A Reckless Love, page 4
And why? Because white people wouldn’t hire them. Aurora was aware that she was thinking the unthinkable. That her family made everyone else in their community uncomfortable in their guilt or outrage or whatever made them so certain of their superiority over a large chunk of the human race.
During the last three months, Aurora had seen Selah and Joelle suffer abuse and laughter from people who had known them all their lives. She had watched in horror as their kitchen, schoolroom, and blacksmith shop burned to the ground. Even Grandmama allowed that Christian people shouldn’t behave with such meanness and spite.
Aurora wouldn’t have said her liberal outlook happened overnight, because she’d long been aware of the effects of her sisters’ education. Of course she loved them and would have forgiven all sorts of unorthodox and eccentric notions. But the night Aurora cut Joelle’s beautiful curly strawberry-blonde hair, after chunks of it had been singed off when she went into Charmion’s burning house to rescue her friend, something had shifted in her heart and soul. That kind of courage was beautiful and worth imitating.
Selah just stared at her, dark-brown eyes narrowed. “You are bored, aren’t you?” She sighed. “All right. Let’s go inside and see what you have to work with.” She hooked arms with Aurora once more and tugged her toward the porch, brambles catching at their skirts as they walked. “Admittedly, Daughtry House was a mess before Levi got hold of it.”
Aurora would have said that the project of turning their family’s ancestral home into a resort hotel had taken all of them working together, but Selah thought her husband walked on water, so she simply nodded. “Did you know Mr. Oglesby? Papa’s partner?”
“Not well. Mama didn’t approve of taverns in general, you know, and our trips to town with her were limited to the mercantile and bookstore. But Papa would always speak to Mr. Oglesby on the street, and one time when we met at Whitmore’s, he bought us each a lemon drop. You were probably little more than a baby at the time.”
Aurora shook her head. “I don’t remember. So odd that Papa could maintain a business arrangement like that without anyone knowing.”
Selah sighed. “Papa had lots of secrets. Mama adored him, but I don’t think she really knew him.”
“How well do you think you know Levi?” Aurora’s conversations with her brother-in-law had been necessarily limited by the demands of his profession, which of late entailed a good bit of travel and withholding sensitive information. She couldn’t help wondering what that meant for a healthy marriage. After all, Selah and Levi had only met in late February. Their courtship had been short and intense, followed by a quiet family wedding and a working honeymoon in New Orleans.
“I suppose I know him as well as any new bride knows her busy husband,” Selah said with a smile. “We have lots of years ahead to get better acquainted, and we both have deep faith in God to build on. That’s what you look for, Petey.” She squeezed Aurora’s arm with affection as they climbed the warped porch steps together. “Find a man who serves Christ first. Then his love for you will fall rightly.”
Aurora tucked that advice away to think about later. How would she know if any man really served Christ? Except for Levi, she didn’t know any men who mentioned or referenced God in run-of-the-mill circumstances. Judging by Joelle’s miserable first engagement to the pastor of their church, those who incessantly talked in spiritual terms couldn’t be trusted to walk them out in practice. Even their grandfather, the kindest man of her acquaintance, never directly quoted the Bible, except in prayer over the meal.
“It will be a long time before I find someone like that,” Aurora said with rare seriousness. “You and Joelle are very lucky.” Taking a breath, she reached into her reticule for the key Mr. Greene had given her. “In the meantime, let’s go on a little adventure, you and me. Just think! Two ladies walking into a saloon . . .”
Selah’s laughter cheered her, and by the time she’d inserted the key into the lock of the ugly, unpainted old door, Aurora was regaining her usual optimism. And curiosity. What would they find? The saloon had been closed since Romulus Oglesby died nearly three weeks ago. She hoped there wouldn’t be rats or other vermin—
Suddenly the door opened inward with a loud squeal of hinges, dragging across the floor in jerky spasms. A pale, blowsy face, curly blonde hair spiraling around it from beneath a lace nightcap, appeared in the opening. Red-rimmed green eyes squinted at the sudden sunlight, and a small freckled nose wrinkled in clear dismay at the sight of visitors. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t realize we were so loud. Quiet as a mouse we’ll be.” The door started to close again.
