Day Dreamer

by Jill Marie Landis

  “For him, I thought. I was a wastrel, a ne’er-do-well who married an heiress—not for her money, but because we were hopelessly in love. When Alyce died in a carriage accident that was all my fault, I thought my life was over. I could not help myself out of my grief. How could I have been any kind of a father to my son?”

  She tried to put herself in his place, truly wishing she could understand.

  “I intended to kill myself, but didn’t want Cordero exposed to the scandal, so I sent him to my father in New Orleans.”

  “But, how could you have sent him to Henre Moreau when there was no love between you and your father? Didn’t you stop to think that the man might take his anger and disappointment out on your son?”

  “I couldn’t think past my guilt, my grief. I hoped that where my father had failed with me, he would succeed with my son. And that seems to be the case, for I hear Cordero has come back to take over Dunstain Place.”

  “How did you find out? If you are still in contact with Ada, she keeps your secret well.”

  He shook his head. “She, like everyone else, thinks I’m dead. When I disappeared, it truly was with every intent of dying. I set out in a small sailboat without water or provisions, intending to let the sea take me. Instead I was found delirious and on the verge of death by an old pirate who taught me all he knew. As if I were resurrected to a new life, I left everything behind, changed my name to Roger Reynolds and became a privateer for many years. I have had one of my most trusted men overseeing things at Dunstain Place for years.”

  “Who?”

  “Bobo.”

  “The slave?”

  “Bobo is as free as you and I … if any man can ever truly be free in this life. He works for me, and believe me, he is well paid.”

  “Cord will be furious when you tell him. He already harbors an intense hatred for you for sending him away, but to let him think you were dead—”

  True sorrow and regret darkened his expression. “In any case, I don’t intend to walk back into my son’s life. It’s enough to know that he has you, and that he has come home.”

  “So you will abandon him again?” She could not mask her anger any longer. Cord deserved to know the truth.

  “He believes me dead. I would prefer to keep it that way.”

  “Some privateer you must have been. You are a coward, monsieur.”

  “I was the best of privateers, because I didn’t care if I lived or died. That makes a man foolhardy enough to take many, many chances. But you are certainly right in one respect: I was too big a coward to raise my son.” There was a deep sorrow in his tone. “Now, like his mother, he is lost to me.”

  Too aware of Cordero’s pain to be objective, she refused to back down, refused to let this man hide from what he did to his son. She reached for his arm, made him listen.

  “It isn’t too late to meet him, to let him know you’re still alive. Surely you care for him enough to tell him why you sent him away? Don’t let him go through life believing you threw him away simply because you didn’t love him anymore. You can’t know how haunted he is by your abandonment.”

  “But I told you, I did not abandon him,” Auguste cried out with undisguised anguish. “I have missed my son since the day I sent him away I would have sooner lost both eyes. But it is too late for regrets. He will only hate me more when he learns the truth.”

  She could not stop her tears of frustration. When one slipped down her cheek she wiped it away and turned her back on him, unwilling to let him witness her dismay.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Celine,” he said. “I just wanted to meet the woman who will one day give my son a son of his own.”

  She felt his hand on her shoulder, but refused to turn around to face him.

  “You didn’t mean to hurt Cordero, either, but you did. Because of what you did, he is incapable of letting himself feel anything, of loving anyone …”

  “Surely he loves you …”

  She spun around, threw her head back and laughed. The bitter, anguished sound that threaded through her voice surprised her. She faced him and shook her head.

  “No. He doesn’t love me. He couldn’t love me even if he wanted to, because he doesn’t know how to love. He’s never been taught to feel love—only how to lose it.”

  Alexandre’s death, Henre’s inability to give Cord any love—all of it was far too much for her to explain here in the garden. Afraid that Auguste would leave before she could persuade him to see Cord, she tried once more.

  “Please, monsieur, I beg of you: Talk to him. Explain to him why you sent him away. Wouldn’t your Alyce have wanted you to?”

