Titters of delicious horror went around the room this time.
“My daddy says no Yankee is worth his weight in horse manure!” Darcie announced vehemently. “He says they’re all out to make as much money off our hard work as they can, and they’re mostly a bunch of abolitionists to boot! He says we’ll be at war with them before long, and then they’ll get their comeuppance!”
“Darcie Metcalf, you stop it! I want to talk about fun things, like fancy balls and beach parties and men” Amalee insisted. Then she whispered, “Have any of you ever been with a man?”
The girls’ cheeks flushed at Amalee’s brazen question. They giggled nervously at the forbidden thought.
“Betsy,” Amalee prompted, “how about you? You were engaged to Warren Bullock before Jaimie Howard killed him in that dreadful old duel. Did he ever do anything to you?”
Betsy Lattimore’s eyes misted, remembering Warren, gone almost two years now. She shook her head, unable to answer. The girls all murmured their sympathies for her.
“Amalee, dear,” Saralyn spoke for the first time, “that was unkind.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry, Betsy.”
Trying to draw the attention away from Betsy and back to herself, Darcie declared, “My mama says a woman’s lot is to endure. Handsome as my daddy is, she says she’s never allowed herself to feel anything with him except the purest kind of love. Not that she would anyway, you understand. Real ladies don’t! Only whores and white trash and nigger wenches have it in them to enjoy… enjoy… oh, you all know what I mean!”
“Darcie Metcalf! Such language!” Amalee shrieked. “Let’s all say a little prayer for Darcie, girls, that she’ll get a chance someday to find out what category of the aforementioned females she falls into!”
A downy pillow flew from Darcie’s hand to find its mark, striking Amalee with such force that she toppled over on the bed. This was the first shot to begin the battle. Soon, more pillows, sofa bolsters, and all manner of frilly undergarments were flying through the air. Hits and misses alike were greeted by a barrage of squeals and giggles.
At this point, Zalou came bustling in. “You misses stop it this minute!” she ordered. “How you all ’spect Miz Patrick to catch her beauty nap with all this ruckus goin’ on? You all go on to your rooms right now! You hear me?”
Zalou shuffled about picking up strewn bedclothes and garments as the girls filed out.
“Ain’t never seen the like,” she grumbled. “Growed-up young ladies carryin’ on like they was a bunch of yard younguns!”
Amalee closed her eyes and pretended to be sleeping in order to escape an all-out tirade from the disgruntled servant.
It seemed only an instant later, after Zalou departed, that Amalee heard her door opening softly. She squinted one eye to see if the old servant had forgotten something, then sat straight up in bed.
“Jeremy, what are you doing here?”
“Sh-h-h!” he cautioned, holding one finger to his lips.
He glanced quickly down the hail once more before closing the door quietly, but securely. He took a step, stumbled on a chair, and fell onto the bed next to Amalee, moaning softly.
Amalee touched his tousled, auburn curls. “What is it, Jeremy?”
He rolled over to face her. She could see his glassy-eyed expression plainly now. He was drunk!
“Did mama catch you?” she asked in an accusing tone.
Jeremy only groaned in response.
“Well, she ought to! You know better, especially when we’ve got company! You know liquor makes you act queer!”
Jeremy caught his partially clad sister about the waist and buried his face in her lap. “Please, don’t holler on me, Amalee. Mama already did that.”
Amalee realized he was crying softly, and her heart went out to him. Their mother had the ability to inflict true pain with her tongue alone. She cradled his head against her breast and made soothing sounds to him as if he were a hurt child needing comfort.
He relaxed in her arms, closed his eyes, and smiled. “You’re the only one who understands me, sister. Nobody else gives a good goddamn what happens to Jeremy Patrick or how he feels. You love me, don’t you, Amalee?”
His question startled Amalee. She’d never heard her brother speak of love before. She looked down at his boyish face, so calm now and trusting. Slowly, she bent until her lips touched his forehead.
“Yes, Jeremy. I love you,” she whispered. “More than you know.”
