Beth had never enjoyed a dinner so much. The slow-cooked barbecued beef was delicious, served with roasted corn, beans, and a couple of items Beth had never eaten before—sweet potatoes, and a soft, flat bread called tortillas. Will explained that tortillas were a favorite of his mother’s, and Mrs. Reynolds, the cook, learned to make them to please her.

Beth could tell that Darcy was pleased with her, or, at least, with what she was wearing. Beth, her mother, and her sisters had worked for hours on the pretty yellow dress. She liked it almost as much as the blue gown she wore at the B&R. At first, Beth was alarmed at the bare shoulders, but when she came down the stairs and heard Darcy’s quiet gasp, she had to admit to being very pleased with herself.

The party retired to the music room after dinner, and Mrs. Reynolds visited with them at Will’s request before Gaby started her concert. The black woman accepted with a smile the praise heaped upon her for the dinner. “Thank you kindly,” she said. “It’s always a pleasure to cook for guests, although we don’t get to do it much—not like when Mrs. Darcy was alive, bless her soul.”

“You’ve been with the Darcys for a long time, I take it,” said Beth.

“Oh, yes, ever since Mr. Matthew came to get me over twenty years ago.”

Beth blinked at the woman’s choice of words and even more so as Gaby demanded happily, “Tell Beth the story! Tell her the story! It’s so romantic!”

“Now, let’s not bore the young lady with old tales like that,” Mrs. Reynolds demurred, but Will smiled and stood up.

“We’ve had lots of riders on Pemberley. Men of all colors and creeds. We’ve only asked one thing of them: Give us a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. Treat us fair, and we’ll treat you fair. When I was young, we had a freedman by the name of Isaiah Reynolds working for us. He was as good a man with a cow pony as we’ve ever had, Daddy told me, and he earned the respect of the other hands. Well, most of ’em. Anyhow, one day he came up to Daddy and said, ‘I’m gonna have to quit you, Mr. Darcy.’ Daddy asked Isaiah if he was unhappy, and he said, ‘No, sir, you’ve treated me fair. But, I want to find a woman an’ get married, an’ there ain’t nobody ’round here for me.’

“Daddy asked him, ‘If you leave, where are you going to go?’ Isaiah didn’t really know. He thought about New Orleans, because of all the freedmen there, or maybe he’d go west and meet up with a Mexican girl, or an Indian. He was scared of going east, not sure if the locals would believe that he wasn’t an escaped slave.

“So, Daddy asked Isaiah to wait a month before he made a firm decision. A few weeks later, Daddy came back from a trip east with a young former slave girl in the wagon.”

“Was that you?” Beth asked a smiling Mrs. Reynolds.

“Yes, indeed. I was a slave on a farm near Shreveport and the master was fixin’ to sell me ’cause he had too many slaves as it was. Mr. Darcy knew him and wrote, askin’ if there were any young female slaves for sale. When Mr. Darcy came by the house, the master looked at him funny.” She snorted. “I believe he thought Mr. Darcy was buying me for his own use. I was scared, too, but Mr. Darcy talked to me. He said, ‘Margaret,’— that’s my name, Margaret—‘Margaret, I need some help. I’ve got a good, hard-working freedman working for me, but he wants to leave me because he wants to go looking for a wife. He’s a free man and a good man, and I think he’d make a fine husband. I’d be willing to buy you off of your master if you would be willing to meet Isaiah and consider marrying him.’ I said, ‘Whoa, Mr. Darcy—you want me to marry a man I haven’t met?’

“He said, ‘No, I want you to meet him and give him a chance to convince you to marry him. If you marry a free man, you’ll be free.’ I told him, ‘Yes sir, I know that. But what if I meet him, an’ I don’t want to marry him?’ He told me I’d be free anyway—he’d give me my freedom, and there would be a job for me, payin’ money, at Pemberley.

“I tell you, Miss Bennet, I just broke down and cried right there. That good man was gonna buy me an’ set me free, an’ all I had to do was to ride back to Pemberley with him. I only asked if Isaiah was a good Christian man, an’ he said he was, an’ that was good enough for me. Mr. Darcy brought me, I said goodbye to my momma, an’ got in the wagon with him. A few days later, we got to Pemberley, an’ I met Mrs. Darcy, an’ a better lady I’ve never met. I could cook, so she had me set up in the kitchen.

