Kisses and Scandal (Survivors)

by Galen, Shana

  Raeni blinked. “A wedding trousseau? I don’t think I heard you correctly, Madame.”

  The modiste smiled. “It will not be long after he sees you in this dress. Au revoir.”

  Only her perfume lingered, and Raeni took a breath, finally alone. She hardly thought a dress was enough to persuade a man to propose to her, but she smiled a little at the thought. Mrs. Thomas Gaines. The idea made her heart pound faster. Raeni checked the clock in her room. She still had a few minutes until eight, but she saw no reason to delay. She made her way down the steps, pausing when she heard the intake of breath.

  Thomas stepped out of the shadows in the foyer, his mouth open as he stared at her. “You’re beautiful,” he said, the awe in his voice making her cheeks heat.

  “It’s the dress.”

  “It’s you. The dress only accents your beauty.” He held out a hand, and she descended the last few steps, putting her hand in his. “I will probably regret taking you to this ball.”

  She cocked her head.

  “Because I’ll have competition for your attentions after the other men see you.”

  She shook her head. Her eyes meeting his. “You could never have competition for my affection.”

  “You care for me then?” he whispered. Surprise at his tone lanced through her. Had that been uncertainty in his voice? How could he not know she cared for him? And was he, the successful owner of Bond Street Coffee & Tobacco and who knew how many other establishments, really concerned as to whether a girl with nothing and no connections cared for him?

  “Of course, I do. You shouldn’t even need to ask.” And then, because she wanted him to know how much she appreciated him, she added, “Thank you for all you have done for me.”

  “Sir, the coachman is waiting,” the butler said from the doorway.

  Thomas nodded and offered his arm to Raeni. She took it, her legs shaking under her skirts. She had never been to a ball before. She was excited and terrified all at the same time.

  Thomas helped her into the coach he’d hired then sat across from her. The coach was clean and well-appointed, the squabs made of soft velvet and the carriage lamps burning low. She parted the curtains to look out, smiling at the faces of the people who watched the coach pass. If she had been on the outside, she too would have watched the coach and wondered what high-ranking person might be inside. No one would ever know it was a mulatto from Jamaica who was in hiding.

  Raeni dropped the curtains back into place, glancing at Thomas as she did so. She wondered at how quiet he was, but she was too nervous about the coming evening to think of anything to say. After what seemed only a handful of minutes, the coach slowed to a stop. Raeni swallowed hard. She needed more time to prepare.

  Thomas grasped her hand from across the coach. “You will do fine. We’re among friends tonight.”

  She nodded, licking her dry lips. The door to the coach opened and a footman in a handsome blue livery offered her a hand. She took it then looked up at the brightly lit windows of the building. She could hear the strains of music and the tinkle of laughter wafting out of the open windows. Thomas stood behind her, and she gestured to the building. “What is this place?”

  “It’s an assembly hall. Private and public balls are held here.” He withdrew the invitation from his coat. “This one is private. Shall we?” He offered his arm and she clutched it as he led her up the stairs. Another footman opened the door and inside a third took the invitation, glanced at it and then the two of them, and led them toward the source of the music. They were put in a line with other guests. “We’re waiting to be announced,” Thomas murmured in her ear.

  Raeni nodded, but her thoughts were racing. She had seen black people in London, of course. Thomas had quite a few working for him, but she had not seen so many together since she had been in Jamaica. She had not believed there were so many in all of London. And these were not like the slaves her father had owned on the plantation. These men and women were well-dressed and sparkling with jewels. For the first time, Raeni felt like the name her mother had given her—she felt like a queen.

  As she and Thomas moved forward and she heard the butler announce her name, she surveyed the crowd of people watching her. This was where she belonged. In Jamaica, her place had always been in question. She was not a slave, but she was not free. She’d lived in a space between two worlds, not fitting in anywhere. But here, among the free Negroes of London, she knew she belonged. She was finally free as they were, and she would carve a place for herself in this world.

