Love and Adventure Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  “She doesn’t look very happy,” Lorna said.

  “A handsome woman, nonetheless.”

  “And I thought you preferred fair women,” Lorna said with an air of injury, and could not quell the laugh that rose in her at his hasty reassurances. She was still smiling, inquiring about his famous, much worn and society-prone coat, when the music ended.

  The polonaise belonged to Ramon’s executive officer. Slick’s performance on the floor was polished, in contrast to what might have been expected given his long-limbed frame, rather sloping walk, and faint air of the backwoods. He had five sisters who all loved to dance, he said, and a bevy of cousins who played with ease any musical instrument they picked up or sat down at. Dancing was a regular Saturday night occurrence in the hills of north Louisiana, portions of them at any rate — the Baptists; around the towns frowned on people kicking up their heels, drinking hard liquor, or having fun in general. Said it all led to sin, while, truth to tell, it kept ‘em from it-as well as out of the bushes and the swamp bottoms, and places like that. Most of the dancing was done in squares, but the other, slower dances served to let the girls catch their breath in between.

  Regardless, when the polonaise, a Polish dance in triple time, was done, Lorna was somewhat breathless and glad for the offer of a glass of punch. While Slick moved away through the crowd to get it for her, she found a place to stand near the wall. Spreading the fan that hung from one wrist, she began to ply it. She had made no more than a half dozen strokes when she heard her name called and, looking around, saw Charlotte bearing down upon her.

  “Come with me quickly,” the young girl said, catching her arm, “before the polka begins. Mrs. Morgan wishes to meet you!”

  A moment later, Lorna’s hand was being taken in the frail ones of the heroine of the evening. Her gaze rested upon the pale and thin face of Sara Morgan, made even more striking by the contrast with her widow’s weeds, while the woman’s shrewd, measuring glance ran over Lorna in turn.

  They exchanged the conventional greetings. Then Sara Morgan said, “Indeed yes, I can believe you ran the fire of the federal ships at New Orleans; you have that steadfast look. I heard something of it from the Misses Lansings, of course,” she paused to smile at Charlotte hovering beside them, intently listening for once, “but I would enjoy hearing more details some time.”

  “I did nothing except cower in my cabin, in all truth,” Lorna said with a wry smile. “It doesn’t begin to compare with your adventures, I’m afraid.”

  “I was never under fire, nor likely to be, and there were others who also carried messages in those days and hours before Bull Run.”

  “You must have run the blockade, too, on your outward journey to England?” Lorna suggested.

  “Yes, but that was some months ago, before the strangling cordon of ships began to tighten. There were several women, and even children, on board as passengers then, so little was the danger considered. I understand it is quite different now.”

  “Apparently so.”

  There was no opportunity to say more, for Nate Bacon approached and, moving deliberately to Lorna’s side, nodded to Sara Morgan and Charlotte before turning to her. “I believe the next dance is mine.”

  “Yes, certainly,” Lorna agreed in pleasant tones, “but perhaps you will excuse me, since I have just met this lady and there is much for us to talk about.”

  The smile Nate turned upon Sara Morgan was smooth, urbane, but, though his words were tinged with self-deprecation, there was iron beneath them. “I’m sure the lady will understand my reluctance to release so beautiful a partner? I am not a patient man, and I have waited no short time for this moment.”

  “Of course,” the woman in black agreed, rather at a loss as she glanced from Lorna to the man beside her. “There will always be another time to chat.”

  It was then that Slick reached her side, carefully maneuvering the two cups of punch he carried. Behind him there was a stir as the dancers took their places for the polka and the first notes of the music began. Nate swung toward Lorna in triumph and haste. His elbow struck a cup, and punch cascaded in a pale yellow stream down the side of his trousers to the shining toes of his boots.

  Slick did a marvelous balancing act to save the other cup. Charlotte gave a small scream, dancing out of the way with her skirts pressed down in front. Lorna, stepping back instinctively, received no more than a few drops on the hem of her gown. Nate cursed, then turned to glare at the executive officer as if he suspected Slick had done it on purpose. Glancing at the look of exaggerated concern on the north Louisianian’s face, Lorna was not certain he was wrong.

  Ramon’s timing, then, was perfect as he joined them. “Charlotte,” he said, a trace of mockery in his tones, “if you are done with checking for spots, you might signal for a servant to attend to the mess and detail someone to sponge down your father’s guest. The punch you still hold, Slick, shall be your reward. Mrs. Morgan, Lorna, may I escort you both to a less sticky neighborhood?”

  “Hold on a minute, Cazenave,” Nate grated. “This polka is mine.”

  “Now, don’t tell me you expect a woman to permit herself to be clasped to your damp apparel?” Ramon surveyed Nate with a lifted brow that was an insult in itself.

  “We can sit it out. I have a thing or two to say to my … to Miss, uh, Forrester.”

  “Later,” Ramon answered, giving his hand to the woman in black as he helped her to rise and step over the sticky puddle on the floor, “when you are in better condition for the debate.”

