Chapter 7
Morning Fawn dragged her feet on the stairs as she followed behind Jim the butler and Lucy.
Were they supposed to be her guards and stop her if she did something wild and insane like bolt for the front door and steal another horse?
Her uncle had some nerve sending a message that she had one hour to make herself presentable and meet him in his office.
As if he were a king. She ground her teeth and stuck a loose strand behind her ear.
Lucy had tried to talk her into pulling her hair back in a chignon, but a simple ribbon had been Morning Fawn’s limit of cooperation.
Still, the summons to leave the attic was unexpected.
As they reached the painted-tile foyer, Jim, with LeBeau’s hand-me-down suit hanging off his pole-bean figure, pivoted and lumbered toward Uncle Robert’s office door.
Lucy hung back and sidled up to her. “Reynolds had something to do with your uncle sending for you.”
“He did?”
“Yup. The lieutenant met me on the second-floor landing as I headed up to your room. Wanted me to tell you to please behave.”
“He said what?” Morning Fawn stopped walking, barely keeping her voice to a whisper.
“For your own sake. That’s what he said.” Lucy gnawed her lip. “And I think he’s right.”
Morning Fawn shot her a glare. “Don’t you dare go agreeing with that man.” She stomped ahead past the closed parlor door. Reynolds had a lot of gall. Telling her what to do as if she didn’t have any sense.
He’d seen her under the influence of laudanum. No wonder he thought her incompetent. But why should he care what happened to her?
He’d taken the nails out for her. Why?
Jim opened the brass-handled door, and Morning Fawn followed.
Her uncle stood by the expansive window which looked out upon the shrubs and the dormant garden, Aunt Judith’s glory when it was in full bloom.
His smooth, pale hands rested on the top of his cane.
From what Morning Fawn had seen, it was more like a scepter she’d read about in the stories on his shelves than an aid for walking.
“Jim, you can wait in the hall.” Uncle Robert clicked his watch lid shut and nudged it into the pocket of his gray silk waistcoat. “And tell Lucy to help Flora in the kitchen.”
“Yes, Massa.” Jim’s Adam’s apple bobbled.
The door clicked.
Back stiff, Morning Fawn stepped to the center of the room which acted as both library and office and clasped her hands.
Jane Eyre wasn’t the only one in an attic.
The fairytales told of princesses locked in towers.
If her uncle could play king, she could play princess.
A Comanche princess. Only, she’d be gray-haired and old, craving every drop of laudanum she could scour if she waited for a warrior in shining armor to come along and rescue her.
The fading light of almost-sunset illuminated the dark-stained walnut of the bookshelves and side table. LeBeau’s mahogany desk, with its closed ledgers and cigar box, stood at the side of the second window providing a view of both the garden and the door.
Her mother’s youthful portrait hung on the far wall.
Wavy, dark hair, pale blue eyes. Sweetness and hope shone from her face.
Morning Fawn had battled with that painted gaze more than once, yearning for the woman whose image had been captured in oil yet wanting to block it from her mind as if that might erase the soul-deep ache.
Her uncle pivoted toward her, silencing her ponderings.
Brow furrowed, he scrutinized her from head to toe.
“Mr. Franklin was highly displeased with your absconding with his Thoroughbred. He was ready to turn you over to the sheriff and have you hauled off to the jail in Columbus. I’ve agreed to loan him my best stable hand, Cole, for a month to shut him up. ”
Absconding? Probably some fancy word for stealing. Morning Fawn lowered her gaze to the red-and-green floral carpet. She hadn’t intended to keep the horse. She only wanted to get away, but she would not apologize to the man who lorded over her like an ogre.
“If you weren’t a LeBeau, I’d send you to work in my stable to replace Cole’s lost labor. Though I’d probably have to chain you there. Lord knows, I couldn’t trust you to stay put.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m told my name is Logan, not LeBeau.” Thank goodness. “But I’d be happy to work with the horses. Chainless.”
“You’re going nowhere near my horses.” He thudded his silver-tipped cane on the floor.
“And as for the Logan name, your grandfather is your only saving grace. It was painfully obvious your father didn’t have any sense.
Turned his back on his inheritance and family.
Might as well have called himself an abolitionist. But you’re here because of your LeBeau blood. ”
Too bad she couldn’t wash her veins free of the connection.
No wonder her sister had run off with a Yankee rather than live under the shackles of this man’s hospitality.
“You’ve persuaded me. I regret not taking better care of Mr. Franklin’s horse.
I’d be willing to work in the stable, chained. ” Anything to end the scolding.
He narrowed his gaze. “Your impertinence is going to get you sent back up those stairs for the next week if you don’t watch your mouth.”
Impertinence? She didn’t need a dictionary to decipher the gist of his rebuke. She pressed her lips shut and simmered. The mantel clock chimed five times.
He crossed the room, leaned his cane against the desk, and uncapped the decanter. “Lieutenant Reynolds believes you can be reasoned with.”
She blinked wide. “Reynolds said that?”
