Keturah Read online

“But where am I to spend money first?” she asked, rising and beginning to pace. “The house? The fields? The millworks?” She shook her head and blinked rapidly. “’Tis too much. Is it not the same for you at Teller’s Landing?”

  He nodded once and put a booted foot up on a rock beside him. “Fairly similar. Other than the furnishings aspect,” he said with a wry grin. Keturah leaned back on the rock, needing something of substance to bolster her in the welcome face of that handsome grin—all the while striving to appear relaxed. “Our house is modest, nothing but two rooms and a parlor,” he continued, “and the kitchen is outside. ’Tis clear that no Covington has lived here for generations, absentee planters leaving it to sharecropping. However, I find it suits me quite well. And Philip and I have a good group of slaves, good workers all. Ten, so far. We had to repair a few cabins, but now we’re on to planting our northern field.”

  Keturah heaved another sigh and shook her head, feeling his relative success as if it somehow shined light on her own failures. What had she been thinking? Paying so much attention to how she might set up a proper West Indian home, but so little to how she would run it? “I do not know how I am to do this, Gray,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. With some horror, she realized tears welled in her eyes, and her chin trembled.

  She startled when she heard the crack of a branch beneath his foot and knew he was right before her. Gently he opened his arms. “Come, Ket,” he said. “Come.”

  Hesitating but a moment, she tentatively rose and slid into them, gratefully resting her cheek against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and, after a moment’s pause, rubbed her back.

  How long had it been since she’d been held so? Since she was a little girl? They stood there for several long moments. Was it her imagination or had the crickets and monkeys gone silent? Or was it only the rush of blood in her own ears?

  “Oh, Ket,” he murmured, “I’m sorry it has been so trying. But can you see the beauty here too? Can you keep a sense of the potential? The hope? I believe that’s the key as we encounter trials.”

  Embarrassed by more tears, she turned from him and wiped her face.

  He stepped toward her again. “Perhaps I could—”

  “No, no,” she said, lifting a hand. She knew he was feeling responsible somehow, feeling an urge to intervene, to assist her. But she had to do this on her own. She had to! There was only one thing he could do to really help. She glanced over her shoulder. “Have you … have you perhaps heard of any overseers in search of new placement?”

  Sorrowfully, he shook his head, and she quickly looked back to the beach, feeling fresh tears of disappointment burn her eyes. She fished a handkerchief from her waistband and dried her eyes and cheeks. “I must get back. My sisters shall be quite worried.”

  “May I escort you?”

  “No,” she said, flashing him a grin. “I quite know the way.”

  “But you are in a rare state.”

  “A state I shall endeavor to recover from by the time I reach home.” She strode toward the basket of mangoes and lifted it to her elbow. Then she took hold of the second and handed it to him. “For you and Philip and your people,” she said. “Now, I must go and make amends with my father’s mistress.”

  His smile held a measure of sorrow, but also understanding and approval. “Perhaps,” he said, daring to reach out to push a strand of hair from her damp forehead and tuck it behind her ear, “’twould be best not to think of her as your father’s mistress, but instead simply Mitilda—a woman with a lifetime of Tabletop knowledge in her head. Even perhaps, in time … a friend?”

  Keturah swallowed hard, feeling the inch or two of her temple and ear he’d touched as if he’d set it aflame. “You’re right, of course. That’s quite sensible.”

  “I’m a quite sensible fellow when I put my mind to it.” He quirked a smile and Ket blinked, realizing anew just how handsome he was.

  “You’ve been quite sensible ever since you turned your head toward Nevis, haven’t you?” she asked.

  “Done my best.”

  “Far better than I.”

  “Keturah,” he said, his smile fading, “give yourself some measure … some grace. Along with everyone around you. You have been working so hard, for so long … Take it from me, I am well aware of what it means to need to prove oneself. But I’ve come to believe … to think … well, all God asks of us is to do our best, from morning until night. He does not expect us to do things that only He can accomplish, only what we’ve been given to do, and to trust Him with the rest.”

