by JoAnn Wendt
“Don’t be silly.” They shared a smile. It was a lovely, rattle-headed moment, but it filled her with anxiety. She wasn’t ready for what she saw offered in his eyes.
A chair scraped and Matthew Plum rose to his feet.
“I will leave the letter writing to the two of you.”
“There are forty letters. Aren’t you going to help?” Edwinna asked.
“Nay.” Thanking her for supper, Plum strolled out. Drake hid a smile. He was an observant man, Matthew Plum.
Edwinna got the pots of ink, the paper, and the quill pens, and settled opposite Drake at the writing table. “That was peculiar.” She frowned. “Mr. Plum is usually so helpful.”
Drake didn’t think it peculiar at all. He thought it sensible. Plum was a man who’d just recognized that a courtship was springing into bloom.
They worked long into the night, the glare of the candlelight straining their eyes. Edwinna fell asleep in the middle of a letter, quill pen still in hand, cheek cradled on arm, her silly braid wrapped around her neck like a fur collar. Drake noted it with a smile.
He let her sleep. He finished his letter, then silently lifted his chair back, got up, and went around the table to her. He squatted on the balls of his feet, balancing lightly, elbows on knees. He should see that she got to bed. But how? If she were Anne, he would simply pick her up in his arms and carry her to bed. If she were even a normal woman, he would touch her shoulder to wake her. But he couldn’t touch Edwinna. In a thoughtless moment earlier that evening he’d given her braid a tug, and for a split second, fear had glinted in her brown eyes.
He gazed at her. She wasn’t pretty. She couldn’t hold a candle to Anne. But she was handsome. The lashes on her cheeks swooped gracefully, thick as silk.
While assembling the list of planters to write and warn, she hadn’t hesitated to include her uncle. Had Drake been the one George Crawford had hit with a riding crop, he’d have skipped the bastard and hoped he would be killed by his own bondslaves.
She slept on, her lips slightly parted.
“Edwinna?” he said. “You had best wake up and go to bed.”
Her lashes flickered. Though her eyes opened slightly, he could see by the distant look in them that she was not awake. She was still asleep, though gazing at him.
“Drake...” she whispered. “Drake...”
Unprepared for the passion in her voice, his scalp rippled. She blinked, then came fully awake. She looked at him in shock and sat up, erect.
“Did I fall asleep?” she said in her usual brisk voice.
“You did.”
“How foolish. I’ll just finish this letter.”
“You’ll finish nothing.” He took the quill from her hand, then took the snuffer and snuffed the candle. “Can you find your way in the dark?”
“Yes, of course.”
He let her lead the way upstairs, then waited at his door while she made her way to her room. She went in and locked it. He sighed and went to bed. He wondered if he was bashing his head against a brick wall trying to court her.
Drake slept soundly until the six o’clock bell clamored in the morning trade winds. Knowing Edwinna would rise quickly to tend harvest matters, he rose too, and got down to the dining chamber before her.
He’d forgotten about Jocko and Priscilla. They were crouched side by side atop the livery cabinet, looking like an old married couple. He grinned. Priscilla was industriously grooming Jocko, pawing through his fur. Jocko leaned into the grooming. Priscilla glanced at Drake and chattered.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not the least bit jealous.”
Clever Priscilla. Evidently she’d figured out how to unlatch Jocko’s cage and had let him out. Jocko certainly wasn’t smart enough to do it. Drake sat at the table to eat the morning bread and cheese Kena had set out.
“See?” he said, gesturing at the happy couple as Edwinna entered the room. As Edwinna stood there, hands on hips, Priscilla scampered down from the livery cabinet, went to the dining table, snatched a banana, and scampered back. She gave it to Jocko, then sat back and watched him complacently eat it.
“The ideal wife,” Drake quipped. “At least Priscilla knows how to serve her lord and master.”
The corners of Edwinna’s wide, pretty mouth twitched. Striding on through the dining chamber with her swinging braid and hips, she detoured to the table, snatched up a banana, plunked it onto his plate, and sailed on her way.
He sat there looking at the banana and chuckling.
