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  Horatia’s nostrils flared and her throat juddered. She took a deep breath and made a conscious effort not to look at the perfectly formed face, the tiny hands and the rosebud mouth, pursed as if waiting to be kissed.

  Her son began to cry, a demanding yell of a hungry child coveting his mother’s warmth and sustenance. She would not pick him up. If she did, she’d be lost. Emotion would override common sense.

  ‘I cannot keep him. It wouldn’t be…’ She searched for the appropriate words. It wasn’t easy, and the word she chose seemed less than adequate. ‘Acceptable,’ she said, and felt her blood turn to ice.

  The doctor paused as he too considered what the most powerful woman in the city wanted him to do. Horatia Strong, although married to an adopted orphan who had become a Strong, had inherited the family fortune in her own right. Her father had recognized that she was his most talented child and had, in his Will, overlooked his sons in favour of his daughter. Horatia was respected by those of influence in the city and known to be as ruthless in business as any man. He could well understand her reasoning. She could not allow anyone to find out that she had given birth to a coloured child, and certainly not her husband.

  ‘Are you quite sure?’

  She refused to look the doctor in the eyes, clenched her jaw and closed her heart. Tight-lipped, she said something then that she would regret for the rest of her life:

  ‘I don’t want him. Take him away.’

  The doctor eyed her speculatively. The Strongs paid well for his services, and he had no intention of losing their patronage. ‘Do you want to know where he’ll go?’

  She shook her head and turned her head away, as the bundle squirmed beside her, his small movements travelling through the bedding in soft little flutters.

  ‘The nurse can be trusted,’ the doctor said. ‘I’ll get her to come with me now on the pretext that there is something amiss with the child, but I will keep his face covered. Luckily the wet nurse has very poor eyesight so is easily deceived. Your servants will learn via a message I send that the child has died. You’ll see neither the nurse nor the child again. Will that suit?’

  Horatia kept her gaze fixed on the window and the garden beyond.

  The trees were swiftly turning green. Spring was coming. Everything was bursting with life. Birds were building nests, lambs were being born; the world was busy renewing itself.

  ‘I will write to my husband in the West Indies. I will tell him his son did not survive.’

  ‘He will be disappointed, I take it?’

  Horatia nodded and her jaw trembled with the effort of keeping it firm. ‘Very. He wanted a son.’

  * * *

  ‘They’ll think him very well dressed, sir,’ said the nurse, as the doctor’s gig rattled down the road towards St Philip’s Marsh.

  ‘You know what to say?’

  ‘Yes, sir. That the child is of a good family, but the daughter got involved with a foreigner of Middle Eastern extraction.’

  ‘Very good, Daisy.’ Dr Owen gave her a few coins. ‘Two sovereigns for your silence. Two sovereigns for the warden of this establishment. They won’t ask any questions.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  The nurse secreted two of the coins in her apron pocket and tied the other two in a corner of the shawl.

  The doctor caught hold of her shoulder. ‘And neither will you. Do you understand? No questions. None at all!’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding vehemently, her eyes never leaving his face. ‘Yes. I mean no, sir. No questions at all, sir.’

  Dr Owen pulled his chestnut cob to a halt at the corner of the stony road leading to St Philip’s Workhouse. He watched thoughtfully as Daisy made her way towards the gate. It would have been easier to have pulled the bell and left the child outside, but leaving a little money might help the child survive. The mortality rate of babies left in the Workhouse was exceptionally high. There were few survivors.

  * * *

  Days went by and the parkland surrounding Marstone Court was sprinkled with wildflowers, an abundance of white, yellow, pink and blue. There was emptiness in Horatia’s heart, although she convinced herself she’d done the right thing. But it wasn’t easy to forget. As her strength returned, she reconsidered what she had done and whether she could go some way to improving matters. She was having terrible dreams, and in the morning the pain and regret remained. Her hand shook when she wrote to Tom. She kept her words plain. It was better that way.

