The Wicked Redhead. Beatriz Williams
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own feet have turned to sand. Anson spares not the least regard for Mrs. Fitzwilliam, propelling her great belly toward the man presumably responsible for it. Just stands there, tethered to the boat by the coil of rope in his left hand, and watches me approach. He’s not smiling, either. I have the idea that he’s making out the state of my injuries. The degree of strength returned to me by my night’s rest.
As for me, I walk forward measuredly, because I am yet incapable of swift movement. Because I am yet incapable of saying a word. What do you say to this man, when you have lived by his side for three days, and now find everything has changed between you, in the space of a morning’s separation? Now that the horror’s over. Now that you’re safe by the sea in Florida, under a tranquil sun, under the care and protection of a doctor and his wife. Now that you’re in paradise, the two of you, when a moment ago you were trudging through hell. How do you turn yourself into an ordinary, happy couple, like the one embracing next to you?
On the other hand. Here stands Anson, my Anson, wearing a white shirt and an ill-fitting suit of pale linen, too tight about the shoulders, his olive skin soaking up the light and his golden-brown hair bristling unfashionably; his navy eyes as grave as they ever were, his lips as thick; every detail, every bruise and scar so blessedly familiar in this strange new world, this Florida. I find myself smiling.
“Good afternoon,” I say.
“Good afternoon. Sleep well?”
“Had no choice, did I? It was either sleep or die.” I lift my hand and touch the bruise purpling his jaw, and I guess it says something for the both of us that he doesn’t flinch. “You?”
“About the same. Where’s Patsy?”
“She’s having the time of her life playing with the Fitzwilliam fry. Housekeeper’s minding them.” I nod my head toward the boat, which is some kind of sailing vessel, maybe twenty feet long, single mast, pulling eagerly at the rope in Anson’s hand. “Where are you headed?”
“Just for a cruise offshore.”
“For what purpose?”
His eyes slip away to inspect the rigging. “No purpose.”
“Liar. You’re going out to see the rum ships, aren’t you?”
“I guess we might happen to catch sight of a few. You can’t avoid them, after all.”
“Oh, naturally. You weren’t going to pull up alongside some old ship, some rum warehouse anchored just outside United States waters, and maybe flap your gums for a bit? Maybe tease a little knowledge out of somebody?”
He lifts the hand that holds the rope and rubs his chin with one thumb.
“Anson. You look guilty as my brother Johnnie used to look, when he was caught skimming off blueberries that were meant for a pie.”
“There’s no danger, Gin.”
“I thought you were done with this business. I thought we were on the lam. Fugitives. Price on our heads, probably.”
“I wasn’t planning on giving anybody my name.”
“It’ll never work. You’ve got fishy written all over that beaten-up mug of yours, in case you didn’t know. Anyway, what am I supposed to do if something happens to you out there?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me out there.”
“Oh? Good. Then I guess you won’t mind that I come along.” I start for the edge of the dock, and Anson makes a noise of objection and takes my elbow.
“See here. What’s going on with you two?” booms Dr. Fitzwilliam.
“Why, your wife and I are coming with you, that’s all. Aren’t we, Mrs. Fitzwilliam?”
She frowns and puts her hand on her belly. “Oh, I shouldn’t. I stopped sailing months ago. But you go on ahead, Simon.”
Now, this Dr. Fitzwilliam of hers is a handsome fellow, I’ll give him that, though his hair has turned to silver and the skin of his face has toughened under the sun. His eyes are hazel and terribly sincere, and his smile is too cheerful for my taste, exposing a vast amount of perfect dentistry. I guess Mrs. Fitzwilliam likes it well enough. He exchanges this speculative look with Anson, who is scowling fit to thunder, and turns to me. Speaks in a profoundly correct English accent, not softened at all by the Florida climate. “Can you sail, Miss Kelly?” he asks.
“I can learn.”
“In other words, she can’t tell a sheet from a sail,” Anson says, “aside from the fact that her right arm’s almost certainly sprained. Anyway, Gin, you can’t just leave Virginia onshore by herself, in her condition.”
“That’s all true,” says Mrs. Fitzwilliam. “So why don’t Ollie and Miss Kelly take the motor launch by themselves, Simon? You could keep me company onshore.”
“But—”
And Mrs. Fitzwilliam lowers her chin and sends some kind of telegraphic message in her husband’s direction, some kind of Morse marital code I can’t quite comprehend, and I’ll be damned if the good doctor doesn’t just cut his sentence short and lose himself in translation of those blue eyes.
“I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” I say, just to move things along.
Dr. Fitzwilliam runs a hand through his hair and casts a look at Anson that puts me in mind of a hound dog in the act of apologizing.
“I don’t see why not,” he says.
“Now, hold on a minute, Doc. I thought you were supposed to examine her first, before any kind of strenuous—”
“Oh, she seems about as healthy as you do, in my professional judgment,” the doctor says airily, “and in any case, Marshall, I was just thinking you might be better off in a motor launch yourself, in your bruised condition.”
“My condition’s just fine. It’s hers I’m thinking about.”
“Why, then! It’s settled, isn’t it?” Dr. Fitzwilliam takes his wife’s arm. “Come along. The launch is moored directly to the warehouse, there.”
SOMETHING I should tell you about, before I step on that motor launch with Anson. Head out to God knows where on the skin of the Atlantic, the two of us together.
On the second day of our journey south from Maryland, we woke at dawn. Or rather, Anson woke at dawn and roused me by the mere act of whispering my name—Ginger—against my ear.
The sleep had done me no good, I’m afraid. My arm had stiffened in the night, and the rest of me just hurt. We lay as a pair of spoons on our left sides, because of the injuries to our respective rights, attached by the exact same intimacy in which we had fallen asleep six hours before, and for a minute or two, or maybe more, neither of us moved a muscle. Maybe we couldn’t. As bad as Duke had beat me, he had done Anson worse: hung him by his arms inside a wet, frigid building made of mountain stone, while his earlier wounds gaped untended, in such a way as Christ Himself must have suffered upon His holy cross. So I guessed Anson’s limbs ached too, his muscles lay stiff alongside mine, his head drummed an old, fatigued beat. Above our heads, our left hands clasped. I felt the slow thud of his heart passing through his shirt and mine, to enter into my shoulder and spread along my bones like some kind of uncanny medicine. I said, We’re alive, at least, and he said, Yes, thank God. Didn’t ask me how I felt, how I was doing, any of that rote, empty talk. Didn’t mention my brother, who had died for our sakes, nor his brother, who had nearly died for mine alone. Didn’t tell me about love nor lust nor devotion, not pity for my present misery nor awe for our mutual survival. Just lay with me while the sun did creep up the edge of the sky outside our walls, and those words we didn’t utter lay there too, like smoke against our skin, like incense