“Hominy—” Ben warned, but the black man shook his head.
“She ought to know, Mr. Ben. It’s only right, and if you don’t tell her, I figure I have to.”
“What do I need to know?” Ben watched fresh panic leap through her, stripping the life and color he’d spent the last moments doing his best to restore. “What’s happened? Has Preston—has he already threatened you?”
Ben clenched his hands and contemplated the satisfaction of firing his manservant. He was cornered, and he knew it. Expelling his breath in a long sigh, Ben gave in.
“About three hours ago, I sold the Poplar Springs acreage to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Preston Clarke can play all the nasty power games with them he cares to.” He stopped, waited until he could continue in the same light tone. “If God’s in a mood for granting justice, Preston will learn what it feels like to be the chewed-up bone of contention.”
Meredith was staring at him as though he’d turned into a horned toad. “You sold the land? Y-you’re letting Preston win? You won’t even try to fight him?”
“He would if—”
“That’s enough, Hominy.”
Hominy’s nostrils flared, but he inclined his head and didn’t finish the sentence. Three long strides brought Ben to Meredith’s side. “No. I’m not going to fight.” He held her gaze. “The man’s corrupt, bent upon achieving his ends regardless of the means. I’d be a fool to stand in the way of a man like that.”
“Poplar Springs . . . all your plans. I can’t believe you’d throw everything away. You could fight him. Why won’t you even try?” She searched his face, and something in Ben shriveled at her expression. “I never thought you’d be a—” She reached toward him, then let her hand drop to her side. “Somehow even when I was so angry I wanted to hurl bricks at you, I still believed you’d build Poplar Springs.”
“Go ahead and say it.” Ben tried to look away from her, but some sick lunacy prevented the simple movement. “I can see it in your face. Go ahead and say it.”
God help him, he’d thought he couldn’t feel any worse pain than the agony he’d endured when he believed Meredith had betrayed him. He’d been wrong. Wrong because her lack of faith now was an even worse betrayal. Obviously the kiss had meant little to her. He loved, but Meredith . . . Muscles clenched, Ben curled his lips into a taunting sneer. “Why show control now? Discretion? You never have before. After all, I accused you of being Clarke’s pet chippy. Well, darling, here’s your chance to get even. So have at it. You’re really good with words when you’re mad. Say it, Meredith. Spit it out.”
Her eyes darkened with an indefinable stew of emotions. Ben willed her to hurry up and deliver the killing blow, so he could crawl off to the isolated comfort of his upstairs rooms. And wait for the pain to kill him.
“You want me to call you a coward,” she said at last, but instead of slamming him like bullets, her words fell at his feet like tears. “I don’t want to. I can’t bear to think of you that way, not after—” She pressed shaking fingers against her mouth and turned away. “Excuse me,” she said after a moment, “you’re right. It’s time for me to go home. Hominy, a buggy? I don’t believe I feel up to the walk right now.”
Without waiting for an answer she fled from the room. Ben watched her retreat and wondered vaguely why he was still upright. There was no feeling in his knees, and he knew that if he had the strength to press his hand against the left side of his chest, he wouldn’t detect even a flutter of life.
Forty-Three
Like a wounded animal Meredith crept through the dark outer offices, toward a small cloakroom in the back. It was the only place where she could be alone, away from bright lights and curious faces and the inevitable questions sure to arise over her appearance. Just for a few moments, she promised herself over and over. She would hide there for just a few moments, until she could make sense of what had happened in Benjamin’s office.
Benjamin . . .
She was so confused. Didn’t know what to think, how to feel. Should she pray for forgiveness? Scream for mercy? She’d lost all confidence in her own judgment. She didn’t trust herself, she didn’t trust God, she didn’t trust anyone or anything. Preston had only feigned interest in her, Benjamin indifference. Yet over the past hours each had gone to great lengths to demonstrate that the opposite was true. Blurred images of their faces swirled before her, their expressions fluid as creek water pouring over stones.
Meredith’s fingers fumbled upward, touching her lips. She could still feel the imprint of Benjamin’s lips and the strength of his arms, filling her with sensations for which she knew no words. With tremulous longings that were tangled with despair.
