Prologue

Augusta, Georgia

1872

The snow glistened, catching and reflecting the sun’s light as it broke free of the horizon and climbed higher into the sky above Augusta, Georgia. Winifred McCarthy pulled her peach shawl closer around her as she gazed through her bedroom window, feeling a shiver running along her spine.

The warmth of a crackling fire heated the room and threw a sharp contrast against the bitter cold seeping in.

Though the view was beautiful, reminiscent of glittering diamonds, Winnie was thankful to be inside—glad to be wrapped in the warmth of her elegant home and the heavy layers of soft velvet her maid had dressed her in.

She could hear her father rummaging around in his room, which was adjacent to hers. As she sat listening to his bustling, she couldn’t hide the fond smile that spread across her lips. After her mother had died, he’d taken on the responsibility of being both a maternal and paternal influence on Winnie; she loved him dearly, more than she could put into words.

At times, he could appear confused to those who did not know him as well as she did. His motherly instincts lacked the gentleness she associated with the woman she’d never met, as her mother had died in childbirth. But Winnie held great respect for the fact that he’d tried. Sure, she sometimes yearned for a motherly touch, but his admiration of her was never lacking.

Hearing the breakfast bell, she adjusted the eyeglasses perched on her nose. As she rose, she fiddled with her hair to make sure it hadn’t escaped its confines before sweeping from the room.

“Breakfast, Papa!” she called before descending the wide, curving staircase, lifting her trailing skirts as she skipped down the steps.

Winifred’s nose tingled with the delicious aroma, a sweetness she could almost taste filling the air as she moved forward.

Entering the large dining room, she nodded at John, their butler. In his black suit, John stood in stark contrast to the lightness of the room, the walls a warm cream color. He was a heavy man with an everlasting smile.

Winifred took her seat and placed her chin in her hand. As she smiled up at John, she considered the fact that in all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him upset for a second.

“Good morning, Miss Winifred,” John said as he poured her a cup of coffee.

His voice was always chipper, and Winifred appreciated that; it brought some sunshine into her day.

“Good morning, John,” she replied, wrapping her hands around the porcelain cup.

She inhaled the strong aroma of its contents and closed her eyes for a second to properly absorb it.

Her father didn’t like the fact that she drank coffee, saying it was much too strong for ladies, but Winnie adored the way it made her feel. It complimented her already spirited nature, aiding her in her thought process. It sustained her as she jotted down her thoughts in the various journals she habitually wrote in after breakfast.

The one wall of the room was closed in with huge windows that ran from the floor to the ceiling. This allowed the daylight to stream in and flood the room with an intense brightness. Winnie enjoyed having breakfast here in the colder months, as the light seemed to ease the bitter bite of the mornings.

A few moments later, her father strode into the room, his fingers fiddling with one of his cuffs.

“Good morning, my dear,” he said absently as he frowned down at the stubborn band of white cloth. “Did you sleep well?”

Smiling indulgently at her father, Winnie stood and walked to him. She took his hand in hers and fastened his cufflink within seconds.

“Yes, Father. And you? How did you sleep?” She released his hand and returned to her seat, eyeing him thoughtfully.

Looking at her, all dressed up, he cleared his throat. “I feel rather underdressed. I was unaware that breakfast was going to be a formal affair this morning.”

As usual, he wore a deep blue suit and white shirt, and his black shoes were polished to the point of sparkling. Her father’s dark hair was starting to show specks of gray, but his face was still strong and mostly unlined. His nose was long and straight and had always been his most prominent feature, though Winnie’s petite nose had been a gift from her mother.

The blonde hair and slim figure she’d been endowed with had also been given to her from her mother’s side of the family. She hadn’t had the pleasure of knowing them, as none had even come to visit in her lifetime. Her father barely spoke about them. Why, Winnie did not know, and she saw no reason to. If they couldn’t come to see her, why would she worry about them?

He accepted a cup of coffee from John before assuming his place at the head of the marble table. “I have important matters to attend to after we dine this morning.”

