Sweet Persuasions

Glancing at the wall calendar, she studied the requests for the upcoming week. There were orders for three dozen red-velvet cupcakes for a ladies auxiliary meeting, a specialty cake for a North Charleston couple celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary and a Black Forest cherry cake for an engagement party. Closing Sweet Persuasions two days a week allowed Selena to fill those special orders.

The nightmare that had sent her fleeing California to South Carolina was now a distant memory. Living and working in Charleston was like being reborn. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder every time she left her house, or glance through the peephole whenever the doorbell rang.

She’d claimed a new city and state as her home. She had a new career and had set up a new business. Not only did Selena think her of herself as lucky—she believed she was blessed.

A hint of a smile softened Xavier’s lips as he strolled out of Sweet Persuasions and down the block to the antiques shop. The past four months had become a summer of firsts. He had purchased his first house and he’d become a teacher.

He’d had second thoughts about relocating to Charleston after accepting the teaching position. But now that he’d moved into his house and settled into teaching military history, he felt as if he’d come home. Xavier was also rediscovering his adopted city—a city with a troubled past and a bright future.

He opened the door to the antiques shop, glancing at the unorthodox greeter sitting on a perch and staring at him from inside a large birdcage. “We have a visitor,” squawked the colorful parrot. “What’s your name?”

“Willie, I’ve told you about asking people their names,” admonished a woman with fashionably coiffed hair the color of moonlight. The elegantly attired shopkeeper smiled at Xavier. “Good morning, Mr. Eaton. You’re going to have to forgive Willie this morning. It’s as if he’s forgotten his home training.”

“He’s forgiven,” Xavier mumbled under his breath.

He wanted to tell Charlotte Burke that her pet needed more than home training. Willie needed to be at home. The first time he’d visited the shop he was treated to a monologue peppered with salty language that left Mrs. Burke red with embarrassment.

Charlotte Burke sighed. She’d given Willie a lengthy lecture as soon as she’d removed the cover from the cage earlier that morning. Her scolding had continued while she cleaned the cage and gave the parrot food and water. Willie had learned his colorful language from her husband, who claimed he could say whatever he wanted within the confines of his home. What Walter Burke had refused to acknowledge was that although there were no small children in the house, the parrot repeated everything he said.

She smiled at the incredibly gorgeous man, who made her wish that she was at least thirty years younger so she could flirt with him. Fortunately for her, she was married, and she wasn’t a cougar like some of her friends.

“You’re not teaching today?”

Xavier pulled his gaze away from what had become a stare down with the foulmouthed bird. Charlotte Burke’s cornflower-blue eyes matched her pantsuit exactly. The strand of South Sea pearls around her neck coordinated with the pearl studs in her ears. Her face, unlike her hands, was wrinkle-free, leading him to believe she’d had some work done.

“Today’s a school holiday.”

The Christopher Munroe Military Academy, a college preparatory school for grades eight through twelve, had opened its doors to day and boarding students ninety years ago with just fourteen young men. The school’s population had changed dramatically over the years with the acceptance of students of color and females, expanding to include grades one through twelve.

“That is so nice,” Charlotte crooned, her Southern drawl more pronounced than usual. She pressed her palms together. “If you come with me, I’ll show what I picked up at the estate sale.”

Xavier followed her to a table with a collection of silver and crystal pieces. “How old is this one?” He’d pointed to a heavily decorated silver teapot.

Reaching for a square of felt, Charlotte handed him the pot. “It was made by Samuel Kirk & Son in the mid-nineteenth century. Throughout the late nineteenth-century Kirk specialized in flatware and hollowware with heavy repoussé work or chasing that resembles neo-Rococo. If you turn the pot over you’ll see that it’s signed.”

“What is chasing?” he asked.

“It is a surface decoration drawn on the piece and then the decorator hammers it with a blunt, ballpoint chisel to distort the surface to achieve the desired effect without removing any metal.”

“Amazing,” Xavier said in a quiet voice. He set the teapot on the table, and picked up a coffeepot.

