The King's Mercy

by Lori Benton

  “Elijah?” She paused at the doorway, letting her eyes adjust. As they did, he half-staggered out of the back room, barefoot, unshaven, hair in greasy ropes. She marched across the smithy and halted, smelling the liquor on him. “Elijah Jory Moon, I have never been so ashamed of you.”

  His head snapped back as though she’d bitten him. “What?”

  She recoiled at his breath but stood her ground. “I said ashamed. Mari has spent this day birthing your child, and here you are, drunk on your bed as if you didn’t care. As if—”

  His hand shot up and gripped her arm. The color drained from his face, leaving his scars harshly outlined. “It’s come? She’s well?”

  “No thanks to you!”

  With her tiny, perfect baby nestled in her arms, Marigold had talked of how, in the weeks following Elijah’s maiming, she’d been the one to change the dressings to his face and neck, his arm and ruined hand. Then the stump, when the hand couldn’t be saved. That much Joanna knew. Then Marigold told how Elijah began to trust her with more than his maimed body. He’d let her see his soul, that devastation of pain and loss.

  “One night I didn’t go back to my cabin. After I seen to the dressings, we talked like we’d been doing, then did a heap more than talk. I wanted so bad to comfort him. Finally he let me.” Marigold traced her baby’s cheek with a fingertip while she spoke.

  “Then Mister Alex come and it was harder to be together. ’Lijah tried to tell me it couldn’t be like before, that we best stop. Then the night we buried Micah, ’Lijah comforted me. Guess this one was started then, or just after.”

  Marigold looked up, exhausted from labor, glowing with motherhood, and afraid. “Now what, Miss Joanna? He won’t claim us.”

  “It’s not because of me,” Joanna assured her, gazing on the tiny infant cradled to Marigold’s chest. “Elijah loves you in a way he never did me. You said it yourself. He let you see his pain, body and soul. Not once did he allow me that. He trusted you. I think he’s simply afraid.”

  “He is that.” She bowed her head over her baby’s scrunched face. “Afraid to take up Master Carey’s offer. Afraid even to try.”

  It shouldn’t have to be like this. Joanna wanted to scream it to the cabin, the whole plantation, the world. Maybe she couldn’t change their lives in all the ways she wanted, but there was one thing she could do.

  “You leave Elijah to me,” she’d said, and despite her own exhaustion had gone straight to the smithy.

  “How could you?” she demanded now. “You have a woman who loves you, a son born of her love. How could you turn your back on them?”

  “A son?” Elijah’s stunned gaze filled with things unspoken—joy, longing, fear. Then Joanna glimpsed in his eyes the ghost of the life he’d once thought to share with her. Even as she watched, that ghost broke apart like drifting mist and vanished. “I want to see him.”

  Joanna wasn’t satisfied. “And Mari?”

  “And Mari,” he said. “I have to see them both. Now.”

  * * *

  They named the baby Jory. “After my father,” Elijah told her as he held his newborn son in the crook of his undamaged arm. He’d bent and kissed the baby’s head, then knelt by Marigold and wept.

  Joanna had left them and gone to her room to find Charlotte asleep, clutching her shorn doll. She’d managed to shed her gown and stays before falling into bed herself, where she’d slept the night through for the first time since Alex’s leaving.

  In the morning she went to see how Marigold and the baby were faring and found Elijah there again. Perhaps he’d never left.

  “Jory,” she murmured to the baby she’d been given to hold, wrapped in a scrap of blanket, tiny face peeking out. “He’s beautiful, Mari.”

  Seated side by side on the bed, Marigold and Elijah regarded their son with the absorption of all new parents. She wished she needn’t sully the moment. Wished they were what they seemed on the surface, friends celebrating this new life.

  The truth was far more complicated. Elijah had no means of providing for Marigold, no way to take up the offer to buy her freedom, and his child’s. That he should even have to do so was wrong. All of this was wrong. She’d lived with the conviction niggling at her conscience for years before it finally grew too onerous to push aside.

