Annabelle stilled and regarded the worry in Peggy’s deep-brown eyes. “Well, it seems I have just been presented with a different solution.”
Peggy huffed. “And what’s that?”
“An old arrangement I had completely forgotten.”
“Talk sense, child,” Peggy said with an exasperated sigh.
Annabelle dropped onto the kitchen bench, clenching her hands together in her lap. She didn’t really have the time to spend discussing it, but she knew Peggy wouldn’t budge until she had her answer.
As if to confirm her inner assessment, Peggy lifted her brows and gave Annabelle that familiar “best be out with it, or we’ll be here all day” look.
Some slave and mistress pair they made. Not that Peggy was really a slave any longer. She’d decided to stay with Annabelle when all the others had fled. For that, Annabelle had declared she was no longer property of Rosswood. Not that she had ever thought of Peggy as anything other than her dearest friend, anyway.
“Not long after he married Sarah,” Annabelle said, turning her attention back to the current conversation, “Father mentioned introducing me to a wealthy family’s youngest son – when I was ready to court, of course. It was to be the next summer, after my sixteenth year.”
Peggy frowned but said nothing.
Annabelle waved her hand. “Nothing became of it. I actually had forgotten all about it and didn’t even remember the family’s name.”
Peggy’s brow furrowed deeper, but still she waited for Annabelle to continue. Annabelle gestured back toward the house. “Well, one of those sons just showed up at our door, claiming to want to take me to meet his brother and secure the arrangement.”
That got the reaction Annabelle expected. Peggy threw up her hands, then pointed a finger at her. “How you know he’s tellin’ the truth?”
Annabelle shrugged “Well, he….”
“Lawd, girl!” Peggy interrupted. “How you know this stranger ain’t some fortune-seeker lookin’ to snag this land and you with it?”
She couldn’t tell Peggy about having already met Captain Daniels, lest that be the thread that began to unravel her chain of secrets. She pulled her lower lip through her teeth. “Well, he did give the right name. Once he began talking about it, I remembered.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know why I didn’t put it together sooner,” she grumbled.
“Sooner than what?” Peggy asked, narrowing her eyes.
Drat. She waved her hand. “Nothing.”
Annabelle clenched her teeth. Why hadn’t she remembered? True, it had been long ago, and at the time she’d dismissed the discussion. A year was a long time for Father to change his mind. Never mind that she hadn’t yet been interested in courting, even though many of the local girls could talk of nothing else. Regardless, she should have remembered him.
He’d been the big lout who had started a ruckus at the wedding. Who could have forgotten such a scandal? But, all she remembered of the fool was that he had been an exceedingly tall man with short, blond hair and a flapping jaw. All of his other features were vague in her memory, but she had no doubt he and the officer in her house were indeed the same man. Had he known all along? Heat flooded her cheeks. Why would he have accused her of being a harlot if he’d known who she really was?
“What’s wrong?” Peggy said, her knowing tone breaking into Annabelle’s seething thoughts. “You look mighty riled up.”
Annabelle cut her eyes at Peggy, squeezing her arms across the decorated bodice of her dress.
“Yes, ma’am,” Peggy drawled. “I do think it’d be best if you started tellin’ me the truth now.”
How did she know? Sighing, Annabelle said, “Very well,” and proceeded to give a condensed version of her journey. She’d already told Peggy about Lieutenant Monroe’s death and asking Mr. Black to send her telegram—a part she’d hidden from Grandfather—and then had skipped to where she’d visited Molly and received a new dress before returning home. Now, she had to fill in all the undesirable sections of the tale that would certainly put Peggy into a tizzy.
Peggy peppered in “Oh, Lawd!” and “Mercy!” at several points in Annabelle’s hurried outpouring. She thought Peggy might fall over when she reached the part about being accused of being a harlot, then a spy.
“Then Captain Daniels set me free from the camp,” Annabelle summed up. That part was true enough. She dropped her gaze. “And then I ran back to Lorman, to Molly’s. You know the rest. I didn’t recognize him at the time, though I was foolish not to.”
