The Chocolatier's Wife Read online

  His father slammed both hands on the table. “Do you really think that people will want to buy food from one of them? A woman from the North?”

  “It’s chocolate,” he said firmly. “I think it will do very well.”

  He left only when he was certain that his parents would be alive the next time he saw them. He did not always particularly like his parents, especially his father, with whom he had slammed heads too many times over the years to ever truly feel comfortable, but he did not—despite his mother’s assertions—wish to be the death of him.

  The Almsley property held two houses: a master house, where the head of the business lived and ruled the shipping company with an iron hand; and a smaller house, where the heir to the fortunes and his wife lived. He went past the smaller cottage, all stone and gingerbread, and wondered what Tasmin would make of his choice.

  Ah, well, he thought, avoiding contemplating that subject too deeply, the die is cast.

  He avoided his brother by the simple expedient of seeing before being seen, turning off into an alley to take the short way to the shop as the younger man came rushing up the street with his limping gait. Of course Andrew must have been summoned, doubtless to be told all about the stupidity of his older sibling and the new things his future held. It would be good for Andrew, William thought, for it was a far better life than hunching over account books and comparing manifests.

  William’s shop was part of a neat row of stores on the main market street. Old sailcloth had been hung inside the large display windows that flanked the main door to keep prying eyes from peering in before the he was ready to declare the place open. The iron arm that would hold the shop sign hung bare, which it would until he finally announced the name of it to the world. For now, he called it a chocolatier if he needed anything descriptive beyond shop.

  Inside, it was filthy. Once upon a time it had been a bakery, until the local butcher found his wife and the baker (here William paused to think of several suitable and quite scandalous puns involving mating and baking) in an improper circumstance, and murdered them both. He confessed to the crime immediately, and how could he not, covered as he was by blood, and sugar, and flour? No one wanted to take the place over for some time, and then it was bought a few years ago, but never used. Since he’d never met the previous owner, he didn’t know why it was bought; only that it was abandoned until another man—this time William himself—was foolish enough to lay money down for it.

  The afternoon sun pushed its way through the sailcloth and painted everything a gray-toned gold, outlining dust-limned counters and display racks in muddy shadows. It was severely depressing, and any thought of begging Tasmin to come and help him right the place was banished. Remember, ‘twas cheap, especially for the district—a steal—and you were lucky to get it. Part of him did not wish to dismay her further than she would be when she heard the news; part of him liked the idea of carrying her across the threshold of the shop on the day of their wedding, presenting the future he was providing for them like a polished jewel.

  The door opened, and he turned. Cecelia stepped into the shop, her pretty face falling slack with horror.

  “You should not be here, my dear. The neighbors will not be very charitable.” Indeed, the fact he had hired the pretty young widow of one of his former crew members had caused a bit of a stir, and while he didn’t care what they thought, he was afraid Tasmin would, and that was something he did care about.

  “That poor, poor woman. She will take one look at this and run for her life and I will be helping her. Iyei! God in his heaven! What have you done?”

  He ignored her, thinking about the many things that must be accomplished. He wanted to open his shop in six months. “You know what this place needs?”

  “A huge fire, after which you can begin all over again?”

  "Sailors." He smiled as if he'd finally found the cure for all of his troubles. "No one knows how to clean like a sailor. We shall have the tile up and replaced with a nice, rich wood deck, the counters repaired and repainted. Yes. 'Tis the best answer."

  Chapter 4

  Setemerio 23rd, Scarlet Moon Qtr. 1786

  Dear Tasmin,

  I am very pleased that you have asked this of me; please find enclosed all of the buttons from my jacket. If it would protect you, I would send you my shoe buckles and even my sword as well, for the hilt is partly of brass.

  You are quite right, that it seems as if my ship is too well armed for its duty, but pirates infest the waters worse than ever, and a ship must be able to defend its men and cargo from the ruffians.

  In fact, the growth of piracy has deprived me of a great deal of good men, not by the sword, but either by impressment to a Royal Navy vessel or by the scallywags being drawn off by promises of rich prize money. I lost five men just this morning to Commodore Lavoussier. You’ve doubtless heard of him, the terror of the seas, a darling of the people if not so much the Admiralty. Watching him pick over my sailors as if he were at market has not made me care for him much, especially since there is naught I can do about the situation. I do not wish to see the inside of a prison.

  Forgive me for wasting your time with such nonsense. I shall close now, and hope I am in a better frame of mind on the morrow when we reach T’lecka port. In any case I wish to say that I am very proud of your accomplishments. I have asked about the traditions of your people and gather that you have done extremely well indeed, and know you will continue to do so.

  Yours,

  William

  The young woman stood gracefully when called and named all herbs and flowers associated with memory. She said them in a sweet, clear voice, and then stared at her teacher, waiting.

  The teacher tapped a stylus on the table and arched an eyebrow, clearly stating that she was not impressed.

  The young woman swallowed. “Did I miss one?”

