Evermore: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 3) (46 page)

Tansy lay a light kiss on his jaw and got up. She lit a
candle, wrapped herself in her robe, and settled into the overstuffed chair
with her book. This one was about Spaniards discovering the new world. How she
would like to have been there when Columbus first made landfall, thinking he was
in India. And found all those Indians! She stifled the laugh burbling up at the
linguistic absurdity. She was just getting to the part where Cortés discovered the
great city cut through with canals.

“Come back to bed and keep me warm.” Valere’s voice was
muffled in his pillow. She blew out her candle and slid in beside him. “Cold
feet! Woman, what have you been doing?”

She stuck one cold foot between his shins. “Reading. Did you
know the Aztecs built a city very much like Venice? Canals through and around.
And like New Orleans, the water table was so high, they practically lived in
the marsh. I suppose it’s even hotter in Mexico, though.”

Valere tossed an arm over her belly. “Why is that?” he
mumbled.

She moved her head to see his face on the pillow, but it was
too dark to decide if he were teasing her. She suspected he was not. “It is so
very much further south, you see.”

“Is it?” He shifted to get comfortable. “Go to sleep,
Tansy.”

Tansy helped Alain tie his shoes, took his hand, and set out
for the Academy. She tried to do all her errands early in the day when she was
sure Valere still lay abed in his townhouse and so wouldn’t call while she was
out. Her first task this morning, to return Christophe’s
History of the
Americas.

She and Alain climbed the schoolhouse steps. Too early for
the students yet, morning breezes wafted cool air into Christophe’s schoolroom.
Alain dashed for the resident cat who allowed herself to be caught and petted.

Christophe raised his head and in that one unguarded moment,
revealed a depth of pleasure at seeing her that flashed through her with far
too much warmth. “Good morning
,
” he said.

“Finished the book.” He reached for it with his large,
capable hand. That hand had once pressed her body against his. She’d been
trimming the jasmine vine that threatened to cover the French doors and he’d
stepped into the courtyard. With a gleam in his eye, a glance over his shoulder
to check her mother was out of sight, he’d pulled her under the green canopy.

“What are you doing?” she’d whispered.

He caught her in his arms and dared her with his eyes. She
could have backed away, like a good girl. But she’d let him pull her close. Let
him lean down, the smell of jasmine and Christophe’s own scent filling her
head. She sighed. He kissed her. His hand traced her backbone till it rested at
her waist, and then he pulled her in to his body. When he touched her tongue
with his own, her breath caught. When he parted her legs with his knee and
deepened the kiss, she completely lost herself in him, in the searing heat of
his hand through the back of her dress.

Then Maman had stepped into the courtyard and shrieked as if
a tiger mauled her only child.

Tansy jumped back, guilty and ashamed. But Christophe, all
the while Maman scolded and railed, ran his thumbnail up her spine and then
cupped her bottom and squeezed.

The next night, Maman had presented her at the Blue Ribbon
Ball.

Tansy swallowed. She had no business remembering that stolen
moment. She belonged to Valere. She was a mother. And Christophe was a
respected man, a teacher, a musician. And yes, a gambler who sometimes showed
up with a bruise on his chin and a busted knuckle. The two of them were no
longer love sick adolescents.

“What did you think of it?” he asked.

 “Very sad. The Aztecs losing everything to the Spanish, and
then they died from those dreadful plagues.” Did Christophe allow himself to
think of that kiss? She didn’t, she really didn’t. She was settled now, and one
long-ago kiss didn’t mean so very much anyway.

“Not a happy story, no.”

“Now I want a book about plagues.”

Christophe laughed. “Aren’t you the morbid one? Alas, my
library is sorely limited.” He swiveled his chair and ran his finger along the
books shelved behind him. “How about this one?”

She looked at the spine. “
Candide
. What’s it about?”

“Where would be the fun if I told you?” Christophe held his
arm out. “Alain, come show me your letters.”

Alain abandoned the tabby cat and climbed into Christophe’s
lap. When Alain glanced at her, a secretive smile on his face, Tansy raised her
brows in collusion.

