Somerset

  Silas saw himself becoming ever more frustrated over Morris’s handling of the estate. His brother saw winter as a time to relax, but there was plenty that needed doing as the old year ended to keep a plantation running smoothly. There were farm implements and tack equipment to repair, fences and buildings to mend, silos and storage bins to clean, gardens to spade, fields to turn and fertilize…An endless list awaited crucial attention that as land manager Silas would have seen to, but Morris, taking his argument from Ecclesiastes, would have enforced his belief that there was a time for everything and winter was the season to rest and celebrate the birth of Christ. “We’ve gathered in the sheaves, Silas. Let us rejoice and be glad in our endeavors.” Silas perceived that his brother’s laxity with the slaves and overseers and slowness in determining the improvements needed for the coming year would in time drive him mad.

  As usual, Lettie saw the sunny side of his dark situation and managed to mitigate his disgruntlements. “Darling, at least we’ll have a roof over our heads for the year, sit at one of the best tables in Plantation Alley, and have few expenses. We can save our money to add to the sale of the Conestogas and set sail for Texas March after next.”

  After considering all angles, Silas decided to hold to that star in the east and let it be his guiding light. Lettie’s arguments, parroting Morris’s, made good sense. Wars and unrest in the new territories would not deter the westward movement. The Conestogas would sell, he was sure of it, and there were advantages to the delay. For one, he’d have time to approach the federal army about the sale of his wagons, and for another, the revolution in Texas would most likely be over by the time they arrived. Though he could hardly bear the thought of Jeremy leaving for the promised land without him, by going ahead, his friend could send back firsthand knowledge of the obstacles they would face, allowing him to leave South Carolina forewarned and prepared. Meanwhile, having Lettie by his side and in his bed would make the year tolerable.

  By the evening of Christmas Day, he’d made up his mind to stay at Queenscrown and wondered how he could ever for a moment have considered Carson Wyndham’s offer. How could he have been so selfish even to think of denying Joshua the maternal affections of a woman who already thought of him as her son? Watching the boy with Lettie (it was to her he ran to show off his presents, not his father), he wished he’d never shared the man’s insult with Jeremy but kept it to himself. He felt burned to the bones from the shame of it. How dare Carson Wyndham believe Silas Toliver could be bought? He would not deign to give the man an answer.

  His mind relatively at ease, for Lettie’s sake, Silas concentrated on enjoying the rest of the holiday season. In the interim between Christmas and New Year’s Day, a constant round of parties, many held in honor of their coming nuptials, left him with little time or desire to brood over the change in his plans for the new year. The Wyndhams—for reasons known only to a few and speculated on by everyone else—had withdrawn Willowshire from the manor homes open to callers, but there was much visiting among the other mansions of Plantation Alley, and planters took turns hosting fish fries, log-rollings, barn dances, and corn shuckings in which their slaves participated.

  Silas looked forward to the day when he would host such occasions at his own plantation of Somerset in Texas.

  The first arctic cold front the second night into the new year of 1836 put an end to the fine weather and high spirits. The sudden freeze was not immediately felt through the thin walls of the cabins in the slave village of Queenscrown, nor did the night seem terribly deep and dark. As a matter of fact, the overseer was awakened by a strange glow dancing on the wall of his bedroom. He leaped to the window and threw open the shutter through which the light had filtered. “Oh, my God!” he yelled, jolting awake his sleeping wife. Out in the field by one of the barns, columns of flame-infused smoke spiraled upwards into the cold, black night. The white masts of the fleet of Conestoga ships were on fire.

  In the library at Willowshire, Carson Wyndham sat before a softly glowing fire. It was two o’clock in the morning. He wore a smoking jacket against the chill and puffed on a cigar as he stared meditatively into the flames. The visitor he was expecting arrived fifteen minutes later than anticipated, his approach to the great doors of the library soft so as not to disturb the household and awaken listening ears.

  Carson glanced at the man, who closed the door quietly behind him. “It is done?” he asked.

  “It is done, Papa.”

  “You made sure no one saw you and there was no one around?”

  “I did.”

  “We must assure your sister’s welfare and possible happiness despite her belief we wish the contrary.”

  Michael Wyndham sat down next to the fire and tiredly drew off his boots. “You are sure Jessica will choose to marry Silas Toliver?”

  “Given her choices, I am in no doubt. We must get her out of here before what happened to Miss Conklin happens to her. The Wyndham name can keep in check a lake from overflowing its boundaries, but not a river.”

  “You believe there’s a chance Silas Toliver can make her happy?”

  “As happy as any man could make your sister, I suspect. Silas is a remarkably handsome fellow. What woman could resist him?”

  “I wonder who will wed Lettie Sedgewick with Silas out of the picture?”

  “Why not you? She’s certainly comely enough. Intelligent, but smart enough not to show it.”

  Michael shook his head. “She’s too tame for me.”

  “Ah,” his father said. “Sarah Conklin was more to your liking, I take it.”

