Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) (18 page)

She gathered herself and realized Yves’ irregular appearance
must have some import. “Your brother? You’ve found Dr. Chamard?”

Even from five feet, she could smell the horse on him, and
beneath that, the scent of sandalwood. She took a step closer, the combination
of man scents drawing her.

He shook his head. “The others are in New Orleans looking
for him. I’m heading out in the morning, to see if I can intercept them headed
north on the Natchez Trace. If they don’t take him to the docks.”

“Take him?”

“It seems likely he has been abducted. There have been a
number of slaves who’ve disappeared the last few days on this stretch of the
river.”

“Not runaways,” she said. Marianne realized she’d made a
statement, not asked a question, and she had no business knowing there had been
no more runaways in the area. But Joseph could have told her. That’s what she’d
say if he asked her how she knew. She was unaccustomed to secrets, and she
would have to learn to watch her tongue.

“No. We don’t think they’re runaways.”

“Come inside. You’ve ridden all the way from the Lake,
you’ll need your supper.”

Yves insisted no fires be lit for him this time of night,
but a cold plate would be most welcome. Charles donned his formal jacket to
serve him ham and succotash, cornbread and fig preserves. In front of Marianne
he placed a bowl of grapes; very astute of him, as always, she thought, to
prevent Mr. Chamard the discomfort of eating alone in company.

Marianne insisted on hearing all the news, and for once Mr.
Chamard did not condescend. Yves explained all they knew, all they suspected,
and every nuance of their reasoning. One aspect of Gabriel’s predicament Yves
hesitated to bring up, but Marianne thought of it herself.

“If slavers do have him,” she said, “I wonder what they can
do with him? He will not pass for a slave, a cultured man like him, with his
light skin.”

Yves’ eyes were on her. Rankled, she raised her chin. “Why
is it, Mr. Chamard, that every time I show the least intelligence, you stare at
me as if I were a prize pig?”

That crooked smile again. He was infuriating.

“Miss Johnston, you misjudge me completely.” Now his eyes
swept over her, lingering not on her bosom – that would be unforgivable – but
on her neck. Feeling stripped bare by his gaze, she resisted the urge to raise
her hand to her throat.

Marcel never looked at her like this, like . . . like he
could eat her. He didn’t make her blood rush and her body tingle with lewd
looks.

“Have you finished?” she said. She meant to be as rude as
he. She scooted her chair back to rise, but Yves reached for the little silver
bell near her own wineglass and rang it.

“I believe I’ll have a slice of that coconut cake Charles
mentioned.”

She sat down and put her hands in her lap. She would stare
at him every bite he took.

Charles delivered two plates of cake, as white as cake could
be, with thick white seven-minute icing, the whole covered with finely-grated,
sweetened coconut

“I don’t believe I’ll have any, Charles,” Marianne said.
She’d rather punish Yves by watching him eat. He would likely end up with icing on
his lip, and she would not tell him. She found herself gazing at his mouth.

Yves made a show of lowering his fork, downcast, hurt,
terribly hurt. “Won’t you please join me, Miss Johnston? It has been a hellish
long day, and I --.”

“I couldn’t, really, but please, Mr. Chamard. Enjoy
yourself.”

Yves stared at the cake in front of him. “It looks like very
good cake.” With the dejection of a child denied his supper, he slowly pushed
it away.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” She picked up her fork and cut
into the cake.

Yves cheered up immediately. “Where do you suppose this
coconut was grown?”

“Father or Adam could tell you, I’m sure. I’d guess Cuba.”

Yves behaved himself, and for ten minutes they had a
pleasant conversation. No leering or smirking or insensitive remarks. He wiped
his mouth and pushed his chair back. Around the long table he walked,
continuing his remarks about a horse race he’d seen.

When he reached Marianne’s chair, she held her skirts ready
to have her chair pulled out. Instead, Yves sat down in the chair next to her.
He picked up her napkin, dipped it in her water glass, and then wiped
seven-minute icing from the tip of her nose.

Marianne blushed crimson. She’d never been so humiliated.

“If you smirk,” she said, “I’ll never speak to you again.”

She watched his mouth. He leaned in closer.

“I won’t smirk.”

His lips met hers, soft and warm and gentle. He moved his
head and kissed her again, no pressure, no insistence, just sweetness.

