“What time would be good for you?” Jackson nodded to a passing carriage as a young lady fluttered a handkerchief. “Seven? Eight?”
Gallier pulled his watch from his pocket. “Let me see, it is five now—”
The portrait of a woman inside the lid of the gold pocket-watch caught Jackson’s eye. “Damn, Antoine, who is that?”
Gallier turned the watch so that Jackson could get a better look at the miniature. “Mon dieu, this is my dear niece, Minette.” He crossed himself. “May God rest her soul that lies on the bottom of the sea.”
Jackson stared at the young woman’s portrait, shocked by the incredible likeness to Taye Campbell. “I’m sorry to hear that, Antoine. I must tell you, she looks so much like my sister-in-law that you could have told me it was she and I would have believed you.”
The Creole closed the gold watch. “Oui, I had the pleasure of meeting the mademoiselle last time I was in town. The similarity was quite unnerving. Of course, I found the young lady quite charming.”
Jackson’s mind spun as he considered the absurd thought that had just struck him. “Could you tell me, Antoine, when did your niece pass away?”
“It was May of ’61, just before your war began. Lost at sea in the gulf in a terrible storm. Affreux. All hands lost. My own ship.” He shook his head sadly. “It was tragic. My wife was devastated.”
“Again, I am sorry for your loss.” Jackson touched the older man’s arm, his head reeling with the possibilities. His idea would never be viable. It was a ludicrous notion, so ludicrous that it just might work. “Listen, Antoine, would you consider doing me an enormous favor? A larger favor than any man should ask of another.”
Gallier looked up. “You know I would do anything for you, Jackson. If it were not for you, my business would have perished during the war. My family would have starved.”
“My proposal would not be entirely lawful, I’ll tell you that up front,” Jackson warned. “But I swear to you it would be for a good cause. It would mean a great deal to my wife’s family. To me.”
Antoine smiled slyly. “This would not be the first time I have done something illégal, eh, ami?”
“I don’t understand,” Cameron told Jackson. But even as she spoke, she began to toss clothing onto the bed to be packed in her Saratoga trunk. “How can we save Taye by bringing her home to face trial? You said yourself she won’t be treated fairly. And what does this Mr. Gallier have to do with her? I’ve never even heard of him.”
“I haven’t quite got everything worked out in my mind, but Thomas and I are meeting him in Thomas’s offices in an hour. I’ll know more once Thomas explains to us the legal ramifications.”
Cameron tossed clean shifts, stockings and a corset onto the bed. She paid no attention to what articles of clothing she chose. She wanted to hurry so she’d be prepared when Jackson was ready to leave town.
“I don’t understand.” She turned to where he stood in the doorway. He hadn’t even entered the bedchamber when he’d come to tell her they were going for Taye. “At least tell me where we’re going. Where is she?”
“I have a feeling she and Falcon are in New Orleans.”
“New Orleans? Why there? We know no one in New Orleans.”
He shook his head; she could tell he was already preoccupied with other thoughts. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we need to get her back here.”
“I can be ready within the hour. It won’t take me long to pack Lacy’s things, either.”
He had started to turn away, to go down the hall, but he turned back. “No.” He held up his finger to her. “Just you. I will not take that she-beast any further than the end of the drive.”
“Jackson—”
“This is nonnegotiable,” he interrupted before Cameron could even present her argument. “The girl will stay here with Naomi, or you will stay here with her. I am not traveling with her. I haven’t the time to deal with her little fits.”
Cameron opened her mouth to argue, but when her gaze met Jackson’s, she realized this was a battle she would not win. She had to decide, would she leave Lacy in Naomi’s capable hands, or would she pass this chance, not only to find Taye, but also to be alone with Jackson for a few days?
Cameron hated to leave Lacy behind, but she knew she had to go with Jackson. If the only way she could do that was to leave her niece, then Lacy would remain at Atkins’ Way.
