Dreams of Savannah

by Roseanna M. White

  Brow furrowed in concentration, she shook her head. “I keep me an eye out though, sho nuff.”

  “That would be good of you. And my apologies for startling you so, Bessie.”

  A grin emerged as she shooed him away. “Aw, ain’t nothin. You git on upstairs now and git yoself dandied up so’s you can go see yo Miss Delia.”

  He needed no more of a dismissal. He headed for the stairs quick as his crutches would allow, Luther falling in behind him. Once halfway up, he motioned his friend to draw even with him. “Old Bess knows everything that goes on in Savannah. If Eva stayed here any length of time, she’ll soon hear about it and let us know. If not, then I’ll start asking about sales in the last few months.”

  Luther nodded. “Nothing to be done about it tonight, Phineas, but I do appreciate your making it such a priority. Let’s get you ready for this ball for now, so you can reclaim your Delia.”

  My Delia. That made his pulse gallop—or maybe it was the exertion of climbing the stairs. No, it was dread. Dread and determination, combined into a tempest set to rip him to shreds.

  He wanted to see her, had to see her . . . and yet feared it more than he’d feared the barrel of that pistol aboard the Cuba. What if she had changed? Changed her mind? Or . . . what if she hadn’t? What if she expected him not to have?

  Lord, put your hand upon this meeting. I love her, you know I do. But when I asked her to wait, I never realized more would pass than time.

  Which just went to show what an ignorant pup he had been just months ago.

  His room was unchanged from the last time he’d entered it, except that his mother had left one of her shawls upon his bed. The scent of her rose water still clung to it, which made him think it hadn’t been here that long. Had she sat upon his mattress and mourned him? Cried into his pillow?

  Chest tight, he turned to his wardrobe and pulled out the first decent suit of clothes he put his hand to. With hurried but steady movements, he changed from his bedraggled uniform into the fine worsted wool that hung a bit too loose now, requiring Luther’s assistance only a time or two.

  Then his gaze caught on the length of highly polished wood leaning in the corner of the wardrobe. He reached for it slowly, lifted it with a feeling of suspended reality. He’d bought the cane three years ago simply to be fashionable, had liked the hidden blade inside it.

  Never had he dreamed it would prove genuinely useful.

  Luther frowned. “That won’t provide you with enough support, Phineas.”

  “We can’t know that until we try, can we? I’ve been weeks on the crutches. My strength has improved considerably.” He took a cautious step, putting his weight on the cane.

  The exasperated toss of Luther’s hand matched the roll of his eye. “If you fall on your face, don’t expect me to scrape you from the floor.”

  Phin took another step and grinned. Partially at the lack of screaming pain from his leg, but largely from his companion’s gruff tone. “But you would.”

  “Well, I shouldn’t, if you’re too obstinate to listen to reason.” Luther waved at the discarded crutches. “Take those. The last thing you want to do is make a fool of yourself before your sweetheart.”

  “No, the last thing I want is to try to maneuver them through a crowded ballroom in search of her. This will work nicely.”

  “Phineas.” Oh yes, Luther had perfected how to growl his name.

  No doubt Phin couldn’t imitate the rumble well enough, so he went for a simple, even tone. No-nonsense. “Luther.”

  The man sighed. “I think I preferred you unconscious. You listened far better.”

  “And could move far less.” He headed for the door. “Come, my good man. Let’s head downstairs so you’ll be obliged to stop talking.”

  “Is there any point in my even going?”

  “Certainly. I’ll introduce you to River, who can be trusted with the truth. He can then introduce you to the others and see if anyone has seen your wife.”

  Luther straightened, which made him look far more self-possessed than the slave-appropriate clothing they’d found him would imply. “Very well, then. Lead the way, so I can scrape you up if necessary.”

  Between the railing and the cane, he managed the stairs with relative ease and soon discovered that Old Bess must have told the servants to ready his phaeton, for it waited in the drive. He needed Luther’s help in getting up, but when he took those reins in his hands he felt, for the first time in months, in control of something.

