Louisiana History Collection - Part 2

by Jennifer Blake

  Ryan, glancing at Elene, saw the censure on her face. The cause was not difficult to find. Annoyance pricked at him. She might have at least given him the benefit of the doubt, considering the trouble he had been put to on her account. She moved a little under his narrow gaze, turning to glance at her maid. A breath of her perfume was wafted toward him. He had noticed it earlier as she sat pressed against him on the seat of the phaeton, a scent like a tropical garden under the moon. It was absurd but he had a strong impulse to step closer to her, the better to inhale it.

  The inclination, when the woman so obviously disapproved of him, did nothing to soothe Ryan’s temper. He turned on Favier. “Well, what is it to be? Will you whistle your profits down the wind out of fear for your yellow hide or will you act the man? Make up your mind. I know one or two others who might find your receipts worth a risk or two.”

  A spasm passed over Favier’s face, then he threw up his hands. “All right, all right. But I will take no unnecessary chances. If you want to be hidden, that is exactly what you will be. Come this way, quickly, before one of the servants comes snooping, wondering what the noise is about.”

  The house was not as large as the Larpent house, or as pretentious. It consisted of six rooms, three upstairs and three downstairs, that were surrounded on all four sides by galleries that protected the inside walls from the hot sun or windblown rain while permitting the circulation of air through floor-to-ceiling windows. The interior was furnished with an eye to comfort, and even a touch here and there of luxury. In the dining room where they were led, the room to the right on the bottom floor, there was a Beauvais rug in jewel colors on which was centered a long table and matching chairs of rosewood. On the table itself was a Meissen fruit bowl and a pair of matching candelabra, while ranged upon a sideboard was a collection of silver serving pieces and a set of decanters holding wines and brandies.

  Favier set the candlestick he was holding on the tabletop and began drawing the chairs back one by one. Elene looked at Devota, who shrugged her incomprehension.

  Ryan was not so reticent. “If you are about to offer us the hospitality of your kitchen, we appreciate it, but I, for one, am not hungry. We require your quietest rooms, a pair of them. Are there no servant’s accommodations or attic rooms we could use?”

  Favier gave him a belligerent look. “For what you require, the only thing I can offer you is here. Anything else is entirely too exposed. I have an old woman who keeps house for me who snoops into every room, and if told to keep out would only try to see what I am trying to hide.”

  “So shut her up somewhere for a few days, or send her away.”

  “I can’t,” Favier said shortly. “She’s my mother.”

  “In that case, she would hardly betray you.”

  “You don’t know her.” Favier gave a pettish shrug as he continued to draw back the chairs.

  When they were all out of the way, Favier lifted one end of the table and kicked the rug from under the legs. He then rolled the rug back, revealing a trapdoor.

  “I begin to understand,” Ryan said.

  “I hope you like it,” Favier answered, a touch of malice in his voice. Grunting with effort, he lifted the door by an inset ring and laid it back on its hinges.

  There was nothing to be seen at first except a dark hole. Then Devota reached for the candle and held it low under the table. The space that was exposed was too small to be called a cellar, too small even to qualify as a room. Hewed out of the limestone on which the house sat, it must have been used to store contraband from time to time, for a faint odor of wine and spices and tea rose from it. However, it looked like nothing so much as a large grave.

  Ryan rose from where he had gone down on one knee to look. “There must be some other place.”

  “Nowhere that you won’t be discovered, and, just maybe, reported to Dessalines.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Elene said with asperity, “that your mother doesn’t know about this?”

  “She knows, but it hasn’t been used for some time, and she would have no reason to think there was anybody down there now.”

  “Show us somewhere else.” Ryan’s voice was hard.

  “There is nowhere else, I promise you! It’s this or nothing!”

  Elene spoke almost to herself. “There is no reason Devota and I should not go to the army at Port-au-Prince.”

  “Oh, yes,” Ryan said as he swung on her, “as you were doing when I came along an hour or two ago.”

  Elene gave him a cold look, one that had no visible effect there in the candlelit dimness.

  Favier glanced from one to the other and wiped sweat from his brow. “Every moment that we stand here arguing is a danger. It will only be for a few days, three, four at most, until I can send word to your ship.”

  “You don’t know for certain that matters are so serious,” Elene pointed out. “We are all of us only guessing that Dessalines will order a mass attack. Perhaps we could wait and see what happens.”

  “Yes, and by that time every slave on the place will know where to look for you, supposing Dessalines wants to hunt down whites. Do you know what he does to white women? Do you?”

  Devota set the candle she held down on the table and stepped in front of Elene. “She knows, you fool. Only look at her.”

  Favier smiled grimly. “She hasn’t been tortured, that I can see. Yet.”

  The older woman turned her back on him, speaking to Elene. “Perhaps it would be bearable for a day or two, chère. Then if matters don’t turn out as we think, we could go on to Port-au-Prince, you and I.”

