Heaven in a Wildflower (25 page)

“You’re staying. And if Daddy doesn’t come tonight, I’ll ride in tomorrow and see how he is. Now come along. I want you to lie down and rest till supper and stop worrying. Everything is going to be all right. I’ll take care of you.”

Claudia muttered to hell with both of them and went to the study, closing and locking the door behind her. She knew Elton hadn’t gone to make any rounds. He’d headed straight for the mausoleum again, to sit next to Twyla’s casket and talk to her as if she could hear him. She had followed him once and stood outside to listen. It had been like hearing the mutterings of a man gone insane, which made her all the more determined to prepare herself to take over BelleClair. He certainly was no longer capable, and this was the only time she was able to go through the journals.

She had not been there long when Raymond pounded on the door, infuriated over how she’d treated his mother and wanting to discuss it. “Go away,” she snapped. “I don’t care what either one of you do. Just leave me alone. Why don’t you go have another drink?” she added tauntingly.

He stood there a moment, then went to do just that.

It was late when Elton finally returned to the house. Reluctantly, and only because Raymond insisted, Ida had come downstairs for supper, and when she saw Elton shuffle through the foyer and continue up the stairs, she nudged Raymond and urged, “Do go try and get him to join us. The man is going to grieve himself to death.”

Raymond obliged, but Claudia huffily declared it wouldn’t do any good. “You’re only coddling him, which is the worst thing you can do. He’s only trying to get attention, anyway. Leave him alone, and when he gets hungry, he’ll eat.”

Raymond ignored her and went upstairs.

Ida stared at her in astonishment.

Claudia noticed and cried, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Ida drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. Dear Lord, she knew she should keep her mouth shut, but enough was enough. “How can you speak of your father in such a way? You should be ashamed of yourself, Claudia.”

“He’s not my father.”

“He’s raised you, taken care of you, loved you…”

Claudia sneered, “Oh, what do you know, Ida? You hate me, anyway. If you’d had your way, Raymond would’ve married Anjele, and you’d have liked that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.” Ida didn’t hesitate, now that it was out in the open. “I would have. Anjele is a sweet, sensible girl. She doesn’t have a haughty bone in her body.”

Claudia glared at her, resisting the impulse to slap her.

Raymond came back in, hung his cane on the back of his chair, and sat down. Sensing something was going on, he looked at each of them in turn before wearily asking, “Well, what is it this time?”

“Your mother was just saying how she wished you’d married Anjele instead of me,” Claudia told him, “but it’s no secret. I’ve always known she felt that way.”

Ida shook her head and reached to cover his hand with hers. “It wasn’t exactly like that, dear. She asked me, and forgive me if I was wrong to do so, but I told the truth.”

He shook his head and reached for the wine decanter to refill his glass.

With a sniff of disdain, Claudia admonished, “You drink more than you eat.”

He downed the wine in one swallow, and proceeded to pour another.

Ida, unable to watch, and wishing she’d stayed in New Orleans despite everything, excused herself and left the table.

With Elton no doubt in bed for the night, Claudia knew she could spend the time going over the journals and was about to leave herself, when Kesia came running in to announce, “A rider comin’ in hard, Master Raymond.”

“Tell me, not him,” Claudia snapped, giving the old woman a shove as she got up to rush quickly by her. “He’s not in charge here.”

Kesia was used to Miss Claudia’s temper and abuse and paid her no mind. Instead, she held out Master Raymond’s cane and assisted him to his feet.

“Want me to find Master Sinclair?”

“No. I’m sure the overseers heard whoever it is, and they’ll be alert to trouble.” He hobbled into the foyer and through the front doors Claudia had flung open. He didn’t like her standing there, so vulnerable, with trouble all around them and was about to say so, just as he recognized his father’s horse and felt a chill of foreboding. In the dusky twilight, Raymond could see by his face that something was terribly wrong.

“Daddy, what is it?” he asked fearfully, limping closer to the edge of the porch. “Are the Yankees on their way here? To BelleClair?”

