One

Part One: 1860

 

One

I was thankful for the bumpy road leading to my home. Bouncing around in the carriage kept me from daydreaming. The time to be serious had come. I was finally going home, and I still did not know what to say to him.

I was glad to be home, of course. I suppose anyone would be. A year had been a long time to spend away from my family. So, though there were certainly things waiting for me there that I was not ready to confront, it felt good to see the familiar cotton fields of Alabama again.

My daddy’s plantation made my family one of the wealthiest in all Alabama. I had spent my whole life there in the south, raised among cotton, money, and slaves. Until I was fifteen, I had had been perfectly happy to live the life of a good southern girl in my own home. My parents had always been kind, my brother, Ethan, as accommodating as brothers can be I suppose.

But by the time I turned sixteen last summer, I wanted out. Many of my childhood friends were already married or engaged, or at least being courted. I, as my parents’ pride and joy, remained untouched by any man, and though that suited me just fine, I was bored to death.

Rather than sit at home until my parents decided to finally release me into the world, I had begged them to send me abroad. Much to my surprise, they granted my wish and I, Adeline Dupree, had been off to England.

I arrived in London last winter, where I had spent my first months preparing for a proper English season. During my short term at boarding school, I learned more than I would have in years spent in Alabama " less from the teachers than from new friends, who taught me all they knew of gossip and men.

When spring came, I had made a successful debut. I attended teas and parties and balls like no one back home could have imagined. I wore the finest gowns and danced with what must have been some of the most handsome men in all of England.

I was set to return in August, but when my parents wrote and spoke of the busyness of harvest season, I volunteered to stay a while longer, so as not to burden them with my presence. I had told myself that the choice made things easier on my parents. I told myself that I did not want to leave. But I knew why I really wasn’t ready to come home.

As I tried to ignore that notion, my distant aunt, who was chaperone and sponsor, had taken me with her to further tour Europe. I had seen Italy, France, and Spain before my parents wrote again in February and told me to come back. By that time, I was as ready to return as I could have been.

Now it was May and I had no more time to put this off.

Shaking my head and returning to reality, I took my compact mirror from the pocket of my brown traveling dress. Considering that I had been bouncing along in that coach for about three hours, ever since I left Montgomery, I could have looked worse. My blonde curls had flattened a little and my gray eyes were somewhat duller than usual. But considering my small, pretty features, fair skin and slim waist, I looked no different than I usually did.

Nor did I look different from any other girl in Alabama.

In England, I had been interesting. In England I had been “the American beauty.” To everybody here I was just another southern belle.

No, now I was lying to myself again. Not everyone saw me that way. There was someone who made me feel different. There was someone who knew me better than anybody else, somebody who knew at a look how I really felt, somebody who never called me Adeline or Miss Dupree. He called me Addy.

It was that person who I had tried to block from my mind for a year.

It hadn’t worked, of course. I had been unable to stop thinking about him since I left. Every moment I had alone, he was on my mind. In those first few months, before I developed immunity to my ridiculous romantic ideas, I had started dozens of letters to him. But I didn’t know what there was to say, or if they could even reach him.

Now that I was nearly facing the moment I had both dreaded and awaited for so long, I found myself imagining how it would happen.

Maybe he would see us coming up the road and come running to meet me, calling my name. The very idea made me smile. That scenario was especially unlikely, though. Any display like that would have consequences, the very least of which would involve giving an explanation to my parents.

Perhaps he would do nothing. This was not the first time I had anxiously considered that he could have allowed himself to forget everything. He always had been stronger than me when it came to matters like that. He could have done it, if he wanted to. He could have blocked out what I could not. It was especially troubling that this seemed like the worst possibility of all.

In all my worrying, I had not noticed that we were finally nearly home. I nudged awake my escort, a friend of my mother’s whose name I could never recall and who had attacked me with gossip for the first hour of the trip. Luckily for me, she had no problem sleeping on the road.

I felt anxious and excited as the trees thinned out into a clearing. We passed over the bridge over the stream in front of our home and I saw the plantation.

The house stood directly in front of me. It was old, white, and huge; three stories and an attic. I could see my mother standing on the porch that wrapped all the way around the outside. I looked up to my third floor window on the side of the house and smiled at the thought of finally spending a night in my own bed.

