“I don’t need you or your help.”
“If you want her, you’ll have to let me take you there. Otherwise, how do I know you’ll ever pay me a damn cent if I have to sit here on my hands waiting?”
Darcy hated Betts for holding all the cards. The man stood there smug and stubborn, his pale jowls hanging, his small, bespectacled eyes unflinching in the face of a rage he could not even imagine, for if Betts had, he would have shouted out the name of the town and run screaming from the room without looking back. The only thing Darcy could do right now was give in.
“Fine. Come back tomorrow, ready to leave for Illinois,” Darcy said.
As Betts stood to depart, there was a knock at the office door.
“What next?” Darcy groused as he whipped the door open.
Romello, his personal butler, had a pained look on his dark face. “A man to see you in the stables, sir. With a delivery.”
Darcy asked Romello to escort Betts out through the salon as he made his way through the house toward the stables in back. A “delivery” meant that one of his more unsavory associates had arrived with another girl.
Although he found himself thinking he would rather be on his way to the dinner party, Darcy walked into the stables where Miles Leonard and two of his river scum companions waited for him. Beside Miles stood a girl whose head was bowed. With her long dark hair hanging over her shoulders, hiding the side of her face, Darcy thought for a moment it was Olivia. His heartbeat accelerated. His hands itched to touch her, to hold her. Oddly enough, he wanted to comfort her. The moment he stepped closer, she looked up, staring at him with huge brown eyes. Not Olivia’s eyes at all. Not Olivia.
The girl’s shoulders were thin, her complexion wan. Confused and disoriented, she made no sound, nor did she even cry. No doubt in shock, she simply stood there looking back at him.
Darcy walked over to her and put his hand beneath her chin, raising her head so that she was forced to look into his eyes.
“Damn it, Miles. This one doesn’t even look thirteen.” Disgusted, he let go of the girl and brushed his hands together. “Where did you find her?”
“Bought her from her father down on Bayou Lafourche. He swore she was fourteen.”
As Darcy stared down the girl, an uncomfortable, edgy feeling came over him. He looked over his shoulder, into the brick-lined courtyard beside the Palace where a fountain bubbled in the twilight.
“How old are you, girl?”
“Twelve, sir.”
Darcy sighed. “How much, Leonard?”
“A hunnert, Mr. Lankanal.”
Darcy figured the girl’s no-account father probably sold her for twenty-five. “Go around to the back of the salon. Tell Peters what I owe you this time and tell the truth. He’ll give you the money.” Without touching her, Darcy looked down at the girl. “What’s your name?”
“Annette, sir.”
“Come with me, Annette.”
He led her back across the courtyard, past the fountain, to the back door of the kitchen. Romello was there waiting, watching, a dour expression of disapproval on his face. If the man had not waited attendance on him for so long and so well, Darcy would have sold him. He didn’t need a conscience at this point in his life. He needed Olivia back.
He strode through the door with Annette behind him, stopped in front of Romello and indicated the girl with a wave of his hand.
“Take her over to the convent and give her to the Ursulines. Tell them I’ll send over a healthy donation in the morning so that they can see to her education.”
Romello hid his surprise well, Darcy noted. The manservant bowed and indicated to the girl that she should follow him. They quickly slipped out of the kitchen without another word.
As Darcy watched them leave, he wondered if perhaps he was coming down with something.
Bond Homestead
Greeting the day with his face uplifted to the rising sun, Noah stood alone outside the lean-to he had built to sleep in over the past few weeks. He had set up camp just inside the woods on the edge of the Bond property, where the breeze kept down the mosquitoes and there was plenty of fresh water for bathing and fishing in a nearby stream.
The weather had been warm and dry except for an afternoon shower now and again and as the days lengthened toward summer, the first shoots in the fields began to show. The morning sun inspired the birds to sing from the highest branches of the maple trees as Noah headed toward the stream, stripping off his red cotton shirt as he walked along. From the narrow foot trail worn into the grass between his campsite and the stream, he paused to look over at the Bond cabin. The only sign of life was the wisp of smoke that curled up out of the chimney.
