Ever My Love: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 2) (40 page)

Yves knew other things he could do to her toes than massage
them, but his bride was not ready. There would be time enough for all the
things he could teach her.

But he didn’t want her to fall asleep on him either. He put
the wine away. “Are you comfortable in that gown?”

Marianne looked at him, a smile playing on her lips. “No.”

“You’ll let me help you out of it?  Everyone else has gone
to bed.”

“I don’t need a maid if you can handle the buttons.”

She stood up and turned. There were exactly forty-six tiny
satin-covered buttons down her back.

My God, there must be a hundred of them! Yves thought.
Patience, man. He caressed her shoulder, his thumb lightly probing her neck.

Everywhere he touched, she felt the tension leave her body.
Touch me there again.

The buttons were fastened with delicate blue satin loops. A
vision of shiny buttons popping and rolling all over the carpet made Yves
smile. Another time.

He opened the first button and the second, the touch of his
fingers tantalizing on her back. Marianne’s breathing quickened as he tasted
the newly discovered tender skin down to the next button.

Another button released from its satin loop, and Yves kissed
a little farther down. More buttons, more teasing kisses, and the corset was
revealed, the tapes tightly knotted. He thought of the sharp-bladed letter
opener on his desk – when it was time, he doubted he’d have the patience left
for untying knots.

Marianne felt his fingers’ delicate, liberating touch on
each button. His lips against her back, his tongue at the base of her neck –
his touch wakened her body far beyond where lips met skin.

She forgot every virginal hesitation. Her breasts rose and
stiffened. She wanted out of this dress. And still he took his time.

Her dress slipped from her shoulders, one, maybe two more
buttons, she could slide it over her hips. Ah. Admirable man, but so slow.

Yves helped her step out of the hoop and the mass of satin,
and Marianne stood before him in her corset and pantaloons.  “My God,” he
whispered. “You’re beautiful.”

She smiled at him, fearless now, and advanced to disrobe
him. Her fingers untied his cravat as she watched the firelight find the gold
in his eyes. She let the white silk fall from her hand, then worked the buttons
of his stiff shirt. The hollow at the base of his throat revealed, she touched
her lips there, tasting him.

Slowly she peeled the shirt off him and ran her fingers over
his chest, his ribs, around to his back where the muscles tapered to his hips.
Her nearly bare body against his skin, she invited his kiss. This time he gave
her all his heat and desire, his lips firm and then more and more insistent,
his tongue penetrating her mouth, tasting and taking. With hands, lips, tongue,
she proved to him she was ready.

He ran his palm across her corseted back, across her
lightly-covered bottom to the softness of her belly. Lower. His fingers touched
her and stroked her. Marianne’s sharp intake of breath hurried him on.

Without letting her go, he walked them to his desk, reached
for the letter opener and quickly slipped the blade in the lacings of her
corset. A single swift cut through the ribbon and the corset opened, freeing
her waist, her breathing, her breasts. He had to look, had to see all of her
before he touched her.

He reveled in the glow of firelight on the smooth skin, the
full breasts, the curve of waist and hip – her unabashed rosy body at last
revealed. His eyes moved up to her mouth, her luscious waiting mouth, and then
into her eyes. She was his, this wondrous woman, and she wanted him.

On New Year’s Day, Marianne stood on the dock hugging her
cape to her. The sky was blue, the sun bright, but the cold wind off the river
chilled her to the bone. What a strange way to leave Louisiana, cold and sad. A
little sad.

Father had placed his bride to lee of his massive frame,
sheltering her from the wind. But Father would not be lonely. He was happy with
his Marguerite.

The last good-byes made a tearful scene on the dock. Gabriel
and Simone, too, were sailing, Gabriel having accepted at position at a
hospital in New York, and all the aunts, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters
hugged and kissed and cried.

At the last minute, Marcel leaned down and whispered in
Marianne’s ear. “I’m the best kisser.”

Marianne laughed, the tears spilling over her lids. “You
come see us next New Years, I’ll let you prove it.”

