Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) (35 page)

Finally she pinched her cheeks for color and descended the
stair case at a stately pace, Freddie at her heels. Cool and composed, she
entered the parlor with her chin slightly elevated. Yves was on his feet as
soon as she set foot in the room. She met him with an insincere smile on her
face, and took some satisfaction in how his own smile died. Twenty-six days,
indeed.

She held her hand out for the requisite greeting. Yves bent
over it formally. “Miss Johnston.”

“Why Mr. Chamard. It’s been such a long while, I hardly
recognized you.”

Yves retreated a step, wisely silent. Freddie wagged his
tail, wonderfully pleased his idol had returned and Yves ventured a quick
scratch behind his ears before resuming his stoic posture.

With great decorum, Marianne arranged the expanse of her
skirts as she sank gracefully onto the green silk chair. She’d chosen a pale
blue gown embroidered with apricot and green around the low neckline. She looked
damn good in it, too.

“I’ve just been remonstrating with Mr. Chamard about turning
my daughter into an adventuress this summer,” Mr. Johnston said.

Marianne struggled to hide her alarm. If Father blamed Yves
for everything she’d done, then he’d never give his approval to the marriage.
Father was scowling. She glanced at Yves. She’d never seen him ill at ease
before.

“I assure you, Father, Mr. Chamard did not lead me astray. I
insisted on accompanying him.”

The scowl left Mr. Johnston’s face and he laughed. “Don’t
look so nervous, Yves. I know my daughter.” He stood up. “I hope you will
excuse me for a few minutes. I’ll join you for coffee as soon as I’ve, uh,
spoken with Mr. McNaught.”

Marianne kept her eyes on the wall opposite her. Just as
Father had said, she could be silently unapproachable. The tinny ormolu clock
on the mantel pinged, the only sound in the room.

Yves propped his elbows on his knees, just that many inches
closer to her. “You’re angry with me.”

“Not at all.” The pattern in the wall paper had all her
attention.

“Twenty-six days.”

So he’d counted them too. She glanced at him. If he was
smiling, she'd leave the room.

He wasn’t. He looked woeful. Good.

“If I could have come sooner, I would have.”

That earned him the turn of her head.

“I missed you,” he said.

She adjusted the folds of her skirt, rustling it a bit.

“Marianne.” Yves left his chair and knelt beside her without
touching her. “Look at me.”

He smelled good. She looked at him, trying to hide the fact
that her breathing changed.

“Have you forgotten me?” he asked.

“In twenty-six days?”

“I thought of you every minute. But I couldn’t speak to your
father until I had arranged everything. He would not approve of a penniless
suitor.”

Not a hint of cockiness in him now. His eyes even held a
hint of pleading. Marianne relaxed into her chair. She’d had him worried, and
that was all the reassurance she needed. “Are we to be penniless?”

Yves smiled now. “No, my darling, not penniless. But not
wealthy either. Can you be happy without silk and satin and servants and
carriages?”

She tilted her head as if she were considering it. Then she
looked into his gold-flecked hazel eyes. “Will you kiss me every single day?”

“I will.”

“At night and in the morning too?”

“Every hour on the hour.”

“That may not be enough.”

Yves laughed. “I’ll do my best.” He lifted her from her
chair as he rose, pulled her close, and kissed her with twenty-six days of
yearning.

After a kiss long enough that Freddie commenced whining,
Yves released her. “That’s all you get for now.” He stepped back to his chair.
“You sit over there.”

She laughed and straightened her hair. Seated in her own
chair six feet from his, she endeavored to play the lady. “How is Gabriel?”

“Very well. He’s tossed the crutch and walks with a cane. He
and Simone are married! His Aunt Josie had a priest waiting when they got
home.”

Yves suddenly patted his vest. “Oh, how could I forget?”

He fished in his pocket for a small black velvet bag. “I’ve
been to Natchez.” He placed the bag in her hand. “Your pearls.”

Marianne spilled her earrings into her palm, the ones she’d
given up to buy Luke. “Oh, Yves.” She stood up and kissed him. “Thank you.”

Father poked his head around the doorway. “How about that
coffee?”

Marianne smiled at him, gloriously happy. “Coffee would be
wonderful, Father.”

After dinner, Yves raised an eyebrow and Marianne nodded.