John served two plates: one filled with porridge and topped with butter and honey for her and another lined with gravy-covered biscuits, juicy sausage, and fluffy eggs for him.

Winnie spooned her porridge, watching her father consume his biscuits and contemplating his last words.

After a quiet interval, she asked, “Are the important matters to do with the mill?”

Her grandfather had patented one of the first cotton gins in Georgia, amassing a large fortune he’d handed down to his only son upon his death. Her father generally ruled his cotton empire from afar these days. In his younger years, he’d spent many days and nights there, but not anymore.

His managers saw after the day-to-day workings of the business. Occasionally, he squired wealthy northerners on tours through the cotton gins. He was always pleased to show off the technology that had made his family one of the most affluent in the state.

“No,” he said, eyeing her with a slight frown. “Actually, I have a meeting with Jacob Huff this morning. You remember him, don’t you, darling? I believe I introduced you at the Harvest Ball this past autumn.”

Winnie shrugged. “I don’t recall.”

She sat back in her chair and rubbed at her cheek as she cast her thoughts back to the numerous balls she’d attended, trying to put a face to the name.

A murky visage arose from the depths of her mind, and as she sat up, she pursed her lips. “Oh, Mr. Huff. He’s a mayoral candidate, isn’t he?”

As the image crystalized, Winnie saw a thick head of dark hair, close-set eyes, and a vulpine nose. The tall, thickset man had danced with her several times that night, his mahogany eyes never leaving hers. She recalled the attention he insistently gave had made her feel uncomfortable, his close scrutiny ungentlemanly.

“Yes. Jacob and I have plans on using my capital and his political connections to control the cotton production of the entire state. When he’s elected as mayor, that’s the first step in gaining a foothold in the ministerial affairs of Georgia.”

His eyes gleamed as he spoke, gazing into the distance as if it held his every desire and aspiration. Her father had always been an ambitious man, and for the most part, Winnie didn’t mind him chasing his aspirations. She just didn’t want it to include mapping out her life for her.

Tilting her head, Winnie reached out and put a hand on her father’s arm. “I’m happy for you, Father. It seems as though the future of the McCarthy family is very bright indeed.”

Sitting back, she relaxed into the softness of her high-back chair, the stuffed cream fabric hugging her softly as she sipped at her coffee.

“The future of the McCarthy family is assured, my dear,” he added with a slight pitch in his tone, tapping on the edge of his plate. “You will be marrying Jacob come Christmas.”

This news was uttered quickly, as though he wanted to get the words out as fast as possible so as to avoid drama.

Winnie choked, struggling to swallow against the sudden intrusion of shock as it solidified into a painful lump in her throat. Coughing, she managed to keep the coffee down as she clumsily pushed against the table, coming to her feet.

Her chair almost toppled over at her sudden movement, coming to rest against her skirts.

“Father,” she said, clearing her throat, “I don’t find jests such as that humorous.” Her heart was racing; whether it was from the coffee or her father’s attempt at jocularity, she wasn’t sure. “Now, if you’ll excuse me….”

“Winifred, sit before you fall down. You’re as white as a ghost.”

Her father’s tone and expression were stern.

Winnie blinked, trying to ingest the situation.

Lowering herself into her chair, she said, “Father, I don’t….”

He interrupted her again. “Jacob and I recently came to an agreement. We’re going to solidify our political and capital union through marriage. Once our two families are merged, we will be unstoppable.”

His voice was still formidable, though Winnie thought she could detect hints of pleading beneath the firmness. She knew he wanted the added power and authority the match would bring, but he wasn’t totally averse to her needs.

As if on cue, John reentered the room, his stately bearing calming and serving to soothe Winnie’s frayed nerves somewhat. His round belly was the first of him to enter the room. His jolly, red-cheeked face and plump jowls were a firm second.

“Sir, your guest has arrived.”

“Wonderful!” her father exclaimed, throwing his napkin down on his emptied plate as he stood. “Show him in, John, show him in.” Turning to Winnie, he gestured at her to stand beside him. “Come, Winifred. Come and greet your fiancé.”

