A Reckless Love, page 28
Joelle laughed. “That’s my favorite part of this whole thing. Besides, you know, getting to marry my childhood sweetheart.”
Aurora laughed. “Everyone but me thought you hated him, right up until the day he proposed.”
Joelle bent over to brush her own hair, conveniently hiding her face. But her ear was scarlet. “He was pretty charming, for an adolescent prankster who made my life miserable.”
“I knew it!” Aurora snatched the brush. “Here, sit down at the vanity and let me do that. You’re making a mess.”
Taming her sister’s red-gold tresses into an elegant twist and loaning her a pearl-studded comb for decoration, Aurora stood back to study Joelle in the mirror. The bronze medieval-style dress Charmion had made for Joelle after the fire played up her fiery coloring, and its elegant lines emphasized her statuesque beauty.
“Nobody will even see me when you walk down the stairs,” Aurora said with satisfaction. “You look like a queen.”
Joelle made a rude noise. “You know there’s one person who won’t be looking at anybody else.”
Aurora took Joelle’s hands. “I’m glad we’re getting married together, Jo. Otherwise, I might be just a little . . . nervous.”
“You? Nervous?” Joelle looked incredulous.
“Yes. I—I love him so much, it frightens me. But everything will be so different. I’m used to telling other people what to do. What if he tries to boss me around?”
Joelle’s blue eyes twinkled with sly humor. “Of course he will try sometimes. But you’ll find ways to convince him he wants what you want.”
“Jo!”
“Oh, I’m just teasing.” Joelle’s tone grew more serious. “Pete, you’re marrying a godly man. You pray for Zane to follow Jesus Christ, and then you can confidently follow him.”
“That sounds right. But it sounds messy.”
“I’m sure it will be. Aurora, none of us is perfect. We’re going to make mistakes and struggle through things. But isn’t it wonderful that God gave us a partner to struggle with—and have fun with?”
“Oh, it is!” Aurora flung her arms around her sister. “Let’s go get married!”
twenty–eight
AGAINST ALL LAWS OF PROBABILITY, Zane found himself married to the youngest of the three beautiful red-haired Daughtry sisters. They’d made it through the ceremony—filled with laughter, a few tears, and Reverend Boykin’s sonorous blessing—to a full-blown wedding supper, served by two former saloon girls.
After dessert, the entire party crowded around the piano, where the elder bride sang a lilting, romantic art song accompanied by Levi. During the ensuing uproarious applause, the younger bride made Schuyler boost her onto the bar—apparently a permanent fixture in the Dogwood Boarding House.
Zane stood below, looking up at Aurora’s laughing face as she lifted her glass of ginger beer and winked at Schuyler. Still dressed in her white-and-gold-striped wedding dress, with her hair coming down in wavy hanks at her ears and the back of her neck, she embodied joie de vivre.
“A toast!” Aurora giggled. “I want to toast my newest brother-in-law. May he be endowed with all necessary patience for long bouts of creative moods and unpronounceable words. Long live Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont!”
“Long live Schuyler and Joelle!” “Hip hip hooray!”
Shouting with laughter, Schuyler pounded on the bar. “And may the good Lord protect my new brother against the tidal wave of conversation which is about to overtake him and drag him under! Long live Mrs. and Mr. Sager!”
With a deep sense of gratitude and belonging, Zane endured the back-pounding, toasting, and general hilarity that would heretofore have sent him diving into a lonely corner. How had he gotten so lucky?
As Levi launched into the “Fairy Wedding Waltz” on the piano and Schuyler swung Joelle into his arms, Aurora crouched to offer Zane a sip of her drink. Putting his lips where hers had been, he met her sparkling eyes.
“Are you happy?” she asked, looping her arms around his neck.
“Do you have to ask?” He set the glass aside and leaned in to put his forehead to hers.
“I was afraid you might take the next train out.” She looked around. “We’re a loud bunch.”
“I’m not taking any trains unless you’re on it with me. Besides, I find I’m getting used to a little bit of noise.”
She wrinkled her freckled nose. “I can be quiet when I need to.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He grinned at her.
She laughed. “Dance with me, Zane.”
