They both floated from the steps and followed Annette. Basil glanced back once and saw Fitzroy leave the drawing room. He came down the hall behind them, his movements as furtive as Annette’s.
Annette exited through the rear doorway and crossed the back veranda. She headed directly toward the stables, holding her evening gown up above her ankles to avoid the soaked grass. As she entered the stables, Basil saw Fitzroy pause on the back veranda to light a cigar, a crafty look on his face.
“We need to read what they’re thinking ...”
Sylvia interrupted him by pulling him with her into the stables. Several lanterns hung around, and Cole Dubose emerged from a stall and shut the stall door. Annette raced up to him and flung herself into his arms.
“Cole! Oh, darling, please. Just give me a few minutes to talk to you!”
Cole unwound her arms from his neck and pushed her away. “Annette, we haven’t had anythin’ to talk about for years. Go on back to the party.”
“You don’t know how wretched I’ve been,” Annette said in a pleading voice. “All my husband cares about is that damned plantation I brought him when he married me. Cole, give me a chance.”
“If you’re tryin’ to tell me you’re sleepin’ in a lonely bed,” Cole said, “you better remember how easily I’ve always seen through your lies. You and Fitzroy are the talk of St. Francisville.”
“He’s got business with my husband!” Annette stamped her foot and then tried to cling to him again.
Cole avoided her easily and started past her. “Yeah, and pigs fly.”
Annette screeched in rage and flew after him. Tripping on her long skirt, she stumbled into his back and Cole swung around to catch her. Off balance himself, he couldn’t stop them both from falling into a pile of hay. Her gown tore with a loud rip.
Instead of continuing to scream at him, Annette grabbed Cole’s face and rained kisses on it. She wrapped her legs around him and tried to hold him to her, when he snorted in revulsion. Finally, Cole managed to untangle himself and stand.
“Damn it, Cole,” Annette whined. “You didn’t used to pull away from me.”
Cole slowly ran a hand across his mouth, as though wiping away something repugnant, and turned. Annette scrambled up and lunged for the pitchfork stuck nearby. Hissing in fury, she went after him.
Sylvia tried desperately to focus on the pitchfork, but it continued its path as Annette swung it over her head, aimed at Cole. At the last instant, Cole seemed to sense something, but before he could turn, the heavy metal base crunched down on his head. He crumbled without even a groan.
Annette threw the pitchfork aside and clapped her hands over her mouth. Fitzroy stepped into the deadly silence of the barn and her eyes flew to him. Dropping his cigar, he ground it carefully under his boot.
“We wouldn’t want to burn the barn down, now would we, Annette?” he said in a calm voice. “Or would you rather we destroy the evidence?”
“Evan.” Annette stretched out her hands. “Evan, I ... he accosted me. I held him off, but I lost my temper when I finally managed to get free of him. I ... hit him.”
“I can see that you hit him, but I don’t believe a damned word about why you did it. I’ve been standing out there listening to you. Is he dead?”
“Evan! I didn’t know you were there. It wasn’t what it sounded like.”
“Shut up, Annette. I know all about your ... ah ... shall we be polite and call them indiscretions? The men in the parish know you extremely well. And I’m also aware that your husband is in New Orleans visiting his mistress, not just on business. You’re quite the actress, though, my dear, and extremely good between the sheets. We might still come to some sort of agreement about getting rid of that husband of yours and allowing you a modicum of freedom again, if you play your cards right here. Now, is Dubose dead?”
“I ... don’t know.”
A squeal split the air, and Tiny wiggled through a loose board in the stall where he’d been staying with Black. Snuffling, he trotted toward Annette, but she grabbed her skirts and backed away. Tiny continued on to Cole and stopped by the fallen man’s head, grunting and sniffing at Cole’s ear. Cole never moved, but Fitzroy rushed forward and kicked Tiny viciously.
“Get the hell out of here, pig!” he snarled.
Tiny squealed in pain and disappeared back into the stall. Fitzroy stepped outside the door, then suddenly rushed back in to grab Annette and drag her to the doorway. “You listen to me, you whoring bitch,” he snapped. “They’ll hang you for murder unless you go along with me. And we can get St. Clair out of the way, too—or at least abolish any influence he has left over the people around here.”
