Chapter Twenty
An 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.”