The Last Rose Pearl: A Low Country Love Story (Low Country Love Stories Book 1)

by Grace Walton

  “Rory love,” he whispered. He refused to let things get out of hand. Not here, not like this, and not when she was so confused. She would surely regret what would happen.

  “Don't leave me Dylan,” she protested. She opened her eyes.

  “I won't leave you,” he quietly assured, his emotions firmly under control again. He pulled her comfortably back against his broad chest. One strong hand held her securely to him. The other absently combed through the tangle of her loosened braid. “And I won't let you marry Bram Gottlieb,” he said softly.

  “Why?” She turned, forced herself to meet his pewter eyes.

  “Rory, if you loved him, you'd never have let me kiss you just now.”

  “So your kiss was an object lesson?” She felt deflated. “To help me see how I really felt.”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew that's what you were doing.” She didn't want him to see how irrevocably his kiss had affected her. Rory watched Dylan. His smile was warm and sincere. And his honesty made her feel like the blackest liar in the world. She fell guiltily back against his solid chest again. Her restless hand eventually settled on the rich material of his robe. She felt the steady rhythmic movement of his heart under her fingers. Each beat convicted her. Liar, liar, liar, it became unbearable.

  “Dylan?”

  “Mmm?” His chin rested possessively on the top of her head.

  “I lied.”

  “I know.”

  She sat abruptly up and faced him, “How could you tell?”

  He shrugged eloquently.

  “I don't go around kissing men. In fact, you're the first man I've ever wanted to-” Rory stopped. A new delicate blush drifted up her cheeks. She sat away from him, shook out her hair, and set about repairing the damage to her braid. “Dylan, thank you.”

  “For what, love?”

  “For showing me I don't love Bram.” She was now sitting with her hands calmly folded in her lap. “If I truly loved him, I couldn't have wanted to kiss you. I guess your lesson worked.” Her laugh was a charming tinkling of mellow bells as she flipped the lapel of his robe teasingly. Her gaze was suddenly drawn to the curious spot on the left side of his chest. “What is that?”

  Her impulsive hand reached toward him to touch it. He stopped her inquisitive fingers by grasping them. He raised them to his lips. Planting a chaste kiss on her knuckles he answered, “An ugly birthmark nothing more.”

  “It's a heart isn't it?” Her voice was filled with wonder. “I've never seen anything like it before.”

  “It's nothing.” He released her hand, then tightened the sash of his robe more securely hiding the little dark heart. “Rory, it's time and past for you to be in your own room.”

  “I know. It's just that.” Her words were cut off by the sound of heavy footfalls coming down the hall. She lifted panicked eyes to Dylan.

  He put a reassuring finger to her lips. They waited for the footsteps to recede. The footfalls got louder and closer. The door knob turned silently. A man slipped quietly inside. Not noticing the couple seated on the floor by the fire, he went straight to the bed in the darkest corner of the room.

  “Dylan,” he hissed. “Wake up you idiot.” He shook the bed with two hands. “Riding out in the rain like a maniac. Serves you right if you die of consumption from all this mad haring about.” Getting no answer, the phantom sat heavily down at the foot of the bed and muttered, “I don't know why you're worried about the bloody red-headed wench anyway. You'll twist her around your thumb just like all the others. Before you’re through with her, she'll roll over and play dead if you but ask it of her.”

  Dylan and Rory spoke at the same time.

  “Roll over and play dead?” She was seething.

  “Bloody, sodding…” So was he.

  Sander's neck craned around in confusion, “Dylan?” Finally, his eyes focused. He saw them.

  The girl stood up stiffly. Rory put as much distance as she could between herself and the man who had been sitting cozily beside her. Her words were soft but intense.

  “Bram was right. Even drunk he saw through you. I trusted you. And you've been using me. All along you've been using me. I've been too much of a slow-coach to see it,” she accused stalking to the door. “Sweetheart, love,” she mimicked the tender words and glared down at him. “Take it back to London, Mr. St. John, and peddle it there. I'm not interested.” The door snapped closed behind her.

