by India Millar
“Sure could.” William stared at the road. “Mr. Callum, he offered to take me with him. Set me free. But I told him I couldn’t go. I love High Grove just as much as Mistress Simone does. I was born and bred there and I done lived there all my life. The old master was my daddy, whether I liked it or no. I’d be a fish out of water anywhere else. Besides which, what’s Oscar going to do without me?”
He chuckled and I managed a tired smile.
Mr. March seemed startled to see me. And pleased. He fussed around, offering me coffee, which I refused. I had decided on the journey that I would tell him that Mr. Olders and I had come to an accommodation and that I would like something in writing to support it. Nothing less than the truth, that.
But I never got the chance.
The attorney leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled on his chest.
“Now, there’s a coincidence. I was going to ride over to High Grove to see you later today and here you are!”
He already knew, then. I managed a weak smile.
“I suppose Lord Kyle has already been to see you, to give you the good news himself?”
I wasn’t listening to him. I was exhausted and anxious and wanted nothing more than to get back to the plantation and sleep for the rest of the day. I started to nod and then realized what he had said. Lord Kyle. Not Mr. Olders. I felt the muscles in my neck creak as I turned my head to look at him.
“Lord Kyle? No, I haven’t seen him,” I lied.
“Oh? That’s odd. He assured me he was going to see you first thing this morning. I daresay he’s been detained by business. Well, no matter. I have here a money draft called down on Lord Kyle’s account in Washington.” He spoke Callum’s name with such reverence I almost managed to smile. “As good as gold any day and made out to Mr. Olders by name. I calculated the initial sum and outstanding interest on Mr. Olders’s loan very carefully, I can assure you. And just to be sure there’s no problems, Lord Kyle was very insistent I added a little more on top. So, there you are. I’m going to take this over to Mr. Olders’ bank this morning, and as soon as it’s in his account you don’t owe him a single cent. High Grove Plantation is yours again. Although I guess it doesn’t take much figuring out to assume you’re not going to be there that much longer?” he added archly.
The attorney was still speaking, but I heard nothing else at all. High Grove was mine. Neither Abe Olders nor Mama Simone had any hold on me. I was free, and Callum Niaish had given me that freedom, as surely as he had given freedom to every other slave he had released. And unlike every other man in my life, he alone had asked for nothing in return.
I heard the sound of the wings of wild geese beating the air, their joyful cries trailing behind them. I thought only I could hear it, but I was wrong.
“My word, but the geese are migrating early this year,” March commented. “Nice to hear them, isn’t it? Guess they must be bound for Canada.”
March shuffled his papers about, smiling broadly at me. “Now, was there anything else you needed from me this fine morning, Mrs. Beaumont?”
I barely needed to think. I nodded and told him exactly what I wanted. He seemed surprised, but did as I asked.
William was waiting for me patiently.
“You knew, didn’t you? Why didn’t either of you tell me what he’d done, William?”
“Weren’t my place to tell you.” William smiled gently. “He told me to say nothing at all. He was intending to tell you himself. He’d heard what Olders was up to—seems he was bragging to all his friends that you either took him up on his offer or he was going to toss you and Mistress Simone out of High Grove without so much as a cent—and I thought Callum was going to go crazy. Even then, he kept insisting he couldn’t put you in danger. That he couldn’t tell you anything at all until the time was right. Made me promise to keep my mouth shut as well. Of course, he wasn’t expecting to get caught and shipped out himself. Now that we know for certain he done made his plans all right and proper, I guess you want to go back to Reverend Smallbone’s now?”
“Yes. Hurry, William. We might be too late already.”
“If he’s awake, he ain’t going to go anywhere at all without you. In fact, I do believe he would wait until hell froze over before he left you. But as it is, I guess you might be right and we should maybe hurry ourselves a little.”
He urged the horses on with a click of his teeth and I waved at Mr. March’s astonished face as we turned against the traffic and set off away from the road that led to High Grove. As I rattled in the landau, I hoped and prayed that it was a road I would never have to travel again. Then I heard the sound of the wild geese overhead and it seemed to me that as William took the fork that led away from High Grove, so did the geese turn with us.
And at that moment I knew my life was about to change yet again.
Epilogue
William had pushed the rocker as far back in the shade of the porch as he could manage to get it. After a few minutes, the back and forth motion of the chair stopped as he sank into a doze. The moment he was still, the old dog came cautiously forward and laid his head on his foot. The labrador twitched and yelped softly in his dreams, revisiting the days when no bitch for miles around was safe from his attentions.
Neither paid any attention to the growing noise. William heard it dimly, but thinking it was the hum of the bees getting drunk on the peaches ignored it. He had to make the slaves pick the peaches, telling them that until they were all eaten they would get no food but the greens they grew for themselves and the bit of rice that the plantation struggled to produce. Even then, the slaves complained that the over-ripe fruit tasted bad and gave them the runs. Truth to tell, the festering fruit stank something awful. He could see they had a point.
The noise was growing louder. The old dog raised his head and growled. William pushed him lazily with his foot.
“What you doing, Oscar? What’s all the fuss about?”
Oscar got to his feet and stretched. His tail beat lazily on the floor, disturbing the dust. The growl faded to something between a whimper and a sigh and William frowned, sitting upright and gripping the arms of the rocking chair for support.
“What? We got visitors? Some salesman trying to palm his wares off on us?” He laughed, turning his head away to hawk phlegm into the dust. He had not spoken aloud for days, and the congestion had gathered at the back of his throat. “Man must be hopeful, if so.”