  Offering his other arm to Lorna, he swept them away. They skirted the dancers, moving toward the long windows at the front of the house that opened onto the terrace. Mrs. Morgan, after a brief glance at Lorna, broke the silence. “It was good of you to come to our rescue, Captain Cazenave.”

  “My pleasure,” he answered, dividing a smile between them, and my gain. I saw your trunks brought on board this afternoon. I assume you are ready to sail?”

  “As ready as I’m likely to be,” the woman answered. “It’s not a voyage I look forward to.”

  “That would be too much to ask, but I hope it will prove uneventful, for your sake.”

  Lorna had not realized that Mrs. Morgan would be leaving tonight, though she should have expected it. On that first day that they had seen her, Charlotte had mentioned she was looking for a runner willing to take a passenger.

  “For all our sakes,” the woman said, her voice low. “I trust I will not be a hindrance to you.”

  “It seems unlikely,” Ramon answered, the smile that carved indentations in the bronzed planes of his face warmly encouraging.

  Envy, dark and blighting, caught at Lorna. She wished with a fervor that was astonishing that she was going to be sailing with the Lorelei, that she could be a part of the adventure of the run. It was going to be so hard to watch the ships steaming out of the harbor and into the night, one by one, gray ghosts that might, or might not, return. Then would come the waiting, the watching. That had always been the woman’s part in times of war, but now it seemed beyond bearing. Sara Morgan would not have that idle endurance forced upon her, not she.

  A turn in the night air was suggested and accepted. They strolled up and down the terrace, inhaling the scent of flowers from the gardens and of freshly scythed grass, mixed with the omnipresent salt sea tang and the smell of cigar smoke from where two men had retreated to smoke near one wall. While the gay strains of the polka issued from the room behind them, they talked of this and that. Lorna, oddly disinclined toward the exchange of social commonplaces, allowed the widow and Ramon to carry the conversation. Her attention was snared at last, however.

  “I understand,” Mrs. Morgan said, “that there will be two ships carrying gunpowder on this run. Will your vessel be one of them, Captain Cazenave?”

  Lorna stifled a gasp, swinging to stare at him. There was no more dangerous cargo. If the ship were struck in the wrong place, if a spark from a detonating shell reached the hold, the vessel
would explode into a hundred pieces, leaving little more than debris floating on the water.

  He flung Lorna a quick glance before he turned back to answer the widow. “Your information is correct as far as it goes. Surely you know the answer to your question also?”

  “Then, it will be,” the woman returned with composure. “I had hoped my informant was right, but one cannot take these things for granted. President Davis and his generals will be pleased. A modern army can fight without many things, but gunpowder isn’t one of them.”

  “As a passenger, the knowledge doesn’t disturb you?”

  She smiled. “You have the reputation of running a lucky ship, Captain; I can think of no other I would rather trust myself to. And if I should cavil at taking passage along with so valuable a contribution to the cause, I would not count myself much of a rebel.”

  The polka jolted to a stop inside the ballroom. Pleading fatigue, Mrs. Morgan turned back into the house. As she was seated in a chair near the windows, she turned to Lorna. “Perhaps we may talk about New Orleans a bit later, Miss Forrester. For now, I’m sure there is an anxious man somewhere searching for his partner.”

  “The man is here, Ma’am,” Ramon said with a small bow.

  The widow laughed. “Then do not let me keep either of you.”

  It was indeed Ramon’s waltz. He led her out onto the floor, drawing her into his arms as the opening measures of a Strauss melody began. They circled in silence for a moment. She looked up at him finally to find him watching her, his dark eyes black with intensity as his gaze rested on the gentle curves of her mouth. Did he realize, she wondered, quite how overpowering was the aura of his masculinity, the sense of strength and purpose that he exuded. Did he have any idea of how easy it would be for him to reach out and take her, if he wanted her, easily overcoming her halfhearted resistance? He must, for he had done just that once. A tremor ran over her.

  To banish the tenor of her thoughts, she said in silken tones designed to bait, “How very gratifying it must be, to be sure, to find yourself carrying such a valuable cargo tonight.”

  “Someone has to ship it.”

  “Doubtless it will pay well, being so dangerous?”

  “The regular rate plus a large premium.”

  “A few runs like that, and you could turn the Lorelei into a fishing boat, or wind up at the bottom of the ocean. Too bad I didn’t accept your proposal; I might have been a rich widow in no time!”

  “Tell me,” he said, his accent growing more marked, “have you read this lecture to Peter?”

  “Peter? You mean he—”

  “His Bonny Girl is the other ship with a consignment of arms and ammunition for Messieurs Trenholm and Fraser, representing the Confederate government.”

  “Oh.”

  “What is the matter? Did you think our English friend was in this for the glory only, with no concern for so mundane a thing as the money?”

  Stung by the lash of his sarcasm, she flung up her head. “At least he is not a southerner, draining the wealth of his own country!”

  “I provide a service badly needed, for which I am paid. What is wrong with that?”

  “There are thousands of men in the South who are doing the same in less comfortable circumstances and without hope or expectation of gain.”

