Sadie's Secret: 3 (The Secret Lives of Will Tucker) (40 page)

“But she was wrong.”

“In more ways than one.” Seamus grinned. “Best of it was that she admitted it to me about a year later when we brought in the biggest crop we’d ever had.”

The older man leaned back in the saddle, his attention now focused toward the river. “I bought this parcel of land for half of what it was worth thirty-two years ago next month from a fellow who ran the whole operation poorly and using slave labor to do what men paid a living wage could have done just as well. I figured the best way to succeed was to do the opposite of what didn’t work. I’ve done quite fine using that logic.”

“Yes, sir. It appears you have.”

He shrugged. “Fewer hands to do the work meant I had to improvise. And machines don’t have to be fed, clothed, or tolerated beyond the point where they don’t make sense.”

Jefferson nodded as he surveyed the collection of structures that might have been barns, toolsheds, or any sort of farm building. Each bore the evidence of mechanized machinery inside through the series of pipes leading between them and the bricked fireplaces that marked the end of several of them. Behind the largest of the group a half-dozen wagons that had been fitted with curious lifting devices were huddled together.

“The hardest part of the season is where all I can do is watch,” Seamus said. “Come September we’ll be using all of those wagons plus as many more as I can find in town to rent to get the cane harvested. But right now all I can do is wait.”

Silence fell, and Jefferson got the idea that something in the man’s speech was a lesson meant for more than merely growing sugarcane.

“Gabriel Trahan wants his part of my land.”

The statement took Jefferson by surprise. “I don’t follow.”

“The boy grew up here, but he never did like that his daddy worked in my mill. He was like his mama. Too good for the cane fields and determined to get out.” He paused. “She did, you know. Get out, that is. Ran off and married someone else the day after they laid Gabriel’s daddy in the grave. The boy never forgave me.”

“How can that be your fault?”

Seamus seemed to be giving the question serious consideration. “What I didn’t stop I got blamed for. That’s what I’ll say on that and no more.”

“Again, I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t follow how that has Gabriel upset with you.”

He nodded. “The man making accusations against you has more to his claims than good intentions. My wife thinks he’s the man for Sadie. I know for a fact that he’s not.”

“Because she’s a Pinkerton agent?”

“No, he’s wrong for her because she is my daughter, and I’ll leave it at that.”

Then, as if shaking away a memory he found distasteful, Seamus rolled his shoulders and dug his heels in to set his horse moving once more. Jefferson was left to follow.

By the time they turned their mounts down the narrow path that ran next to the river, the sun was slanting long shadows across the muddy brown water and night birds were dipping across the bank. Here and there magnolias hung thick with Spanish moss and bent their branches down toward the river.

What Jefferson thought was a branch hanging as long as a man’s leg began to move and then fell into the water below. A cottonmouth. He urged the gelding carefully past the tree. He never had liked snakes.

The moon rising behind the cottages bore a ring of clouds around it that foretold another stormy night ahead. From the direction the river rolled, Jefferson could tell they were now heading south and would be in sight of the Callum home in another quarter mile or so.

“You had something to say, boy.” Seamus slid him a sideways glance. “Now would be the time to say it. I reckon I’ll help you decide, just in case you don’t know where to start. Why exactly are you making a fuss of wanting to marry my daughter when she clearly doesn’t intend to be wed?”

“Because it is the only way the plan will work.”

Seamus pulled up the reins and stopped. “You’d better keep talking,” he said, his voice ominous. “And start by telling me who you are exactly, and I don’t mean who your mama and daddy are because I already know that.”

“Yes, sir. Until a year ago I was an investigator for the London Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard. If you know of my parents, then you know that is where I was born.”

“Your brother too.”

“Then perhaps you know that while in Louisiana pursuing a lead on a case, I paid a visit to John.”

“At Angola. Yes, I read the papers. I also know the jail set you loose recently. Did my daughter have anything to do with that?”

“She testified as to my identity and proved I was not the Tucker who should be behind bars.”

“Because you and she were previously acquainted?”

“No, sir.” The horse stamped and snorted, but Jefferson held tight to the reins as he calmed the gelding. “Your daughter testified based on her knowledge of my brother’s case. Until I stood in the courtroom that day, I had never laid eyes on her.”

“Go on.”

“I recently discovered that I lost my job during my incarceration. I intend to get it back by solving the case I was paid to sort out.”

Mr. Callum gave him a look that told Jefferson he was being studied closely. “Even though you have no obligation to do so?”

“But I do. I made a commitment. That has not changed despite the fact I am no longer on the payroll. In fact, I am more determined now than ever.”

Seamus continued to observe him. Then, slowly, he nodded. “Finish your story.”

“There is an overlap in the case I was working on and the case recently given to your daughter. I need her to partner with me on this.”

