The Creole Princess

by Beth White

  On several occasions, Rafa had accompanied Pollock on trading expeditions along the upper Mississippi. His familiarity with the twists and turns of the river, not to mention his diplomatic skills, were invaluable, but Lanier was the true sailor. Until these strengths were sorted out, the two of them had frequently butted heads. Eventually, however, they settled into an uneasy truce.

  The gate abruptly opened, interrupting Rafa’s musings on the stark differences between the two eldest Lanier siblings. He bowed to the rough-hewn individual staring him down from behind a Kentucky longrifle. “Don Rafael Gonzales de Rippardá, reporting to Captain George Rogers Clark. Here is my letter of introduction from Governor Gálvez of New Orleans.”

  Some three hours later, he was escorting Captain Clark and a small detachment of Virginia militiamen down the incline from the fort to the river. He had found Clark to be young, affable, and thankfully bright, cognizant as he was of the great boon granted the American cause in Spanish intervention. Apparently there had been a series of attacks by small contingents of British-armed Indians during the summer, rendering the militiamen grateful for all reinforcements.

  Rafa was glad to provide support, but he would be just as glad to make his way back to New Orleans before winter. Leaving Lyse without a chance to say goodbye had been excruciating. His mission with her brother had dangerous elements, as British settlers along the banks of the river were known to be increasingly trigger-happy. They flew the neutral Spanish flag, but some plantation owners had learned to shoot first and ask questions later.

  For that reason, just within sight of the barque anchored a safe distance offshore, Rafa shouted a warning. “Ship ho! Rippardá coming aboard with Captain Clark!”

  Lanier appeared on deck and gave orders for someone to lower a rope ladder over the side. Rafa and Clark pushed the longboat he’d left on shore out into the water, jumped in, and rowed out to the barque. As they climbed over the barque’s rail, landing on their feet, Lanier reached to shake hands with the American.

  “Captain Clark, I’m Simon Lanier.” He glanced at Rafa. “I’m Don Rafael’s . . . business partner.”

  Clark nodded. “And we’re grateful for this timely delivery of funds. The British are moving on us from Canada, trying to secure territory here in the west, and we’ve got to stop them before they have our militia surrounded and river travel cut off.” He paused, sent Rafa an awkward glance. “I need to make doubly sure, however, that this money is intended for my use and not supposed to be sent on to Philadelphia.”

  “Governor Gálvez understands the importance of your strategy, believe me,” Lanier said. “And as Rippardá undoubtedly told you, an equal sum has been sent by the eastern route, for the New England front.”

  “Very well. Then let us begin off-loading immediately. I brought enough men to get it done quickly, and still keep us covered in the event of attack.”

  With Lanier supervising activity aboard the barque and Rafa assisting Clark and his men ashore, the chests of coin were moved to the fort by late afternoon. Mission accomplished, Rafa returned to the significantly lightened ship, climbed the rope ladder for the last time, and pulled it up, along with the longboat, to be secured to its sailing position.

  Feeling just a bit deflated, he leaned against the rail, arms braced, watching the fort shrink as they sailed down the Ohio River on a strong south current, sails popping in a brisk wind.

  Lanier joined him, shielding his eyes against the sun glinting off the water at the western horizon. “Am I the only one who thinks this whole escapade was just a bit too easy?” he said.

  Rafa grimaced. “I hope you’re wrong. That is a pile of money we just left. I have to pray they’ll make good use of it. I agree with Gálvez. Once you decide to back a cause, you’d better be prepared to go in all the way.”

  “Would you carry a rifle and aim it against your countrymen, if you were an American?”

  “I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision. As it is, I side with the Americans and serve my king at the same time. They win, we win.”

  Lanier’s smile was wry. “No sacrifice for you.”

  He thought of Lyse’s agony over leaving Daisy and her family, and her face when she’d said yes to his silent urging. He lifted his shoulders. Perhaps the sacrifice was yet to come. “How could you leave Daisy, knowing you might never see her again?”

  “Gonzales, when you love someone, you want the best for them. How could I bring her with me, knowing she’d grieve for her father? Besides, here we are thousands of miles away for months at a time. I wouldn’t leave her in New Orleans not knowing a soul. If I’d known you were going to get Lyse out—”

  “Do you know why I had to bring Lyse? You never asked.”

