The Fallon Blood, page 3
part #1 of Fallon Series
“It was a smooth trip, Daniel,” Michael said, “and a fast one.” He clambered up the ladder, his possessions clutched precariously under his arm.
The bustle of the harbor seemed belied on the wharf. A few men desultorily rolled barrels across the rough, uneven planks. Another leaned on a large broom, frowning at it as if wondering what to do with it. Crates and bales and barrels were stacked everywhere, often with only narrow walkways between the mounds; they might have been shipped in yesterday, or leaving tomorrow, or they might have been there a twelvemonth. Against a piling, throwing stones at the water, slouched two soldiers.
Their red coats were a flare to Michael. The dark blue facings and breeches were unfamiliar, but they were British regulars, surely enough. If the flyers had already been abroad in England at his coming, might they not in the weeks since have made it here on a packet? He began to regret selling the weapons.
“Our protectors,” Byrne said sourly, noting Michael’s gaze. “The Sixtieth Foot. The Royal Americans. Royal hooligans would be more like it. Always getting drunk, they are, starting fights, mistaking decent women for tavern sluts.” He spat. “Come. We’re keeping Mr. Carver waiting.”
Michael followed him the length of the wharf, past the bulk of the warehouse at the foot of it, to a large, open carriage in the street, shining black with tall, gilded wheels. A coachman in blue and white livery, himself nearly as black as the carriage, waited on the driver’s perch. At their footsteps he looked around, and grinned widely when he saw Byrne.
“A quick trip, Mr. Byrne, sir.” He gave a little bow as he spoke. “A pleasant one, I hope, sir.”
“It was that, at any rate, Samuel.” Byrne leaned closer to Michael. “You were wanting to see a slave. Well, Samuel, here, is one.” He climbed into the coach and sat with his back to the driver. “The Church Street house, Samuel.”
Michael entered the carriage slowly and sat where he could watch the driver. It was strange. The man seemed happy. How could a man be a slave and not rage against it? How could he not feel his chains every minute? Samuel cracked his whip over the horses, and the carriage started slowly down the street.
Peddlers thronged the way. Most were fishmongers, hawking piles of fish in a myriad of sizes and shapes from stands or from baskets carried on their heads. Oxcarts, loaded high with barrels, each guided by a black walking alongside with a long switch, plodded toward the wharves lining the river side of the street. Samuel wove his way skillfully through the crush.
At a wide boulevard they turned toward the center of the city, away from the river, but if anything the press increased. The peddlers were there in even greater numbers, men pushing barrows, women with baskets selling a thousand small things. Fine carriages vied for right of way with wagons driven by sallow, withdrawn men who seemed a breed apart from the cheerful folk of the city. Craftsmen dodged and wove their way through the traffic, followed closely by slaves carrying toolchests on their shoulders.
For a time they moved toward a great, white steeple that towered over everything. That was Saint Michael’s, Christopher said. Newer than Saint Philip’s, the city’s other Anglican church, Byrne told him, it was the most important church in the city. The State House was across the way from it, and the beef market, with its vultures circling overhead.
Short of the church they turned down the peninsula again. The houses now were almost uniformly large, some of two stories, but most of three. Some were of brick and some of wood, and all were set flush with the street, or with only a small garden before the front door. If Carver lived in one of those, Michael thought, he must be a man of some wealth. Of course, he did own a wharf and at least one ship. In Ireland or England that would argue for position and substance, but in these colonies who could tell?
The carriage drew to a halt, and Byrne leaped down. Michael stepped out more slowly and stood looking at the house. Three stories high, white with dark green shutters, it stood with one end to the street. Down the left side ran two long verandas, on the first and second floors. Dormer windows and dark roof tiles glinted in the sun. Through wrought-iron gates in the brick wall to the left he could see a graveled carriage path leading back into gardens, and just a glimpse of stables at the rear.
As Samuel opened the gates, Byrne tugged at the bell-pull, then looked around for Michael. “Come. We have to see Mr. Carver now. You’ll have time to gawk later.” He frowned. “Maybe.”
