CHAPTER
eight
Henri hadn’t reckoned on old houses having so many ghosts.
The keys from his father’s solicitor hung heavy in his pocket as he unlocked the front door of the Norfolk townhouse on Prince Street. Dust overlaid the once busy entrance hall, running up the elaborately carved balustrade and coating every nick and scratch in a sandy powder, even dimming the crystal brilliance of the chandelier and windows. He shut the door and it echoed. A dismal sound.
Shrugging off the melancholy that had dogged him since coming into the city by coach, he strode across the foyer to the parlor, opening doors and traversing rooms with an eye for change. Paint—the rooms were overdue for it. The carpet was threadbare and nearly colorless with age. Dustcloths hid the furnishings except for an occasional chair leg or table end. But the paintings on the walls, seascapes and oils depicting his ancestors, seemed unchanged. ’Twas a well-built house. A handsome house. A place of many memories, most of them happy.
He climbed the stairs and entered the bedchambers, including his own before he’d gone away to sea. The narrow cot with its plain indigo counterpane ... had he really lain there? Beneath a windowwas his writing table, old and scarred in the harsh light piercing the grime of the windowpane. There by the fireplace were knifed notches that marked his growth. He’d gone from a sickly baby to a man full grown at a towering six feet two inches and fourteen stone.
After breathing past the musty smell of unused rooms, he opened a door to the three-tiered portico. Here on the shaded second floor, a scattering of lightweight Windsor chairs and a small game table sat forlorn. He peered over the portico’s railing into the walled garden below.
Roses were still abloom, a clash of pinks and oranges and yellows amid the drooping perennials and weeds. Nothing too amiss here that a sennight’s work wouldn’t mend. The sundial and dry fountain at the garden’s heart eased him. Intact. He’d played many an hour around them as a lad. Some things, at least those cast in stone, didn’t change.
The servants’ quarters in the attic had him bending low not to scrape his head. Even with cocked hat beneath one arm, he still touched the low ceiling. Back down the winding stair he went to the foyer, then exited out a back door to sit on a bench and catch the sun’s last rays as they brightened a battered arbor.
He stared at a twisted quince, once a favorite climbing tree. Age made one reflect, he guessed. At five and thirty, what would be said about him that truly mattered if he were to die tomorrow? That he sailed the high seas and was rarely at home.
Better ponder the pasts of those he loved. Memory took him down a hazy path, heart-tuggingly indistinct but painful as a cat-o’-nine-tails nonetheless. His mother had been most at home in the garden. She’d sewn dried lavender into the hems of her petticoats and linens, even concocted lavender lemon water. And Hermione ... His sister had arranged for a pianoforte on small wheels to be pushed onto the portico in good weather. There were garden parties. Guests. Towering trays of marzipan and endless bowls of punch. His father had presided over all with characteristic good humor. Until that dark day at the docks.
What bitter irony that he’d once teased his father he’d someday go to sea in the very vessels his father constructed. He’d been jesting.Though he’d long been enamored of shipbuilding, not once had he entertained the notion of sailing.
“By Jove, Son! Will you torment me in my old age with such far-flung notions?” His father had stared at him, his Scots temper roaring. “Am I to see you gone from here for months—years on end? The sea is a fickle mistress. She’ll abuse you like Jonah and coerce some behemoth to swallow you and spit you out, only you might never return to us.”
His mother bore his playfulness with a smile, her usual French effusiveness undimmed. “You’ll be the handsomest jack to ever sail the high seas. ‘Captain Lennox’ soundsmagnifique!”
“A privateer you’ll be? ’Tis but a rude disguise,” his sister teased. “Henri Lennox, buccaneer à la corsair! Will you share your prizes with us poor relations who’ll be pining for you at home?”
Then, just shy of his sixteenth birthday, he’d been working late in his father’s dockyard when a press-gang overtook him, the certificate of exemption he carried in his pocket of no consequence. Though the lad with him had gotten away, the gang pummeled him into a corner, tore up his paper, then took him aboard the HMSVictory.
Fueled by fury as well as ambition, he’d worked his way up from cabin boy to midshipman to officer till he’d used the Royal Navy to gain his own vessel and his own captaincy. And then, much like a courtship, as wooing as a siren’s song, the sea had finally won him over. As commander, he’d been freed of rebellious shipmates and overbearing admirals. Freed to chart his course, choose his crew, and sail where he willed. This was what he’d been designed to do, though the Almighty had used an unjust impressment and the Royal Navy to accomplish it.
But now that he was back in Norfolk where it all began, his impressment seemed especially bittersweet. He’d missed much being at sea, not only the sorrows but the joys. If he’d been closer to home, might his parents’ and sister’s lives have been better? Easier? Might they still live? Their voices echoed in his head and heart, so bruising his eyes stung. It caused a man to reconsider. Who did he have? And who would come after him?
A bird trilled. A few colorful leaves drifted down, reddening his black coat and boots. Near at hand was an unkempt climbing rose. It bespoke ... Esmée. He hadn’t wanted her to intrude. Not even the thought of her. But she’d once been in this garden, making a mighty fuss over this very rose and especially the trellis-in-the-round at the garden’s heart. In midsummer it resembled an overflowing flower basket.
His gaze slid to the west corner of the overgrown yew hedge where he’d kissed her. And she’d kissed him back.
“Captain Lennox, might that be you?”
A high, reedy voice trailed over the garden wall. He stood and walked toward the sound, envisioning the ancient lady on the other side. “It is I, Mistress Ludwick.”
“Can it be? I’ve not seen you in an age! Mightn’t you humor an old crone and show yourself?”
In moments he was at the iron gate that divided her garden from his. With a sweep of his hat, he bowed and then took in her parchment-paper face, white and lined but much as he remembered.
“How mournful it must be to return to an empty house once so full of life!”
He frowned. “I am wondering whether to sell or occupy.”
“Sell? Your dear mother would resurrect herself if she knew!”
“But a man like myself, living here alone...” He looked back at the house, allowing himself a rare glib moment. “It begs a family. Life. Laughter.”
“Indeed.” She pursed her wrinkled lips. “A shame there’s no Mistress Lennox or offspring to settle down here. But should you decide to reside in our fair city, that would follow in the blink of an eye, most assuredly, though I thought York had its hold on you. Indigo Island, rather.”
“’Tis always wise to explore one’s options, aye?” After the debacle at Lady Lightfoot’s, Norfolk held unmistakable appeal.
