Chapter 15
As Emily Beauchamp stepped into the carriage, Tempest peered past her. Beyond the coachman and the stable boy, however, not another soul was in sight—except Caliban, sitting beside the kitchen door, watching the goings-on in the mews with interest. Andrew and his mother must have exchanged a private good-bye.
Just as the carriage door was closing, the dog bounded forward, leaped into the carriage without touching his paws to the steps, and wound between the two women’s legs.
“Now, Caliban,” Tempest began to chide, glancing back toward the house, expecting someone—Andrew—to retrieve him.
“It would be a comfort to have him along on the journey,” Emily countered, reaching down to scratch the dog’s head. “An extra set of ears to stay alert to mischief.”
While she didn’t have much faith in Caliban’s abilities as a guard dog, Tempest could already feel how having the animal curled between them warmed the carriage’s interior a few more degrees. “I suppose,” she agreed, “but won’t Captain Corrvan—”
“Oh, Andrew will be too busy in the City even to care properly for the poor dog. Besides, our need is greater,” his mother said, settling the matter with a firm nod.
Given everything that had happened over the last two days, Tempest was left only to wonder that the gentlemen of the West India Merchants had not immediately acceded to Mrs. Beauchamp’s wishes in the matter of the construction of a new dock, or whatever other plans she might have had in mind. Clearly, the woman was unaccustomed to being gainsaid. If Andrew could be persuaded to take up his duties at Beauchamp Shipping, even temporarily, what hope had Tempest ever had of resisting this trip to Yorkshire?
Why, she was even wearing another new dress. Mrs. Beauchamp had swept into her room this morning as she was dressing and snatched up the blue silk, muttered something about how it would be ruined by three days in a carriage, and swept out again. In its place she had left a traveling dress of tobacco-brown wool—trimmed about the bodice with apple-green ribbon, but otherwise as simple and plain as Tempest could have demanded if she had been allowed to place the order herself. Given how well it fit, she could only guess that Madame D’Ar-bay had made it according to the measurements she had taken during her visit. Wanting to protest—at Mrs. Beauchamp’s duplicity, at the shocking expense of having another new dress made up so quickly—Tempest had nevertheless put it on, fearing the alternative would be to make the trip in her shift and petticoats. If she had understood Hannah’s chatter correctly, where they were headed it was likely to be even colder.
Despite the wool dress and the heavy cloak, the morning air took her breath away, leaving in its place those peculiar little clouds of steam that no one else seemed even to notice. The groom and the stable boy had been talking and laughing with one another, oblivious to the haze surrounding them. Even the horses made smoky puffs of breath when they snorted. Good heavens, what if they were all indifferent to the sight of their frozen breath because they had never known any different? What if it were always this cold in England?
No, no, that could not be so. Her father had often spoken of bright spring days and warmer summer ones, and Edward had learned to swim as a boy in England. One could not swim if the water were always solid, as it looked to be now.
As the horses’ hooves broke through thin layers of ice on the puddles, muddy water splashed up and starred the windows, but Tempest did not turn away. The fog had finally lifted and the rising sun turned everything they passed into a diamond-crusted wonder. The carriage wheels squeaked over cobblestones that were coated with a fuzzy sort of rime—frost, Mrs. Beauchamp had explained when Tempest had reached out uncertainly to touch the similarly afflicted lamppost and found that the fur was cold but melted away under the relative warmth of her fingertip. It was a strangely beautiful world, nothing she ever could have imagined.
And she felt as if she had it all to herself. Mrs. Beauchamp and Caliban dozed contentedly, indifferent to the swaying of the carriage that reminded Tempest of those uncomfortable first days at sea. The streets were still mostly bare on this early morning, and they passed quickly through town. After a while, she caught her first glimpse of the famed English countryside, its rolling hills and leafless trees all painted with Jack Frost’s silvery brush. Straining her eyes, she sought any sign of coastline, of water—was this not an island?—but the sun sparkling against the landscape blinded her and she was forced to give it up. At least two days, probably three, to get to their destination. A somewhat larger island, then, than the one to which she was accustomed.
At midmorning they stopped to change horses, and as they dismounted to take refreshment at the inn, Tempest approached Hannah to persuade her to join them inside the coach, unable to bear the thought of leaving the young woman outside in the freezing air any longer.
