“You got her a place . . .” There was something . . . something not quite right in his words.
“It seemed best.”
“For who?”
“For me. For you.”
“So . . . you paid her. You paid her to take care of me?”
He looked at me patronizingly. As if what he wanted to do was laugh at me instead. “I paid her for other things too.”
I heard myself gasp and clapped a hand to my mouth. “I was raised by a whore? Is that what you’re saying? The woman I thought was my mother was your whore?”
He winced. “Don’t pull out your morals and become righteous now. It’s not becoming. I didn’t raise you that way. You’re too old for that, Lucinda.”
“Is that . . . is that even my real name?”
He shrugged. “It’s what I’ve always called you. It’s what she called you.”
She. Cora. His whore. I splayed my hands at my temples, trying to think. Trying to hold on to myself. “What did my mother call me?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there when you were born. I got there a year too late. I’d left your mother because she wasn’t fit to travel. She wasn’t good at breeding. She got fat. She got . . . She was very unpleasant. She didn’t understand things the way I did. But eventually I realized she would have been useful in some of my schemes. So I came back into town to make amends, but she was already dead by then. The doctor and his wife were taking care of you. They called you Jane. Maybe that’s what your mother called you.”
My soul recoiled in horror for the baby I’d once been. “Why didn’t you just leave me there with them?”
He shrugged. “They already knew that I was your father. That’s my fault—I spoke too soon. What would they have thought if I just up and left you again?”
What would they have thought? I couldn’t even . . . I couldn’t even . . . couldn’t . . . “And Cora? What happened to her?”
“She died.”
“Of what?”
“Cholera.”
“She’s the one who died of cholera . . . ? I thought she was my mother.”
“You called her your mother. She might as well have been your mother. You cried. You wouldn’t stop crying. That’s why I gave you that locket. I told you that way you’d always have her with you.”
I wrapped my hand around it. “You mean, it wasn’t hers?”
“The hair was hers. That part was true.”
“But you always told me I looked nothing like my mother.”
He opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. Opened it once more. “You didn’t look anything like the woman you thought was your mother.”
I was already shaking my head. “That wasn’t necessary. None of those lies were necessary.”
“They were to me.” His voice had risen and his eyes were glinting. “Everyone in my class, everyone I was at the Point with, knew your mother. Annabel Curtis was the Belle of Buttermilk Falls. But now, all those men are out there, out west. In Texas and New Orleans and Memphis and Chicago. If they had seen you, they would have recognized you. They would have known who you were.”
“Would that have been so terrible?”
“To all my schemes? Yes! They wouldn’t have recognized me, but to see you? They would have known that—” He swallowed the words he was going to say. “Suffice to say that I wouldn’t have been able to do the things I needed to. And my best defense, the best disguise, was for you not to know who you resembled.”
I couldn’t even begin to fathom all of the lies that I’d grown up with. “So you took me with you after Cora died?” Is that when it had all started for me?
“Had to. I couldn’t convince anyone else to do what Cora had done. But you caught on quickly. You learned well. And I boarded you when I needed to. I have to say, you turned out quite well.”
Quite well for a girl who’d been raised by a whore and serially abandoned at boarding schools and finishing establishments. My hands slid to my throat. I wasn’t a lady after all. I never had been. I never would be.
“Come now. It doesn’t do to get too emotional.”
“I know that.” I knew it doubly now. I’d become attached to one of the many people he’d swindled. I couldn’t think of a greater irony. “Father? Please. I want this to be over.”
“It will be. By the end of June you should be good and married, and Mr. Conklin will be starting his brilliant career. After that you won’t have to take an active part in anything. Maybe steer some good opportunities my way a time or two, but—”
“I mean I want to be finished. I don’t want to participate anymore.”
“I’m sure you don’t mean that. You’re my best investment. All those schools I sent you to. All that polish you’ve acquired. I can talk a man out of his money, but you’re the only one of us who can talk him out of his heart. That, right there? That’s talent. A real gift.”
“It’s not a gift. It’s a corruption of everything that’s kind and decent.”
“You’re my good luck.”
“Have you ever wondered . . . ? Maybe there’s no such thing as luck. Maybe there’s just love.”
His brow lifted. “Love? You’re sounding more and more like your mother every day. At first, she did whatever I asked. And it was easy to talk people out of money when she became so visibly pregnant. But she didn’t like doing that, and she didn’t like traveling, and she wanted me to just . . . just quit all of it and do something respectable. ‘Don’t you love me?’ she’d ask. Love is a trap. ‘Won’t you change for me?’ is what she really meant. I can only be who I am.”
“But . . . what about God?”
“What about Him?”
“What if He’s here?”
“Now?” He made a grand show of peering up and down the hall. Then he laughed. “Don’t you think we’d see Him if He was here? God is just a delusion made up by people who need something to believe in. I believe in me. I believe in luck. And more and more, I’m beginning to believe in you.”
