“Oh, now, missy,” Edward started slowly. “I heard of the freedom Massa Lincoln proclaimed. Ain’t a secret here, but my home, my wife and family, is in Lous’iana. I ain’t leaving without them.”
“But you don’t need to serve them here,” she protested.
He rolled back on his heels, pan in his hand. She noticed he wore a belt and the buckle was odd. It was brass with a capital S and an upside down U next to it. A stolen US buckle? She knew both sides took from the fallen, but why upside down?
Edward only gave her a wink, as if he saw her staring at him, but he said, “Massa Francois, if’n you please.”
Francois took the chair, the wood squeaking as he sat. “Edward, perhaps rank would be a better reference, considering.”
The slave gave tight nod. “Sergeant, if’n you will.”
Francois just shook his head as Edward kneeled down, still looking taller than Francois, and put his injured foot on his leg, pushing back the dirty brown trouser and dingy drawers, lowering the sock to expose the ankle. An ankle she was way too familiar with. It was swollen and tinged red.
She was up in an instant, at Francois’ side, her wrist to his forehead checking for fever. He wasn’t any hotter than she was, thanks to the springtime heat. But his injury looked angry. Edward scooped up the goop in the pan and pasted it onto Francois’s skin.
“Ouch!”
“Only burns a second, sir. Give it a moment.” He wore an infectious grin, as if he held a secret and that irritated her as he was stepping on her territory.
Under the hand she’d placed on his shoulder, she knew Francois tensed when the white paste went on but, given a moment, he instantly relaxed. Intrigued, she tilted her head.
“What was in that?”
“Oh, little bit of this, little bit of that. Tobacco, few leaves and such.” Edward shrugged. “In about hour or so, the swelling will leave.”
“Look here,” she started. “I am a doctor and I will prescribe all—”
“Ada,” Francois started, his speech returning back to the slow Southern drawl. “Rest. Later, if’n I didn’t and only relied on you and what you got, we’d be no better than dead, because I couldn’t move. There’s a battle out there.”
Fuming, knowing he was right, she turned and stared out the window. The sun had set but the night sky lit up bright with the flames they’d left behind. “That fire will be the deciding factor here,” she spat back.
Edward shrugged and began to pick up his utensils. “Wait. He’ll be better to move.”
Ada leaned back against the table and crossed her arms, entirely aggravated and frustrated. How could there be a slave that didn’t want to race to freedom? And one who had talents that would move him further into society? Medicine possibly? Confused, she found herself speechless.
In the far reaches of the view through the window, the pink color of sunrise began to show. As far as he could strain to see it, part of Francois jumped for joy. Sunrise in this dissolute land always brought the idea of hope, and hope right now was just a fragile thread poised to shatter once the armies got rolling. He downed that thought, and just relished in the slowly spreading rays of daylight.
He glanced back at his compatriots. Edward had slumped onto the floor to a sitting position, legs bent with his long arms leaning on his kneecaps, head back against the wall. Francois figured the man wasn’t really asleep because he swore he saw the glimmer of his eyes at times. The push he had last night, for the need to make Edward refer to him by rank surprised him probably as much as it did the slave. It was a right call, but Francois realized his exposure to Ada and her argument on the peculiar institution probably was the cause. The woman was a force, that was for sure. He turned his view to find her.
Ada had fallen to the raised pallet that barely passed as a bed. She’d grumbled and fought against it all the time, but her body demanded she rest. Dedicated physician, Ada drive to help was strong, but time and draining energy won. He knew she didn’t understand Edward’s lack of enthusiasm for being free, and Francois had bit back the chuckle because he knew many of the southern slaves that had family or other ties, would not leap and fly to the north when all they knew was in the South. Oh, there were plenty that would run he had no doubt, but then there were the ones like Edward. Oh, those abolitionists would have their hands tied in more ways than one…
Suddenly, as if his stare had stirred her, Ada moved, her eyes snapping open. Admitting to himself that perhaps, his admiration of her sleeping form and how he longed to touch her was evident across his face as she glanced at him, once she looked clearly at him he doubted it. Then, she sat upright, a frown on her face.
“Are you all right?”
He laughed. “Yes. Good, actually.”
She stood, shaking her skirt in an attempt to rid the wrinkles that formed during her sleep. “How is your ankle?”
“You’re worried about my ankle?” After the wayward thoughts he’d been having about ravishing her body, her response was a little depressing.
She gave him a peeved look as she moved closer and bent to take a peek. “I’m a doctor…”
She’d just reached the ragged hem of his trousers when he bent, pulling her upright and closer, then he kissed her. She was surprised and at first, didn’t respond. Truth was, she was rigid in his arms but that lasted only a moment, for as long as it took for him to seduce her with his lips to open for him. It was a heady moment, to
