Jubal made a snort of disgust. “Hmph. Most folks don’t see it like that, like I’m even a man with feelin’s and all.”
“I know,” Victoria said quietly, sadly. “But I do, Jubal. I know you’re a man. A good man.” For the first time in her life, she had to admit that she, a white woman, did not know this black man, a former slave of her father’s, as she thought she did. “Anyhow, Jubal,” she finished lamely, “I’m glad you’re here because I’m going to need your help.”
“You mean to find yore way back in heah to my mama?”
“Yes, but also in the next few days or weeks. And that’s why I asked you about your reading and writing. I’m going to need you to read messages to your mama from me and then write her answers back to me. Can you do that?”
“I shore enuff could if’n I was of a mind to. But what messages? What you talkin’ ’bout?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Jubal. Don’t pretend you don’t.”
“What I know is you don’t belong to be in this here swamp and messin’ in somethin’ ain’t none of yore business.”
“It is my business, Jubal. You know it is.”
Jubal shook his head. “Ain’t, neither. It’s my family’s business. Not yours.”
“You know that’s not true, Jubal.” Valuable time was passing, which made Victoria impatient. “Why are you behaving like this?”
He slid his gaze away from hers, finally settling it on his muddy boots. “’Cause I couldn’t stomach somethin’ happenin’ to you. I purely couldn’t. You know how I feel ’bout you.”
Victoria’s heart wrenched as she stared at the top of Jubal’s head. Yes, she did know how he felt about her. He’d never acted on it or said more than he just had, but she knew. “Thank you, Jubal, for being so worried about me.” She didn’t add that right now in her life he was the only one who seemed to be. But to get them back on an even keel, she assumed a brisk attitude and said, “Now, I guess you better climb on in with me and take me to Miss Cicely before she changes her mind about seeing me.”
Jubal surprised her by not complying and staying where he was. Some voice in the back of Victoria’s mind told her that he no longer had to do her bidding. He was free to do as he saw fit. And apparently what he saw fit to do was to remain where he was. “Oh, Jubal, what’s wrong now?”
He crossed his muscled arms over his broad chest. “You might be in for a good whippin’ from my mama if’n I takes you in to her. She purely ain’t none too happy ’bout your bein’ out here. ’Specially not with you carryin’ a baby in yore stomach.”
Shock, and the heat that came with it, washed over Victoria, forcing a gasp out of her. “She knows?”
Jubal made a derisive sound. “Listen at you. ’Course she knows.”
Victoria wondered how much else Miss Cicely might know, things like whether she was carrying a boy or a girl … and who the father was. A renewed sense of urgency, one purely selfish, seized Victoria. She had to get to Miss Cicely and ask her about those things, too. “Jubal, you have to take me to her. I have to see her.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t gone away from us, things might have turned out differently for me and Jenny.”
“Oh, God, Jubal, please.” Impatient, undone, Victoria covered her face with her hands; then she used them to gesture at him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. But I’m here now, and there are things I can do. You know me, Jubal, and you trust me. I’ll do everything I can. I swear it.” Victoria paused for a breath and changed the subject. “I didn’t want to go away, Jubal. I was made to go.”
A shake of his head and a grunted denial met her words. “White folks ain’t made to go nowhere. They go wherever they please.”
“It must seem that way to you, but it’s not always true, Jubal. It certainly wasn’t for me.” Victoria grinned at the memory. “You should have seen it. Why, my daddy dragged me by my arm all the way to the steamship, and me kicking and screaming.”
“Woo-ee, Miss Victoria, I bet you was a sight.” Jubal chuckled and then sent her a speculative look. “What you gone do to help us?”
He was coming around. Victoria proceeded cautiously but honestly. “I don’t really know, Jubal. And that’s why I’m out here now. I want to talk to Miss Cicely, learn what she knows and go from there, I guess. It doesn’t sound like much, but I promise you I will do everything I can to make this right.”
“I b’lieve you will, I shore do. But what purely give me the worries, Miss Victoria, is this here business you came into the swamp about…” He shook his head slowly and fatalistically. “It ain’t what you think it is.”