“Wait!” Aurora put her hand against the door. “What do you mean? Who are you?”
The green eyes looked confused. “Rosie was playing the piano. Mrs. Whitmore complains all the time.”
Aurora looked at Selah. “Did you hear a piano?” When Selah shook her head, Aurora turned back to the young woman in the doorway. Well, maybe she wasn’t young. It was hard to tell in the murky dimness of the saloon interior. “We were talking and didn’t notice. I’m Aurora Daughtry, and this is my sister Selah. Could we come in, please?”
“I don’t think that’s a good—”
“Look, miss.” Aurora sought for patience, surprised that Selah hadn’t taken charge as she usually did. “We have just inherited the—the—boardinghouse. Saloon. We need to come inside and inspect it. We weren’t expecting anyone to be here.”
That earned her a blank stare. Then a grin curled the woman’s full lips. Amusement lit her round face and turned it into that of a girl of maybe sixteen. “Oh, that’s—that’s—tell him he got me this time!” She doubled over in laughter. “I fell for it, sure as my name’s Bedelia O’Malley!”
“Tell who?” Aurora demanded, but the blonde woman just kept giggling.
Selah nudged Aurora aside. “Young lady, we have no idea what you’re talking about, but I assure you this is no joke. Here’s the deed, and here are our names. Are you Mr. Oglesby’s . . . daughter? Granddaughter? If he left you out of his will and there’s been some mistake, we’ll sort it all—”
“G’way outa that!” Bedelia exclaimed, flinging the door wide to snatch the deed from Selah’s hand. “Selah Daughtry, Joelle Daughtry, Aurora Daughtry . . .” She looked Aurora up and down with great suspicion. “Where’s the third one? Joelle?”
Of all the questions to ask, that one seemed the least pertinent.
“She’s at the bookstore,” Aurora said. “Could we please come inside? If Mrs. Whitmore happens to come along, our business will be all over town in five minutes flat.”
Bedelia seemed to comprehend the common sense of that observation, for she stepped back. “All right, ladies. But don’t say I didn’t warn ya. Careful of the swingin’ doors on the way in, they’ll whack ya in the bum.”
Safely inside the saloon with her bum intact, Aurora looked around. The common room was lit by oil lamps in sconces along the back wall. To the left she found the bar and its wooden stools, made of thick, dark mahogany the same color as Selah’s hair, squaring off a wall stocked with an array of colorful bottles. Tables and chairs, shoved into awkward arrangements, took up the space opposite. Above an upright piano on the other side of the room rose a giant lurid painting of a woman emerging from a bathtub, bubbles strewn strategically over her curvaceous body. Aurora stared at it. What imagination it must take to create a work of such stunning, hideous improbability.
Selah cleared her throat. “Well, isn’t this nice?”
Aurora found her sister regarding her with a mixture of disapproval and amusement. Cheeks stinging, she lifted her chin. “What did you expect from a men’s establishment? No wonder Mrs. Whitmore has been trying to shut it down.”
“That woman is a menace to society.” Bedelia flounced toward the stairs, which presumably led to living quarters on the second floor. “Sit down, Rosie, it’s not the gorgon. It’s our new landlords—ladies, I mean.” She giggled at her own joke.
For the first time Aurora noticed another young woman in the room. Dressed in a green-striped dressing gown, she stood on the bottom step looking like she might bolt up the stairs at the least provocation. As dark as Bedelia was fair, with long black hair streaming loose over her slight shoulders and Asian features as delicate as jasmine petals, she offered a shy smile and whispered, “Good morning.”
“Well, good morning!” Aurora said brightly as Bedelia tugged Rosie down to sit on the stairs. Squatting rights, undoubtedly. “My name is Aurora, and this is Selah.”
“Daughtry,” Bedelia clarified for Rosie’s benefit. “There’s another one named Joelle at the bookstore.” She made a face, as if bookish people weren’t to be trusted. “Ain’t you the ones had the party for General Forrest and the opera star a couple weeks ago? Out on the plantation?”
