Page 11 of The Sweetest Season
“I can’t tell if I actually offended you,” said Noel, “or if you just don’t react well to the truth.”
“What does it matter?”she burst out.
“It matters to me.”His voice was quiet, but his eyes never left hers.“If something happened to you that was so serious it caused you to change your name, I want to know what that was.”
“Why?”
“I want to understand you.”
She took a steadying breath.What did that mean?She thought of the painting he’d done of her, sight unseen.That was a perfect example of how shockingly well he seemed to understand her, seeing her as she secretly desired to be seen.
But that didn’t mean she was ready to reveal her past to him.“You must permit a lady her secrets, sir.”
“I can’t force you to tell me anything,” he agreed, reaching for her hand.She pulled it away.The last thing she needed from Noel was pity.
He saw her move and retracted his hand.And with an expression that was far too close to pity, he said, “All I wanted to say, Miss Holliday, was that if you should ever want to tell me anything, I would like to hear it.”
“I heard you endured torture during the war.Why should you wish to torture yourself more by listening to me?”Bea retreated into bitterness, as she always did, and she couldn’t look Noel in the eye.
Soon everything was packed and Forrest’s coach was ready to take them back.Two chestnut horses stamped their hooves on the frosted ground, their breath steaming in the cold air.Ivy accepted a last crate from Emmanuel, and Noel came out to the coach as well.
It was all so cozy and domestic that Bea wanted to run straight back to her home and put a blanket over her head.
“We have to go,” she announced.“We’re late enough already, and I know Mr Forrest will place an order for more chocolates tomorrow.”
“Mmm, not tomorrow.Or for the next few days, I’m sorry to say.”
“Oh?”Bea raised an eyebrow, aiming for a nonchalant air.
“I have some business in New Jersey,” he explained.“A small matter that doesn’t really even require my personal attention, but needs must.I will be gone for about three nights, a fact which annoys me greatly.”
Beatrice looked with a bit of confusion toward Mr Marley.“Forgive me for asking, but wouldn’t that be exactly the sort of task for a secretary to handle?”Why else would Noel have hired him?
“Not in this case.Mr Marley has a policy, you see,” Noel said with a faint smile.“Tell her,” he encouraged his secretary.
Emmanuel looked directly at Beatrice.“New Jersey is a slave state, ma’am.And I do not set foot in slave states.”
“Nor should anyone,” Ivy agreed, her normally smiling face now stern.“No matter their race.”
“But it’s just across the river!”Beatrice protested, confused.“It’s still the United States, is it not?”
Mr Marley said, “I’m afraid that you’ve been so focused on your own business, Miss Holliday, that you’ve likely not been able to pay much attention to our politics.As things stand now, each state has the power to endorse the institution of slavery…or abolish it.That compromise was the cost of getting the Southern states to agree to the new federal government, without which the new nation would have failed before it truly began.”
“Insanity,” Beatrice said, shaking her head.“How can it be illegal on one riverbank, but not on the other?”
“The better question, ma’am,” Emmanuel said, “is how can slavery be legal anywhere?It is immoral no matter where on Earth it occurs.”
Noel nodded, adding, “I respect my friend’s position, and recognize that it is not just a philosophical matter for him.While I occasionally do need to go to New Jersey, I will never make him go there until they abolish the institution.Especially because it would be an unnecessary danger.”
“Danger?”Bea echoed.
“It’s a risk for even free Blacks like us to travel to slave states,” Ivy explained to Bea.“There are endless stories of free people being captured and sold down south as slaves.Once they’re there, it’s almost impossible to locate them.Their names are changed, and they often get resold.”
Beatrice felt sick.To think that this was happening practically under her nose and she had no idea at all.
Ivy put a hand on Emmanuel’s arm.“I’m proud of you for standing up for what’s right.”
“Don’t be too proud,” he said, speaking loud enough so Bea could hear him.“It’s personal preservation as well.My mother was a slave in the Carolinas.She took me on the journey north when I was just a baby, even though it would have been easier and safer to go alone.Technically, I’m still considered a slave, though I’m sure her former master assumes we both died long ago.But according to the laws of the country, he could still claim me as his property.That’s why she changed both her name and mine when she got here.Emmanuel was the name of the last family that sheltered us in Maryland, before we reached Philadelphia.She named me for them, as a reminder of how I got here.So you can see why I’m careful not to draw the attention of the catchers.”
