“Not right now, Samuel. I need you to go to your room and play. I’ll come up and tell you a story in a bit.”
Her son’s bottom lip poked out, but he obeyed and trudged into the foyer and up the stairs. Oh, how she loved that boy. What did the future hold for him now that everything had changed?
“Why didn’t you tell him the truth? That the slaves are happy because they’re finally free?” A hard tone edged the colonel’s voice.
“I didn’t lie to my son.” She glared at him. “I will explain things in a manner he can understand when we’re alone. I certainly don’t need an audience to dissect every word I choose trying to explain something very complicated in a way a four-year-old can comprehend.”
After a tense moment, he acquiesced. “I apologize. I have no right to question what you tell your son.”
His contrite words gave her pause. He didn’t seem the type to admit to being wrong about anything. George certainly never had. “Apology accepted. Samuel won’t understand freedom any more than he understood slavery, but I will do my best to explain it all.”
“Are you feeling better?”
Embarrassment washed over her. She had never fainted in her life and was mortified she had done so in front of the Yankee and his men. “Yes, thank you. I’m not sure what came over me.”
“You had some rather shocking news. All in all, I’d say you handled things quite admirably.”
Once again, his kind words were unexpected. If she weren’t mistaken, he had just given her a compliment. “You may not believe this, but I am happy for them. I never really thought about the plight of the slaves until my husband’s sister helped several of our people escape, my favorite maid included.”
“That event changed your mind?”
“Not at first,” she admitted, recalling the morning after Adella and Seth left Rose Hill, taking four slaves with them. She shivered, remembering Luther’s wrath. If not for George’s reasoning that the plantation couldn’t operate without slaves, she felt sure her father-in-law would have sold them all that very day. “After Adella Rose left, she wrote explaining why she’d done it. She described how Jeptha and Zina and Aunt Lu were free, living in Mexico, and how happy they were. I suppose someone from the north can’t understand this, but that was the first time I realized Negroes were simply people, just like us.”
“And yet you kept them in bondage.”
She looked away, his words reminding her of the guilt—and fear—she’d lived with since the responsibility for the plantation fell into her hands. “As I said, someone from the north wouldn’t understand.”
A long silence followed.
“What will you do now?”
“I have no earthly idea, Colonel. I suppose it will depend upon whether or not any of the slaves—I mean, free men and women— stay or not.” She glanced to the window. The ruckus had died down, and she wondered if her people were even now packing their meager belongings to leave Rose Hill.
“You do realize if some choose to stay, you will be required to pay wages. And”—he almost sounded apologetic—“Confederate currency is worthless. Only gold or United States currency is being accepted.”
Any shred of hope of keeping Rose Hill operating evaporated with his words. “I haven’t any money, Confederate or otherwise. We’ve been without an overseer for three years because I couldn’t pay the salary, though the only men who hadn’t gone off to war weren’t the type I would hire anyway.”
“Some planters are giving a share of the harvest to their workers as payment. Others, free room and board. There are ways to pay someone without cash.”
Natalie considered his words. “I suppose those are options.”
“I am curious how you managed to keep your slaves on the plantation without an overseer.”
“Moses.” She gave a sad smile. Aside from Samuel, Moses, Harriet, and Carolina were the closest thing she had to family these days. It hurt to think of them leaving. “Moses saw to it the fields were planted and tended. He tried to arrange the sale of the cotton, too, but the markets were closed. Your Union blockades were quite effective, Colonel.”
“War is an ugly thing. People in the south as well as in the north have suffered. I, for one, thank God it is over.”
His sincerity touched her. “That is something we can agree on.”
He gave her a long study before he tugged on thick leather gloves. “My men and I will take our leave now. I’m setting up a command post not far from here. We’ve been ordered to help Texans in the reconstruction of the Union and see that free Negroes are treated fairly. If you find yourself in need of anything, send word to the old Langford plantation.”
Natalie gasped.
“Are you acquainted with the previous owner, Calvin Langford?”
She stood, practically sputtering. “Of course. He was my father. Langford Manor is my home.”
He appeared taken aback by her outburst. “As I understood our information, the plantation was abandoned after an outbreak of yellow fever a few years ago. Langford and his wife succumbed to the disease. Is that not the case?”
“There was an outbreak, and I lost my parents, but the property has not been abandoned. I simply reside at Rose Hill instead.”
His thick, dark eyebrows drew into a frown. “Is anyone living there? Do slaves still work the land?”
“No. My husband feared the outbreak would spread, so he sold off the remaining slaves after so many had died.”
The colonel’s shoulders relaxed. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am, but with no occupants, the plantation is indeed abandoned.”
Natalie held back a very unladylike snarl. “No sir, it is not. The house may be closed and the fields fallow, but it is still very much my property.”
Several ticks from the mantel clock filled the strained silence.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to take the matter
