by Beth White
“Would someone pass me the syrup of ipecac?” Aurora said, looking revolted. “I think I’m going to heave.”
But Joelle laughed. “Don’t worry, he’ll leave as soon as someone starts singing opera. No offense, Delfina.”
“None taken.” Delfina tipped her head, considering Schuyler with dispassionate interest. “I think he is not meant to worship at the shrine of the Fabio after all.”
Doc, who had stayed for dinner after checking on Charmion—she and the baby had come through the trauma of the fire with little more than shock and minor burns—winked at Joelle. “His goddess is more likely to forget he exists and go off and leave him.”
“Unfortunately, that’s true.” Joelle rested her shoulder against Schuyler’s in a gratifyingly intimate fashion. “I depend on him to come after me and remind me I’m attached. But seriously”—she thumped his ear when he leaned in a little too close for her sense of propriety—“does anybody know what’s going on with the investigation? Who killed the judge? And when are they going to round up that gang of criminals who burned the church and our buildings and destroyed the newspaper office?”
Putting a hand to his stinging ear, Schuyler gave her a wounded look. “That hurt! And if you must know, the man who was here this afternoon was a federal marshal. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what Levi said. They went to get a warrant signed by a federal judge Levi knows in Memphis. As soon as they get back, I’ll be called in as a witness, and of course Lemuel and Georgia Frye as well. I’m sure we’ll have a proper trial eventually. As to who killed the judge, the shot came from the balcony in the courtroom, and I don’t know if anybody will admit they saw who did it. Anyone who speaks out against that crowd is subject to the worst intimidation.”
Everyone around the table looked at him, and Joelle sobered. “Schuyler, that means you.”
He shrugged, uncomfortable that he’d drawn attention to himself. “They’ve done their worst to me. But we’ve got to stand our ground to stop the violence. Fear isn’t helping anything.” He hesitated. “Joelle, you know your preacher was up to his neck in it, don’t you? He was present at two of the meetings I attended, and I saw him breaking into the newspaper office.”
She bit her lip. “I suspected. But nobody will do anything about it as long as the leaders go unchecked.”
He squeezed her hand to comfort her. “As I said, the authorities are coming. Justice is coming.” He looked at the dining room doorway, where Horatia stood looking uncharacteristically flustered. “And dessert is apparently coming. What’s the matter, Horatia?”
“The baby,” the cook blurted, sagging against the doorframe. “Dr. Kidd, I need you to come quickly, please. Nathan ran all the way from our house to tell me the baby is coming early.”
Just a few minutes shy of midnight, ThomasAnne bounced into the parlor to share the news that Benjamin Schuyler Lawrence had made a screaming, but otherwise healthy appearance. Apparently, ThomasAnne had been quietly training with Doc as a midwife for the last two months, without telling a soul.
Joelle, who had been reading on the sofa while Schuyler kept himself awake by instructing Delfina and Mr. Volker at billiards, put down her book and listened to her cousin’s excited and rather lurid description of the birth with half an ear. Aurora and Selah had already gone to bed, and Joelle began to wish she had had the sense to do likewise.
When ThomasAnne finally ran out of words and retired to the manager’s cottage, Joelle got up and tapped Schuyler, presently bent over the pool table, on the arm. “Come here, please.”
He looked around and gave her a slow smile that sent a slide of something delicious through her veins. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” But he handed his cue to Volker. “You’re on your own, Cousin. Where are we going?” he said to Joelle.
“Nowhere dangerous.” She led him into the rotunda and sat down at the foot of the stairs.
He joined her, sitting close, and picked up her hand to lace his fingers with hers. “It’s really late.”
“I know. I won’t keep you but a minute.”
“You can keep me forever.”
She smiled. “I just wanted to tell you that we’ll be getting a dog.”
He blinked. “O—kay. Any particular reason?”
“Well, it’s just I’m not sure we’ll be having children. You’ll need something to keep you busy.”
He laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you hear what she said?”
“Who?”
“ThomasAnne! Having a baby sounds painful!”
He propped his elbow on his knee, rested his head in his hand, and looked at her sideways. “You know you think too much, right?”
“I can’t help it! I’ve been reading about it too, because nobody will talk to me about the—the physical part of being married, and I’m a little—well, no, I’m a lot scared.” She’d asked Doc to loan her a couple of books on the subject, and what she’d learned would have curled her hair if it hadn’t been naturally in ringlets already. “Schuyler, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can do this after all.”
“Really?” His eyes half closed. His lips were almost on hers before she realized what he was doing.
“No!” She jerked back. “Don’t do that right now! I’m serious!”
He sighed. “Reese was right. You are extremely hard work. Listen to me.” He picked up her hand and kissed her thumb. “We don’t have to get a dog. Hilo is mine, so we’ll bring her home with us, wherever we wind up living. You like Hilo, right?” When she nodded suspiciously, he kissed her index finger. “So we’ll start out slow, just you and me and Hilo.” He kissed her middle finger, and she melted a little. “When you get used to me kissing you, we’ll figure out the next step.” He kissed the finger with the ring on it. “I guarantee you, by the time we go swimming together a few times, you won’t even be thinking about children.” He kissed her pinky and waited, looking at her with those ocean-gray eyes.
