8
NEW ORLEANS
MAY 1777
Rafa, dressed in one of his more sober evening suits of black velvet decorated with black satin frogs along the cuffs and tail vents, handed his tricorn to the Pollocks’ butler with a smile. He took a moment to check his appearance in the fine Valencia mirror, which he himself had brought back from Havana in March, then climbed the stairs to the great salon which fronted Chartres Street.
As he waited in line to greet his host, Rafa reflected that everyone who was anyone must be here tonight. Governor Gálvez held court beside his chosen lady, the beautiful widow María Feliciana de St. Maxent d’Estrehan, near one of the magnificent French windows. The windows stood open to the mild spring breeze, spilling the light of a thousand candles onto the street below. As usual forgoing the finery due his exalted position, Gálvez had favored a uniform even more severe in lines than Rafa’s own, a restraint that served as a deliberate contrast to his lady’s extravagant Gallic beauty.
With his heart firmly in the possession of a certain other Creole lady, Rafa found himself inspecting the exquisite Doña d’Estrehan with the detached admiration one might accord an expensive painting: wondering how much it cost and how long it had taken to compose. Her dark curls had been piled over some towering contraption and threaded with ribbons and silk flowers, with a few long ringlets allowed to cleverly trail along the low neckline of her golden voile gown. Amber and ruby jewels twinkled from her small, dainty ears and about her throat, and the large, tip-tilted dark eyes had been subtly enhanced by a faint rouging of her high cheekbones.
Small wonder that Gálvez scarcely took his eyes from the lady’s face.
“The governor is clearly smitten, is he not?”
Rafa turned to find Pollock’s wife, Margaret, smiling as she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He grinned. “Without doubt. It is but a matter of time before she becomes Doña Gálvez. Wagers say before Christmas.”
“Oh, well before that,” Pollock said, firmly shaking Rafa’s hand. “And one hopes that she will give him an answer soon, so that his attention may be focused on the business at hand.”
“I’ve noticed no lack of discipline.” Rafa rubbed his shoulder, just now becoming free of the ache from the scrap-iron wound.
Pollock leaned in, touching the side of his large nose. “Gálvez may bark, but he’s pleased with the intelligence you brought. In fact, the king has authorized us to send more blankets and gunpowder up the river.”
Before replying, Rafa looked around. Mrs. Margaret had turned to the next guests in line, an indigo merchant and his well-dressed wife. There were spies everywhere, and he had to believe that if he had been so easily able to infiltrate Pensacola, the likelihood of the British returning the favor was great. Gálvez had sternly warned them all not to speak out of turn.
With a tilt of his head, he invited Pollock to follow him to a quiet corner where they could converse with their backs to the wall, in no danger of being overheard. Rafa folded his arms and said softly, “Gálvez may have forgiven the loss of the gold, but I’m going to get it back.”
“The governor is both fair and practical. He will never penalize a man for what is outside his control—and pirates are parasites who unfortunately ride the tails of any coastal political conflict. We’re lucky that’s the first major cargo we’ve lost to this point. And to have escaped with no loss of life—” Pollock shrugged—“that is truly a blessing. How do you plan to recover it?”
“I’ve thought about it. As I reported, the people of Mobile and Pensacola are not eating well. Their stores of flour are all but depleted, and summertime fevers will soon be setting in.” Rafa met Pollock’s sharp gaze. “What if, as a gesture of goodwill, I take them some of the quinine that just came from Peru and a hundred fifty or so of those barrels of Brazilian wheat? I could also take a fully armed crew, poke around the docks, pretend to carouse a bit.” He grinned at Pollock. “You know. Take it from there.”
“In other words, everything that young Don Rafael is so good at.” Pollock rolled his eyes. “I think it’s a brilliant idea, and if I were a younger man, I’d go with you. I’ll outfit you, because I think it’s worth trying to get that cache of gold back in our hands. The Americans need every scrap of help we can send their way.” He paused, said in uncharacteristically diffident tones, “What did you think of the Adam Smith treatise?”
Rafa straightened. “I read it. Compelling stuff, and you add that to Thomas Paine’s work . . . well, I’m not ready to renounce my Spanish citizenship, but I want to see this American experiment work out.” He looked away. “I know people who don’t now have the freedom to make their own choices, and they deserve better.”