If he had to guess, he would say that Olivia was probably the only one up and about. He could say with all honesty that he did not think Payson Bond would ever make a good farmer. Even working alone, Noah had already built a smokehouse as well as a new shed for the Bonds’ milk cow and mare. As far as he was concerned, Payson Bond’s head was in the clouds; when it wasn’t, Bond was down with a strange ailment that gave him a fever and the shakes.
Noah kept to the woods and spent his days hunting and his nights tossing and turning, thinking of Olivia, wondering if she still had nightmares. Since she had come home, she had done nothing but work from sunup to sundown.
Throughout the day he would see her hoeing the vegetable patch, cleaning, sewing, scrubbing clothes in a half-barrel behind the house and then hanging clothes out on a rope to dry. She played with the boys, took care of her stepmother, and cooked up the meals they all shared in the evenings. These occasions were as much a torture as they were the highlight of his day. Suppertime was the only time he really shared with her.
She was everywhere at once, helping everyone else, avoiding him. Olivia was so preoccupied that she wasn’t even aware that he watched her whenever he was working nearby. What he saw worried him. She still jumped at unexpected noises and every now and again he would see her scan the edge of the property as if she were watching, waiting for the man from New Orleans, the man who had used her and made her feel unworthy of love.
Noah would give anything to take her fear away.
Tossing his shirt at his feet, Noah sat down, took off his moccasins, and stripped off his pants. He set them aside before he waded into the stream buck naked.
Olivia stepped outside the cabin door, careful not to spill me cup of hot sassafras tea in her hands. Pasting a smile on her face, she centered the cup on its saucer and walked over to the patch of morning sunlight where she had set up the rocker for Susanna. Now instead of being closeted inside, her stepmother could stare out across the fields, but at least the grieving young woman had lost some of her pallor. She would actually speak every now and again.
“I brought you some tea, Susanna.” When Susanna was not in a talking mood, Olivia would still carry on a one-way conversation. “It’s your favorite this time, not as strong as what I gave you yesterday. You brought quite a selection from home.” There were plenty of teas in the wooden tea cabinet, but the lovely silver tea service, one of the few fine things that Susanna had brought from Virginia, had been stolen during the river raid.
Olivia set the cup and saucer on Susanna’s lap, forcing her to hold it or have it spill all over, men stood beside the rocker and lifted a hand to her hair. She had taken to wearing it pulled back, tied with a ribbon to keep it out of the way while she worked.
“Daddy’s ague seems a bit better today. Yesterday he shook so hard with chills that I thought the bed was going to walk across the room.”
Trying to make light of her father’s recurring condition was the only way Olivia could cope with this additional burden. He had told her that the strange malady was common among the Illinois settlers. It came on without warning at certain times of the year as a fever, violent shakes, and chills, and then disappeared just as quickly only to return with a vengeance again in a few days or months.
Beyond the yard in front of the cabin,
the corn was coming up, thanks to the sun and an occasional shower. Trying to picture the dappled light through cypress, with lush emerald duckweed floating on water, the serenity of Noah’s retreat on Heron Pond, Olivia took a deep breath of the fresh morning air and braced herself for another hard day. She wished she were stronger, that there were more hours in the day, that things were better. Then she sighed and reminded herself that if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. The only bright spot in this day would be suppertime, if and when Noah decided to join them for the evening meal.
“Susanna, did you see which way the boys went when they left the house?” She wanted to tell Freddie not to wander too far off before she had a chance to cut down a pair of Little Pay’s trousers for him and turn up the hems.
“Susanna?”
“What?” Susanna turned listless eyes her way. Olivia reminded herself that patience was supposed to be a virtue.
“The boys. Which way did they go?”
“Why, I didn’t really notice.”
