Nicolette caught her breath at his first thrust and the pain it caused. She cried out in spite of herself. For a moment, Laffite, stunned to find her still virginal, withdrew.
Nicolette held perfectly still for a time, then said, “Please. I’m all right now.”
“You’re more than all right, darling,” he said, easing back into her. “You’re wonderful!”
He gave an expert, rapier-sharp thrust then. The pain was over so quickly that Nicolette had only time for a small exclamation before more pleasant sensations overcame her. She marveled at this new feeling of being totally, lovingly filled with his strength and passion. She picked up his rhythm automatically, and as she felt his strong body tense over hers, she tightened muscles she never knew she had. At that instant, a fountain of heat erupted inside her. She heard Jean’s groan of sheer ecstasy, felt his body quiver, then relax. A new wave of pleasure and happiness engulfed her. They were one!
“Oh, my sweet Nikki!” he whispered as he settled for sleep, surrounding her fragrant warmth with possessive arms.
Nicolette came partially awake in the yellow haze of noon. Her body ached in a wonderful way. She stretched her arms over her head, wiggled her toes, arched her back.
How lovely it is to be alive! she thought.
She turned to reach for her lover, but the bed was empty. Probably nature’s call, she speculated, surprised at herself for thinking of such private matters.
Then voices reached her from the dressing room beyond. She heard Jean say, “But I hadn’t planned another auction at The Temple until June at the earliest.”
Dominique Youx’s heavily accented voice answered, “I know, Boss, but Gambi brought the Philantrope in last night after we left the beach. I’m not for doin’ the sonuvabitch any favors either, but he’s got two hundred prime slaves from the Cuban market stacked in that hold. There’s no room left in the barracoons on Grand Isle. We can’t leave a cargo like that packed in that stinking ship. They’ll die on us. Gambi says he paid three hundred a head in Havana. They’ll bring two, three thousand each at auction to the planters. Not a bad profit if we move fast. N’ est-ce pas?”
“Goddammit, Dom! I just got married! I want some peace and quiet. Why does Gambi do things like this? Doesn’t he recognize the position this puts me in? That warrant for me and Pierre is still hanging over our heads. If we advertise an auction at The Temple before that arrest order expires, Claiborne will send troops down the bayou for sure.”
“Maybe that’s what Gambi’s figured. Boss. My guess is it’s a trap he plans to spring. With you out of the way, the bastard could take over Grande Terre without a single swing of his bloody broad-axe.”
Nicolette strained to hear more, but only tense mumblings greeted her ears for several minutes. She could make little sense out of what the men were saying. She listened more closely when she heard Laffite swear under his breath.
“We’ll just see about that, Dom! Set the auction for three days from now. We won’t put up broadsides in New Orleans this time. I’ll send Raymond Ranchier to the city in the courier pirogue. With our strongest slaves at the oars, he can make the trip in a little more than twenty-four hours. I’ll have him contact Joseph Sauvinet and John Blanque quietly and then, in turn, they can tell the planters who are interested in buying. That way, we won’t have every sightseer and gossip in New Orleans spreading the word just to make it a day’s outing. With luck, we’ll have the lot of them sold in a couple of hours and be back on our way to Grande Terre before Governor Claiborne and his militia get wind of what’s happening. Oh, and, Dom, we’ll need armed guards posted from Lake Salvador north to the river just in case we have uninvited visitors.”
“Right, Boss. What about her?”
Nicolette leaned toward the voices to catch the answer. There was another long pause.
“I’m taking her with me. “
“It’ll be a rough trip.”
“Nikki can take it. She’s tougher than she looks.”
Nicolette smiled at her husband’s words.
“But, Boss, what if someone spots her?”
“Doesn’t matter. Pierre told me last night that Monsieur Vernet already knows she’s here… another thing we have Vincent Gambi to thank for! I’ll keep her hidden in the cabin while we’re there. Nothing will happen.”
Nicolette could almost see Dominique Youx’s familiar shrug as he answered, “You’re the Boss!”
“Damn right I am!”
When she heard Jean’s footsteps approaching the door, Nicolette snuggled back amid the plump pillows and fixed a pretty smile on her face. But her husband wasn’t smiling when he entered.
