Chapter Fourteen

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Douglas voiced the question softly into the near darkness. He’d followed Josie into the yard when she went out for water, and now they stood with the night insects buzzing all around, only the light from the lamp she’d lit alleviating the velvet softness that closed in.

She dropped the bucket with a thud and leaned against him, her forehead at his heart.

Carefully he repeated, “Why didn’t you tell me Collingwood was—”

“My father? I wanted to. I tried. I thought it would change how you felt about me.”

“How could it? How could anything?”

“But it’s such an ugly, dirty thing. For as long as I could remember, since I was old enough to understand, I knew what I was: a by-blow got on a slave taken to Massa Collingwood’s bed against her will. It was one of her duties, like getting up extra early to lay the fires and cook the meals so other folks—better folks—could be warm and fed. My ma wasn’t the first or the last. There were others just like me—half white. We didn’t matter to him any more than the litters of kittens the barn cats left, ’cept we were worth money.”

Douglas cradled her shoulders in his hands and pulled her closer. She still tingled from that scene out in the street, from wonder at how folks had stepped up to defend her. She could scarcely believe Massa—she corrected herself hastily—Mr. Collingwood—had gone for good. Was it over? Was she safe?

But now came the reckoning, admitting the rest of it—all of it—to the man she loved. She gasped, “I was ashamed to tell you.”

Very gently he cupped her face and lifted her chin so he could meet her eyes. “You need to believe, darling, nothing will ever change the way I feel about you. But I think, don’t you, we should get it all out between us.”

Josie swallowed convulsively. “He started using my ma when she was about sixteen. She worked in the kitchen then. He put her in the big house like—like it was a privilege. Serving his wife. His daughter—his proper daughter, Alice—and I were born almost at the same time. My ma nursed both of us.”

“Your half-sister. Did she know?”

Josie shrugged helplessly. “Nobody talked about it. There were others besides my ma, but he went back to her again and again.”

“Michael?”

Josie smiled wobbily. “Daniel’s. Massa—Mr. Collingwood had married Ma to Daniel, his houseman, by then. So things would look proper, like. My ma—she promised me that it would never happen to me. She said she’d got that much assurance from him, that we’d get to stay in the big house, we’d never be sold away, and he’d never use me in his bed.”

“I should think not. His own daughter…”

“Doesn’t matter. They both lied, Ma and him. My parents. Once Eunice got too big with his child for him to want her in his bed—”

“Eunice?”

“Little Hetty’s my half-sister too. Anyway, he turned his eye on me. Ma went to him and protested it. First time she ever questioned or refused anything in her whole life. He sold her away that same night. Like I told you, I never saw her again.”

“God, Josie! Maybe we can find her. We can look—”

“No.” Josie raised her eyes, brimming with tears, to his. “I think she’s dead.” She pressed her hands to her heart. “I feel it.”

Douglas gazed deep into her eyes. “And Collingwood never, he never—”

She shook her head violently. “Never had the chance. A little complication called the Union army distracted him then, and not long after there was the fire. He chained us up that night because he knew the Yankees were coming and he wanted to make sure we didn’t get away.”

She reached up and touched his face tenderly. “Sure, you know there’s never been anybody for me but you, Dougie, from that first night I saw you.”

“I know. And nobody for me but you.”

“But, Dougie, don’t you care what I am? That awful man’s blood in my veins…”

“Do you care what I am?” he returned. “Who my parents were?”

“No,” she confessed. “Only that you’re mine, mine, mine.”

“Yours forever,” he whispered. “And you want to stay here in Lobster Cove to raise our child? We could still follow your family, since I have none.”

“How can you say that, Dougie Grier? The Sinclairs are your family, and you couldn’t find finer. Do you believe the way that Dorothea stood up for me?”

A smile tugged at one corner of Dougie’s mouth.

“Come to think on it,” Josie went on, “seems like you have a whole town full of family ready to claim you for their own—even that Mrs. Mayer.”

“I confess, that did surprise me.” The smile spread to his eyes. “You know, Josie, I never really thought I belonged here or anywhere. Guess this day has proved me wrong.”

“You remember what you said about the ties forged by love, Dougie? They’re stronger than anything else. Strong enough to hold you to this place.”

“And,” he said just before he kissed her, “is love strong enough to chase away the nightmares?”

Josie enjoyed her husband’s kiss to the full before she answered. “I’m pretty sure the only dreams from here on out will be beautiful ones.”

“That,” said Dougie, “is exactly what I wanted to hear.”

A word about the author…

Born and raised in Western New York, Laura Strickland has been an avid reader and writer since childhood. Her interests include history—particularly Celtic lore and legend—and animal welfare. Although she loves to travel to the settings of her various books, she can usually be found at home not far from Lake Ontario with her husband and her “fur” child, a rescue dog.