“Might I speak to you, Mr. Johnston?”

“Certainly. Come into my office and we’ll have a cigar.”

Marianne stayed behind in the dining room. It was much
closer to the office than the parlor.

Annie and Charles cleared away the remains of dinner,
polished the table around her, set the silver candelabra back in the middle of
the table, and left her. A few minutes later Charles came back in with a silver
cooling bucket and a bottle of champagne. Annie carried a tiny silver tray with
crystal flutes. They left her alone again and Marianne stared at the champagne
for lack of anything else to do until Father and Yves should emerge. Freddie
napped at her feet. The clock in the parlor chimed two. It chimed again on the
half hour and still they had not finished.

Men and their cigars. Didn’t they know she was waiting out here?
What on earth were they talking about?

At last the door opened. Marianne stood, waiting to see
their faces. Father wanted her to get married, didn’t he? And he knew the
Chamards very well. Nothing to worry about, surely. But their footsteps in the
hallway were slow. Too slow. He’d said no. Then they'd run away, she thought.

Yves entered. Where was his smile? Why wasn’t he smiling?

He winked at her and took a puff on his cigar. She breathed
out.

Father followed Yves into the room. When he spied the
champagne, he grunted. “Charles’ idea?”

Marianne smiled uncertainly. “Yes.”

“Sit down, Marianne,” Mr. Johnston said. “We have some
things to discuss before champagne is in order.”

She sat. Yves took the chair next to hers. Father faced them
both across the broad table.

“Yves has refused his inheritance from his father. Did you
know that?”

“No, but I’m not surprised, Father. Yves and I --.”

“Spare me the moralizing, please. This is about your
financial future, not your principles. He will have a little money from his
grandmother Ashford, whose fortune came from the fur trade. He has sensibly
decided to keep that. He will have a salary from this newspaper job. And he has
liquidated his own assets here, his carriage and the like. Correct, Mr.
Chamard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What this means, Marianne, is that you will live a very
different life. You will not have a new wardrobe with every season. You will
not have a houseful of servants to clean and cook and see to your needs. You
may, perhaps, have one maid and a handyman, but no more. You understand?”

So he is not forbidding it! Marianne’s smile lit the room.
“Yes, Father. I know this.”

“And he means to take you north. You’ll have snow and gray
skies and freezing rain all winter. You will leave your family behind . . .”
Here Mr. Johnston lost his voice. He cleared his throat and went on. “Your
family, everyone you know. You won’t have your rose garden.”

My roses . . . “Doubtless roses grow in New York.” She
reached for Yves and he took her hand. “Father, I will miss you terribly. But I
must go where Yves goes.”

Mr. Johnston set his cigar on the edge of the table. There
were several scars around the table’s perimeter where he’d forgotten a cigar
before now. He sighed heavily. “I know.”

“You aren’t surprised, Father?”

He smiled at Marianne. “You are not the same girl I left
here three months ago, my dear. And after Yves’ note arrived, I don’t believe
you heard one word I said. That, and Hannah’s complaint that you changed gowns
six times this morning, led me to think that you had perhaps formed an
attachment.”

Charles appeared in the doorway looking smug. Marianne
grinned at him. He’d been listening. Probably Hannah and Annie were out there
in the hallway too.

“Charles,” Father called, “uncork this champagne, if you
please.”

In the shady late afternoon, Marianne led Yves through the
gardens to show him her experimental roses. Annie was dispatched as chaperon,
and when Yves stopped in a secluded nook to take Marianne into his arms, Annie
scolded. “Charles say keep ya’ll moving. Les go.”

“She’s incorrigible,” Marianne whispered.

The heady fragrance of roses overwhelmed her, and the feel
of Yves’ arm under hers nearly undid her. His smoldering eyes told her he was
suffering from the same stimulation.

 “Miss Annie,” he said, “I believe one kiss would be
appropriate in the midst of all these beautiful roses, don’t you?”

“You mean kissin Miss Marianne?”

“I’ll be happy to kiss you, too, if you’ll allow me to kiss
your mistress.”

Annie thought about it. “All right. But my Sissy say one
kiss ain’t hardly never enough.”

“And she’s right.” Yves bent down to the six year old and
gave her a whopping big kiss on the cheek. Then he kissed her on the other
cheek.