“Darling?” She stretched out her arms to him.
His eyes traveled over her and his expression mellowed perceptibly. But he didn’t accept her unspoken invitation to return to their bed. Instead, he threw off his robe, exposing his powerful nakedness to her eyes for the first time in the bright light of day.
Nicolette tried to look away, but these mysteries, revealed in such sharp and magnificent detail, entranced her. She winced at the sight of a deep dimple in his left side just above his hip bone—an old bullet wound. Paler scars on his chest and arms proved that other men’s rapiers had on occasion drawn blood during his many duels. But the ugly scars only worked as contrast to make the rest of his body seem all the more Olympian.
“Ma chère, I’m afraid our honeymoon is about to be rudely interrupted,” he said, pulling on canvas britches. “We have to leave shortly for The Temple.”
“The Temple?” she asked, thinking that she had heard of the place, but not sure where it was.
“It’s about halfway between here and New Orleans. We’ll have to travel up Bayou Barataria by pirogue to the point where it meets Bayou Pierrot at Little Lake.”
“Why, that’s the middle of the swamp!” Nicolette gasped. “What’s there?”
He smiled to reassure her, saying, “It’s not all that bad, sweetheart. You may even find you enjoy the uniqueness of the area. The Temple itself is a chênieère, an ancient Indian shell mound—high and dry. I have a small cottage there where you’ll be comfortable. The trip will take less than two days, but we won’t be there long. A quick morning auction and then we’ll be on our way home again—safe and sound.”
“What about Aunt Gabrielle and Sukey? Will they be going with us?”
Laffite frowned. He hadn’t thought of them. Transporting three women could prove hazardous.
He gave her a sly look and asked, “Do you really need your maid along, darling? Can’t you manage with just me?”
“I suppose… if you’ll help me lace my stays, Jean.”
He howled his delight at the image of Nicolette, dressed for a formal outing, traveling all that way through the bayous by pirogue. Leaning down to reach her, he kissed her softly blushing cheek and said, “I think we’ll leave your corset and stays here with Sukey, ma chère. You won’t need them and I’d hate to see some alligator end up wearing them!”
“Oh!” Nicolette exclaimed.
“As for Gabrielle, I’ll leave it up to the two of you to decide whether she stays here or goes with us. But I warn you, the cabin is small and not outfitted with all the comforts of home.”
Gabrielle DelaCroix came in while Nicolette was having her breakfast of café au lait, croissants, and orange sections in bed. She had made plans of her own. No, she would not go to The Temple with them.
“I’ve talked Reyne Beluche into taking me on to New Orleans, Nikki,” she stated firmly.
“But, Aunt Gabi .
She raised a hand and shook her head to silence her niece’s protests. “Now, I won’t have any argument, young lady! Jean will take care of you, I’m sure. If I go on to Claude and Francine, I can pave the way for you and your husband. They’ll have to listen to reason. I think it might be wise for Sukey to return with me. She’s an old woman and the life here may prove too much for her. Besides, how would it look for me to arrive in New Orleans on a smug
gler’s ship without a proper chaperone? The man I love knows that Reyne once fancied me. He’d be sure to jump to the worst possible conclusions. So it’s all settled!”
“Well, if you’re sure…” Nicolette began.
“I am, indeed!” Gabrielle cut her off. “I sail this afternoon aboard the schooner Spy.” She smiled happily, as if taking off with a band of avowed ruffians and cutthroats were the most natural thing in the world for her to do.
“I’ll miss you,” Nicolette said, taking her aunt’s hand.
Gabrielie’s great brown eyes glittered with mischief. “I have a feeling that your darling corsair will keep you far too busy for you to even realize I’ve gone. You’re a lucky woman, Nikki. Give all your love, all your attention to your man. Love him as if there were no tomorrow!”
“I do,” Nicolette whispered. “I hurt, I love him so much, Aunt Gabi,” she confided.
Gabrielle closed her eyes and sighed dreamily. “Ah, how often I wish to know that kind of love again. C’est magnifique!”
