A Dream of Daring

by Gen LaGreca

  Tom could almost sense the presence of the deceased senator in the chamber. A dresser displayed Barnwell’s comb and pocket watch. A half-open desk drawer still held a gun in a holster with Barnwell’s initials. A suit was draped over a chair, with a top hat on the seat and leather boots alongside, as if waiting for the senator to step into them.

  Tom glanced at the items on the walnut secretary that was Barnwell’s desk. It provided a glimpse at the different facets of its proprietor. Tom thought of the faces of a stone that had the potential to be a prized gem. If the stone were cut properly, it could produce a diamond, but if it were cut improperly, the gem’s brilliance would be lost and mere rhinestones would result. How had Wiley Barnwell’s life been cut? Tom tried to appraise the man’s various facets.

  In its cubbyholes, the desk held the agricultural journals and almanac of the intelligent farmer who had raised a prodigious crop and taught Tom the business of cotton growing. On the shelf above the desktop, Tom saw a copy of the Louisiana statutes and its slave code, laws that Barnwell as senator had helped to pass and strengthen, preserving the privilege of a dying age.

  Wiley Barnwell was a farmer and businessman who harnessed nature on a grand scale. As a farmer, he took the raw offerings of climate and soil to produce a commodity of great value, and as a businessman he traded his product on the world markets and amassed a fortune. Few could accomplish that, Tom had to acknowledge, giving his mentor his due. But Barnwell was also a politician of pull and a slaveholder, a man who sought control over others. In that sense Barnwell harnessed people, forcing them to do his bidding against their own choice and benefit. Barnwell possessed some of the luster of the new age as well as the flaws of the dying age.

  Could he have become a great farmer and made his fortune with free workers? Tom thought enough of his mentor to believe he could, and he thought enough of the human spirit to believe Barnwell would have done better with willing hands.

  But Barnwell hadn’t gone that route. Instead, the luster had been scraped off his character. It wasn’t the mastery of farming and trade that had corrupted him, Tom thought, but the other mastery he had sought. Tom sighed in sadness at the stone with the bad cut that destroyed what might perhaps have been a rare gem.

  The inventor was too restless to sleep or to stay in the eerie room. The reason was that the presence of someone else in the house was even more palpable to him. With the threat of an attack by Markham vanishing with the coming dawn, his attention felt free to wander. He left the chamber, closing the door behind him on the conflicting faces of Wiley Barnwell. Then he walked down the quiet hallway to the room at the end, the home of the legendary wardrobe of Rachel Barnwell.

  Tom remembered the time when he had seen Rachel in her wardrobe room. She had been reclining on a daybed, relaxing for a moment in between measurements and fittings. She looked like the subject in a painting of a princess in her toilette, with a hoop-skirted dress form and a full-length mirror near her. The background added to the palatial setting, with French doors opening to a gallery, and beyond it the stunning perimeter of roses and the winding road up to the estate.

  He recalled the two massive armoires with dresses made of fine silks, satins, velvets, cottons, and lace from New England and European mills. Rachel had outfits for horseback riding, carriage jaunts, recreational hunting, serving tea, afternoon entertaining, reading, and visiting, as well as gowns for evening wear. Accessories of every kind—shoes, bonnets, gloves, jewelry, shawls, jackets—overflowed from the armoires and dressers to fill etageres that other people used to display fine china.

  He had seen Rachel in her wardrobe room just before twilight, which seemed fitting, since it was the . . . inducement . . . that had ended their life together in Philadelphia. Now, he wondered what the room would look like at daybreak with another woman.

  He saw lamplight shining underneath the door and a shadow of someone moving. He knocked. The movement inside stopped, but his knock went unanswered. The door creaked as he let himself in and creaked again when he closed it behind him.

  The bronze beauty that was Solo turned to stare at him. She was standing before the mirror, its oval rim of gold leaf framing her. The slave’s frock given to her had been tossed over a chair. Instead she was wearing one of Rachel’s gowns, a stunning crimson evening dress cascading in tiers from her tiny waist to a six-foot circle of crinoline at the floor. The small bandages on her arms were overshadowed by the splendor of her gown and the proud way she wore it.