  “And then what?” Ryan said in rasping tones. “The word among the men at sea is that the Treaty of Amiens has failed. War with the British will be declared any day, and I don’t doubt they will aid Dessalines against the French this time by blockading the island. That will turn Saint-Domingue into a charnel house from which there is no escape. Dessalines can raise more than 100,000 men by beating a drum. Of the fine French army of 20,000 sent out by Napoleon, over a quarter are dead of fevers, and another quarter, maybe more, aren’t fit to fight. That makes the odds against victory somewhat higher than a hundred to one. What will you do if there is a rout, or a surrender?”

  Elene gave him a hard stare. “I don’t know, m’sieur, but what choice have I? I have no family, no friends, no money. There is no ship waiting for me!”

  “You could come with me.”

  Ryan had no idea where the suggestion had come from; certainly he had not known he would make it. It had simply presented itself full-blown in his mind, and he had spoken it aloud. He was an idiot. It would cause problems, but he supposed he could attend to them when they arose. For now he waited for her answer.

  “Go with you?” Elene’s voice was blank.

  “To New Orleans.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “For the love of God!” Favier cried. “You can discuss where you will go and what you will do afterward for the next three days. Will you conceal yourselves before we are all discovered and dismembered for Dessalines’s pleasure?”

  Ryan cursed softly, then with abrupt decision, bent his tall form into a crouch and ducked under the table. He sprang down into the gaping hole and turned, waiting to help Elene. She went to her knees, then hesitated, eyeing the way he had been nearly swallowed up in the darkness.

  “Go on,” Favier moaned in exasperation.

  There seemed nothing else to be done, except perhaps to curse as had Ryan Bayard. Pressing her lips tightly together, Elene crawled to the edge of the hole and swung her legs down into it. Ryan reached for her. She put her hands on his shoulders and felt his hard hands close around her waist. She fell against him as she jumped down, the soft curves of her body pressing into his long length, their faces inches apart. Then he set her carefully on her feet, and together they turned toward the light.

  Favier, panting in his eagerness and effort, folded himself up under the table and reached for the trapdoor.

  “Wait!”
Elene called. “Devota, come on.”

  “You’ll be too crowded,” Favier protested.

  “Yes, but—”

  Devota shook her tignon-wrapped head. “Don’t worry, chère, I’ll be all right. To hide like this isn’t necessary for one of my color. And I will be able to see to your needs if I am free to move around.” This was said with a challenging glance at Favier, as if the maid dared him to try to stop her, or suspected he might allow Ryan and Elene to starve if not watched.

  “People will know you are from the Larpent place. They will want to know why you are here,” Elene said. She was concerned for Devota’s safety, but she also felt as if a vital protection was being stripped from her.

  “I’ll make up some story, never fear,” Devota said calmly.

  Favier was closing the door. His voice was false with heartiness as he said, “She’ll be fine.”

  Ryan put up a hand to stop the descending door. “Leave us the candle.”

  Grumbling, Favier passed it down. “You must only use it for emergencies. There may be cracks in the floor where it will shine through.”

  “We are not idiots,” the privateer answered in hard tones, then had to lower his head quickly as the trapdoor thudded shut.

  Outside they heard Devota call out, “I’ll bring food and drink and a few things for your comfort in a moment.”

  There came the sound of Favier telling the maid to be quiet, then there was nothing but silence.

  The candle flickered in the gloom. Both Elene and Ryan looked at it, measuring its length. Around them, the walls seemed to close in. Elene, of no more than average height for a woman, could stand upright, though the top of her head brushed the trapdoor. Ryan was forced to stoop with his neck at what looked to be an uncomfortable angle. The space in which they stood was perhaps ten feet long, but no more than four feet wide. The trapdoor was fitted into the wood floor above them, rather than into the stone itself, so there was a narrow space the width of a floor joist that opened out under the house. This space allowed the circulation of air, though it also seemed to encourage spiders, for the wood beams and floorboards above them were festooned with dust-coated webs.

  The space was bare except for what appeared to be a small pile of jute bags in one corner. Ryan set the candle he held on the floor and stepped to pick up the bags, shaking them out. There were five or six of them. He spread them out in two neat piles against one wall, then lowered himself to one of the piles.

  His tone laced with irony, he said, “Sit down. It appears we may as well make ourselves comfortable.”

  “So it does.” Elene moved with stiff muscles to accept the seat he had made.

  She had not realized how exhausted she was until she was off her feet. Her strength seemed to vanish, leaving her drained and with a near uncontrollable tendency to shiver. She leaned her head back against the stone wall and closed her eyes. Instantly, images she would as soon not see began to flood her mind. She opened her eyes quickly. Directly before her was the candle, its rich yellow light a comfort and a worry.

  Elene moistened her lips. “Do you think we should put out the light?”

  “When your maid returns.”

  She was aware of a sense of reprieve. Keeping her mind carefully blank, she sat watching the wavering flame, marveling at the colors it contained, blue and orange and yellow, the black of the wick, the cream of the wax, the gray where the smoke left its stain. The shadows cast by the light flickered over the walls, overlapping each other. The rising warmth wafted the spider webs above them with gentle languor.

