Laura rocked Mark in her arms and glanced uneasily toward the door to her room. She wanted to escape this ugly scene, but Cash blocked her path. She felt relief when he advanced toward Sallie, obviously intending to escort her to a more private place for confrontation.
As if fearing he would do exactly that, Sallie retreated toward the center of the nursery. Sending a scathing glance to Laura and the infant, she sneered. “Your child! That’s all I ever hear about— your child! Well, it’s my child, too! I suppose you expect me to stay home and toddle about like dear obedient Laura. You gawk over that brat as if it were your own. Well, you can have it, and I daresay you can have my dear cousin too, if you want. She doesn’t seem overly particular in her choice of men. In a few years she’ll be just like that snotty maid she hired behind my back, popping bastards once a year. You all think I’m too dumb to notice, but I’m too smart to care. Why don’t you try dear Jettie Mae, while you’re at it, Cash? Ward seemed satisfied with her services.”
At Laura’s startled look, Sallie laughed proudly. “You thought I didn’t know that, didn’t you? Well, I know a lot more than I let on, a lot more, if you take my meaning.” She turned her vicious gaze back to Cash. “And you’re going to let me go to the Springs whether you like it or not, or I’ll tell the world what I know.”
Cash leaned wearily against the closed door and crossed his arms over his chest, giving his wife a searing look. “Tell the world whatever you like, Sallie. I don’t give in to such tactics. Had you told me it would be cooler at the Springs, as Laura suggested, if you had even said you would be going in the company of the eminently respectable Breckinridges, I wouldn’t have objected in the first place. Whatever you might like to think, it is only your welfare that concerns me. But now you have to make a few promises before I let you go.”
Laura held her breath as she watched Sallie’s fleeting expressions. Sallie could not possibly know as much as she liked to pretend. She was shooting arrows in the dark. But even her speculations, if dropped in the proper places, would cause gossip and scandal. Laura didn’t think she could bear any more of that.
But it was Cash whom Sallie intended to hurt, and he wasn’t responding as calculated.
“What kind of promises?” Sallie asked cautiously.
“Nothing difficult. I don’t want you riding. If you go to the Springs, you’ll stay at the Springs until I come after you. You are to listen to Mrs. Breckinridge and take her advice at all times. I intend to speak with the lady before I let you go, telling her I’m placing you entirely in her charge. If you mean to act like a child, I’ll have to treat you as one.”
There was an unhealthy glitter in Sallie’s eyes by the time Cash finished his speech, but she fluttered her eyelashes and touched a hand to her dangling curls. “La, but I thought you meant real promises. The Springs is the most proper place in the world; I wouldn’t dream of doing anything untoward there. But then, I could hardly expect someone like you to know these things, could I?”
With that cutting retort, Sallie gathered up her skirts and approached the door, daring Cash not to let her by.
He gave her a hard stare, then unfolded himself and with a mocking bow opened the door for her.
Before leaving, Sallie turned and gave Laura a blithe smile. “He’s all yours, dear cousin. I’ve got what I want.” Then, sweeping her skirts around her, she rustled from the room.
The bleak look in Cash’s eyes as they met Laura’s startled gaze turned hard and cold. “She’s generous with her favors,” he said with heavy irony. With a formal nod he strode out, leaving Laura with the impression of an angry boy grown into the body of a powerful man.
Chapter 22
The house without Sallie settled down to a stable if somewhat dull routine. Cash spent his days in the fields, doing the jobs most planters assigned to overseers. The evenings he spent pouring over books and ledgers and technical journals, learning those things men like Ward had learned at their daddies’ knees.
Laura kept out of his way. There was a stiffness in Cash now when they happened into each other that she did not like.
Avoiding him wasn’t difficult. With Jettie acting as her right hand and Cash’s open purse to ease the work, Laura slowly returned the once stately house to the gleaming magnificence she remembered. Neglected wood was scrubbed and cleaned and polished with beeswax. Old draperies were removed and salvaged for scraps for maids’ rooms and workers’ cottages, while new ones were measured and sewn by a team of women Laura knew to be expert at handwork.
Once carpenters and plasterers and painters were done in the rooms under renovation, Laura moved in with wallpaper samples and material scraps, working with the furniture she and Jettie decided worth keeping. Old pieces not worth refinishing were passed out to those who could still find a use for them, usually under Jettie’s guidance.
It was summer and Jettie’s eldest was called to help her grandmother with the gardening and canning, but when the children were all together and racing through the bushes on a warm evening, Laura began to make further plans.
Since Sallie’s departure, Laura’s reluctance to remain at the farm had mysteriously waned. She had even dared wear the new hat to church now that Cash seemed otherwise occupied. By blithely explaining that Sallie hadn’t felt the hat suited her, she dispelled all speculative looks. Everyone had found new gossip to worry over, and the ninety-day wonder of Laura’s disappearing husband came to an end.
The escalating war between white planters and the Freedmen’s Bureau occupied everyone as the hot summer grew hotter. Since Kentucky had remained part of the Union, the commonwealth’s slave laws hadn’t been abolished as they had in the South. The martial law during the war had successfully undermined much of the intent of the slave statutes, but with the war over and Lincoln dead, rebellion threatened to sprout anew over the issue of Negro freedom.
