“That’s it, then!” Reverend Hartsfield declared triumphantly. “She needs some sustenance. Some brandy perhaps—”
“How’s she gonna drink brandy when she can’t even open her eyes?” Bessie demanded.
Adam knew he should do something. The girl was his responsibility, after all. His wife, in fact. The thought stunned him for an instant, and by the time he’d recovered himself, Sudie was there, waving something under Lori’s nose. Smelling salts.
Lori coughed slightly and stirred, and after a few seconds her eyes fluttered open. She looked around in alarm at the ices peering down at her and asked, “What happened?”
Everyone in the room released their breath at the same me in a sigh of relief.
“You fainted, girl,” Bessie informed her, laying a hand over her own heart as if to calm it. “That’s what happened.”
“Oh, dear,” Lori said in dismay as she struggled to push herself upright, and Adam didn’t think the color that came to her cheeks was an indication of returning health. She glanced around at the circle of faces again with increasing distress.
“Give the poor girl some air,” Bessie said, shooing everyone back and giving the group of slaves who still stood gaping an angry glare.
“Mrs. McClintock is right,” Adam said quickly, smiling reassuringly at the servants whose only offense had been wanting to see their master married. “Thank you all for coming, but there’s no need for you to keep standing around. You’ve got a party of your own to go to now, I think.” He’d given all of them and the field hands, too, the afternoon off and an ox to roast to celebrate his nuptials. Murmuring their good wishes uncertainly as they passed him they filed out, and Adam didn’t miss the fact that they all stared at Lori as they did so. Well, she couldn’t help but be an object of curiosity to them since she would be their next mistress. Unfortunately, falling over in a faint just as the master went to kiss her would not have made a favorable impression on them.
It hadn’t made a favorable impression on Adam either and he hadn’t missed the expression of abject terror in her eyes in the instant before she fainted either. The memory galled him, but he couldn’t summon up much self-pity, only self-contempt. What had he expected, after all? The girl hadn’t exactly been eager to marry him. In fact, if she hadn’t been desperate, she wouldn’t have even considered it. If the prospect of kissing him frightened her out of her senses, how could he even be surprised?
Oscar and Sudie were the last of the slaves to leave. Oscar paused by the door, waiting for his wife. His expression was still stony, and he refused to even glance at Lori or her stepmother. Sudie was looking at Adam, waiting for his direction. “Should I put the dinner on the table?” she asked when he offered none.
“Oh, yes, I think... that would be a good idea. Miss Lori could probably do with some food.”
He thought he detected a slight flinch of distaste on Sudie face at the mention of his bride, but she merely nodded and left to do his bidding.
“I’m sure a little brandy would be just the thing,” Judge Fairweather was insisting as Bessie helped Lori straight her gown. Adam figured the judge probably wanted a snort himself. He certainly looked as if he could use one.
“Liquor on an empty stomach?” Bessie scoffed. “The girl’ll be falling face first in her dinner.”
Adam looked at Lori and found himself wondering how anyone as pale and wan as she could also be so breathtakingly beautiful.
“I’m sorry,” she said to him. Her hands were clutched tightly together in her lap and her eyes were wide with apprehension, as if she feared his disapproval. Or perhaps she simply feared him.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Adam insisted with as much good cheer as he could muster and deliberately forgetting about the way she had looked at him in that last second before he would have kissed her—as if he were some sort of monster.
“Indeed,” Reverend Hartsfield said agreeably. “I’ve had many a bride faint. It’s all the excitement, I think. And young ladies are such fragile creatures and so easily unnerved.”
Lori looked at him in amazement, wondering what he would say if she told him how many times she had plowed her father’s fields herself and hoed the weeds and picked the crops. Fragile?
But then she couldn’t deny that she felt that way now. As if she might shatter into a million pieces if Adam Ross so much as touched her.
But he wasn’t going to touch her, at least not at the moment. They were going to eat dinner. And then... Well, Lori wouldn’t think past that, at least not now. Not if she was going to maintain her composure. She would just worry about getting through the meal.
