7

PORT OF NEW ORLEANS, NEW SPAIN
MARCH 22, 1777

The Valiente limped into New Orleans with more than her sails in disrepair. The port side of her upper gun deck had been broadsided, and the berth deck was carrying water. Two of her three square-rigged masts had been clipped so that she listed badly.

Rafa, nursing a hole in his shoulder from which a scrap of iron had been removed by the ship’s surgeon, hobbled down the gangplank with less than his usual swagger. He frankly dreaded the coming report. Gálvez was likely to hand him his head—if Pollock didn’t do it first.

The gold was gone.

He could still hardly credit it. That he’d survived the pirates’ attack seemed even more miraculous.

He stopped, eyes tightly clenched against the sensation of the quay shifting beneath his feet. The wounded shoulder throbbed, and his stomach heaved like seas in a northeast storm. He’d wanted nothing so much as to keep to his cabin. But reporting in must come first. By now, word of the attack would have reached Gálvez, and delay would only make it worse.

He pulled himself together, set one foot in front of the other, and crossed Decater Street toward the governmental offices of the Cabildo in the Places d’Armes. Behind him the docks throbbed with activity—shrimp boats, barges, and tugs clogging the piers, and longshoremen hauling barrels, crates, sacks, and every imaginable container onto the quay. Laughter, profanity, and shouts in every language of the globe competed with the shrill of whistles and rattle of carts and drays along the wharf. On coming home, Rafa would normally have stopped to absorb and revel in the stabbing color and sound and odor of his adopted city.

But today . . .

This day, every sensation focused on the loss of twenty-four thousand pesos for which he must give account. The noise around him only added to the headache that threatened with every step to send him to his knees.

He didn’t even stop to admire the beautiful Church of St. Louis, the center of the Places d’Armes. Arriving at the Cabildo, he was greeted by a yawning young adjutant in sloppy uniform and gigantic powdered peruke, too busy admiring himself in a pair of shiny Italian leather boots to spare more than a cursory glance at Rafa’s credentials. Making a mental note to report this lackadaisical guard, Rafa rapped upon the governor’s door.

A moment later Gálvez himself appeared. His impatient scowl turned to surprise and welcome. “Gonzales! I was beginning to think you’d absconded with the king’s gold. Come in and tell me—” The general’s heavy black brows twitched together. “Sit down first, before you fall down. Here.” He hooked the leg of a chair with his foot and pulled it over before pushing Rafa into it.

“Thank you, sir.” Rafa struggled to sit upright and hold his superior’s frowning gaze. “I’m . . . all right. But I’m afraid I have bad news.”

Gálvez stood over Rafa, arms folded. “It would appear so. Have you seen the surgeon?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve a hole in my shoulder and a killer headache, but I’ll recover after a bath and a day’s rest.” Rafa swallowed. “It’s the gold. It’s gone. We were ambushed by pirates just past the tip of Dauphine Island. We’re lucky they didn’t find the gunpowder.”

Gálvez stared for a moment. “Pirates took the gold, left the gunpowder, and released the ship?” He sat heavily against the edge of his desk. “That makes no sense.”

Rafa allowed himself to slump, sliding down until his head rested against the back of the chair, closing his eyes against the lurid images that had played in his head for the last twenty-four hours. “Yes, sir, I know. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Start at the beginning, then. Tell me all.”

“We had sailed four miles out of the Dauphine Island harbor into the Mississippi Sound. The weather was good, with a brisk southwest wind, calm seas. I was on the bridge with Torre at the helm, keeping an eye out, since privateers are known to hide in the bayous. The lookout in the upper rigging shouted that a corvette approached from behind, coming up fast. Wasn’t long before I could see her with the naked eye. She was sixty feet long, maybe seventy tons berthen, carrying ten guns and flying a British flag. Fast, sir—so fast I knew we wouldn’t outrun her.” Rafa rolled his head against the back of the chair. “She fired a wide warning shot and I knew I’d better stop or return fire.”

“Were you in British waters?”

“Probably, though I could argue not.”

