For Her Love Read Online Free PDF

needlework carefully into her sewing basket. “Though it pains me greatly, Edmund, I must agree with Grace.” She chuckled as though at some vastly amusing joke she’d only just remembered. “She might well have some explaining to do upon the birth of her firstborn.”
    “Leave, Iolanthe!” Edmund snapped.
    “Do you think that forbidding me to speak of it will change the truth?” she asked. She picked up her basket and rose, moving to ascend the stairs at the rear of the keeping room. “I suppose I will finish this in my chamber,” she muttered, though no one cared.
    “She’s poison, Grace,” Edmund said, watching his wife’s exit. “Do not listen to her.”
    “Oh, I am well aware that she wants naught less than my abject despair. But she is right. Refusing to allow her to taunt me with it does not change the truth.”
    Edmund shook his head, his face reddening slightly. “Look at how fair you are. Add to that a father with looks like this Courtney fellow, and I promise you Grace, no one would ever guess your child’s blood was tainted.”
    Tainted . Grace sucked in her breath.
    He continued, unaware of the insult. “Seven-eighths white. Your grandchildren fifteen-sixteenths. Who would ever wonder? Damn it, Grace! You owe me!”
    It always came down to this. Grace folded her arms and leveled her eyes upon her father’s. “And what will you do if I fail to repay your generosity, your kindness in acknowledging me as your daughter?”
    “I know what you are trying to do. You are trying to get me to say that I would sell you. You are trying to make it seem as if I don’t love you, that all I want you for is grandchildren. If that were the case, my dear, rest assured that you would be married by now or else sold into service.” His voice lightened, became gentler. “I want you to be happy Grace. That Courtney fellow, you heard him. He’s no more liking for slavery than you. And Matu likes him, do you not Matu?”
    Matu had long since abandoned Grace’s embroidery floss. She took Grace’s hand and nodded.
    “You suddenly think I should marry?” Grace asked.
    Matu shook her head. Then, with her hand flat out, she tipped it from one side to the other, then pointed to her head.
    “You think I should consider it,” Grace translated, and Matu nodded.
    Edmund snorted. “God forbid she should listen to me. I’m only her father. Talk some sense into her, would you Matu?”
    “She cannot talk, Father,” Grace said, condemnation in every word.
    He was unaffected. “Oh, aye, she can, louder than any of the rest of us at times. I’ve work to do. You two need a bit of time alone, I think.”
    He stalked out the front door, and Grace turned to her maid. “We have always been in complete accord on this, Matu. ‘Tis dangerous for me to marry, both for me and any children I might bear. Would you have me bring more slaves into the world?”
    Matu shook her head. With one hand, she held the opposite wrist tightly, like a manacle, then released it, opening both hands and moving them apart, emphasizing the release.
    “Freedom?” Grace asked.
    Matu moved her hand up and down, like a boat on the waves. She mimed mopping a floor and hoisting with a rope. Then she repeated the gesture that, for her, meant “freedom.”
    “The Negroes on his boat? The free ones?” Grace clarified, and Matu nodded. “It is a very great step to go from not owning slaves to marrying one.”
    Matu growled and gave Grace’s head a light smack. She pointed to Grace, then pointed to her own head, shaking it emphatically, before repeating the manacle gesture, this time without releasing her wrist.
    “I—I know that I’m not a slave, but…”
    Matu smacked Grace’s head again, pointed to her own and shook it.
    “I do not know?”
    The manacle gesture again.
    “I do not know slavery?”
    Matu crossed her arms and lifted her chin. Every tense muscle in her body shouted, “So there!” Seeming to feel that her point had been made,