Feeling an overwhelming rush of numbness that started at the tips of her toes and rose all the way to the top of her head, Winnie stood. She gripped the back of her chair in a white fist as she maneuvered around it to stand next to her father.

As Jacob Huff entered the room, his thin-lipped mouth stretched tight over his large straight teeth, Winnie held out a trembling hand for him to grasp in greeting. The aroma that entered with him reminded her of being in the barn in the heat of summer before a cleaning.

Seeing her small white fingers engulfed in his square, brutish hands, she wondered if she had the strength to go through with her father’s plans. His hands were smooth, and his skin tone was a clear contrast with hers, but his touch was rough and sweaty. Winnie loved her father dearly and wanted to please him, but something felt strange about Jacob’s touch. Something she couldn’t name unsettled her stomach.

After a brief visit, she left the men and went up to her room to write in her journals. Following the winding stairs back up to her room, Winnie swayed her peach skirts. She watched the flow intently.

Life is a natural flow, she thought as she entered her room. This union isn’t.

She sat down at her oak writing table by the window and opened her journal. She shared all her thoughts and feelings with her journal, as it was the only way she could make sense of things. As she wrote, she felt her angst leave as the ink flowed onto the smooth surface of the pages.

Later that day, she met her father for lunch outside in the garden. The air was cool but not cold yet. Winnie enjoyed their lunches under the white gazebo. It wasn’t closed in as traditional ones were. The pointed top rested on six pillars, and there were only three windowed sides, surrounded by a rainbow of flowers.

“Daddy?” Winnie asked as she swallowed her last bite of fruit salad.

Without looking up, he answered, “Yes, dear?”

Winnie looked out at the trees covered in a small layer of white snow. They had amazing resilience, and their show of determination inspired her to speak up.

“I know how important this merger is to you. But….” She fell silent as her father suddenly rose from the table.

He stood tall, his eyes narrowing as he spoke. “No ‘buts,’ child. You will do as I say. I’m doing this for both of us. No more talk about it.” He swiftly turned on his heels and headed inside.

Winnie’s heart sunk as her stomach churned. As she strolled inside, the cool air instantly felt freezing, and she shivered. She wondered what fate awaited her.

Chapter One

A week had passed since Winnie had heard of her fate. Jacob had come around twice during the week and once again today to visit. The two of them walked outside her father’s home beneath the boughs of the live oaks.

The old oaks lined the road leading to the stately mansion her grandfather had built. Its marbled columns stood starkly against the clear blue sky.

Winnie gazed wistfully at the only home she’d ever known.

She couldn’t help but wish she were safely within its confines rather than next to Jacob. He’d spent the previous days courting her but did so sloppily. He only brought flowers on the first day. The next day, he had given her father an expensive bottle of whiskey.

With each visit, she had to sit and wait as the men discussed business before he would take a walk with her. It was as though he didn’t really concern himself with winning her heart. He appeared to care more about winning over her father.

She noticed the tips of her boots were coated with snow. Her fingers tingled with the cold even though they were covered with the soft fabric of her kid gloves.

It wasn’t the cold she wished to escape, though; it was the vulnerability Winnie felt as she tried to avoid meeting Jacob’s penetrating gaze.

He was tall, a stalwart figure looming over her. He made her feel diminutive and small.

“What do you think of that, Winifred?” His tone was rough, and Winnie blinked.

She’d been so wrapped in her thoughts that she wasn’t sure what Jacob was referring to.

Glancing up at him, she asked, a hint of irritation present in her tone, “What do I think of what, exactly?”

He frowned, causing large furrows to appear between his eyes. “I asked your thoughts on living in the mayoral mansion in Augusta. I hope I’m not boring you with conversation concerning our future.”

His tone was sarcastic, and instinctively, Winnie tried to soothe him.

“Not at all,” she said, not wanting to disconcert Jacob to the point that he spoke poorly about her to her father. Rather, she tried to salvage the situation.

She swallowed the lump forming in her throat.

No, I want to go to Athens, Winnie thought.

As she spoke, her tone lightened. “Actually, if I were to move from the countryside and live in a city, I would prefer it be Athens. I have aspirations of attending the university there to study journalism.”

