Daring Lords and Ladies

by Emily Murdoch

  Miss Barclay’s eyes widened and she looked from Chester to Ford.

  “We needn’t kill him ourselves,” he said. “The law will see to it.”

  She stared at him a moment longer before whispering, “I don’t want to be the cause of anyone’s death.”

  Chester scowled but said nothing. Benjamin stopped snuffling and spitting.

  Ford stared into her eyes—now a smoky grey-blue, her conflict evident in their depths--and found that he wanted to do whatever it took to turn her gaze peaceful. He caught himself wondering what her eyes would look like in the throes of passion, in the quiet haze after ecstasy, or when she first woke in the morning.

  Get ahold of yourself, man, he told himself sharply. Now was not the time. He took a deep breath.

  “We could make sure he finds his way to Australia.”

  “How?” she asked.

  “I will speak with some of the other ship captains. I know of one that routinely travels to Brazil. From there it will be easier to have him sent on to Australia.

  Chester made a sound of disgust low in his throat. “And what’s to keep him from escaping in Brazil and coming right back to try and harm Miss Barclay again? Best to settle this once and for all.” In one fluid move, he pulled a knife from his boot and had it against Josiah Benjamin’s throat.

  “Chester! No!” Miss Barclay screamed at the same time the bound man screeched, “I won’t! I swear I won’t!”

  Ford put a staying hand on Chester’s arm. The man frowned, but with a glance to Miss Barclay, stepped away and re-sheathed his knife.

  “The captains I deal with are not so lax in securing their cargos. Or their passengers. This man will not touch dry land until he reaches Australia.”

  Chester nodded shortly, Miss Barclay more slowly, her head bobbing for several seconds as she stared at him, wide-eyed.

  Ford turned and bent over so that he was eye to eye with Benjamin.

  In a low, conversational tone, he said, “Know this, sir. Should you not find the next several months of ocean travel not enough for a lifetime and decide to return to St. Kitts, I will be waiting for you and I swear to you, your death will not be quick and it will not be painless, aye?”

  Benjamin’s expression was a mix of pain and surliness. He returned Ford’s stare belligerently for several seconds before dropping his gaze.

  “I didn’t come here looking for the bi—woman, now, did I? Today was the first time I saw her and I just took advantage of the opportunity.”

  “You didn’t recognize me the other day when you asked me for directions?” Miss Barclay asked, taking a step closer.

  “What? When I—oh, that were you? How could I see your face up in that tunnel of a bonnet you had on? I thought you wore it ‘cause you were scarred or something.”

  Ford saw the tension in Miss Barclay’s face ease a bit. She looked over at Ford and their gazes caught. Her expression eased further and a small smile curved her lips—lips that were the most delectable shade of pink. They reminded him of the delicate icing on the cakes at the ball the other night. He suspected they tasted as sweet.

  “So what do we do with him in the meantime?” Chester’s question jolted Ford out of his absorption with Miss Barclay’s lips.

  “I’ve a storage room with a sturdy lock. I’ll keep him there while I make the arrangements,” Ford said.

  “Shouldn’t we set his finger?” Miss Barclay asked. “The one Chester broke?” she clarified when Ford and her manservant remained silent.

  “I’ll see to it,” Ford said.

  “I’ll see you home now, miss,” Chester said.

  She nodded and followed him to the door of the warehouse where she paused and turned back to Ford.

  “I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Spooner. For saving us, for seeing to…him.” She extended her hand and he took it, noticing that she wore no gloves, that her hand seemed small and fragile in his large calloused one, and a hundred other details he shouldn’t have noticed, but all of which seemed to give him the impression that their hands were meant to touch. A ridiculous thought, he chided himself, and yet, there it was.

  He bowed properly over her hand. “It was my honor to assist you, Miss Barclay. Please don’t give this villain another thought. He will not bother you again.”

  Did he imagine that gentle squeeze of his fingers before he released her hand?

  She smiled once more at him as Chester held the door for her. Her smile seemed a bit too…radiant for a woman just attacked and he wondered if she was feeling the surprisingly strong attraction between them as well.

