Keturah Page 7

  “It is Primus, Lady Ket,” the servant said.

  She unbolted the door and opened it. The man held a tray heavy with food and entered, setting it on a trunk beside the cot that Keturah had made her makeshift table.

  “Mr. Burr, Lady Ket,” Primus said, uncovering one dish and then another, “he’s wanting you to accept his apologies over the way he purported himself.” Behind him, Grace appeared, carrying a pitcher and three pewter mugs.

  Keturah smiled. “Now, Primus, did he truly apologize, or are you simply trying to mend fences again?” The slim, middle-aged black man was known for trying to make certain everyone in his household got along. Now he appeared to have transferred that need to the ship.

  “Not in so many words, Lady Ket,” he said, giving her a rueful smile. “Not in so many words. But he felt it, I could tell. As soon as you and the misses bustled out of that cabin, he regretted his actions.”

  “Or Captain McKintrick began to make him regret it,” Verity said confidently, spooning some stew onto a plate for each of her sisters. “Actions after a quarrel prove the heart’s intent, Mother always said. We’ll see how Mr. Burr conducts himself tomorrow and in the weeks to come.”

  “Good enough,” he said with a contented nod. “Good enough.”

  “Would you like some supper too, Primus?” Verity asked, spoon poised over the tureen in invitation.

  “Yes, please, Primus,” Ket joined in.

  “No, Lady Ket, don’t you fret over me. Grace and I will go to the others now. They’re eating in the hold. I’ll come back for that tray in an hour or so, if that’s all you shall be needing.”

  “Good, Primus. Thank you,” Ket said. “Grace, you shall return with him and attend us in an hour or so?”

  “Yes, Lady Ket,” the girl said.

  Primus left through the door after Grace. Selah rose to lock it behind him.

  The three ate in silence for a time. Keturah had lost her appetite but made herself put one bite in her mouth after the other. She knew she’d be hungry in a few hours. And she had heard enough stories from her father to know that the first few meals aboard a ship were among the finest one would get for weeks. At some point they’d likely be eating hardtack and drinking grog—the sailors’ preferred form of watered wine—day and night. Until that day she was determined to obtain every morsel of decent food that was fairly theirs.

  She shoved another bite in her mouth, smiling as she chewed and thought of Mr. Burr. Despite what he intended, the sisters Banning were here to thrive. Thrive. Not wither or cower away.

  Thrive.

  The thought of it made every bland bite taste delectable.

  Gray walked down to his cabin after supper, pausing briefly beside the Banning sisters’ cabin. He could hear them inside, and their chatter—and even laughter—heartened him. He lifted a hand to knock, then dropped it, shaking his head. She had made no effort at all to bridge the divide between them. He doubted she would welcome him now. It was not his place to intervene or to check on them, even after what he had witnessed in the captain’s dining room.

  With a sigh, he turned and walked the rest of the way to his cabin, unlocking the door. Philip was inside and hurriedly rose at the sight of him. “Master Gray,” he said with a nod. He moved to reach for Gray’s coat, but Gray waved him back to his cot.

  “Sit, sit, my friend,” he said, shrugging out of his coat. “Please, if we are to be bunkmates, we cannot have you rising every time I enter the room. Put aside that formality for the duration of our voyage, at the very least. And rest assured, I can manage my own wardrobe.”

  “As you wish,” said the older man hesitantly, slowly taking a seat.

  Gray noticed his furrowed brow and confused eyes. After twenty years of service, old habits like this would be hard to break. But he suspected that even when they reached Nevis, he’d need Philip to be more partner than servant. The thought of it had even infiltrated his dreams. “Philip,” he said, hanging his coat on a peg, “once we are on-island, I do not expect you to serve me as you did in England. There might be a time and place for you to resume your role as my valet. But the reason I invited you to attend me was that you, out of all my family’s servants, have always been most dear to me.”

