Patricia Potter (45 page)

Lissa’s hand tightened on the doorknob before she nodded and left, closing the door softly behind her, leaving Quinn to stare after her. He hadn’t known what to expect, but certainly not this quiet maturity, the solemnity, the surety of manner. It bespoke many things, including a certain security in the past years. He recalled the look in Marshall Evans’s eyes when he had gazed at Lissa, and Lissa’s calm statement that “Mr. Evans has been good to me.”

Did she want to leave? And would Meredith accept it if she didn’t?

Hell, nothing was turning out as he’d expected. He swore softly to himself, then made his way to the stable to tell Meredith of the meeting place and to retrieve his saddlebags. He would tell her nothing of the conversation, but let her discover the situation.

Meredith found the pond easily and sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. Cam was someplace behind her, keeping watch. The past hours had gone impossibly slowly.

She heard the crackle of dead leaves and looked up. A slender figure in a cloak came toward her, looking anxiously around. The figure stepped backward as she evidently saw the servant boy, not the woman she was expecting. Meredith stood up and reached out a hand. “Lissa,” she said softly.

“Miss Merry?” The voice was low and disbelieving, and Meredith grinned and stepped forward, taking the cloaked figure in her arms.

“Lissa,” she said, years of wistfulness in her voice. She could say no more. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart thumped so loudly Meredith was afraid it could be heard in the house beyond the pond.

By common consent, but without words, they stepped back and looked at each other, Meredith holding on to Lissa’s hands. “You…look”—she started to laugh—“just like me.”

Lissa’s face, visible in the moonlight, relaxed slightly. She even smiled when she saw the dark face and floppy hat. “I do?”

There was a quizzical amusement in the voice that delighted Meredith. “Well, perhaps not at the moment,” she replied wickedly. But then the laughter fled, and she touched her sister’s face as if she couldn’t believe Lissa was there. “I’ve been trying to find you for so long. Are you all right? Are you…?” Meredith didn’t know what to ask. The woman in front of her, two years younger than she, looked safe and composed, even contented.

Lissa smiled slowly. “I’m fine.”

“What…happened? After.”

“I was fortunate,” Lissa said. “Mr. Evans’s mother bought me, and she was very kind. Her husband had died, and Mar…Mr. Evans was gone a great deal. I think she was lonely. She loved books and when she discovered I could read a small bit she continued teaching me. She died two years ago, and I became the housekeeper.”

There was something about the way she had started to say Marshall that troubled Meredith, and Lissa saw the expression. “Mr. Evans has also been very kind….”

“But—”

“It’s not what you think,” Lissa said as she saw growing anger in Meredith’s face. “He never married and I think he was lonely too. He never forced me.”

Meredith understood. Lissa was Marshall Evans’s mistress. “Do you love him?”

Lissa hesitated. “I don’t know. Perhaps. It’s hard to know when there’s never been anything else. It just seemed…inevitable, and I was lonely.”

“Has he ever offered you your freedom?”

Lissa’s face was startled. She had never even thought of such a thing. As she had told the gentleman earlier, she had no place else to go. And she was not unhappy. She shrugged now.

“Come with us,” Meredith said suddenly.

“Where?”

“Canada…but just for a few months. Then Quinn and I will be going West. Come with us.”

“I don’t know,” Lissa said softly.

“Do you want to stay? As a slave. If anything happens to him…”

A coldness seeped into Lissa. It had been a long time since she had really thought of herself as a slave. She often dined with Marshall Evans unless there was company. She shared his bed, although she noted he was very careful not to get her with child. Now she thought of both of these things. She would never be more to him than a black mistress. She would never have children, children who would be anything but bastards, even if he did allow her to have a baby. And she wanted children. She wanted them very badly. Marshall loved her, she knew that from his gentleness, his frequent kindnesses, but not enough to defy the society he lived in.

“I haven’t thought of myself that way,” she said slowly. “But that’s what I am, isn’t it, Miss Merry?” she said, reverting back to the childhood name.

“Just Merry,” Meredith corrected. The sudden sadness in Lissa’s eyes stabbed her like a knife. “Come with us, Lissa.”

“I have to think about it,” Lissa said. “I don’t know.” Her eyes found Meredith. “He won’t sell me.”

“You can escape. I’ve been…working with the Underground Railroad. We can get you to Canada.”

“It’s dangerous. I know it’s dangerous. I…why should you…?”

“I’ve been doing it for years, Lissa.”

“But why?”

Meredith just looked at her, and Lissa suddenly knew why. It was because of her. Emotion, poignant and intense, lodged in her throat. She had never known, never realized, that someone cared this much, that anyone could. Her hand reached out and took Meredith’s, and they clung to each other, as if they were children again.

“Come with us,” Meredith said again, in a soft crooning voice that was almost irresistible. But everything was happening too fast for Lissa. She was not unhappy, at least she hadn’t been until tonight. And there was Marshall Evans. She did care for him. More than a little.

“I have to think,” she repeated.

“We can stay only one day,” Meredith said. “If you decide to go, we’ll leave tomorrow night.”

“But how?”

“Does your…does Marshall Evans drink?”

Lissa nodded.

“Then Quinn will see to everything.”

“Quinn?”

Meredith smiled, the dark skin around her eyes crinkling.

Lissa hugged her. “He seems…very nice.”

“Sometimes,” Meredith agreed. “He can be very aggravating at others.” But her voice was soft with love, and the words were clearly said with teasing mischief.

