Keturah

by Lisa T. Bergren

  Angus Shubert snorted and gave each of them a derisive glance. “You’d best know that the way you are going about this is not natural, woman. Your daddy would be—”

  “Lady Tomlinson,” Gray said, stepping forward. “You shall address Lady Tomlinson in the manner to which she is due. Never again as ‘woman.’”

  “Have you ever seen any lady in a man’s breeches and shirt, Covington?” Shubert scoffed. “The only birds I’ve seen in such things are whores in the tavern.” He cocked an eyebrow at Selah, as if imagining her there.

  It infuriated Gray, the utter disrespect. “Get down off that horse, Shubert,” he hissed, hands clenching. “Come down here and I shall remind you what it means to treat a lady as she ought to be treated, whether she be in breeches or a gown.”

  “No! Gray,” Keturah said, grabbing hold of his arm. “Be gone, Mr. Shubert!” she shouted. “You and your men are not welcome here. You leave me to my own business as I leave you to yours. Now.”

  Instead, Angus lifted a leg over his mount, as if preparing to answer Gray’s demand.

  The sound of a pistol cocking drew all of their heads around to Philip. The man stood beside Gray’s mare, pistol trained on Shubert. “When the lady said now,” he said politely, “I believe she meant immediately, Mr. Shubert.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Angus said, smiling in wonder. “Can this day get any more strange, boys? Women masquerading as men. A freed man masquerading as an overseer. And some butler,” he sneered at Philip, “fancying himself a soldier.”

  “I am no butler,” Philip returned steadily. “But I was once a valet.”

  Shubert snorted again, then settled back into his saddle. “We’ll be on our way, Lady Tomlinson. But rest assured, my boss is not going to like this any more than I do. None of the planters will abide by this.”

  “Then send them to me to discuss it,” she said.

  He lifted his reins and swept them to the side, urging his mount to turn and casually trot homeward. His two companions followed suit after giving the women one final lingering look.

  “Those men are more dangerous than any of McKintrick’s sailors, and with half their honor,” Gray spat once they were out of earshot.

  “That may well be, but why are you here, Gray?” Keturah said, turning to face him.

  “Is it not good that we were?” he asked in surprise, gesturing to Philip, who was putting the pistol back into his saddlebag, then across to the three interlopers, now casually climbing the northern hills as if out for a restful afternoon ride. “What do you girls think you are doing, dressed like that?”

  “We are working our land,” Keturah answered. She stepped closer, inches away from his face, as angry as he. “We have the right to do as we wish here. Because it is our land. Regardless of what any man thinks!”

  Gray shook his head, feeling a headache growing behind his temples. He put his hands on his hips and leaned back from her. “Do you not know that you being here at all flies in the face of how they think things should be done?”

  He glanced over at the black man behind her, who stood with his arms crossed, listening while Mitilda neared him. She resembled him. Was she his sister? It was then that understanding dawned.

  “You hired her brother as your overseer?” he asked in a high, surprised tone. He blinked rapidly, trying to catch up, even as he knew his words might be offensive.

  “What would you have me do, Gray?” Ket asked. “I couldn’t find an overseer. They blocked me at every turn. And Mr. Rollins …” She paused to look over her shoulder at him. “As I told you, he’s doing right with his own crop, Gray. Already harvesting well in a gaut that everyone else had ignored. I figured if he could make land others considered worthless fruitful, he might well be able to do the same here at Tabletop.”

  Gray sighed heavily, staring at her.

  “What would you have me do?” she repeated.

  Before he could stop himself, he reached out and cupped her shoulders. “I would have had you come to me. Ask for my assistance. I would have eagerly agreed. Do you not know that?”

  She shifted from his grasp and stepped backward, as if his touch had burned her. “I did not need it,” she said quickly. “I found my own way.”

  “I see that,” he said, crossing his arms. “Don’t you always?”

  Keturah shifted uneasily. “I have made my way forward, Gray, the only way I could.” She kept her eyes on his for a long, silent moment.

