Page 13 of The Summer Country

“But—” Emily bit her tongue before she could commit another faux pas. But it was too late. A sardonic smile spread across Dr. Braithwaite’s face.

“Like many of the worthy merchants of Bridgetown, my uncle was a proponent of emancipation only for his own relations, not for those who worked for him. Many of them signed a petition to the council, urging against emancipation—not that you’ll find many who will admit to that now.”

“But to enslave one’s own people . . .”

“Is it more horrific than enslaving someone else’s? Should my uncle be subject to sterner censure than the man who owned this estate? Or, for that matter, than those who traded in sugar, knowing whence it came?”

Dr. Braithwaite’s curt tone left Emily floundering for an argument. Useless to tell him that their household had gone without sugar for a fortnight as part of her father’s symbolic rejection of the slave system. It sounded as paltry as it was. Particularly when there was no denying that her grandfather’s wealth, the wealth that had paid for her schooling, for the clothes on her back, for the plantation lying in blackened ruins in front of her, had been built on sugar. He hadn’t grown it, but he had traded in it and made a fortune doing so.

Looking away, over the ruins of the plantation, she said, in a constrained voice, “It is strange the people who lived here didn’t rebuild.”

“Is it so strange?” Dr. Braithwaite didn’t press the topic. Presumably, thought Emily, digging her toes into the rubble, because he knew that he had won. “Sugar planters were in a bad way forty years ago. They had better things to do than shore up houses that never made sense here anyway.”

“Yes, but it seems strange not to have cleared away the rubble and done something with the bit that still stood. It seems a waste. And what of the fields? Why just leave it all? And don’t,” she added vehemently, “tell me it’s all the fault of ghosts!”

Dr. Braithwaite was spared responding by a shout, underscored by the sound of hoofbeats.

“Ho, there!”

A man spurred his horse forward through what once must have been gardens, waving his hat in their general direction. The sun struck gold and bronze off his hair. He swung off his horse, striding forward toward them. His face was flushed with exertion and emotion.

“Apologies, madam, but this is private property. It’s not safe. I’m afraid you and your guide—”

“I know it’s private property,” interrupted Emily, and thought she saw a spark of amusement in Dr. Braithwaite’s dark eyes. “Dr. Braithwaite was merely—”

“Doctor? Braithwaite?” The man squinted at Dr. Braithwaite, holding up a hand to shield his eyes against the sun. “Nat! Is that you? I scarcely knew you in that getup. And that mustache.”

“You look well too,” retorted Dr. Braithwaite.

The other man choked on a laugh. “Is that your professional opinion?” With a dimple in his cheek and the color fading from his face, Emily could see that he was younger than she had originally supposed, close to Adam’s age, or her own.

Bowing to the inevitable, Dr. Braithwaite said, “Miss Dawson, may I present to you Mr. George Davenant?”

Mr. Davenant bowed over Emily’s hand. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Dawson.”

Emily looked from one man to the other, Mr. Davenant smiling, Dr. Braithwaite not. “I take it that you are acquainted?”

“We played together as boys,” said Mr. Davenant easily, his cheeks creasing at the memory. “Some of the things we got up to—”

“Dares, for instance?” said Emily, watching the doctor’s face.

Mr. Davenant grinned. “Among other things.”

Dr. Braithwaite was not inclined to elaborate. “That was a long time ago.”

“Before you went off to—Edinburgh, was it?” said Mr. Davenant.

“Among other places.”

“I’d heard you’d returned.” Mr. Davenant turned to Emily, so determinedly cheerful that Emily wondered if she’d imagined the note of reproach in his voice. “I hope you’ll forgive me for my rudeness just now, Miss . . .”

“Dawson,” provided Emily.

“Miss Dawson.” Mr. Davenant smiled winningly at her. “We’ve had some trouble with trespassers. With the house sitting empty . . .”

“Trespassers?” said Emily, wondering, for a moment, if they’d got the wrong place. Perhaps this ruined shell was someone else’s, and down the road they’d find the white painted villa of her imagining, humbler but more welcoming.

“You’re the trespasser,” said Dr. Braithwaite amiably. “Peverills belongs to Miss Dawson.”