Deception (39 page)

Hurrying back to her bedroom, Connor grabbed her packed bag and started down the stairs. She almost went back to lock her door, but she didn’t. Getting out of Oaklawn was the only thing on her mind. The hallway with the Sumner portraits and the mirrors seemed narrower and darker than she could ever remember. Wanting to run, Connor kept her pace to a very strong walk. Her truck was parked behind the barn. Once she was free of the house, she could run if she chose, but it was a matter of pride that she leave the house with some shred of dignity about her.

“Connor? Are you going somewhere?”

“Shit!” Connor jumped backward. Willene’s voice had come out of nowhere.

“Where are you?” Connor asked.

Willene poked her head around the corner. “Right here. What’s going on with you?”

“I’m going away for a few days. It’s an emergency. Could you ask Old Henry to look after the horses? He knows what they need.”

Willene stepped fully into the hallway. She had a dust-mop on a long pole and had been knocking cobwebs down from the corners of the high ceiling.

“I didn’t take you as the kind of girl who would spook and run.” She smiled sadly. “I don’t blame you, though. I don’t believe the Sumner family will ever find happiness. They’re cursed by the past, by their own actions.”

“I don’t give a good damn about the Sumners or the past. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to be able to think things through.”

Willene eased the dust mop to the floor. “That business with Renata really got to you, didn’t it?”

“Renata and several other things.” Connor felt her emotions threaten to spill over again, and she bit the inside of her mouth to stop the onslaught of tears that threatened. “I’m confused, Willene. I don’t want to make a bad decision.”

“I told you a long time ago that the Sumners were difficult people—very difficult. And I’ll be honest and tell you that it shocked me senseless when Clay asked you to marry him. I never thought he’d do that after what happened to Ms. Talla. He should know that he won’t find happiness in another marriage. Men like him don’t know how.”

She’d been warned. That much Connor knew was true. Willene and Richard had warned her. Connor wanted to cry. More than anything in the world she wanted to put her head on Willene’s sturdy shoulder and let the tears flow.

“Well, it’s rough. Have you heard from Mr. Clay?”

Connor shook her head.

“He should have called you. Come on in the kitchen and I’ll make us some herbal tea. I don’t much hold for that stuff, but there are days when it’s the only thing that seems worth putting on your tongue. This is one of those days.”

“I’m headed for the airport,” Connor admitted.

“Better call and check the times. You know Mobile isn’t exactly the hub of the universe. Flights don’t go out every ten minutes. If you’ve got a particular destination, you might have a wait.”

The longer Willene talked, the more irrational Connor considered her own behavior. Only a cock-eyed fool would go rushing out to an airport without even checking the flight times.

Willene handed her a phone book before she put on the kettle for tea. Connor found the number for flight information, then hesitated.

“Something wrong?”

“I don’t know that running away will solve anything.”

“Maybe not, but you do need some time to think. You deserve to make this decision without pressure. Mr. Clay will understand that.”

Connor slumped down at the table.

“Sit down and drink this tea. We’re all frazzled around here. Too much of the past. That’s the problem. Oaklawn is just swarmin’ with too much of the past.” Willene sliced two large pieces of fresh poundcake. Placing one before Connor, she put the other down for herself.

“People live in the past because they choose to,” Connor said. “Until I came here, I didn’t let things that were over and done with drag at me.”

“You’re young, and you haven’t been raised up with money. Money brings expectations. If you marry Clay, you’ll learn soon enough what it means to be a Sumner. There’s no escaping the past with that name.”

“If I marry.”

Willene broke off a piece of cake and slowly ate it. “You’re really having second thoughts, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a smart girl. Think it all through. Divorce is easy enough these days, but not for a Sumner. You’d best be sure of what you’re agreeing to before you state your vows with Mr. Clay.”

“Willene,” Connor hesitated, then forced herself to go on, “what’s been going on around here? I mean, what do you believe? I’ve seen someone out in the orchard. I’ve seen someone in this house. I hear someone outside my room. Someone was in the garden room with Renata, and nothing she says will make me believe differently. The children might be making up tales, but I know what I saw. And no one here wants to believe me, and I know I’m not crazy. Who is she? Do you know?”