  Ford shook his head to clear it of its irrational day dreams and went to prepare the storeroom for its next occupant.

  The subtleties of interacting with women were a bit lost on him. In his experience, white women who squeezed his hand and smiled at him were generally interested in a brief and clandestine relationship. The black women of St. Kitts tended to view him warily, as if his father’s white blood automatically meant he saw them as territory to be conquered.

  He’d been stuck between the two worlds of his parents so long that he’d ceased to give them much thought.

  But Miss Barclay seemed unlike any other woman had met. He was certain she hadn’t prurient intentions toward him, and yet there was a spark, an intense awareness between them that set her apart from the few white women who welcomed him into their homes for dinner with their husbands.

  He sensed the attraction between them was as dangerous as it was undeniable.

  “Come on,” he said, returning to the main warehouse to fetch his prisoner. “Your chambers await.”

  Chapter Six

  Josephine called for Molly as soon as they returned and bullied Chester into the kitchen where the housekeeper kept her simples and bandages.

  “Stop your complaining, Chester,” she said, pushing him to sit at the kitchen table.

  “I don’t need to be fussed over,” Chester grumbled.

  “Hush,” she said, turning as Molly entered the room. “He’s a nasty gash on his scalp. I fear it may need stitches.”

  Molly’s velvety brown complexion turned a bit ashen, and she rushed over to inspect Chester’s wounds, cradling his face gently and tutting over each scrape.

  Josephine bit back a smile. She’d long believed Chester was enamored with Molly, and now she suspected the feeling was mutual.

  “I don’t think we’ll stitch it,” Molly finally determined. “God knows ye needn’t another scar spoilin’ what few looks you have. But it will need a good cleanin’ and that’s bound to hurt.”

  She looked over her shoulder at Josephine. “Ye’d best fetch the rum, miss. We don’t want this man squalling like a babe.”

  “I never squall!” Chester said indignantly.

  Molly raised her brows at him. “No? Then Miss Anne shouldn’t fetch the rum?”

  Josephine could see Chester’s conflict as clearly as if the words were written on his face.

  “Well, now, I didn’t say that,” he prevaricated.

  Josephine and Molly exchanged a grin and Jo left to fetch a bottle of island rum.

  When she returned she paused in the doorway. Molly was bent over, inspecting Chester’s other scrapes and bruises and Chester was looking up at her with quite the most tender and raw expression Josephine had ever seen on his face.

  She sensed Chester would not wish to be seen gazing adoringly at any woman, so Jo backed up several paces and made a louder entry into the kitchen. Chester’s normal implacable expression had returned.

  The rum duly administered and the gash on Chester’s head cleaned to Molly’s exacting standards, the housekeeper packed up her supplies and said briskly, “Now are you going to tell me how you came to have your head caved in?”

  Josephine and Chester exchanged a glance and Chester said, “It weren’t caved in.”

  Molly’s lips flattened and her eyes narrowed. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Who did this to you? You’re barely fit to look at as
you are. I can practically see your brain through that gash and it was even smaller than I suspected.”

  “My brain or the gash?” Chester gave her the cocky grin of a twelve-year-old-boy. When she didn’t answer he switched tactics. “I’m fit to look at, then?”

  “I said barely,” Molly snapped, though a grin tugged at her mouth.

  “There was a man,” Jo interjected. Chester frowned at her and she stared back at him, widening her eyes to tell him to be quiet.

  “I don’t think he was in his right mind. He—he demanded our money and when Chester refused, he went berserk. The next thing I knew, Chester was bleeding on the ground.”

  Molly gasped. “Right here in Basseterre? What is this world coming to? And to think I walked home from town by myself this morning!”

  “What Miss Anne didn’t tell ye was that after I got up, I caught the fellow and turned him over to the proper authorities. He’s being taken off the island and won’t be bothering anyone on St. Kitts again.”

  Molly glanced skeptically from Chester to Jo and back again, clearly noticing several holes in their story. With a muttered, “Mmph,” she turned and picked up her basket.

