Silent Surrender (9 page)

Slowly she wandered to the mantle, trailing her hand along the smooth surface. She didn’t face him and he knew it was because she disliked drunkenness, and then he felt even more a fool. So he watched her, watched her bare feet and heard them whisper on the marble hearth. And he realized that without his jacket, without his shoes…he and Honoria were together, alone, as undressed as they ever had been in each other’s company.

When she turned, tears glazed her eyes. “I want see ocean.”

“You will,” he signed. “On boat.”

She nodded, and her small smile was tinged with sadness that broke down all the barriers of propriety in his drunken mind.

He got to his feet, forcing himself to feel courageous as he crossed to her. Though his stomach nearly turned from his nerves and the brandy, he came up beside her, put out his hand, and when she looked up, he searched her eyes for only a blink before he lowered his head and kissed her.

Her hands flew up to his shoulders, and for a nauseous moment he feared she would push him away, but her fingers curled under her palms and she sagged against him. She smelled of sweat and sex, and he had the fleeting thought that it should have disgusted him, knowing she’d been with Esau, but it did not. She was in his arms now, her sweet, small body pressed to his, and she was not thinking of the dock worker.

She moaned against his mouth, her head tipped back, and Jude thought,
this is wrong
. Did he really want it to be like this, him drunk and clumsy, and her fresh from another man’s bed?

Carefully he released her, stepping back. “Sorry.”

He didn’t have to explain further. It was a rejection, and she would not accept any other explanation, even if he gave one. The hurt in her expression was enough, and she nodded quickly and excused herself. He could only watch her go, feeling as hopeless and wounded as she looked.

* * * * *

The next morning came with a stab of pain and a weariness Jude could not shake from his bones. But his uneasy sleep had at least clarified his position on the matter. He would speak to Honoria after breakfast, and he would lay the subject of France to rest once and for all.

Esau already waited at the breakfast table, sipping a cup of tea. “Morning,” he said cheerfully.

“Good morning.” Jude cleared his throat as he went to the sideboard. “Did you sleep well?”

“Like a dead man,” Esau said with a noise of profound satisfaction. “She can tire a man out.”

“That…isn’t something I want to discuss with you.” Jude poured himself a cup of tea and added two lumps of sugar. He stirred deliberately and loudly to fill the silence.

“My mistake, mate,” Esau said with a cheerful smile. Of course he was cheerful. He had spent the night making love to Honoria, holding her in his arms.

Jude had run from her, and nothing would cheer him today. Last night had been one golden chance to stand up for what he wanted for himself, and he’d been unable to, crippled by the uncertainty of the future.

“Do you think…” Esau stopped himself. “Nah.”

With a pained sigh, Jude asked, “What is it?”

“I just…” For a man with no apparent shame, Esau flushed a bit as he asked the question. “I was wondering if it would be possible for a man like me to learn to talk to her as you do.”

“To sign?” In America, Jude had met many a man gone deaf from cannon fire or work at a loud job. The ability to sign seemed to vary from person to person. “I suppose it depends on a person’s aptitude with language. It’s certainly possible.”

“Ah.” Esau sipped from his cup, eyes straight ahead.

“Are you asking for yourself?” Jude knew full well that he was. “Because you couldn’t learn in a matter of days. It wouldn’t be a…productive use of your time here.”

“No, of course not.” He pushed his chair back and dropped his napkin beside his cup. “No breakfast for me this morning. I’ve got a man I need to see. I want to be back before she wakes up.”

Jude’s gaze flicked to the clock on the mantle. It was nearly eight. Esau looked down pointedly with a false apology on his face before he stepped out the doors. Of course he would have loved her again after Jude had gone to bed alone. Whom had she been thinking of, lying beneath the brute?

Did it matter whom she’d thought of? He knew already whom she had gone to. She hadn’t followed him, hadn’t come into his room and climbed into his bed.

Because he had rejected her, because he was afraid of what might happen if he let himself love her.

He’d finished his tea by the time she came through the door. She was dressed plainly in a black dress, and it struck him that he missed seeing her in the bright colors she so loved. Her posture held a hint of mourning he had not seen for a while.

She looked up and quickly signed, “Good morning.”