He grabbed Annette’s dress and ripped it down the front. Then he slapped her, wrenching her head to the side. Her scream of pain, intermingled with outrage, drew the attention of Tana and Little Jim, who were walking toward the manor house.
“Oh, no,” Sylvia breathed.
“Stop him!” Basil demanded. “Don’t let this happen!”
“I can’t stop it,” Sylvia murmured. “The events will have to be played out on their own.”
“Well, I’m sure as heck going to do something!” Basil flew at Fitzroy, but crashed into an invisible barrier. He picked himself up and started off again, but Sylvia laid a hand on his arm. “You can’t interfere, Basil. You might as well give it up.”
Basil glared at her, then struck the barrier with his fist. At least he could watch—and hear, both the words spoken and the unspoken thoughts.
“Scream again!” Fitzroy ordered Annette. “Loud.” When she hesitated, he drew back his hand again. Annette screamed as though her dress were on fire.
Tana turned to Little Jim and pushed him away. “Run!” she cried. “Run, and do not go to the cabin! Go!”
“Mama?” Little Jim asked. “But why, Mama?”
“Go!”
Tana shoved him just as one of the doors on the back veranda opened and several guests ran out, drawn by Annette’s scream. Little Jim lumbered off, but Fitzroy’s roar split the air.
“Catch him! He tried to rape Mrs. Escott! And he killed Dubose when he tried to stop him!”
Little Jim whirled in confusion. “No!” he cried. “No, I didn’t. Mama!”
Several of the men on the back veranda ran into the yard, and Little Jim turned and tried to flee once more. His clumsy legs only carried him a few feet before the men caught him. Little Jim struggled mightily, all the while calling for his mother, but the men wrestled him to the ground. When Tana tried to intervene, one of the men dragged her away.
Shain elbowed his way through the crowd, with Alaynia right behind him carrying a lantern she’d grabbed from the back veranda.
“What the hell’s going on?” Shain demanded, as Alaynia held the lantern high.
Fitzroy shoved Annette into the lantern light, where she hung her head and bit her bottom lip. “That black bastard tried to rape Mrs. Escott,” he said in a blunt voice. “I heard her first scream when I was out on the veranda having a cigar. Dubose must have heard her, too, because by the time I got to the barn, he was lying on the floor dead. What kind of man are you, St. Clair—sheltering a rapist on your plantation?”
The lantern shook in Alaynia’s hand, and she turned a pleading look on Shain. “Shain, he must be lying.”
But her voice was drowned in the outraged shouts from the men and women gathered around. Before Shain could stop them, they surged forward, and the men holding Little Jim dragged him to his feet and pulled him toward a large cypress tree. A man ran up with a rope.
“He’s right,” the man yelled. “I saw Dubose lying on the barn floor when I went in to find this rope. His head’s caved in.” He tossed the rope over a tree limb. “Let’s hang the son of a bitch before he kills someone else or tries to lay a hand on another white woman!”
Tana screamed, then sobbed and begged for them to leave her son alone. Dropping the lantern, Alaynia flew to her side and slapped the man holding her.
He lost his grip, but when Tana tried to go to Little Jim, two more men caught her. Suddenly Shain appeared beside Little Jim. He swung his fist at one of the men holding the frightened giant, and the man crumbled to the ground. Without hesitating, Shain rammed his fist into the stomach of another man, then landed a blow on the face of a third man, who didn’t back off soon enough. The man’s nose broke with an audible crack.
Shain faced the crowd as Little Jim sank to the ground sobbing. “Let go of her,” he said in a deadly voice directed at the men holding Tana. They defied him for a second, then dropped their hold. Tana surged forward and knelt to wrap her arms around her son. Alaynia planted herself in front of the pair, her eyes defying anyone to come near them and her fingers knotted into fists at her side.
“Chenaie’s my land,” Shain continued, and the crowd quieted to hear him. “There’ll be no lynching here. We’ll let the authorities handle investigating what’s happened.”
