by Sandra Hill
She lowered her lashes with embarrassment, then immediately raised her chin, brazening out his scrutiny. “Oh, no! You don’t get off that easy. I told you not to touch me anymore.”
“I didn’t touch you,” he reminded her with a crooked smile.
“Oh, then that hard thing inside me was my imagination.”
He let out a hoot of amusement. “Harriet, your bluntness is refreshing. And I didn’t touch you until you begged me to.”
“That’s debatable…who begged whom, I mean.”
“Let’s get back to the subject at hand. Why are you with Madam Irene?”
“Well, you see, it’s a long story. Oh, if you must know, she paid my fare.”
Etienne crossed his eyes and ground his teeth. “Harriet, why did a sporting house madam pay your fare? Where’s the money I left you? That was more than enough for a ticket and a suite of cabins.”
She then related a rambling, bizarre, impossible-to-believe story about going to Morgan City with Ellen and Daniel. And somehow losing them there.
He frowned, trying to make sense of her confusing words. “Do you still have the money?”
“Of course. Right here,” she said, patting her waist. “It’s in my panty hose.”
He must have looked as puzzled as he felt because she began to lift the hem of her gown to show him her panty hose. He recognized the silk garment he’d used to tie her hands back on the train, but he’d never imagined its full appeal. The hem of her dress crept higher and higher, exposing more and more of the sheer stockings that went all the way to her waist, where a flat, leather pouch was tied over her hip with a length of ribbon.
He groaned inwardly at the sight of all that transparent silk. “It’s a good thing Madam Irene didn’t know about these stockings. She would have been drumming up trade for you with them, as well as your feather tricks.”
Harriet had the good sense to blush and dropped her gown back in place. “You’re not mad at me anymore, are you, Etienne? I mean, you can understand why I had to come?”
“Oh, I’m still mad.” He let out a loud whoosh of exasperation at the implications of Harriet’s interference. “I knew Pope’s men were setting up a trap. That was the goal of this entire escapade.”
“It was?” She tilted her head in bafflement.
He nodded, disconcerted by a strand of ebony hair that was blowing in the slight breeze, back and forth across her smooth shoulder. She was so damn beautiful.
“Etienne?” she prodded.
Concentrate, Etienne. Concentrate. “Harriet, we think that Pope is an underling in this operation and that the real leader is operating out of Texas. For years, ever since Reconstruction began, corruption in government projects has been rampant. Half of the funds appropriated by Congress never make it to the local level. It’s routine business for officials, North and South, to take their cut of any allocation, from railroads to Freedman’s Bureau. But this is bigger than that, more systematic.”
“And President Grant is afraid to trust even those in his own staff?” she guessed.
“That’s right. It has to be an inside job, probably ex-agents like myself, disgruntled and out for themselves.”
“Sounds like a post—Civil War mafia.”
“Mafia?”
“Ummm…a crime syndicate.”
“I suppose you could call it that.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you saying that you’re deliberately courting danger? That you and Cain are decoys?”
“Exactly. Why do you think we didn’t just take the gold directly to Washington when we recovered it?”
“I guess I didn’t think.”
Now that’s an admission that oughtta be chipped in stone. “We didn’t want just Pope and his lower-level men. By having them follow us, we hope he’ll lead us to the ringleader in Texas.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“What now?” His voice was harsh, but inside Etienne felt like a melting bowl of butter. Dammit, how could the sight of her tears affect him so?
“You’re in danger, and you might get killed.”
He smiled grimly at her concern for his safety. “Maybe, but you won’t be here to witness my sad demise, darlin’. You’ll be long gone, back to your own time. You’re getting off at the next stop in the morning.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No, I’m not, Etienne. I’m in this for the long haul. I can’t leave till you’re safe and sound, back at Bayou Noir.”
“Harriet, don’t you ever give a care for your own safety? Do you always jump before thinking? And who the hell named you my protector? I’ve been taking care of myself for a good many years without your help.”
She winced at his cutting words. “Which one of those questions do you want me to answer?”
“None,” he said with a laugh, pushing himself away from the wall. “Where’s Madam Irene’s room? Let’s get your clothes.”
“We’re staying on the second level,” she said as they moved out onto the walkway again.
“We?” Little alarm bells went off in his head, in part due to the sudden defensive hunching of her shoulders. He was becoming an expert at interpreting her nonverbal communication.
“Well, yes, did I forget to mention…oh, my…didn’t you know that Saralee is with me?”
“I beg your pardon?” he choked out.
Sensing his renewed anger, she inched away from him, but he caught hold of her with a gloved palm latched onto the nape of her neck. Slowly, he drew her closer.
“Etienne, you really do look ridiculous in that makeup. And it’s so politically incorrect. Why, in my time—”
“Shut up, Harriet, and tell me why you brought my daughter on such a dangerous, foolhardy trip.” They were so close, he could feel her breath against his mouth.
“I had to. Blossom was worried, and rightly so. Pope’s men could have come to Bayou Noir and kidnapped Saralee. To get to you.”
“Why the hell didn’t you bring everyone else, too? Even the damn dog?”
“Well, actually,” she began, refusing to make eye contact.