  “Lady Ket, if you want me to go …” Mr. Rollins said, stepping forward.

  “No, Matthew,” Keturah said tiredly. “I want you here, serving as my overseer. And Mr. Covington here, well, he must not tarry. Surely he has his own trials to face over at Teller’s Landing.”

  Gray turned back toward his mare. He mounted and looked down at Keturah. “Tell me this. If you are in need, will you please send for me? I am your neighbor, Ket. Your friend. As I’ve always been.”

  They were all silent, holding their breath.

  But Gray kept his eyes only on her as she considered him. He could plainly see that half of her wanted to say no, but the other half wanted to say yes.

  Please, Lord. Let this be the beginning of a bridge between us.

  “All right, Gray,” she finally said. Her eyes softened then. “Thank you for coming to our aid today. But please … if we need further assistance, wait for us to send word, all right? The men of this island plainly do not wish to respect our rights as landowners. Rest assured that in the days to come, I shall carry a pistol myself. Until you hear it go off, or someone comes to fetch you, do not come riding to our aid from Teller’s Landing. Agreed?”

  Gray nodded slowly. He paused, hoping there might be another plank in their tenuous bridge laid before he parted. A dinner invitation. A question about planting. But she said nothing more.

  He put a hand to the rim of his tricorn and nodded at her, then each of her sisters, and, with one long look at Matthew Rollins, rode away.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A week later, a messenger arrived with an invitation.

  “It’s a party at Nisbet Plantation!” Selah said excitedly as she read it over. “A Harvest Moon party, in two months’ time,” she added dreamily. “The island girls say they have the finest parties.”

  Keturah inwardly groaned. While she knew her youngest sister longed for a bit of their old life, it felt less appealing to her than ever. After a week in the fields, she didn’t remember ever being so exhausted. She glanced down at her hands. Though clean, the black of the island’s volcanic soil had a way of staining the cuticles and sinking so deep beneath her nails, there was no way to scrape it all away. While they might don fine gowns—now that the tailor had delivered the rest of them—one look at their hands would confirm any of the hundred rumors that likely had spread across the island. She assumed they had been invited more as a novelty than any true overture of friendship.

  Still, with the aid of three new slaves Mr. Rollins had finally agreed to purchase on her behalf a few days prior, and every able body on the premises working beside them, the upper field was at last planted. That helped Keturah breathe a little more easily. She would spend the next two days with her sisters here at the house, allowing her battered hands to heal, her sunburned skin to fade, before she dressed for town and prepared to pretend she was every inch the lady her title insinuated, no matter what her neighbors might think. Meanwhile, Mr. Rollins and the others could begin work on the middle field.

  ———

  The next day, Sansa came tearing down the road to the main house. “Lady Ket!” she screamed. “Lady Ket!”

  Hearing the young woman through the library window, Keturah shoved her father’s heavy chair back from the desk and raced down the stairs and out to the front. She took the girl’s hands in hers, trying to decipher what she was saying through tears and heaving breaths and thick Creole accent. “It’s Mas’ Rollins, Lady Ket. They got ’im. They got ’im good.”

  “Who, Sansa?” Ketu
rah urged. “Who did what?”

  “That Mas’ Shubert from Red Rock,” the girl panted. “He came o’er and tol’ Mas’ Rollins … tol’ him he had to teach him to remember his place, freed man or not.”

  Ket could practically feel the blood draining from her face. “Are they gone now, Sansa?”

  “Yes’m. Took off when Mas’ Rollins finally quit risin’.”

  Keturah lifted a hand to her throat, horrified and furious at once. She looked over her shoulder—Cuffee, bless him, was already bringing her mare around at a trot. He swung down and waited to help her mount. Keturah hurriedly did so, ignoring her skirts rising to her knees. She had bigger concerns. Like Matthew Rollins. Had they killed him? Or beaten him so severely he might soon die?

  Verity and Selah arrived on the porch. “What is it?” Selah asked.

