Page 60 of The Summer Country

“No,” said Jenny, and reached for his cravat, yanking it free, so that she could see the pulse that beat in his throat. She set her lips to the spot and felt him tremble.

“No,” she said again, and freed a button on his jacket, and then another, finding the linen shirt beneath, tugging it free of his breeches, sliding a hand underneath, the skin warm to her touch.

Mr. Davenant stood still as a statue, scarcely breathing. She could hear the rasp of his breath and feel the struggle it took for him to stand so still.

Jenny looked up at him, both hands pressed against his chest. “This. This is what I wish.”

Chapter Thirteen

Christ Church, Barbados

May 1854

“That,” said Emily, “is pure nonsense. Marry her grandson, indeed!”

“Nonsense, is it?” Adam clasped his hands behind his back, sauntering beside her down the hallway.

“Don’t be absurd.” Emily picked up her pace. “I’m not nearly aristocratic enough to be a suitable bride for Beckles. You’ve seen the way Mrs. Davenant talks about Grandfather. And being a parson’s daughter seems to be nearly as bad!”

“If you say so,” said Adam, undeterred. “As your nearest available male relation, I assume I’ll have the honor of walking you down the aisle in the absence of your father?”

“There will be no—oh, never mind. I need to change. Mrs. Davenant has guests for tea.”

Adam raised his brows. “Does she? And I assume you’re to pour? No, no, you needn’t say anything.”

And off he went, whistling, leaving Emily wishing she didn’t feel the need to be the more mature party. But then, with Adam, she had always had to be the more mature party. Don’t mind Adam. That had been the refrain throughout her childhood. It’s only Adam.

It was only Adam, Emily told herself firmly, as she slammed into her own room, submitting to the ministrations of the maid, Katy, who had appeared, as if by magic, to help her out of her habit. Only Adam making trouble, most likely because he was worried about Laura but didn’t want to admit it, because heaven forbid he reveal any warmer emotion or human concern.

Yes, that was all. Adam was guilty and cross and making up for it by making trouble. Perhaps he was just a bit offended that he wasn’t included in those endless visits by the neighbors. At home, it was Adam, as heir, who was the center of every occasion, while Emily, the poor cousin, sat at the corner of the room in a mended frock.

Here, she was the owner of Peverills, a person of consequence, where Adam was merely a junior partner in a shipping concern. The landowners she had met, Emily had observed, viewed the world very differently. Ships and shares were all very well, but they accounted worth in land, in acres cultivated and crops harvested. Anything else was mere flimflam, and all the Fentys’ ships and all the Fentys’ ventures couldn’t make them gentlemen.

There. Emily splashed water over her face, blotting it with a towel. That disposed of Adam and his insinuations. The idea that Mrs. Davenant was grooming her to marry her grandson . . . It was positively medieval.

Emily stepped into the dress Katy had put out for her, holding out her arms so that the maid could slide the sleeves on. She’d resisted at first, but Mrs. Davenant had remonstrated with her. It unsettled the staff to have her doing for herself what they were meant to do for her. So Emily let herself be dressed like a doll rather than offend Katy or any of the others who accomplished tasks she might easily have done herself.

Katy pressed Emily into a chair and she sat so that the maid might do her hair, twisting it out of all recognition, into a hairstyle far from the simple Psyche knot she would have preferred. Her front hair was bunched into curls on either side of her face, the back elaborately looped and braided and secured by an enameled comb that hadn’t come from her own jewelry box.

The dress on her back, the comb in her hair. Neither hers.

Emily looked at herself in the mirror and scarcely knew herself. The dress was of brightly flowered cotton, the wide pagoda sleeves and each tier of the skirt edged with lace to match the fichu that crossed her shoulders, everything flounced and frilled, the material itself painfully impractical, a world away from the sensible, dark stuffs she favored.

More practical for the climate, Emily told herself. That was all. She would swelter in gray twill or black bombazine. It was very kind of Mrs. Davenant to have discovered some old stuffs and made them over for her. All part of the tradition of Creole hospitality, she had been assured; anything for one’s guests.

The woman in the mirror wasn’t beautiful: her nose was snub and her chin was too strong. But the curls and flowered flounces leant her a sort of determined prettiness.

She looked, in fact, rather like a younger version of Mrs. Davenant.

“Ouch.” Emily had, without realizing it, pulled back, leaving a lock of her hair still twisted around Katy’s finger. Wincing, she rubbed her aching scalp. “No, it wasn’t your fault. It’s quite all right, Katy, I’ve prinked enough.”

She smiled reassuringly at the maid, toying for a moment with the idea of ripping out the comb, shimmying out of the dress, and going downstairs as herself, in her own clothes, with her hair pulled into a knot at the back. But what would that accomplish? Katy would only be hurt by it and Mrs. Davenant would have words for her—not for Emily but for Katy.

She closed her hand around the gold of her locket, the one item on her person that was hers, truly hers. It looked wrong on the woman in the mirror, out of place. Which was silly. She was the woman in the mirror. A bit of fabric and a few curls couldn’t change the essence of herself.

Not immediately, at any rate. But over time . . .

Emily breathed in deeply, feeling the press of the stays against her ribs. Her own stays, at least. She wasn’t going to be cinched into nothingness, even if she was laden down with lace and petticoats. The dress that looked so deceptively light and airy was heavy with the layers of horsehair that held out the skirt, holding her to a slow and stately gait.