  “They are fools; courageous, I will grant, and generous with their substance and lives, but fools nonetheless.”

  “Would you have them accept the dictates of the North, or allow a foreign army to remain on Confederate soil in defiance of repeated requests to leave it?”

  “Do you think that is the cause of this war? It isn’t. The cause is money. The North, fearful, and rightly so, of the wealth and aristocratic position gained by the South using the slave system, seeks to dismantle or at least curb it. The men of the South, especially those small famers just starting out, coming from Europe where advancement is impossible, are determined to protect a system that offers them the chance to use their own endeavors to move up in the world, to build something of substance in a generation. The rest is patriotic and moralistic nonsense.”

  “What of states’ rights?”

  “The constitutional amendment setting forth the right of secession is simple enough for a child to understand. Anyone denying it is spitting in the face of the men who drafted it. Doubtless Lincoln is correct is expecting chaos to follow on the division of the union, but, if he manages to preserve that union, it will be at the expense of true freedom.”

  “The slavery question?”

  “Any southerner knows, if he will admit it, that the institution is morally wrong, but the precedent for it goes back as far as recorded history, and so enjoys quasi-respectability. The climate in the lower states makes it a necessity, if the fields are to be made to yield, while the investment in it is too great to be liquidated easily, too large for fair recompense from the United States Treasury. It will be abandoned naturally when the time comes and some other form of labor, such as the immigrants in the northern states, becomes cheaper than buying and keeping slaves. More, the practice is still legal in several northern states, including the District of Columbia itself — which seems a little like a man sneering at his neighbor’s dirty linen while his own filthy nightshirt hangs out the back of his trousers. Raising slavery as an issue for this war is mere hypocritical drum beating.”

  “According to you, then, we are right, but they must win,.”

  “That is my assessment.”

  It was one far different from those she had heard in the last year while men pounded tables and struck heroic poses. Irrefutable in its simplicity, it was also far more depressing.

  “You are something of a cynic,” she said slowly, “but have you no feeling for the place where you were born, no impulse to fight to keep it untouched?”

  It was the custom, in waltzing to the Strauss tune the musicians were now playing, for the dancers to whirl clockwise to the first half, then, when the repeat came, for the room to “turn,” or for those on the floor to stop and begin spinning counter-clockwise. Ramon waited until the turn was completed before he answered.

  “I feel it sometimes, yes,” he admitted, a distant expression in his dark eyes as he gazed over the top of her head, “but if I ignore it, it goes away.”

  What could she say in answer to such callousness? She made no reply. Perhaps it was as he intended, for he glanced down at her, changing the subject.

  “Has your father-in-law been a trial? Slick, and Peter also, report that he has not forced himself upon you at the hotel during the day.”

  “They have been very good at keeping him at bay, Peter especially. He was a bit unpleasant earlier this evening, however. I confess, I was surprised to see him here.”

  “He came with one of the cotton factors, who sent a note to Edward without giving the name.”

  “I see.” His words seemed to indicate that he had warned the Lansings against Nate. It was good to know that he had gone to the trouble.

  “There have been no other problems, at night for instance?”

  “None, which has been an unexpected blessing.” The look of satisfaction that flitted over his face, then was gone, alerted her. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, I suppose?” When he did not answer, she said, “Ramon?”

  “It … was only a precaution; I didn’t want to alarm you.”

  “What was? Since I know that much, you may as well tell me the rest.”

  His lips tightened, then he said, “A healthy bribe to the desk clerks, both of them, not to give out your room number, and an effort to have whoever escorts you to your room be certain you are not followed.”

  “And?” she persisted, as he paused.

  “A guard in the corridor at night, and another on the veranda.”

  A sudden certainty gripped her. Before she could stop herself, she said, “And one with a guitar in the garden?”

  The darkness of his eyes was opaque and his frown faintly puzzled as he stared down at her. “A
guitar?”

  “Do you deny it was you?”

  What reason could he have for doing so, if he had been doing no more than protecting her? True, she had first heard the serenade on the night before Nate Bacon had arrived. Possibly, then, his presence could be taken as an admission of interest in her. But, Ramon had made it plain enough that he desired her on the evening she had sent him from her room. Why should this be any different?

  “Don’t tell me you have a lovesick fool who sits serenading you beneath your window every night, and you haven’t even been curious enough to find out who he is?” The light in his face was mocking, daring her to accuse him.

  “I wouldn’t want to frighten him away,” she said with a coolness she did not feel. “I have enjoyed his playing too much for that.”

  “If you had invited him in, you might have enjoyed his company more.”

  She looked away over his shoulder. “So I might, but men seem to tire easily of what is easily attained.”

  His grip tightened and she heard his swift-drawn breath, but, before he could answer, the waltz came to its abrupt, swinging close. Around them, couples began applauding with gloved hands, laughing, chatting, moving from the floor. As she drew away from Ramon, Lorna turned to see Elizabeth in her dark gown making her way toward them through the crowd of dancers.

  “Lorna, could you come with me? It’s Mrs. Morgan. She has been taken ill, and she wishes to speak to you.”