Allegra, painfully aware of her vast hips, made an escape. She closed the door very softly behind her and made her way back to the salon in something close to a daze. Now she had another interrogation to look forward to, this time from her own mother, who would no doubt grill her on every syllable uttered and the possible meaning behind them. She supposed that Lady Milton’s words had been, on the whole, encouraging, if one left aside the appalling idea of having this woman as her mama-in-law and spending extended periods of time in her company.
The marriage mart wasexhausting. How much more pleasant it would be to spend an evening kissing Mr Severin in some antechamber and not thinking about anything at all.
19
Max was still deep in his past, not thinking of Miss Constantine just now. It didn’t seem as though dwelling on his circumstances in such depth was helping him to feel better this time, but still he persisted. The truth of his parentage – or at least of his mother’s identity, since his father’s remained unknown to him – was so overwhelming a fact that he always had to approach it slowly, as if it were a tiger in a cage that might, if he didn’t exercise the greatest care, escape and eat him alive before going on to devastate half the city.
In 1795, everything changed – nothing at all in his daily life, on the surface, but there was an unmissable shift in atmosphere. He had to puzzle it out, because nobodyevertold him anything openly, even though he was now sixteen; he just had to survive on scraps of information the adults let fall or whispers he overheard. And now he came to the conclusion that his mama’s situation must somehow be better. Only when she was out of immediate danger did it become clear to him that she had ever been in it; only now did the terrible wordprisonenter his awareness.
It seemed she had escaped incarceration and the guillotinewith the fall of Robespierre, as he knew many had, but there was some new cause for anxiety for her, and perhaps even more need for secrecy than there had been before. Letters came from France, a much more frequent correspondence than had been usual – not by normal means now, but carried by smugglers and delivered to Madame Severin under cover of darkness, left hidden in distant outbuildings along with the brandy and the fine French silk.
Right at the end of that year, in what seemed like a great rush, the Severins adopted him, with much signing of documents. He’d had their surname before, by courtesy; now it was really his and he was their son by law, no longer a nameless French-Caribbean bastard. At that point he still had no idea why they hadn’t done it before, and why they did it in such a great bustle now.
Later, of course, when he was a little older and at last they told him everything, he realised why it had all been necessary, and blessed them for it. Giving him their name made it much more unlikely that anyone would ever be able to trace his true origins, especially since Celestine was now lost to him and couldn’t be pressured by anyone to reveal where he had come from, or who had entrusted him to her care. It might readily be assumed that he came from Martinique, like Madame Severin, which was unfortunate, but there could be no absolute proof of anything more than that.
Later still he realised that the majority of people thought he must be Madame’s own illegitimate child, a shameful secret from her past, and that she had known that this would happen, and willingly embraced the disgrace and the whispering for his sake.
The Severins just wanted to keep him safe, and keep his mother safe too, and in doing so had put themselves in grave danger, far beyond any trivial damage to their reputations. They should have just done it without seeking Rose’s permission. If anyone had intercepted and decoded even one of those letters…
Throughout this, there had been no mention of his father. Not one word from anyone. Celestine had been notably evasive on the topic every time he had addressed it over the years, and the Severins, he came to realise, genuinely didn’t know and so could tell him nothing. Plainly the letters were not aboutthat.
After more clandestine correspondence, after they’d told him who exactly she was, he’d visited his mother at last in 1802, during a lull in the endless wars. Three years ago now, but he recalled every tiny detail.
He went not really believing it could be true, in the greatest secrecy, smuggled into the chateau in the guise of a humble, unremarkable soldier of the Grande Armée. They had soldiers of his colour, apparently, as did the British. Good enough to die for them.
It was a painful interview, on both sides, after three and twenty years apart, made all the more bizarre by the mournful cries of exotic birds and animals from her menagerie outside, and the ridiculous disguise he wore. Over it all had hung the sense of deadly peril, and the knowledge that they might easily never see each other again; it would certainly be much wiser if they did not.
She was beautiful, as he’d expected, but seemed tired and ill at ease. Impossible to say if this was a result of his presence, or of her existence in general, which was luxurious beyond most people’s imaginings but which surely could not be easy. She was very richly dressed and jewelled, unsurprisingly, and thickly painted, and he thought her recklessly brave even to see him so briefly. He’d rather think that it was bravery than a deep-seated addiction to drama.Surelyit was proof that some part of her still cared.
She gave him an ornately chased gold ring to remember her by, as if he needed it, and told him he had her eyes. It was true; they were a curious shade, somewhere between amber and hazel,and he’d not known before that they’d come from her. He wore the token round his neck on a chain, as he’d told her he would, because what else was he supposed to do with it? They’d embraced, awkwardly, and she had apologised for everything. A blanket apology, a one-time offer. He’d brushed that aside and asked the only question that mattered to him, since he could not say like a little child,Whydidyouleaveme, Mama? He was an adult now; he knew.