Zane hated dancing, but he loved his new wife, so he let her teach him. As in most things, he was a quick study and found he didn’t hate it as much as he anticipated.
But he couldn’t help wondering what other lessons Aurora would feel compelled to teach him. It was a fairly terrifying thought.
The party broke up at eight or so—the wedding guests yawning prodigiously and claiming to be exhausted. The bridal couples, having been assigned to bedrooms at opposite ends of the second floor, retired neither knowing nor caring where the rest of the company went.
Following Schuyler and Joelle up the stairs, Aurora walked arm in arm with her groom. Her husband. She glanced up at him. His expression was pensive, but that nerve jumped in his jaw. He must be as nervous as she was. After all, as he said, he’d never been married before either.
At least he’d already been exposed to her extra toe. There wouldn’t be that to contend with.
They walked to the door of her bedroom, which stood open. Somebody had come in and freshened it with a vase of flowers on the nightstand and a couple of extra candles on the bureau. The bed was turned down.
She swallowed and looked up at him. He smiled down at her, dropping her arm. Then he bent and scooped her up. Held close against his chest, comforted by the slight scratch of his whiskers against her temple, she felt her fears slip away. This man cherished her and would not let anything bad happen to her.
She pulled his head down to whisper in his ear, “I just got my third wish.”
Zane lay beside Aurora, listening to her even breathing. He prayed he would stay awake through the night. Just this once, Father. Let our first night be perfect. No nightmares. No ladders, no lice, no rats, no Jones.
Sooner or later they’d have to talk about his night terrors. But not tonight.
As he’d carried her into her room, he’d been so nervous that he almost asked if they could sleep together on the little cot in the room he’d inhabited for the last two weeks—the cot where he’d found her asleep this morning. But Aurora deserved better than a cot for her wedding night.
The Lord knew she deserved better than him, but it was too late to go back now.
Now she belonged to him in every sense of the word.
The utter joy of that thought took him afresh. He turned onto his side and looked at her, pillowed on his shoulder. The candles had guttered, but a shaft of moonlight came through the open window to light Aurora’s sleeping face. He would spend the rest of his life beside this woman, growing a family—a real family with children, a family that went to church together and sang and danced together. He might have to travel some, but—
The thought stopped him. His job was in Memphis, a fact he’d discussed with her grandfather but which, in the rush of ensuing events, he’d failed to mention to Aurora. She was not going to be happy about leaving her sisters and the boardinghouse and her employees. He winced. And returning to the proximity of her grandparents might be a contentious issue.
He smiled, reaching up to brush his thumb across her beautiful eyebrow. Perhaps he could think of mutually enjoyable ways to convince her the move would be tolerable. Relaxing, he curled his arm around his wife.
Sometime later, he awoke with Aurora hitting him in the chest. “Zane! Wake up! It’s me. I’m not going to hurt you. Please, sweetheart. Oh, wake up!”
He jerked to a sitting position, stared at her in the moonlight. She lay against the pillow, tears streaking her cheeks. He shoved himself off the bed and stood on the rug, shaking. His knees felt like rubber, his shoulders like concrete, his hands clenched into fists. One finger at a time he released them. “What did I do?” He found he could hardly move his lips.
“Nothing. But your face . . .” She sat up and swiped her hands down her cheeks. “Zane, what did you see? I’ve never seen such pain. Not ever.”
He fell to his knees beside the bed and took her hands. His trembled so that he had trouble grasping hers. “You’re crying. What did I do?”
“I swear, you didn’t hurt me. I was just so worried. You were holding on to me so tight and praying and shaking—”
“I was afraid this would happen. I tried not to go to sleep—”
“Zane! That’s absurd! You can’t go the rest of your life without sleeping!”
“No, but I can leave you to sleep without me.” He jumped to his feet, then flung himself into the chair in the corner. “I tried to tell you—This is why I—They come and there’s nothing I can do about it.” He folded over, elbows on knees, his head in his hands. “Aurora, I’m sorry. I should have known better, I just thought, I was so happy, surely it would be all right with Jones gone.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Finally he looked up.
