Elysium: The Plantation Series Book IV (11 page)

Perhaps she’d ask the
Gales to have dinner with her when she got home. Andrew Gale’s father had been
overseer of Toulouse before him, and Musette and Andrew had known each other
all their lives. They were not social equals, but they were friends, of a sort.
And Musette was sick of eating alone with nothing but a silent house to keep
her company.

Ahead of her, the Baptist
church had just let out and people were still standing in the yard visiting.
Idly, Musette looked to see who among her neighbors were there.

With some surprise, she
saw Alistair Whiteaker standing at Lily Palmer’s side. She had not thought he
attended church anymore. There were the Gerald Jacksons and the Harold
Jacksons, Andrew Gale and his family, Eugenia Harris, Minette and Charles Holmes.
Peep and Rachel.

And Thomas. With a young
woman.

Fanny Brown, Alistair
Whiteaker’s teacher. Two of the few people of color in the parish who were
literate, of course they’d be acquainted.

Musette’s fingers curled
into claws. That girl, she’d probably sought him out. She probably thought she
was good enough for him. Could she read Walt Whitman with him? Could she make
him laugh? Did she even know who Fyodor Dostoyevsky was?

"You want I should
pull the wagon over? We know some of them people," Thibault said.

Over in the churchyard, Fanny
Brown put her hand in the crook of Thomas’s arm and Thomas looked down at her,
smiling. Musette could not draw a breath.

"Mam’zelle,"
Thibault said again, "you want us to get down and talk with folks?"

Musette dipped her
parasol so that no one in the churchyard could see her face. "No,"
she said, her voice hardly audible. "No," she tried again so Thibault
could hear her. "Just take me home."

Out of the corner of his
eye Alistair saw Rachel lean in to speak to Garvey Bickell. Garvey strode over
to them, threading through the church goers, a big smile on his face.

"Rachel tells me we
got a big lemon cake at home. Why don’t you come on home with us for dinner?"

Alistair looked at Lily
who was staring at the red scar on his chin. Well, she wasn’t scowling at him
to keep him away at least.

Maddie tugged at his
hand. "Will you come to my house, Major Whiteaker? Dawn and I found some
more buttons in the yard."

"Oh, well, that
settles it. Thank you, Maddie. Garvey. I’ll be happy to join you."

They drifted across the
yard, stopping to say hello and exchange Sunday pleasantries with friends and
neighbors. "Would you rather I excuse myself, Lily?" Alistair said
quietly.

She gave him a quick
look, revealing what the bonnet kept hiding from him. "Of course not. Why
ever would I want that?"

He raised an eyebrow at
her.

"Well, I certainly
didn’t mean I never wanted to see you again." She sounded angry.

As she turned, her bonnet
hiding him from her as well as the reverse, Alistair smiled.

At the wagon, Maddie held
her arms up to him to be lifted into the back. Lily accepted Alistair’s hand
getting into the wagon. With Peep and his family, Fanny Brown, Garvey -- the
mule had a heavy load to pull, so Alistair mounted his horse to ride alongside.
Thomas rode on the other side where he was close to Fanny Brown, Dawn sharing
the saddle with him.

Before Garvey twitched
the reins to start, Maddie climbed over her mother and called to him. "I
could ride on the horse with you, Major Whiteaker," she offered.

Alistair grinned. "What
a fine offer. Ask your mother, Maddie."

"Mama, Major
Whiteaker would like me to ride with him. I don’t mind."

Lily laughed. "My
child is not shy, as you see. Are you sure you’ll be comfortable?"

"Quite sure,"
he said. He reached down and lifted Maddie out of the wagon and onto the saddle
in front of him.

The ride to Garvey’s was
one of the happiest hours of his life, Alistair thought. Maddie snuggled in his
arms and chatted all the way. She pointed out a red cardinal flitting in the
road ahead and told him all about how his crest meant that he was a royal bird
and that mockingbirds were soldiers who guarded the cardinals against the
rascally blue jays. He looked at Lily, wondering if this was a tale from a
storybook, but Lily just smiled and shook her head.