“That’s the trouble,” Olivia said more harshly than she had intended.
Her stepmother had never lost her little-girl tone or the soft, honeyed Virginia drawl that so reminded Olivia of the Morrison plantation where they had all lived for a time and where Susanna had been born.
Olivia went down on one knee beside the rocker and laid her hand on the armrest to stop the rocking. She waited until Susanna finally looked over at her.
“What is it, Livvie?”
“I think Little Pay is hurting himself on purpose, Susanna, and I’m worried about him.”
“Whyever would he want to do something crazy as that?”
Olivia took a deep breath and sighed. Something had to be done to shake Susanna out of her stupor, and Olivia had decided she was the one who would have to do it. Her father claimed that Susanna was most likely suffering female maladies, that they had to comfort her and nurture her else she might lose her mind altogether and go insane.
Olivia had gone along with his wishes for four weeks now, and had taken over all the household chores, including raising the boys and trying to deal with Susanna while everyone tiptoed around her stepmother. Susanna seemed slightly better, but not much, and while she rocked her life away, the boys and Payson were suffering as much as if she had already died and left them.
“He’s hurting himself to get you to notice him,” Olivia told her.
“This morning I saw him walk off with Freddie. I just … I just don’t recall which way they went.” Susanna’s voice trailed away. “Maybe they went around back …”
“He wants you to really see him, Susanna. He wants you to hold him and talk to him the way you used to. He and Freddie both need you, and I believe Little Pay thinks the only way he can shake you out of this sadness is by hurting himself to get your attention.”
Susanna fell silent again, turned and stared off across the field of sprouting corn.
The rocker shook when she tried to move it again, but Olivia held firm, refusing to let Susanna slip away so easily. Her stepmother was not the only one suffering here. They all were. If Susanna was going to lose her mind, Olivia decided maybe she should just get on with it. Her father might not be willing to force his wife out of the black mood in which she was trapped, but something had to be done, so Olivia did not mince words.
“The boys need you. Daddy needs you, too. You can’t mourn forever. Staring off into the sky won’t get you home to Virginia, and it won’t bring back your baby girl, either, no matter how much you wish it.”
When Susanna made no response at all, Olivia’s temper boiled over.
“Damn it, Susanna, come back to them. The living need you, not that baby you put into the ground.”
She knew firsthand that mourning got one nowhere. Hadn’t she mourned during those first weeks after she had been ripped from her family? Hadn’t she cried over her fate, been utterly despondent because her father had not fought to keep her? Hadn’t she grieved over what she thought was Susanna’s betrayal? Over her stolen virginity? And on top of it all, she had even lived with the shame of hating them because they had given her up so easily.
It was not until she had finally stopped crying mat she was able to start planning a way to escape Darcy.
Susanna had not yet responded. Thinking she might as well be talking to the moon, Olivia gave up. She was about to stand up and go inside when a choked, mournful sound erupted from her stepmother. Susanna slowly turned, her lips trembling, her arms locked tight around her middle.
“It hurts, Livvie. It hurts so bad. I can’t make it stop,” she whispered through her tears.
Forgotten, the cup and saucer in Susanna’s lap tipped over. The tepid tea stained Susanna’s skirt, but she did not even react to the spill. The china pieces slipped off her lap and hit the dirt. Olivia let them go, reached out, wrapped her arms around Susanna, hugged her close.
“I know. I know it hurts, but you aren’t alone, Susanna.”
Olivia closed her eyes against her own pain as she held the sobbing woman in her arms and let Susanna pour out all the grief she had buried inside for so long.
“Cry it out, Susanna. Cry it all out,” Olivia whispered softly as she held the young woman who had been stepmother, sister, and friend, and begged God to forgive her for ever, ever blaming Susanna for her own fate.
