“Of course you are! Would you care for more coconut bread?” Byron’s auburn hair glinted in the sunlight as he went back into the dining room and returned with the entire dish. “I think I’m going to like the food here! It’s quite exotic.”
“Were you planning to stay at Tempest Hall and eat my food during your entire visit?”
“Ha! I know you don’t mean to be rude. Of course I’m staying here. I could barely afford passage. Now that I’ve arrived, I confess that I’m counting on the benevolence of you and your beautiful bride.”
Adam was beginning to enjoy himself. “Naturally. And, I may ask you to help me with a project or two while you’re here.”
“Of course. I’m not very handy, but—”
“Not that sort of project. More in the line of helping me deal with the son I’ve just been given to raise, and perhaps assisting with the recovery of my runaway wife.” He gave him a dark smile. “Easy enough, eh?”
It was Byron’s turn to look pained. “I was hoping my worst fears were unfounded. I’ve witnessed many of your past... adventures, but I dared hope that once you were married to that charmer, you’d be safe from yourself. For God’s sake, Raveneau, it’s only been a few weeks!”
“I hate it when you turn judgmental.” He drained his coffee and ran a hand through sleep-mussed hair. “Did I ever happen to mention Gemma Hart to you?”
“Yes...” Byron squinted. “I’d forgotten she lived on Barbados. You didn’t—”
“Quite right, I did not. Though you may find it difficult to believe, I’ve been faithful to Cathy. However, it seems that there is a bit of leftover business from the last time I visited the island, three years ago...”
“Paul.”
“I was completely unaware. There was a smallpox epidemic, so Barbados has been quarantined, and as you know, I’ve been traveling.” Adam paused, and the only sound was the creaky chatter of the guinea fowl as they scratched under the sandbox tree. He took a deep breath. “But, to be honest, it’s not just Paul. Cathy could have probably dealt with that situation if she were happy in our marriage.”
Leaning forward in his planter’s chair, Adam recounted the series of events that had led to this impasse. Talking about it helped him see even more clearly where he had gone wrong, but finding a solution was another matter.
When he concluded with Retta’s admonition to fix himself first, Byron exclaimed, “Good God! And to think that Hermione Parrish has been here! No wonder it all began to go off the rails.”
“It was only a few days, but it felt like years. You know, Cathy was badly abused by that woman when she was growing up. Her mother tried to train her like a pet, with just one goal in mind: a duchess’s coronet. I could sense her feeling freer the farther we traveled from Newport, but after her mother and cousin turned up here, it all started going wrong again. God only knows what that tyrant told her about men and marriage.” He took a breath. “And of course, discovering that her father has a mistress young enough to be his daughter hasn’t improved Cathy’s opinion of men.”
“But it doesn’t sound as if you’ve exactly been a model husband.”
Adam sprang up then and began to pace. “You don’t know how it felt to have no real say in the running of my own home. The money has all come from Jules Parrish. Even as I’ve been working to restore the plantation, I’ve feel as if I’ve sold myself, been gutted of my manhood.” His voice was raw as he turned to gaze at Byron. “Knowing that I had gambled away my own fortune hasn’t helped.”
“And Cathy? Did she lord it over you that it was her money and not yours?”
“No. Of course not. But in the end, if she wanted to do something and I didn’t agree immediately, she could go right ahead and do it anyway. Her father set up a private account for her so that she would always have her own funds. She brought in more staff and arranged for work to be done in Tempest Hall. Admirable endeavors, but reminders that our marriage was based on my need for her dowry—”
“Well, that’s common enough among you aristocrats!”
“I would like to think that I am bloody different from the rest of those weasels. But the humiliating truth was here every day to remind me of my flawed character. I’ve been a kept man from the moment I agreed to this marriage, and every fiber of my being rebels against that!”
Byron stared, realizing that his friend was expressing feelings that had been suppressed for too long. “I understand.”