“And she isn’t willing?”

“She is, or rather she was. I think she may not like the idea of how I plan to go about securing her release from your custody.”

Seamus laughed. “I suppose it would feel as though she’s under house arrest here, what with Sadie’s ability to do what she wishes as long as she doesn’t try to do it under my roof.”

“Apparently she values your opinion of her. And your wife’s too. She cannot stay at Callum Plantation and solve this case.”

“Is that why she went to New Orleans today?”

Jefferson paused. “I cannot say.”

“Cannot or will not?” He waved away a response. “Never mind. So let me see if I understand. You wish to facilitate my daughter’s escape from River Pointe by making it appear that you are heading off on a honeymoon so I won’t make a fuss and my wife won’t send a couple of my boys after her?”

“Exactly. Although, now that you’ve said it, I admit I don’t like the idea that we’re deceiving the family. I only thought it a better way to handle the issue of allowing Sadie to leave.”

Seamus gave him a sideways look. “Can’t you do your job without her?”

“Easily, but she’s good at her job, sir, and I would prefer to have her expertise. With Sadie along, I can use her ability to secure invitations into society I might otherwise be unable to get. Her presence will help me do my job better and much faster.”

“Deception is never the better way, son.” He gave Jefferson a moment to consider that statement. “However, I see your point. Maybe we can figure out something.”

“We, sir?”

Seamus fixed him with a look. “She’s my daughter, Tucker. I think I know better than you how she thinks and why she does what she does.”

Why did she kiss me?
The thought emerged seemingly from nowhere.

“Tucker?”

He shook off the recollection but allowed that he might revisit it. When her father wasn’t watching, that is.

“Yes, Mr. Callum.”

Sadie’s father reached across the distance between them to shake Jefferson’s hand. “You might want to call me Seamus, seeing as we’re about to become family.”

Jefferson waited for the smile that never came. “You’re serious.”

The older man shrugged. “Sarah Louise will think so, and more importantly, so will her mother. Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”

Thirty

S
adie looked up from the notes on the Astor case to answer Julia’s knock. The maid hurried in with a folded piece of paper that she presented with a look of urgency.

She tucked her hands in her apron pockets. “The mister says I’m to wait for a response.”

“All right.”

Sadie opened the note and read Jefferson’s demand for an immediate meeting on a matter of great importance. Unfortunately, he did not offer any insight as to what that matter might be.

Her lack of proper dress, coupled with the fact that she was making progress in analyzing a rather complicated index of purchases made by Mrs. Astor for the Newport home she called Beaulieu made Sadie’s first response a definite no.

And yet at this late hour, what could he want except to discuss something related to the case? For surely she had said her last word on the subject of his ridiculous plan to marry her.

A glance up at the paper-wrapped parcel on the armoire sealed her decision. She carefully folded the index and returned it to her valise along with her notebook and pencil and then allowed Julia to help her dress once more.

Retrieving the carpetbag from its hiding place in the back of her armoire, she removed Julia’s green dress and stuffed it into the recesses of the wardrobe. Reaching for Mr. Tucker’s parcel, she gave it one last looking over and then placed it inside the carpetbag.

She reached for her shawl and then slipped downstairs and out into the night. By the time she found the groom and had a horse saddled, the entire adventure was bordering on the ridiculous. Why couldn’t the man just request a conversation in the parlor with her like a normal fellow?

Because there was nothing normal about Jefferson Tucker. And he had come to her rescue ealier today.

As Sadie guided the mare along the path that led toward the clearing, a lantern latched onto a stick fastened to the saddle illuminated what the moonlight did not. And that same moon bore signs that the heavy night air would eventually give way to rain.

For now, however, only the earthy scent of the cane fields, the chirp of crickets at the river’s edge, and the soft breeze that swished their green tops disturbed the quiet. Ahead she spied the outline of a man on horseback.

Jefferson.

She urged the mare forward, keeping the lantern steady and the carpetbag firmly hung on the saddle horn until she reached her destination. Tucker’s mount whinnied a greeting, but the man remained silent as he took the lantern and set it aside to help her down from the saddle.

“Thank you for coming,” he said as he took her horse’s reins and tied them to the post near where he had already secured the gelding. “Let’s go in here where we can be assured our privacy.”

If he wondered about the carpetbag, he said nothing to that effect. Rather, his arm guided her until she had crossed the uneven ground in the clearing and reached an all-too-familiar building.

She followed him inside the old schoolhouse and then waited while he lit the personal lantern he pulled from his pocket. Sadie hadn’t stepped inside the one-room building since Mama decided to send her away to be further educated.

The smell of old lumber assaulted her senses and sent her mind tumbling backward. For a moment she was that little girl who sat midway down the second row, her blond hair captured in braids that the boys whose parents worked in the mill loved to tug.