Of Noble Family (21 page)

“I—no.” Jane's head was spinning from more than the effects of overheating. “I mean, yes. She has examined me.”

“Given that Jane is with child … what of the coldmonger? Or, coldmongers, rather. Is there danger that they will tell?”

Frank shook his head. “I am very particular about who I have serve in the house, for good reason. Dover is my cousin's son. And February has no reason to love Verbury or Pridmore. He lost the use of his legs in an explosion at the distillery and was then trained as a coldmonger.”

With a sigh, Vincent let his head drop. Jane felt the same relief. If Verbury did not know, then there was still hope that they might be able to leave. “Would you have the carriage take us to St. John's?”

“I deeply regret that I cannot. The circumstances that we faced at the beginning are unchanged. While my family is at risk, I am bound to obey Lord Verbury, or at least appear to. Taking you to St. John's would be remarked upon and reported to him. I trust that in the present circumstances, you understand my feelings on this matter.”

“So gather your family and go with us. Once we are in England, Richard will manumit them.”

“Forgive me, but I have heard similar promises of manumission from other Hamiltons.”

Vincent lifted his head. “I am not my father.”

“No. You are the man who offered to help my family and then ran away. Were you going to send for them when you reached the dock?”

A flush of anger lit Vincent's cheeks. Without his cravat, the tension in his jaw was all too obvious. Jane put a hand on his arm. “But even if Richard did not manumit them, once you were in England, your family would not be slaves any longer.”

Vincent looked as though he had tasted something bitter and shook his head. “The Somerset ruling.… It is widely misunderstood, and would not necessarily be upheld. The presiding judge confined himself only to the narrow question of whether a slave could be removed from England against his will. My professor made it very clear to us that abolitionists stretch the ruling when they claim the judge ruled that slavery was illegal in Britain. He did not. Slaves have been returned to their owners since then.”

Frank snorted. “I had forgotten that you studied law.”

“You may thank my father for that.” Vincent tilted his head, brows contracting. “You knew—you must have known that I was the wrong son when we arrived.”

“Yes.” The careful stillness that Frank had cultivated reminded Jane of Vincent in so many ways, but beyond a sensation that Frank was taking their measure, she could not guess what he was thinking.

“And yet you took me straight to him, without warning him. Why?”

Frank flashed a sudden and rare smile. “I have found that moments of surprise are greatly instructive.”

“And what did you learn?”

“That you were not involved in Lord Garland and Lord Verbury's plans.”

Jane rubbed her forehead, which still ached abominably. “I may simply be stupid because of the heat, but I cannot understand why we do not all take ship and go.”

Frank's smile vanished. “My mother is here, my sister, my wife, and I have five children besides Louisa. And then what of my children's families? Do I leave my eldest daughter's husband behind? Or his parents? And of course there are grandchildren. Jove would also suffer if he drove us to the docks. Where would you acquire papers to transport so many Negroes to England without question? And if only I left, in the months it would take us to sail to England and back, Lord Verbury could have Mr. Pridmore sell my entire family.” He sat forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees. “Here, I am in a position to do some good. With a different overseer, it would be possible to have the plantation be profitable and humane.”

“What can Lord Verbury do, confined to his rooms as he is?”

Frank and Vincent shared a look as though they had carried on this very discussion already. Frank said, “He has Mr. Pridmore and Sir Ronald to help him. One controls the slaves on the estate, the other has the support of the navy. Between the two of them, they would have no difficulties stopping any of us.”

Jane shook her head. “He cannot have all the officers. You said that there were forty British forts surrounding Antigua.”

“But imagine what happens if you march up to an officer, say that Lord Verbury is still alive, demand his arrest, and then it turns out to be an officer he owns.”

Frowning, Vincent rubbed his hair into a mess. “Even if he went to prison, my father would still have the ability to make decisions for the estate while the treason charges were impending. It would tie up the estate, because Richard would no longer be the earl, which would effectually remove what authority I have.”

