Page 59 of The Summer Country

Outside, far away, people were drinking rum and blackstrap; they were dancing to the sound of the drum and the fiddle. Men and women were kissing and coupling, not because they were constrained to do so, but because the rum and music coursed through and around them, and what did they have but the pleasure of the hour?

Jenny had never had that. Between the house and the quarters, belonging to neither place, her father’s weapon, Mary Anne’s tool. She had never kissed a man from desire. Her skin had tingled at a touch, yes, but with loathing, not lust.

Defiantly, Jenny stepped forward and put a hand on Mr. Davenant’s shoulder and pressed her lips to his, stopping his mouth with a kiss.

He was tall, even without his high hat; she had to stand on her toes to kiss him. She could feel his quick, indrawn breath, the way his muscles tensed beneath her palm. But he didn’t grab at her, didn’t reach for her, didn’t move. He just stood, frozen, as she brushed his lips with hers.

She had expected that kissing him would prove its own antidote, that disgust would quell desire. But it wasn’t. It didn’t. They were soft, his lips, not hard, not wet and slobbery like the last man who had presumed to make free of her.

Gently, so gently, his hand brushed against her side, not yanking, not grabbing, a feather touch, but something about it made her lean closer, into him, the kiss deepening as he kissed her back, kissed her as though she were the most precious thing in the world, slowly and with infinite care.

She slid her hands across his back and felt the muscles quiver at her touch.

“I—” Mr. Davenant stumbled back, swallowing hard. He touched his fingers to his lips, looking dazed. “We can’t do this.”

She hadn’t intended to, but to be told no made her, contrarily, want him all the more. “I thought you said . . .”

“What I shouldn’t.” Mr. Davenant held up his hands as though to keep her away, or to keep himself away from her, his face raw with regret. “If we were other than we are, I would court you with poetry and apples. I would take you walking in the gardens, and if you chose to steal a kiss, I would hardly say you nay. But we are what we are. I will not take advantage of a woman who cannot refuse.”

“You aren’t my master.”

“Yes, but under the law—” At her look, Mr. Davenant checked himself. “All right, I won’t make a brief of it. You aren’t free.”

“Because I’m not free, does that mean that I don’t feel?” Anger seared through her, anger for everything she had lost, everything that had been stripped from her simply by the circumstances of her birth, the tint of her skin. Something less than human, lower than an animal. “Even the beasts in the fields are allowed to mate as they wish. Would you deny me even that?”

“And if there were a child?”

The words were a knife in her gut. “There won’t be,” she said flatly. “I cannot bear children.”

It had been her father’s revenge for the chocolate. He’d tossed her to a visitor, just another amenity of the house, a middle-aged man, a stranger.

The potion Mary Anne had procured for her had made her so ill, so very ill. But she wouldn’t, she couldn’t bear a child to be another weapon for her father to use against her. An asset to be worked or sold, taken from her without a word. Better for it to end in cramps and blood than be a person to toil and suffer, a person with a claim on her heart. She’d made her choice when she was fifteen, a choice made in desperation and fear.

“You need have no fear of consequences. There won’t be a child with your face living in the quarters at Beckles.” Jenny looked at him defiantly, glaring down his pity. “It’s a blessing. Do you think I would want to bear a child to live as I’ve lived?”

It would have been more impressive if her voice hadn’t broken. She hated herself for giving her father that power over her, still.

“Oh, Jenny,” said Mr. Davenant, and put his arms around her, not pushing, not grabbing, just holding her, so that her head fit into the curve of his shoulder, the fine wool of his jacket smooth against her cheek. “What did he do to you?”

Jenny shook her head, feeling the warmth of him through the fabric. She wouldn’t let her father ruin this too. “That’s past.” She looked up at him, leaning forward so that her chest pressed against his, and felt a tremendous surge of power as he trembled at her touch. “It’s nothing to do with this. With us. If you don’t want me, just say so and I’ll go.”

“But—” Mr. Davenant started to speak and then stopped, struggling for the right words. “How could I know—if it were not of your own free will—that is—I shouldn’t wish—”

“If you won’t take my word on it, then . . . will this do?”

Jenny took his face in her hands and kissed him, pouring all her anger and frustration into the kiss, all her feelings of loss and yearning, all those years without touch, without affection, sleeping on the floor by her mistress’s bed, fearing for her life, guarding her emotions.

Just once. Just once, something to burn away the pain and loss and fear. Just once, something for herself, and her father and Mary Anne be damned.

“Well?” she asked breathlessly, when their lips parted.

Mr. Davenant’s lips were swollen, his cheeks flushed. He blinked at her, looking thoroughly dazed, and Jenny felt a savage delight at having deprived him of his eloquence, this man who always had something to say.

“We should—we should meet again,” he said. His arms were still around her, holding her loosely. “To plot to bring your mistress and my brother together.”

“Only for that?” There was a strange power in demanding what she wanted, only because she wanted it. Never mind that she had come to beg him to marry her mistress; this was her moment now, just hers. Let her go to him because she wanted to, not because her father gave her as a gift or Mary Anne dangled her as a bribe. This was hers and hers only, and she would have it.

“Is that what you wish?” he asked, his voice hoarse and raw.