Morning Fawn pressed her nose to her bedroom windowpane. Five days since Christmas. A roughened man in a captain’s uniform dismounted from a quarter horse and sauntered to the hitching post. A stranger. Dirty, dusty, he’d come far. And there was something different about his uniform. Not standard issue. He glanced upward.
“Are you listening to me?” Her uncle rapped his cane against the floor behind her.
“I heard you.” She hugged herself, trying to stave the leakage of all hope. “But I can’t understand why Mr. Moyer would have any interest in marrying me. I’d think he’d never want to lay eyes on me again.”
“Well, there’s a pretty dollar or two at stake, let me tell you. It’s costing me all of your Aunt Judith’s land in Brazoria County given to her as her dowry upon our marriage.” His voice ground like two stones rubbing together. “Acres of prime cotton land. But I have no choice, thanks to you. Not if I’m to keep our name from the spittoon and save any hopes of Thea marrying well. It’ll cost you the land in Parker County. It’ll be in his name, not yours. And he’s going to ship you off to England until after the war. See if that will keep you out of trouble.”
She turned back to the window. The horse hovered at the post, but the stranger wasn’t in sight. Maybe he was here with news of Devon’s trial.
“You will cooperate.” Her uncle stomped closer. “I expect you to look at me when I talk with you.”
“Or what?” She pivoted. Five days of groveling, and it’d done her no good. “If I had some assurance it’d save Devon from a death sentence, I’d marry a toad.”
“You ungrateful hussy.” He grabbed her jaw and forced her gaze up to his face. His fingers dug into her skin. Ice-blue eyes sizzled beneath a brow furrowed so deep he could plant cotton in it. “I’m saving you from jail, maybe even the gallows, and this is how you repay me? I’ve taken you in, fed you, clothed you?—”
“Stole me from my home.”
“You should pray to God I don’t throw you back to the savages.”
If only he would. A better fate than marriage to a man she detested. What happened to her didn’t matter.
A knock on the door.
“What is it?” Her uncle’s hand fell away from her.
“Excuse me, sir.” George poked his head in. “There’s an officer downstairs to see you.”
“He can wait. I’m busy.”
“Yes, sir.” George bowed out.
Her uncle threw back his shoulders. “As I was getting ready to say, you will accept the engagement. Publicly. As if you adore Nick Moyer and have eyes for no one else. The ball at Robson’s castle has been rescheduled for a week from today.”
She jabbed her arms together.
“Your cooperation will buy one thing.”
“What?”
“A better home for Lucy. Your actions will determine whether she’s sold downriver to a sugar cane plantation or to a home in Marshall as a house servant.”
“Don’t lay this on my shoulders. If you care anything for her, you won’t sell her.”
“What are you implying?” His shoulders rose like a bull getting ready to charge. “She’s a slave—a rebellious one, at that. Property. And that supposed marriage of hers had as much legality as an outhouse leaf. You and Reynolds could have saved yourselves the trouble. Maybe he’d have burned a couple more bales of cotton if he hadn’t been distracted by such nonsense.”
Another stone thrown into the heap, weighing her down in an ocean of despair. Would Devon have struck sooner and had more success if she hadn’t burdened him with helping with the wedding and then planning Lucy and Ned’s escape?
They were going to kill Devon, and she didn’t know how to stop them. “Can’t you leave me alone?” She picked up an unlit candle from the nearby desk. Her hand shook.
LeBeau’s eyes widened.
She’d like nothing better than to smash his face. Instead, she slammed the candle on the desk, breaking off a chunk of wax.
LeBeau’s eyebrows hovered low. “The day you strike me, that’s the day I’ll have you hauled off to the asylum. No marriage. No England. Nothing.” His words struck cool and hard like iron.
No hope.
Unacceptable. She turned back to the window. If he said anything else, she didn’t heed it. Instead, she stared at the windowsill with its two fresh nails. Locked tight again, enough to stifle her and break a sweat on the back of her neck. But she would, could not panic.