  Tom stopped to gaze at the alluringly feminine side of her that he had never seen. The off-the-shoulder gown had a plunging neckline. Her bare shoulders and the tops of her breasts were covered with a little black cape of translucent Spanish lace tied with a bow at the neck. The lace sparkled with red garnets to match the dress, with the small gemstones sewn into the fabric, transforming the cape into jewelry and the jewels into apparel. Her hair was swept off her face by an ornament, but defiant of any further containment, the tresses made their tumbling descent down her back like a latticework of soft tendrils behind a rare orchid. The serene, imperial look of her gown contrasted sharply with her unsmiling mouth, gaunt cheekbones, and piercing feline eyes. She looked at once like a princess and a tigress. Tom was astonished at how remarkably well the formal dress blended with the raw honesty of features that needed no refinement.

  She remained poised and silent, making no effort to explain her astonishing behavior in flagrant disregard of Rachel’s order not to touch anything.

  Tom walked toward her. As he crossed the room, her eyes widened in fear. He walked closer still. She reached down under puffs of crinoline to grab an item strapped to her calf. He recognized the object that looked incongruous in the hands of one so regally dressed: his hunting knife. She had apparently carried it with her through the fire, and now she aimed it at a threat perhaps more menacing to her.

  As he walked directly in front of her, she pointed the knife at his throat, but her eyes seemed to be looking past him at a disturbing image of their own. The terror on her face, he sensed, came from a wound burned on her memory, a wound that was still acutely painful when disturbed. The sight of her trembling in fear brought out a tenderness in him that he didn’t know he possessed. Gently he stroked her hair, traced the smooth curves of her face, and wrapped his arms around her waist, with his hands lingering on every touch of her.

  She clutched the knife tighter, gripping it with two hands, the point just inches from his throat.

  He drew her against him. The cool blade of the knife now pressed flat against his neck. All she had to do was turn it so that the point . . . Would she kiss him or kill him? He placed his bet. He tightened his arms around her and kissed her softly.

  She was caught between an old fear and a new pleasure. She pushed against his chest, yet she could not resist letting her head fall back in surrender. She abandoned her resolve, answering his desire with her own awakening need. He pressed his mouth harder against hers. Soon he felt her arms drop limply at her sides. Then he heard the knife fall to the floor. He wrapped her arms around his neck, where they soon tightened, pulling him closer.

  He thought he should feel guilty for picking the most inappropriate of places, but the setting served only to intensify his excitement.

  As they discovered the exciting feel of each other, he lifted the ornament off her hair, and a thicket of wild curls tumbled onto her shoulders. He untied the garnet cape, and it fell to the floor. His hands traced the enticing landscape that was Solo—the tiny circle of her waist, the hills and valleys of her back, the taut tracts of her arms. He buried his face in a luscious mix of warm flesh and tousled hair. His mouth found her neck, then her shoulders. He swept back the voluminous tresses to chart the smooth curves of her breasts.

  The sensitive creature under Rachel’s gown responded. Casting aside the grim past, she closed her eyes and opened her mouth to the exciting present.

  He tasted Rachel’s lip rouge on Solo’s mouth. He breathed Rachel’s
perfume pulsing from Solo’s skin. He saw Rachel’s—

  Suddenly, his hands stopped; his gaze froze; his head shot up abruptly. He saw, perched above Solo’s heart, the same image on her bronze flesh that he had seen on Rachel’s ivory skin. He saw—reddish, beguiling, and heart-shaped—the little birthmark.

  He gasped in utter incredulity.

  “Ladybug?”

  CHAPTER 27

  Solo and Tom broke away from each other in astonishment.

  “How do you know that name?” Her voice trembled. “And what exactly do you know?”

  “I know you saw my invention at the Crossroads Plantation.”

