The Stillwater Conspiracy (The Neville Burton 'Worlds Apart' Series Book 4) Read online

  Your most humble servant,

  Mic. Stearns,

  Manager, Stillwater Rum

  Just a letter of trade! I had so hoped for a response from Marion. But I suppose it wouldn’t be delivered that way, would it.

  In the morning Neville had himself conveyed to shore, giving the need for a simple walk for exercise as his reason. It wasn’t entirely a lie; he took a walk to the Pig’s Tale and inquired for Miss Fletcher. A medium-height dowdy young woman with wild dark hair appeared from a back room wearing a gray dress and blood-stained white apron. “Yes, Cap’n?” she asked.

  “I, uuhhmm… Is there a note here for a Commander Burton?”

  She looked at him through suddenly brighter eyes. “There might be,” she said. “You ‘im?”

  “Yes, I am he.”

  “Well then,” she said, and went back through the door. She reappeared in a minute with an envelope and a meat cleaver. “Here ‘tis,” she said, holding it out for him. “You won’t cause her no trouble, will you?”

  “Certainly not, Miss Fletcher. I would never.”

  “No, you won’t,” she reaffirmed in a calm, quiet voice while staring him in the eyes and wiggling the cleaver, “because if you do, this’ll be for you, too!”

  The envelope was addressed to: ‘Cmdr. Burton, HMS Superieure’. He took it outside after mumbling, “Thank you.”

  Inside, it read:

  Neville,

  You see? Easy!

  I too look forward to seeing you again. You could begin with an official visit to the office as soon as you’re in. I’m sure you’re well, but ‘Seeing is believing’, they say.

  Marion S.

  9 - “The Meeting”

  One of Marion’s weekly responsibilities at work was the very mundane task of reconciling the lists of rum shipments with the receipt notes. It usually took her all morning, and often required several short walks back to the warehouse to ask some question of the shipping supervisor.

  The smell of oaken casks and aging rum filled the spaces in the air that were not already filled with the sounds of wooden hammers pounding bungs and staves.

  “What’s this, then, Mr. Carver – a two?” Marion asked in a raised voice. His was not the best penmanship in town

  “Why, it’s a seven, Miss. You see? This is a two, like this. And all our little rundlet casks are seventeen and some gallon anyway, so it must be; you know that.”

  “Mr. Carver, I am beginning to think you make these mistakes just so I have to come ask you questions. You’re just a flirt.”

  “Not me, Miss, I would never!” he insisted – with a wink.

  She departed the warehouse through the large doors to the front of the building and returned to her office. Through her window she could see a man in uniform standing at the receptionist’s desk in the lobby. His head was down because he was speaking to the clerk, but he looked familiar, nonetheless. She knew Neville’s ship was in, and this man was the right size. Because he had told her, she knew that he wore the epaulette of a commander – not the average lieutenant. She kept her eyes on him while she moved behind her desk to sit.

  His head came up, presumably at the end of his conversation, and he looked her way. Yes, it was Neville. And he had apparently noticed her motion, because he looked directly at her and smiled wide. He gave her a polite nod – almost approaching a bow. She returned his smile before he turned to find a seat in the lobby where he was directed by the clerk.

  Marion watched him walk to a chair. She noticed, as he did so, the slightest of limps. She sat when he did, doing her best not to be noticed staring at him. She placed her shipping documents in the center of the desk in front of her, and began to sort through them. There was no reason to sort except to kill a few minutes while she tried to decide whether she should go out to the lobby and greet him. The clerk was up and walking into the office hallway. Was he coming to collect her?

  No. He turned the other way. She glanced over to see him enter the office of Mr. Stearns.

  He wouldn’t really come in here and ask for Mr. Stearns and not me, would he? She wondered.

  After a minute in Stearns’ office, the clerk emerged with Stearns a few steps behind. Maybe he didn’t ask for any specific person?