  “I know she’s in love with you—Lord knows why.”

  Rafa grinned. “I hope she is. But that’s not why I had to get her out of Mobile. She was hiding some contraband books under her bed—books Daisy gave her when the major forced her to move into the fort.”

  Lanier frowned. “Books? You mean pro-rebellion books? That’s treason!”

  “So you didn’t know?”

  “She wouldn’t have told me she had any such leanings, because I made sure everyone in town knew I was Loyalist so her father would favor my suit for her hand.”

  Rafa began to laugh. “If that isn’t a fine mess. She’d have come with you in a heartbeat, if you’d just asked.”

  “And my sister knew this?” Lanier sounded incredulous.

  “She’s a very bright girl, your sister,” Rafa said dryly. “And she took the fall for those books, so I had to get her out of there the best way I could.”

  “Like I said, no great sacrifice.”

  Rafa sighed. “Except, I have no way of knowing if she agreed because she has any particular affection for me—or if she was just accepting the lesser of two bad choices.”

  There was a long silence. The two of them stared downriver, while the sails cracked and snapped overhead, and the Ohio sluiced below.

  Finally, Lanier said softly, “Whoever would have thought little Daisy would be a rebel?”

  MOBILE

  OCTOBER 6, 1778

  A year had come and gone.

  Daisy walked out onto the wharf and stood with her hat in one hand and ruffled cap in the other, letting the gulf breeze tear the pins from her hair so that it blew in wild ribbons about her head. She watched a river hawk wheel, then dive and come up with a fish wriggling in its talons. She wished she could fly off behind it as it soared across the river to some undisclosed nesting site.

  Instead, she must return to the fort within the hour, or Corporal Tully would come after her. Or worse, he’d send Niall to find and escort her, and then she’d never have a minute to herself the rest of the day. He would give her a chiding look for her immodesty—no respectable woman went about with her head uncovered—and ask her if she would like to walk to the market or drive along the shell road or some other boring and pointless activity. And she would have to invent some excuse to say no, when everyone knew the brick walls of the fort had become her prison.

  As Lyse had always said, Niall was a good man, but he always went for safe options. Now that Lyse had proven her disloyalty, leaving the city for good with the Spaniard, Niall seemed to have transferred his doglike devotion to Daisy. Likely he felt sorry for her. He knew—as the whole city of Mobile likely knew—that Daisy had held a candle for Simon Lanier since she was a child. He knew Simon was gone, and he wanted to curry favor with her father. All good reasons for a young ensign to come courting the commander’s daughter.

  And if she were a devoted, obedient daughter, she would respond, well, surely not with eagerness—but at least with gratitude. Niall was kind and hardworking, young and strong. He would make a good father—

  Suddenly she drew in her arm and flung her hat, sending it wheeling like a straw seagull over the water. It landed upside down and quickly sank.

  “I won’t.” She said it out loud, then sho
uted it. “I won’t!” She balled up the cap and tossed it into the river too. It floated, full of air for a few moments, then slowly went under.

  She stamped her foot. She was not an obedient daughter. She loved her father, and he had a duty to obey his orders, but she loved Simon even more. And he had asked her to wait.

  So she would wait. But not passively, like a dove in a cage. It was said that sea hawks mated for life, and that was what she would be—a hawk, free to fly in search of God’s will for her. She believed that she was created with the individual, unalienable right to freedom, to the pursuit of happiness, as the declaration of independence stated. There was no guarantee that she would ever see Simon again, let alone find a way to marry him. But neither did she have to settle for second best.

  She was going to find a way to go to him, demand to know once and for all if he wanted her, and if not—well, then God would show her what to do next.

  But first, she was going to take a walk. Without her head covering.

  NEW ORLEANS

  OCTOBER 8, 1778

  War was coming. Lyse and Scarlet’s new life in New Orleans had been tranquil enough over the summer, as Lyse moved in with the Gonzales family and helped prepare for the arrival of Scarlet’s baby. They all celebrated Scarlet’s emancipation on July 4, then the baby made his appearance just over a week later—a little boy, christened Bernardo in honor of the governor.

  During the months of August and September, Lyse spent most days in the governor’s mansion, learning the specifics of what she would be required to do during the coming fall social season, and also sharing every detail she could remember about the town of Mobile and Fort Charlotte. She understood the seriousness of the responsibility she had undertaken, as a provider of information that could affect the outcome of the American struggle for independence. She was at once thrilled and terrified.

