Evermore: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 3) (26 page)

That earned him a laugh. He loved to make her laugh.

“Do you sing, Captain?”

“No, ma’am, and be glad of it.”

Wallace barged in, ruining the moment. “Morning, Captain.
Miss Chamard.”

Finn gave her a speculative look. “Miss Chamard, have you
had your coffee this morning?”

“I have not, as a matter of fact.”

“Then may I invite you to the coffee house up the street? We
can do nothing here, and I hear Monsieur Hebert makes the best brew in the
Quarter.”

“Monsieur Hebert still has real coffee?”

“That is the rumor.”

Nicolette inclined her head. “Then I accept.”

“Mr. Wallace, you have the con, as our naval friends say.”

“If Monsieur Hebert has beignets, Mr. Wallace, I shall bring
you one.”

On the street, the sun was full up and the city’s bustle was
well under way. Finn tucked Nicolette’s hand under his arm. It was nice, having
her close, matching her stride to his. They didn’t talk much on the street.
That was nice too.

Listen to me, he thought to himself. I’m on air with her by
my side, and I’m calling it “nice.”

Finn couldn’t imagine one of his sisters accompanying a man
to the coffee shop without a chaperon. Unheard of. But here was Miss Chamard,
propriety itself, and she dared it. He admired the hell out of her for it.
Women here had such confidence, such freedom to be out with a man in public and
no maiden aunt in tow every minute of the live long day.

If she’d had a chaperon, he’d never have been able to kiss
her at the gumbo shop. He meant to find another chance to kiss her before they
had to go back.

As they approached Monsieur Hebert’s small shop, the
intoxicating aroma of roasting coffee beans drew them in. Finn breathed deeply.
No parched corn and hickory nuts steeped in tepid water for him this morning.

“
Bon jour
, Jean,”
Nicolette called as they entered the shop. As far as Finn could tell, Nicolette
knew every man, woman, and child in the Vieux Carré. Probably every horse and
dog, too.

“
Ah, ma belle
! Come in, come in.” Monsieur Hebert, a small man
with a halo of white hair, kissed her hands, declared his joy at seeing her,
and finally sat them at a cozy table in the corner.

“Is there no place in New Orleans I can take you that you
are not acquainted with, Mademoiselle?” Finn complained.

She smiled at his sulky tone. “I don’t believe so, Captain.”

Finn glanced around the room. Other patrons chatted and read
newspapers over their coffee, much like folks did in the Boston cafés. But at
home, the coffeehouses leaned toward ashtrays laden with cigar stubs,
newspapers strewn about on spotty pine table tops. Here, each marble-topped
table boasted a rosebud in a glass. Lacy white curtains at the front window
filtered the morning sun. With a squint, Finn deciphered the pattern in the
green wallpaper above the wainscoting: leering satyrs pursuing scantily-clad nymphs.
No, New Orleans certainly was not Boston.

Finn sighed noisily in contentment. She smiled at him as
though he’d said something witty. He felt his heart must be alight in the
depths of his chest when she smiled at him like that. He looked away, trying not
to show the entire café what she did to him.

He took a sip of rich black coffee, scalding hot, just
the way he liked it.

“Strong enough to bend your spoon?” she asked.

“Perfect.”

The beignets he left for her and Wallace, but Finn delighted
in the dusting of powdered sugar on Nicolette’s upper lip. Maybe it’d still be
there when he found that quiet place on the way back to headquarters.

“So you have three brothers.” He needed to know more
about her. His parents would expect a full account of a woman’s family if he
meant to take her home.

“Actually, one brother, two half-brothers.”

“Ah,” he said. “Then your father?” he guessed. “Your father,
or your mother, was widowed?”

For a moment, it seemed she would not answer him. Had he
stumbled again? Maybe her loss was recent.

She wiped her mouth with her handkerchief, then contemplated
her hands resting in her lap. At last she said, “My father is a cane planter.”

“Then your mother --”

Miss Chamard raised her hand to interrupt him. “Captain
McKee, I must explain something to you. Something I believe you have
misunderstood about me.” She raised her head in a resolute fashion. At last
someone was going to explain New Orleans society to him.

“My father is a cane planter. Creole, you may have guessed.
We speak French at home, and I know my English is sadly accented. But my
mother, Captain, is not --”

She looked at him strangely, her gray eyes darker now.

