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Chapter 6: Secrets, Lies, and Appalling Ill-Breeding

Life, Tavington reasoned, was a puzzle box of punishments and rewards. Early on, he had decided that since others were so quick to deal out punishments, he would grasp all the rewards possible himself. Whenever a day had gone badly—a whipping at school, a preferment lost, a good soldier killed, a snub from a superior--he could even the score in all sorts of ways. And so, Tavington ascended the staircase at Cedar Hill with a sense of entitlement, finding the door he wanted without caring much if he were noticed or not.

"Colonel!" Selina cried. She was at her toilette, her sly-looking maid Phyllis combing out the long golden hair.

Tavington pushed the maid aside and snarled, "Out!" at her.

Phyllis threw a look of appeal at her mistress, who shooed her away.

"Go to the sewing room, Phyllis! Now!"

Tavington did not bother to see if the maid was gone: he did not bother to see that the door was shut. With a single hand he unbuttoned his breeches, and then swept the pretty, carnal Selina Rutledge up in his arms, the lace of her dressing gown drifting about them like clouds. She giggled and wrapped her legs about him, uttering a tiny squeal as he settled her down on him and pressed her against the silk-covered wall of her bedchamber.

Intent on his pleasure, he slammed into her, heedless of the thumping as her back hit the wall. Hard and deep, fierce and urgent, he grasped her closer as he pumped faster. The smell of patchouli and jasmine flowers, of powder and pomade, of sex mingled in the air. Selina wriggled around him deliciously, and cooed her own satisfaction, her warm breath tickling his ear. It seemed only a moment before she was whimpering with delight. He finished with a few brutal thrusts, and released her. Selina slid down the wall to collapse on the floor, her skirts hiked up to her belly, her knees falling apart with careless ease. She smiled up at him, a lazy, wicked smile that would not, he thought, have been out of place on the face of a Bristol doxy.

He looked down at Selina, allowing all his anger with her husband to spill over into contempt for her. "I must go," he told her with a bare pretence of regret. "My business with Mr. Rutledge is concluded, and I must return to my duties. Until tonight, Madam," Without further ceremony, he wiped and buttoned himself, and left the room, a bewildered Selina left dripping on the floor.

Bordon would be the man to talk to, Tavington decided, forgetting Selina as soon as the house was behind him. The whole peculiar affair troubled him: the anxious spinster openly soliciting his hand; the calculating father demanding favors. He needed to sort the matter out, and Bordon's objective intelligence was what he needed.

----

"An interesting trade-off, certainly," agreed Bordon, his pleasant face thoughtful. "The man wants to be able to profit from his rice, and in the meantime, you are permitted to court his daughter from a distance. Did he explicitly say that he would permit the marriage?"

"No."

"I wonder…" Bordon looked up at the sky, considering the matter. "I wonder if he means to allow you to marry her at all."

----

"You cannot allow him to marry her!" Selina's outraged cry could be heard all the way to the back door. Two little slave boys, whose duty it was to carry messages from house to outbuildings, looked at each other and sidled a little way down the hall, hoping to pick up exciting gossip. To their disappointment, the voices in the study quieted immediately. They whiled away the rest of the lazy morning, speculating about who was getting married.

Ashbury Rutledge chuckled at his pretty wife's spirited display. "Now, now, my dear," he soothed, indulging her a moment's wonder. "I've thought it all through. Don't worry about a thing."

"Why would he want to marry her? She's so---I'm sorry, dearest, but you know she's not at all the sort of girl—Well, I just don't see it! Except," she paused, and her eyes gleamed with malice, "For her fortune."

"Of course, Selina," her husband agreed. "The man is after her twenty thousand pounds. He's a fortune hunter. All he wants is the money. However," he declared with a grim smile, "Twenty thousand pounds is not a sum I'd care to see leave the family."

Selina sighed with relief. "Then you won't permit it."

Rutledge chuckled again, pleased with his subtlety. "It's a delicate matter, my dear. Times being what they are, it wouldn't do to forbid the match outright. I've got a near promise from Tavington to put in a word with Sir Henry about my rice. Made it a condition, in fact. We'll see what his influence is worth."

"I've heard that Sir Henry likes him."