  Reverend Pauling had told her stepfather slavery was an evil.

  Alex had known it. “I could never step into a planter’s shoes, become an owner of other men.”

  The vision that had visited her outside Papa’s study hadn’t died. It would just take longer to bring to pass than she’d hoped. And Alex MacKinnon wouldn’t be a part of it. She might never manumit all her stepfather’s slaves, or even many of them. But God willing, this child cradled in her arms would grow to manhood free.

  “Elijah, Mari,” she said, and waited until they looked up from their son to meet her gaze. “May I sit and tell you something that’s been on my mind?”

  28

  MAY 1748

  She heard them as she entered the house, having spent the morning visiting the kitchen and shops, then a few of her stepfather’s slaves fallen ill with spring agues.

  “You must have more to relate than it went well,” Papa was saying. “Tell me everything.”

  “Sir, I suspect the recent stresses to be the cause of your infirmity. I wouldn't add…”

  Mister Reeves was returned from Wilmington. Joanna hurried past the study, needing to collect herself, though she’d had a fortnight to think of what she’d say to him—more importantly to Papa—once they were all together again. It had taken nearly that long to convince Elijah of the merits of her plan and his part in it.

  The day after Jory’s birth, together in their cabin, she’d shared her vision for Severn. They’d gaped at her until Marigold asked, “You want to run Severn after Captain Carey pass, with no husband, then free Jory and me?”

  “Not just you and Jory. But there’s an issue with that we’ll have to face.”

  “We’d have to leave the colony, Mari and me,” Elijah said. “As would everyone ye free. Who’ll be left to farm and work the forest? Rebuild the mill? Ye’re talking about the ruin of this place, Joanna.”

  “A scaling back,” she countered, “to an economy sustainable without the support of slaves. I’ll hire those needed to work with us.” What she couldn’t afford, she’d do without.

  Elijah had remained unconvinced. “What do ye mean…us?”

  “I’m hoping you’ll serve as my factor, Elijah, at least for a time. Some issues to contend with will be more expediently handled by a man—but not a husband.”

  “How do ye mean to talk Captain Carey around to this? He wants ye to marry Reeves.”

  “I don’t yet know,” she confessed. “But your support will make it easier.”

  “Joanna…what can I do?” He’d gazed at his knotted shirtsleeve. The shadow of the past year, briefly lifted with Jory’s birth, seemed to wrap itself around him again.

  It was Marigold who’d risen to battle it back. “You still got a brain in that skull of yours. You a man, you white, you free. Use those things. Help Miss Joanna.”

  Elijah hadn’t agreed to it during that first conversation. Nor the second, nor the third. Then yesterday he’d found her talking with the carpenters and drew her aside to walk with him along the orchard’s edge.

  “He told me something, did MacKinnon. That day he rode to the mill.”

  Joanna had lifted her gaze to the peach trees’ blossoming boughs. She’d accepted that her life would go on without Alex MacKinnon. She trusted the resignation would sink from her mind to her heart, eventually, that she would cease falling asleep each night imagining herself with him, setting up a forge in some crossroads hamlet, or aboard a ship bound for Scotland.

  Free, wherever he was.

  “He called me a self-pitying fo
ol,” Elijah said. “I expect MacKinnon ought to know self-pity when he sees it, having lost so much himself.”

  Then a hammer’s ring pierced the air, a sharp reminder of her losses. Elijah had agreed to train Demas in the blacksmith’s art.

  He caught her flinch. “Ye wish it was MacKinnon, don’t ye?”

  “Elijah…I gave Alex more than I should have—my trust, my heart. But he gave me something too.”

  “What?”

  “Courage.” She halted and took his hand in hers. “Will you help me?”

  To her surprise his mouth quirked.

  “What?”

  “Oh, something else MacKinnon said, back when Thom Kelly was here and had us forging marlinspikes. He agreed to do the job but said it would take his hands and my brain.” He paused, a warring in his eyes. “Mari’s right. And Lord knows I long to be of use to someone again.”

