The old woman’s words lay heavy on Cameron’s heart. A part of her wanted to weep for what Mrs. Pierre had lost, what all Southerners had lost, but she couldn’t be weak. She had a responsibility to Taye and Naomi and the baby.
“Mrs. Pierre, I was wondering if we could rent a room for a night or so. I’ve come back to Elmwood.”
The woman lifted her head as if hearing sounds no one else could hear. She gazed into the darkness of the empty hotel. “We’ve been closed for business since the evacuation. What Sherman didn’t steal, he burned,” she said bitterly.
Cameron exhaled. It was fully dark outside now and they were all exhausted. Surely there was some room here they could use. “Mrs. Pierre, I have money. We’d be willing to take whatever you can offer in the way of a bed and meal.”
“Union money, not that worthless Confederate paper?” she asked, her eyes lighting up with interest.
“Yes, real money. I’ll pay you well. It’s just that we’ve come so far—from Baltimore. And we’re tired. We just need somewhere to sleep the night where we’ll be safe.”
“The room would be meager, nothing like The Magnolia once sported.”
“Anything, just a roof over our heads.”
“I’ve got a room on the third floor with a mattress,” Mrs. Pierre said hopefully. “Maybe a sheet and a blanket.”
“That would be fine. Perfect,” Cameron said excitedly.
“No food, though. Nothing to make. We ate the last of the turnips for supper, Brett and I. Annie eats at the captain’s place before she comes home.”
Cameron sighed with relief as she herded Taye and Naomi farther into the entranceway and closed the door behind them. “I’ll go out for something to eat as soon as we’re settled. Thank you, Mrs. Pierre. Thank you.”
Mrs. Pierre had not exaggerated when she said the room would be meager. She managed to find another lamp, and when she lit the room, Cameron almost wished she had not.
The flowered wallpaper was peeling and the once polished wooden floor was rough and splintered. Night air blew in through broken panes, and the sounds of the street below drifted in. The furniture was all gone except for the remnants of a wooden chair that someone had broken for firewood. In the corner of the room was a bare mattress on which Mrs. Pierre spread her one sheet and blanket. The room smelled of mouse droppings and mildew, but at least it was not a bench in the train station.
“I…I can get you a table,” Mrs. Pierre said shakily, obviously embarrassed.
“We’ll get it ourselves,” Cameron answered kindly. “This will be fine. After sleeping sitting upright on the train, that mattress will feel like clouds in heaven.” She walked the older woman to the door as Taye and Naomi came in and put down their bags.
“Now, you go back to your grandson, Mrs. Pierre. If we need anything, we’ll call.” Cameron pressed several bills into the old woman’s hand.
“I never thought I’d live to say this, but you’re a saint, Cameron Campbell.”
“Nonsense. Good night.”
After Mrs. Pierre was gone, the women scrounged the rooms up and down the hallway and found chairs, a table and a wooden crate for Ngosi to sleep in. Once they set up the room, Cameron went into one of her bags, got more money and slid her pistol into her dress pocket.
“I’ll get us something to eat. I won’t be long, I swear it.”
Naomi sat down on the mattress and lifted the baby to her breast. “You be careful, girl.”
“Of course.” Cameron gave an exaggerated smile.
Taye worried her hands. “You want me to go with you? You haven’t been on your feet a whole week yet.”
“I’m fully recovered and strong as an ox, puss. I want you to stay here and see if you can find anything else that resembles bed linens. Some dishes, too.” She walked to the door. “And fresh water. There are a couple of candles there on the table. Mrs. Pierre said that the pump still works in the kitchen downstairs. Pump some water and boil it. We’ll take no chances until we know the wells are safe here.”
Taye followed her out into the hall. “Are you sure it’s safe to go out alone?”
“I was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi,” Cameron said proudly. “I’ve a right to walk these streets. Besides, I have my friend here.” She patted the pistol in her pocket. “Now don’t worry your pretty little head. I’ll be right back.”