He caught her lower lip with his teeth and all the breath
left her lungs. This was kissing.

He touched her upper lip with his tongue and she drew back,
startled by the surge of sensation, but the next kiss reassured her. It was
soft as the first one, and she sat still for another and another.

When he stopped, she let out a long sigh.

“Am I allowed to smile?” He was looking into her eyes, and
the smile was definitely there, but not on his mouth. She checked on that.

“A small one, perhaps.”

Oh my. Her heart flipped. It wasn’t a smirk, though of
course his scar pulled on his left upper lip just the littlest bit. Why haven’t
I seen that smile before? she thought.

Yves took her hand, turned her palm up and raised it to his
mouth. Marianne swallowed. Warmth suffused her entire body. Something was
happening to her, something new and very disturbing.

“Thank you for dessert,” Yves said. That teasing look was in
his eye again, but this time, this time it was charming.

The next morning, Marianne woke early to the song of a
mockingbird outside her window. Yves had escorted her to the bottom of the
stairs when they left the dining room the night before. “Please forgive me.
I’ve prolonged your evening, Miss Marianne. But I believe I’ll have one of your
father’s cigars before I retire.”

The renewed formality was welcome to her. How else could she
have walked away from him? “Good night, Mr. Chamard.”

She climbed the grand staircase feeling his eyes on her. At
the top, she turned and looked back.

“Good night,” he’d said.

After a blissful sleep, Marianne stretched and smiled,
kisses and kisses and kisses on her mind. Freddie romped on her bed, grabbed
her fingers in his mouth and slobbered on them. She caught him up and hugged
him. Even Freddie liked Yves.

She dressed with more care than she’d taken in months.
Sitting at her mirror, she held up her amber earrings and turned her head to
judge the effect. No, the pearls, she decided. Turned out in her favorite blue
lawn dress, she went directly to the breakfast room eager to tell Yves she
would write everyone she knew to look out for Gabriel, to be alert to rumors of
a light colored slave with soft hands.

No one in the dining room. Nor in the parlor, nor the
library. She tried the back veranda. Where was he?

Charles was in his pantry polishing silver.

“Have you seen our guest this morning?” she asked.

“Yes’m. I have.” He breathed onto the belly of a pitcher and
rubbed at it again.

“Well, where is he?”

Charles looked at her, all his sixty-three years seeing
right through her. She blushed, but she kept her chin up.

“He done gone. Had a quick breakfast down in the kitchen and
lit out.”

Marianne dropped her eyes. Of course, he needed to hurry on
to look for Gabriel. But he hadn’t said he’d go so early, without saying
good-bye.

“He left you something.”

Her pulse picked up and she looked at Charles. “What?”

“I put it in yonder.”

She followed him into the dining room to a side table.
Charles picked up a bouquet of wild flowers in a crystal vase. Queen Anne’s
lace and daisies and buttercups. “Dese here fo you,” Charles said, forgetting
his careful diction for the moment.

Marianne couldn’t keep the big smile off her face.

Charles leaned a little toward her and said, “I likes dis
Chamard.”

Marianne set the bouquet on the table next to her throughout
breakfast. Then she carried the vase to her room. She spent nearly three hours
at her desk writing everyone she knew about Gabriel’s disappearance. Some of
the recipients no doubt would waste no sympathy on a colored man’s plight, but
many of them would. They would make inquiries along their stretch of the river.
Someone might have heard something, anything, that would give them a clue about
Gabriel.

With ink-stained fingers, Marianne called Charles to take
her letters to the landing and personally hand over the packet to the mail boat
himself. Then she paced, Freddie watching her with his big puppy eyes.

“Let’s go outside,” she told him, and he wagged a sleepy
tail. “Come on, lazy.”

They walked the garden paths until Marianne, careless of her
hoops, plopped down on the cedar bench among the camellias, the bench with her
mother’s name burned into the back. The one where Yves had rudely taken her
hand and chastised her about freely expressing her opinion.

Just what is his opinion? She’d hate to think he was as
callous about slavery as most men were. She could not like a man who . . . I’m
being silly. It was just a few kisses. That’s all.

