Hours later, after the last slave had been examined, bid on, and sold, an exhausted Jean Laffite headed for the cabin. His anger with Nikki had mellowed to impatience with his own short temper. He determined to make amends as soon as he was with her again.
What kind of unfeeling boor am I? he asked himself as he opened the door. First, I haul my new bride through a hundred miles of stinking swamp, then I expect her to fall ecstatically into my arms the moment she sets foot on dry land. God, I’m a selfish bastard! But I’ll show her I can be considerate, understanding… by God, downright humble, if that’s what she wants!
He hurried through the front room, anxious to make up for his harsh words earlier. He knew better. He could bully his men and get what he wanted from them, but a woman needed tenderness and love.
“Nikki! I’m home!” he called out.
The silence that greeted him was tangible. He could feel it—heavy, empty, lonely.
He rushed to the bedroom. The mosquito netting was pulled back, neatly draped. Everything seemed in order, but some sixth sense told him that was not so.
“Nikki, where are you?”
He rushed to the closed door of the bathing closet, knocked, but didn’t wait for an answer. Wrenching the door open, he found it empty. The tub was there—recently used. A damp length of toweling, which smelled of French soap and Spanish limes, hung on the rack. She had bathed—not very long ago.
Suddenly his heart was pounding and he was conscious of a cold uneasiness creeping along his spine.
He moved back to the center of the bedroom, breathing heavily, trying to conquer the panic which was threatening to possess him. He looked about. Her silver-handled comb and brush had been on the bureau. Gone! Her nightgown. Where would she have put that? He jerked open all the drawers. Empty!
Until this moment, he had refused to allow himself to remember the specifics of their early-morning quarrel. Now, the echo of his own voice came to haunt him: “Why don’t you go back where you belong?”
“No!” he gasped.
In a frenzy, he dashed for the bed. Her carpetbag! She had shoved it underneath. It had to still be there. Down on hands and knees, he tossed the bedspread up out of the way and peered into the semidarkness.
A tailless chameleon scurried out of its nest, terrified by the intrusion. But except for the nest of discarded paper the creature had left, Laffite saw nothing.
The bag was gone! Nikki was gone!
He stood up, stunned, trying to decide what to do next. Maybe she had left a note. He scanned the room quickly, but dresser, bureau, and bed were bare. His mind, grasping at straws now, went to the scrap of paper he had spied far back under the bed.
He knelt down, ready to retrieve it. Perhaps…
“You’re acting like a goddamn fool!” he cursed, rising to his feet again.
His reasonable mind would not allow such folly. She wouldn’t have left a note at all. She would have come to him in person to tell him she was going. But, if she had written some message, she certainly would have left it in plain view for him to find, not thrown it under the bed.
He stood limply, like a marionette with no one at the strings. Suddenly, the full force of his loss hit him, crushing him physically until he collapsed on the bed.
“Nik-ki-i-i-i!” Her name came from his lips in such a deep, piercing scream that his men rushed to see what had happened. They found him clutching the pillow which still smelled of her clean, lime-rinsed hair. Tears stained his cheeks.
Pierre and Dominique sent the others away. They tried to reason with him. Maybe she had only gone for a walk and would return any minute.
“Taking all her belongings?” Laffite asked. “No, she’s gone. She left me.”
Jean Laffite, in his mind, believed he had treated her harshly and now she was gone… back to New Orleans of her own accord… leaving him behind.
While Laffite was still reeling from the shock of Nikki’s leaving, another blow came. Word had spread quickly among the Baratarians that Madame Boss was gone. One loyal freebooter felt duty-bound to confess to Laffite what he had seen earlier in the day—Nicolette climbing into a boat with Diego Bermudez and the little slave. This information only served to deepen Laffite’s depression.
There wasn’t enough rum in the whole state of Louisiana to lessen the pain or make Jean Laffite forget that the only woman he had ever loved had deserted him with another man.
He had chuckled often enough over the large sums he had won from Diego Bermudez at the gaming table, but now Bermudez had walked away with the richest stake of all—his own Nicolette.
