Surrender in Moonlight

by Jennifer Blake

  "I've been thinking of applying for rank in the Confederate navy. There's this urge I've had for some time to shoot at Yankees, instead of being shot at. This has helped make up my mind."

  "You…you mean to sign on to command a commerce raider." Her tone was flat. It was not a question.

  "I thought you would be pleased," he said, his tone pensive.

  "It will be so dangerous." She turned again to look out over the sea, the sea that would take him away from her.

  "It's something worth doing."

  "You will be leaving Nassau."

  "But, I will be able to make the port often, as such things go."

  "I would almost rather you replaced your ship."

  "Why, chérie? You are my Lorelei." As she swung to stare at him, he went on hurriedly, "No, no, don't look so. I speak not of destruction, but of living. I meant only that you are a part of me, the echo of my heartbeat, the sweet breath I draw, the quiet song that haunts my dreams, my companion I love immeasurably more than any soulless ship that ever came under my hands."

  For a moment she could not speak, then she whispered, "You love me?"

  He put the guitar aside and came to kneel beside her in a single fluid movement, taking her forearms in his strong grasp. "How could you doubt it, when I have told you so a hundred times, in a hundred ways."

  "You said I was an obsession; you never spoke of love."

  "Then, let me speak of it now. You are the compass that directs me and the lodestar that will draw me home. I see your face in the storm and hear your voice in the wind. The love I feel for you defies the puny disputes of men and will endure to make an endless future. I want you as my wife, to know you are waiting for me, to know that I can find sweet solace in your arms, to feel that the blessed joy I find in you I can return, and the love, always."

  "Oh, Ramon," she whispered.

  She was in his arms then, and their lips were clinging as they strained together, seeking blindly the human closeness that banishes the visions of horror wars bring; attempting, in full knowledge of the impossibility, to stave off the 'morrow; finding an affirmation of life in the warmth of the desire that raced in their veins. She said again, with passion and laughing surrender in her voice, "Oh, Ramon."

  "You will, won't you, marry me, that is?"

  He did love her. Hadn't he proven it by following after her in the teeth of the northern navy, by destroying his ship for the sake of her safety? "If you want me."

  "I want you," he said, a throbbing note in his deep tones. "And will you stay in the house I will build for you in Nassau, and wait for me?"

  "Until the war is over?"

  "Until the war is over," he agreed. "There will be gold enough to maintain the household, and as for the rest, it will be put in your name, in case-"

  She touched her fingers to his lips quickly. "No, don't say it."

  "No. I will leave the gold for you then, to do with as you will, to aid the South or not."

  "I will keep it for you. For Beau Repose. Afterward."

  His hold tightened. "We will return there. No matter what happens. With Bacon gone, there is no one to press the murder charge. Your tale of an accident will be readily believed, when witnesses to Franklin's character are brought forward. That's if there is anyone who will remember the incident or, remembering, care to see it opened again after the passage of a year, or even two, and everything that may have happened in that time."

  "You think that's possible?" she asked, her voice low.

  "I know it. We will live at Beau Repose, in the old house, and I will see you at the foot of my table dressed in silk, with camellias in your hair, and with our children lining the board between us. Later, we will retire to the back bedchamber, and I will make love to you before the fire, on a cotton bale we have grown-"

  She bit her lip, wrenching her mind from the enthralling picture he painted, saying quietly, "You may see a child of ours sooner than that, while we are in Nassau."

  "What? Chérie!"

  She heard the shock, and then the glad triumph in his voice, and she sighed, resting her forehead against his chin, aware of the release of a deeply held terror.

  "Lorna?" he said anxiously. "Are you all right? You took no injury last night? I could murder Bacon with my bare hands for the peril to which he exposed you!"

  "You did that-almost."

  "Yes," he answered, satisfaction rich and hard in his tone. "Yes. Come now and lie down. You must be weary. You should rest."

  She allowed him to draw her down on the blankets beside him with her head resting on his broad shoulder. Quietly, they lay. She could feel the steady and strong beat of his heart, the gentle touch of his fingers as he smoothed the hair back from her face.

  It was going to be all right. They would share their lives, she and Ramon. He would care for her, and she for him. She would depend on him, and he on her. She would not give up her sewing of shirts, and might well expand the undertaking in his absences. He would not mind that, she thought, and it would be independence enough. In all other things, she wanted to be a part of him, to have him become a part of her. Loving would be a puny thing if such closeness were not a part of it.

  In the sweet silence of her contentment, a thought came to her.

  "Ramon?"

  "Yes, mon coeur?"

  "It was you in the garden, playing for me, wasn't it?"

  "Was it?"

  There was a sound of teasing amusement in his voice that sent peculiar vibrations along her spine, radiating to the center of her body. "I know it was."

  "Do you?" He played with a satin strand of her hair, letting it drift from his fingers over her breast, following its length along the soft contour as he smoothed it again.

