Evermore: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 3) (31 page)

“I saw your light,” he said, his sodden hat in his hands,
his head canted at an odd angle.

“My God, Marcel,” Nicolette cried. Heedless of her gown, she
grabbed him in a soggy embrace. A single sob erupted and she laughed in
embarrassment.

“It’s all right, Nikki. I’m just cold and wet.”

She wrapped her arm around her brother’s waist, keeping him
close in spite of the reek from his smelly wet rags.

“I’m sorry to barge in like this, Cleo, Pierre,” he said.
“They’ve all gone to bed at my house and I couldn’t rouse a single one of them,
the scoundrels.”

“You’re always welcome here, Monsieur,” Pierre said, adding
more coal to the grate.

Cleo relit the lamp. “Nicolette, get him a blanket. Marcel,
we’ll get you warm and dry, and then you must tell us what you’re doing here. Surely
it’s dangerous to be in New Orleans. Why ever would you risk it?”

“My wife ails, Cleo. And to tell you the truth, I had to see
the children again before Mouton moves us northward.”

Unable to keep the accusation out of her voice, Nicolette
told him, “She was on Elysian Fields, your wife.”

Marcel nodded. “I know, Nicolette. I’ll take care of it.”

He wiped his face with his wet sleeve. “Can you allow me the
comfort of sleeping on your parlor rug, Cleo? I show up at Lucinda’s in the
middle of the night looking like a vagabond, I’m afraid I’ll frighten her and
Charles.”

“It’ll be warmer in here, Marcel. I’ll fix you a pallet.”

Once Cleo and Pierre had gone upstairs, Nicolette sat down
on the corner of Marcel’s bedding near the fire. They turned the gas lamp off
and sat together watching the coals glow.

As if there were not a great divide in their sympathies,
Nicolette brought Marcel up to date on the war news, the battles won and lost,
the news from Washington. She told him what she did, day to day, in the Union
headquarters. He offered no criticism, for once.

They sat for a while, watching the embers turn gray on the
edges.

“What was it like?” Nicolette asked him.

“The battle? A lot of noise. Smoke. Mostly, it’s a blur.
Except for one face. A lad, his whiskers hardly out.” Marcel wiped his hand
over his face. “ I will remember him.”

“You killed him?”

“I think so. Yes.”

After a time, Nicolette said, “I’m sorry.”

Marcel released a heavy sigh. “Yes.”

“But you’re unhurt.”

“Some deafness is all.”

“You’ve lost your hearing?”

“Don’t fret. Just in one ear.”

God how awful, Nicolette thought, to be truly deaf. Never to
hear the birds sing or a piano playing.

“And Alistair is all right?”

“The man’s a soldier! A brave one, at that. Not what we
expected from ol’ sissy britches.”

“Sissy britches?” Nicolette laughed, feeling a pang on
Alistair’s behalf. “You called him sissy britches?”

“When we were kids, just one spring. He wouldn’t swim the
creek with a bunch of us boys at school. It was running high, I have to admit.”
Marcel paused, remembering. “And a tangled up nest of cottonmouths had just
floated by.” He laughed. “Maybe he was the smart one.”

“I never thought he lacked for courage,” Nicolette said.
“Just, I don’t know. Conviction. He didn’t seem to feel anything strongly
enough to act on it. Not abolition, not secession. Not me.”

A coal crumbled into a red crevasse in the grated mound, the
ticking of the clock and the dripping eaves the only sounds in the quiet house.

Marcel lowered his tone. “You ask too much, thinking he
could marry you, Nikki. He has his mother, his sister, his estate to think
about.”

“Of course I understand that,” she said hotly. “He can’t
marry me, and I will not be his plaçée. Yet he hangs on, as inert as a cabbage,
neither giving me up nor claiming me.”

Marcel reached for Nicolette’s hand. “I’ve brought my
letters for you to keep for me, if you will. You know, in case. One of them is
from Alistair. For you.”

Nicolette eyed her brother in the last red glow from the
fire.

“He gave it to me before the battle, and I forgot to give it
back to him.”

“So it’s for me to read if he’s killed in battle?”

“You could keep it here, with my letters, if you like. Or
I’ll take it back to him.”

She did care for Alistair. But what she felt for him was a
mere affection compared to the longing ache she felt for Finnian McKee.

“I think it would be best if you returned the letter to
him.”

