Wild, Beautiful, and Free(63)

“You are sure of that?”

“Yes, it’s as good as done, from what I understand. So really, sir, you are the one leaving me.”

I walked away from him, but he stopped me before I had gone three steps. What wicked game was this? I refused to play any longer. The ember burst brilliantly into flame.

“Stop it!” I said. “You are cruel to stand there and make me call to mind all that is dear and lost to me! Do you want me to break down in front of you? Do you want to see me cry? Here! Here you are!” I let the tears flow. He had pressed them from the depths of my being, and now I would have him feel the force of this river flooding. It no longer mattered to me what got carried away or who was drowned.

“You don’t care!” I said. “But maybe you don’t have a heart! That’s why you can make an amusement of me. That’s why you can marry such a woman.”

He laughed. Laughed!

“She is vicious,” he said. “And mercenary. Don’t forget that.”

“Then you are the same, a perfect pair!”

“The same? Jeannette Bébinn!” Now it seemed, in this strange play, it was his turn to be indignant. “That vixen doesn’t know a damn thing about me.”

I crossed my arms and stared. I spoke slowly. If I were a man, I would have grabbed his face and held it close to mine so he wouldn’t miss a single syllable.

“Then I’m sorry for you. You’ve just confirmed what I have suspected. That you care nothing for her. She is your inferior, and you know it. I am ashamed for you.”

I tried again to move away, but he pried open my arms and seized my wrists. He dropped to his knees.

“Look at me,” he demanded. Like he’d read my mind, he lifted my hands to his face and held them there. His cheeks were damp, but I refused to believe it was from tears. “You know my mind. You know my heart. We were born of the same earth.”

“What does that matter?”

“It does matter!”

“No, it doesn’t. Not when I can’t win you.” I hardly knew what I was saying. My skin tingled from the feel of his whiskers under my palms. If I leaned forward just a little, my lips could touch his forehead or blow away the dark locks sweeping down over his brow. “Not when the world holds me worthless.

“But I know my own value,” I said as I pulled away from him. “I’m not afraid to be alone, because it is what I have always been. I know how to be apart and solitary and still know that I am loved.”

He grasped the cloth of my skirt. “By me, Jeannette! You are loved by me.”

I stared at him. It was impossible to see his features clearly. I smacked at his hands. “How dare you say my name! How dare you say it and make it a joke? You think because I am mulatto and small and unconnected that I can be toyed with. But you’re wrong.” He let go of me, and that small victory made me bold. “Yes, we are the same. But not because we hail from Louisiana, and not because we can speak with like minds or love the same earth. We are the same because that is how we’ve been made. How we have all been made. I am a human being, as are you. And I will stand here and demand respect on that account.”

He stood and grabbed for me again, this time by the shoulders. He had the advantage of me now. His height gave him purchase, and he towered over me so I had no choice but to hear him.

“Yes, yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Jeannette. You have always been my equal from the moment I fell down the stairs and you stood there like a wall. I knew my grace when I saw it. That night when I pulled you from the fire, I never thought you were in my debt for saving your life, because you had already saved mine. I knew from the way you spoke to me, from the way you challenged me to be better, you made me realize I was worthy of love.”

“Is that why you brought Belinda Chamberlain here? Did you think she was all you were worthy of?”

“Forgive me, but I wanted to make you jealous.”

“What?” I felt like a gear inside my head had broken. I couldn’t comprehend his words. Me? Make me jealous? What was he talking about?

“Jeannette, I’m slow. So slow and so stupid. I didn’t know how to earn your love. I wanted to be worthy of you. I didn’t know if you felt anything for me. It was all I could think of to do. Please forgive me.”

It was all too fantastic. I held myself straight, stiff, and proper. “I don’t believe you,” I said.

Again he fell to his knees, only now he pulled me down with him. “I swear on this ground I’m telling the truth. You don’t need to believe me; believe what you’ve already witnessed, what you’ve already said to me.” He took both my hands in his and held them to his chest. “You recognized that I couldn’t love her. You saw that she was inferior to me. But did I ever show her any sign of affection? Did you sense any sort of attachment, true attachment, between us?”

These had been my exact thoughts. Every single day that Belinda Chamberlain had been at Fortitude, I had read his disdain for her, clearly written across every scene I had beheld. Her clumsy attempts to enchant him had been empty of any intimacy. She wasn’t close enough to him to know how to attract him with anything but the most shallow of enticements. And yet I couldn’t believe he was affirming these thoughts.

Mr. Colchester took my face in his hands. “Marry me, Jeannette! Say, Christian, I will marry you. I will marry you because you love me as I do you.”