Page 29 of The Lost Lord
In the excitement of Miriam’s visit, Richard had forgotten about the crate with the loose top and the trick board. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know. I don’t need to, and neither do you,” Howard replied curtly.
Richard contemplated his friend for a moment. “They’re slaves, aren’t they?”
“Not anymore,” Howard replied with bitter satisfaction. “Now, they are free, as all humans should be.”
“I always thought it strange how a country that prides itself on freedom subjects an entire race to bondage,” Richard mused.
“And I’ve always considered it equally peculiar that a nation that holds itself above slavery never blinks at the source of its cotton and sugar, its tea and tobacco.” Howard pounded the desk with a closed fist. He sliced Richard with a glare. “You Englishmen benefit from the same stolen labor. Where do you think your wealth comes from? But you won’t deign to acknowledge the fact.”
Richard stood in uncomfortable silence like a boy before the headmaster at school. He had been that boy, many times. Resentment eddied and swirled through him. He couldn’t be held responsible for the leaders of a foreign country’s shortcomings. He couldn’t be accountable for his own…yet he could, in a sense. Who but peers and the king had had the power to change it? Sweat trickled down his naked torso as he considered the meaning of Howard’s words.
After a moment, his discomfort ebbed. In its wake was a bedrock layer of resolve. Richard had lived thirty-one years without feeling this inner steel of conviction. Injustice and unfairness bothered him immensely—when they affected him. How unfair it had been that he was a second son, unable to inherit. Never mind how he’d never once been bothered by the fact that his youngest brother was similarly cut off from inherited privileged. Until the fire that had killed his father, Richard had wasted his life on self-pity and indulgence.
No.
Until Miriam.
His sister-in-law, Harper Forsythe, now the countess of Briarcliff, had irked him greatly. He had hated her from the start because that mousy woman had dared to pursue a mission, one that directly contradicted Richard’s interests. Her purpose had made Richard feel as if he was the victim of unfortunate circumstances, when in fact he’d been anything but.
This was why his brother had sent him away from England. To earn this self-knowledge. To experience true hardship and stop wallowing in self-pity—to grow. Not because Edward hated him. The realization sank into his gut.
“You have a point,” Richard replied haltingly after a long silence. “I promise I will help you. Them. The children.”
“Tomorrow, it may not be children,” Howard responded, pacing the scant empty distance of his office. “I don’t know who will appear on my ship or when. It’s how we keep ourselves safe from discovery. Each link in the chain is anonymous. I only know the woman who sends a coded message about when to expect the next refugees. I take them upriver and ensure they get to the encampment north of Manhattan. The slave village. From there, I don’t know where they go.”
“What is the risk if we’re caught?” Richard asked. Even in the stale air of the cramped office a cold air of fear chilled his naked skin.
“Nothing near so bad as what happens to those who have escaped,” Howard chuckled humorlessly. “Under the Fugitive Slave Act, slave hunters may claim any black-skinned person is an escaped slave and drag them south on the slightest pretext. If I had won my freedom by running, I wouldn’t remain in this country if I had any choice.”
Edward’s skin prickled with fear. “That is an outrage,” he spat angrily. “How is this legal?”
Howard shrugged in weary resignation. “Laws may be simple, but they are not easy to change.”
“I ask again, what are the risks to us?” Edward almost didn’t want to know. “As I am going to aid and abet your ostensible crime.”
“That depends upon where I am caught, if I am caught. Here in the north, I might face a fine. Further south, I could lose the ships, the shipyards, and be thrown in prison. Depending on how great an example the judge wishes to make of me.” Howard explained the stakes calmly, as if he’d given them do consideration and decided they were of no import instead of utterly ruinous. “As my partner, you could also lose everything.”
“Partner,” Richard scoffed. “I’m no partner, Howard. I’ve made you a few social contracts. You pay me for the time I spent hauling goods when you’re in funds. If this is important to you, I will help. It’s a small thing I can do to repay the friendship you’ve shown me. It…” Truthfulness billowed up from the part of him that could no longer lie to himself. “It is the right thing to do. The risk to me is small, no?”
Howard’s rangy, muscular body relaxed fractionally. His mop of blond hair flopped about his face. “There’s no need to repay friendship. I don’t trust many men, Lord Northcote.”
He spoke the title mockingly. Richard bristled. When had his appellation begun to grate on his ears? When Lizzie, curse her soul, had purred it into his ear, when all the while she’d been twisting him around her fingers until he was like a marionette dancing to her warped tune?
Howard riffled through the stacks of papers until he located a battered ledger covered in his distinctive cramped scrawl. “Here. This is your portion of the profits earned since you started working with my concern a year and a half ago. For every investment you’ve brought me, I have faithfully set aside your commission. When you’ve worked on the docks for me without requesting your pay, I have deposited your wages into the same account. The sum is more than a thousand dollars.”
Richard scanned the ledger in disbelief. A dozen large figures supplemented with more frequent, smaller amounts led to just shy of eleven hundred dollars.
“If this is my portion for helping out a friend, you must be wealthy indeed,” Richard observed as he tried to process the implications. He looked at his friend, at the pathetic lodgings hardly fit for a dog’s bed. “Why do you wear rags and live here when you can afford better?”
Howard lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “I’ve no need for fancy clothes or lodgings. I was born a wharf rat. I never got used to better. Which means that if I should lose it all for helping runaway slaves, my life won’t change much. Prison would be a bother, but I will survive it and rebuild when I’m released. The African people, however, may well not survive slavery. They won’t have a chance to build any kind of life at all.” His expression softened, turning pensive again. “Truly, it is not much of a sacrifice for me. I hope you’ll feel the same.”
Richard swallowed. In two days, Miriam would depart for the countryside. Longing clenched his chest. Staying away from her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. For the first time in his life Richard had denied himself something he wanted. The unfamiliar sense of noble sacrifice had offset his misery. It was for her own good that he’d left her alone. Lizzie’s terrifying plan was too real, too achievable.
But from the way they had kissed a scant half hour ago, the attraction between them was the one light of truth of Richard’s whole existence. He had one chance to keep her. One opportunity to save his unsuspecting love from the woman she believed was a friend but who plotted to benefit from her death.
He would take Miriam away. First, he had to win her hand. Livingston Walsh was a formidable block, but Richard could win the man over. Livingston prized persistence and hard work. The outlines of a plan rapidly formed in his brain.
