The King's Mercy

by Lori Benton

  “I dinna have time for more reading, Miss Joanna. I’ve returned the one.” Before she could detain him further, he made for the back door. As he turned to shut it, however, he heard her voice lifted.

  “I was going to show him the doll we made together, for Charlotte.”

  He paused with the door nearly shut, wanting to hear more, though it was the reverend she addressed.

  “I fitted her out in the sweetest gown. But when I suggested calling this one Marianna, Charlotte said no, that he’d made her hair the same shade as mine so she must be called Joanna…”

  15

  SEPTEMBER 1747

  During Edmund Carey’s absence, August passed into September with little to mark the transition. The days remained insufferably hot. In the midst of a particularly stifling spell, Moon announced they wouldn’t heat the forge. With Jemma sent grumbling to the kitchen, Moon and Alex saddled horses and headed for the sawmill upstream on Severn Creek. They rode past fields of corn and tobacco, Moon in the lead, his pace too languid to outdistance that nagging voice: “Though he may well be the right man for Severn, I doubt Phineas Reeves is the right man for Joanna.”

  The reverend’s concerns had embedded themselves in Alex’s brain, but there he meant to halt them. With effort, he focused on the sway of the beast beneath him, the thud of hooves on the sandy track that traced the rushing creek.

  “Yet the Almighty has allowed you, by whatever series of events and decisions brought you to it, to be in this place—for such a time as this…”

  His horse shook its head, ridding itself of a persistent fly, as Alex tried to shake away thoughts of the Careys. He’d made Pauling no promise, save he’d bear the request in mind. He hadn’t even meant that.

  “If you allow it, there will be good to come of it. For yourself. Perhaps for Joanna. And others.”

  “Wheest,” he muttered as they followed the track upstream, angling through forest now.

  He was still awed by such trees, thick and rough-barked, straight as ships’ masts for several times the height of a man, where their needled boughs filtered spears of morning sunlight. He breathed in the scent of oozing sap, sharp on the air. Beneath the massive pines little by way of understory grew. With nothing obstructing his view save scattered saplings, industry taking place within the forest’s edge was visible, slaves building structures of cut wood and grassy turves.

  “Is that to do with the tar-burning?” he called ahead to Moon, who turned in the saddle to look. “I thought it a thing done in winter.”

  “That’ll be the first of the kilns. It’s early for it but that’s Reeves’s business. He’ll answer, not I.”

  Moon sank back into silence. They rode on.

  Alex heard the sawmill before he spied the millrace that flowed back into Severn Creek. Following the race upstream, they came in sight of the mill itself, with its waterwheel, creaking gears, and the rasping chunk of metal blades biting through timber. They dismounted in a yard where pinewood planks lay stacked, waiting to be rafted downstream.

  The mill foreman, a wiry slave in his middle years, came out to meet them. “Mister ’Lijah. How you keeping?”

  “Well enough, Jim. Thought it time I brought MacKinnon to see the mill.”

  Jim craned his neck to meet Alex’s gaze. “You the one brought on for the smithy? Big enough for it, you don’t mind my saying.”

  Alex returned a nod. “So they tell me.”

  “It’s slow at the forge,” Moon said. “Have ye any trouble here?”

  Jim glanced at his crew—two at the blades, one at a sluice gate—before turning back to Moon. “Mister Reeves come yesterday, looking over things. He say there trouble?”

  Moon clapped his hand to the foreman’s shoulder. “No, Jim. We’re here to see do ye need anything done at the forge, is all.”

  “Always needing nails.” Jim gave Alex a measuring look. “Ever seen a sawmill?”

  “I come from a place thinly treed, so no. I havena.”

  “Take your time. Look around,” Moon said. “I’ll take the horses into the shade.”

  The mill was a simple structure with its floor above for the sawing and below a long room crowded with stored lumber. A lean-to attached to the ground floor served as an office. For a time Alex watched the working of the sluice gate, the water pouring over the wheel, filling its buckets and turning it. He counted nine revolutions of the wheel in a minute’s span, listened to the chunking of the blades as the slaves guided the lumber being cut, until Moon gave a whistle, ready to head back, no more garrulous than earlier.

