Wesley’s timing in moving their tryst into the shadows was perfect. Several couples walked out onto the veranda. They were laughing and teasing each other about their outfits. The appearance of the other partygoers served as a reality check. Victoria and Wesley broke apart and laughed nervously as they realized how close they had been to getting caught in a very compromising position. They took a few minutes, there in the shadows, to calm their breathing and straighten their attire. Once they were again presentable, Victoria motioned for Wesley to follow her around to another door that would allow them a private and none suspicious entrance back into the party.
Just as the couple was entering through a private doorway that led into Mr. De’Muerre’s study Victoria heard a familiar shrieking howl from out in the garden. Damn cat, she thought. Cat? We don’t have a cat. She shrugged it off assuming that the cat must have come from a neighboring farm. Perhaps it was the pet of a guest. Though Victoria and Wesley were now safely inside, they would not be in the clear until they made it back to the party without anyone seeing them there, confined in that small space, without a chaperone. “You go on out ahead of me and I will follow you in a few moments,” Victoria instructed Wesley in a hushed voice.
Wesley took off his mask and awarded Victoria with another mischievous grin. He grabbed her about the waist and drew her to him once more. He removed her mask too, in order to allow him a better view of those blue eyes that he found so enamoring. “Not-uh. I’m not going anywhere, Mavourneen. Not until you admit that Wesley Brennan is far better than alright.”
Victoria sighed heavily in mock frustration. “Fine, Wesley Brennan is far better than alright.”
Wesley was planting tiny kisses along her jawline and down her neck as she said this. “I still think that you can do better than that,” he mumbled into her neck.
“Wesley Brennan is satisfactory,” she teased.
He pulled back his lips mid-kiss and gently bit down into her neck with a growl of displeasure.
Victoria let out a laugh, “Okay, okay. Truth is Wesley Brennan is the man of my dreams and far superior to all others.”
Wesley drew back and let go of her. “There, much better!” he exclaimed and placed a chaste, quick kiss upon her lips before turning and walking out the door, quickly tying his mask back into place and heading back to the party.
“Rogue!” Victoria shouted after him. She heard his laughter as he travelled down the hallway back to the ballroom.
Moments later Victoria snuck back into the ballroom with her mask once more securely hiding her identity. “Where have you been?” Samantha popped up beside Victoria immediately upon her entrance.
Victoria’s hand flew to her chest as she fought back a yelp of fear. “Lord have mercy! Samantha you just nearly scared me half to death.”
“Oh, sorry. I’ve just been looking all over for you and you were nowhere to be found. I wanted to tell you about dancing with Thomas, and then suddenly you were there.”
“Well do tell…” Victoria took her sister’s hand and led her to a sitting area.
Samantha’s face was illuminated with a new glow of joy. “Oh, Tory, it was positively magical. The way he held me as we danced, the way we swept around the floor, I could have stayed there in his arms dancing forever…” Samantha sighed dreamily and looked far off as if reliving the moment. Then she leaned in and whispered to her sister. “And I feel so naughty not wearing a corset! Don’t you? Lord Victoria, the way his hands felt on me, it was like this completely different sensation. Oh and Victoria, we have this way about us when we are together. It feels so natural and easy. I never thought that it could be like that with a man, that I wouldn’t have to be a ninny and act like I don’t have a real thought of my own. We laugh and joke together and I feel like he really wants to know my opinion about things…”
Samantha stopped herself then and looked hard at her sister. “But where have you been? And what made you so jumpy back there, anyway? It really wasn’t as if you were expecting to walk into an empty room when you entered the ballroom.”
“A lady never reveals her secrets,” Victoria answered as she grinned at her sister wickedly.
“Victoria De’Muerre! Were you off somewhere with Wesley unchaperoned?” Samantha feigned shock and disapproval.
Victoria brought her hand to her chest in faux astonishment, playing along with her sister. “Why Sam, whatever are you suggesting?”
“Well, my dear sister, I am suggesting that the reason you were so jumpy is because you were sneaking back from an intimate, clandestine rendezvous with Wesley.”
The only answer that Samantha received from her sister was a knowing grin. Victoria once again escaped a compromising situation as a man walked up beside her. Had Victoria elaborated upon her excursion with Wesley, the man would have undoubtedly overheard. Victoria looked up at him. “Miss De’Muerre, may I have this dance?” Christopher Worthington held his hand out to her entreatingly.
“Christopher?” she stared at his hand and then up at his face questioningly.
“Please?” he asked again. “I want a few minutes to talk to you.”
“I don’t know that it would be proper for us to dance together. And what about Lydia? I am quite certain that she would not approve.”
“Lydia excused herself to go upstairs, and besides everyone is incognito tonight. The rules are more ‘laxed where propriety is concerned,” he thrust his hand out to her again.
