Chapter 26
“I’ll sit with her, Master Thornton, if you want to go and talk to that man from Raven’s Point.
After I saw the physician on his way home, the man said to tell you that he can’t wait much longer before he has to leave.
It’s almost sunset, and he hasn’t gotten any answer from you yet to take back to Mr. Spencer. ”
Jolted from his exhausted haze by Ertha’s voice, Adam realized he had forgotten all about the overseer in the horror and then sweeping relief of the last few hours.
He glanced from Susanna’s ashen face to the housekeeper’s.
Strain showed around her dark-brown eyes, which held concern but, thank God, no judgment.
“You’ll stay here until I get back?” he asked, reluctant to leave Susanna’s side for even a moment. “I won’t be gone long.”
Ertha nodded as she smoothed the satin spread tucked up under Susanna’s arms. “You don’t have to rush. There’s nothing you can do here anyway. Maybe after you speak to the man, you might want to get some rest. Corliss will help me keep watch when she returns from fetching you something for supper.”
“I’m not hungry, and the last thing I want to do is sleep,” Adam replied.
“Now, Master Thornton, you know the physician said it could be hours before your wife wakes up. It’s a miracle she wasn’t hurt no worse than some bruises and that nasty cut on her head…no broken bones and, thank the Lord, no broken neck. It was the thick grass that saved her.”
“Yes. A miracle,” Adam agreed, wondering how a sorry son of a bitch like himself had been found deserving of such a precious thing. He rose, wincing at the pain in his tightly bandaged ankle, and relinquished his chair beside the bed to the housekeeper, who sat down with a heavy sigh.
“I just wish she wasn’t so pale,” Ertha murmured, laying her wrinkled hand on Susanna’s forehead, then, adding as she glanced up at Adam, “and I wish things weren’t turning out as they are, that there was something I could do about all this, some way I could help.
I don’t know what troubles between you and Mistress Susanna” —sighing again, she continued— “I mean Camille, caused this terrible thing to happen, but I have a strong feeling it has something to do with why that man is waiting for you outside.”
“It does,” Adam replied with grim honesty, but he said no more as he limped to the foot of the bed and gazed upon Susanna, stark emotion welling in him. How beautiful she was…and how horribly close he had come to losing her forever.
Her impassioned words still rang in his head, fueling the unanswered questions that tormented him.
Unanswered questions that would give him no peace.
It sickened him that even now, he could not bring himself simply to believe that she might love him.
So much hurt and deception had gone between them.
They had both suffered so much. Yet there was a way he could find out if she had spoken the truth…
“I’ll be back soon, Ertha,” he said, turning from the bed.
“Whatever you say, Master Thornton, but I still think you should get some rest. You were injured yourself, you know.”
Adam didn’t answer as he left the room, the weight of the pistol he kept hidden in his coat pocket bumping against his thigh.
“Good thing you came out of the house when you did, Mr. Thornton. I was just getting ready to leave,” the overseer said testily, reining in his restless mount by the front walk.
“I heard about the accident. I guess that’s as good an excuse as any for keeping me waiting here all afternoon. Is your wife going to recover?”
Ignoring the man’s callously stated and all-too-personal question, Adam said, “If you want to talk to me, get down off your horse.”
“Look here, I don’t see any reason for that,” the man objected, scowling. “Just give me your reply to Mr. Spencer’s letter and I’ll be on my way. He told me a simple yes or no would do nicely, so which one is it?
“I said to get down,” Adam repeated calmly despite his thundering pulse, withdrawing the pistol from his coat pocket and pointing it at the overseer’s startled face. “Now!”
“All right, Mr. Thornton! All right!” The man jumped down, his swarthy coloring marked by a distinct greenish pallor. “I—I don’t see why you’re getting so upset—”
“Shut up and listen!” Adam ordered, leveling his weapon at the man’s stomach. “Now I want an answer to my question and I want it fast. Do you have a convict by the name of Keefer Dunn at Raven’s Point?”
“I—I don’t know. There are so many of them—”
“Think very, very hard.”
“Like I told you,” the overseer echoed nervously, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. “I don’t know, and Mr. Spencer said not to say anything more to you, just to hand you the letter and get your reply.”
