Legacies by Janet Dailey Page A

at dinner, Alex?" Sorrel asked.
    "There is no one I'd rather sit beside than you, Sorrel," Alex promised.
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    More than an hour later, Shadrach entered the kitchen and handed the silver tray with its solid silver coffee service to one of the maids. "They have retired to the drawing room. You and Sally get the dishes cleared from the dining room table."
    He waited to make certain they did his bidding, then pulled a kerchief from his pocket and blotted the perspiration from his brow and neck. Taking advantage of these few moments' respite from his duties, he shrugged out of his day coat and hung it on a wall peg. Next to it was another black coat with a top hat and a pair of white gloves on the shelf directly above it, part of his nephew Ike's livery uniform as the Stuarts' driver. Glancing over his shoulder, Shadrach smiled at the young man seated at the kitchen table, taking pride in the way his sister Phoebe's son had grown.
    Ike was an intelligent and handsome man. Tall like his grandfather and namesake, he was leaner, without the bulging muscles his grandfather had acquired from working at a blacksmith's forge. Although lighter skinned than Shadrach's father, Ike had the same honed jaw and cheek and long, straight nose that came to a point like an arrowhead, the line of the nostrils flaring back.
    Shadrach walked over to the big metal coffeepot and poured a cup. "Where is your father, Ike?" He had expected to find him sitting at the table, eating with his son.
    "Outside I guess." Ike sat with both elbows resting on the table, a fork in one hand, a piece of fried bread in the other. "Keeping watch, I imagine. You know how Master Blade is whenever that brother of Miss Temple's around."
    But he didn't look up from his plate when he spoke, his answer barely audible. That wasn't like his nephew. Frowning, Shadrach sat down on the long bench opposite Ike. Lifting the cup to his mouth, Shadrach blew on the scalding hot coffee and quietly studied his nephew. From the looks of the plate, Ike hadn't eaten more than three or four mouthfuls.
    "Doesn't look like you're very hungry."
    Ike shot a quick glance at him, then again lowered his head to stare at the plate, the fork in his hand now idle. "It's too hot outside today, I reckon."
    "Or else you have something on your mind. Want to tell me about it?" Calmly, Shadrach took a sip of the coffee and waited, noting Ike's increased tension and vague agitation.
    Ike leaned forward, resting all his weight on his forearms and casting an anxious glance at the kitchen staff to see if they were listening. "Haven't you ever wanted to be a free man, Uncle Shad?" His voice vibrated with the effort to keep it low—and the intensity of his feelings.
    Shadrach stiffened. He had expected Ike to confide in him about a woman or maybe the new overseer at Grand View, but not this. "You aren't thinking of trying to run away, are you, Ike?"
    Resentment and hurt flashed across Ike's face as he tossed the piece of bread and his fork onto the plate, indifferent to the clatter he made. He pushed back and rose to his feet. "I should have known you felt just like them," he muttered and headed for the door.
    Stunned by the underlying anger, Shadrach was slow to follow him outside. Ike stood at the far end of the kitchen's sheltering overhang, his hands on his hips, the stance mirroring his frustration as he stared at the milky blue sky.
    When Shadrach started toward him, Ike glared. "Go away. Just go away."
    Shadrach hesitated, then continued forward. "Your question took me by surprise, Ike."
    "Yeah." He expelled a short laughing breath that reeked with bitterness.
    "Would you like to hear my answer?"
    "Why? I know how much you think of your mistress. I've heard the story a thousand times about Miss Eliza teaching you and my mother, the way she used to leave lessons and books out for you after your own mammy refused to let you go to the school. You feel the same loyalty toward her that my father feels toward