Elysium: The Plantation Series Book IV (16 page)

"I’ll stay," he
said.

"Thank you. That
isn’t necessary."

He stayed rooted, his
eyes on her.

"He is my husband,
Major Whiteaker."

So final. So resigned.
She meant for him to leave her with him.

"I’ll be in the
kitchen," he said.

Lily stood while Frederick
sat on the settee and stretched his legs out.

"So," he said.

"What do you want,
Frederick?"

He patted the sofa beside
him. "Come. Give me a proper welcome. You’re free enough with your kisses,
it seems. I’ll have one of my own."

"No."

His eyes narrowed. "Do
you have any idea how much trouble you’re in, Lily Palmer? You stole from me.
You knocked me out. You ran away -- with my child. What do you suppose a judge
would make of all those un-wifely deeds?"

"Maddie remembers
what you did. To her, and to me. I have scars to show for being wifely, as you
say. What do you suppose a judge would make of that?"

He spread his arms along
the back of the settee, at his ease. "He would say, my dear Lily, that I
am your husband. Your lord and master. No law against a man disciplining a wayward
wife."

"I want a divorce."

"Well, you can’t
have one."

"Why not? You don’t
love me. Or Maddie. You don’t even like us."

"I like you fine,
Lily." Palmer looked around the room. "Your brother-in-law said you
are to inherit this tidy little farm. Is that right?"

"Gillian‘s husband told
you where I was?"

"Had to. For some
reason he thought I was dead. When he saw I wasn’t, well, it’s like I said.
Your lord and master."

"There’s no place
for you here. I want you gone."

He glanced out the
window. "Be dark soon."

"Then sleep in the
barn."

"I’ll be much more
comfortable in your bed, my darling. Why I don’t I have a wash-up and a little
late supper. Your woman in there won’t mind heating something up. I’m not
particular about what."

She stared at him. All
those nights she’d lain awake, sorry she’d killed him. Having him alive was not
as gladful as she’d imagined. "You can wash on the back porch. There’s a
cistern there and a basin."

"Towels, soap,
privacy? Nothing like that available down here in the wilds of Louisiana?"

She stared at the dark
hair falling over his forehead, at the glossy moustache she had once thought so
very dashing. She had thought him handsome. Romantic, even. And then he’d
started drinking.

"The bedroom is the
second on the right," she told Frederick.

"Aren’t you going to
show me the way? Do all the wifely things a woman should do, collect the
towels, loosen my tie?"

If he touched her, that
way, she would be sick. She would not be in a bedroom with him ever again.

"I trust you can
loosen your own tie."

In the kitchen, her friends,
her new family, waited. And Alistair. She hesitated at the door. Every face
turned to her, but she couldn’t look at them. She’d lied to them, to all of
them.

"Mama." Maddie
ran to her and wrapped her arms around her waist.

"It’s all right,
sweetheart. Everything will be all right."

"Do we have to go
away?"

"No, Maddie. This is
home. I promised, didn’t I?"

A huge shuddering sigh
shook Maddie’s little shoulders.

"All right then,
Miss Maddie," Rachel said. "You come on with me and let’s get Dawn
ready for bed. You can snuggle up with her tonight."

When Maddie let go of
her, Lily swayed. Uncle Garvey took her by the elbow, sat her at the table, and
poured her a glass of sherry. "You don’t have to say a damn thing. You
just get that down and catch your breath."

She picked up the glass
but her hands trembled and she had to set it down again. Alistair sat at the
end of the table on her right, his hands turning his pocket watch over and over.

Uncle Garvey pulled a
chair next to hers and rubbed the back of her neck. "Whatever you want to
do, that’s what we’ll do, honey."

It would be easy to turn
in to his big chest and sob out all her fear. She couldn’t do that.

"What do you want to
do, Lily?" Alistair asked, his eyes on his pocket watch.

She swallowed. No more
lies. "I want a divorce. But he says no."

"He can be
persuaded," Alistair said.

She jerked her head up. "Alistair,
no. You can’t shoot him."

His eyes widened. "Lily.
Of course I can’t shoot him." The sound he made was almost a laugh. "Though
I think maybe he needs killing."