  “Your invention?”

  “Yes!”

  “You mean you’re the man I’ve been trying to find?”

  “And you’re the woman they’re trying to—” He couldn’t utter the unthinkable word. He glared at her, stunned by the implications suddenly pounding his mind, all of them dire. He ran his fingers over the birthmark in disbelief. “My God, Ladybug!”

  She reached for the cape and tied it around her shoulders to cover the telltale mark.

  “It’s too late for that.” His mind whirled, trying to fathom the new situation. “You’re Ladybug. That birthmark identifies you!” He grabbed her arms. “Listen to me! There are people looking for you who want to do you harm.” His mind flashed before him a determined sheriff who wanted her arrested, furious planters who wanted her hanged, and mortified women who’d stop at nothing to prevent a family scandal.

  She stood before him, incredulous. “You’re saying that you invented the machine I saw in a shed on the most . . . horrible . . . day of my life?”

  “That would be my tractor. You took it, didn’t you? Where is it?”

  “It’s safe.”

  He closed his eyes, quietly thrilled by her news.

  “It’s by the old factory just north of Polly Barnwell’s plantation.”

  “I looked there. It wasn’t in the factory, and it wasn’t along the road that served it.”

  She smiled at his bewilderment. “Where I put it isn’t accessible by any road.”

  “Oh?”

  “There are pulleys there that I played with as a child. I used them to hoist your tractor where you might not have thought of.”

  He remembered the knowledge of pulleys she had displayed in her attempts to free her horse from under the fallen tree. He took her by the arms, smiling at an intelligence that had outsmarted him. “You . . . you saved my tractor?”

  In a fleeting rush of pleasure splashed in a sea of grief, she whispered excitedly: “I should have known the inventor would be you!”

  He led her to the daybed. As they sat and he held her hands, he was already putting the story together.

  “So you were Polly’s slave, from the Crossroads Plantation.”

  “Yes.”

  “The slave Wiley Barnwell sold on the day of her funeral.”

  She bristled. “Yes, to Fred Fowler.”

  “Then you ran away from Fowler. That must’ve been when I found you after the storm with your horse trapped.”

  “Yes. After you freed my horse, I got further north. But the slave patrol caught up with me. They brought me back to town, to that despicable beast, Fowler. That was when I saw you again, when he was about to take me away. If you hadn’t . . . intervened . . . either Fowler or I—or both of us—would be dead by now.”

  He nodded, believing it. His body tensed in rage, remembering the man’s brutality as he struck her, hung a noose around her neck, and tried to pull out her tooth.

  The torture of her ordeal softened his voice. “Then there’s the matter of what . . . happened . . . to Barnwell.”

  Her face locked into an unreadable stare.

  “Listen, Ladybug”—he felt awkward addressing her by a name other than the one he had given her—“you’re in grave danger. I want to help you, but you have to trust me and tell me everything.”

  “Why would you help me? After you hung Senator Barnwell’s portrait in your home? That night, when I overheard you talking to the artist, I realized you not only knew the senator, but you loved him. You swore his death would be avenged! When you smashed your glass, in fury at his . . . his . . .” She couldn’t say the word that indicted her. “I knew I could never tell you about me!” She breathed deeply, forcing herself to remain calm. “But now that it’s out, I have to set you straight on something, and you can trust me on this: The senator was no friend of yours.”

  “I know that now. Believe me, I have no allegiance to him over you, or to . . . anyone . . . over you.”

  She paused to absorb what was said and unsaid.

  He looked at her in earnest. “Now that you know who I am, you have to tell me who you are. Why don’t you start with your real name? I mean, Ladybug is a nickname, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the only name I ever had. Miss Polly said that someone gave me to her when I was an infant. I was wrapped in a basket of flowers, she told me. I guess she wanted me to think I started out in a special way, so I might feel better about my condition, because after that, my life wasn’t nearly as pretty.” She spoke with a tinge of sadness. “Miss Polly said there was a critter on the petals that was scarlet red with black spots, a ladybug. So she called me that.”

