Page 143 of The Summer Country

“Charles?” She would never have known him. His clothes were little more than rags. There was a raw and ugly burn on one arm. His hair was gray with soot, adding twenty years to his age. He looked as though he’d come from the siege of Troy, and it had gone ill with him. Mary Anne stumbled from her seat and hurried to him. “Your arm! I’ve a salve for that.”

Charles shook his head, as though his ears were still ringing. His voice was the merest rasp. “I’ve come to beg a bed and a bath. Peverills is gone.”

Mary Anne’s chest felt very tight. “And Jenny?”

“Gone. The east wing burned to the ground.”

Mary Anne’s fist pressed against her lips. It wasn’t true; she wouldn’t let it be true. “Did they find—was she—are you sure?”

“There were so many—so many trapped— Their bodies— Oh God.” Charles’s voice broke. “Lottie was sleeping in there.”

“Oh, Charles.” Mary Anne put a hand on his arm, not sure what to say. Last night, she’d thought Charles dead. Fenty—he was probably already gone to Antigua. What good would it do to get him back now? “Oh, Charles. I’m so very sorry.”

“Why didn’t I go to her? I ought to have thought—I didn’t think. I never thought they would fire the house. I thought I could talk to them—reason with them—” His eyes were very blue in his soot-grimed face. “Someone told me—someone told me that they were meant to be burning Beckles and sparing Peverills. But the message got garbled.”

“Oh,” said Mary Anne, feeling an overwhelming surge of gratitude for the incompetence of the insurgents. If Edward had been caught, asleep . . . It wasn’t to be thought of. “Oh, Charles. You know you can stay with us at Beckles as long as you like.”

Charles buried his face in his hands. “I killed her, Mary Anne. My baby. My Lottie.”

Mary Anne put a hand on his arm, feeling deeply ineffectual. Now was the time to tell him that she knew, that she’d guessed. Now was the time to tell him that Lottie was alive and safe, with that thief and bully Jonathan Fenty.

But instead, she said, “Charles. Charles. There’s nothing to be done now.” He looked up at her blindly, not seeing her, and Mary Anne said, with more confidence, “You’ll start again. Don’t they say something or other rises up out of the ashes? Maybe it’s a blessing?”

“A blessing?”

The thought of Jenny smote her, but she pushed on. If Jenny and Charles hadn’t lied—well, none of this need have happened. Lottie would have been safe at Beckles, learning the art of cleaning silks and doing hair. And really, it was for the best for Charles. If he knew Lottie was alive, he would go after her, and how would he forget Jenny then? He hadn’t really known Jenny, not like Mary Anne had.

It was absurd for him to wear the willow over her, but that’s what he would do unless he was pushed to abandon his grief and make something of himself. That’s the sort of man he was. If she had to take it on her own conscience to see him free of the past, that was what she would do.

Besides, she didn’t trust Fenty not to make good his word. Not that she really thought he could bring a case against her for murder, not now, but it wasn’t something she particularly wanted to test.

“You’re young yet,” said Mary Anne bracingly. “You can rebuild Peverills. You’ll marry, have other children.”

Charles flung away from her, looking at her with undisguised loathing. “Peverills can rot. It’s brought me nothing but misery.”

It brought him thousands of dollars a year, but Mary Anne didn’t think Charles would necessarily appreciate that observation, not in the mood he was in.

“A little time away might do you good,” she said, doing her best to sound supportive and understanding, even if she did think a stronger man would stand and face his losses and not go running away to be coddled and consoled with port and beef dinners. “You’ll want a good manager for Peverills while you’re gone, and you’ll need to leave instructions about rebuilding. . . .”

“I’m not rebuilding,” said Charles shortly. “I mean it, Mary Anne. I’m done.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say something about Jenny, about knowing. But Edward came running in, the end of a hobby horse bumping against the floor behind him. He’d recently graduated from dresses to a skeleton suit, in blue serge with a white collar, his golden curls shining around his face.

“Mama, where Jenny?” he demanded imperiously. “Want Jenny.”

A choking sound emerged from Charles’s throat.

Edward looked from one grown-up to the other, confused. He tightened his stranglehold on the hobby horse’s neck and sidled over to her, tugging at her skirt.

“Mama. Mama, why Uncle Charles cry?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Christ Church, Barbados

August 1854

Dried tears made tracks down Mrs. Davenant’s cheeks as she slept.