Somerset (11 page)

A
n 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.”

T
hey 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
Sila
s'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.

When negotiations were completed, Eunice summoned Jonah and shocked everyone by ordering champagne. After Carson, Jessica, and Silas had taken a glass, she lifted hers. Tears shone in her eyes, and her voice cracked. “I never thought I'd toast the engagement of my daughter to a man she does not love nor he her,” she said, “but I hope and pray that you can find in the other something to keep you together besides a financial contract, Silas, and the threat of spending your days shut away in a convent, Jessica. I'm sure if you try, despite difficulties to the contrary, you will find all sorts of reasons to care for each other, as there have been in my marriage, and I'm sure, Silas, in that of your parents.”

Carson grunted and turned a startled stare to his wife. Difficulties? What difficulties? But he, too, lifted his glass. “Here! Here!” he said.

Eunice drank hastily and set down her glass. “Now if you will excuse me…” She lifted her skirts and made a speedy and teary exit from the room. The only sound in the silence of her wake was the snap of flames in the fireplace. Carson, his gaze sad on the door of his wife's departure, cleared his throat but failed to remove the grit from his voice.

“I will pray for your happiness,” he said. “Now leave me, please.”

Jessica surprised Silas by waving Jonah away when the butler came to see him to the door and escorted him out to the verandah herself. He couldn't imagine what else she had to say to him not already communicated in the drawing room.

“You believe my father had your wagons burned, don't you?” Jessica stated after she'd closed the door firmly behind her. She barely reached his shoulder, and the cold winter light on her upturned face gave her skin, despite its freckles, the sheen of alabaster.

“The timing of their destruction seems too much of a coincidence not to suspect foul play,” Silas said, “but the sheriff could find no evidence to support my allegations.”

“The
sheriff
!” Jessica's contemptuous tone dismissed the man. “I wouldn't be surprised if the fool hadn't lit the fuse himself—on my father's orders,” she said. “I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Toliver.”

“And I am sorry for yours,” Silas said.

“Mine is nothing compared to yours.” She peered up at him, her brown eyes sorrowful. “When will you tell Lettie?”

“I'm on my way now.”

“I am…so devastated for her. I can't begin to imagine how she will feel. Will you tell her I…”

“Love her? Yes, I will, Jessica. She will know you had no part in this. I will tell her the truth, as I have told you. Though it will give her no comfort, I believe she knows me well enough to understand that if I were to stay, eventually what we have together would be lost.”

Jessica bit her lip. “I thought…love could conquer anything.”

She expressed the absurdity in the wistful, schoolgirl voice of someone who had no experience with the kind of love of which she spoke and probably never would. She looked even younger than her age, and Silas was moved to touch her in some comforting way, as one would a child, but he resisted.

“There are some other, greater loves that love cannot overcome,” he said, his throat aflame. “I wish it were not so.”

She said, surprising him once again, “I wish it were not so as well, Mr. Toliver, since the love you and Lettie share most probably will not come to either of you again. You've made a poor bargain, sir.”

A groom had brought his horse around. “And you an equally poor one, I'm afraid, Miss Wyndham.” He noted she had not bothered with a shawl. “You will get cold,” he said.

“I'm quite sure I will, Mr. Toliver, but I will get used to it. I fear I must, for I don't expect ever to be warm again. Good day.”

Refusing to think or feel, imagine or speculate, Silas began the longest ride of his life, a canter of insensate oblivion to the house where lived the keeper of his heart. He found her in the tiny sitting room of the manse, a personal space separate from the small parlor where her father was conducting a Bible study. An overflow of wedding paraphernalia and gifts filled every available nook, and, surprised by his visit, Lettie hurriedly fetched a sheet to draw over her veil before he could catch a glimpse of it.

“Bad luck for the groom to see any particle of a bride's dress before the wedding,” she said, kissing him soundly. When Silas did not respond, she drew away to look at him worriedly. “What's wrong?”

He willed himself to go blind and deaf to her. He must not remember how the firelight played on her hair or the whisper of her dress as she rushed to throw her arms around his neck. He felt the low-ceilinged walls of the cramped room closing in. “Could we go…outside to the swing?” he asked.

