Surrender to the Fury (38 page)

“That was generous,” Aimee allowed somewhat grudgingly.

“We’re all Americans, sweetheart,” he reminded her.

“Can we go home to Tall Oaks now?” Brand said anxiously. He had remained so quiet, they had forgotten he was there.

“Don’t you like it in Washington, son?” Nick asked, unaware that he had been following the conversation so closely.

“It’s all right, but I like Tall Oaks better.” Suddenly he grew thoughtful.

“What is it, Brand?” Aimee asked.

“If the North won the war, is my papa still a hero?”

Nick winced.

Aimee groaned.

Savannah said, “Oh, Lordy.”

“I think it’s time we told him,” Nick said, sending Aimee a meaningful look.

“I’ll go start supper,” Savannah said, hauling herself from the chair and moving with alacrity toward the kitchen.

“Tell me what?” Brand asked curiously.

Aimee sent Nick a helpless look.

“Beauregard Trevor was indeed a brave man, Brand, but he wasn’t your father. Your mother and I were waiting for the right time to tell you.”

Brand looked confused. “If he wasn’t my papa, who is?”

“I’m your papa, son.”

“I know. You’ve been my papa since you married Mama, but who is my real father?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, son. Your mother and I knew one another a long time ago, before you were born.”

“But you weren’t married,” he said with guileless innocence.

“Sometimes mamas and daddies aren’t married when their children are born. But I always loved you and your mother. It just took me a long time to find you.”

Brand was so quiet, Nick began to fear he had done the wrong thing by telling the child. He looked at Aimee as if to say, I’m sorry.

“Can I still think of Beauregard Trevor as my second papa?” Brand asked after a long pause.

“I think he’d like that, son.”

“There are still things I don’t understand.”

“I know, Brand, but please trust me. I promise one day, when you’re old enough to understand, I’ll explain everything. All you need to know right now is that both your mama and I love you dearly. And one day soon you’ll have a new brother or sister. Does that please you?”

“I love you, too, Papa,” Brand said solemnly. “Do you think I can have a brother? A little sister might not want to play the same games I do.”

Aimee laughed delightedly. “If the baby turns out to be a girl, perhaps the next will be a boy.”

Nick grinned, the dimple in his cheek deepening. “I’ll certainly do my part, son.

“A
re you all right, sweetheart?” Nick asked for the hundredth time since they boarded the train in Washington on a hot summer day in late July 1865. “We’ll be arriving in Atlanta within the hour.”

“I may look like an elephant and waddle like a duck but I feel fine,” Aimee assured her anxious husband.

“You look beautiful. I’m sorry I missed Brand’s birth. You must have been beautiful then, too.”

The train was crowded. During this Reconstruction period following the end of the war, Atlanta had become the center of federal government activities. Aware of how much Aimee hated Washington, Nick had promptly applied for a transfer to Atlanta. His new assignment placed him in a high position in the Freedman’s Bureau, created in March and placed under the jurisdiction of the War Department The function of the bureau was to dispense rations and relief to hundreds of thousands of whites, as well as black refugees, uprooted by the war and to assist freedmen during the difficult transition from slavery to freedom.

Aimee watched out the window at the passing
scenery, wondering what had become of Tall Oaks. Since she had paid no taxes for several years, she assumed the land had been sold to northern speculators. The South was already swarming with carpetbaggers, the term applied to northern Republican politicians arriving with few possessions in the ravished South. Their aim was to exploit Negroes as a means of obtaining office or financial gain for themselves in the southern states.

Aimee thought back to that day in April when Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse. People rushed into the streets following a 900-gun salute. From one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other, the air seemed to burn with bright hues of the flag. Hundreds of people were embracing, talking, laughing, cheering. For Aimee it was a time of sadness, not rejoicing. Oh, she was happy the bloodshed was finally over, but she realized that southern society would never be the same, and that a great gulf would always exist between the conquerors and the vanquished.

“What are you thinking, sweetheart?” Nick asked when he noticed Aimee’s preoccupation.

“Will life ever be the same again?” Aimee asked wistfully.

“It will be better,” Nick predicted. “I intend to resign my commission one day soon and we can get on with our lives.”