“Shouldn’t we at least have a toast while we’re waiting?” Judge Fairweather inquired a little too eagerly. Plainly, he wanted a drink rather badly, even though he had to know perfectly well it would only aggravate his gout.
“I reckon that’d be all right,” Bessie allowed, “but don give Lori too much.”
“Oh, yes,” Reverend Hartsfield agreed. “I think we could all do with a little stimulant. You know what the good book says, ‘A little wine for thy stomach’s sake.’ ”
They all looked at Adam, who seemed only then to realize that he was the one who should serve them. “Of course,” he said, as if he’d thought of it himself. “I’ve got a bottle I’ve been saving for a special occasion.”
“Better drink it before the Yankees come and take it,” Judge Fairweather advised with a chuckle.
“Oh, young Eric will never allow the Yankees to get that far,” Reverend Hartsfield insisted, making Lori’s heart stop dead in her chest.
Instinctively, she looked at Adam to see his response, and she noticed he hesitated just a second but then went on walking away as if he hadn’t heard a thing. He was moving slow and not using his cane at all. Lori remembered what Bess had said about him being so vain, and she realized that he was hardly limping at all.
He stopped before a cabinet, then he opened one of the doors and began to pull out a bottle and glasses for everyone. Moving with the ease of familiarity, he used a corkscrew open the wine bottle as the conversation continued around them.
“Do you think that rag-tag bunch that Rip Ford gathers up can really protect us from the Union Army?” Judge Fairweather was asking the preacher.
“They’re Southerners, aren’t they?” Reverend Hartsfield replied loyally. “I’ve always said one Southerner is better than a hundred Yankees.”
“Even if the Southerner is an old man or a child?” Adam asked as he poured the ruby red liquid into the pretty glass. “And that’s all Ford could get, you know. All that was left in Texas, in fact. Boys who haven’t yet learned to shave and old men who should be sitting in rocking chairs, dandling their grandchildren on their knees.”
“And your brother,” the judge reminded him, making Lori’s breath catch in her throat again. But she gritted her teeth against the horrible memories. She’d have to get used to hearing people speak of Eric. She was, after all, his sister-in-law now.
Adam was carrying glasses of wine to her and Bessie, still without using his cane. And he was still hardly limping, somehow she’d thought he couldn’t even walk without it, but now she saw he could. It just took more effort.
An effort he was apparently willing to make. He handed her one of the glasses. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were not. They were troubled. And suspicious. And she didn’t know what they saw when they looked at her.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the glass and hating how weak her voice sounded.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked.
He was so kind. “Yes, much. I should’ve eaten some breakfast. Bessie told me I should, but I just couldn’t.”
“The excitement,” Reverend Hartsfield repeated knowingly.
“Yeah, she was as jumpy as a cat on a hot stove,” Bessie confirmed, reaching out to take the other glass from Adam’s hand, although he hadn’t offered it to her yet.
Adam looked at Bessie in surp
rise, and Lori was glad to a longer be the center of his attention. Every time he looked her, she felt the guilt again. He was such an important man, and she was nothing. How could she have allowed him to ruin his own life to protect her?
At least he wasn’t looking at her that way anymore. As if he wanted to devour her. Probably, he’d never looked at her face that in the first place. She must have imagined it, just as she’d imagined he turned into Eric in that second before she fainted. Adam wasn’t like that. He’d never hurt her.
“To Adam Ross and his bride,” Judge Fairweather said when Adam had finished passing around the glasses. “May you always be as happy as you are today.”
Lori glanced at him in dismay, but of course he had no idea that this wasn’t a happy day for them. And everyone else drank, so Lori lifted the glass to her lips and tasted the sweet wine. Remembering Bessie’s warning, she took only a sip, however, and looked up again to see her stepmother was draining her glass.
“That’s mighty good stuff,” Bessie declared when she’d finished and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “You got any more?”
