A Marriage of Equals

by Elizabeth Rolls

‘But—’

  ‘Hunt said Long called on you, and that he’d wager a pony the fellow would have queered his own pitch.’

  ‘And that connection doesn’t matter to you? Or that my family is—’

  ‘If it doesn’t matter to Psyché?’ Staverton shrugged. ‘No. You couldn’t choose your godfather, but you’ve chosen Hunt as your mentor these seven years. I’ve been out of politics longer than that or I’d have met you long since. Perhaps you might pour me some more of that witch’s brew Marney brought in?’

  Will obliged, not having the heart to dilute the coffee quite as much.

  Staverton sipped and still pulled a disgusted face. ‘Anyway, you’re here now. I know all about your prospects and it will suit Psyché down to the ground.’

  He was glad someone knew about his prospects, because he was damned if he did.

  ‘My prospects, yes.’

  Staverton gave his wheezy chuckle. ‘You’ll do nicely for her.’ He fiddled with the edge of his shawl. ‘Something more, lad. You have my thanks. From what I’m told you saved Psyché’s life.’

  ‘It was nothing of the sort, sir!’

  Staverton raised his bushy white brows. ‘Put yourself between her and Carshalton’s pistol getting the bastard’s daughter clear, didn’t you?’

  ‘Huntercombe told you?’

  A withering look. ‘Where I’m going, lad, what I know that I shouldn’t, isn’t going to matter. Gave me a good laugh, always excepting that bullet—to hear about Carshalton being thwarted, not to mention Lucius bilked of a bride.’

  His brows drew together. ‘I remember Ignatius Selbourne’s Kit. Poor little scrap of a thing she was when he took her in after her mother died.’ His mouth hardened. ‘Well, she’s safe now. And you’re going to make my girl happy.’

  ‘If she will accept me.’ He needed to be honest with the old man. ‘She—marriage, as such, is still unwelcome to her.’

  Staverton nodded slowly. ‘I take your meaning. Most men, Barclay, would consider that an advantage, especially in this case.’

  Will gritted his teeth. ‘For some it would be.’

  ‘But not for you.’ Staverton was silent for a few minutes, his head leaning back against the chair, his eyes closed. Will was wondering if he should summon Marney and leave, when the old man’s eyes opened again.

  ‘On my desk. A document.’

  Will walked over to the desk. There were any number of documents, but he knew instantly which one Staverton meant. He stared at the sealed document with his name scrawled across it.

  ‘The contents of that are included in my will,’ Staverton said. ‘But I had several copies of this drawn up, properly notarised, signed and witnessed. My lawyer has one and I gave Hunt one yesterday. There’s a copy for Psyché herself. Didn’t quite know why I had the fourth drawn up, but it must have been for you. Read it.’

  Will broke the seal and complied. Then he stared at the old man, struggling to understand. ‘But—’

  ‘She’s never been anything else in my mind, Barclay,’ Staverton said softly. ‘But this makes assurance doubly sure should anyone ever dare think otherwise. No need for you to tell her about this. I’ll do it myself and make sure she understands why I’ve done it.’

  ‘Have you sent for her, sir?’

  Staverton nodded. ‘My coach is going into London shortly. I’ve sent a rider with notes for Psyché and Hetty, asking them to come tomorrow. I’m glad I had the chance to meet you.’ His eyes shut for a moment. Then he opened them and smiled. ‘On my desk there—take the miniature.’

  Will glanced over. ‘There are several, sir.’

  The old man laughed. ‘Look closer, lad.’

  She was younger. Sixteen perhaps. Glowing on ivory, dark eyes alight with mischief as she held a little black spaniel on her lap.

  ‘Take it, Will—I may call you that, I hope? Take it with my blessings, whatever compromise you come to with her.’ He reached for the bell. ‘I’ll tell Marney you have it, but the gift is noted in the ledger of such bequests. As my executor, Hunt knows.’