Cameron’s words sounded braver than she actually felt, and by the time she had walked half a block from The Magnolia, she was beginning to regret her decision. The street was pitch-dark except for light that glimmered in dirty windows. Starving dogs roamed the streets and an occasional wagon went by, its driver huddled on the front bench.
There had been a drinking establishment, O’Shea’s, on the next corner that Cameron guessed would still be open, if anything was. No matter what happened in life—wars, death, devastation—men still needed their liquor. She had never been inside herself; her father would never have permitted it. But she guessed that if it was open, she might be able to buy some food there.
“Hey, missy.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a shadowy figure move in the alley.
Instinctively, Cameron stepped sideways, away from the man. But she wasn’t fast enough.
“You hear me talkin’ to you?” the voice said as a hand shot out of the alley and caught her wrist.
Cameron opened her mouth to scream, but another hand clamped over it and she was lifted off the sidewalk and dragged into darkness.
13
Cameron bit down on the man’s hand and he grunted in pain. At the same instant, she sank her elbow into his stomach with all her might. If she could just reach the pistol in her pocket…
Another grunt. A foul curse. “So that’s how you like it, eh, missy? Rough?” he muttered. “All righty. I can give ya rough.”
He slapped her so hard that her head spun, and she had to close her eyes to fight a wave of nausea.
Cameron could smell whiskey on his breath, sour body odor on his clothes. She struggled frantically as he dragged her deeper into the alley, but he was too strong for her.
“Going somewhere, sir?”
Cameron’s eyes flew open. “Jackson?” she croaked from beneath her captor’s hand.
“Release her and you live,” Jackson stated stoically. Jackson must have been holding a pistol on Cameron’s captor. She couldn’t see in the dark, but the man stiffened and loosened his grip on her.
“Hold her another second longer and I put a bullet through your head,” Jackson warned, as matter-of-factly as if ordering a brandy, but in this alley, he was judge, jury and executioner, if he so chose.
Cameron’s captor must have known it because he released her so suddenly that she tumbled forward. She hit the muddy ground, hands down, but scrambled up quickly.
As she got to her feet, Jackson hurled himself through the darkness, slamming into her attacker. She heard the sickening crunch of breaking bones and cartilage as her husband punched the derelict square in the nose.
“Jackson!” she screamed.
He hit the man with such force that they both tumbled to the ground, Jackson on top of him. Again and again Jackson threw one punch after the next.
“Jackson,” Cameron cried. “You’re going to kill him!”
“Killing him isn’t good enough,” he raged, throwing a punch.
Either her words or her presence must have reached Jackson because he ceased pummeling the man. “Cameron, move,” he said. “Get back.”
Pushing away from the men, she stood, pressing her back to the damp wall of a building.
Jackson got up, dragging the dazed man with him. “You all right?” he asked her.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine,” she panted, brushing herself off. “Really. He just scared the wits out of me. He didn’t touch me. I swear to God he didn’t.”
“All right.” Jackson moved in the darkness, dragging the man with him, holding his pistol to the man’s head. “Now, we walk slowly
out of this alley and across and down the street,” he ordered. “I believe there’s a jail cell with your name on it. Cameron, you stay behind us,” he grunted. “This man makes one move I don’t like and I’m going to blow his head off.”
Once on the street, Cameron fell in behind Jackson and his prisoner, who walked with his hands high on his head. She could see his face had been beaten to a bloody pulp. Would Jackson have killed the man if she hadn’t stopped him? Was this the man she had married?
As they walked down the street in silence, Cameron’s heart pounded in her chest. She was nearly as afraid now of Jackson as she had been of the man who dragged her into the alley. Not that she was afraid he would hurt her; he wouldn’t. Now, she simply feared his anger.
Her husband had been right, so right. This place was too dangerous for an unescorted woman. If Jackson hadn’t come, Cameron didn’t know what would have happened to her. Rape? Kidnapping? Worse? She felt faint at the thought of it.
He halted in front of the brightly lit jail. Through the window, she could see several blue-uniformed soldiers playing cards on an elegant cherry dining room table. The soldiers had been left in every major town in the South to protect its citizens and see that the laws of the Union were enforced. By writ of the president, Mississippi remained under martial law.