  Sander was aghast at the damage he had unwittingly caused. “Dylan, I'm so sorry I didn't know,”

  “Leave.” It was cold and clipped and left no room for further argument.

  “I didn't know she was with you.”

  “Leave.” Dylan standing silhouetted by the fire was hard and unyielding.

  “Let me go to her and explain,” the black man tried again.

  “What would you tell her Sander? The truth?” he mocked scornfully. “Why yes, Miss Windsor, I do believe St. John is planning on using you in every twisted way he can devise. And with his background, he’s more twisted than most, much more. But he's got important work to do, don't you know. And he'll use you and anybody else he can manipulate to get it done. It won't wash uncle. Leave.”

  The quiet, deadly wrath in the words made the black man back slowly from the room. Through the door he heard the unmistakable sound of a crystal brandy tumbler shattering against the brick fireplace.

  Chapter Six

  “Where is she?” Dylan's tone was brusque as he walked through the dew-heavy grass towards the group of busy servants.

  The fat black woman was patently ignoring him. The others stared amazed. Tirzah turned her broad back. She kept stirring a roiling black laundry pot. The day had dawned bright and sunny, an extreme contrast to the night before. It was a fortunate coincidence because this was Tirzah's wash day.

  Doing the house laundry was no easy task for the housekeeper, even though she had the help of several housemaids and their children. First, a good hot fire must be laid in the little stone wash house. Then the clothes must be fetched from the main house and sorted. Some of the things could be simply cleaned with scalding water and strong lye soap. Most of the fine apparel- velvets, satins, and brocades were brushed and spot cleaned. For these chores, secret laundry concoctions were used to keep the clothing fresh and bright. Tirzah guarded these recipes jealously.

  All of it was back breaking work. The women took turns with a big wooden paddle. One with especially hard hands used a small knife to cut the caustic gray soap into the bubbling pot. Someone with strong arms was needed to rinse and wring out the steaming clothes. Children made a game of hanging the wet, heavy garments over lavender hedges to dry in the cold winter sun.

  The acrid odor of the scummy lye soap, burned their nostrils and made their eyes weep in protest. Tirzah mopped at her shiny face with a bright handkerchief. Then she tucked it efficiently back in the snug waistband of her apron. All without looking at St. John. She was clearly snubbing the tall man.

  “Where is she Mistress Moon?” He moved closer to stand beside her. He’d had little sleep the night before. Every time he’d tried to close his eyes, he’d relived the moment Rory heard Sander discussing her so callously. He knew he’d remember the hurt look on her lovely face, for as long as he lived. Now he was in no mood to exchange pleasantries.

  “Humph,” Tirzah mumbled. She was still angry with him for being so secretive in the hall the day before. But she had to admit, he made a fine picture on this bright morning. Black riding boots and tight black breeches favored his whipcord legs and hips. A loose white shirt billowed and danced with the early morning sea breeze. It clung to his torso like a lover. Today the man wore no tailored coat or cravat to hide the prowling animal restlessness plaguing him. Yes sir, she thought, admiring him. Mister St. John was a fine figure of a man. It was a sore shame Miss Rory didn't like him.

  He gently pulled the rough paddle from her calloused hands. He began slowly stirring the boiling mess in the pot. “Tell me where she is,�
�� he said

  The housemaids tittered to see a white man doing the wash. They swallowed their giggles at a fierce look from the frowning housekeeper. She shooed them away. “Y’all go get the bed linen.” They scurried down the shell walk toward the big house whispering and laughing.

  Dylan decided a few pleasantries might expedite things. He favored the formidable woman with one of his most charming smiles and asked one more time, “Please tell me where she's hiding Tirzah.”

  “She ain't hiding. And I'm Mistress Moon to you.” She pulled a dripping pair of pantelets from the pot with a skinned willow branch and began wringing them out. “Don't you be thinking you can sashay up to me and make me like you, cause it just ain't gonna happen,” she lectured him, “You's a scoundrel, just like I said you was yesterday.”

  “Did she tell you that?” He wouldn't be surprised after last night's fiasco.

