Tender Betrayal

by Rosanne Bittner

  Audra looked shocked as, for the first time, she saw fear in the powerful Richard Potter’s dark eyes. “You wouldn’t dare—” he challenged Lee.

  “Try me!” Again Lee rammed his knee into the man’s groin, then slammed a hard fist into Richard’s face, knocking the man against the piano. Richard grunted in agony and wilted to the floor, out cold. Lee started for him again, but Audra cried out for him to stop. Lee hesitated.

  “He’s still my husband!” she told him, her body jerking in a sob. “I’m vowed to him before God. I can’t just stand here and watch you kill him! Please don’t bring any more shame on me, Lee,” she begged. “You’ve done all you can do.”

  Lee looked down at his bruised hands, then turned away from Richard’s crumpled body. Audra turned anguished eyes to her father. “I’m sorry, Father. I didn’t want you to know about Lee, or how Richard was treating me. I was afraid it would kill you—”

  “This was the only way to make sure the abuse is stopped,” Lee said. “I had to take the risk! You just make damn sure your daughter is treated right. If I have to come back here, I’ll see that everyone in Louisiana knows what kind of brute you have for a son-in-law! I love Audra enough to risk my own life to make sure she never suffers at that man’s hands again!”

  Richard groaned and began to stir.

  “He’s a very powerful man,” Joseph replied. “And he’s Audra’s legal husband and part owner of Brennan Manor now. How much can I do? I’m an old, sick man.”

  Lee took some papers from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “You can file an amendment to the agreement you made with him when he married Audra,” he answered. “I went to a local attorney’s office in Baton Rouge and purchased the proper forms, wrote this up myself. It’s a sworn statement that will be attached to your current arrangements for ownership of Brennan Manor.”

  Joseph looked at his daughter, and she met his gaze defiantly. “I showed him the papers. He said he could help me, Father. I was so afraid of Richard, I agreed.”

  “These say that Richard will share the profits of Brennan Manor, as in your original documents, but only under your approval, which he must get in writing at the end of every fiscal year. He will not actually own any of this place until your death, and then he owns only one quarter of it. Audra will own the other quarter, and Joey will own half. From then on Richard may still share half the profits, but only if Joey and Audra approve in writing, as you had to do. That approval will depend on how he has been treating Audra. If he still chooses to mistreat her and give up his share of the profits, I’ll know about it, believe me. Richard believes his wealth and power make him immune to threats, but I have wealth and power of my own, Mr. Brennan, and no man is immune to death!”

  Joseph looked down at the papers he held in a shaking hand, then sank into a nearby chair. He looked at his daughter, tears in his eyes. “I didn’t know…I thought marrying Richard would be best for you and Joey.”

  “You don’t give Joey enough credit,” Lee told the man. He walked over to Richard and yanked him to a sitting position. Blood oozed from the man’s nose and a cut under his left eye. “I’ve got something for you to sign, you bastard!” Lee growled. “You hear me? You be good to the woman who is going to be the mother of your children, or you’re going to lose all the nice little extras that came with marrying her!” He looked at Audra. “Hand me those papers and get me a pen from that desk over there.”

  Audra obeyed, taking the papers from her father. Lee took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against Richard’s nose and face to help stop the bleeding. “Don’t think I have any sympathy for you, you son of a bitch! I just don’t want you to get blood on the papers you’re going to sign.” He took the papers from Audra, and laid them and the pen on the piano. Then he jerked Richard to his feet. “Sign on the dotted line, my friend!”

  “What…what is…this?”

  “Just sign, or I’ll blacken your other eye and get rid of a few of your teeth! The handsome Richard Potter wouldn’t want his looks distorted now, would he?”

  Richard groaned, took the pen. “I don’t understand…”

  “Your wife and father-in-law will explain later, when you’re feeling better,” Lee told him. “Just sign your name!”