There were barns and corncribs to the right. To the left lay the vast cotton fields. They stretched on for miles, dotted with slaves planting seeds and tending the crop that made my father wealthy.

Daddy was good to slaves. As far as I knew, no one in the state treated their slaves half so well. That is not to say he ever acknowledged that they were anything more than property. But he knew full well that his empire would be nothing without them, and had learned over time that the better they were treated, the less trouble they gave him. The less he had to do with them, the better. Less work for him. As long as no one caused trouble, Daddy really didn’t care what they did.

When there was trouble, though, there was always hell to pay. I knew what happened when slaves took advantage of Daddy’s lenience. There were enough iron shackles in the barn, enough overseers with whips, and enough unmarked graves in the gardens, for me to know that the slaves were never really safe.

I scanned the fields for my friends, Elijah, Ruben, and Hannah. As usual, all three of them were planting. They waved subtly without being noticed by the overseer. Eli, never taking life too seriously, dropped his hat on Hannah’s head and laughed. Those two were sweet on each other, always had been.

To make friends among slaves was thought of, at best, uncommon and scandalous. But those three are the closest friends I had ever had. We had grown up together, the four of us.

Well, the five of us.

I still didn’t see him.

The carriage stopped and I stepped out into the sun. Lord almighty, it would take a while to get used to the heat again. My mother, who was usually less than emotional, called into the house in her strong southern accent, “Harold, Ethan, come on out! Adeline’s home!” and ran to meet me.

 As she gave me a stiff hug, my mother smiled uncharacteristically and I was reminded that twenty years ago she must have looked just like me. “We all missed you so much.”

My father came striding out, dressed in a white suit. He was much older than Mama; his face had been harsh and lined for as long as I could remember, and the hair at his temples had started to gray since I left. Ethan was at his heels and I felt his self-righteous air before he even said anything. He looked even more like daddy than I remembered, only with no mustache and as blonde of hair Mama and me.

“Look at our daughter,” Daddy praised me. “What a lady you’ve become.”

“Yes, and now she’s returned to grace us poor Americans with her presence,” teased Ethan. I should have liked to give him a good punch to the arm, but I took it as gracefully as possible, not wanting it to seem I had learned nothing in England.

It was good to see my family again, but there was still someone I hadn’t seen. I was getting nervous. What if he was avoiding me? What if he had gone?

“Yes… I’m so glad to be back…” I said distractedly.

“Welcome home, darling,” Mama said.

I didn’t feel at home. Not yet, not until I saw him myself.

Then I knew I was in very big trouble. Because when I saw him standing there, I knew there was no way I could ignore how I felt.

He stood in behind the barn, leaning on a hoe. His straw work hat shielded his eyes and shaded his face. His lips were pulled up in a kind of half smile.

He looked taller and stronger than I remembered, and so much more handsome I thought I might fall right to the ground right there at his feet. He just stood there watching me from afar, like he always had.

Isaiah

I did not know exactly what to do next. If I’m being honest, what I really wanted more than anything in the world was to run into his arms and promise I would never go away again.

But I couldn't

Because his skin, deep brown and radiant, meant he was not meant for me. The boy I felt so strongly for meant absolutely nothing to the rest of white Alabama. That ill-fated dark complexion was the only thing keeping us apart.

To everyone else, Isaiah meant nothing.

To everyone else, Isaiah was just another property.

To everyone else, Isaiah was a slave.

It was the strangest thing. All this time, I had been afraid. I had been afraid that his feelings would change. I had been afraid of caring too much for him. I had been afraid that someone would find out.

These had all been justifiable fears. There was any number of dangers that came with having these feelings for a slave. But when I saw him standing there, just looking at me like I was the only person in the world, I wasn’t afraid any more. I was just so happy to see him look at me like that again.

I gave him one more glance and a very small smile. He nodded subtly and strolled into the barn. The overseers trusted him, I knew. Isaiah made friends easily. He never gave trouble. Odds were he had tipped them somehow in exchange for a few minutes out of the field.

I looked around. Mama was occupied with my unnamed escort, who was prattling on. Daddy and Ethan were searching out slaves to carry in my bags. Knowing I had only a few minutes, I slipped quietly into the barn.