  “You are,” she told him, firming her grip. “You will be.”

  “I’ll try.” He held her gaze with a flicker of the steadiness she’d long desired to see there. A small flame. A beginning.

  Now, with no wish to hear of the latest squabble with Mister Simcoe, she hurried down the passage. She’d nearly reached the stairs when—

  “Miss Carey? Might I have a word?” Mister Reeves was striding down the passage.

  “Yes?”

  “Gone a fortnight and that’s all the greeting I get?” He halted and took her hand. Before he could raise it to his lips, she pulled free.

  “You’re returned with good news?” His eyes were fairly sparkling.

  “Very good. That isn’t what I wanted to tell you. Our last conversation was cut short, you’ll recall.”

  “By the birth of Mari and Elijah’s son. They’ve named him Jory.” He looked at her, brightness dimming with disinterest. “You had something to tell me?”

  “Yes. Before you were called away that day, I was about to admit…” Mister Reeves dropped his voice as Sybil descended the stairs. “Something I’d rather kept between us. Come into the parlor?”

  Swallowing her annoyance, she followed him into that seldom used room. He shut the door and faced her. “It was I,” he said. “I stole the key from your room while you slept. I unlocked the smokehouse and released MacKinnon.”

  Joanna couldn’t say which she felt more deeply, violation or astonishment. “You let Alex go? Why?”

  “I came to think myself mistaken in accusing him—about the mill. I’m perplexed by the misfortunes we’ve suffered and find it impossible to believe no human agent is behind some of it. But that agent wasn’t MacKinnon. Not that I find him innocent of all wrongdoing. I simply felt he didn’t deserve the punishment I thought Captain Carey meant to exact—due mainly to my own misguided influence.”

  “Did you tell him so?” Joanna asked, throat constricting around the words. “Tell him any of this?”

  “Of course,” Reeves said, gaze locked earnestly with hers. “I gave MacKinnon the one chance I could, then left him to his choice.”

  And even with Mister Reeves having changed his mind about the most serious of accusations against him, Alex had still chosen to run.

  She couldn’t give vent to that deep thrust of heartache, not before Mister Reeves. She met his gaze, baffled by the man and his choices. “I don’t…I don’t know what to say.”

  Mister Reeves shook his head, raising a demurring hand as though she’d praised him. “Let me be completely honest on the matter, lest you think me no-ble. I set MacKinnon free in large part because of the choice I knew he’d make.”

  Thoughts darted like hornets through Joanna’s mind, angry, wounding with their stings. “You knew he would run? You wanted that?”

  “Surely you realize I was jealous of MacKinnon. He had what seemed an instant understanding of you, one that’s taken me long to reach.”

  Her heart gave a thump. “What understanding?”

  “That you’re merely playing a role here.”

  Shock held her mute. That he could have gained such insight into her soul made her recoil, as though a snake had uttered speech.

  “That may have been a poor choice of words,” he said, searching her gaze. “I mean to say…I’ve come to find you far more unhappy with your circumstances than you would have anyone believe. Somehow MacKinnon saw that from the start, though in the end he disregarded the knowledge, whereas I see it now and regard it most highly. I would remedy it, if you’ll allow.”

  Nothing that had passed between them in the months of their acquaintance had prepared Joanna for this, but whatever understanding he’d gleaned, it had come too late.

  “Mister Reeves—”

  “Please, Miss Carey.” Silencing her, he took a knee. “I endured your fascination with MacKinnon, regretted bitterly my choosing him and, yes, set him free that he might go and you forget him. All that is true, but so is this: I still want you for my wife. Will you at last consent?”

  * * *

  She was shaking as she entered the study, where her stepfather sat poring over a ledger, brow furrowed. “Papa?”

  He looked up distractedly but nodded her in. She crossed the room and sat on the bed, ran a trembling hand over the coverlet, looked at the conch shell on the desk, then away again quickly. She wished with all her heart Reverend Pauling could be part of the conversation she must now initiate.