Fright and curiosity mixed inside Victoria, causing her to speak sharply. “What are you talking about, Jubal? How is it not what I think it is?”
“I cain’t tell you.” Jubal stubbornly firmed his lips together, but the lantern’s light revealed his chin quivering with emotion. “You cain’t do nothin’,” he suddenly cried. “Cain’t nobody help now.”
Victoria felt on the verge of crying right along with him, should he start. “For God’s sake, stop saying that, Jubal. Please. We don’t know anything for certain yet. There may still be time. Let me try … please?”
His stare was assessing, weighing … finally, he relaxed, his decision apparently made. Victoria held her breath as he pointed at her and frowned. “What’s that getup you got on there?”
It took her a moment to realize his comment could be a signal that he was going to help her. Victoria grinned and pulled at her pants leg as she spoke. “They’re Jefferson’s pants and shirt. Aren’t I a sight?”
Jubal chuckled and shook his head. “You purely are. Yore daddy would whomp you good if he saw you like this.”
“I know. And that’s why I’m out here at night—so he won’t see me.” Victoria sobered. “And that’s why I have to hurry.”
“Then we’d best be on our way before that big gator following behind your boat gets real hungry and eats us both.”
A burst of fear flitted along Victoria’s nerve endings. She jerked around and, sure enough, there that big reptile was, submerged but for his eyes. She knew he waited only for her to make one mistake. Just one. And then she was his. Victoria swallowed, thinking the gator wasn’t the only one wanting to make a meal, and an example, out of her.
Jubal came forward to free the jonboat from the clutches of the cypress knees. Once he had, he crouched over to step carefully onboard with her. Victoria scooted backward, cramming herself into the craft’s narrow, squared-off stern. She made herself as small as she could in an effort to give Jubal the room he needed to stand astraddle in the boat. Thus, he would pole them toward a faint light that suddenly appeared along the way up ahead, even deeper in the swamp.
CHAPTER 4
Hellfire and damnation, Victoria fumed silently some time later. The meeting had not gone well, and she would have to go back. That is, if she could get away again and if Miss Cicely allowed her to come back. Too many ifs, when all she was doing was trying to help. And another thing, Miss Cicely had said she didn’t know anything more about the baby Victoria was carrying. She’d said it was too soon for her to see the particulars. Victoria wasn’t sure she believed her, but there hadn’t been anything she could do to get her to say more.
So here she was now, frustrated in the extreme and her eyes gritty from a lack of sleep. Victoria carefully stood in the jonboat and tied it to the old dock at the very edge of River’s End land. For heaven’s sake, she fumed, she couldn’t just let this matter go. She’d been begged to come here and she had—all the way from England, only to be told this was none of her concern and she was to leave it be.
“Well, I don’t think I can leave it be,” Victoria said softly to herself. Upsetting her was how Miss Cicely had treated her. Victoria had known and loved that woman all her life. Why, she’d played at her knee and toddled around after her and run to her with all her youthful scrapes and hurts. And yet tonight there had been no happiness and no warmth in Miss Cicely’s eyes for Victor
ia. She’d as much as told her to forget what she knew and go home where she belonged before she got herself hurt or worse.
Maybe Miss Cicely meant to protect her by warning her away, Victoria considered. That could be. Or maybe something had changed, something that she wouldn’t or couldn’t tell Victoria. That could be, too. But whatever it was, she was here and she wasn’t going away. Victoria blew out the candle that had provided her light in the lantern. The moon was waning but still holding forth in the night sky. With any luck, she could get back inside, wash, and get in bed, all without being detected. Though her heart ached and her mind was in a whirl, the thought of bed sounded heavenly. So did being clean. It was awful how the swamp smell clung to a person.
Before climbing up the rough ladder—nothing more than thick pieces of board nailed across two neighboring pilings—she reached up and petted the family bloodhound. Neville had watched her leave earlier and so had waited right here for her to return. “You’ve been here this whole time, haven’t you? I don’t know whether to thank you or be mad at you. Do you realize that if anyone had cared to look out here, you’d have given me away? They’d know how you always wait here if I’ve taken the boat out.”
