Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) (11 page)

The boat pulled up to the Toulouse dock. Gabriel handed the
men a few coins to divide amongst themselves, then waved them off. He looked
down the alley of oaks to the DeBlieux house and thought of inviting himself to
dinner.

But he had no answer to Simone’s anger. What could he do? He
couldn’t apologize for having left her. He’d done it for her sake so that she
would forget him and go on with her life. Without him. But she hadn’t.

He followed the river road to his own home, to Chateau
Chanson. He’d have to make a decision soon about his practice. Staying next
door to Toulouse would only be inviting trouble, Simone so near, as impossible
as ever.

Gabrielle spent the day corresponding with doctors in
Louisiana, Mississippi, and even Alabama. Very likely one of them would welcome
him as a partner, a junior partner of course. Even an octoroon associate could
bring more dollars into the practice.

Claire killed a capon for supper and fed him chicken and
dumplings, which lay in his stomach like so much lead. He chewed a few caraway
seeds, secretly, and took himself to the back gallery to watch the sun set. Ben
and Claire retired to their room in the attic of the north wing and left him to
his thoughts. The stars came out one by one in the moon-washed sky. As he named
the few stars he knew, Simone’s scent, her voice, her brown eyes would not
leave him.

She’d been only seventeen when he left, her face still
rounded with youth, her skin as dewy and soft as a babe’s. They’d known each
other all their lives, and when they were children Simone had trailed after
him, adoring him. His adolescence was nearly over when she began hers, and for
a time she’d been shy with him. By then he understood their friendship had to
change, had to diminish. That was a sadness. But after all, though their
half-cousinship had no real bearing on their being together, there was the
issue of color. What small tolerance there had been for mixed relationships,
and then only if the white partner were male, had vanished in these heated
times. Slavery and abolition and states’ rights and racism – all conspired to
make it impossible for Gabriel to speak for her. She would be ostracized,
perhaps worse, if she were married to him.

She’d made her debut that season, entered the marriage
market, to be blunt. Gowns cut to reveal her charms, scents and colors and hair
styles -- all designed to entice gentlemen to her side. Gabriel, visiting Tante
Josie’s townhouse in New Orleans before the first ball of the season, lost his
breath when Simone entered the parlor, ready for her big evening. She wore
lavender silk which rustled and swayed over the hoops and petticoats. There
were small pink roses in her dark hair and at her bosom, and her brown eyes
glowed with the awareness of new womanhood. She had twirled for him and blushed
when he’d admired her finery. Had she known even then how he wanted her?

The season went on, and Gabriel tormented himself with
jealousy. He did not attend the balls Simone did. He appeared no more black
than many other gentleman of her social circle, but he had determined at a
young age that he did not wish to pass. He belonged more to his mother’s people
than to his father’s, and he took no pride in his lighter skin.

Absent from her whirl of dances and dinners, he tortured
himself imagining Simone in other men’s arms, listening to their flirtations,
returning their banter, fluttering her fan. Gabriel knew she had mastered that
art – with arch humor, she’d demonstrated the various uses of a fan to him one
rainy afternoon. And as the season progressed, so did Simone’s confidence. Her
shyness disappeared. She knew early on the power she had over men.

But when she chose Gabriel, she found her power only worked
to further draw him to her. It did not make him her own. He’d said no.
Lovingly, painfully, but no.

He could not marry her. And he could not resist her. And so
he’d gone away.

Now that she was nearly twenty-one, Simone’s allure had
deepened. Her womanhood ripe, her sense of self complete, Simone knew what she
wanted. She had not accepted any of the admirers who’d courted her. She wanted
him.

Gabriel shook his head. He would have to find a practice
away from here. Perhaps Vicksburg.

The object of his dreams appeared at the top of the stairs.
He hadn’t even heard her. He dropped his feet and stood, as awkward as a school
boy. He looked for her escort, and saw no one.

“How did you get here?” he said stupidly.

“I walked. Are you going to ask me to sit down?”

He pulled a chair up near his and held it for her as if they
were at a grand ball. She seated herself and waited for him to join her in
gazing at the moon, as if this were any night with any young man of her
acquaintance.

