“I mean what I say.” His voice cracked like a whip. “Your aunt is anxious for you to pursue a husband.”
“From the little I know about being a lady, it isn’t the lady who does the pursuing.”
“That may be, but a lady needs to open herself up to the possibility and welcome the attention of respectable gentlemen. But I’m not going to sit here and explain the nuances of flirting to my niece. I’ll leave that to my?—”
“I have no idea what a nuance is.”
“Young woman.” His voice rose. “Before you sound off and turn your nose up at the only opportunity you have for a decent life, you should wait until you hear about the gift you’ll receive on your wedding day.”
“I’m not interested.” No one was going to force her to marry.
He puffed out his chest. “Land.”
“Land?” Goosebumps tingled up her arms.
“Two hundred acres just inside the settlement line in Parker County, the northwestern frontier. It’s where your parents were headed when the savages attacked them. Your mother used her inheritance, the little bit that my father had given her to protect her against the whims of that fool husband of hers, to help your father purchase it. Upon her death, the land went to me. I’m offering it to you as a wedding present, upon your marriage to a Confederate gentleman of means and from a good family.”
Her head swam. She turned away from her uncle’s prying, icy gaze and drifted to the window. Her parents’ land. At the edge of the frontier. Hers to keep. Freedom. Not exactly free. There’d be a husband. Someone to tell her what to do. Someone who’d expect her to sit around the parlor gossiping and fanning herself. Someone trying to tell her how to behave. Reynolds? She gripped the window sill. The lieutenant was out of his mind if he thought he could make her marry him or obey. But her uncle didn’t say it had to be him.
Land. A home. A place to call her own, where she didn’t have to worry about whether or not she fit in. But to marry for it and give up all hope of love? All hope of a man looking at her the way Dancing Eagle had gazed at Eyes-Like-Sky. Maybe there’d be someone who fit LeBeau’s stipulations and also captured her heart, but what were the chances of that? Especially with her heart feeling like a dried-out water pouch left in the sun so long it’d cracked beyond use. Her stomach knotted.
“Two hundred acres on the frontier. You want to throw it allaway and run off to live in a tipi after you’re married, it’ll be your choice.” His voice blended with the growing shadows of the room calling to her, like the Pied Piper she’d read about. She’d need time to consider it. What in the world made her think her uncle was a man to be trusted?
“You said a Confederate of means and family. You didn’t name a name.” Her blasted voice shook.
“I don’t intend to dictate your specific choice of a husband.”
She coughed back a snort. How could he say that with a straight face?
A real home. Maybe she could bring her pia there. Offer refuge. Ideas swirled in her head. Playing along with LeBeau’s offer would buy her time to decide and unlock the attic door. Had she ever really been foolish enough to think she’d marry for love? That she deserved happiness? “In that case, Uncle, could you please invite Mr. Nicholas Moyer, the new cotton warehouse supervisor, to dinner next Saturday evening?”
CHAPTER 8
Devon stood in the parlor doorway, hands stuffed into his trouser pockets, supposedly listening to Thea plunk notes on the piano, but his gaze drifted toward the stairs. He’d beaten LeBeau by a single notch. If anything, the patch over his left eye had proved a help, not a hindrance for target shooting. Much different than the battlefield, where it would take away half of his peripheral vision and leave him open to attack. His battle yesterday had been to win by the smallest margin possible.
LeBeau had begged off from having Morning Fawn join them for dinner last night. In fact, it’d been a small, informal meal, with Mrs. LeBeau and Thea away at Cedar Ridge plantation overnight. There had been no scuffles or screams upstairs. Hopefully, that meant no laudanum.
Tonight, Morning Fawn would join them. His chest swelled at the thought he’d won this for her. LeBeau had slapped him on the shoulder and informed him he’d decided to try out Devon’s stepfather’s advice, but the rest of the conversation had centered around cotton. No clue as to what reward he’d offered Morning Fawn in hopes of gaining compliance.
Thankfully, Devon had escaped everyone’s company today by volunteering to exercise and groom the horses.
As the music played, LeBeau lounged in a parlor chair, its thick cushions covered in cherry-bramble patterned velvet, a match to the wallpaper. Mrs. LeBeau sat at the edge of a wine-colored low-back sofa, her gaze fluttering between her husband, Thea, and the door.
Thea banged out a grand finale note to a Chopin piece Devon couldn’t name. Her parents clapped, and he willed his hands to comply. But his heartbeat picked up a notch as a pitter-pat sounded on the stairs, followed by a tromp.
Eyes downcast, Lucy hurried off the last step and halted in the foyer.
Morning Fawn followed. Head held high, she’d used a ribbon to draw her hair away from her face, but silky honey strands fell across the shoulders of her dark green dress. The same dress she’d worn the day he’d yanked her off the horse and tumbled her to the ground. But it’d been mended without a tear and adorned with white bell undersleeves and black lace trim.
“What’s going on?” Thea hopped off the piano stool, but he ignored her.
“I granted Beth permission to come to dinner.” LeBeau stood and tugged on his sack coat lapels.
He hadn’t told his daughter?
Another explosion from Thea, but the words escaped Devon.
Morning Fawn clomped off the last step and marched straight for him. Color enlivened her face, so much better than the unhealthy pale of his midnight visit two nights before.