“People?” Pollock, always discerning, had an uncanny knack for prying information out of Rafa. “People in general, or people in particular?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. The dancers’ rhythmic patterns in the center of the room made him think of Lyse and the way she had anxiously followed the touch of his hands, the direction of his gaze, as he guided her in the minuet. Her guilt that she could enjoy a party when her cousin Scarlet could not—and her valiant efforts to keep her poverty-stricken family afloat. “Rather more specific than not,” he said with an oblique smile.
Pollock laughed. “I understand the need to be careful, given the present company. Speaking of which, look who has just arrived. I must go speak to your mama—and perhaps, in your father’s absence, you might come with me to fend off the young puppies who’ll be sitting up to beg for your little sister’s favor.”
Rafa turned just in time to witness the grand entrance of the two most powerful women in his life—Mama, still beautiful, even with her black hair beginning to gray in delicate wings above her ears, and Sofía a younger copy, looking like some exotic little bird in a dress decorated with the lavender lace Lyse had selected for her. They were quickly obscured by the onrush of uniformed men seeking to fill Sofía’s dance card.
“Ay,” he muttered, gave Pollock a rueful glance, and took off toward the crowd.
He pushed through to Sofía’s side just as a young adjutant, notable for a prominent Adam’s apple and a nose the approximate size and shape of a mast in full sail, claimed her hand for the next country dance.
After retrieving her dance card and dismissing the poor adjutant with a careless wave, Sofía seized Rafael in an enthusiastic hug. “Rafa! You must see how beautifully your Mobile lace has made up! Am I not adorable?” She stood back to pirouette for his benefit. “You must go back and find more, only perhaps you might look for that delicious shade of celery that I saw in Fashionable Miscellany.”
Trying not to wince at the clench of pain in his shoulder—or her unfortunate use of the word delicious in the same sentence with celery—he took her hand, tucked it into his elbow, and whisked her away from her disappointed cadre of admirers. He guided her toward the refreshment table. “You are of course adorable, little sister, and naturally I exist to provide your modiste with dress materials. I hesitate to remind you, however, that further travels must wait until I have enough merchandise to fill another ship.”
Sofía pouted, then giggled and leaned in to whisper, “Oh, I have missed you! Where have you been keeping yourself the last few weeks? Mama said Mr. Pollock undoubtedly had business matters for you to attend, but I can hardly believe you wouldn’t at least come by and take me driving of an afternoon. And Rafa, you haven’t been to mass at all! Padre Juan wouldn’t tell me if you’d been to confession, he says it is none of my concern, but truly it is my concern for your spiritual—”
“Take a breath, Sofi,” Rafa said, laughing. “I promise I have not put myself beyond redemption. In fact—” He stopped himself abruptly. How to explain the overwhelming urge he’d had, ever since returning to New Orleans, to pray about everything? His family would think him mad. And anyone who knew Don Rafael, merchant and man about town, would certainly not credit him with any serious engagement of the spirit. He let out another laughing breath as he picked up a glass of lemonade and handed it to Sofía. “In fact, I have tied up some loose ends which leave me free to join you and the parents for services tomorrow evening.”
“Really? Oh, Rafa, that is excellent! Mama will be so happy, and maybe Papa will stop growling about your selfish absences.”
Rafa suddenly regretted that lemonade seemed to be the strongest libation available at the party. He bit his tongue, then after a moment blurted, “If I were wearing a uniform as Papa wished, he would not see me even every three to six months as I manage now. I’d be serving in Peru or Dominica or some other godforsaken outpost, unable to do more than write the occasional letter.”
“I have hurt your feelings,” Sofía said, tears in her big brown eyes. “I don’t understand why you and Papa cannot forgive one another and cease this interminable sniping through me. I’m glad you’re not military! I don’t want you in danger of being shot at or—or run through with a bayonet or—Because it’s bad enough that Cristián and Danilo—” With a strangled sob, she crammed her gloved fist against her mouth and turned away.
Rafa cursed himself for upsetting her, particularly in a public setting such as this. His older brother Cristián had been absent from the family fold for nearly two years, and Danilo, younger than Rafa by a scant ten months, had shipped off to the southern colonies just after Christmas. He bolstered his determination that neither Sofía nor their mother should know how close to his heart the pirate’s iron had come.
He sighed and put his good arm round her shaking shoulders. “Come, Sofi, I’ll make up to Father, I promise. And we’ll light ten candles each for Cristián and Nilo tomorrow. I know God will keep them safe.”
