Fairer than Morning (16 page)

There was a pause. Ann struggled to absorb what they were saying, fighting her rising terror.

“That seems . . . extreme.”

“It's the only way to keep her from talking. We need to do it whether he gives you your property or not. Kidnapping a woman'll get us hanged.”

She comprehended painfully and slowly what they had said. It was difficult to hear clearly over the blood pounding in her ears.

“Then you might as well do it now,” the more educated voice said, with a tinge of reluctance. “That way there won't be any risk of escape.”

“All right.”

“I shall leave, and then you can take her to the river.” A chair scraped on the floor. There was a loud honking noise and a man cleared his throat.

She could not believe it. It had to be Mr. Holmes. No one else could make that noise. How could he calmly tell the other man to kill someone with whom he had just dined?

A door shut somewhere. Mr. Holmes must have gone. A heavy tread moved around the room. She heard some clinking and rummaging.

She closed her eyes and prayed.
Help me! Help me, please
.
Have mercy. Look down on me and cover me with your hand
.

The boots clumped to the far side of the door. Light washed into the room as the door opened. Her nerves shrieked. A silhouette moved against the light. When he squatted next to her, she recognized the man who had always worn the beaver hat, though he was hatless now. His hair was thinning and fell in greasy strings over his forehead.

“Hey there, girlie,” he said, an odd stillness in his eyes. “It's a shame I'm gonna have to make it look like a river man got to you.” His hand slipped between the buttons of her dress. She jerked away and her gag slipped to the side. She screamed, but the man struck her hard across the face, stunning her. He laughed softly and pulled her skirt to her knees, then higher. She kicked at him, but he threw her on her back and knelt on her legs with crushing force. She prayed wordlessly as his face drew near, grotesque with lust and power. In horror, she turned her head aside, staring at the other room through the open door. She felt his hot onion-laced breath and his hands moving under her disarrayed petticoat.

Someone burst through the door of the far room. All she could see was a flash of blue and a raised pistol. The report deafened her—a smell of black powder blasted through the room. Then the heavy weight on her legs was gone, and she heard running feet. He must have gone the other way, for she heard a door slam against the wall behind her and daylight poured in where she lay.

“Devil take it! I missed!” It was Allan, holstering his pistol and kneeling hastily to pull her dress back into a semblance of decency. Even in the flood of relief, she closed her eyes in shame.

“Ann
 
.
 
.
 
. Miss Miller. I'm so terribly sorry.” He fumbled with the gag, and she felt it loosen and fall away. She gagged as he removed the wad of cloth from her mouth.

“Did he . . . ?” He stopped in midsentence, cradling her shoulders and lifting her to a sitting position. When she finally nerved herself to look at him, she saw that despite the concern in his eyes, his jaw was tight and he was pale with anger.

“No,” she tried to say, but it came out as a croak, her dry mouth refusing to work.

He untied the rope around her wrists with swift, strong fingers, rubbing at the marks in her soft flesh to bring back the feeling.

“You sisters told me you had run away down the alley. Thank heaven I passed just at the right time.”

“How did you know where I was?” she said faintly.

“I heard a noise.” Red rushed into his pale cheeks. He must have heard her scream.

“Can you stand?” he asked.

“I don't know.” She slowly pulled her legs under her and rose to a kneeling position, but when she tried to stand, her weak knees gave out and she stumbled. Immediately, his hand was under her elbow. “Let me help you.” He murmured reassurances and held her by the waist, lifting her to her feet. She had begun to tremble violently, and her legs still would not work. Seeing her difficulty, he swept her up into his arms as lightly as if she were a little girl and carried her out into the daylight.

By the time they reached the street, Ann had regained enough strength to force herself to walk. Allan brought her to Susan and Mabel, safely stowed inside the coach where he must have left them. She remained quiet, afraid the girls might hear her voice shake if she spoke. Allan put on a good semblance of normalcy and sent the girls ahead with Jensen to the Burbridge home, while he and Ann stayed to wait for her father.

Eventually her father came into sight, strolling along the street. He scanned the area with confusion, obviously looking for the missing coach. Then he saw Ann and Allan and headed for where they stood.

“Mr. Miller, something has happened,” Allan said, before he could greet them.

His eyebrows shot up in alarm nearly to the brim of his hat. “To Susan? Mabel?”

“No, they're on their way to my parents' home. It's Ann who was attacked.”

Ann leaned on Allan's arm while he explained, skirting the worst part with roundabout words. Her father's face pulled taut with dismay. Anger nibbled at the edges of her shock. How would he explain whatever he had done to cause this? She was surprised to see tears come into her father's eyes.
Tears of guilt
. Her heart hardened with every passing moment. And Allan hadn't even told him the part he didn't know—that it was her father's fault.

Her father stumbled over words of apology and embraced her. She heard him sniff. He turned away to wipe his face with a handkerchief. When he faced them again, he was more composed. “We should get you back to the doctor's house, Ann. You must rest.”

She felt dislocated, as if she were watching herself from some other place. She grasped for anything that would root her back in the present, back in her body. She seized her anger and held on to it for her very life. “I want to know why,” she said bitterly.

He looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“You've done something. You've taken something you shouldn't have.” Her voice rose and her eyes grew wet. “You're responsible for what happened, and I deserve an explanation.” Tears ran down her face. Allan tendered her his handkerchief and put his other arm around her shoulders as if to hold her shaking body together. The thought flitted through her mind that on any other day she would be humiliated to behave in such a way.

“He said you had taken something, and that they were going to pretend to ransom me to get their property back. But they were going to kill me anyway. And Mr. Holmes was with him.”

The mention of Mr. Holmes froze both her father and Allan in shocked silence. Then Allan murmured, “We will find these men and call them to account. I give you my word.”