  Will’s throat tightened, as he smiled back at the decent, kindly old man, who had taken in and loved a little girl most would have tolerated at best, or shipped straight back to hell.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Staverton waved that away. ‘Thank you, Will. I’m sorry I won’t have the chance to know you better, but I’ll go peacefully knowing you have her safe.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Will rode into the yard of the Red Lion as evening drew in. His heavy greatcoat held off the drizzle and cut the bite of the wind that whipped snarling around corners. The miniature was safely wrapped in several layers of cloth to protect it from harm. Ironic that, since he very much doubted that the original would ever consent to being cossetted and protected from all harm and, if he wanted her, he was going to have learn to accept that.

  The upstairs windows of The Phoenix were dark and the shop was closed, but the shutters were still open and he could see the neatly stacked tables and chairs in the glow of lamplight from the scullery. Someone must be there. Caleb, perhaps, washing up.

  Will rapped on the door instead of reaching for the bell. Time slowed as he waited. The church bell chimed six. He remembered distinctly that the clock in the stable yard had shown the last quarter-hour when he left.

  Worry slid into his mind and he knocked again. He had no right to expect Psyché to be anywhere in particular, but it was rare for her to go out of an evening. And surely someone was there. She would never risk leaving a light burning. Except...light shone from Selbourne’s apartment. Could she have stepped across briefly, or would Selbourne know where she was?

  As he was about to cross the street, movement caught his eye in the side of the bay window. His breath came out in a rush.

  Psyché stood there, a deeper shadow in the darkness. She vanished and he waited.

  There was a click and the door opened. She stood there in her plain woollen gown, the sleeves pushed back. ‘Will.’

  ‘Yes. May I come in? Is it too late?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Come in.’

  She locked the door, slipped the key in her pocket and stepped back. Will lifted the bar, but she shook her head. ‘Caleb is out.’

  She led the way back through the shop and pushed the curtain aside. ‘Come through.’

  The sink was half full of steaming, sudsy water. She picked up a saucer, washed it.

  He frowned. ‘Caleb usually does this.’

  She set the saucer in a wooden rack. ‘He’s having a lesson with Ignatius. I wanted to be alone anyway.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You are very welcome to stay, but I’m going out to Hampstead first thing tomorrow morning. My...my great-uncle...he’s—’ She broke off, swallowed. ‘He’s sent for me. For Hetty. To say goodbye.’

  Again that shuddering breath.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ If he confessed that he already knew this, she’d want to know why he’d called on Staverton. There were other things he needed to say first.

  He gestured to the sink. ‘Can I help?’

  She stared and through the sadness he saw laughter rise up.

  ‘Will, have you ever washed a dish in your life?’ She picked up another saucer and washed it.

  ‘It can’t be that difficult,’ he said defensively.

  She handed him a cloth and the saucer. He blinked. What—?

  ‘You rub the saucer dry with the cloth,’ she said helpfully.

  He knew that.

  By the time he thought the saucer was dry enough she had ten more and several cups lined up on the draining board. They worked in silence for a few minutes, the cups and saucers gaining on him steadily.

  Picking up a cup from the rack, he finally spoke. ‘I had a visit from my godfather yesterday.’

  She set another cup in the rack
. ‘Oh.’

  He grimaced. ‘You may have heard of him. Edward Long. He wrote—’

  ‘The History of Jamaica.’ She nodded slowly. ‘He’s your godfather?’

  ‘And a cousin of my mother’s. He...was very good to us when we came home to England after my father died. I was eleven.’

  She nodded. ‘So was I when I left.’ That beautiful, lush mouth trembled. ‘My mother had...my mother was dead, but I did not expect the—my father to bring me to England.’ She began to wipe the benches, using the cloth he had dried with. ‘Certainly not as his daughter.’

  ‘No. You wouldn’t have expected that.’ He finished the last cup. Planters raped slave women all the time. Any children they sired were also condemned to slavery. She had been branded.

  ‘I expected to be sold.’