“It's cold and threatening rain.”

“By the fire, then.”

“We'll keep our voices down. The ladies are so engrossed in discussing the Gospel according to Matthew they won't hear a thing we say. This is about the Conestogas, isn't it?”

She was aware that the loss of the Conestogas would mean an indefinite, perhaps permanent, delay of their departure to Texas. She had been grief-stricken for him but maintained her indomitable belief that something unexpectedly good would come out of the disaster.

“Yes, Lettie. It's about the Conestogas.”

He explained, forcing his heart to grow cold to the vision of her joy dissolving in shock and disbelief.

“Jessica? You're going to marry
Jessica Wyndham
?”

“Yes, Lettie.”

He hung his head to avoid looking at her. He must not store in memory the heartbreak that filled her blue eyes or the sound of it in her startled cry of pain. He must not carry away, never to be forgotten, the silence of her shocked incredulity as he explained once again, and badly, that he could not survive as things were and always would be at Queenscrown. Day after day, month after month, year after year, he would quietly erode, Silas told her. Pieces of him would slough off until he was barely recognizable as the man she'd married. He would feel like a grounded sailing ship, left to dry-rot where he'd been stranded.

“Then you must go,” Lettie said, rising and standing erect and remote as a marble statue. “God be with you and Jessica, Silas.”

“Lettie, I…”

“No more need be said. Good-bye, Silas.”

“But I must say this…” he insisted, forcing his words through an agony so searing he felt he was burning alive. “I wish with all my being that it was possible to rip out the part of me that could allow me to do this to you, Lettie, my one, my only love. As God is my witness, I would if I could, but I cannot.”

“I know, Silas.” She stood before the lace curtain of a window through which the last gray light of day outlined her stoic posture, and he was not to be spared the love and courage he saw on her face that would release him to marry another woman. He wanted to go to her for a final, tender embrace, but she turned her back on him, erecting an invisible wall, and he knew he would carry with him the sight of her head finally bowed and shoulders drawn for the rest of his days.

The heavens opened on his return to Queenscrown, a pummeling, repudiating rain from which he did not take shelter, and he was soaked through when he arrived at the plantation. Lazarus rushed to take his hat and coat, clucking that he must get to his room for dry clothes, but Silas told him he wouldn't bother. “Just bring me a towel, and please ask my mother and brother to meet me in the drawing room immediately,” he ordered his longtime servant.

“Yes, Mister Silas. Master Joshua, too? He's playing a board game with his uncle.”

“No, Lazurus. My son is to be sent to his room until I go up to see him.”

Elizabeth and Morris heard him out in drop-jawed silence, Elizabeth's bosom heaving in apparent need of oxygen before Silas was through. Silas had instructed them to hold their diatribes until after he'd concluded what he had to tell them, but neither looked capable of uttering a word when he finished.

Finally, Morris pronounced, “He that hastens to be rich has an evil eye and considers not that poverty shall come upon him. You need to read your Proverbs, Silas.”

“And you need to reread Father's will, Morris. Do not speak to me of poverty.”

“Son—” Elizabeth staggered up from her chair. “You can't do this to Joshua. His little heart will never mend, and you must think of Lettie.”

“Joshua will have a better chance of his heart mending than mine will, Mother, and I
am
thinking of Lettie. Is it better to hurt her now than later, when it is too late to rectify her mistake? In any case,” he said, turning from her to pour himself a shot of whiskey, “the deal is made. I am promised to Jessica Wyndham, and we'll marry in a week.”

Elizabeth leaned against the back of a chair for support. “I tell you this, Silas William Toliver, son of mine. If you go through with this marriage for the reasons you've contracted it, there will be a curse on your land in Texas. Nothing good can come from what has been built on such sacrifice and selfishness and greed.”

Silas threw the whiskey down his throat. The figure of his mother blurred. He would leave without her blessing, completing his alienation from his family. But in her stead, he saw a land blazing with cotton overlooked by a resplendent manor house of which he was the master. His son would take his place beside him and someday beget his own heirs to rule over the dominion of Somerset.

“I already am cursed, Mother,” he said. “I carry the Toliver blood.”