He stood near the entrance with his head slightly bowed and his hands clasped tightly before him—the ingrained, defensive posture of an enslaved man forced into the master’s house. Looking at him then, the nickname the Brute seemed chillingly accurate. He looked capable of tearing the plaster from the walls with his bare hands.
“Josiah,” my father spoke, breaking the heavy silence. “This is my daughter, Eleanor.”
Josiah’s dark eyes flicked toward me for a fraction of a second before immediately returning to study the pattern of the Persian rug. “Yes, sir,” he murmured. His voice was a revelation—deep and resonant, yet surprisingly soft. Almost a rumble.
“Eleanor, I have thoroughly explained the situation to Josiah,” my father continued. “He understands that he will be entirely responsible for your care.”
I forced myself to speak, though my voice betrayed a slight tremor. “Josiah… do you actually understand what my father is proposing?”
Another lightning-fast glance in my direction. “Yes, miss. I am to be your husband. To protect you. To help you with your needs.”
“And you have agreed to this?” I pressed, leaning forward slightly in my chair.
He looked genuinely confused, as if the very concept of his personal agreement holding any weight was an alien language. “The Colonel said I should, miss.”
“But do you want to?”
The direct question startled him. For the first time, he lifted his chin, and his eyes met mine. They were a rich, dark brown, carrying an unexpected depth of gentleness that stood in stark contrast to his fearsome physical presence.
“I… I don’t know what I want, miss,” he answered, his voice steadying. “I am a slave. What I want does not usually matter to anyone.”
The sheer, unvarnished honesty of his words was like a physical blow. It was a brutal truth, yet entirely fair. My father cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the raw emotional turn of the conversation.
“Perhaps you two should speak privately,” my father said, backing toward the hallway. “I will be in my study.”
He stepped out and pulled the heavy doors shut, leaving me entirely alone in the quiet parlor with a seven-foot-tall enslaved man who was, according to my father’s desperate scheme, about to become my husband.
Neither of us moved. The silence stretched between us for what felt like hours, broken only by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
“Would you like to sit?” I finally asked, gesturing toward a delicate, antique chair upholstered in pale silk across from me.
Josiah looked at the fragile piece of furniture, then looked down at his own massive, heavy frame. “I don’t think that chair would hold me, miss,” he said, a faint trace of dry humor in his tone.
“The sofa, then,” I offered.
He moved across the room with surprising grace for a man of his size and sat very carefully on the absolute edge of the sturdy velvet sofa. Even seated, he towered over my wheelchair. His massive hands rested heavily on his knees, every finger thick as a small club, thoroughly calloused and marked by white lines of old burns.
“Are you afraid of me, miss?” he asked quietly, reading my posture.
“Should I be?”
“No, miss,” he said instantly, his dark eyes fiercely earnest. “I would never hurt you. I swear that to you.”
“They call you the Brute,” I noted, watching his reaction.
He flinched, a subtle tightening of his jaw. “Yes, miss. Because of my size. Because I look frightening to people. But I am not brutal. I have never hurt anyone. Not on purpose.”
“But you could,” I pressed, needing to know the truth of the man. “If you wanted to.”
“I could,” he admitted, meeting my gaze squarely without an ounce of intimidation. “But I wouldn’t. Not you. Not anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
There was something profoundly compelling in his eyes—a mixture of deep sadness, weary resignation, and a quiet dignity that completely belied his intimidating exterior. It was in that exact moment that I made my decision.
“Josiah, I want to be entirely honest with you,” I said, folding my hands in my lap. “I do not want this arrangement any more than you probably do. My father is simply desperate. I am considered unmarriageable by our society. He thinks you are the only viable solution to keep me from the poorhouse. But if we are truly going to do this, I need to know the truth of you. Are you a dangerous man?”
“No, miss.”
“Are you cruel?”
“No, miss.”
“Are you ever going to hurt me?”
“Never, miss,” he swore, his deep voice thick with absolute conviction. “I promise you on everything I hold sacred in this world.”
His earnestness was undeniable; he believed every syllable he spoke.
“Then I have another question for you,” I said, lowering my voice. “Can you read?”
The question visibly shocked him. A sharp flash of genuine fear crossed his weathered features. Reading was strictly illegal for enslaved people in the state of Virginia; it was a crime often punished with the whip.
He hesitated, studying my face for any sign of a trap. After a long, tense moment, he answered in a near-whisper. “Yes, miss. I taught myself. I know it is strictly forbidden, but I could not stop myself. Books… they are doorways to places I know I will never get to go.”
“What do you read?” I asked, fascinated.
“Whatever scraps I can find. Old, discarded newspapers. Sometimes books I manage to borrow in secret. I read slowly. I didn’t learn the proper way. But I read.”
“Have you ever read Shakespeare?”
His eyes widened in sheer astonishment. “Yes, miss. There is an old, dusty copy in the plantation library that nobody ever touches. I’ve read it at night, by candlelight, when the rest of the house is asleep.”
“Which plays?” I pressed, leaning closer, entirely forgetting my fear.
“Hamlet,” he recited, a sudden spark of life entering his eyes. “Romeo and Juliet. The Tempest.” His deep voice began to gain an enthusiastic rhythm despite his obvious caution. “The Tempest is my favorite. Prospero controlling the entire island with his magic. Ariel desperately wanting freedom. Caliban… Caliban being treated as a terrifying monster, but maybe, just maybe, being more human than anyone else on that island.” He stopped abruptly, looking horrified at his own boldness. “I am sorry, miss. I am speaking far too much.”
“No,” I said softly. I realized, with a shock of my own, that I was smiling. It was the first time I had genuinely smiled in months. “Keep talking, Josiah. Tell me about Caliban.”
And then, something truly extraordinary happened in that sunlit parlor. Josiah, the massive, terrifying man the whole county called the Brute, began to discuss Elizabethan literature with an emotional intelligence and depth that would have put university professors to shame.
“Caliban is called a monster,” Josiah explained, his massive hands animating his words. “But Shakespeare shows us that he has been enslaved. His home, his island, was stolen from him. His mother’s magic was dismissed as evil. Prospero calls him a savage, but Prospero is the one who came to the island and claimed absolute ownership of everything on it, including Caliban himself. So who, exactly, is the real monster?”
“You see Caliban as a sympathetic figure,” I observed, entirely captivated.
“I see Caliban as human,” Josiah corrected gently. “Treated as something much less than human, certainly. But human nonetheless.” He trailed off, looking out the window at the sprawling, manicured lawns of the estate. “Like…”
“Like enslaved people,” I finished for him softly.
“Yes, miss.”