  Not life—he knew that now. But this one thing, this one carriage. If he steered it properly, it would do exactly as he asked. Small as it may be, it nevertheless brought him a breath of peace as he drove the familiar streets to the Owenses’ house.

  An unfamiliar boy met them outside and held the horse while Phin gingerly lowered himself down, then led her off to join all the other horses and carriages. Phin scarcely paid him any heed, his sights set on the familiar figure at the edge of the garden. “River!”

  For a moment, his faithful servant seemed turned to stone. Then he spun, and the light from the gas lamps caught the hope that possessed his face. “Mr. Phin?” He took off at a run, headed straight for him. “Mr. Phin?”

  “It’s me, River.”

  Phin braced himself for the impact, but River pulled up a foot away and stared at him with a big smile but a shaking head. “I kin’t believe my eyes, no suh. We done heard you was dead—kin’t tell you how glad I am to see you, Mr. Phin.”

  “Can’t be gladder than I am to be home.” Phin slapped his free hand to River’s arm and drew him close so he could speak in a hush. “The man with me is Luther—he rescued me. He’s English, free, but pretending to be my mute slave—we’re calling him Monty—so we can find his wife. We’re going to need your help, my friend. Can I count on you?”

  Myriad thoughts raced across his servant’s face—question, confusion, jealousy, understanding. It settled on proud determination. “Course you kin, Mr. Phin. Don’t even need to ask.”

  “Good. Take him somewhere you can’t be overheard, and he can tell you all that happened to me, and about his wife. I must hasten inside before this ball draws to a close.”

  “Sho thing.” River gripped Phin’s wrist, gave it a squeeze that packed two-and-a-half decades of emotion into one move, and pulled away. “Whatevah you need. I take care of it, you jest leave it to me. Git on inside.”

  “Thank you.” He turned away from the flicker of surprise in River’s eyes—hadn’t he thanked him often enough in prior days?—and faced Luther. To him, he need say nothing. He just nodded, then strode toward the house. Uneven as his gait may be with the cane, he felt steady enough with its aid.

  At least until he glanced into the windows of the ballroom and spotted them. His mother, his father, Sassy. They all stood together, a black-clad island in the midst of a rainbow sea. Talking, yes, with someone or another he couldn’t identify from the back, but even so they looked . . . separate. Apart.

  His fingers curled tighter around the silver head of his cane. A few minutes more, that’s all it would take for him to get inside and work his way through the crowded room. Then he could erase that line marring his father’s brow. Lift the weight that seemed to bow Mother’s shoulders. Tease a smile from Sassy, who ought never to look so serious.

  And find Delia.

  Drawing in a deep breath, he continued to the door. It opened before he could knock, and the servant’s eyes went round. “Mr. Phin!”

  “Good evening, Moses. I haven’t an invitation—I do hope that poses no problem.”

  The servant stared at him, a more stoic version of Old Bess’s shock in his eyes. “Uh . . . no, suh. Go on in, that’s right fine.”

  “Thank you, I . . .” He forgot what he wanted to say when a whisper moved up his spine, and then a blue skirt swished out of the ballroom.

  Even before he saw her, he knew. Somehow or another, he felt her nearness. The small waist, the perfect golden curls, the well-chiseled chin
, those were just verification. Delia. His Delia.

  But where were the roses in her cheeks? The lilt to her lips? She looked half ghost herself, her face too pale and her movement absent the buoyancy that had always set her apart. Had he done this to her with his absence? Or was she simply unwell tonight?

  She got a step outside the door and paused, turned his direction.

  Her father stepped up beside her before she could raise her gaze, a tall officer with him. Phin couldn’t make out what they said, but Mr. Owens took Delia by the arm and led her down the hall, toward the library. To his eyes, she looked as though she’d have liked to bolt the other direction. But she wouldn’t, not when her father led her somewhere.

  The officer went with them, on Cordelia’s other side. Looking down at her with a smile that struck him as predatory.

  Phin squeezed his cane so tightly that his knuckles ached.

  “Best git after em, Mr. Phin, be you ghost or man.” Moses spoke softly, but with a note of desperation.

