The old Negress furrowed her brows deeply as if she were trying to remember, her sightless gaze focused on the wall to the left of Tyler's head.

  "Kincaid, you say? I don' know no Kincaids 'cept dat white trash down on the county road. But yore pa, he done run dem off long time back."

  Every muscle in Tyler's body tightened. She leaned forward, her whisper urgent.

  "That was Gray's family! Did you know them? Did you know my husband's father?"

  "Oh, chile, you don' want to know all dem old thangs—"

  "Yes, I do. It's very important to me. What did you mean when, you said Papa ran them off? Did Papa hurt them?"

  As if suddenly weary, Mammy Rose Marie leaned her head against the back of the rocker. "Mebbe hit ain't nuthin' you want to be rememberin', chile."

  Tyler ran her tongue over her lips, a sense of foreboding welling up inside her. "Please, Mammy. Please tell me."

  Mammy's fingers tightened around Tyler's hands. Her voice came in a hoarse whisper. "Dat Kincaid man be a poacher. You pa done had him drugged."

  "Drugged?" Surprised, Tyler glanced at Grady. The man towered his eyes. His wife also shifted her gaze.

  Tyler turned back to her nurse. "I don't understand, Mammy. How? With laudanum, or what? Why would he give him medicine?"

  Mammy didn't speak, and in the ensuing silence, a child's laughter filtered in from the bright sunshine outside. Grady finally answered Tyler's questions.

  "Mama doan mean no medicine, missus." He hesitated, looking down and twisting his hat. "She mean drugged like when dey gets a rope on him and drug him down on de road. Your pa punished his people dat way, too, if dey caused trubble."

  Tyler could not move. The vivid, horrible image seared into her brain. "Papa did that to people? Papa? How could he do such a cruel thing, Mammy? He was kind to you, except for that one time, wasn't he? He couldn't have! Tell me he didn't do it!"

  Teardrops ran in jagged rivulets down Mammy's dark, wrinkled cheeks. "Dat's right, chile. He be kind."

  Tyler heard the pity in her mammy's voice, and she knew the old woman was no longer telling the truth. Her heart felt caught in a vise, squeezed so tightly she thought she would faint.

  "Did Gray's father die? Did Papa kill him?"

  Mammy nodded her grizzled head, her mouth drawn down with sorrow.

  "Was he cruel to everyone?" Tyler's voice faltered; then she turned to Grady, desperate for an answer. "Grady! Was Papa cruel to you? And the others? Was he?"

  Grady refused to look at her. His words were low and reluctant. "I wust scairt bad of de druggin's, missus."

  Tyler felt physically ill, so sick at heart that she couldn't say another word. She stood jerkily, staring at Mammy, then at Grady and Lolly. She fought for control.

  "I have to go now, Mammy," she choked out in a voice that sounded nothing like her own.

  She whirled and fled the house, her face as white and set as a marble mask, leaving Grady to console his weeping mother.

  "Gray! Thank goodness you're home! It's Tyler!"

  At Harriet's distraught voice, Gray jerked his head around from where he had just dismounted on the front drive of Rose Point. Charles stood beside him, but Gray moved quickly toward Harriet as she ran down the steps.

  "What is it? Where is she?"

  "She's upstairs in her room. But something dreadful must have happened to make her behave this way!"

  Harriet wrung her hands together, clearly agitated, until Charles took hold of them and tried to soothe her.

  "Harriet, dear, calm yourself and tell us what she's done."

  Gray frowned as Harriet clutched his arm, her alarm quickly communicating itself to him. "Did something happen to Bess?" he asked quickly.

  "No. Tyler left with one of her father's slaves—"

  "What? She went off with a stranger?"

  "Yes, but she returned safely," Harriet hastily reassured him. "She was gone with him only an hour or so, but when she came back, she acted so queer! She wouldn't say a word, would barely even look at me. By the time we got home, she was crying as if her heart would break. She locked herself in her bedchamber and wouldn't admit me, no matter how much I begged."

  "Who was this man? Where did he take her?"

  Harriet shook her head distractedly, twisting her handkerchief. "His name was Grady, or Brady, or some such thing. He told us that her nurse wanted to see her."

