If William had suspicions she was guarding Joseph’s privacy and honour by concealing the true state of things, he did not press the point but only asked, “And you? How are you bearing up? It cannot be so easy for you, either.”
A part of her was longing to confide in him and lean again into his strong embrace and tell him no, it was not easy. But she was a woman now, and not a child, and so she only shrugged her shoulders and assured him, “I am managing, as well.” Her thoughts were turning to a different subject anyway. “When did you speak to Silas?”
“What?”
“You said that Silas told you,” she reminded him, “about his father sending us the officers. When did you see him?”
“Silas,” said her brother dryly, “is a frequent visitor upon my doorstep these days, now he’s settled in New York.”
“He’s not in Newtown any longer?”
“No, since early this past spring he’s had his lodgings not three streets from us, and it’s the rare week when he doesn’t come around to see us once. Especially at mealtimes.” He could evidently read her thoughts without her saying anything, because he said, “I know. He’s not my first choice of associate. But he is family, Lyddie, and there would be talk were I to shun him.”
“Let them talk,” she told him. “He’s a loathsome little toad.”
Behind them, Violet, who had come out of the house and walked across the clearing, having nearly reached them, caught that final phrase and answered it with feeling: “If you’re speaking of His Majesty, he’s back there in the parlour. And if he wants more tea he’ll have to up and make it for himself, because I’m done with him this morning.” With a nod that was just clinging to the edges of politeness, she told William, “I’ll go up and let your father know you’re here.” And without breaking stride she walked on by and passed beneath the rowan tree and headed up the lane towards the orchard.
William arched his eyebrows, looking down at Lydia. “The king is in our parlour?”
She corrected him. “She means Mr. de Brassart. He is one of our French officers, and Violet cannot stand him.”
“Well,” said William, “now you have me curious. A man she dislikes more than she does me? I have to see this creature, or I’ll not believe it.” With a grin, he took her arm in his and set their backs towards the barn. “But first, come show me what the devil’s happened to my ship.”
? ? ?
The tide was ebbing, giving the assembled party on the beach a broad expanse of drying sand to walk on as they made their circuit of the stranded Bellewether, her shattered hull careened with care. It seemed so wrong to see her hauled so far out of the water where she’d run so freely and so fast; to see her leaning here upon her side like some great racehorse that had faltered and collapsed and could no longer bear the struggle it would take to stand.
The sight was sad, and Lydia was feeling it more deeply than she’d thought she would. To William, standing not far off, it must have been a devastation.
In the span of time since she had brought him down here to the beach they had been joined by Benjamin and Joseph and their father, come directly from the orchard. And their father, in his turn, had hailed the Spanish captain and his mate, who’d rowed across obligingly, arriving onshore not ten minutes before Mr. Fisher, their neighbour—who having delivered their summons to William in New York had found himself stranded there due to the contrary winds, and been forced to return by the road, as had William—rowed over himself from Cross Harbor, with Sarah, his daughter, as passenger.
Normally Lydia would have delighted in having a visit from Sarah. They were of an age, had played often in childhood, and grown into easy companions. But on this particular day, all of Sarah’s attention was given to Joseph, while Lydia’s focus stayed fixed upon William.
He’d accepted in silence the news that the captain and crew he had hired for the Bellewether’s voyage were probably dead. Hard news for him, surely. The captain had been a close friend. But apart from his tightening jaw and a nod he had made no reaction.
And now, as he surveyed the wreck of the ship that had once been his pride, everybody was watching, and holding their own words with quiet respect.
William stood and looked a moment longer. “Well,” he finally said, “at least she did not lose her life without a fight.”
“No hope of rebuilding her?” Benjamin’s tone angled upward to make it a question, though all of them well knew the answer.
William, in fact, did not bother to voice it aloud, only gave a slight shake of his head in reply and said, “She’ll be a hard loss. Although it’s the loss of her cargo that will be the hardest, I think, for my partners.”
Here Captain del Rio cut in with an elegant cough and the comment, “Your cargo, se?or, is not lost.”
William turned as though he had forgotten the Spaniard was there. Even Lydia, if she were honest, had only just realized how close to her Captain del Rio was standing, which might either be a tribute to his gentlemanly manners or his stealth. He smiled. “There was, as you have said, much fighting, and I cannot fight well with a ship so heavy, so the cargo it was transferred to my own ship, El Montero. It is there still, and I can assure you, very safe.” The look he cast on William now was plainly from one man of business to another. “But since I imagine it cannot be any use to you to have it now returning to New York, from where you sent it, I’d be glad to carry it again for you to the West Indies. It is not so good, of course, for me to sail into an English port at these times,” he admitted with a dry glance towards Joseph, “but our Spanish ports are neutral.”
William met the captain’s gaze and seemed to think on this a moment, then replied, “A most kind offer, Captain, and one I’ll be happy to accept if we can come to terms agreeable to both our interests.”
Lydia had braced herself for Joseph to express his own opinion of the Spanish and their “neutral” ports, the way he’d done before, but he said nothing. When she ventured to look round, she saw why. Joseph wasn’t listening.
He’d stepped clear of the little group and was now standing close beside the Bellewether. She watched as he lifted one hand to the broken hull.
William, who’d been talking to the Spanish captain, stopped mid-sentence.
Lydia found she was holding her breath. She felt all of them there on the beach—except maybe the Spaniards—were doing the same thing, not daring to stir, in case somehow the moment would break and be lost.
Joseph, still with his back to them, ran his hand slowly along one broad, sea-weathered board. Then he tilted his head in a way she remembered and sighted along it, not paying attention to anything else. In an easy and confident tone she had not heard him use in three years, he said, “It could be done, you know. She’s not past saving.”
She was unprepared for the quick swell of tears in her eyes and she blinked hard to keep them back. Turned to her father, and found he was looking at William, and she could see clearly the strain of the silent emotion that touched both their faces—the unspoken question that was being asked and, as silently, answered.
At last William, very casually, told Joseph, “You’d know best. How many weeks would it take, by your reckoning?”
Joseph, with his hand still on the ship’s scarred hull, replied with a small careless shrug that was, again, a gesture none of them had seen in far too long. “That would depend how many men I had to work on her.”
“But you could do it?” William asked, and once again they held their breaths and waited.
Then, “With tools and time, yes,” Joseph told them.
“Good. That’s good,” said William, and he looked away from Joseph as though something in the angle of the midday sunlight hurt his eyes. He sought their father’s gaze again and shared a glance that knew the weight and meaning of his words. “For tools and time, and even men, are but a small expense if, in the end, what we have lost can be restored.”
Jean-Philippe