  “Miss Rory didn't say nothing bout you.” Tirzah fished out another piece of clothing from the pot. She admitted, “She didn't say nothing bout nothing. She just stomped out of the house this morning mad as hornet in a rain storm. She tore off on that big ole ugly horse of hers.”

  Dylan drew the paddle from the dirty water. He handed it back to her. He studied the strong woman before him. “Mistress Moon, I need to talk to her.”

  “I don't reckon she want to talk to you though.” She took up the monotonous chore of stirring the laundry. “What you do to my child?”

  Dylan leaned back against the cobblestone half wall. He crossed powerful arms across his chest. He scrutinized the housekeeper for several minutes carefully choosing his words before answering, “Nothing. I did nothing to her.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Tirzah wasn't giving up.

  He stared straight at her and bluntly replied, “I kissed her.”

  “You a bold man, Mister St. John.” She gave an earthy cackle. “Mister Lucius Brack tried that last Christmas. She poked him in the mouth.”

  “She did?”

  “Uh huh, that poor man mumbled through a fat lip for two weeks.” Tirzah wiped her hands on the tail of her apron. “Miss Rory take a poke at you?” She examined his handsome face closely looking for scratches and bruises.

  Dylan shook his head. “No, Mistress Moon, she didn't.” Although, he thought ruefully, I'm sure she would have if she’d been closer.

  The old woman lumbered over to lean against the wall next to him. “Well, don't go getting no bad ideas about my Miss Rory,” she warned him shaking a crooked finger in his general direction. “She ain't no trashy gal. No sir, she a fine lady, or she will be some day.” Here Tirzah stopped and majestically adjusted the tilt of her rag turban. “That child’s a pure 'T' angel. She just got a wild streak a mile wide is all. Lord have mercy, if you just knew some of the things that child tried.” The housekeeper chuckled remembering. “Miss Rory tried to shut down the slave auction at the big cotton market in Savannah one time. What a ruckus that was. Lord, Mister St. John, I thought Mister Gray gonna sell her down the river for sure that day.” She sighed heavily. “It didn't do no good though. They’s still selling folks over there. She cried for a solid week after that, cause what she did didn't make no difference.” Tirzah's raisin eyes began to twinkle merrily. “Then Miss Rory got mad, real wet hen mad, kinda like this morning. That's when she started up the school.”

  “School?” Dylan was enjoying this conversation immensely.

  The housekeeper hurried back to the laundry muttering under her breath. “Lord, Tirzah, you gonna get us all put in the jail.” She kicked another bundle of sticks into the dying fire under the pot. “Mister St. John, you gone hurt my gal?”

  “No, I'll do everything I can to keep her from getting hurt. I vow it.”

  It was the plainspoken truth, and she believed him. “Then I'll tell you where she is,”

  Dylan cut her off, “No, not just yet, tell me about the school.”

  “Mister St. John I cain't tell you bout that.”

  He came over to her and once again took up the paddle and began working. He favored her with another smile that made her stomach flip. Then he coaxed in a deep, persuasive voice, “Yes you can, Mistress Moon.”

  “You can call me Tirzah,” she said before she could stop herself.

  His smile deepened into a roguish grin. “Why thank you, Tirzah. Now I want to know all about Miss Rory's school.”

  “I told you I cain't say nothing bout that.”

  “But I think you can.”

  “Lord, Mister St. John, I believe you could tease a good deed out of the devil if you set your mind to it. You know she gone skin me alive ifn' I tell you bout her school?”

  “I'll take care of you,” he promised.

  “So said the spider to poor Mister Fly.”

  “Tirzah.” There was a hint of steel underneath the velvet.

  “All right, all right. I'm getting to it.” She huffed indignantly. “They gonna sell this ole woman to some mean master down in Charleston.” Trying to win the tall man's sympathy, she continued pitifully, “He gonna put me out in them ole snaky rice fields.”

  “I'll buy you then.”

  Tirzah drew up to her full height, greatly insulted. “You cain't buy me. Nobody gonna buy me, I'm a freewoman.”

