Wayward Angel by Patricia Rice

Author:Patricia Rice
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2016-06-14T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

They have ty'd me to a stake; I cannot fly,

But bear-like, I must fight the course.

~ Shakespeare, Macbeth

A cold wind seemed to blow right through him as Pace dismounted and walked toward Dora. The color had leeched from her face beneath the enormous bonnet. Mud and grass stained her hands from pulling the more stubborn weeds. Beneath the mud, her fingernails were cracked and broken. Dora never had been one for a lady's graces. She'd never aspired to become a politician's wife.

This was the woman he had plowed and planted with his seed. Pace still hadn't recovered from the shock. Reluctantly, he dropped his gaze to the distended curve beneath her skirt, and he tried imagining his child growing there. His imagination failed him. He didn't feel alive enough to create anything.

His brain still didn't spin correctly. The first thing he said was "Mine," without a question mark after it, a statement of ownership. She didn't confirm or deny. She didn't need to. Dora had been a part of his life since childhood. Despite the gap between them, Pace knew her as well as he knew himself. Which wasn't saying much. He just knew the child could never belong to anyone else.

Since she wasn't speaking to him, either in anger or welcome, Pace ran a shaking hand through his hair and said, "I haven't eaten. Is there any breakfast left?"

With an enigmatic look, Dora returned to her hoeing. "In the kitchen," was her only reply.

Feeling like a heel but unable to deal with his new reality, Pace took himself off to the washhouse to clean up. He changed into wrinkled but clean clothes from his saddlebags. He found biscuits and bacon keeping warm in the kitchen, although he saw no sign of a cook. With reluctance, he forced himself into the house to greet whatever remnants of the household remained. His mind, however, stayed on the problem of the woman in the garden beyond these walls.

His mother greeted him as if he'd never left, scolding him for wearing a wrinkled coat, complaining her breakfast was cold. Pace sat through her selfish diatribes without listening. His hands kept spinning his hat around and around while his thoughts whirled.

He knew what was required of him, what he was honor bound to do. Dora wasn't a lady of his own class like Josie, but she was an honest woman, and he had taken her to bed and given her his child. If she'd been a Negro slave or a loose white woman, he'd feel no obligation, but he had taken her innocence. He had no choice but to pay the consequences.

Only it was Dora who would really pay the consequences, no matter what he did. He would make a poor excuse for a husband. He owned nothing, had no future. He didn't even know how to operate her pitiful little farm for a profit. He doubted his ability to do any better at fatherhood than his own had. He had no example but his father to follow.

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