  Auguste reached out and gently wiped a tear from her cheek. He stared down at her, his expression one of regret weighed down by resignation. Finally, he sighed.

  “It won’t be easy.”

  Celine smoothed her palms on her skirt and took a deep breath before she admitted, “No, it won’t be an easy meeting. I’m afraid Cord will be shocked and furious. Perhaps it would be better if I were to tell him first.”

  “Not yet. I need to get some of my affairs in order. I’ll contact you again, through Bobo if need be. Until then, please keep my existence a secret a while longer.”

  Cord wanted no secrets between them and except for Jean Perot’s murder, she had told him everything. Now, Auguste Moreau was asking her to compromise that trust.

  “But I can’t lie to him.”

  “You need not lie, just don’t say anything yet.”

  “Isn’t that the same as lying?”

  “Please, Celine. Keep my existence a secret for three more days.”

  He smiled a smile that had no doubt broken many hearts on many islands. It was Cord’s smile, she realized again, if he would ever allow himself one. She found it impossible to refuse.

  “Three days, then.”

  He took her hand and kissed it, and then with a wave he left the garden. She watched him make his way down the path and through the trees.

  Hoping to reach the house before the clouds overhead opened up, she turned onto one of the newly cleared footpaths. Suddenly Gunnie appeared out of nowhere, running frantically toward her. Celine was afraid the slave had seen Auguste, until she noticed Gunnie had what appeared to be Cordero’s coat clutched in her hands.

  “Missus got to come!”

  “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  The slave was trembling. She thrust the coat at Celine, her eyes huge. Celine stared down at the wadded white fabric. A wide, red bloodstain had soaked into it.

  “Where is Cordero? Has he been hurt?”

  Gunnie swallowed and pointed along the path behind Celine.

  “Went to see about de new field pas’ the trees. He been hurt. Bleedin’ bad. Bobo, he say you better come now.”

  Celine clutched the coat, ignoring the blood that was blending with the mud and dirt on the front of her gown. Cord was hurt—possibly mortally wounded, if the amount of blood on the coat was any indication. There was no time to lose.

  She followed Gunnie down the path, tripped once on a newly exposed root and fell down onto her hands and knees, then got up and started running again.

  Gunnie led her deep into the undergrowth of the tropical forest. In the inmost, shadowed interior, all she could see of the woman was a flash of white blouse as she sprinted through the trees. Celine reached out, trying to protect herself from the lash of tangled vines and low-hanging branches. Rain-soaked ground gave way to thick, oozing mud that sucked at her shoes, slowing her progress.

  “Gunnie!” Celine shouted, afraid she would lose the girl in the dense thicket. “I think we took a wrong turn. I don’t see any sign of the cane fields.”

  She wished she had paid closer attention to Cord when he’d said he would be clearing new fields. She tried to recall anything he might have told her that would help her find him. The path had narrowed to a foot trail that was fast disappearing into swampland. Celine was beginning to doubt Gunnie’s ability to find t
he place again.

  Green monkeys swooped through the trees, mocking her stumbling progress. Sweat smeared the dirt on her face, matted her straggling hair against the back of her neck. Thunder rolled over the mountain. She could hear rain on the canopy of leaves overhead, but the first scattered raindrops had not yet penetrated the dense green tangle.

  “Gunnie! Wait!” She couldn’t see the slave girl at all now. Celine plunged on, frustrated and frightened, her heart pounding in her throat. Head down, with her gaze focused on the mire at her feet, she was not aware of anything but reaching Cord’s side.

  When Celine chanced to glance up again, she screamed and stopped just short of running headlong into the obeah man. He was standing in front of a casuarina pine, his body as gnarled as the tree’s trunk. His eyes were alight with a triumphant glow.

  She had fallen into a carefully laid trap.

  Cord’s coat had grown heavy, soaked as it was now with rain, mud and blood. So much blood. She clutched it to her breast.

  “Where is my husband? Have you killed him, or is it just me you want?”