With a sigh of resignation, Victoria took his hand and begrudgingly acquiesced to his request. After waltzing about the ballroom silently for several moments Victoria finally asked, “What did you want to talk to me about, Mr. Worthington?” She had desperately hoped to get through this event without a confrontation with him or Lydia. She may have been over the situation, but it did not necessarily mean that she was ready to forgive him or have any kind of conversation with him and she definitely was not ready to be friends with him, which made this dancing thing a bit awkward.
“I just…” he paused and Victoria saw his jaw working nervously behind his mask. “Tory, I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry. I’m sorry for the way things happened. I’m sorry that I hurt you and I’m sorry that I’m engaged to Lydia and not you. I wish I were with you still. I’ve missed you.” Christopher tried to draw Victoria in closer to him and his hands began to creep up higher on his waist. It would take long for him to notice that she wasn’t wearing corset.
Victoria stiffened and scooted out of his embrace, returning to a more suitable distance, which required Christopher to place his hands back in an appropriate location. She sniffed and lifted her head confidently. “Mr. Worthington, last month those words would have probably meant the world to me. As it stands now, I accept your apology, but you must know that I no longer carry a torch for you. I have moved on and I suggest that you learn how to live with the choice that you made and be happy with it.”
Victoria turned to walk away from Christopher mid-dance. She no longer wanted to feign this friendship and didn’t care that polite society would be scandalized by her actions. He still had hold of her left hand, however, and he yanked her back to him. “What do you mean that you have moved on? Are you being courted by someone else?”
His hand was digging into her wrist. It began to hurt. She tried to squirm out of his grasp. “It is no longer your concern Christopher! Now let me go! You are hurting me!”
Alarm appeared in Christopher’s face as this registered with the more sane part of his brain. He dropped Victoria’s wrist. “I am sorry. Truly. I guess I was just surprised. I mean, not really, at the fact that someone else is calling on you. I always knew that one day someone would challenge me for your affections. I just wasn’t prepared to hear it tonight. I wasn’t prepared for how much it would hurt to hear you say it. I guess we are even now, huh?” With his head bowed like a reprimanded schoolboy, Christopher walked away.
Victoria watched as Lydia joined him, or Victoria assumed it was Lydia, she couldn’t be sure
. Christopher kissed the woman’s hand as she came to a stop beside him. It was true; she genuinely no longer had romantic feelings for him. As she watched him with the other woman, there was no pain or pangs of jealousy. She simply wished him happiness as she would any old friend.
As she stood there in the middle of the dance floor watching her ex-beau, a large pair of arms wrapped about her waist from behind. She breathed in the now familiar scent of earth and sea that was his and his alone and relished the feel of his arms around her. Wesley swung her about to face him and began to sway her from side to side in time to the song. The song ended and the bandleader announced that it was now time to reveal oneself and remove the masks. Everyone gathered about in the center of the ballroom and began the countdown. People cheered and shouted with raucous laughter as the masks were removed on ‘one’ and they all discovered who each person was.
The hour was growing late and the guests had begun to leave just after the reveal, which left the dance floor sparsely populated. The Brennans would be staying the night as the De’Muerre’s guests. The orchestra no longer played group dance songs, as the evening wound down, which pleased Victoria and Wesley due to the fact that they would not have to worry about changing partners, or even acknowledging any of the remaining guests about them. They just stayed there, in each other’s arms, spinning about the floor and gazing into each other’s eyes.
Occasionally as they danced, Wesley would point out a drunken patron or an exasperated mother who was attempting to wrangle up her herd in an attempt to go to their guest room or leave for the night. As he pointed out these antics, he created short anecdotes to go along with the antics that they witnessed. Victoria would then reward Wesley with her melodious laugh and the sparkling smile that he adored more than he knew how to tell her. The two also discussed the relationship that was growing between their younger siblings, who also continued to dance about the room. They agreed that the two made a good match and that they had not seen either one look so happy before. Victoria and Wesley continued to dance and talk like this until the orchestra finally quit playing. The night had drawn to an end.
Samantha, Thomas, Wesley, and Victoria climbed the stairs to the third floor. Thomas and Wesley were in a room at the very far end of the hall from the sisters. So they deposited their ladies at their bedroom doors with a polite good evening and a brief kiss on the hand. Almost as if on cue Hannah and Polly opened the sisters’ doors and dragged their charges in to be safely tucked in bed with their reputations intact.
Even as the De’Muerres and Brennans were settling in to a safe and restful sleep, guests from the party were out on the road slowly dying from the blood-letting disease, marked by the lonely yowl of a stray feline.
Chapter Seven
The De’Muerres and Brennans did not see each other again until the Christmas Holidays, except for shortly after the All Hallow’s Eve party, when they had to attend a funeral for several of their acquaintances who had died on their way home from the party. It seemed to Victoria that the number of people who would die from this mysterious illness would continue to rise, and there was no end in sight.