“Yes, Miss Chamard? She is not French?”

“I . . . I am the daughter, you see, of a woman who --”

Monsieur Hebert interrupted, the coffee pot in his hand.
“Mademoiselle Nicolette is the daughter of the most wonderful chanteuse in all
of New Orleans!” He put a hand on Nicolette’s shoulder and squeezed it
slightly.

Nicolette shook her head. “No, Jean. He needs to --”

“Do you not agree, Captain, that our French Creoles are the
most beautiful women in New Orleans?”

She flushed so red that her eyes teared.
Finn had remarked her contradictions before, confident one moment, and
vulnerable the next. When she was like this, he wanted to take her in his arms,
kiss away whatever fear it was rising in her.

“Mademoiselle Chamard is the most beautiful woman I have
ever known,” Finn said, putting his heart behind the words.

“
Ma belle Nicolette
, she is beautiful on the inside as well
as the outside. And that is all a man needs to know of a woman, I think. Am I
right, Monsieur Yankee
Capitaine
?”

Monsieur Hebert leaned over and kissed Miss Chamard’s
forehead. She bit her lip, apparently fighting tears.

What had set her off? Her mother being a singer? Finn had
already accepted that Miss Chamard herself was an entertainer. What did it
matter ?

“Captain, truly, I must --”

Mr. Simpson burst into the shop. Wide eyed, he spotted Finn
and breathlessly strode through the tables and coffee drinkers. “You got to
come on back, Captain. Things is happening.”

“The lines are up?” Finn said, rising.

“No, but a mail ship docked twenty minutes ago. There’s news
from Virginia.”

Conversation stopped as every ear in the café turned. Finn
raised a cautioning finger for Simpson to hold his tongue and tossed back the
rest of his coffee. Nicolette wrapped the remaining beignets in her
handkerchief. They left the coffee shop in a whirlwind of curious glances.

The news: the Confederates had renewed the attack on Harper’s
Ferry at 6:30 a.m. the second day, pushing against the Union breastworks while
another Southern unit flanked the Federal right. Col. Miles’ men had pushed
back, and the Confederates had retreated with heavy losses. Day two to the
Union Army.

Feeling optimistic, Finn and his team attended to other
messages. Mid-morning, General Butler bustled into the telegraph room, his
adjutant trailing behind him.

“No more news from Virginia?” he demanded.

Finn bit back a retort. He couldn’t conjure up packet ships
no matter how imperiously Butler demanded them.

“No, sir. Not yet.”

“Let’s hope Miles’ counterattack has discouraged the Rebs
and they’ll back off. But Dixon Miles was an incompetent ass when I knew him
ten years ago, and no doubt he’s an incompetent ass now.”

Butler seemed to realize he had spoken indelicately. He
bowed his head to Nicolette. “Excuse me, my dear. I don’t believe we’ve met.
Captain?”

“Sir, may I introduce you to Mademoiselle Nicolette
Chamard?”

Nicolette had seen the general many times, from a distance.
This was the first time she’d been in the same room with him. It was true, what
they said. General Butler was indeed cross-eyed.

Nicolette stood and offered her hand. She thought
General Butler cast a keen look at her face, though it was difficult to tell
the way his eyes strayed from the straight line.

“Of course. Mademoiselle Chamard.” The general executed a
gallant bow over her hand. “I had the pleasure of hearing you sing last May. At
the Silver . . . .”

“The Silver Spoon, General,” Nicolette said. The general’s
forehead was an enormous bare dome, the hair hanging dark and scanty on the
sides of his head. On the whole he was not an attractive figure, his belly
jutting far beyond his boots. But he had bearing, and he exuded confidence. And
arrogance. He had not earned the nickname Beast Butler by being charming.

“Exactly. Lovely voice, Mademoiselle, and quite the comic.”

Nicolette performed an abbreviated curtsy. “Thank you,
sir.”

The general eyed her speculatively. “Mrs. Butler and I are
having an entertainment at the end of the month. Perhaps you would consent to
sing for us, Mademoiselle? I do apologize for the lateness of the invitation. I
claim the vicissitudes of war for the
faux pas
.”

Nicolette inclined her head in acceptance. “It would be an
honor, General.”

