CHAPTER 41: Hotspur

 "But, my dear, how could you have lost her?"

"It was none of my doing," Jenny insisted. "I wasn't even there." But she stopped abruptly; perhaps if she had been home last night, Tory should not have disappeared. She supposed that's what Kit was thinking, although so far he had been too tactful to say so.

Tom had brought Jenny back to her lodgings at dawn, as was their usual habit, before the house was astir, but this morning Tory had not met them at the back door. It was not like her to forget to come downstairs, but they had found the door unlatched, so Jenny had no trouble slipping back inside. But upstairs, in their room, she had found Tory's bed unslept in, and no trace of her at all. Nothing had been in disarray, not like the night Crowder had disrupted her own lodgings in Thornhampton. Everything was in perfect order, except that Tory was gone.

Now, Tom was back up in the paint room, touching up a scene they would need for tonight's performance. Mr. Amos was just outside the manager's office, fussing over his properties for tonight, Kit was wanted backstage to block out a scene with Mr. Foyle, and the ladies would soon be coming in to join Jenny in seeing to the wardrobe. The thousand minor details of any play night demanded their immediate attention, could they but get beyond this one major disruption.
    
hind the manager's desk, pretending to shuffle some papers, but Jenny could see he was trying not to appear as agitated as he must feel. No one wanted to face the consequences of disappointing Mr. Belair.

"Well, darling, we are not sheep," said Jenny carefully. She could not have felt any more guilty, but she was trying to keep her wits about her too, as Kit's dark blue eyes rose to peer at her. "We have no reason to assume that anything has befallen Tory," she went on. "It's possible she might have . . . taken herself off."

Kit frowned at her. "Out with it, Kennett."

Jenny drew her shawl closer and leaned against the front of the desk, nearer to Kit. "It grieves me to mention it," she said very softly, "but the night of your ben, after the performance, we were all on our way to the Blue Fox —"

"But she never joined us there," Kit recalled. "Said she hadn't been feeling well."

Jenny nodded. "But just before we all sailed off, I saw her in the shadows speaking to a man I didn't recognize. I couldn't see much of him, but he was tall, well-made, beautifully dressed. Something vaguely nautical about him, although it might have been the brass buttons. Wore a rather dashing top hat, in some dark color —"

"Grey, " said Kit, with finality. His voice was hushed now as well. "Smoke grey, with a dark blue ribbon. I saw such a fellow at the Somerset Arms the night before, when I hied Tory off there for a glass, after you and Ashbrook had gone your ways. Good-looking young fellow, he was." Kit was gazing at her speculatively now. "Tory spied him too, I'm sure of it. Looked like she'd seen the proverbial ghost."

They could only look at each other. Neither wanted to give voice to the implication that a mysterious gentleman was paying court to Tory in Jack's absence.

"Oh, but this is absurd!" Jenny exclaimed. "This is Tory, not some silly ingenue     . .  ."

And yet, she could not deny how anxious Tory had seemed to spirit the fellow off after Kit's ben, instead of inviting him to their supper, like any innocent acquaintance. Nor could she deny how evasive Tory had seemed just last night, how worried and preoccupied, all but shoving Jenny out the door when she threatened to stay in. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but this was the only explanation that made any kind of sense.

Kit was standing back a little, absently fiddling with his papers again. "What shall I tell Belair?" he said evenly.

"Nothing!" Jenny whispered. "Tell him nothing, for that is all we know at this time. Tory has been so miserable. Perhaps she's just taken herself off somewhere to sort things out."

"Perhaps," said Kit, without much conviction. "I certainly do not wish to alarm Belair in London. Much less Jack."

Jack. If he'd had a care for Tory's feelings all this time, Jenny thought, they would none of them be in this predicament now.

"It's been very difficult for Tory," Jenny went on. "The poor girl may not even know her own mind any more. What she needs more than anything right now is time. Chances are she will return to the playhouse tonight refreshed, after this little  . . . holiday."