“Yes. It is one of the many complications—” The carriage slowed to a stop in the middle of the orange grove. “Ah. Here we are.”

Vincent peered out the window and frowned. “The glamour has been untied.”

Jane pushed herself up a little so she could see past him to where they had left Louisa. She could not tell if the glamour was present or not, but she could see the untied ropes on the ground. Louisa was gone.

Frank sighed heavily. “Well … I think we can safely assume that Lord Verbury knows you are attempting to leave the island, and likely that you are with child.”

Jane said, “We told her she would be safest if she gave him some information about our plans.”

“True.” He straightened the cuffs of his shirt. “Though she would have told him regardless. Louisa, I am afraid, is not entirely faithworthy.”

“But she is your daughter.”

“And Mr. Hamilton is Lord Verbury's son.” Frank gave a thin smile. “I love my daughter, but she and I do not have an easy relationship. I am required to be a figure of authority both at home and at work, while Lord Verbury has always been kind to her.”

“I do not call it kind to threaten to give her to Mr. Pridmore.”

“She does not know that Lord Verbury has so threatened. Telling her would frighten her without helping her in any way. I cannot do that.” Frank spread his hands and looked inexpressibly sad. “You should know … you should know that when she was sixteen, Pridmore was … paying her attentions. I could not do anything. Lord Verbury made him stop. Louisa … did not understand the difference between ‘could not' and ‘would not,' and has resented me since then. And his lordship … well, she has been a useful instrument for him ever since.”

 

Fifteen

A Choice of Doctors

It took such a short time to drive back to the great house that Jane realised exactly how little ground they had covered in their walk. Far from being a four-hour walk, it likely would have taken them six to reach St. John's at the pace she could manage. Assuming she had not overheated, of course. As the carriage rolled to a stop, Louisa came out the front door and stood at the top of the stairs. She wore a different dress than she had earlier, but seemed none the worse for wear from her brief imprisonment. That gave Jane a measure of relief. She had worried about the young woman.

Jane tucked her fichu back into place around her neck. “If I may take your arm, Vincent, I should be able to walk into the house. I would prefer not to be carried.”

“If you should feel faint—”

“I will tell you.”

After he handed her down from the carriage, Vincent kept her hand upon his arm, and walked very slowly. Though Jane dearly wished to insist that she was well, he had correctly judged the pace.

Ahead of them, Frank climbed the stairs two at a time. “Louisa, tell Cook to send an ice to Mrs. Hamilton's room, and—”

“Lord Verbury has sent me to invite Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton to take tea with him.”

Frank stopped, halfway up the stairs. It was difficult to tell if he were more surprised that she had interrupted him, or by the message. “Please tell his lordship that Mrs. Hamilton is not well.” He glanced back at Vincent.

Vincent's arm tightened under Jane's hand. “I will attend him after I see Mrs. Hamilton settled in our room.”

“He was most particular.” Louisa waited, her chin tilted up.

Another day, Jane would have been willing to face him, but it was all she could do to climb the stairs with Vincent supporting her. It was not a question of keeping her secret any longer, but simply of remaining upright. “I must send my apologies. I truly am unwell.”

“Yes. I imagine the heat must have affected you severely without a parasol. We must not let that happen again.” The confidence in Louisa's voice and stance did little to reassure Jane. The fear that the maid had shown earlier had been replaced by a familiar bitterness.

She could think of nothing to say to counter the young woman, and that, in itself, was reason enough to avoid Lord Verbury. Jane's mind turned too slowly to be of any real use.

“Louisa.” Frank glowered at his daughter. “Has the doctor arrived?”

“I settled Sir Ronald in the white parlour to await Mrs. Hamilton.”

The chill that Jane felt had little to do with entering the cool air of the long gallery. The idea of being attended by Lord Verbury's surgeon gave her no comfort. “Thank you, but I have a doctor who is already familiar with my history. I would prefer to be attended by her.”

