Calhoun Chronicles Bundle by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online Page B

center.
    “That’s true,” Ryan said at length. “That’s for damned sure. And don’t think for a minute I regret it.”
    A peculiar feeling washed over Ryan. He loved this man, loved him with a ferocity he’d never felt for his own brother. He and Journey had come up together, from sassy rough-and-tumble seven year olds to the men they were now.
    The fact that one had been master and the other a slave hadn’t interfered in the friendship—at least, not at first.
    Ryan checked his appearance in a gilt-framed mirror. Considering the night he’d had, he looked remarkably well put together, his red hair recently cut by Timothy Datty, the cabin boy. His collar and sky-blue frock coat were crisp and clean, thanks to Luigi Conti, the sail maker who was particular about such things.
    He had been seven years old and formally dressed the first day Journey had been brought to him, he recalled. Father had made him wait in the hot summer parlor of Albion, and precisely at noon, Purdy had brought in a little boy with a skinny neck and huge eyes.
    “This be my nephew Journey,” Purdy had said, her gaze cutting down and to the side in the manner of most slaves. “He’s a real good boy, ain’t you, Journey? A real good boy.”
    And Journey had surprised Ryan. Instead of the meek, deferential countenance bred and beaten into the house servants and field hands, he looked Ryan directly in the eye and spoke in a high, clear voice: “I’m the best boy there is.”
    That had been the beginning. The lazy, hot growing-up years had been a time of turbulence balanced with moments of exquisitely sweet tranquillity. They played and fought together, went fishing and boating on Mockjack Bay together. Ryan slept in a mahogany four-poster bed, Journey on a straw pallet on the floor; but more often than not, when Purdy brought breakfast in the morning, she’d find them both splayed out in the big bed. When Ryan went to church, Journey waited in the carriage outside. When Journey wanted to learn to read and cipher, Ryan taught him in secret, by the light of a tallow stub cribbed from the kitchen.
    When Journey’s father was sold to pay off the debts of Ryan’s father, Ryan wept and raged with him.
    By the time the boys turned sixteen, Journey was married and a father himself. Ryan had seduced a number of local girls, and debutantes from all the best families had begun to notice him.
    Life would have gone on in this vein except for two extraordinary things. First, Ryan elected to attend Harvard, Yankee radicals and all. And second, he insisted on bringing Journey with him.
    Journey had fought him every inch of the way. He adored his wife and children, who lived at a neighboring plantation. But Ryan was insistent, even lordly about it. No proper gentleman matriculated at a university without his manservant. It was Journey’s duty to go. He had no choice.
    Ryan had a plan. He couldn’t even tell Journey, because the slave’s wrath and grief had to be convincing.
    Ryan smiled into the mirror, remembering the day he crossed the Mason Dixon line and gave Journey his freedom. Journey had held the manumission papers to his chest, unable to speak as the tears rolled down his face.
    Now their shipping enterprise had brought them one step closer to their ultimate goal—to buy Journey’s wife and babies, bring them north and set them free.
    “Got to be something wrong with her,” Journey said, startling Ryan out of his remembrances.
    “Wrong with who?”
    “The plaguey woman.” Journey’s gaze tracked along one wall that was entirely covered by shelf after shelf of books. “Why would a body want to leave a house like this?”
    “There must be something about this life she can’t abide,” Ryan whispered, thinking of his own reasons for leaving Albion. “Maybe we should ask—”
    “Miss Peabody will receive you in the garden,” the butler said from the doorway. “This way, please.”
    Ryan and Journey followed him along a tall, narrow