Concealing Grace (The Grace Series Book 1) (24 page)

Silently, Jessica remained where she was, hoping he would think she was asleep. For a while he just stood there, beside the bed. But then, she heard the shimmer of his robe. The blankets were drawn back and the bed sagged as he stuffed the pillow under his knee and lay down beside her. Jessica hadn’t worn a nightgown since her wedding night. They’re been no point. This night, however, she was wearing one. Through the cotton, she could feel his shoulder pressed against her spine. And she could smell whiskey. She knew he left the house with her father and Trent. That nasty fruity smell told her where they’d been.

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

Whatever he was apologizing for didn’t dispel any of Jessica’s fury. He could apologize until he was blue in the face, it wouldn’t matter to her.

They lay still and silent for so long Jessica’s arm began to cramp. She tried to pretend she was adjusting in her sleep, but as she shifted, she purposely pushed farther away from him. She didn’t want any part of him touching any part of her!

“Are you awake, Sweetheart?” Jon whispered.

Jessica said nothing.

Jon turned to his side, facing her. His knee tickled as it brushed the back of hers. Unable to stop herself, Jessica jerked her leg away.

“You’re not asleep, are you?” he murmured.

She tried to ignore him, but he started running his knuckles up and down her shoulder and she couldn’t stand it. She jolted away yet again.

“I’m so sorry. Please don’t be upset with me,” he murmured.

He was touching her again, grazing the sleeve of her nightgown. Yanking her arm away, she seethed, “Leave me alone!”

“Please, Jess. I just want to hold you. I just want to be close to you. I didn’t mean to offend you,” he implored.

“Offend me!” she scoffed. Flipping in the bed, she sat up and crossed her arms over her chest. “You didn’t offend me! You offended everyone who works for you! You offended the children! How could you say those awful things? How could you be so cruel?”

Jon was lying there, staring up at her. In the darkness his eyes held hers, but he said nothing.

Turning her back on him, she said curtly, “I think it would be best if you slept in your own room tonight.”

But, of course he didn’t leave. He touched her back, splaying his fingers wide.

As she twisted away from him, she yelled, “Go away!”

“Is that what you really want?” he asked softly.

“Yes! I don’t like you right now!”

Jon sat up, dropped his legs over the side of the bed, and there he stayed. Looking at his naked back with moonlight casting shadows on it, Jessica was unable to stop herself. Growling in rage, she shoved him.

He stumbled off the bed, caught himself and stood up. “Please don’t do this, Sweetheart. Please let’s put this behind us. Let me make love to you. Please. I love you.”

Incredulous, Jessica grabbed his knee pillow and threw it at him. He caught it just before it hit him in the face. “The thought of making love to you right now makes me ill! Get out!” Next she grabbed his robe from the foot of the bed, balled it up and threw it at him, too.

With his little pillow tucked under his arm, holding his robe in front of him, he took several steps backwards, and then he turned and went through the connecting door. Jessica waited until he lightly closed it behind him. Quickly, she got up, ran across the room and shoved the lock in place.

* * *

In the morning, with her anger gone, Jessica had a different mindset. What she needed to do was reason with Jon. She needed to make him see how wrong he was. As importantly, she needed to have the conversation she should have had with him after Bonnie’s colt was born, and she needed to remind him of his promise to repair the servants’ cabins.

The task ahead of her, however, was not going to be an easy one. Throughout the night, things Jon had done and said replayed in her head. She thought of how terrified the servants and their children were of him. They feared him because his cruel treatment of them wasn’t abnormal. Rather, it was expected. During their trip to the opera in Nashville, Jon had no qualms about the pitiful arrangements for Herlin and Martha. After the Mount Joy fair, he didn’t care that Herlin had to drive them in the rain. At their wedding reception he made that awful remark, the one Jessica purposely forced herself to disregard. His snubbing of Reverend Amos after last Sunday’s church service was equally appalling.

Jessica thought Reverend Nash was a good minister in his ability to keep her attention, but Reverend Amos was positively riveting. She was so inspired that day, all she wanted was to get home quickly so she could talk to Jon about everything Reverend Amos said. At the end of the service, Reverend Amos stood next to Reverend Nash in the chancel. Others from the congregation refused to shake Reverend Amos’s hand as they passed him. Jon’s rebuff included leaving through the side door and announcing loudly, “I won’t be caught dead near that
boy!”

Jessica had been terribly humiliated. But then, as she’d done in every other instance, she made excuses for him. Those excuses needed to stop.

As much as she wanted to see only the good in Jon, there had always been something about him that troubled her. Trent said it from the beginning. He didn’t trust Jon. Jessica’s inherent misgivings were the reason she was unable to come to terms with her own feelings for her husband, and why she could not return his declarations of love.

But she wanted to! More than anything else in the world, she wanted to again feel the connection they shared during their honeymoon in Nashville.

Still in her nightgown, she tiptoed to the connecting door and slowly opened it. She flinched when the hinges creaked, hoping, if he was asleep, the noise wouldn’t wake him. It didn’t. Jon was lying on his stomach with one arm dangling off the side of the bed. The blankets covered him to the middle of his back.

Jessica sat on the bed beside him and watched him sleep until he roused on his own. It didn’t take long. At his first sight of her he blinked and hastily rolled over. He didn’t say anything. He just stared up at her. By his wary expression she got the impression he was scared of her.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper last night,” she said quietly.

Jon drew in a quick breath. In the next instant he was sitting up and his arms were wrapped around her. Jessica could feel his breath in her hair. She could feel his hands on her back trembling. His heart was rapidly beating.