She Angered the damp lock of chestnut hair that always rebelled against his brush. Jeremy relaxed with a sigh of contentment as she stroked his forehead.
In a rush of motherly instinct she thought. He looks just like a child—his eyes shut tight, so trustinglike, and the way he parts his lips and breathes through his mouth.
“Lookin’ forward to the beach party tonight, are you?” he asked, not moving or opening his eyes.
“Reckon,” she answered, smoothing her fingers over his temples.
“‘Reckon: she says,” he mimicked, then laughed. “That old prissy Henri’s been tellin’ it around that you’re sweet on him and he’s lookin’ to cover some territory with you tonight. I set him straight though. Told him he’d be spoiling for a fight with me if he laid a finger on my little sister!”
“Jeremy Patrick, that’s not fair! How could you?” Amalee shrilled, shoving his head from her lap. “You and Brandon don’t ask me what I think about your girls. What I do with my beaux is none of your business! And, besides, I’m not your little sister. Mammy Zalou says I’m a whole sixteen minutes older than you. You’ve got no right to be bossing me or Henri around! And he isn’t prissy! He’s refined’.” She fought back angry, hurt tears. Both her brothers were paired off. That left her the odd one out. If Jeremy scared Henri Dupree off, she would be all alone. “And refined is certainly more than anyone can say about your girlfriends!”
Jeremy sat upright and glared at his sister. “Who the hell are you talking about?”
“You pays your money and you takes your pick, as Uncle Custer would say! There’s Fancy for starters—your own blood sister!”
“That’s foulmouthed talk, Amalee. Fancy’s a slave. She doesn’t count—as a sister or a girlfriend. She’s just for practice and biowin’ off steam.”
Jeremy was getting angry. The whiskey’s mellowing effect was wearing off and his head throbbed. How did he let Amalee get him into this sort of discussion in the first place? I’ve told her too damn much about too many things, he thought.
“All right. Never mind Fancy. What about Lilah?” she accused.
“What about Lilah?” he shot back at her, still smarting from the memory of seeing her with Steele Denegal.
“I used to watch when you kissed her behind the com crib. You never kissed me that way, so don’t go trying to tell me it was just ’brotherly affection’!”
“Oh, Lord, Amalee!” he said, rolling his eyes. “We were just younguns then. That doesn’t count either!”
“It counted with me, Jeremy,” she said with a pout. “I cried and cried after I saw you kissing her.”
Jeremy stared at his sister, dumbstruck. She looked on the verge of tears now, just talking about it.
“Oh, Amalee,” he said, holding out his arms to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Heck, you’re my best girl.”
Amalee backed away from him. She was building up a good head of steam, but she hadn’t nearly had her say yet. Her jealousies had mounted with each of Jeremy’s flings over the years and she wasn’t about to let him charm his way out of hearing all she had on her mind.
“Don’t you try to sweet-talk me, Jeremy Patrick! I suppose you’re going to tell me that there’s nothing between you and Darcie Metcalf either! Well, I won’t buy it. I heard what you said to her when we were on the veranda and I know that look on your face.”
“Aw, hell, Amalee! Darcie’s no one special.”
“Then why
did you single her out to meet you on the beach?”
Jeremy felt like his collar was about to strangle him. He’d imagined on occasion that his twin sister could read his thoughts. The accusation in her eyes right now made him wonder if she knew exactly how much pert, little Darcie’s front and back porches got under his skin. God, he wanted a couple of handfuls of that girl!
“Well, Jeremy, don’t just stand there with your face hanging out! Tell me about Darcie!”
Jeremy’s only defense against Amalee when she used their mother’s commanding voice on him was to flare into a rage.
“Hellfire, Amalee, it’s none of your damn business if I meet Darcie or Lilah or Fancy or all three at once down on the beach tonight! You just keep your nose out of my affairs!”
She yelled back, her temper as rampant as his, “You fool with Darcie Metcalf and I swear to you, Jeremy, I’ll make Henri Dupree your brother-in-law so fast it’ll make your head swim!”
He threw back his head and laughed at her loud and long until furious tears flooded her eyes and she wanted to slap his face.
