Frost Fire, page 24
Tyler smiled at the happy look on young Bess's face and the way little Jake kept grabbing Gray's ears.
"We'd be right honored if you and your missus would join us for a bite to eat. It ain't much, but Bess can cook up vittles purty good."
Gray flashed a smile at the young mother, then glanced at Tyler.
"We'd like that, wouldn't we, Tyler? Our cook hasn't come out from Natchez yet."
He helped Tyler down from the horse as Bess knelt on a tattered brown wool blanket to unpack a small basket.
"When will your baby arrive?" Tyler asked, sitting beside her.
Bess grinned shyly as she handed Tyler a piece of golden corn bread and an apple.
"Soon, I reckon. He's been kickin' up a fuss for sure."
"Kicking up a fuss?" Tyler repeated with a quizzical look.
"Why, yessum, Missus Kincaid, ma'am. Sometimes I think he's off runnin' a foot race inside me." Bess laughed as she put her hand to her rounded abdomen. "He's up to no good in there right now. You want to feel?"
Tyler was startled by the offer, but she tried not to show it. When she nodded, Bess guided Tyler's palm until it lay atop her hard belly. When Tyler felt the thumpings from inside, she was so awestruck that her eyes flew to Gray. In that one moment as their gazes locked, she knew she wanted to have a baby, too. She wanted to feel Gray's child kick and run races inside her.
"See, he's a-wantin' to be born in the worstest way."
"Yes, I can feel him. Does it hurt when he kicks so hard?" Tyler asked.
"Oh, lawsy, no. It makes me glad 'cause then I knows he's gonna be a fine healthy one. We already done lost a wee little girl. It near broke my heart. Her name was Sally Margaret."
"I'm very sorry," Tyler said, her eyes reflecting deep sympathy as she visualized a baby girl named Sally Margaret.
"Do you and Mr. Kincaid have any chillen, missus?"
Tyler shook her head at Bess's question, but Gray answered for her as he handed the chunky toddler into his mother's arms.
"We've not been married long enough yet, Mrs. Rainey. But we're hoping."
Tyler did not hide her happiness, glad to hear he wanted a child, too.
They ate together on the blanket, and Tyler realized she was very hungry. There wasn't much food, but what they had tasted delicious, and they washed it down with cool apple cider. The men talked about Gray's plans to replant the fields to full capacity, and Tyler played with the little boy, who had an impish smile that made her laugh.
"Well, we'd better be on our way," Gray said at length, assisting Tyler to her feet. "Thank you for your hospitality, ma'am."
Bess colored with pleasure, and Gray turned his attention to her husband again. "I couldn't help but notice that your roof is in pretty bad shape. I'll send my carpenters over to repair it, if you don't object."
"I'd be mighty obliged, sir. I been meanin' to get up there and patch it some, but I just ain't found no time."
"Then I'll send them over. You'll be busy enough with your new responsibilities at Rose Point."
"Thank you, Mr. Kincaid."
Gray bid them good-bye, and he didn't talk to Tyler until they had reached the road again.
"Do you still think people like Ben and Bess are trash, Tyler? To be disposed of, just because they're poor?"
Tyler stared down at her hands, which gripped the saddle horn. "No, of course not. I told you I was sorry for what I said. Papa called them that, but I've never even met any of them before—"
"Then maybe it's time you stop repeating things your father and uncle Burl told you, and start thinking for yourself. You've got a good head on your shoulders if you'd just use it."
If such words had been uttered in any other tone than the quiet, gentle way in which Gray had said them, Tyler might have taken offense. However, since they were not harsh, and since his cheek rested affectionately against her temple as they rode, Tyler only leaned back and pondered the wisdom of his advice.
18
April 15, 1871
Rose Point Plantation
Dearest Harriet,
I was so pleased to receive your letter in this afternoon's post! Your correspondence took a long time to reach me, since it had to be forwarded from Gray's house in New Orleans.