"All the better. I never thought that Jane would prove useful, but if she can save the rice crop, I'll be well pleased with her. And then, of course, the Colonel is heading north. I fobbed him off with promises of a courtship, and I told Jane she'll have to write to him, but there's a war out there, after all. Anything can happen. The man may be dead in a month—"

Selina shivered. Quite clearly, she pictured her handsome lover lying pale and dead in the wild backcountry. It hurt a great deal, for a brief moment. It won't happen, she told herself firmly, Not to him, and pushed the image away.

Her husband was still speaking. "—and even if he survives, I can have Jane jilt him once the rice is safely sold."

"But will she?"

"She'll do as she's told. I gave Miss Jane a little talking-to this morning, and I think she'll comport herself as a daughter should."

Selina rose, and kissed her husband lightly on his bald spot. "You are so clever, my love. It would be terrible for poor Jane to fall into the hands of a fortune hunter. She's much better off staying here at home and helping with the housekeeping and with our boy. She has plenty to do. Some women just aren't meant for marriage anyway."

"True enough," Rutledge nodded. "And if she dies unmarried, there a good chance that her money would go to Little Ash. I'm sure, if she thought about it the right way, she'd see it was all for the best."

-----

Jane informed Miss Gilpin of her father's orders, and the peculiar situation regarding Colonel Tavington and herself. The older woman was dubious, but made an effort to consider it in the most positive light. Sitting on the bed while Letty worked on Jane's hair, she listed all the advantages of such a match.

"He is a gentleman with good connections, Jane. A marriage with him will ally you with some of the best families in England. And he's a fine man in himself. His reputation for courage and hard work stands very high among his fellow officers."

Jane smiled wryly. "Such a pity I'm not a man. Then I could join his regiment. Those qualifications don't mean much in marriage."

"Yes, they do," Miss Gilpin countered stoutly. "They mean he's good for something. Bravery and hard work are real virtues and they translate well into domestic life. He's not a notorious gamester or drunkard; he's not a layabout; or even a fool. He's a man of some cultivation: he certainly is well read, even if his manner in company can be haughty and reserved. You'll be able to leave your father's house. You may even have the opportunity to travel. These are all very good things."

"Yes," agreed Jane, forcing a smile for the older lady's sake. She looked up at Letty, who was gravely intent on her coiffure, and gave her a little encouraging smile as well. Letty returned a level gaze. Jane gathered that Letty was unimpressed with her suitor. She added, "And he's handsome. Very handsome."

"I reckon handsome is as handsome does," Letty remarked in a low voice.

A little puzzled, Miss Gilpin nodded. "Very true, Letty dear. We shall see if Colonel Tavington is a good correspondent, and if he behaves in a way that shows him worthy of our Jane."

An unladylike snort startled them. Selina stood in the doorway, surveying them all with disdain. "Worthy of her. Like a thoroughbred stallion mated with a three-legged donkey."

"Now, then, ma'am," protested Miss Gilpin, "there's no need for that kind of talk—"

Selina pushed past her and loomed over Jane. She snatched a handful of hair away from Letty and gave it a sharp tug. Jane gasped, and started to struggle. Selina hissed, "You look ridiculous. You look like a poodle, but not so pretty!"

Jane tried to make Selina let go of her hair. "Stop it! What's got into you?" Selina grabbed her wrist instead and twisted it.

Angry in her turn, Jane hissed, "If you go on like this, people are likely to think you're jealous, Selina!"

Selina dug her nails into Jane's wrist for a painful instant. Jane cried out, and Selina abruptly released her with a sneer. "Jealous of you! What a joke! You know he's only after your money. He doesn't care a fig for you, and he never will! Nobody could!"

With that, she swept from the room, with a hateful little laugh.

Jane rubbed her wrist, and sat down heavily in the chair in front of the dressing table. Letty was silent, and picked up the hairpins that had been scattered over the floor by Selina's attack. Miss Gilpin took a deep breath, and sat on the bed again.

"I don't know about you, but I would prefer to pretend that that appalling display of ill-breeding never happened. If anything, my dear Jane, it should clearly indicate the need for a speedy departure from your father's house!"

