Midnight Rose Page 4

  So, all things considered, it was hard for Arlene to believe they’d heard the last of Mr. Youngblood. The more she thought about, it, the more convinced she was that he’d be the perfect husband for Erin. She needed a man who could cope with her indomitable spirit.

  “Don’t worry.” She smiled more to herself than to Erin. “I’ve got an idea he’ll be calling soon. Would that please you, dear?”

  “I suppose.” Erin shrugged and turned to gaze thoughtfully out the window as the carriage moved through the balmy night. “It was all a mistake, you know, our coming here. Nothing has changed. We’re still social outcasts, and I’d be better off going back to Atlanta and trying to find work, instead of staying around here, looking like I’m desperate for a husband, afraid I’ll wind up a spinster. And frankly, I don’t care if I do. Anything is better than marrying somebody I don’t love.”

  Arlene stared at her daughter’s profile in the glow of the side lamp and sadly thought how she could empathize so well with her feelings. Marriage to Jacob Sterling had been so very happy. Each day was a joy to live, and the nights in his arms had been heaven. She’d loved him above and beyond everything in this world. She couldn’t remember a single argument or cross word between them. Not only were they lovers and parents and helpmates and everything else that went with a good marriage—they were also best friends. When he’d died so suddenly, thrown violently from a horse spooked by a snake, she’d been devastated; she’d lived in a stupor for weeks. The only thing that had kept her from joining him in death had been Erin. For her sake, Arlene had struggled from the brink of insanity, knowing Jacob would have wanted her to dedicate herself to the child born of their deep and abiding love. Then, when Zachary had proposed, she’d been well aware she could never love him as she had Jacob, but vowed to try to be a good wife to him. But how could she have known what he was really like? How could she have been aware beforehand that, in exchange for future security, she had actually signed away her soul to the devil himself?

  Oh, yes, Arlene nodded to herself as she continued to stare solemnly at the daughter she adored, how well she could understand her child’s resolve to avoid a loveless marriage. But Ryan Youngblood was a man of class and good breeding. Surely he’d never physically abuse or mistreat his wife. Zachary, on the other hand, might be rich, but he was selfish, mean, lacked scruples and honor, and life with him had been hell. She had, so far, managed to suffer in silence, not wanting Erin to know just how awful things were. Better, she felt, to lie with simpering remarks about how Zachary wasn’t as bad as he seemed.

  Erin, Arlene was well aware, could be quite stubborn. Getting her married as soon as possible was a formidable task. But it had to be done. Thinking once more of Dr. Bowman’s grim diagnosis, she was raked with panic and desperation. He could do nothing, he said, for the illness that plagued her. Consumption, he called it, warning the coughing spells would become spasms as the blood-spitting worsened. He had no idea how long she might live, but assured her she would get weaker and weaker.

  Arlene was not afraid to die, but she did want to have the peace of knowing Erin would be looked after when she was gone. Never could she trust Zachary to do so; she didn’t intend even to let him know how sick she was.

  Erin turned to look at her mother, curious as to why she’d become so quiet. Seeing her worried expression, she felt the need to offer, “Mother, it’ll be okay. Someday the right man for me will happen along. We don’t have to humiliate ourselves this way, and I don’t want to ever again. But I appreciate your efforts. I really do. This dress, everything. The evening wasn’t entirely wasted.”

  Arlene smiled to herself as she murmured, “No, dear, it wasn’t wasted at all.” She then leaned back against the smooth leather seat and closed her eyes in complacency. Erin didn’t know it yet, but she had found the right man.

  Midmorning the next day, Erin was still sleeping, because she’d lain awake for hours reliving the delicious moments in Ryan Youngblood’s arms. She couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d caressed her with his eyes, the feeling that at any moment he was going to kiss her, wondered what she’d have done if he had. In Atlanta there had been a few boys who’d called on her, but she never got interested in any of them, and the kisses they’d stolen on the wisteria-draped porch had been awkward, clumsy.