  “I found her very desirable. Too bad she was on the wrong side.” He shifted his position. “Did you know she never once cried out until the end? I ordered her punishment stopped then. “All I wanted was to hear her cry.”

  “But she never gave you the name of her conspirator?”

  “No. A brave and loyal woman.”

  “No braver or more loyal than your sister. She could have lied about her part and saved herself—and her family—this tragic turn of events.”

  An embarrassed silence fell between them. Carson removed his cigar, his eyes narrowing upon his son behind the screen of smoke. “Did you enjoy flogging a woman, Michael?”

  Michael pursed his lip as if having to think about the question. “I thought I would,” he said, “but afterwards, despite her crime, I felt…sorry that I’d had to do what had to be done.”

  “Good,” his father said, returning the cigar to his mouth. “If you said you’d enjoyed the lashing, I would have disowned you, too.”

  Chapter Twenty

  An investigation into the cause of the fire yielded no clue to substantiate Silas’s suspicion of arson.

  “A spark from one of the slaves’ chimneys must have started the fire, Mr. Toliver,” the county sheriff said.

  “There was no wind that night. How could it?”

  “It don’t take but a slight breeze for a spark to travel.”

  “Directly to all ten of my wagons?”

  Silas received a shrug for an answer.

  Two days before Carson Wyndham’s deadline of January fifth, smoldering with fury, Silas saddled his gelding and rode to Willowshire. When the butler informed the master of the estate that Mr. Silas Toliver of Queenscrown had arrived, Carson said, “Show him into the library, Jonah. I’ll receive him there.”

  “He did not ask to see you, Mister Carson. He came to see Miss Jessica. He’s in the hall. Shall I tell her of her visitor?”

  Carson was startled. So, before making his decision, Silas would first test the wind for his daughter’s consent to be his wife, would he? He had not considered that Silas’s acceptance of his offer would depend on Jessica’s acquiescence. A smart and honorable move. Carson felt a gouge of panic. What if his radical-minded daughter refused Silas, a slave owner, and elected to go to the convent? God knew she was capable of falling on her sword. But she wouldn’t, not as long as he held Tippy and Willie May over her head.

/>   “Ask Mr. Toliver to wait in the drawing room and send my daughter to him,” he ordered.

  Jonah bowed. “Yes, Mister Carson.”

  Silas rose from the horsehair sofa when Jessica swished into the room, the full skirt of her dress swaying over layers of starched petticoats. She had lost weight and dark circles like half-moons shadowed the sprinkle of freckles beneath her eyes. She looked incredibly young, a mere child, and colorless as boiled pudding compared to his beautiful and radiant Lettie. A pain like a hot poker thrust between his ribs almost made him rush from the room, but he bowed slightly. “Miss Wyndham, I believe you know why I’ve come?”

  “I’m afraid I do, Mr. Toliver,” she said. “Shall we sit down and deliberate?”

  Silas spread the tails of his frock coat and retook his seat. “Yes, let us do that,” he said. “It seems you’re in trouble with your father, and I find myself hand and feet in the stocks as well. Has he explained my situation to you?”

  “My father does not explain. He commands. I’d like to hear from your own lips why you would consider jilting the girl you love—and who loves you—to marry me.”

  Silas flinched. The girl may have the face of a juvenile, but she spoke with the tongue of a woman fully in charge of herself. Very well, then. He had come to put all his cards on the table. He would keep none back, as he was wont to do with Lettie. He would not protect this girl from the truth of the man with whom she may be spending the rest of her life. Let her decide if she wished to marry someone who could be bought for the price her father was offering.

  Silas answered her question, omitting nothing about his ambition and his loathing for his present position at Queenscrown. The girl heard him out in silence, her large brown eyes following his movements when he stood to roam the room and rake his hand through his hair, typical of a Toliver when agitated. A question struck him—one that, in the turmoil of his own situation, he’d forgotten to ask. “What will happen to you, Miss Wyndham, if…you do not marry me?” he inquired, when, emotionally exhausted, he had laid out every card and returned to his chair.

  Jessica enlightened him. Silas listened in speechless wonder. “Good God!” he said. “Your father would send you to a place like that?”

  “He would, sir, believe me,” Jessica said. “In the blink of an eye.” She swooped out of her chair to stoke the fire, the flames playing over her pensive face. “This Toliver passion of which you speak…that you feel unable to set aside for the love of your life, and for yours, it would seem”—she cast him a small, cold smile—“is all to be fulfilled on the backs of slaves, I take it?”

  “That is the way of it,” Silas answered.

  Her dark eyes flashed. “You are aware of my anti-slave sentiments?”

  “I am.”

  “Then you understand I’d rather copulate with a mule than with a slave owner.”

  Silas reeled from her candor and, suddenly angered and alarmed—did that mean the girl would refuse to marry him?—he said, “That may be so, Miss Wyndham, but while we’re being direct, a mule may be your only choice if you enter a convent.”

  Color swept over her face. “Does Lettie know of this change in your…plan?”

