Page 9 of The Summer Country

“We’d best hope for a bout of cholera,” said Jenny, only half joking. “It will take too long for the pox to do him in.”

“Uncle John has the luck of the devil. He’ll never fall ill. The only way I’ll ever be free of him is to marry.” Mary Anne leaned her head back, her eyes half closing under the soothing pressure of the brush. “They say Peverills is in a bad way. He’ll need money.”

Jenny didn’t need to ask who “he” was. There was only one “he” at the moment. Charles Davenant, newly come from England. From the moment she’d heard Davenant was returning, Mary Anne had begun weaving her schemes, with a cunning borne of desperation. And, perhaps, a bit of pique.

There had been a time when Robert Davenant had come calling, a time before the colonel had cultivated the younger Mr. Davenant, encouraged him to join the militia, made him his drinking companion. Whether Robert Davenant had been paying court to her mistress or to her fortune, Jenny didn’t know. But she did know that the cessation of his attentions had hurt Mary Anne more than she would ever say. To marry the older brother, to show the younger just what he had missed, would be a fine revenge. If Charles Davenant rose to the lure.

“He might borrow the money.” Jenny kept up her gentle brushing. It was her role to play devil’s advocate. So long as she knew when to stop. Mary Anne liked to be challenged only so far.

“Why borrow it when you can marry it? Our estates run side by side. He’d be a fool to look elsewhere.”

“Men aren’t best known for sense.”

“He can be the biggest dolt in all Christendom so long as he gets me away from my uncle.”

“He didn’t seem a dolt.” Jenny had been there, at supper, standing just outside the arch to the great room. Mary Anne liked to keep her close, for comfort. Davenant had been uncomfortable, yes, visibly so, but there was a measured tone to his voice, a thoughtful way about him, even deep in his cups.

But, as Mary Anne said, all men seemed pleasant enough. At first.

Mary Anne spoke into the silence. “I have to get to him before my uncle does.”

Jenny set down the brush. “Push too hard and he’ll think you really are mad.”

“There are times when I wonder if I might be.” Mary Anne sounded a decade older than her nineteen years. And well she might. The last five years, they had both lived like soldiers on campaign, constantly on guard against the next threat. The fact that it was Mary Anne’s own house, her own land, only made it worse. She might be mistress, but her uncle was her guardian, and there was little she could do in her own defense, at least, not without confirming that she was as mad as her uncle implied.

And Jenny was only so safe as her mistress could keep her.

“You’re not mad. Or if you’re mad, then so are we all.” Jenny divided Mary Anne’s hair into three, weaving the heavy mass into one long plait. “Mr. Davenant seems a reasonable man. He didn’t much like Master John, that much was clear.”

That was putting it mildly. Jenny hadn’t missed the way he had recoiled when Master John had offered Jenny to him.

A chill worked its way down Jenny’s spine. What about next time? What if the next man didn’t refuse? Her fingers turned cold at the thought; she could feel them prickling.

It was getting worse. Little reprisals, small cruelties. But they were mounting, day by day. And Jenny had no doubt that Master John had larger plans in hand.

“No, Mr. Davenant didn’t seem taken in by Uncle John, did he?” Lost in her own reflections, Mary Anne didn’t notice Jenny’s abstraction. “We might be able to find our way free yet.”

You, Jenny thought. You might be able to find your way free.

They’d been through so much together, she and Mary Anne, bound together closer than blood. She was, Jenny knew, privy to Mary Anne’s every thought, every concern. But she was still her property. And she couldn’t imagine that Mary Anne would give her up, not now, not while Mary Anne was still in this house, in her uncle’s power.

Slaves disappeared all the time, losing themselves in Oistins, in Bridgetown, hiding with family members on other estates. But Jenny had no family to run to. Her people, whoever they were, were on Jamaica, lost to her before she was old enough to remember them. Her only family, such as it was, was in this house, in front of her.

Her cousin, who was also her mistress.

Her father. Who had just offered her to a strange man as if she were a Bridgetown doxy, for sale for a shilling.

But why should that surprise her? She’d always been a tool to her father, nothing more. The fact that she shared his blood was purely incidental. Except, of course, when he wanted something of her.

Mary Anne’s braid was starting to unravel.

“One day at a time,” said Jenny, and twisted a ribbon neatly around the tail of her mistress’s braid. She smiled calmly into those gray eyes that were so much like her own. “You’ll need your sleep if you’re to charm Mr. Davenant in the morning.”

Chapter Three

Christ Church, Barbados

February 1854