None of it mattered to Will. He loved her, he wanted her, and Arabella had no reason to refuse him.
Taking a deep breath and retrieving the handkerchief from up her sleeve, she dabbed beneath her eyes, careful not to smudge her kohl or rouge. Today was not a day for tears; it was a day for joy. She was marrying her dearest friend in the world. There would be no need to worry over her future, or what might become of her when her father died. Archibald seemed as hale as ever, but nothing was guaranteed. Her mother had seemed perfectly healthy, but that had changed in what felt like a blink of an eye.
Arabella would take no chances. A new future lay before her, and she would step gracefully into it and be grateful to have any such options at all.
Taking one last look in the mirror, she then made her way from the room. One gloved hand gripping the balustrade, she descended as gracefully as she could manage, her body suddenly overtaken by shudders. Through the large doors thrown open to the front steps and circular drive, she could see the waiting carriages—one for herself and her father, another for her half-siblings.
“Ah, there you are, poppet,” said her father, turning to her with a bright smile. “We are ready and waiting, at your leisure.”
Arabella took his hand and allowed him to help her off the bottom step. Glancing up at Archibald Abbot, she experienced the usual tumult of confused feelings he inspired in her. The man had sired her, provided for her and her mother, and had doted on her from birth. But one glimpse at the fields stretching beyond the house grounds reminded her of the duality of his nature. He was a wealthy planter, one who traded in sugar cane harvested by the sweat of black brows and the bloodied fingers of people who looked like Arabella and her mother. People who had been torn from their homeland and forced to labor on pain of torment or death. They weren’t people to him, but commodities, just like the precious crop that had made him so exceedingly rich. What, then, did he see when he looked at her?
As he nestled her hand in the crook of his elbow, he seemed to see his daughter, his own blood. But she often wondered that if she were someone else—some nameless mulatto sired by another man—would he see her with such eyes? Would he treat her as he did the countless people who worked as his house slaves?
Shaking off those thoughts, she allowed him to lead her down the front steps to their waiting equipage. There was no use mulling over these questions on such a day. These were the realities of the world she had been born into, and Arabella had no power to change it in any substantial way. She could only play the cards that had been dealt her.
A pale face appeared from behind the parted curtains of the second carriage—white powder adding a ghostly quality to her half-sister’s visage, a black beauty patch a startling stain near her chin.
“Is her highness finally ready?” Eugenia whined. “Thank God, I thought I would just die from the heat.”
“Oh, do cease your squalling, Eugenia,” came a muffled male voice from inside the carriage. “We’ve barely been in here five minutes.”
Eugenia retreated, and Milton appeared, looking somber and older than his years in a powdered white wig tied back in a queue. He wore just as much face powder and rouge as their sister. “But, we should hurry, else the poor man will think Bella has changed her mind.”
“God forbid,” Eugenia said with a little sniff. “Because, who else would have her?”
Arabella raised her chin and allowed her father to help her into the carriage, pretending not to have heard as Eugenia received a sharp scolding. She wished her father would not go to so much trouble to defend her, when it only made Eugenia despise her more. While Milton couldn’t care less that his father had taken a black mistress—as so many planters were wont to do—Eugenia knew how it had enraged Mrs. Abbot, and had taken up the mantle of the dead woman’s hatred.
“Pay her no mind, poppet,” her father urged as the carriage door was closed. “Eugenia can rarely tolerate another girl being the center of attention, especially when that girl is you.”
“Then I am sure she’ll be glad to be rid of me,” she murmured, turning to gaze out the window. “With me out of the way, she’ll be the one true lady of the house.”
Archibald snorted a laugh, slouching on the squabs of the rocking conveyance. “I must confess that the thought of seeing you leave Greenhill saddens me, poppet. I knew this day would come, though I must say I am pleased in your choice of groom. Throckmorton is a fine catch, and he will take good care of you. Your mother would be pleased.”
Would she? Arabella wanted to ask. But she remained silent, leaning forward to better see through the window. Dark skin stretched over the muscular backs of bare-chested male slaves, their sinewy arms working with the strength and skill needed to harvest the cane. Clusters of women worked to tie the stalks into bundles for transport, while the elderly and children pulled weeds and chased rats away from the valuable crop. Dark eyes peered at the carriage, some heavy with curiosity and others with outright disdain. She frowned, shaking her head as she realized her father had been speaking to her and she hadn’t heard a word of it.
“I’m sorry, Papa. You were saying?”
Instead of taking up where he’d left off, Archibald looked to the window, taking in the passing scenery with a furrowed brow.
“I am certain you’ve heard the talk of dissent among the slaves.”
Arabella blinked, uncertain why he would broach such a subject with her, and on today of all days. She had heard whispers, of course, but only the little that people would allow a woman to overhear. Even if she was not treated like the delicate Eugenia, people still remembered whose daughter she was before speaking of such matters.
“A bit,” she hedged.
His gaze grew pensive as he continued watching Greenhill roll past them, the iron gates looming ahead. “I don’t want you to be afraid, for it is only talk. The slaves know what’s good for them, and an uprising will only result in blood and death. They saw that much at the end of the Second Maroon War.”
Arabella bit her tongue, when what she really wanted was to remind her father that the liberated slaves known as the Maroons hadn’t been defeated; they’d been tricked into laying down their arms and then captured. For decades before the Final Maroon War, they had freed themselves before hiding in the mountains and fending off anyone who encroached upon their territory.
The slaves currently toiling at Greenhill and Jamaica’s other plantations outnumbered their masters by the hundreds. While past slave uprisings had been unsuccessful, the volatility of the situation in Jamaica couldn’t be ignored forever. Someday, something would happen and there would be blood. Arabella wasn’t certain her father was right to assume the slaves would be so easily put down.
However, like the good daughter she was, she kept her mouth closed. Another thing her mother had taught her was maintaining the outward appearance of gentle obedience. Some arguments were better not had at all, and some fights must be won using the mind. Speaking her thoughts on this would only cause her father to grow cross with her hours before her wedding. It would free no one, help no one. It would not be worth it.
“I am not afraid,” she simply said.
“Good,” her father said with a little nod, though as they passed through the gates of Greenhill, the worry on his expression did not ease. “Well, let’s not speak of such things just now. After all, today is a happy day. You are getting married, poppet.”