He was there, leaning casually on the wall. He tipped his hat up, revealing his intensely brown, nearly black, eyes. Those eyes were usually so full of emotion that I sometimes couldn’t look long into them. He could change his expression drastically using only his eyes. I had learned to read them well enough to always know what he was thinking.

"Addy," he said with a nod, removing his hat formally. His voice was a little deeper than I remembered, his tone worthy of any southern gentleman. I took in his face, his strong square jaw, beautiful eyes, straight nose and full lips. The year apart hadn’t changed him a bit. It made me smile to know he was still the boy I remembered.

My heart was racing. "Isaiah," I said, trying to match his composure. I realized how long I had stopped myself from thinking of his name, how long it had been since I had said it out loud.

Isaiah paused. He seemed to be choosing his words as carefully as I was. "It’s May.”

It had only briefly occurred to me that he would be upset with me for staying for the extra time. “Yes,” I answered, as if I had no idea what he meant by it.

“I thought you would be back in August.”

“I know,” I wanted to defend myself, to make up some excuse that would keep him from being angry with me. But instead, I met his eye and said, “I’m sorry.”

He looked down and kicked at the ground, now seeming more hurt than angry. “It was a long time. I thought… I thought maybe you wouldn’t come back.”

I tried to smile reassuringly at him, “but here I am.”

He smiled back, his beautiful, pure smile that made me feel like melting, “Here you are.” I wanted him to hold my hand, touch my cheek, anything that would make me think he still felt like he did last January. But he continued to stand a few feet away from me, hands in his pockets, completely guarded. “How was your trip?”

Another pause on my end, "quite agreeable." Agreeable? That was all I could think to say? That didn’t even make sense!

He nodded and there was a short but awkward silence. "So I should be..." I turned away, though I really did not want to leave him at all. I was worried that if I stayed, the worst would happen, even though I wasn’t exactly sure what the worst was. I had not intended to say anything more, but before I could go he caught my hand.

"Addy wait." He said it urgently, like he was afraid to miss his chance. I turned and was caught in his eyes. I had forgotten what it was like to loose myself in his deep, longing gaze. I knew from that look that all my worrying had been wasted. He felt exactly the same as he had a year ago. "I really am glad you're back. I... I missed you."

The words came easily now. "I missed you too."

Isaiah could not hide his relieved smile. He looked down shyly as he spoke. “Look for the notch. I want to see you again.”

The notch was something we had done since childhood. It was just between the two of us. There was a flowering tree near his cabin and the garden. If one of us wanted to see the other, we would leave a notch in the tree and meet in the attic later that night.

The attic had always been our hiding place of sorts. My room had a secret door in the ceiling that led to it. Isaiah would climb up the ivy on to the ledge of the outside wall and through the window to meet me. Since no one else slept on the third floor, nobody heard us. We had never been caught.

We had shared everything there in those early days. We would spend hours in the attic every night, telling secrets and playing games like those days would never end, like we would never have to grow up and realize who we were.

"Yes," I said. "I want to see you too.”

He hesitated for a moment, and I could see the conflict in his face. Isaiah knew how careful he had to be, but I could tell how badly he wanted to be reckless. He had the habit of not thinking things through.

Then, very carefully, he extended his hand and brushed my face. His calloused, hard-worked hands felt familiar and comforting. I had known those hands all my life. I thought maybe he would kiss me. God, I wanted so badly to be kissed. I was just leaning into him when we heard my mama call.

“Adeline, wherever did you get to? Come inside!”

I looked at him shyly. “I have to go.” I turned to reluctantly walk away. Isaiah caught hold of my hand

“Addy?”

“Yes?”

He kissed me lightly on the cheek. I didn’t know if that was his intention or if he missed my lips in his haste. “I’ll see you soon,” he whispered eagerly.

My cheeks flushed and I nodded before nearly prancing out the door. I met my mother at the door of the house.

“Whatever were you doing dear?” She asked.

“I was just… just taking in the plantation. It’s just been so long, I suppose.”

“Oh,” she obviously believed me. “Are things very different?”