“But Mr. Spencer won’t be the one with the ball in his gut, will he?” Adam queried, cocking the pistol with an ominous click. “I can assure you, a stomach wound is a gruesome way to die—”
“All right! Don’t shoot me!” the man blurted, backing into his horse, which whinnied sharply, tossing its head. “Keefer Dunn’s been at Raven’s Point for a year now, but if you were thinking of trying to see him, God knows why, you’re out of luck.”
His hand trembling, Adam had to tighten his grip on the pistol. Susanna hadn’t lied to him! Oh, God, what had he done to her…? Filled with self-loathing and bitter remorse, he forced himself to focus on the matter at hand, although he wanted nothing more than to rush back to her side.
“Why is that?” he demanded, his blood roaring in his ears.
“The bastard tried to escape this morning and since he survived the lashing Mr. Spencer gave him, he’s going to be executed first thing tomorrow as an example to the rest of the prisoners.
” The overseer gulped for air like a fish, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“You must have seen him, Mr. Thornton! He was one of the two men dragged back to the house while you were talking with Mr. Spencer.”
“Describe him. I don’t remember.”
“Stout build, bearded, pocked face like he suffered bad with the pox, and the strangest eyes I’ve ever seen on a man. A real freakish dark-yellow color.”
The man’s hasty description, matching the one Susanna had given him, made Adam all the more desperate to return to her. His heart aching, he muttered, “Get back on your horse.”
The overseer scrambled into the saddle, his hands shaking as he took the reins. “Wh—what do you want me to tell Mr. Spencer? About the letter, I mean?”
“Tell him to meet me here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock and we’ll go over the arrangements he requires,” Adam replied tightly, a determined plan taking shape in his mind.
“If that isn’t acceptable, he’ll just have to wait.
My wife’s recent injury will prevent me from leaving Briarwood anytime soon. Do you have that?”
“I heard you, Mr. Thornton,” the man agreed, anxiously eyeing the pistol still pointed at his gut. “Tomorrow morning, ten o’clock, the arrangements he requires. I take it that means you’re in agreement with what he told you in the letter?”
“Yes. Now get the hell off my land.”
The overseer didn’t need to be told twice. Jabbing his horse with his spurred boots, he took off around the drive and never once looked back.
Impatiently waiting until the man disappeared from sight, Adam released the cock on the pistol and returned the weapon to his pocket.
Oh, he was in full agreement, all right, he thought grimly, limping back into the house and up the stairs. But only with the part about seeing the magistrate.
Judging from the depth of Dominick’s greed, Adam guessed that the accursed bastard would throw aside all caution and be here well before ten o’clock tomorrow, his fingers itching to touch the first installment of his ill-gotten wealth.
Adam couldn’t wait to see his expression when Dominick discovered he would soon be caressing cold prison bars instead, and that Adam would be personally escorting him to Williamsburg.
As Susanna desperately had tried to tell him after he had so unjustly accused her, that would be vengeance enough.
Entering their room, Adam knew when he saw Ertha keeping faithful watch by the bed that she deserved to know what was going to happen tomorrow. Everyone at Briarwood would be affected by his decision. But he had no other choice than to admit everything to the magistrate.
Their charade couldn’t continue, not if he hoped to convince Susanna that he wanted her only for herself.
The precious gift of her love was worth more to him than Briarwood, worth more than any revenge the plantation could give him.
Once, he had told himself that he would be content just to have her at his side for the rest of his life, but now there was an all-important difference.
He didn’t want the heiress to the Cary fortune; he wanted Susanna Jane Guthrie, waiting-maid. He would never call her Camille again.
“Has she stirred?” Adam asked, noting with acute relief that some faint color had returned to Susanna’s pale cheeks.
“Just once,” Ertha answered, “though she didn’t open her eyes. She whispered something several times, whimpering like, then she fell quiet again.”
Deeply regretting that he hadn’t been there to hear it, Adam sat on the edge of the bed and took Susanna’s limp hand in his bandaged one, squeezing it gently. “What did she say?”
“Only your name, Master Thornton. Adam.”
Susanna’s eyelids fluttered open, but she quickly shut them against the excruciating throbbing in her head. Having no clear sense of why she was in such pain, she lay very quietly for several long moments, then she tried again to open her eyes.