The dog came to his feet, his tail wagging as Victoria, with the ease of experience, climbed up the makeshift ladder and stood on the dock. She reached out to rub Neville’s ears. “Come on, boy, let’s go get some sleep.”
Before Victoria took her first step, the dog tensed and stared toward the sloping lawn and the imposing but night-shaded big, white house. He lowered his tail and his head … and growled.
Victoria stopped cold. Fright had her heart pounding and her limbs weak. Desperately, she looked around, not spying any stealthy movement. But that didn’t mean someone wasn’t hiding behind a bush. Still, all she saw was the expanse of lawn, silvered by the moon and shadowed by tall trees, no more than black silhouettes against the sky. No one darted around any corners of the house, either, not that she could see. Still, she trusted the dog’s sharper instincts more than she did her own.
Victoria squatted down beside Neville, stroked his head, and whispered: “What’s out there, boy? What’s got you spooked?”
The dog spared her a quick, anxious look, a slurp of his tongue up her cheek, and a worried whine. Then he resumed his vigil. This time he looked more toward his left, to the far end of the house, and raised his long, flopped-over ears alertly. Victoria fully expected him to take off at any moment in full voice and raise the house as he charged after some scalawag who’d come sniffing around on River’s End where he had no cause to be.
Yet here the dog was, staying protectively close to her. She assured herself of one thing: She wasn’t about to move from this dock until whoever was out there showed his face. And she didn’t care if she had to sit here until mid-morning and have her breakfast brought out to her. Her reaction, she knew, was nothing more than pure fright—and Redmond stubbornness. Her chin jutting out to prove it, Victoria vowed that if it were a game of waiting this somebody wanted, she would give it to him.
And so, long moments ticked slowly by. Soon enough, a cramping in her leg muscles had her wincing. Then her foot threatened to go to sleep. She wanted very much to stand up and walk around to get rid of the cramping, but didn’t dare. To take her mind off her body’s protests, she devised a plan of escape should somebody suddenly rush her. First, Neville would go for him and that would give her time to scream and raise the house and get back in the jonboat and pole back out into the swamp. She doubted that an attacker, if he could get away from Neville, would dare jump in that water to pursue her. If he did, he’d most likely meet a water moccasin or two, or maybe that hungry gator, before he got to her. And if he did get close to her, he’d face a scared woman wielding a sturdy hardwood pole and screaming at the top of her lungs.
Heartened by that brave scenario, and still squatted down by the dog, Victoria shifted her weight to her other foot and rested a knee against the dock. She stroked the hound dog’s back, feeling his raised hackles but also feeling more secure for his nearness, his reassuring warmth, and his muscled bulk that came complete with bone-deep loyalty and a set of very sharp teeth. She put her arm around Neville and pulled him closer to her. But the dog suddenly lunged forward, growling low in his throat.
Startled, Victoria released him and stood up, her heart pounding, her hands fisted. In the dark, with only the moon’s indistinct light to assist her, she didn’t know where to look first, from which direction the danger was coming.
Neville set himself in motion. Victoria instinctively reached for him, but he was already out of her range. Afraid to be alone, she started to go after him. But a small warning voice inside her head told her to stay put. Instantly, she pulled back, a hand over her mouth, and watched Neville to see what he would do. With his head and tail lowered, the dog moved in a menacing manner as he made for the other end of the dock.
“Sister?” came a hissing, masculine whisper close by. “Is that you?”
Victoria started, but shock faded enough to allow reason to take over and remind her that only one person still called her “Sister.” “Jefferson?” she called out tentatively, quietly. “Is that you?”
“It sure is. Sister, what in the world are you doing out here?”
Intense relief nearly dropped Victoria in a melting heap on the dock. “You nearly scared the life out of me, big brother.”