“Mr. Darcy was ready to give me my papers that would make me a free woman, but I said, ‘I haven’t met Mr. Reynolds, yet. A deal’s a deal.’ So, Mr. Darcy calls for Mr. Reynolds, and he come in, not knowing what was going on.” Mrs. Reynolds laughed. “He was so surprised to see me, and he was even more surprised when Mr. Darcy told him what he had done. He then left us two alone in the library to talk things over.

“And we talked. Isaiah was indeed a fine, good-looking man and as kind as he was good. We came to an agreement in short order, and Mr. and Mrs. Darcy couldn’t have been happier when we told them.

“The only problem was that the Baptist minister in town— that was before Mr. Tilney got here—wouldn’t marry no former slaves in the church. We was willing to have it someplace else, but that weren’t good enough for Mrs. Darcy. No, ma’am! She heard about that, an’ she took us right down to the mission church, askin’ the priest to marry us. He agreed, as long as we would join the church.

“So I became Mrs. Reynolds and Catholic on the same day, an’ that was the best day of my life.”

Beth was enchanted. “What a wonderful story!”

Mrs. Reynolds smiled. “Isaiah was a good man, and we were happy the five years we were married.” Her smile disappeared. “Then, he left on a cattle drive before the war, and he never came home. He was killed by rustlers tryin’ to steal the herd.” She turned her head to look out the window. “He’s buried out there, somewhere, under a shady tree, the other riders told me. That’s good—Isaiah always liked the shade, you see.” She sighed. “Five years, but I’ve no regrets. I know he’s waitin’ for me upstairs, along with the angels.”

She wiped a tear from her face with her apron, while Beth and Gaby used their handkerchiefs. “Well, if’n you would excuse me, I’ve got to clean up in the kitchen. Good night, all.”

Darcy watched her go. “They never had children, but you’d hardly know it from her. She helped raise me, and she was like a mother to Gaby after Momma passed. Daddy always said buying Mrs. Reynolds’s freedom was the best purchase he had ever made.” He coughed, and to Beth it suspiciously sounded like he was covering up a sob.

“Gaby, I think you said you’d play for us?” Fitz broke in.

Gaby collected herself and moved to the piano.

An hour and a half later, Gaby announced a desire to retire, and she and Mrs. Annesley made their excuses. For her part, Beth was restless. She should be tired, she knew, but the revelations of the past few hours would not allow her to rest. The gentlemen showed no inclination to go to bed, so Darcy, Fitz, and Beth walked out to the veranda and, as the storm had abated, watched the now gentle rainfall. Beth sipped a sherry as the men shared brandy and cigars.

“You’re awful quiet, Miss Beth,” Fitz observed. “You’re sure you’re not tired?”

“No, not at all,” she said. Seeing the men stare at her expectantly, she continued, “You look like you think I should say something.”

“Sorry, Beth,” said Will. “It just seems there’s a lot on your mind. We don’t mean to pry. Sorry.”

“Although, if you need any help, you’ve come to the right place,” added Fitz.

“Why? Why would you want to help me?”

Fitz laughed. “Will here is always helping his friends. It’s a weakness o’ his.” Darcy simply glared at his foreman, who wasn’t cowed in the least.

Beth sighed. “I’m trying to understand… Oh! It seems everything I know is wrong.”

“What do you mean?” asked Darcy.

Beth put down her glass and turned to him. “You’ve told me you’ve never owned any slaves. Yet, you fought for the Confederacy. I don’t understand. Why did you fight for a cause you didn’t believe in?”

Will shared a look with Fitz before speaking. “Beth, the war was about other things besides slavery.” Will sat down next to Beth and collected his thoughts.

“The South’s economy has always been based on agriculture. There weren’t many factories down here before the war. We shipped out raw materials, be it cotton or tobacco or beef, to other places. The North, on the other hand, was becoming more industrial every day. They used our crops to make goods to sell overseas.