For most regular Sunday Masses, plantation owners held church services within their private chapels. However, for important occasions and holidays, the Catholics of the region held mass at a generally centralized area -- where they could all join and celebrate together. It had previously been at the De’Muerre’s plantation, but the Brennans had a larger chapel area so each local family agreed that Christmas Eve Mass would be held at Caherbrennan. Mrs. Brennan was excited to have everyone over to her now completed home for the very first time and made a rather large fuss over decorating for the festivities.
Wesley had continued to write to Victoria every day and it was now common knowledge that they were quite taken with each other. Some biddies were even overheard to say that they were better suited than Victoria and Christopher had ever been. Men made comment on how wise a union it would be. It would be economically advantageous to join the families through marriage due to the fact that the farms were side by side. When the farms were combined, they would hold the largest property in the state. It would make Victoria and Wesley the most powerful couple in the area, possibly the state, since they were the heirs and would be gaining full control of the farms. This would be saying a lot if the state seceded now that Lincoln had been elected the previous month. Such power could lead to political offices.
All of the Catholic families within the area packed inside the Brennan’s chapel on Christmas Eve. A large Nativity scene stood guard outside the entrance. The chapel was built from white clapboard and a cross stood high on a tall spire. Inside the chapel, the wood planked floors and pews were waxed to a high glossy-sheen. White columns lined the aisle supporting the ceiling. Each column held candles that created a warm glowing ambience. Evergreen garland scented the air adding to the festive mood of the attendants. Victoria and Wesley stood hand in hand with their families in the front pew singing the beloved Christmas carols of tradition including a few of Victoria’s favorites: “We Wish you a Merry Christmas,” the newly popular “Silent Night,” “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” and “Joy to the World.” Along with the traditional service and Eucharist, the priest also read to the congregation the Nativity story.
When the Christmas Eve service was over a few families joined the Brennans and De’Muerres for refreshments and touring of Caherbrennan before heading home. The hour was already late however so the celebrations did not last long. Before going to bed that night the Brennans and De’Muerres kneeled together to pray the Rosary, a nightly ritual for all good Catholics. Each individual took his or her turn in leading the decades until all twenty decades were completed.
In the morning, everyone was dressed for high festivities. They enjoyed an extravagant breakfast before heading into the music room to exchange small gifts. In the music room, a large Evergreen tree stood tall in front of the bay window. The tree had been decorated with nuts, berries, popcorn strings, ribbons, and candles. The Christmas tree was a new fad in America. Victoria thought it was the most wonderful thing that she had ever seen. The women received gifts of luxurious fabrics, hatpins, and small coin purses. Victoria also gave Samantha the needlepoint that she had been working on for the past few months. The men opened their small parcels to discover pocketknives, handkerchiefs, and pocket watch chains. After the De’Muerres and Brennans exchanged their own gifts, they then went out to distribute the customary gifts to the slaves, a tradition that the De’Muerres would repeat when they returned home to their own plantation later that day.
Each slave received a new set of clothing from Mrs. Brennan, which she handed over with a hug and kiss on the cheek. Each slave replied with a happy “Thank ya, Mistress Brennan,” to which she replied, “Merry Christmas.” The head of each slave hut received a ham, bag of grain, and a parcel of fresh fruit and vegetables, which were distributed by the Brennan men. It was obvious that the Brennans ruled over their slaves with the same caring, gentle hand that the De’Muerres had always employed. Victoria felt her heart flutter with pride as she watched the democratic way that Wesley shook the hand of each male slave as he handed out the vegetables.
Victoria recalled the day that she realized how important the treatment of the slaves was to her, aside from Polly and Hannah, who had always been treated as friends by the girls, she never really gave a much thought about the treatment of slaves. She did know, however, that her father and mother had always handled the slaves with respect and gentleness. It never occurred to her that some people might not treat their slaves in the same manner that the De’Muerres did. The Negroes performed great services for the white-folk, after all. They dedicated their lives to serving their masters and in return, the masters were expected to tend to and care for their slaves.
On the day that she learned that other’s saw things differently, she had been visiting Christopher’s plantation, Hillhead Acres. He was called away from her while they had been walking th
e gardens to tend to a problem in the fields. Christopher deposited Victoria into the library to wait for him to return, but she had grown impatient when he did not return to her in a timely manner. Exiting the big house, she went out to walk the grounds to find him and stumbled upon a grotesque scene that she would continue to have nightmares about for the rest of her life.
A female slave was stripped bare to her waist. She was chained, hugging her naked breast to a large tree. The slave’s back was already shredded and bloody as Christopher wielded a whip and cracked it against her back once more. The Negro’s legs gave out beneath her, which caused her half-naked body to scrape against the bark of the tree and forced her head back exposing the woman’s chin to the bark of the tree, as well. She cried out in agony. Victoria just knew that the front of her body must now be almost as raw as the back. “Stand back up! Pick yourself up, nigger bitch!” Christopher scolded the woman and cracked the whip across her back once more.
The Possessive Kiss: Victoria's Story: Book Two of The Kiss Series Page 8