Evermore: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 3) (13 page)

Captain McKee accepted his superior’s decision, of course,
yet he remained reserved. Curiously so. Sometimes he looked away when she
caught him looking at her. Sometimes his eyes held hers, unsmiling, unabashed,
and she’d be the first to shift her gaze.

A few minutes ago, however, in the street with those
miscreant boys, he’d not been reserved. His gaze had been . . . personal. His
hands on her arms had been frantic. But, now they were upstairs, he was aloof
again. It was just as well. The captain was quite foreign. The captain was
white.

She set to work with the slips of paper Wallace passed her.
Few messages got through the vulnerable lines from Baton Rouge, and as usual,
the first slip was from the fort downriver and had to do with hogsheads of
sugar and barrels of pork. She didn’t mind the subject was mundane. Decrypting
interested her, like playing anagrams.

Nicolette picked up the next message in her pile, one
Wallace should have kept for himself, for once she’d decrypted it, it read:
“Breckinridge at Camp Moore with better than 13,000. Confederate fleet moving
south on M. River. Passed Vidalia two a.m.”

The Confederates hoped to re-take Baton Rouge! “Captain!”

Captain McKee took the message from her hand and read it.
“Wallace, get this to the general right away.”

Finn eyed Nicolette. He hated what had happened to her
downstairs, but he hadn’t been surprised. Rebel sympathizers, meaning most of
New Orleans, could see her any day, morning or afternoon, coming and going from
Headquarters. It was a risk she did not seem to have prepared for. Was she so
naive? Or perhaps there was a deeper motive to her associating with the Union
than simple idealism. She’d had a nasty scare on the street. Those boys could
have knocked her off her feet in another moment, and then, he didn’t like to
think what they might have done to her. Looking at her now, though, the
incident might never have happened. When she wanted to, she could hide her
feelings very well.

“Sit down, please, Miss Chamard.”

She was wearing the blue linen gown he liked with the black
tassels, demurely fastened at the neck, but fitted to her figure. She folded
her hands on the table, no more than six inches from his own. He liked her
hands. Hands that knew how to flutter a fan with perfect comic timing, how to
decipher a code, how to make light sugary buns.

“Will you tell me, Miss Chamard, what you understand to be
the import of this message?”

She tilted her chin up. “I presume General Breckinridge
intends to retake Baton Rouge.”

“And if he does so?”

Her eyes darkened. Every emotion seemed to sweep clouds
across the grey irises, if she let them.

“If he does so! Then the Confederacy will control the
Mississippi from Vicksburg to Baton Rouge. Texas and Arkansas will continue to
ship provisions down the Red River, and the war will drag on.”

Finn tilted his head to the side, trying to read her. His
gaze dropped from her lovely eyes to her mouth, those full lips a torment. She
must know her effect on men. What a perfect opportunity here in this office,
her superior besotted with her, to glean information for the Confederacy. Hursh
might have simply looked into her pretty face and decided no one so lovely
could have ulterior motives. And, to be honest, beyond his admittedly slight
suspicion, what he really wanted was a moment’s conversation with her,
something beyond good morning and have a beignet.

“Captain. I don’t know what I must do to convince you. I
truly want the Union to win this war.”

“Why?”

The grey in her eyes lightened. She touched the calico
turban on her head in an odd gesture. “Because I want an end to slavery,
Captain.”

“It’s that simple?”

Her tone sharpened, and again her eyes clouded. “Yes. It is
that simple.” She leaned forward the least bit to make her point, her flowery
scent wafting across the table. “Captain McKee, do you think a love of justice
can be found only in Northern states?”

Hursh always had been a shrewd judge of character. That was
true anger in her eyes, he’d bet on it. Indignation in the set of her jaw. Most
convincing, her eyes changed color again, darkening with the vehemence in her
voice. He didn’t see how she could fake that.

Finn nodded slightly. Without planning to, he reached across
the gap between them and touched her hand. He heard her intake of breath, but
she did not withdraw. For a moment, he forgot Simpson was in the room. He very
nearly hauled her across the table --

He looked up. There were tears in her eyes. Oh God, he’d
upset her again. He stood abruptly. “Mr. Simpson, you may allow Miss Chamard
full access to the decryption you have yet to do this morning. I’ll be back
this afternoon.”

