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AS SOON AS THE HOUSE came into view, Alex began shouting for Joseph, his stable boy.
When they finally reached the house, the boy ambled toward them, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Yes sir, what can I do for you?”
Alex handed him the reins before pulling Hope and then Soleil from the saddle. She had passed out on the ride, but even in unconsciousness, she held tight to her daughter. “Go fetch the doctor. Tell him it is an emergency and he I need him immediately.”
“But sir, it’s so early in the morning.”
“I don’t care. Go for him, and do not return without him.”
Joseph glanced curiously at the woman in Alex’s arms but did not argue further. He mounted the horse and rode off.
The front doors opened as Alex made his way up the steps. Vivian stood with her hands on her hips, lips pulled into a deep frown. “Why on earth are you making so much...” The sight of Alex’s blood-stained shirt, and the limp woman in his arms cut Vivian’s sentence short.
“Good Lord! What happened?” Vivian asked as she came closer to assess the pair. Her eyes grew wide as she got close enough to see the unconscious woman in Alex’s arms. “Is that—? How?”
Alex cut her inquiry short as he made his way up the porch stairs toward the front door. “There’s no time to explain. I have to get her in bed,” he said. “When the doctor arrives, send him to my chambers. Take the child and feed then bath her. Bring her to my chambers afterward,” he shouted over his shoulder.
“Maman?”
Alex paused to look down at the little girl. Her lips trembled, and tears teetered on the edges of her eyelids.
Alex took a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves. He needed to collect himself and be strong for her. He looked into her watery eyes. “There is nothing to fear, little one. You are safe.”
Her tiny blue eyes bounced between Alex and her mother. She couldn’t keep from fidgeting as her hands unconsciously rubbed together. “Maman?” she repeated.
Alex dug deep within himself to bring forth a reassuring smile. “She will be better soon. You can come to her after you have eaten and had a bath.”
With a slight nod, she gave Alex permission to take her mother away.
Not wishing to waste any more time, Alex continued into the house, leaving Vivian speechless and staring after him.
~*~
ALEX SAT IN HIS OFFICE, staring out the window. He saw nothing in particular, lost in his own thoughts. He had been neglecting his work for the last three days, and despite an endless list of things to do, he hadn’t been able to accomplish one task in the last four hours. It was driving him crazy, having Soleil unconscious in bed and being unable to to wake her. Even immersing himself in work didn’t bring with it the normal peace.
Unable to concentrate, he decided it was time to give up. There was no point in forcing himself to stay in his office when there was somewhere else he truly wanted to be. He rose from his chair and walked toward the door.
It was late at night, and everyone had already gone to sleep. Alex walked noiselessly up the stairs. He had given Soleil the suite adjoining his. To minimize the creaking, he slowly opened the bedroom door and slid into the room. He took a seat on the chair beside the bed, his normal place. He had slept there every night to watch over Soleil’s recovery.
Alex looked at the two sleeping forms in the bed. Both appeared to be resting peacefully. Hope was curled next to Soleil with her hand on her chest, as if, even in sleep, she needed constant assurance that her mother’s heart was still beating.
Hope was just as beautiful as her mother. Her cream skin was only a shade or two darker than his—a stark contrast to her long, ebony curls. Was this what their children would have looked like? Whether their children would have been as light as him or as dark as their mother, he wouldn’t have cared, as long as they came from Soleil. With one last look, Alex relaxed back into his chair and closed his eyes.
~*~
SOLEIL SLOWLY STIRRED as a dull pain crept through her body, pulling her toward consciousness. She attempted to open her eyes, but the land of sleep held her in its strong grip. She had to fight hard to pull herself from its clutches.
She’d been having the dream about the couple she assumed were her parents. Every time, she saw a beautiful African woman who stood with the regal grace of a princess, and a handsome white man with the same blue-green eyes as her own. They appeared to be beckoning her to them with smiling faces and their arms open wide.
As she opened her eyes, the couple began fading to the back of her mind. The same sense of loss she felt each time she woke from dreaming of them, as if something precious had just been taken from her, began to settle in her chest. Having these people cloud her thoughts without being able to fully remember them always felt like a nightmare, no matter how pleasant the dream.
Soleil stuffed her dream and the emotions it evoked to the back of her mind. It was time to focus on the here and now. The cloud of sleep had lifted from her mind, and she realized she was in a place she had never seen before. Her eyebrows squished together as her eyes roamed her surroundings.
She was in a bed in a small room with walls painted a soft yellow. How did she get into a bed? Where was James? How did she get out of the woods? Her mind raced, trying to piece together the puzzle.