As the moon rose over the bayous late that night and the men prepared to leave The Temple, Jean Laffite stared at the empty bed, wishing he could turn the clock back twenty-four hours.
Dominique clamped a compassionate hand on his brother’s shoulder and said, “There will be other games, Jean. Don’t count yourself out, my lad; not until you are dead and lying in Saint Louis Cemetery.”
Jean Laffite wished for an instant that he were in his grave. Then he took heart. A lover’s quarrel, that was all their disagreement had been. He would find her and show her how much she meant to him. No love as strong as his for Nikki could be denied. He would find a way!
Chapter Ten
Danger threatened only once during the two-day trip from The Temple to New Orleans. As they neared the Mississippi delta, one of Laffite’s sentries hailed the boat. Bermudez immediately ordered his oarsmen to halt.
“Ah, Señor Bermudez! Buenos dias! ¿Cómo se va?舡 the bewhiskered buccaneer called.
“I’ve met this man before,” Diego said to Nicolette. “There won’t be any trouble. He’s a Spanish ex-patriot. As the Americains would say, we speak the same lingo.”
Nicolette looked carefully at the guard, but didn’t recognize him. Perhaps he had come in on one of the recent ships to make port at Grande Terre and had been sent immediately to this outpost duty to watch for the governor’s men while the auction was in progress at The Temple.
She tried to follow the conversation between the two men, but they spoke Spanish. It was a language she was forbidden to learn. No French Creole would admit to understanding the foreign tongue brought forcibly to New Orleans by the regime of King Carlos III, after a secret treaty in which Louis XV signed over the territory to his Bourbon cousin in 1762. Fifty years had passed. But old prejudices, like old customs, died hard among the Creoles of New Orleans.
However, Nicolette did understand Italian. So when Diego Bermudez nodded toward her and said something about esposa, so like the Italian word for wife, and the guard answered with a wink and a grin, she was quite puzzled.
Surely, Diego Bermudez could know nothing about her broomstick marriage to Jean Laffite on Grande Terre. But if that wasn’t the topic of their conversation, why would they be using the word “wife” in connection with her? She started to ask, then decided against it.
The answer came only hours later, in the salon of her childhood home in Toulouse Street During the time that Nicolette had been celebrating her union with Jean Laffite, banns were being published in New Orleans in anticipation of the Fleur de Lis’ arrival, setting the wheels in motion for her marriage to Diego Bermudez. The wedding was set to take place within days. Now that the bride had arrived, there was no reason for delay.
Just as great a shock as her impending wedding was finding her dear papa in the very pink of health. When Nicolette questioned him about Diego’s story that he was at death’s door, he waved a hand to dismiss his recent illness and laughed, saying, “I thought I might depart unexpectedly a few days ago. But it was nothing, ma chère. Some bad oysters, most likely.”
She sat stunned and speechless, feeling as if she had happened into some topsy-turvy dream.
Noting Nicolette’s silence, her mother cooed, “There, you see, Diego dear, I told you we did the right thing, surprising her. The child can find no words to express her delight. She’s simply overwhelmed at the thought of your coming
marriage, aren’t you, Nicolette?”
The bride-to-be snapped out of her trance. “I think we all need to discuss this. I’m not the same little girl you sent off to Paris. Things have happened these past weeks …”
“Nikki!” her father interrupted with a meaningful nod toward her mother. “We aren’t going to discuss your time with those pirates. It will only upset you. You’ll forget about your ordeal in time as long as you don’t dwell on it.”
“But, Papa, how can I forget Jean Laffite?”
“Not another word, Nicolette!” Claude Vernet ordered in an unusually stem voice. “The whole matter is closed and I forbid you to-speak that man’s name in this house ever again! Am I understood?”
Nicolette was so shocked by his harsh tone that all she could say was “Yes, Papa.”
Claude Vernet would have had little time to listen to Nicolette’s story of her time with Laffite even if he had allowed her to speak. He had the entire household in a frenzy of activity, preparing for the annual move from the townhouse in New Orleans to his upriver plantation, Belle Point, for the duration of the yellow fever season.