She glanced up to find Peggy studying her thoughtfully.
“But, it is him.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I suppose he must have recognized me, and that’s why he decided to free me. But, I don’t know why he didn’t immediately make such a thing known.”
Annabelle picked at her fingernails, trying to understand what this man’s intentions might be. Why come now? If he really planned on going through with their fathers’ arrangement, then why would he have come only after seeing her at the army line? And, for heaven’s sake, why wouldn’t he have said something?
Peggy stared at her. Annabelle thought it best not to show too much of her ire, lest Peggy try to undo the fragile resolve forming in her mind. Annabelle lifted her brows and gave a small shrug. “I don’t really know why he chose now to bring this up.”
“Ha!” Peggy wagged her finger. “Well, I know. It’s because he’s wantin’ to grab himself a pretty wife who’s got a standin’ plantation. How do you even know his family still has all their lands? What if it’s been burned down, and he’s just come here to take yours?”
She hadn’t thought of that. “I suppose it’s a risk worth taking. I think he’s trying to help me. Let me meet this brother he told Grandfather I’m betrothed to, and….”
Peggy threw up her hands. “Betrothed! You ain’t betrothed. Meeting and courtin’ ain’t the same as being arranged to marry! Your daddy said he wasn’t goin’ to make no arranged marriage.”
Annabelle smirked. “You know that, and I know that, but Grandfather doesn’t.”
Peggy huffed. “I guess you’s right.”
“Besides, let the Daniels man think what he wants. I’ll play along with it until we meet this brother of his. As I see it, this gives a solution to a couple of problems.”
Peggy turned back to her dough, forming it into a loaf and placing it in the oven as Annabelle spoke.
“First, it gets me safely….” Peggy snorted at that, but Annabelle ignored her and continued. “It gets me safely away from here when Andrew comes. Despite what I said about them not being able to force me to marry him, I am afraid Andrew could, and likely would, force me into consummating a marriage, whether I had spoken my own vows or not.”
Peggy closed the oven and turned to her, pain evident on her face. She came to sit near Annabelle and wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “Child, I want to say that wouldn’t happen – and it right pains me to know you’s aware enough of such things to have thought of that on your own – but you’s right. I have that same fear.”
Annabelle drew a long breath. “I am glad you see it, too. So, it makes sense not to be here. Second, what if I go up there, and they have a good family, and he is a decent man?”
“Who skipped the war?”
Annabelle frowned. “There are some men who couldn’t go, for various reasons.”
Peggy said nothing.
Annabelle waved away her concern. “Anyway, what if he is a decent man with a strong family that can restore Rosswood? I have to take that chance.”
“And marry a man you don’t love?”
Annabelle offered a sad smile. “Love is a luxury I no longer have. It was a nice dream, once, but now what I really need is security. Lots of women marry men they can respect and who provide well for them, even if there isn’t love. Right now, safety and survival are simply more important.”
Peggy took Annabelle’s face between her hands. “When did you become this here
strong woman and not the sweet little girl at my skirts?”
Tears welled in Annabelle’s eyes, and she let them fall. Peggy quickly dabbed them away and then cleaned the flour she’d deposited on Annabelle’s cheeks. “Now, now. You’s right. We’s gonna have to go.” She huffed. “It’s a better chance than stayin’ here and waitin’ on that nasty old Andrew, anyways.”
Annabelle rose to her feet, drawing a steadying breath. “Then begin gathering your things, and pack as much food for us as you can.” She turned and headed to the house without looking back, lest she lose her nerve.
When she opened the back door, she found Grandfather with his back pressed against the hallway wall and the imposing figure of Captain Daniels towering over him. Never had she seen fear on Grandfather’s face like what now appeared beneath the larger man’s glower.
The two men turned to her as she crossed the threshold, and Captain Daniels stepped back, tugging on his jacket. “Are you ready to go, Miss Ross?”
