cart. And in his embrace to steady her, he held her solid and firm within his arms for a long moment. Their faces were so close that July took breath from the same air as he, while his clear blue eyes never strayed from hers.
‘Miss July,’ he said while releasing her, ‘I have a book on Scotland.’ He took a breath with which to continue, but faltered. His tongue licked to moisten his lips as he went on, ‘It was given to me as a gift.’ He glanced quickly about himself before saying with a hushed tone, ‘Perhaps you will allow me to show it to you one day?’ Then he stepped back away from July so quickly that some might consider that he jumped. And his face blushed pink as a boiled shrimp as he raised his hat to her in parting.
‘T’ank you, massa,’ July responded with a broad smile, ‘Me will.’
White muslin, July decided as he, calling for Byron to attend the pony, walked away. A white muslin dress would be her desire.
Robert Goodwin was resting within his hammock so peacefully that as July tip-toed up the steps of his veranda she motioned to two mockingbirds to hush their trilling song. They would not be stilled by her waving hand, nor by the small stone she aimed upon them within the bough of the orange tree. But their persistent carry-on was not troubling the overseer within his midday slumber. It was a week since July had last gazed on him and she stood over him a long while.
She had never before seen anyone, except perhaps a newborn, lying so tranquil upon this island. His dangling legs were splayed over each side of the hammock. His feet were bare; his tall leather boots standing patient and purposeful at the side. The white shirt he wore was untied at the neck to reveal the shy black hair upon his chest curling out from beneath the cloth. One arm was crooked under his sleeping head, while the other was thrown across his forehead with dramatic gesture. Long and straight was his nose. Thin and wide was his mouth. And so still was he in repose that, excepting for the faintest drone of a snore that hummed from him, he could have been dead.
His greedy-eyed house boy, Elias, had pushed out his bottom lip in a sulk when disclosing to July that Robert Goodwin always slept upon his veranda in the heat of midday. For the overseer had requested the house boy to keep his quiet ritual a secret, lest any negroes knowing him confined thought to hound him with more dispute over their rent or wages. But by turning Elias’s ear until it felt to be tearing from his head, July had eased this secret from the house boy—for she required the overseer to be alone when she came to view his book.
Was it those clamorous mockingbirds or the intensity of the gaze with which July beheld Robert Goodwin that roused one of his eyes to open slowly to peruse the sensed intrusion upon his rest? Finding July standing over him, he nearly spilled from the hammock in his effort to be upright. Of course he was surprised—for not only was July peering upon him with a comely smile, but she was looking so fine. Her kerchief was not ugly, but her best blue. And her dress—a missus cast-off—was tucked and stitched and trimmed until the pink, blue, green, and mauve flowers upon the cotton cloth of the skirt, the puffing of the sleeves and the white of the cape collar arranged themselves so pleasingly about her, as to present to him a vision of a rare exotic beauty.
He stood up, hurriedly tucking his shirt into his breeches. ‘Miss July, have you a message for me?’ He ran his hands through his untidy hair, clearly worried that sleep had left it not looking at its best—which was true, for several tufts sprung like bristle from it.
‘No, massa,’ July said, ‘me come to see the book.’
Still dazed as a small boy roused before sunrise, he asked, ‘The book?’
‘With picture of Scotch Land?’ July reminded him.
‘Of course, of course,’ he said. ‘Forgive me. The mockingbirds—there are two in that tree—they were singing so beautifully I just fell asleep for a moment.’
‘Yes—them does surely like to sing,’ July said. While he, as if perceiving her for the first time, passed one long gaze over her—from the tip of her unclothed toes to the top