  The two men from the office walked out to the lobby. The clerk returned to his desk and Stearns went to greet Neville, who stood when Stearns arrived at his chair.

  Marion watched the two men move to one of the sales booths along the side wall. They spoke for a few minutes, and then they both turned and looked across at her. She looked away; down at her desk, knowing she had gone red with the presumed embarrassment of it – or maybe anger?.

  By the time she stood they were no longer looking her way. She marched out from her office, out the office door and across the lobby to the booth where they sat talking.

  “I’ll not have it, you two,” she announced in a hushed but very stern tone. “You will not sit here making me the butt of your jokes.”

  Both stumbled to stand the instant she entered. Stearns’ chair upturned and clattered to the floor as he rose, and what few people were in the lobby turned to see what it was about.

  “If you have something to say, either of you,” Marion said, “This is the time to do it!” Her eyes paused on one and then the other.

  “We weren’t talking -” began Neville.

  “About me, Commander Burton? Why look my way, then. I have eyes.”

  “It wasn’t -” started Stearns.

  “- any of my business, perhaps, Mr. Stearns?”

  “Why are you here Commander?” she asked

  “I was invited by Mr. Stearns…”

  “He’s a customer, Marion…”

  “Don’t you ‘Marion’ me, Mr. Stearns.” She stared at them both for another moment. Perhaps it is indeed the case, and I am making a fool of myself. “If that’s so, Mr. Stearns, we shall expect an order.” With that last remark, she turned her stare back to Neville. “If you please, kind sir.”

  She turned to leave in a proper huff, then hesitated, and turned back to them. “I thank you for the compliment of your admiration, but I shall not be made fun of.” She stomped out.

  She could not see what happened behind her, of course, but the men in the lobby soon went back to their business – very quietly - as if signaled. She returned to her office and sat as she normally would, determined that they would not cause her to change her routine to suit their comfort. She used the repetition of her task to take her mind away from the incident as best she could and to cool down. Then she took out a writing paper and wrote a note:

  Stillwater Rum Co.

  Feb. 3, 1804

  Cmdr. Nev. Burton,

  I am embarrassed by my outburst in the office today and certainly apologize for my behaviour. It is of course natural that you would have been invited by our Mr. Stearns and I must repeat his entreaty that you might become one of our valued customers.

  I should never have taken your approving looks in my direction as anything other than a compliment, and I am in hopes that I might have the pleasure of your company to express just that.

  If I might be so bold as to invite you to join me for a luncheon at the Golden Strand Hotel on Church Street on Monday next. The hotel maintains a fashionable dining room and a novel menu. If you could make it, I would be

  Gratefully Yours,

  Marion Stillwater

  She reviewed her wording and decided it was reasonably proper, though certainly forward. When she was finished she looked up to see that the sales booth was empty; Neville was gone and Stearns had apparently crept back to his office on the other side of her father.

  “You are quiet today, Miss Stillwater,” said Stearns. He had walked past the door to her office several times in the course of the morning. It was now after lunch, and he had not had time – or dared – to speak with her. He had apparently decided that he should not allow the day to go by without contact.

  Marion turned slowly to look at
him. He lounged against the doorsill like he owned the place. Her father was not in, she could see that. “Would you mind coming in for a minute and closing the door,” she said as sweetly as she could muster.

  “Would you mind telling me what was said yesterday between you and Commander Burton?”

  “It was innocent, Miss Stillwater.” She noticed that he continued to refrain from using her name. He was normally not the formal type, and he did usually call her by her first name without repercussion. “I had sent him the customary invitation to discuss his ship’s rum requirements. When he appeared I made all haste to address his questions. No derogatory comment regarding you was made.”

  “I hope you don’t think me overly self-conscious, but I have never seen the like before – two men having a conversation about rum suddenly turn and look at me. There must have been something.”

  Stearns wasn’t normally the nervous or bashful type, either. He was more the type to become angry or self-righteous. So seeing him quietly fiddling with his pencil did not lead Marion to believe he was as innocent as he professed. Choosing his words.

