Now Face to Face by Karleen Koen Page B

like lilies bending in a garden. Her hands fluttered whitely against the thick red-gold of her hair. Her neck, too, was white, long and sleek, like a swan’s.
    Beautiful, Klaus said each time she saw him, the man she’d not yet written of in any letters, the man who came to see her two, even three times a week now, the man whom she was a step away from bedding.
    In the chamber, she saw that Klaus stood over the narrow bed, holding Hyacinthe down by the shoulders as Thérèse tried to cover him with blankets he had kicked off.
    “Don’t fight the blankets, but lie still if you can. Let the fever take you—Ah, Lady Devane.” He smiled, a light coming into his face and eyes.
    “Can you help me give him this Peruvian bark water, Captain?”
    “Of course. But you know how bitter it is.”
    She sent Thérèse for rum and sugar in the basement under the house, fetched the water herself at the well, pulling up the bucket by a rope.
    As Thérèse mixed rum, water, and sugar to give Hyacinthe after he took the bark water, Klaus wrapped Hyacinthe tightly in a blanket, as if in swaddling cloth.
    “He will take it better from you,” said Thérèse to Barbara. There were circles under Thérèse’s dark eyes, and she was too thin. She herself was still recovering from the ague—the fever—part of coming to this colony, it seemed, to catch the ague.
    “Open your mouth,” said Klaus, “so your mistress may give you your medicine. It will make you well. It will taste bitter, but swallow it all, as bitter as it is…. That’s it, swallow. Good boy. Again. Now drink this, which Mademoiselle Fuseau has mixed for you. Good boy, you’re a brave boy. What do you say? Yes, I know. Your head hurts.”
    He laid Hyacinthe down again, deftly pulling out his arms from under the blanket.
    “We must cover him with the bearskin,” said Thérèse. “It made my fever break faster.”
    “We put it back upstairs,” said Barbara, and Thérèse went off to fetch it.
    Barbara found some cloths, wet them, ran them gently over Hyacinthe’s face. Klaus knelt at the fireplace, and put in some dry branches to start a fire.
    “Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry, all the pretty little horses…When you wake, I will buy all the pretty little horses,” Barbara sang to Hyacinthe, her voice low and husky, like smoke.
    Klaus closed his eyes a moment, to savor that voice. It made a man catch his breath, first hearing it. He was a sensual man whom pleasure did not frighten. Pleasure did not frighten her, either. They saw that in each other. It was like a promise between them.
    He brought in more wood for the fire and placed it so that the logs would catch and burn. He stood, wiped his hands on his breeches, noticing, as he had not before, two miniatures upon the mantel. Their frames were exquisite, the gold work intricate, small amethysts and seed pearls set among the gold. Each man painted on the tiny canvas was more wig than man, though one bore some resemblance to Barbara, something about the eyes. One must be her husband. Klaus had heard that her husband had been much older than she. She seldom spoke of him. He realized now, standing here, looking at the miniatures, that though they spoke of sailing and of this colony, of himself, they seldom spoke of her.
    Who was she? I’ve seen Saylor House, said Colonel Perry. Her grandfather built it. It is one of the sights of London. To live in one of the sights of London, and now to dwell in this small, plain house and yet not complain or cry or leave. Why did she stay? Had she past deeds to flee from? A man—he would imagine there was a man involved. With her sensuality and bold deliberateness, how could there not be? He watched her and her maidservant settle the bearskin about the boy, watched the dogs leap to the bed, turn themselves around and around to sleep by him.
    “Good dogs,” said Thérèse.
    “Clever dogs,” said Barbara. “You watch over our Hyacinthe.”
    They’d made this house pleasant again,