She sinks into the chair of her dressing table and looks at herself in the reflecting glass. “I just don’t have it in me for this fight, Maple. Not when they’re both set on keeping me out of it.”

I dig my thumb into the bristles on the brush. She ain’t even started fighting yet. “What’d your daddy say when you asked for Momma and Rose?”

She turns in her chair to face me. “That a real man doesn’t send his wife to beg for him, and that he’d already given Matthew his answer and my asking for more wouldn’t change his mind. He said it’s stunts like this that make my cousin look a worthier heir.”

The back of my skull draws up tight. Master Jeremiah’s not letting them go.

Her jaw tenses as she stares me down. “You should never have inserted yourself into my business. Your prying has made everything worse, for all of us.”

I want to sit down. Instead, I lean heavy against the dresser.

Fuming, she sits back in her chair and unpins her hair, letting it fall dark and full down her back. I don’t brush it. The tightness across my head creeps down my neck and sits in my shoulders. It climbs down my back and pulls at my insides.

“Maple?” Miss Martha turns to look at me.

“Rose can’t stay there,” I say. Momma may be lost to me, but I can’t leave Rose to him.

Through the looking glass she watches me like a field rabbit watches a meadow. She smells the wolf in the air. “That’s not something I can fix,” she says to my reflection. She runs her fingers through her hair, like a carefree southern belle, but her nostrils flare, giving her away.

“Did he tell you she’s a special comfort to Master Nathaniel?” I say. I won’t let her pretend not to know.

She puts her hand on my arm like comforting a sister. Then she says, “I can’t interfere again. Father and Matthew will work it out in their own time.”

I pull away from her, my sister and my mistress. Family that ain’t no kind of family.

Chapter 53

Henry

I telegraph Ennis to let him know that I’ll need a little more time before I can head west, and I find work in Liberty Valley breaking big stones into small. The work is hard and familiar. Breaking stones was one of the work-gang jobs Da and I did back in Ireland, but I manage it better now that I’m not starving.

Three days into my new job, I strike off as the bell rings at quitting time. There’s nothing like dirt and rock smoke and hard labor and the stench and swearing of other men to make you long for your woman.

She won’t be at the river tonight, so I pick my way through the woods to the plantation. The night is dark and moonless, but with a thousand silver stars. I plan to creep to her cabin unseen and lead her out before blind Bessie knows I’ve been.