“Tante Josie surely doesn’t know you’re here?”

“I told her I had a headache and went to bed.”

“Simone, I --.”

“Hush, Gabriel. I’m here. And I’m not a child.”

He’d have to understand that. Simone loved his
protectiveness, but she didn’t want that from him now. She wanted him to see
her, really see her as a woman ready for him, body and soul.

A candle glowed from the other side of the glass doors,
casting a faint warm light over Gabriel’s features. His perfect face, the
feminine beauty of his curling eyelashes belied by the strong chin and firm
jaw. His shoulders, rounded with muscle. His dear hands, long-fingered, delicate,
the hands of a healer. Simone could have swallowed him, could have drunk him in
hungry gulps.

The anger – she’d let it go. Gabriel was home. He was still
hers. They needed only courage to be together in this life.

“Simone.” Gabriel realized she could see his face, but he
could not see hers. She had always had the advantage in knowing what he was
thinking while he was bewildered by her. Bewitched, but bewildered. “Simone,
what are you doing here?”

“You know what I’m doing here.”

“Nothing’s changed, Simone.”

She rose from her chair. He stood to see her down the
stairs, thinking she was leaving, that he’d made her angry again.

She took a step closer to him. Very close now. He could
smell the rose water on her skin. His hands trembled with the need to reach for
her, to grab her and crush her to him.

She moved until her full skirt brushed against his knees,
and for a moment all his awareness concentrated on that faint touch.

“I’ve changed,” she said. “I won’t take no for an answer.
Not ever again.”

She moved into him and of their own accord his arms opened
to her. All he knew was need, the long pent-up need for Simone.

The feel of her in his arms, under his hands, overwhelmed
all Gabriel’s senses but touch. He kissed her eyes, pulled his fingers through
her hair, loosening pins and combs. Cradling her head in one hand, he found her
mouth, open and warm and inviting.

She met his kiss, ready and eager for him. Her hands roamed
over his back, slid under his arms to feel his ribs, caressing, exploring. Her
fingers tugged at his buttons, opened his shirt, and her hands were on him.

“Wait,” he gasped. He swallowed hard and stepped back. “You
don’t know what you’re doing.”

Simone smiled at him. “Yes, Gabriel, I do. We’ve passed the
test. We’re not going to lose any more of our lives together.” She closed the
distance between them and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Her kiss told him the waiting was over. Their time had come.

With only a sliver of moon to see by, the man crept between
the row of cabins. A dog moaned in its sleep, and he halted, afraid even to
breathe.

There it was. A white rag tied to the porch post. He crossed
the alleyway, knelt in the dust, and scratched on the porch floor. Then he
poised, ready to run if it was a trap.

An old man stepped barefoot onto the porch.

“You Joseph?” the runaway whispered.

“Come in out of sight.”

“Anybody else in dere?”

“My daughter and her grandbaby. You be safe.”

Caution in every step, the man climbed onto the porch and
entered the cabin. Joseph removed the white rag from the post and closed the
door behind them.

“Got you some vittles there. Go on and eat. Dere’s mo for
you to take wid you.”

The man sat on the floor in the dark, a plate of cold beans,
corn bread, and ham in his lap. He used the spoon like a shovel and ate like a
man would who’d had nothing but berries and stolen raw corn for three days.

“I been expecting you,” Joseph said. “You’s late. You have
any trouble on de way?”

“I heared dogs twicet, but dey wadn’t after me. I been in de
cane, mostly, since I left de place. It high enough nobody see me, I stay low.”

A footstep on the porch, and the man froze. There came a
scratch on the porch boards. Joseph cracked the door, then opened it wider for
Luke to enter.

“I been watching for him,” Luke explained. He came in, sat
on the floor. “I be Luke,” he told the stranger.

The man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Cat,” he
said.

“Dey calls you Cat?”

The man didn’t choose to explain. They let him eat, then
passed him a ladle of sweet water. Joseph’s daughter sat up, only half awake.
“He by hisself?” she said into the dark.

“Yeh, honey. Jest de one man. We don need you tonight. You
get you rest.”

She lay down again, the corn husks rustling as she settled.

