Evermore: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 3) (6 page)

“I don’t care. William, you’re free. Maybe I have to hold on
to the papers, but you do not have to answer to anyone but me. And I say you’re
free.”

William studied his big hands. When he raised his face, his
cheeks glistened. “I owes you my life, Missy. They’d of killed me, I stayed in
the fields.”

Finn McKee waited at the front door of Butler’s
headquarters, the massive Custom House on Canal Street. He rubbed a finger
around his collar, the heat already bearing down and it only mid-morning in
May. July must be a hell on earth here.

He was still out of favor with General Butler. Going to be a
long summer, he thought. No dinner parties for him with fine wine, excellent
food, and the occasional charming woman who could be found to grace a Union
table. Could be, though, that bringing the offer of a colored regiment would
put him back in the general’s good graces. General Butler surely needed more
men to hold New Orleans.

Finn recognized the unmistakable black skin and imposing
figure of André Cailloux from fifty yards away. The man strolled down the
street with the bearing of … a king, McKee decided. And perhaps, in another
time, another place, he would have been.

Before the sentries could make an issue of a black man
approaching the door, Finn gave them the nod. Inside, Finn led Cailloux to
General Butler’s office and checked his watch. Ten o’clock precisely.

Finn stood at attention in front of General Butler’s desk,
Cailloux one step back and two to the side of him. They waited while the general
finished reading a document. He placed the pages on the desk, made a notation
in the margin, then crossed his hands in front of him.

“McKee,” the general said with neither enthusiasm nor
pleasure.

“Yes, sir,” Finn said. “This is André Cailloux. He is a
leader in the town and I believe you will find his proposal useful to you,
sir.”

An avowed abolitionist, Butler stood, a great gesture of
respect, and then placed his hands behind him while he took Cailloux’s measure.

Cailloux calmly returned the general’s perusal, his hands at
his side.

“André Cailloux?” General Butler said.

“Yes, sir.”

“What can I do for you?”

Cailloux stepped to the desk and offered his petition. “The
Native Guards wish to re-form and serve in the Union Army, General.”

Butler grunted. He unrolled the paper and read it through,
scanning the scores of names below the text. “You know what’s in this
document?” he queried, one eyebrow arched.

“General, sir, that document is in my hand,” Cailloux
replied, no hint of reproach in his voice, but McKee caught the flash in his
eye.

General Butler nodded to the table and chairs to the side of
the room. “Have a seat, Mr. Cailloux. You might as well stay, McKee.” He turned
to his adjutant. “Go fetch Colonel Masters. He needs to sit in on this.”

And so the discussion began. Finn watched the give and take
as André Cailloux, a former slave, negotiated with a general of the United
States Army.

Butler needed the Guards, but he gave no indication of it.
Cailloux more than held his own. The man could think on his feet, that was
clear, and as the Negro outlined his conditions, all in the tones of a
gentleman, Finn’s respect for him grew.

It was decided. Cailloux would lead the effort among his
people to reconstitute the regiment. The officers would themselves be freed
black men, up to the rank of captain. The enlistees would be used as soldiers
and not as laborers. They would receive monthly payments and a $200 signing
bonus.

The men stood, and instead of putting his hands behind his
back, this time General Butler held out his right hand. Cailloux took it, and
the men shook.

Finn felt the buzz of having just witnessed a momentous
event. When had a Negro ever, in this country, in any century, demanded and
gained concessions from authority? Never.

Saying good-bye at the entrance to the Custom House, Finn
stuck out his hand. “I congratulate you, Mr. Cailloux.”

With the Union Army in town, the Blue Ribbon, the renowned
club where gentlemen came to woo and acquire creole mistresses, was one of the
few clubs that kept its doors open through the steamy summer. Yanks and
Louisianans alike needed some place for their drinking, smoking, and scheming.
Nicolette accepted an engagement to sing on a Saturday night.

Once she was coiffed, dressed, and perfumed, she stepped
into the parlor to tell Cleo and Pierre goodnight. Nicolette lingered in the
doorway a moment, taking in the very picture of contentment. Pierre sat on one
end of the sofa. Her mother lay propped against the other end, her feet in
Pierre’s lap. Cleo had a book, spectacles perched on her nose. Pierre had the
newspaper folded, one hand absently rubbing Cleo’s bare foot.