Marianne found the days long. She worried about Gabriel, she
missed Adam. She missed Yves Chamard. At odd moments through the day, and all
the hours she lay awake in the hot night waiting for sleep, the feel of his
lips on hers came back to her. Such sweet kisses, but a hint there of something
else, hotter, more dangerous. She touched her finger to her lower lip. She wanted
more.

Another sticky, sweltering day passed. After her
responsibilities were met and the heat had abated somewhat, Marianne spent an
hour with Peter. He knew the alphabet now, and some of the sounds the letters
made. She thought the next step might be to show him a few simple words, like
cat and rat, words that rhymed and showed how the sounds fit together. He was
bright. He’d get it.

They worked until dusk when Marianne said good night. Hoping
for a few minutes with Joseph before she went back to the empty house, she
ambled across the alleyway to his cabin with the bright blue hydrangeas. He
opened the door before she touched the step and motioned her in.

“I been watching for you. Come inside, Missy.”

A single candle burned, and Marianne could at first barely
see the people gathered around the plank table.

 “Dis chair for you, Miss Marianne,” Pearl said.

Evette, the cook, was there, and her man, Daniel was it?
Marianne recognized Joseph’s daughter holding her sleeping grandbaby. The other
three people Marianne did not know at all.

She looked her question at Joseph. He sat down on the bench
across the table from her.

“Missy, dese folks need you help. We wouldn’t ask we knew
’nother way.”

“Who are these people?”

“Dis here be Bess and Elvin. Dat’s dere boy Clem.”

Marianne stared at the strangers. The man did not meet her
eyes, but she knew he had been watching her. The woman sat on a cot. Her foot,
wrapped round and round with ragging, rested in Evette’s lap. The third figure
was a boy of perhaps ten.

“They’re looking for a station house?”

“Dey come wid de law close behind em. I’d send fo de
shepherd, but he gone from here.”

What were they asking her to do? She had no idea where the
next safe house was, nor how she would get them there. And she was a planter’s
daughter. What did they want from her?

“I knows it not fair to show you dis, Missy. I knows it. But
you got to see why. Pearl, show her de boy.”

Pearl guided the child to stand before Marianne and then
turned him around. The skin on his back was torn and shredded.

Marianne put a hand over her mouth.

“I done what I see you do wid Petie, Miss Marianne,” Pearl
said. “I wash it good wid de witch hazel I find in you cellar, and rubbed de
salve over it all.”

“What in God’s name?” Marianne said. “He’s just a child.”

“Yes’m,” Joseph said. “It a tipped whip do dat to him. Dat’s
why dey run, befo de man at dat place do worse.”

“And Miss Marianne,” Pearl said, “Bess hurt her ankle bad.
It swole up big as a punkin.”

Evette began unwrapping the woman’s foot to show her. Pearl
held the candle close. The ankle was enormously swollen. If it was broken, at
least the bone had not penetrated the skin. That likely would have been fatal,
eventually. Perhaps it was only sprained. Marianne grasped the dirty bare foot
and very carefully tried to move the ankle. Bess hissed in pain, but Marianne
continued to feel the flesh, trying to imagine what lay beneath the swelling.

“I don’t know. I think it’s only a sprain, but I don’t know.
I wish we had some mustard. The kind with the black seeds.” She realized she
was talking to herself. “Comfrey is the best we can do. Pearl, you know which
herb that is?”

“Miss Marianne, I go in dere now, Mr. McNaught see me wid de
lantern.”

Marianne nodded. “I’ll get it.” She stood to go.

“Missy.” Joseph stopped her. “We ain’t asked you yet what we
gon ask you.”

“I thought --.”

“No’m,” Joseph said. “We need yo help with Mr. McNaught. We
need you to lie fo us.” Every eye in the room was on her.

“Why? Joseph, you know I won’t tell Mr. McNaught these
people are here.”

He shook his head. “We needs de wagon for dese folks. Bess,
she cain’t walk. And de boy in bad shape. He likely have fever by morning. We
gots to move em on out o’ here befo dey catched.”

“A wagon? But then you’d have to have a horse, or a mule.
Mr. McNaught won’t --.”

“Das why we needs you, Miss Marianne,” Pearl said. “If you
tells Mr. McNaught to give Joseph de wagon fo de day, we hide de family in de
bottom and put things on top of ’em. Joseph drive de wagon away befo de men
come after em.”