Jacob strode alongside her in silence for several breaths. His heavy black boots slammed the walkway so hard that Winnie could almost feel the vibrations.

She could count the moments of silence between them, as they were visible in the white exhalations issuing from their mouths. It wasn’t until she’d reached the count of ten that the man beside her spoke. She was nervous about his reaction, but as his expression was blank, she couldn’t read him.

Her fingers fumbled at the seams of her light blue skirt.

“Have you told your father of this…aspiration?” he inquired in a flat tone, which didn’t help Winne feel out his intentions any better than his expression did.

Winnie shook her head. She had hinted at it but knew she needed to tell her father. She felt that maybe revealing her secret to Jacob would help her read him a little better; seeing how he reacted would tell her a great deal more about his intentions.

“No, not in so many words. It’s more of a secret yearning I’ve harbored in my heart than something I’ve felt prepared to speak to him about. Although,” the excitement of finally putting words to her dream urged her to reveal her long-held secret, even though she was having second thoughts about her plan, “I’ve applied to the university and was accepted, so it should be something that he and I will talk about soon.”

Her ears were ringing before she even knew what had happened.

Hesitatingly, she raised a trembling hand and brought it to her cheek, which was stinging from the impact of Jacob’s large hand.

Winnie straightened her glasses.

He’d moved so fast that Winnie was still processing the fact that he’d hit her. No one had ever touched her in anger or with violent intent before.

“You are to be my wife, Winifred, which means that you have been charged with honoring and obeying me.” Jacob was pointing a large finger at her face as he spoke. “I will not allow you to traipse off to Athens in pursuit of some far-flung fantasy of an education. You will run my household, bear my children, and submit to my every desire.” He spoke through clenched teeth, the muscles of his jaw straining. “The fulfillment of those duties does not require a university education, only your obedience,” he spat as he stepped closer, reaching out to take her by the arm.

Looking up at him, her hand pressed against the warmth of her struck cheek, Winnie glimpsed her future in the depths of his eyes. She saw herself catering to Jacob’s whims, attending balls and galas as nothing but his showpiece—a prized broodmare to parade in front of his colleagues as she was forced to repeatedly succumb to his advances in the marital bed.

She would never get the chance to become a journalist, to explore her own whims and desires. Winifred McCarthy would be nothing more than the possession of the man before her. The essential qualities of the woman she was and the woman she wanted to become would be snuffed out, smothered beneath his hunger for political ascendancy.

As she witnessed this possible future unfolding in her mind’s eye, Winnie knew she could not accept and tolerate it. So, she did the only thing she could think of: She turned and fled, hoping that the brute wouldn’t chase after her and not knowing what she would do if he did.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Jacob called after her. “Get back here this instant!”

His voice rose, practically booming. She didn’t slow, didn’t turn around to see whether he was chasing after her. She only ran harder and faster as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Before she knew it, Winnie was speeding into the horse barn, past stalls filled with the riding horses. She and her father enjoyed riding them when the weather allowed.

Snorting at the sudden intrusion, their heads lifted as she dashed past them, seeking the inhabitant of the last stall. Once she reached it, Winnie slowed down, her breast heaving as air tried to enter her lungs.

Opening the stall, she entered it and collapsed against the warm side of Pearl, her favorite mount and best friend from childhood. The color of dry wheat, Pearl was an average-sized horse with a heart bigger than Georgia. They’d traversed the trials and tribulations of Winnie’s youth together. Pearl offered her the refuge of unconditional love and acceptance that she’d never received from a mother she never met.

“Oh, Pearl. My life…my life is over. Everything I wanted for myself, all my dreams and hopes, are dying.” Winnie rested her forehead against Pearl’s warm shoulder, tears darkening it. “What should I do?”

Pearl turned her neck. She brought her head around and nuzzled Winnie’s bound hair, causing tendrils to break free and fall against the length of her neck. When Pearl’s whiskered muzzle prodded her ears, the long, thick hairs on the horse’s nose tickled and poked her. Winnie giggled and pushed Pearl’s head away.