“I liked going swimming,” she said cautiously.
“Right, then. That’s all we’ll do until you’re ready. Joelle,” he said, cradling her hand close to his cheek, “I love you so much that if that’s all we ever do, I’d be happy just to live with you and talk to you and sleep next to you and read your book. But I think you’re going to have to trust me when I say the rest of it is going to be pretty spectacular as well—fireworks, if you like. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Something flowered in her stomach, forcing out anxiety and other nasty things that her imagination had allowed to grow there. It flowered in her heart and in her mind and in her spirit. She turned her hand and cupped his cheek. “Schuyler Beaumont, I love you. I can’t wait to marry you, with or without your dog.”
“Whew,” he said.
A Note to the Reader
A RELUCTANT BELLE PICKS UP THE STORY of the impoverished Tupelo, Mississippi, Daughtry sisters right after the completion of A Rebel Heart—placing it in the middle of the Reconstruction Era, five years after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Because Joelle is a writer and teacher, and Schuyler’s goal is tracking down the gunman who killed his father in a race riot, the story necessarily winds its way through some complicated political territory. There was no way to sugarcoat the terrible racial injustices and struggles to right those wrongs that in fact imbued daily Southern life in the early 1870s.
First and foremost, however, I call myself a romance writer—and I mean that in the classic Alexandre Dumas, Zane Grey, and Jane Austen sense. I always desire for character development, satisfying story arc, and evocative setting to supersede any particular “moral.” This is art, and it’s not going to be perfect; it’s simply a take on life as lived through one author’s lens, as clearly and in as unbiased a fashion as I can bring it to you.
With that said, to make the story as historically accurate as possible, I read as many primary sources as I had time for. Those sources include journal and diary entries, memoir and footnoted biog
raphy, and contemporary newspaper and magazine articles. You may find a list of these resources on my website, if you’re interested.
For those who like to know which characters were “real people,” the most obvious might be General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Documented sources of the period present a strong personality, a fierce warrior in battle, consummate tactical genius, and undeniable racial bigot. There is some indication that he at least overtly underwent a change of heart toward the end of his life (because of his wife’s Christian influence), but we’ll have to leave that to the Almighty to judge. For the purposes of my story, Forrest had begun to publicly distance himself from the violent activities of the Ku Klux Klan, but conflicting eyewitness accounts of people who knew him survive. I chose to make him an important part of my story, but not the main villain.
A few more heroic real-life characters make an appearance in A Reluctant Belle, including Hiram Revels, the first African American to be seated in the United States Senate (Mississippi), and US Representative (Alabama) James Rapier. Both these men, along with other Southern black congressmen, served with grace and distinction, were generally respected and well liked, and seemed remarkably free of bitterness or resentment toward their white fellow legislators. One of the most interesting and eye-opening accounts of the period that I read was John R. Lynch’s Facts of the Reconstruction. Lynch served as a Mississippi Representative for years during the Reconstruction, becoming the first African American Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, and eventually being elected to the US House.
Aside from those few, all other characters are entirely my creation.
Some plot elements are based on real historic events. My Tuscaloosa race riot is based on a similar incident that occurred in Meridian, Mississippi, in March, 1871. The Ku Klux Klan induction rites and the violent atrocities committed by that organization, as described in my story, are based on research gathered by Michael Newton in The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History. It’s not light reading, but it helped me understand the political and social background—and consequences—of events of the period.
I hope the reader will understand when I say that I have couched some terminology in an attempt not to jar and offend the twenty-first-century ear. I know how some people talked back then. I know it’s offensive on so many levels. But my editors and I saw no need in being deliberately inflammatory, even for the sake of historical purism. I trust the intelligent reader can read between the lines in whatever fashion you find most satisfying.
Mainly I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Joelle and Schuyler. They truly make me laugh. Every bookworm princess needs a hero to keep her from walking into walls.
I kind of know this from personal experience.
one
April 27, 1865
Memphis, Tennessee
His first thought when he came to was that the world was coming to an end.
Zane lay flat on the ground, where he’d been knocked off the horse, mud up his nose and in his eyes, and he turned his head to squint against the giant boiling, roaring flare on the Mississippi. Fire on the water—how could that be?
But then he’d seen hell in all its various forms over the last four years, most of them human. Maybe God had decided to start over, like he did with Noah’s family. Zane wouldn’t quibble with the Almighty over the need for a fresh start.
He pushed to his hands and knees, shaking his head to rid himself of the sensation of battle aftermath. The war was over. He was on his way . . . somewhere. Not home, because he didn’t have a home. Just north. Somewhere beyond Mississippi and Alabama, a place where a man could live in peace.
Sounds came and went—small explosions, screams that almost sounded human, the roar of the flames—and he fought the urge to curl up on the ground, arms over his head, knees drawn in. No. He was here for a reason. Left behind for some purpose only God knew. If he didn’t believe that, he’d have given in long ago. What? What was he doing here?
Dragging in a breath that pierced his lungs and set him into a spasm of coughing, he forced himself upright, wiping the slime from his face, spitting grit out of his mouth. His ears cleared long enough to distinguish—
The screams were real. Human.
