Gwyneth Atlee (22 page)

Beyond the bodies, a pair of steamboats glided along, followed by
faint trails of scalding steam. She shuddered at the thought of boarding
any one of them again.

Yvette turned her head to gaze out over the shrouded rows. Their
lines soon softened, then shimmered with the tears that filmed her
eyes. She thought about the men these lifeless corpses had once been,
men who had already suffered the worst that war could muster. Men
not so very different from her brothers, who fought out of devotion to
their homeland and would now want nothing quite so fiercely as to go
back to the places and the people they had loved. Images of the starving
men dawned in her memory, only to be eclipsed by Gabriel’s handsome
face. The longing in his blue eyes so pained her that her tears at last
spilled over.

“You deserved to live,” she whispered. Just as he’d deserved to
love. Her mind flashed back with painful clarity to that moment she
had reached across the floating mule to find him gone.

How in God’s name was she going to search among these dead to
find him? How could she bear to see his face set with the hideous
rictus of a river death?

She began to tremble, and grief loosened both her knees. But as a
pair of soldiers rushed toward her, mouthing words that went
unheard beneath the roar of her own blood in her ears, Yvette shook
her head in an attempt to banish the effects of shock and sorrow.

If she could not do this, Gabriel Davis’s body would never be
identified. Gabriel would never be sent home. No longer could she
marry him, but this was something she could and must do. To let
him know she truly loved him, for their time together had been so
cruelly short.

Yvette turned to face a military guard, a bearded man who squinted through watery brown eyes. His red-tinged nostrils made her want
to step back before he sneezed.

“This is no place for a lady.”
“But I must. I have to find him, for his family,” she explained.
The second soldier grimaced. A solid-looking, pox-scarred veteran,

he looked as if he’d prefer battles or even latrine duty to a
woman’s tears. “Hate to put you through all this. The last lady
who come by here had some sort of hysterical fit and had to be
carted off to the hospital herself. You checked the
Argus
yet for
the list of the survivors?”

“There’s a list in the newspaper?” Yvette asked, hope bubbling past
her ability to tamp it down with caution. “If there’s any chance, I want
to know. Do you have a copy?”

Yvette spun on her heel, her eyes widening with recognition at
the familiar voice. A voice she had believed that she would never
hear again.

Her legs failed her utterly, but it did not matter, for Gabriel was
there to catch her with hands swathed in white linen but strong and
steady all the same. Gabriel—
Dieu merci! C’est fantastique!
But
though her mind gushed grateful torrents, the words were dammed
inside her head with the shock, the wonderful, joyous surprise of
his appearance.

Gabriel appeared no less moved by her presence. Sweeping her into
his embrace, he kissed her deeply, apparently oblivious to the first
guard, laughing through his sneezes, and the second, who tossed his
forage cap into the air.
“I’ll take more of this and less of the weeping,” the pox-scarred soldier commented with a grin.

Yvette heard them, but she cared nothing for what the two men
must be thinking or how any other witnesses might judge her. She
cared about nothing except for the flame that roared through her
where their lips met and where their bodies pressed together.

