Daughter of Twin Oaks
Daughter of Twin Oaks
Books by
Lauraine Snelling
Golden Filly Collection One
*
Golden Filly Collection Two
*
High Hurdles Collection One
*
High Hurdles Collection Two
*
A Secret Refuge
(3 in 1)
D
AKOTAH
T
REASURES
Ruby • Pearl
Opal • Amethyst
D
AUGHTERS OF
B
LESSING
A Promise for Ellie • Sophie’s Dilemma
A Touch of Grace • Rebecca’s Reward
H
OME TO
B
LESSING
A Measure of Mercy • No Distance Too Far
A Heart for Home
R
ED
R
IVER OF THE
N
ORTH
An Untamed Land • A New Day Rising
A Land to Call Home • The Reaper’s Song
Tender Mercies • Blessing in Disguise
R
ETURN TO
R
ED
R
IVER
A Dream to Follow • Believing the Dream
More Than a Dream
*
5 books in each volume
DAUGHTER OF
TWIN OAKS
A SECRET REFUGE, BOOK 1
Lauraine Snelling
Daughter of Twin Oaks
Copyright © 2000
Lauraine Snelling
Cover by Dan Thornberg
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 978-1-55661-839-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Snelling, Lauraine.
Daughter of Twin Oaks / by Lauraine Snelling.
p. cm.—(A secret refuge; 1)
ISBN 1-55661-839-5
1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.N39 D38 2000
813’.54—dc21 00-008414
To the Brown Family and
all the others at Family Circle.
Y’all made our visit the highlight of the trip,
and your help on things southern will carry on.
Thank you for the hugs and joy-filled love.
Donny, Jenny, Sarah, Jonathan, Rebekah, and Suzanne,
you make our lives richer, and we thank you for that.
Contents
LAURAINE SNELLING is an award-winning author of over 60 books, fiction and nonfiction for adults and young adults. Her books have sold over two million copies. Besides writing books and articles, she teaches at writers’ conferences across the country. She and her husband, Wayne, have two grown sons, a bassett named Chewy, and a cockatiel watch bird named Bidley. They make their home in California.
My thanks goes to the Historical Societies of Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri, and Kentucky. People there know how to research and taught me much. So many compilations of diaries, letters, and other books helped me research both the era and the area. My special thanks to Tom at Joseph Beth bookstore in Lexington and to Bryan S. Bush, who wrote
The Civil War Battles of the Western Front
and let me run my plot line by him at the Old Bardstown Civil War Museum and Village, where he is assistant curator. The folks at Fort Laramie, Fort Kearney on the Platte River, the Oregon Trail Museum in Independence, and the Wilson Creek Battlefield in Missouri all provided more blocks to add to my building novel.
I am blessed to have some of the best editors and readers who keep my time lines clear and my facts straight. Sharon Asmus and Helen Motter are two of God’s gifts to my writing, along with all the others at Bethany House who work so hard to publish these books.
Husband Wayne says he never knew he wanted to know so much about the Civil War, but with each book I’ve written, he has contributed more and more in the research and development of the stories. Thank God for someone who remembers where places are on the map and where he read whatever it is I need at the moment and loves to travel the backroads to find all the sites mentioned in our research.
Thanks to all my readers who let me know how much they enjoy my books. Without readers I couldn’t do what I love—write stories. I’d hate to have to go flip hamburgers at McDonald’s. What a mighty God we serve.
Hugs and blessings,
Lauraine.
Midway, kentucky
Spring 1860
“Jesselynn, what you doin’ wit dem britches on?”
Jesselynn Highwood scrunched her eyes closed as if by not seeing Lucinda’s scowl, Lucinda couldn’t see her.
“You heard me, chile.” Lucinda moved silently in spite of her bulk, a habit acquired during years of slave training. “What yo’ mama gonna say?”
“What Mama doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” Jesselynn spun away from the restraining hand on her arm. “You don’t have to tell her every little thing, you know.”
And besides, I’m not a “chile” any longer
. Sometimes Jesselynn thought she should have accepted one of those suitors who’d come callin’ on her daddy, just to get out from under both Mama’s and Lucinda’s thumbs. Jesselynn squared her shoulders. “If you must know, I’m goin’ down to the stables to ride Ahab for his morning works.”
“Young ladies don’ ride stallions, young ladies don’ wear britches, and …” Lucinda drew herself up to her full imposing height by sucking in a lungful of air. “Young ladies don’ disobey dey mama.” She let a silence lengthen for effect. “ ’Sides, what happen to that lazy pup Abe? Dem horses him responsibility for running ’round de track.”