Sofía wiped her eyes with her gloved fingers and gave a blubbering laugh. “Why do I never have a handkerchief when I start to cry? It is so aggravating!”
“That is why you have a dandy for a brother,” he said and handed over his large, lace-edged handkerchief. “Mop up, and I’ll let you go dance with your Roman-nosed adjutant. I’m sure he won’t notice how pink yours is.”
She blew her nose, then handed back his handkerchief with a watery smile. “Please don’t ever change, Rafael. I love you just like you are, dandified or not.”
It was a small comfort, but he took it. He escorted his sister back to her swain and went to work, circulating the room in search of spies and information. The governor had asked for a meeting in the morning, and if he expected approval for a return to Mobile, he had best be prepared to justify it.
MOBILE
OCTOBER 1777
Lyse pulled her shawl around her shoulders as she followed Daisy down the schoolhouse steps into the street. A sudden snap of fall had tugged brittle brown leaves off the water oaks, sending them swirling along with the breeze. In August the school had been moved to more spacious quarters on Conception Street to accommodate the children of Loyalist refugees fleeing the northern colonies, and Daisy had begged Lyse to help by teaching the youngest children.
When her father unexpectedly encouraged her to move in with the Redmonds, Lyse timidly broached the subject to Daisy and found herself smothered in a hug and all but deafened by her friend’s shrieks of joy.
With little further ado, Lyse settled into a contented routine for the first time in her life.
The only thing marring her peace came whistling round the corner of St. Peter Street with his tricorn pushed to the back of his red head and his musket propped on his shoulder. At the sight of Niall’s delighted grin—as if he didn’t know she and Daisy started the walk home at three o’clock every afternoon—Lyse turned to dive back into the schoolroom.
But Daisy was already tugging her along, smiling and waving. “Niall! How nice to see you! Are you off duty this afternoon?”
“Yes, until this time tomorrow. May I walk you ladies home?” Niall turned hopeful blue eyes on Lyse.
She didn’t have the heart to crush him. Besides, Daisy was squeezing her arm so hard there were sure to be bruises later. “Of course, if you’re not too tired.”
Niall fell into step, suppressing a yawn. “I’m tip-top, not tired at all. Sentry duty is so boring, I don’t know why the major bothers. We’re perfectly safe down here on the gulf. They say the Americans are getting ready to come down the river and attack, but everybody knows their navy ain’t worth spitting at. Now the Spanish, that would be another thing—” Niall suddenly clamped his lips together, looking sideways at Daisy. “I’m sorry, don’t mean to criticize your father. He’s got to follow orders, after all.”
Lyse exchanged glances with Daisy. They’d been discussing this very topic off and on over the past few days. Major Redmond had lately been by turns silent and terse in communication, his high, handsome brow etched with new lines. Lyse strove for a casual tone. “Niall, why would the Spanish come here? They’re a neutral party in the war—aren’t they?”
Niall shrugged. “They claim to be. But they stopped one of our ships that tried to enter New Orleans harbor, wouldn’t let her in, while at the same time that tricky Gálvez is harboring American smugglers who’ve been pillaging up and down the Mississippi for half a year or more.”
“How do you know that?” For reasons she couldn’t explain to herself, much less Daisy, Lyse found herself fascinated with anything having to do with the Spanish of New Orleans.
Niall didn’t seem to hear the tension in her voice. “Another family of refugees from Natchez came in late last night. That’s the third group this month. The major assigned me to find them temporary places to board, and a whinier lot I’ve yet to meet.” He put on an exaggerated nasal drawl and minced along with a hand at his waist. “‘It is so hot in this mosquito-infested bog, ensign, I don’t know how you people stand it. If King George knew what we put up with out of loyalty to the Crown, I swear he’d knight us all, instead of allowing the rebels to run us out of our own homes!’”
Lyse and Daisy both laughed. “How much longer do you think the war will drag on?” Lyse asked, sobering.
Niall shook his head. “No idea. Could be a month, but more likely a year, since the French came in to complicate things. Depends on—” breaking off, he looked over his shoulder—“depends on how the next campaign goes. I hear we might invade New Orleans, if the Spaniards double-cross us.”
Lyse felt her face drain of blood. “Invade? But surely there’s no reason—”
“Now, there’s no cause to be frightened,” Niall said, clearly aware that he had stepped wrong. “Like I said, Colonel Durnford is suspicious of Spanish motives, but he can’t prove anything, and besides, I’m just speculating—and you know how low on the chain of command I am!”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence as the three of them passed the Emporium, which loomed starkly empty, devoid of paying customers. They reached the Redmonds’ cottage and paused on its brick walkway.
