Jane had to cover her mouth, torn between laughing and being completely embarrassed at the implications of her intimate knowledge of her husband’s breeches.
With a chuckle, Frank knelt to pull one of the boots free. “Please believe that I am glad of an opportunity to help.”
Still blushing, Vincent bent his head and fumbled with the buttons on his cuff. Jane stepped in and undid them both for him before he had the opportunity to protest that he retained some dexterity. In very little time, Frank had his boots off, and Jane had helped Vincent draw his shirt off over his head.
“I will take your boots with me to have them cleaned this evening.” Frank rounded the end of the bed, turning to look back at them. “Will there be— God.” He had stopped, staring openly at Vincent’s back.
Jane had become inured to the scars and accepted them as part of the landscape of her husband’s body. She had forgotten what it was like to see the knotted mass of wheals for the first time. They had faded over the years to a ruddy grey, though in some places, the skin was white and shiny and bloodless. It looked like a topographic map of some landscape with twisting fjords and unexpected ravines.
Vincent looked over his shoulder, countenance sobering in an instant as he realised what Frank was looking at. “Ah.”
“What happened?”
“I was flogged.”
“Forgive me, but I can see that. I’ve seen it often enough, but you’re…” Frank’s expression was confused, and it seemed clear that at least part of it was because Vincent was white. “Did your father—?”
“No. He was always careful not to leave marks.” Vincent shrugged, making the mass writhe with his motion. “Napoleon. I was a captive for a fortnight.”
Frank drew his hand down his face and shook his head. “Well … well. I suppose it makes a little more sense now why you are so opposed to having anyone whipped.”
With a bitter smile, Vincent said, “Quite apart from benevolent reasons, I can say with absolute certainty that a whipping will do nothing to make a man more cooperative.”
Frank drew breath and hesitated. “May I suggest … may I suggest that you find reason to take your shirt off the next time you are in the fields?”
“What happened to me was not the same. It was only a fortnight.”
Only a fortnight. He was correct that it was minor when compared with a lifetime of whippings, which made the slaves’ reality no less horrible.
“It will lend you credibility.” Frank studied the boots he held. “We are very used to Englishmen coming and wanting to make reforms, and then nothing changes. If you are serious that there will be no more whipping here … let them see the marks.”
“If I had any doubts that you were a Hamilton, that would answer them.” Vincent sighed and looked forward again. His face, in profile, was grave. “Let me think on it when I am sober.”
*
Two days after the accident, Jane was helping Dr. Jones with Julian, a young man who had been scalded along much of his right side. Those burns were atop fresher wheals from a whipping, and the wounds showed signs of becoming infected. Dr. Jones had given him a grain of opium, so he was not entirely conscious as they changed his bandage, for which Jane was grateful. She took the soiled bandage from the doctor and dropped it into a metal basin.
Opening a jar, Dr. Jones studied the young man’s back with a frown. “I have been asked about your husband’s scars.”
Startled, Jane paused before picking up a roll of fresh linen. She had not been certain that Vincent would follow Frank’s counsel. “What do people want to know?”
“If they are real. How it happened. If he is really white.”
“If he is really … I do not understand that last.”
Dr. Jones peered at her over the young man’s shoulder. “You know Mrs. Whitten.”
Thrown by the apparent change in subject, Jane could only nod.
“She is in a family way. Her husband is almost as fair as Mrs. Ransford, so their child will likely be lighter than the mother and, to someone who does not know the heritage, appear white.”
“Yes, but—”
“But if Mrs. Whitten were a slave, that child would also be a slave.” She took the cloth from Jane and dipped it into salt water. “So the fact that your husband has scars from being flogged raises the question for some people of how he could have them if he is truly white.”
As she applied the cloth to the wounds, Julian stiffened, even with the opium cutting the pain. Jane was hard pressed to steady him as Dr. Jones worked, and it was some moments before she could answer. Vincent had not been burnt on top of the whipping, but she remembered the saltwater treatment all too well. He would not let her be in the room with him while his wounds were being cleaned, but his exhaustion afterwards had been clear enough.