“That’s right,” Aurora said. She summoned the manners her grandmother had smacked into her with a ruler on the back of the knuckles. Bedelia and Rosie had been living here, even after Mr. Oglesby’s death. Which meant there were at least two women currently out of work. Whatever that had been. Aurora glanced at the painting. “We don’t mean to keep you from your . . . music rehearsals. We only came by to look the place over before we make renovation plans—”
“Renovations?” Bedelia straightened, wide-eyed, her mouth a pink O of exaggerated outrage. “This is our home! You can’t just come in and—and—renovate it!” She put a protective arm around Rosie, who looked confused and frightened.
“Actually, we can,” Selah said in her no-nonsense manner. “You saw the deed. We are the owners. But since we had no idea you ladies existed until five minutes ago, I can understand why you might be taken aback by our sudden appearance. It seems Mr. Oglesby didn’t inform you of his intentions before he, um, went to his reward.”
Bedelia made a rude noise. “The only reward old Rom earned was a permanent voyage on the lake of fire. I was never in my life so glad to hear of somebody cashing it in.”
Aurora exchanged glances with Selah, who had pressed her lips together. Personally, Aurora hadn’t had such an entertaining morning since she and Grandmama arrived at Ithaca to find Joelle, dressed in boy’s clothes, carting a giant beehive from the cupola out to the woods. “Miss O’Malley—may I call you Bedelia?—I admire your forthrightness. Could Selah and I sit down and discuss our plans with you? I think we can come to some sort of agreement here that will not involve casting you and Rosie out on the street.”
Bedelia gave her a shrewd stare from narrowed green eyes. “You can call me whatever ya want, and Rosie and me be willin’ to listen, sure we are. Make yourself at home,” she added with a magnanimous nod at Selah.
Clearly repressing a smile, Selah dragged over two chairs, then sat in one while Aurora took the other.
“Now,” Selah said, folding her hands in her lap, “since this is Aurora’s baby, so to speak, I’ll let her carry on from here.”
Aurora’s mouth fell open at this sudden transfer of leadership. Recovering, she cleared her throat. “All right, then. What I—we, that is—have in mind is a boardinghouse for war widows. Women who find themselves without a safe place to live, but who have a little income to live independently.” She’d actually thought this out. What if ThomasAnne had not had family to move in with? She could not have survived the privations of growing older without a husband to support her. And goodness knew it was too late for her to attract a mate now.
Bedelia shook her head. “What respectable lady is going to come live in a place like this? We’re directly across the way from the train station, and there be noise up and down the street at all hours.” Her extravagant eyebrows lifted. “I assume you do mean respectable women?”
“Obviously,” Aurora said. “Which means you and Rosie will have to be respectable too. No men allowed. Well, except for the ones working on repainting and whatnot.” She looked around. It was going to take a lot of repainting, beginning with that awful thing over the piano. Charmion was going to enjoy covering that huge canvas with something pretty. Perhaps some flowers.
“No men?” Bedelia was looking as if Aurora had just announced that there would be no more breathing. “What d’ya think Rosie and me do?”
Aurora felt the blood climb into her cheeks but refused to look at Selah for rescue. She was a grown-up now, mistress of a new business establishment. But she was not a madam. “It does not matter what you did in the past,” she said. “If you don’t need a job, fine—there’s the door. But if you want to stay here, what we need is an upstairs maid, a cook, and a serving woman for the dining room. If the business grows, perhaps we’ll have other positions open. But that’s what I’m starting with.”
“I will be the cook,” Rosie said unexpectedly.
Bedelia snorted. “You don’t know how to cook.”
“I always wanted to learn.” Rosie’s soft voice was defiant. “My parents own a grocery store in Canton.”
“China?” Ignoring the blonde’s skepticism, Aurora addressed the Asian girl with interest.
“Mississippi,” Rosie clarified. “They settled there after the railroad was completed, and I was born there.” A little smile curled the corner of her small mouth. “But we are of Chinese descent.”
Aurora beamed at her. “Of course you can learn to cook. I’ll send you out to Daughtry House to study with Horatia. She’s the best in the South!”
“That’s fine for you, Rosebud,” Bedelia said, “but I’m not inclined to be learning a new trade at my age.” She reached out to put a hand on Selah’s knee. “You don’t look too good, mistress. When’s the babe due?”
