Underground Captive (2 page)

Underground Captive
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
4

    
             
Noticing a pearl-handled knife beside his wife, Jared knelt beside Patricia again and looked down at her body, stuffing the snuffbox into his pocket.  He  picked up the weapon and inspected it closely in the moonlight.  There were streaks of dried blood on the blade and the initials R.D. engraved on the hilt.  The realization that he held Patricia's murder weapon in his hand hit him and he threw it down as though it had suddenly become a hot coal.  Immediately, he branded Ricard the murderer.  His agonized soul and aggrieved mind allowed for no other possibility.

    
             
He picked up the knife again, quickly depositing it in his pocket also.  Hate and anger rose in him, an insurmountable tidal wave that roared through him.  He buried his grief deep within him.

Revenge surfaced in its place.

Remembering the inscriptions, Jared's hand shook.  "I'll avenge ye,

Patricia.  I'll avenge both of ye.  I swear it."

    
             
The hour had grown late.  He had to get away, but he wouldn't leave his wife and friend unburied.

    
             
Jared gazed down at his young wife.  She had died in his arms--arms that should have been there to protect her.  Those same arms now had to dig graves and bury her and Robert.  Taking a worn and rusted shovel from a corner of the cabin, he hurried to dig two holes.

    
             
More than fifteen hundred miles from Boston, the city of her birth, and five miles from New Orleans, her adopted city, he buried Patricia on a grassy slope near the cabin.  Instead of himself, as he had always imagined, she lay beside Robert, his friend.  Taking no chance that the murderer would return and desecrate the graves, Jared covered the freshly-turned soil with dead branches and wiped away all traces of his tender labors.

    
             
With tears stinging his eyes, he paused a final moment to vow to his beloved wife and dearest friend that he would exact the worst possible vengeance on Ricard Duplantier--and everyone else connected to Crescent Wood plantation.

Underground Captive
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
5

1

July 1858

    
             
As the Creole Belle steamed down the swirling waters of the Mississippi River to New Orleans, Nicollette Duplantier found herself drawn to the man with the handsome face, branded with sorrow.  She stood in the portal leading to the main gallery where she had come for a breath of fresh air.  A gentle breeze blew across the deck, beckoning to her.   Instead of enjoying the air as she had intended, the unexpected companion, deep in thought, caught her attention.

             
Impervious to his surroundings, the man did not notice Nicollette. 

             
His hazel eyes looked to hold deep secrets and an intense, abiding pain.  His tautly held jaw gave his finely chiseled features a hard, cold look.  He leaned against the railing of the paddle-wheeler, powerfully built, his muscles straining against the confinements of his white, ruffled, silk shirt, and green brocaded waistcoat.   His golden hair shone like silken honey from the bright sunshine.  Thick and wavy, it curled at the nape of his neck, with sideburns down past his ears.  He cut a striking appearance in his brown-cutaway coat and fawn-colored trousers that matched perfectly with his other attire.  His features went beyond handsome to a male beauty she seldom remembered seeing before.

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9

Underground Captive
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
9

"Explain yourself, sir.  There doesn't seem to be a difference."

    
             
"Very well," Jared said.  "If I were called upon to rescue a damsel in distress, such as that exquisite creature over there"-- he nodded his head in Nicki’s direction--"from the clutches of a blackguard I would offer my services.  But if I were called upon to, let's say, abduct the fair maiden for ransom, I would decline the offer."

    
             
Looking in Nicollette's direction, Louis showed no sign of recognition.  He turned back to Jared.  "Nicely put,
Monsieur
Fleming.  Would you also offer your services and aid a female slave's escape from her master's plantation?"

    
             
"That's a loaded question,
Monsieur
Aupre, and I'll answer it with another question.  Is yer female slave no less a damsel in distress?" Jared asked icily.

    
             
Bristling, Louis slowly rested his hand on the coustille dangling at his side.