Laura heard some of the stories firsthand as Stone Creek’s former slaves trickled back, looking for a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. Jemima was one of the first. Her husband, Henry, had been killed serving in the Union Army during the war. The army had issued a proclamation declaring the families of all soldiers to be free, and like many another, Jemima had left for the city.
Now she was back, a smaller, more bitter version of her old self. Laura listened to her tales of the city spilling over with unemployed, uneducated laborers with no means of finding food and housing. Even trained house servants like Jemima were no better off than as slaves. There was no one to protect them if their employers didn’t pay them, and nowhere else to go if they objected to their treatment. Those who found the courage to try the courts faced hostile judges and juries, and the constant lynching of “troublemakers” deterred all but the most foolhardy.
Jemima’s tales of woe strengthened Laura’s resolve. The house servants had been more family to her than the Kincaids ever had been. She had never learned to think of the servants as animals or pieces of furniture that came with the property. Perhaps she had never given them much thought either, but she had spent precious little time in the past worrying over anyone but herself. She had finally been given the instruments of change, however, and she was determined to wield them well.
If Cash meant for her to stay here like a useless ornament, he would soon discover she had a mind of her own.
Laura started quietly enough, inquiring at the local private academy about discarded schoolbooks. The promise of a generous donation from Mr. Wickliffe made them exceedingly willing to comply and to go so far as to obtain more books from other schools in the district.
Supplied with the essentials, Laura and Jettie put their heads together and decided one of the basement storerooms had sufficient room for a few tables and chairs. It would be cool in summer and warm in winter and there was access to the outside through the old basement kitchen, so no one could complain about the noise of the children coming and going.
One hot day, unpacking a carton of slates Jettie had acquired, Laura
wondered aloud where to obtain the best price for chalk—before she realized Jettie had gone unnaturally quiet. Glancing up, Laura saw the maid inching nervously toward the door. She turned to follow Jettie’s gaze.
Cash had quietly entered the room and stood tapping his coiled whip against his knee-high boots, his expression anything but pleasant. His study of the schoolroom slowly focused on Laura. Jettie made a mumbled excuse about “burning bread” and fled.
Nervously Laura debated standing up to him and launching an offensive, but she didn’t have that kind of courage. When all was said and done, this was his house, and she had never once sought his opinion on the use of it. She returned to unpacking the crate.
“I don’t disappear when you close your eyes.” Cash said softly, but the hint of threat still lingered.
“I didn’t think you would.” Laura sighed and sat back on her heels but didn’t look at him again. She didn’t need to. She could see him as clearly as if he stood before her, knew the exact manner in which his unruly hair brushed the stiff collar of his shirt, the piercing intensity of his dark eyes, the frown on his chiseled lips. She could see the brilliant white of the shirt she had carefully ironed herself just yesterday, knew how it looked against the stark gray of his waistcoat and the navy of his frock coat. He must have gone to town today.
“Do I get some kind of explanation?” Again the soft voice, but he sounded a little closer.
“I didn’t think you would be interested.” Shrugging, Laura disentangled her skirt and attempted to rise. She automatically took the hard brown hand held out to her, and regretted it immediately. The shock of his touch coursed through her, but Cash seemed perversely unaware as he kept his grip even after she stood in front of him.
Laura tried to slide her fingers from his, but Cash appeared motionless, staring at her as if she were a phantom. Not until she jerked did he release his grip and step back, the cold, distant look returning to his eyes.
“I’m interested. Now, tell me what is going on.”
He certainly didn’t sound as if he wanted to know, but Laura knew her obligations. Crossing her fingers behind her back for luck, she answered, “I spent some time last winter teaching Jettie’s children. They seemed so eager to learn, I thought . . . Well, it just seems a criminal shame that they can’t get some education. They’re not horses, you know. They have minds. They need to be taught.”
Cash’s gaze drifted to the toddler Jettie had left behind. Now four months old, Taylor Breckinridge Jackson was a sturdy youngster with a propensity for trouble even before he learned to walk. Awakened by the sound of voices, he had crawled from the box where Jettie had placed him and was even now rocking on his hands and knees against one of the rickety chairs scavenged from the attic.
Cash’s eyes narrowed as he watched the infant butt his head against the chair leg. He was across the room by the time the chair tilted, and the babe tumbled on his well-padded bottom. Taylor’s wail halted abruptly once he was swinging in strong arms. His hand waved in circles, trying to catch a cobweb dangling from a low beam.
Cash returned his attention to Laura. “This one belongs to Ward, doesn’t he? He’s the reason you’re determined to see Jettie’s children educated.”
“One of the reasons, yes.” Laura stuck her chin out and met his stare squarely. “What other chance does he have?”
“About as much chance as I did,” Cash responded crudely.
“Less,” Laura said coldly. “At least you had an educated mother. Jettie can’t even read and write. What chance do you think Taylor has in this world with a mother like that?”
“The same chance as our son will. I’ll send them both to school when the time comes. You needn’t wear yourself into a wraith for Ward’s sake.” His next words shocked both of them. “He was Sallie’s husband, for pity’s sake. Did you love him that much?”