“No sense initiating aggression,” Gálvez said reluctantly. “So you dropped anchor.”

“Yes, sir. I chose caution—and paid for it.”

Gálvez grunted. “What happened?”

“After we hove to, their captain and three mates prepared to board, all armed to the teeth—and, here’s the thing—” Rafa gritted his teeth. “They were disguised—face paint, shaved heads, crazy plaited beards. I’d swear they were British, except the captain’s accent was a little off. French, maybe?”

Gálvez shrugged. “The Acadians hold long grudges. But why hide under an English flag?”

Rafa struggled to sit up. “I don’t know, but as soon as I realized we’d been tricked by pirates, I signaled our cannoneers to fire. Pretty quickly the scene was smoke and noise and blood, and I went down, from a musket ball.” Remembering the searing pain of the hit, he gripped his aching shoulder. “Seems they thought I was dead. I came to in a puddle of blood, saw the pirates were forcing my men to haul off the crates of gold, and knew I had to do something. So I crawled backward into a niche where I’d hidden a loaded musket and ammunition. I’d set up a series of signals for contingencies, whistles mostly.” He chuckled, remembering the enemies’ consternation when their captives suddenly dropped the cargo and dove back onto the Valiente while Rafa covered them with musket fire. “My men all deserve medals, sir. We were under way before they could stop us, limping but alive.”

Gálvez was quiet for a long moment. “I will think,” he finally said. “Disasters occur, and one must rework and recover.”

There was no rage. No blame. Rafa knew that many commanders would have him court-martialed—or hung. And this was the heart of his loyalty. How could he repay such grace?

“I will get the gold back, sir. I will return to Mobile, I will find the pirate’s lair, and I will bring him back to you.”

“Yes, but first you must have your shoulder repaired. While you do this I will have Pollock commandeer the powder and supplies. Later we shall worry about the gold.”

“The longer we wait, the less chance we have to recover the loss.”

“Patience,” Gálvez said, raising a hand to keep Rafa in his chair. He moved to sit behind his desk. “You have the letter from our friend in Pensacola?”

“Yes, of course.” Abashed to have forgotten such an important item, Rafa reached into his coat pocket. “Here it is.” He handed Gálvez the thick packet he’d carried safely in spite of everything. “At least this didn’t fall into enemy hands.”

“Yes. If anything is more valuable than a hold full of gold, this is it.” Gálvez broke the packet’s seal, unfolded it, and swiftly perused the closely written missive. A wolfish grin spread across the patrician features. “And taking into account the details of Fort Charlotte in Mobile that you have provided, Spain will soon control the entire Gulf Coast.” He looked up at Rafa from under heavy brows. “You are dismissed, Gonzales. Clean up and report to Pollock. After you have briefed him, tell him I want to see him forthwith.”

“Yes, sir.” Rafa managed to get to his feet and salute. “Thank you for your trust. I won’t fail you again.”

When Gálvez merely waved a hand and kept reading, Rafa backed out of the room, already formulating a plan to return to Mobile. He would recover the gold. And if in the process he managed to capture an hour with a certain beautiful Creole, so much the better.

MOBILE
MARCH 1777

The Chacaloochee Bayou was alive with returning spring. Wildflowers sprang up in niches along the Indian trails through the greening woods, tempting Lyse to slow down long enough to pluck a fragrant handful. Blue, her favorite color, clustered around dark-brown centers, making her think of Rafa singing “De Colores.” She walked along, scuffing her feet through the pine straw the wind had blown across the path, brushing the flower’s delicate petals against her fingers.

She supposed he must be back in New Orleans by now. Perhaps he’d given the tea caddy to his maman and the lace to his sister Sofía. Sofía was a very lucky girl, to have such a brother.

Of course, she thought with instant loyalty, Simon was a brother among brothers. Which was why she came to be walking through the woods, confident in her ability to persuade him to move back home.

Well, mostly confident. Simon could be quite disagreeable when he thought Lyse had been interfering overmuch between Papa and Justine.

