Texas Angel, 2-in-1 (50 page)
“I don’t need to be avenged, Papa. I am all right.”
He lifted a slim hand and gently touched her cheek with a manicured finger. “Tell me that Thomson did not use you.”
“It is in the past.”
“Oh . . .” He moaned softly. “I have failed you.”
Not sure how to reply, Elise decided instead to give her father a chance to redeem himself by giving her information she desperately needed. She wrenched the conversation back in the direction she desired. “Maurice told me a few weeks ago that Kendell became addleminded after I was sent away and refused to have our marriage annulled. Papa, I have married again, and if that is the case, then my current marriage is nullified. Is what Maurice said true?”
“It is true that for a time that weak-livered fool lost his senses.” When Elise gasped in dismay, Dorian hurried on, “But he came out of it fast enough when he met a woman who was willing to marry such as he.”
“What are you saying? Did Kendell remarry?”
“He did. That is why I am certain his marriage to you must have been annulled. She is just a step up from white trash, believe me, but he could do no better after what happened. Even that shrew Daphne gave her blessing.”
“So our marriage was annulled?” She hardly dared believe it.
“As far as I know, yes. But if you like, when I return to the States, I will procure the legal documents. So, ma chère, you say you have married. Where is your husband? What kind of man is he? I hope you have done better this time. Are all these other children his, then?”
Elise smiled, the first time she’d truly felt like doing so in days. Not everything was settled, of course. Benjamin still had every right to hold her deception against her, but if he chose not to—Dear God, please let him choose not to!—then they still had a chance to be together. She felt truly free of her past, free to give the man she loved all he had a right to desire.
“Let me tell you about my husband, Papa. First, he is a very good man. . . .”
An hour later the verbose Dorian Toussaint was stunned to silence after hearing of his daughter’s most astounding odyssey in the last year and a half. He sat saying nothing for a full two minutes before finally breathing, “
C’est une vraie aubaine!
”
Elise knew enough French to understand her father was attributing her final good fortune in finding Benjamin to God.
“Yes, Papa,” she said, “I feel very fortunate despite all that has happened.”
“But there is still a worry he may renounce you for the deception about your former marriage?”
“Maybe, but don’t you think God will work that out also?”
“Who am I to question, eh? It would seem you have a greater father than I looking over you.”
Smiling warmly, Elise took her father’s smooth hands in hers. “I love you, Papa. And I am glad you have found me.”
“I have nearly forgotten, ma chère! I have a present for you. Wait a moment.” Dorian jumped up and left the cabin. In a few moments he returned with a package. It was about the size of a painting.
D
ORIAN DEPART ED THE NEXT MORNING.
He had tried to put a brave face on it, but Elise could tell he had been most uncomfortable in the rustic cabin. He promised to return soon to meet Benjamin. Elise knew she could not count on his promises. But she urged him as strongly as she could not to forget his promise about the annulment papers.
Over the next days Elise wavered between dread and anticipation. She imagined a dozen different scenes of seeing Benjamin again, half of which ended blissfully. The other half ranged from her worst nightmare to . . . well, anything short of a happy reunion was a nightmare.
Late one afternoon when Benjamin had been gone a week, Elise was in her room admiring the painting her father had brought. She sat on the edge of the bed, propping the portrait against the rough log wall. What a handsome pair her father and mother made. Dorian, proving to be quite an ageless creature, looked practically the same in the painting as he did now, though without the gray in his hair. Elise thought it fitting that her father was gazing not at the artist but instead down at the woman seated in front of him. Elise had always known her father loved himself more than her, Elise, but she had never resented that. It was plain that the one bit of selfless love he had ever offered anyone had been reserved exclusively for Claire Toussaint, Elise’s mother. It was, in fact, the one thing father and daughter had in common. His love was for the woman taken too early from him. Elise’s love was for the mother she would never know.
