The Knotted Ring

Book summary

In "The Knotted Ring," Susannah Mobley, pregnant with her slave lover's child, reluctantly marries Hezekiah James and journeys to Texas for his land grant. Facing trials on this harsh voyage, including Native American encounters and the enigmatic Madstone, Susannah grapples with her web of lies, grief, and a longing for her past. Amidst these struggles, she must decide whether to embrace her new life with Hezekiah or let her past overshadow her future.

Excerpt from The Knotted Ring

Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, 1817

Susannah tried not to fidget while Mama Jess fastened the buttons down the back of her first grown-up gown. She had been excited about this evening, planned to conclude with her grand harp recital. But her dreams faded as she gazed at her image in the long mirror over the dressing table. The low-cut bosom of her lovely dress revealed the truth. She was thirteen and a gangly, redheaded beanpole. Crossing her fingers inside the gauzy yellow folds of her skirt, she breathed a promise to play the harp so beautifully that it would quell her parents’ disappointment. Make them glad she was not a fluttering butterfly, eager to be plucked by some hard-breathing young man.

Mama Jess kept humming a soothing sound that usually quieted Susannah’s jitters, but they both jumped when her mother swept into the room, regal as a queen. She anchored her cane, spread her skirt along the edge of the bed, and settled into its billowy silk. “Thank goodness, Jess, she’s finally filling out; stopped that unwieldy sprouting.”

Susannah’s hands flew to her chest, then relaxed under Mama Jess’s gentle shoulder caress. Until last night, she had thought her parents were hosting the party for the neighbors to celebrate her talent before she returned for another long year at Ursuline Academy. But, she overheard her father saying that all the harp expenses would pay off when one of the big planters realized Susannah would make a fine trophy for their parlor. She had no intention of becoming a fancy broodmare. Taking a deep breath to quiet her mind, she relaxed to Mama Jess’s touch, soft as down as her black hands began brushing and twisting long strands of Susannah’s hair into graceful waves framing her face.

Her mother sighed, “Well, at least she has my red hair and slender frame. Jess, do her hair the way you styled mine.” Her mother patted her elaborate chignon as though Mama Jess needed a reminder.

“Yes, um,” Mama Jess’s beautifully sculpted face reflected in the mirror next to Susannah’s. “She’s got your green eyes, too. And pretty as a picture.”

Her mother’s face glowed as she looked up at her daughter, “Just lovely. Now, we must hurry. Our guests are expecting us.”

Clutching her mother’s hand as they descended the broad front steps, Susannah scanned the crowd. Ladies surged toward her smiling, and men huddled down by the river where her father had set whiskey barrels. Were they looking her over as her father had said, deciding if she would be a fine catch for their sons?

Passed between heaving bosoms powdered in lavender and rosemary, Susannah remembered her mother’s chiding not to slump and to lift her skirt. “My, how she’s grown,” echoed like a stage whisper. Susannah raised her chin and smiled as though discussing her height were observations of some distant artifact. Tonight, she would prove herself a graceful harpist, ready for the grand stages in New Orleans, not suited to marrying a local farmer.

Straining to see over the cluster of ladies sipping tiny glasses of sherry, Susannah sucked in a breath of delight at spotting Philippe dressed in his black suit holding high a tray of drinks as he glided like a black swan among a gaggle of geese. Breaking loose from her mother’s grip, she inched toward her secret love and reached for a glass.

“You’ll get in trouble for drinking that,” Philippe mumbled as he turned away to serve two women.

Susannah held the sweet liquid to her lips and whispered, “Swim tonight?”

Philippe cut his eyes toward her, “Have a good evening.”

Warmed by the giddy taste of sherry and memories of all the forbidden dips in the river with Philippe, Susannah headed toward the little knot of childhood friends watching from a distance. The girls used to come to classes with Susannah’s tutor. Then her father sent the tutor packing, hustled Susannah off to boarding school, and her friends disappeared. Her mother kept saying that absence makes the heart grow founder. She was wrong. Her classmates formed a new circle without her. Tonight, she would show what all the years of studying the harp had accomplished. Cheered to see they had come, she hoped they would notice her drink as she ambled past tables covered in white clothes and red roses that made her think of casket sprays.

Priscilla, already fourteen and the leader in Susannah’s absence, tossed her blonde curls and called out, “You look like your mother with your hair all piled up.”

Susannah rolled her eyes and patted her hair, pulled high and woven with yellow ribbons. “It’s so tight, my ears hurt. I can’t wait for my braids.” The giggles melted the tension, and they fell into a barrage of questions about New Orleans.

Encouraged by her attentive audience, Susannah motioned with her glass for them to follow. “Let’s get away from the snooping adults. You’ll never believe how we sneak away from the sisters to explore Vieux Carré.”

She led them toward the river where the slaves had been roasting the steer since before dawn. Ignoring the warnings of the men arranging beef on platters and the hot flush of heat on her cheek, Susannah reached across the coals to grab a small tray of meat for her entourage. Her toes felt the warmth of the fire through the pretty satin slippers, a brief discomfort. Taking a quick step away, she extended the tray to Priscilla, whose eyes bulged like blue marbles as she backed away. “You’re on fire!”

Laughing, Susannah called out to the startled girls, “I forgot to lift my skirt!”