He replied in kind. “Esau left. Gone a few hours. He want return before you wake.”

“He left, I wake.” She went to the sideboard and took some cold ham and two peeled boiled eggs. “How feel your head?”

“Bad.” He waited until she had swallowed her first bite to say more. “I sorry. Last night, I drunk. I upset you.”

She shook her head. “You adult. Your choice, not mine.”

“I kiss you.” He would not let her get by his barricade that easily. He would not let her go to France with every one of their memories tainted by his imprudent behavior. “That wrong.”

Chewing determinedly, she faced straight ahead.

He placed his hand over her wrist on the table, and she looked up. He held his breath a moment. Her dark hair was pulled back severely from her face, knotted in a large coil behind her head. A braid wrapped round that, and he tried hard to remember the wild, thick tangle of it in the firelight the night before. She had seemed like his Honoria then, a woman who could belong to him, not a serious pupil with whom he had only a passing acquaintance. They had known each other too long and too well. “I want you. Not when I drunk. Not when first you with Esau. I want you.”

She touched her napkin to her lips, and he saw her pulse speeding in the bare temple.

“Honoria, please look at me,” he said aloud, and her body went entirely still.

Her eyes lifted to his, hers rimmed with water. “My father want France for me.”

“You choose,” he signed, hoping his frustration did not show in his expression. “I wait. You tell me your answer, I will accept.”

She nodded, and they finished their breakfasts in silence.

* * * * *

Esau had not given thought to what his mates at the dock might say about his fine new clothes, not until he was there and it was far too late.

“Will you look at this, Charlie!” Old William called from his seat on top of a tall crate. The old man couldn’t work anymore, but he still reported to the docks anyway, hoping to find a copper or two for a drink. “Looks like we have a turncoat in our midst.”

Charlie Groat, a short, stout little keg of a man, turned from counting a stack of burlap sacks and frowned a moment, until he recognized whom he stared at. “Esau? Good lord, is that Esau Coal?”

“It is,” Esau said, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He’d thought it was bad to dress like a dandy and walk amongst people of a higher station, but it was worse to be seen in the same attire by the people from his real life.

“Where have you been? I assume you’ve got quite the tale to tell me.” Charlie was the foreman, and Esau liked him well enough. He expected that his absence would be forgiven once the man heard the tale.

Old William cackled, and Esau’s jaw tightened. “Can we talk inside, yeah? I need to be able to speak freely.”

“Find out you were a relative of the bloody queen, did ya?” Old William crowed.

“Shut up, Billy, or you won’t be getting your pint from me,” Charlie warned. “Come on then.”

Once they stood safely inside the narrow clapboard shed that served as Charlie’s office, Esau told all, or at least, most. He’d left out Honoria’s name, didn’t talk of her deafness. He certainly didn’t bother to tell about Jude. But when he finished his abbreviated tale, Charlie blew out a long breath and said, “What man could stand to refuse?”

“Not I.” Esau grinned. “She’s a sweet thing, too. And eager.”

“It’s a shame she’s leaving for France, then.” Charlie took off his cap, punched the inside down and put it back on again. “I suppose I don’t need you for a few days or so. But if I were you, I’d make it worth the girl’s money. She might just take you with her, and you could be living the easy life, put out to stud.”

Esau nodded and laughed at that, but something uneasy settled in his chest. He didn’t like the implication that he would take to being a kept man. “Do you know a shipping company run by a man called Poole?”

“Used to be Wallis, until he died.” Charlie shook his head. “Liked him better. Hey, you ain’t got aspirations of going over there for work, do you?”

Esau shook his head. “Nah, I’ll be back here in a few days, don’t fret. Just a point of curiosity.”

“Your curiosity hasn’t failed you yet, has it?” Charlie smiled wide. “Poole is south, with the red sign. Do you get to keep the fine clothes?”

Esau didn’t know. It hadn’t been discussed. “What would I keep them for?”

“State visits, I suppose?” Charlie chuckled. “Off with you. I’m short a man today. A worthless man at the best of times, but still, a pair of arms at least.”

Esau left and tossed a few coins to Old William on his way up to the street. True to Charlie’s direction, Esau found Poole Shipping, a red shingle hanging out from the front of the painted-brown building. Gold letters across the breadth of the clapboard structure had been sloppily painted over, and Esau supposed they once proclaimed the building property of the late Mr. Wallis.

