Another roll of nausea struck. "Please stop," Raven whimpered.
"No, I won't stop till you agree to give him up. And it's not fair to run him off after we get married, either. He's the best horse trainer in these parts. From what he says about them racking horses, they're plenty expensive and need the best care. Now, I don't have no hard feelings, and I won't fret about him being around you after we're married. I won't even care if he services you once in a while, if that's what it takes for us to stay on here, but at least give him up long enough so's he'll marry me."
Raven shook her head, not in refusal of Selena's plea but in rejection that any of it could really be happening.
But Selena saw it as rejection and begged even harder. "You got to, Miss Raven. You got to for my baby's sake. Don't tell him I came to you like this; he'd hate me, and it'd be Amanda who'd suffer. Just tell him that you don't want him that way no more, but you want him to stay on and work for you. Tell him he ought to find somebody and get married and settle down. He'll turn around and marry me then. I know he will. Do it for my baby. Please." Her voice cracked.
Finally, Raven managed to speak. "I never knew, Selena, about any of this."
"I know you didn't." Selena dabbed at her eyes with the hem of the baby's blanket. "And you seem like a good woman. Everybody speaks kind of you. That's why I made up my mind to come talk to you woman to woman, hoping you'd understand. I mean, if you were in my shoes and you had a baby and another woman was keeping the father from marrying you and giving it a name, wouldn't you do the same thing?
"I know my pa has his faults," she rushed on, "but when he's not drinking, he's a good man, and once Steve and me are married and he don't have to be ashamed of me anymore, he'll straighten up. So you see?" She faked brightness when inside she was sick to the core. "Everything will work out good for everybody. Unless"—she made her eyes narrow as though with suspicion—"you're in love with him too. Then I guess it's hopeless, because you'd never give him up to me if I had ten babies by him. But I warn you. I'm sleeping with him now, and I'll keep on, and I won't care how many babies I have, and you can run me off if you want to, but so help me I'll tell, and—" She could not go on and began to sob wildly to think she was capable of telling such outlandish lies.
"You're sleeping with him even now?" Raven said in wonder, then asked herself why it should matter.
Steve had abandoned Selena, but in a different way than her father had abandoned her. Her father had not known her mother was pregnant. Steve had known about his child, had even been there when she was born. He had shirked his responsibilities by choice, damn him, because he was so determined to look out for his own interests. Nothing he could do would surprise her.
"Sometimes," Selena acknowledged. "I know it's soon after the baby, but—"
"Please. I don't want to hear any more." Raven pushed back from the desk, started to get up, then realized her trembling legs would not support her and sank back down. "Go," she whispered. "Get out, please."
"Promise me you won't tell Steve." Suddenly, that meant more to Selena than anything else. "Promise me you won't tell him I was here."
"No. No, I won't."
Selena got slowly to her feet. "And you'll think about what I said?"
Raven waved her away, then folded her arms on the desk and bowed her head.
Selena hurriedly left the house and ran down the path to the sweet potato patch where one of the slaves was waiting with a buckboard wagon to take her to Mobile. She would stay there for a while with a married girlfriend whose husband was away at sea, because a lot of time was going to have to pass before she could look Steve in the face. Until then, everyone would think she was merely hiding from her father.
And when she returned, she could only hope that Lisbeth had been right, that Raven would leave without telling Steve what she had done.
Once more, Selena prayed it would turn out that way... and prayed to be forgiven for the horrendous thing she had done.
* * *
Lisbeth winced as Mariah dabbed her face with witch hazel liniment. "Ouch, that hurts."
"Not half as bad as what them men were gonna do to you. You didn't have no business ridin' off by yourself like that. You'd just best be glad Miss Raven was here to take off after you." Mariah had been terrified when Lisbeth had told her what happened.
"Believe me, I am," Lisbeth assured, then took the first step toward penitence for how she had treated Raven. "I've changed my mind about her, Mariah. And she's right. Halcyon is big enough for all of us, and I'm going to Mobile and tell Julius that tomorrow and try to get him to come home."
Mariah broke into a big grin. "Praise the Lord. I'm so glad. Now we can have some peace around here."
"She's going to teach me how to shoot a gun. And how to ride like she does. I wish I'd never acted like I did, but it was a shock, having her show up like that."
"Of course it was, but it's gonna work out just fine. And I do hope Master Julius will come on home. It'd be nice for you all to be a family."
"Yes, but he may take some convincing. He was pretty upset when he left."
"And pretty upset when Miss Raven went to see him, from what I hear."
"When was that?" She noticed Mariah smiling as though she knew a secret.
Mariah thought a minute. "Well, I suppose it's all right to tell it now, but don't you let Miss Raven know I did, 'cause she made Joshua swear he wouldn't say a word, but the truth is, he was so excited after it was all over he just had to tell somebody. 'Course, at the time, he said he was so scared that if he didn't already have gray hair, it would've turned gray for sure.
"He was supposed to stay in the carriage like Miss Raven told him to," she continued, excited now to tell the story, "but he got down and went to peek in the saloon window, so's he could see what was going on, and he said when the bullets started flyin' he nearly passed out."