“Of course,” Adam said, although she could tell he was surprised by Bessie’s boldness. For her own part, Lori was mortified, but she couldn’t do anything to change Bessie. Heaven knew, she’d tried often enough without success.
The judge, Lori was relieved to note, accepted a refill a well. The men chatted about the war for a few moments, while Lori stared down into her glass and wished herself some place—anyplace—else but here. Then that slave woman came in, the one who’d been holding the smelling salts under her nose when she woke up. Lori would never forget the look on her face, like she was the one who smelled something bad. Like she could hardly stand to be that close to somebody like Lori and was only doing it because it was her duty.
Now Lori noticed that she still refused to look at Lori and Bessie. She spoke only to Adam.
“Dinner’s on the table, Massa Adam,” she said, looking as proud as if she was the mistress here. Maybe Lori’s pa had been right about slaves. Maybe they really were uppity. And dangerous. Lori knew instinctively that this one was a danger to her, although what she could do about it, she had no idea.
“Thank you, Sudie,” Adam said and turned to Lori. “Are you feeling well enough to have dinner now?”
Lori didn’t think she could swallow a bite of food, not if her life depended on it, but she nodded. “Yes, I’m fine now.”
If that wasn’t quite the truth, no one needed to know it but her. He offered her his hand, and she took it as she had earlier when they had exchanged vows. His fingers were warm and strong as he assisted her to her feet, and she looked up at him in wonder. This marvelous man was her husband. Although she knew the words were true, she still could not quite grasp the reality of them.
When she was on her feet, he released her hand, and Lori felt bereft for a moment until he offered her his arm. She took it gladly, needing to touch him as much for reassurance as for support. Adam would protect her now. No one would ever hurt her again.
“Shall we?” he said to the others, and to her surprise, Lori saw Judge Fairweather offer Bessie his arm. The two of them followed her and Adam, and Reverend Hartsfield brought up the rear.
Adam was still walking without his cane, and he led her cross the entry hall to another room that faced the river. He moved slowly and carefully, and Lori matched her steps to his, not in any hurry herself. The room they entered turned out to be a dining room. The table was the largest Lori had ever seen, and it was covered now with a linen cloth so white it seemed to glow in the bright afternoon sunlight that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows. On it sat enough dishes to feed the entire population of the Elmhurst plantation, but they had been arranged into only five place settings. Lori couldn’t imagine why anyone thought a person might need so many glasses and plates and pieces of silverware are just to eat. How would she ever know which one to use?
Adam had led her over to the chair immediately to the right of the one at the head of the table, and she realized this was to be her seat. Before she could reach for the chair, however, Adam had pulled it out for her, and feeling rather regal, she sat down and allowed him to push it back in.
“Mrs. McClintock, if you will sit here,” Adam said, indicating the chair to his left. Judge Fairweather seated Bessie and sat beside her, while Reverend Hartsfield took the chair beside Lori. Adam, of course, sat at the head of the table.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll do the honors as hostess,” Adam said when he had lowered himself into his own chair. H said this to Lori who wondered what he meant. Who ordinarily served as hostess? While she was wondering, Adam picked up a small bell beside his plate and rang it.
Instantly, two slave girls entered through a door at the far end of the room, each carrying a bowl of soup resting on plate. Lori watched in amazement as the girls set the bowls down in front of her and Bessie, then left to fetch more for the other guests. Each of them used a white linen napkin to hold the plate so that their fingers did not actually touch the plates, and they set the bowls and plates on top of the plate that were already there.
So many plates for just a bowl of soup. And so much food for such a simple meal! Somehow she’d imagined the food would be grander here at Elmhurst than what she and Bess enjoyed, but perhaps Adam was not as prosperous as she had thought. Wouldn’t that be a good joke on Bessie, who’d been so sure Lori was making a good match?