She flicked her gaze between him and Grandfather, who had not moved from his position against the wall. “Not quite. I have my maid readying supplies, but I still need to gather some personal things.” What little of her clothing was left after losing her trunk, anyway. She pushed away the guilt at knowing Homer had never returned home.
“Now, wait here, you can’t take all the food….” Grandfather’s voice trailed off under the heaviness of Captain Daniels’s scowl. He turned his head opposite and began coughing again. Pity stirred her.
When he finished coughing, she said, “Grandfather, it wouldn’t do to leave you here alone. Come with us to town, and stay at the inn. You will be cared for there.”
Grandfather’s face turned an ugly red, and the vein in his forehead bulged. He dabbed his lips with his handkerchief and glared at her. “I’ll not have you ousting me from this house, girl. Andrew will be here soon enough.”
The threat in his words hung heavy in the air for a moment. Finally, Annabelle sighed. “Very well. Have it your way. Andrew can take you with him when he leaves.”
Grandfather snorted but said no more. Annabelle hurried to the staircase, casting a worried look at Captain Daniels before grabbing the banister. He gave her a tight smile and nodded for her to continue. Warily, she ascended the steps, but she heard no further words from either man.
She found a carpet bag in Father’s room and then returned to her own room to gather one pair of boots to replace her soft slippers, a night dress, and her spare chemise. Then she removed the gown, carefully trying to fit it in the bag without causing the fabric to wrinkle too much. She couldn’t risk ruining the only good dress she had. She would simply have to travel in her work skirt with a frayed hem and a stained blouse. She sighed. At least she had a proper, clean gown to meet Captain Daniels’s brother in when they arrived.
After tossing in her comb, hand mirror, and three hair pins, she secured the bag and surveyed her room. Almost forgetting her most prized possession, Annabelle unlocked the top drawer of her bureau and pulled the little black bag free. She pressed it to her chest for just an instant before she tucked it securely into the inner pocket of the carpet bag.
Setting her jaw against the emotions that threatened to overtake her, Annabelle put on her paletot and descended the stairs. Both men stood below, staring at her.
“That is all you will bring, Miss Ross?” Captain Daniels asked, narrowing his lids.
She shoved down her ire. “As it is all I possess, I am afraid so.”
Sadness bloomed in Captain Daniels’s eyes for only an instant, then disappeared. He lifted a shoulder. “For the best anyway, I’m sure. Taking a trunk may prove difficult.”
She dipped her chin. “If you will excuse me, I will fetch Peggy now.”
He stepped away from the stairs and motioned for her to continue without the questions she’d feared he would ask. Grandfather had seated himself in the ragged hall chair and stared at the wood floor.
For the first time in a long while, Annabelle remembered what her home had once looked like: polished furniture, colorful rugs, and paintings on the walls. Now all that remained in the main hall was a poorly repaired ladder-back chair and a small side table she’d found tossed in a back corner of the stable that some Union soldier had missed in his plunder. Would Rosswood ever be the same? Would her sacrifice save the home her father had loved so dearly?
Annabelle turned to open the small door set underneath the staircase that led to the basement. Pulling it closed behind her, she stepped down into the noticeably colder rooms under the house.
She shivered. It would be good to have Peggy out of here. She’d wanted to move her into one of the empty rooms upstairs long ago, but Grandfather had refused to have a slave staying in the house. When he was gone, she would see Peggy in a room with a proper window.
As expected, she found Peggy in her sleeping chamber, stuffing the tattered bedclothes into a burlap sack. She turned when Annabelle stepped into the small room, its low ceiling only a few inches above her head. Before the war, Peggy had lived here with three other unmarried house women who’d shared the two sleeping chambers and the common room.
Peggy hefted the sack on her shoulder. “Well, I think I got all I’s goin’ to need.”
Annabelle regarded her for a moment. “Peggy, are you sure this is the right thing?”
Peggy’s features softened. “Honestly, I don’t rightly know. But, I reckon it’s better to take a chance on something good than it is to wait for the bad you know is comin’.”
Annabelle nodded and picked up the basket on the floor, sifting through the contents. “Not much in here. Did you leave enough for Grandfather?”
