The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn (17 page)

Kneeling at the stream, she washed her face. There was little help for her hair beyond brushing it out and coiling it off her neck, secured with the ivory combs. That left her pinner, which she anchored with the carefully hoarded hairpins. One bit of lace, soiled as the rest of her.

Somewhere near, a branch snapped.

Tamsen’s heart skipped as a deer stepped from the brush across the stream, saw her, and bounded off again, white tail high. Nothing else moved among the trees except the birds. Their songs filled the air, shrill above the stream’s chatter. Like the frantic voices still clamoring inside her, for all her willing them silent.

There was no turning back time, no making things as they were
before she walked away from Mr. Kincaid. She told herself marriage to Jesse Bird was a better prospect than marriage to any man her stepfather would have chosen. At least Mr. Bird didn’t own slaves.

Did he own anything at all? He hadn’t pressed upon her any knowledge of himself that she hadn’t sought to learn, save that he’d called himself a poor man. She wished she’d sought a little more diligently.

“Lord, have mercy,” she said, rising from the stream. As she did, Mr. Bird stepped from the trees.

He hadn’t worn his breechclout today but the breeches and shirt he’d briefly lent her, with the buckskin coat. His hair was damp, tied back at his neck. His lean jaw, fresh shaven, had a scrubbed look. His features were a careful mask. He’d heard her prayerful plea. She was sure of it. Had he heard, or seen, anything more?

“It’s early enough we can reach Jonesborough,” he said through tight lips. “Get the Franklin marrying done today. But first,” he added, and his mouth softened. “I fetched these for you.”

A petticoat and matching bodice draped his arm. Tamsen, her jaw slackened, came forward, reaching for the garments. They were linen—fine woven, not homespun—died the warm brown of pecans, a lighter shade than the rags she wore. They boasted no adornment. No pearls or lace. But—she raised them to her face—they smelled of lavender and cedar, and they were clean.

Mr. Bird was watching her. “I thought Janet Allard was about your size. Will they do?”

Tamsen held the petticoat to her waist. It fell a tad long, but she could tie it high. The sleeves of the bodice cuffed below the elbow, an inch or two long, but it looked to be a passable fit. The garments were so much better than what she’d expected to be married in that it took her a moment to find her voice.

“Thank you. What made you think to do this?”

“I saw you in that blue gown, remember?” He gave her a crooked smile. “Though far as I’m concerned, you could drape yourself in sacking and still be pretty as a speckled pup.”

Speckled. She raised a hand to her cheek. “Have I acquired freckles?”

“Well …” He pretended to peer at her, then broke into a full grin. “Not nary a one. But I wish you could see yourself, the way you’ve taken the sun. You’ve colored up the prettiest shade of gold.”

“Mr. Bird …” Heat rose to her cheeks at his open admiration, but something more serious had her crumpling the garments he’d brought her, all but wringing them in sudden nervousness. Was she as olive skinned as her mother now? She touched her fingertips to her face again, then whipped them away as Mr. Bird’s eyes rested on her, questioning.

She had to tell him. The last thing she wanted were secrets between them, secrets that might one day come to light and cause her to suffer the way her mother had … because she’d married Mr. Parrish without telling him she’d been a slave.

That was what her mother must have done. But somehow Mr. Parrish had found out the truth and punished her for it ever since.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Mr. Bird looked mystified. “All right.”

Praying those words would still be on his lips once she was through, Tamsen closed her eyes and said, “My mother was a slave, Mr. Bird. Papa—my real father, Stephen Littlejohn—freed her, and married her, and to my knowing didn’t tell anyone the truth. I only found out right before …” She clenched her teeth, willing her mind away from that room in Mrs. Brophy’s house. “If this changes your mind about marrying me, I’ll understand.”

There was the smallest silence before he spoke. “Is that what’s in that box of yours? Something to do with all this?”

Tamsen nodded, opening her eyes to see him looking at her with the last expression she’d expected, a wry smile.

“If my own upbringing hasn’t put you off marrying me, then I don’t aim to let your mother’s having been a slave keep me from”—he seemed to change what he’d been about to say—“from doing whatever you need me to do so you feel safe.”

She worried over that pause. “You’re certain? I mean
certain
, because this isn’t just about me. I’m doing this for—”

“I’m certain,” he said with firmness. “But, Tamsen?”

She waited, her stomach turning flips at the change in his expression. There was warning in his face.

“Don’t go telling anyone else what you just told me. Leastwise, not in that courthouse we’ll be standing in later today.”

“But you said you don’t mind it.”

“That’s not it. I don’t know about Franklin, but North Carolina has laws against some folk marrying on account of things like blood.”

“Oh.” She felt the biggest fool. It had never once entered her head, those laws against interracial marriage. Of course she’d known they existed, but it wasn’t something she’d ever thought about as having any bearing on herself. Even if Mr. Bird wanted to marry her—and he looked for all the world as if he did—was this going to help the man, repay him for all he’d done for her, or make it worse for him? If Mr. Parrish knew the truth about her, couldn’t he simply declare the marriage illegal once he found them, lay claim to her again, bring that abduction charge against Mr. Bird?

If
she was legally a person of mixed blood. Her father had been white. Had her mother a white father as well? At what point did a person stop being too mixed to marry white?

There was her mother’s box, tied behind the horse’s saddle. Its contents might settle the question … or might not.

She didn’t look at the box, and Mr. Bird didn’t seem to think of it. “If that’s settled, go put on those clothes, and we’ll see to getting this union made legal—at least as far as anyone else is concerned.”

She swallowed further protest, her stomach doing a different sort of flip. “I’ll need to wear my stays again for the gown to fit. Will you tie them for me?”

“Do I have to?” He was trying to look disapproving, but humor lurked in his eyes. If he aimed to calm her nerves, he’d struck the right note.