He had planned to go to Nicolette’s rescue himself, when he heard the gossip shotgunning the city that a slave auction was to be held at The Temple by Jean Laffite. But he had demurred to his future son-in-law’s suggestion when Diego reasoned: “Think, sir, how difficult it will be for your daughter if you journey into the bayous to rescue her. She will be terrified for your sake. Those pirates are no better than rabid dogs-vicious and unfeeling. She might even refuse to come, rather than put you in danger of being killed. But were I to slip into their camp quietly, I’m sure I could manage to get her away and bring her home, safe and sound, before Laffite and his ruffians realize she’s gone.”
And so it was that Nicolette returned to New Orleans to face a life sentence-married to Diego Bermudez, a scheming Spanish Creole whom she knew she would never love.
She felt cut off, imprisoned in her own home, guarded by her own family. They tortured her with kindness and concern, assuming that her “ordeal,” as they referred to it, had been soul-shattering. The Vernets didn’t even mention Sukey, their daughter’s trusted servant, fearing that she had perished. They didn’t want to further upset Nicolette. They worked at convincing her that only a speedy marriage to the man they had chosen for her could heal her deep wounds and take the sad expression from the depths of her midnight blue eyes.
She moved through the first days like a sleepwalker, accepting the inevitable, with a placid hopelessness that she couldn’t shake off. When she thought of Jean Laffite and their love-filled hours together, her heart ached and she couldn’t hold back her tears. Even worse were the feelings that came when she realized how she had been tricked into returning by the man who was about to usurp Jean’s place in her life, if not her heart. When she objected to Diego’s tactics, her father replied, “Desperate situations require desperate measures, Nikki. Don’t judge the man too harshly for having your best interests at heart.”
That night in bed, Nikki thought of her Aunt Gabi. She hadn’t arrived yet, but should appear any day. Oh, where is she when I need a strong ally, she wondered. Only her strict Catholic upbringing kept her from throwing herself into the wide river and ending the misery that possessed her now, and stretched ahead as far as she could imagine into the future.
Some glimmer of hope flickered the very next day, when Gabrielle DelaCroix arrived. Reyne Beluche’s ship had run afoul of a squadron of British men-of-war in the Gulf, delaying their arrival in the city. The spunky Spy handily outsailed the heavier foreign vessels, losing but a day.
Gabrielle walked in from the pone cochère of the Vernet house looking fresh-air radiant, sea-foam crisp, and as elegantly coiffured as always.
Her unannounced arrival sent her already unnerved sister into near collapse. Francine, unable to cope rationally with the sudden appearance of her outcast sister after so many years, dithered about—fluffing pillows, sweeping imaginary dust from tabletops, and twisting her lace hanky to fragile shreds.
“You know I’m delighted you’re here, Gabrielle, and Claude will be overjoyed when he comes home from the Exchange. But, dear, couldn’t you have sent Sukey ahead to give me some warning? Why, the place isn’t fit for company! The servants get fatter and lazier every year. I simply don’t know why we put up with them.”
Gabrielle offered her jittery sister a practiced smile that hid her impatience. Could the woman think of nothing to talk about but housekeeping after all these years they’d been apart?
The room, the entire house, was immaculate. Silver gleamed from its twice-a-week polishing, every inch of wood glowed with lemon wax not long since applied, nothing was out of place. Even the silk sleeve, which covered the chandelier chain in much the same way that a pantelette covers a limb, looked spotless and without telltale ribbons of dust. Francine was as she had been all her life, a rabid perfectionist when it came to housework, but a failure when it came to dealing with the unexpected.
“Don’t worry about me, Frannie. I’m sure I’ll survive this primitive setting. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go up to my room and freshen up.”
There would be time after Claude came home to speak to them both about Nicolette and her choice to stay in the Barataria region with the man she loved.
Gabrielle met one of the maids coming down the stairs as she was going up and said, “Would you bring a decanter of Madiera up to my room? Immediately!” as she swept past. I’ll need a stiff drink before I tell Claude and poor Frannie that their Nikki has married Jean Laffite! she thought to herself. Then Gabrielle froze on the top stair. She couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Nikki! What on earth…?” she gasped.
