Midnight Rose Read online

  Author’s Note

  Although there are no recorded documents pinpointing the exact time when the Underground Railroad came to be officially recognized as an organization, desperate flights to freedom began long before it was known by that name. In 1741, the North Carolina colony passed an act providing for prosecution and fine on “any person harbouring a runaway.” In 1786, George Washington wrote about fugitive slaves being aided in Philadelphia. And the first Fugitive Slave Law was passed by Congress in 1793.

  By law, slaves were supposed to be kept illiterate, and most who could write were justifiably afraid to record their experiences. Many did, however, and it is from their diaries that underground activities could be studied.

  The name “Free Soil Party” had not yet been duly recorded in the time period for Midnight Rose; however, it is correct to presume there had to be brave and courageous antislavery zealots working to bring fugitives to “free soil.” Thus, I have taken the liberty of referring to these people as “Free Soilers.”

  Finally, I would like to thank the Philadelphia Maritime Museum for providing me with assistance in research, as well as the information centers at the Philadelphia and Richmond, Virginia, libraries.

  Patricia Hagan

  Asheville, North Carolina

  November 1990

  Chapter One

  Richmond, Virginia

  Summer 1819

  Ryan Youngblood stirred, irritably protesting the sudden attack of daylight flooding into his room. Finally he raised his head, shook it to bring himself fully awake, then realized two things in shocking clarity. One was that he’d slept the day away, because that was late-afternoon sun washing over him; and two, a very naked woman was in bed with him.

  It had been Ebner, his valet, who’d opened the drapes. He stood to one side apologizing. “Mastah, I didn’t want to wake you up. I knowed you’d call me when you was up and wantin’ somethin’, but Mastah Roland, he’s downstairs all in a dither and said I just had to get you up, ’cause you and him are supposed to go somewhere tonight.”

  Ryan groaned, sat up, ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. Keith Roland had been his closest friend as long as he could remember. Two years ago, Keith’s wife and baby had died in childbirth, and he was understandably lonely, ready to get on with his life. Because he felt out of place and didn’t want to go alone, he’d asked Ryan to go with him to the annual Rose Ball, where debutantes were presented to Richmond society. So Ryan had reluctantly agreed, sardonically thinking how it was a waste of his time, because he surely didn’t need to look for a wife. His mother, blast her, was taking care of that for him.

  He waved Ebner away. “Tell him I’ll be down shortly. Then come back up here and get my bath ready, lay my clothes out. I’ll need some strong coffee and a shot of Scotch to get going.”

  “Yassuh.” Ebner hurried to obey.

  Ryan looked over at the naked woman sleeping so peacefully. Corrisa Buckner, her name was, and she was a cut above the others he’d caroused with in the year since he’d returned from France. He chuckled to think how his mother would doubtless have one of her attacks if she knew he’d dared bring a demimondaine into the house. But his mother was in Europe for the summer, thank God, along with Ermine Coley, his fiancée, he reflected bitterly, so he had a temporary respite from her nagging.

  He gave Corrisa a sharp slap on her bare bottom, and she yelped, jolted from sleep. Then, dark hair tumbling across her face, she looked up at him and, smiling dreamily, began to wriggle seductively toward him. He quickly retreated from her beckoning arms. Reaching for his robe, he told her, “I forgot I had a previous engagement tonight. Ebner will see that you get back to town.”

  “Damn!” she cursed, disappointed for several reasons. Ryan Youngblood was not only a wonderful lover who satisfied her in a way she’d never dreamed possible, but she had also looked forward to a nice, cozy weekend at Jasmine Hill. It was considered one of the finest plantations and horse farms in all of Virginia, and he’d promised her they’d go riding, swim in a secluded pond, have a picnic. None of the other men in her life ever treated her so nicely. “Why can’t I just stay here and wait for you?” she suggested, reaching to trail cajoling fingers down his back, loving the way his muscles rippled beneath her touch. “We can have a night as good as last night, and tomorrow you can keep your promise to take me riding.”