Aurora laughed. As non sequiturs went, that one was a doozy. “There’s no babe—”
“Probably next February,” Selah said wearily. “I wasn’t sure, so I haven’t said anything.” She rounded on Aurora. “So don’t you either! I haven’t even told Levi yet.”
Aurora wiped the shock off her face. “All right.” She gave Bedelia a respectful look. “How on earth did you know that?”
Bedelia shrugged. “Long story. None o’ your business, come to that.”
Hurt by the rebuff, Aurora stiffened. “Fair enough. I’ll look forward to hearing that story as our acquaintance goes forward. Well!” She clasped her hands. “Selah, perhaps we should give Bedelia and Rosie a chance to straighten a bit before we complete our inspection. Meantime”—she leveled her best Grandmama stare on the Irishwoman—“you’ll have two days to make up your mind whether you wish to take advantage of our offer.” Bouncing to her feet, she extended her hand to Selah. “We’d best go. Joelle will be wondering what’s happened to us.”
“No, she won’t,” Selah said with a grin, ignoring Aurora’s offer of assistance. “She’ll be happy as a goat in clover, curled up in some window seat in the bookstore. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Bedelia. Rosie.” Dipping a curtsey to each young woman, she returned the chairs to their table and accompanied Aurora to the door.
Out on the porch with the door shut and locked behind them, Aurora stared at Selah. “Are you really going to have a baby?”
Selah cupped her hands over her flat stomach. “I’m not sure. Probably so. I certainly don’t feel right. I’m going to wait another couple of weeks to see if . . . nature takes its course. Then I might ask Dr. Kidd to take a look at me.”
Aurora felt bizarrely proud to be in on such a momentous secret. “All right.” She pursed her lips. “Did we just take on two fancy women along with a saloon?”
“I believe we did.” Laughing, Selah took Aurora’s arm and tugged her down the steps. “The Lord certainly works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he?”
four
THE HOURS ON THE TRAIN from Memphis gave Zane plenty of time to ascertain details of the case from Riggins, as well as a bit about the Daughtry family. But he waited until the two prisoners, Jefcoat and Moore, had both dozed off before he addressed the Pinkerton agent.
“It would help,” Zane began, “if I knew exactly what we’re involved in. I’ve told you why I’m after Jones in particular. But if he’s connected to Beaumont’s murder, as well as the riots in Tuscaloosa and atrocities in Tupelo—well, there’s more going on here than Eaton indicated.”
Riggins shrugged. “It’s no secret President Grant is set on bringing violence in the South under control. It’s why he pushed for the Enforcement Act and appointed Amos Akerman as Attorney General.”
“I’d heard that,” Zane said, “but I’m not familiar with Akerman.”
“He’s a good man,” Riggins said, “in favor of protecting Negro voting rights. He’s convinced these Mississippi church burnings, newspaper vandalisms, intimidation, and murders are connected to similar events all over the southeast, so the President commissioned him to identify the leadership of those rings and bring them down. Akerman is friends with Pinkerton and brought him in to help, which is how I got involved.”
“Marshal Eaton says you managed to infiltrate the Mississippi Klan.” Zane gave Riggins a skeptical look. “Passing yourself off during the war as a butternut soldier while on a flash raid through the state with Grierson was one thing. But this investigation seems to have taken several months. I have trouble believing they’d accept a stranger with a Northern accent as one of them.”
Riggins responded with a grim smile. “Schuyler Beaumont volunteered to be our spy.”
“Beaumont?” Zane couldn’t control his surprise. “Related to Ezekiel—the one who was murdered in the Tuscaloosa riot?”
Riggins nodded. “His youngest son, engaged now to my wife’s sister. You’ll meet him when we get there. After his father was murdered, Schuyler agreed to use his somewhat wild—and, I might add, well-deserved—reputation to become a member of the local Klan organization. That stratagem resulted in these indictments in Tupelo. The Klan isn’t happy about it, obviously, which is why we’re preparing for all-out war.” He paused. “I hope it won’t come to that.”