She drew herself up straight, matching his gaze. “Yes, Mr. Bird. Unless there are more mountains to climb betwixt here and Jonesborough?”

“No ma’am. Not from here on.”

“Then, if you please, I prefer to be married in my stays.”

In the log-built structure that served as the courthouse in the hamlet of Jonesborough, faced with the sheet of foolscap he was meant to sign to post a marriage bond, Jesse Bird felt the spit dry in his mouth.

“You’re telling me I’m liable for how much?”

“Five hundred pounds.” The clerk, a tall, bony man, angular as a wading heron, shuffled through a stack of papers on the table, then turned to call a question to someone in a back room.

Till today, Jesse had never stepped foot inside a courthouse, Franklin or otherwise. A sense of urgent business taking place just out of sight, of nerves stretched taut behind harried gazes, had infected him the moment he entered the confined space, rifle slung at his shoulder, Tamsen Littlejohn at his side. Forced to wait while an older couple saw to some matter of a land deed, he’d been edgy to have the proceedings over long before he was called by the clerk. Tamsen, lovely in her borrowed gown, still occupied the bench beside the door, along with several later arrivals, all within hearing of every word Jesse uttered.

“I’m back from east of the mountains, all my furs turned to winter supplies. Not hard coin.”

The clerk jerked his chin at the crowded bench. “Post bond or don’t. I haven’t time to jaw over your private business.”

Jesse’s frustration must have shown in the beat of silence when the clerk finally met his gaze.

“You don’t have to do it this way,” the man informed him. “Find a minister. Have the banns read. But you’ll have to wait three weeks in case anyone objects to the union.”

Jesse glanced at Tamsen. Her eyes had widened at the clerk’s pronouncement, reflecting the unease that had coiled inside him when he learned they’d have to put their names in writing. He hadn’t thought through the details of what two people had to do to be married legal, never having the need. Signing their names seemed like leaving a trail a crawling babe could follow. But having banns read three weeks in a row was nigh as bad. Parrish and Kincaid might spend those weeks nosing along the French Broad, or they could show up in Jonesborough by suppertime.

The clerk waved away a fly that had come in through the open door. “I can’t see what the problem is. You do want to get married?”

The man didn’t need to know the worst of it. “The problem is I ain’t got five hundred pounds to lay down. I’d like to know who does.”

The clerk’s brows shot high. “You don’t have to pay it
today
. You’re only pledging that price to your wife if some impediment to the marriage should arise after the fact.”

Far from reassured, Jesse asked, “What sort of impediment?”

“You don’t have another wife stashed away somewhere?” The clerk gave him a looking-over and leaned close. “I don’t mean an Injun. That don’t count.”

Hot blood flooded Jesse’s face. Tamsen’s gaze bore hotter into his back. He ground his teeth. “She’ll be my first. And only.”

“Well, then, is she twenty-one, or have her parents’ consent?”

“Her parents are deceased,” Jesse said, skirting the former question which he couldn’t answer. Tamsen might be twenty-one. Or eighteen. Why hadn’t he asked?

Sweat was gathering on his brow. The clerk batted the persistent fly.

“If you mean to sign, I suggest you make it fast on account—”

“Amis!” Another man stuck his head around the doorway of the adjoining room. “Need you in here to witness.”

“Sign or make your mark—there.” The clerk jabbed a finger at the paper, then ducked into the back room.

Jesse beckoned Tamsen to his side.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Outside the courthouse voices rose and there was the stamp of horses hooves. Was this why all the tension and hurry? Some big proceeding set to get underway?

“Just need to sign this. Then we stand before the justice of the peace, who I’m guessing’s in that back room.” The blood pounded in his temples. Every instinct was telling him this was a mistake.

The clerk poked his head in view, shot a glance toward the door. Not a harried glance this time. One of plain alarm. Anxiety leapt from the back room, licking like flames at the edges of Jesse’s mind. They had to do this. They’d ridden half the day into Jonesborough. They had to be married, for both their protection. Hadn’t they?

He took up the quill, dipped it, but had written no more than
Jesse
before the disturbance outside escalated to shouts.

“We aim to enter the premises of this unlawful court. Stand aside!”

“Over our rottin’ corpses you’re coming in here!”

“If needs be—”

“Ye got no right!”

Two men waiting on the bench leapt to their feet as the doorway darkened. A scuffle ensued, men pushing in, others pushing back, then the tangle burst like a festered sore and bodies spilled into the courthouse. A dozen men, armed and grim, fanned out through the front room. Jesse knew the figure at the center of the throng—Colonel John Tipton. A big man with a big voice, Tipton raised it above those clamoring for his immediate removal from the Franklin court premises. “By the authority of the State of North Carolina, I demand all records of this illicit court be remanded into my keeping.”

“Absolutely not, sir!” The shrill rebuke belonged to a gray-haired man who charged out of the back room, riled as a fighting cock and nigh as small. “How dare you insult this honorable court with such outrageous accusations and demands?”

Jesse calculated their escape. A few paces of open floor space separated them from the confrontation—one balanced on the blade of a knife, violence a word or misstep away.

“It’s this so-called
court
that insults the General Assembly and the good order of the State of North Carolina.” Tipton motioned to his men, three of whom headed for the back room with rifles ready.

The older man flung his short arms wide. “Calumny—thievery!”

Tamsen clutched his arm. “Jesse, are they going to—”

“Come on.” He snatched the bond paper off the desk, cramming it inside his coat, then grabbed her hand and edged toward the door, glancing back to see the clerk lunge from the room and throw a wild punch at one of Tipton’s men.

Whatever restraint had held till then evaporated. Others rushed toward the back of the courthouse, leaving the door temporarily clear. Jesse hurried Tamsen through it.