He hadn’t planned on giving all that up any time soon. Certainly not with the uncertainties of war upon them all. But then he’d seen Delia again that spring, and suddenly he was happy to keep his feet on the ground for a while and started wondering if she’d perhaps enjoy life on the island. Imagined how he could turn one of the parlors into a writing room for her. If he promised her endless paper and pens and ink and novels, maybe that would be enough to convince her to spend the rest of her life by his side.
“Forever,” she had said. Promised. And she was too much of a romantic to go back on that. He’d just have to convince her father it would be advantageous somehow. And with a little luck, the Sumter could help him in that. They’d all get a cut of any prize money they earned. If the war lasted long enough and the booty was big enough, maybe that would earn Owens’s respect. Maybe.
He traced a finger over Delia’s image, grinning at the ink stains that inevitably marked her fingers. Then he went back to the letter.
After finishing and putting his supplies away, Phin settled back in his hammock and closed his eyes. Orange flames seemed to lick at him; black smoke filled his nose. He shook it away. Spanish moss dripping from tall oak limbs, that’s what he would think of. The fragrance of magnolia blossoms, too sweet, too heady. Delia in his arms, her hair its own golden fire, her eyes as green as a lush field. Rosy lips parting, gleaming. Whispering.
“Don’t go.”
His breath caught in his throat, and he half turned toward the wall. Even in his daydreams, Delia surprised him. But he knew her. Knew that, when it came down to it, she was like any other Savannahian woman. She might miss him, and in that way not want him to go—which was fine by him. But she’d have no use for a man not willing to fight for his country. More, she wouldn’t want one who sat itching his bugbites in the trenches for a miserable year.
She wanted a hero.
And he intended to be one for her.
Chapter Three
Cordelia bolted upright in her bed, swiping at the perspiration trickling down her temple. Her nightdress clung to her, and her thin cotton sheet was tangled through her legs. What a terrible dream. Hissing flames and acres of water, darkness pressing in on every side. Then—what had it been? More water, a storm. Something bad, something dangerous. Pain, searing and throbbing. Then the gritty taste of sand in her mouth.
Silly—but then, the impressions were so intense. Taste, feel, sound . . . all well formed, vivid. Why, it could have been a pirate story. A shipwreck, perhaps. A desert island. Maybe—but no. That wasn’t right. Something else, something . . . maybe someone . . .
“Morning, Miss Delia.” The melodic voice sounded from the corner of the room.
Hearing it was no surprise, though hearing it so early made Cordelia plant her hands on her hips and frown. “Did you sleep in here again? Salina, let me talk to Daddy. Maybe he can have a word with Big Tom.”
Her maid—and dearest friend in the world—waved a hand and bent over one of Cordelia’s dresses, needle flashing in the morning sunlight. “Don’t you be fretting about me, Miss Delia. Don’t want no trouble, especially when you said I could sleep here anytime he gets too forward.”
Sighing, Cordelia sat on the bottom of her bed and studied her maid. A colorful turban wound round her head, but she happened to know it covered hair a few shades lighter than the midnight black of the rest of Salina’s family. Her skin, too, was a fairer brown, her features fine.
And beautiful. Beautiful enough to earn the attention of the male slaves, whether she wanted it or not. “You ought to marry, Salina. If you had a husband . . .”
Salina glanced up, her apple-cider colored eyes sparking with muted determination. “A fine idea, exceptin that your daddy done gave me to you and said I’d go with you when you marry. And I ain’t much for the thought of takin a husband only to leave him soon as Mr. Phin gets back.”
Phin. Usually the mere mention of his name made a grin spring to her lips and her cheeks flush with the memory of that stolen kiss in the garden. But just now those sensations of fire, darkness, and pain surged at the thought of him.
What if his ship had burned, sunk? What if he was hurt? Or . . . no, she wouldn’t even entertain the possibility of an or.
“You all right, Miss Delia?”
She shook her head, reached up to smooth away the golden locks that fell in her face. “I had a bad dream, and I think it might have been about Phin. Something with a ship burning, water everywhere. Pain.” She blinked and shook her head again, forced a smile. “My fears at work, no doubt.”
But Salina frowned and set the dress aside. “Was there sand, too, in the mouth? And the pain—in the leg?”
Though her heart gave a terrified thud, Cordelia inclined her head and beat back the panic. “Was I talking in my sleep?”
“I had me the same dream.” Salina abandoned her sewing entirely and came to sit beside Cordelia.
Mama would scold if she saw it, but they’d been friends as long as Cordelia could remember. Long enough that she held out her hand and felt a breath of comfort when Salina took it between hers.
Though the difference in color was unmistakable, their hands were the same size. Same long fingers, same pronounced knuckles that Mama said looked prone to rheumatism, ones that would turn knobby and gnarled when she got old. “This is why we marry when we’re young,” she had said. “And still beautiful.”
Some things it was better to keep Mama from knowing, lest she dampen them with her dour predictions. Like this unbalanced friendship.
Cordelia squeezed Salina’s hand. “All the same? A ship, fire? Water and darkness? Pain and sand?”
Salina shivered. “The Lord must have sent it to us both, like as not so we’d pray for him. All that water—I don’t know how he can like it, Miss Delia, sure and I don’t. The spirits must surround them sailors day and night.”
Cordelia very nearly rolled her eyes. “Salina, you’re a Christian now. You ought to know better. The dead do not come back into the land of the living through water.” Though last year Cordelia had written a wonderful story speculating on what would happen if they did. Full of dark shadows and cold chills, the rotting smell from the rice and indigo fields . . . it had been one of her best stories and had given Ginny and Lacy nightmares for a week.
Mama had strictly forbidden her from ever writing such tales again, an order Cordelia had obeyed rather happily. She’d given herself nightmares for a week too.
“If water don’t give the dead a way to live, then what’s the point of baptism?” Brows arched in a way that would have earned the ire of the elder Owenses, Salina stood again and moved over to the door of Cordelia’s dressing room. “And if the pastor at Third African teaches it right, the graves done opened up when Jesus died, didn’t they? The dead went walkin.”
Cordelia grinned. “Ah, but there was no water mentioned in that story.”
Salina snorted a laugh and disappeared into the closet, emerging a moment later with Cordelia’s chemise, corset, and hoop. “We best get you ready. You’re going with your mama and Miss Lacy to that aid meetin, ain’t ya? Then there’s the picnic for the Fourth later. You’ll want to wear your new white dress with the blue sash for that, and I’ll have it ready for you.”