-----

Tavington returned to Cedar Hill late in the afternoon, with Bordon and the rest of his command group. He dashed upstairs, wanting a wash and change of linen before dinner. Striding quickly down the hall, a few steps ahead of the others, he nearly ran into a young woman emerging from Jane Rutledge's room. He paused, and made a quick bow of apology. The young woman's startled expression caught his attention, and a split-second later, so did her looks.

Where had such a beauty been hiding? Tavington paused to admire the girl. Could she be another cousin he had not yet met? She was neatly, if plainly dressed, and her clothes fit her graceful figure perfectly. Huge dark eyes met his: wonderful eyes. There was a certain exotic cast to her features that he was quite taken with, and he smiled, wanting conversation with her. Behind him, Bordon looked on with raised eyebrows and a carefully pleasant demeanor.

At that moment, Miss Rutledge's door opened again, and the young lady was before them. "Letty, I forget to tell you that—" She stopped, seeing Tavington and his officers, and curtsied with a blush. "Gentlemen."

"Miss Rutledge."

Tavington tore himself from his contemplation of the unknown charmer to spare a glance at his future bride. She taken trouble with her hair and face again—all the good--and was wearing an attractive gown of pale yellow damask.

"Excuse me, gentlemen." She put out her arm, gesturing the other young woman back into her bedchamber with a curiously protective air. Tavington gave her a look, plainly expecting an introduction. The pretty young woman fixed her eyes on the floor, refusing to meet his gaze.

Jane puzzled briefly, wondering why Tavington wanted to know a slave's name. If we marry, she'll be part of our household, so I suppose it's reasonable.

She touched Letty's shoulder, bringing her about to face the Colonel. "My maid, Letty," she told him; and then with another, "Excuse me," the two girls retreated into the room and shut the door.

As the other officers found their own quarters, Tavington turned to Bordon, an amused look on his face. They discreetly walked away from the doorway and Tavington murmured, "Well, well. A pity I had not the time to make her acquaintance."

Bordon demurred. "Surely the beauteous Mrs. Rutledge is enough for you."

Tavington stiffened. "I have no idea what you mean."

"Sir, my room is next door to yours." Bordon gave him a long-suffering look, and walked back to said room with a knowing smile.

-----

Dinner was a strange affair. Rutledge and his wife dominated the conversation. On the surface it was all affability, but Tavington sensed hostile undercurrents. Rutledge outwardly made much of Tavington's understanding with his daughter, but his hospitality was hearty to the point of menace. Selina was lively as ever, but brittle with it: she flirted openly with Tavington, her looks from under her long lashes a blatant invitation. She pressed his foot with hers under the table, which seemed to Tavington, considering the occasion, very bad taste.

It was hard to tell what his prospective bride thought. She was not seated by him, but across the table and near the middle, separated from him by two of his officers. She was silent—even downcast. Occasionally he saw her look up and flick a glance to Miss Gilpin, whom Tavington could not see. Certainly she was out of spirits. Tavington wondered if she had been ill-treated. Much here was a mystery to him. Perhaps Bordon's analysis was sound. Dangling the heiress before him in exchange for his influence with Sir Henry—yes, it could all be a trick. If so, the daughter's heart was not in it. Rather, he thought she had impulsively spoken her mind to him the night before, and now her father was using her for his own ends. He must try to speak to her alone, if her stepmother and her companion would permit it.

There was no opportunity at the dining table, certainly: the ladies left early, allowing Rutledge to call for more wine. Tavington studied the man. These Colonials claimed to be Englishmen in every way, but it was clearly untrue. Just as the plantation's self-sufficiency was an illusion, so too was the Englishness of South Carolina. No Englishman's servants performed their duties in the dining table with the blank looks of dread that Tavington saw in the faces of the house slaves. An Englishman's tenants could not be sold at auction. The squalid rows of crumbling log slave cabins were a mockery of the cottages of free laborers surrounding an English mansion. The whipping post was not a fixture of an English country estate. Yes, there was flogging in the army, but a man could not be sentenced to it on an officer's whim. The ruling white elite of South Carolina was heavily outnumbered by their black slaves, and everything pointed to the fact that they lived in constant fear of another bloody slave revolt, like the Stono Rebellion years before. Nothing like England, Tavington reflected: more like ancient Rome. A few live lavishly from the servitude of the many. The rebels may claim to prize liberty, but they prize it, it seems, only for themselves.