  "Mammy Rose Marie?"

  "Yes! That was the name! He said she was dying and was calling for Tyler."

  "Well, then, that surely explains it," Charles interjected, patting Harriet's shoulder. "Tyler's upset because her old nurse is ill."

  Harriet was not pacified. "I don't think so. Gray, I wish you'd talk to her. I've never seen Tyler in such a state."

  Gray left at once, entering the front hall and bounding up the stairs three at a time. Their bedchamber door was locked. He rattled the doorknob.

  "Tyler? Let me in."

  Leaden silence was his answer, and he clenched his jaw. "Dammit, Tyler, open the blasted door."

  Seconds later, the bolt was pushed back. He opened the door and found Tyler in front of her wardrobe, holding several gowns on padded hangers.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  Her face wore a chilling, blank look. When she spoke, her voice sounded flat and mechanical.

  "Nothing is wrong. Why?"

  "Harriet's worried about you."

  Tyler turned back to lift a yellow silk dress from the tall wardrobe. "There's no need."

  She crossed the room, and Gray saw an embroidered traveling valise lying open across the bed.

  "Where are you going?" he asked tightly, fists on his hips.

  "I've decided to return to Chicago with Harriet and Charles."

  A frown knitted Gray's, black brows, but he forced himself to remain calm. "Then perhaps you should tell me why."

  Tyler didn't reply, and when she retraced her steps to retrieve more clothes, Gray lost his temper. He reached her in two angry strides and jerked her around to face him.

  "What the hell's going on? What did Mammy say?"

  Tyler pulled away, avoiding his eyes, and Gray made no attempt to restrain her. For the first time, fear shuddered through him. He leaned against the bedpost as Tyler took her time folding a white satin waist.

  "If you're ready to go home, we will," he said quietly. "I'm more than willing to get back. I've already left my business for too long. I thought you were happy here."

  Tyler stopped packing, staring unseeingly at the garment in her hands.

  "Did my father kill your father?" she muttered in a wooden voice.

  Shocked, Gray stiffened, then felt an overpowering sense of relief. She knew. He remained silent. But as much as he wanted no lies between them, neither did he want to subject her to every sordid detail.

  Tyler turned slowly to face him. "Tell me why he did it."

  Gray still hesitated. "Are you sure you want to know? It's not pleasant."

  "Yes. I want to know everything."

  Gray stared at her, dismayed by the anguish in her eyes. He was gripped with a sudden rush of rage to think that even from the grave, Colin MacKenzie was able to hurt Tyler, able to make Gray's life miserable. Perhaps telling her the ugly truth was the only way to free them both.

  "Then come and sit with me. We'll talk about it together."

  She sat on the sofa at the foot of the bed. Gray settled beside her, taking her hand and pressing her fingers to his lips.

  "I wanted to tell you before, but I was afraid I'd hurt you."

  Tyler's eyes filled with tears. "Please, I'm so confused."

  Gray took a long breath. He stared down at the back of her hand as he stroked it with his thumb.

  "As I said before, we lived on Township Line Road. The winter had been bad. There was little work for anyone in the county, especially the tenant farmers. Carly was a baby, and when Mother became ill, Father couldn't bear to see us hungry anymore. He shot a deer." He paused, finding the story harder to relate than he had expected. "He shot it on Rose Point land, Tyler. And when your father found out, he rode up to our house with a dozen of his slaves. They kicked down our door and jerked Father out of bed. Then they strung a rope around his chest." The terrible memory came gushing up, a black nightmarish vision he had never been able to forget.

  Tyler's features seemed carved in stone, and Gray ran a hand over his face. His voice was low, unnatural.

  "They dragged him behind a horse, Tyler. I remember every detail. It was cold and dark, and pouring rain, and Mother was screaming. Then she wept and held Carly when they dragged him back into the yard on the end of that goddamn rope." He sighed shakily. "I'm the one who went for the sheriff. But he did nothing, because we were poor and MacKenzie was rich. That's when I ran all the way to Rose Point, so full of rage I thought I'd die from it. I threw a brick through the front window downstairs and called your father a murdering bastard."

