by Naomi Finley
I swallowed hard and tried to slow the feverish beat of my heart. He lifted his hand and traced my jaw with his fingertips in a slow, enticing rhythm. The pounding of my heart resounded in my ears. He was everything and more that a woman could want in a man. I wanted—needed—to feel his warm, inviting lips on mine. But I couldn’t push away what my heart was telling me.
“Things are complicated. With all the discoveries I’ve made about my father’s affairs, it’s overwhelming. I don’t know where to start.”
His hand hesitated in its movement, and the muscles in his jaw grew taut. “Marriage would allow a man to take away some of the burdens—”
“You men think we women are weak, and that irritates me. I—”
“Now, don’t go letting the bees stir under your bonnet. I only meant that a plantation is a great responsibility for anyone.”
I blew out a calming breath. “Forgive me for my assumptions.”
“I’ve grown used to your hostility,” he said with a shrug.
“If you didn’t get under my skin, then maybe I wouldn’t get so hot around the ears.”
“Maybe if you heard people out before jumping to conclusions, you wouldn’t get so riled up.”
“You made your point,” I warned. “I did miss you, and I’m pleased you stopped by.”
“Are you?” His eyes settled on my lips. Cupping my chin, he stroked my lips with his thumb as his head lowered.
This is wrong. I can’t do this! But…as his lips touched mine, my body filled with warmth and a welcome familiarity. Involuntarily, my arms circled his neck, and I clung to him. My fingers looped through his hair as I soaked in his scent.
He groaned, fighting the desire our kiss awoke and pulled back, releasing me. He turned to gaze once again out over the pond. “I’ve had the summer and most of the fall to think. I’ve come to understand that snaring you into being a married woman is more trouble than I anticipated.”
We’d courted longer than most, and a piece of me wanted to continue to court because the thought of losing him was a pain I couldn’t bear. “Why do we have to follow the ways of the world around us?” I laid a hand over his on the grass.
He withdrew his hand. “Why do I feel that you go out of your way to defy the ways of the South?”
“I refuse to be molded into what any man says I must be. I’ve been restricted too long, and now that I have my freedom, I’ll not allow any man to dictate to me what I should do or feel. This is who I am, Bowden. You were aware of this from the beginning. I’ve never pretended to be anything else.”
“I was aware of it. But I thought—”
“You thought you could change me?” I laughed, and the scorn in my voice shocked me as much as it did him. He stiffened, and I wished immediately that I could recant the bitterness in my tone. I hurried to explain myself. “I can’t promise you that I’ll ever be the marrying type. I know it’s unfair of me to say, but I do love you.”
“There will never be another woman for me.” His voice thickened with emotion.
“I’m sorry I can’t offer more.” A weight settled in my chest. He deserved to be treasured and loved by a good woman. A woman that would bear him children and care for him and put him first. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever be that kind of woman.
“Then that’s your answer?”
“I wish I could say yes, that I’d marry you, but I can’t. God help me, I wish I could!” Tears sprang into my eyes.
“They’ve consumed you,” he said, releasing a long, drawn-out sigh.
“Who?”
“The slaves, that’s who! Along with your obsession with changing our way of life.”
A lump formed in my throat at his words. The differences in our belief systems would always keep us apart. “I’ll not stop trying to set right the wrongs we’ve done to them. It’s who I’ve become. Maybe it’s who I’ve always been.”
“We are slave owners. Our businesses rely on their labor.”
His emphasis on we stung. “Times are changing. People grow restless. What if slavery was no longer our source of labor? What if we employed the blacks and gave them the freedom to choose what they do with their lives? Is this idea so insane?” If only he could see the wrong in our ways, all this pain and emptiness between us could be resolved.
“Of course it’s insane. Our prosperity depends on the slaves, and without their labor, it would be our demise. Why can’t you understand that!”
