JoAnn Wendt (35 page)

“Why,
Dennis?” she whispered passionately.
“Why
must this happen? Why must he hang? Neddy is of accountable age, but his mind is that of a small boy. This is not justice!”

Dennis drew a sharp angry breath.

“The jury consisted of land owners, slave owners. The thought of a slave killing his master, Jane?” Dennis shook his head. “‘Tis terrifying to the slave owner. It wakens a fear that the rich try to suppress. No. Clemency was not in their hearts. Not even Mr. Tate would help. Though Mr. Tate’s new son-in-law was sympathetic.”

“He was?”

“Ay. Mr. Raven McNeil spent three days going round to plead with the jurors along with myself. But . . .”

Tears swam in her eyes, tears both of gratitude and despair, tears she must control. If Neddy saw her tears he would be frightened.

Dropping to the floor beside Neddy, she took the oilskin packet from the stool and carefully unwrapped the raisin cakes. They were squashed, but the rich aroma of molasses curled upward, seizing Neddy’s attention. With a gleeful shout he fell upon the cakes.

“ ‘Tis a waste,” the jailer’s slack-jawed wife drawled from the table. “Givin’ bonny good cakes t’ the fool. In a hour, he’ll be dead. Them cakes won’t do him no good.”

“Be silent, woman,” Dennis exploded. “Or by God, I’ll throttle you!”

At the unexpected outburst from the mild-mannered Quaker, the jailer and his family ducked to their food and remained cowed.

Flavia watched Neddy enjoy his cakes. She tried to straighten his hair a bit, raking her fingers through it. But to touch him brought tears. As Neddy finished and licked the last buttery crumb from his fingers, Flavia heard the stomp of boots on the porch stoop. Her stomach lurched, curling around the cold pit that was her heart.

The deputation!

Her eyes shot to Dennis. He whitened, got up and went out to speak to the men. It seemed an eternity before he returned, and yet the time was not long enough.

The deputation would forgo the shackles, he told her. He and she would be allowed to escort Neddy. She felt dizzy, weak with relief and revulsion. Choking back a sob, she scanned the room for Neddy’s old patched coat. She spotted it on the jailer’s son, a surly-looking lad of about thirteen. She jumped up, went to the boy and wrenched the coat off him No one made a peep of complaint or even met her blazing, angry eyes as she stared round the table.

Neddy chortled in happiness as she and Dennis stiffly bundled him in coat, scarf, hat and Dennis’s warm gloves.

“Home?” he asked.

Dennis’s eyes went to Flavia.

“Ay, lad,” he said softly. “Thee be going home.”

Flavia gave in to one wrenching sob, then fled out into the freshly falling snow. Neddy followed, then stopped suddenly in astonishment. He stood gaping at the feathery whiteness. His eyes lit with wonder.

“Jane! Uh, uh, Jane—pretty!”

Flavia choked on her despair.

“Snow,” she managed to say. “It’s snow, Neddy.”

“Pretty,” he whispered in awe, then dropped to his knees and swirled his hands in it. He brought some of it to his mouth, tasted and then laughed in delight.

One of the black-cloaked deputation stepped forward to jerk Neddy to his feet, but Dennis stepped in front of the man.

“Give him a moment to play,” Dennis said firmly.

The man fell back, shrugging. “This gives us no pleasure, Mr. Finny. But the court has ruled. Justice must be served.”

“This is not justice,” Dennis said bitterly. “This is murder. Murder of a child.”

Flavia shuddered. She felt ill with cold. It was not the icy chill of the weather, but heart-chill, soul-chill. Weakly she reached for Dennis’s arm.
He supported her and coaxed Neddy along. Flavia forced herself onward. The snow was falling thicker and faster. Neddy reveled in it. Never had she seen him so joyful. It was as though the purity of the snow’s beauty communicated with the purity of his soul. He couldn’t speak of his joy or even comprehend the concept of joy; but joy frolicked in him and radiated from his eyes.

“Jane—pretty!” he called every few minutes as he gamboled along.

She felt ill. Ill to death. She fought the urge to vomit. Dennis sensed her weakness. His arm shot around her in increased support. She leaned heavily upon him and stumbled on.

Huddled in shawls and cloaks, stray onlookers joined the procession, eerily appearing like apparitions rising from the falling snow. Children ran along, kicking snow with loud whoops of delight. Her heart twisted as Neddy tried to imitate the frolicking children.