At the other end of the dock, Jefferson slowly came into view. All Victoria could see of him were his head and shoulders since he stood on the downward slope of the land, nearly to the water’s edge. He raised his arms to show her he had a shotgun with him. “You see this gun? I came near to shooting you with it. My God, Sister, do you think I could live with myself if I’d shot you?”
Believing his question didn’t really need an answer, Victoria quietly watched as Neville stepped over to Jeff and sniffed at him. Jeff reached up and rubbed the dog’s head. “Hey, boy.” Then her brother turned to Victoria. “What in the world are you doing out here?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Victoria said, adding to herself … not while I was poling the boat and talking to Miss Cicely.
“So you got dressed up in that rig because you couldn’t sleep?”
“Well, I could hardly come out here in my night clothes, now could I? And I didn’t want to fuss with putting on a dress.”
“Where’d you get those clothes, anyway?”
“Out of your chest of drawers.” Victoria realized her mistake the instant the words were out of her mouth and inhaled a hissing breath between her gritted teeth.
“Out of my chest of drawers? When did you do that? I’ve been in my bedroom until just a few minutes ago. I think I would have noticed if you’d been in there, too, and rummaging around.”
“No, not just now, silly. Earlier in the evening when you weren’t in there.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me for them?”
“You wouldn’t have given them to me.” And he would have had too many questions about why she needed them.
No doubt, Jefferson realized she was hiding something. But all he did was slowly shake his head. “If you don’t beat all. I thought you were some river rat who pulled his boat up to the dock, intent on stealing some chickens or equipment. I came out here to scare him off or shoot him.”
“Did you hear something out here? I’ve been out here all this time with Neville,” she lied glibly, “and I haven’t heard anything.”
“No, it wasn’t anything I heard. I come out at night regularly to check on the property around the house. All up and down the river lately, most of the plantations have suffered losses. People have awakened to find they’re missing tools and livestock and such. I thought we were next.”
Victoria listened to her brother talking but knew he was lying every bit as much as she was. He was up to something out here that had nothing to do with river rats. For one thing, if her father were concerned about thievery, he’d hire guards. He certainly wo
uldn’t put his only son on patrol. Still, she made the expected response. “You’re right. I do recall Daddy saying something about the robberies.”
“I expect you do. It’s all he talks about. So I can’t fathom why you—knowing that unsavory sorts are about and could be a particular danger to a woman alone—would stray outdoors in the middle of the night.”
Victoria raised her chin. “I can take care of myself. I was careful, and I had Neville with me.”
“And yet I was able to walk right up on you and came close to shooting you.”
“That is the third time you’ve mentioned shooting me, Jefferson. And don’t think I didn’t know someone was around. Neville was about to jump on you. He heard you. You’re just lucky you identified yourself when you did, or he’d have been on you.”
“Neville wouldn’t jump me.”
“You threaten me and just see if he won’t, big brother.”
Jefferson sighed, a long-suffering, masculine sound. “All of this could have been avoided, Victoria, if you’d just stay inside where you belong.”
Victoria stiffened with offense. “Where I belong?”
“Don’t you start with me, Sister. I’m just trying to look out for you, and I’m telling you that you were just lucky this time. You may not be the next time.”
Was that a warning? A frisson of fear danced lightly over the hairs on her arms. “I’ll take my chances. And here’s something for you to think about the next time you go sneaking up on people with a gun in your hands. It could turn out you’re not the only one who’s armed, and you could get shot just as easily as I could.”
A weighted silence billowed into the space between them. Then, Jeff said … quietly, evenly: “I probably will before it’s all over.”
Victoria’s heart lurched. She knew only too well, because of the letter she’d received in England, the truth of what he said. Jeff was deeply involved in this awful plot, only she didn’t know to what extent. She didn’t know, either, which side he was on. Her worst fear was that Jeff would be the villain and would actually harm her. While she was willing to take her chances with her brother, she wasn’t willing to place her unborn baby in any more danger than she’d already been forced to do in coming here. But, oh, how it hurt not to be able to trust him.
To Make a Marriage Page 6