In His Eyes(13)

Sibby huffed. “We ain’t been slaves since I was a girl. Nothing’s changed.”

Exasperated, Ella struggled for the right words to make herself understood. “They think we are going to pay people to work the fields and then share the crops.”

Sibby stared at her. “Why’d you tell them that?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I said the only thing that came to mind. I’d heard men discussing such at the inn where I worked. I thought it would satisfy them and they would be on their way.”

“But?”

Ella inwardly groaned. “But they said they would be coming back to check and make sure we were doing that.” Sibby blew out a breath, but Ella forged ahead. “And…they also said they would send us more helpers if we needed them to continue the work.”

Sibby’s wide brow furrowed. “We don’t want no strangers here.”

Ella sucked a breath. Like her? They stood there for a moment, each considering the other until finally Sibby bobbed her head and started down the stairs. She made it to the first landing before Ella gathered herself enough to follow. “Does this mean I am to leave?”

Sibby paused and looked over her shoulder, giving Ella a sour look. “Course not. I can’t let that baby starve.”

Knowing she could still insist Ella leave without the child, she said carefully, “I thank you.”

Sibby shrugged. “Sides, I got someithin’ to show you.”

Ella followed her down to the entryway then turned right into the music room. Sibby opened the top to a small pump organ and shoved her hand inside. Curious, Ella stepped closer.

After a bit of searching, Sibby plucked a folded paper from within and held it out to Ella. “What I told them soldiers wasn’t all truth either.”

Ella unfolded the letter and scanned the brief words. “You already knew he wouldn’t return?”

“I was afraid if I said all of them was dead…” her voice waivered and she averted her gaze to the window.

“If you had told them the truth, and said that Major Remington is assumed dead, you would have been in danger of them taking your home.” She bit her lip. “I understand.”

Sibby cast her a grateful look that revealed the shimmer of tears in her deep brown eyes.

“Someone must stand to inherit these lands.” Ella tapped the paper. “Perhaps I can pretend only until one of the family arrives.” Yes. That seemed like a good plan. It could be months before anyone came, and that would give her some time to figure out what to do next. Perhaps they would even allow her employment, and she wouldn’t have to leave the babe.

Sibby tugged on her apron. “Ain’t no family coming for this place. Either we keep it or the army takes it.”

Ella’s face puckered. “How can that be?”

Sibby looked out the window once more, and her voice took on a distant sound. “Mr. Remington was certain that as soon as the war ended, his son would wed the girl from Willoughby, combine these lands with theirs, and keep everything going.”

Ella didn’t want to argue, but that seemed entirely too impractical. “You said the son went to the military academy?”

“He did. What’s that matter?” Sibby scrunched her face.

She shifted her eyes from Sibby’s form at the window to the fabric covering the walls and then down to the pianoforte. While trying to decide how best to say what she thought without causing offense, Ella trailed her fingers over the polished wood of the instrument and wondered what life would have been like to spend one’s days sitting about making music rather than hauling buckets of water to horses. “Well, I’d think a military man with a military son would consider that his son’s life would perpetually be in danger, therefore would have had an alternate plan, if necessary.”

Sibby lifted her hands. “If he did, I don’t know nothin’ about it.”

Ella tapped her chin. “Then it is possible someone else could come and lay claim.”

“That ain’t going to happen. No one is coming to take Belmont from us.”

Ella held her tongue against the foolishness of the statement. No point in arguing with the woman. She lifted the letter. “So if we know that the younger Remington man is dead as well….”

“They think. They don’t know,” Sibby retorted.

Noting that the letter had been dated weeks prior, Ella reasoned that if the man truly lived, he would have turned up by now. “Very well. But let’s say it is true.”

“Then you be his widow, same as you told them soldiers.”

Ella looked down at her stained dress and laughed. “I do not pass for the wife of a plantation man!”

Sibby crossed her arms. “They believed you.”

A miracle. “They did not look closely upon me, and I had to pretend only a few moments.”

Sibby let her gaze roam down Ella’s form, then lifted a shoulder. “I can work on you.”

“Really, that’s not necessary.” She ignored Sibby’s dubious expression. “I’ll just work in the kitchen and help with the housework. I can work in a garden, too, and help plant crops. Then….”

Sibby laughed. “Ain’t no white woman going to work in no field.”

Ella cocked her head. “I have done so many times. Cared for livestock as well.”