Finn bowed to Nicolette. “Mademoiselle.”

He collected his sword on the way out and tromped down the
hallway toward the general’s offices.

He’d never met a woman whose eyes and face and body invited
touch like hers did, and yet, he couldn’t touch her. Why was she so damned
skittish? One minute she looked like she could lead the whole Union army by
herself, and next minute . . . He’d scared her again, and her with two admirers
in the room for protection.

Deborah Ann Presswood sat white faced as her father strode
up and down the room. “Will I also take the oath?”

Mr. Presswood shook his head. “A girl? Of course not.” He
paced, puffing on his cigar, rapid little smoke rings rising to the ceiling. He
was more agitated than Deborah Ann had ever seen him.

“Father, sit down.”

He ignored her. General Butler had declared every man in New
Orleans must swear a loyalty oath to the United States government or go into
exile. Ignatius Abelard had refused and left the city that morning. Mr.
Presswood had taken the oath not an hour ago, and she knew it was eating him
alive.

He stopped mid-pace and glared at her. “I had to do it,” he
declared.

“I know that, Father.”

“If I’m to continue funneling monies to The Cause, I have to
be here. In the city. And I have to be able to move about.”

“I understand.”

He stomped to the window and back again. “You hold your head
up, Missy. Your father is a patriot! I may be a lying bastard, but I’m no
traitor.”

“Father!”

He stabbed his cigar toward her. “When this war’s over and
people talk about what Lionel Presswood did today, you keep your chin in the
air, Deborah Ann.” His voice quavered, for all his adamance.
“You tell them, your father may have besmirched his good name, but he did it
for Louisiana!”

Abruptly, he covered his face with his hand, his chest
heaving. Deborah Ann knew what to do now. It was his anger she didn’t know how
to handle.

“Come Father. Let me take your boots off.” She rang the
bell. Jebediah, dressed in his livery of high
starched collar and linen coat, answered. “Lemonade,” she said.

She took her father’s arm and led him to a chair. “Sit,
Father,” she said more firmly.

She took his cigar from him, then unlaced his boots and rolled
his stockings off. Mr. Presswood submitted, his arm propped on the chair arm,
his face hidden by his hand.

Jebediah came in with a pitcher of
lemonade and a bottle of whiskey. Deborah Ann hid Father with her body. She
didn’t want the butler to see him weeping behind his hand.

“Bring a foot basin, Jebediah,”
she said. “Cool water.”

Deborah Ann accepted Jebediah’s
hint and poured her father a glass of whiskey. By the time Jeb came back with
the basin, Father had got hold of himself. He eased his feet into the water and
sighed. “Thank you, dear.” His voice was nearly normal now. “That feels
wonderful.”

Jebediah quietly disappeared.
Deborah Ann handed her father his whiskey and poured herself a lemonade.

“You should pack up and go home to Evermore, Deborah Ann.”

She shook her head. They’d had this conversation twice
before in the last weeks. “I don’t want to go upriver, Father. I’d die of
loneliness. There’d be no news for days at a time.” She reached over and patted
his knee. “I’d rather be here with you.”

He grabbed her hand and squeezed gently. “I’m glad, Deborah
Ann. But the first case of yellow fever, I’m packing you off. Jeb can get you
home and be back here the next day.”

Deborah didn’t concern herself with the dreaded yellow
fever. She said her prayers, she tried to love her neighbors as the Lord
desired, even Eugenia Abelard, and she left her fate in His hands. Besides, she
was born and bred in this climate. Everyone knew the lately arrived were the
most likely to succumb. They simply had no resistance to the Louisiana miasmas.

Late that afternoon, restless and bored, Deborah Ann decided
she must have a new hat. All her bonnets for the summertime were at the home
place upriver, and she had no intention of being a freckled bride come January.

Father’s horses having been confiscated by Butler’s army,
she and Mammy took the omnibus to Canal Street and then walked to Madame
Celeste’s haberdashery. The shop window displayed a yellowing New York magazine
open to the fashion page. On a pedestal next to it sat the very same bonnet
modeled in the magazine, its green trim faded and mottled. It had been months
since anything but war matériel and foodstuffs had unloaded in New Orleans.