  Celine took a step back, prepared to run. She found her way blocked by Gunnie and a young male slave she did not recognize. The youth had a long hemp rope slung over his shoulders. Gunnie’s eyes were still wide with fright. The girl’s gaze shifted uncertainly between Celine and the obeah man as she fought to catch her breath.

  Celine whipped around, unwilling to take her eyes off the witch doctor. He raised a bone rattle, shook it with one hand and threw dirt on her with the other. Celine couldn’t understand a word he said as he began to utter what sounded like a chant.

  Gunnie and the boy moved up behind her and grabbed her arms. The obeah man’s voice rose as his chant became frantic and furious. She knew without being told that he was conjuring dark images, calling on his gods to curse her, to strip her of her power. To destroy her.

  She fought in vain. Her captors ripped Cord’s coat from her hands and threw it into the mud. Even that token, all that might be left of him, had been taken from her, she thought ruefully. On the old man’s signal, the other two led her deeper into the swamp. He followed them, chanting. The bone rattle clacked. The monkeys above them shrieked.

  The rain was coming down in gusts, chasing away the close, intense heat and making her almost cold. Her hair and clothes were stuck to her skin. Mud was caked to her shoes and ankles.

  She stumbled and called Cord’s name at the top of her lungs, refusing to give up even though she was too far from the house or the fields for anyone to hear. They reached the bottom of the gully, where the ground was an oozing bog. Celine staggered and nearly fell. The young slave jerked her to her feet. She glared up at him, but unlike Gunnie, who would not meet her gaze, the youth stared back, fiercely defiant.

  The old man paused where huge wild mango trees stood grouped together. While he shouted orders and curses, the young man dragged Celine over to one of the trees and forced her up against the rough bark. She didn’t dare let herself think of the insects nesting in the decaying wood and fruit at her feet.

  Celine struggled futilely against the slave’s strong hold. She tried to kick, to scratch, to bite, but could not gain purchase. His muscles were well-defined from long hours spent working the cane fields. He easily maneuvered to hold her and dodge her attempted blows.

  Gunnie forced Celine’s arms wide and slipped the knotted rope over one of her wrists. She walked behind the tree, grabbed Celine’s other wrist and looped the rope over it, strapping her to the tree trunk. Pain seared Celine’s wrists and echoed through her shoulders. The rope cut into her whenever she tried to wrench her hands and arms free.

  The obeah man walked around the tree, chanting. Celine felt him tug on the rope to make certain it was tight. She tried to kick him when he passed in front of her. The young man cursed her. Celine caught Gunnie’s eye as the girl hovered nearby, and tried to plead for help.

  “Gunnie. Don’t do this. I’ll see that nothing happens to you if you let me go. Please. Tell them it isn’t too late. Tell them Cordero will deal harshly with them if anything happens to me. Please, Gunnie!”

  Gunnie turned her back and walked away. The obeah man smiled.

  Celine faced him defiantly. Rain streamed down her face, into her eyes, matting her lashes.

  “You haven’t won yet,” she yelled. “I haven’t escaped the hangman’s noose to die here in the mud at your hands.”

  She spat at him and had the small satisfaction of seeing him nearly fall in the mud as he lunged back.

  Gunnie and the youth had disappeared, swallowed up by the forest. Helpless to free herself, Celine watched the old man hurry after them, their footsteps nearly obliterated by the pounding rain. Even the monkeys had taken shelter.

  She was alone, at the mercy of the elements and the creatures of the night.

  Cord straightened and pushed away from the table that he had commandeered as a desk in a small storeroom at the back of the distillery. He reached up to rub the back of his neck and stretch his aching shoulders. Near his elbow sat a tray of untouched food, long forgotten until now that his empty stomach had grumbled in protest.

  He reached for a cold chicken leg and absently began gnawing on it while he looked over his father’s old accounts. Incredibly, nothing had been recorded since Auguste’s last year here. Cord caught himself staring at his father’s neat signature at the bottom of a column of figures. How different things would have been had his mother not died. He wondered what it would have been like to have been raised here.