“Yes, miss?” Hannah curtsied as she approached, turning laughingly away from some remark the coachman had made. Framed by her hood and long woolen scarf, her pink cheeks and twinkling eyes did not suggest discomfort. And the air did not seem quite so bitter as it had at first light. Aware, suddenly, that she would be depriving the maid of other sources of comfort—the coachman’s witty, flirtatious banter, and whatever it was in the flask he had tucked into his coat as Tempest had approached—she swallowed her offer for the time being and passed off her interruption with some nonsensical question about their route.
When the journey resumed, Mrs. Beauchamp was wide awake and eager to make up for the morning’s silence. “Henry says last night’s hard freeze was really quite a blessing, for without it the road would have been shockingly muddy. Though, of course, we have the frost to thank for the ruts and bumps, I suppose,” she said as she climbed in and settled a blanket around their laps and a hot brick at their feet. Caliban burrowed his way into the tent created by their knees. “And the innkeeper’s wife thinks it far too cold to snow now—too clear, you know, which I’ll own is a bit of a disappointment. Ah well, it’s for the best. So pretty, but not to be borne in a carriage. I’ll wager we won’t escape it entirely at this time of year. Though it really never does snow at Christmas in London. It always waits until January, when it’s merely a nuisance and can’t be enjoyed. But I remember some of our Christmases with Mr. Beauchamp’s family in Shropshire, sleighing and sledding and even snowball fights. The children began it, of course, but the adults were never slow to—”
Into this merry monologue, Tempest ventured a single, uncertain word. “Snow?”
“Yes, dear. Snow. Why surely you’ve—?”
But Tempest could only shake her head. She had heard the word before, and read it, too, but it might as well have been a word in a language she did not speak. Having nothing to associate with it, its meaning, its significance had eluded her grasp.
“Of course you wouldn’t know. How silly of me! Well, snow is . . . not rain, but little flakes—”
“Like dust?” Tempest suggested. “Or ash?” Digging through her memory, she recalled Edward once telling her the drifts of white sand along the beaches put him in mind of snow—she must have filed the comparison away without fully understanding it.
“Much prettier. And colder, of course.” Emily shook her head and folded her hands in her lap. “I think you’ll just have to see it for yourself. Though I’m almost never at a loss for words, I frequently find myself without the right ones.”
To that, Tempest could not concur. One heard stories of the Irish gift for gab, as well as their propensity for making bulls, of course—those characteristic errors that struck an English ear as comical. For all her bustling, fumbling manner, however, Emily Beauchamp was, in fact, quite silver-tongued. How else to explain that she had managed to talk both her son and Tempest into doing exactly what each had said they would never do?
Tempest had already forgiven her for that slightly duplicitous scene on the stairs. An apoplexy might not be imminent, but she knew the woman’s heartache was real enough. Oh, how she wished that Andrew would live up to his mother’s hopes for him. But she feared it was a wish destined to remain unfulfilled.
It was far more likely that Sir Barton Harper would grant her request to free his slaves. And that, as she very well knew, was not likely at all.
“What ought I to expect of Christmas in Yorkshire, do you suppose?” Tempest asked, no longer thinking of the weather.
Emily considered the question for a moment. “Is it a large family or small?”
“Oh, small. My mother was Sir Barton Harper’s only child. A distant cousin is to inherit the baronetcy.”
“And your grandfather’s health?”
“Quite poor, I believe,” she said, recalling Lord Nathaniel’s oft-expressed concerns. “Certainly, he is no longer a young man.”
“Nevertheless, I suspect he will be delighted to see you,” insisted Emily, “to know you. I am sure he has felt the separation from his family keenly.”
Beneath the weight of her heavy cloak, Tempest shifted her shoulders. “If he has, he must know he has only himself to blame.”
“There was some cause other than distance for the estrangement between your parents and your grandfather, then?” Emily ventured after a moment.
“My father always ascribed it to Sir Barton’s foolish pride,” Tempest replied honestly. “Papa and Mama met at a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Drury Lane and fell head over heels in love—at least, so Papa told the story to me. Both knew her father would disapprove of her marrying someone whose fortune had been made in trade. When Sir Barton refused his consent, they were not to be dissuaded, however.”
