“A fine plan, madame,” the officer agreed. Then he tipped his hat and left.
Cami sent Pierre off to his room in the charge of Vic’s manservant, with orders not to let the boy out of his sight until she had things packed up and ready to go. Then she went to tell Vic the news, dreading his reaction all the while. She had tried before to convince Vic that they would all be better off in the country. But he absolutely refused to go to her plantation—simply because it was hers. Such stubborn male pride she had never seen!
The problem was that Vic was strong enough to argue now, but still too weak for Cami to feel comfortable taking a stand against him. Any upset, she felt, could do him grave harm. But now she must face that risk. With the heat and the illness and Pierre’s misbehavior, their only answer was to get out of the city.
When she entered Vic’s bedroom, a wave of longing swept through her. This chamber had been the scene of so much happiness, so much love in the past. Not since the night before the duel, however, had Vic held her and loved her. Now she occupied the bedroom down the hall. She had told Vic she would stay there only until he felt well enough to share his bed once more. In Cami’s opinion, he was well enough now. Still, he had yet to invite her back.
Vic turned his head when he heard her footsteps. “Who was that at the door?”
“A friend of Pierre’s, darling.” She told herself that she wasn’t lying to him, only twisting the truth a bit to save his feelings.
“Where is the boy?” Vic asked. “He hasn’t come in to say good morning yet.”
“He’s in his room, probably sleeping. Vic, there’s something I must tell you. And you needn’t try to argue with me. I’ll hear no further protests on this point. We are going to Elysian Fields today. Your doctor thinks you will recover more quickly in the country, and it will be grand for Pierre. He can begin learning how to run a plantation.”
“Cami, how many times must I tell you that I can’t live on your charity?”
“It is hardly charity, Vic. I need to get back and make sure everything there is being properly taken care of.”
Vic scowled at her. “Then go! What’s keeping you?”
“I love you!” she snapped. “That’s what’s keeping me.” She sighed, and made an effort to soften her tone. “Oh, Vic, listen to us. We’re at each other’s throats night and day. You don’t seem to be getting any better and I’m almost ill with fatigue. Pierre is causing trouble…”
Vic half-rose, then grimaced with pain. “What kind of trouble? Why haven’t I been told of this before?”
Cami wanted to bite her tongue off. She’d blurted the words out without thinking. “Only minor scrapes so far, but he’s running with a bad group, darling. Older boys who have been in trouble with the law. We must get him away before it’s too late.”
“By damn, I’ll tend to this…”
Cami pressed Vic gently back down to his pillows. “You’ll do nothing of the sort!” she commanded. “You will stay right there and rest and get well. You must, Vic, for all our sakes.”
Cami paused, pondering her dilemma. She still hadn’t told Vic that she was carrying his child. She’d hoped that the perfect time would arise; however, their days together seemed anything but perfect of late. She looked straight into his eyes, her own brimming with sudden tears. This news could wait no longer.
“There’s another reason we must go, Vic. Perhaps the most important reason, at least to me. I’m going to have your child and I’d like the baby to be born at Elysian Fields as I was.”
Black Vic’s mouth had been open already to argue the point, but her words stopped him cold. His harsh features softened. His own eyes went moist. “A child?” he whispered. “A baby? You’re going to have a baby—mine?”
Eagerly, Vic reached out to her. Just as eagerly, Cami flew into his arms, letting her tears flow freely. Through her soft little sobs, a laugh erupted. “Whose else might it be?”
Vic cuddled her gently in the curve of his good arm and sought her lips. Cami felt her whole body tingle at his touch, his kiss. Not since before the duel had he exhibited such tenderness. It was as if they had both held their passions in check for so long that, pent up, their longing had built to almost unbearable heights. His tongue stroked hers lazily as his hand groped through wrapper and nightshift to find her breasts. Cami moaned softly into his open mouth when she felt her nipples rise to meet his touch.
“Oh, my little love,” Vic rasped. “If only I could have you this minute. I ache for you so. Needing you pains me far worse than this hole in my chest.”
“We dare not!” Cami warned. “The doctor said you must lie very still for fear of reopening the wound.”
