Moonwitch (13 page)

Kyle paused when he saw her, one booted foot on a carriage step. He watched Selena warily as she approached, remaining silent when she reached them. When he offered no explanation as to their intention, Selena looked a question at the solicitor.

“The captain asked for a tour of the estate,” Foulkes replied in his most formal tone, with more than a hint of disapproval.

“Now?” she said without thinking. Then realizing she sounded critical of Kyle, stammered, “I mean…the festivities are not yet over.”

“I would like to see the property before we sail,” Kyle said finally, “and that leaves very little time.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Foulkes told Selena, “you would care to come?” He turned to address Kyle. “Mrs. Ramsey would better serve you than I, sir. She is more knowledgeable about her particular holdings and therefore better able to determine the fair market value.”

“Market value?” Selena echoed, feeling a sudden sick dread in the pit of her stomach.

Ignatius nodded, his jowled face creasing in a stern frown. “Yes, my dear. The captain has not taken me into his confidence, but I rather fear he wishes to offer up the Markham plantation for sale.”

S
elena paled at the solicitor’s speculation. Reaching out, she grasped the edge of the gig to steady herself and looked up at Kyle with pleading eyes. “Please…” she said in a stricken voice. “Don’t… Why are you doing this? To punish me?”

Kyle’s eyes darkened in anger. “Perhaps, my love,” he said carefully, with an undertone of grimness, “this is better discussed in private. Mr. Foulkes, would you be so kind as to allow us the use of your carriage for an hour?”

The solicitor looked from Kyle to Selena. But he must have felt this was a matter to be settled between the two of them, for he issued a terse reminder to Selena that he was at her disposal should she require his counsel, then clambered down and went off, leaving them alone.

“Get in,” Kyle said through clenched teeth. When Selena merely stood there gazing at him in anguish, he grasped her arm and marshaled her into the gig. “I only just now began to entertain the idea of selling your plantation, Miss Markham. And certainly I intended to discuss it with you first before I made any decisions.”

After settling himself in the leather seat beside her, Kyle took up the reins and turned the bay gelding toward the road. “And I am not,” he insisted with strained patience, “intent on punishing you. You can’t return here, but you’ll be able to use the proceeds from the sale of the plantation to begin your new life.”

Which didn’t include him, Selena thought wretchedly. He hadn’t said it, but the thought hovered between them and, if anything, deepened her despair.

“Look,” Kyle said somewhat desperately, “I may not be a farmer, but I know enough to realize that an absentee landlord does no one any good.”

Still Selena didn’t speak, and Kyle’s fingers clenched the reins in frustration. “Deuce take it! Why don’t you say something?”

Selena took a shuddering breath. “What…would you have me say?”

“I don’t know! Curse me or scream or threaten to haul me before the governor—anything but look at me like I’ve just murdered your favorite relative.”

She glanced away then, looking down at her hands, remembering her foolish declaration that Kyle would someday come to love her. “You are right, of course,” she said finally, in a small voice. “An absentee landlord wouldn’t be at all desirable. It was just a shock…I hadn’t thought of selling…” Yet she should have thought. Everything had changed when she married Kyle.

“You knew you would be leaving the island,” Kyle replied defensively, trying to see her face, which was partially hidden by the knot of gray satin ribbons on her hat.

“Yes.”

“Look, Miss Markham—”

“Do you think,” she asked, her tone becoming tight with anger, “you might bring yourself to address me by my given name? It seems rather foolish to be so formal now that we are married, even if you don’t intend it to last.”

He liked her better angry than when she got that wounded look in her eyes or when she retreated into cool civility. “Very well…Selena. What I meant to say was that I wouldn’t consider selling to anyone you didn’t approve of. And in any case, we don’t have to sell it at once.”

“No. At once is better. The longer you delay, the harder it will be for everyone.”

Kyle fell silent then, until he realized he didn’t know where he was driving. “Where are we headed?”

She looked up with a start. “I beg your pardon?”

“You were going to give me a tour of the plantation.”

“Oh, yes… of course.” Selena roused herself from her despondent thoughts to direct him along a path to the left.

