Chapter 23
“Look at it, the place hasn’t changed at all…not even after five long years,” Adam said, speaking not so much to a pale, silent Susanna or to William Booth, his equally silent attorney, as he was to himself.
His body tense and his pulse racing, he stared out the window as the lumbering carriage approached the huge, columned house which stood at the center of Raven’s Point, each sight and sound sickeningly familiar.
He took in everything. The small slave children hoeing weeds in the tobacco fields alongside adults, their infrequent cries of hunger silenced by sharp cuffs from fearful parents or neighbors. The overseers on their snorting horses, cracking their whips.
The slaves’ tattered clothes and half-starved forms, and as he could imagine so well even though the poor wretches were too far away to be seen clearly, their gaunt faces and hauntingly empty eyes.
An eerie familiar silence hung like a funeral pall over the main grounds as the coach eased to a stop in front of the mansion.
All around them slaves with bowed heads and wearily sagging shoulders were going about their daily tasks, each one as afraid as the other to make a sound for fear of drawing attention to himself.
Only one thing was different, Adam noted, drawing a deep, steadying breath as he mentally prepared himself for the long-awaited moment of his revenge—that hollow rattle of chains as a line of shuffling convicts made its way to the fields.
Yet their anxious silence was the same as that of the black slaves whose endless toil they shared.
“Are you ready, Mr. Booth?” he asked grimly, turning his attention to the bespectacled attorney whom James Cary had long trusted with important matters of business and upon whom Adam now relied.
“Quite, Mr. Thornton. Eager to see this matter set upon its course.”
“As am I,” Adam replied under his breath, his gaze moving to Susanna who sat directly across from him, her eyes downcast. Noting her pallor against the azure blue of her silk brocade gown, he felt resentment flare inside him.
He imagined her wan cheeks were due to her fear of what was about to happen to Dominick, which probably also explained why she had hardly spoken to him since they had left Westover so abruptly late Saturday night.
No doubt her hatred of him had multiplied tenfold, far outweighing her pity, because she had made no more efforts to win his favor.
They had scarcely seen each other until this morning, Susanna confining her activities to the house and he spending most of his time in the fields surveying the crops and then sleeping alone in his office, although he had longed for at least the sensual comfort of her body.
Even that he had denied himself, deciding resolutely that he would not hold her in his arms again until he sensed she fully realized that everything he had told her about Dominick Spencer was true.
“I can imagine you might prefer to remain in the carriage, Camille, but I’d like you at my side,” Adam told her as a young footman hurried down the steps to meet them. “We won’t be going into the house. I see no need for any pretense of civility with Mr. Spencer.”
When Susanna just nodded, he wondered what the attorney must think of the strained silence between them, then he shrugged it off.
He had explained to the man while at Briarwood that she wanted to come along today, believing that what he was doing was right, but that she might appear upset by the unpleasantness of the proceedings.
That should suffice. And besides, he had other things to concern himself with right now.
Adam turned to the footman who had swung open the door. “Is your master at home?”
“Yes, but he’s still abed.”
“No matter. Tell him that Mr. and Mrs. Adam Thornton are waiting for him outside, along with my attorney, Mr. Booth.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Thornton.”
As the boy disappeared into the house, Adam helped Susanna down, and Mr. Booth followed.
Imagining that Dominick would choose to keep them waiting a good while just to spite him, Adam was surprised when the planter walked outside the front door a short ten minutes later, eyeing them suspiciously where they stood at the base of the broad stone steps.
If Dominick had been abed when informed of their unexpected arrival, his well-groomed appearance gave no evidence of it.
His attire was impeccable, every curl in his full powdered wig in place.
Adam surmised that the planter had made all haste for his wife’s benefit, and with that thought came fresh resentment.
“What a surprise,” Dominick said, making no move to come down to greet them.
His chilling blue eyes flickered over them one by one, settling appreciatively upon Susanna.
“You look particularly lovely this morning, Mrs. Thornton. It is a pleasure to see you again so soon, although I cannot say the same for your husband.”