  Somehow, she knew it would be different with Ryan. He was, she felt sure, quite experienced in such things.

  Still, despite the sweet reverie, Erin was realistic, telling herself she’d never see him again. At least the memories were wonderful, even if they were all she’d ever have, she acknowledged as she drifted off to sleep.

  Letty, forgetting her mother’s stern warning that she’d best forget the closeness she and Erin had once shared, was beside herself to hear Erin’s version of the ball. Miz Arlene had said not to wake her for church, that she was probably tired from all the excitement, but Letty wanted to find out just what kind of excitement she was talking about.

  Quietly letting herself into Erin’s room, Letty crossed to the bed and gently shook her awake to ask, “What was it like? Did you meet somebody real nice?” She crawled onto the bed to sit cross-legged, elbows propped on her knees, as she’d done so many times when they were children.

  Erin stretched and yawned, smiling as it all came rushing back. She confided everything as Letty listened with wide eyes, finally exclaiming, “I’ve seen Mastah Youngblood before, when we was—”

  “Were,“ Erin was quick to correct. “You haven’t forgotten everything I tried to teach you about talking proper, have you?” she chided gently.

  Letty rushed on, not wanting to be reminded of something else she could get in trouble for if it were known Erin had been teaching her to read, write, and talk as white folks did. “When we were takin’ cotton into town one day, I saw him standing on the side of the street, and I noticed him, ’cause he was so fine lookin’, and I asked Momma who that was, and she said that was Mastah Youngblood of Jasmine Hill, where they breed fine horses and have one of the biggest and nicest plantations in all of Virginia.

  “But she also said,” she went on to confide, “that he never beat his slaves, and when his daddy was alive, he didn’t either. She said what a blessing it would be if we ever got sold to somebody like Mastah Youngblood. Is he goin’ to come courtin’ you?” Letty asked hopefully. “Just think; if you marry him, you can talk him into buyin’ me and Momma, and we could all be together.”

  Erin laughed, but not in ridicule. “Well, that’s a wonderful idea, but not likely to come true. I don’t think Victoria Youngblood, from what I’ve heard about her, would ever approve of her son courting Zachary Tremayne’s stepdaughter.”

  Letty hooted at that. “He danced with you, didn’t he? And he didn’t care who saw! Why, as pretty as you is—” she saw Erin’s dark frown and corrected herself, “are, he won’t care what his momma says. You wait and see. He’ll be knockin’ on the door.”

  Erin lay back against the pillows in contemplation of that possibility, then admitted, “I’m not sure I’m ready for that, Letty. With any man.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “Romance. Love. Kissing. Touching.” She folded her arms behind her head, staring up at the blue lace canopy above. “Frankly, it scares me to think about it.”

  “But why? It’s nothin’ to be afraid of.”

  Erin lowered her gaze then to stare at Letty and wonder once more if she should tell her about that awful night, then decided it was best to keep it locked inside. As long as she didn’t put it into words, it seemed more like a nightmare than reality. Forcing a smile she didn’t feel, she said, “Enough about me. Do you realize since I’ve been home, we haven’t had one serious conversation about you and what’s happened to you these past five years?’

  Letty couldn’t help snickering at such a ludicrous question, couldn’t hold back the cynical retort, “What could change in five years for a slave? Oh, I don’t have to work in the fields anymore, and that’s nice. Lord
knows, I hate pickin’ cotton, draggin’ those big sacks behind me while the stickers keep my hands raw and bleedin’, and the sun beats down to fry my skin. Now I get to work in the kitchen out back, or here in the big house, ’cause Mastah Zachary says I’m breedin’ age, so it’s time for me to do some lighter work, leave the fields to the younguns and the bucks, and the older ones. Hmph!” She gave a bitter snort, then leaned to whisper, instinctively fearful, even though they were alone. “I ain’t breedin’ with just anybody, no matter what the mastah says. The truth is, I love somebody, Erin, and he loves me, and that’s who I want to breed with, have a baby by, and marry!”

