Page 108 of The Summer Country

His groom.

If her grandfather had stashed a child in the hills of St. Andrew, who would have gone with him? His groom, of course.

Emily felt her lethargy slough away like the dust of the road. How foolish not to think of it before. If anyone knew what had become of that child, her grandfather’s child, it would be London Turner.

And then she would leave it, she promised herself. Once this mystery was solved, she would stop dwelling on the past and decide what to do about Peverills.

She just needed to speak to London Turner first.

Emily pounced on Adam as he was about to go down to supper. “Do you have more meetings in town?” she asked without preamble.

“Why?” Adam fell into stride with her on the broad staircase.

“I’d like to come with you. I need to see Mr. Turner—about Peverills.” It was, after all, about Peverills, even if in a roundabout sort of way.

Adam’s lip twisted. “One doesn’t just see Mr. Turner. One attempts to make an appointment and hopes for the best.”

“I suspect he’ll see me,” said Emily thoughtfully. There was something between her grandfather and Mr. Turner. “If not, I’ll do some shopping.”

“Suit yourself. I’m seeing Montefiore Tuesday week.” Adam scuffed the heel of his evening shoe against the polished treads of the stairs. “The man’s a nigger and a Jew but I’d work a deal with the devil if it meant not going home empty-handed.”

“And you’re the grandson of a Redleg,” retorted Emily. Adam looked at her blankly. “Oh, never mind. I’ll send to Mr. Turner and see if he can see me Tuesday week.”

“Don’t hold out hopes,” said Adam. “I’ve been banging on his door for weeks now.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Christ Church, Barbados

August 1814

The banging on the door grew louder. “Let me in, damn you!”

Jenny cradled Neddy closer, covering his ears with the crook of her arm, rocking and rocking. His body gave a startled jerk at another flurry of knocks, and Jenny began to sing to him, mindlessly, tunelessly, less of a song and more of a chant, to blot out the shouting and the clatter.

“I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing on the sea . . .”

“You can’t keep me out forever, Mary Anne!”

“And it was deeply laden with pretty things for me . . .”

Neddy yawned and burrowed closer, pushing with his legs against the side of the chair. He was getting big now, so big, too big to be held like this. He only resorted to the breast now late at night or very early in the morning, or when something scared him.

“There were comfits in the cabin, and almonds in the hold . . .”

“Don’t think this is an end to it!”

A final rattle and the sound of booted feet pounding off down the corridor. Jenny felt the tension in her shoulders release but she kept rocking, rocking and singing, as she had night after night, month after month, as Robert and Mary Anne shouted and ornaments smashed and Neddy cried from confusion and rooted at her breast for comfort.

“The sails were made of satin, the mast it was of gold . . .”

There were times, in the forgiving androgyny of infancy, when Jenny had pretended that the child at her breast was her own, that the hair on her child’s head had lightened from that dark birth hair to Charles’s tow, that this was her little girl, snuggling boneless into her embrace. This was her little girl and they were sailing away together in a ship made of satin and gold, far away to a land beyond the horizon, where they would feast on comfits and almonds and never be apart.

Jenny stood, taking care not to jostle the sleeping baby in her arms. He was quite an armful now, big and solid. The older he grew, the harder it was to pretend, except in those wee hours of the morning when it was dark in the nursery and she was muzzy with sleep.

It was strange to think of a baby, still in skirts, as masculine, but there was something distinctly male about Neddy’s peremptory shout when he wanted food, or his broad grin as he learned to sit up by himself, to reach for a toy without toppling over, to pull himself up to standing against the side of a chair. His legs stuck out over the side of her lap, too long now to fit comfortably, and he squirmed to be set down, to be free to toddle and fall and stick unsuitable things in his mouth. It was only in sleep that he relaxed against her, burrowing close, his face falling back into the roundness of babyhood.

Was her own little girl toddling now, on plump, unsteady feet?