That was a lot more direct than he’d expected—but then, she was startlingly direct.
“Your expectations?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” she said, dimpling. “I expect nothing, William. From you or anyone else.” She paused for an instant, and her eyes fixed with his. They were gray now that she wore violet satin, and translucent as rain on a windowpane. “Unless you refer to the modest proposal I made you?”
In spite of the internal struggle going on inside him, he smiled at her reference to Jonathan Swift—though in truth, her own proposal had been nearly as shocking as Swift’s satirical essay advocating infant cannibalism as a remedy for poverty.
“That was what I had in mind, yes.”
“I’m pleased to know that you’re considering it,” she said, and though the dimple had left her cheek, it was plainly audible in her voice.
He opened his mouth to deny that he was doing any such thing—but while he had firmly refused to think about her outrageous suggestion, he was aware that his body had already accomplished its considerations and was making its equally firm conclusions known to him.
He coughed and glanced casually around the room. Papa was talking to the French diplomat and not looking in his direction, thank God.
“Well.” He cleared his throat and folded his hands behind his back. “I don’t know that ‘consideration’ is the right word, precisely—but the matter is irrelevant for the moment. I came this afternoon to see you—”
“Indeed?” She looked pleased.
“In order to tell you that I am leaving in the morning and don’t know how long it may be until I return.”
She ceased looking pleased, and he regretted that, but there was nothing to be done about it.
“Come,” he said, and touched her hand, nodding toward the French doors, open to the garden. “I’ll tell you why.”
She caught his mood at once and gave a slight nod.
“Not together,” she said. “I’ll go first. Go and have a drink, then take your leave through the front door and walk round.”
HE FOUND HER, at length, at the far end of Mrs. Fleury’s enormous garden, contemplating a small grotto, in which a stone putto was urinating on a toad that sat in the middle of a carved stone basin, its round eyes gleaming black beneath the stream.
“It’s a real toad,” she remarked, glancing briefly at him before returning her attention to the amphibian in question. “A Scaphiopus of some kind. They live mostly underground, but they do like water.”
“Obviously,” William said, but he wasn’t letting her distract him, and without ado he told her about the letter Denzell Hunter had sent to Uncle Hal. She went white and pulled her cape tight across her body, as though stricken by a sudden chill.
“Oh, no. No. Oh, poor woman!” To his surprise, her eyes were full of tears. But then he remembered that she, too, had a child, and must at once have imagined losing Trevor in such fashion.
“Yes,” he said, a lump in his own throat. “It’s very terrible. Uncle Hal naturally wants Dottie here, where he can take care of her, make sure she’s safe. So I’m going to go and fetch her.”
“Of course.” Amaranthus’s voice was unaccustomedly hoarse and she cleared her throat with a small, precise “hem,” then let go of her cape, straightening up. “I’m glad that your cousin will be restored to her family—to be alone, with such a dreadful loss … How long do you think the journey will take?”
“I don’t know,” William said. “If everything goes smoothly, perhaps a month, six weeks … If it doesn’t—illness, bad weather, travel mishaps—troop movements …” As usual, he felt a slight pang at thought of the army, and the sense of constant purpose it embodied. “It could be longer.”
Amaranthus nodded. The toad suddenly inflated its throat and let rip an enormous, resonant whonk! It repeated this cry several times, as William and Amaranthus watched it in astonishment, then gave them an accusing look and shuffled out of its basin and away under a frond of something green.
Amaranthus giggled, and William smiled, charmed at the sound. The tension between them had broken, and he reached to draw the cape back around her shoulders, quite naturally. Just as naturally, she stepped into his arms, and no one could have said, then or afterward, whose idea the kiss had been, nor yet what followed.
101
On the Road Again
JOHN CINNAMON HEAVED WILLIAM’S saddlebags aboard the mare, then looked the animal over carefully, circling her with squinted eyes, trying to pick up her forefoot, attempting to tighten the cinch (and loosening it in the process), and generally annoying the horse. Cinnamon was somewhat embarrassed at being rescued from the Saint-Domingue navy and had been taking particular care not to be a nuisance since the adventure.
“She’s a good horse, but she’ll probably kick you if you don’t leave off pestering her.” William was amused, but also moved at Cinnamon’s clumsy solicitude. He knew Cinnamon wished to go with him—probably not trusting him to manage the task of retrieving Dottie by himself without being arrested, hanged by accident, or killed by highwaymen—but not enough to leave without his portrait being finished.
“It will be all right,” he said, clapping Cinnamon on the shoulder and bending to retighten the cinch. “It will be nearly winter by the time I get to Virginia. Armies don’t fight in winter. I’ve been in the army; I know.”
“Yes, imbécile,” Cinnamon replied mildly. “I know. Didn’t you tell me that the last time you were in the army you got hit on the head by a German deserter and thrown into a ravine, where you almost died and had to be rescued by your Scottish cousin that you hate?”
“I don’t hate Ian Murray,” William said, with some coldness. “I owe him my life, after all.”
“Which is why you hate him,” Cinnamon said, matter-of-factly, and handed William his own best knife, with the beaded sheath. “That, and you want his wife. Don’t tell me it will be all right. I’ve seen what kind of trouble you get into when you are with me. I’ll light a candle to the Blessed Virgin every day until you come back with your cousin.”
“Merci beaucoup,” William said, with elaborate sarcasm. “You don’t have that much money.” But he meant it, and Cinnamon grinned at him.
“Have you got a good thick cloak? And woolen drawers to keep your balls warm?”
“You look after your own balls,” William advised him, putting his foot in the stirrup. “Mind yourself, and do what my sister tells you.”
Cinnamon widened his eyes and crossed himself.
“You think I would dare to do otherwise?” he said. “That is a fearsome woman. Beautiful,” he added thoughtfully, “but large and dangerous. And besides, I want my portrait to look like me. If I made her angry …” He crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth.
William laughed, and tucking the knife into his belt, patted it and took up the reins.
“Serve you right, gonze. Adieu!”
Cinnamon shook his head.
“Au revoir,” he corrected soberly. “Et bon voyage!”