“That one is a silver Hallmark English coffeepot. It was made around 1767.”

“I’ll take the coffeepot, the teapot and the matching service pieces.”

Charlotte nodded, staring at the length of lashes touching the top of Xavier Eaton’s cheekbones. “What about the crystal?” She was hoping to sell him most of the silver and the crystal.

Reaching into a back pocket of his slacks, he took out a credit card. “I’m not sure what crystal pattern my sister would like, so I’m going to pass on it. But I know for certain that she’s partial to silver.”

“You’ve selected some very fine pieces.” A slight frown appeared on Charlotte’s face. “Didn’t you tell me you’re a history teacher?”

“Yes.” Xavier had had a lengthy conversation with her when he’d first visited her shop. She was aware that he’d graduated from The Citadel, and that he’d returned to Charleston to teach part-time at a military school. A smile parted her lips, the gesture reminding him of a Cheshire cat.

“I have something I believe would be of interest to you.”

His eyebrows lifted a fraction. “What is it?”

“You’ll see,” Charlotte said in singsong voice.

His curiosity piqued, Xavier watched as the antiques dealer put on a pair of white-cotton gloves and placed a leather pouch on the table. She took out a tattered clothbound journal and then another that was equally worn. “These are the journals written by a freeman of color who fought with the Union army in the War Between the States.”

He wanted to correct Mrs. Burke by telling her that the official term was the Civil War, but knew that the Confederate loss was a sore point with most Southerners. She opened the journal, turning the pages as if she were handling a newborn. Some of the entries were written in pencil and others in ink. Incredibly, most of the writing was legible.

Xavier leaned over the table. “If you don’t mind my asking, where did you get these?”

Charlotte gave him a sidelong glance. “I found them.”

“You just happened to find journals that are more than one hundred fifty years old?”

A flush suffused the woman’s face. “I really didn’t find them. But, I promised the woman who gave them to me that I wouldn’t divulge her name. She was cleaning out her house and she found them in a trunk in her attic. The trunk belonged to the great-grandmother of a woman who used to clean her grandmother’s house.”

Xavier tried to process what he’d just been told. “Why did she give them to you rather than a museum or historical society?”

Charlotte’s flush deepened. “She said the memories were too painful and she just wanted them out of her house.”

Realization dawned for him. Journals, if authenticated, that could be worth five or six figures at auction were given away like a bundle of old newspapers. “How much do you want for them?”

“I can’t sell them.”

A shiver of annoyance snaked its way up Xavier’s back. “If you don’t intend to sell them, then why show them to me?”

“That’s because I want to give them to you.”

He went completely still. “Do you have any idea what these are worth?”

Charlotte shook her head. “No, and I don’t want to know. You teach history, Mr. Eaton, so I know you will make certain they will find a good home.”

Xavier leaned forward. “You trust me not to sell them?”

“I’ve lived long enough to believe I’m a good judge of character. And I know you won’t sell them because you’d want to share what’s in these journals not only with your students but anyone interested in our country’s history.”

Charlotte Burke was right. He wouldn’t sell the journals because he wasn’t the rightful owner. Perhaps if he’d inherited or purchased them, then Xavier would possibly consider donating them to the South Carolina Historical Society. He planned to read the entries and then verify the accuracy of the events. After having them appraised, he would look for the rightful owner or owners. It was only fair that the descendants of a man who’d chronicled a war in which brothers took up arms against one another should be aware of what he’d had to sacrifice.

“You’re going to donate them, aren’t you?” Charlotte asked.

Xavier smiled. “I will—but only if I can’t find the rightful owners. That shouldn’t be too difficult if they’re still living in South Carolina.”

“What if they’ve moved out of the state?”

“It will make the search a bit more difficult, but not impossible. Did the lady tell you how long it had been since the woman cleaned her grandmother’s house?”

Charlotte slipped the books into the leather case and removed her gloves. “No. I would’ve asked, but she appeared very upset. You would’ve thought she’d found a live snake in her house instead of century-old books.”

