Lori hadn’t realized how weak she had become until she started eating again. Perhaps it was the food or perhaps it was simply the anger she felt at Adam Ross, but whatever the cause, she now had more energy than she knew what to do with. She was sweeping the dirt floor for the second time that day when she heard the sound of a buggy approaching the cabin.
For a second she froze in alarm. He was coming for her! But no sooner had that thought formed in her mind than another overtook it. He wouldn't get her this time!
Dropping the broom, she ran to where the old shotgun hung on the wall and snatched it down, checking to make sure it was still loaded. Thus armed, she hurried to the door that stood open to the fading sunlight.
But of course, it wasn’t Eric, and he wasn’t coming for her at all. It was Adam, as she should have known when she heard it was a buggy and not a rider approaching. Adam, the man she hated for all he had done to hurt her. And Adam the man she still loved in spite of all the pain.
Tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them away furiously. If he was here to get Matthew... but she wouldn’ give up her child, any more than she would return to Elmhurst. If Adam thought he could force her... Her hand tightened instinctively on the shotgun, even though she knew she could never hurt Adam, no matter what he did to her.
But he didn’t have to know that, did he? And perhaps the gun would be enough to frighten him away.
She watched as he pulled the buggy to a halt in front of the cabin. She knew he saw her in the doorway. His gaze had found her at once, and he didn’t take his eyes off her for more than a second at a time while he tied off the reins and climbed down.
In spite of her anger and her fear, she couldn’t help noticing how handsome he looked, even though he was wearing the worn, casual clothes he used when he was working and even though his face looked haggard, as if he hadn’t been sleeping any more than she had.
He took a few steps toward her, then stopped, glancing down at the shotgun. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Lori,” he told her quietly. “I won’t... hurt you,” he added, and she wondered at the way his voice almost broke. “And I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes.”
He looked so sad and so defeated that Lori suddenly felt like a fool for pointing a shotgun at him. Hastily, she hoisted it back up to where it normally hung on the wall beside the door and turned back to face him. Her hands felt awkward with nothing to hold, so she locked them together in front of her as she wondered what to do next. Finally, she decided she had to invite him inside.
“Come on in,” she said, backing up to allow him to enter because for some reason she didn’t feel safe turning her back to him.
But he made no threatening moves. He simply came inside and stopped before her, keeping a proper distance, although she could tell it pained him to do so. Seemingly of their own accord, his hands came up, as if to reach for her, but when she stepped back in alarm, he dropped them to his sides again.
His expression spoke of defeat and a sadness she couldn’t then begin to understand. He glanced around the room, as if he were looking for something. “Matthew?” he said anxiously. “Is he...?”
“He’s asleep,” she told him, gesturing to the bedroom door.
“Is he all right? When Lucy came back—”
“He’s fine,” she said, instantly angry at the reminder of the way he’d tried to take her baby away.
“I was worried about you both,” he explained. “When Bessie said you weren’t eating, I thought it might be too much for you to—”
“I’m eating,” she told him sharply. If he thought he was going to come in here and tell her—
“Thank God,” he said so fervently that Lori’s anger evaporated. “Lori, I came to tell you that Eric’s gone,” he added before she could even get her breath.
“What?”
“I sent him away. I... I know what he did to you. I don’t know if you can ever forgive me for not believing you before, but that’s why I’m here now, to beg you for that forgiveness and to ask you to come home with me.”
Lori was sure she must be dreaming because this couldn’t really be happening. What could have changed Adam’s mind? And why would he have suddenly decided she was telling the truth? She shook her head, trying to clear it, but Adam apparently misinterpreted the gesture.
“Oh, please, Lori, give me another chance!” he pleaded “I know you must hate me. This is all my fault! If I hadn’t been such a fool! If I’d only realized... Why didn’t you tell me about the note he sent you?”
Lori almost gasped in surprise. “How did you find you about that?”
“Sudie told me. He told her everything that happened.”
“He admitted it?” she asked incredulously.
But Adam shook his head. “He still doesn’t think he did anything wrong, but we do, Lori. We know now that...” His voice broke, and to her amazement, Lori saw that he had tears in his eyes. “I wanted to kill him, Lori. I still do, even if he is my brother, and if he ever shows his face here again, I will!”