Her own yelp startled her as he pressed against the sling that held
her wrapped arm.
“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” Gabe asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered in reply, leaning back into his
arms. “Nothing matters except that you’re alive. I thought—”
“I know. I was just as worried. We’ll talk about what happened
later. But first, we have to get away from here,” he said quietly into her
ear. “It isn’t safe for us at all.”
She nodded, fear opening a chasm at the feet of newfound joy. She
mustn’t forget Russell, and their reunion had already attracted more
attention than was wise.
Only now did she notice how Gabriel, like herself, wore cast-off
clothing and, worse yet, the way his shoulders slumped with
exhaustion, perhaps pain. His gaze had strayed from her to the
shrouded rows of corpses, and she wondered if his friends’ bodies
were among them.
She nodded toward the folded newspaper he had just dropped to
embrace her. “Did you find your friends’ names in there?”
He shook his head, still staring at the grim lines on the waterfront.
“I haven’t found them yet, but I will. Every one,” he swore.
He stooped to retrieve the paper. When he stood, his face had
grown so pallid that she feared he might collapse. Certainly, if Russell
found them here, he would not be strong enough to flee. And Yvette
knew she could never bear to leave him behind to be punished as an
accomplice in her crimes.
She must get him out of sight. And the only place where she might
do that was her room in the boardinghouse.
Yvette thanked the two soldiers and began leading Gabriel in the
direction of Gayoso Hospital and the somewhat shabby two-story
town house where she had a room. As they walked, their backs
toward the waterfront, she told him about the nurses’ collection and
the room they had arranged for her.
“We’ll go there,” she said. Into a little bedroom, alone and together.
She shivered as her mind filled with razor-edged memories of his
hands on her flesh.
He hesitated. “Could Russell find us there? He’s alive, and he’s
convinced that you are, too. He came by the Soldiers’ Home, thinking
you would look for me.”
“As I would have as soon as I assured myself you were not here. I
swear it.”
They stopped walking for a moment, and he looked into her
eyes, his gaze so intense it warmed her like the Louisiana sun in
late July.
She felt certain that despite his weakness, he was thinking of that
bedroom, too, that he had read her mind and judged her brazen. The
memory of forbidden touches aboard the
Sultana
made her body tingle with anticipation and her mind whisper warnings of what had
happened to Marie.
“I know,” he finally answered. “That’s why I had to leave the ward,
so he wouldn’t catch you when you found me. Do they know you at
the boardinghouse, in case anyone comes looking?”
Yvette arched an eyebrow. “I told them my name was
Caroline Edwards and I was traveling with my husband, who
was lost in the river after the explosion. I thought that might
buy me a bit of time.”
He smiled. “I should have known you’d keep your head about you
. . . Mrs. Edwards, but I’m going to have to get a notebook to write
down all these names of yours.”
Yvette’s heart thudded at the thought of what she meant to say, but
the words slipped out before she had the chance to fully consider what
they might signify. “Since we have the same name now, you’d best
commit it to memory . . . Mr. Edwards.”
Thankfully, no expression of shock or disapproval swept across
his features. Perhaps after all that they had been through, strict
notions of propriety meant nothing to him now. Just as they were
fading in her mind.
He hooked his arm through her uninjured one, and they resumed
walking. “Do I have a first name, too?”
She could barely think, yet somehow she managed to babble on
as always.
“Hmmm,” she told him. “Something biblical, I think. You Yankees
prefer that, do you not? How about Lazarus, then, since you have
come back to me from the dead?”
“Lazarus?” His smile was wan. “That might be biblical, but it doesn’t
sound American at all.”
“Then it must be Sam, after your uncle.”
“Uncle Sam?” A short burst of laughter punctuated his words. Then
he shook his head and shrugged. “Sam it is, then.”
His gaze once more settled on hers, so unflinching that she felt the
skin prickling at her nape.
“As long as I can share a name with you, Yvette, I’m not much concerned
about the details.”

As Gabe walked along the avenue beside Yvette, he could not help
fingering the sleeve of her gray bodice or laying his hand upon the
back of her slender waist. For if he kept in contact, the spell could not
be shattered, could it? She could not fade away.

Had he hungered for her so desperately that he cast her from thin
air, he wondered, the way his imagination had once manufactured
meals from wishes? But those foods had had no substance, and Yvette
felt warm and solid beneath his touch. So real, as if his mind had
slipped the bonds of sanity.

Yet how could she be here? How could he have found her so very
quickly simply by wandering the streets of a large city?
It’s not so hard at all when a ghost gives one directions.
Lord. The memory of it oozed like frigid sweat along his spine. The
Rebel soldier he’d seen earlier, lifting up a finger to point him toward
the waterfront. The boy dressed in a uniform of butternut.
An inky tide appeared to rise up from the street, and Gabe grasped
a young tree to keep from being overwhelmed. Yvette’s face appeared
in his vision, looking scared and mouthing incoherent words, all of
them running together to join the roaring jet-black flood.
Matthew. Dear God, it had been him again, but why here, why now,
why of all damned things dressed like an abomination in a Rebel uniform?
Yet he had pointed Gabriel toward Yvette. She was leaning over
him, pulling at his shoulder with her one good arm. A tear trail
streaked her cheek with brilliance, and slowly, her words coalesced
out of the darkness.
“Gabriel, please, Gabriel, you have to come with me.” The prayer
that followed might have been in French, or it may have been the Latin
that the Catholics preferred, but each syllable brought more light into
his world.
Until the blackness all receded and his head grew clear again.
Clear enough to realize that finding Yvette had been no delusion, no
phantasm borne of morphine or the delirium of fever.
Finding Yvette had been a miracle of grace, even if his mind had
surely conjured up the figure that had sent him straight to her.