  Ryan glanced at the woman beside him. Something in her stillness disturbed him. He thought of all that had happened to her in the last hours, most of it gathered from what the woman Devota had said in her tumbled plea for his help, and knew an instant of surprise that he did not have an hysterical female on his hands. It would be amazing if she wasn’t in some kind of shock. That fool Favier could at least have offered them a drink. He could do with a tot of brandy himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said aloud. “This isn’t precisely what I had in mind when I offered you shelter here.”

  Her lips twisted in a wry smile, then were still. “It’s a great deal better than the alternative.”

  “Some people have a fear of close places. If you do, you have only to say so and I’ll force that weasel Favier to find us some other place.”

  It was an instant before she replied. “I can’t say I like it, but I think I can bear it. We will find out, won’t we.”

  It was so precisely his own view of the matter that she rose another notch in his estimation. She had courage. He remembered, suddenly, the wild fury with which she had been fighting the men holding her.

  “I meant what I said about New Orleans,” he went on. “I have friends there who can help you get settled. You will have no trouble making a place for yourself.”

  Privately he thought there would be a great many of his friends who would like nothing better than taking care of a woman who looked as this one did. She really was beautiful. The wonder was that she had not been married a good half-dozen years already, instead of just going to the altar.

  Elene made no reply, though she considered what he had said. Her father had lived in New Orleans for a time, as a refugee. He had enjoyed himself there, she thought, when he was not worrying about returning to Saint-Domingue. He should have stayed. If he had, he might still be alive. But he had not, and so—

  The trapdoor opened above them. Ryan got to his feet and took the things Devota handed down, an armful of quilted coverlets, a loaf of bread, a roasted chicken and several fried fruit pies wrapped in a napkin, plus bottles of brandy and wine and a jug of water and drinking glasses. When he had passed these things one by one to Elene, the maid gave him the last item of convenience, a porcelain chamber pot with a lid painted with roses.

  Devota called softly, “Is there anything else you can think of you need?”

  Ryan looked to Elene who shook her head. He relayed the answer.

  “Then Favier says I am to tell you to lower your voices. He thinks he can hear you talking.”

  “We’ll do that,” Ryan said, his tone grim.

  “It may be tomorrow night before I can bring anything else. If it is, don’t think I have forgotten you,” Devota whispered.

  “No, we won’t.”

  “Then sleep well.”

  Ryan made a sound through his nose that might have been a snort. The trapdoor closed down on them again.

  Ryan set the chamber pot in the far corner, then kneeling on the floor, began to arrange the food and drink in the other. “Would you care for something to eat?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  Elene turned her back and began to spread out the quilts over the jute bags. There was simply no room to make more than a single pallet out of them, not if they were both going to be able to lie down. And lie down they must; they could not sit up, sleepless, for three days. She and the privateer would have to stretch out side by side. Together. Down here in this hole. She sat back on her heels, staring at the spread quilts.

  Behind her there was the clink of glass on glass, the gurgle of liquid. “Here,” Ryan said, his voice rough, “drink this.”

  She turned to look at him as he knelt so close beside her. She met his dark blue gaze, and saw the flame of the candle glowing there. His presence, the sheer force of him as a man, was suddenly overpowering. She swallowed hard, and reached with fingers that trembled for the glass of brandy he was holding out to her.

  Her lips were cold against its rim. The fumes of the liquor rose to catch in the back of her nose. Still, the fire of the brandy spread life-giving warmth in its slide down her throat to her stomach. A shiver of reaction rippled over her. She drank again, cautiously, cradling the glass in both hands.

  Ryan gave a faint nod of satisfaction and raised his glass. “To New Orleans.”

  She had not said she would go. She could not refuse to drink to his home, however. “To New Orleans,�
� she repeated, and sipped once more from her glass.

  Ryan shifted his position, easing onto the pallet she had made, though he only sat as before with his back against the stone wall. He swirled the liquor in his glass, his thick lashes shielding his eyes as he stared at it.

  Elene looked at him out of the corner of her eye, then looked away again. The situation they were in had every appearance of one that was going to be embarrassing in the extreme. It was not something either of them had caused or that either could do anything about, however. That being so, there was no point in being silly about it. She took a deep breath and let it out, then moved gingerly to settle beside him.

  “I expect,” Ryan said in neutral tones, “that we had better save our candle. There’s nothing to say that Favier will give us another.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” she answered.

  He reached out one long arm and pinched the candle flame with his fingers. Blackness descended.

  They were alone in the dark.

  3

  THE EFFECTS OF THE BRANDY seemed stronger without the light. Elene felt a welcome easing in her mind and a warm sense of relaxation in her muscles. She was not inebriated by any means, only aware that she easily could become so.

  She did not blame Ryan Bayard for her state. He had given her the brandy, true enough, but he had not forced her to drink it, and she certainly did not suspect him of having any ulterior reason for offering it. She was, in fact, grateful to him for the impulse. He might not be aware of it, but she had been close to the edge of her composure.

  Probably, he knew it very well. A man such as he must have had a great deal of experience with women, quite likely women in the grip of emotion. In addition, a privateer must often meet with overwrought people of both sexes, those none too pleased at having their valuables taken from them.