“Don’t listen to him!” Fitzroy shouldered his way forward, dragging Annette with him and turning to face the crowd, but staying well out of Shain’s reach. “What kind of men are you? That bastard tried to rape a white woman—and he killed a white man! Are you going to let him get away with it? Tell them, Annette! Listen to her, people.”
Annette stared frenziedly at the gathered people. Finally she glanced at Fitzroy and removed her hand from the shoulder of her dress. The material fell away, baring her chemise to everyone. She lifted one hand and pointed at Little Jim, then dropped her head.
The crowd surged forward only one step. Shain calmly leveled the pistol, which he’d retrieved from his study when he heard the initial scream, at Fitzroy. “You’ll be the first one,” he said in a lethal voice, continuing to the crowd at large. “Do you want me to kill your money machine here? I suppose the timber company will send another man, but it might take a while. Any of you waiting on payments from him?”
The crowd quieted once again, slipping sideways looks at each other. Shain kept his pistol leveled at Fitzroy, while he said, “I haven’t had a chance to tell any of you this, but you need to go out to Jake’s tomorrow when it’s light and see what the timber company’s disregard for our land has done. Without the trees for protection, the land eroded so badly in the rain that we had a mudslide, which destroyed Jake’s barn. He and my wife were almost caught in it.”
The crowd gasped, and here and there renewed, angry mutters began, now directed at Fitzroy. Many of them were fully aware of what erosion could do to their property. The land was their livelihood—their sustenance.
Shain raised his voice to keep their attention. “Jake’s lying up in one of Chenaie’s bedrooms right now, near death because the destruction of his barn and all his life’s work brought on a heart attack. The reason Tana and Little Jim are here is for Tana to check on Jake—not for her son to ...” He tossed Annette a sneer. “Not to attack a woman who’s been known to need very little persuasion to spread her legs willingly.”
Annette pulled her bodice up around her and glared at him, but Shain turned from her with a sneer of contempt. “And just the other night,” he continued, “we found out that even Chenaie’s lands are at risk from this eradication of the timber without regard to what will happen afterwards. The unchecked runoff nearly caused a flood here—and only my wife’s quick thinking prevented it.” He gave Alaynia a brief, loving smile. “Otherwise, a lot of people might have drowned—including some women and children.”
The mutters in the crowed grew in force, with people glancing worriedly at each other. Shain again cut them off. “The party’s over. Everyone get out of here, and we’ll let the sheriff look into this tomorrow.”
“You can’t let him protect a murderer,” Fitzroy blustered. “Get back here! There’s only one of him. He won’t shoot me—they’d hang him, too!”
Jeannie raced around the edge of the crowd and flung herself into Alaynia’s arms. “Alaynia,” she cried. “Cole’s still alive. Please! We have to help him!”
Alaynia held the hysterical girl tight as Shain shoved the pistol into his frock coat pocket and faced the crowd weaponless. “There’s a witness now. Is there any one of you who won’t agree that we need to hear the whole story before we hang a man without giving him a chance to defend himself? Could any of you live with yourselves, if you found out you’d hung the wrong man?”
Two of the men broke away and walked over to Alaynia. “You need some help getting Dubose into the house, ma’am?” one said. Shain carefully watched the rest of the people mill around aimlessly as Alaynia and Jeannie hurried off with the men. Finally, Madame Chantal walked over to Tana, kneeling by her side and placing an arm around her shoulders.
“You helped me that time I was having those horrible stomach pains,” she murmured. “Please. Let me help you now.” With shameful looks on their faces, three other women approached the small group. They knelt beside Little Jim with no regard for their fine evening wear.
Shain started for the barn, while Basil glowered at Fitzroy and Annette, who were surreptitiously making their way around the side of the manor house to where the buggies were parked. Fitzroy shoved Annette into the buggy, then climbed in and picked up the whip.
“What do you think he’ll do now?” Basil asked Sylvia.