I didn’t want him to believe in me. I didn’t believe in me. Not in the way he did. “What if God’s not a delusion? Maybe God cares. Maybe He sees. And maybe life is not about luck at all. Maybe God actually loves us.”
“You don’t really think that!”
“I might. I think . . . in fact, I do.” I would much rather be like Phoebe than like my father. Even if it cost me everything.
44
Seth
“Lucinda’s father? He’s your Pennyworth?” Deke whistled as he glanced around at Otter and Dandy. I’d asked them to come down to our room after tattoo, at half past nine. “So what are you going to do?”
I’d been thinking on it all afternoon. “First of all, I’m going to try my best to get my grades back. Starting now. I know you all meant well, but I should have known better. I should have known a strength should never be looked at as a weakness, that you should never start playing by another man’s rules. He’ll always beat you at his own tactics.”
Deacon was nodding. “That’s . . . probably pretty true.”
“And I’m going to find a way to get our money back while he’s here.”
Dandy looked up from his deck of cards. “How?”
“I don’t know. Yet. But I’m going to make a plan using my head this time. I just have to figure out what it is that I have to work with.”
Otter blinked his eyes wide. “Outside of Professor Mahan’s Summary on the Cause of Permanent Fortifications and of the Attack and Defense of Permanent Works? Not much.”
“I’ve got you fellows.”
Dandy’s brow peaked. “Us?”
“Don’t I?”
His nod was slow in coming, but when it did, I knew it meant something. “Well . . . sure.”
Deke joined him. “Sure you do. We were going to help you once we got out west. Might as well help you now that Pennyworth’s here. It’s just . . .” Deke tugged at an earlobe. “I don’t know that there’s much we can do.”
“We’ll start a
s if we’re planning a campaign. What’s the enemy’s weakness?”
Deke looked at me as if I were crazy. “How are we supposed to know that?”
“Got to be money, doesn’t it? Since he’s a swindler?”
Otter agreed. “Makes sense.”
“So if we can think of a way to offer him a chance to make more of it, don’t you think he’d take us up on it?”
I’d gotten Deke’s full attention now. “I suppose. Depending.”
“On what?”
“On what that chance is. And how are you going to make the offer to him?”
That’s what I hadn’t quite figured out yet. But I would. There had to be a way. “Well . . . what are our strengths?”
Otter answered that question. “We don’t . . . We’re just cadets. We don’t have any money. We don’t have any real weapons. And we aren’t at liberty to do much at all off the military reservation.”
Dandy scoffed. “Or even on it.”
True. All those things were true.
Otter squinted, thinking hard. “Could you get him to go back out west? Once we’re in the cavalry we’ll have lots of strengths at our disposal. All those horses.”
“And rifles.” Dandy added.
“And soldiers at our disposal. And nothing to do but ride out on patrols, searching for news of Pennyworth, like I told you at the first.” Deacon said the words wistfully. I didn’t blame him. The plan would have been a good one if Pennyworth had stayed out west.
“He’s here now, fellows. He came to me. I’m not going to retreat. So what are we good at?”
“You’re good at most everything.” There was no hint of envy in Otter’s words. He made it sound as if he was just stating a fact.
“But Pennyworth has already seen me with Lucinda. He knows who I am. So forget about me. What about the rest of you?”
“Well . . . Mother says I’m good at young’uns, but there’s not much use for that here.”
“No . . . but you’re good with horses.”
He sat up straight as if I’d just reminded him. “I’m the best at horses.”
Horses. It wasn’t much, and it didn’t count for hardly anything here, but Otter was right. He could sit a horse like nobody I’d ever seen. So that was something. Maybe.
I looked at Dandy. “You’re good at . . .”
He raised a brow as if in challenge.
“You’re good at . . . You’re our best marksman, of course. . . .” But what else was he good at?
“He’s good at striking fear into the heart of ordinary mortals.”
Dandy turned around to glare at Deke and did just that. Or tried to. Might have worked if my barracks mate hadn’t been shaking with laughter. Dandy stood up and looked at him with a combination of dignity and such disdain that I knew I had my answer. “He’s good at being a gentleman. Put a fancy hat on him and hand him a cigar, and he’d be the best Southern gentleman in just about any room.”
“And French.”
“Pardon me?”
“I’m good at French.”
“So noted.” Horses, being a gentleman, and French. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “Deke?”
“General?” He saluted me with his pencil.
“You’re good at drawing.”
“So kind of you to notice.”
“And getting people to buy into your schemes.”
He frowned for a moment, and then he nodded. “I suppose I am.”
“So the enemy’s weakness is money and our weapons are horses, French, drawing, persuasion, and the consummate Southern gentleman.”
“Sounds about right. So what are you going to do with us, General?”
“Something. Just . . . give me a minute here to think.”
As Otter and Dandy went back to playing cards and Deacon went back to his sketchbook, I let my gaze drift over them. Money. Money was the key to victory. We needed to get Pennyworth to give us his money, my money, however much of it he still had left. But the only reason he’d want to do that is if he thought he had a chance to make more money. What we needed to do was swindle a swindler . . . with horses, a gentleman, and an artist.