“How romantic,” cried Emily. “‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’”
Tempest managed a slight smile. “No, I suppose not.”
“How did they end up in the West Indies?”
“Some months after they eloped, a circumstance arose in Antigua that required Sir Barton’s personal attention, but he was reluctant to go. My father offered to go in his place, and his proposal was eagerly accepted—at least, until my mother announced she meant to go with him.” The rumble of the carriage muffled her sigh. “Mama died four years later, never having returned home.”
That part of the story earned a tsk of sympathy from Emily.
“My grandfather had been content enough to allow Papa to manage his business affairs, but he had never really forgiven him for taking his daughter away. He cut off all communication,” Tempest continued, determined to see out the story to its end. “Many years later, when Papa grew ill, he wrote and told my grandfather he had named him my guardian, but even that was insufficient to earn his lasting attention. I had a letter from him, nothing more. As I never intended to visit England, I accepted that I would never know him.”
“Yet, now you will. And who knows?” The usual twinkle had returned to Emily’s hazel eyes. “You may learn that something else entirely lay behind the rift. Perhaps his grief made him ill, or there were other letters that were written but never made their way to you. Perhaps he has been pining for his granddaughter all these years.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps I shall find him exactly as he has been painted—difficult, callous, and proud.” With a sigh, Tempest turned back toward the window, studying a landscape that no longer sparkled with frost but whose colors had been leached by its passing. To her eye, everything seemed gray and faded, so different from the intense blues and greens of home that she began to wonder if her memory could be trusted. Antigua was such a long way away. “I ought not to have allowed you to persuade me to this journey against my better judgment,” she murmured, hardly even aware she had spoken the words aloud.
“What worries you so, my dear?”
Tempest turned her gazing from the passing scenery. “I worry most about those I have left behind. Their futures depend on me. What if something happens while I am gone, some disaster that my presence might have averted?” she suggested, imagining all sorts of grim possibilities, especially if, in fact, Edward was no longer at his post. “Or what if I have jeopardized their happiness by coming here? What if... what if my grandfather is displeased with me and decides to alter his will?”
A frown wrinkled Emily’s brow. “I don’t understand. What would make him do such a thing?”
“I promised Papa that when I inherited Harper’s Hill, I would free the slaves. It was his dying wish,” she explained, seeing Emily’s surprise, “but beyond that, I believe it is the right thing to do. It may ruin the value of the estate. It may, as the plantation manager has warned me, put me at personal risk. But I cannot stand by and see human lives destroyed just so we may put rum in our punch and sugar in our tea.”
Emily reached across the carriage and took Tempest’s hand in hers. “And you fear that if your grandfather learns this, he will think better of his decision to leave the plantation to you?”
Not trusting herself to speak, Tempest nodded.
“Then the less said, the better,” Emily advised. “You are under no obligation to tell him your plans. ‘Discretion is the better part of valor,’” she quoted.
The words were surprisingly calming, reminding her of the way Papa had invoked Shakespeare at every opportunity. “I do sometimes find it difficult to hold my tongue about the matter,” Tempest confessed.
“I have noticed a tendency to be forthcoming,” said Emily, diplomatically. “You are very firm in your opinions for such a young person.”
Tempest smiled. “Stubborn, you mean. Yes, I suppose I am.”
“It would seem to be a family characteristic.”
“In more families than one, I dare say.”
Emily looked momentarily taken aback, then laughed. “I blame my first husband for the stubborn streak you have observed in my son . . .”
“I was not thinking of him,” Tempest demurred, somewhat dishonestly. “I was thinking of the admirable determination you have shown in managing Beauchamp Shipping.”
“If I have been determined, it has always been on Andrew’s behalf,” she insisted.
Tempest wished suddenly she had not encouraged the conversation in this direction. Her mind and her heart were full enough already.
“He left home—ran away—at seventeen,” Emily said, a faraway look in her eye, “convinced he could never follow in his stepfather’s footsteps, determined to seek justice for his father.” A pause. “Mr. Beauchamp would have, could have, put a stop to it. The ship was his, after all. I hardly knew which was the right course of action. In the end . . . I let him go, believing he would find his way back to me.”
“And he has.”