Please let me first congratulate you on your recent marriage to Charles. You must accept my sincere wishes for good fortune and happiness, which you certainly deserve more than anyone else I know. I am certain that he will be a wonderful husband and companion to you. I hope he has it in his heart to forgive me for what I did to him, and I do so much want the two of you to accept Gray's invitation and visit us here at Rose Point during your wedding trip. You really must see my home, Etty. We spent so many hours talking about it.
We have been in residence now for nearly a fortnight, and I have found it most strange, especially since I am with Gray. I must tell you in all honesty that he has been nothing but kind to me since we were wed. I do appreciate the cordial wishes you expressed in your letter concerning our happiness, and despite all that has happened between us, I feel Gray and I might find it most pleasant to live here together after all.
I was upset and angry at first, as you well know from that scathing letter I wrote to you just before my marriage. I do hope I didn't cause you too much worry or alarm, but I was experiencing the most terrible feelings the night I penned those passionate words.
However, I know you will be glad to learn that I am rapidly becoming a dutiful wife. Gray treats me as if I am special and beloved, and at times he makes me think seriously about what I've said and done. I've come to wonder if I was wrong about him from the beginning, as you have suggested on more than one occasion. When will I learn to listen to your wisdom? In truth, I am beginning to believe that Gray is a generous, agreeable man. He is restoring the house—did I tell you that in my last letter?
Tyler paused in her writing, tapping the pen beneath her chin. She stared over the flaming wick of the oil lamp atop her small escritoire to the windows across the room. The curtains were being whipped inward by a fierce night wind that carried the fresh, damp scent of impending rain.
Frowning, she contemplated the words she had written to her dear friend. All the affectionate remarks about her husband had come straight from her heart. Wedded life was turning into a wondrous adventure.
A dreamy expression overtook her features. It was quite splendid, actually, having someone to hold her and love her every night before she went to sleep. And Gray must love her. Why else would he have given her Rose Point and treated her so well? And why would he have married her in the first place?
She leaned back, recalling the afternoon when Gray had waded with her in Possum Creek. But her thoughts soon shifted to later that day when he'd picked up little Jake. Gray liked children. He would want many of his own, and as Carlisle had once told her, they would grow up at Rose Point, happy and safe. No one would transplant them in the cruel way she had been uprooted during the war.
To banish such unpleasant thoughts, she dipped her pen into the inkstand again. She quickly finishes her missive, begging in an earnest postscript that Harriet visit as soon as possible; then she sprinkled sand over the wet ink. Moments later, she had addressed the envelope and affixed the sealing wax. The letter was ready to post. She stood and picked up the lamp.
Gray was still downstairs in her father's library, working on a huge stack of letters and business papers which had been delivered to him earlier in the same postal bag that had brought Harriet's long-overdue letter. But it was growing late now. Perhaps she could entice him to quit his work and come to bed with her. Her growing self-confidence told her she would have no trouble persuading him to do that.
She smiled inwardly as she went into the upstairs hallway. It was pitch black, the lamps having been doused by the servants for fear of fire. The house was eerie and intimidating, alone in the dark as she was, and her nerves grew taut as she descended the front stairs. The flame of the lamp in her hand flickered and jumped in invisible air currents, causing grotesque shadows to dance on the wall beside her.
Downstairs, she stopped at the long, slender-legged table by the front door, deposit Harriet's letter in the silver correspondence tray. The fanlight above the door had been left open to dispel fumes from the freshly painted white walls, and Tyler stood motionless for a moment, looking down the hall toward the library.
Gray was working behind that closed door, she knew, but even as she took her first step toward him, an inexplicable rush of fear rooted her to the spot. She stopped as wind gusted suddenly, howling through the transom and making her light cavort crazily. She tried desperately to shield the chimney top with her cupped hand, but the wick abruptly gave up its fight. The house was plunged into utter blackness.
Tyler couldn't move. Slow, awful, inescapable panic pushed against her chest. She felt as if she were in her worst nightmare, and her heart pounded so violently against her breast that she feared it would burst. Pressing back against the wall, she relived a night many years ago when she'd stood with a candle in the same dark hall. Again, endlessly, her mind reverberated with a single shot and the thump of her father's forehead against his desk.