  He could feel the heat of a blush rising on his cheeks at such a frank declaration. But Philip needed to know this. “What I mean,” he hurried on, untying his neckcloth and placing it over the peg too, “is that I needed a friend with me on this journey, Philip. A dependable man I could count on. A friend, a brother really, more than servant.” He rubbed the back of his neck, aware that he probably wasn’t being quite clear. “We shall encounter circumstances ahead when I shall need your frank opinion, not the deference of servant to master. I shall need a brother’s counsel when I have none.”

  “I see,” Philip said, stroking his chin thoughtfully between finger and thumb. “I am more honored than ever, then, to be invited along on your grand adventure.”

  “No, ’tis my honor that you accepted, old friend. I know that it would have been a far safer road to remain on my brother’s estate.”

  “Safer,” the older man soulfully acknowledged, dropping his hand, “and yet rather mundane. Truthfully, ever since your father died, I found myself rather anxious for a new challenge. All your talk over the past year of Nevis and sugar had me thinking that I would not mind a glimpse of the ‘Queen of the Caribbees’ myself. When you asked, I confess I was quite delighted.”

  Gray smiled and pulled his shirt off, then sat down to unlace his boots. “You never doubted? I thought I sensed a reasonable degree of hesitation.”

  Philip pulled his head toward one shoulder and then the other, in that old familiar gesture that meant he was relaxing and considering his response. Gray had seen him do it a hundred times in his father’s chambers. “I was only a bit befuddled, at first,” Philip said. “There you were, asking me to accompany you. Until that very moment, I had not realized how dearly I wished to do so. It surprised me. And after a good number of years in your father’s company, I knew well what you proposed we risk, going to the West Indies.”

  “The stakes, you mean,” Gray said, pulling at his boot. When it refused to budge, Philip motioned for him to let him assist. He relented and let the older man pry it from his foot, then the other one too.

  “Yes,” Philip said. “All my life, the only time my feet left English soil was when I accompanied your father. To France. And even then I was quite content to return home.”

  “And Nevis is much farther away than France.”

  Philip smiled and nodded. “’Tis a far piece from home, indeed. But I assure you, I am most delighted with this venture already. To be aboard a ship with no land in sight is—” he looked to the side of their tiny cabin, as if he could see through to the waves, and shook his head in wonder—“exhilarating,” he finished. “If my father could see me now, he would be proud, just as I know Master Covington would have been proud of you.”

  “You believe so?” Gray asked, wincing inwardly at the weak need present in his voice. And yet he couldn’t help it. All his life he’d hungered for his father’s approval, but it seemed the old man had been blinded by the bright sun that was his brother. In every sector, Gray had been compared to Samuel and routinely deemed wanting.

  “I do,” Philip said gravely. “He appreciated men who were willing to do what it took to improve their station. I oft heard him speak of it.”

  “Is that what I’m doing?” Gray asked, turning to wearily lie down on his cot. Every muscle in his back and arms and thighs ached after loading the crates and trunks onto the Restoration.

  “I would say so,” Philip said. Now that Gray was settled, he began to undress himself.

  “I hope that we can make my plantation a success,” Gray said. “To be able to write to Samuel and tell him of it …” He closed his eyes in reverent hope and took a deep breath.

  “That would be most satisfactory,” Philip said. “Perhaps I might begin readin
g some of the horticulture books you brought along? When you are not in need of my service, of course.”

  “That is a grand idea,” Gray said. “It would be most gratifying to be able to discuss my plans with another.” He’d been hungering for the opportunity to do so with Keturah, to begin to subtly prepare her for what was ahead and ply her clever mind for her own ideas, given her talent with gardening. But she clearly wasn’t interested in anything more than exchanging the briefest of pleasantries.

  But the voyage would last six weeks or more. Perhaps, in time, he’d find a way to rekindle their friendship, to demonstrate how he’d changed. Then he’d be able to honor his promise to Cecil to look after them. He wanted her to succeed with Tabletop, to thumb her nose at Edward Tomlinson’s memory, even if she could not do so in person. But would it be possible? For a woman on her own, even with the support of her loving sisters?

