One side of Janet’s mouth quirked up in a half smile. “You don’t approve.”
“It’s not my place—”
“No, it’s not, but you’re entitled to your opinion. I understand my father’s reasoning, but it doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him. He’s a hard man.”
Diamond shifted position. The alcohol had loosened Janet’s tongue. “He threatened to disinherit Jesse because of our marriage.”
“He would have cut me off if I eloped with Finn.”
“You considered eloping?”
“Not really. I want what’s mine and Finn wouldn’t take me with nothing.”
Diamond interpreted her statement as a code for Finn never asking her to run off. “It’s the way of the world, I suppose.” Now and in her time. “Jesse only married me for my dowry.”
“I’m not so sure. You had already spent weeks in his company, unchaperoned. And you saved his life. He felt honor-bound to marry you.”
Diamond didn’t know what she disliked more, being married for money or obligation. Both stank. She wanted Jesse to love her as she did him. And the more she heard about Finn, the more she was starting to agree with her father-in-law—a situation she would never have envisioned. Maybe she could fix Janet up with a good Southern boy. She closed her eyes in disbelief. If she was considering match-making, she must have lost her own tolerance for alcohol. Besides, all the good Southern boys were off fighting the war.
“I hope we can go back to New Madrid soon. We will have to keep our heads down since it will be under Union control, but once the army moves on, it should be safe enough. Or would you prefer to stay here with Father?”
Diamond shuddered. “I’ll go with you.”
“Father built the house at Hickory Grove for Mother, but she died of a fever five years later. I’ve been the lady of the house ever since and something of a surrogate mother to Jesse, who was only ten.”
“I lost my father around the same age.” Diamond hadn’t realized Jesse had been so young when his mother died. It was a tough time to lose a parent.
“The house is much larger than this rental and overlooks our land. We grow cotton and hemp along with wheat, potatoes, and other vegetables. We even have a small apple orchard.”
“What if the South loses the war?”
“Everything is in Father’s name, and as a member of the exiled government, everyone knows where his sympathies lie, but we will have Jack on the winning side to see to our interests. That’s the plan, anyway. Do you really think the North will take all our land?”
Not directly, but Reconstruction would strip many wealthy Southerners of their plantations and the people who worked them. “I don’t know, but they will abolish slavery.”
“Making it harder to turn a profit, but not impossible. Finn refuses to use slave labor and Jesse’s been after Father for years to free our slaves.”
“He never mentioned that.”
“It’s not a popular sentiment. Father should have sent him to fight for the Union instead of Jack.”
“I’m glad he didn’t or we might never have met.” Diamond finished her tea, which had grown cool. “I’m going to turn in.” In reality, she wanted to re-read Jesse’s letter and read the next chapter of her book. She was finding nineteenth-century fiction a little ponderous after years of fast-paced thrillers, but she refused to give up reading. Books, magazines and newspapers had always been part of her life.
Janet waved her off. “I will stay up to work on Finn’s socks.”
Sarah helped Diamond off with her dress and brushed and plaited her hair. Diamond still found it strange for someone to dress her like a china doll, but she needed help with all the layers and someone had to lace her much-despised corset. As soon as Sarah left, she crawled into bed with her book. She savored Jesse’s letter before turning her attention to the Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne had been among her favorite authors her teachers had required her to read in school, but it was still slow going.
Soon her eyelids drooped, and she set the book aside, blew out her candle and snuggled under the blankets. A small fire burned in the fireplace for the nights were still chilly.
She awoke suddenly, fear freezing her muscles. Someone was in the room. Her heart hammered in her chest as she tried to remain still and regulate her breathing. She strained her ears and heard it again, a thump, followed this time by a muffled curse.
Wishing for a gun, she scooted to a sitting position. The dim light of the fire illuminated a silhouette lurking at the foot of her bed. Should she scream? Ian and Janet slept upstairs, and the servants slept in the attic. The intruder could easily kill her before help arrived. She wished she could flip on a light, but would have to light the candle from the banked fire or use the tinderbox, a skill she had not yet conquered.
“I’ll scream,” she warned, her voice shaking. Someone had broken into the house. Was it a simple burglar or a bushwhacker who had escaped the soldiers?
“Don’t scream,” a man replied. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Leave and I keep quiet. No one has to know you were even here.”
“I’m not leaving. I live here. Sometimes.”
He lives here? It wasn’t Jesse. That only left, “Jack?”
“Yes. Can we get some light here?”
Diamond slipped from bed and touched her candle to the glowing coals of the fire. She gazed up into a face similar to her husband’s, but softer, without Jesse’s razor-sharp cheekbones. She couldn’t discern his eye color, but suspected they were the same piercing blue as Jessie’s, Janet’s, and Ian’s.
“What are you doing here? Aren’t you stationed up north?”
“I’m on leave. A better question might be who are you? You’re not a servant.” He pinned her with a steely gaze, looking her up and down.
Diamond crossed