Preston had kissed her once or twice, light brushes of his lips against her cheek or temple. A tepid effort, which she now realized had elicited an equally tepid response on her part. At the time Meredith assumed his restraint a gesture of respect. Now she wasn’t sure, since Benjamin’s behavior, and her response, suggested a different interpretation altogether.
Nothing, not her first schoolgirl crush nor her infatuation with Lamar Aikens, nor even her obsession with Preston—nothing in Meredith’s life had prepared her for this—this raw longing inside her. She had never perceived herself as anything but a competent office manager for Benjamin. And she’d thought that Preston was an answer to prayer.
Benjamin was right. Her knowledge of men was false, based on self-deception. And she knew even less about herself. It had been humiliatingly simple for both Preston and Benjamin to dupe her, because she wasn’t a confident, worldly woman at all. She was nothing but a green country girl.
There, of course, was the answer. It was her own self-deception which had opened wide the barn door, allowing all of her common sense to stampede into the night. Hard on the heels of common sense followed every lesson in life, every spiritual truth she had resisted because of her stubbornness. Now she was well and truly alone inside that barn, vulnerable as a motherless foal.
Meredith knew she needed to examine the magnitude of her misconceptions, but right now she was too emotionally battered to do more than—hide in the cloakroom.
“Miss Sinclair?”
“Hominy, no more. Not right now.” The effort to speak exhausted her. She hoped he would take the hint and leave her alone.
“I might be sorry about disturbing you,” the deep drawl pushed its way past her stupor, “ ’cept for Mr. Ben. He doesn’t deserve what’s happened. He surely doesn’t deserve what you’re thinking, no matter that you didn’t say the word to his face.”
She hadn’t deserved everything that had been heaped upon her head either. “You have no idea what I’m thinking.” Her voice was leaden. “What I thought.”
But Hominy had reached her now and looked as though he would plant himself there until he’d spoken his piece.
“Very well,” she said. “Say whatever you need to say. I’m listening.”
“Thank you, Miss Sinclair.” The whites of his coffee-colored eyes gleamed in the darkened room, shifting from Meredith to Benjamin’s office door, now closed. “Um . . . Mr. Ben, he didn’t want you to know this.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because only one of them gentlemen in your life’s a coward, Miss Sinclair. And it isn’t Benjamin Walker. The real reason Mr. Ben sold that land isn’t ’cause he don’t have the gumption to face that sorry piece of trash, Mr. Clarke.” He hesitated, then added in a low voice, “Mr. Ben sold it to protect you, Miss Sinclair.”
The revelation felled her with a single swipe. “To—protect me? He’s protecting me?” Guilt rose, hot and thick as bile. She pressed a fist against her mouth. “Preston did threaten him, didn’t he?”
Hominy nodded. “Swore he’d see to it that your good name would be forever smirched. If you wanted another job, no one would hire you. No man would take you to wife, no decent folk would invite you into their homes. Naught but a pack of lies, and Mr. Clarke knowing it. But he told Mr. Ben it wou
ldn’t matter. Your reputation would be ruined all the same, and not even Mr. Ben could stop tongues from wagging.”
“But I’m leaving. I resigned. Preston can’t use me as leverage, there was no need to—to sell Poplar Springs.” Practically stuttering, she grabbed Hominy’s arm. “Hominy, you have to make him understand—no.” She tossed her head. “I’ll make him understand. Tell me, was any money exchanged this afternoon?”
“I . . . don’t reckon I know, Miss Sinclair.”
“Do you know if contracts were actually signed? Have you or Lowell or Mrs. Biggs carried any documents to the courthouse? Was his lawyer present—no.” Benjamin’s lawyer, Douglass X. Hackett, was in Roanoke this week. “We can undo the damage, Hominy.”
