Free Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy by Roxane Tepfer Sanford Page B

When she was out
of sight, ordered me to do the same, though he escorted me the
entire way.
    “You will not play with the slave children
anymore!” Eugenia ordered when I entered the suite she shared with
Daddy.
    Curtis P. Boyd stood blocking the doorway as
she calmly but resolutely continued her list of rules.
    Eugenia sat dignified, her back as straight
and stiff as if a thick plank was shoved up under her dress,
sipping on a hot cup of tea beside the dormant fireplace. On the
end table next to her sat a weathered Bible.
    “You will not set foot near the slave
quarters again. You will not, under any circumstances, play with
those children.” She emphasized the words those children , as
if they were vile.
    “You will stay inside, studying either your
school work or the Bible. You will stay in your room at all times
unless it is time to dine.”
    Stunned, I tried to speak in my defense, to
convince her that playing with Hattie and the others was just fun -
harmless fun.
    “I know Simon scares me sometimes, but it is
all in fun. I really didn’t mind the snake trick,” I began, until
she rose and stepped closer to me. I instinctively stopped talking
and swallowed hard as her fiery eyes narrowed down onto me.
    “You listen to me, Amelia. You stay away from
Hattie, Simon, Mammy, and the others. You especially stay away from
that unholy mulatto baby of Abigail’s.”
    “Jacob Thomas?” I uttered. “Jacob Thomas is
unholy?”
    Eugenia’s face was blazing with anger, and
she began to pace back and forth.
    “Men, Amelia, can’t control their lust, even
when sin and the devil himself stare them straight in the face.”
She shot Curtis P. Boyd a look of disgust. Then she turned to
me.
    “You know what lust is, don’t you?”
    I shook my head no.
    Eugenia smiled contemptuously, then leaned
down to me while staring me straight in the eyes and said, “Lust is
what you crave between your legs.”
    I gasped and felt flushed.
    “Every time you feel that sensation, that
urge and yearning, know it is caused by the devil, and that you are
full of sin.”
    Eugenia motioned for Curtis P. Boyd to step
in. “Take her to her room and see to it that Mlle. Duval washes the
filth off her.
    “And afterward, you sit and read the Bible.
Fill yourself with the word of God, Amelia, and save yourself from
the devil.”
    Curtis P. Boyd rushed me along and all the
while, as we hurried through the dim halls and back to my wing of
Sutton Hall, I tried to erase from my mind everything Eugenia had
just said to me. Jacob Thomas was an innocent, angelic baby, just
like Jesus himself. There could be nothing unholy about him, I told
myself. Nothing!
     
    As if Mlle. Duval was personally instructed
to remove any layers of sin that might have attempted to seep into
my body, she scrubbed my soft skin with a scrub brush so vigorously
that I began to bleed.
    “You’re hurting me!” I cried while sitting in
the tepid water of the bath tub brought up into my bedroom.
    My complaints and cries didn’t stop her, and
she continued to scrub me from head to toe. It was only when every
inch of my body was rubbed raw that she pulled me out, had me dry
off, and dressed me for bed.
    While I listened to Beatrice and Violet
giggle as they played in their room down the hall, I lay in bed
succumbed to a restless night of physical and emotional torment
that would become almost as predictable as the sun rising each
day.
     
    ~ ~ ~

 
~ Seven ~
     
    Daddy returned from his trip, and when he
finally came to see me, as I was banished to my room after
breakfast as punishment for what Eugenia called disobedience, I
broke out in tears.
    “There, there Amelia, did you miss me that
terribly?” he crooned. “Don’t you like the doll I brought you? She
had the most beautiful blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes. I was
certain you would like her.”
    I looked up at him and hoped he would see my
scabbed face. My heart sank when he smiled and kissed my cheek, and
then put me