She wouldn’t! “You didn’t!”
“What was I supposed to do? Blossom said she’s too old to take care of a dog, and Saralee wouldn’t come without Lance.”
Lance?
“Besides, you’re the one who gave her the mangy mutt,” she reminded him, “which, incidentally, was the nicest thing you’ve ever done. Saralee adores him…. Why are you glowering again?”
“Harriet, ever since I’ve met you, I’ve been glowering. You have that effect on me.” His hand was still wrapped around the back of her neck, and she stood only inches away from him, looking wounded and vulnerable.
“Etienne,” she said softly, “I missed you.”
Those three words, coming so unexpectedly, were his undoing. They blindsided him with their simple sincerity. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut.
“Hell!” he whispered and hauled her into his arms. Uncaring of his blackface, he buried his fingers, gloves and all, in her hair and kissed her with the madness that consumed him.
“Did you miss me?” she gasped out during the one moment when he let her up for air.
He didn’t answer, but he showed her.
They couldn’t make love. Not here in the open. Not even in the semiprivacy of the alcove where he backed her once again. Harriet would be shuffling off to her own time soon. She would leave him behind. But she would damn well take a few memories with her. He vowed in that instant to make certain she never forgot him, just as he would never forget her.
Sacramento, California
Selene Baptiste had been weeping for more than an hour when her husband James returned from the barns. He’d been helping to deliver a new foal.
“Selene, chérie,” he called out from the front door. “Queen’s Delight has a lovely new daughter.”
“In here, darling,” she answered, dabbing quickly at her eyes with a linen handkerchief. She heard the sharp click of h
is boots as he made his way down the tiled hall of the rambling Spanish-style ranch house.
Entering the library, he held out his arms for her in greeting, as he always did. Twenty-five years of marriage and he still showed his love for her every day, even in the smallest ways. Today, especially, she needed the comfort of his embrace.
Wrapping her arms around his wide shoulders, she hugged him tightly. James pulled back, observing her reddened eyes and nose for the first time. “Selene, sweetheart, what is it? Have you had another argument with Melanie?”
She shook her head mutely. From the back of the house, their youngest daughter could be heard pounding out her piano lessons in discordant rebellion. She was only fifteen years old, but yesterday she’d been suspended from her third boarding school. This time she’d been smoking a cigar.
“What is it then?” James asked, raking his fingers through black hair only lightly salted with gray. He was fifty-nine years old, but he could still make her tremble with a mere glance. Just then, her husband noticed letters on the desk, and the opened one that she’d obviously been reading.
She saw the alarm on James’s face, which he immediately covered with a bullish scowl. “Not from Etienne, I hope. If it is, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know what the foolish miscreant is doing now.” James stomped to the window, staring out blindly, and Selene’s heart ached for his self-inflicted pain. His words meant nothing. She knew—and he knew—that he missed his first son desperately. Finally, James turned back to her. “Just one thing…Is he”—he gulped—“all right?”
“No, James, he’s not all right. And the letter’s not from Etienne. It’s from a woman he met recently—”
“A woman? What’s he done now?”
“A special woman, James. A woman who loves our boy, I think. Come. You have to read this.”
James began to peruse the page reluctantly, standing up. Halfway through the letter, he plopped down into the desk chair and wiped at his eyes.
“Earn my love?” He peered up from the letter. “Do you think I was that judgmental with Etienne? Do you truly think he doubted that I loved him? Ever?”
Selene shrugged. “Did you tell him?”
He thought a moment. “He should have known, without the words.”
“Oh, so you don’t need to hear me say the words to you? They’re understood?”
“That’s different,” he balked.
“Maybe so. And, of course, you feel his affection for you, as well, without those three precious words?”
“Stop manipulating me, Selene.”
“I’m just trying to make you see what you’ve refused to face all these years.”
“I do love him,” he said, and his voice cracked. He swallowed hard several times to control himself. “That boy has done more things to make me furious, practically from the time he came flailing from the womb, but not once, never, did I stop loving him.”
“Too bad he doesn’t know that.” Selene felt as if a heavy weight were being lifted from her shoulders. Finally, James appeared to be melting toward his son. “You’d better read the rest. And maybe you should have a drink first.”
James gave her a measuring frown before resuming his reading. Selene walked over to the sideboard and poured not one, but two tumblers of bourbon.
James gasped. “She’s from the future? Like you?”
Selene handed him his drink and began to sip hers. “It would seem so. And it’s really ironic, too, because it was one of her books that prompted me to give up modeling.”
He laughed then. “And dumb-men jokes! This is priceless. I wish I could have seen Etienne’s face the first time he heard one of those riddles—” He stopped himself, realizing what he’d just said. He’d actually voiced aloud what he’d been yearning for all these years: He would like to see his son’s face.
“There’s more, James,” Selene said, pointing to the rest of the long letter.
James took a long swallow of the potent liquor before he continued. “I don’t understand half of what this woman says. Body language. Psychologist.” He inhaled sharply, and Selene knew he’d gotten to the part where Harriet mentioned Etienne’s child. He put his head in his hands for a moment, trying to digest the monumental revelation. She’d felt the same way the first time she read the letter. “A granddaughter? A child of Etienne’s and she’s been staying alone at that decrepit old plantation? With only Blossom for company?”