“You must think me impossibly naïve for believing he will stay now, merely because I wish it.”
“I think you have proved yourself remarkably adept at making others dance to your tune,” she said with another small smile, unable quite to deny Emily’s words. It was not naïveté, exactly, but rather faith in the power of love to change another’s character, and Tempest could not share her faith.
“To be perfectly honest, my recent successes are unprecedented. I am far more accustomed to find that no one is listening.”
“You must wonder how you persuaded me, then,” Tempest said, dredging up a self-deprecating laugh from somewhere deep inside. The carriage rattled over a particularly deep rut, and Caliban gave a groan of disapproval when the women’s knees knocked together. Weary suddenly of his blanket fortress, he rose, shook off his covering, and set his chin on her knees, nudging her hand for attention.
Emily watched with interest, her head tilted to one side. “No,” she said finally, and Tempest felt herself blush beneath her scrutiny. “I believe I have some idea of what tipped the balance.”
* * *
“Caliban!”
Andrew paused, listening for the sound of claws ticking across the entryway. Hearing nothing, he thundered down the stairs and shouted again. Where had the dog gotten to?
When a search of the house turned up nothing, he stepped into the back garden and gave another call. It would be just like Williams, who had been looking along his fastidious nose at the dog ever since their arrival, to have put Cal out on the coldest night of the year. If he found the dog tied in the stables, the man would be lucky not to spend the next week there himself.
“He’s g-gone, sir.”
Andrew whipped around, seeking the source of the voice. Caesar stood in the doorway behind him, shivering.
“Gone? Gone where?” Suddenly aware of the biting cold, he ushered the boy back inside and down the steps into the kitchen, where a blast of welcome heat greeted them both. “Did he run off? Or did someone take him?” he asked, eyeing the staff. Every face but Williams’s bore traces of alarm. The butler merely looked affronted at the intrusion.
“Missy Tempest took ’im. I saw it all from this window,” Caesar piped up, motioning to the clouded glass through which one could just glimpse the mews.
“Took him?”
“Well, she didn’t call ’im,” Caesar corrected, “he just—”
“Followed her,” Andrew finished from between clenched teeth, a sound that sent most of the servants scurrying to their duties, or in search of a place to hide. “Damn it all.”
“Sir!” cried Williams, looking even more injured, if such a thing were possible.
“Call for a cab,” Andrew ordered.
Williams did not move, but Caesar leapt to attention, his dark eyes bright. “You goin’ after ’im?”
“His duty lies in the City,” the butler reminded archly, making Andrew wonder if his stepfather’s will had stipulated a sinecure for the man, or if he was allowed to send him packing.
“That may be, Williams, but this morning, I am bound for . . . Hampstead,” he said, naming the first place he could think of that was neither where he should be nor where he wanted to be.
“Hampstead, sir?”
“Aye,” Andrew confirmed, somewhat reluctantly. What on earth had inspired him to say it?
Mumbling the destination repeatedly under his breath so as not to forget it, Caesar left in search of a cab.
As the hack carried him away from the house, Andrew realized he had no more specific direction to give, really no more specific direction in mind. When the village drew in sight, however, he called for the driver to stop and simply wandered until he found an overgrown rose garden, which Jeremiah Bewick was attempting to tame in his shirtsleeves, despite the cold.
If Bewick were not such a familiar figure, Andrew would have imagined he had found the wrong cottage. The idea of the grizzled quartermaster contentedly—or at least willingly—gardening in a bucolic country village was comical. Or would have been, once upon a time. Now, however, it struck Andrew with all the force of his mother’s slap across the face. It had always seemed to him that love demanded great sacrifices—expected him to do what he did not want to do, be a man he could never be. But perhaps, when one loved, some of those things ceased to be sacrifices. Maybe love helped a person become his better self.
“Never expected to see you in this neck of the woods,” Bewick said before Andrew could speak. He laid his clippers aside and stepped to open the garden gate. “Summat I can do for you?”
Andrew could not ever remember having sought out advice before. But he desperately needed some now. “I think,” he said, ducking his head beneath the wrought-iron trellis, “I think it’s more a question for Beals.”
“Ah,” replied Bewick, sounding ever so slightly disappointed at being deprived of an excuse to abandon his task. He picked up the clippers once more and gestured with them as he spoke. “Go in through the back, then. First door on your right. Geoff’s fixed ’imself a laboratory. Best knock first, though.”