Zane nodded. “Since the trial’s in Tupelo, who’s the presiding federal judge?” He was familiar with the Alabama and Tennessee departments of justice, but Mississippi was new territory.
During the last three months, Aurora had seen Selah and Joelle suffer abuse and laughter from people who had known them all their lives. She had watched in horror as their kitchen, schoolroom, and blacksmith shop burned to the ground. Even Grandmama allowed that Christian people shouldn’t behave with such meanness and spite.
Aurora wouldn’t have said her liberal outlook happened overnight, because she’d long been aware of the effects of her sisters’ education. Of course she loved them and would have forgiven all sorts of unorthodox and eccentric notions. But the night Aurora cut Joelle’s beautiful curly strawberry-blonde hair, after chunks of it had been singed off when she went into Charmion’s burning house to rescue her friend, something had shifted in her heart and soul. That kind of courage was beautiful and worth imitating.
Selah just stared at her, dark-brown eyes narrowed. “You are bored, aren’t you?” She sighed. “All right. Let’s go inside and see what you have to work with.” She hooked arms with Aurora once more and tugged her toward the porch, brambles catching at their skirts as they walked. “Admittedly, Daughtry House was a mess before Levi got hold of it.”
Aurora would have said that the project of turning their family’s ancestral home into a resort hotel had taken all of them working together, but Selah thought her husband walked on water, so she simply nodded. “Did you know Mr. Oglesby? Papa’s partner?”
“Not well. Mama didn’t approve of taverns in general, you know, and our trips to town with her were limited to the mercantile and bookstore. But Papa would always speak to Mr. Oglesby on the street, and one time when we met at Whitmore’s, he bought us each a lemon drop. You were probably little more than a baby at the time.”
Aurora shook her head. “I don’t remember. So odd that Papa could maintain a business arrangement like that without anyone knowing.”
Selah sighed. “Papa had lots of secrets. Mama adored him, but I don’t think she really knew him.”
“How well do you think you know Levi?” Aurora’s conversations with her brother-in-law had been necessarily limited by the demands of his profession, which of late entailed a good bit of travel and withholding sensitive information. She couldn’t help wondering what that meant for a healthy marriage. After all, Selah and Levi had only met in late February. Their courtship had been short and intense, followed by a quiet family wedding and a working honeymoon in New Orleans.
“I suppose I know him as well as any new bride knows her busy husband,” Selah said with a smile. “We have lots of years ahead to get better acquainted, and we both have deep faith in God to build on. That’s what you look for, Petey.” She squeezed Aurora’s arm with affection as they climbed the warped porch steps together. “Find a man who serves Christ first. Then his love for you will fall rightly.”
Aurora tucked that advice away to think about later. How would she know if any man really served Christ? Except for Levi, she didn’t know any men who mentioned or referenced God in run-of-the-mill circumstances. Judging by Joelle’s miserable first engagement to the pastor of their church, those who incessantly talked in spiritual terms couldn’t be trusted to walk them out in practice. Even their grandfather, the kindest man of her acquaintance, never directly quoted the Bible, except in prayer over the meal.
“It will be a long time before I find someone like that,” Aurora said with rare seriousness. “You and Joelle are very lucky.” Taking a breath, she reached into her reticule for the key Mr. Greene had given her. “In the meantime, let’s go on a little adventure, you and me. Just think! Two ladies walking into a saloon . . .”
Selah’s laughter cheered her, and by the time she’d inserted the key into the lock of the ugly, unpainted old door, Aurora was regaining her usual optimism. And curiosity. What would they find? The saloon had been closed since Romulus Oglesby died nearly three weeks ago. She hoped there wouldn’t be rats or other vermin—
Suddenly the door opened inward with a loud squeal of hinges, dragging across the floor in jerky spasms. A pale, blowsy face, curly blonde hair spiraling around it from beneath a lace nightcap, appeared in the opening. Red-rimmed green eyes squinted at the sudden sunlight, and a small freckled nose wrinkled in clear dismay at the sight of visitors. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t realize we were so loud. Quiet as a mouse we’ll be.” The door started to close again.
“Wait!” Aurora put her hand against the door. “What do you mean? Who are you?”
