Carnal Innocence

come and sit at my table, the least you can do is set it.” Della stood at the base of a curving stairway, one hand braced on a mahogany newel post, the other on her sturdy hip.
    “I said I would, didn’t I?” Josie’s voice tumbled down the steps. “I don’t know what you’re in such a god-awful lather about. I’m going to finish putting my face on, then I’ll get to it.”
    “Way she’s messing around with those paints, it’ll get set next week.” Della turned. The righteous indignation on her face gave way to curiosity when she spotted Caroline. “Well now, you’re Edith’s grandbaby, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, I suppose I am.”
    “Edith and I, we used to have ourselves some nice chats out on her front porch. You favor her a bit, ’round the eyes.”
    “Thank you.”
    “This is Della,” Tucker announced. “She takes care of us.”
    “I’ve been trying for the best part of thirty years, but it ain’t done all that much good. You take her on into the guest parlor and give her some of the good sherry. Dinner’ll be ready before long.” With a last scowl at the stairway, she lifted her voice. “If somebody would stop tarring herself up and come set the table.”
    “I’d be happy to do it,” Caroline began, but Della was already pulling her along the hallway toward the living room.
    “No sir, you’ll do no such thing. Tucker peeled the potatoes and that girl’s going to set out the china. Least she can do after asking that dead doctor to dinner.” Shepatted Caroline’s arm then scurried off toward the kitchen.
    “Ah … dead doctor?”
    Tucker grinned, strolling over to an antique walnut server for the sherry. “Pathologist.”
    “Oh, Teddy. He’s certainly an … interesting character.” She took a slow sweep of the room with its tall windows, lace curtains, Turkey carpets. The twin settees, as she was sure they were called, were in misty pastels. Cool colors predominated in the subtle stripes of the wallpaper, the hand-worked pillows, the plump ottoman. The richness of antiques melded with it. On the mantel above the white marble fireplace was a Waterford vase filled with baby roses.
    “This is a lovely house.” She took the glass he offered. “Thank you.”
    “I’ll give you the grand tour sometime. Tell you the whole history.”
    “I’d like to hear it.” She walked to the window where she could look out at the garden and beyond to the fields and the old cypress. “I didn’t realize you farmed.”
    “We’re planters,” he corrected her as he came up behind her. “Longstreets have been planters since the eighteenth century—right after Beauregard Longstreet cheated Henry Van Haven out of six hundred acres of prime delta farmland in a two-day poker game down in Natchez in 1796. It was in a bawdy house called the Red Starr.”
    Caroline turned. “You made that up.”
    “No ma’am, that’s just the way my daddy told it to me, and his daddy to him, and so on since that fateful April night in ninety-six. ’Course it’s just speculation about the cheating part. The Larssons put in that bit—they’re by way of being cousins of the Van Havens.”
    “Spoilsports,” Caroline said, smiling.
    “Could be that, or it could be the God’s truth, but neither changes the outcome.” He was enjoying the way she looked at him, her lips tilted up just a little, her eyes laughing. “Anyhow, Henry got so irritated about losingthe land, he tried to ambush old Beau when Beau finished celebrating with one of the Starr’s best girls. Her name was Millie Jones.”
    Caroline sipped and shook her head. “You ought to write short stories, Tuck.”
    “I’m just telling you the way it was. Now, Millie was pleased with Beau’s performance—did I mention that the Longstreets have always been known as exceptional lovers?”
    “I don’t believe you did.”
    “Documented, through the ages,” Tucker assured her. He loved the way laughter brightened her eyes, softened her mouth. If he hadn’t had a story to tell, by God he would’ve made one up. “And Millie, being grateful for Beau’s stamina—and the extra five-dollar gold piece he’d left on the night stand, went on over to the window to wave him off. It was she who spotted Henry in the bushes with his flintlock loaded and ready. At just the right moment, Millie shouted a warning. The gun went off. Beau’s frock coat was singed at the arm, but his reflexes were keen. He pulled out his knife and sent it whipping into