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Elusive Hope: Escape to Paradise (Book 2)

By MaryLu Tyndall

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September 20th, 1866 – Colony of New Hope, the jungles of Brazil

Magnolia tumbled backward and fell, bottom first, into a mud puddle. Uttering an unladylike curse, she scowled at the black sludge splattered over her skirts. Footsteps pounded. Boots appeared in her vision. She knew whom they belonged to before she looked up. “Now, look what you’ve done!” Warm moisture soaked into her petticoats and undergarments. Chuckling sounded in the distance. A blistered, scraped hand extended toward her. “I’ve come to rescue you, fair maiden.” The voice strained to withhold laughter.
She glared up at the buffoon, Hayden Gale, a stowaway on their ship to this desolate place. Her gaze took in the sweat shining on his brow, the mischief twinkling in his green eyes, the dark stubble on his chin, then lowered to his bare chest visible through his open shirt—which was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place. His lips quirked into a grin.
“I believe you’ve assisted me quite enough.” Sinking her hands into the puddle, she struggled to rise, but her ridiculous crinoline prevented her from doing so in a ladylike fashion. She would have to accept his help. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun in the process. Gathering a handful of the black ooze Brazil was so famous for, she reached up and gripped his hand, smashing the mud against his palm until it trickled out between their fingers. Not a flinch, not a tick, altered his grin. Not a flicker of surprise or anger crossed his eyes. Only a single eyebrow arched toward the sky. He pulled her to her feet, then released her hand and shook off the offending slime. “I fail to see how your clumsiness is my fault.”
Plucking a handkerchief from her sleeve, Magnolia wiped the muck from her hands and arms as best as she could. In all her twenty-three years, she’d never been as dirty as she had been the past three months in Brazil. No matter how often she washed, there was always a smudge here, a stain there, a bit of perspiration where it ought not to appear on a lady. And forget trying to maintain a decent coiffeur. Lifting her chin, she started walking down the path. “You called my name, distracted me. And I tripped over a root.”
“You were staring at me for so long, I thought you might be in some sort of trouble.” He slid beside her, his knee-high boots sloshing in the mud.
“Staring at you? I was doing no such thing.” Magnolia halted, met his gaze, but then thought better of it, and instead scanned the large field where Hayden had been only moments before. Men picked and dug and hoed the earth in preparation for planting coffee and sugar. To the left of the field stood the thatched huts that formed the city of New Hope, their new colony in Brazil.
Hayden raked a hand through his dark brown hair, slicking it back. “I’m not blind, Princess. You were staring at me for several minutes. More like ogling, if you ask me. See something you like?” He grinned.
“Ogling! I was not—” Magnolia bit down her fury before she gave the insolent plebeian more reason to taunt her. “You, sir, are a cad. And my name is not Princess.” Uncomfortable at his closeness, she took a step back and nearly fell again. He reached for her, but she jerked to the side, trying with all her strength not to stare at his brick-firm chest peeking at her from within his shirt. A shirt he must have hastily donned when he’d seen her topple into the puddle.
It was that brick-firm chest, billowing with corded muscle and gleaming in the sun, that had stopped her in her tracks on her way back to camp. She’d become further mesmerized by his rounded biceps and the way his dark hair hung around his face while he dug furrows in the field. Mercy me, what was wrong with her? She’d never stared so boldly at a man before. Not even at Samuel, her fiancé. Yet, she’d never seen him with his shirt off. Yes, that must have been it. Surely that was it.
Hayden leaned toward her again and sniffed.
Magnolia flinched. “Whatever are you doing?”
“Just investigating the cause of your sudden clumsiness.”
Heat raged through her veins. He referred to her occasional need for spirits, of course. She glanced around to make sure no one was within ear shot. “How dare you mention that in public. Besides, it’s not yet noon.”
“Ah.” His tone was sarcastic. “Then I shall be on the lookout after dinner in case you topple to the ground again.”
