The corner of Frank’s mouth twitched. “If you were to ask Louisa to arrange for a cut of bacon from Cook, no one could say that was wrong.”
“Thank you.” She sighed, turning back to the ledger. “Meanwhile, would it help if I were to fill in the missing information? If we are supposed to be providing the London Registry with a full accounting of the slaves owned by Lord Verbury, then we are sorely wanting.” Jane drew the book a little closer. “For instance, it has a record for Amey, who has two children, but only Solomon is named. There is a date listed for the birth of the second, but no name, and no death.”
“Eleanor, I believe. Thank you, it would be appreciated if you could sort this out. I can assign one of the older women to go over it with you. They know who everyone is.” He almost smiled. “You know how old women can be.”
“I do. You should meet my mother sometime.” Jane took up a quill and wrote the name of Amey’s child in the ledger. “It is really shockingly kept. There is no record of Zeus and Jove at all, for instance. Or you, for that matter.”
“That may be because Zeus and Jove are just what his lordship chooses to call them.” He bent his head back to the account book. “See if there are a Zachary and a John born in 1805.”
“I thought those were peculiar names.” Jane turned to that year and traced her finger down the list of births. “Ha! Here we are. Thank you. Should we call them by their real names?”
Vincent answered, “Not while we are trying to keep my father happy.”
“Surely he would not know. He cannot even leave his rooms.”
Frank cleared his throat, and let that be the whole of his remark. Jane sagged in her chair. It was so wearying, having to attend to the desires of a man who was supposed to be dead.
She wiped her pen clean with more diligence than was perhaps merited, considering that she was not done writing. She had never abhorred someone as thoroughly as she did Lord Verbury. “And you? Is Frank not your real name?”
“It is a nickname given to me in my youth.” Sliding his chair back from the table, Frank reached for another ledger on the table behind him.
“I should be happy to call you by your real name, if you prefer. In spite of his lordship.” Jane waited, but Frank only set the new ledger down on the table in front of Vincent and began leafing through it.
Vincent straightened in his chair slowly. “Frank … Frederick. You are named after my father, are you not?”
Frank stared at the ledger pages, his expression set. Then he shut the book and pushed it away from him. “Yes, sir. My name, for your wife’s ledger, is Frederick Hamilton II.”
There was no reason why Jane should be shocked. His parentage had been obvious from the moment she had seen him. What surprised her was that Lord Verbury had been proud enough about the birth of a slave child to name him after himself. “You were his firstborn.”
“Yes, madam. You will find my birth on the page for the year 1773.”
Incongruously, Vincent laughed. He covered his face with his hands and leaned back in his chair. It was so out of character and out of keeping with the conversation that Jane could only gape. Frank, likewise, stared with his mouth stopped at the beginning of a word. Vincent wiped his eyes and sat forward again. “I am sorry. It is not amusing. It is only that when he was disappointed with me—which was always—he would say, ‘My eldest would not speak to me this way.’ I thought he meant Garland.”
Frank opened the ledger again and pulled it towards him. “I suggest that we—”
“Ah!” Jane made the cry before she understood why. She pressed a hand to her stomach, terrified.
Vincent’s chair clattered backwards, as he sprang to his feet. “A doctor. Fetch a doctor!”
The pang repeated, a sharp blow from inside. The baby had kicked. “No! No, I am fine.”
It was not a cramp. She knew all too well what that felt like. She had felt this, too, from the outside, when Melody’s baby had kicked.
When Jane had been expecting previously, it had not lasted long enough for their child to quicken. Which meant that she must now be further along than she had thought. Jane put her hand to the spot and willed the child to kick again. Vincent knelt in front of her. When had he arrived?
Frank was halfway to the door. If he got a doctor, then her condition would be clear to everyone. Jane put her hand on Vincent’s cheek and forced him to look at her instead of her stomach. “It was a bit of indigestion. Something I ate did not agree with me. Nothing more.”
“But—”
“Frank!” Jane looked past her husband. “Truly, I was only surprised by how … indecorous my digestion was.”
He slowed and eyed her. “Should I tell Cook to use fewer spices?”