* * * *
They finished the letters by morning light, sealed them, and dispatched them all over the island by bondslave. There was nothing unusual in this, nothing to alert Jacka and his cronies. Planters regularly consulted each other by letter.
Dinny’s plantation was nearest, and she wrote back at once in her charming, illiterate hand. Eye am mising no muskit nor pistol, butt three bill-kain knifes are gone. Drake shuddered. Given the macabre choice, he’d rather be killed by a musket shot than a bill-cane knife. Responses from the other planters came in quickly, too. Bondslave uprisings were not taken lightly in Barbados. Every major planter was missing weapons and expressed concern. One of the leading planters, a Mr. Drax of Drax Plantation, wrote to urge Drake to attend a meeting of the Planters Council, scheduled in Bridgetown in six weeks, at midpoint in harvest season.
“I think I will go to the meeting,” he told Edwinna.
“I think you should, Drake,” she agreed
She had finally taken to calling him Drake. It was a small step forward in their odd marital arrangement, but a crucial one, Drake thought. If she could call him by name, she was losing her fear of him.
But he was no nearer her bed. She still kept him at arm’s length. She confused the hell out of him, flaunting her gorgeous hair at him and wearing a shirt that exposed bosom on one night, and on the next night coming to supper in a shirt buttoned to the neck and hair in a tight braid. He didn’t know where he stood or what was expected of him.
Evenings were lonely for him. Edwinna habitually stayed shut in her damned office, working. Left to himself and lonely, Drake walked, wrote letters home, counted the days until he could expect his first letter from Verity and Arthur. Sometimes he went down to Plum’s and they played chess. The odd looks Plum gave him said Plum wondered about their marital arrangements, but Drake remained silent on the matter. He was a private man. But he was so ripe for a woman he wanted to howl at the stars!
Sundays were dull. Drake sat at a table in the great hall and played “Papa,” writing tickets for slaves who came and went, asking permission to go off the plantation. It was a tedious business, made more so because he didn’t understand a word of their language and had to resort to sign language. But only a heartless man would refuse them. Their desires were so simple. Two wanted to go crabbing at the seashore. Three more wanted to go to the mangrove swamps to gather hemp, which they could sell to merchants in Speightstown to gain a little money. One had a cousin in slavery on a nearby plantation and wished to go see him. Women wanted to go gathering herbs and grasses for their bush teas.
Jeremy came in to ask, with big, scared eyes, if he could take Marigold walking. Drake pretended to deliberate.
“Only if you treat her like a lady,” he warned sternly.
“I will, sir.”
David Alleyne came in, hat in hand, fair hair carefully combed, clothing fresh and clean, to request permission to take Kena walking to the seaside.
“If she’s willing,” Drake said, glancing to where Kena stood with her eyes modestly lowered, Tutu in her arms. She looked very pretty in a fresh blue cotton gown. She wore her long, curly hair combed straight and flaring over her shoulders like a soft black shawl.
“She is willing,” Alleyne said happily.
“Then I’ll write her a ticket.”
Drake watched them stroll off. They would be an odd sight in London—David with his blond hair, a black baby riding on his shoulder, a young, pretty black woman stroll
ing at his side. But here in Barbados it seemed sweet and right.
When the petitions ended, Drake wandered into Edwinna’s office, where she sat working at her everlasting ledgers. She didn’t look up. She had a maddening ability to concentrate. He fully believed she could sit there working on her ledgers as the house burned down around her. He planted a hip on the edge of her worktable and sat there. She wore reading spectacles, which made her eyes huge.
“What do you do for sport?” he asked.
She looked up. Her spectacles slid down her nose.
“What do mean, sport?”
“Sport. Fun.”
He drew a deep breath and sighed. He slid his hip off the table and headed for the door. “Edwinna, you wouldn’t recognize sport if it jumped up and bit you. I’m going for a ride.”
“If you’re going to Speightstown, check for letters.”
“I’m not going to Speightstown. I’m just going for a ride.” He stopped at the door and said impulsively, “Come with me.”
She looked up and he saw her swallow hard.
“I cannot. Harvest starts tomorrow. I am very busy. Too busy to waste time.”
He gazed at her a moment, acknowledged her rejection with a curt nod, and left.