Rutledge, manifestly, felt no shame in being a slaveholder. He was talking to Bordon even now about the pleasures a master could find among the slave women—even under his roof. Bordon replied tactfully with a compliment to the beauty of the women of South Carolina, whatever their station, and then Mr. Fenton, reliably, blundered.

"We saw another mighty pretty girl this afternoon, sir. Your daughter's maid is a peach."

Rutledge rumbled a laugh. Tavington tried to catch Fenton's eye, but caught Bordon's instead, with a look saying, Shut him up. Before Bordon could change the subject, Rutledge volunteered a few facts that surprised him.

"Oh--Letty, you mean? Yes, a mighty pretty girl. Good girl, too. Her mama is Biddy, who raised Jane. She's helping with my son, though she's past her prime these days. You'd never guess it to look at her now, but Biddy was good sport in her salad days. Fine looking wench-- her mother was a Cherokee captured in a raid, and her father was a mulatto raised in my uncle Charles' household who could read and write. Yes, sir," he smirked, "good sport." He helped himself to more wine.

Bordon tried to think of a polite reply to this. He finally said, "I did not realize that the girl was a slave."

"Of course she is," Rutledge affirmed. "Brought up under my own roof. Biddy and Letty are both Jane's own property. Biddy nursed both Jane and Letty after my first wife died. Might handy, that."

"I daresay," was Tavington's scathing response. He was rather taken aback at the man's crass admission. So the pretty maid was a slave—undoubtedly his own daughter. The nurse might well be his cousin. And the grandmother an Indian? Yes, he remembered now hearing that South Carolina had enslaved more of them than any other English colony. And to speak so of his own flesh and blood… An Englishmen might get any number of byblows, but he would hardly boast of keeping them enslaved. One was expected to educate and provide for such offspring, especially when it was perfectly obvious that the child was one's own. Tavington regarded his Colonial host with growing contempt.

The wine made Rutledge hospitable. "You gentlemen will be leaving soon. Be sure and amuse yourselves down at the slave cabins. It's what the wenches are for." He leered at Tavington, "As long a man doesn't flaunt it in a lady's face, he can do pretty much as he pleases."

"Speaking of the ladies—" Bordon broke in smoothly, conscious of his Colonel's stony silence—"isn't it time we joined them? I was hoping that Miss Rutledge would be persuaded to give us some music."

"Yes." Tavington rose. "An excellent notion." He strode away, impatient to be out of the room. The hall was less close, and did not reek of stale wine. From the drawing room—or parlor—as they called it, he could hear a spinet well-played. It was a pleasanter sound than Rutledge's fond reminiscences of raping his slave women. He had never had any difficulty finding willing bedmates himself: seduction, negotiation, conquest were nearly as pleasurable as the act of love itself. The submission of a slave, who dared not refuse him for fear of the whip, seemed poor sport indeed.

Selina, toying idly with her rings, saw him as he entered. She patted the place on the sofa beside her, but he nodded and passed on. Miss Gilpin fixed him with a gimlet eye, and he replied with a practiced, guiless smile. Tavington pulled up a chair at the spinet by Miss Rutledge, and had a look at her music.

She smelled rather nice. Lavender with a touch of lemon. It seemed appropriately virginal. The music was all Greek to him, but he said, "nod when you want the page turned."

"All right."

She played on. Tavington liked the piece. It was dramatic, and it brightened the candlelit room that was now filling with the other gentlemen. Tavington glanced briefly at Bordon, not needing to tell him in words to keep Rutledge occupied. As if by collusion, Miss Gilpin began a whispered conversation with Selina, effectively covering anything he might wish to say to her charge.

The girl gave a sharp nod. Tavington turned the page quickly and smoothly, the way his sister Lucy had taught him. Briefly, he was lost in the music, listening to a tune repeated high and low, chasing itself across the keyboard. He could tell when his prospective bride started looking at the right page after finishing with the left, and he could guess where on the page she was looking, but otherwise----

Another nod. Tavington turned the page, and took his opportunity to speak.