The coxswain aboard the sloop blew his whistle and called,
“All aboard!” Peter, limping but strong, led Annie up the gangway. Annie,
dressed in a red wool skirt flounced by white crinolines, gripped Freddie’s
leash and he scampered up the ramp behind her.

Once aboard, Gabriel and Simone, Yves and Marianne stood at
the rail. The schooner let go of the dock and moved into the current. Wind
filled the sails, and they waved to their families one last time.

In the Gulf, the sun beamed down and dried the tears on her
face. Marianne untied her bonnet and let the wind do what it would with her
hair. Filling her lungs with salt air, she lifted her chin and drank in the
blueness of the sky.

She was on her way, wherever didn’t matter, because Yves
Chamard wrapped his arms around her, and together they faced the wind.

The good citizens of New Orleans slung insults and worse at
the Yanks marching up Canal Street, but not Nicolette Chamard. She was elated.
At last, these soldiers were going to free every enslaved soul in the South. In
an unguarded moment, she forgot herself. Her lips curved and she pressed her
hands to her heart.

Without warning, fingers gripped her shoulder, the thumb
digging under her collar bone. A filthy man with a red face and glaring eyes
loomed over her, his mouth twisted in fury.

“You wipe that smirk off your face, missy, you know what’s
good for you.”

Icy fear shot up her spine. If he denounced her as a Yankee
sympathizer, the crowd would stomp her into the ground. She wrenched free and
plunged into the mob.

At the edge of the throng, she gripped a light post and told
herself to breathe, just breathe.

She’d been careless, letting her feelings show. She knew
better. No matter that she was free or that her skin was light, the requisite
tignon she wore on her head identified her as a woman of color. And a colored
woman in New Orleans better know her place.

Her pulse slowing, Nicolette threaded her way through the
fringe of onlookers. Here, where she didn’t have to steel herself against the
dreaded touching and bumping, she relaxed her hands and shoulders.

Across from Presswood Mercantile, she looked to see if
Marcel had come to witness the Yankees claim his city. He leaned against the
balcony railing far above the rabble, his steady gaze on the liberators.
Invaders, her half-brother would call them, overturning the life of ease and
privilege he enjoyed as a rich white planter.

She resisted raising her hand to him. He would not welcome
the familiarity in front of Miss Presswood, his flaxen-haired fiancé. No matter
that they shared a deep affection, and no matter that Nicolette’s gray eyes
were lighter than his brown ones, her brother lived his life on a different
plane. Marcel’s mother had been Bertrand Chamard’s wife. Nicolette’s mother had
been a slave on the neighboring plantation.

On a balcony above the hubbub, Marcel gripped the iron
railing with white knuckles. His nose twitched at the smell of unwashed
soldiers in damp, sweat-soaked wool. He had anticipated the day Union troops
would enter his beloved city, but the impact was no less painful for having
foreseen it.

A Confederate through and through, Marcel Chamard took a
keen interest in the Yankee formations. They were neat enough, though their
uniforms were worn and sometimes more gray than blue. He excused them their
lack of polish. He even excused them the side they’d chosen. At least these men
had rallied to their cause. Too many Southern gentlemen yet lingered in the
comforts of home. Though he had not yet put on the uniform, Marcel was no
malingerer.

Deborah Ann took his arm and murmured, “Marcel.” He glanced
at his fiancé and saw the warning on her face. They were amid their enemies. He
unfisted his hands and unclenched his jaw.

Marcel spied his little sister down below. Though Nicolette
wore an ordinary blue day-dress and a matching tignon, the required cloth
folded and tied in intricate fashion over her black hair, she was a bright blue
bird among the crows and sparrows of the crowd. Marcel had never wondered that
his father fell in love with Nicolette’s beautiful mother. His sister, too, was
beautiful.

But, as she had been cosseted and adored all her life, she
was naïve in her understanding of slavery in the South. No doubt Nicolette
believed the Yanks would free the slaves before breakfast and turn the South
into some sort of fairy-tale Eden by tomorrow noontime.

