For Her Love (8 page)

“In the way of what?” she asked Edmund, her voice deceptively sweet.

“She is about to break, I sense it. She will accept this one.”

Iolanthe shrugged. “You indulge her too much. My father let me choose for myself, for all the good it did. And what do you think your captain will do when she bears him a child that is dark as dirt? I would be doing you a favor by telling him now.”

Edmund laughed harshly. “Then our secret is safe. The last thing you would ever do is a favor for me.”

His wife crossed her arms and glared at him. “Why, Edmund, why? I will never, as long as I live, understand what you see in this place. It is not some English estate with a title to pass on. It is a farm!”

“It is
my
farm. You are delusional, Iolanthe. You have these notions of how wonderful life would be in Europe. I have no land there, no source of wealth. Our life would not be a series of voyages back and forth across the Channel. The fine gowns you love so much, they are paid for by the sugar cane cut from
these
fields.”

“But why do you need to pass it on? What has this poor man done to you that you would deceive him so? Why do you need to call that girl ours?”

“We have had this discussion too many times. I can explain it all again and still you will refuse to understand.” Edmund gestured to Matu, who had been silently cleaning. ‘Twas unnervingly easy to forget the woman’s presence altogether. Not for the first time, he regretted having silenced her. “Fetch me something to drink. Something strong. I care not what.”

“Oh yes, Edmund, do have a drink,” Iolanthe scoffed. “Have four or five and tell me that
I
am delusional. Have you asked this sailor if he wants to inherit your farm? Do you really believe that Grace will deny her slave blood and become mistress here? Why not leave Welbourne Plantation to one of your many other black children?”

Edmund ran a hand through his blond hair, and his face was flushed pink. “Keep quiet, Iolanthe.”

“‘Keep quiet, Iolanthe,’“ she mimicked, her voice falsely low. “Whenever I speak the truth, it is ‘keep quiet, Iolanthe.’ One bastard elevated to daughter of the house, the rest left to work the fields. Oh, if your precious Grace only knew!”

“It matters not whether Grace comes back. She’ll bear children. White children. One of them will want Welbourne. How could they not?”

“African children,” Iolanthe taunted. “Black children who have been taught by their mother that slavery is evil, who will not have anything to do with your
great legacy
.”

“Damn-near-white children who will desire wealth as all men do,” Edmund countered.

Matu returned with a glass and a bottle of rum. She appeared to be absorbed in the task of filling his glass and finding just the right place to set the bottle, but when she looked at him, it was with keen interest and uncanny intelligence. She was far smarter than any house servant should be, but by the time he’d realized that, it was too late. Grace would never have forgiven him if he had sent her back to the fields or sold her.

So he looked to use Matu to his advantage. “Matu, I am relying upon you,” he said. “Do not leave my wife and our prospective bridegroom alone together, and separate them if ever it seems the mistress may be feeling a bit free with her tongue. You and I, we want the same thing, do we not? We want Grace to be happy?”

Matu nodded solemnly, but he could see something whirring busily behind her dark eyes.
Why
had he made it impossible ever to know exactly what she was thinking?

“Good then. Why do you not check with Keyah and make sure that dinner is worthy of our guest, perhaps lay out something suitable for Grace to change into.” He clenched his jaw a moment and added, “Iolanthe, is it not your custom take a rest in the afternoon?”

Iolanthe’s black teeth peeped through her lovely lips. “Aye, Matu, let us leave the master alone with his drink and his dreams, shall we?” She glided serenely toward the stairs and drifted upwards while Matu exited through the back door.

Alone at last, Edmund tossed back his glass of rum and refilled it. Were it not the middle of the afternoon and did he not have a guest to impress, he’d have headed to the slaves’ quarters to see if one of the younger wenches might be about, but Giles and Grace had gone off that way. He drained the second glass, as well. It was bloody near the happiest day of his life. He was but a hair’s breadth from marrying off his daughter, and he was not going to let his malicious wife spoil it.

So Grace was tainted. So she wasn’t lily white. She was smart and had a quick wit, attributes that he had given to her. Surely they hadn’t come from her mulatto mother. His daughter was exotically beautiful and far more refined than his pure, French wife. The bitch was jealous, that was all. She knew damned well that a savage, ignorant African had done better by him than she could ever have done. He poured more rum and smiled malignantly. It only made sense that she was bitter, but she had made her bed.

