Midnight Rose (27 page)

Zachary reined in so hard his horse reared up on hind legs to paw the air wildly.

“Mastah, mastah, did you find her? Did you find my Letty?”

Zachary brought the horse under control, then dismounted.

Ben was almost in tears as he continued his plea, “Mastah—”

Zachary struck him across the face with his riding crop and snarled, “Get outta my way, boy. Give my horse a rubdown. Then get the hell to your shack and see that the others do the same. I don’t want none of you skulkin’ around tonight.”

Blood streaming from a gash on the side of his head, Ben could only scramble to his feet and murmur humbly, “Yassah, yassah,” and all the while he was choking back tears. It was torture not knowing what had happened to the woman he loved, realizing he probably never would.

Zachary was going in the back door just as Rosa was coming out. She saw him and instinctively screamed. He looked like someone gone mad, eyes bulging, face a reddening grimace of wild fury. She covered her mouth with both hands in terror and backed away. Grabbing her by her hair and slinging her from the steps and onto the ground, he yelled the same command to her that he’d given Ben. “Get to your place and stay there. I better not see no black faces around here this night. I’m goin’ to find out what the hell is goin’ on.”

He started on inside, but Rosa dared to call out from where she lay sprawled on the ground. “For the sake of Jesus,” she shrieked from the depths of her soul, “tell me what you done with my baby girl.”

Turning, he stared down at her. “I haven’t done anything with her. Ask your Jesus. Maybe He knows where the bitch went.”

Arlene had gone to bed early. She had done little but rest in the weeks since Erin had been gone. Tulwah’s potion did not stop the coughing spasms from coming but helped bring them under control. Still, she felt terribly weak, and the blood seemed to be getting worse. She supposed there was nothing to do but go back to the doctor and ask for his help; yet it was so much easier just to drink the foul-smelling, horrid-tasting concoction and let it take her away to a peaceful sleep. At least, she drowsily gave thanks as she snuggled beneath the sheets, Erin was safe. She would be taken care of for the rest of her life.

Suddenly, the door opened, flying back to bang loudly against the wall.

Arlene quickly sat up. Seeing the maniacal look on Zachary’s face, she whispered, “Oh, my God!” and then shrank weakly back against the pillows, quaking in terror.

Slowly, he crossed the room. Striking the air with his fist, he raged, “I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch for gettin’ her pregnant, and then I’m gonna beat the hell out of her for bringin’ shame on this family.”

“No! No, you aren’t going to do anything.” Despite her frailty and her fear, Arlene quickly crawled out of bed to attempt to explain. “It wasn’t like that at all. Erin isn’t going to have a baby. It was all very proper. They just wanted to go ahead and get married, and we had no idea when you’d be back, and—”

He grabbed her by her throat and shook her viciously, then flung her onto the bed and roared, “Then damn it, why did you let her get married before I got back? How do you think it looks, my stepdaughter gettin’ married and me not here? Makes me look like a fool, that’s what it does. Makes it look like I’m not respected around here, that all I’m needed for is payin’ the bills.”

Arlene could not speak. The coughing had begun, rattling from deep down in her chest. She struggled to reach her handkerchief on the bedside table and the bottle of Tulwah’s potion.

“But then that’s all you married me for, anyway, wasn’t it, you goddamn strumpet!” He knocked her outstretched hand away. “You thought you were so smart, didn’t you? A high yaller marryin’ a rich man from Virginia! Well, who in the hell do you think you are to make me the laughingstock of Richmond? Don’t you think it’s bad enough, me havin’ to worry folks will find out my wife’s part nigger, without havin’ to face their snickerin’ ’cause my own family don’t respect me?”

The coughing was quickly getting worse. “Please…Zachary…” she begged, groping for the bottle. “My…medicine…please.”

He backhanded her, knocking her across the bed. Then he threw her on her back and straddled her. With one quick jerk, he ripped off her nightgown. “I knew you was Mandingo, all right, but it didn’t make no difference, not with a body like you had back then.”

