Page 75 of The Summer Country

Mary Anne took it as her due, and nodded, satisfied, better pleased with her husband than she had been since the marriage. She might chafe at her enforced inactivity, at the weakness that restricted her movements, but she was fierce with pride at the prospect of an heir for Beckles, determined to bring the babe safely to term even if it meant giving up her rides, her walks, the supervision of her estates.

“It might be a girl,” Jenny pointed out.

“Don’t say that!” Mary Anne pressed her eyes shut, leaning back against her cushions. “Lord, I hope it’s not a girl.”

“You inherited Beckles,” Jenny said soothingly.

“Yes, and look at me.” The pink was coming back into her cheeks and lips as the wave of nausea passed. “What I wouldn’t give to have been a boy. Do you think I’d wish my situation on my child?”

I can’t bring a child into this. That was what Jenny had told Mary Anne ten years ago, and Mary Anne had helped her, even though the loss of the child meant the loss of an asset.

Whenever Mary Anne’s demands became too much, when she found herself missing Charles with an intensity that unsettled her, Jenny reminded herself of that. That Mary Anne had stood by her when she needed it, even though it meant the loss of a child for Beckles, a baby whose worth might have been reckoned in dollars and pence.

“There’s a difference,” said Jenny quietly, easing her mistress back down. “Your child will have you to guide her.”

“Yes, I suppose. . . .” said Mary Anne, but Jenny didn’t bring up the possibility of the child being a girl again.

At dusk, Robert would stop by her room smelling of the stable and of cane, and Mary Anne would accost him with a battery of questions. What was he doing about the new machinery for the mill? Had he replaced the head driver?

Jenny half expected Robert to shrug and advise Mary Anne to rest. But he didn’t. He sat by her bed and expatiated on his doings as day turned to night, like an agrarian Scheherazade. Jenny suspected it was less for Mary Anne’s benefit and more because he wanted an audience, someone to impress with his industry, but whatever the reason, the pair seemed better pleased with each other than they had been since the marriage, and Jenny began to cautiously wonder whether Charles might be right, whether the baby might be the making of them.

If Mary Anne survived the process.

If Mary Anne died . . . Jenny repressed the disloyal thought. She was tired, that was all. She felt sleepy and heavy from the long hours of attendance on her mistress, her limbs weighted, her mind prone to wander. Robert had removed to his own chamber, and Mary Anne liked to have Jenny sleep on a pallet by her bed, to be near in the night when she couldn’t sleep. In the day, Mary Anne insisted on keeping Jenny close, relinquishing her only for necessary errands.

Mary Anne had always liked to have her with her; now Jenny felt as though she were chained to her. There had been no time to slip away to the Old Mill. Charles, Jenny suspected, had waited for her in vain, more than once. He had finally resorted to sending a gift of fruit to her mistress, a basket of oranges, and, at the bottom, a note bearing only two letters: OH.

Overseer’s house.

Doing her best to mask her impatience, Jenny read to Mary Anne and bathed her brow and settled her back against her cushions. “Do you think you can rest a bit? I’ll have Queenie sit by you.”

Mary Anne cracked open an eye. “Why? Where are you going?”

“To see Nanny Bell.” Nanny Bell was officially in charge of the laundry. In reality, she supplied a vast array of remedies and cures. The effectiveness of these, Jenny knew firsthand. Oil of oleander . . . It’s the safest way, Mary Anne had promised her, holding her hand as she drank. “She’s promised me a potion to ease your pain.”

“Tell her there’s a new dress in it for her if she can stop me casting up my accounts every hour.” Mary Anne moved her head restlessly from side to side. “What I wouldn’t give to be on my feet right now!”

“Don’t,” said Jenny. “Rest. I’ll be back soon.”

Charles was waiting for her at the overseer’s house, reading a letter by the light that filtered through the window. He dropped it at the sound of her approach, wrapping her in his arms, holding her, just holding her, for several long minutes.

“I’ve finally hired an overseer,” he said into her hair. “He’s to take up residence after Christmas.”

Jenny was surprised at the sense of loss she felt. This place, even more than the Old Mill, had been where they had met while Robert and Mary Anne courted, where they could lie together in a proper bed and pretend that this was their home, that they might be together always. But now someone else, a stranger, would be here.

“It doesn’t matter,” Charles hastened to add. “We won’t need this place anymore if all goes well.”

“If all goes well,” Jenny echoed. She looked up at him, his golden hair, his London tailoring, a storybook hero wandered out of the page, too rich for everyday use. It baffled her still, that they should have come together like this, that when they were together, being with him should feel so simple, so right. It was mad and impossible, but there it was. When she was with him, she didn’t have to pretend; she felt as though she’d spent her life in tight lacing only to have the knot slashed open, leaving her to breathe free for the first time.

It made it all the harder to face the prospect of returning to Beckles.

“Robert’s invited me for Christmas dinner,” Charles said. “He seemed almost amiable. If he’s in good temper . . . perhaps he might be amenable to making me the sale of a domestic servant.”

“They’re to have the Bolands too,” Jenny said. Christmas was traditionally a holiday for family, but the Bolands had no family on Barbados, and both Robert and Mary Anne were very eager to claim them as their own. “Master Robert will want to impress Mr. Boland.”

“We can find a way to use that to our advantage, I’m sure.” Charles moved away from her, fussing with the fall of the drapes at the window. “If all else fails, we’ll get them foxed on Christmas punch and conjure Robert’s signature onto a bill of sale. He’ll never remember in the morning and he’ll feel too foolish to disown it.”

He meant it, Jenny realized. He meant it and hated himself for it. “You would perjure yourself?”