“Not yet. They’ve got to secure New Orleans before they start thinking about outlying sugar parishes. That may take weeks, months.” He dismounted, tossing the reins to the waiting slave and taking the stairs two at a time, not bothering to tip his hat to Claudia. He despised her and found it quite difficult to be polite even under the best of circumstances, and at a time like this, he wasn’t taking the trouble. He put his arm around Raymond’s shoulder and urged, “Inside, son. We have to talk. Where’s Elton? He needs to hear this, too.”

Claudia was having no secrets kept from her and ran after them. “You two wait a minute. I’ve a right to know what’s going on here.”

“Later, Claudia.” Vinson dismissed her, pushing his son gently into the study and slamming the door in her face.

“Damn you!” she shouted, then, not to be outdone, ran down the hall to the dining room. There was a storage closet for china connecting the two rooms. But once inside, she did not open the door adjoining the study, instead pressed her ear against it to listen.

And what she heard made her blood run cold.

“She’s back,” Vinson was excitedly telling Raymond. “Anjele is back. Someone who knows me recognized her as they were taking her into City Hall and came and told me. I went over there, but they wouldn’t let me see her. We’ve got to get Elton and go back and see what we can do about getting her out.”

“Out?” Raymond echoed, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

Vinson hesitated, hating to have to be the bearer of such disturbing news but knew there was no easy way to say it. “Anjele is in jail, son. The Yankees are holding her prisoner.”

Chapter Sixteen

Anjele sat with hands primly folded in her lap, teeth clamped tightly together in an effort to control her temper. Captain Brannigan had said that if she’d kept her mouth shut when the gunboat caught them sneaking into the Barataria Waterway, they would have been turned back again, instead of being taken into custody. Now, thanks to her, he and his crew were being detained till the Yankees decided whether they were actually Rebels passing themselves off as innocent fishermen. The boat had been confiscated, and Captain Brannigan worried it was gone from him forever, even if they didn’t all wind up in a Federal prison.

“And it’s your fault, damn you,” he’d cursed Anjele. “You just had to say something about their mothers, didn’t you?”

Anjele had surprised herself by being so crude, but at the time, with the Yankee soldiers roughly shoving her around, accusing her of being a spy, as well as insinuating she was onboard merely to provide sexual pleasure for the crewmen, something had snapped. She had indeed given them a good tongue-lashing, which resulted in handcuffs and a very uncomfortable trip back the way they’d come, except this time they were on board a Federal gunboat, going directly into the port of New Orleans.

It had been late in the day when they’d arrived, and she was relieved when she was finally separated from Captain Brannigan and his crew. She really did feel badly about their plight and tried to tell them, but they furiously refused to listen. So she was glad to escape their angry glares and muttered curses.

In the eerie glow of the still-burning fires on the levees and docks, Anjele was horrified at the scene of chaos and pandemonium. It tore her heart out to see her homeland invaded, and she was struck even harder with the desperate desire to get to BelleClair and find her father and make sure he was all right.

She was taken into City Hall, where a grim-faced Union officer named Major Tyler Hembree listened to her story, then accused her of lying. “I think the men on board are Confederate spies, and you”—he raked her with a contemptuous glare—“are merely a prostitute, traveling with them.”

“That is absurd!” Anjele cried indignantly. “And if you will send for my father, he’ll verify what I say is true.”

“Tomorrow,” he’d said, airily waving to a guard to take her away. “It’s late. My dinner is waiting.”

She’d been locked in a small cell, without privacy from the men on either side, and the night had passed miserably. At dawn, she was taken to a closet where a bucket had been placed for her toilet, then returned to her confinement. Breakfast was a cup of water, a piece of bread, and a chunk of boiled salt pork, which she gladly gave to one of the other prisoners.

It was nearly noon when she had once more been taken downstairs to wait in the office which had been commandeered by Major Hembree, only she hadn’t seen him.

