by Diana Davis
Without wasting the time to taste anything, Owen gulped down enough food that he would be sated until supper and hurried from the dining room. Temperance and Bellamy had already set up the game board at the card table in the middle of the drawing room and were engaged. He recognized that smile of hers — she had Bellamy right where she wanted him.
And wherever that was, it couldn’t be good. “Miss Hayes,” Owen said, forcing a smile of his own, “could I speak with you?”
Temperance kept the coquettish expression as she lifted her eyes to his. “Of course, Mr. Randolph. Anything for my dear friend.” She turned back to Bellamy. “Please excuse me.” She took both of Bellamy’s hands. “Don’t you even consider touching this board; I’ll remember it perfectly.” She spoke to David, watching from the couch. “Make sure Mr. Bellamy doesn’t become too clever for his own good, won’t you?”
David agreed, and Temperance led Owen to the entry, private enough to have a conversation, but still public enough to satisfy propriety.
“Just the man I needed to see,” Temperance said right away.
“What?”
Gone was the flirt, and now it was clear who the actual ingenious person of business was. “Owen, I need you to —”
“Stop.”
Temperance looked at him quizzically. “Beg pardon?”
“What are you playing at?”
“Checkers?” She glanced back in the direction of the drawing room.
Owen leveled a serious stare at her. “I care for you too much to allow you to do this.”
“You do — wait, do what?”
“You are pursuing Bellamy as brazenly as you did Godfrey Sibbald.”
Temperance tilted her head to the side. “Is that what you’re so worried about?”
“Is there something more I ought to be concerned over?”
She ignored the question and went back to her own subject. “Owen, I need you to draw up a contract — legally binding, unpierceable, as fast as possible. There’s paper and ink at the writing table.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, immediately. It must be done before Bellamy leaves.”
This really was a business transaction to her? “And what is this contract supposed to say?”
“He is selling me a specific slave.”
She’d reached a new low. “Temperance, I thought you didn’t —”
“And he relinquishes all claims and conditions, so that I may do whatever I please. And David is to collect him personally. Or you, if you wish. I’ll pay you.”
Owen rolled that over in his mind three times. “What?”
“I’m helping David. Remember, Cassandra was trying to free the Maxsons’ slaves?” Temperance pulled the gaudy diamond ring from her right hand and placed it in his. “Payment.”
“Why?”
“I have every confidence you’ll be earning every penny with this contract.”
“No — thank you — but — why are you doing this?”
Temperance stared into his face. The coquette of a few minutes before was truly gone. The woman before him was earnest and sincere. “Slavery is wrong, Owen.”
“I know that.”
She looked away briefly but her green eyes found his again. “We must defend our rights, and those of others.”
Again, Owen had to make sure he’d heard and understood her properly. Could Temperance Hayes, who’d preached reconciliation almost as loudly as her father, really mean that? Or did that only apply to the immoral practice of slavery?
If she could prevail upon Bellamy at all. “And — you’re certain you’ll succeed where David failed?”
“Oh, to be sure.” Temperance removed her bracelets. “David is a great many things, but he will never be able to charm a man as a woman could.”
“As you could, you mean.”
She shrugged one shoulder and took off her earrings.
Wearing such jewelry in the middle of the afternoon was strange enough, and now she was taking it off. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“How else did you think I’d persuade Bellamy?”
“Oh.” Owen’s gaze fell. “Buying your way out of trouble, then.”
Temperance’s hands balled into fists, the jewels clinking together. She wheeled around but didn’t leave. “Kindly undo this necklace,” she demanded.
“A gift from your fiancé?”
“From Godfrey.” She waited a beat before adding, “But he isn’t my fiancé.”
Owen swallowed, wishing he’d bothered to have his wineglass refilled before he left the table. He was careful to touch her soft skin as little as possible and not breathe in her cinnamon scent. A man could endure only so much torture.
The clasp finally released and Temperance took the necklace. She took one step toward the drawing room, but Owen caught hold of her elbow. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
“We’re helping to reunite this family.”
“Yes, that I grasped. But this doesn’t sound like you.”
“So selfish, am I?”
“No, I meant only —”
“I have done a great deal of reading lately,” Temperance said softly. “And you were right.” She turned just enough to look over her shoulder, but not meet his eyes. “I see that. And I see that I don’t deserve you. But I can do this one small thing right. Nothing should keep one from the person one loves. Especially not injustice parading as law.” She pulled free of his grasp and strode into the drawing room.
What? She didn’t deserve him? Nothing should keep one from the person one loved? That wasn’t what she’d thought the last time she’d seen him in his uniform.
Owen huffed out a little laugh. How like Temperance Hayes, tilting his world on its head yet again.
He watched her return to the game table, setting each piece of jewelry in front of her. Bellamy’s gaze focused on the diamonds.
Owen had a contract to write. He went directly to the Hayeses’ writing table and pulled out the paper, inkpot, and quills, already sharpened.
This could well be his most important contract ever.