  Leaving Alex to stable the horses, Moon gave him leave to find a place out of the heat to rest. He took his time with the beasts. Voices rose and fell as slaves went about their work in the glare beyond the stable doors. He was brushing down the second horse in its stall when he heard Joanna’s voice raised.

  “Mister Reeves, I saw you. You and Demas had her cornered, frightened as a rabbit facing hawks. What could she have done to warrant such terrorizing?”

  Alex maneuvered along the horse’s side until he gained a view of the yard. Silhouetted against the sunlight’s blazing, clutching a stack of shirts, Severn’s mistress faced its overseer. Between them stood Jemma, barefoot in her ratty shirt and breeches. Reeves attempted to brush off Joanna’s concern with a condescending smile.

  “Come now, Miss Carey, is that not overstating matters? I’ve the right to question a girl I find holed up idle in the dairy shed.”

  “Questioning? Demas had his hand on her. I’ll not abide—”

  “Forgive me, Miss Carey, but these are your stepfather’s slaves and I answer to him.”

  “Allow me to finish, Mister Reeves.” Joanna spoke as sharply as Alex had ever heard. “I understand the slaves in the fields, mill, and forest are your concern, but as I’ve reminded you, the rest are mine to manage. Should you have issue with one of them, bring it to me. And for heaven’s sake, cease using Demas to intimidate children!”

  Reeves stared, smile vanished. “You do realize, once we wed, you’ll be required to submit to my judgments. Wouldn’t it behoove you to accustom yourself to the process?”

  Joanna seemed robbed of speech at such presumption. Or was it? Had she given the man the answer he sought?

  “Why are you out in this heat at all?” Reeves pressed.

  “I’ve the mending finished for the stable hands, but it’s no concern of yours where my duties take me.”

  One thing Alex could say for Reverend Pauling, the man had the lay of this particular landscape.

  “I’ll take Jemma to the house.” Joanna called the name of a stable lad but got no reply.

  Alex eased out of the stall, secured it, and came forward into the light. “I’ll see those get where they’re intended.” Not until he’d halted at the edge of the sunlit yard did he see Demas, standing back from the opposite door, a shadow within shade.

  “How long have you been lurking?” Reeves asked, not at all pleased by the interruption.

  “I shouldna call it lurking. I was tending the horses Moon and I had out to the mill this morn.”

  Joanna crossed to him and held out the garments. Her fingers slipped warm across his as he took them. Her gaze flashed up. In the stable’s shade her eyes were deeply blue.

  “Thank you, Alex.” She looked away. “Come, Jemma.”

  The lass sidled up to him. “Mister Alex, you need me at the smithy? Something out at the mill you find to do?”

  “The foreman asked for nails.”

  “I can help with nails!”

  “Miss Carey,” Reeves said, glowering at the lot of them. “You’ve accused me of being harsh with your stepfather’s slaves. It’s no wonder you should think so when you allow them to brazenly contradict you.”

  Joanna cast Alex a mute plea. “If she’s needed in the smithy, that’s w
here she belongs.”

  “Oh, aye,” Alex said. “There’s cleaning to be done. Sorting too. We left the place in disarray.” It was a stretching of truth he didn’t regret when relief flashed across Joanna’s gaze.

  “Thank you,” she said again as footsteps scuffed the earth of the stable yard.

  It was Marigold. “Miss Joanna—canoe put in. Man come up from Wilmington, asking for you.”

  Joanna’s face softened; there was grief still in the lines of Marigold’s face. “I’ll come now, Mari.” Without another word, she followed Marigold toward the outbuildings nearer the house, Reeves two strides behind.

  Demas followed his master.

  Jemma relaxed at Alex’s side. “Don’t you want to see who’s come?”

  “D’ye?”

  “If you come with me.”

  Reeves had overtaken Joanna, who walked with shoulders stiff, facing forward.

  Alex handed the garments she’d stitched to a lad who poked his head from the nearby box stall where he’d been hiding. “Ye ken what to do with these?”