That afternoon, after several hours of frenzied activity on Grand Terre, ships and pirogues set off in all directions.
Already, Laffite’s messenger, Raymond Ranchier, was speeding up through the lazy, brackish bayous, his swift cypress dugout propelled toward New Orleans by twenty muscled black arms.
The Spy, which had been anchored in Barataria Pass between the sheltering islands of Grande Terre and Grande Isle, took its two passengers onboard and sailed out into the Gulf, headed for Lakes Borgne and Pontchartrain and finally into Bayou St. John to make port in the Crescent City.
Nicolette, sensibly clothed in a calf-length canvas skirt with britches underneath and high boots, climbed into one of the pirogues bound for The Temple. Jean took her hand and settled her in the center seat.
“Comfortable, darling?” he asked.
She offered him a smile more confident than her feelings and answered, “Couldn’t be more!”
“Then haul away, you bloody brigands!” he shouted to the men at the poles.
The flat-bottomed cypress boat shot forward like a bullet, speeding over the ubiquitous duckweed, which gave the bayou the appearance of being covered in green velvet.
Nicolette settled back, fanning herself with a palmetto frond, and watched the bright sun fade into greenish-yellow half-light. The swamp closed in over them, giving her the serene feeling of being inside a vast, green cathedral.
Even while Nicolette painted fanciful pictures of the place Jean called The Temple, a warning began to buzz in her brain. As they drew deeper into the swamp, all feelings of serenity fled. She told herself that she was being silly… that it was only her nerves grating at the sound of the swarming mosquitoes all around them. Still, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t silence a voice somewhere deep inside her which kept insisting she should never have left Grande Terre.
Chapter Eight
Jean Laffite watched over Nicolette carefully throughout the trip, keeping a protective arm about her most of the time. To his relief she showed no outward signs of discomfort. She took the long boat ride and the attacking swarms of insects in her stride. He cursed himself more than once for not thinking to have the boat covered with a frame and netting for her comfort. But, after all, he thought, who in New Orleans hasn’t learned to live with mosquitoes?
Still, he felt he’d made a mistake by bringing her along. He had been too furious with Vincent Gambi for interrupting their first days together to think seriously about the dangers to Nikki when he made his hasty decision.
What if troops did show up at The Temple and shooting broke out? Monsieur Vernet had never appeared at the auctions on Grande Terre or at The Temple, but what if he came to this one in search of his daughter? Which man… which life… would Nicolette choose, if told she had to decide on the spot between her family and her lover?
After all, Laffite thought with a sharp twinge of pain in his heart, we aren’t really married—not until we have the sanction of the Church.
A loud commotion up ahead snapped him out of his dismal reverie.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
“Chomp that nigger, ole buck! Bite that thar boy! Goddammit, ain’t you hongry for a taste of prime dark meat?”
The cries exploded through the swamp, disturbing the peace in an egret aerie, causing the snowy birds to swoop skyward.
“Sounds like Kaintucks, Boss,” Dominique called from the boat ahead, referring to the rough rivermen who plied the Mississippi in their keelboats and then sold them in New Orleans, once the cargo was unloaded, to be turned into floating cathouses along Gallatin Street near the levee.
“Sounds like trouble to me,” Laffite yelled back. He handed Nicolette a kerchief like the ones the men wore and ordered, “Tie this around your head and don’t say a word. Keep your face down. We’ll all be better off if they don’t find out a woman’s with us.”
“They’re just hunting ‘gators,” Dominique said. “We don’t mess with them, they won’t mess with us!”
Then a shrill cry reached them—a child’s voice, begging, “Please, massas, don’t throw me in dere no mo’. That old ‘gator gone snatch off my leg right up to my eyeballs! Please, have pity on this poor, no-’count boy!”
A roar of laughter answered these words, then a loud splash, and the bellow of a bull alligator. Shots rang out, followed by a scream, shrill and terrified.
Nicolette, unnerved by the sounds, clutched Laffite’s arm and whispered, “What’s happening up there?”
“Nothing to worry about, darling. We’ll be past them soon. Just keep your head down.” His face and voice were grim. “Dom, pull up when you spot them. We don’t want any wild shots coming this way if we surprise them.”
