Madeline sent him a sidelong look. “Brazos, you should know by now that no one keeps me anywhere I don’t want to be. Had you left me at the children’s home, I wouldn’t have stayed.”
He scowled, but he didn’t argue with the truth. A cardinal sang
whoit whoit
to its mate as the buckboard rattled down the road. As they passed a farm, the scent of freshly turned dirt carried on the air. Madeline and Brazos passed the time in idle conversation or comfortable silence. Madeline used those quiet times to ponder the status of her marriage.
Brazos never mentioned the possibility of a future between them beyond the next few weeks. He had told her little of this Salezan, other than the man was a threat to Juanita and to anyone Brazos loved.
That pricked at her a bit. The Mexican beauty was one part of the equation she’d yet to solve. True, Brazos had been open in declaring his love for Juanita. But for all the cooing and touching between the two of them, she’d yet to see signs of a connection beyond that of dear friends. Of course, it could be she saw only what she wanted to see, but she didn’t really believe that. Brazos didn’t look at Juanita with the same light in his eyes that glowed when he looked at her.
Maybe her plan was working, after all.
Could it be that she was succeeding? Had she made inroads toward this theft she intended? Had she stolen even a piece of his heart?
Perhaps. Only time would tell. Time and Brazos’s actions upon their reunion with the colonists. Somehow, she needed to convince him that they had the makings of a perfect family. She could do it, surely she could. She simply had to devise the proper plan.
Madeline was not about to abandon her quest. Difficulties regularly arose in one’s designs, and things required a bit of rearranging. That’s all she faced now. Confidently, she put her mind to work. She was after his heart; she wouldn’t be settling for potato mashers.
They reached the wagon train’s trail late that afternoon. Madeline was driving the wagon while Brazos rode her mare when he spotted his brother’s horse riding back toward them. Brazos drew a line of brown dust clouds as he raced his horse across the prairie toward Tyler. Her curiosity aroused by the length of the discussion, Madeline absently sang a song for Rose as the wagon finally drew up beside them.
For the first time since Galveston, Tyler looked at her with a smile on his face. “Hello, Madeline,” he said.
“Tyler.”
Then he turned to Brazos and said, “The wagons are only a day’s ride from Dallas. Now that you’re back, why don’t I ride on ahead and take care of that business we discussed.”
“Business?” Brazos asked, his brow wrinkling.
“Yes, Brazos. That detail awaiting your arrival. Remember? Don’t you want it taken care of before the colonists arrive?”
A slow light dawned across Brazos’s face. Then he scowled. “Damn, I forgot all about him. Yeah, go on, Tyler, and see if you can’t escort the—” Brazos stopped suddenly. He twisted in the saddle to look at Madeline. Then he folded his arms, tilted his chin, and stared at her.
She looked up at him blankly.
Slowly, softly at first, Brazos began to laugh. Pretty soon, he was laughing so hard, he was leaning in his saddle. “Brazos, have you lost all your sense?” Madeline asked, grimacing in aggravation.
“He never existed, did he, Maddie mine?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Not what. Who. It’s no wonder you never remembered the fella’s name. You’d made it all up.”
Madeline was growing vexed. Brazos twirled his hat on a finger and chortled. “Mr. Sinclair,” she said in a tight voice, “who are you talking about?”
“See. She still can’t remember
Emile
. The phantom fiancé waiting at La Réunion. There’s never been an
Emile
in your life, has there, Maddie?”
Madeline hated to be laughed at. “As a matter of fact, I’m quite close to a male named Emile.” She lifted her chin and added, “He broke down and cried when I left him in France.”
Brazos sobered abruptly. “Well, who the hell is
he
?”
“He lives at Château St. Germaine, and I’m telling you, Brazos, we were very close.” She whipped the reins and started the wagon forward. Grinning at his sour look, she added, “He’s the cook’s pet collie.”
Chapter 16
BRAZOS TOOK ONE LOOK at the land along the rocky, white limestone bluffs Victor Considérant had purchased for the La Réunion colony and said, “My God, does nothing at all happen north of that man’s neck? He picked out the worst-looking section of land this side of the Louisiana border.” He shook his head in amazement and added, “Must’ve been either a banker or a lawyer who sold him these acres.”
