To add to their discontent, the settlers had learned before leaving South Carolina that Santa Anna was no longer a threat. He had been captured when Sam Houston’s army had defeated the Mexicans at a place called San Jacinto. Therefore, for what reason must the train divert to New Orleans and cross the Sabine into Texas, many demanded to know.
Jeremy reiterated that anyone wishing to break off from the train to travel the original route was welcome to do so. Several families did. The Creeks wouldn’t dare attack, they declared, and they had kinfolks at Roanoke in Georgia they had promised to visit when the train passed by. Silas learned from the farmer that in late spring, the settlement at Roanoke had been attacked and burned to the ground and most of the white families massacred. There had also been an uprising in Chambers County in Alabama, where many in the cavalcade had hoped to replenish supplies and mail letters. But for Tomahawk’s wise steerage, the Willow Grove wagon train most certainly would have been a casualty of the Creek Uprising.
The other news the farmer reported was even more stunning and unsettling. Earlier in the month, a band of Comanche Indians had attacked a community in the eastern part of Texas. They had burned alive families in their homes, raped women, brutally tortured and killed the patriarch of the clan, John Parker, and kidnapped his nine-year-old granddaughter, Cynthia Ann.
“Good God,” Silas said, mentally picturing a screaming Joshua carried away on a Comanche buck’s swift horse with the pelt of Jessica’s red hair streaming from his lance. “And the area is just where we’re headed.”
“All the more reason for you to leave Jess and Joshua in New Orleans,” Jeremy said.
Jessica was sleeping when Silas returned to the wagon. He sat beside her, and from time to time took her pulse, placed a hand on her forehead to test for fever, and watched constantly for signs of stressful breathing. After an hour of intense concentration in an uncomfortable sitting position, he stretched out his legs and relaxed against the side of the wagon. He heard the train settle down for the night, and Maddie brought him his supper. Tippy led Joshua over, and Silas allowed them a brief sight of Jessica before sending them off to bed. Darkness fell, and Silas lit a lamp and decided to make use of a fringed cushion as a pillow for his back. It was one of a velvet pair serving as a reminder of the refinements left behind. Silas positioned it behind him and felt something hard. He withdrew the cushion and found the obstruction to be a book that had been inserted into an unsewn end, forming a pocket. Curious, Silas removed it. It was the red leather volume he’d seen Jessica writing in during the long, boring days on the trail. He held it as if he’d come across the holy grail, remembering Jeremy’s words: She’s writing a diary, you know. Women confess all to their diaries. Why don’t you take a peek in it and enlighten yourself?
Silas glanced at Jessica sleeping soundly. Her breathing was regular. The flesh above her binding felt cool to his touch. He readjusted the mosquito netting, sat back against the pillow, and folded his arms, the red book glowing like a ruby within his reach. Occasionally he swatted at mosquitoes, fanned himself, and listened to the nocturnal sounds filling the silence of the night. Finally, unable to constrain his curiosity any longer and after another glance at the closed lids of his wife, he reached for the book.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Silas was dumbfounded. He was indeed as dense as a block of wood not to have seen what Jeremy had perceived all along. As usual, his all-knowing friend had read Jessica correctly, but in all fairness to himself, how could he have remotely guessed her feelings behind the façade of her stony indifference? Silas looked at the sleeping figure under the mosquito netting. Good Lord, the girl was in love with him—or thought she was. How the hell had that happened? And what were his feelings toward her? There was no denying he cared about her—at times lately, even…wanted her—but for her? He still cared for Lettie and, oddly, his stirrings for Jessica made him feel the loss of his former fiancée even more.
He suspected that what Jessica felt for him wasn’t love at all but physical attraction. She was too young and inexperienced with men to know the difference. Silas was aware of the draw of his looks to women, an endowment of his lineage that in his early, carefree years, he’d not minded using to his advantage in pursuing a woman who’d caught his fancy. He was often disappointed. Women had to be interesting before he could be interested, and he’d found few, if any, of that stamp along the way until he met Lettie and—he must admit—Jessica Wyndham.
