Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) by Lynette Vinet Page B

had married Jarla. He was such a dear little boy.
    Diana sat by the table and drank the tea she hadn’t finished in the parlor. At the same time she kept an eye on the large black kettle over the hearth. It was filled with boiling rice, part of the evening meal for the soldiers.
    A wry smile hovered around her lips. If anyone had told her one year ago that she’d be helping to cook for British soldiers on a plantation that was usually filled with over a hundred slaves, she’d have laughed at them. But the soldiers were a reality and Briarhaven no longer had a large number of slaves. Now she found herself helping Hattie cook and clean and wash British soldiers’ dirty clothes. What a change from Briarhaven’s pampered mistress, who had been showered with jewels and clothes by what the world termed “an indulgent husband”.
    Diana nearly choked on her tea at the memory of Kingsley and his gifts to her, his insistence that his wife be the best dressed woman in the county so he could appear well-to-do and influential, an adoring husband, in people’s eyes. No one except Hattie, and later Harlan, would have guessed at the source of the black and blue marks those elaborate gowns hid.
    A shiver slid up Diana’s spine despite the flickering flames in the hearth. “I still hate him,” she mumbled aloud, though Kingsley had been dead for nearly a year and couldn’t harm her any longer. Except for two thin scars on her back, courtesy of Kingsley’s riding crop, her flesh was unmarred. Still, she felt vulnerable and sometimes imagined that her body throbbed with pain.
    The beatings had begun after they’d been married almost two years, around the time Kingsley decided that she must be barren. Previous to this, she’d done her duty by him without complaint until one night he came to her drunk and filled with rage, blaming her for the lack of an heir. She remembered rising up on the bed, screaming at him that the fault might lie with him. It was then he’d slapped her across the face, shouting that he could father a child. Wasn’t Jarla and her brat proof of that?
    But the years passed and finally Diana conceived. Her joy was boundless. She’d have the child she wanted, a child Kingsley wanted, but best of all, perhaps now he’d leave her alone. Now she wouldn’t have to listen when he sneeringly reminded her about Jackie, a slave girl’s child, living proof of her failure. She was going to have a baby, wouldn’t be forced to endure Kingsley in her bed or the stinging slaps when he was displeased with her. However, her dreams shattered on a summer afternoon early in her pregnancy when she miscarried.
    Kingsley blamed her for losing the child, for making him look less than a man in front of his friends, who all had children. Every time he came to her bed his abuse grew, until the night arrived when he nearly killed her. In her mind’s eye, Diana could still picture the riding crop as he raised it above her to strike her sensitive flesh. She still felt the cold wooden floor beneath her knees as she fell, trying to flee from him.
    The crop kept rising and falling, never ceasing its relentless assault. She thought Kingsley was going to kill her that night, and he would have if not for Harlan. Her father-in-law was suddenly there, and for a man who was past sixty and hadn’t been in the best of health he was surprisingly strong. He grabbed Kingsley by the scruff of the neck and threw him across the room. Kingsley landed on his backside, apparently dazed by Harlan’s surprise attack. Diana found herself in Hattie’s arms, her body bleeding and aching unbearably, but she’d never forget the utter disgust she’d seen on Harlan’s face when he told Kingsley to leave Briarhaven and never return — that as far as he was concerned, he had no son.
    Kingsley had whined he’d never touch her again, that he had no place to go, and it was at this moment that Diana realized who was the true master of Briarhaven. The next day