“No,” I said, smiling to myself. Isaiah strode out from the barn, looking especially content. “Not a thing has changed.”

 

Reviews

[reflectingus]

This is extremely beautiful, and so romantic. Though I mostly kind of skimmed through it, I certainly will return to read the entire thing with all the descriptions, but I sure love the way you write. There's an overall charm in your story, and I totally dig this kind of stuff- romance and history. All questions were lucidly answered, I could enjoy this story with great ease, and man, the last part, WOW. The dialogues are very well written, and I love the realness here, and also there was some great characterization of the two leads. I really love the story, the idea is just brilliant, and I'll be back with more admirations.

[Skai Rain]

Aw, this is so cute! There are a few mistakes here and there, but nothing enough to keep this story from being great. I will continue reading. Thank you for sharing!

[Riri]

OMG, im kinda obsessed with this! It's sooooooo professional!!!

[brightaward]

Congratulations! This book has been nominated for the very first Bright Award. We will get back to you on November 30th.

[Wendy Seames Garner]

You are a very good writer, Emily. However, to make you story truer, you need to do some research on the era. Here are a few typos and discrepancies I found:

1. "Ethan, as accommodating as brothers can be I suppose." Try: Ethan, as accommodating as any brother could be, I suppose.
2. "I was bored to death." Perhaps: I was restless.
3. "I would have in years spent in Alabama " less from the teachers than from new friends," I think that should be Alabama - less from the teachers - I've noticed when you copy and past to the Cafe, the dashes become a quotation mark.
4. "I wore the finest gowns and danced with what must have been some of the most handsome men in all of England." Perhaps: danced with the handsomest men in England.
5."my distant aunt, who was chaperone and sponsor," She would either be your aunt or your great-aunt not distant aunt - unless she lived far away.
6."I took my compact mirror from the pocket of my brown traveling dress." I don't think dresses of that time had pockets. More likely she took it from her reticule - a drawstring purse.
7. "In England, I had been interesting. In England I had been “the American beauty.” To everybody here I was just another southern belle." I would think, she would be coming back with trunks filled with all the latest fashions from Paris, which would set her apart from the other young ladies.
8. "I looked up to my third floor window on the side of the house and smiled at the thought of finally spending a night in my own bed." Her bedroom would most likely be on the second floor as the third floor would be exceedingly hot in warm weather and cold in cold weather. The rooms on the third floor were usually reserved for house servants or slaves.
9. "dotted with slaves planting seeds" If it was May, I would think the seeds would already be planted.
10. "To make friends among slaves was thought of, at best, uncommon and scandalous." I don't think it was all that uncommon or scandalous for the young to make friends with the slaves. But, I do think they were discouraged from continuing those friendships when they came of age.

I usually stop at ten points, you get the idea. Do a little research on your time period, then go back, do a little editing and clean up the discrepancies. Your book will be a hit!

[Arianna]

well that was intensly interesting i really liked it. bored as hell however doesnt strike me as something that they would really say in that timeperiod so perhaps a little reaserch on the way they would speak? anyway there are a few words that are i dont really know not southern words. places i know down south have words that they use much more redialy than other words so you might want to think of substituting those in for the ones that sound out of time period. however i love this idea :) its well written and captivating even though ive only read so little so far. honestly i really do enjoy it. truthfuly if you want my opinion you do a much better job writing from the male perspective. dont ask me why, but i belive you do. i think however you have an amazing style in this book that is so glaringly different from sons of thunder wich to me is just amazing. :) well done emily. WELL DONE! :) (info to come. lol in like ten minutes.)

[Jake Donald Stephens]

The only thing that gave me a bit of a pause was when she mentioned being "bored as hell"--not a phrase I would expect from a girl of that time period.
And Isaiah seemed pretty well-spoken for a slave, but then, if he and Addy have grown up together, then I suppose she's been coaching him on his English.
All in all, a successful beginning to what promises to be an interesting book. Already I can feel her suspense to be alone with him again.

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[Jesse Jacques]

it's extremely well written. lots of detail and i like how's it's written in first person.

[castargirl]

omg this is like the perfect story it is AMAZING!

[Short.Nerd]

That was amazing. I can already tell this is going to be interesting:D Off to read more!