So…the question being, in his state of internal war…should he board the next packet boat heading north…or should he stay for a few more days, and stir up the muddy waters of love?
A face appeared in the window.
Rather, it was the reflection of a face in the glass. A woman in a pale green hat and gown the same color had come to stand just behind his right shoulder, and when she spoke Matthew felt both a punch to his stomach and a thrill course up his spine.
“Matthew? Matthew Corbett? Is that you?”
He turned toward her, for he already knew. He brought up a smile, but his face felt too tight to hold it steady.
She was both the same and of course very different, as he also was. Here is the witch, he recalled her saying in the foul gaol of the fledgling town of Fount Royal, as she defiantly threw off her dirty cloak of sackcloth to reveal the woman beneath. He remembered the moment of her nudity quite clearly, and in truth he had carried that moment and opened it like a locket for a peek inside from time to time. His cheeks reddened a few degrees, which he hoped she attributed to the external temperature.
“Hello, Rachel,” he answered, and he took Rachel Howarth’s offered hand and almost kissed it, but decorum prevailed.
She had been weathered in her twenty-eight years, primarily by her ordeal of being accused of witchcraft in that nasty situation and her months facing the stake and the flames, but she was still very youthful and indeed as beautiful as Matthew remembered. Her heart-shaped face with a small cleft in the chin was framed by the fall of her long, thick midnight-black hair. Her eyes were pale amber-brown, verging on a fascinating golden hue, and her skin color was near mahogany as bespoke her Portuguese heritage. She was altogether twice as beautiful, Matthew thought, as Pandora Prisskitt considered herself thrice to be. And Matthew knew Rachel’s soul as well, which was also a dwelling of beauty.
But also, he knew where the so-called “devil’s marks” were on her naked body, and these little dark marks and flecks that appeared on everyone’s flesh had almost sent her skin flaming. He had been her champion and had saved her from that imprisonment and from that fire, and the last he had seen of her was when he had left her to claim her own future in Fount Royal, and to find his own in the greater town of New York.
“I am amazed!” she said, with a smile that might have been described as giddy. She appeared to be about to throw herself into his arms, yet she was restraining her forward motion. “Matthew! What are you doing here?”
“On business from New York,” he replied, in a steadfast tone. “I’m a problem-solver now.”
“Oh? People pay you to solve their problems?”
“Yes, that’s about it.”
“If so, then,” she said, “I owe you quite the chestful of gold coins. I cannot believe I am seeing you! Just out here, in the broad daylight!”
“I was in attendance last night at the Sword of Damocles Ball.”
Rachel made a face as if the midday odors had come early. “Oh, with those people? Surely you haven’t become—”
“One of them? If I gather your meaning correctly, I hope not. I was hired as an escort for one of the local ladies. The story is a bit complicated, but I survived the sword.” And conquered with the comb, he thought. “But you…what are you doing here?” Did he feel his heart flutter just a bit, under her golden gaze? He had fought a bear to save her life, and bore the scar for that. Perhaps there was another scar that ran a bit deeper?
“Well, I…” She suddenly looked to her left. “David! You must meet this young man!”
Matthew followed her line of sight. A tall gent in a tan-colored suit and a darker brown tricorn was coming across the street. He paused to allow a carriage to pass by, and then he continued onward. He was smiling and healthy-looking and appeared to be in his early thirties. He walked with a purposeful stride, a man of energy and means.
“This is David, my husband,” Rachel told the young problem-solver from New York. “I am Rachel Stevenson now.” She smiled again, a little awkwardly, as if she could hardly believe this herself. “A doctor’s wife!”
“Ah,” said Matthew, whose hand extended almost of its own accord toward the approaching master of this beautiful woman’s heart. He said, with his own smile fixed in place, “I am Matthew Corbett, sir, and I am very pleased to meet you.”
They shook hands. The doctor had a grip that might put someone’s hand in need of a doctor. “David Stevenson.” He had a sharp-featured, handsome face and very blue eyes, which now blinked with sudden recognition. “Oh! You are the one!” And so saying, he rushed upon Matthew and hugged him and clapped Matthew upon the back with such fervor that a half-digested orange muffin nearly popped out. Then the good doctor Stevenson seized Matthew by both shoulders and grinned in his face with the power of the Carolina sun and said, “I thank God you were born, sir! I thank God that you did not give up on Rachel, when others might have. And I see the scar, and I know what you did for the woman I love. I should bow down on my knees before you!”
“Not necessary,” said Matthew, fearing the doctor might actually do such a thing. “I was glad to do my part in that particular play, and I am surely glad that now her time of woe and worry has come to an end.” And certainly it appeared so, for wife retreated toward husband and husband put arm around wife and wife who was once accused of witchcraft in a nasty little cell smiled very happily indeed, and the scarred champion nodded his approval for time had moved on and so must all men and women. She had made him what he was today, and because of her he had come very far from his first experience at “problem-solving”—though he hadn’t known it at the time—in Fount Royal. Still, it was a bittersweet moment for Matthew, who had never felt so alone in a place in his life.
“We live on an estate just outside town,” Rachel said. “You must come to dinner with us tonight!”
“We insist!” said Dr. Stevenson. “It’s the least we can do!”
Matthew thought about it, but not too long. He had other business on his mind, and after this was done he planned on going home. There was no need to revisit his—or Rachel’s—past any further, and besides he reasoned really that Rachel herself would begin to feel uncomfortable about this invitation as soon as he accepted it. Therefore he said, “Thank you, but I have to decline. My time here is very limited, but—again—thank you.”
“Solving another problem?” Rachel asked. Was it Matthew’s imagination, or did she look a mite relieved? After all, he recalled an event in an Indian village, when he was nearly insensible and recovering from the wounds inflicted upon him by Jack One Eye, in which he’d dreamed that this beautiful woman had crawled atop him to further the healing process by the heat of her body and passion of her kiss. But had it really been a dream? Only Rachel knew for sure, and though this was not a problem it was surely a mystery that Matthew knew he would never solve. Perhaps it was better that way, to keep some events in the realm of the mysterious.
“Well,” Matthew answered, “as you mention it, yes. Or rather, a personal issue I’d like to address. May I ask if either of you know a man named Magnus—”
“Muldoon?” the doctor interrupted. “Of course! He’s done work on the estate, clearing trees and such. A tireless worker, to be sure. And I tended to his father in the poor man’s last days of swamp fever, just after I arrived last summer, Muldoon’s mother having passed away several years ago. You have business with him?”