  “’Tis Mr. Rollins,” Keturah said. “Get water boiling. Clean rags. Father’s medicine chest.” She looked down at Cuffee. “Bring another horse and the wagon up to the field. We shall need to get him down here to the house.”

  “Yes, Lady Ket,” he said and took off running back toward the stables.

  With that, she dug her heels into the mare’s flanks and rode as fast as she could, praying her new overseer would not die. It was her fault he was here. Her fault. She’d put him in this danger. Guilt and rage swirled in her mind, uneasy dance partners.

  When she saw him on the ground, with his sister on her knees beside him and holding his hand, the other slaves standing dazed in a circle around him as if in a death vigil … she wanted to cry herself. She pushed her way between them and sank to her knees at his side. She took his other hand in hers. “Help is coming,” she said softly. “Hang on, my friend.” She tried to sound strong and assuring, but his battered mouth and bloody lips, his bruised cheek and swelling eye made her break down and weep. “Oh, Mr. Rollins,” she whispered through her tears. “I’m so sorry. How horrible … It seems I’ve brought you a terrible turn.”

  “This isn’ on account of you, Lady Ket,” he grunted, blinking up toward the sun, his teeth gruesomely stained with blood. “This all on account of me and my freedom. Those men—” he paused to take several breaths, wincing against the pain—“they don’ like it that I am free. But don’ fret, Lady Ket.” Again he paused, and his hand slid to his belly. “I’m used to it. Just the way of it here on Nevis.”

  “It might be the way it is elsewhere on Nevis,” she said, pulling apart his shirt to inspect the man’s belly where the louts had clearly pummeled him, “but it shall not be the way on Tabletop Plantation.”

  The man looked at her sadly, clearly not believing her, but in too much pain to argue. His eyes rolled back in his head and he choked.

  “Matthew!” Mitilda cried, shaking his shoulder with her long, slender hand. “Matt!”

  But then his breathing eased. He didn’t open his eyes, but he breathed. “He’s unconscious,” Keturah said, “but lives yet,” she added, reaching out to touch Mitilda’s thin arm. “Cuffee will be here in a moment with a wagon to get him down to the main house. We shall see to him there.”

  “No,” Mitilda said sharply. “Bring him to my house. I shall see to him myself.”

  “As you wish,” Ket said slowly. She did not want to argue with the woman. It seemed as if it were a point of pride, even though Keturah felt responsible for him. But he was the woman’s brother, after all.

  The wagon came up over the rise, Cuffee whipping the mule into a gallop. He brought it as close to them as he could, without getting stuck in the mud, and together four men carried Matthew to the wagon bed. Mitilda climbed in beside him, Sansa at his other side, and Keturah mounted her mare. “Get back to your quarters,” she told the other slaves, warily eyeing the northern ridge. “I do not want any of you out here if I am not around to defend you.”

  They nodded, eyes wide with fear, and huddled closer together. Her stomach clenched at the sight. Her people, fearing for their safety, on her land. The new slaves having witnessed such a horror when she so wanted them to understand that they were safe at Tabletop. She had pledged to herself that the horrific things slaves feared most were not things that would transpire here, under her guardianship. She looked after the wagon, knowing Verity and Selah would help Mitilda see to her brother.

  But right now she had words for Mr. Shubert … and his master.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Keturah rode hard for Red Rock Plantation, tearing down their pretty tree-covered lane at a gallop. She discovered the men halfway down the lane, not quite yet home, laughing and at ease. While a man lies wounded, perhaps dying, at Tabletop!

  Shubert was the first to see her. Slowly, he drew his horse sideways, blocking her path. His two men flanked him. She drew up at the last second, her mare prancing nervously beneath her, awaiting her mistress’s next command.

  “Lady Tomlinson,” Shubert drawled, letting his eyes linger on her bare calves. “In a proper dress today, I see. Much more suitable, I’d say.”

  “You,” she seethed. “Make way. I intend to have a word with your master.”

  “Ahh, ’tis a pity Lord Reynolds is away at the moment. I serve as the master of Red Rock in his absence.”