  Gray's teeth came together, his jaw clenched with hatred. "He tied me to the whipping post in the slave quarters and beat me with his walking cane. Then, with all his people watching, he tossed me a bag of coins and told me never to set foot on Rose Point again. He said he wouldn't tolerate white trash on his land."

  Tyler's carefully controlled expression suddenly contorted with pain. "My God, Gray, how could he have been so cruel! You were just a little boy! How could I ever have loved him?"

  "He was your father. You loved him the same way I loved my father."

  Tyler lay her face against her knees and made keening sounds. "Don't you see? I didn't love him! Not after he killed himself. I've never admitted it, but down deep in my heart, I knew it. I blamed him for leaving me all alone. I despised him for not loving me enough to care how I felt when I saw him put that gun in his mouth. Now I hate him even more for what he did to you."

  "Don't, Tyler," Gray murmured soothingly, drawing her against his chest. "He's dead. Hating him won't punish him. You can't do anything about what he did to me or anyone else. You have to see him for what he was and accept it—and realize that none of it was your fault."

  Tyler went limp against his chest, her shoulders racked by hard sobs. Gray held her tighter as she clutched the front of his shirt.

  "I was so wrong about everything," she sobbed brokenly. "Mammy told me. She told me what he was really like. You were telling the truth."

  Gray shut his eyes, sick at heart over her grief. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I wish now I'd told you myself a long time ago."

  Tyler put her arms around his neck, crying for him and his family's suffering, as well as for her own. After a long time, she quieted within her husband's strong arms, her head resting on his shoulder, feeling weak and drained of emotion.

  When she leaned back to look at him, the candlelight illuminated her tear-ravaged, puffy eyes. "How could you bear to come back here and live in this house after all he did to you?"

  "I wanted you to be happy. I was hoping you'd stop hating me, I guess. I never intended for you to be hurt this way. He pushed a damp curl off her cheek. "But now we have to start anew. We have to put all our memories and mistakes behind us. Let's go back to Chicago, where there won't be any ghosts to haunt us."

  "Yes, take me home," she whispered, her wet cheek against his face. "I only want to be with you."

  Gray held her close, hoping that nothing else would ever come between them. They'd both gone after retribution, sought it in their fathers' names. But in seeking vengeance, they'd only hurt each other. Perhaps, though, the final victory was theirs. They'd found each other. They loved each other. It was time to forget the past and look to the future.

  21

  Gray handed Harriet into the carriage as his driver shouldered a heavy trunk and then stowed it inside the boot, along with several large bandboxes. The master of Rose Point looked back toward the veranda as Charles climbed up to sit beside his wife. It had taken only two days to ready themselves for the journey home to Chicago, and Gray hadn't felt better about the course of his life in many a day. As he had told Tyler, he would be glad to escape the haunting old plantation house.

  Now that Tyler knew the truth about her father, the place had become as repellent to her as it was to him. He resolved to help her as much as he could in the days ahead, keenly aware that she would be vulnerable until she resolved her confused feelings.

  "She's still in the front hall, poor child," Harriet told him, as if divining his thoughts.

  "I'd better go see her."

  Gray mounted the steps to the open front door. Inside, Tyler stood motionless at the foot of the grand staircase, her palm resting on top of the carved newel-post. She turned when she heard his boots clicking across the tiles.

  "Are you ready?" Gray asked, hesitant to rush her, yet eager to be away.

  "Yes," she said quickly, coming into his arms and pressing close. Gray accommodated her embrace with the utmost pleasure.

  "We'll return someday for a visit if you want," he said softly. "I've dismissed the staff, but Ben and Bess have promised to look after the house for us. I told them they can bring the boys and live here. Mammy and her family have also agreed to come. Lolly's to be the cook, so I offered them the rooms off the kitchen."

  "I'm glad." Tyler looked down the hall toward her father's library. "But I don't think I'll want to come back," she whispered. "Not ever."

  Gray put his palm atop the mass of silky curls hanging down her back, then led her by the hand to the waiting carriage. When the driver directed the horses down the lane toward Natchez, neither Tyler nor Gray looked back at the grand pillared facade of Rose Point Plantation.