Vic sighed and shifted her until his lips touched one erect nipple. He settled with his eyes closed, suckling gently. At the same time, his hand slid under her gown and between her thighs. His slow, loving strokes sent a delicious tremor through Cami.
As her own pleasure built, Cami glanced down at the sheet—now a perfect tent over Vic’s lower body. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, at the same time letting her hand steal under the covers. A moment later, her fingers wrapped his heat in their cool, tender touch. Silence fell in the room. Even as Vic’s gentle strokes brought Cami to the heights, her tender caresses pleasured him, soothed him, and, at length, brought Vic his long-craved release. They lay still for a moment afterward, then she leaned down to kiss him as he had kissed her a short time before.
“Rest now, my darling,” she whispered, smiling as she rose from the bed. “I must go and make ready for our trip.”
Vic’s eyes were closed. Cami’s patient was sleeping peacefully by the time she tiptoed from the room.
Cami had caught only a glimpse of Carol and Frank. It seemed to her that these phantoms of her mind were simply that. Perhaps her anxiety over the duel had caused them to appear, then disappear almost as quickly. She could never have guessed what Carol had been through—what Carol knew about the things Cami herself would soon be forced to face.
Although it seemed that Carol and Frank vanished effortlessly from Jackson Square on the afternoon of March 4, 1992, the way back to September 30, 1840, was long and treacherous.
As Carol lay over Frank to keep the crowd from crushing him in their panic—willing them both to travel back through time—the woman in the red tignon appeared beside them.
“Choctaw awaits!” she said, then vanished into the crowd.
In that instant, Carol and Frank vanished, too, leaving only a pool of his blood at the site. But they did not go immediately back to the scene of the duel. When Carol opened her eyes, she was in Choctaw’s pirogue. Frank lay in the bottom of the boat, deathly pale, gasping for breath.
Would they make it back in time to save him? Carol could only pray that they would.
“Please, we’ve got to hurry!” she urged Choctaw.
The man’s lined face remained impassive. He poled the boat slowly, too slowly.
“You go back to bad times,” Choctaw said at length.
“Bad times?” Carol cried. “Frank’s dying! Look at him! How much worse could it get?”
Choctaw left the river, following a bayou that snaked through dense swamp.
“Where are you going?” Carol shrieked. “This isn’t the way!”
“You know the way?” Choctaw asked. “Me, I don’t think so. You got to travel slow, watch the signs, make the right turns. Otherwise, you lost, lady. Lost and damned!”
His last words sent a chill through Carol. She stopped trying to reason with him. What good would it do? She’d already loused things up by coming back to the present, by letting the guy with the tattoo shoot Frank. It was all her fault. All of it!
“The guilt, she not yours,” Choctaw said, reading her thoughts. “Blame goes back years, generations, to beginning of time. You watch. You listen. You know.”
The well-remembered beam of light settled in over a dark spot in the swamp. Again, Carol saw a grand plantation—not Mulgrove—an e
ven finer home. Elysian Fields! Yes, she recognized it now.
She saw a man on the gallery. His left arm was in a sling tied around his neck. Beside him on a table sat a decanter, half-empty. Removing the crystal stopper, he poured himself another drink and tossed it down. His head lolled forward on his chest. His hand dropped and the glass hit the floor and shattered. He was obviously drunk. Carol recognized him suddenly—Black Vic Navar.
Cami came out on the porch. Although she wore a full apron over her gray-blue frock, Carol guessed by the fullness of her face, the high color in her cheeks, and the sparkle of her indigo eyes that Cami was pregnant. She glanced over at Vic, shook her head, then wiped away a tear with the corner of her apron.
“Miz Cami! Come quick, Miz Cami!” A black man in a tattered straw hat came racing around the side of the house.
“What is it, Jem?”
“Young Marse Pierre! He done took off to the swamp on that crazy horse, Voodoo. Said he was gone find Lafitte’s treasure so he could buy back his papa’s plantation for him. I tried to stop him, ma’am, but he got clean away.”