  Keturah clamped her mouth shut. She had planned on appealing to Lord Reynolds’s nobility, his sense of honor. Even if men behaved differently here on Nevis, there was a certain measure a body could count on in a proper Englishman. But he was not here. Shubert’s two companions moved past either side of her and came to a stop behind her. The hair on her damp neck rose in warning as she realized they now surrounded her.

  She clung to her anger to drive away her rising fear. “You dared,” she spat at Shubert, “to come on my land and beat my man.”

  He lifted his brows in surprise. “What? I think someone’s been filling your head with lies. The boys and I were simply out for an afternoon’s ride. Weren’t we, boys?”

  “That’s the way of it,” said one behind her.

  “Lies!” she cried. “You stole onto my land and beat Mr. Rollins senseless!”

  “’Twasn’t me,” Shubert said, frowning and shrugging his bulky shoulders.

  “There is blood splattered all over your shirt, Mr. Shubert,” she ground out.

  He glanced down, then up, peering in concern at her. “Are you seeing visions now, Lady Tomlinson?”

  Keturah let out a cry of rage. “It was you! They said it was so!”

  “Who?” he asked, idly lifting a brow again.

  “My field hands! Every one of them would attest to it!”

  “Field hands? You mean Negroes?”

  She stared at him. “Of course!”

  In her anger, she had missed the fact that one of the men behind her had slipped from his horse. He appeared by her mare’s head and swiftly yanked the reins out of her hands.

  “What—what is the meaning of this?” she demanded, looking to the man in outrage. “How dare you!” She reached for the reins, vainly trying to wrestle them free.

  “Seems to me,” Shubert said, now on the ground, “Lady Tomlinson, that you need to be reminded of your place, just as your overseer needed a reminder.” He grabbed hold of her arm and yanked her from the saddle.

  She came down messily—her left foot still lodged in the stirrup, her skirts rising as high as her thighs. But Shubert hauled her to her feet, her back against his wide chest, his meaty arms around her belly, pinning her arms beside her.

  “Cease this at once!” she sputtered. “I shall report you to the authorities! The audacity of this manhandling. If—”

  “Hush now, Lady Tomlinson,” he said in her ear. “Hush. It seems you came to the island with all manner of misconceptions. Negroes have their place, you see. Women have their place too. And men—whether they be noble or like us—lord over both. If you continue to try my patience,” he said, lifting one hand to run it down her neck and toward her heaving chest, “I shall have to find another way to help you understand the way of things. Who truly holds t
he power here.”

  “You would not,” she sputtered, hating that his actions had set her to trembling.

  “Would I not?” he asked, leaning so close his lips brushed the edge of her ear. “Things are different here than in England, my lady. Shall I teach you how they are, here on-island? Right now?”

  “Let … me … go,” she fumed, almost managing to break free. But the lout was impossibly strong.

  “Not until you tell me we understand each other now.” His hand spread wide across her belly, pulling her even more firmly against him, stilling her as he whispered in her ear. “White men rule here. Then women. The Negroes come last. And like it or not, only what a white man has to say matters in the end.”

  “That is a lie,” she gritted out.

  “That’s the truth. At least here on Nevis. Right, boys?”

  “That’s right,” said the skinnier one. The other looked uneasy, as if unsure whether what they were doing was wise.

  She appealed to him. “I shall go to the authorities. Report your manhandling of me, and your abuse of my overseer!”

  “You shall do no such thing,” Shubert said, “because it shall do you no good. No judge will listen to your testimony—especially confirmed only by slaves. Negroes aren’t allowed to testify. And there are three of us, all with the same story—that we were merely out for a ride on this fine day. And three men’s testimony will always trump one woman’s.”

  “Let me go this instant,” she seethed. Desperately she reached down, trying to slip her fingers to the strap at her calf that held the small knife Captain McKintrick had given her.

  But he held on to her with an iron grip. “Ask your old slaves, those who’ve been here a while. They know who rules this island. And if that won’t convince you, perhaps your pretty little sister might find herself surrounded one day just as you have.”