The green eyes looked confused. “Rosie was playing the piano. Mrs. Whitmore complains all the time.”
Aurora looked at Selah. “Did you hear a piano?” When Selah shook her head, Aurora turned back to the young woman in the doorway. Well, maybe she wasn’t young. It was hard to tell in the murky dimness of the saloon interior. “We were talking and didn’t notice. I’m Aurora Daughtry, and this is my sister Selah. Could we come in, please?”
“I don’t think that’s a good—”
“Look, miss.” Aurora sought for patience, surprised that Selah hadn’t taken charge as she usually did. “We have just inherited the—the—boardinghouse. Saloon. We need to come inside and inspect it. We weren’t expecting anyone to be here.”
That earned her a blank stare. Then a grin curled the woman’s full lips. Amusement lit her round face and turned it into that of a girl of maybe sixteen. “Oh, that’s—that’s—tell him he got me this time!” She doubled over in laughter. “I fell for it, sure as my name’s Bedelia O’Malley!”
“Tell who?” Aurora demanded, but the blonde woman just kept giggling.
Selah nudged Aurora aside. “Young lady, we have no idea what you’re talking about, but I assure you this is no joke. Here’s the deed, and here are our names. Are you Mr. Oglesby’s . . . daughter? Granddaughter? If he left you out of his will and there’s been some mistake, we’ll sort it all—”
“G’way outa that!” Bedelia exclaimed, flinging the door wide to snatch the deed from Selah’s hand. “Selah Daughtry, Joelle Daughtry, Aurora Daughtry . . .” She looked Aurora up and down with great suspicion. “Where’s the third one? Joelle?”
Of all the questions to ask, that one seemed the least pertinent.
“She’s at the bookstore,” Aurora said. “Could we please come inside? If Mrs. Whitmore happens to come along, our business will be all over town in five minutes flat.”
Bedelia seemed to comprehend the common sense of that observation, for she stepped back. “All right, ladies. But don’t say I didn’t warn ya. Careful of the swingin’ doors on the way in, they’ll whack ya in the bum.”
Safely inside the saloon with her bum intact, Aurora looked around. The common room was lit by oil lamps in sconces along the back wall. To the left she found the bar and its wooden stools, made of thick, dark mahogany the same color as Selah’s hair, squaring off a wall stocked with an array of colorful bottles. Tables and chairs, shoved into awkward arrangements, took up the space opposite. Above an upright piano on the other side of the room rose a giant lurid painting of a woman emerging from a bathtub, bubbles strewn strategically over her curvaceous body. Aurora stared at it. What imagination it must take to create a work of such stunning, hideous improbability.
Selah cleared her throat. “Well, isn’t this nice?”
Aurora found her sister regarding her with a mixture of disapproval and amusement. Cheeks stinging, she lifted her chin. “What did you expect from a men’s establishment? No wonder Mrs. Whitmore has been trying to shut it down.”
“That woman is a menace to society.” Bedelia flounced toward the stairs, which presumably led to living quarters on the second floor. “Sit down, Rosie, it’s not the gorgon. It’s our new landlords—ladies, I mean.” She giggled at her own joke.
For the first time Aurora noticed another young woman in the room. Dressed in a green-striped dressing gown, she stood on the bottom step looking like she might bolt up the stairs at the least provocation. As dark as Bedelia was fair, with long black hair streaming loose over her slight shoulders and Asian features as delicate as jasmine petals, she offered a shy smile and whispered, “Good morning.”
“Well, good morning!” Aurora said brightly as Bedelia tugged Rosie down to sit on the stairs. Squatting rights, undoubtedly. “My name is Aurora, and this is Selah.”
“Daughtry,” Bedelia clarified for Rosie’s benefit. “There’s another one named Joelle at the bookstore.” She made a face, as if bookish people weren’t to be trusted. “Ain’t you the ones had the party for General Forrest and the opera star a couple weeks ago? Out on the plantation?”