“Mother of God!” Cami half-swore, half-prayed. Voodoo had not mellowed with age. Even Cami found him all but impossible to ride nowadays. And the thought of Pierre at the mercy of the wild stallion chilled her blood.
“Gather up some of the men and meet me at the barn,” she called. “I’ll be right there.”
Cami didn’t take time to change clothes before she raced to the barn to organize a search party. For once, she was glad Vic had drunk himself into a stupor. Maybe by the time he came around, she’d have Pierre back, safe and sound. Why had she told the boy all those tales about the treasure? If anything happened to him, it was all her fault.
The light in the swamp faded just as Cami and the men set off to search.
Carol roused herself, checked Frank. He was still breathing, just barely. Then she turned on Choctaw.
“Why do you always do this to me? What happened? Is Pierre all right? Why is Vic drinking so much? And Cami, she’s pregnant, isn’t she? She shouldn’t be dashing off into the swamp.”
“Think, you!” Choctaw ordered, his dark eyes boring into Carol.
She forced herself to stop and think. And what came to mind sent shivers through her. This was it—the beginning of the end.
“No, it can’t end this way!” she cried—furious and frightened and half-crazy with grief.
“It can and it will, unless…”
“Unless what? Tell me, Choctaw!”
He only stared straight ahead and whispered, “You know. Think and you know.”
Carol strained to clear the jumble of doubts cluttering her brain. “All right… all right,” she muttered. “Yes. I do know what’s going to happen. Cami’s going into that swamp to find Pierre. But she won’t be able to save him, will she? The snakebite. Cami’s going to die in there—Cami and her unborn child. Pierre, too. All of them. Then there’s Black Vic. He’s drinking because he can’t stand being useless. Until his wound heals, all he can do is let Cami take care of him and Pierre and Elysian Fields. So he drinks to forget, to get away from the mess he’s made of his life.” Carol stopped suddenly and looked up at Choctaw. “She is pregnant, isn’t she?”
He nodded. “Poor little Janie!” he moaned.
Carol’s eyes misted as she remembered the small, sad voice. “Yes, poor little Janie. She’ll never be born, will she? That’s why she keeps calling to me. I have to be there to save her mother… to save Janie and give her a chance at life. Otherwise, she’ll remain inside her mother—inside that awful mummy from the swamp. I must help them. But how? You take us back, Choctaw! Now!”
She glanced up at him, her eyes pleading. He was shaking his head slowly, sadly.
“You can’t let this happen!” Carol cried. She felt Frank’s pulse. It was weak and uneven. There wasn’t much time left. “Not to them and not to us. You take us back now, Choctaw. Right this minute!”
“You think you can change things?” he asked in a mocking tone.
“I know I can!” Carol insisted, a wild light in her green eyes.
She gripped Frank’s hand, holding him tightly. She must not let him slip away. And above all else, when they went back in time, they must go together.
“It’s our only hope,” she murmured. “Cami and Vic’s only hope!”
A bright white light blinded her, then all was blackness.
When next she saw light, it was through Camille Mazaret’s indigo eyes.
Chapter Twenty One
Cami took a deep breath, marveling at the sweet scent of the land—her land. She could almost taste the spicy flavor of autumn in the air. October, she thought, was her favorite month at Elysian Fields. She laughed softly. Every month would be her favorite from now on. She glanced over at Vic—so handsome and tall in the saddle—and reached for his hand.
“Are you tired, my darling?” she asked. “We could turn back.”
He brought her gloved fingers to his lips, kissed their tips, then smiled. “Tired? The only thing I’m tired of is resting. God, I hope I never see another bed!”
“Really?” she asked flirtatiously.
Vic reined his horse closer to hers and leaned over to give her a long, deep kiss. His dark eyes half-closed, he said in a husky voice, “Yes, really! We don’t need a bed, little love. I find the couch in the library quite comfy. The rug by my fireplace as well. And lately I’ve been eyeing the hammock on the back gallery with no small amount of speculation.”
“Oh, you!” Cami cried, feeling her cheeks flush. They had, indeed, made love recently on both the library couch and the bedroom rug. So how was she to know that he was joking about the hammock?