He picked up a chalk and laboriously drew an A on
Christophe’s slate. With his forehead scrunched in concentration, his tongue
between his lips, Tansy thought him the most intelligent, handsome boy in New
Orleans. He’d practiced his letters for weeks now and was about to astound his
friend by writing his entire name.

“ALAIN?” Christophe exclaimed. “You wrote your name!
Tres
bien!
”

Christophe hugged him and turned him around on his lap so he
could look him in the eye. “You, Alain, are a great scholar.”

“
Merci.
” Alain slid off Christophe’s lap to pursue
the cat.

Tansy sat at a student table and opened
Candide
.
Christophe had given her her first book, too. In her last month of pregnancy
with Alain, she had lumbered across the Quarter with Maman to visit
Christophe’s mother. By chance, Christophe had dropped in, a book under his arm.
She’d not exchanged a single word with him since that day under the jasmine,
but there was no distance between them. They talked and laughed and drank his
maman’s punch. When he rose to leave, he handed
Frankenstein, the Modern
Prometheus
to her and said, “Keep it.” And so Tansy read her first book,
staying up late into the night, frightened and fascinated.

Christophe came around his desk and sat on a corner to lean
over her.

“This one is fiction.”

“Is it a love story?”

When she glanced up, Christophe’s eyes were on her. Sometimes
he focused on her as if she were a puzzle he’d like to solve. Sometimes, like
now, she felt he would lift her to her feet and take her across the desk. He
wouldn’t though. Christophe had never deliberately touched her since their
first, their only kiss.

She couldn’t meet his eyes when he forgot himself like that.
It unsettled her, it hurt her. In another time, another place . . . Well. She
was spoken for. She was so very fortunate to have a kind, generous patron like
Valere. And really, Christophe had no interest in her any more. Just now and
then she let herself think he did.

Christophe removed himself to sit behind his desk again, and
she breathed more easily. “Not a romance, not like you mean,” he said. “But
it’s fun. It’ll make you laugh.”

“You don’t need it for your students?”

“Those rascals? They’re not ready for satire, the little
brutes. We’re reading a story about a boy and his dog at the moment.”

“I want a dog!” Alain said.

“I thought you wanted a cat,” Tansy said.

“Maman, I want a dog and a cat.”

“We’ll ask your father. Perhaps he will allow a kitten.”

Alain engrossed himself in the chalk nubs he found on the
desks. Christophe’s lowered voice barely suppressed his impatience. “Why would
Valcourt object to Alain having a pet? Surely that is of no interest to a man
who is seldom in the house when Alain is awake?”

When Alain was awake? Tansy’s face heated and her shoulders
stiffened. She busied herself putting the book in her shopping bag. “He doesn’t
like surprises, that’s all.”

She yanked the drawstring on her bag and knotted it too
tightly. Christophe thought she was a fool, a childish fool, for deferring to
her patron. How could he think that of her when his own mother had been a
plaçée at one time. And yet he made her feel she led a lamentable life. She did
not need his disapproval. Maman supplied enough of that for a dozen daughters.

“Alain.” She held her hand out. “It’s time to go.”

“Tansy.” She turned toward Christophe, but she still did not
look at him. “I beg your pardon.”

Now she raised her eyes to his and saw only a mask, rather
cold, certainly closed off. “It’s nothing.
Adieu
, Christophe. I’ll
return your book next week.”

Christophe sat, elbows on his desk, his eyes closed behind
his steepled fingers. Regret scorched him. He’d upset her, again. Her visits
every week to borrow a book were too important to him to risk frightening her
off, and he’d hurt her. When would he learn to keep his mouth shut? He should
know better than to even mention Valcourt. She almost never did.

He rubbed his face. This was an old hurt. He simply had to
accept the life she’d chosen. No, that wasn’t right, he thought, the bitterness
edging back into his mind. She had not chosen. Her mother had done that for
her. Tansy had been too young, too immersed in the plaçage culture to see other
possibilities for herself.