In a flash of recall, he remembered what brought him here. The man he’d followed along the river from Memphis—where was he? Where was the horse? Both frightened off by the explosion . . .
It occurred to Zane that he should have been on that boat. He stared in horror at the debacle on the river. There were people everywhere, hundreds floating past on doors and shutters and tree limbs, calling out, drowning, burning, shrieking like demons, the scene comparable to the worst wartime engagement he’d seen. Forget his quarry—he was gone by now anyway. Zane knew he had to plunge himself into this new emergency.
As he staggered to his feet, something dripped into his eyes. He reached up to wipe it away, then stood looking at his hand by moonlight and the flickering fire, rubbing the sticky moisture between his fingers. His head was bleeding. All right then.
He took off his coat, methodically ripped off one of his shirt sleeves and tied it about his forehead, then put the coat back on.
By now his senses had straightened enough that he could think. He took stock of the tragedy around him and began to formulate a plan. That was what the Provost Guard of the Indiana Iron 44th did. Take any unorthodox situation, assess the most critical problems, and deal with them step by step. It was how he’d survived the last eight months in prison. It was how he’d made it to Vicksburg mainly on foot, how he’d secured a berth on that hell-bound steamer.
It was why he wasn’t on it when it exploded.
Come on, Sabiere, he told himself. There are people in the water worse off than you. Help them.
So that was what he did.
The explosion jerked her awake. Aurora sat up, heart slamming in her throat. The second-floor bedroom was dark and quiet, but she could still feel the iron bedstead quivering. Cousin ThomasAnne lay beside her, snoring a prosaic, ladylike purr. How could she sleep after that concussion? For that matter, Aurora herself seemed to be the only one in the house awake.
Everyone always said she had the hearing of a bat, but had no one else felt the reverberation, the shudder of the house? Some nights she lay awake long after everyone else slumbered, listening to the hoot of the steamboats pushing upriver from exotic places like Natchez, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, New Orleans. Now that the war was over and the Mississippi had opened to civilian traffic, the daily symphony of sounds from the landing below the bluff had thickened with longshoremen calling to the boat crews as they docked or steamed away, loaded with passengers, cotton, and other crops headed north. Nighttime was quieter, with a rhythm and music all its own: distant foghorns, the call of night watchmen, perhaps a drunken sailor singing a bawdy song on his way out of a waterfront saloon.
Now—only muffled silence, as though her ears had suddenly been stuffed with cotton wadding.
Shoving aside ThomasAnne’s bony knees, she lay back and pulled the quilt under her chin. With spring slow to arrive this year, the night was sharp and cool for late April. The river had been roiling with snow melt for weeks, overflowing its bounds, flooding the planes of the delta. Though Memphis, high on its bluff, remained safe from the angry water, she breathed a prayer for the roustabouts below.
She lay awake for perhaps an hour or more, unable to shake the feeling of unease, trying to return to slumber. Maybe that disturbance had been a dream after all. She hoped it had been. But some time later, her eyes flew open at the sound of feet on the stairs just outside the bedroom door. The room had lightened, but shadows still lingered in the corners. Then, oddly, a flare of lamps penetrated the blackness beyond the open streetside window.
Scrambling out of bed, Aurora ran to lean over the windowsill. Lamplight flickered and swam along the street like giant fireflies, all headed in the direction of the river. A wagon rattled by, then a couple of horses, then more wagons. Suddenly
the street was alive with chaos and noise, men pouring out of their houses, calling to one another.
“Steamboat exploded!” the words came clear at last in the melee. “Fire! People in the water . . .”
Craning to see beyond the mad activity streaming toward the bluff, Aurora spotted a stream of boats backing out into the river. Impossible to distinguish individual vessels from amongst the various sizes and shapes, but the US military packet Pocahontas, a midsized steamer charged with rounding up Confederate blockade runners and habitually moored at the foot of Beale Street at nightfall, was no doubt among the rescuers. That very day, Aurora and her sisters had been at the Soldiers’ Home, serving members of the Pocahontas crew, along with paroled Union prisoners from the steamboat Sultana. Stopping in Memphis to unload a hundred tons of sugar, nearly as many crates of wine, and a herd of hogs, the Sultana’s pilot had allowed the passengers to disembark for supper. The ladies of Aurora’s church had brought blankets and food, tea and conversation, to men so gaunt and ill from incarceration at Cahaba prison over in Alabama that they hardly seemed human.
But the men, clearly giddy with joy at the knowledge that they were on their way home, had seemed grateful for feminine kindnesses. Some had had the means to purchase new clothes in town, but some remained in stinking uniforms, so black with grime that the original color—blue or gray—could no longer be discerned. Aurora had held her breath and bravely smiled at each man she encountered, some who seemed hardly older than her own fourteen years, some aged beyond reality by their travails. All but blinded by pity, Aurora had ignored the revolting of her stomach and sat beside a poor man with an amputated leg and a ferocious head wound while a troupe of opera singers from Chicago, also traveling on the Sultana, had performed a program of comic scenes.
Could the Sultana be the afflicted vessel?