"Gray! Gray!" she cried, her terrified voice echoing shrilly through the dark hall, until a light emerged from the back of the house and she heard the rapid click of Gray's boots as he ran across marble tiles. Then his arms were around her, his palm stroking her hair.
"What is it? What happened?" he whispered as he held her trembling body close. "Tyler? Tell me."
"My lamp blew out." Her quivery voice was barely audible against the soft fabric of his shirt.
"It's all right now. There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll put out the other lamp. Then we'll go upstairs."
He took her arm, but as he propelled her toward the library, she held back.
"I can't go there! Not in the library! Please don't make me!"
Instantly Gray understood her fright, mentally cursing his own stupidity. What in God's name was he thinking? No wonder she was terrified; her father had committed suicide only steps away.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said soothingly. He held her close for a long moment. "Wait here with the lamp. I'll be right back."
Tyler nodded, attempting to control her shaking as her fingers closed around the base of the lamp. But with each footstep Gray took away from her came a stronger wave of terrible, suffocating fear.
"Now," Gray said when he appeared seconds later, "let's go upstairs."
Once they reached the first landing, Tyler began to feel silly and embarrassed about her childish behavior. When they entered their bedchamber, she watched Gray place the lamp on the bedside table.
"I'm sorry. I don't usually act like such a coward."
"I know you don't. Forget about it and come to bed."
Instead, Tyler moved to the windows, and, sitting on the edge of the four-poster, Gray waited.
"Could we talk awhile?" she murmured. "I want to tell you something."
"Of course." Gray could tell she was troubled by thoughts of her father's death. He sat patiently as she toyed with the eyelet-edged ruffle at the bottom of the curtain, wind from the open window playing with her unbound hair and loose white nightgown.
"Gray, I—I just want to tell you that I've been considering what you said to me. You know, about me using my head and thinking for myself, and I know now that I've been wrong about you." She stopped, catching his eyes with her own somber gaze. "I'm sorry for all the terrible things I said about you, and I regret trying to rob you."
Pausing again, she endeavored to find appropriate words for the most difficult apology of all. "And I know that it wasn't your fault about—about Papa and Rose Point. It was war, just like you said. Chase told me the same thing, and so did Harriet, but now I'm sure you'd never deliberately hurt Papa and me." Tears stung her eyelids. "Uncle Burl must have been mistaken about you doing it on purpose. All the problems between us have been my fault, because you've been kind and generous from the beginning."
Gray watched her inner struggle with confused feelings, knowing she could never piece together the complete puzzle until she knew the truth. In the past few weeks, she had gone through a metamorphosis before his eyes. She'd grown more mature and self-confident, both with him and with the servants. And she loved him. He knew she did, though she'd never once said the words. Perhaps she was ready now to hear the facts about what had transpired between him and her father.
"Quit blaming yourself, Tyler. None of what happened in the past, here or anywhere else, is your fault. Maybe mine, maybe your father's or Burl Lancaster's, but never yours."
When Tyler looked up, obviously surprised, Gray hesitated, suddenly unsure he could bring himself to tell her. He would be taking a terrible risk with her fragile emotions. But he abhorred the continuous deception into which he'd been forced. He couldn't face any more lies between them.
"I don't understand what you mean," Tyler said hesitantly.
"You will, because I'm going to tell you what really happened. Why don't you sit down? It might take awhile."
Tyler sank obediently into the chair beside the window. Gray's eyes were intense; hers were bewildered.
"Tyler, I don't want any secrets between us. There have been too many for too long. And I don't want you to blame yourself anymore. You were the only innocent one involved in the whole damned mess."
He paused, his reluctance to hurt her again threatening his desire for honesty. "Burl told you the truth. I ruined your father. Intentionally."
Tyler was so stunned she couldn't move. She began to shake her head as he went on, gently but with relentless determination.