  Ryan shook his head. “You know I never promise a woman anything—except satisfaction.” He winked.

  “Oh, you do that, all right.” She giggled, still disappointed but not about to get him to change his mind. In the short time she’d known him, Corrisa had realized Ryan Youngblood was different from other men, and he would never be manipulated by feminine guile. He seemed to be constantly on guard, cynical and suspicious.

  She dressed hurriedly, lifted her lips for a parting kiss as Ebner appeared to receive Ryan’s instructions for her departure by the rear entrance. He saw no need for Keith to know he’d had an overnight guest.

  A parade of other household servants carrying buckets of heated water quickly filled the tub. He welcomed the bath almost as much as the Scotch-laced cup of coffee Ebner dutifully provided. Then he leaned back, allowed his mind to wander to the evening ahead, and tried not to dread it too much.

  In the years before the war with Britain, when he’d been a student at West Point, he’d escaped his mother’s annual nagging that he attend the damn thing. The few times he had yielded, the experience had been miserable.

  Ebner moved to refill his cup with coffee, but he indicated straight Scotch instead, as he thought how he hated being so misanthropic where marriage and women were concerned, but couldn’t help it. Despite his parents’ miserable relationship, he had been optimistic enough in his younger days to believe that with the right mate, it didn’t have to be like that. After all, he knew his mother for what she was—a conniving shrew who’d made his father’s life miserable. It had probably been a relief for the poor soul when he dropped dead of a heart attack. That was the first year of the war, 1812, and Ryan came home long enough for the funeral and rushed back into combat as a panacea for his grief. Jasmine Hill was efficiently run by competent overseers in all areas; his father had seen to that. His mother could get along without him, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be around her any more than necessary.

  When the war ended, he’d been on a ship off the coast of England. He’d disembarked and journeyed on to France, in no hurry to return home. In Paris, he had met Simone, the femme fatale who would ultimately make a mockery of his belief in the possibility of a utopian marriage. She’d caught his eye in a cabaret on Place d’Anvers in lower Montmartre, where she sang lusty songs in a husky, mellow voice. He’d gone back again and again, and she began to single him out with hungry eyes. He sent her roses, asked that she meet him for dinner, and thus the tumultuous romance had begun.

  She’d told him she wasn’t married, a lady disillusioned with love.

  He vowed he’d make the painful past go away, replaced with a future laced only with rainbows.

  In turn, she took him to her bed and carried him to heights of passion he’d only imagined in pubescent dreams. She was wanton and wild and held him a willing captive of love. He had showered her with expensive jewelry and gifts, and when he was totally and undeniably under her spell, he had asked her to marry him, return with him to America, where she’d be treated as a queen at Jasmine Hill, her empire to rule.

  Ryan was too ecstatic over her acceptance to wonder about her sudden eagerness. All along, she’d danced him about like a puppet on a string, making him crazy with worry that she was only trifling with him. But, she lovingly confided, she’d harbored the same fears as to his intentions, and now that they knew they truly loved each other
, she couldn’t wait to get married. However, she was reluctant to remind him, she was but a poor bistro singer and couldn’t afford fancy clothes, couldn’t bear the thought of traveling to America as his wife to meet his family and friends unless she was stylishly dressed. Ryan had waved away her protests and given her unlimited access to his bank account, which he had sufficiently established with money from his trust fund. After all, he pointed out, what was his would soon be hers.

  God, what a fool he’d been!

  The day the bank notified him his account was overdrawn, he had immediately confronted Simone, only to have her burst into tears and confess she’d used the money to buy her freedom from her husband. Every instinct told him she was lying, but his overwhelming love made him turn a deaf ear to the warning voices within. He wanted so desperately to believe her when she said she hadn’t told him she was married for fear of losing him. Her husband, she said, was in prison, had sworn if she tried to divorce him, he’d find a way to escape and kill her with his bare hands.

  In desperation, when she realized how much she did love him, she had dared to beg her husband for her freedom, despite his violent threat. The husband had finally named a price, and that was where the money had gone.