“Would you like to come in for lemonade, Niall?” Daisy asked politely.
“I would, but—” He shuffled his big feet. “Please forget I said anything, girls. I could get into real trouble if your pa hears I’ve been talking out of turn.”
Daisy touched his arm. “You didn’t say anything I haven’t heard people all over town gossiping about. You and Lyse sit here on the porch swing and enjoy the breeze. I’ll get us something to drink and be right back.” Before Lyse could object, Daisy pattered up the steps to the house.
Lyse was left alone with Niall, her hand lightly tucked through his elbow. She suddenly felt his solid weight, his anxious attraction to her. Stepping away, she turned to walk up the steps, but he awkwardly grabbed her shoulder.
“Wait, Lyse, I—before Daisy comes back, I wanted to—to ask you—” He gulped. “There’s a dance at Burrelle’s tomorrow night. I want to—could I escort you?” His ears were bright red, and his eyes shone with hope. He was such a kind boy, gentle and hard-working and familiar as a pair of house shoes.
Justine and her father liked him. The children liked him. Even Simon liked him.
How could she say no?
“Lyse! Lyse! I ran all the way to the school to look for you!”
She whirled. Luc-Antoine was running down the opposite side of the street toward her, dodging a cart and mule in front of the Emporium, jumping over a mud puddle, arms and legs pumping and hair flying.
Her little brother had, against all odds, managed to please her high-and-mightiness Isabelle Dussouy enough that she had offered him an apprenticeship with Cain in her forge. He had been given a pallet in the servants’ quarters, three meals a day, and the privilege of attending school three days a week. In return, he was bound for ten years to spend every other waking moment running errands and fetching things for the young blacksmith as he learned the work, a job which the boy was thrilled to do.
He did not look happy at the moment. As he drew closer, Lyse could see smears of tears on his flushed cheeks.
She grabbed him as he flung himself at her, burying his dirty face in her second-best fichu. “Luc, what is it?” Meeting Niall’s puzzled eyes, she stroked her brother’s sweaty head. When he didn’t answer, she caught his face in her hands, lifting it to look for some injury. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Scarlet!” Luc-Antoine let out an angry sob. “Madame Dussouy sold her! A Mississippi trader come took her off this morning!”
The candles in Burelle’s windows glowed like fireflies in the distance as Lyse walked beside Niall the few short blocks from the Redmonds’ house. She couldn’t help remembering the night she’d attended the Dussouys’ soirée with Rafael in the spring. She’d felt like a princess that night in Daisy’s beautiful gown, with her hair dressed high and the sparkling slippers upon her feet.
Daisy had offered to loan it to her again, but Burelle’s wasn’t a place where one need pretend to high fashion. Instead she wore the newer of her two gowns, a soft blue striped merino with embroidered cherries scattered over the skirt and a red military-style jacket frogged at the bosom with black satin. Her ruffled cap added the maturity appropriate for a schoolteacher.
Niall had apparently bathed and shaved, taming his red curls with some kind of pomade that made Lyse sneeze every time she took an incautious breath. He had traded his red uniform coat for a sober brown tailcoat and buckskin pantaloons that clung to his stocky, heavily muscled frame, worn with clocked stockings and shoes ornamented with large paste buckles.
Once the formality of bidding adieu to Daisy’s father was over with, Niall seemed to have lost his voice completely, except for an occasional nervous harrumph that put her in mind of Grandpére’s favorite mule, Charlie.
Finally she could stand it no longer. “Niall, I won’t be very good company tonight, I’m afraid. If you want to go on to the party without me, I wouldn’t blame you.”
He hesitated. “I’m not sure you need to be alone. I know you’re angry and upset about Scarlet, but—”
“I’m not upset, Niall. I’m outraged. How abominably cruel can one person be—to separate a husband and wife? It’s just one more way of getting back at my father for jilting her all those years ago.”
“Well, I wouldn’t do it, but it’s not outside the law and not even unheard of. Lyse, as much as you loved Scarlet, she isn’t a free citizen. Madame Dussouy owned her and had the right to sell her if she wasn’t satisfied with her.”
