Redeeming Gabriel (15 page)

Jamie’s amiable expression vanished. “I am excessively tired of the questioning of my family’s loyalty to the South.”

“But, my dear fellow—”

“The fact that my cousin chose to join the Union is no reflection on our—”

Gabriel lifted a palm. “What cousin?”

“Camilla didn’t tell you we have a cousin who is a Union army surgeon?” Jamie looked sheepish.

“She didn’t, but even if she had, it’s obvious your family is above reproach.”

Beaumont relaxed, though the expression in his gray eyes remained guarded.

Gabriel pursued the subject. “I simply wondered if—considering the tightening of the blockade, you know—there might be more profitable ventures closer to home.”

“As to that, my father will keep me busy, I’m sure.” Jamie looked down.

“I’d hoped to speak to him tonight.”

“I’m afraid railroad business took him to the central part of the state. He should return within a few days.”

“I see.” Gabriel tried to look disappointed. “I found a fine Cuban cigar I wished to gain his opinion of, but I’ll save it for another time.”

“He’ll appreciate that, I’m sure. Have you met our houseguest?” Jamie nodded toward his grandmother’s corner, where sets for a quadrille were being formed.

Gabriel hesitated. “We met briefly two weeks ago.”

“Ah. Then you’ll need no introduction.”

Gabriel followed his host, who seemed oblivious to the young ladies gazing hopefully in his wake.

General John Forney shook hands with Gabriel. “Please forgive me, Reverend, if I’m not able to stand.” Forney, a handsome man with a wiry dark beard, silver temples and piercing light green eyes, gave him a tired smile. “I had looked forward to the entertainment tonight, but I’d best conserve my strength.”

“I understand.” Gabriel assessed the general as a formidable force. He had distinguished himself with bravery at First Manassas and at Dranesville, and Richmond had consequently rewarded him with a promotion and the Mobile command. “Our congregation prays for your continued recovery.”

Forney produced a dry smile. “I’d be grateful for any intervention with the Almighty you can send my way.” He indicated Gabriel’s cane. “It seems you owe your own existence to prayer. Mrs. St. Clair tells me you were at Shiloh.”

“In a minor role. My leg hardly pains me at all these days.”

“I daresay all it needs is a little exercise.” Mrs. St. Clair deftly used her own cane to send Gabriel’s clattering to the polished wood floor.

He instinctively found his balance, his startled gaze flicking to his hostess’s bland countenance.

“Why, Reverend!” In a lesser individual, he would have called her expression a smirk. “I believe a miracle has occurred. Perhaps in celebration you could take my granddaughter onto the dance floor.”

Camilla, hovering just within earshot, had been quietly giving instructions to one of the many servants hired for the occasion. At her grandmother’s shocking behavior she shooed away the servant and turned, hands planted at her tiny waist.

Gabriel was hard put to keep his eyes in his head. Tonight, Camilla hardly looked like anybody’s little sister. The lacy folds of the bertha collar of her gown draped gently below her shoulders, exposing a vast expanse of snowy throat and bosom.

He lifted his gaze to her face and found there an ironic smile very similar to her grandmother’s. He gave her a jerky bow. “Miss Beaumont, I’d be honored.”

The misplaced dimple appeared as she curtsied. Surrendering his cane to a servant, Gabriel took Camilla’s gloved hand and escorted her into the formation of the quadrille.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” She peeped up at him as they waited for the music to start.

He surveyed her as thoroughly as he dared. She was exquisite tonight. Her hair, caught loosely off her face in a silken snood, was threaded at the top and sides with tiny white flowers and seed pearls. Her eyes were bright with mischief, her cheeks flushed with the warmth of the room.

“I imagine I can keep up with you,” he said.

She seemed discomposed by his examination, her full lower lip caught by white teeth, cheeks stained an even brighter pink. He placed his thumb in the palm of her hand, pressed gently and held her gaze.

It was a small gesture, but shockingly intimate. Her lips parted, and her eyes widened. With a down sweep of lashes as old as time, she flipped open her fan. “Why, Reverend, how can you keep up with someone who’s not going anywhere?”