As silence settled over the kitchen, there was only the sound of a faucet dripping. Willene looked over at the sink, but made no effort to rise and turn it off.

“Connor, there’s been talk for years that these woods are haunted. I didn’t want to tell you this, but it’s been so much worse since you’ve been here. It’s like you’ve stirred up the past.”

“Willene!” Connor was totally exasperated. The one thing she didn’t want to hear was a long tale of ghosts and goblins.

“Hear me out. I’m not talking about spooky wisps of smoke or any such as all that. I’m talking about people who look as alive and blooming as you and me. So alive that often people stop to talk to them before they realize that things aren’t right.”

Connor wanted to interrupt, but she knew enough to let the cook go on. Willene always got around to her point, and as long as Connor listened, she could delay making a decision about leaving Mobile.

“I guess last spring was the last time someone stopped and talked to Hilla. Irene Cochran had been visiting her sick auntie and was on her way home. Irene saw a young woman standing in the middle of the road, looking lost and completely out of place in an old-timey dress, so she stopped, thinking maybe it was one of those primitive religious women who’d lost her way.

“Irene said she talked a minute or two before the woman looked at her and said, ‘They took the man that I loved and they killed him. His own flesh and blood. To save their own hides. And now they’re going to pay. If I have to walk these woods until Hell freezes over, I’ll see that they pay.’ And she vanished right before Irene’s eyes.”

“But my great-great-grandmother left Lucedale and all of that behind. She married and had children and went on to live a long life far away from here. She had great-grandchildren when she died:”

“People go on and live, Connor, ‘cause that’s what you have to do. But it doesn’t always mean you’ve left the past completely behind. You’ve never been deceived or seen innocent people suffer because of another’s lies or broken promises?”

“James Dickerson was hardly an innocent man. You’ve told me yourself how he murdered and stole.” Connor got up and turned the faucet off. The persistent dripping made her want to scream.

“But in Hilla’s eyes, maybe it was different. He’d only been arrested when she was taken from town. Arrested and imprisoned. He was being held in secret. The sheriff was afraid of a lynch mob.”

“So where did they hold the trial?” Connor found herself interested in Willene’s story despite herself.

“Never was a trial.”

Connor dropped back in her seat and propped her arms on the table. “What? They hanged him, didn’t they? There had to be a trial.”

Willene leaned forward, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “This is one of the secrets of Oaklawn which the Sumners want to keep secret. If Mr. Clay knew I was telling you this, he’d skin me for sure. Maybe even fire me.”

“What?” Connor could feel the older woman trembling. She hummed with her knowledge, her forbidden secret. This was the past that Connor knew she had to uncover. The secrets had to be aired.

“James Dickerson was hanged right here at Oaklawn. Right from that biggest oak tree on the front lawn.”

“But he was caught in Mississippi. How could he be hanged over here without a trial?”

“Justice was a lot simpler back in the old days, Connor, and I’m not so certain things have improved. Wasn’t no doubt he was a murdering thief, and he got his just reward.”

“But he should have been tried, Willene. Our court system is based on the premise that every man is innocent until proven guilty.”

“That’s good to hear, and a nice sentiment, but it don’t work worth a damn unless you have money and power. I don’t think Hilla found that to be true.”

Willene got up and cut another slice of cake for herself. “I’ve had a craving for poundcake all week. When I was first working here at Oaklawn, I thought I saw Hilla in the woods a few times. She never talked to me. She was just lurking on the fringes, watching the house. It was said that she loved the butter poundcakes her mother learned to make in the old country.” Willene chuckled. “I used to leave her pieces of poundcake at the edge of the woods. And you know, they’d be gone the next morning. ‘Course, it was probably some ‘possum or ‘coon having a feast, but I always believed it might be her.”

“If Dickerson was hanged over here, who took responsibility?”

“No one. He was just an outlaw brought to justice at the end of a rope. Before she was taken away, Hilla tried to find out where he was being kept prisoner. And she tried to get anybody who’d listen to help her. She claimed he was being railroaded. That maybe he’d done some bad deeds, but that he was acting on behalf of plenty more who deserved punishment, too.”

