Race Before the Wind

Copyright © Jill Salkeld 1988

Part Three: 1826-1831

The Men of Enterprise

Chapter Four

Luke Honour Tandy sat facing their uncle, watching him pull hard on the oars to guide their precious skiff expertly through a dark maze of yachts and anchor chains. The twins had never seen so many boats anchored in Cowes Roads. The water glimmered with light from deck-mounted lanterns and sometimes a distant burst of laughter would carry clearly on the night air.

"How will you find your friend's boat?" Honour asked Mace.

"With consummate skill," he said.

Honour peered round him to where her father sat in the bows but Elderfield was gazing out across the Roads, his thoughts evidently far away. He had not said much since meeting them after the fireworks display on the Parade. She wondered if he was scared; but of course that was ridiculous. Mr Elderfield was not afraid of anything.

She nudged Luke and they grinned at one another, sharing their excitement without the need for words. They had been told the plan. Mr Elderfield was not going to let them down after all; and with a little luck, they would never see the horrible Earl of Wickham again.

The skiff approached an unlit sailing vessel with the name Marianne painted in yellow along her hull. Mace stowed the oars and reached for Marianne's gunwhale, holding the skiff firmly alongside, and the twins climbed nimbly aboard the gig.

Tom moved to the skiff's stern to correct the boat's balance. He frowned up at the twins, adopting a tone of grim authority. "You know your orders, don't you?"

"Make her ready for sea," said Honor, "and then wait."

"I want no nonsense, you understand? Never mind how long we're away, or whether you're afraid of missing the tide. You don't weigh anchor for any reason at all. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Mr Elderfield," they said.

"And try not to damage anything. Your uncle's mate wants his boat back in one piece."

Luke scowled but Honor said, with laughter and wickedness, "We don't damage boats. Only people!"

Mace was still chuckling as he pulled away from Marianne and headed for the East Cowes riverbank.

"What are you laughing at?" Tom said irritably. "She's old enough to have learned better manners."

Mace regarded his friend assessingly. He knew that Tom had spent much of the day working out finances, first for Yarborough and then for the new partnership, scribbling right-handed the figures which would make Elderfield & Tandy a reality. He no longer wore the sling but kept his right thumb hooked casually in his belt, preferring not to show Wickham an Achilles' heel.

Resting a moment on the oars, Mace drew a small leather flask from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to Tom. "Compliments of the best designer on the Island," he said.

The flask contained neat Hollands gin. Tom said with gratitude and reluctant amusement, "You are truly a genius."

"We can still turn back. You could set sail with the twins -"

"And what if Wickham finds out about yesterday? Jessie and me, alone together in a cabin on the Falcon.

"He won't hurt Jess."

"He won't get the chance!"

They moored the boat to a small jetty near a row of boat=houses and made their way towards the hotel, where members of the RYC would be gathered to see the week's prizes presented. The streets were not quite deserted; a few young folk still lingered in the hope of glimpsing more fireworks across the river.

As Tom and Mace climbed the steps outside the hotel, one of the two doormen barred their way.

"Members and guests only, gentlemen. Just for tonight."

"Come on, George," said Mace. "You know me. I need to talk to my sister and Lord Wickham. Desperately urgent. Life or death!"

George looked sceptical. "You're still not coming in - but I'll fetch them, as it's you."

While he was gone, Tom retreated to the foot of the steps. After some hesitation Mace joined him; this was not the night for provoking a physical attack.

The door swung open; the steps were bathed in light and music. Jessica rushed from the hotel ahead of Wickham and George, having taken her brother's dire message literally. "Macey, what has happened? Are the twins -"

She saw Tom then, and stopped dead. The shock in her face told him that she had guessed half the truth; that he was taking the twins away. Before he could speak, the Earl of Wickham stood beside her on the top step.

"Elderfield," he said dryly, "what a delightful surprise. I hope you can produce a good reason for having disturbed our evening."

He was a man whose looks had improved with the years, gaining distinction from silvered temples and side whiskers. He was also tall, fit and trimly athletic. Tom hoped fervently that the encounter would be, as he intended, strictly a verbal battle.

"You might care to know," Tom said, "that I'm taking my children of the Island tonight. Will you sail with us, Jess?"

"No!" Her shock at losing the twins so suddenly was overlaid by horror. She clung to Wickham's arm as though to assure him of her loyalty. The two doormen were enthralled.

"We should have been wed ten years ago, Jess. Are you going to keep me waiting another ten?"