“I’m far from convinced.” Her uncle poured a half inch of brandy into a glass and swallowed it. The glass clunked against the wood as he set it down. “But I’m a flexible man, and in the spirit of generosity, I’m willing to give it a try.”
Generous? That’s probably what the king said before he banged his scepter and yelled, Off with their heads. “Give what a try?” She held her breath.
He strutted to the back of the desk and sank onto the padded leather seat. His handlebar mustache twitched like the tips of a fox’s tail. “You have two choices, Beth. You can continue with your hysterics and fits, trying to run off every time you have a whim—”
“I’m not hysterical, and I don’t have fits. All I want is to—”
He struck the desk with his palm. “I didn’t come here to argue, young woman.
After your incident at church a couple days ago and escapade with Franklin’s horse, I have half a mind to send you off to an asylum.
If you have a fit like that again, that’s exactly where you’ll be headed.
I’m done coddling you.” LeBeau leaned forward, jutting a finger in her direction, his tone as flexible as an arrowhead.
“I’m offering one chance to earn your way out of the attic. ”
Her eyebrows edged upward. “Earn my way out?” Scale a tower? Apologize a dozen times? Be Thea’s maid?
He pinned her with his gaze. “Prove to me you can conduct yourself as a proper young lady of class and represent your family in a dignified manner.”
Was that all? Be something she’d never been and had no desire to be? If this was Reynolds’s suggestion, he might as well have boarded up her windows and thrown away the key to her room. “I prefer the stable job.” She crossed her arms.
LeBeau glowered and steepled his fingers. “You’re already working on proving Reynolds wrong. I should have bet the man.”
I’d like to kick the man. She dug her nails into bell sleeves and rolled her eyes. “So how am I supposed to prove I’m a lady?” If that’s what Thea was, she wanted nothing to do with it.
“Marry.”
“What?” Her arms fell to her sides.
“Earn the affection of a respectable Confederate gentleman, win his proposal, and wed him.” His voice practically purred.
“You can’t be serious.” This was what Reynolds was up to? Was he thinking of her for himself? Her legs wobbled. What had happened last night? Nonsense. A man like that wouldn’t propose just because he’d bedded her. But he hadn’t, had he? Her clothes had been intact.
“I mean what I say.” His voice cracked like a whip. “Your aunt is anxious for you to pursue a husband.”
“From the little I know about being a lady, it isn’t the lady who does the pursuing.”
“That may be, but a lady needs to open herself up to the possibility and welcome the attention of respectable gentlemen. But I’m not going to sit here and explain the nuances of flirting to my niece. I’ll leave that to my—”
“I have no idea what a nuance is.”
“Young woman.” His voice rose. “Before you sound off and turn your nose up at the only opportunity you have for a decent life, you should wait until you hear about the gift you’ll receive on your wedding day.”
“I’m not interested.” No one was going to force her to marry.
He puffed out his chest. “Land.”
“Land?” Goosebumps tingled up her arms.
“Two hundred acres just inside the settlement line in Parker County, the northwestern frontier. It’s where your parents were headed when the savages attacked them.
Your mother used her inheritance, the little bit that my father had given her to protect her against the whims of that fool husband of hers, to help your father purchase it.
Upon her death, the land went to me. I’m offering it to you as a wedding present, upon your marriage to a Confederate gentleman of means and from a good family. ”
Her head swam. She turned away from her uncle’s prying, icy gaze and drifted to the window.
Her parents’ land. At the edge of the frontier.
Hers to keep. Freedom. Not exactly free.
There’d be a husband. Someone to tell her what to do.
Someone who’d expect her to sit around the parlor gossiping and fanning herself.
Someone trying to tell her how to behave.
Reynolds? She gripped the window sill. The lieutenant was out of his mind if he thought he could make her marry him or obey.
But her uncle didn’t say it had to be him.
Land. A home. A place to call her own, where she didn’t have to worry about whether or not she fit in.
But to marry for it and give up all hope of love?
All hope of a man looking at her the way Dancing Eagle had gazed at Eyes-Like-Sky.
Maybe there’d be someone who fit LeBeau’s stipulations and also captured her heart, but what were the chances of that?
Especially with her heart feeling like a dried-out water pouch left in the sun so long it’d cracked beyond use. Her stomach knotted.
“Two hundred acres on the frontier. You want to throw it all away and run off to live in a tipi after you’re married, it’ll be your choice.
” His voice blended with the growing shadows of the room calling to her, like the Pied Piper she’d read about.
She’d need time to consider it. What in the world made her think her uncle was a man to be trusted?
“You said a Confederate of means and family. You didn’t name a name.” Her blasted voice shook.
“I don’t intend to dictate your specific choice of a husband.”
She coughed back a snort. How could he say that with a straight face?
A real home. Maybe she could bring her pia there.
Offer refuge. Ideas swirled in her head.
Playing along with LeBeau’s offer would buy her time to decide and unlock the attic door.
Had she ever really been foolish enough to think she’d marry for love?
That she deserved happiness? “In that case, Uncle, could you please invite Mr. Nicholas Moyer, the new cotton warehouse supervisor, to dinner next Saturday evening?”