Cameron pressed her lips together and lifted her lashes to meet Jackson’s gaze. In her arms, she clutched a pale yellow petticoat. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“Take what time you need. We probably won’t even be able to get out of here until morning. I’m not sure if we’ll go by train or boat or carriage or all three. I just want you to be ready.”
“I’ll be ready,” she whispered as he strode down the hall.
30
“Something more to eat?” Falcon asked Taye across the tiny courtyard table at a hotel in New Orleans. Candles glimmered on the tables and in the trees, and three dark-skinned men played rich, soulful Creole music from a gallery above them.
“Something more to eat?” Taye gazed at Falcon and laughed. “Tonight you have stuffed me with jambalaya—” she ticked off on her fingers “—quail stuffed with oysters, and shrimp, and now you want to feed me more? I think not.” She reached for the glass of wine a beautiful quadroon woman had just brought her. “Merci,” she murmured. She met the woman’s dark-eyed gaze, so much like her own. “Vous avez les yeux très beaux.”
The proud young woman dipped her head and murmured beneath her breath, “Pas assez que les votres, madame.”
Taye felt her cheeks color at the compliment. “Qu’estce que c¸’est quoi votre nom?”
“Josette.”
“Merci de vos mots aimables, Josette,” Taye said.
The woman smiled, then slipped away.
“I did not know you spoke the language of the Creole,” Falcon remarked, watching Taye intently in the flickering candlelight.
She turned her glass, watching the crimson wine slide up the side. “I speak four languages.” She glanced at him over the rim. “Cameron’s French is barely passable, but our tutor always said I had a gift for languages.”
His sensuous mouth turned at one corner. “Is one of those languages, by chance, the tongue of my mother?”
“Cherokee?” She laughed and shook her head. “I’m afraid not. But I do speak the language of your father. Spanish.”
“Then if you came to California with me, you could talk about me behind my back to my padre. I do not speak my father’s tongue.”
“Why not?”
He lifted one broad, muscular shoulder in a shrug. “I grew up among the Cherokee. My mother’s father was my father. It was not our way.”
“So you did not know him as a boy?”
Falcon shook his head. “I was a young man before I ever laid eyes upon him.”
She sipped from her glass, deep in thought. “Then, in a way, you and I are very alike. I, too, grew up without a father. Only he was right there, and I never knew it.”
“Does this anger you?”
She thought before she answered. “Anger me? No. It could not be helped. It was not our way.” She smiled good-humoredly. “But I long for what I know now that I missed.”
Falcon nodded in the direction of the quadroon who had served them. She was now cleaning up another table. “I only speak a little of the Creole French tongue. What did she say?”
“I told her that she had beautiful eyes. She thought I did, too,” she finished shyly.
“She is right.” He continued to watch her. “You seem very comfortable here. I thought that you would be.”
Falcon was right. It seemed odd to her that she could feel so at home in a place so far from home. But here in New Orleans, there were so many men and women of mixed race that, for once, she did not feel out of place. He had noticed the same when he had visited New Orleans with Jackson during the war. Falcon said tha
t that was one of the reasons he had brought her here, to show her that life could be different for her.
She sipped the sweet, fruity wine and set down the glass. Falcon slid his hand across the table to cover hers. “Would you like to dance with me?”
A sweet, mournful song of love found and then lost echoed in the moss-tangled tree overhead, and couples rose to dance arm in arm. It was not a waltz or any other dance Taye recognized; men and women seemed to simply sway to the music, wrapped in each other’s arms. It seemed quite risqué to her, and terribly alluring.
“You dance?” she asked, delighted by each new facet of Falcon’s personality that she discovered.
He clasped her hand and led her to the bricked patio to join the other couples. “I usually place a war bonnet upon my head and dance around the campfire, but tonight it is too warm for a fire.”