Temperance regarded Bellamy across the board. She’d let him attack, parrying only when necessary, sacrificing piece after piece of her own. Confidence glittered in his eyes. He was certain he was about to win.
She wasn’t entirely sure of her strategy, but she knew this: she wanted this more than Bellamy did. And Temperance Hayes always got what she wanted. Almost always. She refused to watch Owen at work, focusing only on Bellamy. “I see you’re a very smart man,” she drawled, playing with one of her bracelets on the table.
The flashing jewels kept Bellamy’s gaze. At least, she hoped that was where he was looking.
Bellamy moved one of his pieces, claiming another of hers. She had only three left to his seven. But she wasn’t concerned. She casually hopped over one of his pieces without leaving herself vulnerable for attack.
“Have you bought a gift for your wife? A memento of your trip?” Temperance asked.
“Is . . . is that customary?”
“Practically expected,” David assured him. “I brought Cassandra back a coral necklace when I went to Virginia.”
Bellamy gulped and moved his piece into a vulnerable position. “We’re simple farmers. I don’t have the coin for such things.”
Even better than she’d anticipated. Temperance moved one of her checkers directly into his path, then feigned a gasp. “Oh, dear.”
Bellamy eagerly leapt over her piece, and Temperance caught his hand before he could withdraw. “Mr. Bellamy, you’re more than a simple farmer. You’re intelligent enough to recognize an opportunity when it comes to you. Right?”
He again checked with David, who agreed.
Temperance gestured at the jewels on the table with her other hand. “These were gifts from a suitor I mean to refuse. He’s offended me rather badly, so I dearly wish to see them gone.”
&nbs
p; Bellamy checked with David once more. Temperance, meanwhile, checked on Owen. He was shaking the blotting sand back into its dish.
Finally. “You have something I want,” Temperance said.
“Your checkers back?”
She laughed. “Oh, darling, you’re so funny! No, silly — I wish to make you a deal. One which you’d have to be a fool to refuse.”
“And you’re not a fool, are you, Bellamy?” David’s tone was reassuring.
Temperance released him to push the jewels closer. “I assure you, these are not paste.” She glanced at David for his confirmation.
He crossed his legs, the light catching the diamond chips in his shoe buckles. “One can always tell the difference.”
Temperance covered an inward cringe. She’d certainly thought David’s buckles were paste. She’d been wrong about him.
She’d been wrong about Winthrop. She’d been wrong about Godfrey. Most of all, she’d been wrong about Owen Randolph.
But she was not wrong about Nehemiah Bellamy.
“Mr. Bellamy, if you will sell me the slave Caleb and surrender all rights, you can have every diamond on this table.”
Bellamy’s lips parted. Temperance gave her most beguiling grin, toying with the necklace. “Your wife would be astounded. You could even save them for gifts in the future, or sell them and buy more land. Something a smart man like yourself would do.”
Bellamy reached for the nearest piece, but Owen arrived with the inkpot and contract. “If you want the jewels, you’ll have to sign here.”
“They’re worth at least double the best slave,” David pointed out.
Bellamy looked from David back to Temperance. “I see your mind. You mean to manumit him.”
Temperance glanced at Owen and David in turn, then began to slowly draw the necklace back toward herself. “That’s fine. I’m sure we can find a jeweler who would buy these.”
“I don’t know, Temperance,” David said, “they’re very dear. Even in Philadelphia, a jeweler would be hard pressed to pull together a hundred pounds.”
Bellamy sucked in a breath.
“Per piece,” Temperance added, although she truly had no idea the stones’ value.
Bellamy tentatively touched the center pendant of the necklace, and Owen shoved the quill at him. “This surrenders all rights,” Owen informed him, “and gives you the jewels.”
Bellamy took the quill and signed with the barest skim over the paper. “If you’ll excuse me,” Bellamy said, already rising and collecting his gains. “I must secure these.”
He was gone before anyone bid him goodbye. Temperance grabbed her only remaining crowned checker and neatly skipped over all Bellamy’s pieces.
David took the contract from Owen, gaping in awe. “I didn’t think — you did it. I shall have to ride to Virginia at once.” He clapped Owen on the shoulder and kissed Temperance on the cheek. “You were both brilliant!” he called over his shoulder, leaving them and the rest of his party.
Temperance barely dared to meet Owen’s eyes. “He’s right. You were brilliant.”
“I? No, you are the one with ingenuity. I only wonder it took Godfrey this long to propose.”
She sighed. “I sent my reply this morning, but I imagine he won’t be too terribly disappointed.”
“What changed? You were so set on marrying him.”
“I don’t love him.” Temperance stood, and though she was much shorter than Owen, she straightened herself and held her head high. “You may think this was simply buying my way out of another difficulty, Owen Randolph, but you’re wrong. I’m giving up that financial security for freedom.”
“Freedom,” he repeated.
She nodded. “You were right. Our rights are worth whatever cost.”
“Whatever cost?” he repeated again, searching her gaze, his question obvious. Was she willing to accept someone who would risk everything for those rights?
Temperance tentatively reached out, and Owen took her hand. How had she never noticed how right that felt?
