Daughter of Twin Oaks Read Online Free

with it, thanks to her brothers. Boxing lessons had not been for the girls, but Jesselynn had watched and let her brothers practice enough on her that she learned the basics. Learning to shoot a rifle had come about the same way, but much to her brothers’ delight and consternation, she could outshoot both of them. Bagging a squirrel leaping from limb to limb brought her high accolades.
    She buried her face in the little boy’s tummy and made splattery noises to hear him laugh. If only she could switch from tears to tickles as fast as he.
    “You charm him like nobody else.” Ophelia now wore the relieved smile of someone who’d turned her charge over with gratitude. “He don’t know him daddy gone.”
    “He didn’t know his daddy at all, more’s the pity.” Jesselynn tickled Thaddy’s tummy when he raised his shirt. And again. One thing with this one, once you started something, he kept it going long past anyone else’s desire. Jesselynn enjoyed the game as much as he. How could she take a child this young with her to Missouri?
    It wasn’t as if they were going to load up the carriage and travel in comfort as they used to. Would Ophelia go along? She’d been trading flirty glances with Meshach, formerly second to Joseph down at the stables. Jesselynn had appointed him overseer of the fields and the hands who worked them. Though Meshach could manage the plantation while she was gone, he would have to go along with her to Missouri. There was no one else she trusted to keep them safe. And Ophelia would go anywhere if she thought it would give her time with Meshach.
    Jesselynn gave the boy in her arms an extra squeeze and handed him back to his nursemaid. A headache had started at the base of her skull and was working its way around to the front. “Too much thinkin’,” Lucinda would say, but as far as Jesselynn could tell, thinking never hurt anyone. In fact, her father had spoken highly of it, for both men and women, including his wife, daughters, sons, and slaves. Why did every thought weave its way back to her father? And every time, tears followed the same thread.
    She sniffed and dug for a handkerchief in the pocket of her black silk mourning dress. After blowing her nose, she forced a smile onto lips that would rather tremble and took in a deep breath. “Well now, Ophelia, let’s light the candles in the parlor, and after supper we can all gather there and I’ll read from the ‘Good Book,’ as Father called it. We will rejoice that he has gone home to be with his Lord and my mother. At least, we will try to rejoice.” She led the way into the kitchen, where one of Lucinda’s grandchildren was snapping beans.
    “Henry, go on down to the quarters and tell everyone we will have a hymn-sing tonight after supper.”
    “An’ don’ you dawdle.” Lucinda’s admonition made him pick up his feet even faster. “Supper be ready soon, and, Missy, you needs to rest up a spell. Ophelia come git you when we’s ready.”
    Jesselynn nodded. Did she look as bad as she felt? She mounted the stairs to her room and collapsed on the rose-sprigged counterpane. White lace suspended by the four posters of the bed created a roof above her head. She’d tied the mosquito netting back this morning as she had every morning for years. All her life she’d gone to sleep in this room except for the times she’d been visiting a friend or relative. She’d never been farther than Lexington, twenty miles away, and that only for the races at Keeneland. Would life ever be the same again? She rolled her aching head from side to side. Stupid question. Of course, it never would. While today was bad, tomorrow would be even worse.

    “Dust to dust, ashes to ashes …” Reverend Benson poured a handful of rich Kentucky soil in the shape of a cross on the pine box. “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.” He signaled the mourners, and together they turned and filed out of the iron-fenced family plot. A live oak,