But her throat quickly closed in rising panic as her gaze fell on sparks flickering along the hem, dancing fingers of flame crawling up her skirt. She spun around, dropping her glass and feeding the hungry fire. The tray slipped from her fingers, tumbling meat into white hot coals. Her arms rose, flaying at the haze of suffocating smoke. Her breath heaved in labored gasps, and the earth began to tilt.

A blow slammed her hard against the grass, suffocating, pressing heavy, rolling her over, beating her back. Hands sat her up, swiped across her face, and slapped her hair. A voice pleaded, “Anna! Anna!”

Anna? Only Philippe called her Anna. Calmed by the soothing sound of his voice, she relaxed against him, but her eyes refused to open, and she gasped for breath between racking coughs.

A harsh voice barked, “What you doing, boy? Get off her!”

Philippe’s urgent touch vanished, leaving her recoiling against rough hands seizing her arm, jerking her upright, shaking her as if she had misbehaved. Gasping for air amid whiskey breaths, she searched for Philippe within the wall of soured, sweat-soaked shirts bumping against her, pounding her back.

Suddenly, the circle opened, and her mother’s hands––soft and eager––soothed her face and stroked her hair. “You’re alive! Oh, my precious, I thought I’d lost you. Are you burned?”

Susannah tried to speak as her mother’s fingers traced her cheeks. “Curls around your face are singed, only singed, sweetheart.” Her mother pulled, tugging her away from the men and toward the house.

Struggling to free herself, to walk upright against her mother’s determined grasp, Susannah searched for Philippe among the crowd pressing against her as they climbed the hill.

“Thank God I made you wear that coarse petticoat! It saved your life, held fire away from your limbs.”

Susannah couldn’t form words to argue that Philippe, not the petticoat, had saved her. Still dazed when they reached her bedroom and compliant as a ragdoll, she stared at the brown shreds that had lain in soft, yellow pleats.

Mama Jess eased the scorched clothing from Susannah’s trembling frame. Her long black fingers stroked Susannah’s cheeks and unfastened the disheveled mound of hair. “Lemme wash that soot off your face.”

Her mother, no longer fretting about what almost happened, began sobbing in great bursts. “Take care of her, Jess” She sank to the bed. “I must lie down.”

Mama Jess pulled a sea blue dress from the wardrobe and gently slipped it over Susannah’s head.

Leaning against the softness of Mama Jess’s chest, Susannah whispered, “Philippe saved me.”

“I saw.”

“He always looks out for me,” Susannah relaxed against Mama Jess.

“Been doin’ that since you were born on his fourth birthday. I was busy helping your mama get you here.”

Mama Jess’s beautiful face always looked radiant when she told the story. Susannah never interrupted to say that she knew it by heart. “Soon as I cleaned you up, Philippe went to fanning you with a palmetto branch to keep off the flies.”

They were startled by pounding on the bedroom door. “Jess, come quick! Your boy’s burnt bad.”

Jolted alert by a cold wave of fear, Susannah ran after Jess, ignoring her mother’s demands to cover her hair. When they reached the river, she shoved her way forward, wanting to scream at the laughing men clustered around Phillipe.

“You see that nigger dancing on one leg, pulling at that fancy boot? Shiny enough on top to see himself. Hiding a big hole right in the bottom. Musta got a chunk of coal stuck in there.”

Susannah clenched her fists until her fingers ached.

The men fell silent when Mama Jess knelt beside her son, who hunched over, rocking without making a sound. She nodded at Jacob Mobley like she was in charge. “Get him to my quarters.”

When the men laid Philippe on the cot in the basement, the dull look in his eye alarmed Susannah. Sweat ran along his cheek, dripping on his starched white collar. Maybe it was a tear. A familiar soothing sound, like a hum, came from deep in Mama Jess’s throat while she smeared honey on his foot, seared in raw blisters.

Susannah wanted to wipe the beads of sweat from his face and tell him she knew he had saved her. Instead, she hugged her arms around herself and barely noticed when her mother wrapped a mantilla over her head.

Her father ignored Philippe and talked to men huddled in Mama Jess’s basement room until he noticed Susannah. “What you doing down here?” He shot an angry look at her mother, “Louisa, you’re supposed to be cleaning her up.” Without glancing at Philippe, he barked, “The boys are setting up for the recital in an hour.”

Susannah jerked her arm away as her mother pulled her up the back stairs. “Not one soul thanked him.”

“Philippe doesn’t expect thanks, sweetheart. He’s accustomed to caring for you. Why from your birth––”

“I know the story. Philipp’s always been there for me.” Susannah flung open her bedroom door.

“What does that mean, young lady? You be careful how you talk about the coloreds.”

Susannah caught herself. “Well, he taught me how to ride.” She handed her brush to her mother, who never dreamed that Susannah had shared every school lesson with Philippe after the tutor left. Indeed, she did not know about all the books for him that Susannah had smuggled home from boarding school. And she certainly didn’t know all the time they spent together, swimming, racing their horses, and picking berries.

“That’s different. Your father told him to teach you to ride. The boy’s a natural with horses.” Her mother brushed dreamily on Susannah’s long hair. “I hated to see that gorgeous gown burned to shreds. Too bad this church dress doesn’t have flowing sleeves like the other one. It would have created a lovely image as your arms extend along the harp strings.”

Change the subject all you want. You will never know that I am closer to Phillipe than anyone in this world. And I am not for sale to these local men.