Estelle had molded her daughter into what every white man
seemed to want, a biddable woman. Christophe remembered that day at the lake
when they were children. His mother and Tansy’s had taken them for an outing
and he and Tansy had run wild, darting in and out among the tall pines,
shrieking and shouting with abandon. That Tansy had been free and bold and
unafraid. She had been herself.

But Estelle suppressed all that joy and used Tansy’s
inherent sweetness to turn her into a
nice
girl, a biddable girl. Except
that one afternoon when he’d caught her under the jasmine vines and kissed her.
Tansy had not been sweet or biddable then. She had seized that moment, seized
him in a kiss that seared him to his toes.

Christophe ran a hand through his hair. Was she that hot
when Valere took her to bed? He shook his head. He had no business thinking of
that. Even if Estelle’s steady hand propelled her, Tansy had entered into this
life with her eyes open.

What added to the bitterness, though, was that he could have
supported her from the time he was twenty, a year or so after she’d been taken
to the Blue Ribbon. He had already begun investing his poker winnings by then
and he’d quickly become a man of property with a growing bank account. He’d
never be as rich as Valcourt, but he could keep her and Alain in comfort with
his pay as a musician, his salary as a teacher, and his income from the houses
he owned in the
Vieux Carré
.

He squeezed his eyes shut. If he’d only had a little more
time, been a little older when Estelle sealed Tansy’s fate.

He opened his eyes to stare across the room, trying to find
the resignation that sustained him. When he’d met her at his mother’s that day,
her belly full and round, it had been nearly two years since he’d been in the
same room with her. Tansy had been radiant. But weren’t all women in her
condition radiant? Or had she glowed with love for her protector? He hadn’t
known. And now? She had her fine clothes, her own cottage, a generous
allowance. All she need do in return was pretend to adore some fatuous rich man
who deluded himself he could buy affection. The muscles in Christophe’s jaw bunched.
Valere Valcourt was empty, vain, and idle, yet he possessed Tansy Marie
Bouvier.

Did she live a lie, pretending to love that ass? Or had she
actually developed an affection for him? Christophe hadn’t made it out, and it
gnawed at him.

The thunder of feet in the hallway announced his pupils had
arrived, ready to have their heads stuffed with numbers and letters and facts.
He breathed in deeply. When the rascals stormed into the room, he welcomed them
with a smile he didn’t feel.

1. Deborah Ann’s father Mr. Presswood signs the oath of loyalty to Mr. Lincoln’s government. He feels he must gain the Union’s trust enough to continue scheming on behalf of the Confederacy while under Union control, but he feels he has besmirched his honor by shamefully signing his name. Does pragmatism outweigh honor? Are you sympathetic to Mr. Presswood? How do you compare Mr. Presswood with Dix Weber’s conduct? Is Nicolette’s working with the Union Army also collaboration?

2. Deborah Ann is what they used to call high-strung. What do you think is behind her actions toward Lucinda and the boys? Is she simply spoiled and feels entitled to whatever she wants? Is she temporarily deranged? Do her hormonal difficulties with PMS excuse her actions?

3. Aside from Deborah Ann’s rash actions with Lucinda, how do you evaluate her character? What other responses might she have made to learning that her beloved has another woman? What would you be willing to tolerate considering that keeping a plaçée was an accepted practice among the Creole planters of that time?

4. Marcel has two women, and feels quite justified in keeping both. He doesn’t seem to feel the least guilt or uneasiness. His situation is accepted in his Creole culture. What do you make of his sense of morality?

5. Marcel feels he is in an impossible situation when he finds his childhood friend spying for the enemy. If Lieutenant Smythe had not hanged Dix Weber, what would you see as a “good” outcome for Dix and for Marcel? How could it possibly come out all right? Should Dix accept parole and shamefully sit out the rest of the war to save his life?

6. Alistair Whiteaker is a gentle soul who finds himself in an impossible situation just as Marcel does with Dix. Alistair loves Nicolette. He is responsible for his mother and his younger sister. If he marries Nicolette, his mother will be ostracized, his sister will not find a good match, and his own associates, business and social, will shun him. There is also the real possibility of violence if he should marry Nicolette. What would you have him do? Are your feelings toward him contemptuous or sympathetic?