Trembling herself, Selena averted her gaze. The sight was too intimate, too painful to bear… Kyle with his arms around Danielle, their son between them.
It was her worst fear confirmed.
She was almost grateful for the sound of galloping hooves, for it provided a distraction from the tormenting sight. As Orrin Chandler came charging toward them, Selena struggled wearily to her feet. Her racing heartbeat had slowed, yet the place where her heart was supposed to be located felt achingly hollow.
She watched with only vague interest as the man on horseback drew his mount to a skidding stop.
“Clay?” Orrin said at once, taking in the scene.
Kyle looked up briefly. “He’s going to be fine.”
And it was true, Selena reflected. Already Clay had ceased crying, attesting to the resilience of youth. Perhaps in a few weeks or months he wouldn’t even remember his brush with death. But unlike Clay, she wouldn’t recover… not from losing Kyle. And it seemed apparent, when Kyle spoke again, that that was indeed what had happened.
“Take Selena back to the house,” Kyle told Orrin quietly. “I’ll see to Danielle.”
The words seemed so final, communicating an unspoken message. Keep away, I protect what is mine.
Selena glanced at Orrin, wondering if he would object. But although she saw for a moment what might have been her own despair reflected in his eyes, he merely nodded.
She scarcely heard Kyle ordering Saul to bring the carriage around. When Orrin urged his horse closer, she silently accepted his assistance in mounting. But as they rode away, Selena couldn’t prevent herself one final look. Gazing over her shoulder, she saw the three of them—her husband, Danielle and Clay—framed like a painting done in rich oils. The afternoon sunlight glinting off Danielle’s vivid, dark hair, and in the backdrop, the fertile cotton fields of Montrose stretching the distance....
Couple with Child, she would call such a painting.
The image branded itself in her memory, haunting her.
The three of them belonged together, Selena thought wretchedly, misery stabbing at her. And what was more, she had no place in their lives. She had been fooling herself to think Kyle could ever return her love. He wanted his son—far more than the physical relationship she could provide him as his wife. He didn’t really need her at all. He could easily satisfy his physical needs with any one of a dozen women, as he had done before their marriage. His plantation was operating smoothly, the plans for his steamboat enterprise would be under way eventually. As for a mother for his sisters and companionship for himself, Danielle could provide that—perhaps better than she herself could.
Selena wasn’t allowed to dwell on her morose reflections, however, for she was required to explain to Orrin, who had come to accompany Danielle back to town, what had happened on the bluff. And when they arrived at the house, she was greeted by scores of tense, waiting faces, all worried over the fate of the young boy who had captured their hearts with his dimpled grin.
Selena reassured them all that Clay was safe, thanked Orrin for his help, then escaped into the house. Kyle’s sisters followed her upstairs to her room, though.
“Did Clay really fall off the bluff?” was the first question Felicity asked. “Why, he could have broken his neck.”
And so Selena had to explain again that Clay seemed to be unhurt, but that no doubt he would be examined by a doctor. Kyle was taking the child and his mother home. She stumbled over the words, her voice quavering.
Felicity seemed to think Clay’s fall a great lark, but Lydia looked pensive. Zoe, on the other hand, seemed more concerned for Selena.
“Selena, are you quite all right?” Zoe asked in her quiet voice.
“Yes,” Felicity piped up. “You look wretched.”
“I think perhaps we should leave Selena to herself,” Lydia suggested, showing an unexpected thoughtfulness and clear evidence that she was growing up.
In appreciation, Selena gave her a smile that was only slightly forced. When she was alone, she went into her dressing room and caught a glimpse of herself in the cheval glass. No wonder the girls had commented about her appearance, she thought dismally. Her sprigged muslin gown was stained with mud and grass, her chin was smudged with dirt, and her hair, which had been neatly braided and coiled on her head earlier in the day, had lost its anchoring and hung in pale wisps around her face.
But it was her expression that was most startling. Her face was drawn and weary, her eyes despairing. She looked precisely what she was: a woman facing a bleak future. A future without Kyle.
Selena’s throat tightened as she remembered the scene on the bluff. She’d come to a decision as she watched him embracing Danielle. She would free Kyle from their marriage. Indeed, that was only solution to this wretched situation. Kyle had originally wanted an annulment, and perhaps he could still obtain one, since he’d been forced to marry her. And if that was no longer possible, there were other ways he could gain his independence and therefore his son. If he asked the legislature to grant a bill of divorcement, she wouldn’t stand in his way, Selena vowed. She wouldn’t force him to stay in a marriage he had never wanted.
Resolving to tell him so when he returned, Selena wearily washed her face and then changed her gown. She was putting a final pin in her hair when she heard a timid knock on the door.
Selena tensed, afraid that it might be Kyle. Despite all her noble intentions, she wasn’t quite ready to confront him. But when she bid entrance, it was only Felicity who peered around the door.
“Selena, a peddler is here! You must come see the beautiful ribbons he has brought. If you like, I’ll buy you some with my pin money to cheer you up.”
Selena was beyond cheering, but she didn’t have the heart to refuse such a generous gesture. Fetching a purse filled with coins from her office, she accompanied Felicity out to the plantation yard.
The aging, unkempt peddler was engaged in retrieving wares from the hickory-withe panniers of his two pack mules and laying them out on a blanket. Zoe and Lydia were already there, as were Martha and a number of other house servants, all inspecting eagerly the strange assortment of goods—knives and handmade powder horns, thimbles and items of women’s apparel.