“I don’t drink every day, you fool. Oh, never mind. Why am I talking to you?”
“I don’t know. Why are you?” He cocked his head and studied her. He smelled of sweat and man.
“Because you will not leave.” Her gaze lowered to his lips and the remembrance of the kiss they’d shared on the ship that brought them to Brazil sent her belly spinning. Why couldn’t she forget about the silly incident? It had been nothing, really. Surely a rake like Hayden hadn’t given it a second thought.
“If you’ll excuse, me, sir. I must get back to camp.” She skirted around him, but he fell in beside her. “I’ll escort you.”
“No need. I’m in no danger.” Except from you, perhaps.
“I beg to differ, Princess. You never know when a root might leap out and trip you again.”
“Very amusing,” she hissed. Choosing to ignore Hayden, but very aware of his presence beside her, Magnolia forged ahead, batting aside insects as she went. There certainly hadn’t been so many carnivorous, flying pests in Georgia, had there? Georgia. The name of her homeland soothed her nerves like honeyed tea. They’d told her Brazil was a paradise, a Garden of Eden, but instead she found it to be a seething maze of vermin-infested vines compared to Georgia’s gentle rolling hills and sweet honeysuckle trees.
Why, oh why, had her parents forced her from their plantation in Roswell, Georgia, from her servants and slaves and balls and gowns and friends and—well, if she were honest, they really had lost most of those things in the war. But regardless, why had they forced her from all she knew and dragged her into the jungles of Brazil?
And then there was the heat. Not just any heat, but a heat that was visible in spirals of steam rising from the greenery around them. She dabbed the perspiration on her neck and face and drew in a breath of humid air that weighed down her lungs, making them as heavy as her heart. She must return home. She could not spend the rest of her life in this primordial wasteland, slaving and sweating and working like a commoner. Wasting her beauty on men who were far beneath her.
Like the man beside her. A working man, a stowaway on their ship. Why, he hadn’t even planned on joining the colony. And though he’d stayed and helped them clear the fields and set up camp, she sensed a restlessness in him. As if he were waiting for something, looking for something—which would explain his many long absences from the colony. No, Hayden was not the type of man to plant roots in a shoddy outpost. She sensed a kindred spirit in him—a need for wealth and success—which was why she tolerated his presence. When he found what he was looking for here in Brazil, perhaps she could convince him to take her back home.
She batted aside a tangled mass of lichen hanging from one of the trees as the sound of rushing water met her ears. The mighty river beside their new colony had lulled her to sleep many a night when her tears would not cease. It had been her only comfort as her parents snored on the other side of their hut, oblivious to her agony.
Always oblivious to her agony. Or perhaps they believed she deserved it. For the things she’d done.
“You should not venture so far away from camp,” Hayden offered as he plodded along beside her. “Thiago tells me there are wolves and jaguars in these jungles.”
“I was seeking fruit for our noon meal.”
“And yet you return empty-handed.” He smiled.
Magnolia huffed. “I couldn’t find any.” None she could reach, anyway. Besides, she was unaccustomed to work. Her family once had the largest cotton plantation in Roswell. Her father even owned part of the famous Roswell Manufacturing Company—until the Yankees burned it to the ground. And he was also a member of the city council. She’d grown up with a bevy of slaves caring for her every whim. What did she know of menial work? She stared at the scrapes and mud marring what once had been white, silky skin on her hands and arms.
Hayden swept aside an oversized fern and gestured for her to proceed into the camp as if he were escorting her to a ball. Tightening her lips, she grabbed her skirts and brushed past him into the town of New Hope. Well, it wasn’t really a town. Not yet. It was just two rows of thatched huts of various sizes lining a wide sandy path. Nine buildings on the left, nine on the right, and three on the end that served as the clinic, town hall, and meeting shelter, complete with tables, chairs, and a large brick oven and fireplace. Not exactly the Southern Utopia they’d hoped to build, but it was better than sleeping on the ground in a tent as they’d done when they’d first arrived on the shores of Brazil. In fact, they’d found these huts already built and filled with crude furniture—or rather, Hayden had found them—just a week after they entered the jungle, apparently abandoned by whoever had made them. James, their doctor turned preacher, had declared it a gift from God.