  Despite Gray's attention and obvious sensitivity to her inner dilemma, Tyler was plagued by deep remorse. As the train roared and smoked its way north, she agonized over her past misdeeds. Thoroughly miserable, she grappled incessantly with doubts concerning her own worth and apprehension about Gray's ability to truly forgive her for the crimes against him. She tried valiantly to hide her anguish from Gray and their friends, but each time she sat across the chessboard from Charles Bond, she remembered with cutting regret the pitiful sound of his heartsick weeping when she had faked her death. It appalled her to think that she could have done such a wicked thing to him.

  And Harriet, poor, dear, sweet Harriet, who had gone against her principles to help with Tyler's schemes, only because Tyler had shamelessly persuaded her to do so. Worst of all and hardest to bear was the treachery she had perpetrated against Gray.

  When she lay nestled close in his arms at night, she would listen to his even breathing and wonder if he could actually love her—the woman who'd tricked him, lied to him. The mere fact that she was the daughter of his father's murderer was good enough reason for his disgust. What if someday he realized how awful she really was? What if he was only infatuated with her for the moment? Each time such thoughts spun through her head, Tyler would feel so low and unlovable that she wanted to flee the company of the people she had hurt so much—for their sakes.

  As the days passed, she became convinced that she should go away before she hurt them any more. The thought of leaving Gray tortured her. She loved him so much. But if she returned to Chicago as his wife and her criminal past was uncovered, he would face humiliation and ruin. And he would become a laughingstock among his friends and associates.

  On the evening before the Kincaid car was scheduled to reach Chicago, Tyler had arrived at no solution that would enable her to stay with Gray. Her heart was heavy as she sat at the dining table with him and the, Bonds. Completely dejected, she drew in a long breath from a sore heart as the efficient, ever-smiling Homer hovered nearby with his wheeled serving cart.

  Increasingly worried about Tyler, Gray studied her face from across the table. Since she had discovered the truth about her father, her behavior had changed drastically. More often than not, she sat silent and introspective, allowing the conversation to flow around her like a stream rushing past a boulder. Gone were her quick smiles and saucy retorts, which had always drawn him to her. She rarely laughed anymore, and when she did, it was fleeting and lacked real feeling. She was in the throes of an internal struggle, and he felt powerless to help her.

  Harriet was concerned as well. They had discussed Tyler's low spirits at length the day before. Even now, Charles and Harriet both strove to divert Tyler from her melancholy. Gray frowned and turned his attention to Charles when the older man addressed him.

  "Gray, I believe your idea to conceal Tyler's past will work splendidly. I certainly intend to tell whoever asks your story—that she grew up in Montgomery. And Harriet will do the same among her friends. Since our wedding, Harriet's been accepted most readily, I'm proud to say. Our tray is usually overflowing with calling cards. No one should have any reason to doubt our version of the facts surrounding Tyler's past, especially since John Mooney and Betsy have agreed to keep mum about the incident aboard the Lady Jane."

  "Good," Gray answered. "As long as John makes no accusations, we'll be able to hush it up. Then Tyler won't have to worry about the authorities. If anyone does recognize her, we'll simply pay them off."

  He waited for Tyler's reaction, but she said nothing, listlessly pushing her untasted food around on her plate.

  Harriet leaned closer and gently touched Tyler's shoulder. "It'll work out, dear. Please try to believe that."

  "I appreciate everything the three of you are trying to do for me," Tyler murmured. But her tone was so disconsolate that her friends exchanged troubled glances.

  After dinner, when they sat in comfortable, velvet-tufted swiveling chairs before the parlor windows, Tyler remained silent, deep in thought as Charles described in dazzling detail the construction of a palatial dry goods store on State Street, in Chicago's shopping district, which was partially owned by Marshall Field, a good friend of both Gray and Charles.

  As the hour grew late, Charles stood and stifled a hearty yawn. "I suppose we should retire. Don't you think so, my heart?"

  Harriet nodded, an anxious furrow between her brows as she pressed an affectionate kiss to Tyler's cheek. "Sleep well, dear."

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33