Bianca spits in Manton's face

Dear Diary, (May 23rd after I have been moved back to the manor house)

Now, I am much wiser, but at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to wipe the lascivious grin off of my cousin's evil face. Clearing my throat, I spit at him, enjoying his howl of surprise and anger as I caught him directly in the eye with my sputum.

“You uppity bitch!” he screamed as he raised the whip. "You'll regret that!" Once again Kyleson grabbed Manton's arm.

“Don't you see? You're playing into her hands.” The overseer's respectful brogue took some of the sting out of his words. “If you whip her raw, she won't be worth nothing. Not in your bed nor to any other man. This sneaky vixen wants you to decrease her value.”

I smiled at Manton as he glared at me with undisguised rage. “Fine. Let's give our African Princess a reminder of how she came to be a ****. Go get Conrad and tell him to bring the brazier and branding irons.”

I watched in horror as Kyleson left to fetch the blacksmith, who soon returned with a brazier, filled with hot coals. The blacksmith was the same brawny negro **** who ran to meet the carriage when Mr. Thornton and I had first arrived at this cursed place. The ****'s skin was almost pitch-black skin and his teeth so white they gleamed in the dimly lit room. For a moment I wondered if, as a fellow ****, this man might help me, but I realized with sudden clarity that this young man was hardly likely to risk his own future to help a girl he didn't even know.

Manton smiled as he used the red-hot coals to light his pipe, then point to the cursive "H" in wrought iron watching as Conrad deftly secured the iron to the end of wooden branding handle. “I wish I had my personal brand with me, but I guess as the new master of Havenhall this mark is even more appropriate.” I watched in horror as the negro smith used a well-worn bellows to fan the coals in the iron brazier until the brand turned first from black to red and then to a glowing white.

"You should gag the little bitch, so she doesn't bite off her tongue,” Kyleson clearly had experience with this aspect of plantation life. More than ever, I regretted my earlier bravado. Nothing in my life in Philadelphia had prepared me for the harsh reality of **** life here in the South, but I was starting to understand that my life had irrevocably changed.

“No! Cousin, please,” I begged shamelessly, batting my eyes as I looked up at him from my knees.

“I'm not your fucking cousin, you nigger cunt.” I realized my mistake as soon as the words left my mouth, but by then it was too late. “I'm your master, don't ever forget that.” Manton's boot kicked me to the ground and then stepped on my cheek pressing my nose into the sandy dirt that covered the floor.

“Don't do this.” I whimpered into the floor. “I'll be a good girl, Master. I'll do anything. Anything!”

“Anything?" Manton said, pleased with my sudden submission. “What do you say to me filling that pretty little mouth of yours up with something other than Yankee sass.”