She shook her head. "I’ve
lived with his death on my head for three months now. It’s a terrible blight on
your soul, you told me that, Alistair."

"What do you mean,
‘on your head,’ Lily?" Uncle Garvey asked her. "No, I said you don’t
have to tell us a damn thing, and I meant it."

She put her hands in her
lap and focused on them. "You need to know why I lied, Uncle Garvey."

"Then tell me,
honey, if you want to."

She drew a deep breath. "He
had a hangover that morning. He was irritable. He hit Maddie." She pressed
her fingers against her lips until she could go on. "He’d never done that
before, but there had been a first time for hitting me, too. So when he left
for work, I took the money he kept in his bureau drawer and packed a valise for
Maddie and one for me. He found me closing up the bags. I don’t know why he
came home. He never came home until supper." She looked at Uncle Garvey,
wanting him to understand. "Maddie didn’t see – she was in the front room
choosing a book to take with us. She didn’t see."

"All right," he
said.

She squeezed her eyes
shut. "He hit me. This time . . . this time, I fought back. I shoved him,
as hard as I could. Then he came after me. The look on his face – I thought he
meant to kill me this time."

She leaned into her
hands, covering her face. Uncle Garvey put his hand on her back, blessed man.

"He knocked me down.
The door stop, an iron rooster he gave me when we moved into our first home. I
grabbed it. I hit him with it as hard as I could."

"And you thought
you’d killed him," Alistair said. He reached for her hand and gripped it. "I’m
glad you’re free of that burden, at least."

She nodded. Then she gave
the same sort of half-laugh he’d made. "Yes. At least I’m not a murderess."

Alistair stood. "I’m
going to New Orleans in the morning. Garvey, you see to teaching Lily how to
handle that pistol?"

Garvey followed Alistair
on to the back porch. "Hell of a thing."

"He’s not going to
ruin her life."

"The man is her
husband. Lawfully wedded."

Alistair settled his hat
on his head. "I’ll be back in a few days."

Lily sent Rachel to bed,
laid out a cold supper for her husband on the kitchen table, and sat waiting
with her hands in her lap. Alistair had every right to walk away. She was a
liar, letting him think she was a decent woman who was innocently widowed by a traffic accident. And he’d wasted his time with her, a married woman. She had managed not
to run after him when he left. She’d had that much control, at least. And now
she was steeled to deal with Frederick.

Frederick came down
freshly brushed and washed. "And here you are again. I find I must hunt
for my wife to have a few moments of her time."

She didn’t answer him.

He sat down and dug into
his supper. He’d always been a good eater though he was as slim as the day
she’d met him eight years ago. The alcohol, she supposed, kept him lean.

"Aren’t you going to
ask after your dear sister?"

When she didn’t answer,
he didn’t seem to mind. "She cried many a tear over her resurrected brother-in-law.
So glad I’m alive, you see. Don’t know where she and her husband got the idea I
was dead."

"I told her you
were."

Frederick paused. "I
see. That would mean – you had killed me yourself. Was that what you intended,
Lily? To kill me?"

She shrugged. "I
found I could live with it."

He didn’t like that, but
the nasty glint in his eye lasted only a heartbeat. Then his smile reappeared.

"Why, Lily Palmer. I
believe you’ve developed a spine."

"You needn’t expect
me to cower, Frederick. I’m through with that. I’m through with you."

He grabbed her hand quick
as a snake and squeezed. "You are my wife. Mrs. Frederick Palmer."

"You’re hurting me.
Again."

He pushed his chair back
and stood. "Come up stairs."

She shook her head. Even
as he ground the bones in her hand together, she said, "No."

"You are my wife."

"Only by law."

He gave her an oily grin.
"And by law, you belong to me. Your body belongs to me. And we’re going
upstairs so I can exercise my rights."

She shook her head again.
She was not going upstairs with him. Ever.

He jerked her body to his
and mashed his mouth against hers, bruising her lips against her teeth.

"Lily," he
breathed, and almost gently, he kissed her again. "I want you, Lily. I’ve
always wanted you."

He was bigger than she
was. Stronger than she. If she had to fight him, she would, but for now, she
simply became inert.

"Dammit, you’re my
wife." He gripped her arms until they ached. "Kiss me, Lily."

