A broad smile broke out across Matt’s face as he drove up to Belle Maison and spotted Tamryn lounging on the wooden porch swing. He parked next to a van that was shrink-wrapped with the logo for a local swamp tour company. He walked over to where she sat with one leg up, her foot planted on the slated swing.
Matt folded his arms over his chest as he leaned against an ornately carved porch column. “Looking pretty busy there.”
“And you’re looking mighty gleeful,” she returned, setting her iPad on top of the notebook on the table next to her. “What’s with that smile? Did Patrick Carter wind up in a coma this morning?”
Matt grinned. “I’m not that lucky.”
“Just as well. You wouldn’t want to win that seat by default.”
“I’ll take that win any way I can get it,” he said, wringing a laugh from her. He pointed to the tablet. “Find anything interesting?”
“Just the opposite,” she said with a sigh. She picked up the iPad and swiped her finger across the screen. Then she turned it so that it faced him. There was a colorful chart with various offshoots extending from it. “This is a timeline I created from the significant events I’ve been able to uncover about my grandmother’s past. Do you see this big gray area? That’s when the school was created. I just can’t find anything linking her to it.”
“What about Nicolette Gauthier? You said you believed she played a part in it.”
She nodded, picking up the notebook and flipping through a few pages. “I was able to find a couple of articles from several newspapers that mentioned her support for the school, but none of them indicate her involvement in actually creating it. They just say that she and Micah were both strong supporters once the school opened.”
Matt blew out an uneasy breath. “Look, Tamryn. I don’t want to throw a wet blanket on all the work you’ve done. I know you’ve put years into this, but…”
“But?” she asked.
Before the words even came out of his mouth, Matt had already decided that he could never hate himself as much as he did right now.
“Did you ever think that if the evidence is so hard to find, maybe there isn’t any?”
The dejected look that traced across her features made the impossible possible—he actually hated himself even more than he had just a second ago.
“If I had a dollar for every time a colleague or well-meaning friend told me that, I could buy that huge mansion you live in,” she said. “But I can’t shake the feeling that’s in here, Matt.” She flattened her palm against her stomach. “Or here,” she said, moving her hand up and covering her heart. “I can’t explain it, but I know the evidence is there somewhere. I can’t stop until I find it.”
Matt blew out a breath. “Is there any way I can convince you to stop for at least tonight?” he asked.
She started to shake her head. “I have so much work to catch up on.”
“You don’t want to turn down this opportunity,” he said. “Trust me.”
“I don’t doubt that whatever you have planned is spectacular, but—”
“You’re going to tour Rosemead,” Matt said.
She stopped short and stared up at him. “What?” she said in a barely audible whisper.
Matt pushed away from the column he’d been leaning on and went over to her. He crouched down until he was level with her face. “I decided to put some of my clout as a Gauthier to good use and called in a couple of favors.”
“But Rosemead isn’t open to the public. It isn’t even occupied. I thought the owner lived somewhere in France?”
“She does, but the curator lives here in Louisiana. She contacted the owner on my behalf, and was granted permission to give us a private tour. You’re going to see the plantation where your great-great-great-grandmother was enslaved.”
The instant tears that sprang to her eyes did little to assuage the massive guilt Matt still felt over keeping the diary from her, but knowing that he could give her something that meant so much to her alleviated a small portion of his self-disgust. He followed Tamryn into the Victorian and sat on the bed and watched while she packed an overnight bag.
Twenty minutes later, they were heading west on Highway 190 toward what was known as the Florida Parishes. The area, located just east of Baton Rouge, was home to a number of former sugar and cotton plantation homes. Rosemead, the one Tamryn had mention while they lay in bed one evening, was the place where her ancestor had been born and worked as a slave until she was seventeen.
“I can hardly keep still,” Tamryn said. She held her arm out. “And the goosebumps are back.”
Matt looked over to find her fidgeting in the passenger seat. He reached over and grabbed her hand, rubbing his thumb back and forth over her smooth skin.
“Thank you for tonight,” she said.
“We haven’t even gotten there yet,” Matt pointed out.