“Oh, Adam!” Lori cried, taking hold of his arms as if she could restrain him from that violence.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the note?” he asked again, his eyes full of more pain than anyone should have to bear.
She shook her head. “I was so stupid, I was ashamed for you to know.”
“Ashamed? I’m the one who was stupid! Why didn’t I see how you felt about me? How could I have been so blind? Even Eric knew, and he used that, didn’t he? He used my stupidity to hurt you, and it’s all my fault!”
“No!” Lori told him angrily. “It’s not your fault! And it’s not my fault either! It’s taken me months to understand that, and I don’t want you torturing yourself over it either! It was Eric s fault! He’s the one—the only one—to blame. I couldn’t have stopped him and neither could you. I refuse to feel guilty any longer, and I won’t let you feel guilty, either.”
He gazed down at her for a long moment, and in that moment, in his eyes, she saw how much he loved her and low much it would cost him to lose her now. “Can you ever forgive me for not believing you?” he asked brokenly.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she didn’t even try to blink them away. “I think I can.”
With a groan, he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to his chest. “I’ll make it up to you, my darling, I promise you,” he breathed into her hair. “I’ll make you the happiest woman alive!”
She was crying, but that made her smile in spite of her ears. “I think I already am!” she told him.
He squeezed her more tightly for a moment, then pushed her slightly away so he could see her face. “Oh, no, you’re not. You don’t even know what happiness is yet, but I’ll show you. I’ll devote every day of the rest of my life to showing you!” he vowed with the most beautiful smile Lori had ever seen, and then he kissed her.
He’d kissed her many times in the past few months, but never like this. This time he kissed her as if she were the most precious thing on the earth, as if he were worshiping her with his lips and his hands. And when he was done, he pulled away and asked, “Will you come home with me now? Will you bring our son and come home?”
Lori had truly believed she couldn’t be any happier, but when she heard him say “our son,” she knew she had been wrong. For a second, she thought her heart might burst with joy, and she smiled through her tears and said, “Yes, I will.” Only when she saw how he closed his eyes and felt the shudder of relief ripple through him did she understand how very much she meant to him and how devastated he would have been if she had refused him. But she hadn’t refused him, and he had done everything she had asked of him and more, and for the first time since he had come to this house last spring and asked her to marry him, Lori believed that everything was finally going to be fine. No, not merely fine but wonderful!
“I have to tell Bessie,” she said.
“No need for that,” Bessie informed them from the door way. She was smiling as proudly as if she were personally responsible for getting them back together again.
They jumped guiltily apart and then laughed because they had nothing at all to feel guilty about.
“I’m going home,” Lori told her happily, looking up a Adam who was gazing back down at her with frank adoration.
“That’s what I figured,” Bessie said. “I come to help you pack. Not that I’m in a hurry to get rid of you or anything,” she added with a wink. “I reckon that brother of yours is gone,” she said to Adam.
“He’s gone for good,” Adam confirmed, slipping his arm around Lori’s waist and pulling her snugly to his side.
“Well, then, what’re we waiting for?” Bessie wanted to know.
With their help, Lori had all her and Matthew’s things gathered into a bundle in a matter of minutes. The baby was still sleeping in his basket, so Adam picked him up, basket and all.
When Lori saw how he held it, so gently, and how he looked at the sleeping baby, so adoringly, and how he reached out to touch Matthew’s satiny cheek with one finger, so tenderly, tears came to her eyes again.
“I think I missed him almost as much as I missed you,” Adam told her, his own eyes suspiciously bright. “He really is my son now, and he always will be.”
Lori could only nod, not trusting herself to speak because the tears of joy were so close and Adam might not understand if she cried that it was only from happiness.
She followed him out as he carried the baby and basket to the buggy and set them ever so carefully on the floor. Bessie had already placed the bundle of their clothes behind the seat, and she now stood, beaming proudly, ready to see them off.
“Thank you for everything,” Lori told her stepmother, giving her a hug.
“Oh, pshaw, I didn’t do nothing but put up with you for a few days,” Bessie protested, although the tears standing in her eyes betrayed her. “Get along with you now before I embarrass myself! ”
Lori allowed Adam to help her into the buggy, then he climbed up, too, and they were off. She glanced down to make sure Matthew was secure and found he was still sleeping soundly, oblivious to the drama that had taken place around him. Then she looked up to find Adam was watching her.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too. I always have.”