He’d done his part in spoiling her, but no one could deny
she was an exceptional girl. Sang like an angel, with just enough of the devil
in her to seduce an entire audience. And with her coloring, he thought for the
hundredth time, Nicolette could pass for white, if she wanted to. But she chose
not to. No, Nicolette knew nothing of politics or the real issues of the war.

When Deborah Ann stepped closer to him and wrapped his arm
in hers, he patted her hand absently. His attention was still on Nicolette as
she made her way through the thinning crowd. So very careful she was not to
brush up against anyone. She thought no one knew how she shrank from being
touched, but he had watched her withdraw after the …incident. He hardly let
himself think of it in more detail than that. It roiled him and threw him into
a rage if he dwelled on what Adam Johnston had done to his baby sister, leaving
her unconscious, bleeding and bruised.

Deborah Ann tugged at his arm. Marcel blinked the image
away. He took one more look over his shoulder, annoyed with Nicolette for being
out again with no protector. What good was the slave he’d given her if she left
him at home?

Three days after the parade marking the Union occupation of
the city, Captain Finnian McKee felt he’d arrived in a paradise of blue sky and
balmy breezes. Boston had nothing like this lush growth of exotic blooms and
fragrant vines. He marched his detachment up Magazine Street, his senses open
to the scents and sounds and sights of New Orleans. Particularly the female
sights. His gaze followed a fetching belle in laces and ribbons.

“You know anything about foundries, Captain?” Lieutenant
Dobbs asked.

 “Not a thing. You?”

“No, sir. I was a clerk before the war.”

“And I was a book seller.” And a poet, but Finn seldom
mentioned that. Back in Boston, he belonged to the number one rowing club on
the Charles River, and he’d found the lads appreciated his stamina far more
than they did his verses.

As a Signal officer, he ought to have been seeing to his
flags and code books, but he’d riled old man Butler. When they’d dined with the
garrison commander in Key West, Finn had unforgivably monopolized and flirted
with the prettiest woman there, who happened to be seated at General Butler’s
left hand. Butler had cast a bilious, cross-eyed stare at Finn that night. This
morning Butler had taken his revenge. Get the foundry going, he’d said.

The responsibility weighed lightly on his shoulders. Though
he was no engineer, he imagined he’d figure it out, and the morning was too
fine to waste on worry.

Then a lass snapped a carpet on the balcony above, releasing
a cascade of dust and ashes on his and Dobbs’ freshly brushed blues.
Compounding the affront, the girl trilled a mocking laugh.

Rubbing at a cinder in his eye, Dobbs raised a fist to her.
“You little wh --”

Finn clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Let it go, Lieutenant.
As you well know, it could have been much worse.”

A couple of blocks back, there had been two ladies who cursed
at him and his men, one who’d even spat at them. The spitter, before she spat,
had been the picture of decorum, gray haired, the scent of lilacs wafting from
her. Finn, who was accustomed to being admired for his tall, dark looks, had
accepted the gentle lady’s smile as his due. Then she’d hawked at him.

Once the shock wore off, he forgave the old thing. Dressed
in a black gown with black lace gloves, she might be a mother who’d lost her
son at Bull Run. Plus, he thought with a grin, the crone had missed him and his
shiny brass buttons and caught Dobbs instead.

Finn slapped his hat against his thigh to shake off the
ashes and hoped they didn’t come up on any more sullen ladies. Aware it would
take only the smallest spark to inflame the wounded pride and heated resentment
of the population, General Butler had sent down strict orders to ignore all
insults.         

He led his men along the railroad tracks till at last they
passed under a wrought iron gateway that read Chamard Foundry. His good spirits
evaporated. What once must have been a well-ordered factory was now a morass of
rusting machinery. Destructive, but clever, Finn admitted.

“They sabotaged the place,” Dobbs said.

“They certainly did.”

The sluiceway from the flanking stream had been directed
into the yard. Finn eyed the tangled mass of rods and vats and tools stewing in
the fetid pond. Well, his small part of the war meant putting this foundry back
to work.  He blew out a resigned sigh. “Corporal Peach?”