She did not curtsey as a young woman should, nor did she bow as a servant should. She just stood waiting to hear why he had come. Now he was before her, he did not know what to say. Her dark gaze was fixed on his face and—unlike an English girl—she did not smile or help him speak. She waited as if the silence was not awkward.
“I’ve found a place that might suit you,” he said. “You’d be attached to a school for young girls. You would have to do some cleaning and perhaps…” He looked down at her basket of flower heads.“Perhaps garden work? But you would be taught to read and write and you might learn a trade.”
“In London?” she asked.
“Yes. In this parish. St. Olave’s Church has a school for boys, and girls are taught by the clergyman’s wife. They need a pupil teacher who would help with lessons and with running the vicarage.”
“Why?” she inquired.
“It would give you a way to earn a living. It would protect you from strangers and… You would be chaperoned by a good woman and live in her house. You would dress in proper clothes and attend church.”
“No,” she corrected him. “Why have you found this place for me?”
“I’d like to help you.” He could hardly believe that she was so composed while he was stumbling over his words and shifting from foot to foot, as if the favor would be her gift to him. She was in his mother’s yard and in his great-uncle’s service, but she seemed blind to her dependency. Johnnie, a businessman and the son of a wharfinger, realized she could not be bought or sold; and he had thought everything had a price.
“Do you want me as your woman?” she asked bluntly.
He blushed at her bawdiness. “No! Don’t say that!” he said hastily. “You can’t speak like that. In our world, you can’t say something like that.”
She looked puzzled. “Then how does a woman tell her man she wants him?”
He shook his head, loosened his collar against a sudden heat. “She doesn’t. She doesn’t speak of such things. A young lady waits for her father… to tell her… that a marriage is arranged. She cannot speak for herself.”
Rowan shook her head, quite baffled. “We just say. A woman makes her choice and tells him.”
“You’re not in your country now!” Johnnie snatched off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “You’re under the protection of my great-uncle. He will answer for you.”
“I am not his woman,” she pointed out.
Johnnie cast an anxious look at the open kitchen door for fear that Tabs or Susie was listening. “No! I know that!”
“Oh—you don’t want me?” she asked as if she were merely trying to get something clear.
“I do—I would—but I must not—” He was choking on his words. “I may not say… I have no intentions towards… this was an offer of charity… not a proposition. I would not insult you or my uncle by suggesting… I would never… in my mother’s house!”
They stood in silence; he was burning with embarrassment and she was perfectly calm.
She shrugged her shoulders, as if she gave up the puzzle. “I don’t understand you people,” she said flatly. “But I am not free.”
“You’re betrothed to someone?” He swallowed his dismay. “You’re married?”
“Ned Ferryman saved my life. Until I repay the debt to him, I owe him my life. I am not free to leave him nor go to any man. It is a blood debt.”
He nearly laughed with relief. “Oh, that doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t think that…”
She was completely serious. “It does not matter what he thinks, or what you think. He saved my life—until the debt is repaid, I am his.”
“He won’t have a slave,” Johnnie reminded her.
“I am not enslaved, I am indebted.”
“If you were not indebted, would you like me?” he asked, struggling to find words. “As a friend? I cannot offer any… as a friend?”
“I have not seen enough white men to know one of you from another. And most of you are savages.” She picked up her basket and patted the calendula flowers.
“Savages!” He repeated the word, which was used for her people, not his.
“Killers. Rapists. Men with power but without law.”