Read Elysium: The Plantation Series Book IV for Free Online Page A

rushed into the
melee, dragged a man off his mount, and slammed his fist into the rider’s face.
Musette put her hands over her mouth, terrified he’d be run over by one of the
horses.
    A whip cracked again and
Thomas fell to his knees, blood blooming on the back of his white shirt.
    Whiteaker seized the
reins of the man who’d whipped Thomas. The rider raised the whip to slash at
Whiteaker, but he grabbed the man’s arm and yanked him out of the saddle.
    The third raider reached
down and hauled up the man Thomas had dismounted and those two galloped off,
screaming their yell, spurring their horses to pound out of the quarters --
leaving behind the man Whiteaker had taken.
    With the raider on his
back in the dirt, Whiteaker kicked his whip aside and wrenched the bandana off
the man’s face.
    "Jacques Valmar, you
cur," he said.
    Musette rushed to Thomas,
still on his knees. She was pushed aside by Rachel and Peep as they took him
beneath the arms to help him up.
    "I’ll get the
doctor," she cried, so scared her hands were trembling.
    "No need, Miss
Musette," Peep said. "Rachel know what to do. Ain’t the first whip
lash we ever seen."
    Thomas was standing on
his own now, his mouth grim. "Go on," he told her. He pointed his
chin toward Chamard’s big house. "Go on back to the picnic."
    She blinked hard. He was
dismissing her? As if she didn’t belong here? She looked at the other faces she
knew, at Rachel and Peep, at Valentine and at Smithy, her own slave – oh, Lord.
What she’d just said – she was astonished at herself. Even if only in her own
head, she had betrayed Thomas and all he stood for – she’d called the
blacksmith for Toulouse her own slave . Thomas was right. She didn’t
belong here, she was not one of them.
    Thomas’s face softened
and he gentled his voice. "Go on, Musette."
    Chamard strode up to Valmar.
"I’ll have you thrown in jail for this."
    Valmar spat. "On
what charge? I ain’t done nothing but go for a Sunday ride."
    "Disturbing the
peace, that’s a good start. I imagine I’ll think of more on the way to the
jail."
    Valmar nodded his head at
Thomas. "Your nigger punched a white man. What you gonna do about that?"
    Chamard drew his arm back
and slapped Valmar so hard the man’s head twisted all the way to the side.
    "That’s what I’m
going to do about it." Chamard nodded to a man who had once been his property.
"Cleavis, how about some of you locking this vermin up in the corn crib? Maybe
there’s a couple of corn snakes in there to amuse him."
    Valmar touched his
reddened cheek, then sneered as three men of the quarters surrounded him. He hadn’t
shaved in days. His brown hair straggled around his ears. His middle was soft,
and his clothes were dirty. Perhaps thirty years old, not tall, not short. A
very ordinary man except for the expression of smug superiority on his face.
    "He don’t look like
much to me," Cleavis said as he and three other men of the quarters
surrounded him. "What you think he’s so het up on himself about?"
    "Why, Cleavis. Don’t
you know? The man be white."
    Cleavis snorted and
shoved Valmar to get him moving.
    Musette hardly noticed
the exchange between Chamard and the man. She had stepped away from Thomas, but
her eyes were still on him.
    "Miss Musette,"
Major Whiteaker said. He placed her hand on his arm. "May I escort you
back to your cousin?"
    She allowed the major to
take her back to the picnic where everyone but the servants was white. Where no
one would tell her to go on back where you belong .

~~~

    Alistair didn’t like to
see Nicolette rushing to meet them in this heat, in her condition.
    "It was bad,
Alistair?"
    He nodded, the muscles in
his jaw tight. "But it could have been worse. One man hurt, that’s all.
You know Thomas Bickell? The young firebrand?"
    "Papa has mentioned
him."
    "He pulled one of
the riders off his horse and slugged him. Another rider got Thomas with a whip."
    Musette gave him a watery
smile. "Our Major Whiteaker took