Sweet Release (4 page)

The investigation was proceeding slowly, with little evidence and no suspects. Matthew himself had questioned Alec’s mistress, Isabelle St. Denis, but she’d had little of worth to say. Alec had been tense that night, she’d said. He’d been in a hurry to leave, refusing to bed her a second time. Isabelle had apparently taken this as a personal slight, but Matthew doubted she would have killed Alec. Adultery, not murder, was her style. Matthew had discovered this when Isabelle had reached out and cupped his testicles the moment he’d finished questioning her.

Meanwhile, the constable had taken an old beggar into custody after he’d been found in the streets ranting madly about a corpse with no eyes. They’d hoped once he was sober and calm he might prove to be a witness, but the poor fool had died of gaol fever within a week.

Matthew rubbed the ache at the base of his skull. It was odd so little of Alec’s blood had been found at the scene. Though it had been raining, nothing could have washed away that much blood. The driver had been killed too, his throat slit from ear to ear.

There’d been blood aplenty around him. None of it made sense. Matthew had hoped that Alec’s death would bring about a change in Philip. At first it seemed he’d been shocked into mending his ways. But after Alec’s funeral, Philip had hit the bottle again, staying out all night, paying little heed to the estate that now belonged to him. He’d ignored Elizabeth’s entreaties to cease his foolishness. Instead he now spent money at an even more immoderate rate, throwing it away on gaming and extravagant nights of drinking and whoring. He’d even brought one of his prostitutes to the office, tupping her on what had once been Alec’s desk, his indecent groans so loud that Matthew had heard from across the hallway. It had seemed like a desecration.

Perhaps there was still hope. Philip had never asked for help before. Matthew would do his best to encourage Philip on this new path, praise him for his slightest accomplishment, and indulge his desire for admiration. But would Philip stay the course? Matthew closed his eyes and prayed.

Cassie gently buried the roots of the last parsley seedling in the dark soil and stood, brushing the dirt from her fingers. Shielding her eyes from the morning sun, she looked across the rows that made up the kitchen garden and smiled with satisfaction at what she’d accomplished.

“Oh, hush,” she answered the magpie sitting on the fence, piercing the day with its discordant squawk.

The bird, its black, blue, and white feathers gleaming in the sunlight, looked at her with one shiny black eye and screeched again in defiance.

“You’re rude.”

Evidently insulted, the bird squawked once more, then flew away. Why had God given such a beautiful bird such an unpleasant song?

The strawberry plants were already in blossom, their tiny white flowers drawing scores of bees. The onions she had planted around the edge of the garden to discourage insects were nearly a foot tall.

Cucumber vines with small yellow blooms vied with larger squash plants for space on the ground, while bean and pea seedlings crept skyward, slender tendrils grasping for purchase on tall wooden stakes. If she could keep the deer and insects from eating the fragile plants—and the children from trampling them underfoot—she’d be finished planting the kitchen garden by the end of the week. Of course, that meant fixing the rickety worm fence that an angry sow had knocked over in January. Most of the bondsmen and slaves were working under Micah’s direction, preparing the hills for the tobacco seedlings that would be ready for transplanting from their seedbeds with the next rain. The men couldn’t be spared for other work. Zach, the only sawyer, had more than enough to do. She would have asked Luke to rebuild the fence days ago, but he was guarding that troublesome Mr. Braden.

The scoundrel was recovering rapidly. Nan said he was eating well and would soon be up and about. Cassie was glad the cook had volunteered to attend to him. After her terrifying encounter yesterday, she wanted nothing to do with him. He was altogether too . . . alarming. She had decided it best not to tell anyone—not even Nan, who’d been with the family for as long as she could remember and whom she trusted completely—what he had done when he’d awoken. Everyone was worried enough as it was, and though she’d been nearly frightened out of her wits, no real harm had been done.

Since she’d registered the convict in Fredericksburg, as the law required, objections had been pouring in from neighbors who, understandably, didn’t want a dangerous felon living in their midst.