Peggy snorted. “Shoulda taken everythin’ and left that old crow with nothin’.”
“But, did you?”
Peggy plucked the basket from Annabelle’s hands. “No. I done left him two loaves of bread and a pot of collards.”
“Thank you.” Annabelle lifted Peggy’s sack, but it was soon pulled from her fingers.
“Nope. You let me carry that. Ain’t right for the lady to carry more than the slave.”
Annabelle lifted her brows. “Those terms no longer apply to either of us.”
Peggy huffed and glided past her. “So, you think travelin’ through this here state and goin’ to see some big-name gentleman as just two poor women would be the smartest thing?”
Annabelle rolled her eyes and lifted her carpet bag, following Peggy up the stairs. She didn’t give an answer, because she knew Peggy didn’t expect one.
Peggy opened the door and stepped out, eyeing Captain Daniels but remaining quiet. She stepped over to the wall opposite Grandfather and lowered her eyes, waiting until she was instructed to leave. Grandfather rose to his feet and stalked to his room, slamming the door behind him. Annabelle cringed at the sound but straightened her shoulders. Captain Daniels took her elbow and guided her to the door. Peggy fell in behind them, and they made their way out of the only home Annabelle had ever known.
As they stepped out into the clear sunshine, Annabelle breathed a prayer that she wasn’t making a huge mistake. Then she squared her shoulders and took the lead.
“But the opportunity will yet come. Well, better late than never.”
February 15th, 1865
Annabelle clenched her teeth to keep them from clattering. The biting wind tugged at her hair, and she stuffed freed wisps back underneath her bonnet. Why had winter returned and chased away the warmer weather that had promised an early spring just yesterday?
It had been clear and beautiful when Captain Daniels had led them back to the very barn from which Annabelle had first escaped. There they met up with a trio of men with suspicious eyes and dirty Confederate uniforms. After spending a long time in discussion with these men, Captain Daniels had asked that they spend the evening in the barn while the one called O’Malley retrieved an additional horse for Peggy. Annabelle had wondered why these strange men already had horses ready for her and Captain Dan
iels, but did not ask. She was simply thankful not to have to walk all the way to Westerly on an ankle still not completely healed.
Annabelle rubbed at her eyes. Neither she nor Peggy had slept well. How could they? They had made their beds in a moldy hay loft with no way past the men sleeping at the bottom of the ladder. She’d dozed fitfully, always afraid that one of them would creep up in the middle of the night. But, they had snored peacefully, and none had seemed interested in bothering the women. They were not overly friendly, but neither were they intimidating. She was beginning to feel slightly more at ease, though she would be a fool to let down her guard.
Annabelle slowly stroked the red coat of the gelding tied just outside the large barn doors. She’d chosen this one to be her mount because his gentle eyes reminded her of poor old Homer. Annabelle’s fingers smoothed the horse’s mane, but her thoughts were set on the men making travel preparations. She covertly watched the tense man who seemed to consider himself the leader of the group. He was the one who smiled too much and whose friendly manner appeared forced.
If they thought she was fool enough to believe this entire crew was simply aiding her to Westerly Plantation while they took their furlough, then they were duller than they thought her. She hadn’t yet figured out exactly what they were hiding, but she suspected it had something to do with the message that had started this entire problem. O’Malley had asked her about it, and didn’t seem pleased that she knew nothing about its meaning.
Why hadn’t she just left the thing in that soldier’s pocket? Then it would be buried with him, and none of this would have happened. Whatever had been written there, it seemed to be at the center of some secret they all guarded very closely. How Captain Daniels fit into the plot, she couldn’t yet be sure. He seemed to be straddling a line between being caught up in this and being in on the entire thing.
She watched the men speak to one another in low tones, sometimes cutting their eyes in her direction. She regarded them flatly, which seemed to make them uncomfortable. Good. They might as well be as uncomfortable with her as she was with them.
The Liberator Series Box Set: Christian Historical Civil War Novels Page 17
