“We wanted to finish the main house.” Levi was torn between feeling aggravated with her after hearing Moses’ story and finding her breathtakingly beautiful in the waning light. “Moses did excellent work. You should have no fear of a leaky roof come the next storm.”
She sent a warm smile to the big man, who in turn grinned under the praise.
Samuel arrived on the porch. “Can we eat now? I’m hungry.”
“Is that turkey I’s smellin’?” Moses asked, ruffling the boy’s hair as he moved to the doorway. “Yep!”
Samuel and Moses disappeared through the open door. When Levi’s gaze met Natalie’s again, she chewed her bottom lip.
“Colonel,” she said, a note of uncertainty in her voice. “We would be honored if you would join us for supper. After all your hard work on our behalf, we can’t let you leave without showing our thanks.”
The invitation took him by surprise. The thought of riding back to camp on an empty stomach did not appeal, but to sit in Rose Hill’s grand dining room, making polite conversation with Natalie and her rude cousin, was something his tired brain and body were not up for.
“Cousin Eunice has already retired for the evening,” she said, guessing his hesitation. “The others wanted to wait for Moses.”
He frowned. “The others?”
“Harriet, Carolina, and Lottie. Samuel and I have taken our meals with the servants in the kitchen ever since you brought the proclamation.” She grinned. “Eunice was horrified, of course, and demanded her dinner brought up on a tray.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle. The woman was a paradox, to be sure. “I accept your invitation then.”
They entered the kitchen, where the four servants, Samuel, and Isaac, all gathered, talking and laughing. Seeing Levi, Moses smiled and gave a nod of approval. The long table in the center of the room was set for eight. That she’d planned for him to join them all along sent a wave of pleasure coursing through him.
“There’s a wash stand there”—she indicated the basin near the door—“if you’d like to make use of it.”
He did, gratefully. While he washed his hands and arms, the others took their places at the table. He joined them and saw that the seat at one end had been left vacant. Moses sat at the other end with Natalie to his right and Harriet to his left. Samuel and Isaac, he noted, would flank him.
When everyone was seated, Moses stood. “A few weeks ago, this here turkey made the mistake of comin’ onto the plantation.” The amusement of those around the table must have satisfied him. He grinned and continued. “I hung him in the smoke house, thinkin’ we’d save him for somethin’ special. Well, today ain’t Thanksgivin’, but we shore is thankful tonight. The Lawd done spared us durin’ the storm, and He sent us a helper to get things back to right.”
All eyes turned to Levi. He gave a nod of acknowledgment, meeting Natalie’s unreadable expression last.
The big man bowed his head, and everyone followed suit. The blessing he prayed was more eloquent than Levi had heard from any preacher back home. After the “amen” was said—Samuel and Isaac adding their own shouted version amid giggles—and the food was passed around the table, Levi took in the odd gathering. From former slaves to their white mistress to her son to him, an officer in the Union Army and an abolitionist. All seated at the same table, sharing a meal.
A few months ago, this would have been an impossibility.
Perhaps, he thought as he stabbed a tender piece of roasted turkey, there was hope for their country after all.
From the front porch, Natalie watched the new dawn arrive. With her legs tucked beneath her on the sofa, a cup of chicory root coffee in hand, she wondered what the day had in store for them. So much had happened in the past week, it was difficult to know how to prepare her emotions.
Surveying the area, she was pleased to see much of the debris from the storm had been cleared. The fallen tree near the barn lay in pieces, and she’d learned over supper last night that the colonel and Moses would chop the rest into firewood once all the new shingles were in place.
Warmth spread through her as she recalled the evening meal. While Moses and the colonel worked long hours on the roof, she’d grown increasingly nervous. An invitation to join them would be the polite and mannerly thing to do, but to have a Yankee officer at her table … well, there were simply too many reasons why that was not a good idea. Cousin Eunice being one. Samuel another. Both had suffered loss because of the Yankees. Samuel was too young to understand that Colonel Maish had been their enemy until recently, but someday he would ask questions Natalie dreaded answering. The less confusion in the boy’s mind about the war and whose side was right or wrong, the better.
But Colonel Maish had been the perfect guest. He’d easily conversed with Moses and the others, discussing a variety of topics as though he dined with former slaves every day. When he mentioned his home in Pennsylvania, at Carolina’s inquiry, Natalie nearly choked on her bite of turnip. She held her breath, listening for reference of a wife, but if he had one waiting for him, he didn’t reveal it. He only spoke of his brothers, and that was simply to state they had returned home from the war safely.
Voices from the quarter drifted across the dawn. Several people milled in front of the small cabins, starting cook fires and preparing for the day. With harvest still a few weeks away, they weren’t required to rise as early as they would be soon enough. Then, they would work sunup to sundown, toiling in the heat over the prickly pods that