Picturing smoking vials or jars of pickled specimens, Andrew was relieved when his knock was answered by a bespectacled Beals, dressed much as he always had been and carrying nothing more alarming than a thick book. Bewick might call it a laboratory, but the room looked to him very little different than a smaller, snugger version of his stepfather’s library.
“Why, what a pleasant surprise. What brings you here, Cap’n?”
Andrew didn’t correct him; it was almost a relief to hear the old form of address again. “I wanted . . .” he began, then stopped. How to put his question into words?
He had known it was necessary to put distance between himself and Tempest, whatever the cost. But as the carriage had rolled away this morning, he had realized that those two hundred miles or so would be at once too far and not far enough.
Far enough to fray the tie that ensnared them. Not far enough to snap it cleanly in two.
Could the constant pull he already felt do some sort of internal damage? Tear his heart right out of his chest?
And she had even had the temerity to take his dog . . .
“I wanted to see how you and Bewick had situated yourselves,” Andrew said instead. “I’m glad to see you’ve put him to work.”
Beals smiled. “It was time for a break from the sea. Wears a man down, after a time. Changes him, and not always for the better.”
“Ye-es,” Andrew acknowledged, hesitation stretching the word. Was it possible Bewick had grown as weary of chasing Stratton as he? “Though he tells me he plans to sail with the Colleen again when she’s fit.”
“We’ll see.” Beals gave a thoughtful nod. “Sometimes a man changes his mind. For instance, Jeremiah tells me you’ve agreed to take up the helm of Beauchamp Shipping rather than another of its ships.” Outside the window, the gossiping quartermaster was back at work. Andrew watched Bewick for a moment, feeling Beals’s eyes on him all the while.
“I’m sure he claimed that rose garden was for me,” Beals continued. “But I knew he couldn’t bear to be idle. And it gives me a chance to work on that paper about yellow fever. Likely naught’ll come from it, since I’m a mere surgeon, no one for the physicians and Royal Society chaps to heed. But I mean to give it my best.”
“Your experience will do you credit,” Andrew insisted. “In fact, it is your medical expertise I’ve come to consult.”
“Sit, then. Sit,” Beals said, gesturing toward a chair already drawn close to a cozy fire.
As Andrew settled into the comfortably worn cushions, the scent of Bewick’s tobacco rose from them, and he felt suddenly ashamed of intruding on the two men’s sanctuary, merely because he could not bear to be alone with himself.
“And how is the boy, Caesar?” Beals asked, seating himself opposite.
“Well, very well. I had thoughts of training him as a valet, but I think his true calling is in the kitchen. At least, I find him there more often than not.”
“’Tis bound to be the warmest room in the house,” Beals said with a laugh. “What of Miss Holderin? Already on her way back to the West Indies, I suppose?”
Andrew drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, then wished he could snatch the betraying gesture back. “She is . . . also well. She and my mother are on their way to Yorkshire this very morning, a Christmas visit to Miss Holderin’s grandfather.”
“Oh?” Beals raised a brow. “I understood she meant to return home immediately.”
“I—that is, she—we—”
“Say no more.” Beals laughed again and raised a staying hand. “A perfectly understandable change of plans, under the circumstances.”
“And which circumstances would those be?” snapped Andrew.
“Why, proximity, for one,” Beals replied, unruffled. “Even if she did not mean to be in this part of the world, she’s here now and likely won’t be again for some time. And some folks think of Christmas as a time for family, setting aside old differences, that sort of thing.”
“Yes, of course,” Andrew agreed, relieved. “I imagined you meant—no matter.”
They sat together in silence for several minutes after that, until Beals cleared his throat and prompted, “A medical matter, you say? You are well, I trust?”
“Well enough.”
“And your mother? She must have been overjoyed at your return. I hope it wasn’t too much for her heart.”
“She seems strong enough,” Andrew said, not conscious he had raised his hand to his face until he felt the chill of his own fingers against his cheek. “Though I suppose it might be difficult to tell . . .” His voice trailed off and he finally shrugged and muttered under his breath, “delicate condition.”