They passed several fields of cane stubble and shortly came upon the Negro quarters—a wide area that was cool and colorful, shaded by tall breadfruit trees and brightened by the purple and green of young mango leaves. In the clearing stood scores of good-size huts, most walled with wattle and daub, some of stone, all on stilts and all neatly thatched. Beside many of the huts were pens for poultry and livestock, and beyond, soaking up the sun, lay dozens of well-tended gardens.

“How many slaves does your plantation have?” Kyle asked thoughtfully as he drew the horse to a halt.

“Three hundred fifty-six, since Rose was delivered of twins the other day. But we employ more than fifty freemen, as well—factors, artisans, bookkeepers and the like.”

He sat there a moment, looking around. Then he slowly shook his head. “I hadn’t imagined it would be so big. It’s a vast responsibility—to own so many lives. Not one I’m sure I like.”

“But you’re a plantation owner, too,” Selena observed.

“Yes. But somehow I never thought of myself… Of course, my father owned slaves once he moved to Mississippi from England, but I put it out of my mind. I went to sea when I was twelve, a few months after my family moved there. It was easy to ignore the situation, for I didn’t go home much.”

She eyed him curiously. “You inherited your plantation from your father?”

Kyle nodded. “When my parents were killed last year.”

“I’m sorry.”

His mouth twisted. “For what? Because I inherited or because my parents died?”

“Both. You aren’t happy about becoming a planter—”

“You’ve noticed?”

She ignored his sarcasm. “It’s never easy to lose one’s parents. Were you close?”

Kyle shrugged. “I don’t suppose you could call our relationship close. I was young when I left home, after all. But I do miss them.”

“Are you the eldest son, then?”

“I’m the only son. I have four sisters—one a few years older than I, the others much younger.”

“I should have liked to have sisters,” Selena said wistfully.

Suddenly realizing how personal the conversation was becoming, Kyle took up the reins again and urged the horse around.

As they passed more cane fields that were laid out in regular patterns, Selena explained that each year two-fifths of the land was planted and another two-fifths allowed to lie fallow. The remaining acreage, usually the most fertile, was used as a provision ground.

“And just what is a ‘provision ground’?” Kyle asked as they approached the buildings Selena said were the sugar works.

She gave him an odd look. “It’s where we grow our food. We can’t live on sugar alone, I’m sure you understand.”

The rueful twist of Kyle’s lips was almost a smile. “I don’t suppose so.”

“Everyone on the plantation has a garden plot, if he wishes, and two hours free at noon to work it. Most of the Negroes sell their excess produce at the market in St. John’s.”

“And do they get to keep the money they earn?”

“Of course they get to keep it. Most spend it on tobacco or trinkets or clothes. But some of the slaves save and eventually buy their freedom.”

Kyle looked surprised at that, but they had reached the sugar works by then, so he didn’t question Selena further.

She took him through one of the two sugar mills on the plantation, and he was able to see at close range the great iron rollers that pressed the cane into a pulpy mass she called bagasse. The bagasse was used as fuel to raise steam in the boilers, while the juice flowed into the rows of iron caldrons that lined the boiling room. They also toured the curing house, where the molasses was drained from the crystallizing sugar, and then the distillery, where scummings and treacle and lees were mixed with water and fermented into rum. By the time he came out into the bright sunlight, Kyle knew far more about sugar making than he had ever cared to know.

Still, he listened politely as his new bride explained how during the sugar season they usually worked late into the night, for Selena spoke with such enthusiasm that he could almost believe himself interested in whether or not cane needed to be pressed within a few hours of cutting to keep the juice from fermenting. He found himself watching her face and thinking how lovely it was and how much he preferred seeing it animated than saddened or distressed. She lost much of her reserve then. When Selena turned to him suddenly with a question, her blue-gray eyes bright, he blinked and was obliged to ask her to repeat it.

“The growing season here is opposite that in America, isn’t it?”

Kyle grinned for the first time in several hours. “You’re asking
me
? I hardly know the difference between a plow and a harvest. We grow cotton in Natchez, that much I do know.”