“Wonderful. Now, McKee, I’m putting her in your hands.
Getting her to the party, seeing her home, and so on. Take care of it, Captain.
And bring me the news from Harper’s Ferry the moment it comes in.”

The general and the adjutant bustled out of the room.
Nicolette turned to Captain McKee and raised her eyebrows.

The captain seemed very pleased, grinning at her. “It seems
I have the onerous duty of escorting you to and from the soirée, Miss Chamard.”

Nicolette loved the way he teased, so different from the
flowery formality she was familiar with. A Southern gentlemen would have
expended great effort to assure her that the honor of escorting her would be
all his etcetera etcetera. Forgetting Mr. Wallace and
Simpson had nothing better to do for the moment than to watch her and the
captain make fools of themselves, she locked eyes with him, the silly grin on
her face a match for his.

Hursh Farrow stuck his head in the door. “Finn! Need you
downstairs.”

Their moment was over. The captain followed the major out.
Nicolette sank into her chair. She was going to sing for the Union general! Of
course, many of the people of New Orleans would be incensed at her accepting an
invitation from Beast Butler. But she had already cast her lot with the
occupiers. If society’s matrons ostracized her from their gatherings in the
coming season, so be it.

As for explaining to Finn that she was a colored woman . . .
If Monsieur Hebert hadn’t interrupted, it’d be over. He would have stared at
her, his ready smile gone, his brown eyes suddenly curtained behind courtesy.
She couldn’t have borne it.

She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her mouth.
What if she didn’t tell him, ever? This was just a passing war-time interlude
for him. He’d be leaving with Wetzle’s unit soon, and
she’d never see him again. Why couldn’t she enjoy him until them? Enjoy the
lie?

Two days later, they got the final news. On September 15,
after four days of battle, the Federals had raised the white flag of surrender
over Harper’s Ferry.

The defeat was total. Confederate soldiers took possession
of 12,419 Northern officers and soldiers, 13,000 small arms, and 73 artillery
pieces. Nicolette shook her head. These were not small losses. When were the
Union armies going to find their backbone? Why could Lincoln not find a worthy
general?

Jubilation flooded the town. Yet another Confederate
conquest! Persuaded that total victory was at hand, the Confederate
sympathizers, most of the citizenry, would be eager to punish people like her,
who had chosen the losing side.

Finn had been called away long before the work day was over,
or he’d have not allowed her to leave headquarters alone, nor would Simpson or
Wallace, but they were occupied. Feeling confident with the pistol in her
shopping bag, she slipped out without saying goodbye.

At Jackson Square, she skirted a crowd gathered around a
mustachioed man pontificating with all the fervor of a true believer. Oh God.
The speaker -- he was the man who’d glared at her with such venom when Finn
took her to see the
Essex
. The man’s rousing voice carried over the heads of
the rabble who were already drunk and shouting out obscenities against Union
sympathizers.

The orator was naming names!

“Josiah Everwood! Sold a hundred
beeves to fill the Union soldiers’ bellies!” The crowd booed. “Ebenezer Rivers!
Brought in two dozen horses and four dozen mules from Feliciana and made a
king’s profit selling to the Union!”

“String him up!”

“Burn the bastard out!”

Nicolette’s heart thudded in her chest. She kept her head
bent and pushed through the fringe of the mob.

“Nicolette Chamard!”

Nicolette’s breath seized in her chest. She forced her feet
to keep moving.
They don’t see me. Keep
moving. Don’t run.

“A Yankee whore! Every single day, Nicolette Chamard
slithers into the Custom House to service Beast Butler himself!”

“Strip her and slice her!”

“Whores and witches, throw ’em in the river!”

Nicolette made it to the corner and turned onto Dumaine. Out of sight of the throng drunk on hate and
spite, she ran, her petticoats a white spume at the edge of her dark hem,
heedless of staring, gaping faces, panic licking at her heels.

At Royal, she veered around the corner, ran to Esplanade,
and crossed into the quieter Faubourg Marigny. Her lungs burning, her chest heaving, she slowed
her steps, clearing her head.

She passed a tavern where Confederate sympathizers laughed
and drank and shouted insults to the Union occupiers. Half this part of town
would be roaring drunk in another hour, half of them would have roused
themselves into mindless fury.