Soleil’s attention was drawn by the light sound of snoring and the movement of a small body: Hope, who lay snuggled beside her. The little girl seemed content in her sleep as if the world held nothing she feared. Soleil reached out to brush Hope’s long hair from her face but froze as a sharp pain sliced through her back. Memories of what had transpired the night she ran came rushing back. James’s knife slicing into her back, running through the woods with his dogs chasing close behind, and the man. The one who saved her. She vaguely remembered him lifting her off the ground and saving her from James’s beating. Who was he? Why had he saved her?
These thoughts filtered into her mind as her eyes continued their perusal of the small room. A few seconds later, they froze on the man in question, asleep in a chair on the opposite side of the room.
Soleil used the little energy she had in reserve to pull herself to a seated postion. After a deep breath to fortify her resolve, she inched her legs over the edge of the bed. The pain intensified, nearly sending her back into the pillows, but she pushed through it, holding to the bedpost to keep herself upright. She needed to find out what this man wanted from her. He had given her a comfortable bed, treated her wound, and taken care of Hope while she was ill. If she knew nothing else, she knew everything had a price.
She sat on the edge of the bed, observing the sleeping figure. He was a very handsome man. His raven black hair was in need of a cut; it hung low in his face, brushing the tips of his eyelashes. Even in his seated position, Soleil could tell from his long, lean frame that he was tall. The thin cotton shirt he wore hinted at a well-muscled chest.
Heat bloomed in her chest and spread outward. A small gasp escaped her lips as she lifted her fanned fingers to her breast bone. She was attracted to him.
She wondered if her injury had somehow affected her brain. He was a plantation owner, and she a recently freed slave. Everything about her attraction to him was wrong. And yet, as she peered at him through slightly hooded eyes, she couldn’t deny it was there, along with a sense of familiarity.
Soleil sat as straight as she could without irritating her wound before loudly clearing her throat.
The man’s eyelids fluttered before opening completely. He had mesmerizing clear blue eyes. The haze of sleep on his face gave way to awareness and then... concern?
“It is good to see you have awakened. How are you feeling?”
Soleil watched as he stretched his long limbs, never taking his eyes off her. The rich baritone of his voice was somehow soothing, which unnerved Soleil all the more. “I’m alive, which is a blessing. How long have I been asleep?”
“About three days. The doctor stitched your wound, but it became infected. You had a fever, but it broke this morning.”
“And you took care of Hope while I slept?” she asked while watching him, analyzing his every word and action for falsehood.
“Yes. She has barely left your side. This morning it took a cookie and a glass of milk to finally get her to play outside with the other children. But after a few hours she came right back to your bedside.”
Soleil sat quietly, dissecting his statement. There appeared to be no falsehood in it. His eyes had even softened when he spoke of Hope.
When she didn’t speak again, he opened his mouth to fill the silence. “I had several dresses taken out of my mother’s trunk for you. They seem about your size, but I fear they are a bit out of fashion. Soon I will take you into town to purchase new dresses for you and Hope.”
“That will not be necessary. I brought a dress for each of us.”
“A single dress does not make a wardrobe. I insist.” Before she could protest, Alex shifted the direction of the conversation. “May I ask how you came by your wound?”
The question was asked innocently enough, but Soleil stiffened and shifted her eyes to her lap. The answer to that was none of his concern, and she didn’t owe him an explanation. Or did she? He had saved her life, but did that warrant rights to the details of her personal misfortunes?
Resigning herself to her answer, Soleil let out a soft sigh. “James cut me with his hunting knife the night I ran. He wanted to take liberties I was not willing to allow him, and he threatened Hope. I fought back. I will do anything to protect my child.” Soleil leveled a meaningful stare at him as she made her last declaration.
To her surprise, his face turned beet red and his eyebrows and lips scrunched into a menacing scowl. His chest heaved with heavy breaths she assumed were meant to calm him. She braced herself for the possible storm of his emotions. “I promise you and your daughter are safe here. No harm shall ever come to either of you.”
Soleil opened her mouth, but no words sprung forth. He had not been upset at her, but for her? She could only look on in confusion at the strong display of emotion on her behalf.
“Why? Why are you helping me?”
“Because you deserve nothing less from me.”
Soleil wrinkled her brow and stared, trying to make sense of his words. “What do you mean?”
“You are Soleil Jacqueline Dufor. Your father is Dominique Dufor. Your mother is a beautiful African woman named Imani.”
Flashes of the couple from her dreams began to invade her mind. He was lying—he had to be. Soleil refused to digest his words as truth. “That’s not possible.”
“Yes, it is. You went missing six years ago. What little I could get from that scum James makes me assume you were kidnapped and suffered some head trauma. I could not remove him from my home fast enough, but during our brief exchange he said his mother purchased you around the time you went missing. She called you Sarah because you couldn’t remember who you were.”