Luke strained to see the man in the weak light from the
window. “You a big man,” he said. “You strong, able to run all night?”

“I here, ain’t I? I been gon four nights now. Dey ain’t catched
me yet.”

“How far you goin’?”

“All de way. Dey say you got to go to Canada, else dem
slavers steal you back.”

“You know de way?”

“How I know de way? I find it though. Every station tell you
how to find de next station, dat how it work.”

Luke spoke to Joseph. “He got a shepherd?”

Joseph nodded in the dark.

Luke sat with his arms around his spread knees, thinking.
“Dis shepherd wait one mo night?”

“What you thinking?”

“Listen here” he said to Cat. “I got thirty-five cents.”

“How you get dat money, Luke?” Joseph asked.

“I got it.” Luke turned back to Cat. “You rest up here. My
woman feed you. Tomorrow night, I come wid you. We split de money when we needs
it. We watch each other’s back.”

“Why you cain’t go tonight?” Cat said.

Luke hated to admit he wasn’t ready. Pearl wasn’t ready.
Anyway, it was only two hours till daylight, and Cat had to lie low during the
day.

“What about de shepherd?” Cat said.

“He waiting down de road a piece,” Joseph answered. “I talk
to him.” He patted his sleeping great-grandbaby on the back and went out.

The moon had nearly set, and Joseph hurried to the road
leading to the northern-most fields of the plantation. Where the road turned
east and then sharply north again, he stopped.

Too dark to see anything, and his old heart was thumping
hard. “Mister?” he whispered, afraid to speak and afraid not to.

Yves Chamard emerged from the copse by the road, two horses
in tow.

“Where is he?” Yves said.

“Mr. Chamard, he say can he go tomorrow night? It late, and
a man go with him he wait a day.”

“Damnation,” Yves said. He’d been in the dark swatting
mosquitoes nearly two hours, for nothing. He considered demanding that Joseph
go back and get the man. But it was late. With horses, riding hard, Yves could
never get him to the next station by daybreak, much less have the mounts back
in the stable before they were missed.

“You was planning to stay a few mo days, Master?” Joseph
said.

Yves swatted his quirt against his leg, too irritated to
answer civilly. It wasn’t the old man’s fault. And his own convenience meant
little compared to what this slave was risking. Still, he was damned annoyed.

“So, there will be two men?” That meant saddling another
horse, sneaking three of them out, and putting them back in decent shape before
the stable boy got up. He’d have to borrow one of the Johnstons’ horses. Irony,
that, using Adam’s own horse to help his slave escape. Hope to hell he never
finds out.

“Have them here no more than an hour after dark.”

“I tell ’em,” Joseph said.

Yves made out the old man’s darkened figure turning to go.

“Joseph,” Yves said. “Might as well ride back, save your
feet a mile.”

“Master, I ain’t never been on no horse. And I ain’t goin’
to tonight neither. Thank you just the same.”

Yves mounted and Joseph stood back for the horses to move
ahead on the dark road.

When he got to the cabin, Joseph scratched the porch post to
warn the men inside. Then he crept in and sat his weary bones on the cot.

“He say tomorrow night, just after dark.” He rested a
minute. “He a good man to come out again.”

“He a white man?” Cat asked.

The men would guess that much even in the dark tomorrow
night. “Yeh. From other side of de river.”

Luke stood up. “I goin’ now. Pearl bring you something to
eat tomorrow. You lay low, and we go soon as it good dark.”

Cat stretched out on the floorboards. Joseph lay back on his
cot. Luke slipped out.

Just as quietly, Luke slipped into his own cabin. He stood a
minute, listening. Pearl’s breathing told him she was asleep. At dawn, he’d be
in the fields. He’d have to tell her now.

She lay in the middle of their bed, one arm stretched across
where his body was supposed to be. He lifted her hand and kissed it, then eased
onto the mattress and under her arm. He pulled her to him so he could talk into
her ear.

“Pearl.” She rolled into him and murmured something. Pearl
was going to cry and carry on when he told her, he knew that. She didn’t have
any people of her own on the place. Her mammy and her sister had died right
after Master brought them here, and she had only him.