But really, what else was she to do? Since Grandpére’s visit, Papa had been drinking more and more—despite Lyse’s persistence in pitching every jug of ale she found into the bayou—and bringing less and less in the way of foodstuffs home for the children to eat. Last night he had raged about like a bear with a sore paw upon the discovery that his stash beneath the gallery steps had gone missing.

Yes, she would brave Simon’s impatient scolding a thousand times, if he would only come and try to talk Papa into moderation.

Lyse couldn’t help thinking of happier times, when Luc-Antoine was a baby, Papa and Justine still love-drunk newlyweds, and she and Simon pretty much left to their own devices. Sometimes she wished she could go back to those innocent days of tea parties with Daisy, while Simon and his friends fished the bayous and hunted the verdant woods—before she became aware that her skin would never be fair, though she scrub her face raw, and her hair would never have the silken texture of Daisy’s blonde mane.

Ever since the two of them had begun putting up their hair and lengthening their skirts, life had gotten exponentially more complicated. Her choices became limited to scrabbling for food to stave off physical hunger for herself and her little siblings, while the longings of her heart and mind found release only in the pages of the books in Grandpére’s library.

There were boys in the city and its environs with whom she could probably build a tolerable family life of her own—but that would mean abandoning Justine and the little ones to God only knew what difficulties. She wasn’t quite stonehearted enough to do that yet.

Stumbling a little over a limb in her path, she tossed the flowers aside and dashed an annoying film of moisture from her eyes. Rafa wasn’t coming back, and dreaming would never feed anybody, as Simon had reminded her many a time. And since he was the eminently practical one of the family, he was going to have to help her find a way to get past Papa’s unending ill humor.

She caught a glimpse of Simon’s houseboat through the trees and started to halloo. But a flicker of light bouncing off the water stopped her on the indrawn breath. Odd. She knew every knot in every tree trunk between here and Bay Minette, and she knew when something was off or out of place. She slowed, listening. There was a rhythmic chinking noise, as of someone digging in sand.

What was Simon up to?

She crept closer, moving from tree to tree, until she could make out her brother, knee-deep in a long sandy swale some fifty yards from the boat landing, wielding a shovel with efficiency and single-minded concentration. Was he digging something up—or burying something?

She hesitated just at the edge of the clearing, wondering, putting together Simon’s long periods of disconnection from the family circle, Daisy’s gentle frustration with his refusal to communicate with her, and rumors running about town that new sources of money had begun to siphon into local commerce. Should she make her presence known? Continue to observe?

Again she thought of her conversation with Grandmére on the day her mother died. Her grandmother’s words had bequeathed to her some supernatural craving, and she’d found herself through the ensuing years a seeker after vision—searching for Jesus in the mundane, the odd, the bizarre events and people in her life. Sometimes she heard him in Daisy’s infectious laughter, felt him in the childish kisses of her small siblings, saw him in the grand depths of the ocean beyond her bedroom window. Dancing with Rafael made her yearn with an inexplicable, indescribable fire. Had that been God?

Perhaps.

But where was God now, when Rafa was gone, her mother gone, her grandmother gone, her father sodden with drink, and even her friendship with Daisy curtailed by their separate responsibilities?

Let me look, Father. Let me see.

She blinked, straightened her spine, and moved from her hiding place. “Simon! What are you doing?”

He jerked upright, pulled the shovel across his body defensively. “Lyse! What are you doing here?” He glanced back at the partially covered hole in the sand. Obviously there was no way to hide it, so he didn’t try. But he didn’t look happy to see her. And he hadn’t answered her question.

The shovel head slid to the sand. Simon waited for her, mouth clamped in a straight line.

Lyse approached, guarded, not afraid of him but wondering what she could say that would make him tell her the truth. “I needed to talk to you.” The hole in the sand drew her gaze. She could see the top and side of a canvas sack. Impossible to tell what was in it, but its shape was irregular, bulky, ridged.

“Is something wrong with the baby?” Simon had been around when Justine’s first three children came along, and he understood the difficulties that could arise.