  Richard obeyed. As soon as he finished, Lee let him fall to the floor again, where the man lay groaning. Lee handed the papers to Joseph, keeping one copy for himself. “Make sure your attorney gets that. There’s another clause in there I didn’t mention—that Richard agrees never to sleep with his young Negro girls again. Any man who gets himself into that many women can end up with syphilis or worse. I couldn’t care less if he died from it, but he’s not going to give something like that to Audra. I just pray he hasn’t already.” He glanced at Audra, who stood beside her father. She looked away in embarrassment at the remark, and Lee walked closer, grasping her arms. “It’s over, Audra. He won’t hurt you again, he won’t dare. Or I’ll be back.” He took her chin in his hands and turned her face to him. “I love you. You keep that spirit and pride, you hear me?”

  “Yes,” she replied in a near whisper, tears in her eyes. “I didn’t stop you just for Richard’s sake. If you had killed him, you would have been hunted down and hanged, and everyone would know why you did it. Adultery and murder are such ugly words, Lee.”

  He suddenly had to fight tears of his own, as he leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “I understand.” He backed away, holding her eyes a moment longer. “Good-bye, Audra.” He turned and walked out.

  Audra watched him go, tempted to run after him. She looked at Richard, then walked over to kneel beside him. She helped him to a sitting position and pressed the handkerchief to his still-bleeding wounds. “We have to go back to the ballroom and pretend everything is fine,” she told her father. “We’ll tell the others that Richard sent Lee on his way, that a messenger came to tell him there is some kind of trouble at Cypress Hollow. Get some of the servants and we’ll take him to our room. I don’t want anyone to see him this way.”

  Joseph looked down at the papers in his hand, still stunned by what had occurred. “Yes. All right.” He shoved the papers into the pocket of his jacket and rose.

  “Are you all right, Father?”

  “Yes, child.”

  Audra looked up at him. “Did you hide Lee’s letters from me?”

  Joseph swallowed. “No. I never got any letter, Audra. Something must have happened to it. You know how easily mail gets lost, what with robberies and such. Just last month a riverboat carrying mail from Chicago had a boiler explosion. The whole thing blew up and all the mail was lost.” He turned away. “I’ll go get help.”

  He left, and Audra wondered if he was telling the truth. She had to believe him, didn’t she? He was her father. He loved her. She took a cushion from a nearby settee and placed it under Richard’s head. She wanted one last word with Lee. One last look, one last touch. She hurried to the second-floor balcony to call out to him, but she could hear the clattering of a horse’s hooves on the brick drive as he rode away. Let him go, a voice told her. She wanted to scream his name, to run after him, but she couldn’t, she was Mrs. Richard Potter.

  She walked back into the parlor, and then she saw it—a big gift-wrapped box sitting on the piano. She had been so upset over all that had happened, she hadn’t noticed it until now. She walked over to it, touched it lovingly, unwrapped it with shaking hands.

  Inside the box were two sea gulls made of alabaster, set on top of wood carved to look like logs, and placed on a marble base. What a beautiful gift it was! She could almost see and smell the waves washing up onto the beach at Maple Shadows, could hear the cry of the sea gulls and feel the sand between her toes.

  Found a man in New Orleans who makes these by hand, the note with the gift read. They were made on the Gulf, but they reminded me of the good times we shared in Connecticut. Think of me whenever you look at them. God bless and protect you, Audra. Love always, Lee.

  Richard stirre
d, and she quickly folded the note and walked over to hide it in the piano bench. She was suddenly awash in tears. The man she loved was out of her life forever.

  Part 3

  January 3, 1861: Georgia takes over Federal Fort Pulaski.

  January 9, 1861: Mississippi secedes from the Union.

  January 10, 1861: Florida secedes from the Union.

  January 11, 1861: Alabama secedes from the Union.

  January 19, 1861: Georgia secedes from the Union.

  January 26, 1861: Louisiana secedes from the Union.