“Then what? I don’t think I’ll like living in the North if all the cities are like Washington.”

“Perhaps you won’t have to,” Nick said cryptically.

Aimee fell silent, her mind transgressing to that terrible day in April when Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, an actor who interpreted
Lincoln’s last speech on April 11, 1865, as the words of a radical Republican. To Booth, the last straw was Lincoln’s promise of Negro citizenship.

“Are we going to Tall Oaks, Mama?” Brand asked excitedly.

Aimee’s thoughts returned abruptly to the present. “I’m afraid that’s impossible, darling. The taxes haven’t been paid in years. It no longer belongs to us.”

Brand looked to Nick for confirmation, and when he said nothing to dispute Aimee’s words, the boy’s enthusiasm dimmed.

“Don’t worry, son, I’ll find us a place to live,” Nick promised. “I already have something in mind for us. We have to get your mother settled before the new baby arrives.”

Savannah cast a wary glance at Aimee’s bulging girth and remarked, “Den you better do it fast, Major. Dat child ain’t gonna wait too long. Aimee wasn’t near this big with Brand.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Aimee returned somewhat testily. Her mood swings these days weren’t always predictable.

Nick laughed and patted her hand indulgently. “I’ll worry about you until that child is in my arms.”

Atlanta was a beehive of activity, teeming with men in blue uniforms interspersed with civilians returning to their homes and freed Negroes wandering the streets. The train arrived two hours late and Nick hurried them off to the hotel where he had wired ahead to reserve two rooms. Due to the crowded condition of the city and the number of speculators arriving daily in increasing numbers,
he considered himself lucky to have obtained ample space for his family.

Aimee was more exhausted than she cared to admit. She was so big and awkward that just standing up was an ordeal. She had been unable to rest comfortably on the train and her deprived body cried out for rest. Nick left her almost immediately to report to his duty station and to check into some unfinished business. Dimly, Aimee wondered what unfinished business he could have in Atlanta but was too tired to question him. She naturally assumed he was going to try to find them a place to live.

One day about a week later Nick showed up at their hotel room at mid-morning, having left at his usual time of seven that same morning. Aimee thought it odd to find him home so early since his work consumed nearly all his waking hours.

“Are you up to a ride in the country, sweetheart?” Nick asked as he burst into the room. He was grinning from ear to ear, his mood so exuberant her curiosity was piqued.

“A ride?” she asked incredulously. Actually, riding was the last thing she felt like doing. But Nick seemed so adamant about her going she didn’t have the heart to refuse.

“I have a horse and buggy waiting outside and I promise to take it easy. A ride will do you good. You’ve been cooped up far too long in the hotel, and before that in Washington.”

“Shall we take Brand and Savannah? I’m sure they’ll appreciate an outing as much as I will.”

“Not this time, Aimee. I want you all to myself.”

Aimee was more than a little puzzled by Nick’s curious mood. She hadn’t seen him like this in a
long time. Usually he jumped at the chance to be with Brand and she couldn’t understand why he didn’t want their son with him during this particular outing.

“I had the hotel prepare us a basket of food to eat along the way.”

“Where are we going?”

“Does it matter?” Aimee was dazzled by the brilliant green of his eyes. What was he up to?

“Not really. But I should tell Brand and Savannah that I’m leaving. Brand will be disappointed.” She glanced at him from beneath long feathery lashes, waiting to see if he’d change his mind about bringing Brand and Savannah along. He didn’t.

“I stopped by their room before I came here,” Nick said blandly. “Everything is taken care of.” The way he said it gave Aimee the distinct impression that there was something Nick wasn’t telling her about this proposed outing. Had he found them a place to live and wanted to surprise her? Yes, that was it, she decided.

The day was as hot and humid as only a day in July could be in the South. Since arriving in Atlanta, Aimee had shed all her petticoats except one and wore only loose, sleeveless garments that hung from her shoulders and skimmed her burgeoning figure. She added a parasol to shade her from the sun and pronounced herself ready.