Owen squared his shoulders and lifted his chin as she’d coached him all those months ago. “Temperance Hayes,” he pronounced.
She cocked an eyebrow and waited for him to finish.
“You may think you don’t deserve me, but you’re wrong.”
She laughed breathlessly. “You can’t mean that.”
“You can’t either. It wasn’t your money that changed Nan’s mind. It was you. You’ve always known how to fight for someone who needed it.”
Mercy had been right after all? She took his other hand and looked into his eyes, bright and blue as the sky. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t listen when you tried to tell me . . . everything, and then I demanded you not help people, when that’s always been one of the things I’ve loved most about you. I’ve treated you terribly. Probably our whole lives.”
“No, only recently,” he reassured her.
“You actually are a wit, you know.”
“So I was told once.”
Temperance focused on their clasped hands. “I’m sorry I was so wrong. I really have always loved you, Owen.”
“I have loved you since we were five years old.”
“Not since the day you saved me from Nan?”
“Long before that.”
Temperance released his hands to slide her arms around his neck, and he pulled her close. “Will you promise me something?” she murmured.
“Anything — anything within my power.”
Temperance laid her cheek against his chest for a moment, against the coat of his uniform. She hadn’t intended to ask him to never leave her. Much as she wanted it, that wasn’t within his power. But no amount of money or laws or security could defy death. She could only be grateful for every day she had with him.
She lifted her head again, sliding her hands back to rest on his chest. “Would you please sell that gaudy ring and buy me something reasonable? I mean, if we marry.”
Owen took one of her hands and kissed it. “When we marry.”
“When we marry,” she repeated. He kissed her, and it was every bit as perfect as the first time.
Patience Hayes backed out of the drawing room. She was very glad for her sister — and especially for poor Owen, though she couldn’t fathom how he’d forgiven Temperance after all she’d put him through — but Patience had had as much as she could take of the noise and senseless chatter of a party.
Joyce, one of Papa’s clerks, craned his neck over the crowd, staring after her. She didn’t wish to make a scene at Temperance’s wedding party, so she slipped into the entryway.
The cook Polly — where had Ginny gone? — admitted another family. Patience recognized them as friends of her cousin’s; mother, father and daughter had recently reunited after his manumission from slavery in Virginia.
Well, if she couldn’t stand to be sociable, she could at least be useful. Patience introduced herself to the Freemans and welcomed them.
“What a happy day for your family!” Mrs. Freeman remarked as Patience took them to the drawing room where the rest of the guests were assembled.
“Yes, we’re all very pleased Mr. Randolph officially belongs to us now.” Patience conducted them to Temperance and Owen, who shook Mr. Freeman’s hand heartily.
Owen slid an arm around Temperance’s waist. “May I present my wife, Mrs. Temperance Randolph?”
That was the fourth time Patience had heard him call her sister that, and each time Owen’s eyes were lit with wonder. Now, as she had each time, Temperance beamed at him with total devotion. Then she shook hands with the Freemans, light glinting off Temperance’s plain gold wedding ring. Patience didn’t have the full story, but she’d heard some murmuring that Temperance had been involved with the manumission contract Owen had drawn up. She and Owen made no mention of it now, however. Patience slipped away to slice thick pieces of Verity’s rich gingerbread for the newest guests.
“Thi
s is your best effort yet,” she told Verity. “How did you find the time to make this in the middle of finishing your play and helping Temperance with the wedding preparations?”
Verity shrugged. “Baking cakes has become second nature to me now. I hardly had to make an effort.”
“City Tavern couldn’t make one better,” David said, wandering over to stand in their midst. “You could have a career as a baker.”
“I think I’ll keep to writing plays.” Verity acknowledged her condescension with a haughty smile. “I only bake cakes to oblige my family on special occasions.”
“More’s the pity.” David helped himself to another piece, and Verity swept away. He looked up as he replaced the knife and seemed to spot someone. “Come, cousins, here’s someone you should meet.”
Two men, both young and handsome, approached at the same time. One, in a simple wig and gray coat, looked back and forth between David and Patience. Despite his freckles, his face was both attractive and friendly in a happy, open way. Patience couldn’t help but return his contagious happiness. Were some people genuinely that merry all the time?
The second man wore an elegantly cut red coat and his own blond hair in nearly the same style as David’s powdered and queued wig. David, as usual, was dressed as though he were stopping by the king’s court next, but somehow both he and the second man were the picture of fashion.
David eyed the second man. “One might question your loyalties in that color,” he quipped.
“I know,” he muttered. “I really mean to have it dyed.”
“I know someone,” David assured him, then turned back to Patience and Constance. “Cousins,” he addressed them, gesturing at the second man, “allow me to present Mr. Fischer Marks, author and publisher of the Watchman.”
The publisher of the Watchman was near her own age? Given the depth of his arguments, Patience had assumed he was much older.
Mr. Marks’s bow was perfectly poised, and Patience and Constance returned curtsies a bit more formal than they might have otherwise. Patience glanced at the happy man, but he merely smiled and waited his turn.