The phrase startled Beals into a more upright position. He took off his spectacles, polished them against his waistcoat, then threaded them over his ears once more, as if a smudge on one of the lenses had somehow interfered with his hearing. “Did you say ‘delicate condition’? I believe I must’ve misunderstood you, Cap’n. Surely you didn’t mean to suggest that your mother is—er—? That is, she can no longer be a young woman, beggin’ your pardon.”
“My mother? In a delicate—? No. Good God, man. I was speaking of the sex in more general terms. Fragile. Prone to mysterious maladies.”
Beals’s lips appeared to try out several replies before his voice joined in. “Er—yes. I—I gather that’s true. Never had many female patients, myself.”
“Oh.” As if disappointment were a physical weight, Andrew slid further down in the chair. “No. Of course you haven’t.”
“Still,” Beals said, studying his posture with one raised brow, “I rather think I know enough to answer a simple question or two, if something is preying on your mind, lad. Some worry about your mother, or . . . well, any other lady of your acquaintance.”
He must know. And Bewick, too. Likely the whole crew of the Fair Colleen knew. Or if they did not know, they surely suspected. They would’ve been fools not to suspect. And Andrew had never made a habit of sailing with fools.
Pushing himself out of the chair, Andrew stood and began to pace. “How soon does one know for certain if a woman is with child?” he asked when he paused before the window, feigning interest in the frost-coated shrubbery. Bewick had disappeared from sight.
“Your . . . your sister you’re worrying about, is it?” Beals asked.
Andrew turned sharply. “Sister? I haven’t any—” he began and then stopped. The man surely knew he had no sister, and a single glance confirmed it. They stared at one another for a long moment, until Andrew tipped his chin instead and muttered, “Aye.”
“Then your concern is understandable. Understandable. Well, now, confirming a pregnancy can be a tricky case. The quickening— when the babe begins to move—is the surest sign, although many a woman will say she knows much sooner.”
“When her courses cease.”
Beals looked surprised by his knowledge. “That is one symptom, yes.”
“So, within a very few weeks, even a month or so, a woman may begin to suspect—” His voice was rising, in spite of himself. Seeking a distraction, he picked up a glass specimen case containing a half-dozen mosquitos, fat with blood.
“She may,” Beals interjected, calm as always, “but there are other conditions that may disrupt her usual cycle. A strain on the body, lack of proper nutrition, an illness—”
“Seasickness?” he asked, forgetting for a moment his determination to be discreet.
“If the case were severe enough, perhaps,” he admitted. “Such as Miss Holderin experienced, for instance . . .”
“Who said anything of Miss Holderin?”
“I meant nothing by it, lad,” Beals said soothingly, shaking his balding head as he lifted the fragile box from Andrew’s fingers and replaced it safely on a shelf. “Just a—a familiar case, I suppose you’d say. A point of reference. In a situation where a young woman has undergone something stressful, some brief disruption of her courses is normal and no cause to assume a pregnancy. Have I answered your question?”
Before Andrew could reply, the door swung open and Bewick entered, carrying a tea tray and wearing—good God—an apron over his clothes. His eyes met Andrew’s on the far side of the room, but neither one spoke, as if they had come to some prior agreement that comments about Bewick’s unaccustomed domesticity were off-limits. Which, of course, they were. After so many years, Andrew had imagined he knew these two men—that they were rebels and rogues like himself. As they all stood together in a cozy room in a rose-covered cottage in Hampstead, however, such labels no longer seemed fitting. Perhaps they never had been.
“Join us for a cup?” Beals offered, indicating the chair Andrew had vacated, the one that was so obviously Jeremiah Bewick’s usual place of repose.
“I cannot,” he demurred, stepping toward the door as Bewick moved further into the room. “I have taken up enough of your time.”
“An’ he’s got a business to run,” Bewick added, setting down the tray with a clatter.
Andrew nodded absently. He had been assuming his fate was already decided, but Beals had given him reason to believe that Tempest might not be carrying his child after all. And if he were not to be bound to her, he supposed he need not be tied to a desk in Mincing Lane, either.
“For the time being, at any rate,” he agreed with a nod as he let himself out.
All the way home, the surgeon’s words swirled in his brain, producing an occasional twinge—of relief, he told himself, not regret.
No, certainly not regret.