Silas studied her. How could Jessica ever believe she was too plain to be desirable? He must somehow relieve her of that delusion. Her body was bewitching. For days after the episode at the creek, he’d been unable to get his mind off its perfection, and when her face lit up with joy or pleasure, or her dark eyes grew round with wonder or awe, she radiated a loveliness far more enticing than the accepted ideal of beauty. He wondered how he could appreciate that distinction in Jessica when he’d been engaged to a woman who was the very definition of feminine allure.
He must also dissuade Jessica from the notion that his concern for her safety had only to do with the condition stated in the contract that her death would nullify his agreement with her father. He must convince her that, as was his duty as her husband and because of his fondness for her, he sincerely wished, and meant, to keep her from harm.
Thank God the accident had happened close to New Orleans. By tomorrow, if Jessica were well enough to travel, she would be ensconced at the Winthorp, where she could be properly seen after. There she would have her daily bath. The schedule called for the wagon train to camp outside the city for a week to repair equipment, arrange for water vessels, and replenish supplies before pushing on to the Sabine. There would be seven days for Silas to see her restored to health and settled in the hotel before he left her. By the time he returned, more than likely her infatuation with him would have cooled.
He inserted the book into its hidden pocket, returned the pillow to the spot from which he’d taken it, and took its companion for a cushion.
He seemed to have hardly dozed off before he was awakened at the first ray of light to edge around the canvas flap by Jessica wriggling the toe of his boot. She was smiling at him from her cot. “Good morning,” she said.
Silas blinked the sleep from his eyes but caught Jessica’s startled look when he sat up and removed the cushion from behind him. Her glance darted to the other one like it lying in a corner.
“Good morning,” he said. Carelessly, he laid the fringed pillow within her reach. “How do you feel?”
“As if I need a drink of water and the necessary house.”
He assisted her to sit up, and she took the cushion and pressed it to her midriff as if needing its warmth.
“I mean your head,” he said. “How is it?”
With a faint look of relief, obviously satisfied with the feel of the pillow, Jessica laid it aside and touched her bandage. “Like it’s been hit by a rock but my head got the better of it.”
Silas grinned and handed her a ladle of water. So she remembered their banter.
“You’ve been here all night?” she asked.
“Yes, all night.” In the growing light, he saw that a blue tinge had appeared from beneath the bandage along her brow bone.
She peered at him closely over the rim of the bowl. “Were you afraid I might die?”
“No. I was afraid you might live and be a thorn in my side forever. However”—he took the ladle and refilled it—“I don’t mind thorns. What would roses be without them?”
Her gaze above the dipper as she drank flickered with amused surprise. “A most thought-provoking observation,” she murmured, handing him back the ladle. “Thank you for…your vigilance…Silas.”
“My pleasure, Jessica.” On impulse, because he could not resist the child-like vulnerability in her large, brown-eyed gaze, he chucked her chin. “I’ll send Tippy to help you, then we’ll have to change the bandage.”
Jeremy and Tippy and Joshua were already standing anx
iously outside the wagon when Silas jumped down. “How’s the patient?” Jeremy asked.
“She seems better,” Silas said. “She needs you, Tippy. After you see to her, boil some water. Joshua, run get Tomahawk. I want him to dress the wound.”
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed at a sight beyond Silas’s shoulder. A rider cantering up the road from the direction of New Orleans had diverted his attention. “We’ve got company,” he said.
Silas followed his curious gaze and for a moment thought he was seeing an apparition. A slim, black-suited figure wearing a plumed hat and riding an ebony, high-stepping filly turned off the trail toward their encampment. The rider sat straight-backed but leisurely in the saddle, his bearing giving the impression that all he surveyed was his domain.
“A Frenchman, I’ll wager,” Silas said. “Wonder what he wants? Will you go out to meet him, Jeremy? I must relieve myself and get a cup of coffee.”
When Silas returned, the man introduced himself with a deep bow and dramatic sweep of his swashbuckler’s hat as Henri DuMont. A dandy, Silas thought, but the man’s handshake was strong and his gaze direct. He’d ridden out to ask if he might join the wagon train. He had a yearning to go to Texas—“a staunch bunch, those Texians, and I feel I can live comfortably among them,” he said.