  He put down the chicken bone and rubbed his eyes. It did no good to try to imagine what might have been, a practice he had never ascribed to and wasn’t about to start now. It was bad enough he had married a woman with not only her own memories, but everyone else’s literally at her fingertips.

  Cord glanced out a small window above the table. Thoughts of his tempting wife had interfered with his work all afternoon, so much so that he’d had to fight the urge to return to the house, to Celine.

  The rain had begun over two hours ago. When the clouds had finally broken, spilling a deluge typical of autumn, the tension in the atmosphere had seemed to be dispelled. He wished the rain could wash away his own anxiety.

  “Damn witch.”

  He shook his head. Celine had crept into his thoughts countless times already today, and just as many times he had tried to put the thoughts aside, without success. Pushing back from the table, he stood and walked to the open doorway.

  A small governess’ cart that must have been stored somewhere since his childhood came barreling into the mill yard, drawn by a swaybacked dapple gray nag. Foster was futilely trying to control the animal. On small bench seats facing one another, Edward and Ada clung to each other, trying without luck to stay sheltered beneath a scrap of an umbrella now decorated with only a few remnants of torn lace about the edge. It provided scant protection from the rain, and Ada and Edward were as soaked as Foster.

  “What brings you all out on such a fine afternoon?” Cord called without leaving the shelter of the mill.

  Foster pulled back on the reins, hollering, “Whoa there! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” His voice held no conviction, and the stubborn nag knew it.

  Cord hurried across the muddy yard and grabbed the old mare’s bridle. He stood there while the three occupants of the cart all tried to talk at once.

  “At first we weren’t concerned—” Ada began.

  “But then it began to pour and I went lookin’,” Foster took over. “I couldn’t find ’er anywhere.”

  “I insisted that ’fore any more time was lost we come ’ere straightaway and find you because somethin’ terrible might ’ave ’appened and probably did.” Edward was moaning by the time he stopped talking.

  Cord stepped up to the side of the vehicle. He held out his hand to Ada. “Come in out of the rain.”

  “We can’t. Cordero, you must come with us right now. We can’t lose another moment,” she said, her jowls quivering as
fast as her lips.

  With a feeling that bordered on dread, he read the panic and distress that their soaked clothing and plastered hair and the blinding rain had kept him from seeing until now. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  “What’s going on?” He was already nearly soaked through himself.

  Ada reached out for his hand and clung to it. Her urgency and desperation quickly communicated itself to him.

  “It’s Celine—” Ada said before she promptly burst into heart-wrenching sobs.

  “She’s missing,” Foster told him.

  Edward shook his head woefully. “Been hours since we seen ’er in the garden and now we can’t find her anywhere. Miss Celine’s gone missing.”

  Seventeen

  “What in the hell do you mean she’s missing?”

  Cord’s thoughts raced back to the night before, to Celine and Collin Ray and the scene he had witnessed. Ray had taken Celine’s refusal badly. Had the man been desperate enough to return and take her against her will?

  Or had Celine played him false? She’d had enough time to mull over Ray’s proposal and to stew about the revelation of his visit to the whorehouse in Baytowne. Perhaps, Cord reasoned, she had decided to take Ray up on his offer and had found someone willing to take her to town.

  “We ain’t seen her since she went out to oversee work on the garden,” Foster shouted over the pouring rain.

  “I went to look for her myself,” Ada cried as she clung to the umbrella handle, “but she was nowhere near the house. I can’t find Gunnie either.”

  “When exactly did any of you see Celine last?” Cord demanded.

  “After breakfast,” Edward said.

  “Just before dinner when I went to see if she was coming in from the garden to join Miss Ada,” Foster recalled. “She said there was a bit more she wanted to do and then she’d be in. When she didn’t come in, I thought she got carried away with ’er work, so I set aside a covered plate.”

  Ada erupted again. “But she never came in, you see, even after it started to rain. Oh, my poor, poor Celine!”

  There was no controlling Ada; Cord didn’t even try. Realizing that the four of them were standing in the downpour like idiots, he came to a decision.