He was panting with excitement as he tore off his shirt. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman. Letty had been the last. He, along with Frank, had had his fill of her the night before she escaped. He’d been leaving Arlene alone, because she always started that damn hacking, but tonight she was going to remember who was master around here. “You
always did drive me crazy. Beautiful. Just beautiful.”

She was too weak even to attempt to fight him off, calling on what strength she had to try and breathe. The coughing was becoming a heaving spasm, and his weight on her was only making it worse.

He was about to enter her when, in the bedside lantern’s glow, he saw the way she was looking at him. The coughing had finally subsided, and she made only a soft, wheezing sound. But contempt, hatred, and disgust were mirrored in her glaring eyes, and this enraged him. He slapped her and yelled, “Don’t you look at me like that, goddamn you! I’m your husband. I’ve got my rights.”

He hit her again and again. Her head lolled to one side, and then he took his pleasure.

Arlene made no move, and, at last, he got off the bed and walked out.

She was good for nothing, he fumed. Always sick. Her and that infernal coughing. Before, he had managed to cope with the misery of his marriage by thinking ahead to the time when he’d have his way with Erin. Sooner or later, he would have been able to convince her she would be wise to keep his bed warm on a permanent basis. If it ever got out she had Negro blood, well, as tense as things were getting, no white man would have her, except as a whore. And for damn sure, he bet Youngblood didn’t know about it. Coming from his blue-blood aristocratic background, he’d never marry a woman of mixed color.

Arlene and Erin had pulled it off slicker’n a baby’s bottom.

And now Erin was married and gone, and he was bitterly forced to acknowledge he had no one to satisfy his lust. Not even Letty. She had been a prime lay, too. Now he’d have to find somebody else. Start all over. Maybe he would get him a young woman. Have the younguns Arlene hadn’t given him. Just as well. He didn’t want to sire any high yallers. He wanted an all-white heir to his fortune. He’d worked too hard to see it go to a high yaller, and that’s damn sure what would happen if Arlene should happen to outlive him.

But maybe she was dead already.

He’d worry about it in the morning. The whiskey was catching up with him, making his head spin.

He made it to his room and was asleep by the time he fell across the mattress.

Rosa waited nearly a half hour before daring to go upstairs. Even then, she crept along, holding a candle in her hand to light the way. She paused between each step to wait for any sound that would mean Master Zachary was still moving around. She thought she had heard him leave Miz Arlene’s room but couldn’t be sure, would take no chances.

At last she stood outside the open door and stared into the shadowed abyss. Not hearing anything, she tiptoed in to stand beside the bed, then froze at what she saw there.

Arlene had been brutally beaten, and a pinkish, blood-tinged froth ringed her partially opened mouth.

For long moments, Rosa could not move. The candle’s wax dripped down to burn her fingers, but she didn’t feel anything but the anger and pity raging within. A constricting lump of horror held back her screams as she reached out to press her fingers to Miz Arlene’s throat to see if she was still breathing.

Then she felt it—a pulse. Weak. But there.

She hurried from the room. No matter that Master Zachary had forbidden Tulwah to come onto his land. No matter that he would probably kill her if he knew she was bringing Tulwah right into the house. Tulwah was the only hope of saving her mistress now.

And when he was through with his white magic, Rosa prayed he would use his black magic on the devil responsible.

Chapter Seventeen

Erin awoke with Ryan’s arms wrapped
around her. For a moment, she could not remember where she was. So many different bedrooms in the past weeks. Then it dawned on her. She was home.

Home.

The word seemed as alien as her surroundings.

She lay there for a moment, marveling once more over the opulent surroundings.

And they were in her bedroom, she thought with smug satisfaction, not his.

They had arrived late the day before, exhausted. She would have liked to go directly to see her mother but knew it was too late and too far. Instead, they had enjoyed a leisurely supper while Annie and Ebner unpacked their things.

