Thomas watched Raeni again. Her eyes sparkled and her smile was wide as she twirled, looking radiant in her ice blue dress.
“I suppose I shall have to tell my wife that her hopes of marrying you to one of our girls are just that—hopes.”
Thomas started. “Mary wants me to marry one of your daughters?”
Franklin laughed. “Why so surprised? I told her you thought of them like nieces. But this lady”—he gestured to Raeni—“I think she has stolen your heart.”
It was true. She had stolen his heart, but he’d debated for days now whether to tell her or not. Thomas wanted to believe there was more behind her feelings for him than the pull of desire that seemed to snag both of them every time they were alone together. Tonight she had said she cared for him, but was it only out of gratitude for how he’d helped her? Or did she feel more for him? Did she care for him as a man? Did she even know him? He didn’t like talking about his past, but perhaps it was time for that.
“Excuse me,” he said to Isaiah.
“I thought you didn’t want to dance,” the older man called after him.
“I don’t!” Thomas caught Raeni and her partner just as they were stepping off the dance floor. “Thank you,” he told the caramel-skinned man with a French accent. “You can go now.” Thomas took her arm and steered her toward a footman with a tray of champagne.
He lifted a flute and handed it to her. She sipped it, then seemed to try and catch her breath. “That was rude.”
“No, it would be rude to let him believe he had any chance of ever seeing you again. He doesn’t—because you’re coming home with me.”
She smiled at him. “Yes, I am.”
“Do you want to dance more?” he asked. He really hoped she did not want to dance, but if she was enjoying herself, he didn’t want to pull her away.
“Truth be told, I’m exhausted. Can we go home?”
Home. The way she said it, he could almost believe it was their home. Or might be one day.
“Absolutely. I’ll send for the carriage.
THEY TALKED OF THE ball in the conveyance—the music, the people, the fashions. It had been a new experience for Raeni to see so many free blacks gathered together, many of them prosperous. Thomas remembered feeling the same disorientation when he had first come to England. When they arrived at his home in Cheapside, the house was quiet. Alice and the baby must have been asleep. Only his butler was awake, waiting in the foyer.
“Sir, might I speak with you alone for a moment?” the butler asked.
Thomas frowned at him. “Miss Sawyer and I were about to have a glass of sherry in the library. Can it wait until morning?”
The servant looked at the two of them, clearly torn.
“I can go up to bed,” Raeni said. “We can have sherry another night.”
“No, miss.” The butler gave a curt bow. “It’s nothing. It can wait. I’ll light the lamps in the library and then retire.”
“Thank you,” Thomas said, motioning for Raeni to precede him to the library. The skirts of her blue gown shimmered in the candlelight. It had cost him a small fortune, but it was worth every shilling.
In the library, Thomas poured them both a few sips of sherry and then resumed the conversation they’d had in the carriage. “You wanted a book to read before bed?”
“If it’s no bother,” she said, coming to stand beside him in front of the shelves he’d had filled by the decorator he’d hired. “I liked to read before bed in Jamaica, but now I see what a luxury that was. Now I see what a luxury a bed is.”
“I understand,” he said, pulling a volume of poetry by Coleridge from the shelves and handing it to her to peruse. “It is illegal for slaves in Virginia to read. I taught myself when I arrived in England.”
Her hand stilled, the pages of the book fluttering open as her grip slackened. “The penalty on my father’s plantation was ten lashes to the slave who read.”
“It was the same on my master’s tobacco plantation in Virginia. Ten lashes to the slave and a fifty dollar fine for any white taught teaching slaves to read or write.”
She swallowed, and he knew the question she wanted to ask. It was there in her eyes.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Ask me.”
“Is that where you received your scars? Forgive me, I saw your back when you changed clothing in your office that first day. I didn’t mean to.”
He closed the book and took it from her hands, resting it on the edge of the shelf. Then he covered her hands with his. Hers were so small and soft, unlike his large, callused ones. But when he looked down at them, they were otherwise similar—the same beautiful brown skin.
“I don’t mind,” he told her. “I did not receive the lashes for trying to read. I worked in the field. I had no time or energy to think about reading or writing. I worked from sunup to sundown, and I barely managed to eat something for dinner before I fell into my cot to get what sleep I could.”
Her hand tightened on his. “Oh, Thomas.”
“At fifteen I was sold to another master. The slaves there whispered of rebellion at night when we were alone in our cabins. I heard about free men and women in the north, but I also knew they could be captured and brought back. When I learned that in a faraway place called England, Negro men and women were free, I started to plan my escape.”
“You could have been killed.”
“I knew I wouldn’t live long at Lakemouth. The overseer didn’t like me, and I felt the sting of the lash often when I didn’t work quickly enough to suit him. One evening the overseer couldn’t account for all of the knives we used to harvest the tobacco. At harvest time, we were given knives sharpened almost daily to cut the tobacco between the bottom leaves and the ground. He accused me of stealing and had me whipped publicly as an example.”
A tear ran down her cheek. “Did they ever find the knife?”
“Oh, yes. It turned out the overseer had miscounted. It was there all along.”
“I could kill him!”
He smiled. “I planned a thousand heinous deaths for him while I lay on my stomach in the hot cabin, my back burning with pain. But if not for those lashes, I might not be here. When I was up again, I was not strong enough to go back to the field right away and was given the job of pruning and planting the flowers near the big house. I overheard the master and his friends on the porch, talking of a ship sailing to England in two nights. Lakemouth was only five miles from the harbor. The next night I swam across the lake and escaped through the woods. At the harbor I pretended my master had business with the captain of the ship and asked which it was. Then I mixed in with the slaves bringing the goods aboard, slipped down to the hold, and hid. I was found after a week at sea, but the sailor who found me kept quiet. He brought me a little food and water, and I slipped off the ship with the cargo in Wapping.”
“And now look at you. You have more businesses than I can count on one hand.”
He shook his head. “I was lucky. I heard the right people talking, and I knew how to swim, which made it hard for my master to track me. The sailor on the ship didn’t bring me to his captain, who would have most likely thrown me overboard rather than being accused of aiding a runaway slave.”