"Bullets? Saloon? Whatever are you talking about?"
"You promise not to tell I told?" Mariah wanted reassurance.
"Yes, yes, go on."
She listened as Mariah detailed everything and finally burst into giggles to imagine it. Before, she might have been as upset as Julius, but now, understanding Raven as she did and knowing she meant well, and also aware she had probably risked her life to help Julius, Lisbeth found herself admiring her all the more. And she would tell Julius that as soon as she saw him, too.
"She sure is somethin'," Mariah said. "I'm just glad nothing bad happened before you decided to make peace with her."
Lisbeth winced again, but not from the liniment. Something bad had not happened—yet. But it very well could if she was not able to find Selena and stop her from carrying out the plan. But she had not been in the fields, and one of the workers told her she had not reported back to work after lunch. Lisbeth had gone all the way to her cabin, but there was no sign of her there either. So she had come back to the house to have her wounds cleansed before going in search of her again.
Mariah finished. "Now all you got to do is change your dress before supper, and you'll be good as new."
"I'm going to do that now." She was already on her way. "But there's something I have to do before supper, so let's eat an hour later than usual. You'll need to tell Raven."
"I can't tell her nothing." Mariah fussed as she began to repack her medicine bucket. "She's done locked herself in the study and must be workin' real hard on something, 'cause I knocked to see if she wanted some lemonade and she told me to go away. Sounded funny. Like she was tired. Guess she was, having to put up with that white trash Selena Leroux."
But Lisbeth did not hear her, because she was all the way down the hall and skipping up the steps. In her room, she yanked off the torn dress and quickly put on a fresh one. She wasted no time. In minutes she was back outside to mount Belle and ride for the slave cabins.
The Negroes looked at her curiously as she passed by. They were outside, gathered around communal cooking pots, preparing their own suppers. Lisbeth could s
mell catfish frying in the cauldrons of bubbling lard and hear the sizzle of hush puppies. An old man sat on a porch picking a banjo while children skipped barefooted and sang to his tune.
Lisbeth looked around and thought about Selena describing Raven's plans for making the cabins nicer and decided she was right. And she would help her. It was time for a change in so many ways, time to turn her whole life around. And as soon as she took care of Selena, she was going to send a courier to the Tremayne plantation with a message of apology for Barley. She would invite him to call and tell him how sorry she was for everything. Mariah was right. Everything was going to work out just fine.
She felt a stab of apprehension as she drew close to Selena's cabin. There was no sign of her, and she should have been outside, like the others, preparing her evening meal. But perhaps since she was alone, she ate with her neighbors, who were busy in front of their own cabin.
"Have you seen Selena Leroux?" she asked them as she reined Belle in.
"She's gone," a plump woman said, without looking up from the batch of cornbread she was stirring in a big wooden bowl.
Lisbeth tensed. "Gone where?"
"Don't rightly know. She told my man she was going away for a while. Wouldn't tell him where. We reckon she's hidin' from her pappy."
Lisbeth felt a rush of relief. Selena wasn't hiding out from her father, she was hiding out from her, because she had decided not to go through with the plan after all and was afraid to tell her so. But that was fine, and Lisbeth could not wait to tell her so. "Well, if you hear from her, tell her I said she doesn't have to hide anymore, all right? She'll understand."
The woman stared after her, wondering why she was happy, but kept on stirring the cornbread.
When Lisbeth got back to the house and passed the dining room, she saw that Mariah had only set one place. "What's this?" she asked Nolie, another kitchen worker. "Why is there only one setting? What about Miss Raven?"
"Mariah said Miss Raven don't want no supper," Nolie told her. "Somethin' about havin' a lot of work to do and not feelin' real good. I think Mariah said she's already gone to bed."
"Well, that's too bad," Lisbeth said. Then she realized that she was free for the evening. In the back of her mind she had wished she didn't have to wait before trying to make things right with Barley but felt she should be with Raven so they could sort of celebrate their new relationship.
Now she didn't have to.
As she hurried from the dining room, Nolie called, bewildered, "Where are you going, Miss Lisbeth? It's almost suppertime."
Lisbeth did not take time to answer. It was still early, and she had plenty of time to have Joshua drive her carriage over to see Barley.
She wasn't going to wait any longer to tell him how wonderful everything was going to be—for all of them.
* * *
Raven stood at the window of her room watching as Lisbeth skipped happily across the lawn. She did not know where Lisbeth was going, nor did she care about her, about anything, Not anymore. Not since her heart had been ripped from her chest and torn into a thousand pieces.
She was wearing her army scout uniform and was ready to leave. All she was waiting for was darkness, so she could slip into the stable without anybody seeing her and get Diablo. She was not taking anything with her except a little bit of money from the wall safe in the study, and only because she needed that to sustain her till she got where she was going and found work.
Where was she going? she asked herself with a deep shudder. Where was there to go that she might find peace?
Then she told herself that for the time being she could not care about that either. She had only one burning thought: to get as far away from Halcyon as possible... to get away from Steve.