  When the lad nodded, Alex and Jemma headed out into the hot sunlight. Jemma trotted to keep up with his strides that ate the ground between them and Demas, last of the group ahead. The big slave shot a look over his shoulder at Jemma, then raised those flat eyes to Alex before turning to follow his master.

  At his side Jemma faltered. He touched her shoulder, dropping them back a pace. “He threaten ye, did Demas?”

  Jemma shook her head. “Never mind, Mister Alex. I’m all right.”

  Alex gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll be watching that one.”

  By the time they arrived, Joanna, in possession of a letter, was coming up from the dock, Reeves and the messenger trailing her to the kitchen. Seeing Alex, she paused. “I’ve a letter from Papa.”

  Outside the kitchen, Reeves took note of them and broke off conversation with the letter’s bearer. “Miss Carey, I’d appreciate knowing the letter’s contents, if you’re minded to share.”

  Joanna seemed about to protest but then changed her mind. She broke the seal and unfolded the page. Others drew near from gardens and kitchen. Azuba, who must have seen the canoe’s arrival from the house, fetched up at her side. Alex watched Joanna’s face as she read silently. Her brow furrowed. The hand not holding the letter covered her mouth.

  Even Reeves couldn’t miss her distress. “What is it?”

  Joanna’s eyes glistened as she raised them. “Papa’s detained in Wilmington,” she began but seemed bereft for how to continue.

  “How long detained?” Reeves asked.

  Joanna ignored him. “It’s very bad news. The Joanna…”

  “Not sunk?” Azuba breathed.

  “Captured, by pirates. Two crewmen escaped to tell of it.” Joanna looked down at the letter as though she needed to read it again to believe its news. “The rest attempted to fight off the pirates. Their bodies were dumped overboard to wash up on shore. Some have been identified, including…” She gripped Azuba’s arm. “Captain Kelly.”

  Alex would later wonder what drew his attention in that instant, for the man made no sound or gesture to warrant it, but it wasn’t at Joanna he was looking when she related that final bit of news; it was Reeves.

  16

  The Joanna’s loss was a blow to Severn’s economy, that of her crew a sorrow, but Captain Kelly’s death struck deepest. Joanna sat with Azuba in the sewing room, half-suffocating in stays and gown, staring through the open window more than attending to the breeches she’d meant to piece. Through the branches of a shade oak, the stable yard was visible. The dreadful news had driven from her mind the unpleasant encounter there with Mister Reeves. It returned now, furrowing her brow as she recalled what she’d seen in the dairy shed—Mister Reeves and Demas looming over Jemma, who would have been curled up cowering had Demas not had hold of her arm. Mister Reeves hadn’t said what she’d done amiss, aside from being idle. Had he come upon Demas menacing Jemma and was attempting to conceal it?

  While she couldn’t conduct a simple conversation with the man who wished to marry her without it ending in frustration, she’d communicated with Alex almost effortlessly. With nothing more than a look from her, he’d taken Jemma under his wing, exactly what she’d needed him to do. Turning that thought over in her mind brought to memory something Reverend Pauling said before his departure. “Should you have need of aid while Edmund is in Wilmington, I suggest you turn to Alex MacKinnon.”

  “Papa’s indentured man? Why not Mister Reeves?” She’d nearly said Elijah, but that answer was plain. The reverend’s trust in the Almighty hadn’t wavered concerning Elijah, despite no outward evidence of change. He bid her continue in prayer, with patience. Then regarding her own need, Reverend Pauling gazed at her with shadowed eyes and asked, “Of the two, Reeves and MacKinnon, which would you expect to give the greater weight to your concerns?”

  She had a ready answer even then but hadn’t given it.

  Though she’d begun to put into words to Alex her hopes for Severn’s future and learned a little of what his life had been in Scotland, she wanted to know more, both of him and what he thought of her ideas.

  “Azuba,” she said into the stuffy silence, startling the woman half-dozing over her own stitching. “I’m going down to the smithy to check on Jemma.”

  * * *

  She didn’t notice Mister Reeves exiting her stepfather’s study at the end of the downstairs passage and ran headlong into him.

