Echoes of Tomorrow (31 page)

"I know who you are.  You're Miss Gerard, Mr. Blackwell's guest." 

Nicholas surprised Elise by knowing who she was.  The mention of Reed brought back that sharp pain in her heart.

"Thank you, again, Miss Gerard.  I'm terribly sorry we got you wet and ruined your frock."

"I think it would be all right if you call me Miss Elise.  And don't worry about me.  I won't melt, and this old dress will dry.  So what were you boys so upset about earlier?"

She looked up at Cyprian and patted the ground on the other side of her.  Cyprian looked behind him, as if expecting to see someone else standing there, then looked back at Elise with a confused glance.  She reached out and pulled him down beside her, then scrunched both boys up in a tight cuddle.  His little body stiffened beneath her arm, but it didn't take long before he started to relax.

"Okay, you're doomed to sit here all cuddled up and mushy with this old lady until you tell me what your problem is."

The boys gave a token resistance, which only created squishing noises from all the wet clothing.  That turned into embarrassed giggles, but after several minutes Nicholas became serious.

"My parents say Cyprian and I cannot be friends any longer, Miss Elise.  They say I am too old to have a darky for a playmate.  But he is my best friend in the whole wide world."

Nicholas's voice quavered at the end of his little speech.  Cyprian didn't look as if he could speak at all.

"Miss Elise, why do people look down on darkies?  Cyprian looks just like me, only darker."  Elise saw the resemblance now and mentally shook her head at society's double standards.  "Why, his blood looks just like mine when we bleed.  I know for a fact ‘cause we're blood brothers."

She smiled at the pride in Nicholas's voice and wished she could do something to help.

"I know it's not right to choose friends by the color of their skin.  Maybe it will make you feel better if I tell you that someday boys like you will be able to stay friends forever.  They'll go to the same schools, live side-by-side as neighbors, work together.  Why, when you boys are men, slavery will cease to exist."

Elise wondered if she hadn't gone a little too far with this last statement, but the obvious looks of disbelief on the youngsters' faces set her mind at ease.

"How will slavery go away, Miss Elise?"

"Nich-o-lassss."  A lovely, dark-haired young woman in a yellow sprigged day gown stepped through the thick foliage.  Elise offered up a silent "thank you" for rescuing her from having to answer that question, before the soggy trio stood up.

"Nicholas, there you are!  I have looked everywhere for you.  And here you are with Cyprian.  What did your father tell you about that?"

The young woman wore an accusing frown, but when she drew close enough to see the condition of Nicholas's clothes she cried out and ran to him.

He squirmed under her motherly clucking and tried without success to get a word in edgewise.

Elise recognized the slender woman as one of the guests at the ball.  She only hoped the woman had not been one of the witnesses to her impromptu entertainment last night.

"Excuse me.  I'm Elise Gerard.  Perhaps I can explain what happened."

The woman looked up as though she'd just noticed her presence.  The look of recognition destroyed Elise's hopes for anonymity, but she pressed on.

"You see, I was walking along the path and heard voices,"  Elise began, mentally editing the story as she told it.  "They sounded upset, and by the time I reached the boys Nicholas was struggling to keep his head above water.  Cyprian begged me to help, but I fell in, too."  Here she pierced Cyprian with a "be quiet" look.  "Cyprian tried his best to pull us both out, but we were too much for him and we pulled him in.  Fortunately, we found shallow water before anything disastrous happened."

Elise felt like she should add "Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket" to the end of her speech.  But, she consoled herself, there wasn't anything untrue about it.  She’d just rearranged the sequence of events a bit.

"Why, I hate to think what might have occurred if Cyprian hadn't been close by."  A thoughtful shaking of her head drove home the suggestion that Cyprian had, in all probability, prevented a catastrophe.

The young woman's face softened.  She kept one hand on Nicholas but knelt in front of Cyprian to take his hand in her other.

"Cyprian, how brave of you.  I cannot begin to thank you."

The little woolly head stayed bowed, his face hidden.

"I will talk to Nicholas's father and recommend he reconsider.  Perhaps he will allow you boys to remain friends.  How would you like that?"

Cyprian's head popped up.  A smile broke across his face like a sunrise out of the darkness.  Nicholas's expression mirrored his and the two friends engaged in some vigorous head nodding.

The young lady rose and turned to Elise.  She offered her hands when she spoke.

"I am Marisa Trahan, Nicholas's mother.  I am so very grateful for your help."

Her two soft hands encased Elise's, and she patted them with genuine warmth.  It was the first time Elise had felt completely comfortable with someone since she'd arrived here.  It was a good feeling.  One that she missed more than she'd realized.

"I really didn't do anything except complicate matters," Elise said with a grin.  Then she wrinkled up her nose and shook her head.  "I seem to be an expert at complicating things."  A rerun of the previous night flashed through her mind.

As if reading her thoughts Marisa waved away her protests.

"Oh, fiddle.  You only did what half the women at the ball would like to do.  Very few of us have walked away from Ballard Fetter without his handprint on us somewhere."  She giggled and her soft brown eyes lit with delight.  "Why, I bet he thinks twice before he tries that again on a lady."

Elise couldn't help but laugh.  Marisa's cheerfulness was contagious.

"Now, we need to get the three of you out of these wet clothes before you catch your deaths," Marisa said between giggles.  Then, her voice laden with mischief, "Would you show me how you did that to Ballard?"

Shadows on the creek bank created a natural camouflage, and Reed realized he hadn't been seen when the group walked within a few feet of him on their trip back to the house.  The chatter of the foursome faded as they moved farther away.

The stillness of the clearing, the moist, rich smell of earth mingling with a profusion of honeysuckle called to Reed.  He found a patch of sunlight and stretched out in the warmth, staring up at a china blue sky and savoring the solitude.