Erin had been surprised by how they, along with the other servants, seemed so glad to see them, especially Ryan. Likewise, he greeted them genially. It was certainly different from the atmosphere at Zachary’s house, where fear and anxiety hovered almost all the rime.

She turned her head to look at him as he slept. For one who could be so remote and distant at times, he was certainly warm and passionate when he made love to her. How easy it would be, she thought, there in the still and quiet of the early morning, to give him her heart. Yet she knew that could not happen. Never could she allow herself to be so vulnerable. As he’d said, they each had their own reasons for the marriage. But love had not been one of them.

Carefully, so as not to awaken him, Erin disengaged herself from his embrace. She padded softly to the window and pulled back the curtain only a little way so she could look out at the splendorous view. She could see the river in the distance. In between was the intriguing labyrinth, an intricate pathway of hedges that she judged were nearly ten feet tall.

The entire scene was dramatically beautiful, with the rising sun making the waters dance with crystal droplets of gold and emerald. Selfishly, she couldn’t help wishing they would always have this privacy, the entire estate to themselves. But when Victoria Youngblood returned from Europe, things would change. Now that they were back, her thoughts turned to that inevitable meeting. According to the impression she had got from Aunt Sophia, and Carolyn Manning’s venomous diatribe, it was not destined to be a pleasant encounter.

Ryan’s voice intruded upon her reverie. “If you’ll pull that cord next to you, Ebner will bring our morning coffee.”

“I didn’t mean to awaken you.” She gave the cord a yank and went to put on her robe. She was wearing a sheer gown Ryan had bought for her at the first place they’d shopped, to replace the muslin garb he’d ripped to pieces.

He got up and headed for the door to the parlor that separated their rooms. She could not help but stare at the magnificence of his nude body. His buttocks were perfectly molded, firm, and his thighs rock-hard. He had told her he never slept in a nightshirt, preferring the freedom of sleeping bare. He coaxed her to do the same, but she refused. Once their passion cooled, the wall between them always sprang back, and she was uncomfortable then to be unclothed.

“Tell Ebner we’ll have breakfast downstairs. The usual for me.”

Erin quickly reminded him, “I’d like to visit my mother today.”

“Of course. After lunch. This morning I’m going to show you around the grounds. It’s time you familiarized yourself.”

He stood there, naked, in the middle of the parlor, and she was amazed at his nonchalance.

He went on to say he’d noticed her fascination with the labyrinth. “I’ll take you through it. Unless you know the way, you can get lost. So don’t ever try to hide from me in there,” he added with a wink before continuing toward his quarters.

She was surprised by his good humor. The past few days, he had seemed to be withdrawing from her more and more, and while she didn’t like the coldness between them, she had no idea what to do about it and was too proud to try. But, perhaps, she could hope being back home would cause him to behave differently.

As they were having a last cup of coffee after breakfast, a woman servant Erin had not seen before appeared to stand almost imperiously next to her. She was wearing the familiar gray dress with long white apron, but, unlike the others, she wore a white turban on her head. She did not speak, merely stood there holding some kind of paper in her hand.

They were in the breakfast nook, glassed on one side for the glorious view of the gardens, sunshine pouring in on baskets of colorful petunias and geraniums that hung from the ceiling. It was a cozy place, and Erin had been enjoying herself till the strange-acting woman appeared. She looked at Ryan, not knowing how to react. The woman seemed to want something.

“This is Eliza,” he said without flourish. “I guess she’s second in command after my mother around here, as far as the servants go. She wants to go over the lunch and supper menu with you.”

Erin took the paper, glanced over it, and handed it back with a timorous smile and said it was fine. There was just something about the woman that was intimidating. She said as much to Ryan when Eliza had gone.

He explained, “She’s very loyal to my mother. She came here with her when mother married my father. No doubt she resents you, thinks you’re going to take over. When Mother comes back, she’ll realize nothing has changed, and she’ll be all right. Don’t worry about her.”