Every day now, Cami could see more improvement in Vic. And with his restored health came a restored appetite as well—for mountains of food and for Cami. It seemed he could never get enough of her these days. Mind you, she wasn’t complaining. She’d never been so happy!
As they rode through the oaks toward the river, Cami let her thoughts drift to the months ahead. With the baby due in March, she and Vic had decided to stay on at Elysian Fields for the winter rather than returning to New Orleans for the excitement and whirl of the social season. They would be married in a few days, as soon as the priest Vic had sent for arrived. There was a small parish chapel nearby. It would be less showy than a St. Louis Cathedral wedding, but far more intimate and to their liking.
“We’ll honeymoon right here, if that’s all right with you, my love.” Vic’s suggestion had been more than all right with Cami. He’d gone on to explain the rest of his plans. “I still refuse to live on a woman’s dole, even if she is my wife. So I figure on sending that lazy overseer of yours packing. I’ll take over his duties and run the place as it should be handled.”
“But, Vic, that will be so much work for you,” she’d protested.
He’d only grinned and said, “Don’t worry! I mean to put myself on your payroll, dearest. My portion of the profits will go into a special account in the Bank of New Orleans. In time, I mean to purchase not only Golden Oaks, but the land that lies between our two plantations. By the time Pierre is ready to take over, we’ll own the largest sugar-producing holdings in all the area. Our children will be rich, Cami!”
“That will be nice for them,” she replied. “I only hope they will also be happy—as happy as we are.”
And happy they were. Vic thrived on the country air. As for rascally young Pierre, he was a new person—all eagerness and excitement. He loved the house, the land, the open space. He had grown self-assured in the past month. He rode like the wind, fished like a Cajun, shot like a sharpshooter, and never ceased to amaze and amuse Cami and Vic with his vivid imagination and boundless energy. More than anything else, Pierre loved to sit on the gallery in the evening with Cami and his father and listen to her tell tales of her childhood days. She would always leave Lafitte’s treasure for last, until Pierre demanded, “Now, about this pirate and his buried gold, Ca
mi. Exactly where did you say your papa found that chest?”
Cami would oblige the lad, telling the tale over and over until Vic finally refused to listen any longer. He would rise from his chair with a pointed yawn and say, “Time to turn in, don’t you think?”
First finishing her story for Pierre, Cami would then follow Vic up to the large, airy room they shared. He would be patiently waiting for her—his dark eyes bright with love. Sometimes they would share a glass of brandy before bedtime. More nights than not, it seemed, they ended the evening with sweet, tender love-making. Their hunger for each other seemed simply insatiable, their passion limitless.
“Looks like we’re about to get wet,” Vic warned, calling Cami back from her pleasant musings. She glanced up at the sky to see a boiling, purple thunderhead.
“My word, what a cloud!” she cried. “I’ll race you back.”
Vic caught her reins and, pulling a serious face, shook his head. “Oh no, you won’t! No more racing in your condition, my fine lady.”
Cami giggled and blushed. She felt more girl than lady these days. When Vic, on occasion, was forced to remind her that she was with child, she always found that reminder both thrilling and embarrassing. To think that she and the awesome, evil-looking Black Vic Navar had done those shocking things Fiona had explained to her in order to put her in this condition! She should have guessed he would wind up seducing her from that first night she laid eyes on him, the night of the ball at Mulgrove.
“How time flies!” she mused aloud. “And how long ago it seems, back to the time before I knew you.”
Vic glanced at her, his face serious, a loving light in his hot, dark eyes. “I think I’ve always known you, Cami. There was never a time when you weren’t a part of me and I a part of you.”
His words brought tears to her eyes—warm, soft, happy tears.
“Oh, my darling…” she whispered, too choked with emotion to say all she longed to tell him. She loved this man so deeply.
A moment later, the threatening cloud overhead opened up. The house was still some distance away so they headed instead for the barn. Seeing no slaves about, Vic leaped down and opened the door for Cami to ride in. By the time they were inside, with the door closed against the storm, they were both soaked to the skin.
Whispers in Time Page 36