True to his word, Nick took his time as he drove the buggy along Atlanta’s crowded streets into the countryside. Relaxing against the leather backrest, Aimee breathed deeply of the fresh scent of wild-flowers after an afternoon rainstorm and was glad Nick had persuaded her to go on this outing. He
seemed to have no particular destination in mind, or so it appeared to Aimee, and early in the afternoon they stopped to partake of the lunch prepared by the hotel. After a pleasant hour spent beneath a lofty oak tree, Nick suggested they leave.

“This looks like the road to Tall Oaks,” Aimee said as Nick turned the buggy onto a road she recognized immediately. She had traveled it many times in the past.

“It is. Colonel Mullins asked me to look at some land he’s interested in buying.”

Aimee’s bottom lip trembled. “Is it Tall Oaks he’s interested in buying?”

Nick smiled a secret smile. “No, sweetheart, Colonel Mullins doesn’t want Tall Oaks.”

Aimee hadn’t the courage to ask if someone had already bought Tall Oaks. Nor did she wish to see the burnt wreckage of the house she had come to love. Instead, she concentrated on the shimmering summer day and the baby she carried inside her. With a sense of wonder she touched her belly, speculating on whether her child would be a girl or boy and if it would resemble Brand.

How different things were with this pregnancy, she mused thoughtfully. When she carried Brand the only thing that got her through the ordeal was her consuming hatred for Nick Drummond. Without that hatred to sustain her Aimee wasn’t certain she could have survived. Now she had Nick’s love to nurture and support her and her future had never looked brighter.

As the horse plodded forward beneath the blazing sun, Aimee’s eyes grew heavy and her head nodded sleepily.

“Rest your head on my shoulder, sweetheart,” Nick said, placing an arm around her so she could lean against him. “Take a nap, if you’d like. It will do you good. Do you feel all right?”

“I’m fine. The heat and sun make me sleepy.”

Soon she was nodding off. She was deep in slumber when Nick turned off onto a narrow road beneath an avenue of stately oaks.

“Wake up, sweetheart, we’re home.”

He shook her gently, trying not to startle her. Aimee came awake slowly, still groggy from the heat and rhythmic motion of the buggy. She looked at him dumbly, her eyes wide as she tried to dispel the mantle of sleep.

“We’re home,” Nick repeated. His face wore an expression of tempered exuberance and expectancy. He looked like Brand when he had done something admirable and wanted approval for his good deed.

Slowly Aimee became aware of her surroundings, so familiar her heart jerked in instant reaction. Of the dappled shade of the tall oak trees standing like ancient sentinels above them. Of the wide expanse of lawn leading up to the house she had sought to protect and failed. She saw the columns first, all twenty of them surrounding three sides of the house, rising majestically in all their former glory. The verandas and railings were no longer peeling or blistered. Every inch of the newly restored house was painted a pristine white. Frilly curtains hanging in the windows in front of the house billowed gently in the breeze.

The last time Aimee had seen Tall Oaks, little remained but the outside walls and virtually unscathed front pillars. Even the outbuildings had been restored, except for the slave huts which had
been torn down. Was she dreaming? She blinked repeatedly, dashing aside the tears gathering in her eyes.

“You’re not dreaming, sweetheart,” Nick said, as if reading her mind. “It’s real.”

Suddenly her composure crumbled. “Why did you bring me here? Why? Didn’t you know how it would affect me?”

“I knew, Aimee, and I—”

“The new owner did a wonderful job,” Aimee continued before Nick could explain. “It looks far more grand than I remembered. It hurts to think of Tall Oaks belonging to anyone but Brand. Beau wanted Brand to have it even if we had children of our own one day.” Turning away, she sighed deeply. “I’m ready to leave now.”

“Wouldn’t you like to see the inside?” Nick’s eyes gleamed with deviltry. Aimee couldn’t understand why he was being deliberately obtuse about her feelings. “I’m sure the new owners won’t mind.”

“I—no, I don’t think so. Please, Nick, I couldn’t bear it. Let’s leave now before we’re noticed.”

“Too late, we’ve already been seen.”

Sure enough, a black woman and small child appeared in the doorway. Aimee blinked, then cried out. They looked almost like—dear God, it was them! Savannah and Brand stepped onto the wide veranda. Savannah wore a grin that spread from ear to ear. Brand broke away and ran down the stairs, waving his arms in exuberant welcome.