Free LAVENDER BLUE (historical romance) by Parris Afton Bonds Page A

dusty-faced young woman dressed in a boy’s dirt-stiffened clothing. So why me? she asked herself again.
    Again and again throughout the long ride she would curse the despicable French mercenary —and then she would curse herself for the way her spine tingled in memory of his seductive voice. What did he look like? He was probably as homely as Abe Lincoln himself. At the vision of the President of the Union making passionate love to her, an uncontrollable chuckle erupted, and Trinidad cast a dubious look at her and shook his head gloomily. With another grunt of hopeless resignation, he parted from her beneath Columbia’s fruit groves, taking Jeanette’s bay to the stables with him.
    The trellis sagged beneath her weight as she levered herse lf up to her bedroom window. By the gray light of dawn she unbuckled the gun belt, stripped off the dust-caked pants and shirt, and packed them, along with the Mexican-cobbled boots, in her father’s large iron sea chest that she kept below the window.
    She whirled at the light knock at the door, but let out a weary sigh of relief when Tia Juana’s deep, scratchy voice called low, “Miss Jeanette?” Then: “You feeling better?”
    Jeanette swept the carnation-pink cotton wrapper from the foot of the bed and tied it about her before opening the door to admit old Tia Juana. The rotund Mexican woman winked broadly, saying, “Brought you some Mexican chocolate. Told your aunt dat Yankee tea she sends up no good for dem sick headaches.”
    Repressing a smile, Jeanette took th e cup of hot chocolate. She sat down on the velvet-padded wicker chaise longue, snuggling against its broad back and tucking her stockinged feet up under her. “Tell Aunt Hermione that my headaches are just about gone and that I’ll be down later.”
    Tia Juana nodded with another conspiratorial wink and trod out of the room. For years Aunt Hermione’s “sick headaches” had kept the poor old woman to her room for days at a time, and now the malady proved beneficial to Jeanette’s purposes. And, truth to tell, she did have the beginnings of a headache brought on by two sleepless nights of riding. She grimaced, wondering if it were possible to have a hangover linger for three days.
    She finished off the cup of chocolate while she made a rapid calculation. Six bales to a four-mule team at five hundred pounds a bale . . . and if she took five loads a trip, 6 x 5 x 500, or 15,000 pounds at—what was cotton going for a pound now?
    King Cotton ’s price fluctuated erratically, but it was becoming a popular medium of exchange for the struggling Confederacy. A multimillion-dollar business, if she figured it correctly. A lot of money was to be made by those willing to run the risk of the blockade, because once the war ended cotton would be a glut on the market. But now— now there was cottonmania. The European textile houses cried for the precious commodity.
    She untangled her legs and crossed to the secretary. Setting down the cup, she picked up the Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph . She scanned the index: bacon 55 cents a pound, butter $1.75, coffee $2.75, cotton . . . “Sweet Heaven above!” she breathed. “Seventy cents per pound of lint.” Her fingers went for a pen and scribbled out her computations. Why, that was $10,500! And the European market paid five times that amount in gold specie. Even split in half with the planters who raised the cotton, her share would keep Columbia operating and buy a lot of arms and ammunition as well!
    Her mouth stretched grimly. She did not even have to split her share with a blockade runner —not as long as she was selling her body. Oh, God, that her beloved should see her now; Armand, who expected only the most worthy actions from the damned human race.
    The long penholder slid from her fingers, and for a moment her head drooped. Wearily she rose from the desk and went to lower herself on the four-poster. Sleep. That was what she needed. Later, when she awakened, she would