It had never even occurred to her to confront him, to tell him what a lowlife scoundrel he was and how she loathed him and would hate him till he died. To do so would be to bare her soul, to let him know how much she loved him. She did not want to do that for the sake of her pride, which, sadly, was all she had left to salvage out of the ruins of her life. So she would ride away and be long gone before morning. If he did try to follow her, he would never find her. She would use every shred of Indian cunning she possessed to ensure she left no trail, no trace.
He and everyone else would think she just was not happy in her new life and had returned to her own world. He would marry Selena and give their baby a name and a home and sooner or later forget all about her. Bitterly she wondered if he ever thought of her anyway, unless she was naked in his arms and giving him his pleasure.
But she had received pleasure too, she was pained to remind herself. Her memories were nothing but warm and grand and would be with her for a long time to come, maybe forever.
She looked around her at the room she had come to love with its lace tepee over the bed and could not help smiling to remember that first night in Mobile when she had not known what a canopy was. Oh, there were such good times to think about as she had learned the ways of her father's world.
And there was also her father to remember. Despite the agony of how Steve had used her, crushed her, she would forever be grateful for having had the time to get to know and love her father. That was something even the pain and humiliation could never overshadow.
Yes, Raven promised herself, she would have many glorious things to remember, for she had also come to love Halcyon and all its people. It was a shame that she was leaving just as it appeared she and Lisbeth would, at last, be close.
She was also saddened to think that the slaves would not be freed by her hand and their cabins would not be repaired and made nicer. But that could not be helped, for as much as she wished it, Raven knew it was impossible for her to stay now that Steve had made her the ultimate fool.
Lisbeth disappeared inside the stables. She looked so happy. Raven hoped she would eventually find someone else to teach her how to ride and shoot. Perhaps she would, now that she had come to a new awareness of herself. And maybe some of it would affect Julius as well. They could turn their whole lives around.
Raven left the window, knowing she was only torturing herself to think of what might have been, and willed the hours to pass quickly so she could be on her way.
* * *
Masson Leroux leaned against the trunk of a great live oak tree. Lacy shawls of Spanish moss concealed him as he stood watching the house... watching Raven as she moved back and forth in front of her window.
He knew he might have to stay there all night. And maybe the next one and the one after that. But he would do it if that was what it took to catch her by herself after dark. She went for rides sometimes. He knew that. He'd seen her when he was out hunting. But now he was hunting for her. And he would be right behind her when she did go out—with his rifle loaded and ready.
Chapter 26
Steve lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling of his room. It was hours till midnight, and he was miserable from wanting to be with Raven now. More and more, it irked him that they had to be so secretive. He could understand not letting anyone know they were sleeping together, but he saw no harm in spending time together in other ways: riding, picnicking, anything to enjoy each other's company. Otherwise, how could he make Raven see they might have a future together?
He bolted upright at the thought, then laughed out loud and shook himself as though he had just awakened from a long, long sleep—months of sleep, in fact.
He had just acknowledged what he had known all along but been afraid to admit—he did want a future with Raven. More than that, he wanted a future with her as his wife.
He loved her, by God.
And he was sick and tired of waiting in his room every night for her to sneak up the ladder as if she were ashamed, as if he were ashamed, because he wasn't.
These days she stole into his thoughts constantly. Memories of their time together on the trail flooded him with a sweet warmth, but everything about Raven was a joy to behold. Maybe he had promised himself never to fall in love
, never marry and settle down with one woman. But that was before Raven. She had changed all that, had changed him. God, it was a wonderful feeling! He just couldn't wait to tell her, couldn't wait to find out if she might feel the same way about him.
He reached for his shirt and dragged his boots over, smiling to think how surprised she was going to be when Mariah told her she had a caller and then came downstairs to find out it was him, waiting to tell her he was there to state his intentions to court her proper. He could just see the look on her face.
He hesitated as he pulled on a boot.
What if he was making a fool of himself?
After all, Raven had never given any sign that she cared for him beyond the raging passion that always left both of them spent with wonder. But neither had he ever given her reason to think she meant anything more to him.
So all he could do was go to her and pour out his heart, and if it turned out she didn't give a damn about him except for what they shared in bed, so be it. He had to know.
Because if she didn't, he felt a pang of despair to acknowledge, it was probably best that he start giving some thought to moving on, for a future of stolen passion was not what he wanted out of life.
* * *
Masson cursed softly as a tree limb slapped him in the face.
Despite a waxing moon, there were a lot of clouds in the sky, and it was hard to see where he was going as he tried to follow after Raven. Why was she riding parallel to the main road, instead of on it? She plowed the mustang right into the brambles and weeds.
He also wondered why she was wearing an army uniform. He wouldn't have even known it was her if he hadn't seen her come out of the house, creeping along like she didn't want anybody to see her.
He wished he hadn't had so much to drink. It was hard to think clearly with the buzzing in his head, but he had to try. It made no difference where she was going or why. Neither did it matter how she was dressed. This was a fine chance to get rid of her once and for all, and he was going to take it—even if he did feel like the world was spinning all around him.
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