  Yes, Ryan recalled with chagrin, he had believed her and continued to believe her when she said the paperwork was being held up. She had assured him it was just a matter of time till she was free to marry him and set sail for their new life together in America. It was only when he’d lost patience and threatened to go to the French government to demand expediency that she agreed to set a date.

  He had booked their passage, made ready to leave. She was to meet him at the pier, one hour before sailing. He waited, growing more anxious by the moment. Just as the anchor was being hauled up by the crew, and he was about to rush down the loading plank and go ashore in search of her, the messenger had come.

  The messenger had been sent, he said, to inform Ryan that Simone would not be going with him, for she and her husband had reconciled their differences. She had been granted connubial visitation privileges by the prison authorities.

  Ryan had gone crazy then, and by the time onlookers were able to pull him away, he’d beaten the messenger into admitting he was actually Simone’s nephew, that she was, in fact, married to the owner of the bistro where she sang, and this wasn’t the first time the couple had swindled an amorous and unsuspecting fool.

  The terrified nephew had actually jumped overboard and swum ashore in his desperate haste to get away. Ryan then spent the entire voyage in a drunken stupor.

  Finally, he was able to realize that the sting didn’t come from learning it had all been a devious plan to get his money. Oh, no; he could live with that. What needled and tormented was the undeniable reality that he’d loved her and firmly believed she returned that love. How could he have been so naive? But then, on the other hand, how could she have been so goddamn convincing? He could take solace only in the affirmation that never again would he be so stupid. Not that he intended to avoid women. Far from it. Simone had taught him well, and he’d left Paris a far better lover. He had every intention of partaking of the joys of the flesh, but that’s all he’d ever want from a woman. He would make sure they didn’t feel used, would promise only that they were properly pleasured.

  By the time he got home, he had locked himself in a shell and turned a deaf ear to his mother’s fury over his staying away so long, nearly two years. He needed to settle down and take the reins of Jasmine Hill, she said, needed to take a wife and start having sons to carry on the Youngblood name, for he was the last in the line. He paid no attention, went about his business of drinking and gambling and keeping company with ladies of the night. Then, when he’d been back about six months, she bluntly told him she’d found the perfect wife for him—Ermine Coley. The daughter of one of Richmond’s most prominent attorneys, she could trace her ancestors all the way back to the Mayflower and even beyond, with distant claim to royal blood.

  Ryan acknowledged that Ermine was pretty, petite, with long blonde hair that fell in natural ringlets and eyes the color of cornflowers. Quickly, however, he discovered she was also a spoiled brat, given to ugly tantrums when she didn’t get her way.

  She also reminded him of his mother.

  But so what, he asked himself. She would make a regal hostess for Jasmine Hill, and they would, no doubt, produce fine heirs to carry on the family name. He’d tolerate her long enough to impregnate her, then have a mistress to give him the warmth and affection he knew he’d never receive from his wife.

  Ebner held out a towel for him as he stepped out of the tub. Perhaps, he mused, drying off and glancing at the ivory tailcoat and matching trousers laid out on the bed, he ought to start looking for a suitable mistress right away, before his mother and Ermine returned. The wedding was set for Christmas, and it’d be nice to know he had a passionate, willing woman waiting for him while he endured a superficial honeymoon. He also knew it wasn’t going to be easy to find the kind of woman he wanted, because he required more than just a voluptuous body and a tigress in bed. She had to be intelligent as well, someone with whom he could enjoy something besides sex.

  Keith was waiting in the parlor, enjoying a brandy. He leaped to his feet as Ryan walked in. “I really appreciate this. Frankly, I got worried when Ebner told me you’d been in bed all day and thought maybe you wouldn’t feel up to going.”

  “I don’t,” Ryan was quick to confirm, eagerly taking the glass of brandy he was offered. “I just hope you can actually find a suitable wife among those silly, giggling debutantes.”

  “Sometimes a man gets lucky. I met Lareina at the Rose Ball, remember?”