Edwinna listened as Drake’s footfalls rang through the house and vanished out the front door. She knew what sport was —it was what other people had. Even the bond- slaves and the black slaves had sport on Sundays. But she had never had fun in her whole life. She didn’t know how.
She wondered where Drake was going. Her cheeks flushed. She had a very good idea of what he wanted, or he wouldn’t have sat on the edge of her table like that, his manly crotch displayed right before her eyes.
She thought of Dinny’s visit and the sizzle of interest she’d seen in his eyes. She wondered if he would visit Dinny. She was surprised at how upset she felt at the thought, how envious, how...jealous.
* * * *
Drake ended up at Dinny’s house by accident. At loose ends, drifting toward the island’s Atlantic coast and its wild, rugged beauty, he’d taken a wrong path. He’d spent an anxious hour lost in the cane fields on paths that crisscrossed. Heading for high ground, he’d finally ridden out of the cane on a hilltop and found himself before a large, white frame planter’s house.
He hoped to hell it wasn’t George Crawford’s, then smiled in relief as he spied a familiar, red-dyed head bobbing in the yard. He rode forward. Dinny was out in front of her house, loudly berating Jumbo for some misdemeanor. Head and shoulders taller than she, Jumbo grinned down at his little owner with fondness and took his scolding without complaint. She broke off haranguing Jumbo when she saw Drake and bellowed happily, “Mr. Steel! As I live and breathe!”
He dismounted, and she came to him with both hands outstretched, her sunflower smile shining like the sun. She wore a green linen gown that revealed she was much too plump, and her garish red hair was no color that God ever designed, but her warm nature made up for every defect.
“Mr. Steel, you’ve come to visit me, at last!”
“I have, but I must apologize. It’s accidental—I’m lost.”
She laughed merrily. “Jumbo will guide you home. But first, you are just in time for midday meal. Are you hungry?”
He was, he discovered, and said so.
Her eyes gleamed and her smile bounced even brighter. He had a momentary qualm, Edwinna at its center. This was not a sensible idea. Seizing his arm, she led him along to the house, bellowing over her shoulder, “Jumbo! Our best wine for Mr. Steel and a tiny drop of rum for me. Then see to Mr. Steel’s horse.”
When he’d washed, they settled down to eat in her charming, breezy dining chamber, at one end of her long, polished table. She knew how to coddle a man. He’d been seated no longer than two seconds when he had a drink in his hand and a pillow at his back. His free hand rested on the table. Dinny gave him a big smile and covered his wrist with her plump little hand.
Her touch rippled all the way through him. It had been a long time since he’d felt a woman’s touch— more than a year.
“So, Mr. Steel,” she demanded, beaming. “Where is our Edwinna? Why isn’t she with you?”
“She is busy with her ledgers.”
“Ledgers?” She drew small circles on his wrist. The ripples went all the way to his groin. “What is wrong with that girl, working on ledgers on a beautiful Sunday when she could be out riding with her handsome pirate!”
“I’m not a pirate, Dinny.”
She fluttered her eyelashes prettily. “Pray, do not disillusion me, Mr. Steel.”
He had to smile. “As for pirates, I fear Edwinna has little interest in them, handsome or ugly.”
She patted his wrist, then traced the blue vein on the back of his hand. He felt it all the way to his toes.
“Now, now, you must be patient with Edwinna. I love that girl, Mr. Steel. She’s like a daughter to me, and I’ll simply ask this of you. Be patient. You don’t know what Edwinna’s been through, what with Peter Crawford as her father and all.”
Drake looked at her somberly.
“I know he beat her.”
“Did she tell you?”
“No.”
“Well, she wouldn’t. Peter Crawford was a drunken sot, Mr. Steel. You can be sure I was happy as a fool when he took that fall from his horse and broke his neck. He couldn’t do no more to that sweet girl.” Then she beamed. “But let’s not talk of unhappy things. It’s such a lovely day...”
“Yes, it is.”
Dinny chirped on, leading the conversation to merrier subjects. When he could politely manage it, he removed his hand and put it in his lap. She was wonderfully entertaining. She plied him with wine and told him story after story. She was so honest about herself that he laughed in delight.