“I do understand it, clearly. But what is wrong is wrong, and no amount of profit can wash away the sins of our nation. Enslaving a race out of the belief that their skin color makes them inferior is evil and beyond my understanding. You may consider my thoughts and ideas childish or foolish, but this will always divide us. How can I marry a man who holds to a belief that questions all the values I hold dear?”
“Willow—”
I put up a hand. “No! We must be honest with ourselves. How can you and I unite as one when we are two extremely different people? You’re a good man, but your belief system is one I can’t abide, and I can’t, in good conscience, be your wife, knowing where you stand on slavery. We’d be miserable together, and I’d grow to resent you.”
My voice fractured. I needed him and couldn’t imagine my life without him, but how could I change him? I couldn’t. No amount of love could change our core beliefs.
I wept.
He gently stroked my shoulder, then stood. “There will never be another,” he said softly.
The whisper of his boots on the grass grew and then faded altogether.
Bowden
THE COUNTRYSIDE FLASHED BY ME in a blur. The silver mane of my dapple-gray thoroughbred billowed in the wind as we charged toward home. His need for speed and my eagerness to put distance between Willow and myself propelled us onward. Dust kicked up around us, gritting up my teeth and lips and scratching at my eyes. The thunderous hoofbeats resounded in my chest as Willow’s words milled around in my head.
Had I thought I could change her? I suppose I had, but hadn’t she felt the same?
“Damn fool!” I blurted, my voice caught and carried by the wind.
Willow drove me to the point of madness. Made me want to stomp my foot like a scorned woman.
Charles Hendricks had spoiled her by lavishing her with trinkets, books, and the finest silks and fashions money could buy. Maybe he’d felt guilt over her not having a mother, or any female relatives, to teach her all the things only a woman could. Or that his businesses had taken him away for long periods of time, leaving Willow to be raised by her mammy and house slaves. He’d played a hand in the unhealthy bond she’d formed with the Negroes. I couldn’t fault her for loving them; they’d practically raised her.
Her passionate belief that all slaves should be free and that she could change the world to one of her making not only went against everything I’d ever known, it was dangerous. I didn’t condone the cruelty I’d seen unleashed on the Negroes any more than she, but people didn’t take kindly to Negro lovers. Willow finding out about her mother’s murder had only driven her deeper into her obsession to be a voice for the Negroes. An obsession that terrified me.
Any man with common sense would’ve washed his hands of Willow long ago. Some would say she wasn’t the sort of woman a gentleman should take as a wife because she lacked obedience. Her love for all humanity was admirable and spoke volumes for the heart that pounded behind her beautiful full breast. In ways, she reminded me of my mother and how she’d offered her love without restrictions. Could a man find happiness with a woman like Willow?
Last spring, before Willow had gone off to Rhode Island, we’d taken a ride in the countryside. As we’d sat in the grass, I rested my chin on the top of her head while holding her in my arms. That afternoon, I’d asked her to marry me, and she’d left me without an answer.
The next morning, she was gone. Soon after, I’d left to spend the hotter months in California with my brother, Stone. Not a rustle of skirts had passed me during my tim
e away without sending my heart into spasms and hope surging through me that the face I’d look upon would be Willow’s.
Over the months away, I received a couple of letters from Willow, but she never mentioned my proposal. In her last letter, she’d spoken of Kipling’s visit and the wonderful things he was doing in the North. I’d cursed the man and shredded the letter. Had he stolen her affections? My heart ached at the thought.
Armstrong Plantation soon stretched out before me, and I slowed my horse to a trot as we passed under the wooden sign that hung from wrought-iron arms on the double-wide stone archway. The lane led from there up to the two-storey brownstone house with its many windows framed by freshly painted ivory shutters. A grand staircase rose to the front doors, today open to catch the afternoon breeze.
At my arrival, my manservant, Isaac, stepped out onto the piazza and stood waiting on my instructions. Gray jogged toward me as I reined my horse to a stop. The sunlight caught his slave tag through the opening in his shirt. Swinging my leg over my mount, I dropped to the ground.