She clasped one of his hands and rested her other on his shoulder as she laughed. Under the moonlight, amidst the twinkling stars of candlelight in the trees, Taye could almost forget that she was here in New Orleans because she was running away. Running for her life.
Falcon drew her closer and she rested her cheek on his shoulder. “Do you know what I wish?” she whispered.
“Wishes are not to be shared,” he murmured in her ear. “Not with anything but the sky, not with anyone but the mother earth.”
“Well, this is one wish I want to share with you.” She tipped back her head so that she could look into his ebony eyes. “I wish that I could dance in your arms like this forever.”
Falcon brushed his mouth against hers. “Come west with me and we will dance every night under the stars.”
She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about this all night, Falcon. I don’t know that I can do that. I don’t know that I can leave my sister. Not without even saying goodbye.” And Thomas, she thought. How can I just abandon him without releasing him from his promise?
Taye wished now that she had gone to Thomas the night the soldiers had come for her. At least then, there could have been some sense of conclusiveness in her life. Right now, everything was left undone. She felt as if she could not step forward and could not move back.
The song ended and a banjo began to strum a faster beat. Hand in hand, Taye and Falcon walked back to their table, but there, Taye only picked up her reticule. “Let’s go back to the room,” she said softly.
Falcon turned his head to meet her gaze and seemed to read some meaning in her words, a meaning she didn’t even quite understand.
In the week since they had arrived in New Orleans, Falcon had shown her the sights of the town. They had picnicked in Jackson Square and walked along the waterfront off Decatur. She had seen the ladies of the evening hanging off the galleries on Bourbon Street and strolled through the Vieux Carré where Marie LaVeau, the voodoo queen, was sometimes seen at twilight. Taye and Falcon watched the Creole dance to their native music. The two of them ate their fill of the delights Louisiana had to offer and played at gambling tables until late in the evening.
Each night they returned to their hotel on Royal Street where they shared a room. Falcon had said it would be safer if they traveled as man and wife; Taye had allowed him to make that decision. But each night when they retired, she slept alone in the great bed, covered by mosquito netting, and he slept on the floor by the door.
Tonight it would be different. Gazing into Falcon’s eyes, she knew she had to return to Mississippi and face her accusers. She knew that she could hang for what she had done, but that didn’t matter. She would do it all over again if it meant saving her beloved Cameron.
But without putting an end to the life she had left behind, she had no hope of exploring the possibility of a life with Falcon. Until she made peace with Grant and with Thomas, she would find no true happiness in Falcon’s arms.
Falcon took her arm in silence, sensing her need to be alone with her thoughts. Within minutes they entered their lavish suite in the Three Sisters Hotel. He locked the door behind them and tossed his top hat on a chair.
They had both purchased clothing once they had arrived in New Orleans. Taye was wearing a lacy orange Basque habit she had chosen on a whim. Falcon had chosen black trousers to wear with his red coat and had added a black tall hat which made him appear even larger and more imposing.
She laid her gloves on the chair beside his hat and turned to face him. He seemed to be reading her mind, as if she were one of the books from Jackson’s library. He reached his hands to her and took hers. They were warm and reassuring.
“Taye,” he said softly. “I will take you as my wife here and now, but you must come to me willingly, without regret. You know I could take you far from here, where you would never be found.”
She shook her head. “I have to go back, Falcon.” She lowered her head and then lifted it to look at him. “I know you don’t understand, but I must release Thomas from his vow to marry me. And I must answer my accusers in court.”
He frowned. “I understand the importance of a promise made, but to allow yourself to be arrested…” He shook his head. “I fear you will not see fairness in the Englishman’s court. I fear that you will be judged by the color of your skin and not your deeds, as I have been many times in the past. As I know you have been.”
She pressed her lips together, feeling the burn of tears behind her eyelids. She was afraid he would be angry with her, but she didn’t care. She knew what she had to do. “I still have to go back.”
Then, to her surprise, he smiled. “You are a very brave woman, Taye Campbell, brave enough to be a Cherokee maiden.” He pulled her into his arms and she tipped her chin upward to meet his lips.