When they arrived at
Bickell’s place, Alistair gave Maddie a hug and handed her down to Thomas. He
dismounted quickly so as to help Lily out of the wagon. He was perfectly proper
taking her hand, but he hoped it was also reasonable to lightly place his other
hand on her waist as she hopped down.

He didn’t mean to
embarrass her, but she didn’t meet his eyes, so he supposed he had.

Alistair just did not
know how to act twenty-four or twenty-eight anymore. That’s when he might have
courted a woman, but instead he’d been in love with Nicolette, and then he’d
gone off to war. Now here he was past thirty, and he committed one gaucherie
after another.

Any young woman of his
social circle would have smiled, maybe even simpered, at the familiarity. But
Lily was not a Southern belle angling after a husband. In fact, she was the
exact opposite, as she’d made clear.

But there had been a
slight flush and a sudden intake of breath as she waited that instant for him
to release her. In spite of her avowal she would not marry again, she was not
indifferent to him.

While the women got
dinner on the table, Alistair sat on the front porch with Garvey. Thomas sat on
the floor, leaning against the post.

"Only a few months
until the election, Thomas. You think you’ll be ready?" Alistair asked.

"Not really, no sir.
I wish we had another two months to organize, to make sure everybody knows
where to go, how to go about casting a ballot. Major Bodell assures me his soldiers
will be a presence at the polls and in the streets the day of the election.
Still, I’d like to have our own men at each polling place to protect everybody."

"You’re expecting
trouble, then."

"Well, I want us to
be prepared, that’s all. There was another cross burning two nights ago. You
hear about that?"

"Yes, I heard. The
Knights of the White Camellia, I believe. They’ve been spreading out from
harassing blacks in New Orleans, moving into the countryside."

"I didn’t hear who they
targeted this time," Garvey said, slapping at a mosquito.

"It was Martha
Burnett."

"The widow? Why did
they pick on her?"

"She’s been teaching
Negro children to read in her kitchen."

"Has she, by damn.
Well, good for her." Garvey rubbed his chin. "Martha was the
prettiest thing when she was a girl. Yellowest hair you ever saw. Like to broke
my heart when she married Burnett." He grinned. "Course that was
before I met my Lena."

"Reverend Tyrone told
her to leave off," Thomas said. "At least for now. And I guess he’s
right. It’s too dangerous, and she’s all alone in that little house."

Alistair felt the sweat
trickling down his ribs. He wished Garvey would take his jacket off. Just
because it was Sunday didn’t mean God meant for them to expire of the heat. But
Garvey kept his jacket on and his tie tied, so Alistair did, too. "How
many more speeches do you have scheduled before the 27
^th
of
September, Thomas?" he asked.

"One nearly every
day, two on Saturdays. Having those guards there, on horseback, that helps,
Major, thank you. The women feel a lot safer with them there. I guess we all
do."

Alistair lifted his hand
lazily. "Chamard hired some of them, too." And so had Musette
DeBlieux, but he figured the less her name was spoken in connection with these
dealings, the safer she was.

Little feet thundered
through the house and burst onto the porch. The girls spoke over each other,
breathless with their message. "Rachel says come on to dinner," and "Mama
said dinner’s on the table."

Thomas collected Fanny
and the basket she’d been packing and took her for a picnic. Maddie chose to
eat with Dawn and her family in the kitchen, so it was only Alistair, Lily, and
Garvey at the table.

The dining room was
mercifully cool with the sun on the other side of the house. Lily had set the
table with a white damask cloth and Mrs. Bickell’s best china. They passed the
field peas, ham, fried chicken, boiled okra, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers in companionable
silence.

"My mother sends her
regards, Garvey," Alistair said as he accepted the biscuits.

"She spending the
summer on Pontchartrain?"

"Not this year. I
took her to stay with friends up on the Cane River. Chamard’s first wife’s
second cousin, Euphonia Broussard. You know her?"

That explained the two
weeks he’d disappeared, Lily thought. So his absence had nothing to do with
hurt feelings, nothing to do with her at all. That was, strangely,
disappointing. What nonsense, she told herself. She had to get over this
infatuation with Alistair Whiteaker.

"Broussard? Don’t
believe I know any Broussards."

"Gracious, Uncle
Garvey," Lily said. "There is a family in St. James Parish you don’t
know?"