When Michael reached the door it was being held open by a white-haired slave with a dignified air. Byrne took Michael by the arm, pulled him onto the veranda and down to the door leading inside the house.
“Mr. Carver’s a busy man, Fallon. If you’re going to be in his service, you’d best learn not to keep him waiting. If.” His ready smile disappeared, and he bounced on his toes. “Yes. Wait here. Seth, tell Mr. Carver I’m here.”
“He’s been expecting you, sir,” the butler said. “He said you was to go right on in. He’s in the study.”
With a deep breath and an unreadable look at Michael, Byrne went to the tall door to the left of the hall and tapped. To a murmured reply he slipped through, pulling it shut behind him.
The butler bowed and gestured to a high-backed chair against the paneled wall.
“Would you care for a seat, sir?”
“Thank you, Seth.”
“May I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then if you’ll excuse me, sir, I have duties.”
Michael barely noticed his going. He sat with his belongings in his lap and studied the hall, the fine wainscoting and the sweep of the stairs. The lowboy across the hall and the very chair he sat in, he had seen their like before. Chippendale, the style was called.
Elizabeth Carver frowned at herself in the mirror. Without the fichu folded over her shoulders the dress could be worn low enough to show her breasts, the way Alicia said women did at the court of France. She took a deep breath. They were certainly large enough and round enough to belie her sixteen years, but it still didn’t work the way Alicia said it was supposed to. She was supposed to look womanly, even sultry, but her face destroyed it all. Heart-shaped, surrounded by raven ringlets, it spoke of innocence. It screamed infant at her.
Her dark blue, almost purple, eyes grew petulant. Papa wouldn’t let her wear it anyway. If she went to visit Alicia, she might be able to, but he’d hear of it eventually. Angrily she tugged it lower still, forcing her breasts even higher. Pink nipples peeked over the top of her bodice. If she wore it like that, they’d never even look at her face.
A slave woman in a dark brown dress entered quietly. Her mouth fell open when she saw the girl. “Miss Elizabeth!”
With a tiny shriek Elizabeth whirled, pulling the dress up with one hand and pushing herself back into it with the other. When she saw the black woman her mouth tightened. Defiantly she pulled the dress back down where it had been.
“Don’t you ever come up on me like that again, Samantha. Not ever. Why, I nearly died. I thought it was Papa.”
“Your father see you wearing that dress like that, Miss Elizabeth, he make you wish you had died.”
“That’s quite enough, Samantha.” Elizabeth turned back to the mirror, twisting this way and that.
“Enough! Huh! Ain’t near enough.”
“Anyway, Papa won’t ever find out.”
“And what going to stop him?”
Elizabeth rounded suddenly, eyes flashing. “He’d better never find out, or I’ll know whom to hold responsible.”
Samantha drew a deep, long-suffering breath. “Miss Elizabeth, you know—”
“I know what?”
“You keep parading around like that, he bound to find out. He could’ve walked in here his own self.” Her face took on a determined look. “And you know that’s true.”
It was true, and that made it worse. She was always being told things. What to do. What to wear. What was proper. She felt hemmed in tighter than any stays or corsets ever were. She couldn’t breathe. Those women in Paris weren’t hemmed in by strictures. They did what they wanted, when they wanted.
“I think I’ll take some air, Samantha.”
“Yes, miss. You wear the brown—”
“I’ll wear this,” the girl said, and before the slave woman could move she swept out of the room.
Samantha hurried after her, darting round her like a pilot fish. Elizabeth’s doubts were already beginning to gather; at the staircase they began to congeal. At any moment she was going to burst free of the violet silk completely. Desperately she wanted to pull it up, just a little, but not with Samantha to crow over her. She couldn’t.
Samantha’s steady drone decreased in volume flight by flight as they descended the stairs. Elizabeth began to perspire. What had she trapped herself into? If she went outside, anyone who saw her would rush to her father with the tale. She wasn’t certain what he’d do, but it certainly wouldn’t be pleasant. But if she didn’t go, it would be the same as backing down to Samantha. What could she do? What should she do?