When she felt a firm hand gripping her shoulder, Olivia started. She looked up. Her father was standing there beside her. Barefoot, in his undershirt and pants, he was clutching the quilt around his shoulders. Lines creased his skin. His blue eyes were red-rimmed with tears of his own. His receding, light brown hair stood on end. He was so thin, his clothes so worn and mended, that he looked like a poorly stuffed scarecrow.
“Let me, Livvie,” he said, reaching for Susanna. The quilt fell from his shoulders and slid to the ground.
Olivia waited until he went down on his knees beside the rocker, then released Susanna into his arms. When she pulled away from them, a sorrowful loneliness swept through her, one so very powerful that she ached to her bones with it.
Looking down on her father and Susanna, seeing them wrapped in each other’s arms as they shared their grief over a lost child and broken dreams, Olivia felt more trapped in her own loneliness and isolation than ever before. Her unguarded thoughts immediately flew to Noah. Even though she hated herself for being so selfish and so unfair to him, she was thankful that he had not gone back to Heron Pond.
She needed to see him, now, this minute. She needed the solace his calm presence always gave her, needed to see the warmth of his crooked smile, to hear the cadence of his voice, to look at him and relive the memory of the night they had shared. She needed the safe, secure feeling that he gave her.
It was nothing short of selfish, depending on his concern and caring, wanting him near and yet remaining unwilling to share in the kind of relationship she knew he wanted. Until today she had kept her distance. She never sought him out for selfish reasons. Oh, she would give him messages from her father or go to him when she was looking for the boys. When he was working near the cabin she would take him his meals, but she made it a point not to linger, not to tempt him or be tempted.
She was almost to his campsite before she even realized she had come this far. She paused beneath the trees and looked around, but there was no sign of him.
All of her determination to see him quickly ebbed away leaving her frustrated and even more alone. She wandered over to a stump not far from the fire ring of stones and sat down heavily. She wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist, shoved her hair back off her hairline, and looked up at the canopy of trees.
Overhead, magpies chattered to one another, and in the woods behind her, two wild turkeys called to each other as they foraged between the trees. Olivia sighed. The tears she had shed on the way to the woods had dried on her cheeks. She wished the wistful loneliness would pass as easily. A huge flock of pigeons flew overhead, so many that they looked like a dark gray cloud.
/> She didn’t know whether to be relieved or unhappy that Noah was not here. At least now she would not have to suffer the guilt of using him again in order to make herself feel better. Olivia took a deep breath, thought of all the chores waiting for her back at the cabin, and gathered her courage to go back and face it all. She put a smile on her face and told herself to expect the best. Perhaps a good cry had lightened Susanna’s soul. Perhaps now her father and his wife could rediscover the love they had once shared, one that Olivia had so envied and had hoped to find one day.
She shook out the cotton skirt of one of the gowns she had worn a lifetime ago, stood up and lifted her face to the sun. Stretching her arms high over her head, she took a deep breath of summer air alive with the scent of wildflowers.
Then she opened her eyes, turned around, and screamed.
Chapter 11
Noah’s sudden appearance behind her, half-naked, nearly frightened Olivia witless. Her scream still echoed in her ears. Her heart pounded.
“I’m sorry,” Noah apologized, but a slight lift at the corner of his mouth gave her the impression he was not sorry in the least. “You need to be careful. Sometimes Indians still walk these woods.”
She was hard-pressed to concentrate on what he was saying, what with him standing there bare-chested, a turkey-red cotton shirt slung over his shoulder, watching her with a glint of appreciation and no little suspicion in his eye. Glistening with water, his hair was slicked back, dark as pitch. The long lashes over his eye were spiked. His eye patch was in place, the leather ties darkened by water stains.
“Why are you here, Olivia?”
“You don’t waste words, do you?”
“Did Payson send you?”
She shook her head, wishing she had never come. There was no way she could admit her tremendous need to see him. She did not fully understand it herself.
“No, Daddy didn’t send me.”
“Then why did you come?”
Because I needed to see you.
Blue Moon Page 14