“Miss Sinclair—”
“Not this evening, it’s too late. But first thing in the morning.” In a half-dozen steps she reached her desk and fumbled for the lamp. “I’ll need my writing pad. I’m too rattled to remember names. Oh, why didn’t he tell me? The noble, crackbrained idiot . . . I don’t understand. Doesn’t make a lick of sense. Hominy, what did you—”
“Miss Sinclair? What you’re doing—it won’t do no good. Wasn’t just your reputation Mr. Ben’s wantin’ to—”
“Your grammar’s slipping. Don’t worry, Hominy. I’m not as discomposed as I look. It’s all right. I’m not going to—oh! . . . I resigned!” She stared blankly at Hominy. “I’m no longer office manager.”
“Don’t matter. He won’t change his mind about the land,” Hominy said. The dark eyes reflected the hopelessness Meredith heard in his voice. “I tried, near got my own self booted out over it. But you know Mr. Ben. Once his mind’s made up, might as well try to stop a sunset.”
“He’d made up his mind to build Poplar Springs.”
“Yes, he had. But that was before—” The full lips pressed together as though he wanted to say more but wasn’t going to.
“I won’t let him do this.” She pressed the heels of her hands over her burning eyes.
For once she would control her emotions. She refused to be at the mercy of those particular innermost parts God had created in secret twenty-three years ago. It was time the Lord made good on some of the promises she’d heard all her life and showed her and Benjamin a way to escape this infernal coil. You allowed this, do You hear? The least You can do is help me to clean it up.
An eerie prickling sensation skimmed across her skin, as though a warm breeze had blown through an opened window. Meredith froze, trying to grasp an elusive thought that danced at the periphery of her conscience.
“I didn’t mean to cause you more pain.” Hominy spoke into the strained silence. “I just had to tell you.” He shifted, not meeting her gaze. “Mr. Ben, he’s, well, I don’t reckon there’s a finer man.”
The strange prickling sensation dimmed. Meredith dismissed it with an impatient shrug, because one overriding conviction demanded her attention: She must talk to Benjamin. “I have to talk to him. Is he still in there?” She nodded toward his office.
“Don’t know. I’m afraid he might have used the back door. I shouldn’t have stayed away this long. No telling where he might roam, the way he’s hurting right now.” Even as he spoke Hominy was retracing his steps.
“Wait.” She darted in front of him. “Hominy . . .” Abruptly the words dried up in a spasm of uncertainty. “I . . . um . . . let me go in there. Alone, I mean. By myself.” Embarrassment glued her tongue to the roof of her mouth, but she stood her ground. “I wouldn’t do this under normal circumstances. You do know me, Hominy. It’s just that . . . there’s things I need to say to him, things I can’t . . . say with an audience.”
A jumbled prayer arrowed straight from the depths of her being. God? Help me. Please.
She didn’t know what Hominy saw reflected in her face. But in an unprecedented gesture—one he never would have proffered under normal circumstances—he reached out his hand, and gently squeezed her shoulder.
“I’ll fetch the buggy,” he said. “I’ll wait there. You’re not to go home by yourself, Miss Sinclair.”
“No, I won’t.” The lump in her throat swelled. She touched the back of his hand. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Reckon I’m the one to be thanking you,” Hominy said. He touched his forehead and silently departed through the outer door.
Benjamin hadn’t left. Meredith breathed a silent thanks as she slipped inside his office. Her mouth was dry, her hands trembling, her heart so full of emotion it hurt to take a breath. For a moment she stood just over the threshold, watching the motionless figure across the room.
Still coatless, he stood with his back to Meredith, staring out into the night, his hands tucked inside his pockets. The only light in the silent room glowed softly from a banquet lamp on a cluttered book table next to his left elbow.
Suddenly shy, Meredith took one tentative step, then another, until she was only a step or two from him. Benjamin gave no sign he was aware of her presence.
Mr. Walker, she started to say, but caught herself. In her heart, he’d never be “Mr. Walker” again. “B-Benjamin?”
His shoulders stiffened, but he didn’t turn. “Did Hominy send you? I wish he’d take his meddling elsewhere. Go away, Meredith. I’m not fit company right now.”
“That’s how I felt, but Hominy wouldn’t leave me alone either.” She’d have given her right leg for a glass of water. “I thank God he didn’t.” With difficulty she managed to clear her throat.
