Galahad in Jeans (Louisiana Knights Book 2) (4 page)

She craned her head to stare up through the windshield at the green tunnel overhead. She’d seen pictures, of course, but the trees were more massive than expected, their ancient, linear perfection extra impressive. They dwarfed the house at their far end, making it seem like a doll’s mansion.

That was a serious optical illusion, she discovered as she pulled up in its front circle paved with sun-and-time-bleached oyster shells. The Greek revival mansion, with its portico supported by plastered brick pillars as big around as the trunks of the live oaks leading to it, was huge. Regardless, it was four-square and fairly simple, an antebellum classic.

The red brick exterior had faded to a soft rose color, and traditional shutters folded back from the windows were painted a green so dark it bordered on black. Tall windows hinted at taller ceilings inside, and the front door appeared heavy enough to withstand a battering ram. A formal garden lay to one side, marked by low, precisely clipped evergreen hedges, while green fields stretched away on the other side, stopping only at the distant tree line.

Carla stepped out of the car and stood for a moment, using her briefcase as protection from the drizzling rain. In the distant reaches of the field, she could see a man on a tractor. It was Beau Benedict, she was almost certain of it. He seemed to have forgotten he’d invited her, or else had no intention of being on hand to welcome her to Windwood.

If this was Louisiana hospitality, she didn’t think much of it. Not that she expected a great deal, in all truth. Baltimore, where the magazine’s offices were located, was considered by many to be in the southern United States, but the kind of enthusiastic welcome once common in the area had all but disappeared. Women juggling careers and families had little time for such gentile gestures. Certainly, she had no time for them.

The great front door of the house swung open, and a woman stepped out onto the front portico. “Hello there! You the lady from the magazine?”

“That’s right.” Carla closed her car door and rounded the hood, giving her name as she moved toward the house. “I believe you’re expecting me?”

A pleasant smile creased the woman’s brown face. “Yes, indeed, though Mr. Beau never thought you’d get here this early.”

“I’m sorry. Am I going to be in the way?” She’d been up forever. The neon lights and loud music from the beer joint across the street from her rundown motel had kept her up half the night, and the smells of mold, disintegrating carpet and high-powered cleaner had not encouraged her to linger this morning.

“Oh, no, not at all. I rang him on his cell, and he’ll be along directly. Come in, come in. Would you care for coffee?”

“That would be lovely,” Carla answered with fervor. The best that could be said of the lukewarm liquid from the motel restaurant was that it was coffee colored.

“I’m Eloise, housekeeper here at Windwood, by the way. Now if you’ll take a seat in the parlor, I’ll be right back.”

The woman, her dark brown hair braided and wrapped around her head and wearing a dark blue uniform, held the door until Carla crossed the threshold. She led the way into a long central hall laid with beautifully faded Persian rugs and marked by a staircase that rose in a graceful curve toward the second floor. Waving toward an open doorway, she continued toward the back of the house.

Carla expected formality in a room called a parlor, but discovered relaxed comfort scented with lemon oil polish and potpourri instead. Antiques certainly sat here and there, a secretary with a fold-out writing surface and books behind glass doors, curious side tables and vintage vases filled with flowers. But these were softened by upholstered pieces and table coverings in a plethora of green, rose and blue patterns, all of which somehow blended together and coexisted with another heirloom rug.

It didn’t take a genius to realize the décor must reflect the taste and personality of Beau’s late aunt. The wonder was that he hadn’t cleared everything out to create a man cave with wide screen TV, gigantic entertainment center and leather recliners.

The books behind the secretary’s glass doors appeared to be first editions of fiction from the forties and fifties, though a few histories and biographies were scattered among them. Carla turned from inspecting them as she heard footsteps behind her.

It was the housekeeper, carrying a heavy silver tray set with a coffee service, as well as a small tower server holding cakes, cookies and miniature sandwiches. Carla’s eyes widened before she moved to clear a place on the old trunk that served as a table in front of the overstuffed sofa. “This looks wonderful,” she exclaimed, “though you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”

“Mr. Beau said I was to take care of you, and of course that’s what Miss Tillie would have wanted, too.”