Of course she must have been expecting him to be curious about his father, and she spun him some tale about childhood sweethearts from vastly different spheres. She had been a daughter of the nobility captivated by the last person she should ever have any dealings with: a boy who was the son of a slave and her English master. A love that could never be, an island Romeo and Juliet, a tearful parting and declarations of eternal remembrance, though – evidently – not of fidelity, since she’d been married twice and had many lovers since then. It was a beautiful story, so touching, so well done, just like something from a novel, and she had tears in her amber eyes as she related the most affecting parts. But he had wondered then, and wondered still, if she was merely sparing his feelings (and uncoincidentally her own), and fabricating a great romance around the circumstances of his conception when it had been no such thing. He would never know, he supposed, what it really had been. But here he was because of it.
Even now he’d always look intently at men from the Caribbean when he saw them in the dirty, crowded London streets, men who were old enough to have sired him. He was aware of being pathetic, but he couldn’t seem to stop. Sometimes he’d pause to talk to them, his manner elaborately casual, giving them money if they seemed in need of it and checking if they spoke his particular type of Creole. Occasionally they did. Thenhe would tremble on the brink of saying, ‘Es ou we on fi blan asou on plaj an-jan?’ Did you meet a white girl on a beach once…?
She could only have been fifteen. Fifteen, and already betrothed to someone else, a French stranger, her fate determined for her, or so they’d thought, underestimating her. He, Max, had been a serious inconvenience then, a dirty secret in the family, and now he was much more.
His stepfather – if he could bring himself to call him that – he’d known without being told, didn’t so much as suspect his existence. And must never suspect it. There was no dodging the fact that just by being alive in the world he was Rose’s danger and her shame. She’d borne a bastard quadroon child – these were the cruel labels given by those with the power to label others who were powerless – when little more than a child herself. Her greatly changed circumstances made that explosive fact worse, not better. And of course she wasn’t even called Rose any more – she had a new name.
And though he didn’t want to think of her like that, she was his danger too, though, he hoped, never his shame. His thin facade of Englishness, his education, his estate, his fine clothes tailored by Schultz and Weston, his face that some people were pleased to call handsome, all his money and his grand friends – none of them would save him if the truth ever came out.
He had nothing but affection and gratitude for his adoptive parents. When they’d taken him in and given him their unreserved love, he’d been just a distant cousin’s embarrassing mistake, and surely a poor substitute for the child they’d known by then they’d never have. They could very easily have shared all they had with a winsome blond English child instead of him, found a son with far less baggage. A child whofittedin. And they couldn’t possibly have imagined what a burden and an anxiety he would become. At first Rose had been a young girl married byarrangement to an aristocrat, whose youthful mistake must be concealed to protect her and her grand but impoverished family. If she’d been found out, it would have been a personal disaster for her, but no more than that. Now…
When he remembered how he had repaid the couple who had carried on loving him despite everything – with youthful rebellion and sexual scandal – he burned with remorse and always would. His intentions had been good, but he’d hurt them none the less. They were both dead now, loyal and devoted to each other and to him right up till the end, and he was alone again, peering down the dizzying vista of his past and wondering about his future; if he even had one.
Yet perhaps, it occurred to him for the first time, he was being odiously self-pitying for indulging in such maudlin reflections. It was an undeniable fact that if wealthy Englishmen were secure and confident, few women of any nation could afford to be. Perhaps they all felt something akin to this paralysing uncertainty, or those who stopped to think did, all the time.
Even his mother. Especially her.
He supposed he could ask Allegra Constantine what she felt about her place in the world, if indeed he could keep his hands off her for five minutes while he did so. She was only half-English, and he saw little enough of it in her. Allegra was not solid, or cold, or slow – she was all defiance and fierce Mediterranean heat. But he should be wary of seeing her in those simple terms. He was the very last person who should be thinking of someone else asexotic.He’d had quite enough of that himself, even if people honestly meant it as some sort of bizarre compliment. Fruit might be exotic, he supposed, but people? It was as much to say,You’reinthewrongplace. And it was all too obvious what came after that.
Allegra, Allegra… Musing on her might ground him, if only through the weight of his immediate and insistent erection. He thought she’d answer him frankly, and believed too that she might easily admit that the supposedly solid land occasionally shifted beneath her feet, as it did under his, and made her unsettled and afraid too. Her family’s position in life was somewhat financially precarious, after all, on top of everything else, despite her sisters’ fine marriages. She was even less secure than other women of her age and rank, and might easily tell him so.
But he could not offer her equal frankness in return. He had no intention of sharing with her, or anyone, his own deepest secrets. He must always be alone, and always be careful. He’d come carelessly close to marriage, years ago, but through no actions of his own it hadn’t happened, and thank God for it, because that was an intimacy he could not afford to risk. He could fuck people – carefully, without excessive emotion on either side – and did, he could have superficial friendships, but what he could never do was relax into complete trust. All those he had trusted completely were now dead – Celestine, Madame Severin, her husband. They’d died of natural causes, though often he doubted if he would do the same; the chances of a peaceful end for him seemed vanishingly small.
The stakes could hardly be higher, and the fact that he found himself tempted, even for one unguarded second, to tell Allegra Constantine just exactly who and what he was, scared him more than all the rest. He’d be putting so much in her hands if he ever did so. People’s lives, not just his own. And for what? Because he couldn’t stop thinking about fucking her? He really must be losing his mind.
20