  His stomach churned. He knew how the system worked, knew his own father had likely sired children, sold them as well as other children: it was a body blow to hear her say it.

  ‘You were a child.’

  Her laughter chilled him. ‘Will, you lived there. I was a commodity and he had a very good offer for me. His overseer wanted me.’

  Will wasn’t sure he was still breathing. She didn’t mean she’d been wanted as a kitchen maid, or a field hand, not that either occupation would have protected her from rape and she would still have been a slave...but, she’d been a little girl. Eleven.

  His overseer wanted me.

  ‘Did he—?’

  ‘No.’ She turned away, but not before he saw her mouth tremble.

  ‘Psyché—’

  A single, swift stride took him to her, but she flung up one hand, stepped back.

  His heart cracked.

  ‘What did you tell Long about me?’

  He fought to keep his voice steady. ‘About you? Nothing. It was none of his business.’ He took a deep breath, knowing that if she refused he had to accept it. ‘I simply assured him that my intentions towards you were honourable.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘You told him what? Why?’

  ‘Why?’ He reached for her hands and this time she allowed it. His heart began to beat normally again. ‘Because I can’t continue to compromise with them. All these years I told myself that it was only politics. That we could agree to disagree, that family was more important than my political leanings.’

  ‘They’re your family. You love them.’

  How often had he told himself that? ‘Yes, they are my family. But what about your family?’

  She stared. ‘My family? Uncle Theo and Hetty?’

  ‘No.’ He gripped her hands. ‘Your mother.’

  ‘My mother?’

  ‘What if she hadn’t died? And your father had decided to sell her? Or to sell you? Separately.’

  Her hands trembled in his. ‘If he had sold Mam?’ She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘That happens all the time, Will. It’s not your—’

  ‘And it shouldn’t happen. None of it should happen. I finally understood that it’s not about politics and some theoretical concept of justice. It’s about people, families destroyed. How can I say that my family is important when I have no doubt that my father destroyed families exactly like yours? Like your mother’s.

  ‘What happened to her, Psyché?’

  * * *

  The question was so gentle, so natural, that it slid straight through her defences. She couldn’t not answer. All these years and she had never spoken of that day. Not to anyone. Uncle Theo had asked very gently about her mother, but when she had shaken her head he’d dropped the subject. So perhaps she needed to speak at last.

  She was there again, a little girl, sitting in the shade of the lignum vitae tree on a blanket to protect her pretty new gown. How odd that she had remembered that dress all these years. They’d both had new dresses, her and Mam. The father had given them the dresses only that day.

  She’d never worn hers again.

  * * *

  The air was close and humid, the evening sea breeze not yet awake, and the little girl sat playing with a child’s copper tea set, pouring tea for her doll, Amabel, her only playmate. Footfalls sounded and she looked up.

  Flint, the father’s overseer, stood over her. She looked down quickly. Flint looked at her as if... Her skin crawled even as she shut off her thoughts and became clammy as he remained towering over her.

  ‘Is your master here, girl?’

  Taken by surprise—he’d never spoken to her directly before—she looked up at him and reminded herself to speak nicely. ‘Good day, Flint. The father is in the house.’

  His eyes narrowed, his mouth became a thin line and a metallic taste soured her mouth. Frantically she searched her mind. What had she said? What had she done?

  ‘“Flint...”?’ Low, cold.

  And she knew. The way she’d spoken to him. As an equal. Not the way a—

  ‘“The father”?’

  ‘He...he is the father,’ she whispered. Oh, God! She’d answered back. Been impertinent and—

  ‘Winthrop is your master, you uppish little slut, and it’s more than time you learned your place!’

  She coiled herself to run, but her wrist was already crushed in his grip as he hauled her up and shook out the lash of his whip.

  She wriggled and squirmed, but he held her effortlessly.

  ‘I’ll enjoy this.’ His voice bit into her as she knew the whip would. ‘And maybe later I’ll teach you something else about your place. You’re old enough, in my book.’

