Chapter Eleven
Temperance had spent the day crying, staring into space and planning the ways she would fight Trevor off should he return. She had kept her fork from her breakfast tray that Wilma had brought to her. The food had gone untouched, just as all her food that day had, but she had taken the fork. If Wilma had noticed the missing utensil she hadn't said so.
Temperance was terrified. Never in her life had she planned on doing any harm to another person--she'd certainly never planned on killing one. But that was exactly what she would do if Trevor would not take no for an answer. He was going to let her leave here and he was going to end this farce of a marriage....
Temperance had to believe that she was strong enough to make that happen. She hadn't been strong enough to do anything else for herself or her family thus far but she had to do this.
The clock ticked loudly upon the wall as if taunting her every second that she sat perched upon the edge of the bed fully dressed with her fork clutched in her fist. She would have preferred a knife but there had not been one on her meal tray--as a matter of fact, there had yet to be a knife on any of her meal trays.
Temperance swallowed hard and her tongue darted out across her lips as she stared at that door and waited. Darkness fell outside her window and she didn't bother lighting a lamp.. Instead she simply depended upon the fire burning in the hearth to illuminate the darkness around her.
Footsteps signaled Trevor's approach. Temperance nearly lost her resolve and tossed the fork away. If she attacked him and failed in killing him there was a very good chance that he would kill her--just the same as he had killed that boy just the day before. Then again, maybe death would not be so terrible. It would be a welcome respite from the terror that had become her life.
The door opened and Trevor stepped inside. His blue eyes narrowed in the firelight as his gaze fell upon her. Temperance stood slowly, her knees trembled and shook and for a moment she was sure she would collapse back upon the bed.
"What are you doing?" he snapped. "You are to be in your nightclothes each night and available for my pleasure. I don't have time to deal with undressing you."
Temperance opened her mouth to speak but no words would come. She snapped it shut against and then slowly took a deep breath. "There won't be any more pleasure to be had in this room with me."
Trevor laughed at her shaky admission. "Of course there will. You are my wife and I will have you when I see fit."
He stepped toward her and Temperance brandished the silver fork as if it were a sword. "Stay back!" she warned.
She wasn't sure what she had expected his initial reaction to her threat would be--she had thought maybe he would laugh at her feeble attempts to protect herself. The rage that contorted his features was certainly not what she had been waiting for.
His blue eyes hardened with temper, his thin lips pulled back in a snarl and he took a step forward. "You ignorant bitch! You would dare threaten me? No one threatens me!"
Trevor lunged forward and Temperance screamed before swinging the fork. She felt it scrape across his flesh and realized with shock that she had slit his cheek wide open. Blood poured from the ripped flesh and his enraged bellow bounced off the walls. The fork fell to the carpeted floor and Temperance stumbled backward when Trevor leapt forward.
His hand closed around her throat and squeezed. Temperance panicked. She couldn't breathe! She swung her fists as hard as she could manage but if Trevor felt the blows to his broad frame he gave no indication.
His other fist came down hard upon Temperance's face and pain blacked her vision as her lungs began to burn from the lack or air.
"No one strikes me!" Trevor hissed, his face mere inches from hers as he gave her a little shake. "No one!"
Temperance gasped in lung full after lung full of painful breaths when Trevor released his hold on her throat. His fist closed in her hair and she found herself being dragged toward the door.
Trying to yank away from him only led to her hair being ripped from her head with a bloody tear and he readjusted his hold. Temperance sobbed and wondered what was going to become of her as Trevor dragged her out of the room and down the hall.
As they started down the staircase to the first floor, Temperance lost her footing and Trevor shoved her hard, releasing his hold on her hair and allowing her to tumble down the hard tile.
Temperance's battered body landed in a heap at the bottom and she curled herself into a ball. There was not an inch of her body that didn't hurt. Her head swam but she had no time to adjust to the discomfort before her hair was grabbed again and she found her self being dragged across the floor.
Temperance screamed and cried out for help when she saw several servants watching. They appeared upset and sad for her but none made a move to help.
When she was pulled out the door, the guards, who had heard the commotion and come running from their barracks beside the house, laughed uproariously.
"Teach that bitch the way a wife should act, boss," one of them cackled.