“Then I shall. Now, are you going to let me get some sleep?”

Nicolette squeezed his hand. “I love you.”

“Who doesn’t?” His teeth gleamed for a moment in the fire’s
glow.

She pinched the back of his hand and got up. As she
approached the staircase to go to bed, his voice reached her.

“I love you, too, Nikki.”

The next morning, Pierre offered to visit the Chamard house
on Rue Royale and return with a change of clothes for Marcel.

“Country clothes, please,” Marcel said. “Tell Baudier I want to be as inconspicuous as possible. Ask him
to loan me his fishing hat.”

Marcel kissed Nicolette’s cheek good bye as she left for her
job at the Custom House. Then he sat down at the table where Cleo plied him
with too much breakfast.

Soon Pierre returned with suitably nondescript street
clothes and Baudier’s own seasoned hat. With warm
thanks, Marcel shook Pierre’s hand and enveloped Cleo in a bear hug.

The streets were a wet mess, but the sky was scrubbed blue
and fresh. Marcel strode through Faubourg Marigny to Elysian Fields where he cut down to the cheerful
yellow cottage with the orange shutters. One of the three front doors was open
to the sunny street, and there sat Charles Armand with his tin soldiers arrayed
on the granite stoop.

“Papa!”

Marcel scooped the boy into his arms and rocked him, his
face pressed into Charles Armand’s sweet neck.

“Marcel?” Lucinda appeared at the door, the baby on her hip.
“Marcel!”

With his free arm, Marcel pulled her and Bertie to him and
held on tight.

Bertie snuggled against his maman, wary of the stranger.
Marcel released Lucinda and wiped at her wet cheek.

“Bertie’s forgotten me,” he said, his voice shaky.

“It won’t take long,” Lucinda said. “Charles Armand will
show him who you are.”

Inside, the house smelled of early oranges, the rinds drying
in bowls near the windows. Marcel folded himself onto the parlor floor, Bertie
in his lap, Charles Armand chattering away. Lucinda pulled her rocking chair up
close, and Marcel struggled for a moment. His bowed his head to hide the tears
threatening to spill and reached for Lucinda’s hand.

Marcel spoiled his boys through lunch time until Bertie
lapsed into tearful fatigue. He rocked his babe to sleep and then put him in
his crib. Charles Armand’s eyes were drooping too. They talked awhile about the
sailing ships Charles Armand loved to watch from the levee, and then he too
fell asleep.

In their room, Marcel sat on the edge of the bed and opened
his arms to his beloved. Pressing his face into her belly, he was nearly undone
by the feel of her fingers in his hair.

“Lucinda, what am I to do? I’m fighting on the wrong side.”

Her loving fingers did not falter. “I know, my darling, I
know.”

Gray skies, gray mood. Deborah Ann got out her crochet
needle and started on what was to have been a purse. What she made instead was a
baby’s bootie. Soon she’d made three pairs of booties.

Baby booties, but no baby.

That other woman’s children were almost white. Idly, Deborah
Ann considered that, if they lived in a white family, Marcel’s boys would pass.

She put aside her crochet, picked up a book, put it down
again. Tales of romance had no appeal for her now. They were all lies.

In the street below, a man in an oilskin coat and a
wide-brimmed hat opened the side gate and came in. A tradesman of some sort.
Indifferent to the goings on downstairs, Deborah Ann pulled her shawl tighter
and wondered if she should embroider for a while. Maybe later. She leaned her
head back against the blue cushion and watched the leaves fall from the
sycamore outside her window.

At the knock on her door, Deborah Ann barely turned her
head. Mammy had probably brought her a pot of tea.

The door opened and there stood a tall man in baggy striped
trousers and a flannel shirt. Her immediate thought, absurd as it was, was that
here was a poor Cajun come in from the bayous.

Sudden realization had her off the bench, flying across the
room into Marcel’s arms. Crying and trembling, she clung to him with arms
thrown round his neck. When Marcel tried to pull her hands loose, she held on
tighter. Finally, he put his arms around her and simply stood in the doorway,
rocking her back and forth.

Once she could control herself, she stepped back, red-faced.
“I’m sorry,” she said, attempting a laugh as she wiped at her face.

“Don’t be. Not many husbands get a demonstration like that
when they come home.” He picked at a lock of hair the tears had plastered to
her cheek and pushed it behind her ear.