“That’s right,” Aurora said. She summoned the manners her grandmother had smacked into her with a ruler on the back of the knuckles. Bedelia and Rosie had been living here, even after Mr. Oglesby’s death. Which meant there were at least two women currently out of work. Whatever that had been. Aurora glanced at the painting. “We don’t mean to keep you from your . . . music rehearsals. We only came by to look the place over before we make renovation plans—”
“Renovations?” Bedelia straightened, wide-eyed, her mouth a pink O of exaggerated outrage. “This is our home! You can’t just come in and—and—renovate it!” She put a protective arm around Rosie, who looked confused and frightened.
“Actually, we can,” Selah said in her no-nonsense manner. “You saw the deed. We are the owners. But since we had no idea you ladies existed until five minutes ago, I can understand why you might be taken aback by our sudden appearance. It seems Mr. Oglesby didn’t inform you of his intentions before he, um, went to his reward.”
Bedelia made a rude noise. “The only reward old Rom earned was a permanent voyage on the lake of fire. I was never in my life so glad to hear of somebody cashing it in.”
Aurora exchanged glances with Selah, who had pressed her lips together. Personally, Aurora hadn’t had such an entertaining morning since she and Grandmama arrived at Ithaca to find Joelle, dressed in boy’s clothes, carting a giant beehive from the cupola out to the woods. “Miss O’Malley—may I call you Bedelia?—I admire your forthrightness. Could Selah and I sit down and discuss our plans with you? I think we can come to some sort of agreement here that will not involve casting you and Rosie out on the street.”
Bedelia gave her a shrewd stare from narrowed green eyes. “You can call me whatever ya want, and Rosie and me be willin’ to listen, sure we are. Make yourself at home,” she added with a magnanimous nod at Selah.
Clearly repressing a smile, Selah dragged over two chairs, then sat in one while Aurora took the other.
“Now,” Selah said, folding her hands in her lap, “since this is Aurora’s baby, so to speak, I’ll let her carry on from here.”
Aurora’s mouth fell open at this sudden transfer of leadership. Recovering, she cleared her throat. “All right, then. What I—we, that is—have in mind is a boardinghouse for war widows. Women who find themselves without a safe place to live, but who have a little income to live independently.” She’d actually thought this out. What if ThomasAnne had not had family to move in with? She could not have survived the privations of growing older without a husband to support her. And goodness knew it was too late for her to attract a mate now.
Bedelia shook her head. “What respectable lady is going to come live in a place like this? We’re directly across the way from the train station, and there be noise up and down the street at all hours.” Her extravagant eyebrows lifted. “I assume you do mean respectable women?”
“Obviously,” Aurora said. “Which means you and Rosie will have to be respectable too. No men allowed. Well, except for the ones working on repainting and whatnot.” She looked around. It was going to take a lot of repainting, beginning with that awful thing over the piano. Charmion was going to enjoy covering that huge canvas with something pretty. Perhaps some flowers.
“No men?” Bedelia was looking as if Aurora had just announced that there would be no more breathing. “What d’ya think Rosie and me do?”
Aurora felt the blood climb into her cheeks but refused to look at Selah for rescue. She was a grown-up now, mistress of a new business establishment. But she was not a madam. “It does not matter what you did in the past,” she said. “If you don’t need a job, fine—there’s the door. But if you want to stay here, what we need is an upstairs maid, a cook, and a serving woman for the dining room. If the business grows, perhaps we’ll have other positions open. But that’s what I’m starting with.”
“I will be the cook,” Rosie said unexpectedly.
Bedelia snorted. “You don’t know how to cook.”
“I always wanted to learn.” Rosie’s soft voice was defiant. “My parents own a grocery store in Canton.”
“China?” Ignoring the blonde’s skepticism, Aurora addressed the Asian girl with interest.
“Mississippi,” Rosie clarified. “They settled there after the railroad was completed, and I was born there.” A little smile curled the corner of her small mouth. “But we are of Chinese descent.”
Aurora beamed at her. “Of course you can learn to cook. I’ll send you out to Daughtry House to study with Horatia. She’s the best in the South!”
“That’s fine for you, Rosebud,” Bedelia said, “but I’m not inclined to be learning a new trade at my age.” She reached out to put a hand on Selah’s knee. “You don’t look too good, mistress. When’s the babe due?”