She sat cross-legged in the center of the bed, looking exactly like the angel he’d once compared her to. A sleepy-eyed, copper-haired angel. “It may take a long time,” she said, “but it will be all right. Because I’m not going anywhere. You are mine, Zane Sager, do you hear me? Do you remember when I said it’s probably your scars and broken places that make you who you are? Well, I love those scars. And I love that you endured so many breakages and survived to help other people, when it costs you everything every day of your life.” She gulped, and he saw that she was crying again. “I want you to heal. I don’t want you to have nightmares. I think we can work through it together. We may have to have some help, but I’m willing to try if you are. Please tell me you love me enough to try.”
He stared at her. “Aurora. I have no words for how much I love you. I just can’t bear to hurt you.”
“Then come hold me. Come love me with your body if you can’t say it with your words.”
He stood up. Considered gathering his clothes and moving down the hall. Then he counted the cost. He would sacrifice everything, including his dignity, for this woman.
He went to her, gathered her into his arms, and kissed away her tears. “I’m not going anywhere either,” he said and lay down with her.
Twining herself about him, she sighed and relaxed. “I don’t mind moving to Memphis,” she murmured after a moment, “but there will be rules about Grandmama’s visits.”
He chuckled. “I might have known you’ve already thought this through. Who’s taking over the boardinghouse?”
“ThomasAnne and Doc. They’re getting married next week. But I imagine it’s more likely to become a hospital.” She rose on an elbow and flirted her eyelashes. “One person can’t think of everything.”
“No? I have yet to see you give in to indecision.”
With a smile that reminded him of the erstwhile bubblebath lady, she laid her cheek against his chest. “As long as we have that straight, I acknowledge that you outrank me in the big things.”
He touched her nose. “Magnanimous of you, Deputy-Deputy Marshal Sager.”
Thinking she might want to talk more, he waited, stroking her back, twirling a ringlet gently around one finger. After a moment, he opened his eyes and peered at her.
She was sound asleep.
Zane held her close as he rolled onto his back, stared at the ceiling, and smiled. He wondered how many days it would take before the potion her grandfather had given her last night wore off. Soon, he hoped. It had better be really soon.
A Note to the Reader
THE DAUGHTRY HOUSE SERIES began as a simple historical romance about three sisters trying to hang on to their family plantation in the aftermath of the Civil War. As the characters developed in my mind, and as I researched the period, suspense and mystery elements began to surface. In A Rebel Heart, Pinkerton agent Levi Riggins tracks down the perpetrator of a real-life train wreck in north Mississippi. In the process, he connects his own wartime history—which includes Grierson’s raid through Mississippi and the battle of Tupelo—to two different rape-and-pillages (one in Mississippi and one in Tennessee).
Suspecting that the train wreck is related to Ku Klux Klan terrorism across the South—including a series of race riots, church burnings, and the murder of a federal judge—Levi enlists the help of the Daughtry sisters and his new friend Schuyler Beaumont, son of an assassinated gubernatorial candidate. By the end of A Reluctant Belle, several of the lower-level criminals are unmasked and rounded up, but the powerful and mysterious mastermind behind the cabal remains to be caught.
In A Reckless Love, US Deputy Marshal Zane Sager assists in making sure the criminals face charges, while pursuing his own agenda related to the murdered judge. The overarching storyline involves the imprisonment and mistreatment of Union soldiers at Alabama’s Cahaba Prison, the explosion of the Mississippi River steamboat Sultana off the bluffs of Memphis (which may or may not have been sabotage), and a corrupt congressional money-laundering scheme.
You can imagine how complicated all that got by the end of the third installment of the series! Keeping all those criminals, accomplices, heroes, red herrings, and sundry townspeople straight involved significant lists, charts, and maps. With the help of a slew of editors and beta readers, I think the central storyline got resolved to the reader’s satisfaction, but I want to confess right here that I’m aware there may be small loose plot threads I simply didn’t have space to tie up. Perhaps there will be future books to take care of those! If not . . . well, chalk it up to creative license. In the words of one of my favorite writers, Lois McMaster Bujold, “the author reserves the right to have A Better Idea.”
