Redeeming Gabriel (22 page)

Gabriel frowned. “The Bible commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, ma’am, but even I balk at harboring Yankee soldiers.”

“Lady, I swear to you if you turn this man away I’ll get on the next train headed north and never come home again.” Camilla was white with emotion.

Gabriel wanted to pick her up and kiss her senseless. He looked at General Forney, who had remained in the background, listening acutely to the exchange. “General, perhaps we might reach a compromise. It’s my understanding this man is a trained surgeon. As such he would be a valuable hostage for exchange purposes.”

Forney’s eyes widened with interest. “Really?”

Gabriel nodded. “Would you agree to my taking him into personal custody, with Miss Beaumont as nurse, until he is well enough to survive the trip to Ship Island?”

“A suggestion of great merit.” Forney stroked his lower lip. “But are you willing to risk catching whatever ails the man?”

“I would deem it an honor to put my life on the line again for my country.” Gabriel bowed.

Mrs. St. Clair thumped her cane against the floor. “Camilla, if you insist on this mad venture, you will at least pursue it from the safety of our home. Reverend, I will send one of the servants to transfer your belongings to Beaumont House this evening.”

Gabriel chewed the inside of his lip to keep from shouting victory. He’d be quartered in the same house with the top local Confederate command. At the same time he could watch over both Camilla and Harry. Possibly he could even facilitate their escape if the situation required it.

Perhaps God had been listening to him after all.

They all accompanied the stretcher bearing Harry Martin’s supine body from the hospital, Mrs. St. Clair leaning on the general’s arm, Camilla walking beside her cousin—her love?—trying not to expose her emotions. Gabriel almost pitied her.

As Harry was loaded into the back of an ambulance wagon, Camilla anxiously attending him, Gabriel assisted Mrs. St. Clair into the carriage she’d left waiting under the hospital portico.

The grande-dame touched his shoulder. “Thank you, Gabriel.”

He looked up at her in surprise. “Ma’am?”

She smiled at him grimly. “It’s time you and I had a talk, young man. I’ll expect you in my sitting room this evening after dinner.”

Chapter Seventeen

T
he cut-glass gasolier suspended above the dining table illuminated a splendid array of heavy shining silver, delicate bone china and sparkling crystal. Camilla found herself unable to work up any sort of interest in the forthcoming meal. She wanted to be at Harry’s bedside.

Still, she couldn’t squelch a frisson of awareness as Gabriel held her chair. His fingers brushed her arm as she seated herself, and she looked up to find him staring at her with a possessive, almost hungry expression in his eyes.

His eyes shuttered as he leaned down. “Where’s your brother?”

“Schuyler’s always late for dinner.”

“Not Schuyler. Jamie.”

“He’s been gone for several days.”

“Gone?” Gabriel’s black gaze sharpened.

Camilla shifted her shoulders. “I haven’t had time to ask questions.”

“Here comes the general. Make the most of the opportunity.” Gabriel touched Camilla’s bare shoulder with an infinitesimal pressure that had her burning to the eyebrows, then moved to his place three seats down the long table.

Camilla managed to keep up a laughing banter with General Forney on her left and watch Gabriel flirt with her grandmother. What an amazing ball of complications he was—but how reassuring his presence. She’d put them all in a dangerous position by bringing Harry home, but somehow she knew it was the right thing to do. She would trust the Lord and Gabriel to keep Harry safe.

Camilla smiled at the general’s attempt to conceal a yawn. “You must be keeping long hours, sir.”

Forney chuckled. “Forgive my poor manners, my dear. I would not miss this for the world. Your grandmother sets a fine table. One could almost forget the Yankees clamoring on our doorstep.”

Camilla shuddered. “What do you think are our chances of repelling the enemy?”

“With the loyal backing of families such as yours and the bravery of our gallant Southern men, we must prevail.”

“I’m very proud of my father’s and my older brother’s involvement in the effort.”

Forney smiled. “Your papa has perhaps the most useful talent of all—that of making money.”

Camilla looked at the general over the top of her water goblet. “Papa and his machines.” She smiled. “Someday he’s going to pay somebody to invent a craft that will take off into the air.”

Forney frowned. “Does your father discuss his projects with the family?”