  “I believe he could see you from where he sat, and he made the comment that I must be a lucky chap to work with such a beauty.”

  “Just out of the blue?”

  “Yes, if I remember right.”

  “And how did you address that?”

  “I don’t remember my exact words, but something to the effect that he should stick to the business at hand and that my companion is none of his business… or associate. Associate, I said, I think.”

  “Mr. Stearns,” Marion said, leaning closer to him and direct on, “I don’t think that’s how it went, because he was not facing my way when you began. He had to turn ‘round to look, remember?” To her own surprise, she managed to remain very calm, “But whatever you said, exactly, if you were at all close to it just now, is enough to repeat what I have said to you before, and I tell you now that it is also what I have said to my father; that I shall not be referred to as ‘your companion’, that we are not betrothed, that it is unlikely that we will be, and that I will run my own life as I see fit. Do we understand each other?”

  He might possibly have taken her speech it as a challenge rather than the threat it was intended to be, because his reaction was not what she expected. “For now,” he said with a growing smile. As he stood, he added, “I will endeavor to behave as you wish, Marion…”

  He opened the door. “But things change,” he said, and walked out. She thought she heard him softly whistle a little tune as he walked down the short hallway to his own office. “Yankee Doodle”, perhaps?

  Marion Stillwater arrived home at the end of the day in a less-than-pleasant mood. She brightened the moment she entered her room and found a note in Neville’s hand on her dresser.

  Miss Marion Stillwater,

  I apologize for what must have seemed an affront.

  Please believe me when I say that none was intended.

  Simple admiration by both of us prompted the incident.

  If you will but offer me the opportunity to do so, I will humbly explain.

  In anticipation,

  Cmdr. Nev. Burton,

  He hadn’t got it before he wrote this, then, had he? Rot!

  The next day was Sunday, with church on and the butcher shop closed. She considered writing another note to pass over on Monday early, but then she realized that if he had delivered this note of his to the Pig’s Tale after the incident at work, then he must have picked up her note at the same time. Although the situation left Marion with time to brood, that thought helped.

  “You’re looking more yourself today, Marion,” her father said when she arrived at work early Monday. “You seemed rather distant yesterday, also.”

  “Just keeping my thoughts,” she said, and added a bit of a lie, “I found the sermon particularly interesting.”

  “Really? I was thinking the man needs a new writer. Anyhow, I’m sorry you didn’t make the morning carriage in.”

  “I’m sorry, too, father. Miss Aughton had a problem with this dress, and I had an errand anyway.”

  “Are you happy with her?”

  “Who, Miss Fletcher?”

  Chester paused. “No, Miss Aughton. What’s the butcher have to do with this?”

  “Oh, nothing. Yes. Yes Miss Aughton is just fine.”

  Chester gave his daughter a questioning look, and then a kiss on the forehead, and he went off to his office.

  Marion had gone to the butcher’s in hope of a reply to her note, but had found nothing there. She asked Miss Fletcher to have a boy run up to the rum company with any message that came in and went on to work.

  It was almost eleven when a small brown boy of about eight years peeked his head in the door. Seeing that it was indeed the lobby of a large business, he appeared to gather his courage and strode boldly across the wood-planked floor to the information clerk’s desk. He placed an envelope in the center of it under the old man’s watchful eye and held out his hand.

  “Off wi’ you, you gutter snipe!” hissed the receptionist, “You’ve been paid to bring it already, and you know it.”

  The boy left. The clerk took the note in to Miss Stillwater’s office. The note was scrawled with some sort of rough pencil. Maybe he just got it this morning.

  Miss Marion Stillwater,

  I accept.

  In anticipation of Monday lunch,

  Cmdr. Nev. Burton,

  Marion left immediately. She had already made certain that there was nothing on her calendar.