Bessie had already picked up a spoon and was slurping her soup rather enthusiastically by the time the serving girl returned with bowls for the judge and the minister. Lori hadn’t so much as looked at her spoons, much less tried decide which one to use. The decision was entirely too daunting, especially when even the delicious aroma of the soup sent her stomach into spasms of rebellion.
Although Lori had been a little embarrassed by the noise Bessie was making, she didn’t truly understand Bessie’s error until she saw the looks of astonishment on the girls’ dark faces when they came back into the room and saw that Bess was already eating. Their eyes were so wide, Lori thought she could see a rim of white around the dark brown center. Something was terribly wrong.
As the girls disappeared silently into the nether reaches of the house again, Lori glanced over at Reverend Hartsfield to watch what he would do. If she could see the correct way to eat the soup, she wouldn’t make the same mistake Bessie was making. But when she looked at the preacher, she saw he wasn’t doing anything at all. And neither was Judge Fairweather. They were simply waiting. And then she understood. They were waiting until everyone else had been served.
“This is mighty good soup,” Bessie remarked between slurps. “What’s the matter? Ain’t you gents hungry?”
Since she didn’t pause in her own eating and therefore didn’t seem too interested in a reply, no one else apparently felt compelled to give one. For her part, Lori could feel the heat rising in her face and fervently wished she could sink through the floor.
Mercifully, Judge Fairweather said, “The weather’s been awfully dry for planting this year, hasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes,” Adam agreed with what sounded like relief. “Not that it matters. I still have cotton stored from last year that I haven’t been able to sell. If we can’t drive the Yankees away from the coast by the end of the summer so we can ship our crops, I’m afraid we’ll all be ruined whether we get rain or not.”
So it was true, Lori realized, as one of the serving girls brought Adam’s bowl of soup and set it down with more haste than she had previously used, as if she were trying to help him catch up to his guest. Adam really was poor, just like the McClintocks.
When the girl had withdrawn, Adam said, “Reverend Hartsfield, would you ask the blessing for us, please?” Bessie looked up in comic surprise and hastily dropped her spoon. It clattered against her bowl, but no one except Lori appeared to notice. Beside her, the preacher rose to his feet and began to pray. He prayed loudly, as if he thought God was
far away and wouldn’t be able to hear him if he didn’t shout. He entreated his Heavenly Father on Adam and Lori’s behalf, begging for them health and prosperity and happiness and the blessing of many children.
Lori thought she heard Bessie snort at the last request, but she wasn’t sure. What she was sure about was thatt it hat made her own stomach knot even more tightly, something she would have bet was impossible. Thank heaven they were only having soup. Perhaps she would at least be able to swallow a few bites of it so no one would guess how upset she was.
When the minister had finally pronounced his “Amen,” Lori waited until he took his seat and from the corner of her eye she watched what he did. He selected the large bowled spoon from the far end of the row of utensils to the right of his plate and began to eat the soup. Before she picked up her own, she glanced over at Adam to make sure he had selected the same one. She didn’t want to make a mistake and shame him.
Finally convinced that she had the correct spoon, she picked it up and dipped it into the bowl. Being careful to get only broth and none of the pieces of tender, pink flesh that were floating in it, she ladled it into her mouth so she wouldn’t slurp. Even though her senses told her the soup was delicious, her throat clenched in rebellion when she tried to swallow it. How much would she have to force down that throat to give the impression that she had actually eaten? she wondered in dismay. And, of course, she knew she should eat in order to keep from fainting again.
Determinedly, she dipped her spoon again and again until the level in her bowl had gone down noticeably. The men continued to converse around her, about crops and the weather and the Yankee blockade of Texas ports, but Lori made no attempt to follow the conversation. She needed all her concentration to get through the meal without being sick. When she had eaten all she could, she laid her spoon down and sat back to wait for the others to finish.
After a few minutes, she was surprised to notice that she felt a lot better for having eaten even this little bit. Perhaps, she thought grimly, she would be able to survive the rest of this day.
From This Day Forward Page 6
