Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

She wore black, which didn’t become her, and her hair was pinned up under a cap with a tiny bit of lace edging. She still wore her wedding ring, and he felt a small twinge of what might be disappointment. Then he saw that while she still wore the ring, she’d changed it from her left hand to her right.

He stopped just by the fountain and bowed to her.

“So you’re not afraid of anything, now?”

She looked him over, soberly, then lifted her eyes to meet his. Pale blue, translucent.

“I wouldn’t say that. But I’m certainly not afraid of you.” It might have been a challenge or a sneer, but it wasn’t. It was just a statement of fact and rather warmed him.

“Good,” he said. “Why did you run when I came yesterday, then?”

“I panicked,” she said frankly. “I’d put away all thought of—of Father Pardloe and Lord John and Savannah—”

“—and me?”

“And you,” she said evenly, “and after a bit, it all began to seem unreal, like the sort of fantasy you have when you’re reading a good book. So when you popped up like the Demon King in a pantomime—” She flicked a hand. After a moment’s pause, she asked, “Do you want to sit down?”

He sat beside her, close enough to feel the warmth of her—it was a small bench, and William was a large young man. He wasn’t sure quite what to ask. Yet.

“You’re a widow, then?” he said at last, and picked up her hand, examining the ring.

“Yes, I am,” she said coldly.

“Really? Or only so far as your father—and Philadelphia—know?”

She gave him a narrow look, but she didn’t pull her hand away, and she didn’t reply at once, either.

“Because,” he said, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb, “if Ben’s really dead now, you haven’t any reason for not coming back to Savannah with me, do you? Don’t you want to see Trevor? He misses his mama.”

“You bastard,” she hissed. “Let go!” He did, folding his hands on his knees.

There was no sound for several minutes, save the rattle and hum of traffic in the street and the plash of the fountain. The smell of the garden was strong in the air, and while it was by no means as lush as the southern scents of Savannah, it was pungent enough to stir the blood—and memories of Mrs. Fleury’s garden, with its cold wet stone and the silent witness of a black-eyed toad.

“I’m the only one you can tell,” he said at last, quietly. “I don’t expect your father knows, does he? What happened to Ben?”

She laughed, short and bitter, but a laugh.

“‘What happened to Ben,’” she repeated. “Not, ‘What Ben did’? General Washington didn’t come and kidnap him, you know. He went. He did it all, all by himself!”

“You went to him, though, didn’t you?” This wasn’t entirely a guess; he’d seen that her fingers weren’t shadowed with ink. Everyone who worked in a printshop or a bookseller’s eventually had smudged fingers; her father did. If hers weren’t, she hadn’t been here long.

She didn’t answer at once, but sat silently fuming, mouth pressed tight.

“I did,” she said at last. “The more fool I. I thought I could talk him round. I’d seen what happened during the siege, in Savannah. I thought I could convince him—for God’s sake, he was a British officer! He should know what the army’s like, what they can do!”

“I suppose he does,” William said mildly. “Rather courageous of him to go take up arms against them, isn’t it?”

She made a noise like an angry cat and flounced away from him.

“So he wouldn’t come back to Savannah with you. Why didn’t you just go yourself? You know the Greys would welcome you with open arms—if only because you’d take Trev off their hands.”

She breathed hard through her nose, then suddenly flounced back round to face him.

“I did see Ben. I saw him in bed with a black-haired whore who was sucking his—” Choler choked her as efficiently as Ben had likely choked his inamorata when he saw Amaranthus looming in the doorway.

William hesitated to say anything, for fear of making her leap up and run inside. Instead, he placed his hand on the bench between them, barely touching her fingers. And waited.

“He got up and pushed me into his dressing room and kept me from going back into the bedroom until she’d got up and run, the filthy twat.”

“Where the devil did you learn a word like that?” he asked, truly shocked.

“A book of erotic poetry in Lord John’s library,” she said, glowering at him. “I would have killed both of them, right there, if I’d had any bloody thing to do it with. You don’t go to a reunion with your estranged husband with a knife in your shoe, though, do you?” She stared down at her naked left hand. “I yanked my ring off and tried to make him swallow it. I almost managed, too,” she said, defiant. There were tears of rage slicked down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem aware of them.

“I’m sorry you didn’t,” he said, and took a careful breath. “I don’t excuse Ben, by any means, but … he’s a soldier, and he thought you’d left him forever. I mean, a—a casual liaison—”

“Casual, my arse!” she snarled, snatching her hand away. “He’s married her!”

The words struck him in the pit of the stomach. William opened his mouth, but found nothing whatever to say.

“That’s why I brought the ring away with me,” she said, looking at it. “I wouldn’t let her have it!”

Of course she’d also needed it for her widow’s imposture, but he rather thought that continuing to wear it—if even on the right hand—might be something in the nature of a hair shirt for her, but didn’t say that.

“Marry me,” he said, instead.

She was frowning at a bird that had landed on the edge of the fountain to drink—a dressy little creature with black-and-white wings and dark red sides.

“Towhee,” she said.

“What?”

“Him.” She lifted her chin toward the bird, who promptly flew off. She turned on the bench to look William full in the face, her own features more or less composed.

“Marry you,” she said slowly. A twitch she couldn’t control showed briefly at the corner of her pale mouth, but he didn’t think it was an impulse to laugh. Maybe shock, maybe not.

“Marry me,” he said again, softly. Her eyes were bloodshot, and now a cloudy gray. She looked away.

“You mean a marriage blanc, I suppose?” she said, her voice a little hoarse. “Separate lives, separate beds?”

“Oh, no,” he said, and took hold of both her hands. “I definitely want to bed you. Repeatedly. What sort of marriage do you call that?”

“Well, bigamy, for a start.” She was looking at him in a different way, though, and the blood was thrumming in his chest.

“We can discuss the details on the way back to Savannah.” Still holding her hands tightly in his, he leaned down and kissed her. Her mouth moved under his, more in shock than response—but response it was.

“I did not say I’d do it!” she said, jerking back. He let her go, noting with a distant satisfaction that she hadn’t wiped her mouth in disgust.

“You can give me your answer when we get to Savannah,” he said, and, getting to his feet, he offered her his hand.