  Neville was standing in the hotel foyer when Marion arrived. She didn’t apologize for being late. “I arranged for a table on Friday last. It should be ready.”

  “Neville, this is Miss Ellen Aughton, my personal assistant.” Marion had taken a carriage from work out to Independence Hall to collect her handmaiden before meeting with Neville. The girl had been instructed to be prepared for a sudden departure.

  “My pleasure, Miss,” said Neville. Marion saw his eye wander quickly across the girl, who was about the same age as Neville and of similar height.

  “This way, Miss Stillwater,” said a waiter who appeared suddenly from behind a curtain to their right.

  “Is Miss Aughton not coming?” asked Neville, as they began threading their way through tables to the far corner of the dining room. It was indeed a nice room in the modern English style – high ceilings, but with plaster frescoes painted more in Jamaican than English colors.

  “She has agreed to sit opposite, Commander, to allow us a bit of private conversation; it’s one of the advantages of being allowed a young chaperone rather than some old battle axe. She will do her duty, but she can also act more… quickly. And you’ll get no ideas on her, either. I saw that look.”

  “My eyes are for you only. I think you know that already.”

  “Very charming response, Commander, but I look forward to seeing you prove it.”

  “At the earliest, Miss Stillwater.”

  They were seated now. Due to the early hour, there was nobody seated within three tables in any direction.

  “All right, Neville,” she said, “You may call me Marion. It’s just that Mr. Stearns’ attitude quite galls me at times. Before we turn to a nicer conversation, I would like your version of the incident at work on Friday.”

  Neville began the right way, she thought. He was straightforward. “It wasn’t coarse at all, Marion, the way some men talk with their mates. I don’t think I’d count Mr. Stearns as one of my mates, anyway. He indicated that he was surprised I’d come see him rather than wait for your to invitation. Well, I told him this bit was business, and he was the one sent me this invite. I thought it might be rude to put him aside for a gentlemen’s mutual interest in a woman.”

  He looked down at the table for a moment and added, “And, I thought you might also feel me a bit out of station for doing such a thing, as well.”

  “That wouldn’t have been the case, Neville. When I’m th
ere I try to act the salesman just like Mr. Stearns.”

  “Anyway, then he said, ‘This is not a rivalry, Commander Burton. That woman will be mine in time, and I don’t need you playing the spoiler. Just look up there. Turn round and see what you’re going to lose’. That’s when we turned, and I was trying to decide what to say. I’m sorry for the rest of it.”

  “So the conversation was about me, then? I thought so.”

  “Yes, Marion, but I made no claims on you… And you were beautiful even in anger.”

  “Well, you do a much better job of digging yourself out of a hole than Mr. Stearns.”

  “Does that mean we might meet again?”

  “It certainly does, but I cannot think of any place at all where it might be private.”

  “Ahh, Here are our glasses of wine. Where does Miss Aughton fit it?”

  “She’s a wonderful girl. And she’s my protection. Just for your information, Commander Burton, you must be nice to me. She carries a dagger.”

  “I think you’re safe with me. Surely you noticed the sword at my side?”

  “It’s you she protects me against, you silly thing – and all the other wolves at my door. I would like some time alone with you as badly as you wish it, but I think here at home it cannot be. We must be happy with times like this. It is my understanding that I would never be allowed even this lunch, with Miss Aughton sitting over there, if we were in London. It might be ‘poor form’ in Boston, even, but thankfully we are not in those places. The rules of society are far less in ‘the colonies’ here. I do not often see someone ‘of society’ to worry about, either, although I might notice one of my acquaintances running about with a man alone, and wonder about her… But I have no one with whom I might gossip about her. I’m also a professional woman who deals with men; many questionable men, I might add, and on a regular basis. I have proven to my father that I am responsible and that I will insist that all these men will treat me with respect. I have ‘earned my gold buttons’, as they say. Having said that, I am still too well known here even to go off riding without an escort… Miss Aughton is an excellent rider, though. We could go…”