Read Online Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) by Gretchen Craig - Free Book Online

house. What Pearl stole was for Luke. His rations kept him going, but a man
big as he was, tall and broad across the chest, doing the work of two men in
the field all day, he needed more.
    Maybe by tonight he be over his mad at me, she thought. I
give him a good dinner, and he be calm down. We talk it over.
    When Peter lay so sick like to die, Pearl had taken Luke
late in the night to see what the dogs did to him. Miss Marianne slept, dead to
this world, and Luke got down on his knees next to Petie and whispered to him,
told him be strong, they try again.
    So full of fear and fury, Pearl didn’t see how she could
hold it in till they got back to their own cabin. She closed the door and lit
into Luke. “How you tell dat boy he run again? You eyes don’ tell you nothin?
You don’t see what dem dogs do to him?”
    “Pearl, keep you voice down.” Luke tried to take her hands,
but she yanked away from him.
    “You not gon’ run, you tell me dat. You not gon’ put youself
out so dem mens take you down wid a pack of hounds. What good it do you be
free, you dead?”
    Luke sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand over his
sun-scorched hair. “McNaught after me, Pearl. He say I look at him one more
time, he have me at de post.” He held his hand out for her, but she wouldn’t
take it. “Pearl, a man can’t be beat but so much ’fore he turn into something
else.”
    “Why can’t you keep you eyes down, like you sposed to? He
don’ bother you, you mind yoself.”
    “You want a man, Pearl? Or a mule?”
    She fell silent, but the set of her jaw betrayed her
stubbornness.
    “You got to have hope,” he said. She wouldn’t look at him.
Exasperation tinged his voice. “Dey givin’ away land, woman. Out West, Joseph
say. I try to tell you dat. Why you don’ listen?”
    Her voice quavered. “Land don’ do you no good, you end up
like Petie.”
    “I’m not Petie.” Luke spoke slowly, reasoning with her. “I’m
a man grown, and I gon’ get away.”
    Pearl heard the determination, the absolute certainty in his
voice and leaned her forehead against the wall. “You run, I never see you
again.”
    In a quieter voice, Luke told her, “Joseph say dere a new
station on de railroad now. No more dan thirty mile from here. I get dere, I
make it to de next station. Good folks all de way to de free states, all de way
to Canada.”
    “Canada be in de West? You don’ know nothin but here. How
you gon’ find Canada?”
    “I find it, Pearl. I find it, and I send for you.”
    She let him take her in his arms now and hold her close. “We
had a baby, you wouldn’t run,” she whispered against his chest.
    “You think I want my chile be a slave?”
    “Don’ leave me here alone, Luke.” She turned defeated eyes
on him. “Give me a baby fore you go.”
    Luke kissed her eyes, her lips, her neck. He laid her on the
corn shuck mattress and proved to her once again he loved her. She clung to
him, shaking. Please, God, don’ let him leave me here alone.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    The deep red roses seemed nearly black in the twilight as
Marianne walked in the garden, her hands on her bronze taffeta skirt to ensure
it didn’t snag on the thorns. Freddie tagged along, sniffing at the warm
fertile earth.
    Soon Annie would fetch her to supper with Adam and the
Chamard brothers. Such a contrasting pair. Were she and Adam as different as
Yves and Marcel?
    Of course, the Chamards had different mothers. Marcel, her
true first cousin, had his father’s dark good looks with soft brown eyes and
sweet manners. His mouth, she blushed to recall, invited kissing. Not that she
had ever kissed him. Of course not. The only kisses she’d experienced, so far,
had been with Martin Milkstone and Albert Prud’homme.  Martin’s kiss had been
most unpleasant; he’d mashed his teeth hard against her lips and then had
apologized profusely. As indeed he should have. And poor Albert. After a very
pleasant kiss, he’d fled. Not at all the man for