Dark Series, The Color of Seven and The Color of Dusk (Books We Love Special Edition) (49 page)

Serena slowly recovered but made no move to leave. She felt curiously at peace at Gorley House and moved into the school rooms. She discovered a natural and unsuspected talent for children and teaching that surprised and pleased her.

Sadie didn’t like her continued presence and she knew it. Just like she knew Joshua did. Everyone in the household carried their own weight, even the children. Chores spread out weren’t a burden on anyone. Serena tried to pull her own weight, even if her presence wasn’t welcomed by everyone.

One early April day she picked a stack of Joshua’s freshly laundered shirts up from the kitchen table and toted them to his room. The door was open but the room was empty. She picked up the picture sitting on the bureau. Joshua in his teens. With a white man and a white woman. Joshua’d had a brother, a white half-brother, she’d heard that from somebody in the shelter, but that brother’d been dead for almost twenty years. She stared at the man in the picture. Light hair, obviously blond. Something about him seemed familiar. And he’d been a doctor.

Joshua’d found her a doctor. She remembered the man’s voice more than anything. Something about it, not the voice so much as the tone, the inflection, the cadence of speech. He’d sounded very much like someone else she knew. Joshua. He’d sounded very much like Joshua.

You have to promise me, you have to swear, that you will never, never tell anybody—

Do you even think ‘bout slippin’ up, I goan know it. An’ I tear yo’ tongue out by de roots.

Impossible. Paul Devlin was dead. Wasn’t he?

“What are doing with that?”

She hadn’t heard Joshua coming up behind her. She started. It hadn’t been her intention to snoop.

“I was just putting up your shirts. I didn’t mean—”

“Paul Devlin and his wife,” Joshua said shortly, “I’m sure you’ve heard the story from somebody. Paul’s father Everett Devlin and Sadie raised me as a child. Paul finished the job. He and his wife are dead.”

“Yes, I know the story,” she said.

Joshua heard the slight hesitation.

“You listen to me, Serena,” he said. His tone and his omission of ‘Miss’ got her attention. “Paul Devlin’s dead. You understand?”

“Yes. I understand,” she said. She did indeed. At least, she thought she did. He was no more dead than Joshua but for some reason the world didn’t need to know that.

“Good. Please keep understanding it.” He turned to leave.

“Joshua?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t be angry with me.”

“I’m not.”

“Then can I ask you something?”

“You can ask. Don’t mean I’ll answer.”

“You’re half-white. Aren’t you?”

Joshua smiled. He’d often noticed strangers found that quite obvious but the people he’d grown up with didn’t. “I am.”

“Sadie really is your mother, you don’t just call her mama ‘cause she raised you.”

“Yes.”

“Everett Devlin was your father. You use it because that’s your name, not because they took you in.”

“True. Anything else?”

“That man, the one in the picture?”

“My brother.”

“You must have loved him very much.”

“You have no idea.”

She stared thoughtfully at his back as he walked away. So. Sadie’d raised his brother, too. In her mind, he was her son. And that explained Sadie’s fierceness. Serena wasn’t just an inconvenient problem for Sadie’s living son. She could become a threat to her ‘dead’ son, too. Sadie needn’t worry, but Serena knew there was no way to convince her of that.

Chapter Eleven

Even without Sadie’s constant reminders, Joshua knew Serena couldn’t live in limbo forever. He sought her out the next night.

“Like some evening air? The swing out by Mama’s roses?”

“Very much.” They moved over and sat down.

“Miss Serena—”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Keep calling me ‘Miss’. Considering the circumstances, I find it a trifle, well, affected.”

He laughed. “I guess in private it wouldn’t hurt nothin’. Serena, what are you going to do now?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Gonna have to eventually. Might be time for you go back to
Greenville
.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I said go back to
Greenville
, it’s your home, your roots, your family. I didn’t say go back to David Wentworth.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No. No, it isn’t. Divorce is an ugly word and it’s not all that common, I know, but—”

“Never. I couldn’t fight him and win.”

“Serena, your family has to have money, too. It’s written all over you, the way you move, the way you talk.”

“How conversant you are with genteel womanhood.”

“Well, matter of fact, I am. My brother’s wife. Chloe. I loved her almost as much as I loved him. You remind me of her. A lot. You were raised a society lady, it’s all over you. Your family has to have some influence.”

“Not anymore. It’s why I married David in the first place. Papa liked to play poker.”

“Oh, Lord,” Joshua sighed, knowing what was coming.

“He gambled everything but our house and finally, he gambled that, too. Then he fell over dead. The doctor said it was his heart.”

“And he was in a game with David Wentworth at the time.”

“My mother had nothing left, Joshua. Nothing but me and my little brothers and sisters. What was I supposed to do? Where would they have gone? There’s
nothing
worse than being a poor relation, you know that. And the Wentworths. Such a fine family. And David. He seemed such a gentleman! I had no idea.” Her voice trailed off.

“But you’re stuck in limbo. You deserve a life. A good one. Life’s a great, good thing, Serena. Full of darkness sometimes, but full of love, too. And you could find it, marry a good man—”

“No, thank you!” She shook her head emphatically. “David loved me. He said.”

“You can’t judge all men by David Wentworth.”

“And marriage, men, what they do!
Pahhh!
” She almost spat and shuddered.

He hurt me. In ways—I don’t want to talk about it.
She’d told him that. The first night. The words echoed in his head.