  17

  May 1861

  Lee looked up at the ostentatious brick home that belonged to the Jeffreys family. Its several gables were trimmed with lace-design edging, and a turret at one end was topped with a concrete battlement, like that of a castle tower. It had been fun to explore the house with his brothers when he was young. He knew every nook and cranny of the twenty-room mansion, remembered once counting the arched windows and every separate pane, but he could no longer remember the total.

  The Jeffreys estate was in northern New York, past the Bronx, in an area where only the richest of the rich dwelled, nestled away from the grime and noise and smell of the city. Here lived the men who made their fortunes off the people who toiled for ungodly hours for equally ungodly wages in the city’s factories. He could have built a home like this for himself, but it was the last thing he would ever want. His modest town house had been enough for him, and why his father hung on to this monster of a home now that his wife was dead and all his children were gone, he could not imagine. Fact was, his father had never needed a house quite this big. He had built it solely to show others how much money the family had. Lee had never thought about it when he was little, but now he understood that his mother had never liked it here. She had been truly happy only when she took the children to Maple Shadows in the summers. This house had a coldness about it, both outside and in. The rooms were just too damn big, so big that voices echoed inside them. It was a showplace, not a home, and in those years when his father was younger and building his empire, he was almost never there with the family.

  He had not visited this place in years. Bennett James had talked him into coming. He tied his horse, wondering when he was going to quit taking Bennett’s advice. He’d listened to the man when he’d told him to go see Audra, and what a disaster that had turned out to be! Thank God there had been no messages from Lena or Toosie over the past year. Apparently Richard Potter had taken his warnings to heart and didn’t dared to abuse Audra.

  He had felt so empty and alone this past year that he was almost glad President Lincoln had called for volunteers to help curb the “insurrection.” So far eight southern states had seceded from the Union, and something had to be done. Now military duty would keep him plenty busy for a while, busy enough to put aside all thoughts of Audra, thoughts that he hoped would be gone for good once his stint with the Army was done. He feared that whatever was to come would affect Audra and those she loved, since Louisiana was one of the states that had already seceded.

  South Carolina had dared to commit the first act of defiance by attacking Fort Sumter, and damned if the Union commander there hadn’t surrendered! It was an embarrassment! The President had not actually declared war yet, but calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers was about as close as he could come to it. With his West Point credentials, Lee expected to join up as an officer, and help organize the hopelessly disorganized and pitifully inept Union Army.

  He knocked on the door, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake by coming here. James had suggested that if he was going to join the army, he ought to go see his father first, in spite of how he felt about the man. He’d heard from his brother Carl that their father had been feeling ill lately. Lee figured he had to be feeling pretty poorly to have left his offices in the city to come here and rest.

  A butler answered the door, his face breaking into a smile when he saw Lee. “How good to see you, Master Lee! It’s been such a long time. Come in!”

  “Hello, Carter,” Lee said, shaking the man’s hand as he stepped inside. He tried to remember how long Carter Regis had been with the family, just about as far back as he could remember. The man had to be in his sixties, and he had never married. He seemed perfectly content to run the Jeffreys mansion.

  “Your father will be so happy to see you. He hasn’t been well lately, you know. It’s too bad he lost his run for the Senate, but perhaps it was best, after all, considering his health.”

  “Is it that bad? I’ve never known my father to have anything that kept him down for long. I figured it was just a temporary thing.”

  “Well, that’s what we all hope, and your father has been feeling better again the last few days. He is even talking about going back to work.”

  Lee handed the man his hat and overcoat, wondering if spring would miss New York altogether this year. It had even snowed a little this morning, but by late afternoon the snow had turned to a cold rain.

  “I hope you have a good fire going in the parlor, Carter.”

  “Yes, sir. And that is where your father is sitting and reading, so you just go right in.”

  “Good.” Lee rubbed his hands together. “The ferry ride through the East River and into the Sound on the way here was damn cold, let alone riding in an open carriage from the docks to here.”

  “Well, you go into the parlor and I’ll have someone bring you something hot to drink. Will tea be satisfactory?”

