“Send someone to fetch Judd and tell him to gather some men to fight the fire! I’ll be down as soon as I can throw some clothes on.”
The black hesitated. “Massa, if’n it’s all right, Ah’d like to go wid yo. Ah is pretty good at totin’ buckets.”
“Be quick about it then. We don’t have much time to spare.”
“Yassuh!” Willis jumped to action before the door slammed shut.
Lierin entered the bedroom, tying the belt of her dressing gown about her narrow waist. “What’s happened?”
“I’ve got to go into Natchez,” Ashton replied, jerking out of his robe. “My warehouses are on fire!”
She hastened to lay out his clothes as he tugged on a pair of trousers. “It’s raining pretty hard. Can we dare hope that it might stop the fire from spreading to the other warehouses?”
“How I hope!”
As he shoved the tail of his shirt into the waistband of his pants, she stood beside him holding his coat. “Whatever happens, be careful,” she pleaded.
He brought her close against him for a moment and crushed her lips beneath a quick, hard kiss, then spoke in a husky voice: “You can forget about separate bedrooms from now on. I’m not giving you up. Malcolm Sinclair will have to kill me before I’ll allow him to take you from me.”
A blade of fear stabbed through her heart. “Oh, Ashton, don’t say that!”
“It’s what I mean!”
Tearing himself away, he ran from the room and down the hall. Near the stable Judd was already gathering the men into a wagon, and a tarpaulin was being spread to protect them from the elements. Pulling down the brim of his hat and tugging up the collar of his oilskin coat, Ashton squinted toward the eastern horizon where the sky was still black. There was no hint of dawn behind the mass of dark clouds that roiled across its face. He climbed up beside Judd on the driver’s seat, and beneath the crack of a whip, the team plunged forward, setting themselves to a muddy, reckless race into Natchez.
All the while Ashton dared to hope, and at the end of the trail, he found cause to be grateful for the rain that had thoroughly soaked them on the road, for the downpour had also confined the fire to the middle shed, leaving the adjacent buildings unscathed. He stood with Judd and the warehouse boss under the tin roof of an open-sided shelter and surveyed the thickly smoldering ruins.
“Did we lose much?” Aston asked.
“Enough, suh,” the manager answered above the steady drum of raindrops pelting the metal roof. “But it could’ve been a lot worse. So happens, a boat picked up a whole load of cotton just yesterday, so there were only thirty or so bales on hand, maybe a dozen bales of flax, a few barrels o’ molasses, and some odds and ends. That’s about it. If it weren’t for the fact that lightning probably started it, you can consider yourself a lucky man, ’cause without the rain everythin’ would’ve gone up in flames.”
“Pardon me…” a gravelly voice intruded from behind them. “Any o’ you fellers Mistah Wingate?”
They turned to find a short, straggly-haired beggar standing close. His clothes were wet and ragged, and he wore badly worn boots that turned up at the toes.
“I’m Mr. Wingate,” Ashton replied.
Sniffing, the vagrant rubbed a dirty sleeve across his nose and gestured toward the gutted warehouse. “If ye’ve got an extra coin in yer pocket, I can tell ye somethin’ ’bout how that there shed caught on fire.”
Ashton patted his pockets and found them empty. His manager had a similar lack of luck in his search and shrugged as he apologized. “Guess I got dressed in a hurry.”
“I’ll have to owe you,” Ashton pledged.
“Seein’ as how it’s yerself doin’ the promisin’, Mistah Wingate, I’ll take yer word for it. I guess I owe ye that much.”
“What do you mean?”
The beggar shrugged and chortled. “For some time now, I’ve been beddin’ down in that there shed o’ yers. I always slipped in through a broken window in the back, an’ I’d find a cotton bale that weren’t too hard. It’s always been nice an’ dry in there, kinda cozy on a night like this….”
“You said you could tell us how the fire started,” Ashton urged.
“Yes, suh. I’m gettin’ to that. Ye see, I was tryin’ to catch a few winks when I thought I heard some voices right outside that there broken window. Well, it sorta startled me, an’ I sidled on up to the window to listen for a spell. Then it come to me. They were plannin’ on firin’ up the place. Well, the idea o’ bein’ caught inside scared me plum peaked. I nearly swallowed my tongue thinkin’ ’bout it, but how could I leave while they were there to catch me?”
“How many men were there?” Aston probed.
“Three or four maybe. I think I’ve seen at least one of ’em down at the Razorback Saloon a time or two, but I can’t be sure it was him. It was real dark outside until the lightnin’ began to move in, an’ that’s when I saw the biggest feller had two fingers missin’ from his left hand. Well, it reminded me o’ that mean ol’ bruiser I seen once down at the saloon.”
“You said there were others?” Aston pressed.
“Yeah.” The man scratched his bristly chin. “One was a short, squat feller…dressed kinda fancy…and seemed to have a nervous twitch or somethin’….”
Ashton glanced at Judd. “Sounds strangely like Horace Titch.”
The black frowned thoughtfully. “Do yo reckon he got ’nuff gumption to be a party to dis?”
“With Marelda urging him,” Ashton replied derisively, “anything is possible.”
“Yo reckon dis was done fo’ revenge?”
“I don’t know why it was done, but I’m going to find out.” Ashton raised a questioning brow to the black man. “Are you with me?”
Judd grinned broadly. “Ain’t Ah always been?”
Willabelle crossed the room almost hesitantly and stood nervously smoothing her apron until her mistress glanced up. Lierin had never seen the woman so unsure of herself, and a prickling of apprehension warned her that she had not come on some simple errand.
“What is it, Willabelle?”
“Missus…” The housekeeper’s dark eyes conveyed her concern as she struggled to make the announcement: “Dat man what say he yo pa is downstairs askin’ to see yo.”
A coldness congealed around Lierin’s heart. The dull gray light of the storm-plagued morning had failed to cast its shadow over her memories of the bygone hours with Ashton, but now a sudden depression descended to strip away those feelings of contentment.
Almost hopefully Willabelle asked, “Can Ah tell him to come back later after de massa returns?”
Lierin rose from the small writing desk. Her limbs were trembling, and a lump had formed in her throat, but she managed a calm facade. “No, Willabelle, I’ll hear what he has to say. It’s the least I can do.”
The housekeeper rolled her eyes skyward. “Ah knowed dis was gonna be a bad day when Ah opened mah eyes dis mornin’,” she mumbled. “First de warehouses burnin’, an’ now dat man acomin’ when de massa ain’t home.”
“There’s no need to upset yourself, Willabelle,” Lierin comforted her. “Just tell him I’ll be down in a moment.”
“Yas’m,” the black woman replied glumly and waddled from the room. When she entered the parlor, she found the man had already helped himself to a glass of brandy and had lighted one of the master’s cigars. His audacity grated on the servant’s good humor, and she glared at him before he faced her. She conveyed the message stiltedly: “De massa, he ain’t home, but de missus say she be right down.”
“When do you expect Mr. Wingate to be returning?”
“Ah don’ know,” the woman muttered, “but de sooner de better.”
Robert Somerton arched a querying brow at the black. “Have you something against my seeing my daughter?”