Annie rubbed at it. “All right, I reckon you kin kiss Miss
Marianne twicet, too.”

Yves took Marianne into his arms and kissed her the way
she’d been waiting to be kissed all afternoon. She leaned in to him, and he
accepted her weight as if she were only another part of himself.

Finally, Annie pulled at Yves’ jacket. “Dat long enough,
Mister.”

Yves kept Marianne close and grinned. “That was only one
kiss, Annie.”

“Wail, ya’ll best make de next one short. Dese ants round
here trying to get me.”

They walked on through the gardens, Marianne’s hand in his
because they belonged to each other now. At her experimental beds, she
explained what she was doing with her cross-breeding project.

“Can you take cuttings?” Yves asked.  Marianne kissed him
for caring whether she had her roses with her.

“Oh, lawdy. Ya’ll at it again.” Annie teared up. “Charles
gon whip me he find out ya’ll doin all dat kissing. He tell me keep de daylight
tween ya’ll.”

“Annie, honey, Charles won’t whip you,” Marianne said.

Annie’s big dark eyes aswim conquered Yves. “I tell you
what. We’ll go back to the house and I won’t kiss Miss Marianne once all the
way back. How about that?”

At the house, Marianne said, “Come on, Annie. Help me dress
for dinner.”

“I tie de ribbons. I knows how to tie.”

Yves held the door wide for Marianne’s bell skirt and Annie
both to get through. Then he patted his pocket for a cigar, lit up, and took a
seat in the shade. He’d never felt more at peace than at that moment. Marianne
was his. He was eager to go North where he’d no longer have to pretend he
belonged in a culture that sanctioned slavery, where he could pursue his
writing under his own name without risking his family’s security. Leaving here
without Marianne had become unthinkable. Now he had her, the world was his too.

Footsteps on the path from the stables interrupted Yves’
contentment, and Adam Johnston appeared. He wore no hat, his coat was
mud-spattered, and his gait was uneven. He’s been riding drunk. Wonder he
didn’t break his neck.

Yves stood. “Adam?” He could smell the whiskey on him from
ten paces.

With deliberate movements, Adam joined him on the veranda.
“What the devil are you doing here?” he said, thick-tongued.

Alcohol had unleashed the brute in him, as usual, Yves
thought. He hated to tell him the news about the engagement when Adam was in
this state. “Business with your father,” he said.

Adam raised the flask in his hand. “Want a drink?”

Yves shook his head and held out a cigar. “How about
switching from whiskey to tobacco?”

Adam puffed through his lips like a horse. After a moment’s
consideration, he decided. He opened the flask and drained it. “I’m going in.”

At supper, Adam drank wine, but he refilled his glass
repeatedly and what little he ate did nothing to sober him. Yves caught
Marianne’s anxiety, her frequent glances at Adam’s wine glass. The bounder had
no business coming to table like this, upsetting his sister. After supper, he'd
take him outside, see what had set him off this time.

“Adam,” Marianne said quietly, “surely the wine makes you
hot. Would you not like a lemonade?”

Adam looked at her, resentment clear in his tone and in the
sneer on his face. “No, little sister, I would not like a lemonade.”

Yves glanced at Mr. Johnston, who was watching Adam, a line
between his eyebrows. He must be aware of his son’s belligerence when he was
drunk.

The tension at the table was disturbed by the sound of quick
boots in the hallway. They heard Charles’ murmur, and then a louder impatient
voice.

Marcel? Yves put his napkin aside and stood up.

Marcel pushed past Charles and into the dining room. His
face was rigid with fury. Mr. Johnston stood in alarm, but Adam remained
seated, sprawled in his chair, his wine glass in his hand.

“Ah, the avenging cavalier,” Adam drawled, raising his glass
as if in toast. “What took you so long?”

“Get up, damn you,” Marcel said, his hands in tight fists.

Yves stepped around the table, trying to get between the two
of them. “Marcel, what are you doing?”

“Move aside, Yves.” Marcel shoved at his brother.

Yves held Marcel back. “Wait.”

“Explain yourself, young man,” Mr. Johnston boomed.

Marcel reined himself in. “Mr. Johnston. This is between
your son and the Chamards. We will take our quarrel out of doors.”

“Don’t want to go outdoors any more today,” Adam said like a
petulant child.