Nicolette had yearned, ever since she’d left girlhood
behind, for a hot, flaming passionate love. For a man whose kiss would blaze
from her mouth to her very toes. But, this, too was love. Would this deep,
happy serenity be as hard to find as the passion she longed for?

“
Bon soir
, Maman. No tickling,
Pierre.”

Pierre ran his thumb nail up the sole of Cleo’s foot, and
Nicolette left the two of them playing and scolding.

William saw her to the Blue Ribbon and insisted he would be
across the street under a sycamore when she was ready to go home. She went
inside to earn her very generous fee.

Waiting for her cue to go on stage, Nicolette’s hand stole
to her stomach where butterflies fluttered. Stage fright. That was normal. But
not the other – not the drained confidence, the weakening fear she’d been
carrying this last year and more.

Let it go, she told herself. She closed her eyes and
breathed deeply. She could do this, could shrug off all the lingering fears
Adam left her with. She was finished with “timid.” She was a woman who had
freed another human being from bondage. She could certainly do this.

On stage, Nicolette played and sang and sassed her way
through her act, inspiring her audience to demand two encores. She left the
stage feeling buoyant, feeling like her old self.

At her dressing room door, several gentlemen lined up to
declare their admiration. This time, she did not shrink and wilt as she had at
the Silver Spoon. She bantered and fluttered her fan and gave her devotees an
extra little performance, the personal flirtation they wanted. If the handsome
captain came to her now, she would meet his glance unafraid, she’d laugh with
him, perhaps let him take her to his table for wine and supper. She glanced
down the row of men, wishing he were here, waiting for her.

And there stood Alistair Whiteaker, leaning on the wall
under the gas lamp. The light made a halo of his fair hair. Affection and
amusement played across his features as she toyed with her admirers.

At last, only Alistair remained. He grinned at her. “Almost
as much fun as watching you on stage.”

“Come in and sit while I get these shoes off.”

“What if instead of coming in I arrange a supper for us? May
I entice you with chilled wine and the Blue Ribbon’s best Veal Diablo?”

“You may! I’m famished.”

Half an hour later, a white-jacketed steward led Nicolette
past the main dining room. She hesitated. “This way, mam’selle,” the steward
said and took her to the third floor.

Alistair had arranged a private dining room? She had been
upstairs once before, but that time she’d been in a party of six. This time,
she would be alone with a gentleman in the notorious Blue Ribbon.

Yet she felt calm. Ready. Where was the shaking dread that
had shuddered through her the last year whenever a man approached her? She’d
been fearless on stage tonight. She’d even enjoyed the nonsense with the
backstage johnnies. Broken pride, broken jaw, shattered spirit? All healed?

She’d taken her life back. Just like that. When she’d made
William a free man, she’d freed herself? She laughed. It couldn’t be so simple.
She was just full of herself coming off the stage. But it felt good.

With a light step, she followed the steward down the
carpeted hallway. He knocked. When Alistair opened the door, Nicolette walked
in, ready to enjoy wine, Veal Diablo, and Alistair.

He took both her hands and held them out. “I haven’t seen you
in this shade of rose. You’re even more beautiful than the last time I saw
you.”

The door closed behind her and they were alone. Actually,
truly alone.

“Champagne?”

“Please,” she said, removing her gloves, a concession to
summer heat.

Alistair wore black tails, a stiff white shirt and
immaculate collar. He’d had his fair hair cut short and his beard trimmed close
to the jaw. He looked very fine, his blue eyes the same deep shade as the
sapphire pin he wore in his cravat. And he wore that tantalizing cologne with
the hint of sandalwood she liked so much.

“Supper’s on its way.” He handed her a flute of champagne
and gestured to the red velvet love seat.