“His arm still isn’t strong enough from when he broke it. You know that.”
Lucinda’s harrumph said she might know it but in no way agreed.
Jesselynn continued, ignoring her mammy’s mutterings and knowing she could be accused of impudence. Lucinda could be as stubborn as one of those old field mules at times.
“Zachary’s at school, Adam is too heavy, and we all know I can get more out of those horses than anyone else.” Jesselynn sneaked a peek from under the tan porkpie hat she wore pulled down over her brow. Lucinda hadn’t budged. The frown on her shiny black brow looked deep enough to plant tobacco in.
“Dey’s other boys down in de quarters a’wantin’ to ride. Now you just get yo’self back up dem stairs and change yo’ clothes before yo’ mama come down dem stairs. State she in, you want her to feel worse?” She pointed back up the carved walnut staircase with one hand and reached to turn Jesselynn by the shoulder with the other. Miriam Highwood, coming close to term, spent much of her days lying down either in bed or on the lounge in the parlor. Feeling so ill with this baby forced her to depend more on others, her eldest daughter especially.
Jesselynn glared at the old woman with all her sixteen years of practice but turned and made her way to the first landing, her back straight. She refused to allow herself to stomp on each tread as she wanted to. She had outgrown that at least.
You should have known better than to come down the front stairs
, she scolded herself. Out the window by way of the live oak tree would have been better. Joseph needed her down at the stables. She’d have to talk to her father about this again. He had said she could ride. But she had to be honest. He hadn’t said she could ride Ahab—in britches.
Even he had bowed to her mother’s edict that Jesselynn was no longer a child, that she was close to marrying age, and it was long past time for her to learn to act like a lady.
“Piffle.” Jesselynn knew that if she didn’t get down to the barns quickly, the entire day’s routine would be in an uproar. What was all the ballyhoo about women wearing pants after all? It certainly made more sense than those bulky skirts and hoops and petticoats—and confining corsets. After all, she had nothing that needed squeezing in or pushing up. Because she was tall and wore britches and a hat that hid her sun-kissed hair, she’d been taken for a boy more than once. She peeked down over the banister. Lucinda hadn’t moved from her guard at the newel-post, and the glare she sent upward made Jesselynn continue on to her room. She plopped down on the edge of the bed. Outside she could hear the robin’s morning song, echoed by the cardinal’s. Everyone, or rather, everything was outside but her.
She crossed to the window and pushed aside the lacy curtains. No one was in sight. Lucinda had stayed at her post, or at least was still in the house. Jesselynn pushed the window higher and bent to crawl out, reaching with one leg for the thick branch she’d used as an escape hatch for years. She found her footing from long practice, hand over hand guided herself down the tree, and dropped from the last branch to the thick lawn.
Young ladies shouldn’t have to go out their windows and down the tree, either
. She threw the thought over her shoulder as she trotted down the dirt road to the stables.
One of these days I’ll have a plantation of my own to manage, and then we’ll see who rides what
. After all, that’s what all well-bred southern gentlewomen did, marry and manage their husband’s house as well as a good part of the plantation. She knew there had been two young men asking her father’s permission to court her. But when her father asked her about them, she’d shrugged and shaken her head. They were just boys, after all. He hadn’t insisted.
“Piffle. I’d rather ride than be married any day.” Ignoring the thrust of guilt that reminded her she should be at her mother’s side for the day’s instructions, she trotted past the slave quarters, a row of small houses with gardens in back. She knew her father provided better houses for the slaves than most of the plantation owners. And while some of the younger slaves had been in the classroom with her, she wasn’t supposed to know that he taught all his people to read, write, and do sums too. It was against the law for slaves to read, but Major Joshua Highwood was a farseeing, godly man who believed the law was wrong and he had to follow his own conscience. Jesselynn argued that slavery was also wrong, but so far he hadn’t written the manumission papers for his slaves.
She missed him when he was gone, as he had been the last week, off to Frankfort, trying to keep the South out of war. Or at least Kentucky. Both of her brothers, Adam, the elder at twenty-two, and Zachary, at nineteen, were all-fired sure the South would win the war in a week—three at the most.
She’d heard so many rantings of the wonders of southern chivalry, she was sick of it. Why should the women just smile and say how wonderful the men were? How glorious to go off and fight—for what, she wasn’t sure after eavesdropping on their near-to-fisticuffs discussions. She had a feeling many of the hotheaded young men weren’t too sure either. The glory of fighting was all they could talk about, how they would run right over the enemy. Maybe they didn’t think about getting shot, injured, or killed. Men’s wounds wouldn’t be much different than a deer’s, for pity’s sake. She’d cried buckets the first time she saw a deer that had been shot. The bullet hole that tore open its heart still showed up sometimes in her dreams.