  “How fares our newest addition this morning?” Papa asked, attention still on the ledger.

  “Jory’s thriving,” she said, smiling briefly as she pictured the two-week-old baby, capped in black curls, skin a lovely deep tan. “As is Mari. And Elijah.”

  Her stepfather’s head lifted briefly. “His training of Demas goes well? Phineas hasn’t been to the smithy yet to check.”

  “That isn’t what I was referring to.”

  His distracted air evaporated. “You’re not still wishing MacKinnon was at the forge?”

  He and Mister Reeves wished her to forget Alex, but neither seemed willing to let her. “Since you mention him, Papa, should you find Alex, what will you do with him?”

  “Sell his indenture. Demas will be our blacksmith unless he proves unequal to the task.” His gaze dropped to her lap. “Your hands are shaking. What is the matter?”

  Joanna swallowed, mouth dry. “Mister Reeves has renewed his proposal of marriage, and I—”

  “Left him waiting overlong,” Papa finished for her. “Has he not been the model of patience, even while you fancied yourself in love with another? While I’ve no plans to depart this life soon, I won’t live forever. Charlotte isn’t likely to marry, or yet desire it. She…”

  “Is a child,” Joanna finished. “And likely always shall be.” And this was as fitting an opening as she was likely ever to get.

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Mine and Charlotte’s future. My firm and final answer to Mister Reeves was no. In fact,” she pressed on while Papa’s mouth hung open, “I’m asking you to leave Severn to me.”

  Papa raised a hand, gaunt from the stomach ailment that had abated barely a week ago, and squeezed his temples before he fixed her with a gaze that simmered with impatience. “Whatever it was about MacKinnon that so appealed to you, try to look objectively at the man. He was a rebel and a traitor. Whatever else he might have done, he stole from us, broke his given word, and threw King George’s mercy back in his face. Yet Phineas has served me faithfully through all these hardships. He has endured your indifference yet still professes devotion to you!”

  His voice had grown heated, bringing tears to Joanna’s eyes. “Papa, this isn’t about Mister Reeves or Alex. I will probably never marry.”

  “Never? How, then, shall you manage?” Papa challenged, more bewildered now than anything. “You may inherit Severn as an unmarried daughter, but most of those you will need to deal with will shut you out, a woman. How will
you manage concerns that lie beyond the pale of the domestic? How will you run our business?”

  She’d anticipated this argument at least. “I’ve convinced Elijah to act as my factor, for when I need the voice and presence of a man.”

  The sigh that came from Papa was as deep as years. “Joanna, while I applaud your talking Elijah into doing anything besides fathering offspring on my slaves and drinking himself into oblivion, where is this coming from? A broken heart? Or that notion you had months ago about freeing our slaves?”

  Joanna stood, praying for the words to come. “Papa, I love you. But my heart’s desire is to live a different life than the one you’ve built. Here, if I can manage it. I think I can. I think we can.”

  He was standing now as well, arms crossed over a waistcoat that hung too loosely on his frame. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “But I do. And I know Reverend Pauling would agree with me. I heard him that night he first fell ill, when Alex carried him to the house. I was coming to check on him and heard your conversation, or part of it.”

  “You eavesdropped?”

  Her face warmed, but she didn’t back down. “I heard you speak of me, of Severn. The right man for each of us. I’m telling you, Elijah can be that man. Not as husband, but friend. And Papa, I will manumit our slaves, in time. If it takes me the rest of my life.”

  He was doing his best to contain it, but she saw she’d angered him. Worse, disappointed him. Even after all their losses, the deaths, every word Reverend Pauling had spoken of the ills of slave-owning, he wasn’t ready to lay down his idol of earthly accomplishments.

  “And you expect me to name you my heir, knowing what you mean to do with Severn?”

  “I hope you will.” When he made no reply, she asked, “Will you instead force me to marry Mister Reeves?”

  “Joanna,” he said, aggrieved and agitated. “I would never force you to marry. But I expect your better sense to prevail…in time,” he added, echoing her words.