  He got. Wished he could hurry more than he could. And wondered who the devil the fellow was who had the audacity to chase after his girl.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Delia’s stomach churned and threatened to rise when Daddy motioned her into the library. The library. Of all places to force her with Julius, must he choose her favorite room in the house? Must he taint its hallowed shelves with a memory of this?

  She wouldn’t budge. Her feet moved, certainly, but on this, on Julius, she would not. Better to be an old maid forever, lost in the memories of a man who had actually been worthy of her love, than to spend her life beside a scoundrel like Julius James.

  Warrior-king—ha! Definitely the cleverest of villains. He may have already deceived her family, but not her. She would . . . she had only to . . . Tears burned her eyes for the millionth time that evening.

  She wanted Phin. If Phin were here, this would all just go away.

  “Delie-Darlin, I think you know what this is about.” Daddy, his voice gentle but unyielding, pivoted her so she faced Julius. “It’s time, sunshine. Time to move on. Your cousin would like to court you properly, and I’ve given him permission.”

  “Daddy—”

  “Hush.” He touched a finger to her lips. “He knows you still have feelings for Phin and is willing to help you sort through them. But we’re at war, Cordelia, and there isn’t much time for dillydallying. Now, square your shoulders and be the strong young lady I know you are.”

  He was right about that much. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. And determined that if the only way out of this was to bring the war into this very room and fight with nails and teeth, she would do it. She would be an Amazonian princess—all right, so she had no intention of cutting off certain body parts so she might better wear her sword and shield—but she would embrace the spirit of an Amazonian princess.

  She would fight.

  “That’s my girl.” Daddy chucked her under the chin and smiled, apparently misreading her determination. Well, let him. “Now, Julius has requested a few moments’ private audience with you, and knowing well his intentions, I have agreed.”

  A tapping sounded behind her, from the hall, though she noticed it only when it halted. When she realized it was a cane, and that it meant someone else was there, something—expectation? fear?—coiled inside her.

  “Might I have the honor of cutting in on that audience, Mr. Owens?”

  That voice! For a moment she stood paralyzed, certain it was her imagination. A delusion born of her desperation.

  But why would Daddy and Julius turn in response to her delusion? Why would Daddy’s eyes go wide with surprise?

  Her heart thudded so, she felt as though it was the first it had beat in years. And each thump said Phin, Phin, Phin. She turned, telling herself to be calm. Telling herself to be prepared for disappointment if it were instead someone else who happened to borrow the exact cadence and tone of his voice. Telling herself that, even if the impossible had happened, she would handle it like a lady of breeding. With serenity.

  But the second she looked up and saw his smile, all such thoughts winged away. “Phin!” The cry ripped from her throat even as her feet disobeyed her mind’s order for calm and sent her running across the few feet between them. With an abandon she never imagined showing—certainly not in the company of her father and Julius—she threw herself into his arms. “Oh, Phin! You’re alive!”

  But something was wrong. He didn’t wrap his arms around her, didn’t swing her up and around. He loosed a sound halfway between a grunt and a moan and staggered into the doorframe. One hand encircled her back, but he didn’t hold her close so much as grip her for support.

  Rejection choked her for half a breath. Then she looked up and saw the pain undulating over his face. The hollows in his cheeks, the circles under his eyes. And his other hand gripped a cane. Horror at herself brought her hands to her mouth. “Oh, you’re hurt! I’ve hurt you!”

  “I’ll be fine.” Tension made his voice thready and low, but the hand on her back gentled, and his thumb made a caressing sweep of where his fingers had dug in. “Delia. I’ve . . . I’ve missed you so.”

  She forced a swallow and reached up to brush her fingertips over his cheek. A bold touch, to be sure, and under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have risked such a move in company. But it wasn’t every day one’s love came back from the dead.

  How many times had she dreamed of this? Yet she couldn’t remember what she had imagined saying. “I . . . I saved the waltzes for you.”

  A grin rose through the pain on his face, then faded. “I daresay it’ll be a good while before I can claim them, darlin.”