  He had been waiting for the question and answered as deliberately as his pain permitted. “No, not yet. I wanted to make sure of your approval first.”

  Jessica’s lip curled slightly. “You are a man who hedges your bets, I see.”

  “Among other frailties.”

  “Well, at least you do not hedge the truth.”

  “Not in this case.”

  “Then let me say this, Mr. Toliver. I believe I can relate to the driving force you seem to have inherited, ignoble though yours may be. Obsession is obsession. One cannot spoon it out of the blood like grease from gravy. I loathe your…passion that would lead you to the lengths you’re willing to go to achieve your goals, but I understand your fervor and feel sorry for you. I, too, am a slave to my own zealotry, and I seem powerless to rectify it.”

  The poker back in place, Jessica spun decisively from the fire. “So you see, Mr. Toliver, we have no choice but to tie the knot. I will probably not make a good wife, and I doubt I shall ever love you, as I do not expect you to be a husband to me or ever to feel a grain of affection for me. Regarding the issue of copulation, I am willing to consummate our marriage strictly for the reason of bearing children. You understand that?”

  Silas nodded numbly.

  “We will hurt Lettie beyond measure,” Jessica continued, “and your little boy will have lost the loving mother he was expecting and one I could never replace, but I’m assuming you’ve figured those casualties into your equation.”

  Silas summoned enough breath to stammer, “Yes, yes, I have.” He thought of Lettie and her warm body that he would never know. He thought of Joshua denied her tender care. He thought of living the rest of his life with this little wisp of a harridan beside him. What kind of man was he to make such a bargain with the devil? A Toliver, his inner voice answered. He swallowed the acid spittle that had collected in his mouth and said, “You mean—you accept my proposal?”

  “My father’s proposal, Mr. Toliver. There’s a difference. Now let us adjourn to his study and tell him of our decision.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They both drove hard bargains. Silas presented a list of demands that incited an explosive refusal from Carson Wyndham. “Reimburse you for the Conestogas? Absolutely not,” he thundered. “Why the hell should I?”

  Carson’s furtive glance at Jessica told Silas she did not know of her father’s involvement in the destruction of his wagons. “I believe you know why, Mr. Wyndham,” Silas said, his pointed look implying that his daughter would remain ignorant of the matter if he agreed to his terms. “Otherwise, the deal is off and I bid you good day.”

  “Now hold on!” Livid in the face, Carson threw down the list. “All right! Consider it done!”

  Silas further insisted on participating in the wording of the nuptial agreement within the bounds of the financial arrangements. When the document had been composed, both sides had guaranteed in print the security of their part of the investment. If Jessica ran away or Silas divorced her or she died within ten years of the marriage, Silas would either forfeit his plantation to Carson or return his money in full. “Either way, I get my investment back,” Carson made coldly clear to his future son-in-law. For the same length of time, as long as the marriage stayed intact, Carson was bound to the terms of the proposal he had presented to Silas in Queenscrown’s drawing room.

  Jessica said she would not sign the nuptial agreement unless Tippy was allowed to go with her. Carson looked about to object, but a new, calculating light appeared in his eyes.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll let her go with you, but don’t get any ideas about setting her free. Tippy will keep you safe, and she’s additional insurance that you will keep your end of the bargain. You know what will happen to her mother if you don’t.”

  “Considering that you’re willing to sell me, Papa, why would I not believe you would put Willie May on the auction block?” Jessica retorted. She made one other demand. “The boy Jasper. What did you do with him?”

  “No one came forth to claim him, and we couldn’t locate his master. Finders, keepers, as they say. Come spring, he’ll be put to work in the fields, but so far he’s cleaning the stables and has not received the punishment he deserves. Why?”

  “I want you to release him to go with us, too.”

  Looking into her determined dark eyes that could pierce his heart, Carson hesitated for the fraction of a second. All doubt vanished as to the wisdom of the course he’d set for his daughter. If she stayed among them, she would be branded a “slave-lover,” the least of other epithets he could think of, and one day, no matter his far-reaching power, it was possible in these incendiary times he might find her flayed body left on his doorstep.

  “Fine,” Carson said. “You can have him. Now sign the papers.”

>   Eunice was called in to assist in finalizing the remaining details. It was decided the couple would marry privately in a week at Willowshire, the ceremony officiated by the minister of the First Methodist Church. Silas would remain at Queenscrown and Jessica at Willowshire until the wagon train pulled out March first. Everyone but Jessica looked embarrassed when all agreed a wedding night was out of the question. Cohabitation was a decision the newlyweds would make for themselves as it seemed appropriate. They must be prepared for the scandal following Silas’s broken engagement with Lettie.

  “May I ask when you plan to tell her?” Eunice asked.

  “You may,” Silas said, inclining his head respectfully, and did not reply to the question. Eunice and Carson exchanged surprised glances. While their future son-in-law may be a beggar, he felt himself under no obligation to share with them what was clearly none of their business.