His eyes grew shadowed, and she saw that he still doubted her.
“Why don’t you believe that?” she asked.
He smiled or tried to. “I find it difficult to... I’m a cripple, Lori, and you’re a beautiful young woman.”
But Lori shook her head. “Eric is the one who’s crippled. His soul is twisted and deformed, and he takes pleasure from hurting others. You’re not like that, Adam. You may not be perfect,” she said, laying a hand on his damaged thigh, “but you’re good inside, where it matters. And that’s why I love you.”
He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips, a promise of things to come, and then he said, “You’re right, I’m not perfect, and I’m not really good inside, as I think I’ve already proved, but I’m willing to let you believe that I am,” he added when she would have protested, “and I’m more than willing to try to live up to your opinion of me.”
Lori leaned her head against his shoulder, perfectly content for the first time since she could remember. The rest of the short trip passed in blissful silence as Lori savored her newfound happiness and contemplated a whole lifetime of it.
She could see the beautiful house up ahead, and the other out buildings, the place she could now truthfully say was her home. She was about to tell Adam how glad she was to be back when she felt him stiffen beside her and heard him make a small sound of alarm.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” she asked, looking bad and forth between his face and the plantation buildings, trying to figure out what had disturbed him.
Adam tried to tell himself it wasn’t possible. Probably Eric hadn’t liked the horse Oscar had saddled for him. Probably, he had demanded another and ridden away on it, which would explain why this one was still standing outside the back door, tethered to the hitching post as it had been when he’d left.
A quick glance at the horizon confirmed that it was officially sundown, even though the sky was still light. He’d threatened to kill Eric if he was still here when he got back, and from the rage building in his chest, he knew he would do just that if his brother had defied him. If Eric upset Lori, if he said one thing to her...
“Adam, is something wrong?” Lori asked him again, and he tried to smile reassuringly.
“I don’t think so,” he lied as he pulled back on the reins and drew the buggy to a halt. Quickly, he set the brake and tied off the reins. “Wait here for a minute while I check on something,” he said, as he climbed out.
“What is it?” she demanded, but he didn’t allow himself to acknowledge her distress. He was too busy planning what he would do. He should have carried a gun with him. He realized that now. Eric would be armed. And if he’d changed his mind about leaving...
Adam froze in horror when he looked up and saw Eric coming out the back door. He was smiling that impudent smile that Adam hated so much.
“Well, now, what have we here?” Eric asked.
“I told you to be gone when I got back,” Adam reminded him even as he registered the fact that Eric had a pistol strapped to his hip.
“There was something you didn’t tell me, though,” Eric said, strolling across the porch toward Adam as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “You forgot to tell me I’ve got a son.”
Behind him he heard Lori cry out in horror. Instinctively, he turned to find her struggling to untie the reins, desperate to escape his brother.
“Not so fast,” Eric warned, jumping down the steps in one leap. But Adam couldn’t let him get to her.
He threw himself against Eric, but this time, his brother was ready for him, and Eric’s fist caught him squarely on the chin.
Stars exploded before Adam’s eyes as the pain ricocheted through his head, and his knees buckled, sending him sprawling to the ground. But Lori’s anguished cry galvanized him against the weakness, and he shook his hammering head to clear it.
He came up on all fours to see Eric and Lori struggling. She’d gotten the reins untied, and he was trying to pull them out of her hands.
“You lying bitch!” Eric was saying as he fought with her. “Did you think you’d get away with this?”
The horse was dancing restlessly and the buggy lurched forward, telling Adam the brake had been released. Forcing his protesting body to move, he lunged to his feet, but not before Eric took hold of Lori and dragged her out of the buggy.
She screamed as he threw her to the ground, and Adair roared in rage as he forced his rubbery legs to propel him to Lori’s defense.
His cry startled Eric who looked up to see his brother staggering towards him. It was like a nightmare in which everything happens too slowly. Adam’s legs were like lead and even though he thought he was running, he wasn’t fast enough, because Eric had time to reach for his pistol ant pull it out of its holster and point it at Adam’s chest.
