Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
The summons came at breakfast—a curt message from Mrs. Browne that I was to resume Philippe’s lessons immediately. That couldn’t be good. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to seeing Little Napoleon again.
It had been three days since I’d seen Brodie’s torn back in the stable quarters.
Three days of garden work that had given me blisters, a sunburn, and a much clearer understanding of how this place actually worked.
The widow’s careful elegance was a mask.
Underneath, the plantation ran on brutality, fear, and the quiet resistance of people who had no other weapons.
Now I was being sent back to teach Latin to a cruel little prince while Brodie endured his third day back in the cane fields. Nine days since the whipping. Three days since I’d tended his wounds with Abena and almost told him the truth.
The schoolroom was exactly as I’d left it—books arranged on the shelves, the window overlooking the courtyard where I could see the path to the stables. Where Brodie was. Where I couldn’t go, couldn’t check on him to see how he was doing.
Abena had said a week. Maybe less before infection or exhaustion killed him. That had been three days ago.
Philippe arrived ten minutes late, which I suspected was intentional. He strolled in, dressed in expensive clothes that probably cost more than most servants earned in a year.
“Miss Carter.” He didn’t bow, didn’t show any of the courtesy he’d been taught. Just studied me with those amber eyes that were too calculating for a child. “How was your time working outside?”
“It was educational.”
“I’m sure.” He sat at his desk, sprawling in a way that made it clear he owned this space and I was merely tolerated in it. “I trust you’ve learned your place now? Maman does so hate having to repeat her lessons.”
Don’t rise to the bait. Don’t give him what he wants.
“We’re continuing with Latin today. Please open your text to the passage we were working on before.”
“Before you abandoned my education to play in the dirt, you mean?”
“Before circumstances required a brief interruption.”
He smiled—that sharp, cruel smile that reminded me so much of his mother.
“Circumstances. What a polite way to describe disobedience.” He opened the Latin text but didn’t look at it.
“Did you know that Mr. MacLeod is still in the fields? Mother reassigned him after he was whipped. Said he needed to learn humility along with obedience.”
My hands clenched on my own book. The image of Brodie’s back—torn and bleeding—flashed through my mind.
“I’m aware.”
“I watched, you know. From my window. Twenty lashes.” He said it with the casual interest of someone describing the weather. “He didn’t scream. Not once. Williams was quite impressed. Said most men scream by the tenth lash.”
Heat flushed my face despite my best efforts to stay calm. Philippe had watched. Had enjoyed watching.
“The passage, Philippe. Line 47.”
“Williams is the overseer now. He’s very good at breaking proud men, even ones who’ve already been whipped.
” Philippe tilted his head, observing my reaction.
“The wounds don’t heal properly when you work in the sun all day.
They crack and bleed. Sometimes they get infected.
” He paused deliberately. “I wonder if the Scotsman will last the week. His back looked quite bad.”
The memory of Brodie’s ravaged skin, the way he’d winced at every touch while I’d helped Abena tend the wounds—
“The passage.”
“You were there, weren’t you?” His voice carried genuine curiosity now, like a scientist observing an interesting specimen.
“That night after the whipping. Mrs. Browne said she was retiring early, but I saw you sneak across the courtyard. Going to see him. To tend his wounds like you tended that servant boy’s. ”
My throat went tight. He’d seen me. Of course, he had. The little monster watched everything.
“I don’t know what you think you saw—”
“I saw you risk everything to check on a man who’d been punished for saving my property.” He leaned back in his chair. “You care about him. The Scotsman. You care about what happens to him. I saw it that night at dinner when he spilled the wine. The way you looked at him.”
“I care about treating people with basic decency. Now read.”
“But he’s not people, is he? He’s property.
Just like you. Just like all of us who serve Maman.
” He leaned back in his chair. “Though I suppose I’m different.
I’m her son. Her heir. One day all of this will be mine, and then I’ll decide who gets whipped and who doesn’t. Who suffers and who doesn’t.”
The casual way he said it—who suffers and who doesn’t—twisted something inside me. This child, who’d watched twenty lashes fall and felt nothing but curiosity, would be even worse than his mother.
“Philippe. Read the passage, or we’ll spend the entire lesson in silence. Your choice.”
He read. Badly. Deliberately mispronouncing words he knew perfectly well.