“Of course it’s a closely guarded secret.” Camilla set down the goblet. “If anyone stole the plans, Papa would lose all that lovely money he’s going to make off it. Besides, I don’t pretend to understand how the thing works.” She flicked a glance upward at the general, who was pulling thoughtfully at his mustache. “Will they be testing it soon?”

“I’m not sure to which project you refer.”

Camilla made a diving and swimming motion with her hand. Over the general’s shoulder she caught Gabriel’s eye. He frowned, shook his head slightly.

Forney pushed away from the table, rose and bowed to Camilla. “Miss Beaumont, I must ask you to keep this conversation in strict confidence and refrain from questioning anyone else about your father’s project. Your brother’s life could depend on your discretion. Excuse me.” He gestured to his adjutant, seated next to Schuyler, and the two of them walked from the dining room.

Camilla twisted her ring. The general clearly knew what she’d been talking about. Jamie was testing that underwater boat soon, maybe tonight. She closed her eyes and breathed a prayer for her brother.

For the moment she could do nothing to help him, but Harry lay, still unconscious, on a cot in the warming kitchen. Portia was sitting with him, with instructions to fetch Camilla if he awakened.

Camilla rose, straightening the lacy shawl about her shoulders. “Lady, please excuse me,” she called softly. “I’m needed in the kitchen.”

Lady nodded in an abstracted fashion as she allowed Gabriel to help her from her chair. “Reverend Leland and I will be in my pink sitting room. We are not to be disturbed.” She took up her cane and, leaning on Gabriel’s arm, accompanied him out of the dining room.

Camilla hesitated, frowning. Odd, most odd. But Harry needed her. She hurried toward the kitchen.

Gabriel helped Mrs. St. Clair into a chair, then seated himself across from her. His hand went to his inside coat pocket, but stopped as he caught the old lady’s sardonic gaze.

“Feel free to indulge in your after-dinner cigar, Reverend—may I call you Gabriel?”

“Of course.” Gabriel pulled out his cigar case and chose a cheroot.

“I’ve come to think of you quite as one of my own grandsons, you know.” His hostess sat ramrod straight, hands atop the cane, regarding him with a Camilla-like stare. “Perhaps you won’t mind if I regale you with a bit of family history.” She inhaled deeply as he lit the cigar. “I do love the smell of a cigar. Used to smoke myself, before I had the responsibility of my grandchildren.”

Gabriel grinned. “Would you care for one, ma’am?”

The birdlike head canted. “Don’t mind if I do.”

When the two of them were contentedly puffing up a haze of fragrant smoke, Gabriel leaned back against the sofa. “I assume this history has something to do with the young man in the kitchen?”

“Why would you assume that?”

“He
is
Camilla’s cousin.”

“I haven’t seen Harry in—oh, five years or so. I doubt I’d recognize him if I met him face-to-face.” Lady waved her cigar. “No, my boy, the history I wish to discuss goes back a bit further than five years. Back to a time when Southern Mississippi and Alabama were sparsely settled. 1812, to be precise.”

“Fifty years ago.” Gabriel frowned. “America was at war with England at the time.”

“Oh, yes, but this is a much more personal history than that. My parents were missionaries, you know, to the Indians.”

“I didn’t know.” Gabriel blew a lazy smoke ring.

“Yes. In 1812 I was sixteen years old and deeply in love.”

“Camilla’s grandfather was a lucky man.”

“Indeed, he was.” The old lady grinned. “But he was not my first love.”

“You astonish me.”

“I’m sure I do. My sweetheart was a young chief of the Creek nation known as Red Eagle.”

Gabriel sat up straight, choking on a carelessly indrawn huff of smoke.

“We were not allowed to marry,” Lady continued, ignoring Gabriel’s watering eyes and attempts to regain his breath. “I was sent to live with relatives in Mississippi. Red Eagle, as I discovered later, eventually took to wife a young kinswoman of his. That same year he led the Creeks in a revolt against settlers encroaching on their land. It was a bloody conflict that lasted several years.”

Gabriel, wheezing, was unable to answer.

“Though I, too, married and became mistress of my own household, I followed the dispersal of the Indians to Oklahoma after they succumbed to white authority. Red Eagle’s daughter, however, remained with a remnant of the tribe on a reservation in Mississippi. She married a French trader named Jean Laniere.”

“A very interesting history, ma’am, but—”

“Jean Laniere was your father.”

There was a long, taut silence.