He shielded his eyes with his cupped hand, staring into the painfully bright afternoon sunlight. Not a salesman, no. A closed carriage pulled by two good horses. Concerned at last, William got to his feet, his bones protesting at the movement. The carriage had stopped close to the porch steps. As soon as the horses were fully reigned in, the driver jumped down and went to open the carriage door.
William put his hands to his face and dry wiped it, his fingers finally coming to rest over his mouth as he watched the two passengers climb down.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered.
The strange couple stood quite still, staring at the house as if they were hypnotized by it. William watched their expressions flicker from surprise to dismay. He saw the house through their eyes, the peeling paint and wild garden, and was ashamed. Not my fault, he wanted to explain. Nothing I could do.
The man put his hand on the woman’s arm. She turned to look at him and shrugged and shook her head as if an unspoken message had passed between them. Oscar could take no more. He jumped down the porch steps and flung himself at the woman’s feet, rolling in the dust, almost trapping his lolling tongue beneath his own ribs.
She bent to pat the ecstatic dog, apparently unfettered by the tightness of her silken kimono. William glanced from the tall man to the woman with the green eyes and the widow’s peak at the front of her auburn hair and felt the years roll back as all was well again in his world.
“Welcome home, Miss Kazhua,” he said softly. “I’m William. William Beaumont Freeman. I’m your uncle. Your mama always knew you�
�d come here one day. She told me I was to wait for you. Me and Oscar both are sure glad to have you here at last.”
She raised her face in surprise, and William caught his breath as he looked into Master Simon’s green eyes.
“She’s not here?” The young woman’s voice was heavy with disappointment. “Or my father? Neither of them?”
“No. Your papa died years ago. I’m sorry. Your mama left here not too long after.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I guess she would have ended up a long way from here.” He saw distress cloud her face and came down the steps to offer his arm. “Don’t matter none, Miss Kazhua. She always kept you in her heart, no matter what. She always said you would find each other one day, so I guess this is just a step along the way. You both come along in, and I’ll tell you the story. I promised her I would soon as you turned up. You going to be real proud of your mama, I promise you. And your papa. I’m sorry the place ain’t as handsome as it once was, but things have been let go a little since the old mistress passed away. Come away in. Let William tell you all about it.”
The old dog thumped his tail happily on the floor and followed his people into the cool shade of the house.
Thank You!
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The Red Thread of Fate
The Geisha Who Ran Away Volume Two
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In Japan, it is widely believed that everyone’s life is bound by the red thread of their fate. The thread connects to all those we come in contact with throughout our lives. Thus, each path in life is predestined.
Terue knows this. Just as she knows that one day her red thread will guide her to Kazhua, the daughter she was forced to abandon on the day of her birth in Edo’s Floating World. But before she can find Kazhua, fate has much in store for Terue.
Following her new husband, Lord Kyle, from the Highlands of Scotland to fight in the Crimea, Terue serves as a nurse, witnessing the horrors of the battlefield.
Injured, kidnapped, and assumed dead, Terue must face the possibility that she might never see her beloved daughter or husband again…
The Geisha with the Green Eyes
Secrets from the Hidden House Book 1
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By 1850, Japan had been closed to the outside world for centuries. It was a secret, hidden world. And deep within Edo (now Tokyo) was Yoshiwara − “The Floating World.” The center of pleasure. And within Yoshiwara was the Hidden House. The place that only the very wealthiest could afford. The place where the geisha were…special.
And in the Hidden House lived Midori No Me. Half Japanese, half foreign Barbarian, born to captivity. She was trained to dedicate her life to serving the wealthiest men in Japan. Defiled at thirteen when her virginity was sold to the highest bidder. Possessed by the greatest actor in the kabuki theater. Stolen from him by the most powerful yakuza in Edo.
The geisha who escaped from the Floating World.
The Geisha with the Green Eyes.
The Geisha Who Could Feel No Pain
Secrets from the Hidden House Book 2
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Out of all the geisha, only Mineko’s strangeness was hidden from the world.
Mineko was the geisha who could not feel pain. She was the geisha that no man could hurt, no matter how hard they tried. And not only was Mineko unable to feel physical pain, she was also unable to feel the emotions of love and longing and need. Until she met the Samurai who became her lover; the man who—just as she was—was owned body and soul by Mineko’s master, the terrible yakuza Akira.
As her desires were awoken by Ken, her Samurai lover, Mineko begins to dream of another life, one of freedom.
In this, the second in the “Secrets from the Hidden House” series, the terrible mysteries that lie at the heart of the Hidden House are revealed. Past and present twist together, each secret deeper and darker than that which has gone before. The enigma that is the Hidden House unfurls the petals of its history here, in Mineko’s story.
The story of the Geisha Who Could Feel No Pain.
The Dragon Geisha
Secrets from the Hidden House Book 3
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A new world full of beautiful possibilities, but old scars run deep.
Midori No Me, the Geisha with the Green Eyes, has finally escaped the Floating World and is living her dream performing in a kabuki troop as it travels the United States.
But she cannot outrun the ghosts of the past. Jealousy and deceit threaten the new life she is trying to build. And when she learns of the cruelty her old master, the yakuza Akira, is inflicting on her friends back in Edo, she cannot ignore their plight. She must somehow find the courage to venture back to the Floating World to help others escape from the prison that was once hers.
The Geisha with the Green Eyes must become The Dragon Geisha.
About the Author
India Millar started her career in heavy industry at British Gas and ended it in the rarefied atmosphere of the British Library. She now lives on Spain’s glorious Costa Blanca North in an entirely male dominated household comprised of her husband, a dog, and a cat. In addition to historical romances, India also writes popular guides to living in Spain under a different name.
Website: www.indiamillar.co.uk
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