  “Keep your secrets then. Word always makes its way to me eventually.”

  That afternoon Jo attended a ladies’ tea at the home of Mrs. Ferguson. Her husband had been a large landholder on St. Kitts, but when he’d died several years before the Slavery Abolition Act, Mrs. Ferguson had freed the plantation slaves, saying she couldn’t abide the thought of owning a human being. Her actions had created outrage among the other slave owners, according to Theo, with some of them proposing to have her declared mentally unsound, allowing them to seize her property. They hadn’t been successful and as Theo had heard it, she’d nearly bankrupted her estate that first year paying her workers. But she had survived, and so had her sugarcane plantation.

  Mrs. Ferguson had taken Josephine under her wing when Jo had first arrived on St. Kitts and was wary of every new person she met. Something about the woman’s loud, brash personality was reassuring and heartening. Jo had instantly felt safe in her presence and the woman’s friendship had helped her venture out of the quiet safety of her brother’s house over the last year.

  “Thank goodness you’re here, Miss Barclay,” Mrs. Ferguson said, drawing her into her large drawing room. “I shall simply go mad if I have to listen to Mrs. Repington complain one more time about the lack of civilized entertainment on the island.”

  Jo smiled at her hostess. With her flaming red hair and pale, freckled complexion—which itself turned flaming red when she was vexed, as she clearly was now—she would stand out in a crowd even if her personality was not as commanding as it was.

  “Did Mrs. Repington not attend the musicale last week at the St. Clair’s? I found the performers quite as good as any I heard in London.”

  “Yes, dear. But we’re not in London, which is Mrs. Repington’s biggest complaint.”

  Jo smiled in understanding. Not everyone took to life in the tropics. “I shall see if I can divert her conversation to a more productive topic.”

  Mrs. Ferguson patted her cheek. “You are a dear.” She turned to speak to another guest but turned back immediately. “Oh and do spend some time with Mrs. Livingston, the Lieutenant Governor’s sister. She is terribly shy, the poor dear. I could scarcely get two words out of her.”

  Jo smiled, remembering the young woman she had met at her brother’s ball. “Leave her to me.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Ferguson said, pausing a third time. “Perhaps not at the same time as you are distracting Mrs. Repington.”

  “Of course not,” Jo said with a laugh.

  When the managing widow had finally sailed off, Jo glanced around until she spotted Rose Livingston standing just past a group of chatting women, affecting an interest in a potted palm to avoid making eye contact. Jo knew that trick well. Over the years of their marriage, Thomas Kent convinced her that she was unworthy of friendship, that she was fortunate he tolerated her at all. As a result, she had found being in social situations such as this one completely nerve wracking.

  She made her way through the assemblage of ladies, wondering how best to coax Mrs. Livingston out of her shell. Back in London over a year ago, Lady Amanda Howard had employed relentless cheeriness to sweep Jo up into a friendship. It was only then Jo had felt comfortable confessing her most shameful secret.

  She fixed a bright smile on her face and approached her prey.

  “Mrs. Livingston! How lovely to see you! I had so hoped to meet you again.”

  Mrs. Livingston started and then held perfectly still, though her gaze darted around the room. Jo felt her heart clench in sympathy as she realized the woman was reflexively looking for the disapproval of her husband, even though there were only ladies present. When Mrs. Livingston remembered that, her features visibly relaxed and she smiled at Jo.

  “Miss Barclay. It is nice to see you as well. Are you feeling better?”

  Jo frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You left my brother’s ball quite abruptly the other night.”

  “Oh!” Jo said, suddenly remembering her primal need to escape Mr. Livingston’s presence. “Indeed. It was not a serious ailment.”

  Mrs. Livingston nodded, and Jo scrambled for a topic in which to engage the woman.

  “I bought a length of finest India cotton fabric from Mr. Whipple’s Emporium last week.”

  Mrs. Livingston simply smiled and nodded.

  “He doesn’t normally carry fabrics, but this was a special consignment from a cousin in Calcutta. I believe I shall make a new dress out of it. I find the heat and damp far too excessive for the heavier fabrics I brought from England.”

