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brother.”
    â€œNo doubt Mr. Warwick thought the worst of me.”
    â€œNot at all. He told Silas he thought you awfully brave.”
    Or awfully stupid, Jessica thought, looking at her father’s sober face in the mirror. Had Michael told him of the incident in Charleston yesterday, and he was here now to chastise her?
    â€œJessie,” Carson said, “I want you to look especially nice tonight.”
    â€œWe’ll certainly try, won’t we, Tippy?” Jessica said, relieved. “Is there any particular reason other than it’s my birthday?”
    â€œNo…no reason. I just want to feel especially proud of my little girl who’s home at last after two years, so please appear your best.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “See you at the party. And Tippy?”
    Tippy stood at attention. “Yessuh?”
    â€œSee that it happens.”
    â€œYessuh, Mister Carson.”
    He strode from the room, and the women exchanged long, interrogating looks. “What was that all about?” Jessica asked.
    â€œJeremy Warwick,” Tippy answered promptly.
    â€œJeremy Warwick?”
    â€œI heard all about it in the kitchen. Your papa wants you to make an impression on him with the hope you two will get together. You’re to be seated next to him at the supper table.”
    â€œJeremy is Silas’s age—too old for me—and I understand they’re going to Texas together. Why would my father want me to marry him?”
    â€œI don’t know. The Warwicks are rich. Maybe to ward off the bucks who aren’t?” Tippy batted her lashless eyes meaningfully. “Jeremy Warwick is a good man, so they said in the kitchen. A good master. I can’t understand why he’s still unmarried. Maybe your daddy wants you to set your cap for him before someone else snatches him up.”
    â€œNo, Tippy, that’s not the reason,” Jessica said in sudden understanding. Hurt plunged through her. Her father had learned about the brouhaha on the dock. Michael would have informed him, and her mother, too fearful to keep secrets from her husband, must have told him about her views on slavery. “My father wants to be rid of me before I cause trouble.”
    But only if taken out of South Carolina by a good and rich man. Her father loved her that much, she thought. Jessica felt anger slowly overtake her hurt. Well, she had news for him. She would never marry a slave owner.

Chapter Five
    S he was to be presented in a receiving line in the ballroom rather than strike a grand entrance from the top of the staircase. Staircases were for great beauties. The arrangement suited Jessica just fine. Her right glove was smudged by the time she had finished shaking the hands of the fifty guests attending her birthday party, and she could not feel the stem of her champagne glass for moments after she was free to seek out Lettie standing with Silas Toliver and Jeremy Warwick before her five-tiered, flower-​​ b edecked birthday cake.
    â€œIt’s lovely,” Lettie exclaimed in wonder at the cake when Jessica joined them. “Do I recognize Tippy’s hand in the design?”
    â€œOf course. She made the flowers from beaten egg whites dipped into sugar and hardened.”
    â€œWell, it’s exquisite, as are you, birthday girl. What a lovely gown! From Paris?”
    â€œFrom Boston.” Jessica felt her face grow warm under the gazes of the men. She looked the best she possibly could, but by no means would they agree she was exquisite. Lettie saw beauty in everything and everybody and could well afford to do so. Exquisite described her, as was plain to see in Silas’s eyes. They made a dazzling couple—he, tall, dark, and handsome, a Lord Byron with his unruly raven-black hair and green eyes and attractive chin dimple, and she, petite and blond, porcelain-skinned and dainty, perfectly fitting the subject of the poet’s poem “She