Page 119 of Marry in Secret
Thomas didn’t respond. They consigned the horses to the care of the hotel ostlers, booked rooms for themselves and for Kirk, ordered dinner for three to be served in their respective rooms, and went upstairs.
Rose didn’t pursue the matter. Thomas was disturbed enough by what had happened with Ambrose. And they were both tired. A good night’s sleep was what was called for.
The next morning they made their way back to Brierdon, a much more leisurely drive, sparing the horses who had performed so valiantly the day before. It being a fine, clear morning, Rose and Thomas decided to take the curricle with Bucephalus tied on behind—a position the horse made clear he did not like. Kirk followed with the chaise and four.
“Now,” Rose said when they were out on the road and clear of traffic, “tell me the real reason you let Ambrose escape.”
He glanced at her. “I don’t know if it will make any sense to you. It barely makes sense to me.” He drove on for a few minutes, then started to speak. “It occurred to me, as we were talking last night on that dark wharf, that Ambrose had been a slave, or as good as one. Bred by my uncle on one of his servants—he raped a maidservant, who then bore him a son. My uncle took that son in and trained him, almost from birth, to serve the family.
“I never realized it until now, but Ambrose was never given a choice, never given the freedom to decide his future. And right up until my uncle’s death, he was kept dependent on my uncle in order to do his job.” He looked at her. “That’s how slaves in other countries are treated. I saw it. I lived it.”
“And you think it’s the same thing?” Rose couldn’t see it. Ambrose didn’t have any whip scars. He’d lived a fine life as far as she could see.
“He wasn’t treated with the kind of brutality I experienced, no. And I don’t think my uncle would have recognized it as a kind of slavery, and neither did Ambrose, though from his bitterness about his life, I’m sure he felt it. But when you’ve lived slavery, even for a short time as I did, you recognize it.”
“And so you let him get off scot-free?” She wasn’t as good a person as Thomas. She wanted Ambrose to pay.
“I let him leave with his life. He doesn’t get to keep the money he stole. He can start a new life. Jailing him would have been—well, it might have been justice by some people’s lights, but I couldn’t have lived comfortably with it.”
That was all that mattered, Rose decided. If Thomas was satisfied she would try to be.
***
“I’ll tell you something funny about this place up ahead,” Thomas said as they approached a small village. “It’s where Jemmy Pendell comes from. His wife was the hardest one to track down. We knew he was from Newport, but as it turns out there are quite a few places in England called Newport.” He broke off, frowning. “Is that horse trotting oddly?”
She looked. “I think it is.”
“Blast, I think it’s lost a shoe.” He slowed the horses to a walk. “I hope this place has a blacksmith.”
“You were saying, about Newport,” she prompted. “Jemmy Pendell’s wife lives here?”
“Yes, we searched the country far and wide, throughseveral towns called Newport, and it turned out she was right on my doorstep. I never even realized this little place was called Newport, and yet I’ve driven through it a dozen times heading to Bristol from Brierdon.”
There was a coaching inn ahead and he pulled in. An ostler ran up and Thomas stepped down to consult with him.
“I’ll just stretch my legs,” Rose said. Mrs. Pendell lived here.
When Thomas had told her about his men, she’d felt for all the wives who had, like Rose, for the last four years believed themselves to be widows. She felt especially for Mrs. Pendell, who, if her husband was only nineteen, must be even younger. And she’d had a baby on the way when he left.
She wandered into the taproom and found a woman mopping the floor. “Do you know a Jemmy Pendell?”
“Aye, used to,” she said. “Went to sea and drownded, he did.”
“I’m looking for his wife.”
“His widow, you mean. Lives up there with Jemmy’s old granfer. House at the end of the lane.” The woman ushered her through the yard and pointed to a small stone cottage.
Rose strolled up the lane and found a neat, plain cottage in a garden bursting with vegetables, fruit and flowers, mainly roses. Not an inch of space was free of something either productive or pretty. It was both practical and charming.
Rose knocked. A pretty young woman answered the door. “Yes? Can I help you?” A small piquant face peeped out from behind her skirts. A little girl, about three years old, with wide blue eyes.
Something caught in Rose’s throat. If her baby had lived it would be about this little girl’s age.
“I... I was just admiring your roses,” she said, because of course she couldn’t admit her real reason for coming.
Mrs. Pendell looked heartbreakingly young to be a widow, and wore a drab, faded purplish gray dress that washed all the color from her face. Poor people couldn’t afford to buy new clothes in black when they were bereaved;they simply dyed all their clothes black. And after a few washings, the black turned into this drab purplish-gray. The little girl was dressed in the same dreary gray.
“I’m sorry, I should introduce myself, Lady Rose Brierdon. And I wondered, could I buy some of your beautiful roses?”