“Dandy, you’re from the South, aren’t—”
“I’m from New Orleans.”
“Right. So you know a thing or two about horses.”
“Otter’s the one who knows a thing or two about horses.”
“Sure. That’s right. But if I were a betting man, I’d say you know more about gambling than Otter does.”
“Maybe.”
I took that as a yes. “How about gambling on horses?”
Though he kept his gaze on his cards, he inclined his head in my direction. “I’m my father’s son. Maybe even more than my mother’s.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a yes. And I’m blaming you for making me admit that.” He made me feel as if I ought to apologize for the offense.
“And Otter? You can ride just about any horse in the academy’s stable, can’t you?”
“I suppose I have. At one time or another. Though I oughter say that York is no fun to ride—that’s for certain.”
“But you can, can’t you?”
“’Course I can.”
“All right, then. And Deke . . . ?”
“General?”
“You remember that newspaperman from Harper’s Weekly who came to draw one of our hops last year?”
“Sure. He was good, but not so good as me.”
“Don’t you think a magazine like that would want some drawings of our riding lessons too?”
“Maybe . . . What do you have in mind?”
In order for our plan to work, I needed to talk to Lucinda. After chapel, I snuck off the military reservation, hoofed it over to Buttermilk Falls, and waited outside the church. I had hoped to catch her there, but she wasn’t among the congregants. As the churchgoers filed out, I caught Bobby Hammond’s eye and gestured him over.
His eyes were wide as saucers, so I knew he’d heard about the parade. He was a decent lad, maybe more serious than a boy ought to be, so I didn’t want to land him in trouble. I just kept him long enough to find out where Lucinda and her father were staying. Then I walked over to their boardinghouse, praying that I’d be able to find a way to talk to her.
I didn’t have to wait long.
Just after the church bells rang noon, she stepped out of the boardinghouse. She joined me around the side of the building, out of view of the windows.
“I need your help.”
Guilt darkened her eyes. “If I could give you my father’s money I would, Seth. All of it. But the first person he’d suspect is me.”
“I’m going to work all of it out. Don’t worry. I’ll get the money back and he’ll never know you helped. No one will.”
“You . . . you don’t hate me?”
“I could never hate you. And I still stand by what I said—none of this is your fault. I have to admit that I didn’t know what to think when you told me who your father was, but it’s not as if you had anything to do with any of his schemes.”
“But, Seth—”
“I will need your help with our plan though. We need to convince him to place some bets.”
“What kind of bets?”
“There’s a horse down at the riding hall named York. He’s a holy terror. The only person who can ride him is Otter.”
“Then you want to figure out a way to get my father to bet against Otter? Why would he do that?”
“If you bring him down to the riding hall on Wednesday afternoon, Deacon is going to help your father see that Otter—a true son of the South if ever there was one—can’t ride a horse to save his life.”
“But . . . ?”
“And the day after that, Dandy—a planter’s son from New Orleans with nothing to do but amuse himself—is going to show up. You’ll run into him at the hotel. Can you do that?”
She nodded. “Get my father to talk to Deacon on the first day and Dandy on the
next? But I—”
“You can’t give any sign that you know them.”
“I won’t.”
“I know your father’s the one who’s been so cunning and deceitful, and I wish I didn’t have to depend on you to be the same. I don’t want you to think I assume that just because he does those things that you—”
“I understand. And I’ll try my best.”
“Do you think your father would try to convince Dandy to bet against Otter?”
“Perhaps. If he thought there was no way he could lose the bet.”
“If he heard Otter speaking, heard that Southern accent, and if he saw Otter ride truly terribly, do you think that would be enough?”
“It probably would. Everyone knows Southern men are good at riding. But you lost hundreds of dollars to my father. I don’t think you’ll be able to make it up in just one bet.”
“At this point, I’ll take what I can get.”
“Then I’ll do what I can to help.”
“Just make sure your father’s at the riding hall Wednesday afternoon.”
45
Lucinda
I watched Seth walk away wanting nothing so much as to go with him.
At least he didn’t hate me. And at least he’d given me the chance to help him. Maybe that would assuage some of my guilt. I’d almost admitted to everything. But what would have been the point of that? As my father once told me, “People don’t want to know what they don’t want to know so why tell them?”
Why tell him?
He seemed to think of me in the same way he thought of his sister: hapless victim. What would be gained by telling him the truth? I might still carry my guilt, I might carry it for the rest of my life, but at least this way he would still have fond thoughts of me after he graduated.
The best thing to do, after he gambled back his money, was to put as much distance between us as possible. Maybe I could convince my father to move to the city for the winter. Maybe next time he went, I would go with him.
Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I would just take a steamboat up the river. Maybe I could do what I’d done here. I could start a finishing school. I could forge my references. And then . . . I would be the same deceitful person I’d always been. An honest life couldn’t be built on a foundation of lies. My time in Buttermilk Falls had shown me that.
Flirtation Walk Page 23