  “That's what I thought.” It was a dry comment.

  “You a sly fox, ain't you Mister St. John?” She chuckled at being caught in a lie.

  “The school,” he reminded her.

  “Oh yeah, about the school.” Tirzah threw a high pile of squeezed out linens into the rinse barrel. She began energetically dunking them up and down in the rain water. “Well, Miss Rory got so hopping mad over that slave sale, she set out to find something she could do. Nobody could stop her. That’s when she settled on raising the poor babes from the sportin' houses.”

  “Bloody Hades,” Dylan groaned in disbelief. “She takes in by-blows from cat houses?”

  “You watch your mouth, Mister St. John,” Tirzah warned darkly. “Them babes and yella gals cain't help what they is. Their masters done rented 'em out to the sportin' houses cause them light skinned gals don't last too long in the fields. Don’t nobody claim the babes. Fact is, most of the little angels don't even get borned. They mamas take the pennyroyal syrup.”

  “Pennyroyal syrup?” He was a man of the world. He knew all about the current popular contraceptives. But this syrup was something new to him.

  “It a mint. Folks grows it in they medicine gardens. You brews it like tea. The gals what get caught with a babe drinks the pennyroyal syrup. Some of them sportin' ladies die along with their young’un. That pennyroyal syrup it real strong, but most of 'em just loses the child,” the old woman explained patiently. “Now some of them gals just too afeard to take de syrup. Some of them don’t have the heart to kill their babes. They has their babes even when the masters get mad. Cain't work in the sportin' house ifn' you big with a babe. They don’t want their little folks to go to the fields. So before the masters comes to fetch the babes the mamas, they gives the babes to Miss Rory. She asks folks here on the island to keep them. And she teaches them to read and figure.”

  “Don't the masters ever try to find out what happened to the children?”

  “Oh naw, them gals they tell the masters the babes was born dead. Or they say a child-bed fever took ‘um. Or they rolled on 'em in their sleep and smothered the poor things.”

  “Who knows about this?”

  “Well now let's see, the folks that live on the island know we gots a whole lotta young’uns but they don't know ‘zactly where they come from. Mister Bram he know, cause he takes her into Savannah to fetch the babes. Mister Gray, now he know part of it.”

  Dylan dropped the paddle into the water. He raked a frustrated hand through his thick, tousled hair. He hated the fact that Abraham Gottlieb had information that might harm Rory. But it was more disturbing to think she was so adept at keeping secrets that her own brother might have been fooled.

  “You mean she
lied to her brother?”

  “Miss Rory didn't ‘zactly lie to him. Mister Gray know she's teaching some chillum. She just sort of left out the bad part.”

  “The part about the cat houses,” he said, his voice caustic.

  “Uh huh,” Tirzah bowed her head and admitted.

  “Is she at the school now?”

  “Yes, she is.” Tirzah was startled when without a word, he strode out of the little stone house towards the stable.

  “Mister St. John,” she called frantically to his disappearing back. “Mister St. John!”

  He stopped and faced her across the lawn.

  “You don' know where to find my angel.”

  “I can find her.” He was already striding away again as he said, “I'll just follow the glow from her halo.”

  “You gonna remember what you said bout not hurting Miss Rory?”

  “I won't do any permanent damage,” he promised and then kept on walking.

  The old black women took up the wash paddle cackling and muttered under her breath, “Lord, Miss Rory you done met your match for sure.”

  Reaching the stables, Dylan was approached by an eager stable boy. “Can I saddle you a horse, sir?” The big man nodded in acknowledgement, and the boy fetched a neat black mare from a nearby stall. He began to saddle it.

  “How do I get to the school?” St. John's words were hard and concise.

  “Sir?” The boy feigned ignorance still working on the mare.

  Dylan smirked at the obvious diversion. “It's all right, lad. I know all about Miss Rory's school. Tell me how to get there.”

  “You take the main road out here, sir.” He pointed to the wide dirt path leading into the island's interior. “And you just follow it. The road leads right to the schoolhouse.”