She captured his hand and didn’t let go as he stepped over
to the bell pull and gave it a tug.

“You need a cup of tea, I think.” He took her elbow, steered
her to the window seat and settled her at his side. She clutched his hand in
both of hers.

“I got a very worried letter from your father, Deborah
Ann.”

She was shamed from her hair down to her toes. She hadn’t
known Father had written him.

“I missed you,” she said in way of an explanation.

Marcel twisted on the bench and took her chin in his
fingers. Her hair was a mess. It was always a mess these days. She knew there
were circles under her eyes. And now her nose was probably swollen and red.

She lowered her face. “Don’t look at me.”

“Your father says you hardly leave your room. That you don’t
eat.”

“Oh, but I’ll be well now you’re here. You’ll see. I’ll eat
everything on the table.”

Now she really saw him for the first time since he’d entered
the room. The hollows under his sun-weathered cheekbones told her how much
weight he’d lost. He needed a haircut, and his mustache nearly covered his
mouth. Worst of all, though, was the weariness in his eyes.

Alarmed, she said, “Have you been ill, Marcel?”

“No. Not ill. Now tell me what this is all about, Deborah
Ann.”

What could she tell him? Not the truth. She’d never tell him
she’d spied on that woman.

“At Evermore,” she said. “I just got scared at Evermore. It
was nothing. I’m over it.”

“What scared you at Evermore?”

“Oh, just some of the slaves. You know, the ones I knew
growing up. They’d turned surly, not friendly the way I remembered them. But
it’s nothing. Father says all the darkies are riled up with the war and all,
thinking they don’t have to work anymore.”

“Did someone threaten you?”

“Oh my goodness, no.” Deborah Ann squeezed his hands.
“Really, it was just my imagination running away with me. Now you’re home, I’ll
be fine.”

Marcel was gazing at her with such an odd look in his eye.

“Marcel? You’re not hurt somewhere?”

“Your father said you fainted. On Elysian Fields.”

She pulled her hands back into her lap.

“Oh, was that were I was? I had no idea the name of the
street.”

“What were you doing on Elysian Fields, Deborah Ann?”

“Just walking. Father had been forever in the Mint that
morning, and I just wanted to walk.” She glanced at him, wondering if he
believed her. “I had a new parasol,” she added.

His eyes glittered hard and dark where moments before there
had been sympathy. He knew.

“You have no business on that street, Deborah Ann. Ever.”

She swallowed at the lump in her throat. He was angry with
her.

“You understand me?” he asked.

The floor wheeled. Deborah Ann put a hand over her eyes,
wanting to hide from him.

“You get this silliness out of your head. You are my wife.
You, and only you, are Mrs. Chamard. You hear me?”

Her face turned away, she reached for him with one hand.
“Marcel, do you love me at all?”

When he didn’t answer, not even to lie to her, a crawling,
shriveling seized her deep in her chest. She drew what strength remained to her
and turned to face his contempt.

Not contempt. His gaze had softened. His look was tender.

“My poor girl.” Marcel pulled her to him and kissed her
hair, her eyes. She clung to his shirt, her face pressed against his heart. “I
have hurt you more than I knew. You need never worry, dear one. You are my
wife.”

Marcel cupped her face, his beautiful eyes gazing at her. He
pressed his mouth to hers. Desire surged through her, chasing the grayness out
of her mind.

Isn’t this love?

After supper, while the men had their port and cigars,
Deborah Ann made ready for her husband. She bathed and brushed her hair out.
She buffed her nails. She sprinkled lavender water on her nightgown and on the
sheets. And still Marcel did not come.

In her bare feet, she crept to the head of the stairs and
leaned over the railing. Her father’s stentorian voice penetrated his office
door, Marcel’s lighter tones more muted. Deborah Ann wrapped her shawl around
her shoulders to wait on the step.

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed eleven. The study
door opened. Deborah Ann rushed back to the room and climbed into bed.

Marcel knocked softly and came in. “You awake?”

“Yes. Did Father talk your ear off?”

“And filled me with port. My head feels big as a melon.”

He turned the gas lamp down and pulled the homespun shirt
and trousers off. “Hope you don’t mind sharing your bed with a Cajun,” he said.

“A very handsome Cajun, sir, even in those rags,” she said,
holding the covers back for him as he climbed into bed.