A soldier sitting at a nearby desk leered at her till she couldn’t stand it any longer. “Why do you keep staring at me?” she yelled at him. “Haven’t you ever seen a woman before, or are all Yankee women as repugnant as you are?”

“Bitch,” he muttered, turning away.

A few moments later, he got up and went out, no doubt to report her insolence to Major Hembree. Well, there was a limit to how much she could take, and whatever they planned to do with her, she wished they’d go ahead and do it and get it over with.

Finally the door opened, and Anjele glanced up, expecting to see another blue uniform. Instead, with a joyful lurch of her heart, she saw that it was her father. She leaped into his arms, crying, “Poppa, it’s you. It’s really you. Oh, thank God, thank God…”

“Girl, let me look at you,” Elton said, choking on the knot in his throat, his own eyes welling with tears. Smoothing back her mussed hair, he shook his head and pretended to scold, “What do you mean, running away and coming all this way by yourself? Didn’t you know the dangers? It’s only through God’s grace you made it.”

“Did you think I could stay away? We need each other, Poppa. With Momma gone, and the war…” She blinked furiously, trying to get hold of herself. “I knew I had to come home and be with you.”

“And you got yourself in a lot of trouble doing it.” He managed a smile, wanting to lighten the mood, reluctant to talk about Twyla right then. “Now will you please tell me why they say those men you were with are spies?

“And we won’t go into what they’re saying about you,” he added angrily. “Any other time, they know a father would shoot a man dead for insinuating such a thing about his daughter, but they’re in control now, and they know it.”

Anjele repeated her story, and he believed her, saying he felt that between Dr. Duval and him, they could straighten everything out.

“Dr. Duval is here?” Anjele asked, suddenly embarrassed to think of others hearing about this.

“He’s the one who came and told me. One of his patients saw you being brought in and ran to tell him. He’s outside now, talking to a Major Hembree.

“Vinson,” he went on to confide, unable to keep the resentment from his voice, “has decided it’s in his best interest to cooperate with the enemy. He has volunteered to provide medical services, which I suppose is preferable to being sent to a Yankee prison for the duration of the war. Claudia feels the same about BelleClair, but we can discuss all that later. The thing to do now is get you out of here and home.”

While they waited to learn whether Dr. Duval was successful in his attempt to clear up the matter, Anjele recounted her voyage home.

Elton was astonished, as well as impressed by her courage and determination. “But where did you get the money?”

“I’ll tell you all about that later.” The door was opening, and she was anxious to hear the verdict but the moment she saw Dr. Duval’s smiling face, she knew everything was all right.

Major Hembree was right behind him. Without offering any apology for how she’d been treated, he dismissed her by saying, “You can go.”

Elton grabbed her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

She jerked free. “No, wait a minute.” Major Hembree had sat down behind his desk, and she walked over to ask, “Is that all you have to say?”

His brows snapped together. “What else needs to be said?”

Elton hurried to reach for her again, but she shrugged him away.

“You know now I was telling the truth, and I think you owe me an apology.”

He leaped up so quickly his chair toppled backward to hit the floor with a loud bang. Instinctively, Anjele pulled back, but he leaned so that his face was mere inches from hers, eyes bulging with fury, nostrils flaring, breath hot against her skin as he roared, “Let me tell you something, Miss Sinclair. You and all the citizens of New Orleans and surrounding parishes are now under the jurisdiction of the Union. We are in control now, and we will tolerate neither insolence or insubordination. I don’t owe you anything. You have been conquered, and you owe me gratitude for not having you hanged because of your disrespectful mouth.

“Now get out of here”—he pointed to the door—“before I change my mind.”

For a moment, Anjele stood there, ignoring the pleas of both her father and Dr. Duval to please come, now, before there was more trouble. Finally, she turned, but at the door turned to say quietly, “I am not conquered, Major Hembree. You can put me in jail, put me in chains, but you’ll never conquer my spirit. Just like you Yankees will never be able to conquer the spirit of the South. And that’s what counts.”