For one horrible moment, Adam knew he was going to die, but worse than that was the awful knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to save Lori and the baby from Eric. In the same instant that this thought formed with crystal clarity in his mind, he saw Eric smile. The same terrible smile he’d worn the other time, when he’d lain in wait to kill the brother who he imagined had stolen everything from him.
But just as Eric’s thumb pulled back the hammer, Lori sprang up from the ground and grabbed his arm. The pistol exploded, belching flame and smoke, but the bullet went wild. Glass shattered somewhere behind him just as Adam threw himself against his brother. Frantically, he wrestled the pistol out of his hand.
Eric was still struggling, still fighting, but the sound of Lori’s screams and someone else’s—Sudie?—drew Adam’s attention.
“The baby!” Lori was screaming and pointing and then Adam saw, too. The gunshot had frightened the horse, and it had bolted, dragging the buggy and the baby still inside of it along behind.
Adam drew back his fist and slammed it into Eric’s face, and mercifully, Eric went limp beneath him. He forced himself up, taking in the situation with one quick glance. The buggy swayed dangerously from side to side as it bounced behind the horse, and the horse was heading blindly for the fields where the rough ground would surely send the buggy toppling over.
Then he saw the horse that Oscar had saddled, straining against its tether, equally as frightened by the gunshot but unable to escape. Adam ran for it.
He snatched the reins loose, jerking the animal’s head down so it wouldn’t rear, then jamming his left foot into the stirrup. Ignoring the tearing agony in his damaged leg as he forced it to take his weight, he threw himself up into the saddle. The horse needed no urging to go racing off.
Although Adam hadn’t ridden in years, he instinctively remembered how to guide the animal, directing it toward the careening buggy that had now reached the harvested fields. As he watched helplessly, the wheels struck a furrow, and it jounced skyward. Adam lost his breath with terror as it landed, striking the ground with a bone-jarring jolt that sent it crashing over on its side.
“Matthew!” he screamed as he urged his horse on then awed on the reins to bring his mount to a sliding halt beside the other horse that was kicking frantically against the traces in an attempt to rid itself of the dead weight of the buggy so it could truly flee.
Somehow, Adam got hold of the animal’s harness and dragged it to a halt. Although he wanted to scream out his own terror—where in God’s name was Matthew?—he somehow managed to speak softly and soothingly to the hysterical animal.
Matthew, where are you? he wondered desperately, and dear God, why aren’t you crying? But all he could hear as he slid down from his saddle was Lori’s keening wail as she raced toward him across the field, holding her skirts up with both hands as she ran.
Others were coming behind her, but he took no time to notice who it was. His bad leg had collapsed under him in searing agony when he hit the ground, and he needed all his strength to hold himself upright and keep the frightened horse from bolting again.
“Matthew, can you hear me?” he cried, knowing even as he did so that even if the baby could hear him, he wouldn’t understand. Dear heaven, if anything had happened to the boy, how would he bear Lori’s grief, much less his own?
“Matthew, baby, where are you, sweetheart?” Lori was screaming, nearly hysterical herself as she swooped down on the wreckage of the buggy.
That’s when he saw it, the basket Matthew had been in lying crushed beneath the overturned wheel. His blood went cold and rushed from his head, and for a moment he was afraid he might pass out from the horror of knowing the little body would be just as crushed beneath it.
Lori was trying to lift the buggy, using all her feeble strength. Screaming the baby’s name over and over, she was unable to budge it. Instinctively, Adam moved to help her but his damaged leg refused to carry him, and he fell to his knees in the dirt and had to roll to keep from being trample by the terrified horse which was still trying frantically escape.
Then the buggy moved, righting itself, and Adam looked up to find that Oscar had put his considerable strength the task. Lori scrambled beneath it before it was even upright, lunging for the remains of the basket, lifting it and throwing it aside before Adam could warn her not to look.
Then he heard her cry of anguish and knew he was too late.
“You killed him!” Sudie cried. Adam looked up in surprise. He hadn’t known she was there, and then he saw that Eric was with her. His face was flushed from running, and he didn’t seem to realize that Sudie had thrown the accusation at him.
“You killed your own baby!” Sudie shrieked again, slapping at him again and again with all her might, as if she would beat him to death.
But of course her strength was no match for his. He tried to swat her aside like a pesky fly, but when that didn’t work, he grabbed her arms in a brutal grip that made her wince with pain.