  “Fine. But bring me a shot of something stronger along with it.”

  “Of course,” Carter answered with a knowing grin.

  Lee left the man and walked through the huge two-story-high entranceway, beneath a magnificent chandelier. His footsteps echoed on the marble floor until he reached the parlor, which was carpeted with an Oriental rug. A fire burned brightly in the fireplace, and near the hearth sat his white-haired father in a black satin smoking jacket, a woolen blanket over his lap and a newspaper in his hands. He held a pipe in his mouth. Lee could not remember ever seeing the man without that pipe.

  The minute Lee saw him, old, hard feelings enveloped him, but when his father looked up, Lee could not help a feeling of alarm at the man’s appearance. Edmund Jeffreys was a tall, well-built man, who had always been strong and robust. He had never had a truly sick day in his life as far back as Lee could remember, but now he did look ill, much thinner, much older.

  “Lee!” the man spoke up. “I got your message that you were coming. What brings you clear up here away from your work?”

  Lee stepped closer. “I could ask the same of you, Dad. No one has dedicated more of his life to his work than you always have.”

  The man took his pipe from his mouth and set aside his paper. He rose, throwing the blanket over the back of his velvet chair. To Lee’s amazement Edmund embraced him. “It’s good to see you, Lee.” He pulled away. “As far as myself, well, maybe old age and working too hard are catching up with me, I don’t know. I probably should have listened to your mother all those years ago and started taking it a little easier a lot sooner.” He sat back down in the chair, sighing as though weary. “God knows I should have spent more time with Anna. She would have liked that. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone two years already.” He puffed his pipe for a moment, watching the flames in the fireplace. “It’s a sad thing to realize too late that you should have shown someone a little more love and attention, Lee.”

  Lee was surprised at the remark. This did not sound like his father at all. He thought about Audra, how he’d decided too late to go to her; and his mother, who had begged him to stay a little longer that summer before she died. Yes, he had been too late himself in taking care of those he loved. “I know exactly what you mean,” he answered, taking a seat across from the man. “I suppose if someone could predict our futures for us, we could all avoid a lot of mistakes.”

  Edmund met his son’s blue eyes—blue like his mother’s. There was a lot about Lee that was like his mother. “Y
es, we could, couldn’t we?” He took a deep breath. “I’ve made some mistakes with you, son. I didn’t give them much thought until I began to suspect the meaning of the telegram you sent me. You wouldn’t be paying me a visit out of any particular affection you have for me, now, would you? I know better than that. You’ve only come to tell me you’re volunteering for the Union Army, which, by the way, does not surprise me.”

  Lee just stared at the man, dumbfounded at his insight, as well as at the simple admission that he had made mistakes. What was going on here? Was his father sicker than he was letting on? “How did you know?”

  Edmund smiled sadly. “Because I know my son and how he feels about the Union. And, after all, I didn’t get where I am without learning how to read people. You, my son, are like an open book. I’ve always known how you felt about most things.”

  Lee felt confused. He had expected no more than a cordial greeting and “good luck” from his father, but the man seemed eager to talk. There was actually warmth in his eyes Lee hadn’t seen since he was a very small boy. “I’m heading for Washington next week. I figured my training at West Point could come in handy.”

  Edmund nodded. “And to think I was angry as hell when you told me you wanted to go to an academy first instead of Yale. I didn’t see where it would do you any good as far as helping with the family businesses. It took your mother’s death to make me sit down and take stock of a few things. It has taken my own illness for me to realize what is and is not important in life.”

  He sighed, setting his pipe aside. “For some reason you never wanted to be a part of Jeffreys Enterprises,” he continued. “I couldn’t understand that, Lee. Your great-grandfather started it all, and his sons carried it on, then their sons, except that I’m the only one left now. I expected all three of my sons to keep things going, but you were just never interested. I worked for years building the businesses so that I could hand my sons something even bigger and better than what my father handed me, and his father before him. But always I felt as if you didn’t appreciate any of it.”