“Good Lord, man, you sound like a poet,” MacLachlan said, startled. “Don’t let your wife hear you talking like that about the countess.”
Cecil only laughed. He wasn’t worried about Claribel; they understood each other, and their happiest moments were their most intimate. That sort of bond meant that she knew damn well that he wouldn’t stray. Besides, he was of the private opinion that Theo would be remarkably uncomfortable to live with.
Her rules were enchanting to read about, but the same tendency to catalogue perfection could be seen throughout her life. She proclaimed, rather than suggested. She was too fierce in her opinions, too unforgiving, too witty.
Too much fuss. Too many feathers.
As befitted a swan, of course.
Even as Theo enjoyed her meteoric rise through the ton and the hushed attention that polite society gave to her every utterance as regards style, the constant mentions of swans (and never ducklings) was wearing.
By the fall of 1815, the papers were in the habit of asking for another of her “rules”; La Belle Assemblée never failed to include a detailed illustration of her every costume.
She thought that it would be quite nice if James returned to find his wife the talk of the ton and a force to be reckoned with.
And so it was that Theo had the ghost of one person—her mother—standing at one shoulder, and the ghost of another—James—at her other shoulder. And while she did not cast a romantic haze over the short days of her marriage, she had thought a great deal about where fault lay—and indeed, whether “fault” was a useful question in a marriage.
James, she concluded, had been pushed by his father into an action that he knew was morally objectionable. And yet, in his own way, he loved her. She was sure of that.
The limit she and Cecil had set was drawing near, and Theo knew she must accept the fact that it would be miraculous if any news of James emerged at this point.
Just after 1815 turned to 1816, she summoned Cecil to meet with the family solicitor, Mr. Boythorn, who prosed on at length about a “death in absentia” petition to the House of Lords, detailing Theo’s inability to enjoy either the duties and responsibilities of a wife, or the freedom and protections of a widow.
“We should have a memorial service for my husband,” Theo said when he paused for breath. “After we declare him dead in such a cut-and-dried manner. It would be absurd, I suppose, to wear mourning for a year. But I shall wear mourning for at least a short time. James was very young when he left England, but there are many who remember him.”
“When I was a boy, everyone called me Pink,” Cecil put in. “James never joined in.”
The solicitor cleared his throat. “A memorial service in St. Paul’s Cathedral would be most appropriate. It would indeed be fitting to hold a service after Lord Islay has been formally recognized as deceased. A small plaque could also be arranged, to commemorate the life of this courageous young man. It is my belief that the Percival foundered almost immediately.”
“Surely not,” Theo said, hating to think it.
“The vessel was headed to India, by all accounts, and never heard from again. The passage is besieged with pirates,” Mr. Boythorn observed. “More than one sailor has told me that it would be a miracle if the Percival escaped an unfortunate fate.”
Theo sighed. “Cecil, would it be acceptable to you if Mr. Boythorn began the proceedings to submit a death in absentia petition to the Lord Chancellor and the House of Lords? If we receive other news in the next month, of course, the petition would be withdrawn immediately.”
“Would you prefer to wait another year, my dear?” Was there ever a more reluctant duke than Cecil?
Theo looked at him with a faint smile. “I have quite enjoyed managing the estate, particularly with regard to the weaving and ceramics concerns. But I should like to move on with my life. I know I’m practically elderly—”
“You are not!” Cecil cried with a satisfying smack of indignity in his voice.
“But I intend to throw myself on the marriage market after the petition is approved,” Theo continued, “and another year would do me no good in that respect.”
“As it should be,” Mr. Boythorn intoned solemnly. “It is time to close this sad passage in the history of the Dukes of Ashbrook. Lord Islay was cut off in the prime of his youth, but life must go on.”
And with that rattling series of platitudes, the conversation ended.
Long live the new duke.
Twenty
On board the Poppys
In 1814 the Poppys sailed to India without taking a single ship on the way; they did so merely to prove that their captains would have no problem grappling with monsoon winds. But since they were there, they wandered around until Griffin decided that Sicilian noblewomen whom he had known (intimately) would fall in love with gilded birdcages; he filled the hold with them. James discovered a passion for a flavoring called curry, so he filled all the birdcages with packages of turmeric and cumin.
On the way home a pirate crew was ignorant enough to try to take them down, so they sunk that ship, dropped off the men on an inhabited island (as was their custom), and sailed on, a pile of emeralds in a corner of Griffin’s cabin revealing that the Poppys were not the first boats those particular ill-fated pirates had approached.
They sold the birdcages in Sicily at an outrageous profit. They sent the curry to England, where their man there (for they now had establishments to manage their assets in five countries) reported that it was slow to take on at first, but by the end of three months, it had sold at a neat seventy times the cost.
Jack had learned to control his temper. He had even come to thinking of his father with equanimity. When one kills enough men—albeit pirates who had killed hundreds themselves—embezzlement seems like the crime of a child. Perhaps more importantly, guilt became something that he refused to allow to rule his life.