“I don’t know,” Sylvia replied. “Probably, they’ll let the authorities deal with him after they get a chance to talk to Cole. I can’t bother with him right now. My place is here with Cole. I need to see if Tana will need my help as she nurses him. Look, she’s getting control of herself. Madame Chantal’s taking care of Little Jim, so Tana can see if she can do anything for Cole.”
The men carried Cole toward the manor house on a makeshift litter, and Tana grabbed her bag and hurried after them. Madame Chantal’s minute body looked incongruous beside the huge height of Little Jim, but she reached up and patted his face, her orange hair wobbling as she nodded her head and spoke reassuringly to him. “Your mama will be near, petite. Come. We will sit and wait for her in the rocking chair over there, and you can tell me all about yourself.”
She slipped her arm through his and started to lead him to the back veranda, and one of the other women with them stifled a gasp. Little Jim glanced down, then reached to pick something up from the ground. Madame Chantal grabbed it from him, holding the voodoo doll distastefully at arm’s length.
“What is this?” she asked.
“That man gave it to me,” Little Jim replied. “The one who was so mean to me and said I hurt Mister Cole. I saw him in the woods one day, and he said it would bring me good luck. But I don’t want it now. He’s a bad man! He lies!”
“We’ll get rid of it, dear,” Madame Chantal soothed as she urged him across the yard.
“I’m going after Fitzroy,” Basil growled. “He’s not going to get away with this—or Annette, either.”
“Basil.” The ghost halted when he caught the concerned tone of Sylvia’s voice. “I wish you’d go try to get Zeke to come over here,” Sylvia continued. “Without frightening him, of course. I think Jake needs to say something to him.”
“You mean ... ?”
“Before morning, for sure,” Sylvia said calmly.
Chapter 28
In the privacy of their bedroom, Alaynia clung to Shain. Being in his arms again was the most wonderful feeling in the world amidst the turmoil of the past hour, and she soaked in the comfort of his embrace and consoling words.
“I love you, darling,” Shain murmured. “When all of this is over, I’m going to show you just how much I care. We’ll work everything out.”
“I was so proud of you,” Alaynia said, pulling back in his arms to stroke his face. “No one could have handled that crowd so well. You were basically alone against all of them, and it could so easily have had a tragic result.”
“Then maybe I’ve redeemed myself in your eyes?” Shain asked with a wry grin.
“What?” She stepped back to study his face, a glimmer of understanding commencing. “Is t
his what all this has been about? You thought because you haven’t been able to prevent all these catastrophes happening lately, it made you less of a man in my eyes? Oh, Shain, nothing could have been further from the truth. Why didn’t you talk to me about it? These things have been out of your control, and I’ve got a feeling that monster Fitzroy has been behind some of them.”
Shain sank down on the bed and buried his face in his hands for a second, then ran his hands through his hair as he looked at her. “I’ve been totally responsible for Chenaie and its people ever since I returned from the war. It’s my duty to see that everyone is taken care of—including my wife.”
She held a hand out to him, but before she could speak, he went on, “The only thing was, my wife was perfectly capable of taking care of herself—in fact, more capable than I was. And if you weren’t satisfied here, you could always return to your own time. As soon as you made contact with whatever brought you here, that is.”
Alaynia stared into the tortured depths of his eyes, her heart shattering at the misery she saw there. She’d caused that misery, though inadvertently. How could she have known her determination to get to the bottom of the mystery of her arrival at the Chenaie of the past would cause him so much untold uneasiness—would affect their relationship so disastrously? Yet the facts remained—her trip through time and the firm belief she had of some spiritual intervention.
Choosing her words carefully, she said, “If I went back, my life would be empty, Shain, because the man I love with all my heart would be missing from my life.”
“Then, why ... ?”
She nudged his legs open and sat down on his knee to brush back a lock of midnight hair from his face. “I have to find out how I got here in order to assure myself that I can stay. I didn’t want to accidentally slip back through the time warp somehow and be separated from you. I can’t risk it. My life is here with you now, and I’d die of a broken heart without you.”
“God, Alaynia, if I’d known that, I’d have put everything aside while I helped you out.”
Witch Angel Page 35