“God damn it, what do you mean he’s gone!” Darien Russell screamed
at the ward master. “Why wasn’t I notified? What about the guards?”
Butcher sighed, and his bald scalp reddened faster than a crab
dropped in a pot of boiling water. “I told you before you left here, I
hadn’t a spare man to send. And as for the guards, I don’t remember
seeing any. You’ll have to ask around to see if they ever arrived. Now
if you’ll excuse me—”
“I will
not,”
Darien insisted. “Not until I know how long Davis has
been gone.”
“I couldn’t pin it down to an exact time, but I expect about two or
three hours.”
Across the ward, a patient began screaming as a nurse struggled to
change his dressings. Butcher walked off—probably simply to
escape—to assist the younger man.
Two to three hours, Darien thought, choosing to ignore the insult.
Gabriel Davis could be anywhere in town by now.
Even with the use of the horse he’d borrowed from Colonel
Patterson, he’d never find Yvette or Davis on his own. He’d have no
choice except to ask for more men to assist him.
Darien’s head ached with the strain. The more who were involved,
the more likely it was that someone else would catch Yvette first, that
she’d have time to talk.
But talk was all that she could do, he realized. Even if she’d had that
damning stolen letter he had written in her possession aboard the
Sultana,
it surely must have been destroyed. So in the end, it would
come to only her word against his. As long as he could keep her miles
and miles away from Colonel Jeffers and his infernal investigation.
As long as he could prevent her from returning to New
Orleans alive.