Adam squeezed her arm as a reminder for her to say nothing. He hated the way Dominick’s icy gaze was raking slowly, almost possessively, over her. Infuriated, it was all he could do to keep his voice steady.
“This is not a social call, Spencer. Perhaps you have met my attorney, Mr. William Booth?”
Affording the slightest nod to the lawyer, Dominick replied, “I held no illusion that your visit was of a friendly nature, Mr. Thornton. State your business and then get off my land.”
“Not your land for much longer,” Adam stated bluntly, his blood drumming hot through his veins.
At last the goal that had consumed and driven him for so long was come to fruition!
“Within the last twelve days I have bought up the entirety of your debt from your many creditors. You now owe me a very substantial sum of money—”
“You’ve what?” Dominick cut him off incredulously, his posture stiffening and his face gone a sickly shade of white. Clenching his fists, he advanced a step toward them. “What insane game are you playing?”
“No game. Mr. Booth?”
The attorney stepped forward, producing several documents from his leather valise.
“Mr. Thornton is hereby suing you for full and complete payment of that amount, Mr. Spencer. The information is all here, if you would care to look at it.” When Dominick made no motion to take the papers held out to him, the attorney simply continued.
“If Mr. Thornton does not receive the amount owed to him by noon tomorrow, you will be summoned before the county magistrate and your situation made public knowledge. I have every expectation that the court will find judgment in Mr. Thornton’s favor and sentence you to debtors’ prison, your possessions forfeited to him as payment. ”
His face now flushed in outrage, Dominick blurted, “You can’t do this to me—”
“I can and I have,” Adam interrupted bitterly, “and don’t think that selling Raven’s Point will save you.
Even if you auctioned everything—slaves, land, horses, even that emerald necklace—it wouldn’t be enough to repay what you owe me.
You might have been able to stave off your separate creditors with such a ploy, and perhaps keep yourself afloat until you found some gullible heiress to wed” —he glanced angrily at Susanna— “but nothing will save you now, Spencer. Nothing. Your single debt to me is too large.”
“You forget I have friends,” Dominick said, descending another few steps. “Very powerful friends who serve with me on the governor’s council and in the House of Burgesses. They’ll grant me loans.”
“You deceive yourself,” Adam scoffed. “Once it becomes known how much you owe me and what a notorious spendthrift you are, your so-called friends” — he spat out derisively— “will soon realize they might as well toss their money down a bottomless hole, for it will never be returned to them.”
“What of my tobacco?” Dominick added, desperation creeping into his defensive tone. “It’s the best crop I’ve grown in years. It should bring me the market’s highest price—”
“Which still won’t be enough to save you.
Fool, look at the figures cited on those documents!
You seem to have conveniently forgotten how much altogether you owed your creditors.
I’m surprised they hadn’t already sued you for payment, but they probably assumed a gentleman of your high standing could always produce the money.
And I’m sure none of them realized how much you had already borrowed from other shipping firms. If they had, you would never have received another penny!
Once the magnitude of your indebtedness is made public, I can expect they’ll be thanking me profusely for paying them what you owed! ”
Dominick’s enraged voice rose to a fever pitch. “Damn you, Thornton, you’re leaving me no way to redeem myself!”
Adam had never known a more grimly satisfying moment, his hatred for this man so acute he was almost quaking from its intensity.
“Exactly. You’ll get no mercy from me. That’s what you offered my father when you whipped him to death for stealing food for his family, and my mother when you raped her, destroying her will to survive, and the countless slaves you’ve murdered out of sheer malice.
” His throat became so tight he could barely finish.
“That’s what you offered me, you goddamned bastard, each time you brought your studded whip down across my back.
I haven’t forgotten your laughter when you cut off part of my foot and threw it to the hounds who’d tracked me. ”
Her head pounding, Susanna gasped, sickened. She glanced at Adam in horror, but his burning gaze was on Dominick, and she couldn’t help thinking if expressions could kill…
“So it’s revenge then, is it?” Dominick demanded.
“Call it what you will,” Adam answered with deadly quiet. “I prefer to think of it as justice.”
A dangerously charged silence ensued, and then Dominick drew himself up, his eyes leveling on Susanna.