The old woman returned his look calmly. “You have much the look of your grandfather, my dear.”

“Indian blood is not the recommended entrée into society,” he muttered.

“I know. That’s why I made sure you were accepted into medical school.”

Gabriel could not control his expression. “
You
made sure? Why?”

Lady examined the ash at the end of her cigar, the thick brown of the tobacco an absurd contrast to the papery whiteness of her fingers. “Maybe it was a way to make up for the loss of Red Eagle.” She looked up. Tears stood in her eyes. “I suppose I never got over him, though I did love my husband. When my daughter died, I came back to Mobile to help raise her children. I chanced to see you with your uncle one day at the market—you couldn’t have been much more than twelve or thirteen.” Her smile was both tender and wistful. “I knew immediately who you must be.”

Gabriel surged to his feet and prowled toward the blackness of the window. All this time there had been someone watching over him, someone concerned for his welfare, not just on his own behalf but because of his grandfather.

He turned with a jerk. “Why tell me this now?”

“I’ve seen the way you look at Camilla.” He flushed, but before he could reply the old lady held up a hand. “Do you wonder why I never invited you into our home, particularly when your friendship with Harry developed?”

“That’s not so hard to figure.” Gabriel sneered. “Half-Indian kid like me, with hardly a complete suit of clothes to my name. Did Uncle Diron know where the scholarship came from?”

Lady shook her head. “I gave it anonymously. Gabriel, I wanted you to have a chance.”

“I had a chance, all right.” The old anger swamped Gabriel so that he wanted to put a fist through the window. “I thought I’d earned it myself. And look what came of it in the end—disgrace, exile, humiliation—”

“Yes, just look.” Lady struggled to her feet. “Look what you’ve done. You saw that maniac Joseph Kinch using mental patients for medical research and did everything in your power to stop him. You sacrificed your reputation and your career trying to prove that mosquitoes, not human contact, cause the spread of yellow fever. If you were my own son I couldn’t be prouder of you.” Her hands trembled atop the cane, and her face contorted with a fierce twining of anger, pride and exultation.

Gabriel’s fury evaporated. Taking her cane, he helped her back into her chair, then knelt with his forehead on her knee. He felt her hand on his head like a queen blessing one of her knights. “You know I’m a fraud, don’t you?”

Lady sighed. “I love you, Gabriel. Not for Red Eagle’s sake, but for your own. And the Lord loves you, too. He’s reserved you for some wonderful purpose—He’s just waiting for you to invite Him into your life.”

How could she see his emptiness? He felt like a man standing inside a dark room refusing to enter the sunshine for fear it would blind him. He thought of the men he’d killed, the women he’d used, the friendships betrayed in the name of duty. Was there really hope of forgiveness and redemption? “Camilla keeps saying that, but until now I’ve seen no evidence there’s a purpose to anything.”

Lady’s frail hand slipped to his shoulder. “Evidence is all around you, but what is required is an act of faith.”

“Faith in what?” Gabriel lifted his head. “Even someone like me can pretend to be a Christian and get away with it. But good people every day are bought and sold and beaten and murdered. Where’s the justice of that?”

“God is always patient, slow to anger. But herein is love: in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

“I won’t argue that I’m a sinner. But I’ve always been responsible for my own debts.”

Tenderness filled the old woman’s eyes. “Until you abandon that debt to Christ, your life will have no ultimate meaning. Live for Him, Gabriel, and find peace.”

Control. Hard-won control. He was supposed to fling it away in a moment?

He thought of the night he’d watched the sunset from Uncle Diron’s dock. Yes, the moment had come now, but the decision had been building for some time. God flung colors and music and love at him from every unexpected direction. He’d be a fool to stay in the dark room.

“All right,” he said simply. “I will.”

And the light came on.

Camilla sat on a low stool beside Harry’s cot, turning the pages of a dog-eared copy of
The Pilgrim’s Progress.
She’d sent Portia to help remove the remains of dinner and had been passing the time contentedly for some thirty minutes.

“’Lo, Silly-Milly.”

At the husky murmur her gaze flew to Harry’s gaunt face. With a glad cry she cast herself on his chest. His arms closed feebly around her, and she gave in to tears. “Oh, Harry, I was so worried about you.” She searched his tired gray-blue eyes. “How dare you scare us all so badly?”