I corrected him calmly. Precisely. Gave him no ammunition at all.
But inside, I was screaming. Brodie was out there in brutal heat, his back still healing from lashes this child had watched fall. Working until his body gave out because he’d saved a little girl. Because he couldn’t stop being decent even when decency got you destroyed.
An hour crawled past. The morning heat built until sweat dampened the back of my dress and made the pages stick together. Through the window, servants moved through the courtyard, the plantation continuing its brutal rhythm.
“You’re distracted,” Philippe said. “Thinking about the Scotsman again? Wondering if he’s still alive?”
The last thread of my patience broke.
“I’m considering how best to explain the ablative case to someone who’s refusing to pay attention.”
“I pay attention to everything, Miss Carter. For instance, I’ve noticed that you never talk about Philadelphia.
Or your family. Or anything from before the shipwreck.
” He closed his book with deliberate care.
“It’s almost as if you’re afraid someone might check your story and discover it’s full of holes. ”
The breath caught in my throat. We were on dangerous ground. “We’re here to discuss Latin, not my personal history.”
“But I find your personal history so much more interesting than Latin.” He stood and walked to the window. “Maman thinks you’re hiding something. She told me so last week before she punished you. She said you don’t quite fit.”
The widow’s words from the drawing room. She’d shared them with her ten-year-old son. Of course she had. Philippe was her creature, her spy, her weapon.
“Your mother is welcome to her opinions.”
“She’s also welcome to send you to the fields. Like she sent the Scotsman.” He turned to face me, backlit by the window. “Or somewhere worse. She has other options, you know. Other places people go when they become too difficult.”
The forbidden garden. He was talking about the forbidden garden.
“Philippe—”
“I’ve seen her go there sometimes.” His voice carried a strange mixture of pride and fear. “At night, when she thinks everyone’s asleep. The old garden, past the gate we’re all told never to enter. She goes there with a lantern. Sometimes with people.”
Dread coiled in my stomach.
“You shouldn’t spy on your mother.”
“Why not? She spies on everyone else.” He moved closer to my desk, his child’s face carrying an adult’s calculated menace. “That old field worker—Duncan. I watched from my window.”
He paused, letting the words hang.
“They went in together, but only Mother came back out.”
He said it so casually. As if murder were just another household task.
“You’re making up stories.”
“Am I?” His smile widened. “Sometimes people scream. From that place. I hear them at night when the wind is right. They scream for a very long time. I’m surprised you haven’t heard them—”
“That’s enough.”
“—and then they stop.” He studied my face carefully. “You already knew, didn’t you? I can see it. You’ve figured out that my mother does something secret out there.”
I pressed my hands flat against the desk, willing them steady. My mind flashed to Brodie’s back, to Daniel hanging from the tree, to the old woman at the washing lines who’d warned me about the garden.
If I liked to bet, I’d bet this had been going on for years. And this terrible, awful child knew. Had watched.
“Return to your seat. We’re not finished with the lesson.”
“Oh, I think we are.” He walked to the door, then paused. “Maman likes you, Miss Carter. Despite your disobedience, despite your secrets, she finds you... interesting. Useful, maybe. But don’t mistake that for safety.”
“Philippe—”
“She liked Duncan too. And that kitchen girl. She likes all her beautiful things right up until they become problems.” He opened the door. “And when they become problems, she takes them to that garden. Where they scream for a while, and then they stop.”
He left, closing the door quietly behind him.
The schoolroom had become an oven. Sweat trickled down my spine while my mind raced.
Philippe knew. The widow’s ten-year-old son knew his mother was murdering servants in that corrupted garden. Had seen it happen. Had watched from his window like it was entertainment.
And he’d just told me. Why?
Because he’s testing you. Seeing how you’ll react. Whether you’ll panic, whether you’ll run, whether you’ll do something that gives him leverage. He’s his mother’s creature, but he’s also a child playing with fire to see if it burns.
The question was, what would he do with the information that I’d already figured out what his mother was doing?
The door opened. Mrs. Browne entered, her expression carefully neutral.
“Miss Carter. The widow requests your presence in the drawing room.”
The floor seemed to tilt.
“Of course.”
Through the corridors I followed her, pulse loud in my ears. Had Philippe already reported our conversation? Was this about the garden, about my reaction to his revelations?