For the entirety of the dance, he found himself wondering what she meant. None the wiser by the end, he returned her to her grandmother’s side, bowed and retrieved his cane. Leaning against the wall, the cane clamped under his arm, he watched Camilla accept a waltz with a young second lieutenant. They twirled gaily around the room, separated only by the width of Camilla’s great hooped silk skirt. The lieutenant held the same hand Gabriel had just pressed, and she didn’t seem to mind one bit. The boy’s other hand rested lightly at her waist.

Camilla’s hair was coming down as usual, curling wildly around her face. She looked, Gabriel thought, like a little hoyden. Well, no, to be fair, she looked—

He caught his thoughts going round in circles. It didn’t make any difference how Camilla Beaumont looked, as long as she somehow got him into her father’s study before the night was over.

As she circled the ballroom in Israel Duvall’s arms, Camilla took perverse satisfaction in Gabriel Laniere’s continued avoidance of her gaze. She could still feel the pressure of his callused finger in the center of her lace mitt.

But that was ridiculous. She gave Israel a dazzling smile and checked to make sure Gabriel saw.

Though he didn’t seem to be looking, his lips tightened. Satisfied, Camilla allowed Second Lieutenant Duvall to dance her to the opposite end of the ballroom.

At the end of the waltz, the officer returned Camilla to her grandmother’s side and bowed over her hand. As he straightened, his gaze slid over Camilla’s shoulder. His blue eyes widened.

Camilla turned and sighed. Fanny Chambliss stood chatting with the general, delicately plying her embroidered fan. She looked like a fairy, her silvery tresses smoothly parted and arranged in complicated plaits at the back of her head. Her gown was icy blue, matching her eyes. Fanny had, of course, worn the same gown at every formal gathering within the past year—as had most women of the city, including Camilla—but Second Lieutenant Duvall wouldn’t know that.

“Wh-who is that?” he stammered. “Will you introduce me?”

Camilla might have had the first waltz, but it looked like the last one would go to Fanny.

Suddenly a door slammed at the front of the house. Loud voices approached the ballroom. Camilla stood on tiptoe, craning to see over the heads of the men between her and the open doorway. The babble of questions and exclamations made her even more determined to discover the source of the excitement, which seemed to be making its way toward the general.

Lifting her skirts, she dodged across the crowded ballroom. As she reached her grandmother’s side, a uniformed adjutant hastily removed his cap as he saluted his superior officer.

“Sir! Flag Officer Randolph sent me to inform you the Yankees have moved in on Fort Morgan.”

At the sudden burst of consternation from the assembled crowd, General Forney stood painfully. “The Federals have been sitting in the gulf for six months, Sergeant. What makes Captain Randolph think we’re in imminent danger?”

“These aren’t just blockaders. Looks like an iron-clad—maybe even two, best we can tell.” The sergeant gulped. “He’s afraid it might be Farragut, sir!”

A collective gasp muffled the general’s calm response. Before Camilla could gain more than a vague understanding that Randolph was to bring his squadron into the city, she sensed a tall, dark presence just over her left shoulder.

She looked up to find Gabriel Laniere’s gaze moving from her face to the doorway of the ballroom. It was time.

Without looking again at Gabriel, Camilla eased through the crowd. In the general air of hysteria provoked by the news from Fort Morgan, she attracted little attention. She waited outside the door for perhaps three minutes before Gabriel joined her.

“Didn’t want to be seen leaving together,” he said. “We’ve got to hurry.”

She led the way toward the stairs. “Papa always locks his study. I don’t know how we’re going to get in.”

“Show me the room, and I’ll worry about that.”

The ballroom, dining room and several parlors took up the first-floor entry level; the ground floor contained the breakfast room and other less formal family rooms, including her father’s study.

When Camilla hesitated before the door, Gabriel waited for her to move aside. She stood looking up at him with her back to the door, hands on the doorknob.

He was all business, a frown marking two lines between his brows. This man was ruthless, and she was about to expose her father to whatever he chose to do.

“Maybe this isn’t a good time,” she said. “What if somebody comes looking for me?”

“You can go back to the ball and cover for me.” When she still refused to move, Gabriel expelled an impatient breath, picked her up by the waist and plunked her to the side. “Go on.”