  Ryan was politely contrite. “Of course I do, and she was one of the few treasures to be found. Believe me, I’m hoping you’ll be lucky twice.”

  “Well, again, I appreciate your going to give me moral support. Granted, I could start searching for a wife without going to a presentation ball, but the fact is, I’m kind of looking forward to it just because it’s the first time I’ve done anything social since Lareina died.”

  “Life goes on, Keith,” Ryan said dryly, meaning the words for himself as well.

  In an attempt to lighten the mood, Keith pointed out, “Well, you can just relax and enjoy yourself, drink champagne and feel sorry for the rest of us nervous blokes. You’ve found your bride.”

  “My mother found her. I wasn’t looking.”

  Keith nodded, wondered again what it was that had happened in France to make Ryan change so. Once, he’d been cheerful, outgoing, but now he seemed bitter, almost cynical. “Well, Ermine might not be your choice, but what difference does it make? You’ve never been satisfied with one woman anyway. You’ll have your mistresses. The one I caught a glimpse of being spirited away in your carriage was quite a charmer, from what I could see,” he said with a grin. “But you’d better learn to be more discreet. You can’t be bringing them home with you, you know.”

  “That was a special occasion—not a special woman.” He downed the rest of his brandy, then, attempting to be genial, said, “If you don’t stop wasting time worrying about my love life, you’re going to miss out on pursuing your own. Shall we go?”

  Keith nodded vigorously, again expressing gratitude for Ryan’s company. “It’s just a shame for you to have to waste your time. Maybe they should have presentation balls for potential mistresses.”

  Ryan pretended to take him seriously. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea. Do you think we could arrange one?”

  They looked at each other and burst into laughter, then headed for Keith’s waiting carriage.

  Erin sat patiently as Letty styled her hair. Noting Letty’s pensive expression in the mirror, she once more wondered what had happened to change her so. They had played together as children, till Erin’s stepfather happened to notice and said it wasn’t proper for her, a white child, to play with Negroes. But the two had still managed to find time to enjoy each other, giggling and sharing
secrets. Then Erin had gone to Atlanta, and when she had returned nearly five years later, nothing was the same. Letty was like a stranger, quiet, withdrawn. It was as though they had never shared all those wonderful times together.

  Attempting to ease the tension, Erin complimented her. “Mother was right. You really do have a knack for doing hair, Letty. It looks nice.” Wanting to remind her of their past friendship, she continued with a soft laugh, “Now who would’ve thought, back when we were playing such rough and rowdy games, you’d grow up to have such a genteel talent?”

  Letty’s round, anxious eyes met hers in the huge oval mirror above the dressing table. She didn’t want to think about the past. “You’ve got to be the most gorgeous lady at that ball. That’s your mama’s orders.”

  Erin made a face. “As if I care. I don’t even want to go.”

  “You shouldn’t talk like that,” Letty dared to say. “Your mama got the finest dressmaker in all of Richmond to make that gorgeous gown especially for you. Why, those are real black pearls sewn into the netting, and no telling what that cost. I’ve never seen a dress so fine, and none of the other house workers has either. Everybody’s eyes are gonna pop out when you walk in.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of that,” Erin said bitterly. “But not over my dress. They’ll be staring out of shock that I dared go where I wasn’t invited. This whole thing is ridiculous, and if I had anywhere to run to, I would.”

  “That’s just no way for you to feel, Miss Erin. You might meet your husband tonight, and—”

  “Don’t call me Miss Erin!” she cried, unable to keep still any longer, and implored, “Oh, Letty, what is wrong with you? You’re not the same. We’ve known each other almost all our lives, but since I’ve come home, you’re different. And you know you don’t have to be formal with me.”

  “Folks change,” Letty murmured, trying to concentrate on what she was doing, despite the way her hands were starting to shake. She wished Erin had stayed in Atlanta but didn’t dare say so. Instead, she pointed out, “Besides, if the mastah hears me call you anything but Miss Erin, he’ll have me whipped.”