Название: The Return of the Prodigal
Автор: Кейси Майклс
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9781408905562
isbn:
“It takes a very wise man to be able to know which side of the coin falls upward, time and time again, and how best to lay his bets,” Lisette said, quoting her father almost word for word. “But he didn’t forget the name, and found it on the rolls of those soldiers being sent to Belgium. Becket. Not such an unusual name. Rian Becket could be as innocent as the morning dew, and all of this for nothing.”
“As were the others who carried the name and were questioned without result. They had been innocent. And I would agree that this one is as well,” Loringa said, “were it not that I feel her. I have felt her for some time, searching me out, but so much more now that the boy is here. From the moment the name was first brought to my ears, I could feel her in my heart, fighting to crawl into my head. Your papa wanted only revenge on those who meddled in his affairs, his plans for what he calls his triumphant return to England, and he found his old enemies. God is good. This young Becket will lead us where we want to go. And then, finally, it will be over. What we’d believed to be over so long ago. I pray Baskin still lives, so that your papa can take his life from him, and the lives of his sons, his daughters, all of his seed. This is his right. As it is my right to destroy my twin.”
Lisette felt that familiar pang of discomfort at the idea that her father had arranged for five soldiers with the last name of Becket to be captured, separated from all the other English so conveniently gathered in Belgium to face down Bonaparte, had ordered the five brought to him to answer questions. The other four had died of their wounds, Loringa had told her, but when the fifth man, Rian Becket, had been delivered to the manor house, Lisette had been visiting and had intervened, begging her father to let her find out what he wanted to know.
What she did not want to know was how the other four soldiers had died. This was a part of her papa she did not understand, and she only forgave him because of his great pain, his longing for justice. Still, she prayed for those four soldiers every night, on her knees. She could not undo what had been done, but she could ease her papa’s long years of torment. She could find Geoffrey Baskin for him. After that—no, she wouldn’t think of what would happen after that.
“If you feel her now, this twin of yours, why didn’t you feel her all these years? You thought she was dead, didn’t you? Is she stronger than you are, Loringa? Was she able to make you believe she was dead?”
“Odette is not stronger than I! I am the strong one, she is the weak one. Her evil keeps her weak, and goodness makes me strong. We are marassa, and I am the good twin.”
“The other side of the same coin, yes, I remember you telling me that. Bad for every good, happy for every sad. Two sides to everything. But if you are the good twin, Loringa, I shudder to meet this Odette.”
“And that is why I am here, devil’s child. You will need protection from my dangerous sister.” She reached into one of the many pockets of her apron and extracted a thin silver chain.
Lisette leaned forward, frowning, hoping her shock didn’t show on her face. “What…what on earth is that? It…it looks like a fang. A huge, ugly brown fang.”
“The tooth of the alligator,” Loringa explained, moving her hand, setting the tooth on the end of the chain to swinging lazily in the air. “Fed by all of my most powerful ingredients saved from the islands, soaked in feuilles trois paroles in the mavoungou bottle, used to make the broth, you understand, the migan. This is my gift to you, this gad, this protection from the bad loa. But you will still need your wits about you at all times. Odette worships the bad loa.”
“And you expect me to wear that monstrosity around my neck? How could I hide it from Rian Becket?”
“Keep it with you. Find a way,” Loringa ordered, pushing the necklace on Lisette.
She grabbed the thing gingerly by its chain, quickly laid it on the bed. To touch the tooth itself, she felt sure, would be to have it burn her palm. Be calm, stay calm, she warned herself. Don’t let Loringa see. “Only if you tell me again about my mother. Tell me, while I finish packing up my things for my daring escape from my lascivious employer.”
Loringa sighed, returned to her chair.
“The story does not change with the telling. It was good, for many years between your papa and Geoffrey Baskin. They were partners, friends. The Letters of Marque, the adventures, a share in the booty allowed us by the Crown. Not pirates, not buccaneers, child. Privateers. All of the adventure, your father would say, winking at me, but all within the law. They would both return to England one day, rich men, as others had done before them.”
“And then Papa sailed to New Orleans,” Lisette said, at last slipping the gad into the pocket of her cloak.
“A blessed day, a cursed day. He met your maman, your sweet maman, and brought her back to the islands with him as his wife. And Geoffrey Baskin saw her, broke the Lord’s Commandment, coveted her.”
“And, wanting her, he betrayed Papa.”
“Your papa wished to leave the islands, but Geoffrey was not ready to go, to end it. He was always greedy, and he had turned to the blood thirst. More, he always wanted more. He wanted your maman. Even as she nursed you at her breast, he wanted her. I saw it, I felt it, I tried to warn your papa, but he trusted his good friend, Geoffrey Baskin.”
Lisette nodded. What she and Loringa spoke of was a story, a tragedy, but it was also Lisette’s history. “Papa trusted him when he said he wanted only one last voyage, one last adventure together, one with more bounty in it than either of them would ever need. But he had already betrayed Papa, lied to him, and when Papa sailed into the middle of what was supposed to be a group of unarmed merchant ships, it was to find that he was outmanned, outnumbered. And worse, he’d been tricked into attacking English ships. He lost almost everything, but he survived.”
“Only to return to his island home to find your maman dead. Everyone dead. A slaughter that left no man, woman or child alive. Even the animals—nothing breathed on our island. And all the booty, all your papa would take to England to begin a new life, now in the bowels of his partner’s ships. I watched from the trees, keeping you silent in my arms, while Geoffrey Baskin raped your mother for refusing him, for spitting in his face, for cutting him with the knife she had hidden beneath her skirts. Twice he raped her, on the sand, in front of everyone, and then he turned her over to his men. In my dreams, I still hear Marguerite’s screams. I could do nothing, child, Odette’s evil paralyzing me. It was all I could do to pray, invoke the good loa to keep you shielded from her eyes, for your papa would need you in his sorrow.”
Lisette blinked back tears for the mother she’d never known. “I thank you for that, Loringa. I know we have our differences, but I thank you for that. I only wish Papa could have kept me with him.”
“To live like him, branded a pirate, forced to flee the hangman? The nuns kept you safe, and your papa hunted Geoffrey Baskin and his traitorous crew, seeking vengeance. But it was not СКАЧАТЬ