Season of Light (49 page)

My last request is that you pray for us here in France, as I shall pray for you there in England
.

I embrace you
,

Beatrice

At Asa’s side her new husband, amid a sea of papers, was planning a journey. Since they were so newly married his work was interspersed with kisses on her cheek and shoulder and neck. Just as well because those kisses sweetened the fact that nothing was straightforward. Easy enough to say, as the carriage had hurtled away from Paris towards Calais: ‘I’ll sell everything. We’ll farm. We’ll live simply. We’ll give money raised from the estate to establish the Shackleford slaves as freemen …’ But how to ensure that all of Compton Wyatt’s dependants, those employed in England and those enslaved in Jamaica, would not suffer by falling into less humane hands?

Much easier, they were discovering, for a slave-owner to buy slaves than to free them. And since the vast Shackleford wealth was dependent partly on renting out land to other planters, the process of extrication would be slow indeed. Fortunately, in John Morton, Shackleford had a competent associate who would manage the sale of Compton Wyatt. And in Asa, Shackleford had found a woman keen to travel with him on any journey, the farther and more challenging the better.

Judging by the sound of voices in the hall and the distant clatter of hooves, Mrs Shackleford’s visitors were departing. Asa put aside the letter and went to kneel on the leather chair by the window. ‘I thought of this chair often when I was in France … Sometimes I felt sick with longing to be here.’

‘I’m not fond of that chair myself. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if I never set eyes on anything in this room again.’

‘Even me?’

‘Ah, you.’ He buried his hand in her hair.

‘Why did you bother to come for me, Shackleford? I was so cruel to you that night after the ball. I’m still amazed you would bother to come all the way to Paris for my sake.’

‘I’ve told you, it was an outing, as Georgina put it. My only fear was that you would think I was in the way. That was the only risk, as far as I was concerned.’

She held his face between her hands and kissed his lips and forehead. Behind him, the cynical, painted eyes of his father receded into the gloom. Outside, a party of two women – one carrying an infant – and a trio of small boys ran down to the lake.

Caroline Lambert and a nursemaid had taken their charges to sail a model boat. The request from Shackleford had been clear. The boys could play with the boat to their hearts’ content, they could be educated as to the function of each sail, and its various other components, including the design of the hold and its iniquitous purpose, but then they must push it far out into the lake and ensure it disappeared.

The boys lay on their stomachs among the reeds while Caroline, with baby Kate propped on one hip, crouched down and armed them with sticks so they might prod at the hull until it was clear of the reeds and the shallow waters by the lakeside. Since there was no sign of the swans, the good ship
Tranquillity
found no rival. A puff of evening wind ushered her farther on her journey.

The boys squealed and shielded their eyes as the ship entered a pool of fierce orange light. And then, to their even greater delight, she lost confidence and began to take in water, proving to be fatally ill constructed when it came to lake-worthiness. First the prow tipped forward then she floundered sideways. The water was so shallow that her hull still protruded until Caroline and the oldest boys had to remove their shoes and stockings and paddle far out, hand in hand, to give the ship one final shove into oblivion.

With thanks to Fred Groom, John Woods and Helena Attlee for their advice on research and Charonne Boulton for sharing an icy expedition to Paris. I am indebted to Kirsty Dunseath for her meticulous editorial support and, as ever, to Mark Lucas.

Katharine McMahon studied English and Drama at Bristol University. She has worked as a teacher in schools and universities, as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow supporting student writing, and has run national training courses. She is involved with local theatre and lives with her family in Hertfordshire.

Visit her website at
www.katharinemcmahon.com

A Weidenfeld & Nicolson ebook

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

This ebook first published in 2011 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Copyright © Katharine McMahon 2011

The right of Katharine McMahon to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978 0 297 85600 9

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