Just because Jemina wasn’t interested in his offer, it didn’t mean he should stop trying to move forward. It would be hypocritical to suggest she forget the past if he stayed stuck in his.
* * *
Cards flipped out to each of the men at Daniel’s table, he stared at his hand. Max jumped about, adding to his distraction, but not as much as Richmond’s grin.
“What’s the matter, Barrister?” he asked as he signaled for another card.
“Nothing.” Daniel wasn’t concentrating. The solicitor representing the St. Maurs had contacted him, this time formally by letter. The digging widows must have awakened the beasts.
Mr. Mosey from Tonbridge—the solicitor asked how to contact Jemina for important business. With her continued poking around, it would only be a matter of time the solicitor found her. Doesn’t she realize the St. Maurs would’ve let her spend the rest of her life in Bedlam?
The Dunns were business partners to the St. Maurs in Jamaica. Coffee exporters. They could be alerted to Hope with the chaos surrounding Jemina.
But the dear woman was more at risk. The St. Maurs were her closest kin. They could gain legal guardianship of her affairs, if somehow she was again proven unstable or unfit.
Mr. Gerard reared back in his chair. “From the rumors, it sounds as if his brief affair with an heiress went awry at Lady Shrewsbury’s dinner.”
“My wife,” Richardson said, “overheard from her cousin the butcher at the marketplace in Covent Garden that it was an awful ending.”
Daniel sighed. “You can’t have an awful ending if there was no beginning, gentlemen.”
“So it’s worse, you never sampled the nectar. Sorry, old boy.” Richmond laughed and stroked his thick, high hair, fully ebony though nature had made it recede. “Truly sorry. You have to be sure of the woman when you cross that line.”
The line was the racial one, which rose like a brick wall when black and white danced hand-in-hand. It fueled hatred, spun up the mobs with talks against abolition, and the awful othering of mixed-race offspring.
Daniel lived this daily and the hate his parent’s marriage bore. This friction was something he wanted to avoid, which made his courtship with Phoebe, a beautiful West Indian girl more palatable.
“Oh, you have it bad. A moping Ashbrook.” Richmond shook his head, then signaled for another card. “Book smarts don’t lead to wise choices.”
The subtle dig was a reminder that Richmond was happily married to a beautiful Irish lass. He paid for that the first year of their nuptials. The man fought every day with every man in his village, all who taunted his wife for “marrying a devil.”
Daniel stroked his chin, analyzed his cards and the risks he wanted to take. A few shillings at this table were the stakes, but outside of Finchely it was his heart and his daughter’s happiness at risk.
Was that it?
His affairs with Lady Lavinia and other oat sowing was in the shadows.
In court, he defended many things, so how could he not defend a relationship with Jemina?
No. That wasn’t his hesitation. It was the fear of losing her like Phoebe. When their lives were set to begin, Jemina would disappear within her restored memories. He’d lose again.
It was bound to happen, her awakening from amnesia. She was too hungry for the truth.
Richmond looked at Daniel and flipped a card to him. “Just helping you decide. You’re taking too long with your choices.”
“It’s difficult sometimes.” Daniel oversold his hand. He lost.
His friend offered a knowing smile. “There aren’t enough eligible Blackamoor women in London. We kid you, but it is difficult. Those women of age, who are educated with a dowry, are sought after by second sons of thetonor peers and merchants looking for wealthy brides. Very competitive to gainda empress.”
“Your Mrs. Richmond is a queen.” Mr. Gerard swept up another card, then tossed his set back. “I’m over too.” He stretched and went to the sideboard and forked another cut of the juicy roast. Then slathered honey and butter over two biscuits. “Ashbrook tried. It’s done. It’s for the best.”
Still stewing, Daniel waited for Richmond or Mr. Anthon to hit vingt-et-un. “Can we move on from my private affairs and hurry the game? I need to win more of your shillings.”
The fellows nodded and feasted and hummed as the play continued.
With their advice now switching to politics, Daniel shifted his gaze between his cards and the door, and that wretched, unescapable sense of loss.
His fears didn’t stop him from thinking of Jemina. When he closed his eyes at night, he no longer saw the sketch of Phoebe or the docks of Portsmouth. It was the widow, the one who got away that filled his dreams.