Gray dipped his head in a bow and took the reins I held out to him. “Did you see my Mary Grace and chillum, Masa?”
Embittered by Willow’s rejection, I wasn’t in the mood for idle chatter. “It wasn’t a social call. I merely stopped by Livingston to clear up a personal matter between Miss Hendricks and myself.”
He nodded. His hands fell limp at his sides, as though he’d waited all morning for me to return, holding onto a glimmer of hope that I’d have something to report about his family, and with my blunt words, I’d snatched it away.
I sighed with regret. “I did, however, see Mary Grace sweeping the front piazza. She looked to be in fine health.”
Relief washed across Gray’s face, followed by a bigger-than-life grin. “Dat’s good, Masa.”
“Sunday will be here soon, and you can see for yourself how your family fares.” The tightness in my jaw eased, and I clapped his shoulder.
“Sunday is a blessed day,” Gray said before leading my horse out back.
I tarried a while, considering the slave who stood out against the rest. Physically, Gray was strong and outperformed any slave on the plantation. He was ambitious, a trait that would threaten other masters, but it was his ambition that made him valuable and dependable. He finished his tasks long before the others. If hired out or sent on errands, he always returned home. His work ethic was strong and purposeful.
One thing drove Gray, and that was freedom. He’d saved every coin he’d earned with the idea of buying his freedom. Yet even if he saved enough to buy his freedom, the courts would have the final say. Documents signed by a slave’s master freeing him had become more restricted and held little value. I couldn’t find it within myself to dim that light in Gray’s eyes by telling him the dream he desperately clung to was next to impossible. I was afraid to witness the defeat in his face. The truth was, Gray was a man more honorable than most of the white gentlemen in my social circle.
“Horses are property, Mr. Armstrong. Humans aren’t!” Willow’s words from long ago echoed through my head.
I removed my hat, swiped a hand through my hair, and forced her from my mind. Climbing the stairs, I passed my hat to Isaac, then paused to drain the glass of water he held out to me.
“Mr. Tucker is waiting in the parlor, sir.”
Ahh, Knox. Now, he was someone to brighten the day.
Inside, I found Knox in my favorite armchair. He sat with one booted ankle crossed over his knee. Abigail, the cook, hunched over him, filling his glass with wine.
“I can’t leave for a moment without you taking the liberty to help yourself to my home, my best wine, and my chair,” I said, entering the room with widespread arms. Knox grinned broadly, starting to rise, but I motioned for him to remain seated.
“I quite enjoy coming out here and dabbling in the finer things in life. My apartment is drab and stuffy. I felt the need for a little country air.”
“Town life isn’t suiting you?” I seated myself on the sofa opposite him as Abigail offered me wine. I shook my head. “Cognac.” I’d need something stronger to make it through this day. I ducked my head around her to look at Knox.
He seemed absorbed in the burgundy sea at the bottom of his glass. His visage was serious, an expression almost foreign on the jokester I considered my best friend. Knox leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and the globe of his wine glass disappeared between his large hands.
Abigail returned with a bottle of 1827 Albert Jarraud. Removing the red seal, she poured an inch of the rich amber-brown liquid into a glass. I tilted the snifter to my lips and took a sip. The spice and oak flavors circled over my tongue.
“I’ve been thinking,” Knox said, “of asking Whitney to marry me.”
As he blurted this, I gasped, sending the fire of the cognac trickling down my windpipe. “You’ve thought this through?” I wheezed. Behind a closed fist, I released a hard cough to clear the fiery liquid.
“I have. I love her, and being alone doesn’t hold the same appeal it once did.” He focused his brown eyes on me.
“Are you sure you can handle a woman like her?”
“Time will tell with that.” His muscular chest expanded and fell as he sighed. His worries rekindled the despair over my own fading love affair. “But I love her…and the twins. The children need a father, and young Jack is a handful for Whitney. If we got married, maybe I could ease some of her burden.”