She’d been a London pickpocket as a young girl, she told him. She’d been caught and thrown into Newgate Prison and then been transported as a bondslave to the Caribbean, where she’d set her cap for a rich planter. She’s seen one the instant she’d stepped off the ship—Lord Fraser. She’d given him the biggest, sunniest smile she had, and he’d bought her indenture at once. A month later he’d married her. The marriage had been very happy but short. When he’d died, she’d found herself not only Lady Fraser, but a woman of wealth.
She sighed. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Steel, sometimes I miss the adventure of picking a pocket.”
He chuckled, and she looked up, beaming. She ran a hand up his sleeve. “Would you like to see the rest of my house, Mr. Steel?”
He drew a sharp breath and shifted in his chair uncomfortably, but her hand lingered on his sleeve. This was not a good idea. He felt guilty. Nevertheless, he found himself touring her house, first downstairs, then upstairs.
“And this is my bedchamber, Mr. Steel...”
He’d intended to make do with a hasty glance, but Dinny put her small palms on his chest and sensually traced the muscles there. Already warmed by wine, he felt the sensation like fire.
“My, but you are well built, Mr. Steel.”
“Dinny, this isn’t a sensible—”
She stood on tiptoe and put a kiss on his lips. It was the softest thing he’d felt in a year. He suddenly ached for Anne.
“Dinny, this isn’t honorable. I try to be an honorable man,”
“Of course you do, Mr. Steel,” she crooned. “Of course you do.”
She kissed him again, her hand gliding to his crotch, and he was lost. He bulged like a schoolboy. She looked up and smiled, and he didn’t lift one finger to protest when she took his hand and led him to her bed.
The sun was setting by the time he started for Crawford Plantation, and the cane fields already lay in darkness. Jumbo loped ahead on the cane path, lofting a torch, guiding him. Each time Drake thought of Edwinna, guilt washed over him.
When he reached home, he looked for her, hoping to sup with her, but she remained shut in her office. He wondered uneasily if she’d seen the torch out in the ca
ne paths, coming from Dinny’s. He hoped not. He didn’t want to hurt her.
* * *
Chapter 9
Harvest day dawned at last. Long before the sun came up, Edwinna rose, dressed, and took a bill-cane knife out to the dark, windy fields.
Had she selected the right field? Was the cane truly ripe, or should it grow another week or another month? Under-ripe cane meant less juice. Less juice meant a ton less sugar per ten-acre field—a shortage she could ill afford.
She ran through the darkness, wind whispering in the cane. She reached a field marked with a red flag and felled a cane stalk. Juice spurted. She tasted it. It was sweet. She hadn’t made a mistake.
Satisfied, she hurried to the mill. She found Valentine O’Brien there already, although they couldn’t possibly begin to grind until noon. The cane had to be cut, stripped, and cleaned before it could be put through the grinder. She conferred with Valentine on a last-minute decision. Use the windmill or oxen to drive the grinder? She decided cattle. It was safer. She lingered at the grinder with Valentine, checking everything. This was the most worrisome place on the plantation, the most dangerous.
She found Alvis Nansellock already in the boiling house, re-checking his cisterns, pipes, kettles, sugar pots, wood supply. A loyal bond-servant, he was there although he could not hope to start boiling until sundown, when the cistern would be full of cane juice. Surely Alvis Nansellock was not involved in Jacka’s mischief! Matthew Plum and Drake had warned her she must suspect everyone.
She had seen Drake’s torch coming through the cane field the evening before. Earlier, worried that he might be lost, she’d sent slaves looking. They’d come back to report he was at Dinny’s. Jumbo had told them Drake and Dinny had dined and then gone upstairs to spend the afternoon. She seethed whenever she thought of it.
Thrusting Drake and Dinny out of her mind, she concentrated firmly on harvest. Everywhere she went on the plantation, she found things ready. She trembled with the familiar excitement of harvest. She was a planter. Her entire year rolled forward to culminate in this day. She didn’t need Drake. She didn’t need Dinny. She didn’t need anyone. She had her land and her planting. She had her brothers. And she had harvest!