“Stop it, old woman!” he shouted into her face.
“You killed him!” she screamed again, defiantly.
“I didn’t do any such thing! The horse bolted! It wasn’t my fault!”
“Nothing is ever your fault, is it?” Sudie replied furiously, even as she struggled fruitlessly to break his grip on her wrists. “You’re always the innocent one, aren’t you?”
“Shut up!” Eric shook her.
But she didn’t shut up. “You’re a devil, and it’s all my fault!” The tears were streaming down her face. “It was my sin! Why did that little baby have to die for my sin!”
“Sudie, hush!” Oscar warned, but she didn’t appear to hear him, or else she didn’t care.
“I should’ve kept you!” she sobbed into Eric’s face. “I thought the worst thing in the world was to be born a slave, but I was wrong! Look at you! You ain’t even human!”
Eric pushed her away in disgust. “Stupid bitch! Stupid nigger bitch!”
“And if I’m your mother, what does that make you?” Sudie cried.
From the corner of his eye, Adam saw Lori reaching for the baby’s broken body. He wanted to stop her, but he knew he couldn’t reach her in time. Even still, he began to pull himself up, knowing he had to get to her.
“You’re crazy!” Eric told Sudie, backing away from her, as if she were a poisonous snake.
“I must be for thinkin’ you’d be better off if you was raised a white man!”
“What are you talking about?” Eric’s voice was shrill with a terror that had nothing to do with what had just happened to his child.
Ignoring the tearing agony in his leg, Adam lurched toward Lori, knowing he had to hold her.
“I’m talking about that night when you was born!” Sudie said, her voice even more shrill than Eric’s. “There was two babies borned that night, one to me and one to the mistress. My baby was strong and healthy, but hers was dead!”
“No!” Eric shrieked. “I’m alive!”
“That’s cause you was my baby! The mistress was too sick to know, so I switched them, told her she had a fine, big boy but her boy was dead.”
“No!” Eric was shaking his head frantically. Adan watched in horrified fascination as he half-crawled, half limped to where Lori knelt in the dirt cradling her dead baby “I’m white!”
“So am I!” Sudie reminded him, holding out her arm am pulling up her sleeve to reveal an arm even paler than Eric’s “I’m still a slave, though, even though I was whiter than the mistress. But I knowed my baby would be white enough to pass, if I could give him a chance, so I gave him to her and took her dead baby for mine.”
Eric’s eyes were wild. “Liar! You’re a lying bitch!” he cried. “I’m a Ross! Chet Ross’s son!”
Sudie’s face might have been carved of stone. “Yes, you is. Chet Ross’s son and mine, ’cause he was a rapist just like you. And now everybody’ll know that you’re a nigger just like me!”
Eric cried out, a horrible sound, as if his soul was being ripped from his chest, and then he turned and ran.
Adam stared after him in horror for a long moment, unable to quite comprehend the story he had just heard on top of everything else. But then he heard Lori sobbing, and none of it even mattered anymore. He threw himself to the ground beside her, hardly even feeling the pain that burned like fire in his ruined leg.
He’d be a cripple now for sure, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except Lori and their son. She cradled the small, limp body to her breast as she wept. The little face was so white and still, and Adam could feel his heart breaking in his chest as his own tears began to fall.
He reached out, wrapping his arm around her as he used the other to push himself up, and then he and Lori jumped as another explosion split the stillness. He looked up in the direction of the sound, and he saw his brother back by the house, standing in a cloud of smoke from the shot. Had he fired at them? Was he still trying to kill Adam?
Before he could make sense of it, Eric’s body crumpled and fell, and to his horror he understood: Eric had shot himself.
Someone cried out in protest, a primal wail that tore at Adam’s heart—until he realized the source of it.
“Adam!” Lori screamed, holding up the baby for him to see. The little face was no longer white and still but pinched and purple with rage as Matthew howled out a protest against all the injustice in the world. “Look, he’s alive!”
And he was alive and screaming like a banshee. But surely that meant he was terribly injured. No one could survive what he had been through.
Forgetting about his brother and everything else, he said, “Let’s get him back to the house. I’ll send for the doctor right away. Oscar!” But when he looked up, Oscar was gone, running after Sudie who was running toward where Eric lay.