Magnolia was not so sure.
To the south of town, the river bubbled and gurgled as it made the two mile journey down to the sea. Eventually, it would be their easiest means to transport their crops to the ocean where ships would then take them to market. That was, if they ever managed to work the tender soil and keep the encroaching jungle at bay long enough to bring the coffee and sugar to harvest. And if they built the cane press and mill they needed to process those crops with only twenty-eight men to do the work. Some of whom were unaccustomed to getting their hands dirty at all. They could have purchased slaves in Rio de Janeiro if Parson Bailey hadn’t absconded with all their money. Magnolia sighed, thinking of all the hardships they’d endured on the trip here and how many more were still to come.
If they didn’t make a success of the colony, they’d have to return home to the devastation of the war-torn South. Fine by her since she had a fiancé waiting for her, but most of the people had nothing to return to. Even worse, they faced persecution by the North.
As she headed down the path, women skittered about, carrying pails of water and baskets of fruit. Sarah Jorden, the town’s teacher, lifted her gaze from where she knelt working in her vegetable garden and waved at Magnolia. The sound of hammers peppered the air as men reinforced the huts with cut branches and the roofs with palm slats. Only temporary shelters, their leader Colonel Blake had said, until they could build proper homes. A luxury for which Magnolia’s father was not willing to wait.
“A Scott has never lived in a hut and never will live in a hut,” he had proclaimed with his usual aplomb.
Shielding her eyes, she peered into the distance beyond the town where Moses’s bronze back shimmered in the sun as he erected the frame of a large house. Her father had hired the ex-slave to build them a home “away from the riffraff of town.” How he intended to pay the man, Magnolia had no idea since they hadn’t much money left to their name. But she had a feeling Moses was more than happy to do the work if it placed him closer to Mable, Magnolia’s personal slave. She had not missed the coy glances drifting between the two. Most unusual, for Magnolia had not assumed Negros capable of deep, abiding relationships.
But at least someone was enjoying their stay in this godforsaken place.
The home, however, was a sign her parents intended to stay. She never truly believed they would subject themselves to live like savages, but poverty did strange things to people. Poverty. She refused to accept that brand in life. If only she could return to Atlanta and marry Samuel, she’d never have to worry about money again.
Or bugs, or heat—her stomach growled—or hunger.
“You may go back to the fields now, Hayden.” She dismissed him with a wave, knowing full well both her tone and gesture would annoy him to distraction.
His subsequent groan—akin to an angry bear’s—brought a satisfied smirk to her lips.
“I’m not one of your slaves, Princess,” he said with more frustration than anger. “We are all equal here. There are no bluebloods who plant their soft bottoms in plush carriages and spew mud on all those they pass.”
Magnolia was about to kick some of that mud on his trousers when her mother’s shrill voice stiffened her.
“What in heaven’s name! Miss Magnolia Scott. You are covered in dirt.”
“I am?” Magnolia gazed at her gown in mock horror. “Oh, mercy me, however did that happen?” She smiled at Hayden, who winked at her before he excused himself and walked away.
Her father, following close on her mother’s heels, scrunched up his nose, scanned her from head to toe and shook his head. “I realize we live in the jungle but that doesn’t mean we are to behave like wild beasts.”
Magnolia sighed. She started to tell him what happened—wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter what she looked like here in the middle of the jungle, but decided it was no use.
“Go wash that mud off and put on something presentable!”
“Yes, Papa,” Magnolia said numbly as she made her way down the street with one overpowering thought in mind. The sooner she left Brazil, the better.

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