And Daisy . . . he found himself irritatingly unable to forget the enchanting way her eyes had widened when he first touched her breast, not to mention all the childhood years when they played and fought together. But he told himself over and over that those were the memories of a boy named James, and Hawk prided himself on forgetting everything to do with his life in England, marriage included.
Then his luck ran out.
It was early 1816, and they had just taken down the Groningen, on special request from the Dutch king; the naval boat had been stolen and was being used to rob trading vessels. Everything was well in hand; the pirate captain had gone to his just reward, and only a few men from the Groningen were still fighting hard.
Jack was about to bellow an offer for surrender when there was a rush of movement to his right, and a pirate came up fast and hard with an open blade.
He felt the knife slice his neck, just below his chin. It didn’t hurt, oddly enough, but there was a terrible sensation of flesh parting, followed by a warm rush of blood down his throat.
He reeled back, dropping his weapons and collapsing to the deck. There was a crack from a pistol, and the pirate with the knife pitched backward, landing on the deck with an audible thump.
Then Griffin fell on his knees by Jack, swearing a blue streak, screaming orders.
Jack squinted up at him, seeing his cousin against the sun as if he had a halo, a fuzzy halo. “Good run,” he said, but nothing came from his lips. Of course men who had their throats cut couldn’t speak. He and Griffin had come to love each other like brothers, though being men, they never expressed it. They didn’t need to.
Now Griffin was bending over him, stuffing cloth under his chin. James met his eyes and discovered they were terrified. He had known the truth before he saw it in his cousin’s eyes. Men with cut throats do not live.
“You will not die,” Griffin ordered through white lips, as ferocious as only a pirate king can be. “Damn it, James, hang on. Dicksling will be here in a moment, and he’ll sew you back together.”
James shaped the words slowly. “Tell Daisy.” No
sound escaped, and the pain had flooded his body now, making black dots swim in his vision. But there was only one thing in his heart, one thing he had to say, shocking though it was to discover it.
“Daisy?” Griffin said, leaning even closer. “Your wife. Tell her what?”
But the black dots were connecting together and rushing at him as if a sandstorm suddenly rose from the sea.
And at that very moment the felled pirate made one last violent effort: the man thrust himself to a sitting position and slashed his knife at Griffin. With a howl, Griffin clapped his hands between his legs. Blood flew in the wind and splattered all over James’s face.
It was over, it was all over. It was only then that James realized what he surely knew all along.
He couldn’t shape the one word he desperately wanted to say.
And there was no one to hear it.
Twenty-one
April 3, 1816
The petition to declare a formal end to the life of the Earl of Islay was wending its way through the Courts of Chancery when Theo received a message from yet another of the twenty Bow Street Runners who had returned to England.
But this message was different: it claimed news.
She sat quite still with the note in her hand, staring at it.
If James was alive, the Runner, a man by the name of Mr. Badger, surely would have written I found your husband, rather than I bring news. Desolation felt like a palpable thing in her stomach, like another heart beating under the first.
She summoned her new butler, Maydrop, and instructed him to request that Mr. Pinkler-Ryburn visit that very afternoon. Mr. Badger turned out to be swarthy and hirsute, a bow-legged and fierce-looking individual. One had the distinct impression that criminals would be quite sorry to find that Badger was on their trail.
“He has the whiskers of a catfish,” Cecil whispered, but Theo was too nervous to smile. They were sitting together on the couch, Mr. Badger in a chair opposite them. Theo was so fidgety that she felt as if flies were dancing on her head, yet Mr. Badger methodically plodded on without getting to the point. He took forever explaining precisely where he had been assigned by his superiors, how many men he took with him, how many he hired in the islands, how long it took him to sail to his first port of call.
For the first time in years Theo had the impulse to chew on her fingernails, a habit she had broken in the schoolroom.
“The West Indies,” Mr. Badger continued, “is not civilized by our standards, and I’m afraid that I employed a great deal of bribery in order to obtain the information I sought.”
“Have you found my husband?” Theo interrupted. She could wait no longer.
“No, I have not,” Mr. Badger replied.
She swallowed. “But you found news of him.”
“I am of the opinion that he was not dead as of 1810,” Mr. Badger said, returning to the sheet of foolscap he had balanced on his knee. “He was . . . well . . .” A look of distinct disapproval crossed his face.
“He was living with another woman,” Theo said flatly.
“He was a pirate.”
Cecil gasped, and Theo gave a cry—whether of horror or surprise, she couldn’t say.
“That’s impossible,” she managed a second later.
Mr. Badger licked his finger and turned to another sheet of foolscap. “He was called the Earl by various members of the criminal establishment. I might remind you that at this point James Ryburn was possessed of the courtesy title Earl of Islay. He worked in concert with another pirate known as Griffin Barry.”
“That name does sound familiar,” Cecil said.
“Barry is actually a member of the peerage”—Mr. Badger gave them a lowering glance, as if they were personally responsible for this reprobate member of their class—“and it is my considered opinion that the said Sir Griffin led Lord Islay into impudent and ill-conceived, not to mention criminal, ways.”
“Criminal!” Cecil gasped again. “My cousin James would never do anything criminal! I’d stake my life on it.”