Oh, aye, she had made her bed—entirely separate from his. She spent inordinate amounts of money on clothes that were completely impractical, not that she would have stooped to do one practical thing on the plantation. Well, except for overseeing discipline, a task that she was disconcertingly good at. Then she pouted because he could not stop from the labor that placed that finery upon her back just to pay homage to her great beauty.

Edmund heaved a heavy sigh. She
had
been a great beauty. Still was, if one overlooked the teeth. She had taunted him with it, wearing deep necklines and swinging her hips, but the moment he put his hands on her, she became a block of ice. And now, he doubted that he’d feel the least bit enticed even if she took to wearing nothing at all.

Lately, he had begun to worry that Grace would be as unyielding and as disappointing as his wife, but he had the feeling that all of that was about to change. How could she not take to this fellow? And Grace was a passionate girl, one with fire and grit. She’d not turn her husband away night after night. How many grandchildren, he wondered. Eight? Ten? Among them, one would want Welbourne, expand it, realize its full potential.

He was pouring his third glass of rum when the door at the rear of the room burst open, and Edmund felt his complacent bubble burst at the look on the face of his proposed son-in-law.

Did one man dare call out another man whose daughter he was courting? When Giles burst through the door of the main house and saw Edmund Welbourne casually pouring himself a drink, it had been his first impulse. He had wanted to berate the man for the conditions in which his slaves were forced to live, to haul him back to the cluster of hovels and make
him
tend to the dying child. Instead he took a steadying breath and ran his hand through his hair, pulling some of it from its careful queue.

“There is a situation in the slaves quarters, Mister Welbourne.”

Welbourne swore softly under his breath. “What has Grace done now?”

“She’s attending to a gravely ill child there,” Giles informed him, his face flushing with anger.

Edmund laughed tensely. “She’s always had a soft spot for them. Hardly lady-like, I realize, but a tender heart is a forgivable flaw in the fairer sex.” He held his hands open in apologetic supplication.

“I am forced to disagree.” Giles noted with satisfaction the way that Edmund’s face fell. ‘Twas a shame that his next statement flooded that same face with relief. “I have never considered a tender heart a flaw in a woman at all.”

“Well, nay, of course not. Still, I fear that Grace will stay all night if she cannot remedy the situation immediately.” Edmund lifted the glass of amber liquor to his lips and drained it. “Whatever it is, I’m certain the overseer will take care of it.”

“Grace seems to think not. In truth, the overseer or
someone
,” he glared at Edmund, “should have taken care of it days ago. There’s little enough to be done now. I fear the child cannot be saved.”

Welbourne sighed and shrugged, then poured another glass. “And so nature will take her due course. Tell Grace that I insist she return at once.”

Giles stared at the man in astonishment. Welbourne truly had no idea what the problem was! Before Giles could say anything irrevocable, Mistress Welbourne interrupted, calling down from above, “Is that you, Captain Courtney? Is something amiss?”

Edmond sneered and called back, “Iolanthe, keep—” he stopped short and set down his glass, “—your door shut and get some rest, darling. ‘Tis nothing serious.”

Mistress Welbourne fairly raced down the stairs. “Keep
what
, darling?” she asked. “I am quite certain that I did not hear you correctly. Oh my, Captain, you look quite upset.” She looked at him with great concern but little sincerity. “Has Grace done something to
disgrace
herself?” She giggled at her own pun.

“The problem is not Grace!” Giles snapped. “The problem is that an innocent child is dying in filth and squalor because of a minor injury that was not tended! I have seen people treat livestock with greater compassion than your slaves receive!” He addressed Edmund directly. “You have the right of it, sir. Grace does intend to stay with the girl, all night, if need be, and I intend to stay with her. I came here to inform you of that fact.”

“Well!” Mistress Welbourne exclaimed haughtily. “You dare accept our hospitality and then chastise us over a matter you know nothing about? What are you? A sailor! What do you know of managing a fine estate and nearly a
hundred-and-fifty
workers?”

