”

He raised an eyebrow, but responded pleasantly enough. “We are to see them today. They were staying at a plantation near… Spanish Town, is it? They planned to attend mass this morning, and then come to their house here in Port Royal, where Gaston and I are to pay them a call.”

I nodded and swallowed a mouthful of the grainy yellow cake. “We feel I should speak to Miss Vines before a final decision is made.”

“I do not see where that is necessary, Will,” he said diffidently.

“Gaston should speak to her, and then arrangements will be made between Sir Christopher and me.”

“Oui, that is how it should be, and I do not wish to interfere in that,”

I said carefully. “However, there are matters that must be discussed with the young lady prior to either her decision or ours being finalized.”

“Such as?” he asked sincerely and without rancor.

“Well, some mention must be made of his madness and scars. She does not know of them, and we feel she should prior to her agreeing to marry him. And then, she must also be told that certain explanations will not be forthcoming, yet… Well, I must concoct some story about that night to stave off her curiosity without telling her anything we do not wish for her to know.”

The Marquis was frowning. “Telling her of his madness should be done, I agree, but I do not see why any mention need be made of that night. If, in time, Gaston feels he wishes to tell her of those events, that is his prerogative, but…” His words trailed off. He was looking at his son.I looked to Gaston and found him furious. As I was quite incredulous that his father could think the matter could be viewed so nonchalantly, I was not surprised my matelot was angry. Nor was I surprised when Gaston stood and doffed his sword belt and then his shirt.

Dupree gasped in dismay at the sight of him. The Marquis was silent, but it was the silence of a man stunned beyond words.

“How am I to explain this?” Gaston growled.

His father shook his head and pressed his hand to his mouth, and then he was standing and stumbling to the door. He disappeared into the street. A concerned and confused Dupree followed him, carrying his master’s cane.

Gaston sat heavily, his eyes pressed tightly closed.

“What are these yellow cakes called, or rather what are they made of?” I asked. “Do you know?”

“Corn meal. Corn. It is a grain of the New World,” he said slowly.

“Ah, now I will know how to ask for it. They are quite tasty.”

“I love you,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

He smiled weakly.

“Puppies?” I asked.

He chuckled and massaged his eyes and temples. “Oui.” Then he shook his head and regarded me. “How could he not have known what he wrought?”

I shrugged. “Did he see you after his rage and madness passed? And Vittese obviously did not tell him.”

“I should have killed him,” he grumbled.

“Which one?” I asked.

“Vittese,” he said with a frown. “Though perhaps I should kill my father, too.”

“That will solve nothing. Your father’s death, not Vittese’s”

He nodded and stood, and we went to visit Bella and the puppies. He left his shirt off, and at the sight of him, Agnes stared.

“Um, Mi… Gaston, might I sketch you again?” she asked.

He sighed and smiled. “Aye.”

Pete joined us in the stable, and Agnes soon did too, with her sketchbook and charcoal in hand. She had my amused matelot move twice before she was happy with his positioning in the light from the doorway.

As she settled in with the paper in her lap, she asked, “So, was Christine there?”

I sighed. “Aye, she was, and we spoke, and she is relatively well, though I feel she is not happy living with her stepmother, or vice versa.”

Gaston and I exchanged a look.

He spoke. “Agnes, there is talk of my marrying her.”

She looked up sharply. “Truly? Would she live here?”

“What?” Pete asked.

“Well,” I said. “Gaston’s father announced him as the Comte de Montren to everyone of note on Jamaica last night. And as he is naming Gaston his heir, he wishes, like all damn noble fathers do, that Gaston marry and produce his own heir.”

Pete swore and shook his head. Then he shrugged. “StrikerBein’

Married Hasn’t Been So Bad.”

“Because the three of you were able to come to an arrangement that suits you,” I said. “We will not manage the same thing.”

Agnes was frowning and looking from Gaston to me and back. “So you will not both marry her in the buccaneer way?”

“Nay,” I said with a smile. “Gaston will not share me. He does not share well,” I teased him.

He snorted.

“Neither does Christine,” Agnes said, and turned her attention back to her paper.

“Was she truly enamored with me?” I asked the girl.

She nodded and sighed. “She always said that if she must marry, she wished for it to be as her parents were, that she be in love with him and he with her. And she did not want children until after she had seen some of the world.” She frowned with thought. “That was why she did not wish to marry. She says the only thing men want from women is trysting and children.”

Gaston and I exchanged a look and sighed as one. We had no reason to doubt the girl, and it fit with what we knew of Christine; and though it was possible Christine’s desires had changed this past year, it was more likely they had not.

“Well, then, it is unlikely she will marry Gaston,” I said. “Because all we want from a wife is… children.”

Pete smirked.

“Aye,” Agnes sighed, “because you do not even need a woman for the other.” She began sketching. “I feel sorry for her. Christine will never get what she wants, and she is too stubborn to do what she must. But then…” She frowned and shook her head and concentrated on what she was seeing again, her hand scratching across the page.