  Mrs. Livingston simply observed her, and Jo realized the woman was unused to speaking, a trait she could well relate to. Thomas Kent had been fond of lecturing her about everything and the few times Jo had tried to voice her opinion, he had snidely shut her down.

  She tried a different tack. “How was your crossing? I confess I grew frightfully ill the first week on the ship”

  Mrs. Livingston nodded but said, “It was uneventful.”

  Refusing to give up, Jo tried several other questions, hoping to draw her out, but was met with equally short and often monosyllabic answers. Sighing inwardly, Jo vowed she would not give up on her new friend.

  A few minutes later, Mrs. Ferguson claimed her attention and as she was drawn away, Jo smiled at Mrs. Livingston and was rewarded finally with a tentative but genuine smile. She lost sight of the timid woman for the rest of the afternoon, but vowed she would not give up on her.

  On Sunday Jo found her attention wandering from the minister’s sermon to the sunny view outside. The rain had begun on the way home from Mrs. Ferguson’s party and had poured ceaselessly for three days. The enforced inactivity from being stuck inside had reminded her uncomfortably of her life with Thomas Kent when he’d forbidden her from leaving the house unless he accompanied her. In all her years of marriage, she’d only disobeyed when she met Amanda Howard.

  Now that the sun had returned, Jo itched to be outside. She longed to walk along the turquoise ocean, perhaps remove her shoes and dig her toes into the sand. She wanted to cast off her bonnet and tilt her face to the sun and bask in its glow. She wanted—

  “Amen.” The crowd’s response to the end of the minister’s sermon pulled her from her daydreams.

  Once outside she looked around for Chester, who had claimed to have an important errand to run instead of attending church.

  “Miss Barclay.”

  Jo turned to find Mrs. Livingston at her side. The woman offered her a hesitant smile and Jo returned it. “Mrs. Livingston! How lovely to see you again. Did you—”

  “If you should like to come to tea on Tuesday, I should be glad to have you.”

  “Of course I should like to. That sounds—” Jo broke off as Mrs. Livingston ducked back through the crowd of churchgoers to her husband’s side. Jo suppresse
d a shudder of revulsion and fear at the sight of Mr. Livingston. She saw his wife flinch when he took her elbow and directed her through the crowd and Jo was reminded of how Thomas Kent would act solicitously toward her in public, only to treat her so abominably at home, especially in the last year of their marriage when his ill-gotten wealth and nefarious political contacts began to provide them invitations to London’s society events.

  At those parties and balls he would appear as the doting husband. He even relented enough to see that she was fashionably dressed for such occasions. But the price in return was that in private she could scarce take a step without bearing his scathing criticism and her slightest misstep, like purchasing the wrong tobacco for his pipe, reaped harsh physical punishments.

  The brilliant sunny morning turned grey, the warm balmy breeze going cold. Jo felt herself physically shrinking in on herself. Someone touched her elbow and she jumped.

  “Easy Miss Anne. You look like you saw a ghost. Was the minister on about damnation again?”

  Jo smiled at Molly, her heart returning to normal, the sun regaining its warmth. “Just a goose walking over my grave, I suppose. I was looking for Chester. He said—oh there you are, Chester. Did you find what you were looking for?”

  The man’s normally ruddy complexion turned even redder and Jo realized that he’d disappeared to walk Molly home from church. Biting back a smile, she quickly changed the subject.

  “I need to stretch my legs after so many days trapped inside. I believe I will take a walk along the beach. You two go on without me.”

  Molly and Chester protested this arrangement with Molly declaring it wasn’t seemly for a lady to walk unescorted and Chester claiming it wasn’t safe.

  “I’m quite old enough not to be censured for walking without a chaperone,” she told Molly. Looking at Chester, she lowered her voice. “I’m sure it will be perfectly safe now, thanks to Mr. Spooner.” She kept her gaze on Chester until he grudgingly nodded.

  “You two have fun,” she exclaimed cheerfully. The manservant’s complexion now resembled a beet, while Molly smiled like a cat after the cream.