  Gray knew that the Banning fortune had been in some decline for years. When word came to his brother that Richard Banning was selling a portion of his Rivenshire estate, a portion of land that he’d allowed to be sharecropped for years, they’d gathered it was grim indeed. There’d been a hurricane and some sort of blight in Nevis, creating several years of hardship for the island’s planters. But Banning had been renowned for his prowess at managing the fickle sugar crops, for over a decade even succeeding in bringing in the best yield on the island.

  “Some say he might be going mad,” Samuel had told him, looking over the letter from Banning, asking about interest in outright purchase or to inquire among their contemporaries, if they had none. “Or that he dips his cup too often in the rum.”

  Gray had frowned at that. He’d never known Banning to be a drunkard or have a hint of madness about him.

  “They say he’s abandoned his crops for two years,” Sam went on, casually setting the letter aside. “Intent on terracing the ground or whatnot.” He waved his hand in dismissal, but Gray moved to the corner of the desk and picked it up, saw the staggering sum Banning requested for the rolling hills to their east. Clearly, the elder Banning still believed in what the soil of Nevis could produce more than what he could grow in England. That was when the idea had first struck.

  “What if I were to claim my annual stipend for the next twenty years?” he’d muttered before the idea was fully formulated in his mind. “Take that sum and buy Teller’s Landing, making it my own. Go and see if I can match old Banning’s yield of sugar.”

  His brother was looking at another letter and slowly dragged his eyes to meet Gray’s. “Hmm? What?”

  By that time, Gray’s excitement was starting to build. He rounded the desk and began pacing back and forth. “What if I took my annual stipend now, in one lump sum? And sail to Nevis to create my own fortune?”

  Sam had scoffed, leaning back in his chair and looking at him as if he were mad. “Did you not hear what I said?” he asked, picking up Banning’s letter. “The planters—even Banning—are struggling. Few men have made a fortune in Nevis in recent years. Perhaps in our grandfather’s day, and his own grandfather’s before him, but now? Everyone is quite aware that sugar plantations are faring better in Hispaniola or Saint Christopher than in Nevis.” He shook his head. “No, the soil has been tapped out. Nevis’s heyday is long over.”

  “And yet Richard Banning sticks to it.” Gray gestured to the letter. “If he thought there was better opportunity there, would he not be selling Tabletop instead of his land here?”

  “Banning is a stubborn fool. A dreamer. A gambler.”

  “As am I. But perhaps that’s what it takes to be a successful planter.”

  Sam leaned forward again and tapped his steepled fingers against his chin. “You are serious.”

  “I am,” Gray said.

  His brother blinked slowly, contemplating. “And so you are saying that if I grant you this sum, you shall travel to Nevis to become a gentleman planter?”

  Gray nodded slowly. He knew that Sam would find it a relief to see him engaged in anything remotely respectable, rather than simply enjoying society as he’d been doing for years. And it would take him far away. Given that the brothers’ relationship was only civil … that would be a boon too. For them both.

  Sam dropped his hands and began drumming his fingers on the desk, then stopped. “What is to keep you from coming back to me for additional sums when your funds run dry? When you face the hurricane? The blight?”

  “No matter what happens, I shall not return to you for additional sums.”

  “Even if you encounter the worst?” Sam pressed.

  “Even if I encounter the worst,” Gray had pledged.

  Now Gray lay on his cot listening to the waves wash by the ship in a soothing lullaby, even as his pledge to Sam rattled in his mind.

  As Philip blew out the candle in the lampstand and wished him a pleasant night’s sleep, Gray began to pray that he’d not made the biggest mistake of his life. That the worst would not happen.

  For him … or Keturah.

  Chapter Six

  Six days later, Keturah and her sisters were taking their afternoon walk around the perimeter of the ship while Brutus stretched his wings high above—when they came across Philip, Gray’s longtime servant. He was sitting on a massive coil of rope, intently reading.

  “Why, Philip,” Selah said, “what has you so captivated?”