What, Xavier mused, was her connection to the man who’d written of his wartime exploits? It had been a while since something had fired his imagination, and he was looking forward to what was certain to become a research project.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like you to hold on to the journals until I come back. I have some more shopping to do. Meanwhile I’ll pay you for the silver.”

“But, we haven’t negotiated a price, Mr. Eaton.”

Xavier waved his hand in dismissal. “I don’t like haggling. Please let me know how much I owe you.”

Charlotte took umbrage to the term haggling, but dismissed it with a slight lifting of her shoulders. Haggling was for peddlers, not a professional antiques dealer such as herself. Xavier’s willingness to meet whatever price she’d quote spoke volumes. He was a man willing to pay for whatever he wanted. She completed the transaction, processing his credit card and returning it to him. “My assistant will be in within the hour and, if you want, she can gift wrap them for you.”

Xavier smiled and deep lines appeared along his lean jaw. “I would really appreciate that.” And for the second time that day, he’d filled out a gift card to his sister. Six years older than Denise, he had always assumed the role of her protector. He’d put the word out in their neighborhood that if anyone bothered Denise Amaris Eaton, then they’d have to deal with him. Of course, he hadn’t had to deal with bullying or fighting, since it wasn’t tolerated in military school. Anyone who broke the rules was dealt with immediately. Three infractions in a school year meant permanent expulsion.

Xavier left the shop, skirting a couple standing in front of a shoe store, and headed for a specialty shop featuring tailored menswear. His day off had come with surprises. He’d discovered Sweet Persuasions and he had come into possession of a valuable piece of Civil War history.

Chapter 2

Selena adjusted the thermostat on the air-conditioning unit in the bedroom, sank down into a rocking chair, kicked off her shoes, propped her feet on a footstool and closed her eyes. She never realized how tired she really was until she sat down at the end of the day. Once she’d made the decision to open up the shop, it wasn’t the decisions about which pastries she should make for her customers that had caused her so many sleepless nights. But it was the days and hours of running the business and the worries about money that were so exhausting.

Originally she’d considered staying open six days a week, but that would have left her little or no time to herself. In the end she decided to remain open Tuesday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. She closed at four on Saturdays to keep her standing appointment to get her hair and nails done. Sundays were relegated to cleaning her apartment, doing laundry and attending church services. Mondays were set aside for banking and baking.

Selena opened her eyes, and stared at the bedroom furnishings she’d chosen as meticulously as she decorated the cookies and truffles displayed in Sweet Persuasions’ showcase. As a girl she had always wanted to become an interior decorator, but that dream changed when she was bitten by the acting bug. Performing on stage and in front of cameras became her passion. But her world was shattered when she had to give up her acting career after her life was threatened.

It wasn’t often Selena thought about what she’d sacrificed to start over, but retreating to the two-bedroom apartment above the shop that had become her sanctuary made it all worthwhile. Cloistered in her bedroom, she was able to relax and sleep in comfort and in peace.

The sound of the telephone ringing interrupted her musings. She picked up the cordless receiver without looking at the caller ID display—something she wouldn’t have done when she lived in California.

“Hello.”

“Hey, you.”

Selena smiled upon hearing her sister-in-law’s greeting. “Hey, Christy. How are you?”

“Pregnant!”

Her heart jumped. She knew her brother and his wife had been trying to have a baby, and after more than ten years of marriage Keith and Christine had begun talking adoption. “No!”

“Yes, and with twins.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to become an aunt.”

“If everything goes well, then you’ll become a double aunt.”

“When is the baby… I guess I should say when are the babies due?” Selena asked.

“March fifteenth.”

Selena calculated that Christine was approximately twelve weeks into her pregnancy. She found it odd that when she’d spoken to her mother, Geneva Yates, she hadn’t mentioned she was going to be a grandmother. Perhaps, she mused, her brother and sister-in-law didn’t want to say anything until after the first trimester.

“Do you know the sex of the babies?” she asked.

A soft chuckle came through the earpiece. “One looks like a boy, but the doctor couldn’t tell about the other one.”