Footsteps sounded, then, on the polished wood of the gallery. Jane turned to look towards the parlour, from which a white man with thinning grey hair strode towards them. He wore a naval uniform, all polished buttons and sharp corners. “Doctor? I presume you are speaking of the negro Jones. She is no more a doctor than my hound.”

“Sir. You overstep yourself.” Vincent turned Jane away from him. “Frank, please send for my wife's preferred physician.”

“Are you really going to trust your wife's health to someone without training?”

Vincent's stride faltered. Jane gripped his arm and murmured, “Not him.”

He gave the slightest of nods and continued down the gallery.

“Well, I tried. Let it be on your head if her health suffers.”

The floor creaked, accompanied by a slight squeak of a metal rubbing against metal. “Vincent? Jane. Please wait.”

At the sound of Lord Verbury's voice, the tension in Vincent's figure changed. His posture remained absolutely the same, but it hardened, as though he were keeping himself from running by sheer force of will.

“Please—please do not let your anger at me stop you from making use of Sir Ronald. I owe my life to his care, and can vouch for his skills. Please … at least speak with him.” The tremor in Lord Verbury's voice seemed remarkable, even to Jane.

Vincent came to a halt, head erect and staring straight ahead. The blue parlour lay not ten feet in front of them. Nothing on his face showed that he was aware of what he was seeing.

From behind them again, that voice. “I am sorry. I do not expect either of you to accept my apology, but I beg you not to let the lines between us put Jane's health at risk.”

A tremor ran through Vincent's features, and he squeezed his eyes closed. The disturbance smoothed, leaving his face composed again. “Apology? Beg? These are novel words.” If he had spoken so coolly on the road, Jane would not have needed a coldmonger.

A ragged chuckle sounded behind them. “I know. I am sorry for that as well. The loss of Garland was an unexpected blow, and I have been behaving badly.”

“I think your behaviour precedes my brother's death.”

“It does, which is why I do not expect you to accept my apology. I do not think I can atone for what I put you through with the coldmongers or as a child. I have no right to expect you to trust me, but my physician…” His voice trailed away. “Roll me closer, please. It is difficult to speak so loudly.”

Jane looked back, then. Lord Verbury sat in a wheeled chair, wrapped in a blanket in spite of the heat outside. A tall, stately woman stood behind him, pushing his chair. One could not call her elderly, though her hair was white through, but her clear brown skin had little in the way of lines around the eyes, and her carriage gave an elegant grace to her bearing. She wore a simple white gown, topped with a dress of black net, which was ornamented with embroidery at hem and neck. A cloud of lace formed her fichu and perfectly framed the column of her neck. As she pushed Lord Verbury forward, her gaze darted briefly to Frank, who met it with a slight contraction of his brows. Seeing the three of them together, the resemblance was unmistakable. Her features accounted for those parts of his face that were not from the Hamilton line.

Vincent was still facing the blue parlour, eyes shut. His breath was fast and shallow, but nothing in his posture indicated that he felt any emotion at all.

“That is close enough, Sarah. I do not want to alarm them.” Lord Verbury's chair came to a stop just past the front door. Sir Ronald, Louisa, and Frank remained behind, strange stage dressing to this tableau. “Vincent, I am beyond grateful to you for coming here to run the estate. Even though you thought I was dead, it was still generous. That you have remained was unexpected.”

“You threatened to have us killed if we left.” Vincent opened his eyes and dropped his chin into his cravat—black, to mourn a man who was not dead. He turned to face his father, shifting Jane's hand to his other arm. His free hand, he tucked behind his back, the fist tightly clenched. “I trust you will understand why I have difficulty accepting your apology as sincere.”

Lord Verbury looked out the window. “I do. Lord help me, but I do.” He reached up with his good hand, and Sarah placed her hand in his. He squeezed it with surprising tenderness. “After the stroke … there was a long period in which I could not speak. It was … difficult, but gave me much time for reflection. Sarah stayed by my bed and prayed, which I will admit enraged me at first, but … but her thoughts and prayers have been deeply persuasive.”