Claire Toussaint. Stunningly beautiful, skin the color of café au lait, hair as black as a raven’s wing. Her eyes brown as mahogany, though not clearly discernable in the painting, because they, too, were not focused at the artist. Instead, they were gazing down at the child in her arms. Elise tingled at the sight. She could almost feel her mother’s arms around her now, the touch of those fine, graceful hands, the security of a nearness that seemed to transcend oils and canvas.
Like Dorian, Claire had also been a Creole, though born of a French father and a mulatto slave. And, like Elise, she had suffered much for that fluke of birth. As a child, Elise had often tried to imagine her mother, but with only her father’s superficial images to guide her, Elise had never been able to find more in her mother than beauty and grace. Now studying the golden-skinned woman, Elise experienced a deep kinship with her mother. And she missed her more than ever.
Claire would understand rejection for no reason other than the color of her skin. Claire would understand the shame of selling one’s virtue for the sake of survival. Claire would understand secrets and deceptions because she had lived the last year of her life in deception. But mostly she would understand the kind of love that filled one with fear and joy, anticipation and dread.
Claire Toussaint would, as no other woman could, be able to hold her grown daughter close and whisper lovingly, “It will be all right, my dear. True love will win out in the end, as it did for your father and me.”
Oh, Mama, if Benjamin and I could have but half the love you and Papa had—if only for a year—I would be content!
Elise was still gazing at the painting when she heard the footfall at her door. It wasn’t one of the children, for it was too heavy. It must be Benjamin. Suddenly she felt paralyzed, unable to turn. How she wished she could crawl just then into the painting and become the infant protected by her mother’s embrace.
True love. Would it win out? She had but to turn to find out.
He came into the room and laid a hand on her shoulder, the warm vibrancy of his touch sending a chill through her tense frame.
“Elise . . .”
Desperately she tried to read that single, softly spoken word, her name. But her mind suddenly became dazed. Finally, stiffly, with none of the grace she should have learned from her mother, Elise rose and turned.
Benjamin gathered her into his arms.
“Will you forgive me,” he implored, “that I could ever have considered for even a moment turning away from you? I have been such a fool. And I may always be so, but I am a fool who loves you, who cannot live without you.”
Tears flooded her eyes and strangled her response. “Benjamin, I—“ But emotion choked out her words.
“Shh . . .” He brushed his lips against hers, softly, gently. “I don’t know what we’ll do about . . . that other thing, but there must be a way for us to be together. God will find a way. He has brought us this far, hasn’t He?”
She nodded, her head pressed against his chest, still unable to speak.
For the moment she was merely content to be held by him, to feel the intensity of his love, the conviction of his heart. Seconds passed, and she knew she could have stood thus forever, but she had to speak, she had to tell him God indeed had found a way.
“Benjamin, I must tell you something. . . .” She sniffed as her emotion calmed.
“Elise . . . ?” She could feel the tense catch in his tone.
She hurried on, “Oh, Benjamin, I love you. You must never doubt that, and I will keep no more secrets from you. What I have to tell you is wonderful news. My father came while you were gone. He brought this painting of my mother. He also told me my marriage has been annulled, and Kendell has remarried. Benjamin, we are free!”
“Oh, my dear!” he breathed and sagged against her, as if he had been braced for a battle that never came. “Why should I be surprised? I knew God would take care of us.” Then he laughed, a little hysteria mixed with glee. “I knew, but I didn’t believe.”
“Neither did I. But we’ll do that much better next time.”
“Next time?” He laughed again. “Don’t you know we will live happily ever after?”
She joined his mirth. “Of course we will, through work and storms and hardships and . . . our God only knows what. But we will know happiness.”
Suddenly Elise felt a tugging down around her knees.
“Papa?” came Hannah’s small voice, still sleepy after having just risen from her nap. “Papa home.”
Then Leah bounded into the room. She also had just woken from her nap but looked bright-eyed and ready for mischief.
“Up! Up!” she insisted.
