The King's Mercy

by Lori Benton

  “Joanna—ye didn’t have to bring that. Where’s Mari?”

  The lass, Joanna, came into the shop, set the tray atop the forge counter, and replied mildly, “I was on my way so I saved her the walk.”

  “Ye might have sent Azuba.”

  “You know I like to take the initial measurements. Anyway, here’s supper. Try to eat some of it.” Though she sounded English, there was something of that flatness to the lass’s speech Alex had heard from Captain Bingham. She fished in a housewife tied at her waist and brought out what looked to be a doll-sized wooden barrel. Turning to Alex she said, “Please stand, if you will, so I may take your measure.”

  Acutely aware of his unwashed, half-naked state, Alex kept his seat. “My measure?”

  “You’ll need shirts.” Her gaze glanced along his length. “Breeches too. Unless you have them already supplied, Mister…?”

  “MacKinnon,” Moon said. “And he doesn’t, apparently.”

  “Mister MacKinnon,” she continued smoothly. “In that case, the sooner you stand and let me take your measure, the sooner you may sit again—to your supper.”

  Alex stood, relieved when he didn’t lurch to catch his balance despite the ground’s shifting. Even so, she took a step back, sweeping a look up the height of him, at the end of which their gazes clashed.

  “My goodness,” she breathed. “I’ll need to stand on that block to reach your shoulders and…But you’re wounded? Let me light a few more candles so I may see you better.”

  Her efforts doubled the light. She came back around to scrutinize him, clearly displeased. “You’re bruised as well, and Mister Reeves left you overlong in the sun.” Over her shoulder she asked, “Have you water in your room, Elijah?”

  Moon grunted affirmation.

  “It’s just through that doorway, Mister MacKinnon. Take a candle, wash that wound to your brow or…I could tend it if you’d rather.”

  She’d made the offer sincerely, he thought, but on its heels her bottom lip slipped between her teeth, as if on second thought she’d rather he said no.

  “I’ll do it.” He took a candle and ducked through the inner door, finding a small room furnished with two cots, a sea chest at the foot of one, a washstand between. Spare shirts, a coat, and breeches dangled from pegs. A looking glass hung beside a basin and pitcher on the stand. Alex set the candle beside them. While the ground’s heaving went on, he poured water, slaked his thirst, splashed his face, then stooped to peer into the glass set to Moon’s height. He probed the welt at his hairline where a bruise was coming up beneath broken skin.

  Not for over a year had he seen his face, save piecemeal in a cracked glass shared with several sailors aboard the Charlotte-Ann. For a moment he didn’t recognize the features framed by sun-bleached hair straggling in ropes grown past his shoulders. Though no longer the full-bearded wraith that had staggered off the James & Mary, he was still too much bone, too little flesh. And too much hair; he needed a shave. Best let the lass do what she’d come for. He needed clothing, too, but he was half-crazed with wanting whatever was on that tray.

  She was quick about her business once he returned, pulling from her wooden bauble a ribbon marked at intervals, bending to stretch it from his waist to his knee. Murmuring a figure, she circled behind him. He felt the ribbon span his waist, there and gone in a flash. Reaching high, she took his measure from his nape to the small of his back.

  He swayed slightly. She touched his side. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ve been aboard ship a long while.”

  “Dizzy? I’ve never been long aboard ship, but I’ve heard it takes some time to pass.” She removed her hand from his person. “Have you vermin, Mister MacKinnon?”

  “Lice, d’ye mean? No.” He’d been crawling with them when he left the James & Mary but had been deloused the day they boarded the Charlotte-Ann. When his scalp prickled—force of suggestion, surely—he refused to raise a hand to scratch the itch.

  Behind him, the lass had climbed on the block chair to span his shoulders with her measure, then the circumference of his neck. “Raise your arms, please. Straight out to the sides.”

  The novelty of a woman’s voice issuing from that height vanished with the acute regret that he hadn’t washed beneath those arms. Hers came around him, the brush of linen sleeves tickling. She smelled of soap and lavender and, more temptingly, of the kitchen.