Now, moving on to requisite research . . . judging by the emails I receive, many of my readers are eager to learn more about the history of post–Civil War Reconstruction behind this series. If that’s you, keep reading.
First, I’d like to take a few paragraphs to point out which characters in A Reckless Love are “real people.” As I mentioned in the reader note attached to A Reluctant Belle, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a celebrated Confederate general with well-documented exploits during and after the war. Because he owned plantations and ran a couple of businesses in the north Mississippi and Memphis area, and because he was unarguably involved in the Ku Klux Klan for a number of years, he seemed a logical choice for a background character. There is some disagreement about how long he remained in leadership of the organization (records of his own testimony before Congress contradicts that of contemporary witnesses), which is why I elected to leave him mostly out of the conclusion of my series.
Frankly, I was much more interested in law enforcement and judiciary figures of the day. President Ulysses S. Grant was in the White House, and though he clearly was a flawed human being, he seems to have tried to bring justice and order to the chaotic political culture he inherited from Andrew Johnson, who assumed the presidency upon Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. In May of 1870, Grant signed into law the Enforcement Act, defending the rights of formerly enslaved persons and making sure they could vote. The men Grant appointed to his cabinet, as well as the establishment of the US Marshals Service, indicate that he was serious about quelling the violence rampant in the Deep South.
One of Grant’s earliest cabinet appointments was US Attorney General Amos Akerman, who came into office in June or November 1870, depending on which source one consults. Having served as a colonel in the Confederate army, Akerman joined the Republican Party during Reconstruction and became an outspoken civil rights advocate for freedmen in Georgia. After serving for a year as the Georgia US Attorney, Akerman accepted Grant’s appointment to the cabinet, creating the new Justice Department, and oversaw the successful prosecution of more than 1,100 cases against the Ku Klux Klan.
On-the-ground prosecutors of the time period included swashbuckling Mississippi US Attorney Wiley Wells, who makes a brief appearance in A Reckless Love. A Northerner and US Army veteran, Wells was responsible for bringing charges against Klansmen and had to regularly deal with the kidnapping, harassment, and murder of witnesses and deputy marshals.
Moving on to the judiciary, my deceased judge Marmaduke Teague—Zane’s mentor—is loosely based on Alabama federal judge Richard Busteed. Busteed had risen to the rank of Union Brigadier General during the Civil War. Because of his defense of freedmen’s rights, his fellow Alabamans tended to look upon him with skepticism to hatred. After being shot on the street in Mobile in 1867 (the attacker escaped and evaded prosecution), Busteed recovered, only to face trumped-up impeachment charges in 1873, after which he resigned.
Robert Hill, federal judge for the Northern and Southern Districts of Mississippi, functioned pretty much as I’ve portrayed him in this story (though the Tupelo case I’ve invented never happened). I’m fascinated by the practical ways people of the time dealt with the nearly impossible scenarios into which they were thrust, doing their best to be fair and just—but also to keep themselves out of hot water! Hill presided over hundreds of Ku Klux Klan trials during Reconstruction, enabling nearly unanimous convictions—though the general penalty was a $10–25 fine and a $1,000 peace bond. Not exactly a great deterrent.
The new United States Justice Department—headed by the aforementioned Amos Akerman—was supported by the reorganized US Marshals Service, which had previously operated in a sort of free-wheeling fashion under the Department of State. The two US district marshals who figure in my story are Lucien Eaton of Tennessee and young James H. Pierce of Mississippi. These men functioned during the Reconstruction period in a dangerous atmosphere of Southern resentment and recalcitrance. They and their deputies, while given great latitude in pursuing criminals, were burdened (as have been law enforcement officials through the centuries) by lack of funds and excess of paperwork. However, in developing Zane Sager, I found research indicating that the marshals and deputies of the Reconstruction Era were surprisingly well-trained and inured to difficulties by their service in the United States Army. Many were injured or killed in the line of duty, as I’ve pictured in A Reckless Love. For more information, please see Stephen Cresswell, “Enforcing the Enforcement Acts: The Department of Justice in Northern Mississippi, 1870–1890,” Journal of Southern History 53, no. 3 (1987): 421–40, doi:10.2307/2209362; and The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History by Michael Newton.