“Iolanthe!” Edmund bellowed. “Keep quiet!”

His wife looked back and forth between the two men, gritting her brown teeth, her perfect porcelain skin turning a mottled red. “I will not tolerate this! You!” She glared at Giles. “You can have that horrid little beast. I wish you the joy of her. You two barbarians should be well suited, after all. But I promise, you will look back upon this day and know yourself for the fool you are.” She spun on her heel and marched up the stairs, her hips swaying and skirts rustling with each step.

Giles didn’t look at Edmund. If the wife was this venomously angry, he dreaded to see the husband’s reaction, and at the moment, he could hardly trust his own response to it.

In the end, he was more stunned by Edmund’s composure than Iolanthe’s vehemence. “Well, I suppose we’ve not made the best impression,” Welbourne said dryly, picking up his glass and sipping from it.

Giles’s natural sense of diplomacy warred with his moral outrage. At last, he said, “A little girl is dying, Mister Welbourne, and Grace has committed no greater sin than to care. Have you no pity?”

Edmund nodded distractedly. “Aye, ‘tis unfortunate, the child.”

Unfortunate.
Giles shook his head grimly. “At any rate, I find
Grace’s
response quite admirable.”

Edmund gave up on sipping. He swallowed half the glass in a smooth gulp, then said, “I’m sure she’ll welcome your company.”

“You’ll not be coming?” Giles asked, more as a prompt than an actual question, but Welbourne just shook his head and finished his rum. “Well, then, I’ll look after her.”

“Knew I could count on you, Courtney,” Edmund said. The words were mildly slurred, and he sat down in one of the upholstered chairs.

Giles eyed the half-empty rum bottle and wondered if it might not have been full just a short time ago. Sweet Jesus, what a family! He spun and strode to the rear door, then stopped, emotions churning inside of him, gnawing at him. He wanted out of this place. But even more, he wanted to make sure that Grace never again had to attend the bedside of a dying child, or know another person whose tongue had been cut out, or had to listen to her mother insult and belittle her. God knew, if he never saw Edmund Welbourne in his cups again, it would be too soon.

He was a fool. A complete idiot. He thought of Jonathan Cooper’s advice about not weaving himself into this family’s problems. He reminded himself that he had yet to accomplish his goal of getting to know Grace at all.

Then, he thought of Grace, alone in the slaves’ hut. If he were not here now, what would have happened? With whom would she have shared the burden? If he left her here, how many more times would such a scenario as this play itself out, and what terrible toll would it exact from her? He could not bear to think about the answers to any of these questions. Each one led to a future of hopelessness for a woman he was coming to admire more and more with each minute spent in her company.

At last, he threw all caution, all judiciousness aside and said, “One more thing, Mister Welbourne.”

Welbourne looked up at Giles with a vaguely befuddled scowl. “What?”

“I’d like permission to marry your daughter.”

Edmund’s face split in an ear-to-ear grin. “How soon?”

Today wasn’t soon enough.

“Three weeks from Sunday?” Giles suggested. Time to cry the banns, no more.

Edmund lifted his glass in a toast. “Three weeks from Sunday,” he agreed.

*

The stench in the slaves’ hut was overwhelming, both a heartbreaking sign that the infection was working quickly in the girl’s system, and a welcome sign that she would not suffer much longer. Shortly after Captain Courtney had left, the child began to vomit. She had stopped sobbing and had gone to moaning, but her eyes had rolled back and she was completely insensate.

Now, the slaves were beginning to return from their work. Several had gathered in the hut with Grace, helping her to keep the child somewhat clean, for all that there was little water on hand. One of the older children had gone to the river to fetch more.

“Tell me when her mother has returned,” Grace said to one of the women on hand. She was a kitchen worker and spoke English well.

“Her already back,” the woman explained. “Outside, waiting.”

“Waiting?” Grace asked. “She knows…?” It was hard to say.

The woman nodded. Her voice was deep and heavy. “Her know.”

Grace stood slowly. Her knees and back ached from kneeling on the hard earthen floor. “I’ll only be a moment,” she said to the little group surrounding her. “Call for me if you have a need.” She stepped outside and took a deep breath of reasonably fresh air.