  When Dr Owen called to check that she was fully recovered, she gave in and asked him where he had taken the child.

  He looked surprised. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘I have to,’ she said softly. ‘It is my guilt, and my family’s guilt. Though I would still swear you to secrecy.’

  He told her.

  ‘You may go,’ she said without giving him chance to examine her, then turned her back on him and looked out on the verdant parkland.

  ‘You have done the right thing,’ he said in an obvious bid to reassure her.

  She did not answer and he knew better than to pursue the matter.

  Once the door was closed behind him, Horatia tore open the lid of her writing desk. After writing the most important note of her life, she sealed it in an envelope, called for a carriage and then sent the butler to call for Sears.

  ‘I need to take some air,’ Horatia said to her maid. ‘Fetch my walking-out bonnet and my cape. Gloves, too.’

  Sears, who usually accompanied her on shopping trips and general carriage rides, immediately fetched Horatia’s walking clothes and also brought her own.

  ‘You can hang your things up, Sears. I am going out alone.’

  The corners of her maid’s mouth drooped downwards and her cheeks sagged.

  Sears watched the carriage leave, Horatia stiff and upright, staring straight ahead. The maid’s bottom lip trembled. Her mistress was her life.

  Sears busied herself tidying the contents of drawers, layering lavender bags between underwear, smoothing dresses and polishing her mistress’s shoes and boots, the latter usually collected by an undermaid and cleaned by a boot boy. Filling her time helped keep her from feeling slighted. After all that she’d done! Nothing had ever been too much trouble, she thought as she rearranged shoes into colours and polished the silver knobs on the many bottles of creams Horatia used. Between each task, she got up and peered out of the window in case she had not heard the sound of horses returning.

  She couldn’t understand why Horatia had gone out alone. No lady of position ever went out without a chaperone. It just wasn’t done.

  Sears could not help but believe that her mistress had a secret mission and wondered what it was.

  She dare not ask, of course. On Horatia’s return, Sears fell on her, taking her bonnet, smoothing her cloak, telling her that everything was in order in her room, and that she trusted she’d had a good day.

  But Horatia brushed aside her questions and retired to the study with orders that she was not to be disturbed.

  Sears ran all the way up to the top floor, hid herself in an end room and burst into tears. Once she had regained her self-control, she went downstairs and waited for the moment when she could ask the only other person who knew where her mistress had been.

  Later, when the coachman was rubbing down the horses, she asked him where he had taken Mrs Strong. She felt her face reddening in response to his scornful grin. It was well known that she doted on her mistress.

  ‘Jealous, are you?’

  Sears was indignant. ‘I just asked you a question. I wondered if she was all right. She’s had a baby, you know.’

  ‘We all know,’ he said disdainfully.

  Sears felt as though she were going to cry. ‘And the poor thing died. You can’t possibly imagine how sad that makes a woman feel.’

  Her ruse worked. The coachman, unwilling to be faced with a grizzling woman, relented. ‘If you must know, she went to the Post Office in Bristol.’

  Sears looked at him as
though he’d just told her he could fly. Her sobs ceased immediately. ‘The Post Office? Why would she want to go there?’

  ‘To post a letter?’

  That wasn’t what she meant, but she wasn’t going to bandy observations with a common coachman. The fact was that post at Marstone Court was usually given to a junior footman to take to the Post Office, perhaps once a week. No member of the Strong family ever went to the Post Office in person. It just wasn’t done.

  As she walked back to the house, her wide skirt bouncing as a result of her small, jerky steps, she decided she would not mention the matter to her mistress. Of course she wouldn’t! Losing the baby and having to organize its funeral had upset Horatia. She’d had to do everything by herself and had felt a need to share the event with her husband by letter.

  ‘It’s only natural, my poor sweet,’ she murmured, and dabbed at her nose, satisfied that she’d guessed correctly.