“Who is going to hang, Mother?” a child’s cheery voice rang out in the hushed snowy air.

“Hush! Mind your manners, Susannah.”

Flavia shuddered. The shudder would not stop.

“Oh, Dennis,” she whispered, collapsing against him. “I’m going to be sick to my stomach. I can’t—Dennis—”

She pulled away, lurching through the thick snow and stumbling into an alley off the street. The procession moved on without her as she retched violently. Falling to her knees in utter weakness, she could not stop retching. She retched beyond the point of bringing anything up. She knelt panting in the snow, her hands and her legs ice.

The procession had been swallowed up in falling snow. Even their voices had vanished. She gagged one last time, then dragged herself to her feet. She was in the alley that ran beside the fiddle maker’s house. Unconnected violin notes rang out as the craftsman worked. Fleeing the sounds, she stumbled out into the street and forced herself on. The footprints of those who’d gone ahead were already filling with snow. She hurried.

The snow was coming down like a blanket now. Blindly, she stumbled on, following whatever prints she saw. When the huge oak tree in Market Square loomed up, she knew she’d lost her bearings. Turning, she ran through the thick impeding snow, panting as she rushed. At last she sensed the gallows field, sensed its presence rather than saw it. She ran faster.

God, no. No, no, no,

It came to her suddenly that the snow was a blessing. Neddy couldn’t know where he was going. Even the gallows must be heaped with snow and unrecognizable.

She ran on, slipping, falling, dragging herself up again. At last, faint gray shadows took shape in the snow ahead. Spectators? She gagged, clutching her stomach and running on.

Suddenly, a clear happy voice rang out.

“Jane? Pretty! Pret—”

Rope whirred. There was the sickening snap of human bone breaking, then murmurs flowing from the crowd, flowing toward her like an enormous ocean wave. She swayed as it hit her.

“Neddy?” she cried out. Then, when no answer came,
“Neddy!”

She was hovering there, frozen in disbelief, when Dennis found her. He said, “It was quick, Jane. Over in an instant. Neddy felt nothing.” Her knees gave out. He caught her, picked her up in his arms and carried her away in stony silence.

When the first wave of shock passed, she struggled to get out of his arms.

“No, Dennis—I must take him down from the gallows —I must bury him—oh, help me—we must—”

He avoided her eyes, and then she remembered. She let her head fall to his chest. She wept bitterly.

The jury had decreed that Neddy’s body must hang from the tree for three months. A visible warning to bondslave and Negro slave.

* * * *

“Let me shelter thee, Jane. Let me buy thy indenture from Mrs. Byng. Let me take care of thee. Let me . . .  husband thee,” he urged gently.

 She’d been sitting by the fire in his rough, unfinished schoolhouse for hours. Although he’d built up the fire and had wrapped her in every blanket he owned, she was still shaking. He fed her hot rum tea with his own hands, since her hands shook too badly to manage the cup.

“It’s true I do not have the money just now—” He gestured around at his house, and, dully, Flavia’s eyes followed. Furnishings were sparse: a bedstead, a trencher table and benches. She was sitting in his one chair. The opposite end of the schoolhouse fared better. Expensive books stood in wall shelves. Carpentry tools lay neatly upon the school desk that was under construction. Four finished desks gleamed with the patina of oil rubbed lovingly into the fine wood.

Dennis went on. “I shall borrow the money, Jane. From Mr. Tate. Or,” he said, hesitating, “from Mr. Raven McNeil.”

Flavia was too heartsore to respond. She let him talk. Taking her silence as possible assent, he said, “Yes, I’ll consult Mr. Raven McNeil. As soon as possible. Before he travels to Williamsburg, to his brother’s wedding.”

The words sliced through her fog.

“Wedding?” She shook her head. “Not Captain McNeil?”

Dennis nodded in the affirmative.

“Mr. Raven McNeil tells me his brother will wed soon.”

Flavia’s fingers dug into the arms of the chair. It was too much. She could stand no more. She’d tried to endure the duke’s cruel punishment—oh, she’d tried. Then her precious baby Robert and the agonizing doubt that overlay his death, the nightmares in which the duke found out and cold-bloodedly murdered her son. Neddy . . . Robert . . .  Garth. . . . Valentina in danger, married to the duke and filling her shoes as duchess of Tewksbury . . . Uncle Simon and Father, Mother . . .