“No, I—if you find something, I want to know about it.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and slipped a slim piece of steel that he had produced from a pocket into the keyhole. With a soft
snick,
the lock gave.

Camilla followed Gabriel into the dark room. “Should I lock the door back?”

“Yes.” He lit an oil lamp resting on a table just inside the door and began to open desk drawers, methodically thumbing through papers and books.

Camilla sidled toward a big red chair and sat down with a creak of leather that sounded loud in the quiet room. She whispered, “What’s going to happen to my father if you find what you’re looking for?”

Gabriel closed the bottom right-hand drawer and stood up, dusting the knees of his trousers. He began to search through the clutter on the desktop. “I don’t know. Depends on what I find.”

“If, for example, you see that it’s not such a dangerous thing after all, maybe it won’t do what you think, or it costs too much or…something…will you go away and leave us alone?”

Gabriel set a marble paperweight down, then leaned across the desk, both hands flat. “You can get that out of your head right now. I know my uncle Diron’s skills well enough to know that this vessel will do what they say it will do. As to how financially practicable it is—well, that’s something only your papa would know.” He jerked his head toward the bookshelves that covered one whole wall. “So if you’ll quit interrupting me—maybe even lend a hand—perhaps I’ll discover that information before the sun comes up.”

Camilla sat in offended silence for a minute. The sooner Gabriel found what he was looking for, the sooner they could get back to the ball. He was crouched at a bottom-row shelf, systematically removing books to search them one by one. She decided to start at the top.

She pulled the rolling ladder from its space beside the window, set it on the far side of the shelves from Gabriel and climbed, holding to the rail to balance her wide, bell-shaped crinoline.

After unsuccessfully searching the top shelf, Camilla moved her oil lamp down to the second and gave a squeak of excitement. Papa’s ledgers—thick, heavy leather volumes, cracked and well-worn—were organized by date in bold black letters on the spines. She moved her finger down the row until she reached the last one, bearing a current date:
April, 1862.

“Gabriel! Come look.”

“What is it?” He looked up, the lamplight casting weird shadows across his cheeks and forehead.

She shivered. “I found Papa’s ledgers. Maybe there’s something about the fish boat in them.”

“Maybe.” He looked skeptical. “If I were him, I wouldn’t keep a secret in so obvious a place.” But he stood and crossed to the ladder. Before Camilla could object, Gabriel shoved her skirt to one side and climbed the narrow ladder to stand directly below her.

“What are you doing?” she gasped as he reached around her to the shelf she’d been searching.

“Which one?” His breath tickled her ear. He fingered the volumes.

Camilla pulled down the correct ledger and placed it in Gabriel’s hands. Still embracing her, looking over her shoulder, he opened the book and thumbed through it. After a moment he slapped a forefinger onto a page. “Chambliss Brothers Machine Shop and—Skates Foundry. That must be where they’re building the main body of the boat.”

“Oh, my.” Without her spectacles, Camilla could only take his word for it. “How much money…”

“Enough. Your papa’s pretty full of lettuce, it seems.”

Camilla let that settle hard. They’d been scrimping on household expenses for some time, at Papa’s insistence, while he’d been funneling the family income into some torpedo boat that might or might not do what it was supposed to do.

Still, she reminded herself, he
was
her papa, a man filled with wisdom. He was only doing what he thought best for his family and his country.

“What are you going to do?” she asked, staring at the blurry ledger page.

Gabriel’s sigh sent shivers racing through her. This surely was not proper, particularly with her undergarments exposed on one side. “I wonder if there are other backers for this project.” He closed the ledger and replaced it, bracing his hands on the shelf. “How can I find out?”

Camilla turned her head and found Gabriel’s shadowy face less than an inch from hers. “Wh-what?”

“Does your father have close business partners? Anyone else who’d have the wealth to invest in the boat?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because if they have the resources to rebuild it, there’s little point in destroying the prototype. We have to get the plans across Confederate lines, then go after the source of the money.”

“Then you
are
planning to ruin my family!”

“What did you think I was going to do? Invite him to a Sunday-school picnic?”

Camilla was startled by the rattle of the doorknob and a swift banging.