Lyse shook her head. “No, Rémy’s perfect. It’s just . . .” She took a step closer. Simon was not a thief. “We’re out of food. Papa doesn’t fish anymore, he gambled away the boat, and he’s drinking up any money I bring home from selling Justine’s baskets. He might listen to you—”

“Wait. He lost the boat gambling? When he came to borrow mine, he told me his sank.” Simon’s face was dark with anger. “Lyse, where is my boat?”

“Papa took it over to Mobile yesterday, and we haven’t seen him since. Simon, you’ve got to do something!”

He jammed the shovel hard into the sand. “The first thing I’m going to do is get my boat back and never loan it out again. After that—I plan to build my own life here and never look back.” He must have seen the hurt and disbelief in her face, for he looked away. “I don’t know what else you expect from me. Papa is a grown man who has had every chance to succeed, but he cannot seem to discipline himself to do so. I am very sorry for Justine, but she chose to marry him and must live with the consequences.”

Lyse stared at her brother. How had he become this stranger?

When she didn’t answer, Simon sighed. “Lyse, you know I care about you. But if you really want Papa to wake up, you and I have both got to stop shoring him up.” He glanced over his shoulder at the houseboat rocking on the water. “There isn’t much room here, but you’re welcome to move in until you marry and establish a home of your own.”

“Move here? Leave Justine and the children?” Lyse felt as if the sand were shifting under her feet. “Marry who?”

“The whole town knows Niall McLeod would take you in a heartbeat. For a smart girl, Lyse, you are an idiot.”

“Niall would take me? What basis is that for getting married?”

“It’s a very practical basis. Niall has a steady job with regular pay. He’s in good standing with the Brits, and has the means to purchase land if he wants it.” Simon made a comical face. “And God knows why, but he is very fond of you, in spite of the disgraceful way you’ve treated him.”

Lyse grabbed for her spinning thoughts. “Niall is almost as much like my brother as you, and anyway, that’s not the point! I cannot leave Justine by herself with four children to care for. If I could, I would go live with Grandpére. Did you know he came to see us just a couple of days ago? I thought he and Papa might reconcile, but—” she swallowed against the lump in her throat—“things have only gotten worse.”

Simon’s expression softened. “You should go to Grandpére. He needs you too, maybe as much as Justine. And you could live like a lady. You wouldn’t have to marry Niall, if you’re so dead-set against it. Maybe someone else would court you—maybe one of the British refugees pouring down here from places they’ve been run out of by the Americans.”

Lyse stamped her foot. “I don’t want to live like a lady, not if it means sugaring up to people taking property away from those of us who claimed and settled it generations ago! As much as I love Daisy and her papa, I’m not British, and I never will be.”

“Not with that attitude, you won’t.” Simon scowled. “You’d best express a little gratitude to the folks in power who make the laws and keep you safe. You’re not sympathetic to those American rebels, are you?”

“I don’t know anything about American rebels. In fact, I don’t give a sou about politics at all.” Her shoulders sagged. Clearly Simon was invested in his own pursuits and had no intention of doing anything about her request. Her gaze fell upon the sack half-buried in the sand. “What is that?”

Simon looked over his shoulder. “It’s—something I found.”

“Something valuable? Money? Simon, what have you done?”

“Nothing illegal, Miss Nosy-Rosy.” He stared at her a moment, the famous Lanier eyebrows twitched together above his handsome nose. “Do you swear you won’t tell a soul?”

“I will if you stole something.”

“Lysette, you know me. But you’ve got to promise not to tell. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with it, and it’s got to stay buried until I figure it out.”

Lyse wavered between curiosity and indignation. “All right,” she finally said. “I’ll keep your secret. If you’ll help me figure out a way to make Papa stay home and work.”

Simon nodded and threw down the shovel, then reached for the neck of the sack sticking up out of the sand. He hauled something obviously heavy out onto the dry sand, untied the opening, and thrust both hands inside.

Lyse heard the shivering chink of metal coins. Simon turned and rose, hands cupped under a pile of bright disks that winked in the hard morning sun.

Gold.