She made her mouth, her
whole body, relax.

Frederick changed
tactics. His hands loosened so that he could gently stroke up and down her
arms. "I’ll make you want me. Like I used to. You remember, don’t you,
Lily? How I’d wake you in the night, kissing and stroking until you were hot
and ready for me. Remember how sweet it was?"

"That was a long
time ago, Frederick."

Holding on to her he
began pushing her toward the door. "We’re going upstairs and I’m going to
remind you what a husband does with his wife."

"No."

"No no no me all you
want. The law says I can take my wife whether she likes it or not. But it’s so
much more fun when she likes it. Remember?"

He pushed her up against
the wall and shoved her skirt up to her waist. His mouth opened over hers, hot
and demanding.

She was the Lily hovering
near the ceiling, watching her husband maul her. She hardly felt his hand
fumbling between her legs, hardly felt his hot breath on her cheek.

He released her mouth to
ravish her neck.

"You will add rape
to your abuses, Frederick?" She sounded calm, even cool, this Lily with
her back to the wall.

He palmed her breast, pinched
her nipple through the fabric.

It wasn’t time to fight
yet. Soon, maybe. She would know when. Now she kept her hands at her sides and
made her body limp.

He took hold of her
shoulders and banged her head against the wall. "Damn you, Lily."

She didn’t know what came
over her. A kind of joy welled up inside her. She was Lily. She was not Frederick’s
thing
. It didn’t matter if he hit her, she would never be his again.

She smiled. Frederick
raised his hand to her. And he held it there, poised.

She stepped away from
him. She walked into the dark hallway, down to Thomas’s empty room, and closed
the door.

The next morning,
Frederick did not appear for breakfast. Once the dishes were done, Lily sat at
the kitchen table with Uncle Garvey learning how the revolving mechanism worked
and how to load the pistol.

"Alistair only loaded
one bullet at a time."

Uncle Garvey laughed. "Sounds
like a soldier who had a bad experience teaching a young fellow to shoot."

"I want to keep the
pistol with me. I want it loaded, all the way."

"Nah, honey. That’s
dangerous. Nobody walks around with all six chambers filled lessen they’re
about to go into battle. You drop it, you knock the hammer on something, it’ll
go off and . . . " He heaved a breath. "We got two little girls on
the place."

She caught her lower lip
in her teeth, thinking. "If the hammer hits on an empty chamber, nothing
happens. The revolver part just moves on to the next chamber and waits for the
trigger to be pulled again, right?"

"That’s right."

"So if I put the
bullet in say, the third chamber, I’d have to pull the trigger twice before the
bullet was up for the next trigger pull."

"Yeah."

"Is that as safe as
it sounds?"

"Well, I suppose it
is. Yeah."

"I can’t be out in
the garden, have the raiders charge onto the place, and me with an empty gun."

Uncle Garvey eyed her. "You’re
not thinking about putting a bullet in your husband, Lily."

Her mouth quirked up. "I
killed him once. That will have to do."

"Then let’s go shoot
some gourds."

After practice, Lily
watched Uncle Garvey clean and reassemble the pistol at the kitchen table.

"Think you can do it
next time?" he asked.

"Probably. But I’d
hate to put the thing together backwards and end up shooting myself. I’d
appreciate another lesson or two, Uncle Garvey."

"Then that’s what
we’ll do. Alistair will be pleased at how well you shot today."

Lily turned away. Alistair
wouldn’t be pleased with her ever again. He’d left for New Orleans as soon as
she told the truth, getting as far away from her as he could. She didn’t blame
him, but it hurt.

Frederick ambled into the
kitchen. "What’s all the shooting this morning. You aiming to do me in
again, Lily?"

Uncle Garvey scowled at
him. "That is in poor taste, Mr. Palmer."

Frederick laughed. "A
Southern gentleman, chivalrous to the end."

"Yes, by God."
Uncle Garvey scraped his chair back, collected his pistol and the chamois. "I’ll
be just upstairs, Lily, you need me."