  He raised the whip and she screamed, striking at him in terror. The blow missed, but he released her wrist, grabbed her even more painfully by the hair, and shook her like a terrier with a rat until she was dizzy, sick with the pain.

  He finally let her fall limp and raised the whip again.

  The blow never fell. A whirlwind hit him, shrieking in a polyglot of Akan, French, Portuguese and English, and sent him flying. The child looked up, dazed, and saw Mam in her pretty new gown, her eyes fierce as she stood over the fallen overseer, his whip in her hand.

  ‘Leave her alone!’

  She flung the whip away and spoke in Akan to the terrified child. ‘Go, Abeni! Go to the house!’

  But the child was frozen in terror as Flint got slowly to his feet, wiped at the blood trickling down his cheek where Bess’s nails had raked him.

  ‘By God, you’ll pay for this!’

  He grabbed Mam’s wrist, jerked her close and raised his fist.

  ‘Let her go, Flint!’

  Pounding footsteps came from the house—the father, breathless and red in the face.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  He pulled Mam away, pushed her behind him, but Flint squared up.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’m doing, Winthrop! I’m disciplining your slaves!’ He pointed at the child. ‘The whelp tried to hit me when I told her she was impudent—and your bitch came at me for correcting the uppish brat!’

  The father paled. ‘Bess? What—?’

  ‘God damn it, Winthrop! You don’t ask a slave its opinion! You don’t ask for its side of the story!’

  ‘Steady on, Flint. I’m sure—’

  Flint stepped right up to him. ‘Either deal with the slut properly yourself or I’ll report it. You can dismiss me. I’ll find another position easily enough.’

  The father clenched his fists and there was a terrible silence in which the hot, humid air seemed to wrap about the child’s throat.

  No! He couldn’t!

  But the father turned to the small group of gathered slaves and beckoned. ‘Jonah. Daniel. Take her.’

  The two grooms moved forward and seized Mam, who went with them silently towards the stable...

  ‘No!’ The child ran after them, clutching at Mam, striking at Jonah and Daniel. They pushed her away, gently enough, and she t
ried again.

  A large hand caught her shoulder, swung her around—the father.

  ‘Please! Please! You can’t—’

  His fist felled her to the ground. ‘Isaac! Confine her to her room.’

  She was picked up, dazed from the blow, and slung over a powerful shoulder.

  Flint exploded. ‘Damn it, Winthrop! The brat’s earned a flogging, too! Or make her watch if you won’t flog her!’

  ‘Her room, Isaac.’

  And Isaac kept walking, ignoring the child’s screams and the blows she landed on his back.

  * * *

  Will couldn’t bear it any longer. He gathered her into his arms and held her. There was no comfort he could offer. What comfort could there be?

  ‘Isaac locked me in.’ Her voice shook. ‘I would have climbed out, but the windows were barred. I’d never thought of that before. He left me there because they all had to go and watch.’ She shuddered. ‘I stood at the window and watched them all walk down to the stables. The whipping post was behind it. And...and I heard...’

  * * *

  That first scream, high and terrible, seemed to go on for ever. Again, and again, until the child’s tears and sobs drowned out the dreadful sounds.

  After a long time she heard slow footfalls out in the hallway, the scuffing sound of something being dragged. The lock clicked and Isaac and Jonah brought Mam in. She hung barely conscious between the two men, her mouth slack, and her gown hanging loose, exposing her breasts and the brand that marked her as a slave.

  The child cringed back, horror a clawing thing in her belly.

  They laid her face-down on the bed and the child saw why. The pretty new dress had been ripped open down the back, baring Mam’s once gleaming skin.

  No more.

  Now it was flayed bloody and mangled. More meat than skin.

  An agonised incoherence swallowed the child and she dropped, weeping, to her knees beside the bed.

  ‘The master...he’s sent for medicine and cloths,’ Jonah said. ‘Cynthia’ll be up to help.’

  The child found her voice. ‘He...he let Flint do this? I’ll... I’ll kill him!’