And when he looked back at Lori, she was opening her bodice and offering the screaming baby her breast. Matthew was too angry to take it at first, but after a second or two, he decided to accept whatever comfort he could find, and to Adam’s everlasting amazement, the baby began to suckle just as greedily as if he hadn’t just been as good as dead a moment ago.
Lori looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. “He must’ve just been stunned!” she guessed, looking pretty stunned herself. She had a streak of dirt across her cheek, and her hair had come loose and was falling down around her shoulders in raven ringlets. With the baby at her breast, Adam thought he had never seen her look more beautiful. “I felt him jump at the shot and... Oh, God, the shot! What was it?”
But Adam covered her eyes when she tried to see. “No don’t,” he warned her. “Just look at Matthew now.”
“Was it Eric?” she demanded. “Did he shoot someone?”
“Himself, I think. It doesn’t matter.”
She gazed at him with horror-filled eyes, and Adam wanted more than anything in the world to be able to tell her that everything would be all right now. But he couldn’t.
“Lori,” he said instead, blinking at his own tears, “Matthew might still be badly hurt.”
Plainly, she hadn’t even considered this possibility. She gazed down at her child in renewed alarm. “He can’t be. Look how he’s eating!”
Adam had to agree, he seemed perfectly normal. The blanket in which he had been wrapped had fallen away and now Adam brushed aside his little wrapper to examine the tiny arms and legs. He poked and probed, expecting at any minute for the child to stiffen in pain, but he got no reaction at all until he started exploring the child’s so little belly. Matthew, who had been watching him avidly as he suckled suddenly released Lori’s nipple and gave Adam a big, milky, toothless grin.
“My God, did you see that?” Adam asked incredulously.
Lori nodded, speechless with wonder. Then she said, “We should still get him back to the house.” Quickly, she fastened her bodice and got to her feet, still clutching Matthew to her bosom. Only when she realized Adam had made no move to get up, did she notice what was wrong.
“Adam, your leg! What have you done?” she cried in renewed horror.
“I think I wrenched it,” he lied, knowing it was far worse than that. “Would you call Oscar. I think I’ll need some help—”
But Lori was already calling for him. The big man came directly, his dark face grim as he loped across the field toward them. Only then did Adam allow himself to think about what had happened back there in the yard. Sudie was kneeling, holding Eric to her and rocking back and forth, as if she could make him better.
“My brother?” he asked when Oscar stopped before him.
“He dead, Massa.”
Lori’s cry seemed to come from very far away as the pain in his leg merged with the pain in his heart and rose up in a crimson tide that threatened to drown him. “I’ll need a hand here,” he managed through his constricted throat. “I’ve hurt my leg and...”
Oscar needed no other instruction. He immediately reached down to help Adam to his feet, but as Adam’s weight settled on his injured leg, the crimson tide rose up again and this time overwhelmed him, and he sank almost gratefully into the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness.
Lori didn’t know how much more she could stand. On this day of horrors, she’d managed to hold herself together only because she’d had no other choice.
After watching Adam turn chalk white and pass out from the pain in his injured leg, she’d followed Oscar as he’d carried her husband back to the house only to discover Sudie kneeling in the yard, holding Eric’s bloody, ruined head to her bosom.
She’d stood frozen for a long moment, watching the macabre sight and wondering why she felt nothing. How many times had she wished Eric dead? And certainly no one deserved it more, after all the pain he had caused. She should have felt triumph or satisfaction or something, but she only felt numb.
Then Sudie had looked up at her, her dark eyes full of the same anguish Lori had felt herself when she’d thought Matthew was dead.
“He couldn’t help the way he was,” Sudie insisted desperately as the tears streamed down her face. “It was my fault! I should’ve kept him, but I wanted him to have a good life, not be a slave. I wanted him to have the kind of life Massa Adam had! I didn’t know what would happen! I didn’t know!”
Of course, she didn’t know. How could she have?
So many things made sense now. Sudie had been raped by her master and had borne him a son, which was why she understood so clearly the pain that Lori had endured at Eric’s hands. The fact that the son conceived by rape had become a rapist himself was an irony she might someday appreciate, but not quite yet. At the moment, she was only aware that she and Sudie were both holding their children to their bosoms. One was dead, but one was, praise God, still alive. And while Matthew appeared to be all right, she couldn’t be sure and most certainly Adam was not all right at all.