The Carters and the Lees, who rarely agreed about anything, had both voiced their disapproval. Even their nearest neighbors, the Crichton’s, who owned several convicts, had sent a letter to her father complaining that Blakewell’s Neck was not secure enough to contain a man who preyed upon women, especially with her father away. It wasn’t only Mr. Braden the Crichton’s objected to, she knew, but also her father’s liberal attitudes and his “blackamoor” overseer, as the Crichton’s shamefully called Micah.

She adjusted her apron and breathed in the fragrance of herbs in blossom: lemon balm, rosemary, lavender, pennyroyal, and more. Her mother had taught her to identify them all by scent alone when she was just a little girl. Standing here in the morning sunshine surrounded by the excited buzz of bees, she could almost hear her mother’s voice.

Marjoram for a maiden’s blush, hyssop for cleanliness. Speedwell fidelity, cocklebur for thankfulness...

Her reverie was interrupted by the squeak of a half dozen children, who bounded around the cookhouse and headed straight for the garden. As usual, Jamie was in the lead.

“You can’t catch me, you bloody pirates!” he yelled, turning on his pursuers and bravely wielding an imaginary sword. His foul language made Cassie cringe. Still, she couldn’t fault him for it, not when he’d learned it from her.

“Oh, no, you don’t, captain!” She caught the towheaded four-year-old from behind in time to prevent his treading on the feathery green tops of newly sprouted carrots.

The ragtag band of bloodthirsty pirates who’d been pursuing her little brother came to a halt and looked up at her sheepishly, their faces—brown and white—sticky from Nan’s blackberry preserves. “Even pirates know how to take orders,” she admonished them. “I’ve told you more times than I can count not to play near the ovens or the garden.”

Jamie shifted under his sister’s gaze but said nothing.

“Now off with the lot of you before I have to lock you all in chains belowdecks.” The gaggle of children erupted into cries of imaginary terror and dashed off toward the apple orchard.

Perhaps Zach should fix that fence today. If there was one thing living with small children had taught her, it was that pirates quickly forgot. She shook the loose mud from the hem of her skirt and started toward the sawmill.

The humid morning breeze shifted, carrying with it the rich scent of baking bread. Her mouth watered. Nan made the best wheat bread in the county. Of course, it was the only wheat bread in the county. Everyone else was too busy growing tobacco to spare the labor necessary for growing wheat—or anything else, for that matter. Laws had been passed long ago mandating that planters grow a certain amount of com each season. Without those laws, she suspected, the population would starve to death come winter. Even Micah had thought her crazy when she had suggested putting in wheat.
Too much work,
he’d said. Then he’d tasted Nan’s bread.

On the grassy lawn beside the great house, Nettie was hanging out freshly laundered sheets, the white linen a marked contrast to the brown of her skin and the red of her skirts. She gave Cassie a guarded smile. Cassie smiled back. She and Nettie had been best friends as children, but that had changed when they’d gotten older, put away their corn-husk dolls, and assumed the roles of slave and mistress. Girlish giggles had been replaced by reserved smiles, shared confidences by delegated duties. An impenetrable wall had arisen between them. It was the way of the world, Cassie’s father had told her.

Perhaps. But that didn’t mean Cassie had to like it.

Behind the whitewashed cookhouse, Rebecca, her swollen abdomen outlined by the white of her apron, struggled with the butter chum.

“A good mornin’ to you, Miss Cassie,” she called, out of breath but smiling, her round cheeks rosy from exertion. Since she’d taken over the dairying, they’d had more butter, milk, and cheese than ever before. Rebecca stopped to brush a long strand of dark hair out of her face.

“Let me help.” Cassie took the paddle. The fence could wait awhile longer. “How are you and the babe faring this morning?” “Fine, bless you, mistress. The child grows stronger and more restless each day. Nate says it’s a boy, but I think we’ve got a daughter, and a wild one at that.”

The happy glow on Rebecca’s face gave Cassie a momentary twinge of regret. How wonderful it would be to have children of her own. But with her father so ill and a little brother who was all but an orphan, she could not leave to start her own family, even if by some miracle she managed to find a man she cared for enough to marry. Her father had asked to her protect his honor and Jamie’s inheritance, and she would.