“Perhaps you’ll get one of each.”

“That would be nice,” Christine crooned. “Enough talk about me. How’s business?”

Staring at the rose color on her pedicured toes, the corners of Selena’s mouth tilted upward when she smiled. “Business is better than I’d anticipated, especially the mail orders.”

“Maybe one of these days you’ll be a completely mail-order business.”

“Maybe,” she said, noncommittally. Sweet Persuasions had only been open for six months and that wasn’t long enough to go from retail to exclusively mail order.

“Business is good, but what about you?” Christine questioned. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“I don’t have time to see anyone,” Selena said much too quickly.

“Yeah, right,” Christine snorted. “Even the president and first lady have date nights.”

She didn’t want to talk about her lack of a love life since she’d moved from Los Angeles to Charleston. “You’re right, Christy. Maybe now that Sweet Persuasions is doing well I’ll think about accepting an occasional date or two.”

“Don’t you dare get sarcastic with me, Selena Yates.”

Selena chatted with her sister-in-law for the next ten minutes and hung up. She always enjoyed talking to Christy, because just hearing her voice reminded her of home. It had been a long time since she’d been to West Virginia. She decided she needed to relax and decided to take a leisurely bubble bath.

After her bath, she planned to prepare a salad to go along with the leftover beef stew, watch an hour or two of television before going to sleep. Her life had become as predictable as the sunrise. Every day she left her apartment in the morning to go to the shop, and then back home again in the evening. It was becoming a routine, but more important, it was safe—safer than it had been in L.A. before she’d been forced to leave when her ex-lover became a stalker. If Derrick Perry hadn’t been the son of one of California’s most powerful political power brokers, he would’ve been in jail.

When she left L.A., Selena didn’t go to West Virginia because she knew that would be the first place Derrick would look for her. Whenever she did go home, for holidays and family get-togethers, her father or her brothers would always pick her up at the airport. And because her father was in law enforcement, he always carried a handgun.

Her decision to move to Charleston wasn’t capricious, but rather something she’d given a great deal of thought. With a population of more than one hundred twenty thousand, Selena knew she would be able to blend in easily in South Carolina’s second-largest city. It was a Southern city, which better suited her temperament, making her feel more at home than she had in California. What she never imagined is that at twenty-six years old, she would be forced to change careers and start her life all over again in a new place. In Charleston, Selena had been give a second chance and she intended to take advantage of what the future held.

Xavier stood ramrod straight, his hands clasped behind his back, in the front of the classroom, meeting the curious eyes of the students in his class. Twenty years ago he’d been one of those students. He’d joined the faculty at Christopher Munroe Military Academy as a temporary instructor. The teacher he’d replaced was currently on medical leave and expected to return to the military academy the next school year. Xavier had accepted the position to get some teaching experience.

He hadn’t known why he’d become obsessed with military life. But at the age of seven he’d asked his father whether he could go to military school. It had taken one day for Boaz to discuss it with his wife, and a month later Xavier went from a suburban Philadelphia public school to a military academy in a nearby town. Many of the cadets were there because of disciplinary problems. But there were some who, like Xavier, had taken to the rigid structure like a duck to water.

Knowing what to expect from the time he woke until he went to bed provided a certain comfort and sense of order. There was no gang violence. No competing with other boys for a girl’s attention and on-campus substance abuse did not exist.

Unfolding his hands, he crossed his arms and smiled at the students seated in a semicircle. With a student-faculty ratio of eight-to-one, he much preferred the more informal seating arrangement to the usual classroom setup. All Munroe cadets wore uniforms, which helped foster a sense of camaraderie and put all the students on equal footing, giving them a chance to excel and be recognized.

“The Civil War marked a change in military warfare in this country that had been in place from the American Revolution to 1861.”

“Was it because of weaponry?” asked a female cadet.

Turning toward the front of the classroom, Xavier picked up a marker and jotted down the word artillery on the board. “The technological advancement in weapons was a key factor. But remember, weaponry is used in all wars—whether it’s pitchforks, axes, knives, swords, bows and arrows, bayonets, guns or cannon fire. Can anyone tell me about communications during this time?”