“You’re right, old girl,” Winne spoke softly as she stroked her hand up and down the horse’s head. “I shouldn’t give up.” Feeling her shoulders straighten and resolve harden, Winnie pressed her lips together before declaring to the barn’s inhabitants, “My dreams aren’t dead yet!”

Pushing her hair back from her face, Winnie fetched Pearl’s bridle and saddle. She was suddenly thankful she’d bullied the stable hands into showing her how to tack up her horse, ignoring her father’s insistent pleas to “let the help do what they are paid to do.”

When Pearl was ready, Winnie led her from the stall. She guided her past the other horses and out into the cold afternoon air. The clear sky had clouded while she was inside the barn, and the wind whistled past, biting the tips of her nose and ears.

Holding firmly onto her resolve, Winnie ignored the cold and mounted Pearl. Sitting astride the palomino mare, her skirts were hiked up to her knees, exposing her lower legs to the relentless wind.

“Let’s go, girl,” Winnie whispered as she booted Pearl into a canter, turning her away from the stately mansion in the near distance and toward the rolling hills dotted with corpses of bare-limbed trees.

She didn’t know where she was going, only that she couldn’t go back home. Not yet. Not now. Not while the looming presence of Jacob still threatened to blot out the bright possibilities of her future.

Winnie hoped that her father might change his mind, that he wouldn’t continue with his insistence on her marrying. Especially not Jacob. She hoped that he might, just maybe, allow her to attend university and fulfill her dream of becoming a respected journalist. Until then, all she could think to do was flee.

Putting space between herself and Jacob and her father’s reaction to the altercation between them was the most important thing to her. Winnie knew her father would be outraged at Jacob for resorting to violence but didn’t know if his outrage would win over his ambition. Not knowing was what spurred her on.

And that was what she and Pearl did, the mare’s long legs moving over the snow-covered earth in smooth bounds. They went up and down the gently sloping hills of her family’s plantation, past the cotton fields and into the wilds of the undomesticated forest surrounding her home.

As she rode, snow began to fall. Thick flakes flew sideways past her face, carried by the intensity of the wind as it howled through the thickly wooded expanse. Soon, she was forced to slow to a plodding walk. Her vision blurred, and her lashes grew heavy as they collected the condensation of the snow.

Winnie looked around, but the world was unfamiliar. Some of the snowflakes stuck to her forehead and melted, dripping down her face.

In what felt like the passing of a second, the falling snow morphed into a tempestuous blizzard. A glaring blanket of white obscured her vision and caused the forest to disappear behind a chalky veneer.

The faint path she’d been following was suddenly gone. It was replaced by an endless expanse of cascading snow that blinded her.

Bands of cold wound around Winnie’s chest, making it hard for her to breathe. Her hands felt frozen around Pearl’s reins.

It was too late for regret, too late to turn back. The realization of the seriousness of her situation made her mind go as numb as the rest of her body. Winnie didn’t know how much of this beating Pearl would be able to take.

Her heart melted like the snow on her face.

She loved Pearl and didn’t intend to place her in danger, but her sight was fleeing.

It started at the edges of her vision, the gradual darkening of her view. With each plodding step that Pearl took, she saw the absence of light spreading. Her body was blotting out the glaring snow.

The blinding snow and cold were displacing her vision with an ebony gloom as fear took over.

The panic and terror that had set her heart galloping in her chest was substituted by an emptiness that caused Winnie to sway in her saddle. She fought with the little strength she had left to hold onto the reins. She battled to feel her stiffened fingers wrapped around them.

As her vision continued to narrow, a bright light suddenly illuminated the darkness. It was a beacon of safety, a lighthouse to guide her to the shore of a sanctuary. But that light seemed so very far away. It flashed on and off as she fought her icy body.

Her last thought before the darkness encroached upon the light and blotted it out completely was of her father.

He’s going to be heartbroken when they find my frozen body huddled inside its snowy grave.

Then, with a sigh that was swept away by the howling force of the wind, Winnie loosened her hold on consciousness and surrendered to the darkness.