  “Indeed,” she said with some surprise. This, from Gray? Clearly, he had become more devout in the years they’d spent apart, even as she and God had settled at an uneasy distance. And yet his words resonated with her as truth. “Well.” She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “Good day, Gray. Do come and call on my sisters and me soon, would you?”

  “Count on it,” he promised.

  Chapter Nineteen

  That night, Keturah agonized over how to make amends with Mitilda. Belatedly, she recalled Bennabe mentioning how Mitilda had helped everyone remaining on Tabletop survive … which only made Ket feel worse. Mangoes were a large part of that. Weekly harvests from her garden plot were the rest. Ket was deeply ashamed of how she’d acted. Needing to be away from her sisters in order to think, she paced her father’s room, pausing to trace the seashell-lined window wells with her fingers.

  She thought once more of the frames he had made for Mother and how she had stowed them away as soon as he’d set sail. He had loved Mother, and when she refused to come to the West Indies, he’d tried to bring a piece of the islands to her. He must have been very lonely here … but did that excuse his taking up with another woman?

  Keturah sighed. There was no innocent. The blame could be shifted in either direction. And what choice had Mitilda had? Ket thought back. Abraham was about eight years old. Nine years ago, the woman had been, what … seventeen, eighteen? What had Ket been like at that age? Could she have withstood the advances of a man, without protection, especially as a slave?

  No, likely not. Had she herself not gone along with the plan to marry Edward, despite her trepidation? Why, she’d never uttered one question, one complaint.

  Keturah leaned over the windowsill and looked out at the glory of Tabletop’s view. Sloping landscape, in shades of green, down to a turquoise sea lapping at creamy sand. She brought her eyes back up and fingered the finely crafted shutters, folding so easily—even in the island’s humidity—allowing in the gentle welcome breeze. Her fingers traced her father’s carefully laid lines of shell. She knew each one, because he had sent them samples as part of his monthly letter, and the girls had committed each to memory.

  The multicolored and conical Triton’s trumpet. The bespeckled lines of the hawk-wing conch. The crenellated spiky curls of the Latirus shell, appearing like a tiny fairy fortress. The creamy-tea stripes of the measled cowrie. The pristine white shape of the Atlantic cone. The freckled Atlantic cowrie that always made Ket think of an old woman’s toothless grin. The milky white of the Caribbean vase shell. The oddly obscure and smooth flamingo tongue, its ridges worn smooth by sea and sand. And her favorite, the West Indian crown conch, which was essentially every color one might expect from the earth.

  Oh, Father, she thought. If only I had known you as well as I know these shells. I … I behaved despicably today. To someone you likely … loved. But ’tis all such a mess, Father. How could you have left us in such a state? How could you have up and died, abandoning us all?

  She paused as her trembling clarified something. She was angry at Father. Angry at him for the trouble he had left behind. For not providing for her and her sisters. For leading them into danger and chaos rather than saving them.

  Just as she was angry at God.

  Neither her earthly father nor her heavenly Father had prevented her from marrying Edward. Neither of them had rescued her as she suffered, day after day. Neither had given
her a way out.

  Or had they?

  Was this not her opportunity? Her rescue? A chance to make a life here on Nevis with her sisters? To determine her own future? For the first time in a very long time she felt the brush of her heavenly Father’s presence. She closed her eyes to the breeze coming off the ocean and into the room.

  She could no longer reach her earthly father. But could she not reach out to her Lord and God? Take comfort in Him once again? Oh, Lord, how far I am from you. Her breath caught as she realized the vast divide that had occurred, and how her anger had driven Him farther away. How far?

  And then a breeze rose outside, wafting the brush and palms to and fro, then upward, inward, across her. Ket closed her eyes again, letting it wash over her.

  “How far …” she whispered sorrowfully.

  But He was not far at all. For the first time in forever, her Lord felt near. Positively near. On her skin, covering her, filling her ears, washing over her …

  “God. Lord,” she whispered, sinking to her knees.