"Ha," he said
with a grin. "The Cane River isn’t in St. James Parish."

"Ah, I see."

"Lily,"
Alistair said, "didn’t your family come from Parkersburg in West Virginia?"
She felt the heat flood her face. She hadn’t thought about what it meant for
Alistair to use her given name in company. She darted a glance at Uncle Garvey,
but he seemed intent on his drumstick.

"I read about this
new railway bridge they’re building across the Ohio River at Parkersburg. Going
to be the longest railroad bridge in the world when it’s finished."

"That’ll be a sight
to see," Uncle Garvey said. "I believe I’ll have to take a rail trip
just for the pleasure of crossing over that bridge."

"Do you like
railroad travel, Lily?" he asked her.

He seemed to delight in
using her name. The way he said it, like a caress -- the man was presumptuous.
And oh so seductive.

"When the weather is
cool enough to close the windows against all the soot," she said, "I
like it fine."

After lemon cake, Uncle
Garvey excused himself to take a nap. Distant thunder had rumbled during
dessert and Lily wondered if Alistair would make his goodbyes now. She wished
he would go, and she wished he wouldn’t. She wished she were not a fool.

Alistair held a finger
up, asking her to wait a moment. He stuck his head in the kitchen. "Rachel,"
he said, his hand on the door jamb, "That was a fine meal. Best lemon cake
in three parishes."

"For a compliment
that good, I make you another one next time you come."

"I’ll have to
remember how you reward compliments, Rachel. Thank you."

"Aren’t you the
charmer," Lily said with a smile.

"I aim to please."

He stared at her a
moment, and she let his gaze lock with hers. She should lead him to the sitting
room instead of gawking at him.

The freshening breeze
blew the window curtains into the room. "It’s going to rain," he
said. "I’ll go on home while I still can."

"You’ll get wet."

"I have a slicker."

So that was settled. And
still the two of them stood on opposite sides of the dining room, her arms
crossed over her chest, his loose by his sides.

"I brought something,"
he said.

"Did you?"

"A book. We can go
out to my saddle bags for it. Then I’ll go on."

"All right."

Lily smelled the rain in the
air as the wind picked up. It whipped her skirts against her knees and rustled
the chinaberry tree. "It’s going to storm. You shouldn’t ride when it’s
like this."

"I’ll be fine."

They didn’t speak again
as they crossed the yard to the barn, Lily walking with her hands behind her
back. She probably shouldn’t have come out here, but there was Peep working a
piece of leather near the barn door. They wouldn’t be alone.

"I saddled your
mare, Major, without pulling the cinches, so she’d be ready for you. It gone
rain buckets here in a bit."

"Thank you, Peep.
I’ll take care of the cinches."

"I’ll go on and see
to those chickens. They need to be cooped so they don’t blow off in the storm."

Lily drew in a breath. So
they were to be alone after all. He held his hand out for her to precede him
into the barn.

It was shadowed in here
and smelled of clean straw and horses. Alistair unbuckled his saddle bag and
brought out the book.

"
Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland
," Lily read. She thumbed the pages open and
saw drawings of a rabbit in a plaid coat and a grinning cat in a tree.

"For you to read to
Maddie."

"What a beautiful
book. And dear by the looks of it. Alistair, I can’t accept such an expensive
gift."

"It’s really for
Maddie, you know."

"Yes, but – "

"And she did let me
hold her in church this morning." He waggled his eyebrows at her. "
She
likes me."

Lily could only laugh. "I
daresay everyone likes you, Alistair Whiteaker."

She stilled. She felt as
if her face were being painted as his eyes roved over her forehead, her nose, then
lingered on her mouth.

He bent to her, his lips
barely touching hers.

Lily closed her eyes. She
felt his breath warm on her face. She leaned in.

"Alistair. I can’t
marry again," she said, her lips a breath away from his.

"You said ‘won’t’ last
time." His lips touched hers again, whispering across her mouth.

"What’s the
difference?" she murmured.

"That’s what we’re
going to find out."

He wrapped his arms
around her and claimed her mouth.

Lily had never in her
life been kissed like this, as if she were precious. Her arms wrapped around
his neck and he pulled her even closer, his kisses trailing across her jaw.