Lissa felt a lump in her throat. It was so very obvious how much the mysterious Virginian and Meredith were in love. She had thought she loved Marshall, at least cared about him, but now all the doubts that had been in her heart flamed. She would never be his equal, never be considered as a mother to his children. She was someone to hide from visitors, whose existence was denied at times. Still he did love her. She had to find out how much before making a decision.

She turned her eyes away from Meredith. “I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.” Suddenly, everything became too much. There had been too much emotion, too much offered, too much to ponder. “I have to go,” she said, then turned around and fled, never looking back. She just barely heard Meredith’s parting words.

“Tomorrow. I’ll meet you here tomorrow evening.”

“Tomorrow.” The word echoed in Lissa’s mind as she went into Marshall’s room that night. “Tomorrow.”

When she had returned, she’d checked on him and the visitor, making sure they had enough brandy. She had tried not to look at the tall dark-haired man with the easy smile but wary eyes, tried to avoid the question she knew was in his mind. And she knew he noticed when Marshall gave her a small nod as he told her nothing else was needed this evening.

An hour later, Marshall Evans came into his bedroom and kissed her, his hands playing affectionately with her neck. “I missed you at dinner,” he said.

“You seemed well occupied.”

“But not as well as I’d have liked.”

“Is he buying some horses?”

“Perhaps. He’s going to look over the stock tomorrow.” His hand moved to a more intimate place, and he sensed suddenly a hesitancy in her.

“Is there something wrong, Lissa?”

She sat on the bed and looked at Marshall. “I…I have to ask you a question.”

His hand stroked her. “What, Lissa?”

“Will you free me?”

He put his arm around her. “What’s brought this on?”

“I just wondered.”

He paused, completely surprised. He often forgot that she was a slave. That he owned her. His hand went up to her hair. “Why? Aren’t you happy?”

He waited for her to say yes, his hands tightening in her hair as the silence continued. “Aren’t you?” he said again.

“I just wondered,” Lissa finally replied. “Almost all your other workers are free.”

“It just happened that way,” Marshall said slowly, wishing this conversation had never started. “I need skilled people to work with the horses.”

“But not in your bed?” Her voice was bitter as it never had been before, and he looked startled.

“I love you, Lissa. You know that.”

“Then free me.”

“Will you stay?”

She was silent.

“Will you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t let you go.”

Any doubt Lissa had vanished. She
did
care for him. She couldn’t help caring for him after the years they’d lived together. But she couldn’t stay with someone who would keep her by force, who would keep her a slave. If he had said he would free her, she would have remained. She would even have given up hopes of having children. But now she could not.

She looked at him sadly, and let him pull her down in bed, knowing that it would be the last time.

C
hapter 24

LISSA HOVERED
outside the library. Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since she had made her decision, and there was no hesitation in her, only a growing elation.

The night before she’d realized she had submerged her own hopes and dreams under a facade of contentment. She had done so, because she had not thought she had a choice.

But now she let herself think of the future.

And children.

Even if she never had any of her own, she could teach. She could love.

Miss Merry. Merry. She seemed to have come out of a mist. A glowing faraway mist to offer a kingdom.

It still seemed a dream. But when she woke up that morning after a fitful sleep, the Virginian was still at the house, and the slightly built groom around the barn.

Marshall was the same affable man she had known. He seemed to have completely dismissed their conversation from last night. It had no importance to him. For a moment she hated him. But the feeling quickly fled. He could not change any more than he could control her feelings, her needs. He considered himself a good man, a kind man, and he was that, in many ways. But he didn’t understand, could never understand what he had done to her the night before.

He was genuinely delighted that their guest decided to stay another day, and Lissa knew she should feel some guilt at the deception. But a door had opened, and once she had decided to pass through it, there was no going back.

The day passed slowly. Marshall and Mr. Davis spent much of it riding the farm and talking horseflesh. After dinner, they settled in the library, a new bottle of brandy between them.

It had been arranged that Lissa would call Marshall, ask a question about the household so the stranger could slip something into Marshall’s glass. She had been assured that it would result only in a deep sleep.

It should be working now. Any minute.

She heard the door open, and the tall lean Virginian emerged. “He’s asleep,” the man said. “I’ll carry him upstairs. Is everyone else asleep?”

Lissa nodded.

“Are you ready?”

Lissa nodded once more. She had laid one extra dress on a piece of cloth and rolled it up. She wanted nothing else from this place.

The man whom Merry had called Quinn nodded approvingly, his dark eyes gleaming in the candlelight. Lissa thought fleetingly how confident he seemed. She felt very safe in putting herself in his hands. He radiated power and control and assurance.

Merry was very lucky. Very, very lucky.

Meredith was thinking the same thing minutes later as she watched Quinn’s deft movements. He and Cam quickly saddled their horses while she stood nearby, her arm reassuringly wound around Lissa’s.

One of the grooms, who slept in the stable, was lying in a corner, drugged from the whiskey bottle offered earlier by Cam.

Using a minimum of words, Quinn helped Meredith onto her saddle, and then Lissa. Cam took the reins of his mount and cautiously led it out the stable door. It was after two in the morning, and the farm was totally quiet. Cam nodded to those inside, and Quinn leaped to the back of his unsaddled horse, eyeing the tack room enviously. He had stolen enough tonight, though, and could justify only the one theft to himself, not the other.

Even then, it was not exactly theft. He had left five thousand dollars in his room, a sum which would more than cover Lissa’s monetary value. He hoped that Marshall Evans would think he wanted Lissa for himself; he had certainly ogled her enough during the day and had even offered a good price, only to meet the refusal he expected.