"Miss Rutledge, your father has given provisional consent to my suit—" The girl flinched slightly, and she struck a false note. She hissed through her teeth, and kept on playing. Tavington admired her nerve. "It seems that after tomorrow, I shall bid you farewell, and we shall be forced to become better acquainted by letters only."

"So he told me," the girl answered tersely. The thin lips thinned even more.

"I confess I was hoping for more. I was hoping for a positive engagement. Your father, however, has put a stumbling block in my way."

"The rice."

"Yes," he answered, surprised that she understood so much. "He is anxious that I exert myself to have it returned to his control. I doubt that it can be done swiftly enough for him to allow the banns to be read anytime soon." Even if the engagement were proclaimed in church this very Sunday, it would have to be announced two more Sundays in succession before the marriage could take place. And who knew where he would be in three weeks?

Jane was thinking rapidly. Tavington was so close that she could feel the warmth of his body. His heady scent, the smell of an active healthy man, drove her distracted, with a melting thrill that traveled all the way to her toes. "That's not the only way to legally marry." Please, please, take me far away from here!

"Really? It is possible to obtain special licenses in London, but they're quite expensive. Is there some such procedure here?"

Jane paused, impatient for him to get the page turned. With a grimace of apology, he did so, and then waited for her answer.

Her mind was awhirl with new possibilities. Her life had abruptly changed for the worse, with Papa and Selina now physically attacking her. She assessed the man seated at her side. He can't be as bad as my father! She whispered, "Not everyone has the banns read. There aren't enough parishes for the size of the colony. You can go to the county clerk and get a license. It doesn't cost much, I'm told, and it's much more convenient for the people who aren't Church of England."

"Really?" His voice rose a little, and she gave him a swift, sidelong glance. He murmured, "Really? Now that is interesting." He watched her fingers fly over the keys. Her hands were not unattractive, though they were attached to knobby wrists that—

"Did someone hurt you, Miss Rutledge?" Discreetly, he took the opportunity to touch her frail left wrist, discolored by three little blue bruises. His fingertips trailed lightly over the marks.

The mobile, wide mouth turned down in a scowl. "It's nothing." She did not stop playing, nor did she seem offended at his touch. This was most encouraging.

Tavington took a breath, and decided to gamble on her dislike of her current situation. "It may be that your father's consent to my courtship is only a trick. He means to make use of me to regain his property, and then end our engagement."

She played on in silence, frowning ever more darkly. At another page turn, she finally said, "That is—possible. Papa doesn't really seem very pleased about it at all."

"You would know best. If you truly wish to escape, Miss Rutledge, perhaps we should steal a march on him."

"Turn back to the beginning," she ordered. "I'm going to play the repeat." My last chance to get this right, she thought of the music, and then, chillingly, about her life. This could be my last chance…

He obliged her and turned the page, touching her once more as if by accident, and then he waited.

"What do you mean, 'steal a march?'" she asked, very softly.

"I am proposing, Miss Rutledge, that you and I take charge of our destinies. We can marry tomorrow. I shall obtain this license from the clerk, and find some official to marry us. Give some pretext to come to Charlestown in your carriage. By the evening, you will be no longer under your father's authority."

"He'll be so angry." She sounded a little frightened, and Tavington leaned toward her, using his most soothing, persuasive tones, not about to let this prize escape him. This could be my last chance…Twenty thousand pounds beckoned to him, the gleaming golden gates of his future.

"He cannot set aside a legal marriage."

"Turn two pages ahead now."

She launched into a difficult passage, and the music sounded like it was coming to a crashing end. She played two final, emphatic chords, and whispered, "I'll do it."

-----

Note: Some of you may complain that Rutledge is being ridiculously villainous in the dinner scene. I stand by it. Numerous travelers' accounts of the period tell of visitors to South Carolina from Britain, Europe, and the northern colonies being quite shocked by the frankness with which wealthy men spoke of slave concubinage. It was not sexual prudery, since the 18th century was quite plain-spoken in that regard: what shocked them was the blatant exploitation of the helpless women the men owned.

Next—Chapter 7: The Worst Wedding