Adam stared back at him for a long moment, then went down the steps into the garden where Cathy’s new plantings of flowers and herbs were beginning to grow. It came to him that if he didn’t see to it that they had water, they would die.
Byron followed along, helping as they filled buckets at the standpipe and carried them back to water the plants. After repeating the process three times, Raveneau watched the ground soak up the moisture and sighed. “She worked so hard on this garden.”
“You have feelings for her, then?” Knowing his friend, it seemed best to stop short of the word “love.”
Adam’s reply was interrupted by a clatter on the verandah, followed by the sight of Alice bursting into the garden and running past them with something in her mouth. Paul chased after her, laughing, and Stripey brought up the rear.
“Alice!” thundered Adam. “Come here this instant! If you touch one paw to your mistress’s new plants, you will be sent to the ravine to live with the monkeys!”
The old Labrador put her ears down and returned to stand before him. When Raveneau made a gesture with his hand, she sat and dropped the large dark object from her mouth. He bent to retrieve it while Byron looked on.
“It’s my tricorne hat, the one I wore to the costume ball at Beechcliff the night Cathy and I met. Paul has clearly been playing in my dressing room.” Pensively, he unpinned the crumpled cockade from the brim and studied it. “My grandmother gave this to me, you know, when I was very young. She believed that it belonged to Stede Bonnet, the pirate.”
“The one you were masquerading as that night? How did she come to have it?”
“She was always interested in him. When I was visiting one summer, she and my grandfather took me along to an estate sale at the plantation reputed to have once been Bonnet’s, and that’s where she came into possession of this hat. They told us that this was the pirate’s unique cockade: white with a blood-red center.” Raveneau glanced absently at his friend, his thoughts far away. “I’ve always been skeptical of my grandmother’s notions, but perhaps I should reconsider. At the moment, however, there are other matters to deal with. No doubt Paul takes a nap after lunch. Would you mind watching him for a bit while I have a wash-up and go in search of my wife? There’s a chance that she means to leave the island with her mother, and I can’t let that happen.”
Byron blinked again. “Of course. What are friends for?”
Cathy sat in the office at the Ocean Breeze Hotel, staring at the big reservation book on the desk before her. The words seemed to spin in front of her eyes; it was impossible to concentrate.
“We’re leaving now,” Theo said, popping his head through the arched opening that joined the office to the lobby. “I wish you wouldn’t worry about all that nonsense yet. I’ll explain it to you later on.”
She stood up and smoothed her dove gray skirt. “I need something to occupy myself today.”
“We aren’t very organized; it’s a system only Yvette and I understand, I’m afraid.”
“Oh yes, Miss Chambers! Is she with her family for Christmas?”
“Yes. Her father lives in Speightstown, but she’ll be back soon.”
“I’m looking forward to being a help to her when she returns.” Cathy followed Theo out into the lobby, where he had already arranged a large vase filled with pink hibiscus. “Will you be away all day?”
“As long as it takes to get your mother and cousin loaded onto their yacht and on their way.” He donned a straw boater and cocked his head at her. “You’re certain you’d rather stay here? No, never mind, don’t answer that. I don’t want you to come. You’ve had quite enough exposure to your mother... and speaking of Her Majesty, here she comes!”
The sight of Hermione and Auggie descending the stairs made Cathy feel unexpectedly emotional. Her mother had dressed with care in violet crepe trimmed with ivory lace and wore a silk hat adorned with a violet bow and feathers.
“I am desperately anxious to get back to New York,” Auggie was saying as he paused to check his reflection in a mirror trimmed with shells. “I have had quite enough of life in the hinterlands!”
Cathy stood up a little straighter as she approached her mother. Crossing the lobby, she noticed for the first time that their matching trunks were piled near the hotel’s entrance and servants from the yacht were waiting nearby. “It looks like a lovely day for a sea voyage, Mother.”
Surveying her daughter, Hermione gave her head a haughty little shake. “My dear, you simply must come with us. I don’t know if I can bear to leave you behind in this appalling wilderness.”