Scarlet was hanging out the wash when Lyse’s little brother Luc-Antoine ran across the yard and ducked under a pair of M’sieur Michel’s underdrawers before scooting into the blacksmith shop. It had been a fine spring morning, with birds calling to one another in the magnolia trees, a soft breeze to stir the sheets, sending the pungent fragrance of lye and jasmine against her face, and the knowledge that Madame wouldn’t be home for midday meal. In fact, Scarlet almost enjoyed her task, because it got her out of the house and out from under the caustic tongue of Madame’s housekeeper, Martine. Martine also happened to be Cain’s mother and had taken it upon herself since the death of Scarlet’s maman to personally direct every breath she took—and tell her when and where to let it out.

Martine claimed to be the best cook on two continents, which gave her a certain cachet within the servant hierarchy of the Dussouy mansion, but Scarlet would be switched if she’d let the woman tell her how to properly starch and iron Madame’s beautiful pintuck lace petticoats. Scarlet’s own maman had taught her how to launder fine fabrics, how to keep them in good repair with small invisible stitches, how to fit a woman’s changing body through pregnancy, childbirth, and a certain middle-aged spread. Scarlet knew her worth, never mind what Field Marshal Martine might say.

She’d been singing a song Maman had loved—the one about Beulah Land and what a good, good time they’d have there—but broke off mid-run to duck beneath the last sheet she’d pegged and go after the boy. Luc-Antoine wasn’t exactly her cousin, since his maman was the white lady Mrs. Justine. But he was Lyse’s little brother, which made him next thing to family, no matter how Madame looked down her nose. He was supposed to be at school, not chasing through the Dussouys’ yard or bothering Cain in the blacksmith shop.

Scarlet marched toward the tidy little tin-roof building that was Cain’s domain of a weekday morning. The wash would have to wait.

The smithy smelled of metal and oil and woodsmoke, and the heat made Scarlet instantly break out in a sweat. She didn’t immediately see Luc-Antoine, but through the smoke she made out Cain standing at the forge with his back to her, big and black as the iron he worked, raising a monstrous hammer like some Olympian god from the stories Lyse had read in her grandpére’s library. Shivering with pleasure, Scarlet watched the hammer slam down with a mighty clang on a red-hot sheet of metal lying across the anvil. Cain was the strongest man Scarlet had ever met, yet gentle and shy as a lamb when he touched her. His leashed power and sleepy smile made her weak in the knees.

But Maman had also taught her that the secret to managing a man lay in a woman’s ability to keep him mystified.

Setting her hands to her hips, she swayed her way toward the forge. “Cain! I’m going to the big house for a cat-head biscuit and syrup. Want me to bring you one?”

At the sound of her voice, he turned, pulling down the red kerchief tied across his mouth and nose. His slow smile as he watched her approach brought the familiar warmth to her body, and she had to suppress a smile of her own.

“I be hungry,” he said. “How’d you know?”

She stopped a safe distance from the forge. “You always hungry. When you gonna stop growing?”

Shaking his head, he laid the hammer on a worktable and rubbed his huge hands together. “’Twixt you and my mama feedin’ me, maybe never.” His laugh rumbled out. “I’m gonna grow right out the roof like Jack’s beanstalk. Does Madame know you in here?”

“She’s gone to town.”

“Then come here and kiss me. I’d rather have you than a biscuit.”

“You had me yesterday, and too many treats makes little boys spoilt and lazy.” She laughed at his chagrin. “Besides, it’s hot as the gates of Hades in here, and I could smell you all the way to the clothesline. Or maybe that’s the little mouse I just saw scamper in here. Did you see Luc-Antoine Lanier run through?”

Cain dragged his gaze from her face to look around. “No, but I been busy, last hour or so. Madame wants new carriage wheels.”

There was something odd in his expression. She frowned. “This isn’t the first time he’s done this, is it? Where is he?”

“I said I don’t know. I ain’t see him today.” Cain turned back toward the forge. “I got to get back to work. But I would like a biscuit, if Mama’s got an extra one.”

Scarlet stood tapping her foot, staring at his broad back. “Hmph. We’ll see.” She whirled and stomped toward the door. The big liar. What was he hiding? Outside, she skirted the corner of the shed, flattened herself against the wall, and listened. She could hear Cain pumping the bellows, the roar of the fire.