Laura stared at Cash with incredulity. “You too? What is it with people that they can’t stand to see a single woman without pairing her up with every man in her life? If we count Ward, that makes you number four, doesn’t it? How does it feel to be only number four?”
Cash smiled wryly as he lifted the toddler to the ceiling to bat the cobwebs. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, pequeña. We both know where we stand in the lists. There are times when I wish I had been number four; the guilt wouldn’t be nearly so great. But there are other times . . .”
She didn’t dare interpret the look in Cash’s eyes as his words drifted off. She felt his meaning in the pit of her stomach, felt the raw ache of memory, and coward that she was, she turned away.
“There is no guilt involved,” she said firmly to the wall. “What’s done is done and I’m not at all certain that I would do it any differently if we could go back in time.” She reached for the child who was now wiping his face with disgust at the cobwebs covering him.
Cash shifted the bundle back to her. “I would,” he said enigmatically before heading for the door. Before Laura could question, he continued, “If you’re going to have a school, hire a damned teacher. You’re not one of the servants.”
He strode off, leaving Laura to stare after him in frustration and bewilderment. She would never understand what went on in his head, but sometimes she liked it too well for her own good.
Chapter 23
Despite Laura’s growing ease with the situation, she still fought a restless frustration she couldn’t define. She refused to admit she found satisfaction in the delight of Cash’s eyes when she ordered his bath and had it ready for him when he came in from the fields. She desperately ignored her anticipation of those times when Cash would come to the nursery while she was there, and they could laugh at their son’s multitudinous talents together. If his hands brushed hers when she gave him the baby, she tried not to recognize the shiver of pleasure. He was her cousin’s husband, and that was all that could be between them.
So she had no right to feel disappointment or anything else when her birthday arrived without any sign of recognition. Sallie had never bothered to acknowledge it since Uncle Matt died, and Laura didn’t expect one of her cousin’s irregular and flighty letters to mention something other than the fun she was having.
But she could treat herself for a change. She knew Cash would be furious that she rode out alone, but she didn’t see any other choice if she were to have her own little holiday. If she waited until a carriage and driver could be readied, the kitchen was likely to catch on fire and the cattle in the side field would get loose and trample the garden and Taylor would pull down the draperies and smother himself. If she wasn’t there to watch it happen, they would have to struggle along without her.
Refusing to give in to self-pity, Laura cantered along the shady lane, enjoying the wind in her hair and the anticipation of spending a few hours with friends she had sorely neglected these last months. She had a few coins in her pocket. Perhaps she would indulge in something completely frivolous. Cash had not attempted to buy her anything else after her tirade over the hats, but she still craved something new once in a while. Perhaps she could strike up a deal with Millie, the seamstress, to take in some hemming and whatnot to give her a little spare money.
She dreamed of earning enough to buy a sewing machine, but that was an impossible dream. What coins she had went to buy clothes for her and Mark. It was enough that Cash paid for the roof over their heads and the food in their bellies. He couldn’t be expected to provide everything. Her pride wouldn’t allow for that. But if she could set a little aside every so often . . .
While Laura was bargaining with the milliner over new hat ribbons and persuading Millie to part with a few sewing jobs, Cash rode over the corn field observing the gathering of thunderclouds in the west. He knew the danger of this weather.
When the high buildup of summer heat and humidity hit the cold wind riding in those clouds, anything could happen. He had seen barn roofs whip off the walls and fly into the trees, oaks as old and sturdy as the mountains rip from the soil and topple across
the horses huddling beneath them. Hail as big as his fist could tumble from those clouds, or nothing worse might happen than a drenching and welcome rain. It never did to second-guess Mother Nature.
Ordering the horses into the barns and field hands to secure anything that might catch a breeze, Cash called it a day and turned his mount toward the house. Jemima had told him about the special birthday dinner being prepared, and he wanted to add a little surprise of his own. He figured Laura was too damned proud to accept anything but a trifling token, so he would keep the biggest surprise as a casual afterthought. But he meant for her to have some little gift at the table from him. He wasn’t accustomed to giving or receiving gifts, but he remembered last Christmas as if it were yesterday. He had enjoyed the experience, and he wanted to see her smile like that again.
A flash of lightning split the distant sky as he rode into the stable. The thunder followed as he unstrapped the girth and removed the saddle. The storm was still a few miles off; he would have time to inspect the grounds for any possible leaks or loose ends.
Coming out of the stables, he gazed up at the towering edifice of the house, and his heart swelled with pride. The mansion gleamed with new coats of paint around the now-sparkling windows. The shutters had been restored to their former pristine condition, and the grounds had been manicured to picture-book perfection.
He was well aware that it was Laura’s patience and talent that had wrought these changes, along with a generous helping of his money. He had given her instructions, and she had carried them out beyond his fondest wishes. ’Twas a pity that he couldn’t say the same of his wife, but he and Laura understood one another, and they both knew what Sallie was and forgave her for it. He was a lucky man, if he only had the sense to remember it. To come from the filth of a tobacco-road hovel to this . . .
Shelter from the Storm Page 23