“Pardon me,” Jeremy interposed, his inspection of the Frenchman’s elegant attire patently questioning his suitability to plow land, “but to do what?”
The man waved a lace-cuffed hand bearing a signet ring on his little finger. “To open an emporium as grand as my father’s here in New Orleans, which I hope you will visit while you are here,” he said in a tone conveying no doubt of his success in accomplishing his ambition. “How long do you gentlemen intend to camp here before moving on?”
“A week,” Jeremy answered. He exchanged a look with Silas, who responded with a subtle nod. “Will that give you time to get your gear in order?”
“More than enough time, gentlemen,” Henri said, obviously delighted, and again bowed and flourished his hat. “Merci. You have my gratitude. May I be of assistance to you while you are here? I can recommend the best establishments for your needs.”
“Right now we might need a doctor,” Silas said. “My wife has suffered a head injury.”
“Dr. Fonteneau,” Henri suggested immediately. “He’s the best in New Orleans. Shall I bring him here to you?”
“I’d be most grateful,” Silas said. The signet ring was engraved with a royal crest, he noted. A French aristocrat, then. “I had planned to install my wife and son in the Winthorp Hotel in the Garden District today to remain there until I return for them from Texas,” he explained, “but I’d feel better if a doctor examined her before risking further damage to her injury from a jolting wagon ride.”
“It shall be done,” Henri said. “I will return with Dr. Fonteneau by luncheon time, and perhaps then you gentlemen can advise me on what preparations to make for the journey to Texas.”
The man was as good as his word, but by the time Henri and the doctor arrived, Tomahawk had cleansed the wound and applied a fresh film of aloe oil and pronounced the cut beginning to heal. There was no sign of infection, and only a faint throb in the area reminded her of her ordeal, Jessica said.
After Tomahawk’s ministrations, Silas had helped her down from the Conestoga to test her ability to stand without feeling dizzy. In the wagon’s shadow, ready to assist her if she were wobbly, he said, “If the doctor approves, it looks as if you will be well enough to travel to New Orleans today,” and watched her face for a sign of how she took the news that the trials of her journey were nearly over. He was not surprised to see her mouth droop slightly before she brushed dried mud from her skirt with exaggerated care. She was still wearing the calico dress from the day before.
“I’m sure Joshua’s safety is your foremost concern right now as well as mine, of course, but your son will miss his father,” Jessica said, her tone stiff. “He has expressed his desire to continue with you to Texas. You must be prepared for his tears.”
“And yours?” Silas could not resist asking.
Jessica glanced up in apparent surprise that he would ask such a question. “I do not cry over decisions in which I have no say, Mr. Toliver.”
“So then I take it my decision to leave you in New Orleans disappoints you as well?”
His mind cautioned to let the matter drop before he opened a door too late to close, but something beyond curiosity would not let the moment and opportunity go.
His question flustered her, he could see, and for a girl with so agile a tongue, she seemed utterly at a loss how to answer. Finally, she raised her chin a notch and returned his gaze. “I have become…accustomed to the rigors of the trail, Mr. Toliver, and I fear a long interruption spent in a New Orleans hotel will undo the progress I’ve made in adjusting to life without a bath.”
“And is that the only reason you regret not pushing on?”
Her face blossomed a traitorous pink. “I can think of no other,” she said.
“I see.”
She was not about to allow him a peek into her feelings for him, Silas recognized, and felt a strong urge to take her into his arms to melt her resistance to them. He pressed her arm instead. “Please be assured that I’m not leaving you in New Orleans to get rid of you, Jessica, but to ensure your well-being and safety. Your death would be a loss to me far greater than the terms of a contract.”
He left her in visible shock as he went to meet Henri DuMont and Dr. Fontenau riding up the trail. He smiled to himself. Let her chew on that revelation for a while, he thought.
Chapter Thirty-Three
A concerned audience gathered to be on hand for the doctor’s prognosis. Jeremy had shooed Tippy, Tomahawk, Jasper, the driver Billy, Joshua, and his friends and their parents a good distance behind the overturned bucket where Jessica sat to be examined. Dr. Fonteneau had directed the bandage be removed outside Jessica’s hot, cramped wagon to have more room to work and to avoid the heat triggering the blood to flow again.