  Dismounting the block, she came around him again, the top of her capped head bobbing beneath his chin. She was neat and trim in her person, her manner polite but not servile. A servant of high station, then. Head sempstress? Head housemaid? He was trying to guess her age—twenty maybe—when she slipped her measuring bauble back into her housewife.

  “What else do you require, Mister MacKinnon? Have you any personal effects?”

  What meager kit he’d had was left aboard the Charlotte-Ann. He shrugged. “What ye see.”

  “Nothing at all?” A crease formed between her slender brows. “We shall remedy that, but shirt and breeches are most urgent. Those you’ll have by this time tomorrow.”

  He started to thank her, but she’d turned to speak to Moon, stepping close and lowering her voice. Her hand came up to clasp the man’s undamaged arm. He stiffened, muttering, “All right, Joanna.”

  She turned away, not quick enough to hide a flash of pain. At the door she paused and looked at Alex. The gilded light from the yard traced a fraying vulnerability in her gaze, though he thought she meant to hide it. “Mister MacKinnon, may I know your given name?”

  The question surprised him. “It’s Alastair, but I’m called Alex.”

  Joanna nodded. “Welcome to Severn, Alex MacKinnon,” she said, and took her leave.

  Moon’s gaze lingered after her until, sensing Alex’s scrutiny, he jerked his chin at their supper. “I can hear your innards clamoring. Have ye at it. Only save me a crumb so I needn’t lie to her later.”

  4

  In the shelter of the hedged walkway, Joanna Carey paused to compose herself. Across the creek the sun had set. Its radiant wake couldn’t displace memory of the man just encountered by candlelight. Alex MacKinnon was emblazoned upon her mind as though she’d looked into the midday sun.

  “He’s here!” Charlotte had exclaimed not an hour past, bounding into the sewing room where Joanna and Azuba, Severn’s housemaid, stitched shirts for the mill hands.

  “Who’s here?” Joanna asked.

  Her sister clutched one of her dolls—the Annas, Azuba called them, for Charlotte had given them rhyming names, Hanna, Georgianna, and Susanna. Hanna, the current favorite, had a painted wooden face, dark horsehair ringlets, and a striped gown Joanna had made to match her sister’s.

  “Phineas has the new indentured man!” Charlotte rushed to the window. “I don’t see him now, though.”

  At nearly ten, Charlotte was past the age for dashing about, but Joanna didn’t scold. Her sister could never remember such admonitions. Mental deficiency was all the physicians who had visited in the past few years could deduce. Joanna had resigned herself to the likelihood of her sister always being thus: sweet-tempered and loving but with the inclinations of a very young child. Pausing her needle, she gave one of Charlotte’s golden curls a tug. “Spying from the windows, were you?”

  Unlike Joanna’s eyes, which altered color with the light or even the gown she wore, Charlotte’s eyes were a changeless blue. “I went round to all the windows trying to spot Jemma, and there was the flatboat—and the new man with his hands tied. He’s very tall and hasn’t a shirt, and he looks like a pirate!”

  Joanna shared a glance with Azuba. They’d known what sort of men Captain Bingham was bringing: Jacobites imprisoned during the Duke of Cumberland’s campaign in Scotland last year. But the man couldn’t have journeyed all that way bound. Why was he now?

  “Miss Charlotte.” Azuba raise
d an eyebrow. “When have you ever laid eyes on a pirate?”

  “Never,” Charlotte said. “Elijah told me about them.”

  Elijah. The ache that had lived beneath Joanna’s ribs for a six-month had pierced afresh. “At least we can remedy the man’s state of clothing,” she said, and had risen to see it done.

  Memory of her sister’s words now mingled with that blazing image; barefoot, bare-chested, hair unbound, he’d looked every inch the pirate. He’d peered down his narrow nose at her with such caged intensity that she’d forgiven Mister Reeves’s restraining him until he was safely delivered. The man had so unnerved her she was amazed she’d been able to take his measure, or commit it to memory.

  Best get it penned before it fled. She forced her feet to move, into the house, up the stairs to the sewing room, where once she’d recorded the measurements, Azuba asked, “Well? He warrant all the carrying on?”

  “And then some. He’s a match for Demas—in height. But I could practically count his ribs.” There’d been another difference, though. Touching Alex MacKinnon hadn’t left her feeling the faint chill that had stroked her neck when she’d taken the measurements of the slave come to them in the service of Phineas Reeves.