“Can you wait here one moment for me, Cameron?” Jackson asked, his anger and sarcasm thick in his voice. “Or do I need to haul you inside, too?”
“No,” she breathed. “I’ll wait right here.” Her words sounded bold, though she was feeling anything but. She waited for her husband, hugging herself, trembling with a mixture of apprehension and the sudden chill she felt in her bones.
In less than five minutes, Jackson walked out of the jailhouse. “Do you know who that was?” he demanded, grabbing her by the arm and hustling her down the street none too gently.
“N-no.”
“A carpetbagger, a rapist the authorities have been trying to capture for two months. A few weeks ago he took a young girl off the next street over, raped her and then beat her half to death with a club before tossing her naked and bleeding into the street.”
Cameron bit down hard on her lower lip. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Guess you would have been sorry if he had raped you,” he said cruelly. “They say she was a pretty fifteen-year-old schoolgirl before he got his filthy hands on her. Now she’s gone mad, she’s blind in one eye and her face and her future are ruined. Doesn’t even recognize her own father or brother. She howls and curls into a ball whenever a man comes into the room.”
Tears filled Cameron’s eyes. How could she have brought Taye and Naomi with her without thinking this through? “How did you know where to find me?” she gulped, fighting the tears.
“It wasn’t hard to figure out where you had gone, once I arrived home to discover you had run away.”
“I didn’t run away,” she corrected him, shoving aside his hand. “Anyway, I meant here. How did you find me on the street?”
“Goddamn luck, that’s how I found you. My train arrived in Vicksburg a couple of hours ago, and I came by horseback to Jackson. I asked someone in the train station if they had seen you. You weren’t hard to spot. You were the only white woman fool enough to be on the street after dark. I followed you to The Magnolia.”
“Taye and Naomi?”
“They’re fine. No thanks to you. Falcon helped them gather their belongings. It’s not safe to stay at The Magnolia. For God’s sake, Cameron, Mrs. Pierre doesn’t even have locks on the door of that hotel. After dark, these streets are crawling with vermin. That’s why Union soldiers are still here.”
“You said that Taye and Naomi were gathering their things?” She dared a look up at her husband. Even on the dark street, she could see the fury in his face, the way his sensual mouth was pulled taut and his gray eyes were barely slits. Her voice lifted hopefully. “Are we going to Elmwood?”
“No, damn it, we’re not going to Elmwood,” he exploded. He grasped her shoulders as if to shake her. “Can’t you get it through that stubborn damned head of yours, woman? Elmwood is in ruin. There is no Elmwood!”
She bit down on her lower lip, but refused to yield to him. “The house still stands,” she challenged.
He gazed down at her, and for a moment she feared his response. But he gave none. Instead, he grabbed her arm and started down the street again.
At The Magnolia, Cameron said goodbye to Mrs. Pierre and thanked her for the offer of the room. Taye and Naomi had already gone on with Falcon to a residence on the edge of town that Jackson had apparently purchased during the war—another secret he had kept from her. Because Union officers had been billeted and had operated from there, Jackson explained, the house had been spared when Sherman and McPherson marched through. It was fully furnished and even had a small staff.
Jackson gave Mrs. Pierre several more bills, in thanks for taking his wife in. She tried not to accept them, but he flattered her the way he had always been able to flatter women, young or old, beautiful or plain. In the end, the gray-haired woman slipped the money into the pocket of her faded dress.
On the street, Jackson untied his horse. “Can you ride?”
Before she could respond, he went on.
“And don’t tell me you’re just fine. Taye told me that you’d been ill in Richmond.” He chuckled without humor. “A touch of dysentery is probably what saved your damned life. Had you arrived here two weeks ago—” He let his sentence go unfinished, leaving her to be reminded of the man in the alley.
Cameron drew herself up, stiffening her spine. “I am fine,” she said stubbornly. “And I didn’t have dysentery. It was a little stomach ailment, and Taye ought to keep her tattling mouth shut. Of course I can ride.”