“My father once experimented with cotton here but found it wasn’t as advantageous economically as sugar. What kind do you grow? Green-seed or shrub?”

“There are different kinds?”

Selena eyed him with faint amusement. “You really aren’t a farmer, are you?”

“I told you so,” Kyle replied, giving a short chuckle. “My father, now
he
was a farmer. He never wanted to do anything else. But he was the younger son of an English squire, and his older brother inherited everything. He managed to scrounge together a few acres, but it wasn’t enough to feed his family, so he moved us to America, looking for a better life. In Natchez land was inexpensive and labor cheap, and he already had relatives there. A cousin of his had purchased a big tract of land back when England owned part of what later became the Mississippi Territory.”

So that was why, Selena reflected as she allowed Kyle to hand her into the carriage, his accent was more clipped than the Americans’ usual broad drawl. Then she realized that he had actually laughed just now, and she slanted a glance at Kyle as he took up the reins. He was extremely attractive when he laughed, she thought, gazing at his rugged profile. His eyes danced with lights of amber and green, and the tiny lines at the corners crinkled.

“Is that where Natchez is located, the Mississippi Territory?” she asked, keenly interested about his home and family.

“Yes, except that Mississippi is no longer a territory. It recently became a state. Natchez is a few hundred miles north of New Orleans on the Mississippi River.”

“And your sisters live there on your plantation?”

Selena interpreted the quick, measuring look Kyle gave her as a warning that her questions were becoming too personal. Not wanting to spoil his good humor, she didn’t press him to share more about his family, as she would have liked. Instead, she began to tell Kyle about the celebrations that were held at the end of the grinding season, keeping the conversation impersonal, as she sensed he wished. They drove away, more in charity with each other than they had been since the night of their engagement.

It was as they were nearing the house once more that Selena grew silent. “Please, could we stop here a moment?” she said finally. “I must say goodbye to someone.”

Kyle obliged, drawing the horse to a halt, though he was surprised that she had chosen to stop on a somewhat barren stretch of road.

“You needn’t come with me,” Selena added quietly when he made to descend. “I shan’t be long.”

He watched her climb down and then disappear up a small rise some distance from the road, where several tamarind trees grew. After a moment, though, he secured the reins and followed her, curious to see who lived there.

She was kneeling in the scrub grass, her head bowed. Kyle didn’t need to see the two headstones to realize he was in a small graveyard or read the names carved there to know she was saying farewell to her parents.

He halted, regretting that he had intruded on her privacy, but before he could turn, Selena gave a sigh and rose. When she saw him, she smiled, but he could see how tremulous that smile was and how misty her eyes were.

Kyle gazed down at her with grudging admiration. This situation must be devastating for her, he realized suddenly; she was leaving everything and everyone she loved in order to face a new land and new way of life at the side of a husband who didn’t want her....

If it wasn’t for his son, Kyle thought with another twinge of regret, he might have been willing to give their marriage a chance. Having a planter’s daughter for a wife would be a great benefit to him now. And Selena Markham was undeniably lovely, even if her figure was too slender and her manner too proper and restrained for his taste.

Suddenly he wanted to make her leave-taking as painless as possible. “Whom would you trust to run your plantation?” Kyle asked quietly, wanting to ease her mind. It was obvious how much she loved this land and its people.

Her tawny brows drew together in thought. “I hadn’t really considered it. I always assumed Avery would take over the responsibility.”

Kyle couldn’t help the way his lip curled. “I wouldn’t,” he said carefully, trying to control his scorn, “sell a dog I didn’t like to that man-milliner.”

“I know you aren’t overly fond of him, and I’m not… particularly fond of him, either, after what happened. But he has wanted the land for ages. And my father chose Avery because he values his people and treats them well. Honestly—” she reached out and placed a hand on Kyle’s sleeve “—I’ve never seen Avery strike anyone before.”

Kyle gazed down at her, watching the dappled shade play across her ivory skin. The shadows blended with the faint discoloration that smudged her left cheekbone. Unconsciously, he reached up to brush the slight bruise with his fingertips. Then abruptly, he let his hand drop, looking self-conscious even as his mouth tightened.