fire.
âPardon?â
âA financial arrangement. For my hand. I canât say I was not given to the idea of marriage, or that there were not qualities in Joseph I admired, but my father was in trouble. He has always lived as if he were rich. He is not wise in business. We were going to lose Richmond Hillâthe estate we used to own on the Hudsonâand my father agreed to allow Joseph my hand if he would help out with the mortgage.â
âA dowry,â said Whaley in a way that made it clear he thought there was nothing terribly unusual there.
âNo, not a dowry. An arrangement. A dowry is a onetime payment. This was not that. I have a bad habit of sneaking looks at peopleâs ledgers. I saw the payments to my father, and they continued for some years after we were married. In fact, they continued far longer than the initial arrangement called for, as I finally confronted Joseph about it, and he told me that heâd continued to keep my father afloat out of pity.â
âHe lost the house anyway?â
âYes,â she said, turning to Whaley, who had cleaned the fish and was rolling them in meal to fry for breakfast. âBut there were motivations, I am certain, other than financial ones. Political clout in the Southern colonies, where my fatherâs enlightened stance on slavery doubtless cost him the presidency.â
âPower changes a man. Even if theyâre not claiming to have heard women in pictures talking or moving their eyes, they lose touch with the rest of the world.â
Feeling her face grow warm, she put down her tea, moved back from the fire. What angered her the most about his comment was the way he could have been either talking to himself, about someone elseâDaniels, obviouslyâor listening, and understanding, all too well.
âIf youâre going to talk about my father, you could at least call him by name,â she said.
âWhat your daddyâs done or ainât done donât concern me nor anyone else on this island. You need to get used to that, or youâll drive yourself mad.â
Whaley laughed at his joke so loudly that she nearly smiled herself. And of course he was right. Her fatherâs illustrious career wasnât even news here, for the news, when it came, was months late and had no effect on the lives of the islanders. She wondered if, in fact, her father meant nothing to the rest of the countryâwondered if she hadnât imagined the stares as she sat in the Alston family pew of the St. James Episcopal Church inCharleston, or exaggerated the threat of shameful treatment that led her to choose, despite Josephâs protestations, to travel to her reunion with her father by sea instead of overland, which would have taken less than a week, opposed to the two weeks it would have taken her had there not been a light tied to the head of a nag. The thought of six days cooped up in a coach with strangers who would just know by looking at her who she was had led her to choose the ocean.
That she associated the ocean with indifference amused her now that her lifeâand the lives of everyone on this islandâwas so dependent upon what the sea delivered. Whaleyâs lodgings might be aesthetically lacking, but its roof kept the both of them dry and warm.
âOkay,â she said, âIâll try not to drive myself mad. In the mean time, youâll help me build my manor?â
âImagine I could lend a hand from time to time.â
âAnd that portrait? Youâll help me get it back?â She saw no need to mention the papers, for how could she trust this man sheâd just met? Such a treasure might cause a good man to change direction. As he said, power changes a man.
When she looked up at him, his affable demeanor had darkened.
âMight as well take a knife to both our throats.â
âI want it back.â
âIf that portrait went missing heâd search ever inch
Learning to Kill: Stories