“Stop it! Stop it!” she screamed at him.
“Why don’t you stop it, Amalee? I swear, you’re as silly as all those other girls. You think all you have to do is twitch your bustle and any boy nearby is going to fall over in a dead faint, struck deaf, dumb, and lovesick. Well, I’d bet my best blue-tick hound that Henri Dupree’s so scared right now after the talk I had with him that he’ll run if he sees you coming tonight. My brother-in-law! That’s a good one! Damned if you’ll marry a fellow that talks with a fancy, French lisp and crooks his finger when he holds a cup! He’ll have to get past me first!”
Amalee shoved Jeremy toward the door, so furious she could hardly speak.
“Out! Get out!” she cried.
When he stopped in the doorway and tried to peck her on the cheek, Amalee slapped at him and groped for something terrible enough to say to her brother to relieve her own hurt feelings.
“You so much as speak to Darcie Metcalf tonight and I’m going to tell her you caught the clap from Fancy!”
She didn’t know what the word meant, but she’d heard Jeremy and Brandon whispering it in fearful tones from time to time. The look on her brother’s face told her she’d chosen effectively.
Lilah lay stretched on the bank, feeling the warm-cool play of shadow and sunlight over her body. She sighed and reached for Steele’s hand. No words seemed needed for the two of them to communicate now. They were married in body and spirit, although the formal ceremony would have to wait.
Suddenly, Lilah tensed, her ears attuned to the sounds of danger on the island.
“What is it?” Steele asked.
“I’m not sure,” Lilah answered, reaching for her clothes. “Something’s in the crepe myrtle grove… something or someone. If Uncle Sim caught me here with you…”
She dressed hurriedly, not waiting to finish the unpleasant thought she’d started.
“I suppose it’s time I was getting back, anyway,” Steele replied reluctantly. “Will you come with me tonight to this quaint activity locally called a maroon, Lilah?”
She laughed with only a trace of bitterness. “Oh, Steele, don’t you think I learned my lesson last night? I’m not about to join that group again and give them another chance to make me feel like dirt!”
“But it’s on the beach with only bonfires for light. Who’ll know? We’ll stay as far away from the others as possible.”
While he worked at convincing Lilah with words, his fingers persuaded her in a more subtle fashion as he slowly buttoned her bodice, letting flesh brush flesh from time to time.
Lilah felt dazed, helpless, but, oh, so happy. She offered no resistance when Steele pulled her into his arms and kissed her demandingly.
“Yes,” she whispered when he finally let her go. “Shall I meet you on the beach or will you come to the house for me?”
His tan face smiled all over and he touched her soul with his eyes. “I’ll borrow a buggy from Ames Patrick and come for you. That way we can be assured of having privacy.”
“You seem to have a great deal of experience at this sort of thing,” Lilah replied in a slightly accusing tone.
“All the better, my darling,” he whispered into her hair. “I should have realized…”
“What?” Lilah prompted at his hesitation.
He touched her lips gently before he answered. “I didn’t think about your being a virgin, Lilah.”
She quipped to cover her embarrassment, “A tiresome detail we’ll no longer have to worry about.” She raised on tiptoe, kissed him quickly, then fled off toward the cabin.
“Tonight at sunset, darling,” Steele called after her.
Steele returned to Fortune’s Fancy to find the rotund Oscar Ryan pacing the veranda, his usually baby-pink jowls bright red from the heat.
“Mr. Ryan, is something wrong?”
The man stopped his anxious marching and rushed toward Steele. “Oh, my boy, you’re back at last! We’ve all been wondering where you could have got off to, and then a special mail boat arrived from Savannah, and, well, here!” He thrust a dirty letter posted in Key West into Steele’s hands.
Steele looked at the boldly familiar scrawl on the paper and disgust filled him.
Oscar Ryan, curious to know what connections young Denegal had in the heathen islands to the south, urged, “Well, aren’t you going to open it, my boy? Might be important company business.”
Steele stuffed the letter, unopened, into his shirt pocket. Disappointment showed plainly on Oscar Ryan’s face.
