He’d been angry at how C.C.’s family sent her away. Seeing her mother’s illness and destitution convinced him it had been a blessing. Delia clearly had consumption and, by the looks of her, didn’t have long to live. He shuddered to think how this might have been C.C.’s fate, had she not been sent to her cousins in England.
Cleary, the family had once been extremely wealthy. They’d lived as well as any of the aristocracy in England. He’d witnessed poverty and despair before, but the sight of their shamefully damaged home disturbed him deeply. The contrast between C.C.’s life in London and her family’s reduced circumstances here was tragic.
“So how is your cousin the countess?” Delia asked.
“When last I saw Amelia, she seemed very well,” C.C. said. “She’s due to have another baby soon—her fifth.”
“It’s high time you married and started your own brood, Calista Caroline. She’s not that much older than you, and she’s onto her fifth?” her mother scolded. “If you’d take some pride in yourself and clean yourself up a bit, you could be a far sight prettier. You used to look so nice in violet.” She turned to Beau. “With some work she might be pretty, don’t you think, Captain Tollier?”
He’d only been partially paying attention as he assessed the crumbling cabin. Delia’s question finally registered. He cleared his throat. “Oh. Yes. Indeed, Mrs. Collins.”
Calista shot him a look and muttered, “He prefers red satin gowns.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond before she turned to her cousin and asked gently, “Jesse, is your father, Uncle John, nearby?”
Jesse’s shoulders slumped.
At the mention of her brother, Delia’s gaunt features sagged, and her voice turned to a raw croak. “He’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?” C.C.’s voice thinned.
“Another raid.” Her mother’s expression twisted bitterly. “They took him. We haven’t seen him since.”
Tears welled in C.C.’s eyes.
Alarm shot through Beau. Bloody hell, he’d heard enough. This was worse than he’d thought. Men were being robbed and abducted on their own doorsteps, their homes set afire. The wagon and mule needed to be gotten out of sight, posthaste. “Is water nearby,” he interrupted. “I should see to the mule.”
Delia’s voice softened to a sweeter tone, “Jesse, darlin’, will you show them the well in our little garden by the house?”
***
C.C. gathered what she could find in the mansion’s pitiful vegetable garden. Jesse and his little dog rooted around under the nearby shrubbery and came up with a pump handle, two buckets and a bowl. By then Captain Tollier had brought the mule and wagon around. He handed her a small sack of cornmeal. While the dog lapped up water from his bowl, the captain filled the buckets. C.C saw him glancing toward the charred foundations beyond the border of fruit trees.
Bending to her cousin, she pointed to the burned barns. “When did this happen?”
“Not quite a week ago.” Jesse looked around bleakly. “Yankees and thieves have been pulling this place apart since the war began. The last raid was the worst, though.”
He pointed to a large pile of ashes. “They gathered up all the tools and plows they could find. What they couldn’t haul off, they threw over there. Before they left, they set everything on fire that would burn.” A tear skated down his dirty cheek. He swiped at it and walked over to pet the mule’s neck. In a bashful voice, he asked, “Can I help you with the mule? I know a good hiding place for him.”
C.C. carried the cornmeal and vegetables back to the ramshackle cabin and took stock of the place. Four windows let dim light into the two cramped rooms. Possessions rescued from the fire sat in piles. Favorite toys took precedence.
Impossibly, one of her aunt’s delicate Louis the fifteenth chairs stood in a corner. On it sat Delia’s portrait. C.C. remembered it from their home in New York City. In the painting her mother had been in her twenties, the prime of her life.
Jesse and Captain Tollier soon returned with several more cans of food and a bucket of water. The boy and dog now followed him around like puppies. “Auntie was so beautiful, wasn’t she?” Jesse said when the captain walked over to gaze at the portrait.
“Indeed.”
Delia lay on her cot a few feet away. The comment drew a wrinkle of a nostril and a sharp glance at the captain.