  “Shall we dance?” Thomas asked, leading her into the ballroom.

  She gave him a terrified look. “Now?”

  He smiled at her. “I had better claim your hand now before the other gentlemen descend.” Then he gave her a serious look. “I never asked. You do know how to dance?”

  “I do.”

  Her father had taught her some of the dances on long summer evenings. And she’d shared a dancing instructor with her lighter-skinned brothers, who had always been destined to travel to England to further their education. Dancing was deemed as essential to their education as Latin. “But I’ve never danced with anyone other than my brothers.”

  He offered her his hand and led her to the dance floor where groups were forming for a quadrille. “I can only hope I dance as well as your brothers.”

  The music began and for the first few moments, it was all Raeni could do to remember the steps and pray they were not different on this side of the ocean. But after a few moments, she relaxed and began to enjoy the dance. The other couples were graceful and polite, the men handsome in their dark coats and white cravats and the women lovely in dresses of all shades. She was pleased she was the only woman so far in this shade of blue.

  She and Thomas came together for one of the forms, and he bowed to her. “Speaking of your brothers,” he said. “Where are they now? You came across the Atlantic with them and then they just abandoned you in London?” His voice held a note of anger, and she was quick to jump to her brothers’ defense.

  “They really had little choice. They smuggled me on board the ship and hid me throughout the voyage, but they couldn’t stay with me in London. At least if they attended the school my father had enrolled them in, there was a chance he would decide I was not worth the trouble. But if they stayed in London with me, my father would certainly send men to do his will, perhaps even come himself.”

  “And why did your brothers not bring you with them?”

  “There was nowhere for me to live. They were being housed in a boys’ dormitory. Besides, I could easily get lost in London.”

  “You could easily be robbed in London.”

  She smiled ruefully. “That too.”

  The dance continued, Raeni turning and skipping with the gentlemen in their set. And then she was across from Thomas again. He was so handsome that just looking at him made her heart beat faster. Or perhaps it was just all the dancing.

  “And are you so certain your father has sent men to retrieve you?”

  Raeni wanted to say no. She wanted to believe she was finally free of her father and the man he’d sold her to in Jamaica. And there was no reason to believe men were searching for her. But she still felt uneasy. She felt watched. She felt hunted. She couldn’t let down her guard.

  Except for tonight. At the Dark Ball, she felt safe.

  With Thomas beside her, she felt safe.

  “Unfortunately, I am certain,” she finally answered. “He sold me to another planter, and now it will be a matter of pride more than money.”

  “A man ruled by pride is the most dangerous of all.” He leaned close to her. “But I vow to you now, Raeni, he will never see you again.”

  The song ended and Thomas led her off the dance floor and to a refreshment table. He handed her a glass of wine, and she struggled to sip it. She was thirsty from the dance and the sentiments Thomas had just expressed. The heat in his voice and the passion in his eyes had quite taken her breath away. She sipped the wine
again then turned at the sound of a man addressing Thomas.

  “Mr. Gaines, welcome to London. I’m Meshach Peters.” The short, stocky man dressed impeccably in a dark blue coat and white waistcoat with delicately embroidered blue flowers held out a hand.

  Thomas took it. “Mr. Peters. Miss Sawyer, might I introduce Mr. Peters? He is the president of the Negro Merchants’ Guild.”

  Peters’s eyes widened slightly as he took Raeni’s hand. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Sawyer.” He glanced at Thomas again. “I see my reputation has preceded me. We at the guild have been impressed with what we’ve seen of Bond Street Coffee & Tobacco. I saw in The Midnight Cryer you have an opening celebration planned.”

  “I hope you will be able to attend.”

  “I plan on it. And I hope you would consider attending one of our guild meetings. We could use a man with your sense for business.”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  Peters gestured to a young man standing slightly behind him. “Mr. Gaines, may I present my nephew Samuel Peters. Miss Sawyer, Mr. Samuel Peters.” Thomas bowed, and Raeni gave a slight curtsy. Another song was beginning, and she watched the dancers line up.