Then a small, childish voice. “Hey, Cain, reckon she’d bring me a biscuit too? I’m pretty hungry.”

Aha! She hadn’t been mistaken. Vindicated, she swept back inside just as Cain, a resigned expression on his gentle face, turned to greet his young visitor, who was peering out from behind Madame’s wheel-less carriage parked along the side wall.

“How’d you get back there without me seeing?” Cain dropped the bellows and wiped his sweaty face with the kerchief. “You gone get us both in trouble.”

The boy grinned. “You really didn’t see me? I was real quiet.”

“No but I saw you!” In one outraged step Scarlet grabbed Luc-Antoine by the ear and hauled him out from behind the carriage. “Why you not in school, boy?”

“Ow! I was bored. And hungry.” The boy looked up at her sullenly from under an untidy mop of brown curls. “Maman didn’t have nothing to send with me for lunch, so I went hunting.” With a jerk of his head, he snatched loose. “Cain gives me something to eat most days. Don’t you, Cain?”

Cain shrugged, looking at Scarlet uneasily. “When I got extras, I do. You can bring back two biscuits, can’t you, Scarlet?”

She scowled at Luc-Antoine, avoiding Cain’s pleading eyes. She knew how Madame felt about the Laniers. But then she noticed the almost translucent texture of the little boy’s skin, the prominence of the high cheekbones. When his stomach gave a loud rumble, she sighed. “All right. I’ll be back in a minute. But you got to go back to school after you eat, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am!” he said with a dimpled grin so much like Mr. Antoine’s she slapped him affectionately upside the head.

“I ain’t no ma’am.” She turned on her heel and headed for the big house.

Martine, always contrary where Scarlet was concerned, seemed reluctant to part with even one of her famous cat-head biscuits. But when Scarlet told her they were for Cain, the older woman packed half a dozen in a cloth-lined basket and tucked in a jar of cane syrup and some links of pork sausage as well.

Scarlet hauled her prize back to the smithy and set it down on Cain’s worktable with a thunk. “I swear your maman is the most ornery colored woman in Mobile. No you don’t!” She swatted Luc-Antoine’s dirty little paw as it reached for the basket. “Wash your hands first! Both of you.” She gave Cain the look.

The two males, one big and black, the other small and pale, headed for a bucket of water Cain kept on hand for regulating his fire. They scrubbed their hands and faces, then reported to Scarlet for inspection. Using one of Madame’s silver table knives, she spread the biscuits with the thick, fragrant brown syrup and gave one each to Cain and Luc-Antoine. “Wait!” she said, just as the boy crammed a quarter of one of the giant biscuits into his mouth. “Didn’t your maman teach you to say grace?”

“Yes’m,” he mumbled around his mouthful, reddening. “Sorry.”

“Bow your head,” she said severely, winking over his head at Cain. “Dear Lord, we thank thee for these thy bountiful gifts. Help us to live our lives in gratitude to you and charity toward one another as you have shown it to us. Amen.”

The words were hardly out of her mouth before Cain had disposed of one biscuit and reached for another. “Amen,” he said, eyes twinkling.

They ate together quietly for a time, with Scarlet supervising to make sure the boy didn’t drip syrup onto his clothes nor lick his fingers. Cain she didn’t have to worry about, as his maman had refined his manners until he could’ve eaten dinner with the governor in the big house. There were some things she could be grateful to Martine for.

She watched him, enjoying the roll of shoulder muscles under his thin cambric shirt as he moved his arms and the play of a shallow dimple in one cheek as he chewed. His head was perfectly shaped, the coarse hair cut close to keep lice at bay, and his ears flat and well-proportioned. He would make a fine father for her babies. She put her hand on her stomach, imagining the swell and flutter.

“I can’t eat no more, I’m full.”

Scarlet blinked and focused on Luc-Antoine. He had both arms wrapped about his belly. Probably not used to eating so much all at one time. Say what you would about Madame and M’sieur Dussouy—they fed their slaves well. “You ain’t gone be sick, are you?”