Carla’s interest immediately stirred. “Miss Tillie was Beau’s great-aunt who lived here, I believe? You knew her?”

“Oh my, yes. I’ve been at Windwood these thirty years and more, taking care of the place since before Miss Tillie’s brother passed.”

“That’s when she became the owner?” At the woman’s quick nod while setting off cups and saucers from the tray, Carla went on. “You’ve done a fine job. It’s really beautiful.”

“Well, it’s almost pilgrimage time. Everything has to look its best for the startup.”

“Pilgrimage?”

“Folks coming from everywhere to see these old houses in towns along the river road. They pile in by the busload, tromping through from morning ’til night. Mr. Beau swears every year he’s never going to put Windwood on the home tour again, but then he lets himself get talked into it.”

Carla had read about the annual showing of the old places in Chamelot, but forgotten what the event was called until now. And she could hear the pride in Eloise’s voice, even as she complained about the influx of visitors. The pilgrimage and medieval fair must be events to attract tourists, she thought, bringing money into the town.

“There has to be a certain amount of prestige in being a part of it all,” she said after a moment.

“I don’t know about that. Mr. Beau has a hard time saying no, is all. He came close, real close, to bowing out this year. His heart hasn’t been in it on account of Miss Tillie being so sick, and then her passing.”

“Was she ill for long?” Carla took a seat on the sofa and accepted the filled cup handed to her.

“Most of a year, really. She knew she didn’t have long when she sent in that gentleman thing to your magazine, but she was so determined to see it happen. I was glad, real glad, she lasted long enough to know Mr. Beau was picked for it, would almost say she waited to hear it.”

“Then I’m glad, too,” Carla said, and meant it, in spite of everything.

“She was the one insisted Mr. Beau carry on with the tour, too. She made him promise he’d do it for her. Not that he’d have refused her anything she asked. But it was Miss Tillie’s mother, his great-great grandmother, who started the whole pilgrimage thing back during the Great Depression. These big old places were in a bad way. Folks had a hard time keeping them up, were losing them right and left. No money for new roofs or back taxes, much less power and running water.”

“People pay to see them, I suppose.” Details of the pilgrimage could be useful in the article, but she was more interested in keeping the housekeeper talking. There was no saying where it might lead.

“They do that, though the place here pays its own way nowadays. A good thing, too, since the damage these tour people leave behind sometimes wipes the entrance fees right out.”

Carla took the napkin handed her, of pristine white linen with a rosebud embroidered in one corner. “And you have to see it gets repaired?”

“Sometimes. Mr. Beau does most of it himself, though, being right handy with tools and a paintbrush.”

Carla could imagine. He certainly looked as if he would be competent at most things, certainly those requiring physical labor. “I understand he has a nickname of sorts,” she said as casually as possible. “Something to do with knights?”

“Oh, my land, who told you about that?”

“An elderly lady I met on the street yesterday. I believe the name was—”

“Miss Myrtle Chauvin, I expect. She does dote on Beau and two or three of his cousins. That would be Lancelot, who’s our sheriff now, since the last election, and Tristan that everybody calls Trey.”

“I see the connection between the town of Chamelot and King Arthur’s knights, but can’t imagine anyone would saddle babies with names like that.”

Eloise chuckled. “It was their mothers, bless their hearts. They were friends all through school, regular belles, into anything and everything. Then two of them up and married Benedict brothers. Next thing you know, they were in the family way and due within a couple weeks of each other. Mr. Beau’s young mama never married, but got herself in trouble, so she was right there with the other two. The first of them to go into labor had been queen of the medieval fair some years back—our other big celebration every fall, you understand. She named her baby boy Lancelot, and called him Lance. Well, the other two couldn’t be outdone, now, could they? They swore they’d name their babies Galahad and Tristan if they turned out to be boys. Mr. Beau’s little mama didn’t get the chance, but Miss Tillie did it for her, right there in the hospital while she was sinking, so that poor child would know it had been done exactly as she wanted.”

“I’m sorry,” Carla said quietly, as the housekeeper used the corner of her apron to dab at her eyes. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, no.” The housekeeper waved away the suggestion.

