Page 64 of The Summer Country

“But I thought . . . your grandmother said . . .” What had they said really? That Peverills had belonged to the Davenant family? “What about those portraits in the great room with the pictures of Peverills and Beckles?”

“Ah yes. Those. I suppose you might say that was wishful thinking on my grandfather’s part. Or flattery on the part of the painter. My grandfather, he was the younger brother.”

This was not at all what she had been led to believe.

“Then Peverills . . .” Emily looked inquisitively at George.

“Peverills belonged to my uncle Charles. He was the one who held it—and he was the one who sold it.”

Chapter Fourteen

Christ Church, Barbados

Autumn 1812

Robert Davenant and Mary Anne Beckles were married on a rainy afternoon in October.

The groom wore his militia uniform. The bride wore all her diamonds, cramming them onto her fingers and into her hair, as if to shout to society what they might have had and what they had lost. Beneath the blaze of jewels and the shimmer of silver-spangled gauze over silk, one could scarcely see the bride herself on her uncle’s arm.

Standing up in front by his brother, Charles knew the gossips were watching him, searching for signs that he minded his brother snatching the heiress out from under his nose, and could imagine what they would say, that he was putting up a good front.

But it wasn’t a front, not at all. As the colonel placed Mary Anne’s hand in Robert’s, Charles wanted to pump every man in the room by the hand, clap his brother on the back, hug his new sister. This was going to be the making of Robert, he was sure. Mary Anne was freed of the threat that hung over her, and Charles . . .

He didn’t dare look at the back of the room, to where Jenny stood with the other upper servants. To do so, he knew, would be to betray himself. The sight of her made him light like a Roman candle, blazing with joy.

They met sometimes in the Old Mill, at other times in the unused overseer’s house at Peverills. Charles would need, he knew, to hire a proper overseer to take Robert’s place now that Robert was gone to Beckles, but in the meantime the overseer’s house sat empty, a perfect place for a tryst. Robert and Mary Anne’s courtship had afforded plentiful opportunities; as the courting couple strolled in the gardens at Peverills, Mary Anne had sent her maid away, leaving her free to steal an hour here, an hour there.

Charles longed to bring Jenny gifts, to write her poetry, but anything he gave might be discovered. So he gathered flowers from the fields, bringing her posies of hibiscus and peacock flowers, frangipani and bird-of-paradise. But never oleander. He remembered her distaste for it as he remembered everything she told him, every preference she voiced or, more commonly, indicated with only the slightest gesture.

They walked together, well away from the house and the fields, choosing those rare bits of wilderness where they knew they might not be seen—might being the heart of it. He found himself rediscovering the forgotten haunts of his childhood, the caves and gullies in which he had played, so beautiful in memory, even more beautiful now, like another Eden in which they were the only man and the only woman.

But they weren’t. There was, inevitably, the moment of parting, when Jenny would disappear again behind her mistress and Charles return to his books.

Charles began to daydream of a world where they might walk together openly. And why not? Once Mary Anne was safely married, once they came back from their wedding trip, why wouldn’t Mary Anne be willing to part with her old servant? She would be a married woman, in charge of her own household.

“And what will you do then?” Jenny mocked, when Charles shared his thoughts one afternoon as they lay together in the overseer’s house, in a proper bed for once. It was a risk, but Mary Anne was riding with Robert and would, they knew, be some time. “Will you buy me a house in Bridgetown and a pianoforte to play?”

“Would you like a house in Bridgetown?” Charles asked seriously. “I would find a way to buy you one if that was what you wanted, although I would much liefer keep you at Peverills with me.”

Jenny raised herself up on one arm, looking down into his face. “As your housekeeper?”

“If you want to call it that.” Charles looked up at her, into her eyes, knowing he sounded a fool, but not wanting to lie to her, even by omission. Very quietly, he said, “There are no laws prohibiting our marriage.”

Jenny lay back down, resting her head on his chest. “Only because no one has attempted it.”

She was right, he knew. It might not be explicitly prohibited by law, but that was only because everyone had, so far, obeyed the unspoken rules. What minister would marry them? And if one did, what would the council do in response? He would find himself embroiled in a prolonged legal wrangle, and Charles was lawyer enough to know the toll that would take, not just on him and Jenny, but on everyone connected to them.

“Fair enough,” admitted Charles with a sigh. He stroked her dark hair, the texture and length of it familiar beneath his fingers. “We wouldn’t be the first to live together as man and wife without benefit of clergy. When George Ricketts was governor, when I was a child, he had a colored mistress who lived with him at Pilgrim and acted in almost all ways as his wife.”

Jenny stirred against his chest. “Almost all?”

“She wasn’t permitted to preside at his table.” There had been a scandal, he recalled. The governor’s mistress had overstepped her place. Ricketts had been reprimanded, perhaps recalled. Perhaps it hadn’t been the best example. Charles shifted, settling Jenny more firmly into the crook of his arm. “But I’m not the governor of Barbados. I’m just a private citizen, free to love as I please.”

“Don’t you mean free to live as you please?” The words were casual but he could feel the tension in her body as she lifted her head to look at him.

“No,” said Charles. “Love.”

Jenny sat up abruptly, driving an elbow into his chest in her haste. “You needn’t make me any pretty vows.”