“Serena, it doesn’t have to be like that, it’s not supposed to be like that. It doesn’t have to hurt. It’s supposed to be a great pleasure.”

“Maybe all men don’t hurt on purpose,” she conceded. “But I don’t see how it could ever
not
hurt. Or how it could be remotely pleasant.”

Joshua shook his head. Damn bastard. He’d scarred her for life, in a place where it couldn’t be fixed. In her mind.

“You should at least think about it. You can’t hide forever.”

“Do you want me to leave? I’m sorry if I’m a lot of trouble, I love working with the children, I hoped it was a help—”

“
No!
No, I don’t want you to leave because you’re any trouble! I want you to have a
chance
! A chance at a good life! You are a help, the children love you. I just don’t want you to stay because you think you have nowhere else to go. And if money’s a problem, I have money. Think about it.”

“Oh, no, Joshua! I couldn’t possibly accept—”

“Think about it.”

* * *

She thought about it. As Joshua would say, know the truth and it will set you free. The truth was, she didn’t want to stay just because she had nowhere else to go. Even though she didn’t. She wanted to stay because she wanted to stay. Well, no, that wasn’t right, exactly. She wanted to stay because she didn’t want to leave Joshua. Which meant what? She didn’t know. But she wasn’t leaving until she did.

Joshua thought about it, too. And he realized he’d become the resident of some twilight zone between two cultures. He’d never be fully accepted by white society. That was a given and there was no point in wasting time over it. Black society accepted him. But it didn’t understand him. Because his brother had molded him into a white man in a black man’s body. A lonesome man.

He hadn’t realized how lonesome. Until Serena. Until he watched her in the classroom, saw her hanging clothes in the sideyard, heard her laughing with the children. She reminded him so much of Chloe. They didn’t look alike at all, but they had a kinship founded in an inner core of steel.

Joshua finally broke down and told himself the truth. He was dangerously, disastrously, attracted to—no, that was a bald-faced lie—he
loved
Serena Wentworth. Everything about her. Her petite grace and lilting laugh. The way she moved, the way she talked. Most of all, he loved her spirit and the determination that had carried her alone and pregnant down the hard roads from
Greenville
,
South Carolina
to
Macon
,
Georgia
and Gorley House. To him.

He was in love but he wasn’t
crazy.
Nothing would ever come of his feelings for Serena Wentworth and neither she nor anybody else would ever know he even had them. In his world, in the world where he’d worked so hard to build what he’d built—those feelings could get him killed. And too many people depended on him for him to let that happen.

Unspoken stalemate settled between the two, a balancing act just waiting to unbalance.

* * *

Joshua woke abruptly. His eyes focused on the last person he expected to see. Something must be wrong.

“Serena! Are you sick? Is one of the children—”

She sat on the bed and placed her hand over his mouth.

“No. No one’s sick.”

The last traces of sleep cleared out of Joshua’s brain. He allowed himself to look at her for only the space of a moment.

“Then I think it’d be a real good idea if you went back to your own bed. Right now.”

“Joshua—”

“Now, Serena.” His voice sounded harsh, even to himself. She had no experience with men other than her husband. He knew that. But didn’t she have any idea what she was doing to him?

Serena didn’t really understand why she’d been compelled to come to his room. And Joshua’s tone crushed her like a fly unable to avoid the flyswatter. He’d never spoken to her like that. Like she was revolting, disgusting. David always sounded like that, especially when he had her in bed and started performing those disgusting acts men performed. Joshua’d said it didn’t have to be that way between men and women, that it wasn’t
supposed
to be that way. It was supposed to be a great pleasure.

She didn’t really believe that, but she believed one thing. If there was one man who could make it even bearable for her, that man was Joshua Devlin.

For the past week, she’d been so engrossed in her own turmoil, her own conflicts, she hadn’t stopped to consider the social consequences of this night’s actions. She knew her husband detested her. She’d never pleased him and he’d sure as hell never pleased her. She’d never thought she’d ever consider the act with another man. Now she had, and that man didn’t want her. It never occurred to her Joshua was scared of her. Well, not of
her
. Of the possible consequences arising from the contrasting color of their complexions. She didn’t even
see
the contrasting color of their skin anymore.

Her face crumbled. She backed away, embarrassed, humiliated, shamed.

“You lied.” Her whisper stabbed his heart.

“Serena!” He almost stood up but remembered in time. It was May. He was naked beneath the sheets. He was in enough trouble now, he couldn’t let his body touch hers, even through her nightdress. His hand shot out, attempting to catch her wrist.

He missed. His hand closed on the thin material of her nightgown as she fled. It ripped down the side seam. Her skin gleamed white through the tear, her body exposed to the gaze of a man who didn’t even want it. She sank down to the floor and cried, hands clasped to her face.

“Serena.” He leaned forward, but she was too far away for him to reach.

“Oh,
hell!
” He gathered the folds of the sheet around his waist and sat on the floor beside her.

“You lied to me,” she whispered again, the words muffled by her hands.

“No!” Joshua pried her hands from her face. “I’ve never lied to you, Serena.”

“You did! You told me, you said I couldn’t judge all men by David—”

“You can’t.”

“You don’t want me! You sounded just like him! So disgusted, so revolted! He said I wasn’t a real woman and no other man would ever put up with me! He was right!”

“That’s not it! For God’s sake, Serena!
Look at us!
Will you just
look!
” Joshua reached out and held their entwined hands up into the streaming moonlight. In the moon shadows, their hands were caught in the striking contrast of ebony and ivory.