  Erin was delighted, sat up once more to hug her knees against her chest and cry, “You see? Something has happened in your life since I’ve been away, and you’ve got to tell me all about it. Who is this wonderful young man that has fireflies dancing in your eyes?”

  Looking absolutely blissful, Letty told her about Ben, one of the grooms at the stable, how they’d fallen in love during the past year. Then the happiness left her face and voice all at once, as she angrily told how they weren’t allowed to marry. “Mastah Zachary says he don’t want none of his slaves gettin’ married, ’cause he wants to choose who we breed by, and he also says it just causes more trouble when he separates a husband and wife by sellin’ one of ’em.”

  Erin was struck with fury and sympathy at the same time. “That’s wrong. It’s also sinful, and—”

  Letty interrupted, anxious to finish venting her rage. “That’s not all the evil that goes on around here. It’s got worse while you were gone. He’s awful, Erin. Just awful. He even beat my momma, and you know how good she is, how she minds and never gives nobody no trouble. But one night, the mastah, he came home drunk, and he got mad ’cause she didn’t have his supper waitin’, and she tried to tell him it was way past suppertime, nearly midnight, and Miz Arlene, she said he won’t comin’ in, and to put all the food away, but he’d dragged her out of the bed anyway, but he was so crazy drunk he wouldn’t listen, and he throwed her down in the floor of our cabin and beat her with his belt then and there. If he hadn’t been so reelin’ drunk, hardly able to stand up, he’d have hurt her real bad, but he didn’t have the strength, thank Jesus.”

  Erin sucked in her breath, felt the cold shiver in her spine as she tightly asked, “Does my mother know all this?”

  Letty hesitated, not wanting to say more but knew she’d said too much as it was. “Yassum,” she regretfully answered, falling back into the slurring speech of the colored and forgetting everything Erin had taught her about carefully pronouncing all the syllables in a word. “She knows. But she ain’t gonna say nothin’, cause she’s prob’ly scared of him too.”

  Erin clenched her fists, suddenly rigid with fury. She knew if she ever saw Zachary strike her mother, she’d want to kill him. Once upon a time, she’d been ready to anyway, but pushed back that horrid memory as she focused on the present misery.

  Maybe she was being foolish and unrealistic to think she could actually meet a man with whom she could fall in love and live happily ever after, like in fairy tales. Her only real chance at happiness might be in getting married as soon as possible, escaping this awful place, and taking everyone she cared about with her, and that included convincing her mother to go, too. And just maybe that somebody was Ryan Youngblood.

  Finally she said to Letty, who sat watching her in apprehensive silence, “I suppose I’d better keep my fingers crossed that Mr. Youngblood was impressed, that he’ll want to court me. It may be the only way out for all of us. God forgive me”—she was suddenly swept with emotion—“but I hate Zachary Tremayne!”

  Letty could actually feel her wrath and shuddered at the intensity. She was not, however, going to join her in asking forgiveness for harboring hatred. No, sir! Instead, she was going to pray real hard for God to make it all work out, that Master Youngblood would ask Erin to marry him, and then they would all be delivered from the evil.

  But most of all, Letty hoped to spare her from ever knowing just how evil things really were!

  “I definitely think she’s the right one.” Keith tossed down the rest of his whiskey and held out his glass to Ebner for refill.

  Ryan was only half listening. For the past hour, they’d been sitting in the study while Keith droned on and on about the attributes of Mary Susan Hightower. In the span of only one evening, Keith had decided he was going to marry her and wanted Ryan to share his enthusiasm. Ryan was trying to be polite, but the fact was, he couldn’t care less. He was too lost in thought over his own find at last night’s ball—Miss Erin Sterling.

  The image of her lovely face kept appearing before him—limpid eyes framed by lashes that seemed to have been dusted with silver and gold, the ebony sheen of her hair and the way he’d lustily envisioned it fanned out on a pillow.

  He thought, too, of her luscious body, the way she’d moved as he watched from the terrace. Tall, she’d have long, curvaceous legs, and he wanted to see them, feel them, run his fingertips up and down and caress that creamy skin, move all the way up between her thighs to touch her in that magic place, making her moan and writhe as she begged him to take her.