No matter how implausible they sounded, something in his words rung true in her heart. She always knew she had not been born in captivity. “How do you know my family?”
“Our families are old acquaintances. Our fathers had a business relationship. I guess I should reintroduce myself,” he said with a chuckle. “My name is Alexander Cummings, but you may call me Alex. We first met when you were thirteen years old. From the first moment I saw you I wanted to protect you, and it nearly killed me when you disappeared.”
Soleil averted her eyes as a blush warmed her cheeks. It would be all too easy to read true compassion in those words. She gathered her composure, reinforcing the guard around her emotions, then found his gaze again. When their eyes met, a moment of silence followed. He seemed to be trying to read her as much as she was trying to read him.
“How do I know what you say is true?” she asked.
He reached toward the ground beside his chair and picked up a frame. As though trying not to scare a skittish mare, he rose from his chair slowly and deliberately, stepping toward the bed to hand her the frame.
“What’s this?” Soleil took the offered item and gasped when she saw the image. Tears gathered in her eyes; her mind battled over the reality the photo presented and the only reality she had known.
“That frame has sat empty on my desk ever since you went missing. We took that picture the summer after my first year at university. I was eighteen and you were fifteen. You gave me the framed picture as a birthday present. After you were gone I couldn’t stand to look at the photo, so I hid it away in my study, but for some reason I wanted to keep the frame on my desk. Probably as a reminder of what I had lost.”
It was too much for Soleil to take in. She tried to process it all, but his words and the picture only awakened a headache at the back of her skull. Tears ran unchecked from her eyes as she stared at a young woman who had her face, but was filled with so much joy, hope, and love. Had there really been a time when she had been so happy? Had she really been so carefree?
Soleil handed the picture back to Alex and swiped at the tears running down her face, unable to handle the emotions raging through her. “What will you do with Hope and me?”
“Soleil...”
“What shall become of us?”
With a sigh, Alex allowed the change in topic. “You are free to do as you wish. In light of the mockery the States have made of the 13th Amendment, it will probably be best for you to return to France. You are free on paper, but not in fact. I will inform your parents of your return, and...”
“No!”
Alex’s brows furrowed in confusion as he stared at Soleil. She knew she had taken him by surprise with her sudden panicked outburst.
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Do not inform my parents you have found me.”
“Why wouldn’t you want your parents to know where you are and that you are safe?”
“Look at me. I am a mangled shadow of the girl in that picture. How could I face them in my current state? They lost a beautiful, innocent girl, and I cannot bear to give them back a scared and broken woman.”
As soon as the words left her lips, Soleil wished she could call them back. She hadn’t meant to allow that glimpse into her soul. The heartbreak was etched across Alex’s face; the corners of his lips pulled down in a severe frown, and sadness shone in his eyes. He looked as if the only thing keeping him from scooping her into his arms and whispering that the bad days were behind her until she felt it in her bones was his fear of her reaction.
With a nod, he agreed. “As you wish.”
Her fingers pinched and released the fabric of her nightgown. “Can I call on the friendship we once shared with a request?” She could feel his eyes intent on her. She hadn’t fully decided whether asking him for anything was a good idea, but the situation left no choice but to take a small step of faith.
“Never be afraid to ask me anything.”
“Will you allow us to stay here with you? Only for a short time, until I can figure out a plan and obtain employment.”
“You are a welcomed guest in my home for as long as you would like to stay.”
Soleil closed her eyes, basking in the relief that statement brought. When she opened them again, her face was painted with gratitude and determination. “Thank you. I will help around the house to make up for the room and board.”
“Nonsense! You owe me nothing.”
“I could not take from you without contributing or giving some kind of payment.”
Soleil watched as he thought over her statement. For a moment, old fears surfaced as she thought of the alternative forms of payment her might request of her. She slouched a little, clutching the neckline of her nightgown.
“We will discuss what chores you can do in the morning. For now, you should rest. How is the pain?”
“You can probably see how weakened I have become during this exchange, so there is no sense in lying to you. The pain is fairly intense.”
Alex reached for a glass on the nightstand and placed it in Soleil’s hands. “Here, drink this. The doctor said it will help with the pain and help you rest.”
Soleil only hesitated for a moment before bringing the glass to her lips. Once the contents were gone, she handed the empty glass back to him. “Thank you.”
“You are most welcome.” Alex rose from his chair and turned toward the door. “My suite adjoins this room. Do not hesitate to call if you need anything else. Good night.”
“Thank you. Good night.”
As she watched him leave the room, Soleil was surprised to feel a deep sense of loss settle over her. She would have to be careful about taming the emotions he evoked in her. She lay back on the bed, pulling Hope close to her as she drifted back to sleep.