Lily wanted to slap the
smirk off Frederick’s face. When had he become so smug, so superior? Toward the
end of the war, she thought. The shoe manufacturer he worked for saw the orders
from the U. S. Army drying up, no longer any need for thousands upon thousands
of shoes for soldiers. Frederick had made good money during those years he took
orders from the government, not just for shoes, but for leather harness,
saddlebags, holsters. He’d bought the house on Cavendish Square for her, had
put some money in the bank. And then the factory closed. All those soldiers
came home and there were not enough jobs for all of them. Frederick began to
drink their savings up as he looked for work. When he finally found a job as a
salesman in a shoe store for a fraction of what he’d earned before, he’d drunk
even more.

She didn’t excuse him.
Plenty of men had come down in the world because of the war. Some of them had
lost limbs, some of them had lost sons and fathers. They didn’t drown
themselves in self-pity and liquor. They didn’t bully their wives and children
to make themselves feel powerful.

She put the cap back on
the oil can for Uncle Garvey. "I have work to do in the garden." She
hooked her apron on the peg and walked out the back door.

An hour later, she came
in, her hands prickly from picking okra. She washed up and went to find Maddie.
She was in the sitting room in her father’s lap. He was being charming, his voice
smooth and full of good humor as he told her all about some pipe dream of his. Something
about streams full of gold. He could spin a dream, Frederick could.

Lily’s heart squeezed.
What if he made Maddie love him again? Made her forget how frightened she’d
been the last months they were all together? She realized suddenly how
Frederick could get back at her. He could make Maddie want to be with him. The
law would allow it, no question about that.

"Maddie, come here,"
she said.

Maddie slid off her father’s
lap and Frederick let her go.
This time
, his eyes told Lily.

How many weeks, or maybe
only days, before Maddie chose to stay cuddled on her father’s lap?

In New Orleans, Alistair
made an appointment with Gordon Smith, a man who’d been imprisoned with him the
last months of the war and who had rejoined the law practice he shared with his
father. After the niceties, the pouring of whiskey and lighting of cigars,
Smith said, "What can I do for you, Alistair?"

Alistair laid out Lily’s
situation for him. "What would it take for her to be rid of her husband?"

Smith eyed him shrewdly
through a puff of cigar smoke.

"Your interest in
this personal?" he asked.

"Yes. And no.
Whether I have any future with Lily Palmer is beside the point. The man is a
wife-beater and even hit his little girl."

"A man may spank his
child, Alistair."

"A spanking
delivered in correction does not make a child afraid of her father. I saw how
Maddie recoiled from him when she saw him again."

Smith smoked for a while.
"It doesn’t look good for Mrs. Palmer, I’ll have to tell you honestly. A
woman may divorce a man who beats her, this is true. But she beat him back,
hard enough that she thought she’d killed him. Do I understand that correctly?"

"Yes."

"He could claim
desertion, abandonment. He could claim she stole his child from him."

Alistair closed his eyes
and inhaled.

"Any chance he could
claim adultery?" Smith asked.

Alistair’s eyes snapped
open. He felt heat rise up his neck and over his face. There had been those
kisses. But Lily had thought she was a widow. "No."

Smith focused on his
cigar. "Could you prove that?"

How did one prove a thing
did not happen? But he and Lily had never been alone more than a few minutes,
and even then it was in plain sight of anyone glancing at the orchard. Or into
the barn. Or . . . "Garvey Bickell will swear there has been no adultery.
As will I."

Smith leaned forward, his
elbows on his desk. "I’ll tell you straight, Alistair. This man has a
better chance of divorcing his wife than she has of divorcing him. And on his
terms. There is the child to consider, as well. I assume she will not risk
losing her little girl. All she’d get from a divorce petition is notoriety and
her husband’s enmity. You’ll need more than this to wrest her free of this marriage."

Alistair didn’t let
himself think. Didn’t let himself feel. He drank his whiskey to be polite, then
collected his hat.

He walked the streets,
thinking, trying not to feel. Lily was stuck, with a man she didn’t love. She
loved Alistair, or she would, given a chance. They could have a life together.
He would be a father to Maddie, and he and Lily would have more children. To
lose that future – he stumbled on, his heart and his mind both gray and dull.

When he thought he could
be civil, he returned to his friend Marcel’s house for supper. Deborah Ann
expected polite conversation, and he managed that. After she retired, he and
Marcel drank too much and talked about the war.