"Go away! If you have Luke and Honor, then I - I can't stop you taking them anywhere. Just go away and leave us alone!"

"Not very convincing, Jessie."

Wickham drawled, "We have nothing to discuss with you on that subject, Elderfield. Now, if you will excuse us...." He turned to steer Jessica into the hotel.

"I believe Lady Wickham suffers from a delicate constitution," said Tom, "and rarely leaves your Hampshire estate. I hope it wouldn't distress her to see your past made public in the local press - and among your fellow yachtsmen."

Wickham spun on his heel. He gripped Jessica's wrist as if she might flee at any moment, but she did not move. Her eyes were flickering in despair from Tom to her brother and back again.

"Oh Tom, don't do this," she moaned. "Macey, stop him -"

The Earl hissed, "if this is blackmail, Elderfield -"

"It's whatever you make of it."

In fact Tom knew nothing specific about Wickham's past, but the Earl could not be sure of that. The Yacht Club enjoyed considerable royal patronage, and a member who brought dishonour on the Club could expect neither protection nor mercy from Lord Yarborough. Keeping a mistress, however thinly disguised as a family friend, had done Wickham no harm; but his vices had not always been so innocuous....and the Earl valued his membership highly.

He said, with icy calm, "Mace, you and I have no quarrel. I advise you to leave, before you become involved in a matter which need not concern you."

Mace decisively shook his head. "I'll stay, thank you."

"I won't give up now, Wickham," Tom said. "I'm offering Jess marriage and a safe home for our children. What can you offer?"

Wickham said nothing for a long minute. Tom returned his stare, unwilling to be the first to look away. What he saw in Wickham;s face made him shiver in the warm night. Surely Jess must realise that he had set her free; that he would never again be safe from Wickham's wrath, whatever path she chose. He had made certain of that.

"Elderfield...." Wickham spoke his name like a curse.

"My lord," Jessica interrupted him. "Please let me go."

Taking her literally, as perhaps she had meant, he dropped her arm. His gaze had not wavered from Tom.

Jessica did not speak to him again. She descended the steps quite slowly and gracefully and Tom blinked at her, not believing even now that he had won

"You fool, Tom Elderfield," she said.

He smiled slightly and took her hand, not caring to show his feelings too much with the Earl of Wickham as audience.

"Welcome home, Jessie," he said.

The streets were emptying as they hurried back towards the river. Tom and Mace glanced over their shoulders often anticipating trouble. The plan had gone almost too smoothly. Tom's instinct for danger had become highly developed during the years with Hicks and he was aware that he was slowing the others down. The injury to his back made running impossible.

As they turned into the alley between the boathouses, Mace said, "Want me to scout ahead?"

"Might be wise. I don't think we were followed, but -"

"Easy enough for his lordship to nip down another alleyway and cut us off."

"Be careful, Macey," said Jessica. When her brother was out of earshot she turned to Tom with more anxiety than joy. "You're both mad," she said. "Why do you think I never threatened to leave him? He'll break you, Tom, he'll find some way -"

"Say you love me, Jessie."

"Oh Tom, you don't know what you've done."

"Jessie.....please say it."

She drew a shaky breath, and said, with a catch in her voice, "I grew up loving you, didn't I? Old habits are so hard to break."

From the darkness behind them a man said, "How very touching."

Tom swung round, holding Jessica close to his side, instinctively leaving his right hand free. Wickham strolled out of the shadows. Beside him walked a younger man whom Tom recognised as Sir Bevis Ponsonby, one of the Earl's London set.

Mace, striding into view from the direction of the river, swore aloud and ran to his partner's side, glaring at Wickham and Ponsonby.

"Need some help, mate?" he asked.

Tom sent him a warning look and said to Wickham, "Is there something you forgot to say?"

"Among gentlemen, it is customary for an affair of honour to be settled in private, not in front of a pair of gaping doormen. And discretion is of course vital, since duelling is illegal -"

Jessica cried out, "Duelling?" and Mace said, "Pistols at dawn? Don't be bloody stupid."

"I suggest," said Wickham, ignoring them, "that we meet tomorrow at first light. Sir Bevis will act as my second. Presumably Mace will be yours, Elderfield. Shall we agree upon a suitable spot?"

"For sweet hell's sake!" Mace shouted. "This is madness."