  “If you’re not already spoken for, Miss Sawyer, may I have this dance?”

  Raeni shot a surprised glance at Samuel Peters. She hadn’t expected to dance with anyone except Thomas. She looked at Thomas, and his mouth was tight, but he nodded at her as though to say your decision.

  Raeni took a breath. As intrigued as she was by the men and women at the ball, she had always loved dancing. How could she turn down this opportunity? “Thank you, Mr. Peters. You may.” She took his offered arm and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.

  “SHE HAS BEEN DANCING for more than an hour,” Thomas said to Isaiah Franklin, a vegetable wholesaler he knew from the man’s days in Wapping.

  “And judging by the men lining up on that side of the room, she won’t lack for partners. If you plan to dance with her again, you’d better claim her right away.”

  “I don’t want to dance.”

  “Of course not.”

  At Franklin’s sardonic tone, Thomas shot him a look. Isaiah was about fifty and had a wife and grown children. They had become fast friends when they’d met in Wapping as they’d both been slaves in the States. Franklin had escaped slavery in one of the Carolinas when his master had brought him to London to serve as butler for the family while they were in Town for the Season. He hadn’t expected the white servants in his employ to tell Franklin that in England he was free or to help him escape. While the family had been at a ball, trying to catch a husband for the oldest daughter, Franklin had a caught a hackney to Wapping, changed his name, started working as a costermonger, and worked his way up to the owner of his own business. Now the boys selling fruit on the street corner worked for him.

  Thomas watched Raeni again. Her eyes sparkled and her smile was wide as she twirled, looking radiant in her ice blue dress.

  “I suppose I shall have to tell my wife that her hopes of marrying you to one of our girls are just that—hopes.”

  Thomas started. “Mary wants me to marry one of your daughters?”

  Franklin laughed. “Why so surprised? I told her you thought of them like nieces. But this lady”—he gestured to Raeni—“I think she has stolen your heart.”

  It was true. She had stolen his heart, but he’d debated for days now whether to tell her or not. Thomas wanted to believe there was more behind her feelings for him than the pull of desire that seemed to snag both of them every time they were alone together. Tonight she had said she cared for him, but was it only out of gratitude for how he’d helped her? Or did she feel more for him? Did she care for him as a man? Did she even know him? He didn’t like talking about his past, but perhaps it was time for that.

  “Excuse me,” he said to Isaiah.

  “I thought you didn’t want to dance,” the older man called after him.

  “I don’t!” Thomas caught Raeni and her partner just as they were stepping off the dance floor. “Thank you,” he told the caramel-skinned man with a French accent. “You can go now.” Thomas took her arm and steered her toward a footman with a tray of champagne.

  He lifted a flute and handed it to her. She sipped it, then seemed to try and catch her breath. “That was rude.”

  “No, it would be rude to let him believe he had any chance of ever seeing you again. He doesn’t—because you’re coming home with me.”

  She smiled at him. “Yes, I am.”

  “Do you want to dance more?” he asked. He really hoped she did not want to dance, but if she was enjoying herself, he didn’t want to pull her away.

  “Truth be told, I’m exhausted. Can we go home?”

  Home. The way she said it, he could almost believe it was their home. Or might be one day.

  “Absolutely. I’ll send for the carriage.

  THEY TALKED OF THE ball in the conveyance—the music, the people, the fashions. It had been a new experience for Raeni to see so many free blacks gathered together, many of them prosperous. Thomas remembered feeling the same disorientation when he had first come to England. When they arrived at his home in Cheapside, the house was quiet. Alice and the baby must have been asleep. Only his butler was awake, waiting in the foyer.

  “Sir, might I speak with you alone for a moment?” the butler asked.

  Thomas frowned at him. “Miss Sawyer and I were about to have a glass of sherry in the library. Can it wait until morning?”