Aurora laughed. As non sequiturs went, that one was a doozy. “There’s no babe—”
“Probably next February,” Selah said wearily. “I wasn’t sure, so I haven’t said anything.” She rounded on Aurora. “So don’t you either! I haven’t even told Levi yet.”
Aurora wiped the shock off her face. “All right.” She gave Bedelia a respectful look. “How on earth did you know that?”
Bedelia shrugged. “Long story. None o’ your business, come to that.”
Hurt by the rebuff, Aurora stiffened. “Fair enough. I’ll look forward to hearing that story as our acquaintance goes forward. Well!” She clasped her hands. “Selah, perhaps we should give Bedelia and Rosie a chance to straighten a bit before we complete our inspection. Meantime”—she leveled her best Grandmama stare on the Irishwoman—“you’ll have two days to make up your mind whether you wish to take advantage of our offer.” Bouncing to her feet, she extended her hand to Selah. “We’d best go. Joelle will be wondering what’s happened to us.”
“No, she won’t,” Selah said with a grin, ignoring Aurora’s offer of assistance. “She’ll be happy as a goat in clover, curled up in some window seat in the bookstore. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Bedelia. Rosie.” Dipping a curtsey to each young woman, she returned the chairs to their table and accompanied Aurora to the door.
Out on the porch with the door shut and locked behind them, Aurora stared at Selah. “Are you really going to have a baby?”
Selah cupped her hands over her flat stomach. “I’m not sure. Probably so. I certainly don’t feel right. I’m going to wait another couple of weeks to see if . . . nature takes its course. Then I might ask Dr. Kidd to take a look at me.”
Aurora felt bizarrely proud to be in on such a momentous secret. “All right.” She pursed her lips. “Did we just take on two fancy women along with a saloon?”
“I believe we did.” Laughing, Selah took Aurora’s arm and tugged her down the steps. “The Lord certainly works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he?”
four
THE HOURS ON THE TRAIN from Memphis gave Zane plenty of time to ascertain details of the case from Riggins, as well as a bit about the Daughtry family. But he waited until the two prisoners, Jefcoat and Moore, had both dozed off before he addressed the Pinkerton agent.
“It would help,” Zane began, “if I knew exactly what we’re involved in. I’ve told you why I’m after Jones in particular. But if he’s connected to Beaumont’s murder, as well as the riots in Tuscaloosa and atrocities in Tupelo—well, there’s more going on here than Eaton indicated.”
Riggins shrugged. “It’s no secret President Grant is set on bringing violence in the South under control. It’s why he pushed for the Enforcement Act and appointed Amos Akerman as Attorney General.”
“I’d heard that,” Zane said, “but I’m not familiar with Akerman.”
“He’s a good man,” Riggins said, “in favor of protecting Negro voting rights. He’s convinced these Mississippi church burnings, newspaper vandalisms, intimidation, and murders are connected to similar events all over the southeast, so the President commissioned him to identify the leadership of those rings and bring them down. Akerman is friends with Pinkerton and brought him in to help, which is how I got involved.”
“Marshal Eaton says you managed to infiltrate the Mississippi Klan.” Zane gave Riggins a skeptical look. “Passing yourself off during the war as a butternut soldier while on a flash raid through the state with Grierson was one thing. But this investigation seems to have taken several months. I have trouble believing they’d accept a stranger with a Northern accent as one of them.”
Riggins responded with a grim smile. “Schuyler Beaumont volunteered to be our spy.”
“Beaumont?” Zane couldn’t control his surprise. “Related to Ezekiel—the one who was murdered in the Tuscaloosa riot?”
Riggins nodded. “His youngest son, engaged now to my wife’s sister. You’ll meet him when we get there. After his father was murdered, Schuyler agreed to use his somewhat wild—and, I might add, well-deserved—reputation to become a member of the local Klan organization. That stratagem resulted in these indictments in Tupelo. The Klan isn’t happy about it, obviously, which is why we’re preparing for all-out war.” He paused. “I hope it won’t come to that.”
Zane nodded. “Since the trial’s in Tupelo, who’s the presiding federal judge?” He was familiar with the Alabama and Tennessee departments of justice, but Mississippi was new territory.