  Child, daughter, beloved were what she heard in response.

  “Father. Savior,” she returned, swallowing hard.

  Then, at last, Protector. Comforter.

  “Oh, Lord, I’ve fallen short,” she whispered. “In so many ways. I’ve been so angry,” she rasped as tears ran down her face. “So angry for so long. I blamed you for letting me marry Edward. But it was my choice. My parents’ choice. A terrible choice. Forgive me for blaming you, for becoming angry at you for a trial of our own making. For not turning to you … you who could have brought me healing. Comfort. Even in the midst of the trial.”

  She braced her hands on the sill and felt the shells against her forehead as she wept. But she welcomed the bite, the pain of them, as if they echoed the memory of her pain. She cried for her departed father and mother. She cried for the death of her own innocence through the years of marriage with Edward. She cried that she could not bear children. She cried for her sisters and their own losses. She cried for Mitilda, a slave girl put in a terrible position, and Abraham, a boy who would never know his father.

  On and on she cried, until she believed she had no more tears to weep. She was empty, but for the first time in a long while, she felt cleansed.

  As she rose to her feet, she felt the shadows of Edward’s dark memories splinter and shard and fall from her shoulders.

  The damage. The hurt. The injustices.

  The discouragement. The shame.

  Like thin shells drying for years in the sun, she broke through them, casting them to the sea—thrusting them out to the Atlantic and Caribbean like spikes meant for the depths, never to return.

  Because Keturah was new.

  Reborn.

  And with God beside her, there wasn’t anything or anyone who could defeat her again.

  Chapter Twenty

  The next morning, Keturah set Verity and Selah to leading the others in cutting in a garden. While she didn’t feel equipped or ready to begin planting cane, she could certainly start a garden and make headway on feeding those of Tabletop. There had to be a better way than buying the exorbitantly expensive hogsheads of corn and flour and salted fish imported to the islands. Even taking this small step had buoyed her spirits.

  When she, Primus, and Gideon reached town, she felt hope fill her heart. And sure enough, right off she ran into the banker, Mr. Jobel, who told her that two new men from Jamaica had only just arrived, both with good experience on other sugar plantations. One had already been secured as an overseer for South Winds, but the other was reportedly available for hire. Hastening forward, pressing between groups of men on the docks, ignoring Primus’s whispered warning, she boldly approached the two gentlemen Mr. Jobel had pointed her toward.

  They turned toward her and looked her up and down as if she were a common prostitute. It brought her up short, but she stood straighter and still, waiting for them to understand that she was nothing if not a lady. After this long on Nevis, she had learned this trick, at the very least.

  The two sobered, somewhat.

  “I am Lady Tomlinson of Tabletop Plantation,” she began. “Which of you is Mr. Eason?”

  The long-faced, tall one cocked his head and looked her over again—this time only so far as her chest. “I am,” he allowed.

  She took a deep breath, reminding herself of Tabletop’s desperate need for an overseer. “Mr. Eason, I am the owner of a plantation of fifty acres, one of the finest on Nevis.”

  His eyes widened a bit at that.

  “We are in need of a new overseer, our last having succumbed to the ague, and are in the position to pay quite a handsome salary.”

  “Oh?” he said, lifting a brow.

  Again his eyes flicked down to her chest, and Ket fought the urge to lift her hand to cover any cleavage that might be showing. She felt Primus and Gideon both inch forward, each on her flanks. Silent sentinels, not true guardians, she reminded herself. Because if they fought, it might very well mean their lives. Still, their presence gave her courage.

  Mr. Eason glanced at each of them, dismissed them, and returned his attention to her. “I’m to entertain offers from Mr. Lawson of Fern Gulch and a Mr. Hamilton this evening, my lady,” he said, fairly smirking over the last word. “I doubt that Tabletop could compete, unless there might be some unspoken bonuses found on your plantation …” With that he again let his eyes drift down her body.

