Page 134 of The Summer Country

Charles stood up, the candlelight turning his features into something out of a storybook, a knight about to go into battle. “I’ll go speak to them.”

“Don’t be a fool, Charles,” said Mary Anne, looking at her fork in confusion and then flinging it down. “If you ignore them, they’ll shout a bit and go away.”

There was the crash of broken glass from the front of the house, followed by a shout.

“I won’t be a moment,” Charles said, and his eyes met Jenny’s. “Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry? She had to get them out of here, she had to get them all out of here. Where would be safe? The mill? They would burn the mill. The bookkeeper’s house? Maybe. Beckles? She’d told them to burn Beckles, to burn Beckles and sow the ground with salt. Peverills was supposed to be safe. Lottie was supposed to be safe.

“Lottie.” Jenny’s throat was dry, her hands cold. She dropped Mary Anne’s fan and shawl and bolted for the door.

“Jenny! Where do you think you’re going? Jenny!”

Peverills wasn’t like Beckles; it hadn’t been built to a simple plan. There were rooms off of rooms, stairs that led up and then down. Lottie’s room was in one of the wings.

“Fire!” someone shouted, and another anxious voice took up the cry. Outside, people were running to and fro. Jenny heard the high and anguished whinny of a horse run wild. “Fire!”

Mary Anne grabbed her by her arm. “For heaven’s sake! Don’t lose your head. Come away. We’d best get back to Beckles—if we still can.”

She could hear the crackle of fire, timbers burning, stone crumbling. Charles was in the fields, and Lottie, Lottie was in her bed, in the back of the house, in the back of the house where the fire was raging.

Oh God. What had she done? Not Peverills, they’d promised. Not Peverills.

“Lottie!” she shouted, hoping against hope that she would see a little body in a white nightdress stumbling toward her. Her words disappeared into the howl of the flames and the cries from outside.

“Jenny!” Mary Anne tugged at her arm. “This way. Now.”

“Let go!” Half-mad with fear, Jenny yanked away so hard she sent her mistress stumbling. “My baby—I have to get my baby.”

Without looking back, she ran toward the rear of the house, toward the fire.

Mary Anne’s shout and a rending noise were the only warning she had before the flaming beam came hurtling down, straight toward her head.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Christ Church, Barbados

August 1854

Emily’s room at Beckles was waiting for her, just as it had been.

One would never know that only an hour away, thousands of people had died; one would never know that they were dying even now. The furniture smelled of lemon oil and beeswax. Her brushes and combs were on the dressing table, silver shining with polish. The mirror glittered in the sunlight that slanted through the jalousies.

There had been water left for her in the washstand. Emily found herself eyeing it askance. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” she asked Katy, “could you see that my wash water is boiled?”

She could tell that the maid thought it a rather eccentric request, hot water in the heat of the day, but she took the pitcher all the same.

“How is your little girl?” Emily called after her, but Katy must not have heard, because she didn’t answer.

Emily began to unpin her cuffs, feeling out of place and out of sorts. As soon as the message arrived from Beckles, it was taken as a given that she would go back; there could be no reason for her to stay in Bridgetown now. Cousin Bella had helped her to pack “her” things, although precious little of them were hers. Emily had felt, discomfitingly, that she was being chivvied away.

There had been no time to speak with Nathaniel alone, and Emily wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or relieved by that.

What was there to say?

On the other hand, it was far more disturbing to think that there might be nothing to say, that that kiss had been nothing more than relief, relief that the death toll had slowed, that the plague had lifted.

It was hardly a romantic thought.