"Damn, what did she to your face?" another demanded.
Temperance wished someone would help her. Why would so many allow this? Surely among all the men Trevor had as his guards, eleven in total, there had to be one that was decent!
Her hopes of that were soon dashed as Trevor barked orders for chains and several men rushed off to do as he bid while the others laughed.
Temperance was dragged to a tree beside the barn. Trevor released his hold on her and she collapsed to the ground--her abused body unable to do anything more than that.
She felt her clothes being ripped from her body but could not fight it and she could not scream. Her throat was raw and hurting and her voice had left her.
When she felt Trevor's cock ram inside of her torn womanhood a tear squeezed from the corner of her closed eyes. She could hear laughter as the other men watched on. She felt dirty, cheap, exposed and humiliated. Temperance wanted to die.
Trevor grunted and shivered and Temperance felt something warm spill inside of her. Fear filled her then. She knew how children were made. She did not want the spawn of Satan himself growing inside her womb.
Trevor stood and Temperance was faintly aware of him pulling his pants back on. He jerked her up by her hair so she was sitting and then shoved her roughly against the tree. Heavy cold chains wrapped around her bare middle, the cool metal was pulled tight she heard a lock engage.
"A few days out here should calm you down," Trevor hissed in her ear.
Temperance watched him go. The other men slowly made their way back to their barracks and Temperance found herself alone in the darkness. She pulled her knees into her chest and shivered.
She stared at her dirty knees and reached back a hand to touch the bloody place on the back of her head where Trevor had ripped out a chunk of her red hair. Her hand dropped to the ground and Temperance felt her mind once against shutting down. Her body ached, her throat burned, her head was sore and her abused womanhood was raw and swollen.
She had no idea how long she sat there and she didn't realize she was shivering until she felt a stiff, itchy blanket being draped over her. Temperance's gaze flew up and she saw a man--a servant of her husbands--staring down at her with sympathy. He was an older man with wrinkles cut into his black skin and gray wiry hair upon his head.
"You are strong. You are full of fire like your hair suggests," he whispered.
Temperance did not feel strong. She felt weak and broken. She didn't respond to the man, simply pulled the blanket tighter. He gave her a toothless smile that was full of sadness. "Master is a monster, child. I've been here since his father ran the plantation and Master comes by his evilness naturally."
"Is there no decency among any of the men here who aren't slaves?" Temperance demanded quietly.
"No," came the simple and immediate reply. "Not any longer. There once was. Trevor's brother Tanner. He was a good man. A fair man. He was older than Trevor and so this plantation fell in his hands a while. Even though we were seen as property by the rest of this country, Tanner didn't treat us that way. No chains, no whips and no beatings. We only worked ten hours a day and he worked right beside us. We were given three good meals a day and medical care. He was even ensuring that we were all taught to read and write...."
"Where is he now?" Temperance whispered, knowing that Tanner could be her ticket out of this hell.
A thin shoulder raised in the moonlight. "Dead is my best guess. He went off to fight the war."
"To free you?" Temperance questioned.
"No. Trevor is a man who gets inside a person's head and commands their obedience. While Tanner was fair with us and a good, strong man, he was weak when it came to his younger brother. Trevor would beat Tanner down just the way he does everyone else and Trevor convinced Tanner to go fight for the south and protect the plantation. Tanner went. He hasn't been seen since and I don't reckon he's been heard from either. The war ended over seven months ago so we all figure he's a dead man."
"Why do you stay?" Temperance demanded. "You are freed people now. Why don't you leave?"
"And go where?" the man asked ruefully as he crouched down beside her. "Trevor is a rich and powerful man. You can't get away from those. The law is in his pocket and he has the means to hire those to hunt us down--his eleven men here would be happy to do just that. If we try to leave and are caught we are as good as dead. The government might have signed papers telling us we're free but those papers don't mean much out here."
The man's head whipped around when someone coughed in the barracks. He swallowed hard. "Now child, my name is Felix. I'll do what I can to help you but there's not much can be done. You just have to use that strength that's inside and try not to let him destroy you."
With that Felix stood with a popping of his old knees and he ambled off toward the slave quarters which were several dilapidated very overcrowded cabins hidden behind the fancy barns.
Temperance laid her head upon her knees and sobbed.