A Certain Latitude
Page 26
He grinned and caught her hand. “No more of a fool than I, my love. And I believe we may rely on the generosity of my father and the Pendale family to see that Celia is well looked after in London. My sisters will be glad to sponsor her in society.”
“Thank you. But what about you? What will you do when we return?”
“Ah. I’ve sat too long on the fence, but a spell in irons can be very persuasive. I plan to be quite busy and troublesome. I believe the abolitionists could use a competent lawyer.” He took the cup from her and shook the last drops of liquid overboard. “My father wishes to free his slaves as an example to other plantation owners, although the idea of him setting himself up as the ruler of some sort of Utopian community makes me think he is in his dotage. Mrs. Silcombe has offered to be my housekeeper, but insists I should marry. So I expect to be quite busy.”
“Indeed.”
“Indeed. My bride should be a capable, practical sort of woman, who knows how to run a household and can get along with Mrs. Silcombe, and who can give me a son to inherit my farm. I’ll have no objection to a daughter, though. Would you know such a woman? She doesn’t have to be particularly young, but she should be quite lecherous.”
Her mind, dulled with pregnancy, jolted from its customary slow amble to a laborious canter. Allen Pendale was proposing to her! How extraordinary. How altogether joyful and wonderful, and, damnation, she started to cry again. “I believe I do, although the lechery is a little problematic. It appears to have been superseded by sleeping and vomiting.”
“And weeping. No worry. It won’t last forever, so Mrs. Silcombe tells me.”
They were separated briefly by the arrival of a leather ball at their feet, and an invasion by an unruly group of young freed slaves and ship’s boys, with Jack as their leader. Allen cursed and kicked the ball away, and the boys followed it, shoving each other aside, shouting loudly.
“What on earth will you do with them in England?” Clarissa asked.
“Set them up as apprentices to learn a trade. Hercules—the owner of the knife chest—will work for me. I’ll find Joshua something, but he’s not well and overly aged for a man of fifty. I thought he had to be at least two decades older. But where were we?”
“You were proposing marriage to me, I believe. Pray continue.”
Allen grinned. “Capital. Do you remember when we first met aboard the Daphne? You thought me an utter fool.”
“You were.” She dabbed at her eyes, but still smiling.
“I told you then I had not met a woman worth marrying or worth dying for. Do you remember?”
“Oh, yes. I remember. And also that you had a certain weakness for other men’s wives.”
“Oh, yes, so I did. Did I mention also my weakness for abandoned, pregnant mistresses—one of whom, I’m happy to say is worth marrying or dying for, not that I intend to do the latter just yet.” He reached inside his coat. “I have a bridal gift.”
She took the leather bag. “What’s this?”
“Careful! Don’t open it fully, it’s too windy.”
She peered inside to see a bundle of papers, written in her own hand. “My report, and my notes! I thought I’d lost them forever. I’d put them in my cloak pocket and they must have fallen out.”
He grinned. “They did. That enterprising lad Jack found them on the floor of the trap and sold them to me for a shilling. I hope you don’t mind that I read your narrative. I was most impressed. And there’s also something of my own.”
“Shame on you. To have not told me before!” Reaching inside the bag, she separated the pages with her fingertips until she recognized his handwriting and read:
The slave dungeon is a most efficacious method of ensuring a slave’s surrender. If thirst and the rats, and the prospect of a hideous death do not drive him mad, then certainly his fate when released is uncertain and may possibly make him wish for dying of thirst as a more desirable alternative …
She blew her nose and attempted to smile. “I trust there is no indecent material regarding Elizabeth Blight. The Quakers would be most upset.”
His gaze dropped. “I hoped you didn’t know. I was not proud of myself. But damnation, I was alive. It’s…” he removed his gloves and spread his hands, the scars where the manacles had torn his flesh now pink and healing. “I cannot apologize for it.”
She clutched the precious documents to her chest. “You do not have to.”
He gazed at her. “I carry other scars, for I now know the circumstances of my birth. I know who I am and what I can be and hope to accomplish. And what we can be, you and I, Clarissa.”
Tenderly, he drew his gloves over her cold hands. For the moment, it was enough; a moment of sweetness on this great ship full of sugar, as the winds blew them toward familiar shores.
THE END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The book that started it all for me was Bury The Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves by Adam Hochschild (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005). For life aboard a sailing ship, I was inspired by The Last Grain Race by Eric Newby (Lonely Planet, 1999).
For further reading:
Dresser, Madge/Giles, Sue. Bristol & Transatlantic Slavery. Catalogue of the exhibition A Respectable Trade? Bristol & Transatlantic Slavery, City Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol, 2000
Gerzina, Gretchen Holbrook. Black London: Life Before Emancipation. Rutgers University Press, 1997
Mouser, Bruce L. (ed.) A Slaving Voyage to Africa and Jamaica: The Log of the Sandown, 1793-1794. Indiana University Press, 2002
Reddie, Richard S. Abolition! The Struggle to Abolish Slavery in the British Colonies. Lion Hudson, 2007
Rogozinski, Jan. A Brief History of the Caribbean: From the Arawak and Caribe to the present. Penguin Putnam, 2000
Schama, Simon. Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution. HarperCollins, 2006
Sollors, Werner (ed.) The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, Written by Himself. Norton Critical Edition, 2001
Waterfield, Giles/French Ann. Below Stairs: 400 years of servants’ portraits. National Portrait Gallery, London, 2003
Wise, Stephen. Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery. Da Capo Press, 2005
The island of A Certain Latitude is based very loosely on Antigua.
About The Author
Janet Mullany grew up in England and has worked as an archaeologist, performing arts administrator, classical music radio announcer, bookseller, and editor, and unexpectedly became a writer over a decade ago. She speaks on such diverse topics as Georgian servants, the English abolitionist movement, the black and Jewish populations of Regency London, how to incorporate humor into romance, and how to write hot historicals. She lives outside Washington, DC where she reads voraciously and teaches a cat manners.
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Also by Janet Mullany
Hot Historicals
Dedication
The Malorie Phoenix
Funny Historicals
The Rules of Gentility
A Most Lamentable Comedy
Improper Relations
Mr Bishop and the Actress
Jane Austen Inspired Fiction
Jane and the Damned
Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion
Bespelling Jane Austen (Little to Hex Her)
Erotic Contemporary Romance
Tell Me More
Hidden Paradise
Contents
Title page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
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sp; CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
AUTHOR’S NOTE
About The Author
Also by Janet Mullany
Table of Contents
Title page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
AUTHOR’S NOTE
About The Author
Also by Janet Mullany