Chapter Twenty-Four
The phaeton ride to Blair Street required the same balance and white-knuckled grip as their journey to Henrietta Place, but Tessa needed no excuse to hold fast to her husband. She sat immediately beside him, one hand on his leg, the other on his bicep. He cleared his throat every time they made a turn, an intimate acknowledgment of her clenching hands, and Tessa smiled. She was so very happy. She never would have predicted that confessing (or, as Joseph viewed it, “revealing”) the events of the night with Captain Marking would be so... liberating, so redemptive. She felt like she’d been trapped in a dark room for a year and someone had thrown open all the windows and unlocked the door.
When they cleared Whitehall, the traffic thinned considerably, and Tessa began to pepper Joseph with questions about the sale of the guano.
“Is the buyer an agricultural cooperative?”
He glanced at her. “Indeed, it is. A collective of landowning farmers throughout the country who have banded together. They buy fertilizer in large lots so they all benefit from lower costs. I sold them our entire first shipment before we’d even mined it.”
“And they want more? You’ve said there is more guano to be had.”
He grimaced. “Oh yes. There is more.”
“What’s wrong?” She laughed. “Are you not excited by the potential?”
“No, actually, that excites me very much. It’s merely...” He steered around an overturned potato cart. “Stoker would call me out for laziness and affectation toward contrived poshness, but the guano mine is hardly my ideal place of employment.” He rolled his neck.
“Like Vauxhall Gardens is not your ideal night out?” she surmised.
He harrumphed. “Vauxhall is a palace compared to the guano mine. The island is hot and desolate, and the mining is grueling. The food is terrible, we sleep in tents. The only diversion is reading by candlelight, but the winds preclude it. I dread going back, honestly. Originally, I saw no way around it, but now...” He let the sentence trail off.
“But now?” she prompted. She squeezed his thigh.
He made a growling noise and glanced at her hand. “But now,” he repeated simply. They made the turn at Ross Street.
He started again. “I returned to England with what I thought of as my Plan for the Future. I was going to situate you and the baby with noble and stoic detachment—” She giggled and he said, “Clearly I’ve failed at this goal.”
He went on, “I was going to return to Barbadoes and mine as much guano as I could and turn another profit. With that money, I was going to throw myself into local politics somewhere with potential for an eventual Parliamentary run. I still want those things, but my personal return to Barbadoes may not be, er, strictly necessary.”
Tessa nodded, working to keep a reasonable smile on her face. She forced herself to raise her eyebrows in mild interest. She would not squeal. She would not clap her hands together. She would not throw herself across his lap and say,Thank God, please never leave England again.
“Stoker will certainly return to Barbadoes,” he said. “Without a doubt. The mine suited him. He’s good at managing sailors and miners and he’s actually good at the physical work. He’s a prodigiously good sea captain. But me...?” He allowed the question to trail off.
She was just about to prompt him,But you?when he reined the horses and brought the phaeton to a stop in an alley. A boy darted from the shadows to mind the animals, and Joseph tossed him a coin.
“Is this Blair Street?” she asked. She reached out her hand to step down, but he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her to the ground. Her skirts whirled around her ankles, the heavy brown wool catching air like springtime cotton.
“Yes. Just around the corner.” He held out his arm and led her across the bustling street. Tessa had become reasonably familiar with Blackwall that summer—the dock and warehouses, the searcher’s office, and the waterfront—but she knew almost nothing of the crowded streets just two blocks north of the water. Up and down Blair Street, buyers, shipbuilders, insurance brokers, booking agents, mariners, and investment firms catered to the busy shipping traffic of the River Thames.
She wished for her diary so she could take down the names and trades on the placards beside each door. Her future was still uncertain—hopeful, but uncertain—and she’d learned nothing this summer if not the value of expanding her knowledge, especially about an industry that so fascinated her.
“The buyers have summoned me only for signatures today, I’m afraid,” Joseph told her. “But we can make an appointment to return, if it pleases you. You may learn the process of how cargo transfers to buyers and how the buyers distribute it to the customers.”
“I should like that very much,” Tessa said. He was just about to lead them around a crowd of sailors when the boy minding Joseph’s horses gave a whistle.
“Oy! Gov’nor!” the boy called.
When they looked back, the boy was bent over the raised hoof of one of the horses. He waved them back with a wild hand. Joseph swore and turned them, but Tessa slipped her hand from his arm.
“Do you mind if I wait here while you go?” she asked. “I should like to take in the lay of the street. I’ve never ventured this far from the water.”
“Right,” sighed Joseph, squinting into the alley at his horse. “This shouldn’t take long. I believe this enterprising young man has mistaken me for a patsy.”
He tightened his gloves and stepped back into the alley. Tessa could not hide her smile as she enjoyed the sight of him walking away. Broad shoulders, long strides, no cravat at all, she’d seen to that. He propped a shoulder on the brick wall beside his rig, waiting for the boy to make his pitch.
Tessa turned away and ambled the length of two storefronts, reading signs and peering through windows. When a door opened on the third office she stopped and waited, craning her head to catch a glimpse of the office beyond the door.
“You’ll not regret it, Simon!” bellowed a voice from inside.
