Page 400 of Conveniently Wed
An unfamiliar feeling stirred in her heart, one she could not define. She had agreed to their arrangement with the forgone conclusion they would have nothing in common and remain distant. But he liked riding and tickled her funny bone with his humor. And he was kinder than she’d expected. Her emotions tumbled, trying to compute this surprising knowledge.
“Are you ready? Because you’re wearing the strangest expression.”
“Lead the way.” She swept her hand ahead.
Together they walked from the kitchen, down the hall, and through to the grand entrance. Her gaze flicked from the gilded framed portraits gracing the wall up the curved staircase to the balcony above and the lofty ceiling. How small and gauche the grandeur made her feel.
He pointed to the steps.
She stopped her ascent at the first two portraits. “Your parents?”
He nodded. “As you can see, I get my splendid looks from my mother.”
Katie studied the average-looking but commanding gentleman and the stunning woman. Her gaze flickered between the paintings and the man at her side. His tone sounded as though he was joking, but his words spoke truth.
“I brought these all the way from Williamsburg. Our Virginian family roots go back to before the Revolution, which explains the many paintings.” His gaze took on a faraway look.
“Is your family still back there?”
“No.” A shadow of darkness flickered in his eyes.
She hadn’t meant to cause him pain. “I don’t need to know.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s just difficult.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he looked up at the pictures.
“My parents, Cameron and Fiona, were killed in a stagecoach accident when I was eighteen. They were known for theirunpopular abolitionists beliefs, and I’ll always wonder at the legitimacy of the so-called accident that took their lives.”
Katie instinctively touched his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
He looked down at her hand, and she pulled it away.
His eyes lifted back up to the portraits. “Like my father, who didn’t have the stomach for slavery, I wanted nothing to do with that lifestyle. Being their only child, I sold the tobacco plantation and moved here. At one time, the Richardson plantation was the largest and most prestigious in the area. But it had dwindled in size over the years, due to my father selling land to pay staff and maintain a lifestyle that he and mother had long been accustomed to.”
“Was that hard, selling off the family home?”
He looked down at her. “Emotionally, yes. However, the actual ability to find a buyer, not at all. Sometimes, timing is everything. The surrounding plantation owners wanted to increase their holdings and were sure they’d be able to preserve the Southern way. I walked away with enough to purchase much better land in this valley. My one regret is that it wasn’t far enough away to live in peace. When Virginia joined the Confederacy, I was torn. I agreed with the philosophies of the North that black people should be free but joined the South, not able to raise a gun against my old neighbors, family, and friends.”
“That would’ve been a tough decision.”
“The worst. I took a bullet to the leg early in the war, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Although not a coward, I didn’t believe in what the South stood for. When I healed enough, they relegated me to looking after the horses and picking up the wounded. Even if this injury plagues me the rest of my days, a greater purpose was served.”
He lifted his gaze to look at his father. “All that pain, all that death. Could we not have found a better way?”
She grappled for a way to change the subject. He was clearly upset, and her curiosity was to blame. “Were you and Georgina already married before you came here?”
He shifted his gaze to look into her eyes. “All I had to do was convince Georgina to marry me, leave her family and everything she had become accustomed to, and follow me into the unknown. No small feat, but somehow I was persuasive enough.”
“Now, that’s a surprise. I can’t imagine you—” Her hand flew to her mouth. Maybe she should not be so blunt.
His eyebrows rose.
“I…just meant you have a way of convincing people to fall in line with your plans.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”
Why could she not pick a benign subject? She looked back at the wall. “Why is there no portrait of you or Georgina?”
“Time was not on Georgina’s side.” His voice cracked. “As for myself, all incentive died when she passed away.”