“I’m sorry, too, Sweetheart. So very sorry,” he whispered.

Before long he stripped her nightgown away and ran his hands over her body. Under him, she whirled and plunged through the extreme sensations his lovemaking invoked. There was a sense of urgency in him she’d never felt before, but at the same time, he was exceedingly tender and quiet, not saying a word, not making a sound. And his limbs, especially his hands, shook. When it was over he buried his head against her breast and held on like a terrified child seeking comfort.

As she ran her fingers through his hair, she asked, “Can we talk about what happened yesterday?”

He didn’t verbally respond, but his arms around her tightened.

“Ever since the war living here in the South has been difficult,” she said quietly. “It’s been difficult for those of us who, at one time, had comfortable lives, especially those of us who had money, and who had slaves. Some people feel slavery was a good institution. They think colored people don’t have the ability to survive on their own, that they’re inferior and lacking intelligence. Some people feel the new government has given colored people too much freedom.

“The people who feel this way do so because their lives have been so uprooted, so changed from what they once were. Although it’s not necessarily the right thing to do, people often search for a scapegoat when life isn’t going the way they want it to. Here, they blame colored people because they need someone to blame for their own misfortunes. I understand why so many do this. I understand why my own father and brother bend toward this viewpoint.”

Jessica wiggled out of his arms and turned on her side so she could better see his face. She needed to, to gauge his reaction. They were sharing a pillow, looking into each other’s eyes when she continued, “It seems like the gentlemen of our community spend a great deal of time talking about crime and how the government, the police, and the military are not controlling it well enough. I realize there’s a lot of crime around here, and I know it’s a problem. But what bothers me, Jon, is how much of it is being blamed on colored people. I know from reading the newspapers, this isn’t true. I know colored people are blamed immediately when there’s any question as to who committed the act. It’s always just assumed. But they’re wrong. I know they’re wrong.

“These people, colored people, are in just as difficult a situation as we are. Worse, really. They too, are adjusting to a new life, one that is entirely different from what they knew. Now they must provide for themselves. They must not just work, but earn money, too. Look at what they’ve been in the past—workers, laborers, servants. This is what they know, but there are not enough paying jobs out there for them. They were never given the opportunity to learn other things, including reading and writing. Their difficulty is not because they lack intelligence. It’s because of this change in lifestyle and uprooting of all they ever knew.”

By Jon’s blank expression, Jessica couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but at least he was still looking at her. She could only hope her words were sinking in.

She went on, “People are people, regardless of the color of their skin. We all have feelings, we all have insecurities and self-doubt. We all feel pain. We all bleed the same. I look at Reverend Nash and I see a man who looks beyond the color of a person’s skin. He only looks at the inside. I think about Reverend Amos. He is a genius. There is so much all of us can learn from him. If we are truly being honest with ourselves, everyone in our church should have seen that.”

Jon was no longer looking at her. Somewhere around the time she mentioned Reverend Nash, he moved his head on the pillow. He was staring at the ceiling.

“Jon, please look at me,” she said.

He didn’t turn his head back, but his eyes darted to her.

“It really bothers me when you yell at Ruth and Martha and Ditter, when you call them stupid. It hurt me when you said what you said about the children not being able to learn. You’re wrong. They are learning, some of them much faster than I ever expected. Think of Reverend Amos. He read from the Bible. There is no question, from the way he spoke, he is a well-educated man.”

At the mention of Reverend Amos’s name, Jon’s eyes diverted again. Belatedly Jessica realized it wasn’t Reverend Nash’s name that disturbed him a moment before. It was Reverend Amos’s.

Jessica sat up and gathered the sheet about her. From this vantage point, she was looking down at her husband. “How would you feel, Jon, if someone called you stupid to your face? How would you feel if someone yelled at you and shoved you when you were just trying to do the best you could, when you thought you were doing what was expected?”

Jon moved again to avoid looking at her. Jessica leaned sideways to put herself in his line of vision. “I am sorry I’m going on like this. But I hope you understand what I’m trying to say. I hope you agree with me. I hope—” Jessica cut herself off. Her tactic didn’t work. He shifted once more, keeping his eyes turned away.  “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” she asked.

“Yes,” Jon murmured.

“Please tell me you agree with me.”

For the longest time he said nothing. Jessica didn’t think he was going to respond at all, but then he said, “I can’t.”

“You can’t what? You can’t say you agree with me?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t.” Now he looked at her. “Sweetheart, there are so many things you don’t understand, things you don’t know.”

“Then please explain them to me.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“You think I’m simple. You think I won’t be able to understand?”

“No, I don’t think that. Let’s just hold each other. Let’s make love again.”

“No!” Jessica cried. “You can’t use making love as an excuse to breeze over this. I need an answer from you. I need to know if you truly believe Ruth and Martha and the others deserve to be treated the way you treat them. I need to know if you really think Reverend Amos deserved to be snubbed the way you snubbed him. I need to know if you really believe colored people can’t learn.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes, what? You really believe colored people can’t learn?”

“Yes.”

“You believe it’s acceptable to treat the servants the way you do?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe colored people feel cold? Do you believe they should wear coats, hats and gloves in the winter?” Jessica demanded.

“Yes,” he said.

“But you’ve done nothing to fix their cabins. Winter is coming and they will freeze.”

“They’ll be fine,” he said.

“You promised. You promised
me!”
A knot of emotion Jessica couldn’t control gathered in her throat. “Are you going to have the cabins repaired?”

“No,” he said.