On a Desert Shore by S. K. Rizzolo Page B

shared a smile. Chase said after a moment: “Miss Garrod is better off in England. There is less open prejudice, and she would have only one choice in Jamaica: to become the plaything of a white man in order to uphold her caste. The mulattos and quadroons do not mix with the blacks. Here she can be decently wed.”
    â€œAnd inherit her father’s estate?”
    â€œPresumably. Listen, when I return from this job, I’ll call on Lady Danbury and persuade her to give you your character. In the meantime, can I rely on you to stop antagonizing Mrs. Beeks?”
    â€œUnder one condition, kind sir.” Her lip curled with such outrageous scorn that Chase had to grin.
    â€œWhat’s that?” he said warily.
    She reached down to rummage in the basket at her feet. “Something I’ve been wanting to do for months. The sewing scissors won’t do. Let’s see. Do I have them? Yes.” She pulled out a pair of shears and brandished them so that they gleamed in the candlelight. “No proper lady’s maid would be without these.”
    Pushing aside her worktable, she advanced upon him.

Chapter Five
    â€œDon’t worry, mum,” said Penelope’s friend and nursemaid Maggie. “Miss Sarah and I got big plans, don’t we, love?” Over the child’s head, Maggie observed a tear trickling down Penelope’s cheek and fixed her with a stern look from narrowed blue eyes. Practical to the bone, Maggie approved of this excursion, insisting her mistress would be “daft” to reject this opportunity. It might even lead to a step up for Mr. Lewis, which the Lord knew, would be welcome, his future having been a frequent topic of discussion among them. Maggie, who possessed a wandering husband of her own, had no patience for squeamishness when it came to a woman making her way in the world.
    It was too late to turn back, for there, pulled up at their front door, was Mr. Garrod’s gleaming barouche along with a pair of elegant, matched grays. Maggie’s sons, Frank and Jamie, danced with excitement on the pavement. Sarah pushed her mother’s clinging arms away and joined the coachman, who hoisted up each child to pet the horses.
    So Penelope kissed her daughter goodbye and climbed into the carriage beside Lewis. As the carriage wound through the traffic-clogged streets, they drove with the top folded back, the warm air lifting their hair. Mr. Garrod had told her that his estate, one of three along with his townhouse in Wimpole Street, lay only four miles from Westminster Bridge in Clapham, an ancient parish in Surrey. Once a woodland where the wild boar and red deer had roamed and still surrounded by farms and fields, it had become an exclusive suburb for the merchant classes, including, Garrod had said with a grin, “a pack of evangelicals and abolitionists.” Bankers and merchants had built their villas around the Common, a large tract of land that had been well drained and improved with turf, trees, and ponds. Set behind a carriage drive, Mr. Garrod’s mansion fronted the north side of the Common, his extensive pleasure grounds stretching back to the main road. The house, erected about sixty years earlier, had a symmetrical façade of yellow brick and a pillared entrance porch.
    â€œI call it Laurentum,” their host told them after they’d trooped through a series of gardens, greenhouses, graperies, and peach houses until Penelope felt almost drunk with beauty.
    Lewis looked about to explain this remark, but Penelope said, “A city near Rome, wasn’t it? Site of the imperial villa.” Garrod seemed surprised, and she smiled to herself. All those years her father had kept her chained to her books could sometimes pay unexpected dividends. They resumed walking down the graveled path, the afternoon sun warming the top of her straw bonnet. It was a frivolous confection decked in knots and ribbons, which she had trimmed herself with