“Brazos! Your brother is a lawyer;” Madeline replied, gazing around at the site.
“So?”
“I’m going to tell him you said that.”
He laughed. “Tyler knows what I think of his profession.”
Madeline almost mentioned that Brazos didn’t hesitate to use Tyler’s professional skills, but she thought it best not to bring up the subject of divorce. “I think this land is quite pretty,” she said. “It reminds me of the vineyard country of France.”
“Maddie, y’all won't be needing wine to see you through the winter,” Brazos said with disgust. “You’ll need corn—lots of it—and vegetables. Hell, a still and a couple of bushels of grain will take care of a man’s drinking needs. You folks will need to concentrate on food.”
Madeline shrugged, unwilling to think so far ahead. This was springtime in Texas—the sun bright and warm, the air velvety soft and sweetened from the bounty of wildflowers growing in splashes of red, yellow, and blue throughout the surrounding countryside. And Brazos wasn’t leaving until he’d built her a house. “Don’t be such a spoilsport. I think I shall love my new home.”
As a result of the efforts of a small assembly of Fourierists who had previously made the journey from Europe, building of the La Réunion colony was well under way. The president’s office, a structure for the making of soap and candles, a laundry, a forge, and a chicken house had been completed. The newest arrivals also found a cottage for the executive agent and two dormitories of eight apartments, each to be allotted to two households, ready for occupancy.
Brazos scoffed at that notion. “Ain’t a tepee yet been built that can peaceably house two families,” he observed. Immediately, he sought out the agent and offered a substantial amount of money for two weeks’ rent on the fellow’s cozy cottage. Privacy was a priority for both him and Madeline.
Juanita had accepted the change in Brazos and Madeline’s relationship with surprising grace. She’d chosen to sleep in the dormitory until the house was finished, a move that helped her to make friends among the colonists. As she had explained the day they’d taken the empty coffin out for burial during a private family ceremony, more than anything, she wanted her Sin to be happy.
After weeks with the colonists, it was obvious Brazos had been correct in assuming that Juanita would fit right in with the Europeans. While he’d given up on the idea of keeping her extraordinary beauty veiled on a daily basis, she had promised never to leave the colony compound—and to wear the veil when she broke the first promise and left La Réunion anyway.
With the trip from Houston successfully completed, Tyler prepared to return to Galveston. Madeline listened attentively as he and Brazos discussed the letter they’d posted in Anderson some two weeks ago—an invitation to Damasso Salezan to attend the reopening of a silver mine. She smiled with relief when Brazos instructed Tyler to see to the cancellation of the investigation into Rose’s background. The other topic of interest to Madeline was the subject of divorce. Neither man mentioned it.
The morning Tyler left La Réunion, as she listened to the two men tease one another like ornery little boys, Madeline felt a pang in her heart that was slow to disappear. They were family. They loved and laughed and bickered and fought. They had tears in their eyes as they took leave of each other.
She wanted to share that. She needed desperately to be part of a family like the Sinclairs. It had been her lifelong dream. Madeline prayed she was a good enough thief to steal it for herself.
Brazos watched Tyler’s dust until the red cloud settled back to the ground. When he turned to her, his voice was gruff, “Well, I reckon we’d best get to work on that house I promised you. Where are you supposed to work today?”
Madeline offered him a sunshine smile. “I’m to work in the co-op store this morning, but I think I’ll exercise my right as a Phalansterian and change my assignment. I’m of a mind to build houses today.”
Brazos looked up toward the sky and groaned. “But, Madeline, building is a man’s job. Don’t you think you ought to stick to serving up rabbit stew or something?” When she followed him, complaining continuously, he led her back to the cottage, where she found his horse saddled, ready to ride, and her mare saddled right beside it. “I’m riding after family to help work on the house. I thought you might like to come along.”
“Oh, Brazos,” she said, sighing. “At times, you are such a tease.”
Locating four cousins, two uncles, and one brother-in-law within a day’s ride of the colony, Brazos and his family, and some days Madeline, went to work. Because he defined his relationship with Madeline in a vague manner, each day he suffered numerous sly remarks and innuendos from the men assisting him.