Luc-Antoine shook his head. “No, ma’am. That was sure good.” He glanced at the basket, where one lone biscuit remained. “Could I take that home and split it with my brother and sister? The baby don’t eat nothin’ but Maman’s—”

“’Course you can,” Cain said with laughter in his voice, tossing the biscuit to the boy. “Now you get on back to school ’fore Miss Daisy comes after you again.”

Scarlet grabbed his arm. “She knows he comes here? What if Madame finds out?”

“Finds out what?” The sugary-steel voice drew Scarlet’s attention like a gunshot.

Her mistress stood outlined in the doorway, kid-gloved hands clasped at her waist, her head tipped to one side with the feather in her hat poking out like a hen’s tail.

“Madame!” Scarlet slid down from the barrel she’d been perched on. There was nothing else she could say. Nothing was going to make Luc-Antoine disappear.

“Yes, it’s me,” Madame said coldly. “What do you all think you’re doing? Is this a tea party?”

“Oh, Madame, I’m so sorry,” Scarlet babbled. “We just stopped for lunch, I finished pegging the wash, Cain is working on your carriage, and it seemed like the Christian thing to do, feeding the little boy—”

“I was hungry,” Luc-Antoine said, disastrously drawing Madame’s gaze.

“You’re one of the Lanier children,” she informed him.

“Yes’m,” he said with no visible sense of self-preservation. “I’m Luc-Antoine.”

Madame inspected him top to toe. “So I see. You look like your father.” This did not seem to please her. “You also look like a ragpicker. I am all for charity, in moderation, but if I allow one child to leave the school and come to me for food, I’ll soon have hordes here every day.” The sharp gaze suddenly returned to Scarlet. “You knew it was wrong to encourage him—didn’t you?”

Scarlet stared at her mistress for a long moment. She knew what she ought to say: Yes, ma’am. It was wrong. I’ll never do it again.

But she would do it again.

When the silence apparently went on too long for Madame to bear, she took an angry step inside the shop. “You are the most ungrateful little snippet I’ve had the misfortune to be responsible for! I feed you well, give you my clothes—even let you spend Sunday afternoons with Cain, as if you were a married couple. And you repay my generosity by sneaking off from your work and stealing my food for little vagrants like this one.” The wintery blue eyes focused on Cain. “And you—I had thought better of you. Scarlet has obviously bewitched you. Clearly I can no longer trust either of you.” She drew in a pained breath. “Well, I’m sorry to say, there will be consequences. I must pray for guidance on how to handle this . . . this situation.”

Scarlet had expected to be slapped at the very least. Though Madame didn’t whip her house slaves as many did, her anger sometimes took physical forms.

She didn’t trust this display of restraint. And Luc-Antoine was involved now. “Please, Madame, let me take the boy back to school. I’ll make sure Miss Daisy doesn’t let him run off again.”

Madame’s expression was unreadable. “No, I’ll take him myself. You and Cain get back to work. I’ll deal with you later.”

“No!” Luc-Antoine jumped to his feet. “You ain’t my maman, and you can’t tell me what to do. You—you leave Cain and Scarlet alone. Alls they did was give me a biscuit.”

Madame gave a disbelieving crack of laughter. “You are right. I certainly am not your mama, and isn’t it a good thing? But you will respect your elders, little man. My pony cart is in front of the house. You will bring it around here to pick me up, and if you disobey again, you will be very sorry. Is that clear?”

Luc-Antoine stared at her mutinously for a moment. Finally he looked down, muttered “Yes, ma’am,” and scuffed past Madame out of the shop.

Scarlet exchanged an anxious glance with Cain, then dipped a curtsey and moved to do Madame’s bidding. She wouldn’t help anything with further argument. Please, God, give me grace.

When the schoolroom door abruptly opened, Daisy looked up from reading Emée Robicheaux’s essay.

Emée, who shared a desk with Suzanne Boutin, the doctor’s youngest daughter, sucked in a breath and whispered, “I told you he was getting in trouble, Miss Redmond.”