Her niece, just coming into the hall from her room, raced to her aunt’s arms. The instant they met, Nicolette burst into pitiful sobs.
“Child, what are you doing here? What happened?”
She led Nicolette into the guest room and tried to soothe her, without much success. When the maid brought the wine, Gabrielle poured the red-brown liquid into two glasses.
“Here. Drink this down, Nikki, and try to get hold of yourself.”
Nicolette did as ordered. The tears still flowed in gushes, but her sobs quieted.
“Now, explain! How did you get back to New Orleans? And why did you come?”
“Oh, Aunt Gabi.” Nicolette’s lips trembled threateningly as she spoke. “They tricked me!”
“They? Who do you mean, Nikki?”
“Papa… Diego. They planned it together, I’m sure. Diego came to The Temple and told me Papa was dying… that I had to come right home. But he said … Oh, Aunt Gabi, he promised …” The sobs won out for a time.
“Yes, go on, dear,” Gabrielle urged, laying a comforting hand over her niece’s.
“Jean and I had a terrible argument, but I meant to go back to him after I saw Papa and explained everything to him. But Papa won’t listen. They had it all planned before I returned… even before Diego went for me. And now there’s no way out of it. I have to marry him!”
“Marry?” The word burst from Gabrielle’s mouth as if it had a wretched taste. “I don’t understand. Marry whom?”
“Di-ego Ber-mu-dez!” worked its way out between sobs.
“But, that’s out of the question! You are Jean Laffite’s wife!”
Nicolette only hung her head. She couldn’t trust her voice.
“You mean you haven’t told them?”
“Told them what? Jean and I aren’t really married—not in the manner my parents would accept or understand. Besides, when I’ve tried talking to them, they’ve cut me off with ‘There, there. We aren’t going to discuss your ordeal just now. When you’re stronger, dear.’”
“Nicolette Laffite! You are not a child! You are a grown… married… woman! You can’t let them manipulate your life this way!”
Nicolette looked at the other woman with eyes that were deep pools of misery. Her voice was th
e barest whisper.
“I don’t feel like a woman any longer. Jean told me I should leave, though I never planned to stay away for good. But now that I’m here, they treat me as if I were a child. I can’t defy them, Aunt Gabi. It’s useless for me to try.”
“Balderdash!” Gabrielle jumped off the bed and paced the room with angry strides. She stopped by the window, turned again to face Nicolette, and added, “Poppycock! A simple lovers’ quarrel and you come running home to Papa! You pull yourself together, young lady, and when your father comes home, we’re both going to talk to him. Before they can prepare for this outrageous marriage, we’ll have to put a stop to it!”
Nicolette felt her spirits and hopes rise for an instant, listening to her aunt’s confident words. But then she sagged to the depths again. Even if she could get out of her marriage to Diego, would Jean take her back? It seemed hopeless.
“Let’s see,” Gabrielle thought aloud, “it will take some time for the banns, more time to send the invitations around, weeks for the wedding gown to be made, food to be planned and prepared. We have at least two or three months. They’re probably planning the event for the start of the social season in the city. November?”
She raised a questioning brow at Nicolette, who shook her head sadly and murmured, “Monday, in the garden at Belle Pointe. Everything is done.”
“Mon Dieu! Perhaps we can get word to Jean!”
“It’s no use, Aunt Gabi. Even if we could find someone to leave this minute and carry a message, it wouldn’t reach Grande Terre for two days at the earliest. And when Jean arrives I’ll already be Madame Diego Bermudez.” The tears in her voice were replaced suddenly by a note of total, hopeless resignation. “Besides, I’ve already accepted his proposal.”
“You accepted?”
“My marriage to Jean isn’t legal or sanctioned by the Church. We only jumped a broomstick. Perhaps it was all a mistake from the start.”
Nicolette’s heart screamed at her: You little fool! Of course it wasn’t a mistake! You love Jean Laffite! But was love enough to sustain her if she tried to defy her parents, her beliefs, her entire way of life? Maybe her father was right.
Tainted Lilies Page 12