He kept her glass filled as he entertained her with society
gossip about people they both knew, the Presswoods, the Neys, the Johnstons.
Nicolette’s attention strayed to the red velvet drapery behind the love seat.
She knew what was behind the curtain. She had a friend, now a rich man’s
plaçée, who’d told her that after an elegant supper and two bottles of wine,
her gentleman had opened the drapes to reveal a plush divan. At that point,
after weeks of negotiation between her gentleman and her mother had already
taken place, she had sealed the bargain with the gift of her virginity.

“The Presswoods elect to remain in town for the summer. A
bit risky, but Mr. Presswood is determined. You might find Miss Deborah Ann
flighty, but she’s staying with him.”

Nicolette remembered Miss Deborah Ann quietly taking control
of her parlor after the Abelards’ disgraceful exit. She
was not a flighty girl, or at least not so silly as Nicolette had first taken
her for. “Rather brave of her, with the risk of yellow fever.”

Brave, perhaps, but such a virgin, she thought. The American
belles seemed unaware of themselves below the waist. When Nicolette and her
friends gossiped about the well-to-do whom they entertained, they wondered if
the very proper misses even knew where babies came from. Their wedding nights
must be a miracle of revelation.

Virginity
.
Nicolette had guarded her virtue just as every young woman did – every young
woman who had the luxury of food and shelter without having to bargain for it
with her body. She had never been in want, never been truly on her own, but she
lived with her eyes open. The Quarter abounded with hollow-eyed girls desperate
for a man’s attention, and for his coins.

She held her flute steady as Alistair poured champagne. His
gaze rested on her bare shoulders. He tilted the bottle up as his eyes moved
over her lips and finally met hers.

What if I let Alistair
take me to the divan behind the curtain? Would the world tip off its axis?

Nicolette was not some cloistered belle whose every act was
scrutinized to ensure her reputation was spotless. Those strictures simply did
not apply to her, and that was an advantage in her mind. Unfettered by the
society ladies’ care to appear unrelentingly virtuous, she was freer than a
demoiselle
like Deborah Ann Presswood.
Freer than a rich man’s mistress. Nicolette’s heart, mind, and body did not
belong to a father, a brother, a family name, nor to a lover who paid for her
affection. She belonged only to herself if she dared take what she wanted.

And what did she want? It wasn’t enough to let Alistair love
her. She wanted
to love
, to let
desire burn away all her fears. She wanted to take and to give, not just
accept.

The waiters appeared with covered dishes, the aroma of onion
and pepper and veal filling the room.

“Let me help you with your chair.” Most properly, Alistair
seated her at the round table draped with snowy linen. Most improperly, his
ungloved hand caressed her bare arm for the briefest moment.

Awareness blossomed, her skin exquisitely sensitive to his
touch. She lowered her eyes at the tightening of her belly, at the jolt of
desire.

Alistair opened a second bottle of wine. He was strange
tonight, she thought. Gay and amusing, then quiet and even morose until he
seemed to catch himself and launched into another story to please her.

Was he thinking of the divan behind the drapery? Was it the
same red plush as the drapes? Was it wide enough for a man and a woman to lie
side by side? She drank the champagne and felt its bubbling essence tickle
through her veins, warming her, loosening her.

If she were truly a white woman, not simply white-skinned,
she certainly could not have met Alistair alone, in private. Nor would he have
asked it of her. She was not insensible to the interpretation that the
invitation itself was an insult. But she chose to see it otherwise. She chose
to be here.

Alistair rang the bell to have the table cleared.

“This has been a delightful treat, Mr. Whiteaker. I thank
you.”

“Are we back to ‘Mr. Whiteaker’ again?” His mouth quirked in
a half-smile, his eyes a little sad. “I thought we’d agreed we might dispense
with the Mr. and the Mademoiselle tonight.”

She watched his hands on the bottle as he poured her more
champagne. His fingers were long and slim, the nails buffed and rounded. She
imagined those hands pulling the golden cords of the red drapery, slowly
revealing the scene of so many seductions. She took a deep breath and let it
out slowly. Might Alistair let go of his famous restraint tonight? Why else had
he asked her to this oh so private dining room?

Alistair helped pull her chair from the table and gestured
toward the love seat. “Sit with me, Nicolette.”