Jenny knew that Kit would never begrudge anyone seeking a little pleasure to offset the cares of everyday life. No more would she. It seemed out of character for Tory, but it was certainly plausible, under the circumstances.

"I suppose you're right," Kit murmured.

"We must give her time," Jenny said again. "We are not her gaolers."

Tory pushed again, but it was no use; the door was bolted fast. She might as well be in the brig aboard the Hotspur, not this handsome passenger cabin. For the sake of her reputation, Matty had said, when he'd bundled her in here like some sort of fugitive last night. And his own, he added, arriving in the dark of night with a lady of unknown provenance. The fewer of his crew who saw her board, the better, he'd told her; sailors were worse gossips than fishwives. And off he'd gone to find his agent, the one who claimed to know something about Jack, to bring him back here for a private word.

But that had been hours ago. Must have been, for daylight was already chasing off the pink dawn above Bristol Harbor outside the cabin's single porthole. How could it be daylight already? She did not remember sleeping. How could she have slept? Wasn't the agent Matty had spoken of due to be off again this morning?

A sudden scrape of metal and a soft knock at the door nearly had her leaping out of her skin. Matty's face appeared around the door frame, wearing an apologetic smile.

"Mateo, where have you been? Where is this fellow? What time is it? " Her questions tumbled out in a heedless rush; she must sound like a madwoman. But Matty's indulgent smile only broadened as he slipped into the cabin — alone — and shut the door behind him.

"Forgive me, Tory, but I'm afraid you've been brought here under false pretenses."

"What? You mean your agent? He doesn't know anything about Jack?" She glanced about the cabin, as if he might materialize out of the thin air. "Don't tell me he's gone already —"

"No. No, he's not gone. He was never here." Matty took another step into the room, smiled again, and gestured Tory toward the cabin's only chair, handsomely carved, with sturdy legs for stability at sea.

But Tory continued to hover like a wasp. "You mean, your messenger lied?"

"I mean there is no such person. There never was. I invented him to get you here."

Tory stared at him. "Mateo, what in hellfire are you talking about?"

Matty sighed, and shook back his fine, red-gold hair. "I've something very important to ask you. Tory, please sit down."

Her expression must have told him what she thought of that idea, so he plunged ahead. "I've been blessed with considerable success since the last time we met. Hotspur has  cultivated a reputation for speed and reliability among important men of business. As have I. My star is on the rise, as it were. And yet, it all seems . . . hollow, somehow, without someone to share my good fortune with. Someone who shares my passion for the sea."

He paused here, eyeing her with feeling, and Tory understood that she was being invited to respond, but she was utterly at a loss.

With another wry smile, Matty tried again. "Tory, would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?"

Now she did sit down, with all the elegance of someone who'd just been punched in the stomach; indeed, the breath was rushing out of her in the same way.

"What?" she managed to gasp, as she sank, although she'd heard him well enough. "But . . . why?"

"Well, why not?" Matty shrugged. "A gentleman of business must be married to get on, if he's to be taken at all seriously. My father harps on the point constantly. But I haven't any use for the pallid little heiresses he parades before me — not after the life I've led! The life we shared once." He caught her gaze and held it. "Why not me, Tory?"

She peered into that handsome face, ruddy from the outdoors under its crown of fair hair, eyes as blue as the Caribbean sky, and tried to remember what it had felt like, once, to be so besotted with this man. But she could recall none of that feeling, not as the woman she was now.

"I have fortune enough and honor enough," Matty went on. "And I know from experience that my person is not entirely distasteful to you."

Tory supposed a well-bred lady would slap him for making so vulgar an insinuation, but a well-bred lady — to say nothing of a woman with a brain in her head — should never have found herself in this ridiculous situation. What he said had been true enough, once, but she had been a foolish chit of sixteen, with no experience of the world.     

"Hardly grounds for matrimony," she said.