When he reflected on all he'd witnessed in the last twenty minutes, a feeling of uneasy wonder tapped him on the shoulder.

He had followed Elise when she'd run from him in the foyer.  His intent was to allow her to walk off some of her anger before he tried to approach her to talk.

Just as he had been about to catch up to her, he'd heard the boys and watched Elise cut through the trees to the creek.  At first he hadn't wanted to interrupt.  Then when they all took a dunk in the water he was laughing too hard to help them.  He knew how shallow the creek was there and how still the water.  There had been no danger.  He had, however, been ready to hit the water, clothes and all, if there had been any sign of trouble.

By the time Elise had climbed to shore he was completely enchanted with her methods of reassuring the boys - not to mention the charming picture a thoroughly wet day gown created.  He hadn't considered it eavesdropping when he'd watched to see what would happen next.

A blade of tall grass scratched at his fingers as he lay in the sun, thinking.  He snapped it off and chewed on it in contemplation while he continued to study the sky and mull over what he'd heard.

He wasn't sure what it was that had made him so uneasy, but he'd felt chillbumps ripple up and down his arms when Elise told the boys about the end of slavery.  It had not been a prediction.  It had been a promise - one to which she had given a time period.

Dark tendrils of awareness had tickled the corners of his memory when Nicholas had asked how slavery would go away.  Why would a child's innocent question cause such a flutter to his heart?  It was almost as if he had known the answer.

A huge, white bank of clouds skidded across the cerulean sky.  Like generous helpings of meringue, the flat-bottomed mounds climbed upward.  Reed stared at the perfectly flat base of the clouds, and his mind drifted along with them. 

An awareness, a knowledge began to filter into his consciousness.

He knew.  Dear God, he knew.

A film of sweat erupted on his skin and his breathing became shallow.  He knew exactly what those clouds looked like from above.  He could see the blinding reflection of the sun against their pristine whiteness.  He had the desire to fall back into them - like a feather mattress.  Just him and Elise.

The film became beads of perspiration.  He sat up, plucked the long-forgotten blade of grass from tense lips.  The bank of clouds
tumbled out of view.  Now he imagined white lines of mist criss-crossing against the azure backdrop.

Contrails. 
Good God, what are contrails?

He jumped to his feet and scrubbed at his eyes with the palms of his hands.  A perfectly blue, cloudless sky hung above him.  There were no signs of criss-crossing lines, the likes of which he'd never seen before in his life.

*******

He was going to throw up.  The rat-like gnawing in his stomach grew worse with every word out of Angeline's mouth.  The only possible end to this growing feeling was to throw up.

Maybe he could aim it toward Angeline.  That would certainly shut her up - at least temporarily.  Better yet, he could kill her, and then he wouldn't have this urge.

Guilt assailed him.  He had no one to blame but himself for having to marry the woman.  And he'd damned well better get used to her talking, without suffering any reguritative or homicidal tendencies.  His life was going to be enough of a hell.

"And we really must invite the Governor.  Let's see, he and his family will bring the guest list up to...thirty-five, thirty-six...three hundred and thirty-six.  Now.  Have I left anyone out?"

He nearly sprayed a mouthful of brandy all over her precious, considerable guest list.

"You can't be serious, woman!  What do you plan to do, invite the entire state of Louisiana?"

"Why Reed, sugar, we cannot take a chance on slighting someone."  Angeline laid her pen on the escritoire and flitted to the loveseat.  "Besides, Momma and Daddy are paying for the wedding, so why should you care how many people we invite?"

Reed's only answer was to slosh another finger of brandy into his glass.

"Now, I think London and a jaunt to the Continent is the perfect place for the honeymoon.  We shall take a ship from New Orleans to..."

Her voice faded from his thoughts.  The word "honeymoon" clanged around in his head like a ricocheting bullet.  Honeymoon!  He had not even considered that aspect of marriage.  How in the world could he go off on a honeymoon with this woman?  Why, he could no more bed her now than...

"...and then return to London before coming home.  It will be so wonderful.  Just what I have always dreamed of."

"Angeline, there will be no honeymoon.  It is out of the question."

Her eyes narrowed and one perfect brow lifted in silent challenge.

"This is a very important season.  I can't just go off and leave the fields in the hands of an overseer.  I need to be here in case of an emergency.  The...honeymoon...will have to wait until after the harvest."  It would wait forever if he had his way.

Angeline's expression didn't waver.  But her hand slowly slid from the necklace she'd been toying with downward to the still flat region below her waist.  Reed's glance caught the gesture, and he read the meaning as clearly as if she'd spoken the words, "You owe it to me."  Their eyes locked and they stared each other down.  His conscience battered away at his resolve, and when a tear collected and spilled onto her cheek, his resolve lost.

"Very well.  But not abroad.  Find somewhere over here for a...honeymoon."  Lord, he could barely force the word from his lips.

She brightened at once and picked up a calendar, however he knew the subject wasn't closed.  He stifled a moan but didn't bother to suppress the curse he uttered under his breath.

Damn his memory.  Damn himself for having that contemptible ball.  Damn.  Damn.  Damn.

"We really do need to settle on a date for the wedding, sugar."

Oh, God.

"I believe the twenty-second of June is the best day.  That gives me twenty days to plan and have a gown and trousseau made.  I realize it is an obscenely short period of time, but...under the circumstances, we mustn't wait overly long."

Elise's birthday.  He couldn't marry Angeline on Elise's birthday.

How do I know that?  When did she tell me she was born on June twenty-second?
He couldn't remember the subject ever being discussed, but there was no doubt in his mind about the date.

"No!"  He very nearly barked the word.  "Not the twenty-second."