She walked behind the desk and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “He didn’t know, James. Don’t judge him too harshly.”
He raised his head and scrutinized her with sadness. “Even you, Selene…even you blame me for this separation? Even you think it’s my narrow-minded pride that has kept this feud going?”
“Oh, no, honey! You and Etienne share the same stubbornness. And maybe I’m at fault, too, for not having acted. Why should it have taken a stranger to solve our family crisis?”
“I’m not sure I can take any more shocks today,” James said, even as he picked up the letter again. His eyes flashed indignantly a moment later. “Is she saying I have a ‘perfection syndrome’? Me?”
Selene smiled. “Hey, she accuses me of the same thing. But, you know something, James, I like this woman. She appears strong and opinionated and caring. I think she would be just the kind of woman Etienne needs.”
“She says she’s going back to her time.”
Selene tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Who knows what will happen?”
James stared bleakly at her then. “Etienne is in grave danger. I can sense it most in what this woman leaves unsaid.”
Selene nodded and sat down in her husband’s lap.
“We’re going back, aren’t we?” he said as he drew her closer and nuzzled her neck.
“I’ve already started Iris packing. And you should hear the threats she’s making against Abel.”
“Because of this new woman that Harriet alluded to in the letter? Who is Xaviera Hollander, by the way?”
“A madam.”
“Oh, good Lord!”
She and James exchanged a rueful glance. Cain and Abel were notorious for their women.
“What of the children?” James asked.
“They’ll come, too. Rufus and Iris, as well. And Reba.”
“All of them? And their families?” His blue eyes widened with incredulity. She and James had five grown children, including Etienne. Two spouses. And two grandchildren…no, three now.
“Ashley is on his way to Los Angeles now to make arrangements for a private railway car. You know the children have always wanted to see the bayou.”
James’s face turned solemn. “I can’t believe it. After all these years, after all my threats never to return, we’re going back to Bayou Noir.”
“Yes,” Selene said brightly. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
A slow smile crept across James’s lips. “Do you think the herons are still there?”
Franklin, Louisiana
Seven days after being reunited with Harriet on the steamboat, the blind minister, Rev. Hiram Frogash, was sitting on the high bench seat of a buckboard being driven by his servant, Hippocrates Jones.
They had headed out of Lafayette that morning, joining a group named the Good Faith of Babylon Church. The congregation intended to form a new settlement in West Texas that they’d already named Nineveh. The Babylons, as they called themselves, were led by Nebuchadnezzar Lezzer, who stemmed from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the flakiest preacher in the universe. Flaky was a word Harriet had taught him. It meant driving with two bales short of a full load of cotton. Like Harriet.
In his role as the Reverend Frogash, Etienne wore dark spectacles, carried a cane and had his hair parted down the center. The last was a touch much favored by his primly gowned wife, Harriet Frogash, who drove the other wagon. She had an odd fascination with men who wore glasses, especially when they took them off—a weakness he intended to take advantage of soon.
“This is just like Sweet Sa
vage Love. Steve and Ginny were on a wagon train going west, too,” she called over to him.
“I have news for you. honey.” he answered in a loud, carrying voice. None of the other wagons were close enough to overhear. “This sorry line of decrepit carts is a far cry from a wagon train. And the only west we’re headed for is the other side of the border into Texas.”
On the other hand, her allusion to that blasted book recalled to him an earlier conversation in which she’d mentioned that Steve Morgan had forcefully seduced Ginny Brandon under a wagon bed.
Now that held some appeal. Though he’d much prefer a soft mattress in a hotel, he thought as his rear slammed the wood with a thunk. That must be the hundredth rut Cain had hit today. He glared at his friend. “Did you do that deliberately?”
Cain grinned. “I could tell what you were thinking. You needed a jolt before you forgot your blindness and leapfrogged over into Harriet’s lap.”
He glanced at Harriet, barely visible through his dark lenses. Wearing a sedate calico gown and a poke bonnet he’d bought for her, she was seated next to his daughter Saralee Frogash and Lance Frogash, the newest additions to his happy family. Saralee was pretending to be an angel today, wearing an old nightgown, a halo made of goldenrods and wings improvised out of giant elephant-ear leaves.
Sacrebleu!
He was worried about Harriet and Saralee. They didn’t know it, but once they hit Texas, the two of them, along with the cur that was trying its damnedest to impregnate every dog within barking distance, were boarding a steamboat from Galveston to New Orleans. He’d rather see Harriet and Saralee riding out this dangerous situation in a brothel than take a chance on their being hurt—or worse—in Texas.
The wagon hit another rut, this time a big one, and Etienne actually rose in the air before coming down hard. “Damn, I hope our cargo holds up better than my backside.” Both wagons carried a dozen crates of “Bibles” that had been transferred from the music cases in Franklin seven days ago when the captain of the Southern Star evicted the entire minstrel group, as well as Madam Irene’s contingent of whores, for “disruption of the peace and respectability” of his passengers.