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince himself or me. “So…you’re doing her a favor?”
“I guess so.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t be voicing that knuckle-brained thought to her,” I said. I envisioned Whitney coming undone and landing Knox on his backside. Amused by the mental image, I wished I could be a bird perched on a limb nearby if he was fool enough to verbalize such a thought.
“You have a certain charm with the ladies. What would your approach be in asking a lady to marry you?”
Disgruntled and anguished over how Willow had run off last spring without so much as an “I’ll think about it,” I’d avoided mentioning the proposal to Knox, or anyone else, for that matter. “I don’t know if I’d be much help. Willow flat-out refuses to marry me.”
He arched a brow. “You’ve asked her?”
“Last spring, and she gave me her answer today.”
Pulling himself from his own dilemma, he really looked at me for the first time since I’d sat down. I didn’t try to hide the despair I felt.
“She turned you down!” he said. “But why? Willow has been in love with you since she was a child.”
“Sometimes love isn’t enough,” I said, and gulped back the cognac. Lifting the bottle, I refilled the snifter.
Knox sat back in his chair. “We’re a sorry pair, aren’t we?”
I laughed bitterly.
“Maybe I put too much trust in your gentlemanly swagger. What’s happening to us? You’re losing your touch with the ladies of Charleston, and I’m considering giving up my bachelor life for a family.”
I chugged back another mouthful. The warmth of the cognac numbed the agony I felt and blotted out the soft chestnut locks and alluring green eyes that hounded my every waking thought. “What’s your plan? Move them all into town? Your place is too small for the four of you.”
“I have some money saved up—”
“Since when? I’ve never known you to be capable of saving.”
“I told you, things are different now.”
Women had a way of doing that. They crept into the fibers of your very soul and spun their webs. Once they had you entangled, they pounced, and you became their victim, helplessly wrapped in the silk of their web.
“I’m thinking of purchasing some land and building a home on it. It’d be small and nothing like what she’s become accustomed to at Livingston.”
“Something tells me Whitney isn’t a shallow woman.”
“But most of her gowns are imported from Paris
and England.” The toe of his boot tapped repetitively on the floor.
“I wouldn’t concern yourself with that. Her father left her almost penniless, and she isn’t capable of purchasing the things she once did. Speaking of building a home, what about the Barry Plantation? Whitney owns the land, and you two could build a homestead there.”
“The men down at the docks say the place is haunted. They say the ghost of Mr. Barry roams the land, seeking his revenge on the slaves for killing him.”
I chuckled. “The townies like to hear themselves chatter. The ghost of ol’ Mr. Barry, the masked men, and this swamp man called the Guardian—what next?”
“But the masked men are no laughing matter. I was at the pier when their first victims tore into town. The coach was peppered with bullet holes, and the driver was dead. I saw it all. It’s no made-up story.”
“Maybe there’s truth in these men. But tell me: what have you heard about this Guardian fellow?”
“I went for a drink at the saloon a while back, and Thames was there with some locals. He was drunk, but he was adamant that this fellow had a hand in his slave’s disappearance. There’s talk of the constable getting a patrol together to sniff him out. Folks are getting riled up. They won’t sit by and allow slaves to go around killing. First the Barry slaves, and now the Thameses’ slave killing their overseer. Folks are on edge. If one slave so much as looks at a white man the wrong way, there’ll be trouble, and what happened in those swamps out there will be like sipping afternoon tea.”
My heart hammered in my chest. A patrol going from plantation to plantation looking for lawbreakers couldn’t happen. What would this mean for Willow? God only knew what she was up to over there.
“I’ve heard mention of how Mr. Thames treats his slaves, and I’m sure his overseer was no different,” I said.
“You’re saying the overseer got what he deserved? It’s against the law for a slave to strike a white man, and to kill one is suicide.”
“Taking a life isn’t right, no matter how you look at it. How some slave owners treat their slaves isn’t right either.”