  * * *

  Horatia’s heart felt more at ease after posting the letter. All she had to do now was lie to her husband. In the meantime she concentrated on regaining her strength, threw herself into business and social matters, and practised in private what she would say when Tom returned: ‘We’ve lost a son, but still have a daughter. Let’s be thankful for that.’

  Chapter Two

  Moonlight shone through the slatted shutters, throwing alternate bands of black and silver across the rich rugs and curtained bed.

  Tom Strong was surfacing from a half-remembered dream, crossing over into that nebulous state where reality takes over and waking up is not too far distant. On the other side of the world, his wife was giving birth to his son. Only in dreams could he see the child, the years to come when he would grow big and strong, learn to ride, to sail and to box, just as his father had done.

  Although he tried to hold onto it, the dream would not stay and he began to awaken.

  Through half-closed eyes he saw the familiar bars of light and dark. He liked this room, and the way the moon bathed it with light.

  He would normally have drifted back into sleep, but instead he jerked awake, aware that something had happened, though not quite sure what.

  A rustling sound. Perhaps trees dancing before a sudden breeze, or sugarbirds disturbed from their night-time slumber. Alert now, he opened his eyes. The bars of light were suddenly interrupted by a flitting shadow.

  He sat up.

  Something or someone had rushed past the window.

  He leapt from his bed and threw open the shutters. The shadow of Rivermead House, built by the Strong family in the previous century, fell over grass and gravel, giving it the appearance of a great, black lake.

  The trees were still. A flock of birds circled overhead. Every so often they dived towards the trees, fluttered and took flight again.

  Someone had disturbed them. Someone was still out there.

  He reached for his clothes and headed outside.

  The whole house was sleeping, and although it occurred to him to wake someone, he decided not to. It would take too long and by then whoever was lurking outside would be gone.

  Trusting to his fists for protection, he ran outside, the grass wet beneath his bare feet. Ahead of him a figure moved into the moonlight before disappearing in the trees.

  Avoiding the gravel path, Tom ran in that direction, legs made strong from years at sea propelling him swiftly over the ground. Clenching the fists that had put pay to many a fighter’s dream of a good purse, he reached the wood.

  The figure had vanished. The world seemed still, glades speckled with moonlight; he heard more rustling. He stopped and peered into the foliage, which wavered as though disturbed by a light breeze. Tonight there was no breeze.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  Whoever hit him came from behind. His knees crumpled. He fell to the ground.

  ‘Kill him,’ he heard someone cry.

  Then there was blackness. He heard nothing more.

  * * *

  ‘He’s coming round.’

  Tom opened his eyes then swiftly screwed them shut again. ‘Oh my head!’

  ‘It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.’

  He recognized the voice of Rupert, managed to open his eyes a fraction and saw the gleam of his brother-in-law’s complexion and the corn-coloured hair. Blue eyes came into focus. Dr Penfold, who owned a small plantation on the north of the island, stood next to him.

  Attempting to raise his head proved a bad idea. He groaned as he fell back into the pliant goose down. ‘What happened?’

  ‘That’s what we were going to ask you,’ said Rupert, concerned.

  ‘I heard someone outside. I went down to the copse and someone hit me over the head.’

  ‘You were lucky,’ said the doctor as he snapped the clasp of his black medicine bag. ‘You have the skull of a coconut – perhaps even harder.’

  The smell of lavender water filled Tom’s head as Rupert leaned closer – his brother-in-law had grown into a fastidious adult. ‘We can see what happened to you, my dear Tom, but how did you get back here? You certainly couldn’t have walked.’

  Tom frowned as he realized he was back in his own bed. Had he walked back? No. ‘Where did you find me?’

  He fully expected Rupert to say that he’d been laid out on the porch or propped up against the front door.

  ‘Someone put you to bed and left a note with one of the servants.’

  Again he attempted to raise his head. ‘Who in hell—’ The pain as he brought his head up from the pillow was unbearable. His head sank back again. He looked at the window then. As usual, the shutters were wide open.