C.C. couldn’t help a wave of sadness at seeing how her mother had declined. In the painting, her mother’s hair had been dark and thick. Her emerald eyes blazed amid exquisite features and glistened with earnest self-possession. A regal, glamorous gown framed her voluptuous figure. The only thing the portrait hadn’t captured was the potent charisma one admirer had called her mother’s ‘bone-deep charm.’
C.C. moved to the cooking hearth and set about organizing the meal. With the boys’ and the captain’s help, she managed to put together vegetable pork soup and pan-fried corn bread.
Afterwards, she helped her mother on the small cot. Delia’s fever had risen and her coughing spells were now more arduous.
“Mama, how did things get so bad?” C.C. asked, as she adjusted the pillows behind her mother.
“It’s Mr. Lincoln’s war.” The lines around Delia’s lips deepened. She seemed to look inside herself. “I never would have imagined something like this could happen.”
“What about your neighbors?”
“The Jacksons? Plenty of folks around here weren’t in favor of a war for Southern Independence. Oscar Jackson brought over the newspapers. Told us the rumors. When the Yankees took New Bern, Oscar told us we needed to go west with them to their place in the hills. By then, Louisa and Keri were too sick to travel.”
“Where’s cousin Sam?” C.C. asked.
“Joined the Union Army.”
“The Union?” C.C. gasped. “Have you…do you…is he all right?”
“Died of dysentery two months after he left.”
C.C. slumped onto the stool next to her mother’s cot, stricken. “He was only fourteen! Didn’t anyone try to stop him?”
“After his mother died and then little Keri, nobody could talk to him. That boy just seethed in silence.” Delia’s expression hardened. “One morning we found a note and he was gone.”
“Poor Sam,” C.C. breathed, appalled. Her uncle’s family had suffered so much. No wonder her mother finally broke her aggrieved silence and asked for help. The scrawled words on the mansion’s wall appeared in her mind: “No one is safe, princess.” She still couldn’t believe Hargreaves would go to such lengths to act on his threat.
“Who destroyed Clarkston, Mama?”
“Thieves and vandals. Some were Yankees. Others were bushwhackers and buffaloes roaming about stealing and murdering.” She shrugged. “With all the men gone to war, there’s no one to stop them.”
“How many raids have there been?”
“Four, no, five. The worst was about a week ago. A gang of nine armed men rode through. They might have been the gang that’s been attacking country folk hereabouts.”
“Did any of them look familiar, Mama?”
Delia closed her eyes as if reliving the experience. Her lips thinned into a hard line. “It was dark. I only saw men on horseback. No uniforms that I could see. John told me to take the boys to this ol’ cabin.” Her mouth began to quiver. “John was a good man. After we lost Louisa, Keri and Sam, he barely spoke.”
Delia waved her hand weakly through the air. “Our family has owned this land since King Charles II granted it to one of our ancestors. John had spent his whole life making the plantation profitable only to see it torn apart.” Her chin trembled. “Your uncle did his best to defend us and Clarkston. Nine mangy bushwhackers against one man, two boys and a sick old woman isn’t a fair fight.”
“Do you know where they might have taken Uncle John, Mama?”
Delia eyes filled with moisture. She motioned for C.C. to move closer. Her whisper quavered, “I don’t want the boys to hear. If John could have come back, he’d be here. I’m afraid they
might have tortured him to tell them where he hid the valuables. We had nothing left worth stealing. All our money and silver had been stolen in earlier raids. I fear they might have hurt poor John, then drowned him in a swamp or hung him from some ol’ tree.”
***
That night the temperature dropped. After checking on their mule, Beau returned to the drafty cabin. Inside, he evaluated the decaying old structure as he would the seaworthiness of a derelict vessel. If C.C. and her family were to continue living here, a lot of work would be needed. Wallboards had rotted away, some having fallen off completely. The fireplace and cooking hearth barely heated the two small rooms. A thin layer of smoke pervaded the shack indicating a bad flue and chimney.
Four stools, two chairs, a small table and a cot were the only furniture. He might be able to make more cots out of the broken furniture lying outside the mansion.