"The day after the war was declared, I financed my own regiment of volunteers. I purposely requested to fight in Mississippi so I could destroy Rose Point." He hesitated, pained by the expression of betrayal overtaking Tyler's face. He forged on, wanting his confession to be over and done with. "I ordered your father's cotton burned, Tyler, knowing full well it would bankrupt him."
"Why?" Tyler's hurt whisper was full of agony. "Why would you want to hurt us? You didn't even know us."
Knots began to form in Gray's stomach. "Yes, I did. I knew your father better than you ever knew him." He turned away, then looked back at her. Anger, suppressed for two weeks of mental torture in Colin MacKenzie's house, rushed up in an appalling surge. His mouth twisted into an ugly line. "You see, I was born down on Township Line. In the very house where Ben and Bess live now. I was the white trash your father warned you about."
Tyler blanched, her fingers clenching around the carved arms of the chair.
"That's right. My family lived in that little shack for years. Mother and Father, and Stone, Carly, and I. Carly was just a baby, and your wonderful, gentle father"—he emphasized the words with grinding sarcasm—"treated all of us like garbage that threatened to soil those snow-white gloves he always wore."
His hateful words brought Tyler out of her shock. "No! You're lying! He wasn't like that!"
Vainly, Gray fought to control the fury Tyler's defense of her father ignited in his gut. He could not. His laugh was short and bone-chilling. "Oh, yes, he was. He destroyed my family, and I swore I'd return the favor when I got the chance. That's why I went after Rose Point, and that's why I boarded it up and let it rot. God, I despise every brick and board in this place! I've hated every minute of every day since we've been here!"
"It's not true! I'll never believe my father did those things to you!"
"Your father was a devil," Gray ground out viciously. His expression was so cold, so contemptuous, that Tyler was shaken.
"I was right to hate you!" she whispered brokenly. "I'll hate you as—"
"I know, you'll hate me as long as you live," Gray finished curtly. "Spare me that blasted little speech of yours. I've heard it too many goddamn times already." His eyes were as hard and blue as December ice. "So be it, then, Tyler. Go ahead, hate me forever, if that's what makes you happy. I don't care anymore. Just don't ever sing me praises about your rotten excuse for a father."
He stalked out of the room, slamming the door so violently that a picture fell from the wall. Tyler stared after him for a long moment, then sank weakly to her knees. She buried her face in her hands, hard sobs racking her body.
The ancient coach bumped and jerked through a dry, rock-strewn creek bed, then lurched sharply as the horses strained together to pull the carriage back up onto the roadway. Inside the bouncing conveyance, Harriet Stokely Bond hung tightly to the strap on the door. Her husband patted her knee.
"According to the directions Gray sent me, it shouldn't be too much longer now, my dear. I know you're tired. I daresay the springs on this confounded contraption wore out a decade ago."
Harriet smiled at Charles's observation, placing her hand on his arm. Sometimes it seemed she was living in a dream, a wonderful fantasy where everything was perfect. Never had she expected to love again, and though her feelings for Charles were different from those she'd felt for her beloved first husband, they nevertheless ran deep and true and grew stronger with each passing day.
"I'm just so eager to see Tyler again," she murmured, clutching the strap tighter as the coach plunged into another deep rut. "I've missed that child dreadfully."
"I know you have." Charles took her gloved hand between his palms. "Even so, I have half a mind to take Tyler over my knee the minute I lay eyes on her. Saints alive, when I think of the grief she put me through, I want to thrash her."
Harriet averted her eyes, guilt stinging her like a wasp. Beside her, Charles suddenly chuckled. "I daresay, though, that Gray has taken over the task in my stead. If the look on his face that last day in Chicago was any indication of his intentions, I'm sure he dealt with Tyler accordingly."
"If he did, she has certainly forgiven him. Her last letter veritably glowed with marital contentment. She sounded absolutely ecstatic to be living at Rose Point again. That's one reason I was so eager to visit. She's desperately anxious for me to see her home."