  Daddy stepped up beside them, put a hand on Phin’s shoulder. His face was a strange mixture of emotions—incredulity, a touch of pleasure, but also a bit of . . . what was it? Not exactly disappointment—more like determination. “We heard you were dead. Shot.”

  “In the leg.” Phin’s larynx bobbed.

  “And that you fell overboard.”

  He nodded. “Washed ashore in Cuba. I was in a bad way for months. Barely woke up. But as soon as I did, as soon as I could walk a bit, I started for home.” He glanced back down to her, his eyes filled with all the emotions they should be, and a shadow of pain she’d never imagined there.

  There were so many things she wanted to ask, so many dreams she wanted to question him about, but before she could open her mouth, Daddy looked down at her with a strained smile, then back to Phin. “Have you seen your family?”

  Phin shook his head. “When I saw Delia coming this way as I entered, I followed her.”

  He did? Before even letting his mother know he was alive? Cordelia’s heart was so full she nearly wept anew.

  Daddy darted a glance at her face, his own shifting a bit. Indulgence took the place of the harder-to-identify emotion, though she still detected an undergirding of iron. “Well. You look as though you’d rather sit than brave the ballroom. Cordelia will keep you company for a moment while I fetch your family for you. Julius?”

  Julius—she’d nearly forgotten about him, but now that terrible vision from earlier flooded her mind. She grabbed Phin’s hand and urged him into the room so that, when Daddy and the villain passed by, she could remain between him and Phin.

  And given the look her cousin shot Phin, she was glad she had. Not that he pulled out a weapon, but the hatred in that glare . . . Maybe it was her imagination. Dear Lord, let it be so.

  “Delia.” Phin spoke her name like an invocation, and his hand settled on her cheek. She turned her face toward his.

  A shiver went up her spine at the intensity on his face. She could tell he meant to kiss her—the way his lips parted, the stroke of his thumb over her cheekbone—but it was different than that day in the garden. There was no tease, no half-lidded, lazy gaze. No smile to charm her. Just a demand, patient but strong, in his eyes.

  Even as she went up on her toes, a terrible thought shot through her mind
that this wasn’t Phin at all. That she ought to turn and run before she could be branded by his kiss. But even had she been inclined to act on that, it would have been too late.

  His lips barely touched hers. The lightest of brushes, so sweet it could have been called brotherly. Except that he lingered. Hovered. Managed, with that feather caress, to strum a chord within her that made her knees go weak. That made her think at any moment he might crush her against him. But he stayed just as he was, his hand gentle on her cheek and his mouth a whisper away more often than it was upon hers.

  Receiving his lighthearted passion back in May had made her head spin and her mind go foggy. But sensing his tightly held restraint now made her tremble and lean forward, determined to set loose just a bit of whatever he held back, and yet afraid if she did that it would devour her whole.

  “Phin.” Her voice scarcely sounded like her own. It was too faint, laced with too much desperation. What had she to be desperate for now? All she’d wanted these long months was his safe return to her. Now here he was, in her arms. She ought to be the soul of contentment. Why, then, this yearning to . . . for . . . she didn’t even know. She just yearned.

  Perhaps he understood it better than she did, for he seemed to respond to that strange something in her tone. His hand moved to the base of her head, and he drew her closer. Parted her lips, deepened the kiss.

  Just for one second. One glorious, heart-stopping, soul-searing second. This time the earth didn’t spin—it seemed to expand. Her mind didn’t go foggy, it crystallized. Clarified. As if she could see everything in a way heretofore unknown, if only she could think where to look.

  Then he broke away and just rested his forehead against hers, dragged in a breath that sounded every bit as tremulous as she felt. “Delia, I . . . I don’t know. You’ve haunted me. Thinking of you, longing for you. Realizing that I—thinking I should have done things differently. I should have told you how I feel. I should have—so many things I should have done. So many regrets.”

  “Hush.” She lifted a hand and pressed a finger to his lips. “There’s no need to waste time on regrets. You’re home now. That’s all that matters. You’re alive, and you’re here. You’re . . .” He straightened a bit, enough that she could look into his eyes. A chill danced through her.