“Have you asked Takotah?” Cassie inquired, trying to shift her thoughts. There was no use in longing for what could not be. “She has the gift. She can tell the sex of a babe long before it’s born.” Rebecca’s sunny face suddenly grew grave.

“Nate says I’m not to go near her.” Her hands dropped protectively to her belly. “He says she’s a witch.”

“Oh, rubbish! Takotah might look frightening, but I have yet to see her be anything but gentle. Nate is filling your head with superstitious nonsense.”

“Yes, mistress.” Rebecca didn’t look convinced.

Cassie knew better than to press the issue. Many of the servants, even some of the slaves, were afraid of Takotah, who had stumbled weak and wounded out of the forest one day long ago. Cassie’s, parents had nursed her back to health, ignoring those who advised them to kill her or risk finding a knife in their backs one night. When she had recovered, Takotah, whose full name was too difficult to pronounce, had asked to stay with them to repay what ‘she saw as a life debt. Her people, the Tuscarora, had been all but; annihilated by settlers. Everyone she knew, including her husband ‘and children, had been killed, leaving her no one to return to. - Cassie, only three at the time, had always thought of her as magical. The black tattoos on her dark face seemed a part of that magic.

“Miss Cassie! Miss Cassie!” The shrill voice rose above the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer and the rhythmic rasp of Zach’s saw. Cassie grimaced. She didn’t have to look to see who it was. She, had purchased Elly’s indenture almost nine months ago and still hadn’t found a chore the young woman, whose head seemed to be forever in the clouds, was willing to perform without complaint. Rebellious and contrary, Elly fought Cassie at every turn. Lately Elly had been assigned to help with the cooking, much to Nan’s dismay.

“Yes, Elly?” Cassie tried to conceal her annoyance.

“It’s the convict! He’s shoutin’ at Nan and swearin’—”

Cassie dashed toward the slave cabins. If that knave had frightened or injured Nan, she’d turn him over to Sheriff Hollingsworth and be done with it.

She could hear the shouting long before she entered the cabin. Luke stood silently in front of the door, arms crossed, a slight grin on his face. Although she knew little about the taciturn slave, she had already come to trust him implicitly.

“Damn it, woman, I don’t want to eat! I wish to speak with your master!”

Something crashed to the floor.

“Now there’s a fine mess,” she heard Nan say in a bored voice. Cassie stepped through the doorway, resolved to show no fear this time. “My father is not available, Mr. Braden, but you may speak with me.”

Then her eyes adjusted to the dimness, and she gasped.

Chapter Three

“Mr. Braden!”

The convict stood naked at the side of his bed, his maleness covered only by a comer of the sheet he’d pulled across his hips. The room was a shambles. The chair had been knocked over, the cornmeal mush Nan had brought splattered across the floor and up the far wall, the wooden spoon and bowl thrown into the corner. Nan, rather than looking frightened by the beastly display, stood mere inches away from him, arms akimbo, the expression on her round face that of an annoyed mother about to scold an ill-behaved child. But Cole Braden was no child—that Cassie could plainly see. He was ill-behaved, however, making no attempt to cover himself, as any gentleman would have done in the presence of women. Still, if Nan could ignore his lack of clothing, so could Cassie.

“I have urgent business with your father.” His voice was cold.

Cassie tried to keep her eyes focused on his face, not his hard, corded thighs or the well-defined muscles and soft, dark curb of his chest.

“My father is in England on business, but you may relay a message to him through me,” she said, foolishly aware of the dirt clinging to the hem of her skirts and the stains on her apron.

“This is no matter for a girl to handle.”

She stiffened. “Be that as it may, you will have to speak with me, as my father has left me in charge.”

The convict’s eyebrows rose in surprise and his gaze traveled over her, his blue eyes showing nothing but contempt. She fought not to look away.

“Very well.” He paused. “A crime has been committed. My name is Alec Kenleigh, not Nicholas Braden—”