She started issuing orders, sending one of the slaves for the doctor, even though it would be hours before he could get here, and giving instructions for Adam to be taken to the master bedroom.
She should also decide what to do with Eric’s body, but when she looked at Sudie’s ashen face, she knew she couldn’t do what she wanted, which was to order it thrown into an unmarked hole and buried without ceremony.
“I’ll take care of him, Missy,” Sudie told her brokenly, and Lori left her to do so.
The night passed slowly as they waited for the doctor to arrive. Lori sat up through it in a chair beside Adam’s bed while Matthew slept in the cradle at her feet. Miraculously, the baby seemed perfectly fine, except for a few bruises, and he’d been awake and alert for a long time after his ordeal before finally falling asleep again.
Lori would doze from time to time, then wake with a start and instantly lean over to check Matthew to be sure he was still breathing. Then she would check Adam who had been sipping brandy through the night to help with the pain. Sometimes he’d be sleeping and sometimes not, and if he wasn’t, he would smile at her and tell her he loved her, even though the pain from his leg was excruciating.
The maids kept a steady stream of hot compresses coming, but no one could bring themselves to mention the black lump that had appeared at the site of Adam’s old scar. And Lori, at least, could not bring herself to think about what it might mean. Of course, Lori didn’t care if Adam had one leg or two. She would love him regardless, but she knew Adam cared very much. But perhaps her love would help him through this time.
It was almost dawn when the doctor finally arrived. He was an old man, too old to go to war, which was the only reason he was still here. His white hair and lined face gave him an air of competence, however, that Lori greatly appreciated.
“Well, well, Master Adam, what have you done to yourself?” he asked cheerfully as he came into the bedroom.
Adam’s face was white, his lips bloodless and his eyes red rimmed, but he shook his head. “Look at the baby first,” he said in a near whisper. “Make sure he’s all right.”
The doctor turned to Lori who was holding Matthew in her arms.
“He seems fine now,” she told him. “But after the accident, he was all white and still and we thought...”
“Let’s see him,” the doctor said, setting his bag down on the floor by the bed. “Lay him down right here.”
Lori laid the sleeping baby down on the bed beside Adam, and the doctor proceeded to undress him. Matthew protested being disturbed, his mewling cry quickly growing into a howl which didn’t seem to bother the doctor a bit.
“His lungs seem fine,” he remarked cheerfully, as he probed and poked and wiggled and prodded. “Has he been nursing all right?”
“Yes, just like always,” Lori reported.
He asked a few more questions as he finished his examination. Then he wrapped Matthew in his blanket and handed him to Lori to soothe. “He seems perfectly fine.”
“How can that be?” Adam demanded weakly. “He was thrown from the buggy and it fell over on him and—”
“Yes, your boy told me what happened. This was in the field?”
Lori nodded.
“The ground would still be soft there, which would have helped absorb the shock, and children’s bones don’t break as easily as ours do. You should watch him closely for a few days, just in case, but he’s probably no worse for his experience. Now, let’s have a look at his father.”
For a second Lori started, thinking he meant Eric, who was most certainly beyond any help, but of course he meant Adam. Adam, who really was Matthew’s father now.
“I thought I told you not to ride horseback,” the doctor said as he folded back the covers to look at Adam’s leg.
“This was an emergency,” Adam said as an excuse.
Lori watched the doctor’s face as he removed the compress and saw the ugly lump, but he didn’t seem as alarmed as Lori had expected. In fact, he seemed simply puzzled for a moment.
“Good heavens,” he exclaimed after he’d probed the area carefully, making Adam gasp in pain. Lori had to blink at tears.
“You’re not cutting off my leg this time, either,” Adam warned him through gritted teeth, although Lori could see the fear in his eyes.
“No,” the doctor said agreeably, “but I would like to do a little cutting, if you don’t mind. Do you know what you’ve done here?” He pointed at the leg.
Adam had propped himself up on his elbows and now he looked down at the leg, too. He shook his head.