“It’ll keep.” Steele dismissed the subject of the tattered envelope. “Why don’t we see if your sister has something cool to drink in the parlor? You really should get out of this afternoon heat.”
Steele took Oscar Ryan by the elbow and steered him inside. After stationing his balding charge securely between his wife and his sister in the parlor, Steele left to find a private place to open his mail.
His hands trembled and his mouth tasted of bile as he tore open the letter. Silently, he scanned the page.
Key West, Florida
September 10, 1859
Dear Son,
I know you don’t lay claim to me since your dear mother died, but I need your help. And I feel it to be a son’s duty to rescue his own father. The Seadragon was taken off Barbados by a ship from the Navy’s African Squadron last Thursday. They confiscated my cargo, 500 head of slaves, and my vessel. My crew has been sent on to New Orleans for trial. But they say I will be held in this stinking, scorpion-infested sweatbox of a jail for the rest of my life, which will not be long, if you don’t come down here and straighten things out for me. I have no money, even if they set bail. My entire fortune was invested in my ship and cargo.
I ask this favor in your dead mother’s memory. She would not have wanted me to end up this way—dying on this Godforsaken hunk of rock in the middle of nowhere. Come as soon as you can.
Your own father,
Phinias Denegal
“Damn his black soul to hell!” Steele crumpled the letter. “He can rot in that jail for all I care!” But even as he said the words, Steele knew he’d have to help his father. The man had used the one argument he knew his son couldn’t turn away from—his mother’s memory. She wouldn’t have wanted her husband to die in prison, no matter how heinous his crimes.
Steele walked stiffly to the parlor door. He heard the laughter of feminine voices from inside. Several of the young ladies had joined the Ryans and Elizabeth Patrick. He bowed to them and said, “Mrs. Patrick, may I have a word with you in private?”
“Of course, Mr. Denegal.” She smiled at her guests. “Please excuse me. I’ll be back in a moment.”
His face betrayed him, he realized, when Elizabeth Patrick asked with concern, “What is it, Steele? Are you ill?”
He fumbled for a suitable lie. “No, Mrs. Patrick, but my fathe
r is. I’ll have to leave right away. Would it be convenient for Kingdom to take me over to Savannah?”
“Immediately? But you’ll miss the maroon tonight, Steele.”
“I know, ma’am, but it’s rather a desperate situation. I’m sorry.”
She touched his arm in a compassionate gesture. “Of course, Steele. I hope you find your father better. I’ll send Blue over to the landing to tell Kingdom to wait there for you. You’d better hurry, though, or you’ll miss the tide.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Patrick.” Steele watched his hostess return to her other guests. A frown marred his face. He wouldn’t have time to explain his hasty departure to Lilah. He had no idea when he would return to Rainbow Hammock. A message to her would have to serve.
In the library, Steele found paper and pen and quickly wrote a note to Lilah. He’d give it to Kingdom to deliver. He knew the slave would see that she got it.
After packing and saying hasty goodbyes and thank-yous to the Patricks and the Ryans, Steele Denegal left Fortune’s Fancy.
He met Jeremy on the veranda, coming as he was going. Jeremy didn’t smile or return Steele’s greeting, but stared curiously at his leather satchel.
“Going somewhere, Mr. Denegal?” Jeremy asked, grinning suddenly.
“Yes, I’m sorry to say. I’ve been called back to the mainland.”
Jeremy’s green eyes danced with delighted surprise. “I’ll bet you’re mighty sorry to have to up and leave so sudden, especially since you were just getting to know our overseer’s niece so well!”
A thought struck Steele. Wouldn’t it be better, lessen the disappointment and hurt for Lilah, if she received his note from Jeremy rather than from one of the slaves?
“Jeremy, old man, I wonder if you’d do me a favor? I have to catch the boat right now. There’s no time for me to go to Lilah and explain in person why I have to leave. I’ve written her a note.” He pulled the folded paper from his coat pocket. “Would you be good enough to deliver this to Miss Fitzpatrick?”
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