  The older man looked up at them and quickly rose, giving them a slight bow. “I beg your pardon, ladies. I confess I was rather captivated.” He lifted the cover so they could see the title: Horticulture of the West Indies.

  Keturah cocked her head and extended a hand. “May I peruse it?”

  “Indeed,” the man said, handing it to her. “Master Gray recommended I read it so that I might be better prepared to assist him.”

  Keturah nodded and scanned the first page. She’d seen precious little of “Master Gray” in this first week of their voyage, and that was fine by her. Perhaps he was taking his own constitutional at other hours than they, not confined as they were by the captain’s request that they be safely in their quarters by sunset. After only a few sentences, she was intrigued. “Might you ask Gray if I might borrow this volume when you are finished?”

  “Take it now,” the man said. “I shall complete my reading after you are done.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” she began.

  “Please, I insist,” he said, nodding earnestly.

  With one look into his brown eyes, she knew it would be fruitless to protest further. “You are most kind, Philip.”

  He gave her a wry grin. “It is easy to be kind when I know Master Gray has ten other volumes in our cabin he would like me to read.”

  Ten others? Keturah frowned. She’d only been able to secure one relevant volume before they departed. In their haste to embark upon the Restoration, there’d been no more time. It was her hope that her father’s daily journal—which she would presumably find at Tabletop—would be her best way to learn what had worked on the plantation, as well as what had not.

  “Master Gray has become quite the scholar,” Verity said, casting a curious glance in Keturah’s direction. Ket ignored it.

  “Why, yes, he’s been studying the ways of planters for more than a year now. As soon as he’d learned he was to travel to Nevis, he became most dedicated to his preparations.”

  Keturah blinked. “More than a year, you say?”

  “Yes,” Philip said, tapping his chin as if counting backward. “’Twas about that time more than a year ago that he and his brother made arrangements for him to purchase the plantation.”

  Keturah swallowed hard. Taking such time to prepare made her feel foolish in comparison. “Why did Master Gray not set off for Nevis at once?” she asked.

  “He knew this was a tremendous gamble,” Philip said, puffing up like a proud father. “So for months he interviewed many absentee planters, gleaning what he could from them. Then he went to university to attend two classes in horticulture of the tropics. That is where
he found his fine books that he is lending me … and now you, Lady Keturah.” Again, he nodded in deference.

  “Yes. Well …” University. She had heard he’d been at Oxford for a time. Two friends who lived in Rivenshire told her they’d met him at soirees and balls. She’d assumed he was there to find fresh female conquests rather than something more. Shame over her assumptions washed through her. “It is quite commendable, what he has done in preparation,” she went on, eying the cover of the book again. “I confess, it makes me feel rather ill prepared myself.”

  “Ah, but you have the benefit of a lengthy voyage yet ahead,” Philip said with a kind smile. “You and I shall both be able to read through the master’s volumes in that time.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Keturah said.

  “Consider it done,” Philip said. “As soon as I complete my reading, I shall pass the next to you. Now, ladies, I must look in on Master Gray. Enjoy your afternoon.”

  “You as well, Philip,” Keturah said.

  ———

  Philip opened the cabin door and stood there a moment, hands behind his back. Gray looked up at him, brows knitting in consternation. He’d been sketching atop a portable lap desk. “Philip? What is it?”

  The man entered the cabin, closed the door and leaned against it, arms folded. “Is there a reason, Master Gray, that you sent me abovedecks with that book today? The one I’d nearly completed?”

  Gray’s eyes went to his empty hands, and a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “Did you slip? Did it fly into the sea?”

  “I suspect you know exactly what became of the volume,” Philip said, “which is why you shooed me out of this cabin promptly at two.”

  “Because?” Gray said, cocking one brow.

  “Because the Misses Banning and Lady Tomlinson take their afternoon constitutional promptly at quarter past two.”

  “They do?” Gray attempted to be the picture of innocence, but let loose a sly smile even as he went on. “What a happy coincidence. Did you greet them for me?”