Mon Dieu,
he’ll never make it. Yvette glanced about, frightened that
at any moment Darien Russell might appear.
“S’il vous plaît,
stand up!” she begged Gabriel as she gave his arm
another tug.
This time, Gabriel slowly rose, and she thought she detected color
returning to his face. But that may have been only wishful thinking.
As they completed their walk to the boardinghouse, he never said
a word. Nor did Yvette, for she feared doing anything to distract him
from the task of placing one foot before the other.
As they entered the old town house, Widow Beacon looked up from
the table she’d been bending over, then laid down the feather duster.
A small, round woman with a thick gray chignon, she pushed glasses
up her short nose. She looked from Gabriel to Yvette and back again
before erupting in a smile.
“You’ve found your husband!” she said, clapping her hands together.
“I told you he’d turn up all right, dear!”
Yvette couldn’t help returning her smile. It still seemed such a
miracle to have him back, where she might touch him, where they
could hope.
“You did tell me,” Yvette said, “and I thank you for it. But I’m afraid
Mr. Edwards is rather ill and—”
“Hungry, I expect,” said Mrs. Beacon. “Don’t you fret, child. You just
get him upstairs and into bed, and I’ll bring you both a bite to eat. You’ll
know for certain then why we’re known as the Good Samaritan City.”
“Thank you so much,” Yvette told her. “You’ve already been
so kind.”
The woman waved off the compliment. “Nonsense. I’m only doing
what any Christian person would.”
“Thank you, and thank you for taking care of her,” Gabriel
managed as Yvette led him to her room.
Yvette closed the bedroom door behind them, shutting them inside,
and alone.
Maman
’s admonitions rose up like midnight specters,
reminding her of how very far she’d strayed from her upbringing.
Standing just inside the doorway, she swallowed hard.
Although the house had certainly seen better days, Widow Beacon,
as people called her, whipped every speck of dust into submission.
Even the baseboards glowed with recent polishing, and the bed linens
and towels, though thin with age, had been bleached within an inch of
their lives.
But the modest boardinghouse and its condition had little to do
with her discomfort. Instead, it was the bed inside this room and the
lie she’d told the older woman that smote Yvette’s conscience.
Strange how, as an accused murderess, she was so bothered by a
simple falsehood. She was not his wife yet, and she would do well to
remember that. Though she’d promised she would marry him, they
must wait until she cleared her name, until she dealt with Darien. If
she didn’t, if she foolishly gave way to passion, she’d do nothing but
take him with her on the path to her destruction. And she refused to
do that. She refused to kill him, too.
Gabriel sat on the bed’s edge to remove his shoes. “Yvette?”
His voice raised the fine hairs behind her neck, and she wondered if
he’d ask her to come and lie beside him. She almost hoped he wouldn’t,
for she knew that despite her better judgment, the memory of losing
him was still too fresh. She knew she could deny him nothing.
“Yes,” she told him, knowing it would be the answer to every question,
even those that could cause him so much grief if she gave in.
“I’m sorry—sorry that you lost your little cat,” he said.
“Ah . . . poor Lafitte.” He so surprised her with that statement that
her mind struggled for an appropriate response. Sorrow filled her at
the memory of the little ruffian tumbling about her stateroom. Had the
explosion killed him, or had the river swallowed up the basket? She
shuddered at the thought of it.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I miss him, and I blame myself. I never
should have tried to bring a kitten.”
“He was from your home,” Gabe said. “Sometimes it’s hard to leave
the past behind.”
He was no longer speaking of Lafitte, she sensed, but something
deeper that was troubling him greatly. And in that moment, her
misgivings and her shyness disappeared. She crossed the room to sit
beside him, to gently take his hand in hers, and it seemed the most
natural thing she could imagine.
She heard him sigh, but instead of asking anything, she laid her
head on his shoulder.
“Yvette,” he whispered once more, and hearing him say her name
so wistfully sent shivers rippling down her back, detonating small
explosions deep inside her. Some quality in his voice felt warm and
sensual, as enticing as his touch.
“Gabriel . . . I love you,” she answered, and just as his voice had
done for her, hers seemed to ignite the dry kindling of his soul.
He framed her face with bandaged hands and turned it until he was
kissing her as fervently as the most desperate prayer. So deeply that
time stopped for her, consumed inside the wonder of joined mouths
and tongues that touched to spark a blaze that melted every doubt.
His fingers slipped to stroke her neck and shoulder, and a little
thrill of fear convinced her that this time he would not stop.
The rap came twice before she heard it, then once again before
she could force herself to answer. Outside the door, Mrs. Beacon
stood balancing a tray on one broad hip. Her fist was poised as if to
knock again.
“Here’s a nice pot of tea and some sweet rolls, fresh out of the
oven,” she told Yvette as she handed her the tray. “Now I’ll see you’re
left alone. I’m certain that your young man needs his rest.”
She waved off Yvette’s thanks. But as the older woman turned to
go, Yvette thought she detected a sparkle in her eyes, a hidden smile
as if . . .
She knew. She knew what they’d been doing. Backing into the
room, feeling more uncomfortable than ever, Yvette kicked shut the
door.
Mon Dieu,
did she have no restraint at all?
One look in his eyes convinced her she did not. Gabe’s attention
was fully focused on her, not lingering for half an instant on the food
and drink.
“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked, uncertain how she wanted him
to answer.
Until he smiled and stood. Until he came to her and took her in his
arms once more. Then she knew for certain this was what she’d
wished for all along.
This time their bodies pressed together fully, and Yvette felt
Gabriel’s heat from her ankle to her mouth. Yet even as he seemed to
lose himself inside their kiss, he avoided her left side so as not to hurt
her arm.
He pulled away just long enough to tickle her ear with his
words. “I’m hungrier than I’ve ever been, Yvette. Hungrier than
any man alive.”
He slipped around to mouth her neck beneath her ear, and Yvette
gasped.
Mon Dieu,
how could she have guessed that this was what it
was like to be devoured? Her breasts felt as if they’d come alive with
aching for his well-remembered touch. Oh, please, she thought,
please, soon.
As if he’d read her mind, Gabriel scooped her into his arms and
carried her to the bed. Lowering her gently, he whispered, “If this isn’t
what you want, you need to tell me.”
His eyes brimmed with such awful longing that she wondered if
they mirrored her own. Suddenly, she wanted nothing except him
against her, the warmth of his bare skin, the almost painful awakening
of all her senses.
So instead of answering him directly, she whispered. “I’ll need your
help to get out of this bodice.”