“Still, those names must have been a trial for young boys.”

“I’ll say they were! Though Beau would have been Robert Beauregard Benedict IV anyway, which was bad enough. Oh, but the three of them learned to fight like wildcats, protecting themselves and each other from fools who thought they were funny. And that was before they were in that play in high school, the one about King Arthur and that round table of his. But Miss Tillie always said it made them the men they are now.”

Carla tilted her head as she studied the housekeeper. “Do you think so?”

“Might have, though it made for a lot of grief, too.”

“For Beau, you mean. You’ve known him all this time.”

Eloise gave a decided nod. “Since he was a baby, and a sweeter child never drew breath, in spite of his fighting spirit. Oh, he was the light in Miss Tillie’s eyes, I can tell you that much.”

“So nice looking, too. It’s a little odd that he’s never married.”

It was another shameless ploy to extract information. Uncomfortable with using it, Carla reached to pick up a saucer as she spoke, and then used the heavy, wedge-shaped silver server to place a slice of pound cake on it. She needed to know these things. For the article, of course.

“Now who told you that? He married that flighty, spoiled preacher’s daughter right before he went into the service. The two had a big church wedding with half a dozen bridesmaids and everything.”

Carla had taken a bite of cake. It was marvelously moist, with hints of butter and almond, but she could hardly swallow it fast enough. “He was in the service?”

“Two hitches in the Army, most of those years as a Ranger, or something like that.”

A Ranger, the Army’s elite Special Forces. No wonder Robert G. B. Benedict seemed competence personified. “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t on the form his aunt filled out for him.”

“No, nor the bit about the divorce, either, I’ll be bound. Miss Tillie didn’t like thinking about those things. What she didn’t like, she pretended never happened.”

“They were that bad?”

“To her way of thinking. Miss Tillie never wanted to be reminded of how she feared for him or hurt for him while it was all going on. And she also didn’t want to remind Mr. Beau of those times, either. She was thoughtful that way.”

Carla frowned into her coffee cup. “It may seem so, but sometimes people need to talk about problems.”

“And sometimes they don’t. Mr. Beau knew how Miss Tillie felt, and she knew him through and through. Was no reason whatever for them to pick at the scabs of old injuries to see if they would bleed.”

“Oh, but surely—”

The housekeeper shook her head. “While he was gone for training, his brand new bride took up with weed-smoking riffraff, then got into crack cocaine and all that rot. Seems she only wanted to be married to get away from her strict, Bible thumping daddy and mama so she could do what she pleased. What pleased her wasn’t something Mr. Beau could take. That was the sum total of it.”

“They divorced fairly soon then?”

“A few months after the wedding. Mr. Beau took it bad for a while—volunteered for some missions he shouldn’t have, and was lucky to come back from them alive. But that was all ages ago, so doesn’t matter anymore.”

“What was ages ago?”

That question, hard and far from friendly, came from the doorway. Beau stood there with one hand propped on the frame and the other set on his hip. Though he spoke to his housekeeper, his dark gaze was on Carla.

She flushed; she couldn’t help it. It was hard to believe she hadn’t heard him enter the house. But then she had been intent on what the housekeeper was saying, maybe too intent.

“Nothing at all, Mr. Beau,” the woman said, remorse in her face as she wiped a hand over her lips.

Carla answered at the same time. “Since you weren’t available, I was interviewing your housekeeper. I hope you don’t mind.”

He was quiet for an instant, though there was no relenting in his stance. “I’ll be with you in a minute, as soon as I clean up.”

He didn’t look dirty to her, though his hair was spangled with rain and lay in ridges as if he’d raked his fingers through it, and his damp white T-shirt clung to his muscled frame like a second skin. He did look hot, but in an entirely different way from what he apparently had in mind.

“No hurry,” she said, both her throat and her voice a little too dry.

The housekeeper reached for the silver coffee pot, holding it against her chest. “I’ll make some fresh coffee, Mr. Beau. Should be ready by the time you come down.”

“Good idea,” he answered. “Oh, and Eloise?”