  “One pair of breeches to start, with seam enough to let out,” Azuba said. “Two shirts?”

  “Yes. I’ll begin one now. Go if you need to.” Joanna noticed the quiet as Azuba rose to see the supper table set. “Where’s Charlotte?”

  “Still hunting Jemma.”

  Joanna knit her brow, reminded of yet another concern. An orphaned slave, not yet thirteen, Jemma had recently faded to a shadow of her former lively self, skulking about the house and yard as if she’d cause to fear them all.

  Azuba shook her kerchiefed head. “She Miss Charlotte’s companion and we make allowance for that, but she meant to be helping in the kitchen too. Mari has a time keeping her on task.”

  Joanna smoothed over this worrisome ripple in their domestic routine. “I’ll speak to Jemma.”

  “If you can find her.” Well into her middle years, tall and spare, Azuba spread work-worn hands across the apron covering her gown. “You see Elijah at the smithy?”

  “I did.” Joanna turned, pretending to choose among the bolts of shirting. “This is hard for him.”

  “Master Carey needs a smith.”

  “I know.” Fear for Elijah had weighed on her through the weeks after his accident, when even laudanum couldn’t ease his pain. Or save his hand. She hadn’t broken through his wall of despair since. It was hard to retain her equanimity when privately she herself went weeping, petitioning God to undo the terrible thing He’d let happen—still asking why.

  “I know you know.” Azuba came behind her and laid both hands on her shoulders, the nearest an embrace Joanna would allow, though she often longed to be the girl who’d melted into those strong arms and cried the day her mother died. An indulgence she’d allowed herself only once. Azuba gave her shoulders a squeeze. “It’s hard seeing him hurt. He been like a brother to you.”

  And like a son to Edmund Carey, Joanna once thought.

  Along with Phineas Reeves, Elijah had been a cabin boy aboard her stepfather’s last command. The captain’s personal servant, Elijah had accompanied him into retirement. He’d been part of Joanna’s life since Captain Carey married her widowed mother. Mister Reeves had come into his former captain’s employ little more than a year past and had quickly worked—and charmed—his way into her stepfather’s confidence. And his heart.

  If either man held Joanna’s heart, it was Elijah, though not in the way he’d wanted. Days before the forge exploded, Elijah had asked Papa for her hand in marriage and was refused. Not by Joanna. She’d never had the chance. Shortly before Elijah approached her stepfather, Phineas Reeves beat him to it. Papa decided his overseer, not his blacksmith, was the preferable match. Duly proposed to with her stepfather’s blessing, Joanna had been caught off-guard; Mister Reeves had never showed more particular attention to her than he had to Charlotte. She’d pleaded for time to consider the arrangement.

  Six months on she was no nearer knowing her mind. All that made the present situation bearable was Mister Reeves’s patience. He hadn’t pressed her, despite knowing Papa meant to make his heir whomever Joanna married.

  Azuba didn’t know about Elijah’s shattered hope. Not even Mister Reeves was privy to the fact he’d had a rival for her hand, if briefly.

  “You be sure and thank the Almighty for this new man.”

  Her mother’s personal maid from childhood, Azuba had been Joanna’s rock since she was thrust into the role of mistress, at twelve. She was used to Azuba nudging her to lean on the Almighty for the strength to navigate the endless domestic concerns of Severn—waters often deep enough to drown—but this admonition took her aback. Thank the Almighty for the man come to take Elijah’s place? Make the best of it. Hope it wasn’t the final blow that drove Elijah to despair. But gratitude?

  Azuba caught her disbelieving look. “We all see the bitterness Elijah’s let captivate his soul. It ain’t pretty. But you go on questioning in your heart like I expect you been doing, Miss Joanna, that’s going to be you. So yes. Thank God for this new man—no matter he look the pirate—then wait and see what comes.”

  “Azuba? Miss Joanna?” They turned as one of the kitchen slaves, Marigold, appeared in the doorway. “Supper’s nigh ready, but that Jemma ain’t turned up.”