He was met with blank stares. Xavier enjoyed teaching the military course because it forced students to think. He’d set up a large storyboard with blue and gray toy soldiers. The rendering included mountain ranges, rivers, streams, seaports and railroads. He’d also pinned maps of the Americas, dating from the seventeenth century to the present on two of the four walls.

A rosy-cheeked boy glanced at his classmates and then raised his hand. “Had coded messages become more sophisticated?”

“In what way had they become more sophisticated, Mr. Lancaster?” Xavier responded.

“Spies no longer hid orders or maps in their boots,” Cadet Lancaster announced proudly.

“Where would they hide them?” asked the other female cadet, this one sporting neatly braided hair she’d tucked into a twist on the nape of her neck.

“That is a good question, Ms. Jenkins,” Xavier said, pausing before he wrote the word telegraph on the board, underlining it. “With every war there are intelligence officers, or as they are commonly referred to as—spies.”

Valerie Jenkins gestured for permission to speak. “I read the other day that if Major John André, who conspired with Benedict Arnold during the Revolutionary War, had been dressed as a soldier when he was captured, he would’ve been treated as a prisoner of war and not a spy.”

Xavier was hard-pressed not to show how impressed he was with Valerie’s eagerness to learn. “You’re right. As a student of history, I’ve always wondered why Benedict Arnold would give André papers, written in his own handwriting, papers detailing how the British could take West Point when the British general already knew the fort’s layout.”

“Do you think General Arnold set up André, Major Eaton?” Valerie asked.

Xavier angled his head. “We’ll never know. Major André sealed his own fate when he encountered a group of armed militiamen near Tarrytown, New York, assuming they were Tories because one man was wearing a Hessian soldier’s overcoat. He’d asked them if they belonged to the lower party, meaning the British, and they’d said they did. Then the major told them he was a British officer and he wasn’t to be detained. Imagine his shock when the men told him they were Americans and he’d become their prisoner. The men searched him, found the papers and he was detained as a spy. He’d asked to be executed by a firing squad, but the rules of war dictated that he be hanged.

“Fast forward eighty years and Americans are embroiled in another war—this one unlike any other fought on this soil because it was not an invasion. Widespread use of the telegraph for military communications began with the Civil War. The telegraph wire service was a private enterprise, but its operators were affiliated with the U.S. Army. Using his executive power, President Lincoln put it under federal jurisdiction reporting to the War Department.”

Another cadet raised his hand. “Yes, Mr. Tolliver,” Xavier said, pointing to him.

“Major Eaton, are you saying Confederate troops didn’t have access to the telegraph?”

“No, I’m not. Operators on both sides became adept at taping enemy lines and decoding messages, but the Confederates lacked the infrastructure of Union telegraphers who had more than fifteen thousand miles of telegraph wire and sent approximately six million military telegraphs.” He made a notation next to artillery. “The Minié ball, or minie ball, is a muzzle-loading, spin-stabilizing rifle bullet that came into prominence during the Civil War. Like the musket ball, the minie ball produced terrible wounds. The large-caliber rounds easily shattered bones, and in many cases the field surgeons amputated limbs rather than risk gangrene. The result was massive casualties. The Spencer repeating carbine and rifle and Colt revolver rifle also played a major part when it came to artillery.”

Xavier added photography, newspaper clippings, letters from soldiers, the railroad, transport troops and supplies, water transportation, topography and the science of embalming to the syllabus.

“The discovery that by combining arsenic, zinc and chloride to prevent bodies from decaying so quickly, meant that soldiers could be shipped home for burial rather than in mass graves. I want you to research each of these points and become familiar with their impact on the war for both the Union and Confederate armies.”

Cadet Valerie Jenkins raised her hand again. “There is no comparison when the Union Army controlled the telegraph lines.”

“Are you saying, Cadet Jenkins, that the Confederates were completely inept when it came to communications? And if they were, why then did the war last four years?”