Page 65 of The Summer Country

“Ouch,” said Charles. “You needn’t pummel me into honesty. If I were making you pretty vows, I would do it in rhyme, at least. But this—this is true. Or hadn’t you realized that by now?”

“I— This is, what do they call it? Cupboard love.” Jenny yanked at her shift, pulling it back over her head. “It will fade in time.”

“Not for me.” Charles struggled up to a sitting position, propping his back against the headboard. “Does that scare you so? I’ll leave you be if that’s what you would like.”

“No.” Jenny moved to sit beside him, her skirts drifting around her as she took his face in her hands. “Don’t swear to anything you’ll regret later. This—this has been—”

“Yes?” Charles couldn’t help but smirk a little.

Jenny swatted him lightly on the shoulder. “You know what this has been. But anything more . . . You have your future to think of.”

“Is it so mad that I want my future to be with you?” Charles could feel himself weighing his words very carefully. Go lightly over rough country, his father always used to say, his father, who was so wrong about some things and so right about others. He looked at Jenny, at the familiar lines of her face, the curves of her lips, the tension in her shoulders. “They never loved who loved not at first sight, the poet says, but I never believed it. I still don’t. It’s not first sight that made me love you, but everything that came after. Getting to know you, getting to know your mind . . .”

“My mind?” repeated Jenny.

Charles wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted. “Yes, your mind. Your clever, wary, honest mind. You have a presence of mind I can only envy. If I had half your strength of character . . .”

“Yes?”

“I would tell the world be damned and ask you to run away with me.”

She had drawn into herself again, as she always did. She smiled down at him, amused and remote. “And be hunted as a felon? You would be, you know, for defrauding my mistress of her lawful property.”

“By Nature’s law, you’re no more her property than you are mine.”

Jenny touched his cheek, very lightly. “That may be, but it’s the council’s law that rules in Barbados, not Nature’s.”

Charles refused to be deterred. “Robert and Mary Anne seem well pleased with each other. When they return from their wedding journey . . .”

“Do you think Mary Anne would truly let me go?”

“I have high hopes for the honeymoon,” said Charles seriously. “No, don’t laugh at me. . . . Or do. I like to hear you laugh.”

“You might be right, at that.” Jenny looked up at him thoughtfully. “There’s a powerful attraction between them. I’ve seen the state of her linen when they come back from their walks.”

“Her linen? Oh. I’m not sure I want to know the details. But don’t you see? If they’re content—what need does Mary Anne have for you? You stood by her. You saved her life. But the threat is gone now. Almost gone,” he amended, as Jenny opened her mouth to protest. “As soon as the vows are said, your father will be away to Jamaica. Mary Anne will be married, mistress of her own house in truth. Would it be so strange for her to free you?”

“Not if you were to argue my case,” said Jenny, lifting her brows at him. She paused a moment, and then said, in a very different voice, “And if she were to do so?”

“Then you could come to Peverills and live with me and be my love. Not that you aren’t my love either way. You’re my love whether you live with me or not. But it would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Jenny.

Just that one word, yes. But Charles knew how much it cost her and how much it meant, and in the weeks that followed, the long weeks without Jenny, when Mary Anne and Robert swept off to Antigua on their wedding journey, and Jenny with them, he would remember that yes and hold it to him.

It was six weeks before Jenny returned from Antigua, six long weeks, in which Charles applied himself to his neglected duties, interviewed overseers, and attempted to make sense of the accounts Jonathan Fenty set before him.

Charles called at Beckles as soon as was permissible upon his brother’s return, and found Mary Anne in the great room, with Jenny behind her.

“Sister,” said Charles warmly, doing his best not to look past her, at Jenny. Something was wrong, he could tell. He could read it in the tension in Jenny’s shoulders, the closed expression on her face. He pressed a dutiful kiss to Mary Anne’s cheek. “Welcome home. You are well, I trust?”

Mary Anne disentangled herself from Charles’s embrace. Without preamble, she said, “Your brother has made my uncle a gift of my money.” Snapping her fingers, she said, “Jenny! See tea and cakes are brought for Master Charles.”

“Yes, Miss Mary Anne.” Jenny turned away without meeting Charles’s eyes.

“Did you have a pleasant journey?” Charles attempted. This was not at all how he had imagined this meeting.

“Oh, well enough,” said Mary Anne. Instead of sitting, she paced back and forth, forcing Charles, out of politeness, to stand as well. “Until your brother decided to make himself free of my money.”