    
             
Jared's gaze, cold and unmoving, bored into Louis's face.  "I have no wish to offend ye,
Monsieur
Aupre, nor do I wish to kill ye," he said deadly quiet, noticing where Louis's hand rested, his accent more pronounced.  "I know how touchy ye Creoles are.  I have no wish to get into a fencing duel with ye.  Fencing requires a lot of rapid movements resulting in an undue amount of sweating.  'Tis too hot, but if ye insist on going through with yer intent to challenge me for whatever infraction ye think I may have committed, I shall simply have to blow yer head off."

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9

    
             
In the blink of an eye, Jared's hand moved the butt of his pearl-handled pistol just far enough out of his coat for Louis to see.

    
             
Startled, Louis stepped back, with the hand that lay on the hilt of the sword going slack at his side.

    
             
"I have no wish to kill ye,
Monsieur
Aupre," Jared repeated.  "Again, I extend my apologies if I have offended ye."

    
             
Louis's obsidian eyes widened and he swallowed hard.  "I-I-I was hasty,
Monsieur
Fleming.  I-I-I would be less than a gentleman, sir, if I did not accept your apology.  We have had an unusual number of slaves to run off of late.  It's like the Pied Piper, sir.  Somebody living amongst us is leading the blacks right out of the canefields.  Good blacks!  Just spirited away by a renegade who calls himself the Black Rider.  My father, and a good friend, Christian Falgout, informed me of this blackguard's activities when I returned home from Paris, two months ago.  So you see, one can't be too careful these days.  It's I who owe you an apology, sir."

    
             
"Let's just call this a draw,
Monsieur
Aupre."  Some of the coldness left Jared's eyes.  "Would ye care to accompany me inside for a drink?"

"It would be my pleasure, sir."

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9

    
             
Nicollette opened her parasol, shielding herself against the sun, and watched as the two men went inside to the ship's bar. 

How dare Monsieur Fleming threaten to use a weapon as vile as a pistol!  Pistols are for cowards, even dueling pistols.  Although she wouldn't hesitate to use one against the likes of him
.

    
             
First of all, he wasn't Creole.  Probably ‘Mericain.  Vile enough.  Yet she had heard an accent when he spoke.  When he became angry, it was even more pronounced.  Since she always had done her best to socialize only with Creoles of her class, she couldn’t place his accent.  Most people, including her father, had accepted the American invasion of her city.  But she couldn't, especially after spending four tortuous years at that Yank boarding school.  She knew just how barbaric those 'Mericains could be.

    
             
Secondly, swordplay had been elevated to a fine art by some of the best swordsmen on both continents.  And this...this...soldier of fortune decried swordplay in favor of a pistol?  How dare he?

Perhaps he was too much of a coward to engage in a fencing duel.  Yet somehow she doubted that.

    
             
Monsieur
Fleming would probably not be satisfied with first blood, as most civilized Creole gentlemen would be.  He probably fought to the death.

   
             
Remembering his insinuation that female slaves are 'damsels in distress, she wondered if
Monsieur
Fleming was surely one of those bleeding heart abolitionists that was causing this country so much grief.  They should mind their own business and let the South live in peace.  They’d never understand Southern ways, right to the point that some referred to their blacks as just that—Blacks.  Others called them Negroes, like herself.  Some of her Pa-Pa’s friends called their slaves nigras.

             
She wondered how Jared Fleming referred to them.

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9

    
             
Unable to help herself, she conjured up a picture of Jared in her mind and her heart quickened.  Waves of excitement rose in her at the remembered sight of him, standing by the railing as she first seen him, his thick wavy hair gleaming in the light of the sun.  His face was strong and confident yet had a vulnerability she couldn't quite define. . 
Should  I concern myself with him?  Non!  He is probably a blackguard in the worse sense
!  Besides, it was unlikely she'd ever see him again, which would suit her just fine, she told herself stubbornly.

    
             
With that conclusion about Monsieur Fleming, Nicki looked across the water at the familiar landmarks as she neared the end of her journey.  She debated whether she should stop at the Duplantier house in New Orleans, or continue on to Crescent Wood, her family's plantation in Destrehan.  Though her father, Charles, knew of her decision to leave the boarding school, he didn't expect her for a fortnight.