  Tasmin Bey placed her stylus aside, folded her hands, and looked at the young woman very firmly.

  “I think that you will find, if you turn to page 325 in your book on magical herbs and flowers, that you have recited the wrong list. In the future, Miss Hollins, I believe you should consider pouring more of your efforts into your studies, rather than in love potions.” This was greeted by laughter, and she glared at them all. “None of you are perfect, so I will thank you to stop laughing. Miss Elsbin, I would like you to list the herbs that are said to prove against sea sickness, if you please.”

  She listened as the next girl rose and recited the list. As one of the youngest members of the university, her task was to teach students basic herbal lore, stone lore, and craft. The meanings of flowers and of stones were her particular specialty, and every morning she taught four groups of students at varying degrees of difficulty. Some of the students were wonderful. They didn’t just memorize; they understood. Most were merely adequate; they only learned what they could apply. Some of them used what she taught them as a sort of sneaky shorthand language—which annoyed her further because surely they understood the correlation between the fact that she taught them what it meant and the fact that she knew what it meant.

  “Mister Hibbs, since you seem determined to talk during class, perhaps you will be so kind as to recite those herbs that cause silence?”

  No wonder I have such a headache. How ever am I to work on my own studies when this lot wears me down so?

  But still, when she had sent the last group off to lunch, after which they would have laboratory sessions and study time, she went directly to her own study in the library. She kept a cache of fruit and nuts there, so that she would not have to socialize with other faculty during lunch. It was not that she did not enjoy talking to others, she rather liked many people, but she wanted to concentrate on her work. She drank water with a little wintergreen in it for her head, and then picked up a light stone to augment the muddy daylight. She knocked the light stone on the desk to get it to work, placed it in
its bracket, and began to take notes. She was doing work on protection amulets. Sometimes amulets could grow unstable, even do the opposite of what they were supposed to, and she was trying to find quick and efficient ways of breaking them, so that even those without the right talent could disable them.

  Her headache did not go away, and so she eventually threw her notes into her satchel and trudged home in the late afternoon light, thinking only of soup and a good night’s sleep. As she walked she hummed a summons, letting the wind sprites know she was heading home.

  At the house she walked up steps held together with twisted vine. In the spring the leaves would come back, and the vines that held the treads and the handrail would blossom. The door was quite plain next to that, but as she opened it she felt a small lift. Coming home always felt so good.

  “This is wonderful news! I could not possibly be more pleased. Alica, please break out the marzipan; we must celebrate.” Tasmin heard her mother’s voice, upraised in happiness. She put her things down and peeked into the parlor, curious. Later, she would wish she’d slipped on up to her room.

  “Tasmin, sweetheart!” Her mother waved a letter at her. “Come in! We have news!” Tasmin smiled at the gathering and walked into the parlor. Her uncle and her father had been drinking port, their faces glowing for joy and drink. Her mother needed no drink, her excitement far outstripped theirs.

  “What is it? Don’t keep me in suspense.” Pity that it could not be the letter she’d been hoping for since she’d turned eighteen, of William sending for her at last, for doubtless everyone would be decked out in funeral garb and singing dirges.

  Her mother handed her the letter. Tasmin skimmed—it looked to be written by the Azin Shore Wise Woman—until she got to the important part.

  We now come to the reason for this letter. It brings me great sorrow to inform you that William of the House of Almsley, intended to your daughter, has been arrested and charged with the murder of Bishop Kingsley. They suspect that he sent the man poisoned chocolates, and my understanding is that the evidence is quite indisputable. As a woman of honor, your daughter is permitted to be spared the infamy of further acquaintance with William Almsley, and is freed of her obligation. If indeed he is proved innocent of the accusation, he and his family may speak to you about renewing the agreement, but as the aggrieved party you no longer need allow Tasmin to wed him.

  “Arrested for murder!” her uncle burst out. “I told you they were all barbarians.”

  Tasmin waved the letter at them. “And how is this good news?”

  “Why, my dear,” her father broke in, “You can stay on as a teacher until such a time as Mistress Alcide decides to step down from the inner circle. Your future is secured.”

  “You are exempt from marriage! You cannot possibly marry a murderer!” Her mother was positively bursting to leap up and dance.

  Tasmin licked her lips, feeling a bit overwhelmed. “Well.” She swallowed, her hands knotting together as she tried to gather her thoughts. “I need to go upstairs for a moment. Pray, excuse me.”

  Her room was mostly decorated by William’s travels. She had a quilt on her bed that was made from the cloth he had used to wrap her presents. The first present, a doll, her face cracked from an accident involving falling books, sat on top of pillows that had come from the lavender fields of Elia. There were tomb rubbings, tapestries, little decorated boxes and bottles, preserved samples of flora, carved bits of stone and wood and ivory. She let out a pent-up sigh.

  Oh, William.

  She stumbled over to the rocking chair by the window, barely remembering to let the wind sprites in.

  They tumbled through the open window, spinning around her, but she did not note their capering, even when they slammed the window shut.