"Marriages may be built on far less," said Matty. "Who ever marries, if not for gain?"

Spoken exactly like the pirate he had been, motivated by naught but profit or glory.

"And think of all you will gain with me. My fortune. My companionship. And something no one else can give you — the sea!"

Once that had been all she thought she wanted, that was true enough. But how little even the siren song of the sea mattered to her now without Jack. Nothing mattered without Jack. And where the hell was he?

"Only consider," Matty went on, "You shall have a free life on the open sea. And, not to put too fine a point on it, you shall have me."

"Not to put too fine a point on it, Mateo, you shall have a free life on the open sea, while I am marooned in New York, providing little Forrester heirs to please your father. Those are the duties of a wife, are they not?"

"Not altogether unpleasant duties, I hope?"

"Oh, Mateo, go home to some little chit with a head full of romance who will buy your bill of goods. I know the world too well. I know you."

She thought she did, anyway. But why on earth would Matty be so hell-bent on this absurd marriage scheme? Unless, it came to her suddenly, he was trying to protect himself from a charge of piracy by the only man in England who might make it stick. Both she and Jack were a danger to Matty in that regard, although she had seen how little a woman's word counted for anything in English legal circles. But Matty must perceive Jack as a serious threat to go to all this trouble. What a shock it must have been for him to happen by the theatre in Kelsingham that night and discover that Jack was still alive, and in England. Perhaps Matty thought if he claimed the duties of a husband and undertook her financial support, she would be his insurance against any charges made by Jack, because any calamity that befell Matty would ruin her as well. It seemed an awfully roundabout way to do things. But what else could Matty possibly be after?

"And besides," she added, with sudden inspiration, "I am married already."

This lie had worked for Jack once, in similarly desperate circumstances. But the calm composure with which Matty greeted this sally suggested he would not be so easily gulled. That she'd forgotten to even mention it until now made it even less convincing, she knew. It ought to have been the first words out of her mouth — if it were true.

"Then why are you not Mrs. Dance onstage?" Matty asked reasonably. "Where is your wedding band?" Tory knew this was not the moment to produce the copper fairing she'd won for herself in London, that far-off day, although she wore it still on its ribbon under her bodice.

But before she could concoct a plausible response, Matty's mouth spread ever so slightly into a sympathetic half-smile. "Never even asked you, did he?"

Tory recalled the day she'd made Jack promise to never propose marriage to her, at Violet's wedding. Like every other promise he'd ever made to her, he had kept it ever since.

Except for his last promise, to write to her from London.

"But I am asking you, Tory," Matty said gently.  With a more rakish grin, he added, "Come, you can't deny you have a taste for adventure and romance. I've seen your Lure of the Indies!"

"But that is the baldest foolery — " Tory began, then pulled up short. She suddenly realized that by writing such a piece of fluff, she had done a grave disservice to the female sex. Women allowed themselves to be cozened by men because they mistook romances for real life. They were coached to mistake dash and cunning for love. She had betrayed her sex, contributing to the prevailing foolery of the world.
    
That was just a play, a fantasy," she said tartly. "Pirates. The sea. I've given all that up."

Matty's blue eyes were very keen. "But it haunts you. You write about the sea in your plays, pine for it still. Any fool can see it. Any fool but Jack."

Tory felt herself bristling, but she kept her face composed. "I'm sorry, Mateo. The answer is still no," she said, getting to her feet with another anxious glance outside at the ripening day. "And now I must be getting back —"

But Matty backed up to the door in a single stride. "But I shan't take 'no' for an answer, as one of your romantic stage heroes might say." He smiled again. "I don't believe you appreciate the full import of my offer, Tory. But I am prepared to wait until you do."

And with that, he went out the door, shutting it swiftly behind him. From inside, Tory heard the key scrape in the lock once more.

 

Top: Columbina and Il Capitano, traditional Commedia dell Arte prints

Above: Passenger cabin on the 'HMS Erebus', circa 1845