She
was as dead to all of them as if she had truly died. But if Flavia Rochambeau was dead, Jane Brown still lived. What should “Jane” do? What would become of Jane? She would be a prideful fool to turn away from the comfort, the kindness of this gentle man and the safe refuge he offered.

She glanced at Dennis. He was squatting beside her chair, his face tender with concern. She met his worried eyes.

“I—I will marry you, Dennis.”

The sadness of Neddy didn’t leave his face, but quiet joy suffused his expression. Too choked to speak, he fumbled into the blankets for her hand, drew her hand out and pressed a soft kiss into her palm.

“When may I claim thee, Jane?”

Awash with sorrow and resignation, she couldn’t think.

“After, after—Neddy is buried,” she said at last. “In three months.”

Dennis kissed her hand, then gently tucked it back into the warmth of the blankets.

“In April, then?” he said.

She nodded, the last fragment of her old life—of “Flavia”—seeming to fall away, leaving her just Jane.

“In April,”she agreed.

Chapter 18

Garth returned from the Caribbean to find the forsythia in bloom, the air smelling of spring planting and his life going to hell in a handbasket.

The first annoyance was his steward. The man was aboard the
Caroline
almost before the
Caroline
settled into her berth in Yorktown harbor. It was a bad omen, Garth thought sourly. Good news will wait. Bad will not.

Garth was right. The steward reported he’d failed to buy Jane Brown’s indenture. Another had beat him to it. A Quaker schoolmaster, a Mr. Finny. Jane Brown still lived in Chestertown.

And Raven still pines for her,
Garth thought in irritation. He gave his agent a black look.

“Use your head, man. Buy her from Finny and get her out of the colonies at once.” The man shrugged apologetically.

“I tried, sir.
Mr. Finny would not sell.”

Garth raised his eyebrows. “Not for one hundred pounds?”

“Not even for two hundred, sir.”

Garth laughed cynically. “Then she’s Finny’s whore.”

“It did not appear so, sir, Mr. Finny is highly respected in Chestertown. Three seminary students board with him, sir.”

Garth frowned in puzzlement, then listened to the rest of the bad news. Raven had got wind of his brother’s actions. He was so furious he was spitting tacks. Raven had ordered his own steward to go to Finny and offer
three
hundred pounds.

Garth sighed. A pretty mess. What if Maryann heard?

His second annoyance while trying to settle the
Caroline
was Mab. He was dealing with the royal customs officer on deck when he spotted a horse hightailing down the Williamsburg-Yorktown road. The rider was chucking about in the saddle as if he or she possessed no riding skills at all. He went on with his business, glancing up now and then in curiosity. To his annoyance, he began to recognize the gait of his favorite mount. He looked sharply. Mab’s long thin figure hove into view atop the horse.

“Damnation! She can’t ride. She’ll ruin him,” he fumed, grabbing quill pen, jamming it into the inkwell and scrawling his signature upon the customs papers. He went to the rail where Harrington leaned, grinning at the approaching rider.

“Tell your woman she is
not to
use my mounts.”

Harrington’s grin broadened. With the back of his hand he rubbed his beaky nose, polishing it to a ruddy glow.

“Ay, Cap’n. I’ll tell 'er.”

“And tell her a horse is steered by reins.
Not
by shouting curses into its ear.”

Harrington laughed happily.

“I’ll tell ‘er.”

With customs papers disposed of, the noisy unloading of cargo began with Jenkins supervising. Mab clattered onto the wharf, dismounted clumsily, gave the horse a slap that was pure vexation and abandoned McNeil’s mount to a small boy who stood watching. Without ceremony she pushed her way up the gangplank, cursing a path for herself through the string of porters trundling cargo from ship to waiting wagons. She threw herself into Harrington’s grinning embrace, but immediately twisted free of him to hiss fire at McNeil.

“She
sent him away,
she
did. That hoity-toity pale-faced bitch of your’n. And Sarah Bess, too!”

It was several minutes before they could calm her, several more before her story made sense. But when it did, Garth’s temper went on the boil.
Eunice, damn her.
It seemed the children’s presence had been an annoyance to Eunice and Lady Wetherby. Trent and Sarah Bess were too loud, too boisterous. Since they were merely an orphan and a servant’s child, Eunice had dispatched them to a farm on the outskirts of Williamsburg, putting them to board with a farmer and his wife.

Anger throbbed in his throat. Eunice! By God, he’d like to strangle her. How dare she meddle with his son? He needed several deep breaths of the fresh spring air before he could control himself.