“You have a peculiar relationship with the Almighty. From what I understand, you also thanked God for sending Preston Clarke into your path.”
If he’d sounded sarcastic, or even affected the light indifference that wounded more deeply than a heated tirade, Meredith might have lost her courage. But his voice betrayed only exhaustion. A soul battered like Meredith’s within and without.
“I’m beginning to realize,” she said very quietly, “that what I understand about God is that . . . I understand very little at all. But I think for the first time in my life, I’m ready to learn. Benjamin, please turn around. I need to say something”—she tried to take a deep breath—“and you deserve to have it said to your face.”
A visible shudder snaked down his spine. When he turned around, the opaline glow from the lamp illuminated his set face. He looked, she realized, as though he were facing his executioner.
“I’m sorry, so sorry,” she blurted, the words tumbling forth in her need to heal his pain. “About everything. Hominy told me, you see. I didn’t understand. I don’t. It’s just that it never would have occurred to me, that you’d sell your dream to protect me. I still don’t understand . . .”
The words began to wobble. Desperate, she plowed ahead, because nothing mattered in this moment but that Benjamin’s hurt be assuaged. “I was wrong to think what I did, Benjamin. And it was only that one instant, truly. Even when you wanted me to call you a coward, I didn’t. I couldn’t, because no matter what you read in my reaction, I never really believed it. Please, will you forgive me?”
“I thought,” he replied after the longest pause of Meredith’s life, “you’d expect me to ask your forgiveness.”
“For—what happened this afternoon? I don’t care about that anymore. It’s done, finished. We were both played for fools by an insignificant toad who tries to pretend he’s a prince.”
The ghost of a smile appeared. “I’ve always loved your gift for description. Meredith, tell me. Does this reversal of devotion to Clarke have anything to do with the fact that I kissed you like I did earlier? It was a mistake, I know. And you do deserve an apology in spite of what I—”
“I never thought you were a coward, but if you try to apologize for that kiss, I will decide you’re a-a—” Abruptly she launched herself forward, threw her arms around Benjamin’s neck, and planted a clumsy kiss on the corner of his mouth. The dizzying sensation that her bones were dissolving poured through her once more.
Meredith gasped and wrenched herself away
—no great feat because throughout the entire impulsive embrace Benjamin stood rigid as an iron post.
“I-I’m not going to apologize.” She pressed one hand hard over her heart, the other on the corner of the table. “I’ve . . . been wanting to do that for”—she bit her lip, then finished with a broken laugh—“a half-hour, at least.”
“Meredith—”
“But it seemed like forever.” She kept her gaze glued to his, where she could vaguely discern tiny sparks of light starting to glitter in the night darkness of his eyes. Their expression gave her the courage to continue. “Benjamin, you were right. I don’t know anything at all about men, not really. I . . . well, I do enjoy their company. I’ve even foolishly chased one or two. I know now I was self-centered and ignorant. You were right. I made it easy for Preston.”
“You don’t need to—”
“Because until you, nobody, including Preston, ever made me feel so . . . alive. This afternoon, I was angry enough to hit you. Which of course I shouldn’t have because Papa told us over and over never to hit unless it was for self-defense. He told us a woman has no right to strike a man just because she’s angry, because a man who is any kind of man at all would never dream of hitting back. Just like you said, remember? And then, you hurt me so deeply that I could barely stand upright, and I didn’t realize at the time that only someone you care about—a lot—could cause that intensity of hurt. But it was when you held me in your arms that—”
“That you realized why I’m thanking God that I’m longer your employer and you’re no longer my employee. Is that what you were going to say?” Benjamin asked in a husky undertone, his hands now lightly cupping her shoulders.
He drew her toward him, his thumbs tracing the line of her collarbones in a gesture that turned her knees to water. “You do have a way with words, my love. But right now you’re using too many of them.” His head dipped until his breath caressed her face. “I need this more than I’ve needed anything in my life,” he whispered just before his mouth closed over hers again.
Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1) Page 36