“I should have left it at that, but I couldn’t bear the thought of my father dying while holding such a grudge against me. I had to ride to the rescue of my family, as if they couldn’t possibly make it on the plantation without my honored presence.”
“Did your return heal old wounds?” she asked.
“No, it only caused new rifts with those I loved.” He tried to catch her gaze, but she made it obvious that she didn’t want to return to their former subject.
“Did all of your family reject you?” she asked.
He appreciated the compassion in her voice, but he would have enjoyed more. “Only my father. I have a sister and several cousins who moved north. I was so angry about Daniel that my father finally realized I would never stay and run the plantation. He left it to my younger brother.” The sadness of that final break with his father lingered with Joseph all these years later.
“And then you returned to St. Louis to find that Matthew and I had married.” There was a catch in Victoria’s voice, and Joseph saw the sorrow in her eyes. “Things don’t always turn out the way we want them to, do they?” she asked softly.
Joseph’s fingers tingled with the urge to reach up and touch her cheek. He could already feel the softness of it, but he squeezed his hand into a fist. She’d made it obvious she wouldn’t appreciate anything so personal. Oh, Victoria...
* * *
Something in Joseph’s gaze caught and held Victoria breathless. She looked away quickly, but for an instant ten years vanished and they were back on the deck of the riverboat on the Mississippi River, with the water splashing against the shore while she memorized every inch of his face.
“This isn’t the end,” he’d whispered. “It can’t be. I’ll never stop loving you.”
Then the whistle blew and the deck beneath them moved, and the years stacked atop each other once more. She blinked and shook the memory away, but not before she relived the heartbreak of loss. Not again. Never again. She couldn’t bear to feel that kind of pain for a second time.
“You mentioned your admiration of John Brown and his sons.” She forced a grin. “Matthew and I became acquainted with him about five years ago.”
Joseph’s eyebrows rose. “The John Brown? Freer of slaves?”
“See what you missed when you hid out on the Oregon Trail, leading folks to gold and prosperity in California and Oregon, hiding from your friends in St. Louis?” She held on to her teasing lilt, friendly and nothing more, hiding behind it as if it were a cloak. “You could have visited from time to time. Look who you may have become friends with.”
“Did you know he once moved to a town established by Africans so he could learn their ways and help them better integrate into society?”
Victoria enjoyed Joseph’s admiration of the man. “He became a dear friend of Matthew’s and mine. He and his sons lodged with us twice during their travels through St. Louis. We’ve heard many stories of their escapades.”
Some of the excitement left Joseph’s expression. “You’re still in contact with the man, himself?”
“I received word of their condolences when Matthew died. They dared little more contact than that, considering the circumstances. Our plans to leave St. Louis were under way when Matthew was...killed.”
Silence reigned for several long seconds as Joseph’s frown deepened. “You can’t know how shocked and saddened I was when I heard the news of Matthew’s death.”
“I’m still recovering.”
He was silent for a moment, then said softly, “You two became quite close, didn’t you?”
She looked up at him. If Joseph was implying what she thought, he was being completely inappropriate. “We were married.”
“You implied a marriage of convenience.”
“I beg your pardon? Please tell me you aren’t outright accusing me of loving my husband, as if that’s a sin.” What was he doing? Was he actually...jealous?
And yet, hadn’t he always been? Hadn’t she known that was why he’d stayed away? If Joseph had accepted her marriage to Matthew, he would have visited with them the many times she’d heard he was in St. Louis.
“Joseph, ours was a marriage of kindness and goodwill.” He couldn’t possibly expect an apology from her for having tender feelings toward her own husband.
“Goodwill.” Joseph’s voice sharpened. “You cared for him as your employer when you and I were together, but he felt more than goodwill toward you. I know he loved you. Was he satisfied with your simple human kindness?”
She stared down at her hands, feeling the sting of guilt that had haunted her for many years, yet also stinging with offense. “It wasn’t Matthew I loved ten years ago.” The words, and the accusatory tone, were out before she could withdraw them.
“No, but it certainly was Matthew you married, wasn’t it?” He caught his breath audibly, as if he, too, had spoken without thought. “Victoria, I’m... I had no right.”
“No, you didn’t.” She cleared her throat, swallowed, took a deep breath to fight back the hurtful words she wanted to speak. “Forgive me, Joseph, but every woman needs to feel she’s the most important person in her man’s life. I acknowledge that isn’t often the case, but I was young enough to want that for myself. You obviously couldn’t give me that.” He was a different man now, however, an adult who had been tested in fire, seasoned and strong. Why should he continue to suffer for one horribly wrong decision that had ousted her from his life and shattered her heart? “As for Matthew, I was led to believe he wanted a partner for his practice. It was the way he proposed marriage. Businesslike and logical.” So unlike the way she and Joseph had been together, slowly falling in love over the course of a year, unable to stay away from each other, a constant challenge for those who chaperoned them.
She’d dreamed of becoming a rancher’s wife, especially after Joseph built a new room onto his ranch house and started teasing her about becoming “Mrs. Joseph Rickard.”
“I knew he loved you by the way his gaze followed you wherever you went,” Joseph said. “By the way his eyes lit up when he talked about you.”
“So it appears I got what I wanted, after all.”
“I don’t think so. Matthew had priorities that took precedence over your welfare, it seems, or he wouldn’t have drawn you into your present dangerous position.”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead.”
He leaned closer to her and she caught the scent of the watercress he liked to pick along the streams, and the earth and water that had nearly killed him. He sighed and brushed at some drying mud on his sleeve. “Listen to us arguing again.”
“Not everything has changed,” she said.
“I didn’t expect him to marry you after I left. Keep you in his employ, yes, but...you’re right, I was stunned when I found out about your marriage.”
She turned away, barely hearing the voices of the others near camp. “I believe you expected that I would wait for you no matter what, even after I heard of your engagement.”
Joseph was silent for a long moment. She looked over her shoulder at him and saw him staring toward the flooded creek, and she recognized the lines of self-recrimination in the square frame of his face.
“Shouldering the blame can’t repair the past,” she said, gentling her voice. How hard she’d been on him these past weeks, avoiding him when possible. He’d been a perfect gentleman, treating her with respect and kindness while she’d remained reserved.
“I thought my father needed me.”
“Your