  Azuba stirred into action. “I’ve the table to set. Go on back, Mari. Make ready to serve.”

  “Maybe no hurry now,” Joanna heard Marigold say as the two headed for the stairs. “Coming by the study I hear Master Carey say he going to see the new indenture afore supper. Still, that Jemma…”

  Joanna stroked a folded length of homespun, her mind clamoring with needs. She ought to find Jemma—and Charlotte. She ought to start on Mister MacKinnon’s shirt. She ought to whisper that prayer Azuba told her to pray.

  She reached for the scissors.

  * * *

  Alex fell upon the food the sempstress had left with single-minded intent—a bowl of stewed greens, another of flat beans flavored with meat, two slabs of pone, honey-drizzled, and a fermented cider he gulped like air. On the verge of finishing what was meant for two, memory jarred him from the mindless need for nourishment. Seated on the block chair, tray balanced on his knee, he looked at Moon’s back. “D’ye mean to let me eat it all? Come have what’s left.”

  Moon swiveled, eyeing the remains. “Finish it.”

  Opening his mouth to argue, Alex caught a spark of light in the dooryard, beneath a great spreading oak, gray in the gloaming. The spark winked again, a yellow burst floating languid on the air, now just beyond the threshold.

  “Ye see that?” He set aside the tray and rose. Moon grunted protest but settled as Alex crouched in the doorway and cupped his hands, capturing the creature. When it neither buzzed against him nor stung, he opened his hands. The insect, a sort of beetle, marched up the length of a finger, pulsed bright, and with a whirr of tiny wings took flight.

  “It’s their wee bums that glow.” The laughter in his throat surprised him—and someone else. He heard a muffled giggle and the rustle of movement along the smithy wall, where light enough remained to spy the dirty brown toes not quite concealed around the corner. A child’s, he thought. Laughter lingered in his voice as he said, “I see ye there.”

  The toes withdrew, followed by a scuffle of retreat.

  He watched the fireflies until a whining about his ears bespoke the presence of less charming insects, then retreated into the shop. Moon hadn’t budged from his stool. Alex nodded at the tray. “The lass who brought that—Joanna? She meant ye to eat it.”

  With the look of a man primed for battle, Moon bolted off his perch. “Ye’ll call her Miss Joanna. Better yet, Mistress.”

  Though startled, Alex hel
d his ground. “A bit grand for a serving lass, no?”

  Beneath formidable brows, Moon’s eyes snapped. “Joanna—Miss Carey—is Captain Carey’s stepdaughter, mistress of this plantation.”

  Miss Carey. The name rang in his memory. “Why, then, did she bring our vittles and take my measure like a common sempstress?”

  Moon didn’t answer as voices sounded from the yard. Alex recognized Reeves’s as it drew within hearing. “…see the size of him. He’ll make a blacksmith worthy of Hephaestus, given time.” The overseer appeared in the doorway, a satchel slung at his shoulder, but stood aside for an older man to precede him. “Sir, here is Alex MacKinnon, one of Captain Bingham’s six. The pick of the litter, by my estimation.”

  Alex leveled him a glare, then met the older man’s scrutiny. Unlike most Englishmen of the upper sort, Severn’s master wore no wig. Fashionably white with age, his natural hair was thick enough to arrange into proper side-curls, the rest clubbed at the base of his neck. He was of a height with Reeves, just under six feet. Though he’d seen at least sixty winters, he’d but the slightest paunch beneath a coat well-fitted, pleated tails falling nearly to the knee. With command in his bearing, he stood with feet braced like a seaman on a listing deck while Reeves set the satchel on the forge counter and completed the introduction. “MacKinnon, I present Captain Edmund Philip Carey, late of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, master of Severn Plantation.”

  “You are of the Isles, MacKinnon?” Edmund Carey asked. “Skye, I believe, is the place from which that clan hails.”

  “Aye, I was born on Skye, but fostered among the MacNeills. Barra of the outer isles is…was my home.” Surprise, in part, had prompted him to make claim upon his identity. Alex hoped surprise was all the man heard. Like skin over heated cream, it was the barest covering for defiance.

  Carey gave no indication of what he’d heard besides the words themselves. “Perhaps it shall be home again, one day.”