He lifted her onto the horse as if she weighed nothing and then climbed up in front of her. To keep from falling, she had to wrap her arms around his waist. She tried not to allow any more of her body to touch his than necessary, but it was so uncomfortable that in half a block she gave up and hugged him tightly, resting her cheek on his warm back.
They rode in silence to the edge of town, then up a long lane to Atkins’ Way. While not as palatial a dwelling as Elmwood, the manor house seemed a magical place in the midst of Mississippi’s devastation. Even in the dark, Cameron could see that the spacious front lawn and the boxwood hedges were neatly trimmed, and that the L-shaped two-story frame house had recently been painted white with green shutters. She could smell the new paint on the humid night air.
Jackson rode up to the front veranda and dismounted, then lifted Cameron down. A young black boy rushed to lead the mare away.
“Heavens, I need a bath,” Cameron said as she lifted her skirts and hurried up the steps in front of Jackson.
Without waiting for him, she opened the front door and a thin, ebony-skinned girl popped up off a chair just inside the door. She looked no older than twelve or thirteen and it appeared as if she had been sleeping at her post. “Good evenin’, ma’am. Capt’n. We got word you was comin’.”
“Good evening, Patsy. This is my wife, Mrs. Logan,” Jackson said crisply. “Please escort her to the master bedchamber. Her bags were brought by Mr. Cortés and should already be in her room.”
Patsy dipped a curtsy, swishing a bright new white apron. “This way, Mrs. Logan,” she said, hurrying across the Italian-tiled marble entryway to the grand curving staircase. Cameron slowly turned in a circle at the foot of the stairs, taking in her new surroundings.
The house seemed tasteful and welcoming, as far from the ravages of war as the earth from the moon. The hall passageway was spacious enough for dancing, although not as large as the entry area in Jackson’s Baltimore town house. Sparkling white plaster walls rose above the painted chair rail and finely crafted wainscoting. The draperies on the stair landing were a thick velvet, echoing perfectly the pale gold of the painted woodwork. Two antique straight-back chairs and a Queen Anne blanket chest stood against on
e wall. Above it hung an English hunting print in a lovely gilt frame.
To her right, through an open doorway, Cameron could see an elegant library with a marble fireplace, round walnut gaming table and three chairs, a settee and a piano. The other doors leading off the hall were closed, but she could easily imagine them leading to the front parlor and dining room. It was a Southern house like many she had known in her childhood, a house built and furnished for gracious living, one that would have been unpretentious and unremarkable ten years before. Now, in this time and place, Atkins’ Way seemed a treasure.
“I’s born right here on this plantation. My mama was the housekeeper,” the young girl prattled. “She done passed, God rest her soul, and now I’m to take over her duties.” She beamed proudly.
Cameron offered a smile as she grasped the walnut railing to climb the staircase. She was suddenly worn to the bone, she realized, not just physically, but emotionally as well.
As she reached the second floor, she saw that the wall at the head of the staircase was dominated by a mirror as wide as a man was high and twice as tall. It was framed in gold gilt with tiny cherub faces carved into each of the corners.
At the sight of herself in the massive mirror, Cameron self-consciously tucked a lock of wilted hair behind her ear. She looked a fright.
“I try not to look,” Patsy whispered as they passed the mirror and headed down the hall.
Cameron had to smile. Tonight it was good advice.
“This room gonna be yours while yer here, Mrs. Logan.” Patsy pushed open a white-paneled door halfway down the well-lit hall. “Mrs. Atkins always called it the Garden Room, on account of all the pretty roses on the walls. She come from a place called Ing-land where her father grew the prettiest roses.” She spoke as if repeating a magical fairy tale she had heard a hundred times before.
Cameron entered the massive bedchamber that was papered in hand-painted red roses with delicate green leaves. Filmy drapes, the same color as the leaves, hung across a panel of four French doors that opened onto the second-story veranda and enclosed the four-poster bed, as well. There were carved rosewood chairs, a Chinese writing desk, a mirrored vanity and large chiffarobe, all so lovely and delicate that Cameron wondered how they had survived a house full of soldiers.
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