"Be quiet, Mace," Tom snapped. He studied the Earl with loathing. Wickham's air of complete confidence implied that he fancied himself as a marksman, and he could probably guess that Tom had never handled a duelling pistol in his life. It was also possible that Wickham had learned the extent of Tom's injuries, in which case he knew that Tom could not lift his right arm high enough to fire a pistol with any degree of accuracy. And this was the Earl's honourable solution!

Tom could feel Jessica trembling. Without looking at her, he said to Wickham. "If you kill me in a duel, the odds are that you'll escape the usual penalty for murder. If I so much as wound a peer of the realm, I;ll hang for it. No, I will not fight a duel with you."

The Earl raised contemptuous brows, "I have heard much about you, Elderfield. I did not know until this moment that you are a coward as well as a villain."

"And I did not know until tonight," said Tom coolly, "that you are an unscrupulous killer as well as a vicious and perverted bully.

Wickham lost his temper. "By God," he said, "I'll settle this on your terms if I must." And he stepped quickly forward.

This action, as Mace said afterwards, had the same effect as a lighted candle dropped in a keg of gunpowder. Jessica tore herself free of Tom and rushed at the Earl, screaming to him to stop, and he swatted her aside with such furious brutality that she fell sprawling on the rough ground. Tom yelled and lashed out at Wickham, who blocked his punch easily; and as Mace leaped at the Earl with a howling battle-cry, Ponsonby dived for Mace's legs and brought him down, the two young men rolling over and over, gouging and clawing and kicking.

The Earl of Wickham was nearly twenty years older than Tom; but he was uninjured, and better informed than he had chosen to admit. Tom ducked sideways to avoid a well aimed fist and the awkward movement twisted his back. As he tried to straighten up, the Earl's second punch crashed into his right shoulder with all the force of obsessive hatred and sent him reeling against a boathouse wall.

He slid down, clutching his shoulder. Through blurred and dancing moonlight he saw Wickham standing over him.

"That was for presuming to blackmail me, Elderfield," the Earl whispered. "This is for imaging you could steal what is mine.......

Jessica shakily picked herself up; and beyond the grappling figures of Mace and Ponsonby she saw Tom stagger against the wall and crumple slowly to the ground. She saw the Earl murmur something inaudible and draw back his foot to kick his fallen enemy.

"Wickham!" she screamed at him. "You have hurt him and I swear you'll regret it for the rest of your life!"

Wickham's head jerked. "My dear," he said, "do not attempt to threaten me!"

Jessica's hands clenched at her sides. She said with intensity,"if you hurt my Tom any more. I'll see that you pay for it = you and your fine friend here. "She glanced briefly at Sir Bevis and Mace, who had abandoned their fight and now sat gaping at her. "I'll see that every newspaper in London and Hampshire prints the details of this night's work. And you know me well enough, my lord, to be sure that I don't make the threat idly and that I don't much care if scandal attaches to my name."

"You treacherous whore!" Wickham would have sprung at her but both Mace and Ponsonby were on their feet in an instant and Tom said between his teeth, "if you touch her.....the same threat holds."

Ponsonby was growing increasingly nervous. He edged his way to Wickham's side and implored him, "My dear fellow.....one must consider one's family, you know. The newspapers.....I'm afraid we really must concede defeat. If we take things further, I fear.....well, I should not like to see Miss Tandy hurt, you know."

Wickham was beaten, and he knew it. He turned to Tom, who was slowly pushing himself upright; using the wall as a support.

"Elderfield," he said, "you have won the first round. Not the match. Circumstances will not always be against me." And to Jessica he said, "I wish you joy. But happiness is so often snatched away, is it not, just when one is least prepared? Such a pity. Good-bye, my dear."

As he disappeared with Ponsonby into the dark, Jessica ran to Tom. She was crying, all the brave words forgotten, "Darling, has he hurt you? Your shoulder -"

"Intact.....That's the main thing."

He moved cautiously away from the wall, nursing the injured arm. His shoulder was throbbing and the pain in his back made every step an excruciating effort. Jessica slid her arm gently around him.

Mace limped to join them, dabbing at a cut above one eye and grinning like an idiot. "Hell hath no fury like my sister on the battlefield," he said.

"Tom," said Jessica softly. "Was it worth it, love? You don't regret it, do you?"

He looked down at her; and the reality hit him then. He and Jess would be together; for the rest of their lives; and Wickham, for all his threats, could never win her back.

He could have wept for happiness. "Do you think I should let Honor be a bridesmaid?"

"What do we care about scandal?" he said.

Part 3, The Men of Enterprise, Chapter 5

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