  The servant looked at the two of them, clearly torn.

  “I can go up to bed,” Raeni said. “We can have sherry another night.”

  “No, miss.” The butler gave a curt bow. “It’s nothing. It can wait. I’ll light the lamps in the library and then retire.”

  “Thank you,” Thomas said, motioning for Raeni to precede him to the library. The skirts of her blue gown shimmered in the candlelight. It had cost him a small fortune, but it was worth every shilling.

  In the library, Thomas poured them both a few sips of sherry and then resumed the conversation they’d had in the carriage. “You wanted a book to read before bed?”

  “If it’s no bother,” she said, coming to stand beside him in front of the shelves he’d had filled by the decorator he’d hired. “I liked to read before bed in Jamaica, but now I see what a luxury that was. Now I see what a luxury a bed is.”

  “I understand,” he said, pulling a volume of poetry by Coleridge from the shelves and handing it to her to peruse. “It is illegal for slaves in Virginia to read. I taught myself when I arrived in England.”

  Her hand stilled, the pages of the book fluttering open as her grip slackened. “The penalty on my father’s plantation was ten lashes to the slave who read.”

  “It was the same on my master’s tobacco plantation in Virginia. Ten lashes to the slave and a fifty dollar fine for any white taught teaching slaves to read or write.”

  She swallowed, and he knew the question she wanted to ask. It was there in her eyes.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Ask me.”

  “Is that where you received your scars? Forgive me, I saw your back when you changed clothing in your office that first day. I didn’t mean to.”

  He closed the book and took it from her hands, resting it on the edge of the shelf. Then he covered her hands with his. Hers were so small and soft, unlike his large, callused ones. But when he looked down at them, they were otherwise similar—the same beautiful brown skin.

  “I don’t mind,” he told her. “I did not receive the lashes for trying to read. I worked in the field. I had no time or energy to think about reading or writing. I worked from sunup to sundown, and I barely managed to eat something for dinner before I fell into my cot to get what sleep I could.”

  Her hand tightened on his. “Oh, Thomas.”

  “At fifteen I was sold to another master. The slaves there whispered of rebellion at night when we were alone in our cabins. I heard about
free men and women in the north, but I also knew they could be captured and brought back. When I learned that in a faraway place called England, Negro men and women were free, I started to plan my escape.”

  “You could have been killed.”

  “I knew I wouldn’t live long at Lakemouth. The overseer didn’t like me, and I felt the sting of the lash often when I didn’t work quickly enough to suit him. One evening the overseer couldn’t account for all of the knives we used to harvest the tobacco. At harvest time, we were given knives sharpened almost daily to cut the tobacco between the bottom leaves and the ground. He accused me of stealing and had me whipped publicly as an example.”

  A tear ran down her cheek. “Did they ever find the knife?”

  “Oh, yes. It turned out the overseer had miscounted. It was there all along.”

  “I could kill him!”

  He smiled. “I planned a thousand heinous deaths for him while I lay on my stomach in the hot cabin, my back burning with pain. But if not for those lashes, I might not be here. When I was up again, I was not strong enough to go back to the field right away and was given the job of pruning and planting the flowers near the big house. I overheard the master and his friends on the porch, talking of a ship sailing to England in two nights. Lakemouth was only five miles from the harbor. The next night I swam across the lake and escaped through the woods. At the harbor I pretended my master had business with the captain of the ship and asked which it was. Then I mixed in with the slaves bringing the goods aboard, slipped down to the hold, and hid. I was found after a week at sea, but the sailor who found me kept quiet. He brought me a little food and water, and I slipped off the ship with the cargo in Wapping.”

  “And now look at you. You have more businesses than I can count on one hand.”

  He shook his head. “I was lucky. I heard the right people talking, and I knew how to swim, which made it hard for my master to track me. The sailor on the ship didn’t bring me to his captain, who would have most likely thrown me overboard rather than being accused of aiding a runaway slave.”