  They sensed her feelings and retreated, reacting to her moods as they always did, this time by settling into silence.

  She sat quite still and thought.

  The sun went down, people knocked quietly at her door and went away unanswered; the street lights and house lights went out one by one. Still, she sat, unseeing, unmoving.

  Murder. Funny, how the idea of one’s future husband killing someone made headaches go away. It was not that she could not conceive that he was a killer; anyone who read the shipping information at the back of the newspaper, listing, among other things, the manifests of pirate ships that had been taken and destroyed, would know William was quite capable of killing. But, she reasoned, that was hot blooded killing, it was not murder. Poisoning someone with chocolate required coldness and cunning.

  She moved at last, only enough to take her hair down. She stared at the pins in her hands. No. She could not believe that William was capable of cunning. He was smart, aye. But practical smart. Not without imagination, of course, you could not accuse a man who wanted to make chocolates of a lack of imagination, but he was also not the sort of man to go around blithely killing people with the very product he hoped to sell. She could not believe it.

  After a while, the surprise wearing off, she tried to imagine the two paths her life might take. She thought of being at the university. She had trained there, and so she had friends as well as colleagues among the staff. Eventually she would have the seniority to teach only the advanced students, perhaps even ascend to the Circle, as her mother hoped. A life of teaching and learning how to use herbs, divining the secret meanings hidden in the wind, the rain, and the veins of leaves was hers. She was no master wizard, but she was very, very good, and she knew her life was mapped out for her here, a scholarly life of respect and decent wages and wanting for nothing. It was, clearly, a good life, which was why her family wanted it for her.

  Then there was William. She tried to imagine him, blurry in her mind, by her side. A life of children, shop-keeping. It did not seem as glamorous or interesting, though she trusted she would be able to continue her studies and believed that William would provide for her, but her fame would be as his wife alone. No one would remember her save their children. Still, it was not without its appeal, the idea of having someone who was all yours, someone to curl up against in the winter. It was harder to imagine the future, here, for she knew so little in comparison. The unknown could hold pain as well as joy.

  She sighed, and went to bed, in a restless attempt at sleep for what remained of the night.

  When she came down the next day she had two cases in her hands, and she was wearing her best traveling clothes. Her family looked up at her from their breakfast, as she put the heavier of the two down, her hands switching the other bag back and forth, nervous and moist on the hard, wooden handle. “You see,” she said by way of good-morning-and-here’s- my-explanation, “the problem is that I rather like him.”

  Chapter 5

  Marco First,

  Pale Moon Quarter 1787

  Dear William,

  As for my own family, there is not much that I can tell. There are my parents, my father is a baker and my mother is a midwife. I suppose that is why I’ve always been so interested in herbs and food-magic, because they have been so central to my life.

  My uncle on my father’s side owns half the bakery. He creates the pretty things, and has a delicate hand with the marzipans and the roses. My aunt, on my mother’s side, is a traveling elementalist. I shall be apprenticed to her this spring, and you may not hear from me for a few months, so if my replies are late, I beg your indulgence in the matter. She wishes to see if I have any of the other talents that run in our blood, I suppose, so it will be a good experience for me. You should not be the only one who gets to travel...

  Yours, eventually,

  Tasmin

  “So, it couldn’t have been anything you accidentally spilled into the pot?” Andrew hazarded , pulling over an empty keg on which to sit. There were no chairs; people who visited murderers were not encouraged to be comfortable.

  William gritted his teeth and reminded himse
lf that Andrew was trying very hard to play the role that William had given him, that of the responsible brother and future head of the family.

  “No, as I told you, I saw the poisoned chocolates, and they are like nothing I would ever sell and expect to keep my business.”

  “Are you sure?” Andrew asked, chewing the quill he had brought to take notes with.

  “For God’s sake, I’ve only been open for a week, ‘tis not like it’s hard to remember.”

  His brother winced and pretended to write something in the old log book he was using for notes.

  “Forgive me, pray,” William said quietly. “I am merely overwhelmed by my circumstances. My business is going to be a shambles by the time I get back to it. I don’t know how I shall ever recover.”

  “Oh!” Andrew perked up a little. “Do not worry about that another moment. Father and I have decided that you shall go out to sea again. You were awfully good at finding things and bargaining for them,” he added, a bit wistfully. “I could never do half so well as you. There was nothing you could not find, no wish you could not fulfill. That takes talent. And by the time you come home again, this will all be forgotten.” He paused, sighed. “That is, if we can get you out of jail at all.”

  William felt annoyed, perhaps irrationally, with his family, but managed to hide it. “I am grateful to you and father, but I have no wish to return to the sea. I have my own life.” He came back over to the bars. “And you will do fine, if you have just a little more confidence in yourself. No one knows numbers half so well as you do, and that’s all bargaining is, knowing the numbers.” Well, and understanding people, but he thought that his brother would learn that in time.

  Andrew shrugged doubtfully and William realized he wasn’t thinking about it because he didn’t think he would ever have to face it.