Page 87 of The Summer Country

Jenny didn’t think Mary Anne would sell her child away from her—but Master Robert might. Especially if he knew or suspected it was his brother’s child.

There was the oil of oleander. She’d thought of that when she’d first missed her time, when she’d begun to feel the fullness in her chest, the weariness in her bones.

But then she’d thought of Charles and known she couldn’t. Last time, she’d had no qualms, but this child, their child . . .

Fool, she told herself. Sentimental fool.

But she couldn’t help picturing the child all the same. A little boy with her face and Charles’s mop of curls, holding a hoop and stick. She thought of that day in Bridgetown, the house Charles’s father had bought his lover, the little girl learning to play the pianoforte.

He’d find a way, he promised, and she believed he meant it. Her Charles, with his lawyer’s brain and his belief in the fundamental goodness of man. Jenny lifted her head, rubbing her aching temples. Well, she was cynic enough for both of them. Together . . . together they’d think of something, she promised the unknown creature in her stomach.

But when she met with Charles the following week, in the shadows behind the icehouse, his face told its own story.

“I spoke to Robert after the militia meeting,” he said, without preamble. “Don’t worry—I didn’t mention you by name. I just asked again whether there were any upper servants at Beckles who might make a likely housekeeper for Peverills.”

“And?” asked Jenny, although she already knew the answer.

Charles shook his head.

Jenny swallowed her disappointment, amazed at how much it hurt, this loss of something she’d never expected to have. “You knew he wouldn’t sell you a cat you wanted,” she said, trying to keep her voice matter-of-fact. “Not now.”

She could have cried for their own foolishness, for that ill-fated tryst where she’d been seen. But for that . . . No, she couldn’t think that way. There was no point in looking back, only forward.

In a low voice, Charles asked, “Was it selfish of me to refuse to wed Mary Anne? If I had . . . I might have freed you. You might be free now.”

“And chained yourself?” Jenny shook her head reluctantly. She knew him now, knew the workings of his conscience, so different from her own. He would torture himself over a scruple, break over the loss of an ideal. “You couldn’t have done so in honor. And—”

“Yes?” Charles’s feelings were written all over his face.

Jenny turned her own away, unable to bear it, to be so bare. What could she say? That if he’d married Mary Anne, they would never have had this? It scared her how much these moments meant to her, how she craved his company, his touch.

“There’s no point in sighing over what might have been. There’s only the road ahead.”

“So there is.” Charles squared his shoulders. “What about the Bolands? Robert doesn’t want to offend Boland. If Boland were to buy you for his wife . . . Perhaps she needs a maid.”

“She has one,” said Jenny, remembering Nanny Grigg, with her borrowed spool of thread and her English papers. She had liked Nanny Grigg, liked her instinctively.

“I could ask Boland to buy you as a favor. If I explained the situation . . .”

Jenny stiffened. “And if he told the master?”

“He seems like a good-hearted man.”

Jenny squeezed his hand, as if she could squeeze some sense into him. “He didn’t build up a shipping business by being good-hearted! Are you willing to stake our child’s well-being on seeming?”

“No.” Charles lifted her hand absently to his lips, toying with her fingers as he thought. He looked up, his eyes very blue. “We could go away together. You’d be free in London.”

“How?” asked Jenny skeptically. “If I were still your brother’s property . . .”

“That doesn’t matter. Lord Mansfield declared it years ago, in Somersett’s case. The air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe in.” Charles’s shoulders straightened, his chin lifted; Jenny could almost hear the trumpets playing. Sheepishly, Charles dropped his chin. “Well, Mansfield himself didn’t say it—the man who spoke for Somersett did—but it’s accepted as dictum all the same. And Mansfield himself decided it. As soon as Somersett set foot on English soil, he was set free, and not another enslaved man has remained in chains in England since.”

To be free. She stared at Charles, seeing her own wonder and delight mirrored in his face.

But only for a moment.

When something sounded too good to be true, Jenny knew, it generally was.

“Once we set foot in England, I would be free. But what of you?” She put a hand to his lips, forestalling his answer. “I would be free, but you would be branded a felon. Everything you had would be forfeit.”