A silence fell, a silence that seemed to tighten the room.
Eleanor stared at him. “Father, Josiah is a slave.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t mean…”
“I mean exactly what I said.”
He circled the desk and stopped in front of her, as if proximity could soften his indignation.
“He is the strongest man on this property. He is sober, intelligent, and, by all accounts, kind despite his size. He can physically care for you. He can protect you. He cannot abandon you because the law forbids it. And after I leave, if his position is formalized under my authority, it will be more difficult for Robert to leave you destitute overnight.”
The logic was monstrous. The logic was irrefutable.
Eleanor felt a heat rise to her face. “You speak of him as if he were a horse to which you assign a carriage.”
“I speak of him as I must.”
“He’s a man.”
Something shifted, almost imperceptibly, in her father’s face.
“Yes,” he said. “I know that better than most men in this county.”
She sensed the weight of that answer and couldn’t decide whether it calmed or fueled his fury.
“Have you asked him?” he demanded.
“Not yet.”
His breathing quickened. “Then you haven’t offered a solution. You’ve committed a violation.”
“I called you because you’re my daughter, and because if there’s another way to protect you, I haven’t found it.”
His voice had faded. Not softened. Broken, perhaps, in some intimate corner she had never been able to see.
Eleanor looked toward the tall windows, beyond them, toward the rows of fruit trees that were being illuminated by the arrival of spring. A mockingbird landed on the stone balustrade and took flight again. Somewhere behind the main house, the sound of hammers echoed from the forge with a slow, measured rhythm.
Josiah.