“I would not advise you to do that if I were you, sir,” Mr. Badger stated. “There was some confusion about the actual activities of the Earl and Barry; there were those who maintained that Barry attacked only the ships of other pirates, at least, after he joined forces with the Earl. There is ample evidence for Barry’s piracy before 1808, but after that date, he specialized, if one can use that term, in attacking his fellow reprobates, which makes him a ‘privateer,’ rather than a pirate.” He paused. “To law-abiding men, there is only a slight distinction.”
“Impossible!” Theo said, feeling glad for the first time that her mother was no longer alive.
“If this ‘Earl’ is any connection to my cousin,” Cecil said, “then I am quite certain that he would indeed attack only pirate ships. His Grace is a man of honor and would no more think of harming innocent lives than he would of . . . of cheating in a game of cards!”
Theo put her hand in his and squeezed. If only James were here to listen to Cecil’s fervent defense of him. “What happened to the Earl?” she asked. “Was he killed?”
“There’s quite a legend built up around the man’s vessel, the Poppy Two, but no one could tell me of its fate,” Mr. Badger said, “though, of course, I left men there with instructions to find out. They are sailing from island to island making extensive inquiries at each place, while I returned here with all speed. All we had determined by the date I returned to England was that the said Griffin Barry once had a partner known as the Earl. But not very long thereafter the Earl was replaced by a fearsome character known as Jack Hawk.”
“Jack!” Theo cried. “Jack is not so far from James.” At the same time she wanted any shred of evidence that he might still be alive, she wasn’t sure that she liked the idea. It would mean that her James was a pirate, a bloodthirsty criminal who walked innocent people down the plank. “Though I still don’t believe it,” she added.
“I agree there is a similarity in names,” Mr. Badger said. “But the resemblance stops there. I had two people draw pictures of this Jack Hawk, as he’s well known in those parts. He has a passel of women fond of him, if you’ll excuse the indelicacy, Your Grace. There’s not a chance that the Earl and Jack Hawk are one and the same: from descriptions of him, Hawk is a monstrously big fellow, with a shaved head and a tattoo under his right eye.”
“A tattoo?” Cecil repeated.
“What on earth is a tattoo?” Theo asked.
“Decoration pricked into the skin with the use of pigment and a needle,” Mr. Badger said. “I find it most unlikely that an Englishman, let alone a nobleman, would submit to such a barbaric procedure, which is both painful and indelible. I saw some examples while I was on the islands, and they were distinctly savage.”
“I agree with you that we can discount the possibility that this pirate and Lord Islay are the same,” Theo said. “In fact, I find your former supposition unlikely as well, Mr. Badger. The fact that Griffin Barry is a member of the peerage is insufficient evidence to presume that a criminal named Earl might have any connection to my husband.”
“I’m afraid that we cannot offer even a partial reward for this information,” Cecil agreed, chiming in. “Lord Islay was never a pirate; I find the supposition unlikely, not to mention insulting to his memory.”
Theo let the reference to “memory” go by; Cecil found it increasingly difficult to speak of his cousin in the present tense. She could understand; after all, James had been gone for nearly seven years.
“I was interrupted before I could present you with a piece of evidence,” Mr. Badger said, looking as satisfied as a cat with nothing left but a mousy tail. He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a small flannel pouch, which he proceeded to open.
It held a locket.
And inside the locket . . . a curl of hair whose color ranged from bronze to brandy.
“I fail to see the significance of that object you hold,” Cecil said, leaning back with a wave of his han
d. “A tarnished locket with a piece of hair—” He looked sideways at Theo and broke off.
“It is my hair,” Theo said, her lips moving with difficulty. “James cut it on our wedding night. Actually, the following morning.” She reached out her hand. “May I have it, please?”
Mr. Badger handed it over. The locket was, as Cecil said, a tarnished and not particularly valuable one. Yet there was no mistaking her own hair. She’d spent too many years deploring its odd streaks to mistake it.
“That need not be your hair,” Cecil said, peering down at her hand. “I agree that there is some similarity, but your color is much lighter than that, my dear.”
“James cut it from underneath so that no one could see. The hair is darker, but you see it has all the oddness of my hair. Like a yellow zebra, James always said.” To her distress, she heard her voice quaver.
“Where on earth did you find this?” Cecil said to Mr. Badger, simultaneously giving Theo’s arm a little squeeze. “Not that I consider the hair necessarily to be Lady Islay’s.”
“Apparently, it was stolen from the man called the Earl. I had made it clear that I would pay a hundred pounds, a small fortune in those parts, for any evidence of the duke’s existence. In the course of my inquiries, I extended the offer to include any details about the pirate named the Earl. This was brought to me in response.”
“And yet no one knew what happened to the man?” Theo whispered. Her fingers shaking, she clicked the locket closed again. Even looking at that hair brought back the extreme joy of that day. She had never felt anything like it again.
Mr. Badger shook his head. “The Flying Poppy wasn’t seen in those parts again for a good three to four years, which is not so extraordinary. Griffin Barry operates all over the seas, Your Grace. There’s talk of him around India and then near Canada. They call him ‘a flying fish’ and the like.”