  "I think it was," she answered, the words catching in her throat.

  "Shall I play for you, chérei, so that you can see?"

  "No," she whispered, lifting her hand to his face, turning, drawing his lips down to her softly parted mouth. "Not…not now."

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  Author's Note

  The problems, dangers, and thrills of running the blockade during the early years of the Civil War are depicted as accurately in Surrender in Moonlight as the research materials available a hundred and twenty years later will allow. The attitudes and atmospheres described are as true to the times as I can make them. All characters in the book are fictional, with the exception of those famous figures mentioned in passing that will be obvious to all: Captain, later Admiral, David Farragut, the conqueror of New Orleans; the Confederate spy Elizabeth Greenhow; Confederate General Jackson; and Union Generals Butler, Banks, Fremont, and Shields. However, many of the fictional characters are partially based on fact. There was, for instance, no small number of naval officers from the South, with academy backgrounds and service records similar to Ramon's, who resigned their commissions to command blockade runners and, later, commerce raiders for the Confederate navy. Several English naval officers on furlough, like Peter, ran the blockade for the sake of experience under battle conditions, afterward gaining fame and rank in the service of England. The "conchs" of the Bahama Islands, on whom Frazier was based, were superlative seamen with intimate knowledge of the channels and reefs, and served the Confederacy well during this period. Elizabeth Greenhow, on her release from prison, made a highly successful diplomatic journey to London and Paris in 1863, much like that ascribed to Sara Morgan, though, while returning through the blockade with dispatches for President Davis, she lost her life when the runner she was on ran aground.

  The Royal Victoria Hotel was an actual hostelry and served its allotted part. A magnificent building in its day, it is now falling into ruin, with the verandas gone, the stucco disintegrating, the windows boarded up, and a strong smell of stray cats in the rooms that are littered with falling plaster. Because of its place in the history of Nassau, it deserves restoration before it's too late. But, its gardens are still there to be enjoyed, the old trees grown enormous, with houseplant iv
ies such as scindapsus aureus and syngonium strangling their trunks and branches, and tropical fruits lying ripe on the ground. There, also, is the balcony in the ancient silk cotton tree, though rebuilt with a wrought-iron railing. I wish to acknowledge my great indebtedness in the preparation of this book to Faye Hood, Jane Stone, and the staff of the Jackson Paris Library in Jonesboro, Louisiana, for their aid in finding, ordering, and photocopying material from far-flung sources for me, and for their infinite patience with my requests, phone calls, and laxity in returning books. Thanks also to John MacPherson of J. B. Armstrong News Agency, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for providing maps and information on the port of Wilmington and the Cape Fear River; and to Joy Dean of the Nassau Public Library, Nassau, Bahamas, for her cheerful and competent aid in finding and photocopying information for me on a sultry August afternoon.

  Many sources were consulted for background, foremost among them being Running the Blockade, A Personal Narrative of Adventures, Risks, and Escapes During the American Civil War by Thomas E. Taylor, and also Blockade Runners of the Confederacy by Hamilton Cochran, The Blockade Runners by Dave Homer, Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War, and Lousiana, A Narrative History by Edwin Adams Davis, plus other general histories, social histories, fashion tomes, flora and fauna guides, and atlases too numerous to mention. For the section of the book set in Nassau, Historic Nassau by Gail Saunders and Donald Cartwright was invaluable in setting the scene, interpreting the history, and understanding the architectural make-up of the city. I am extremely grateful for further research by Gail Saunders, archivist for the Bahamas archives, to clear up several troublesome points; and to Donald Cartwright for taking the time from his busy architectural practice to give me his informed opinion on a number of questions. To him, too, I would like to express my appreciation for his part in saving the old Royal Victoria Hotel, without which it would not have been still standing for my inspection. Also, consulted for this section were The Story of the Bahamas by Paul Albury and the Bahamas Handbook edited by S. P. Dupuch and Benson McDermott. Among the many articles in periodicals that provided special knowledge and insight were "Cotton, Cotton, Everywhere: Running the Blockade Through Nassau" by John and Linda Pelzer, from Civil War Times Illustrated, and "The Royal Victoria of Long Ago" from Nassau Magazine, the issue of March 1939.

  Finally, a word of loving appreciation to my husband, Jerry, for bearing me company on my journeys, for holding my handbag, guidebooks, and packages while I took pictures and scribbled notes, for sitting protective and patient in the hot sun while I tried to summon old shades in the garden of a derelict hotel, for accepting scant meals and distracted conversation, for helping decipher the terminology of steamships and sailing, and unravel such "knotty" problems as whether one ship steaming a certain distance behind another would be able to overtake the first that was within a given distance of port-and most of all for the encouragement and understanding that marks him as that epitome of romance, a southern gentleman.

  Jennifer Blake

  Sweet Brier

  Quitman, Louisiana

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