“You’ve worked loose the minie ball, the one that’s been in your leg all this time. I couldn’t get it out before because it was in too deep, almost to the bone. But your little escapade last night has forced it out, or almost out, at any rate. That’s it, right there.” He pointed to the black lump. “With your permission, I’d like to make a small incision and remove it. It’s just under the skin now, so it would only take a moment and—”
“Yes!” Adam cried. “Of course! Take it out!”
“Does that mean Adam’s leg would be normal then?” Lori asked, rocking Matthew gently. He was still whimpering slightly.
“I can’t promise that,” the doctor said. “I don’t know how much damage you did to the muscles today, so I can’t predict. But at the very least, I think you should have less pain and perhaps no pain at all once everything has healed.”
Lori saw the hope in Adam’s eyes as he said, “What are you waiting for?”
The doctor turned to Lori. “Mrs. Ross, I’ll need three strong men to help me hold him down. And I think you should take the baby into another room and nurse him.”
“Oh, I couldn’t leave Adam!” she protested.
“Lori,” Adam said gently. “The doctor doesn’t want you in here when he cuts my leg open.”
Lori felt the blood rushing from her head and for a second she was afraid she might faint, but she fought the weakness until it passed. And then she knew the doctor was right.
She reached out and took Adam’s hand. “You’re going to be fine,” she told him. His fingers were warm and strong as he squeezed her hand.
“We’re all going to be fine,” he told her back.
Lori gathered the baby’s clothes and carried them and him out into the hall. When she had summoned Oscar and sent him to fetch some other men to help the doctor with the operation, she decided to take Matthew to the parlor which, she hoped, would be far enough away so she wouldn’t be able to hear Adam if he cried out in pain.
But as she reached the rear parlor, she was surprised to see a light in the room that had nothing to do with the dawn breaking over the horizon.
She stepped through the doors, and what she saw made her gasp in horror. Several candles flickered, casting an eerie light, and at the far end of the room a coffin rested on a makeshift bier. Beside it Sudie sat in a straight backed chair her hands folded in her lap, her face as white and still as marble.
She looked up when she heard Lori.
“I laid him out, Missy,” she said, her voice oddly hollow. “He look real fine.”
Lori remembered the blood and the gore and the gaping wound in Eric’s head, and knew he couldn’t possibly look fine at all. “That’s very nice, Sudie,” she said gently, purposely not making any move to look in the coffin.
“Will you bury him in the family plot?” she asked, rising slowly to her feet. “I know you gots good reason to hate him, and now you know what I did and that he really ain’t... Well, he ain’t who you thought he was, but he was Mass Chet’s son, and—”
“Of course he was,” Lori said, remembering all that Sudie had done for her, her kindness and her understanding when no one else had understood. Lori owed her a debt she might never be able to repay. Sudie’s only sin had been wanting a better life for her child, and it was a sin of which Lori had been guilty, too. She couldn’t hold Sudie responsible for what Eric had become or what he had done to her. If she had learned nothing else from all of this, she knew at least that Eric alone was responsible for that. If she no longer blamed herself, she could not blame Sudie, either. And Sudie had suffered enough. “And of course we’ll bury him in the family plot.” What harm could it do? He was dead now and would never hurt anyone else again.
She could see Sudie’s rigid shoulders sag with relief at her promise. “He couldn’t stand the thought that he’d hurt your baby,” Sudie said. “That’s why he did it. That’s why he shot hisself.”
Lori didn’t allow her surprise to show. She knew, of course, that Eric would have felt no guilt at all, even if Matthew had died. What had made him blow his brains out was the knowledge that Sudie was his real mother and that, in spite of his white skin, he was colored. Living with such knowledge would have been unbearable for him.
Matthew stirred in her arms, rooting for her breast. She still hadn’t dressed him, and as she looked down at him, she suddenly realized the full implications of Sudie’s confession. If Eric had been the son of a slave, then Matthew was the grandson of a slave!
“Nobody ever know, Missy,” Sudie said urgently. “I never tell, and as far as anybody else know, Massa Adam’s Mathew’s father.”
Sudie was right, of course. No one else need ever know. And Lori knew it wouldn’t matter to her, but what about Adam? Would it matter to him? Would it make a difference?
Just as the horrible doubt formed in her mind, she heard Adam cry out as the doctor’s knife sliced his living flesh. The sound was faint and far away, but unmistakable, and Lori’s blood went cold.