Only Silas, a fan in hand to cool Jessica and wave away flies and mosquitoes, and Jeremy and Henri DuMont, who already seemed to have become one of them, were privy to Dr. Fonteneau’s assessment of the injury. The doctor had been told of Tomahawk’s treatment and the scout’s conviction that a tourniquet bandage would close the wound without more drastic measures having to be taken.
“Your Indian friend was right,” Dr. Fonteneau confirmed in admiration, and declared Jessica fit to travel but suggested a delay of two more days to be on the safe side. “By then,” he explained to Jessica, “the flesh will have knitted nicely if you’ve kept the binding tightly drawn. I know your head must feel caught in a vise, Mrs. Toliver, but it is a necessary discomfort for the broken skin to bond.”
“I feel its discomfort not nearly as much as the need for a bath and change of clothes,” Jessica said, glancing down at the soiled skirt of her calico dress. She felt her grubby state more keenly in the presence of the immaculate, urbane Henri DuMont, but his manners were such that not for the world would he have her aware he noticed her appearance. When they were introduced, he’d bowed over her hand with all the gallantry of a courtier meeting a bedecked lady of the royal court.
The Frenchman immediately won her heart by exclaiming when he met Tippy, “What an adorable creature you are! How do you do, my child, and tell me please who is responsible for the excellent construction of your dress?”
“I am, sir,” Tippy said with a curtsy and a smile that devoured her face. “It’s kind of you to notice.”
“Kind? An oaf would take notice.”
“Tippy is a wizard with needle and thread, not to mention her genius at clothes construction and design,” Jessica had informed him, impressed that he recognized the skill in the fine tailoring of Tippy’s simple muslin dress.
“Really?” Henri had trilled, eyeing Tippy with greater interest.
The gathering burst into applause as Jeremy related the
doctor’s news, and Joshua broke from the group, Tippy following, and flew to Jessica’s side. Henri said to Silas, “When the time comes, you must permit me to lead you the shortest route to the Winthorp, where Madame will be relieved of at least one of her discomforts. I know the hotel well. A bathtub in every room. The proprietors have long been customers of my father’s establishment and personal friends to boot. Henry and Giselle Morgan. They will see that your wife has every attention.”
Joshua, his arm proprietarily around Jessica’s shoulders, piped up. “Oh, Jessica isn’t my father’s wife. She’s just our friend, aren’t you, Jessica?”
Silence fell like a bomb. Silas drew in an audible breath, Jeremy studied his feet, Tippy cast her eyes heavenward, and Henri and Dr. Fonteneau exchanged glances that hiked their eyebrows to their hairlines.
Jessica was still sitting. She relieved the awkward moment by putting an arm around Joshua and drawing him close to her side. “I most certainly am your friend, my little soldier, forever and always,” she said, nuzzling his nose. “Now go gather your friends, and I will read to you.”
Silas was glad of the two days’ delay before he had to leave his wife and son at the Winthorp. He would return to camp afterwards and remain throughout the week, making periodic visits to the hotel to assure himself of their welfare before pulling out with the train in six days’ time. A kind of darkness entered his soul. He would feel untold relief in knowing his son and Jessica were safe from the horrors that might await them. The details of John Parker’s diabolical torture and the abduction of his granddaughter made the blood of every household head in the wagon train run cold. No pangs of separation would induce him to take his son and Jessica with him, but how he would miss them! His loneliness apart, he was aware of what he risked in leaving them behind. He and his son had developed a bond that months apart from each other could weaken. Joshua was growing up fast. He’d turn five in three days’ time, and at that age, a boy needed his father. He was a tender child who forged bonds quickly but deeply and felt a terrible severance when he was torn from them. Joshua still missed Lettie and his uncle and grandmother and often asked, “When can we go to see them again, Papa?” Silas had not told him of his plans to leave him in New Orleans, and he cringed to imagine the child’s pain when he left him, even to the care of Jessica, his “friend.”