“Anyone here?” he called as he pushed through the door.

“Excuse me, do you have an appointment?” A reed-thin man with a wild fringe of white hair around his ears looked up from a writing desk, a scowl that would have frightened the devil himself etched in the thousand lines on his face.

It didn’t frighten Esau. “No. I’m here on business. Business about Honoria.”

“Honoria?” The man’s scowl deepened. “The simple girl? She’s in France, isn’t she?”

“She ain’t simple, and she ain’t in France. That’s why I’m here.” He hoped the fancy clothes gave him an air of authority. “She doesn’t want to go to France.”

“Since when should I concern myself with what that woman wants?” Poole dipped a pen in an inkwell and scratched it along as he wrote.

“You needn’t be concerned with it. Just let her have her money and be done with it. You won’t have to worry about her at all after that, and you can go on with your business here.” Esau smiled the kind of smile he gave a man as a warning. So they couldn’t tell if you were entirely threatening them or not.

That would come later. If the old Mr. Poole suffered a fall, maybe…

He thought of what Honoria might think of that, how it would make him look in her eyes, and he knew immediately that he could not do it, no matter how desperately it might seem the solution.

“Her father’s wishes were explicit. He left enough to provide her a small annuity, but she cannot possibly live off of it independently. The school is willing to provide her with room and board in exchange for her services. It is called work, sir, and it is something unmarriageable women are unfortunately called to do. Now, if there won’t be anything else—”

“Unmarriageable?” Esau’s mind snapped to a possibility he hadn’t thought of before. “If she were to marry, though—”

“Her inheritance would go to her husband, whoever the poor man should be.” Mr. Poole looked Esau over with a glance that was at once damning and admiring. “I warn you, it may not be worth your while.”

“I’m not thinking of me,” he said, and then, realizing it was futile to try to convince the man, he said, “Ah, never mind,” and left.

If the old monster didn’t want to give Honoria her money, maybe he would give it to Jude. Esau thought of nothing else as he made for the townhouse. Both Honoria and Jude had gotten themselves into a frightful mess, and though Esau knew he could not keep her, he would rather she be happy with the man she loved than living a spinster across the channel.

* * * * *

There was not an opportunity to speak to Jude until after dinner, but something had happened in Esau’s absence. Honoria was distracted, not warm to him or to Jude. When Esau had sought her out upon his return, she had politely declined his company, and she only emerged at dinner. She chatted with them both amiably enough, but there was a tension in her that seemed ready to break. She excused herself before the final course.

Esau waited until the door had closed behind her to lean across the table and say low, “I saw Mr. Poole today.”

“Are you whispering?” One eyebrow rose over Jude’s expressive eyes. “She can’t hear you.” Then, after he realized what Esau had said, he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny throat. “Why did you do that?”

“He told me that if Honoria gets married, her husband will get her inheritance.” Esau thought Jude would look more pleased at this information.

“It isn’t a large enough sum for you to want to dig your fingers into it, I assure you.” He threw down his napkin and went out as well.

Esau followed him to the parlor. In the hall, they passed the rat-faced butler, holding a steaming tureen. He gaped after them, standing helpless with the forgotten course.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jude warned Esau. “Mr. Poole is a wicked man, he’ll do whatever he can to get his hands on Honoria’s inheritance, no matter how paltry it is. That won’t matter to Poole. For all we know, he might find some ‘earlier copy’ of the will suggesting Honoria marry him. She would do it, if she thought her father wished it.”

“No she won’t,” Esau said confidently. “She don’t even want to go to France, she’s only going because she thinks you don’t want her about anymore.”

“She said that?” Jude’s expression suddenly hardened. “It doesn’t matter. I told her it was her choice. She knows I’ll have her, but she hasn’t accepted.”

Why Esau felt relief at that, he could not say. It would have solved her situation so neatly, and it was the solution he’d thought of himself. But he liked that she had not jumped into Jude’s arms, not yet. Esau was willing to let her go, he’d known all along that he would have to. He just wasn’t ready yet, and he suspected Jude wasn’t the type to allow Esau the goodbye sentiment he desired.