It was all a conundrum to her. She smiled to herself—that was her newest word. She liked to be able to use a new word three times in the next day. Then she would remember it forever—or so the boys’ tutor had said. After Adam and Zachary went off to school, he’d stayed on to teach the three younger girls, another of her father’s wars against the mores of the day.
“Hello, handsome,” she greeted the fiery red, or blood bay, stallion, Ahab, who bobbed his head and nickered as soon as he saw and heard her.
“How you this mornin’, Missy Jess?” The soft voice of Joseph, their head groom, floated out from the stall where he was giving the stallion one last brushing. “This ol’ son surely be ready to run.”
“Good. I am too.” Jesselynn inhaled the fragrance of clean horse, which was better in her mind than any perfume, even those made in Paris. She rubbed the stallion’s ears and smoothed his black forelock. “You been behavin’? You know I got in a mighty lot of trouble this mornin’ to come ride you, so don’t you go givin’ me any sass, that clear?” The Thoroughbred nodded as if he understood every word.
Joseph gave her a leg up. “If ’n I din’ know better, I’d think you was a boy, up der like dat.” Joseph shook his head. “What this world a’comin’ to?” He led the prancing stallion out to the half-mile track, all bounded with white board fences and dug every week to keep the sand loose so as not to injure the legs of the Thoroughbreds that trained on it. Twin Oaks Farm had turned out some of the top winners at Keeneland Track in Lexington, and buyers came from all around the South when the Twin Oaks’ yearlings went on sale every November.
Jesselynn let the old man ramble. He’d been the one to pick her up after she fell off her first pony. Her brothers had been laughing too hard to help. She lifted her face to the sun, barely peeking over the horizon, too new to burn off the morning coolness. Why would anyone want to waste this perfect part of the day in bed? Of course that was why she was able to sneak out the way she did. Her mother slept so poorly of late that she no longer rose at first light. Her two younger sisters liked to lie abed, then, though they were barely old enough to put their hair up, play at dressing up and weddings before joining Jesselynn in the schoolroom. When Jesselynn had called their preferences “rot” and a few other choice phrases, Miriam Highwood had admonished her eldest daughter to never again use those words—a southern gentlewoman did not even
think
them.
Life was a conundrum, it certainly was. After trotting once around the track to warm the stallion up, Jesselynn leaned forward and stroked her mount’s neck. “Okay, old son, let’s see what you can do. You need to be really tough for the running of the Futura next month.” She leaned over his withers and loosened the reins. Ahab leaped forward, gaining speed with every stride. Fence posts blurred and other horses being worked by young slaves in training flashed past. She pulled him up when she saw the entrance to the track flash past the second time.
Her eyes watered and her heart sang. Bit by bit she eased him back down to a hand gallop and then to an even canter. She’d pulled him down to a trot before they stopped in front of Joseph, who waited with stopwatch in hand.
The five-year-old stallion tossed his head, speckling her chest and face with globs of foam. Jesselynn wiped her eyes and brushed the bits of white away. “He did real fine, didn’t he?”
“Yessum, dat he did. I surely do wish you could ride him at de track. We’d have us a winner fo’ sho’.” He checked the stopwatch again and chuckled. His grin flashed white in the sun against his dark face.
“May be that can be arranged.” Jesselynn leaped to the ground and started walking the horse out.
“Now, don’ you be gettin’ any ideas, chile.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that.” The words may have been correct, but the expression in her green eyes told the old man she was cooking up a scheme. Everyone knew what good schemes she brewed.
Hounds baying made her look toward the long oak-lined drive. “Father’s home. Come on, horse, let’s get you washed down and …”
Joseph took the reins. “You go on up dere. We takes care of Ahab here.” The groom nodded toward the house.
Jesselynn shot him a smile of gratitude. He never broke her father’s rule that when you rode the horse, you made sure he was cared for, no matter if you were half starving or bleeding. But today was different. Something was in the air—they all sensed it.
She found her father slumped in a rocking chair on the shaded front portico. He’d leaned his head against one of the white pillars and closed his eyes. The lines of fatigue etching his face made him look much older than his forty-five years. He looked as though he’d been days and nights without sleep. Love for him welled up in her heart, so painful it brought tears to the back of her throat. The thought of a world without her father was beyond comprehension.
She sank down on her knees beside his chair and laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Father, what is it?”
He covered her hand with his own. “War, my dear. There will be war, and there’s nothing more I, or anyone else, can do to prevent it.”