“Aye, aye, Boss.”
They rounded a sharp bend, where the bayou turned back upon itself, and three men came into view. Their flowing, matted beards and battered felt hats sporting red turkey feathers in the bands proclaimed to the world that they were indeed men of the river—at all times spoiling for a fight, lusting for a woman, and thirsting for a long pull at a jug of Monongahela whiskey.
“River trash!” Laffite said and spat into the bayou.
Nicolette’s eyes grew wide. She stared in spite of Laffite’s warnings. She had never seen men like these at close range. She had been cautioned about their kind in New Orleans, and no proper Creole would go near the rough waterfront dives and hot-sheet hotels they frequented.
“They be the spawn of the devil!” she remembered Sukey remarking in hushed tones once when a Kaintuck wandered into Royal Street.
“Ho, mates!” Dom hailed.
The three men looked up, eyeing the approaching flotilla of pirogues suspiciously, their long Kentucky rifles cocked and ready.
“I’m Dominique Youx of Grande Terre, bound for The Temple with niggers to sell,” he called out. “You gentlemen from around here?”
The leader of the group, a man of ominous proportions with hair and beard as red as hell’s fires, snarled, “ Tain’t likely! Though I myself was borned and bred in a river swamp akin to this ’un. Me mother was a wiley vixen who got herself cotched by the meanest, orneriest catamount what ever stalked the earth. I was suckled by a rattler and learnt what I know from a sidewinder. Alone, or with Spike and Zeb here, I can lick twenty men and skin the hides offen ’em to make boots! You spoilin’ for a fight, little man?”
Laffite dreaded Dom’s reply. He’d heard one other hapless soul call his older brother “little man.” That Spanish grandee’s bones were now lost among the coral beds off the coast of Florida. Before Dominique had deep-sixed the outspoken noble, he had slit his throat and his tongue.
“Easy, Dom!” Laffite cautioned. “We have Nikki to think of.”
Dominique turned for a moment, his face black with rage. But his features softened when he looked at his sister-in-law. His nod was slight, but significant.
He turned back to the rivermen and answered, “I think not today at least.
I myself fought my share when I served as Napoleon’s cannoneer in the grande armée. It’s enough to have made the acquaintance of three such noble pugilists. I would offer you, though, some good Jamaica rum for the inconvenience we cause by passing through your ‘gator pool.”
Dom raised a wicker-covered jug, offering it to the red-haired brute.
“Don’t mind if I do!” the man said, snatching the bottle and yanking the cork out with his teeth.
For several minutes, he stood, feet planted wide apart and the weight of the basketed demijohn tilted skyward. The dark brown rum ran down to saturate his beard and soak the front of his filthy shirt.
“Ah-h-h!” he breathed at last, belching his appreciation of the gift as he wiped a begrimed sleeve across his lips. “A mite sweet, and she ain’t got the bite to her that a good swig of ‘Nongaheli do, but my gut’s right grateful for most anything I happen to toss down its way. Reckon this here Jamaicy firewater’ll serve, mister! Now, tell you what we’ll do, you bein’ so first-rate polite an’ all. We gonna fix you up with enough ‘gator meat to see you all to N’ Orleans and back. Right, boys?”
His sidekicks nodded and mumbled their agreement, being much more interested at the moment in sampling their share of the rum.
“Haul your black carcass out here, Gator-Bait!” the fiery-haired giant roared, yanking viciously on the length of rope that ran from his belt into a nearby stand of scrub palmetto.
“Please, massa! Not no more! That ‘gator’s gone eat me sho’ ‘nough next time!”
Nicolette half rose in the pirogue when she spotted the small black boy, the end of the rope tied about his thin middle. The Kaintuck lifted the protesting pickaninny and tossed him into the murky bayou.
“Catch that old bull ‘gator now, you piss ant, or I’ll screw your kinky head up your you-know-what!”
Dominique Youx chuckled softly at the wild flailings the slave boy made in the water. He eyed a movement in the bushes, the unmistakable motion of a large alligator lumbering toward the commotion.
Tainted Lilies Page 9