Her face showing not a trace of the turmoil inside, she turned to descend the final flight. Her hand trembled on the banister. At the first step she stopped. There was a man seated in the entry hall. He was handsome, in a rugged sort of way, like a Gypsy, only fairer. No, he looked fiercer than that, more like a buccaneer. But he was dressed like a laborer, for all his looks, in rough shirt and breeches, with scuffed boots that some gentleman must have given him. He wasn’t at all the sort of person she was used to seeing in her father’s house.
Michael never knew what it was that made him look up, but ever after he knew it was the most fateful moment of his life. From that instant nothing was as it was before, nor ever could be again.
He saw her. From the head of the stairs, a child-angel’s face peered down at him over the openly displayed breasts of a wanton. The pure innocence of that face, combined with the sensual carnality of the body, clutched at his gut like a fist and brought an almost painful tightness to his groin. Yet it went beyond that. Already there was a hint about her of the allure to come. Bewitchment was in her eyes, eyes a man could get lost in. They reached out and laid hold of him and put a spell on him. In that moment he knew he’d never be entirely free of her again.
The door to the study slid open, and Christopher emerged, preceded by an older man, graying and slightly stooped. He’d an air of worry about him, but there was strength in his blue eyes, despite the lines at their corners, and a forcefulness to his walk. He started for Michael, looking as he did to see what the young man was staring at.
“Elizabeth!” he roared. “Cover yourself!”
Elizabeth jumped back, wide-eyed. A blush, starting at her breasts, raced up her white throat and flooded her face. She began tugging the dress higher, desperately hoping he hadn’t noticed just how low it’d been. “It’s the latest fashion in Paris, at the court, Papa. I want to wear it to the Fourriers’ ball next week. Please say that I may. It’ll be all the rage. Please?”
“We don’t live in France, child,” he snapped. “If you wear that in public you’ll be the subject of sermons at Saint Michael’s and Saint Philip’s, both, for the next month. Even the Presbyterians would preach about it. Now go back to your room and put on something more suitable. Samantha, go with her and help her choose something proper.”
Elizabeth dropped a deep curtsey, casting a baleful glare at Samantha as if she were to blame for it all. “Very well, Father.”
The old man watched her stalk upstairs and shook his head. He spoke softly, as if he’d forgotten anyone else was there. “Perhaps I’m trying to keep her a child too long, but she wants to grow up so fast.”
She’d already made it, Michael thought, no matter her age. Before her father could say anything more that might lie between them as a future embarrassment he rose, scuffling his feet to draw attention. Carver wheeled on him, and he shifted uneasily. He hoped Carver hadn’t seen him staring at Elizabeth.
“Christopher’s right,” Carver said suddenly. “You don’t look like a clerk. You’re more like a pirate. Are you one?”
“I am, sir,” Michael said firmly. “A clerk, that is.”
“Irish.” It was a flat statement, expressionless. “Papist?”
He’d been a child the last time he’d been to either confession or mass, or more than seen the inside of a church, but something made him stubbornly refuse to deny it now. “I was born in the Mother Church.”
“You’ll get along better if you convert to Anglican.” He said it as if it was of no real importance. “Christopher here did, and more than one of your countrymen.” Michael murmured something noncommittal. “All right, Christopher. You can go now. I’ll send for you if he needs to go back.”
“Yes, sir.” Byrne let himself out, with a friendly glance at Michael.
Carver turned abruptly back toward his study. “Come with me.”
Michael followed. Go back? Could Carver mean to send him back to England? Never. He’d run first, find another place for his new beginning.
The study covered the width of the house, with windows stretching nearly from floor to ceiling. Opposite the veranda, a fireplace took up almost the entire side of the room. A large globe stood in one corner, and a Turkey carpet covered the floor. Carver sat down beside his desk and scribbled furiously on a piece of paper. He motioned vaguely toward a chair facing the desk.
“Your name is Fallon?”
Michael rested tensely on the chair’s edge. “Yes, sir. Michael Shane Fallon.”