Lyse pressed her lips together to suppress the scream that wanted to escape. Niall’s words were true, but they scraped a wound so raw that she thought it might never heal. The thought of her gentle cousin hauled off by a strange man, terrified and lonely, maybe physically abused, was almost more than she could bear. If she’d known where the trader went, she would have gone after him. She should have found a way to set Scarlet free a long time ago. Then this would never have happened.
“Cain is beside himself with grief,” she said when she could speak calmly. “Madame had to chain him to keep him from running off to try to find her. She beat him, Niall. After stealing his wife away, she whipped him like an animal.”
Her voice clogged in spite of herself, and Niall reached for her hand. “I know,” he said, “but they weren’t really married. He’ll get over it and mate with another girl. You’ll see.”
Lyse stopped, snatching her hand away. “Do you really think that? That because his skin is dark and there’s a piece of paper making him a slave, that he doesn’t have feelings?” When Niall just looked at her, shaking his head mutely, she blurted, “People say Scarlet and I look like sisters! Our mothers were twins! What if something happens to me, Niall? Are you going to get over it and mate with someone else?”
The words were crude, unladylike, and torn from a place in her that she rarely let anyone see. But if Niall truly wanted to wed her, as she knew he did, he’d better know what he was getting. She was no princess, nor even a lady. She was the daughter of a freed slave and a drunken fisherman.
His mouth fell open, and his eyes filled with something between shock and sorrow before he turned his face away. “How can you say that? You know I . . . love you, Lyse. I always have. There won’t ever be anyone else.” When she didn’t answer, he summoned the courage to look at her again. “I know I’m not as fancy as that Spanish fellow, but I could take care of you, and the major says he’ll help me find a little house we can live in until I’m posted elsewhere.”
The “Spanish fellow” figured in this situation not at all, but her stomach flipped all the same. Even Niall had seen her infatuation. How humiliating. Pride sharpened her tone. “I’m taking care of myself just fine, thank you very much.” She counted to ten, hanging her head. “Niall, you are such a good man, and you deserve a girl who will love you wholeheartedly. Me, I’m too impatient, too independent, too—too—everything! I’d make you miserable inside of a week.”
Niall stepped close and tried again to take her hands. “Don’t say no, Lyse. I’m willing to wait for you. I wasn’t going to speak so soon, but you—you kind of forced it.” He laughed softly. “Which is one thing I love about you. You won’t let things lie untouched. You have to turn everything over, examine it, talk about it, fix it if you can.”
He was utterly sincere, utterly dear, and stubborn as that old mule. She backed away, shaking her head. “No promises, Niall.”
“I’ll wait. Come on, I hear the music.” He proffered his arm, and there was nothing to do but take it.
As she and Niall entered the inn’s small, crowded ballroom, Lyse pasted on a smile and chattered and danced as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Inside, she felt like a boiling inferno of rage and frustration, and with no apparent outlet, she knew it wouldn’t take much to provoke a messy explosion. Would God have her marry a man who refused to push back—who simply flattened in a soft cushion of acceptance, no matter what she said or did? There was no doubt that Niall could be a good provider. But was that enough for marriage?
On the other hand, what if she waited for something more, and that something never came? The thought of living the rest of her life as a spinster schoolteacher was both terrifying and suffocating. She loved the children and found great reward in opening their minds to the peoples and worlds found in the pages of a book. But sooner or later, please God, Daisy was going to find a way to marry Simon, and Lyse would be left to run the school alone. Could she be satisfied to love and teach their children, never knowing the joy of bearing and rearing her own?
With an effort she blinked away her eddying thoughts and focused on the scene around her. Brigitte had outdone herself in turning the tavern hall into a gay harvest celebration. The tables and chairs from the small restaurant had been pushed against the walls to make room for dancing, and the rough plank floor swept clean. Bright orange pumpkins, flanked by purple and golden gourds, decorated hay bales in cozy corners for those who wanted a bit of private conversation. The company, dressed in Sunday best, whirled in time to the music of a couple of fiddlers playing on a small dais at the back of the room.
Lyse touched palms with Niall and jigged down the country dance line. There was no reason she should be sad. She had a paying job, a clean and safe place to live, congenial company. If she’d been hungry, there was plenty of good food on the bar right behind her. She hadn’t, in fact, had anything to eat since yesterday noon, but even the thought of food made her light-headed. Niall kept giving her worried looks, and she tried once more to smile. Perhaps she should give it up and insist that he take her home.
The dance turned, and across the room near the front door, she saw Rafael Gonzales, Daisy Redmond clinging to his arm.