  “Miss Carey,” he said, grasping her arm. “I didn’t see you there.” She made to pull away. Mister Reeves didn’t release her. “Our exchange earlier has bothered me. Allow me to apologize for my short temper.”

  This was unexpected. The man had never before hinted he so much as noticed his rudeness. “I’ll allow it,” she said. When he looked at her blankly, she added, “You asked to apologize. That isn’t the same as doing so.”

  His gaze cleared. “Of course. Therefore…I apologize for losing my patience with you and saying the things I did.”

  “To which things are you referring?”

  This time his look of incomprehension cleared without her assistance. Amusement replaced it. “I see what you’re doing, Miss Carey. You’re testing me. Very well. Let us say I’m apologizing for all of it. Was that the answer you wanted?”

  It wasn’t even close. Joanna sought for a way to tell him so, but the house was too stifling, her thoughts too muddled—and the man apparently too dense—to know where to begin.

  “I accept your apology, Mister Reeves.”

  She pulled from his grasp at last, but before she could make her escape he said, “Since the subject of marriage has been broached…I’ve wondered about your answer to my proposal.”

  She shouldn’t have been surprised. It had been months since he’d asked her. Why was she no nearer to knowing her mind? Or was it that she knew, but feared her answer would disappoint her stepfather and complicate his planning for her and Charlotte’s future? She must tell Papa of her vision for Severn, as soon as he returned. She sought for an excuse to put Mister Reeves off a little longer but hadn’t gotten the first word past her lips before he stepped closer, his gaze earnest.

  “Have you noticed, these days of Captain Carey’s absence, how admirable a pairing we make? Case in point, how smoothly we’ve just overcome this small misunderstanding. Does it not bode well for a future together?”

  Joanna stared, expecting the man’s earnest countenance to dissolve into amusement again. It did not. “I’ve no answer for you yet, Mister Reeves. I’m sorry—I’m called to the kitchen.”

  She fled the house, hoping he wasn’t watching which way she turned once she reached the path beyond the hedge.

  * * *

  “Alex, there you are.” Joanna’s voice had him straightening from the fence rail he’d been leaning o
n, watching Carey’s mares at graze, tails swishing at flies in the afternoon heat. She joined him beneath the oak that spilled its shade over that corner of the pasture. “One might think you head groom at Severn rather than blacksmith, as often as I’ve seen you with the horses today.”

  “We’ll not be heating the forge ’til morning. Until then I’m a man of leisure.” He smiled over the word, but she didn’t return it. She looked wilted with the heat, and with sorrow. Still, she mustered a smile in return. Given the day she’d had, the effort touched him. “I met Captain Kelly only the once. He seemed a good man.”

  “He was.” She blinked, glancing at the line of clouds advancing from the west, on which he’d been keeping a hopeful eye.

  Silence fell, thick and sticky as the air between them.

  “I didna mean to overhear ye earlier, with Reeves. I couldna help it.”

  She huffed a little breath. “Reverend Pauling advised I seek your help while Papa’s in Wilmington, if an issue arose that Mister Reeves and I cannot resolve.”

  “Did he?” It was one thing to suggest he keep an eye on the lass. What was Pauling thinking, putting similar notions in her head?

  Yet he’d been standing in the exact spot Pauling would no doubt say he was meant to be standing when she shared the news from that letter. What had caused him to look at Reeves in that moment he couldn’t say, but he’d seen a flash of something that wasn’t sorrow or shock cross the overseer’s eyes upon hearing the letter’s tragic news. Something more akin to satisfaction. It had passed swiftly, and Reeves had evidenced sorrow, shock, solicitude, everything he ought to have demonstrated, leaving Alex wondering if he’d imagined anything else.

  “I’m not sure what the reverend thinks I can do for ye, such as I am.” Joanna dropped her gaze to the opening of his sweat-stained shirt. He’d removed his neckcloth, baring more than a little of his chest. He watched the color mount in her cheeks before she looked away. He edged back from her a very little. “What ye and Reeves quarreled about at the stable, it’s not my business, is it? Save for Jemma.”