“Um? Oh, yes.” He held out the paper and quill. “Here. Copy the sentences at the top in the space below them. Do the sums, then write your name at the bottom.” It was plain on his face he expected little, if anything.
Michael put down his bag and took the paper. He read it quickly, then looked sharp at the merchant. There were three sentences, simple things a schoolmaster might set down for children to practice their penmanship. Below that were two columns of figures to be added, with two numbers to be subtracted from each in turn. Sums for babes to do. Carver stared back at him blandly, still proffering the pen. There had to be a trick.
Taking the quill, he leaned over the edge of the desk for a place to write. He took great care, making sure it was in his best hand. The columns of figures were quickly done, but he went over them twice, still certain there was a hidden hook. He could find nothing.
Be damned to it, then, he thought, and signed his name in bold strokes across the bottom. He looked for the sand, and Carver, whose interest had perked when Michael began to write, handed him the shaker. He dusted the paper lightly, waited for the sand to absorb the excess ink, then poured it into the box set by the inkwell for that purpose.
“There, sir.”
Carver read slowly, making a sound in his throat from time to time. Michael couldn’t tell if he was pleased or displeased, and he wasn’t sure he cared. This was no time to be playing games.
Finally the old merchant gave a vigorous nod. “This is well enough, though it’s no real test, of course.” He paused, stroking his chin. “In the last year I’ve bought the indentures of one master baker who couldn’t bake, one master cobbler who couldn’t sew leather, and one master carpenter who didn’t know a hammer from a saw. It didn’t seem too far-fetched that I might be sent a clerk who couldn’t write or do sums, especially when he looks as if he’d never spent a day behind a desk in his life.” He paused; Michael kept silent. “Well, I suppose the thing to do now is see how you do with a full set of books. What is that thing?” he added when Michael picked up his bag.
“My belongings, sir.” A quick grin flashed on his face. “You might say it’s all my worldly goods, at the moment.”
A look of compassion appeared in the old man’s eyes. It was a pitifully small bundle, even for a bound man. “Come along, then.”
Seth appeared in the hall the instant they did, with a hat and walking stick for Mr. Carver. Michael took the chance for a surreptitious glance at the top of the stairs. But the landing was empty.
Outside, the carriage waited, Samuel as still as a statue. As they reached the front steps another equipage pulled up, and a young man in satin and velvet climbed down.
He was Michael’s age, but taller by a good three inches, and swarthy with the dark eyes that’d passed Michael by. There was a spring to his walk, not quite a strut, but more the assurance that the world would get out of his way.
“Good day, sir.” There was a touch of arrogance in his voice, even speaking to Mr. Carver. “Is Miss Carver receiving?” He struck a pose, a fist on his hip pushing back his coat to better display his waistcoat.
Michael suppressed a smile. A popinjay, he thought. Then he saw the eyes. They were obsidian, and not only in color, but in coldness, as well. No, a vulture.
“I’m certain she is, Justin,” Carver said. “Seth will give you some refreshment until she comes down. Justin, this is my new clerk, Michael Fallon. Michael, Justin Fourrier.”
Justin eyed Michael’s clothes with cool contempt, extending a reluctant hand. “Fallon? I don’t recall any family of that name.”
“There may be none,” Michael said grimly. “Yet. I’m just arrived from Ireland. Mr. Carver has my indentures.”
Fourrier jerked back his hand as if he’d picked up offal. “Indentured? And a clerk? Well, it’s none of my affair, of course, Mr. Carver.” He turned slightly. Michael had suddenly become invisible. “If you’ll pardon me, sir, I’ll go in to Miss Carver.” He sketched a bow toward the older man, then rushed up the stairs, nearly running Michael down.
Michael glared at the door, shaking with wanting to go after the man. Just five minutes to teach him a man didn’t become transparent.
“He’s not such a stickler as he seems,” Carver said. Better, he knew, to smooth ruffled feathers at the moment than to tell the truth. He climbed into the carriage, then added, “He wants to marry Elizabeth.” His tone was curiously flat.
