Only With Your Love (Vallerands #2)(32)

Griffin seemed to understand the wild curiosity behind her silence. “Five plantations front this stretch of the bayou,” he murmured, pulling on the oars between words. “This is Bonheur. The next will be Garonnes. After that the Vallerands.”

Her eyes stung, and despite her best efforts she felt herself begin to tremble. Griffin rowed more slowly now, his movements less fluid than before. There was a distant look in his eyes. The air around them was hot and oddly luminous, and Celia breathed deeply through her nose, feeling as if she would suffocate.

Griffin guided the pirogue to the bank and tied it to the root of a weathered oak. He took a moment to look up a steep incline toward the main house of the Vallerand plantation. “Five years,” he said under his breath. The structure had changed not a whit. Cool and gracious, it was poised serenely against a backdrop of cypress trees and the blue Louisiana sky. The white stuccoed house was elegant in its simplicity, two stories high and ornamented with deep covered galleries and slender columns. The scent of the earth beneath his feet and the hints of poplar and magnolia in the air brought back the past as nothing else could have. Five years…

Boys’ voices echoed in the woods.

Justin, attends! Wait for me!

Let’s go downstream, Philippe, and look for pirates.

Don’t let Father find out…

Quickly Griffin glanced around, then relaxed as he realized the voices were remnants of longburied memories. He lifted Celia out of the pirogue and steadied her against a tree. Carefully he removed her hat and smoothed her sweat-soaked hair. Her body was shaking with nervous tension.

“You’re safe now,” he said, untying the gag and fishing the wad of sodden cloth from her mouth. She made an incoherent sound and touched her tongue to her dry lips. His fingers moved to her wrists. “No reason to be afraid. They’ll take care of you.” He unwrapped the cord that bound her and used it to tie back his hair.

“Who are you?” she asked unsteadily.

“Not before I get you to the house.” He looked up at the brilliant sky. “Broad daylight,” he said, pulling her with him up the slope. “I must be insane.”

Celia looked down in surprise as her thin fingers were engulfed in his large hand. It was the first time he had ever taken her hand in his.

They approached the back of the plantation house, pausing in the shadow of a grove of cypresses. Herbs growing in the kitchen garden spread a pungent scent through the warm air. Celia’s gaze wandered from the tiny chapel building and the storehouses on the right to the orange trees and flowering bushes that marked the edge of an immaculate green lawn. She knew from Philippe’s descriptions of the plantation that this was only a corner of the property. Farther on there would be more gardens, greenhouse, hen coop, mill and bell tower, bachelor house, overseer’s house and stable, and slave cabins bordering extensive fields.

Wondering why Griffin had stopped, she took a step forward, only to be hauled back again. She followed his gaze and saw a dark-skinned boy carrying a pair of buckets toward the smokehouse. Although she had tried to prepare herself for this aspect of plantation life, the sight still startled her. What did Griffin think of this enslavement of others, when his friend and cohort Aug was a Negro?

Griffin glanced down at her, reading her thoughts. “Nearly half my crew are either former slaves or Negroes from Haiti,” he said gruffly. “There are things I never questioned when I was a boy. Now I know one man was never meant to own another.”

Careful to keep them from being observed, Griffin urged her toward the kitchen, which was attached to the house by a long porch. They passed the smokehouse, from which emanated the smell of smoking pork. Celia swallowed convulsively, her mouth suddenly drenched with saliva. A lazy orange cat reclined in the shade of the house, its tail flicking as it watched them approach.

Keeping Celia to the side, Griffin peered in the screened door of the kitchen, his eyes glinted with satisfaction. “As I’d hoped,” he said, and pried the door open with the tips of his fingers. Celia stumbled beside him, following blindly as he pulled her inside.

The kitchen was large, possessing a fireplace with logs at least twelve feet long. There was an enormous iron cookstove, racks of pans and cranes from which pots and kettles hung. Three women, two Negro and one white, were putting up preserves. The air was thick with the aroma of boiling fruit and sugar. At the sound of the intruders, the women turned simultaneously and froze at the sight of the bearded giant who had entered their domain. No recognition was evident on their faces.

The woman at the stove, who had been stirring the contents of a boiling pot, stared at Griffin uncomprehendingly. Her hair, the most brilliant shade of red Celia had ever seen, was disheveled and curling from the steam. Her porcelain skin was flushed pink. A black dress and gray apron swathed her small but voluptuous form. She looked to be in her late twenties, her lush beauty fully developed and matured. Celia collected her scattered thoughts enough to decide that this must be Lysette Vallerand, Philippe’s stepmother.

The plump, bosomy woman working at the wooden table in the center of the room was the first to move. She lifted the small paring knife she had been using to slice strawberries, and brandished it threateningly.

Griffin smiled. “Restes tranquille,” he said. “Settle your feathers, Berté—I don’t intend to steal anything today.”

“Monsieur Justin,” the cook exclaimed.