The clearly prescient Emée referred to Luc-Antoine Lanier, who stood, clamped by the shoulder, at the side of the town’s most terrifying grand-dame, Mrs. Isabelle Dussouy. And Madame did not look pleased to be here.

There was little for Daisy to say but “Good morning, Mrs. Dussouy. I see you have found Luc-Antoine.”

The older woman released Simon’s brother with a little shove into the room. “I have indeed. I found him eating food stolen from my larder and socializing with my slaves. I believe he belongs in school with you?”

The implication being that Daisy had been derelict in her duty. Was she supposed to have left her other students alone while she went on a fruitless search for a little boy who had made a profession out of escaping adult supervision? Even Simon was inclined to shrug his shoulders. Well, that’s Luc for you. He’ll come back when he’s hungry.

Daisy drew herself up, as she had seen her father do when challenged by an impertinent enlistee, and injected a touch of frost into her tone. “I thank you for your concern, ma’am. I shall make sure he pays for his imposition and works off the meal by helping to muck your stables every morning the rest of this week.” She turned her darkest schoolteacher frown on the miscreant. “Will you not, Luc-Antoine?”

His mutinous expression folded when she continued to stare with relentless calm. “Yes, ma’am.” He turned to Mrs. Dussouy. “I didn’t mean to steal. And please don’t whip Cain or Scarlet. They was just being nice to me.”

“Were being nice,” Daisy corrected him.

“Were.” Luc-Antoine sighed. “Couldn’t I just feed the horses? Or exercise ’em? I’m a good rider.”

Mrs. Dussouy looked outraged. “I wouldn’t let a little—”

“No.” Daisy reached to take his dirty little face in her hand, turning it up so that he met her eyes. “And you will go to Mrs. Dussouy’s early so you may be on time for school. You have missed several assignments, and you must work hard to catch up. Emée and Suzanne have quite passed you up today.”

The challenge of competing for honors with a couple of girls had the expected effect. Luc-Antoine plunked into his seat without another word.

Which left Daisy facing Mrs. Dussouy. She had never felt so young and unsure of herself. She straightened her spine. “You may depend on me to follow through with the boy’s punishment, ma’am. I don’t think he will try this particular stunt again. Thank you for returning him to me.”

“Well.” Madame sniffed. “One can hardly expect refined behavior from one of his mongrel pedigree, I suppose. But the damage to my slaves’ discipline is a serious matter. Once they get the idea they can converse on an equal basis with their betters . . .”

Daisy bit her lip, thinking of the deeply spiritual talk she’d had just this morning over breakfast with the family’s houseman, Timbo. Was she “better” than him? She was his mistress, in the sense that her father owned Timbo’s papers, supplied the food, clothing, and shelter that kept him alive, and demanded his unquestioning obedience. But she depended daily on the wisdom gained from his gentle, slow-spoken answers to her often anxious questions. Timbo was in many ways the grandfather she’d never had.

She also thought guiltily of the book hidden under her bed, a book which had irrevocably altered her thinking on subjects like freedom and equality. Her father, like Mrs. Dussouy, would be scandalized to know she’d so much as cracked the cover of such subversive literature.

“You must do as you see fit, of course,” she said calmly. “As I must do with my students. Again, I’m sorry Luc-Antoine disturbed you. Please forgive me if I return to our lesson.” She dipped a quick curtsey and turned to walk to the chalkboard.

“Well!” Mrs. Dussouy huffed, but after a moment Daisy heard the door open, then shut with a bang.

The children tittered. She ignored them and continued with her spelling list. Simon would laugh when she told him about the morning’s kerfuffle. Even the “mongrel pedigree” remark would strike him as funny, as his forbears had been ruling over a large chunk of New France when the Dussouys were still trapping furs in Acadia.

Not that that mattered. She loved Simon for his humor and good sense and strength of character. And a certain expression when he looked at her that could make her weak in the knees.

“Miss Redmond, I think you misspelled ‘attention,’” said Emée behind her.

“Oh, dear, I certainly did.” Red faced, Daisy corrected her mistake and scolded herself not to daydream. She was getting as bad as Lyse.