“I—”
“Now! Or I shall have you whipped.” The scars on the men rolling the giant hogshead of rum and the sudden tension in Silas’s frame made it clear that whippings happened with some regularity. Just having to make the threat made Jane’s skin crawl. If he still refused, Jane could not have it carried out.
Silas stared at the swell of her figure and swallowed. “Ben! Lady want the wagons.”
A tall mulatto with stooped shoulders and a scar along his nose turned and scowled. Ben held a whip, which he tapped against his thigh. “What?”
“De boss wife say dem wan’ take the wounded to the manor.”
He spat on the ground. “Pridmore not goin’ like it.”
“And my husband is his employer. I promise you, you do not want to face his displeasure.”
“Pridmore say he’s soft.”
Jane took a step closer to him. “He is Lord Verbury’s son. Do you truly doubt that he will hesitate to punish you if you continue to disobey me?”
Ben pursed his lips at that, studying her, then shrugged. “Rum or wounded. Make no difference to me.” He turned back to the three ragged black men rolling a barrel towards the ramp. He snapped the whip over their heads and bellowed, “Hold!”
They slowed the great barrel, bringing it to a halt on the broad flat area at the top of the ramp. One of the men behind the barrel bent down and drove two wooden wedges under the curved wood to keep it from rolling. The most heavily scarred of them leaned against the barrel and crossed his arms over his sweating chest. He glared past them towards the hill, jaw clenched tight.
Shaking, Jane clasped her hands under her stomach to hide their tremors, then lifted her chin still higher. “I shall also require those men to help load the wounded.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “You lot! Move! You hear she.”
He cracked the whip towards them again, but they needed no encouragement for this task. As Silas urged his mules forward, the barrel rollers jumped off the ramp, racing towards the hill. Jane turned to Ben as they went. “The other wagons, too. I shall not brook delay.”
He grunted in reply and with shouted orders quickly got the line of wagons in motion after Silas.
Only the second had moved away from the rum house before Pridmore noticed. He turned from Vincent and shouted, “What the devil is happening?” Charging across the yard with Vincent close behind, he snatched the nearest mule’s reins and brought it to a halt. “Ben!”
“Lady say the master wan’ move the wounded.”
“Absolutely not. I cannot spare the labour for that.”
Looming over him, Vincent said, “You can, and you will. Your treatment of these people is inhumane.”
“God spare me from Londoners who come crying about humanity. You do not understand the least thing about managing slaves or a plantation.” He flung an arm out towards the hill of wounded. “If those were oxen, you would not hesitate to put them down. The cost to nurse them back to health would not be worth the while. This is—”
“You are fired.” Vincent’s calm might have been mistaken for indifference.
Pridmore gaped at him. “You cannot.”
“It is absolutely clear that your incompetency and refusal to do adequate repairs caused this accident. Your treatment of the slaves—or, in terms you can understand, your neglect of my property—is indefensible. If you press me, I will see you brought up on charges.”
“On what grounds?”
“Even in Antiguan law, the deliberate death of a slave is murder. If any of those people die, it lies on your head alone.”
Pridmore turned to the white planters who had followed them over. “Explain to him, gentlemen, the realities of running a plantation.”
The oldest of the men, face weathered with sun to a rough red, spread his hands and shrugged. “I am not going to presume to tell Mr. Hamilton his business.”
Swallowing, Pridmore turned back to Vincent and opened his mouth to speak. His lips shaped words, but no sound came out. Grimacing, he finally said, “I will remind you that I was a favourite of your father.”
Jane clenched her fists. It was as clear a threat for retribution as he could make without saying that Lord Verbury was alive.
Vincent’s voice went colder still. “I wonder that you claim to be the favourite of a man who committed treason against the Crown. It does nothing to recommend you. You are fired.”
Pridmore’s face turned red and white by degrees. He stepped closer to Vincent, shaking his finger at him. “You have no idea what you have done.”
“I assure you, I know exactly what I am doing.” He leaned down. “You have until tomorrow to get off my land.”
“I—I—I’ll take my quietus payment, then.”
“Your what?”
“Louisa. I was promised Louisa.”
Vincent laughed outright. “By whom?”