They had kissed many times since the night they fled Atkins’ Way, but there was something different in this kiss. Something Taye sensed inside herself.
She remembered the nights she had touched herself, dreaming of Falcon. Now she would live those fantasies in the flesh.
She might have her day in court, she might be found guilty and hang for killing Grant Campbell, but she would have this night, she decided. She would have this perfect night with the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
Taye slipped her arms around Falcon’s neck and pulled him tight against her. She felt her pulse quicken as she thrust her tongue into his mouth and tasted the hot, dark cavern. There was something about his woodsy scent, the taste of him, something half wild, something that excited her in a way she had never experienced before.
Falcon rested one hand on her rib cage and she covered his hand with her own. Slowly, but intrepidly, she guided it upward until it rested on the swell of her breast.
She sighed as the heat of his warm hand seeped through the filmy fabric of her gown and underclothing. It was so hot and steamy here in New Orleans that no woman wore any more clothing than was absolutely necessary for decorum.
He tugged on her lower lip with his teeth and brushed his thumb over her nipple. Again she sighed, only this time it came out as more of a moan.
Taye was caught between the timidity she had grown up with concerning sexuality, and the compelling feelings blossoming inside her. She wanted so badly not just to be touched, but also to touch. She was not a complete innocent; she had been raised on a plantation. She knew what a man’s genitalia looked like, but she wanted to touch Falcon, to see what a man’s flesh felt like in her hand.
Perhaps she should have been ashamed, but she was not.
Taye tipped back her head so that Falcon could press his mouth to the hollow of her throat. At the same time, she dared to lay her hand on his thigh and then slide it upward.
“Taye,” Falcon groaned, deep in his throat.
The sound of his voice, husky, needy, made her bolder. She slid her hand over until she touched the swell in his trousers and was rewarded by another guttural groan of pleasure.
She slid her hand downward and then upward, stroking him, fascinated by the way he seemed to harden at once beneath her fingertips, despite her lack of ex
perience.
“Taye.” Falcon drew his mouth over the swell of her breasts above the bodice of her gown. At the same time, he caught her wrist and halted her caress.
Her eyelids flickered open, and for a moment, she feared she had made a mistake in judgment. Perhaps he did not want to make love with her.
“Taye, I am sorry. I thank you for the gift you offer me, but I cannot take that which is meant for the man you will spend the rest of your life with.”
Her breath came so ragged that it took a minute for her to respond. She was relieved that she had not misunderstood and that he did, indeed, want her. “Falcon, I know what I’m doing. I know what I want. No matter what happens to me, I know you are meant to have my virginity,” she whispered.
He smiled, a kind smile that seemed sad at the same time. He lifted her hand to his chest, where she could feel his heart pounding. “Your words touch my heart, but I must say no. Not when you still hold your promise to Thomas binding.”
Her lower lip trembled. She ached so badly for him at this moment that she knew one brush of his fingertips on her sex would make her explode with pleasure beyond her experiences alone. But she could not force herself upon him if he did not want her.
She lowered her chin, her face growing hot with a mixture of disappointment and embarrassment. She could feel the heat of the humid night prickly and damp on the back of her neck. “You do not want to make love with me, when I am willing?”
He clasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted it until she was forced to gaze into his eyes. “I did not say I would not make love with you, only that I would not take your virginity until you can give it freely.”
When she at last absorbed his meaning, her face brightened in an impish smile. “I had not thought of that,” she murmured. It made sense, of course. If she could please herself, why could he not pleasure her in the same ways? Why could she not please him and still remain a virgin?
Taye raised both hands and Falcon pressed his to hers. Their fingers entwined and he drew closer. He caught her lower lip between his teeth and bit down gently. She parted her lips and teased his tongue with hers. Only then did Falcon cover her mouth with a suffocating kiss.
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