Read Online Roses by Leila Meacham - Free Book Online Page B

judgment. He never spoke in terms of
should haves
when it came to other people’s business. “Who are you to say what my father should have done?” He had come to stand close
     to her chair, hands in his pockets, and was regarding her solemnly, his face in shadow.
    “Someone who cares for you and your brother and mother very much. That’s who I am.”
    That pricked her outrage like a dart to the throat of a puffed adder. She turned her head away, blinking and swallowing at
     the lump in her throat, on the brink of tears again. “Well, please care enough for us to withhold your opinion, Percy. My
     father knew what he was doing, and to say he didn’t only makes everything that much worse at this time.”
    “Are you saying that out of defense of your father or because you feel guilty that you were the one remembered?”
    Mary hesitated, wanting—
needing
—to trust him with the truth of her feelings, but she feared he’d think even less of her. “What does my brother believe?”
     she asked, evading his question.
    “He thinks you are overjoyed to have inherited Somerset.”
    There. My brother’s opinion is out in the open, she thought, the knowledge as cutting as a knife. She’d been so careful not
     to betray her inner exultation, yet she hadn’t fooled Miles or her mother, and they would detest her for it. Tears stinging,
     she shoved out of the chair in one angry motion to stand before a parlor window. A pale moon had risen. She watched as it
     dissolved in a silver stream before her eyes.
    “Gypsy…,” she heard him murmur, and before she knew it, he’d come to her and tucked her teary face beneath his chin. Within
     seconds, she was blubbering against his tie.
    “Miles b-blames me for… for Papa writing the will as he did, doesn’t he? Mama does, t-too. I’ve lost them, Percy, as surely
     as I’ve lost Papa.”
    “This was all such a shock to them, Mary,” he said, stroking her hair. “Your mother feels betrayed, and Miles is angry on
     her behalf, not his.”
    “But… but I’m not to blame for Papa leaving everything to me. I can’t help it if I love the plantation, any more than Mama
     and Miles can help it that they d-don’t.”
    “I know,” he said, his voice warm with understanding. “But you can undo what’s been done.”
    “How?” she asked, lifting her head to hear this wisdom he proposed.
    “Sell Somerset when you’re twenty-one and split the proceeds among you.”
    Mary could not have been more shocked if she’d looked up to find snakes sprouting from his head. She pushed out of his arms.
     “Sell Somerset?” She stared at him incredulously. “You are suggesting that I
sell
Somerset in order to pacify Mama’s and Miles’s disappointment?”
    “I’m suggesting you do so in order to salvage your relationship with them.”
    “I have to
buy
a relationship with them?”
    “You’re distorting the situation, Mary, either to make it easier on your conscience or because you’re so blinded by your obsession
     for Somerset that you can’t see the real root of your mother’s and brother’s grief.”
    “I
see
it!” Mary cried. “I know how Mama and Miles feel! What none of you can see is that I am honor bound to carry out my father’s
     wishes.”
    “He said nothing about your not selling the plantation when you’re twenty-one.”
    “Would he have left it to me if he’d thought I would
sell
it?”
    “What happens when you’re of marriageable age and your husband doesn’t wish to share his wife with a plantation?”
    “I would
never
marry a man who didn’t understand and support my feelings for Somerset.”
    Percy fell silent at this declaration. Her hair ribbon had slipped to the floor. He reached down and picked it up, folding
     it in half. He laid it across her shoulder. “How do you know you couldn’t love a man who didn’t feel about Somerset the way
     you do? You know no world but Howbutker. You’ve never been exposed to any other interest but the