The boys now huddled together on the floorboards in a bed made of charred quilts. A pang of remembrance grabbed hold of his heart. Their little heads of unruly dark hair reminded him of Freddie’s. What would his son have been like at their age?
C.C. sat on a stool at her mother’s bedside, watching her gasp through a fitful slumber.
In the dim firelight, Delia’s pallor appeared to have worsened. Her dark-ringed eyes now sunk deep into their sockets, making her face almost skeletal.
Beau stepped over to the cot. “Miss Collins,” he said with quiet formality, for any ears that might be listening. “Would you please take a walk with me? Best bring something warm. It’s cold out.”
C.C. gave him a questioning look, but pulled her coat tighter around her and grabbed a quilt.
He led her back to the mansion’s flower garden. The place obviously hadn’t been cultivated in a while. Bushy boxwoods and jasmine vines encroached on the gravel paths. A few hardy camellias and Lenten roses managed to perfume the air. Above, stars sparkled in the evening sky like scattered diamonds.
C.C. pulled the quilt about her and peered up. “Have you ever noticed how bright the stars glow on cold nights?”
Beau gazed into the dark heavens. They were alive with tiny flashes of light. “Cold takes the humidity from the air and makes the sky clearer.”
“Is that what it is?” she said gazing into his face.
He opened his mouth to expound more upon celestial peculiarities, but instead, pulled her to him. As the day wore on, he’d grown increasingly uneasy. The words scrawled on the mansion’s wall chafed in his mind. Hargreaves might be down the road waiting to attack.
Anything could happen in the next minute, the next hour, the next day. Pain clutched at his heart. When he’d kissed Millie and Freddie good-bye, they’d been snug in a beautiful cottage on a balmy island paradise. It was the last time he would ever see them.
In the few months he’d known C.C., she’d given him reasons to want to live again, to love again. He held her closer, needing to feel her body against his. He dipped his head and brushed a kiss across her forehead. The touch of her warm skin fanned the banked fires within. He coiled his arms tighter. He must guard her, protect her. Somewhere nearby hovered the Grim Reaper. He could almost feel it disrupting the air currents, spreading its stench like a hound marking its territory.
Beau wanted to shake his fist at death and reaffirm life. He captured C.C.’s lips and plundered her soft mouth. As with the first time they’d touched, energy ricocheted between them. Only this time, his heart throbbed erratically, painfully. Against his will, he’d fallen in love with this brave, complicated woman.
After all they’d gone through, Clarkston lay in ruins and half her family was dead. But life was his and C.C.’s. This precious moment was theirs.
C.C. wrapped her arms around his neck and draped her quilt around them, encircling him in warmth. Her lips moved under his with such tenderness, his knees nearly buckled.
The kiss heated further, sending his pulse into a galloping frenzy. As they clung to one another, he lost himself in the enchantment of her caresses. Everything around him faded.
When he finally came up for air, he could see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” He was breathless and bewildered and barely in control.
“This is good-bye, isn’t it?”
“I… Oh, my dear—” He pulled her even tighter against him.
She kissed him again with such fervor his heart nearly burst.
“I never wanted this to happen.” Her words streamed out raggedly. “In the past it’s only meant disaster.”
He dragged in a tremulous breath, unsure of what she meant. “You always have contingency plans. What were you going to do if you found them so destitute?”
“Found them? Contingency plans?”
“Your family.”
“Oh, my family.” She hesitated. “Yes, well, I, I never—” she took several deep breaths “—I truly never imagined they’d be in such a reduced state.”
Her gaze flitted about the garden and she smiled, sadly. “Did I tell you Uncle John used to like flowers? When I was a little girl he’d always bring me a posy.” She laid her head against Beau’s chest. “Mama fears they might have killed him. He went through so much…” Her voice trailed away.
The story about John had affected Beau too. He’d not suffered John’s fate, but he’d been at the crossroads between immense grief and struggling to give life another go. Somehow he’d escaped his date with the gallows. He shuddered to think how he’d once found the noose almost welcoming. “Finding the will to go on is sometimes the toughest part,” Beau muttered.