Brought back to sweet reality, Elise and Benjamin suddenly heard more insistent sounds from the other room as Oliver woke with hearty cries.
Benjamin let go of Elise only to answer Leah’s demands. He scooped her up in one arm, then, when Hannah also held up her arms, he took her in his other arm. The four moved into the other room in a circle of embraces, Elise still with her arm around Benjamin.
Isabel slipped from her bed. “Papa, you’re home.”
“Yes, my dear,” he answered with a look that seemed to say,
I wish
I had a third arm
.
Elise drew the seven-year-old into their warm embrace.
“Oliver is crying,” Isabel said, as if anyone needed to be told with the din now echoing through the cabin.
Elise smiled. “He certainly is.”
Benjamin grinned. “And all is as it should be.”
March 1836
Goliad, Texas
DEAFENING GUNSHOTS PIERCED the chill air. Cries of shock,
pain, and even defiance mingled with the shattering blasts. And above it
all a voice shouted, “Run, Micah! Run!”
The boy hesitated. “No, Uncle Haden.”
“I said run! Your pa’ll kill me if anything happens to you.”
The boy looked at his beloved uncle, then beyond him to the wall of
slaughtering Mexican soldiers. Micah could not have moved even if he had
wanted to, frozen as he was with sudden panic. Men were falling everywhere.
They were unarmed and helpless against their Mexican executioners, but
many were fighting desperately against the massacre with their bare hands and
with the butts of rifles seized from their attackers. Still, they fell mercilessly.
“Run!” Uncle Haden’s voice wrenched Micah from his panic.
Two Mexican soldiers approached the boy and his uncle, ready to fire.
Micah wanted to die with his comrades, but the voice kept screaming.
“Run . . . run . . . run!”
Haden then thrust his own body like a shield between Micah and the
approaching soldiers. Only then did Micah know he must obey this man who
was giving his life to save his nephew. That life could not be given in vain.
He turned and ran. A lead ball whizzed past his head. Another grazed
his shoulder with searing pain, but he kept running. A thick stand of trees
lay ahead, then the river. Upon reaching the cover of the trees, he paused
to gasp in a breath but made the mistake of looking back at the field of
slaughter. The two Mexicans were standing over Uncle Haden’s body, firing
into the fallen form as if he had not been killed by the first shot. Then the
soldiers took off toward the woods.
After Micah!
He wanted to fight them. He wanted to kill them. But Micah had no
weapon. Rage supplanted all fear and horror. All he could think of was
getting revenge. And he knew now why he had obeyed his uncle. He would
run now, but he would one day fight again. The Mexican murderers would
pay dearly for what they had done at Goliad.
Micah turned and ran again. How he hated to run, but he now was
buoyed by roiling thoughts of vengeance. He reached the steep riverbank,
but as he was about to plunge over the side, another ball struck his leg. He
made a desperate lunge over the edge, where he figured he would probably
be dashed to bits by rocks and debris or frozen by the icy spring runoff.
But miraculously he hit the water cleanly even as more shots rang above
him. Gasping a deep breath, he went under. He held his breath until he
thought his head would explode, and only then did he slowly rise to the
surface of the water to carefully venture a look.
The soldiers had given up their chase, no doubt believing he had
drowned. He swam to the opposite bank, crawled from the water, and
forced his numb body to move.
“Run! Run! Run!” The words kept echoing over and over in his head.
“Run . . . kill! Kill! Kill!”
1842
Micah felt a sharp pain in his side. He flailed with his arms and let out a shuddering groan.
“Hey, Micah!”
A voice penetrated the sleep-numbed fog.
“Get up ’fore you wake every Injun and greaser around.”
Micah opened his eyes, panting as if he truly had been running. Sweat drenched him. He looked around. His friend Jed Wilkes was standing over him, looking perturbed. They were outdoors, and Micah was lying in his bedroll on the hard earth. Though still dark, the damp chill indicated it was the early hours of the morning.