  The man laughed at her—not even having the decency to hide his merriment—as she spun on her heel and walked away. Stiff-backed, she’d turned the corner of the tiny bank building and strode down the alleyway, aware that Primus and Gideon hovered at the entrance standing guard. Giving in to her trembling knees at last, she collapsed on a small crate.

  She’d been wrong. She still had tears to weep, even after last night. But she couldn’t help it—she was so utterly disappointed. She had been so certain. So certain that after last night, after her relinquishment, after she had come to understand … she’d thought that perhaps today God would smile, would help her. That He had used Mr. Jobel to send her to one of the two men who would at last become her overseer.

  Instead, she’d run up against a man who treated her with all the disdain that Edward had.

  Keturah shuddered as she remembered the man’s leering gaze.

  What do you think you are doing? she asked herself. There was no way for her to make it here, as a woman, without experience. And in the face of her abject failure at hiring the right man—let alone obtaining the hundred slaves they needed—now they were behind yet another week.

  She wept bitter tears, soaking through one handkerchief and then another. She was just fishing through her purse for another when a shadow brought her head up.

  She blinked once, twice, at the blurry figures.

  It was Mitilda, and beside her the boy. Abraham.

  It was the child who handed her a clean handkerchief, drawn from his pocket. She stared at it a moment, as if she did not recognize what it was. In truth, she wasn’t certain what she should do.

  “For you, miss,” said the boy in English laced with the islanders’ Creole accent as he extended the handkerchief to her. The child wore an impeccably clean little suit jacket and short pants, stockings and shoes, not a speck of dirt on him.

  “Lady Tomlinson,” corrected his mother, squeezing the boy’s shoulder.

  “Lady Tom—” he began.

  “No, no,” Keturah said, gratefully taking the handkerchief to wipe her eyes and nose. “Please. You may call me Lady Ket. All the …” Her words failed her. She’d been about to say all the servants do. But these two were not servants, not slaves. This child—she forced herself to look at him steadily—this child was … kin.

  Then she made herself look up at his mother, wondering what the woman wanted of her, why she had intruded upon her private moment. It made her feel vulnerable, when she wanted to feel anything but weak. But before she found the words to ask, the woman drawled, “We received
the mangoes this morning. That was right kind of you, Lady Ket.”

  The small basket of mangoes. Keturah had left it on their porch last night. “Oh. Good, good,” she said, a rush of embarrassment bringing heat to her cheeks at the memory of how she’d treated them in the grove. She knew she should apologize and was searching for the right words.

  But Mitilda only gave her a frown of concern. “Why all the tears, Lady Ket?”

  In that small kindness, someone acknowledging distress, Ket felt a tenuous bridge rise between them. Taking a deep breath, she rose and looked the woman in the eye. Mitilda was plainly a beauty, with her oval face and soft doe eyes.

  Ket put aside thoughts of what her father might have seen in the woman, what obviously drew him. Necessity demanded her to wonder if perhaps this islander might have a solution to her problem. Gray had even suggested that Mitilda might be a friend in time. Which was preposterous, she told herself. What would a black woman, the mistress of a dead planter, have to offer her, a white woman of means? Even as she thought it, shame washed through her.

  “I … We need an overseer at Tabletop, someone to manage the fields. Someone to purchase and train the … slaves.” Ket tried to swallow but found her mouth was dry. It was so infernally hot… .

  But Mitilda did not flinch. “You will not find the overseer you want, Lady Ket. All the best are taken by others.”

  Keturah bit her cheek, holding back a hot reply. “I am well aware of that difficulty,” she said.

  “There is more,” Mitilda said, big eyes furtively glancing about to make sure they remained the alley’s only occupants. “The men of this island do not wish for you to succeed.”

  Keturah frowned. She knew they suspected her, maybe even resented her. But …

  “They move together as one to keep you from hiring an overseer,” Mitilda went on, placing one hand atop her other and looking at Ket sadly. “They want you to marry one of them. Put you in your proper place, I heard one man say. I fear that only in marrying into another family here, Lady Ket, shall you find hope for Tabletop.”