  “Who gave you to Polly?”

  “She never said.”

  He listened, filing the information in his mind.

  “As I grew up, the name seemed to suit me. When I was a child, I’d pretend I was wearing a beautiful gown when it was only a homespun frock, and I’d pretend I was dancing at a ball when I was only in the barn, or I’d pretend I was getting out of a fancy carriage when it was only a hay wagon. The other slaves laughed at me. They said, ‘Look at Ladybug! She thinks she’s a lady, but she’s only a bug.’ ” Wistfully, she looked at herself in Rachel’s gown. “I guess I’m still pretending.”

  His face showed compassion.

  “When I was a child, Miss Polly taught me to read and write. I devoured all of her books and magazines and any other printed material I could find. Reading was the only thing I loved to do. It gave me a lot of material for playacting.” She smiled. “I tried to do what the people I read about did. I made believe I was serving tea and sipped it with all the manners of the gentry. I talked to imaginary companions about a new book I’d read, or a city I’d say I visited, or a new play I supposedly saw in New Orleans. I’d describe in detail how the stage looked, how the orchestra sounded. . . . Miss Polly would lose her patience and say, ‘Dear girl, you carry on so!’ But I kept on doing it.”

  “So Polly raised you?”

  She nodded. “Miss Polly was kind to all of us, but especially to me. I was her servant, although I sensed I was also like the child she never had.”

  “Do you know who your mother and father are?”

  “No. When I was little, I sometimes asked, but Miss Polly just repeated the story of the basket and said nothing more. Actually, I never much cared.” She spoke with a feline-like emotional detachment from people that seemed a long-standing trait, but her eyes lingered on him as though her indifference could encounter an exception.

  “Do you have any siblings, any . . . sister . . . that you know about?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know Wiley Barnwell?”

  “Occasionally he came to visit Miss Polly. I knew he was a senator and her brother-in-law. He always treated me coldly, as if he were angry at me. I never knew why. I avoided him whenever I could.”

  “Did he ever bring his family?”

  “No.”

  “Do you recognize the women in this house?”

  “I never saw them before. Why do you ask?”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, the sheriff is our main concern. He found out about you yesterday afternoon at a meeting we had. Just when he ran out of suspects, your name came up. He learned that you knew about the invention and that you were sold to Fowler. He’s going to Baton Rouge to see Fowler
and question you. When Fowler tells him that you ran away and were unaccounted for on the night of the murder, that’ll intensify the sheriff’s suspicions. And when Fowler tells him that he later found you and sold you in Greenbriar, that’ll bring the sheriff right back here—to arrest you for Barnwell’s death.”

  She covered her face with her hands and suffered quietly. He felt helpless to console her on a matter whose gravity couldn’t be diminished.

  He glanced at the French doors, where the light of dawn was filtering in through the drapery. “The sheriff could be leaving for Baton Rouge now and be back here before nightfall. We don’t have much time.” He squeezed her shoulders urgently. “You have to tell me everything—about you, Barnwell, and my invention.”

  She bowed her head in anguish, then raised it in resolve. Too tense to sit, she propped herself up on the cushioned arm of the daybed and faced him. He looked up at her, waiting to hear the events of the night that had uprooted his life and hers, and that had, oddly, brought them together. Poised and dressed as she was, she looked too dainty and elegant to have lived through the gruesome events she began to relate.

  “On the morning of Miss Polly’s funeral, Senator Barnwell rode up to the Crossroads. I hid in a cabin to stay out of his sight, as I always did. From where I was hiding I watched him hauling something very curious, which he put in the old carriage house. When he went inside the big house, I went to take a look at what he had brought.”

  A hint of excitement colored her voice as she described her discovery. “I learned about machines when I was a child. I used to play in the old deserted factory.” She smiled, reminiscing. “I often slipped away and went there to look at the remnants of the machinery, the tools, the waterwheel.”