  ‘No,’ said Rupert, reading his thoughts as the doctor was shown out. ‘You didn’t climb over the sill by yourself and, before you ask me how I know that, it’s because someone was seen running away.’

  ‘Did you see who it was?’

  Rupert shook his head. ‘Not me. Old Trevor saw a figure, but he’s keeping quiet. I can’t help thinking it’s a relative of his. But you know how these people are…’

  Tom sighed. He knew what Rupert meant. There was a lot of unrest on the island. There were ongoing feuds between rival factions, a struggle for power amongst Barbadian men and women drunk on a hard-won freedom and determined to gain more say in island affairs. But there were also jealousies amongst would-be leaders and some had a thirst for blood that no amount of freedom would ever assuage.

  It was a few days before he recovered and during that time he contented himself with thinking of Horatia and the new baby. He hoped it would be a son. He knew she did too. He tried to imagine how it would look. Like him? Or like Horatia? His wife would be unbearable if it was a son. Like a noose around my neck, he thought, but a very nice one, and he smiled. Soon, he would receive news.

  Marrying her had not been the best thing that had ever happened to him, but there it was. He’d vowed to be faithful, just as he had to his first wife who had died in Boston over ten years ago. Vows and promises were not made to be broken.

  As he dozed off into fitful sleep, the vision of his wife stayed with him. He was trying to remember the night the child was conceived, but he couldn’t quite grasp the details. Each time he reached for the warmth of her body, the ample roundness of her breasts and the inviting moistness of her loins, she began to move and, as she moved, she changed.

  Horatia never moved when they made love, but merely lay there. Sometimes, if the lamp was on or the room was flooded by moonlight, he could see her expression and he’d automatically tense. If she caught him looking at her, she would smile and pretend to be aroused, but he knew she wasn’t. She loved him and wanted him, but had acquired him just as she might a painting or a splendid piece of sculpture, something to be admired. She had always seemed incapable of sexual enjoyment, which is why a second child had taken so long in coming. She was satisfied that he was her husband, like the chestnut gelding who just happened to be her favourite horse. In bed her air of non-participation was akin to being drenched in cold water.


  In his dream the body that moved beneath him had a different face, grey eyes and a dark complexion. The woman of his dreams was not his wife, Horatia, but Blanche Heinkel, his wife’s half-sister and the widow of a man who used to be his friend.

  The dream did not easily disperse. He tried to push it away, to supplant it with a vision of Horatia and his new baby, but it kept coming back.

  * * *

  A week later he cornered Trevor and asked him who he’d seen running away from the house on the night he’d received the hefty crack over the head.

  ‘I’d like to thank him,’ he said. ‘He saved my life.’

  ‘I don’t know who it was, Mr Thomas.’ Trevor, who was surely in his mid-eighties, shook his head, but Tom didn’t believe him. His eyes were round with worry, and he looked in any direction rather than meet Tom’s eyes.

  ‘Trevor. Trust me. Please!’

  Something in Tom’s tone had an effect. Trevor squirmed and thought about it.

  ‘I can’t tell you for sure,’ he said eventually. ‘You know how it is. There’s some who would kill him for what he done.’

  Tom frowned. ‘For saving my life?’

  Trevor nodded and licked his lips. He was obviously nervous about saying anything. There were some dangerous people on the island.

  ‘Now they want to kill him. They’re calling him a white man’s washcloth. Says he might be free, but in his head he’s still a slave.’ Tom sighed. Intimidation hadn’t ceased with slavery. Humanity put up its own barriers to true freedom. Toe the line or you cease to belong.

  ‘So he’s hiding?’

  Trevor looked away. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Will you at least tell me his name? Perhaps I can help him.’

  Trevor shook his head. ‘Best if you talk to someone they wouldn’t dare kill.’

  ‘Like whom?’

  ‘Talk to Desdemona DeWitt.’ He lowered his voice. ‘His grandmother. They won’t hurt her. She’s too old and knows too much about the old ways. They’re frightened of her. She lives in the old slave compound near Cleveland Rise.’