“I am more sorry than I can say,” her father said, bowing his head, “for having brought this on you.”

She remained in stony silence, except for her jerky breathing. Allan did not seem at all put out or surprised by her loss of temper. But then, he had seen what had happened.

“I will show you why this has occurred,” her father said. “And, Mr. Burbridge, as you are now inextricably concerned in the matter, you may see as well.” He turned to the street and hailed a passing hackney cart. It pulled up, and he pressed a coin in the gnarled hand of the driver. “Arthursville, please,” he said.

Allan helped her up into the cart, and the two men seated themselves.

“It will all be clear in a few minutes,” her father said, pulling his muffler closer and adjusting his hat in the cold breeze of their passage. “I don't excuse myself for placing you in harm's way, but perhaps it will help you to know why.”

The hackney cart moved at a brisk trot through the streets, turning several corners until they were in a quieter area of genteel homes. Ann's father instructed the driver to pull up at a two-story red-brick home, in the Georgian style. When they all dismounted from the cart and stood on the doorstep, he rapped with the large iron knocker.

A distinguished black man opened the door. He was dressed too well to be a servant, and his whiskers were close-trimmed like a gentleman's. “Samuel,” he said, smiling. “An unexpected pleasure to see you again so soon! Did you forget something?”

“No,” her father said. “This is my eldest daughter. She has suffered a terrible fright and abuse on my account. I feel it is time to share the truth with her.” He addressed Ann. “This is Mr. Enoch Washington.” Then her father acknowledged Allan with a nod in his direction. “And, Mr. Washington, this is Mr. Allan Burbridge. I owe him a great deal for his intercession today on my daughter's behalf.”

Mr. Washington's face grew grave. He opened the door for them. “Come in.”

He led them through the house, which was nicely furnished and still smelled faintly of fresh plaster. It must be quite new, this house. Ann did not know what to think. This had not been what she expected to see or hear from her father, and her anger and hurt still bubbled below the surface like a pot waiting to boil over. Yet the little part of her mind that remained capable of rational thought registered the enterprise of this free black man, who had built such a life for himself in a world where his people were often despised.

They followed him up the stairs to the second floor, where he pulled a little cord that hung from the ceiling. A trap door opened down from a hinge.

“It's me, Enoch,” he said. “Come down.”

A ladder appeared over the edge of the attic, and Mr. Washington grabbed its lower rungs to set it into place. A man's shoes stepped out above their heads, moving slowly backward down the top rungs. His trousers were plain, with worn patches, and as he descended, Ann saw from the back that his shirt was homespun and rolled at the sleeves. He wore a woolen vest and cap. Above him, a woman moved onto the ladder, the thin drape of her skirt covering her limbs, though the men averted their eyes nonetheless.

When the man stepped off the ladder to the floor and turned to face them, Ann had to stifle a gasp. His coffee-colored forehead bore a cruel, puckered scar in the shape of a circle bisected by a cross. One ear was nothing but a ragged hole in his head, the tissue missing. The woman who moved to his side behind him had the same disfiguring scar and had also lost an ear, though her black hair was braided loosely over it in the attempt to hide it. They regarded their visitors with calm dignity and an edge of wariness.

Ann's father turned to her and said, “I would like you to meet John and Clara, lately of Tennessee, who have now chosen the surname Simon. Mr. Washington and I are assisting them as they go to their freedom. They are the so-called ‘stolen property.'”

Sixteen

T
HE
O'H
AR A SADDLE WAS COMPLETE.
I
T SAT ON THE
rack in the workshop, pommel gleaming. Embossed on the saddle flaps were scores of roses, each perfect, each carved by the master's own hand. Will was sure that even someone who knew nothing of saddlery would gaze in awe at Mr. Miller's work. The O'Hara saddle was no longer a product of craft but instead a work of art, lovely beyond price.

The door of the shop opened; Tom peeped around the door, then entered with an empty slop pail in hand. “Have you seen the master?” he asked in a low voice.

“Not since last evening,” Will said.

Tom's tense face relaxed. He brushed his dark hair back out of his eyes and set down his pail. “What a beauty!” he said, stepping to the saddle rack and tracing the roses with the tip of his finger. “No wonder the master's beside himself.”

Will winced. After his final, shaky attempts to copy the leather tooling, Master Good had ranted for half an hour. Spittle flew from his mouth as he told Will to sabotage the saddle by this evening, or live to regret it. The thought made Will sick.

“Are you going to do it?” Tom asked, lifting the flap to look at the billet straps.

“I don't know.” Will turned to the work table and fiddled with the arrangement of the awls and scrapers.

“You must.” Tom's eyes were worried under his tangle of dark hair. “You can't help who the master is. It's not your fault.”

Will finished lining up the tools and stared at them in mute misery. “It's wrong.”

“The master will have your hide if you don't. He may even kill you. Then what would I do? And what would happen to that girl you're helping?”

An added wave of guilt swept over Will. He thought of Emmie's soft warmth, the forbidden sweetness of her skin, his inability to control his desire to touch her. He knew what was virtue and what was sin. For hours after he left her, he had searched in vain for excuses for dishonoring her, fulfilling his own burning need in defiance of heavenly law. The thought of it stirred his desire again, sickening him even further. He must be truly a creature of the devil, to use her so. She had been willing, but the bed sheets had given undeniable evidence that she had been pure before he touched her.

His sin turned his insides to hot pitch. It spread through his body just like his desire, searing everything it touched. This must be how it felt to lose one's soul. Perhaps his soul was gone already. What point was there in taking a stand about the O'Hara saddle? Compared to what he had already done, sabotage was almost trivial.