  Ryan not only enjoyed making love to women, he liked making it good for them too. Watching their enraptured faces as he took them to climax, knowing he’d succeeded in giving them total ecstasy, served to make his own that much better. Never had a woman left his bed without being satisfied—and if she had, she was a damn good actress.

  He looked forward to giving Erin Sterling pleasure. In fact, he was anticipating many good times with her once she was established as his mistress. He’d be discreet, of course, but he’d make sure she was lavishly provided for. A small house in Richmond, perhaps, so the times he couldn’t be with her due to his family or his business, she could find entertainment dining out, going to the theater, with escorts he’d provide, of course. He would see to it she lacked for nothing, that she had the most exquisite clothes, jewelry, any luxury she desired. He’d arrange servants, too, as many as she wanted.

  Templing his fingers, Ryan looked through them, framing the lush, rolling pastures outside the window, thought how unfortunate it was he couldn’t share his own treasures with her. She struck him as the type who’d enjoy horseback riding, farm and plantation life. A shame it would be to tuck her away in the confines of the city, in order to render her available whenever he wanted or needed her, but that’s the way it was, the way it had to be. He’d try to take her with him when he traveled as often as it could be arranged, because after talking with her only briefly, he could tell she’d make a good companion.

  Companion.

  He smiled to himself.

  Mistress.

  Erin was the perfect choice.

  Just as Ermine was the right pick for a wife, he supposed resignedly. She was good blood. They’d produce fine children. He knew nothing about Erin’s background. In fact, the only thing he did know about her was that she set him on fire, and he had to have her, damn it.

  “You aren’t listening to a word I’ve said!”

  Keith’s sharp, indignant cry brought him out of his reverie, and he glanced at him, shook his head, and admitted, “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “I was asking,” Keith said, “whether you thought Christmas would be too soon for me to marry Mary Susan, because I thought it’d be nice if we made it a double wedding with you and Ermine.”

  “That sounds fine,” he said, though he didn’t know what he really thought, because he just wasn’t concerned with Keith and his problems. What he wanted to concentrate on was how to approach Erin. Hell, as eager as her mother was to find her a husband, he couldn’t just go charging over there and knock on the door as if he were commencing to court her officially. There had to be another way, a way to get the message across to Erin, who certainly had left the impression she was interested in anything but matrimony. That left only the position of mistress. She was smart. She’d catch on quickly—if he cou
ld just get to her.

  Keith, watching him with narrowed, suspicious eyes, finally accused, “You’re thinking about Erin Sterling, aren’t you?” Without giving him a chance to confirm or deny, he continued, “Now’s as good a time as any for me to tell you I think you should know people are talking. In church this morning, I overheard several of the women talking about that dance you were doing last night, though the criticism was more with whom you were doing it with.”

  Regarding him coolly, Ryan said, “She happens to be gorgeous, Keith, in case you were blind to everyone but Mary Susan. And she certainly can’t help who her stepfather is. Tell me, what do you know about her? I mean, where did her mother come from? What’s her family background?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Keith replied with an absent wave. He wanted to talk about Mary Susan, not some brazen female who’d dare go where she wasn’t invited. “Not from around here. South Carolina, I think I heard someone say a long time ago.”

  “Well, I’ve never heard much about Zachary Tremayne, but you seem to know a lot, from what you were saying last night, implying he’s into illegal slave trading.”

  “You’ve been away. He only got involved after America made it illegal, like I told you. Up till then he was just a rich plantation owner with no class or background and was just ignored. Still is. The same for his wife. Arlene, her name is. A very sweet woman. I know her from church, and when Lareina died, she was very kind, came to visit and brought me food long after everyone else had gone back to their own affairs and was no longer concerned with my grief. But none of that matters when it comes to being accepted socially, Ryan. You know that. So, get Erin off your mind. She’s pretty, but she’s not our kind.”