The Devil's Mistress by David Barclay (summer reads txt) 📗

mill lose his hand. Then my prize thoroughbred comes down with a cold, thanks to the incompetence of my stable master. And now this. Would you like to tell her what you did, young Winifred?” Thomas grabbed the other wine glass but didn’t wait upon the girl’s answer. “Winifred went and got herself pregnant. Can you imagine? Slaves breeding without consent. It has been sheer bedlam around the house this week, my dear Isabella. Sheer bedlam. I swear, I must employ a man like your Sebastian. A man who knows how to use a whip.”

Isabella thought of Sands’s cruel smile but said nothing. Her usual strategy under such interrogation.

Thomas poked the girl with the fork again. “I told her, ‘Winifred, if you want to keep the baby, you’re going to have to work for it.’ So here we are. She’s been down there since…how long, Winifred? Yes, since last night, I think. Good muscles on this one. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. If the little one wants to survive half as much as its mother, it may be a good worker. Good workers are hard to find. Ah, but I’m boring you. How have you been, my little pigsney?”

“I thought,” Isabella began. “I thought we were to have dinner?”

Thomas slapped the slave girl on the thigh. Another twitch, though she managed to avoid the blade. “Of course we are! I instructed Fredrick to bring the main course as soon as it’s ready. The table is not large, but it is sturdy. Careful, there, Winifred. Your back is arching.” He speared another piece of cheese, then helped guide her spine back into place with one finger. He leaned toward Isabella, whispering conspiratorially. “I told her that if she spilled anything, she’d have to support me standing upon her back. That is something she does not want. Rosila’s sweet potato pie has put a few pounds on me this summer,” he said, patting his belly proudly.

Isabella chewed her lip, trying to tell him something polite and failing to find the words.

Thomas seemed not to notice. He leaned back, swirled a bit of a wine around his mouth, and swallowed. “So tell me, what of your father? Is his estate still in good standing?”

He had the bored, half-interested look of one whose mind was wandering. In that moment, Isabella had a sudden revelation, and it sucked the wind from her.

Thomas had never loved her. His doting letters, his public proclamations, his ridiculous terms of endearment, they were all a facade to facilitate the marriage. A marriage in which he would become the rightful owner of her house, and the sole master and proprietor of the Huxley-Ashford Mill. How naïve she had been. How utterly and completely foolish.

Nothing simpler, the Lady of the Hill had said. How right she had been.

Isabella tried to speak, and then the tears which she had been so diligently fighting began to come. They ran in hot rivers down her cheeks. She had given herself away.

Thomas only arranged his face in sympathy. “Oh, come now.” He retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at her cheeks. “Your father will recover. He is a stout and hearty man, and he cares for you greatly. As I care for you, my little dew drop. Don’t despair. By this time next week, we shall be married, and be thinking of happier times.”

He continued wiping her tears, and then gently, almost tenderly, touched the back of her head. His lips were suddenly moving toward hers, his head tilted in the manner of a kiss. His mouth was curved in a loving smile, though his eyes were as pale and cold as New England snow.

The hollow thud of glass striking wood stopped him cold. He hovered before her, unmoving. His breath was redolent of wine and ginger bark and another vague smell which might have been some mineral, but Isabella chose to think of as hate.

“Winifred?” he inquired.

The cheese plate was still perched upon the girl’s backside, but the bottle of wine had fallen to the floor. It was draining over one of Marianne Huxley’s elegant German rugs. Thomas’s actions, it seemed, had unbalanced the girl too far.

He made a tsking motion with one finger.

“Please, Master Huxley,” the girl whispered. “Don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what, my dear?” He had forgotten all about Isabella and was now leaning dangerously close to the object of his ire.

Isabella found her voice. “Thomas, please—”

“Be quiet, my little lambkin,” he said, without looking at her.

“I’ll take you downstairs,” the girl said. “I can make you happy, Master Huxley. I can do things to help you, like I did before. Just you and me, with nobody watching. Please, don’t hurt my ba—”

For a short, beautiful moment, Thomas appeared calm. Then his hands were suddenly upon her back, pushing downward with a terrifying strength. “You little whore! You shut your filthy, nigger mouth, do you hear me? You will not ruin this day with my wife! You will not ruin it!” He thrust down, and down, pushing her back as if he were trying to close a particularly full clothes chest.

The girl resisted, but he was too heavy. The knife began to bite. A small droplet of blood dripped from her belly like a red tear, disappearing into the purple puddle beneath her. She screamed.

Isabella leaped to her feet. The boy beneath her was looking toward the overturned bottle as a drowning man might look at a rope. On his face was a mixture of pain and rage the likes of which Isabella had never seen. And what would be this boy’s fate if he managed to hurt Thomas and save the girl? Worse than anything she could imagine, most like.

“Stop it,” she yelled, pushing Thomas on the chest. “Stop it! Stop it!

The door burst open, and the towering form of Marianne Huxley loomed before them. Though every bit as thin as her son, she cut a taller and even more domineering figure. “What in the name of God is