Madeline made it worth his while every night. She cooked and cleaned and mended, and then took him into her arms and proved just how talented a wife she could be. He seemed content, more at peace than at any time since they had met, and Madeline harbored great hopes for the future.
As the days passed, she found herself torn between worry over Brazos’s intention to leave and thrill at the prospects of a owning a house of her own—even if she did have to share it with Brazos’s Juanita. Each day as she finished her assigned chores, she’d collect Rose from the cooperative nursery and head directly for the lot owned, at least in the colonists’ eyes, by Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair.
Madeline’s long dreamed of home differed substantially from the mortared rock houses being erected by the Europeans. Brazos was building the home Texas-style. Fashioned from rough-hewn logs, the cabin took shape as two large rooms separated by an open porch or dog run. Rock fireplaces stood at each end of the house, and when it was finished, a tall cedar shake roof would slope to form a long porch or veranda along the front. The room on the west end of the cabin served as a kitchen and living area, while the eastern room would function as Madeline’s bedroom. Narrow stairs led to the attic loft, where the majority of her Galveston purchases would be stored. Rose would sleep in the loft when she grew older, but for now, the pine baby’s crib Brazos had borrowed from his brother-in-law was placed against a wall in the kitchen.
Ten days after the colonists’ arrival at La Réunion, Madeline paused to pick a handful of the orange and yellow Indian paintbrushes growing wild in an empty field between the communal dining room and the nursery, where she’d spent the morning with Rose. Madeline was feeling especially happy today. Although she’d never confess the truth to Brazos, she’d discovered her favorite work here at La Réunion was caring for the children. The hours spent at the nursery were much more fulfilling than those spent behind a plow. Of course, if Brazos were to learn it, her crusade for women’s equality would be set back weeks, probably even months. He’d never let her hear the end of it.
Madeline laughed to herself. Brazos was another reason for her delight in the beautiful spring day. In his lovemaking last night, Brazos had displayed a tenderness, a sense of connection, he’d not shared with her before. She was beginning to suspect that her scheme was working. Now, if only she didn’t run out of time.
Bending over to add some yellow buttercups to her bouquet, Madeline hesitated. The hair on the back of her neck lifted as she sensed someone staring at her. Fear gripped her similar to what she’d felt at times on the trip from Houston. Slowly, she straightened, and forced herself to look around.
It was Brazos. Bare-chested and covered in a sheen of sweat, he leaned on the handle of his ax beside a stack of split logs. His heated gaze bore into her and she stood transfixed by its intensity. Then, suddenly, he dropped the ax, picked up his shirt, and left.
Madeline spent the rest of the afternoon being peeved. “He could at least have said hello,” she groused.
Especially after last night
. Her entire day was spoiled as she worked in the dining room preparing supper. He didn’t arrive for the evening meal, which made her all the more annoyed. She was fuming and muttering to herself when she walked past her new house that night.
Then she noticed the rosebushes. Pink rosebushes formed a line along the front of her half-finished front porch. She remembered Brazos’s asking what her dream house would look like. She’d told him roses, pink roses.
It took Brazos a good half hour to get her to stop crying that night. In the days that followed, her tears came more and more frequently.
THE JOURNEY from Perote Prison to Dallas, Texas, had been long and tedious. Winston Poteet sat in a chair with his boots propped on the windowsill of a second story room at the Crutchfield House hotel. He sipped scotch whiskey from a glass, stared down into the dusty Dallas street, and murmured, “Working for Salezan has its moments, but this ain’t one of ‘em.” He wouldn’t even get a good rest before he’d hit the road again.
A knock sounded on the door. “Yeah?” he called.
“Cuellar,” a Spanish accented voice replied.
Poteet looked at his pocket watch lying on a table beside the bed and scowled. The man was early. Probably wanted to get business out of the way so he could spend the night chasing the ladies.
I’ll have to remind him to keep his britches buttoned this trip
, Poteet thought. The governor wouldn’t hold for any of his men messing around with his woman.
He answered the door and crooked his finger for the younger man to enter. “Well?” he asked, shutting the door after checking the hallway to confirm that no curious ears might be listening.