“There’s probably some truth to that.” Connor leaned her head down on her fist.

“You look tired, Connor.”

“I am.” She straightened her shoulders. “Extremely tired. I never should have sat down here and drunk that tea. I haven’t slept well in several days.” She looked at Willene. “So who do you think hanged James Dickerson?”

“His family, they say. It was always said he was kin to some of the most prominent folks in these parts. Born on the wrong side of the blanket, but kin. Rumors were that his family supported him in his outlaw ways, and they promised him they would protect him. But in the end, they did to him what rich folks do to all bastards—they killed him.”

“Maybe my great-great-granny saw something in him, some goodness that might have been if he’d been given other choices.” It was incredible, but Connor felt a pang of sympathy for the outlaw. “It would be hard to be an outcast from your own family. Always the bastard.”

“Hard, but hardly grounds for murder.”

“I’m not taking up for him,” Connor said with a wry grin.

“You sound like Hilla must have sounded. But maybe that’s why she walks those woods. Before this area built up, this is where they’d meet, I’ve been told, her and Dickerson. And it was here he died, so it would only be natural that she would stay close.”

“If I believed in ghosts, I’d believe in Hilla.”

“Renata said that the woman she saw in the woods sent you warnings.” Willene’s voice dropped a level. “Don’t you think that strange?”

“I would if I believed it. Renata wanted me to leave. She still does and makes no bones about it. She made that up to try and scare me away, the same way she cut the girth on my saddle.” Connor realized her mistake too late.

“Cut your girth?” Willene leaned back. “You could have been killed!”

“I wasn’t hurt, thank goodness.”

“You told Mr. Clay about that, didn’t you?”

Connor shook her head. “I meant to, but things have been a little hectic, and it didn’t seem important after a few days.”

“If you’d broken your spine, it would have seemed important.”

Connor laced her fingers around her teacup. It was cold now. She checked her watch. She and Willene had been gabbing for half an hour. And Richard was waiting for her to call and tell him her flight plans.

“I guess I’d better go. Will you tell Clay I went home for a few days?”

The kitchen door opened and Clay stepped into the room. His eyes were red with lack of sleep, his face haunted. “I thought this was your home, Connor.”

Trapped was the only word that described the way Connor felt. Trapped and guilty. “I, uh, I felt I should go to California for a few days.” She was acting as if she’d been caught with the family jewels clutched in her hands.

“I was hoping you’d prefer to talk over some things with me.”

“Now, Mr. Clay, no point in acting that way. You’ve put Connor in an awkward position, and now you’re only making it worse.”

In the time that Willene spoke, Connor gathered her wits. “I tried to call you, Clay, repeatedly. You didn’t have time to accept my calls, and neither did Mr. Ashton.”

“I guess I figured I’d clear up everything I could with my business and talk with you in person.”

There was still an edge of accusation in his voice, but Connor chose to ignore it. “I’d have felt a lot better if you’d simply returned my calls.”

“I’ve got some sewing to finish in my room.” Willene excused herself, carefully closing the door between her private suite and the kitchen.

“Are you really going to California?”

Clay hadn’t moved an inch toward her. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I suppose Richard is ready and waiting to help you out.”

“Yes, he is.” Connor felt a prickle of anger. “Strange thing about Richard that makes me believe he’s my friend—when I call him he calls me back.”

“We have a lot of things to settle, Connor. I’ve got something that we need to discuss.”

“I have a lot of things to think about.” Before Clay could say anything, Connor rushed on. “Your brother paid me another visit. He told me about Melanie.”

“I don’t give a damn what Harlan told you. It all boils down to a matter of trust, Connor. Either you’re willing to believe in me, to trust me to be the man you want to marry, or you aren’t. It’s that simple.”

“Nothing is ever that simple, Clay. I can’t believe in you because you dictate that I should.”

“Have I ever done anything to make you doubt me?”

“No.” Clay’s actions had been caring, considerate and constant. “But as Richard warned me, and as I’m constantly told, there’s always the past to consider. Especially if you’re a Sumner.”