“Mama is so very sick. And Jesse and Nate. They’re too young to have such misery heaped on their little shoulders.”
Beau sought a consoling tone to broach the subject he knew must be discussed. There was nothing left for them here. Hargreaves could still be nearby, waiting for them. That sorry cabin barely passed for shelter. But he couldn’t force C.C. to leave. With all the sacrifices she’d made to reach Clarkston, she had to decide for herself. “Your mother’s fever is dangerously high; she’s coughing up blood. Probably doesn’t weigh much more than your little cousin.”
“If only you’d known her when we lived in New York City. Mama was a force of nature, so full of energy and strength.”
“I’m sorry she’s so ill,” he said gently.
C.C. gazed up at him. “You asked for my contingency plans. In truth, I never imagined such desperation. I fully intended to remain at Clarkston, doing whatever was necessary to help my family.”
She placed a hand on his cheek. “It’s clear we can’t stay here.”
Inwardly, he sighed with relief. He’d not have to waste time convincing her.
She continued. “I must ask you plainly. Will you help me take my family back to London?”
Back to London? Words deserted him. Clearly they couldn’t stay here, but he’d not expected her to choose the most difficult, dangerous option. No doubt she could provide best for her family in England. But getting them to Wilmington was only the beginning.
He doubted they could obtain five train tickets. By wagon, an ill old woman, two boys and two adults made for a slow, arduous journey. Union forces could attack at any moment. If they caught him, this time they’d probably hang him good and proper. Running the blockade and returning to England had additional hazards.
“I know our contract didn’t mention anything about taking me this far. I would certainly pay you for your help.”
He stepped away from her and gazed up at the dark sky. So here it was, the source of his prickly anxiety. He’d wanted to leave the moment Delia told him about John’s abduction. But take them all the way to England? Surely there were safe quarters around Goldsboro. And C.C. felt she needed to pay him for his help? This journey had stopped being about money a long time ago. He rubbed the tension knotting his jaw.
“Can I count on your help, Captain Tollier? I know it’s a dangerous trip to cart us all the way back to England, but I doubt I can do it by myself.�
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He lowered his voice and tried to say the words with as much care as he could. “I don’t wish to scare you, but I think if we try to move your mother, we might lose her.”
“We can’t stay here! The nights are too cold and will only get colder. That leaking old shack is no place for an invalid.”
Beau’s brows knit. “I agree. I’d hoped we could find something closer. There must be a doctor and lodgings around Goldsboro. And what about the boys? This plantation is their birthright. If their father is dead and no one is here to claim it, what will happen when the war ends?”
“If they stay they’ll die. Will you help me or not?”
“Taking all of them won’t be easy. The gang that took your uncle could attack us. And they might not be the only ones wanting to do us in.”
He kicked some of the path’s gravel with his toe. A little voice whispered in his mind: if ever there were a time he’d have the upper hand to bargain with this woman, it was now. “If I were to help you and your family back to England, there is something I want from you.” He gazed into beautiful eyes, so dark and soft he wanted to fall into them and never climb out.
“What do you desire?” she whispered.
Chapter 21
The captain held her gaze a long moment before finally saying, “I need answers.”
She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. “Answers? To what?”
“I’d like to know how you know so much about me? And why is Commander Rives determined to see me to the gallows? I don’t remember ever doing him harm.”
C.C. felt cornered. Since she’d embarked on this journey, Captain Tollier had repeatedly saved her life, usually at the risk of his own. Now she would be compounding that danger by having him take her family over some of the most treacherous territory they’d traveled.
You owe him the truth, her conscience scolded. Death could take her at any point and there’d be no reason to withhold. But the part of her that had survived a brutal scandal and made a new life for herself in England would not relent. She’d made a vow ten years before that no man would have power over her again. Answering his questions could jeopardize her future.
The Trouble With Misbehaving Page 20