The shop had two doors. As they approached, an elegant woman
marked as colored by the tignon on her head entered the left.

“Isn’t that the same woman?” Deborah Ann said. “The one you
showed me last time we were on this street?”

“That her, Missy.”

Deborah and Mammy entered the green door on the right.

Inside, the late afternoon sun bore through the windows,
revealing dancing dust motes. Bonnets, ribbons, silk flowers, buttons, bolts of
cloth – though perhaps a little shopworn, every accessory a woman could want
graced the shelves and bins of Madame Celeste’s.

Madame bustled from behind the painted screen that divided
her shop in two. The colored woman she’d been speaking with on the left side
would of course have to wait while she served her white clientele.

“Mademoiselle Presswood! What a delight to see you.”

“Good day, Madame. Would you show me the straw hat in the
window, please?”

While the proprietress fetched a stool and then leaned into
the bow window to retrieve the hat, Deborah Ann wandered to one end of the
divider, fingering a bunch of papier maché grapes. Curious, she peeked around the screen.

The woman in the tignon inspected a bolt of brightly
patterned cloth Madame Celeste had laid out for her. She was truly beautiful.
Smooth, light skin, big dark eyes. She was young, this woman, but not a girl.
Her breasts seemed heavy and round under the fabric. Her mouth was full and
lightly pink.

Deborah Ann put a finger to her paler, thinner lips. This
woman knew how to kiss a man, she thought. How to please him in ways she knew
nothing about.

The plaçée looked up from the bolt of cloth and met
Deborah’s eyes.

Deborah Ann was embarrassed to be caught staring, but the
woman, surprised for only the briefest moment, gave her a polite half-smile.
She set the fabric on the counter and left the store, the slight roll of her
hips announcing a sensuality without her seeming aware of it.

Deborah Ann’s hand went to her throat; her fingers found the
bony knobs of bone at the base of her neck. She felt like a stick, bound and
cinched. She was a dried corn stalk compared to the lush creature who’d just
left. “Who was that woman, Madame Celeste?”

“
Non
,
Mademoiselle. You do not know such as she.” She lowered her voice to confide a
delicate secret. “She is a rich man’s kept woman.”

“She’s quite striking.”

“
Oui
. These Creole
planters, they have the most beautiful women in New Orleans. But, of course,
she is a
femme de couleur
.”

Deborah Ann nodded. Some of the old-school Creoles had
different notions about what it meant to be a husband. Thank goodness Marcel
was a modern man. He’d chosen her, after all, and she was not Creole in any
way.

Deborah Ann handed the papier maché grapes to Madame Celeste, then removed her bonnet and
handed it to Mammy. In front of the mirror, she tried the straw hat, adjusting
the ribbon under her chin just so.

“You can sew the grapes on it, Madame?”

“
Mais
oui
.”

As Madame Celeste trimmed the hat, Deborah Ann wondered
about the plaçée. Her father’s social circle included a number of Creole
gentlemen. Could one of her father’s friends possibly be so depraved as to betray
his wife with a colored woman? It was none of her business, of course. But no
one else was in the shop. “So she belongs to a Creole planter. Who is he?”

Madame Celeste adjusted the small bundle of blue grapes on
the bonnet. “One of the Chamards, I believe.”

Deborah Ann lost her breath.

Mammy appeared at her side and took her elbow, else Deborah
Ann feared she might have fainted to the floor.

Struggling to put air behind the words, she said, “Of the
older generation, I suppose.”

Madame Celeste turned away to pick up her scissors. She
didn’t see the distress in Deborah Ann’s face. She didn’t see Mammy scowling a
warning at her to hold her tongue.

“
Non
, I think not.
I think it is one of the sons. The good looking one. Here we are,” she said,
handing Deborah Ann the bonnet.

Deborah Ann’s world shifted. The light seemed to dim, the
air to thicken. Nothing in life could be what she’d thought it was. She leaned
into Mammy, her corset constricting her ribs, cutting off her breath.

“Mademoiselle? Are you ill?”

“I take her home, ma’am,” Mammy said, hustling Deborah Ann
to the door. “We don’t need no hat today.”