  She developed the habit of rising every morning at dawn, to spend the first hour of the day on her knees, praying beside the comfortable guest room bed she had been allotted next to Sofía’s room. She prayed for Rafa’s and Simon’s safety. She prayed for Daisy’s comfort and protection, as well as her father’s. And she asked God to watch over her grandfather and Justine and the children. A bit diffidently she asked for wisdom for herself. Then she would open Grandmére’s Bible and read a little, finding help and encouragement in the words, as Grandmére had promised.

  After her devotional time, she met Sofía and her mother for breakfast. Most days, the terrifying Colonel Gonzales would have already left to meet with his staff, leaving the women free to chatter about clothes and the new baby—who everyone agreed was miraculously good about not squalling during the night more than once or maybe twice—and Rafa’s multitudinous escapades as a little boy. Lyse came to quite adore these stories, told with amused affection by his mother and alternating fits of indignation and laughter by his sister.

  The two Gonzales women seemed to take it for granted that Lyse would become one of the family. At first she had shyly denied the betrothal, but at their stares of patent disbelief, she not so reluctantly allowed them to assume a sincere commitment between herself and Rafael.

  He would arrive soon enough, she hoped, and set them straight as to the expedient nature of getting herself betrothed to avoid hanging for treason.

  On this particular muggy and overcast mid-October morning, Lyse was sitting by the fountain in the Gonzaleses’ courtyard garden with Sofía. Sofía had been practicing her French, sending Lyse into fits of giggles because of her utter inability to swallow her r’s, insisting instead on rolling them all.

  “I think we will have to admit defeat,” Sofía sighed, after her final butchering of the word respondez. “I shall never have a chance to visit Paris anyway. Papa says it is a city fit only for vagrants and artists—which seem to be, in his view, one and the same.” She tilted her head. “Have you ever had your portrait painted, Lyse?”

  “Me?” Lyse laughed. “Sofía, you forget, my papa is a fisherman. Who would want to paint my portrait?”

  “Rafael will, one day. He loves music and art.”

  Lyse stared. “I knew he could sing and play the guitar. Does he draw as well?”

  “Oh yes. At least, he used to. Until Papa threw his paints away. Papa said it was a waste of time and money, and he should join the marines like Cristián and Danilo.”

  Lyse didn’t know what to say. Her own father was often thoughtless and impulsive, but he would never do something so cruel as to discard one of his children’s creations.

  Fortunately, at that moment the Gonzales houseman stepped through the gate and approached, holding a tray upon which a letter lay. The man bowed, proffering the tray. “Miss Sofía, I thought you might like to see this right away. It’s a letter from the governor’s lady.”

  “Really? Oh, how delightful! Thank you, Manuel.” Sofía eagerly broke the letter’s seal and began to read it. After a moment, she looked up, eyes wide. “Madame Gálvez has invited us to a ball in a week’s time. Lyse! This is terrible!”

  Lyse laughed. “Why is being invited to a ball at the governor’s mansion a terrible thing?”

  “Why because! Because there is not enough time to have a new dress made! What are we going to do?”

  Lyse rolled her eyes. “How very inconsiderate of her ladyship to fail to allow sufficient time for you to add another garment to a wardrobe that would already outfit half the population of Louisiana.”

  “Lyse! This is serious! Stop joking!”

  “All right. But perhaps I have a solution. Scarlet is quite handy with a needle, you know. Have her take apart two or three of your older dresses and remake them into a new one.”

  Sofía’s eyes narrowed. “That could possibly work. In fact, I like it! We should have her get started right away. You can play with that adorable little Bernardo while Scarlet works on my dress.” She jumped to her feet and grabbed Lyse’s hand. “Come on, there is no time to waste!”

  Laughing, Lyse allowed herself to be towed into the house, where Sofía proceeded to shout for Scarlet.

  Two years ago, never in her wildest dreams would she have pictured herself living in a house where one would be invited as a matter of course to a ball at the home of the governor of an entire colony. Of course, she used to fantasize about dancing with a duke, until she met Rafael Gonzales.

  There was no going back to that naive little girl.

  Sometimes she wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  17

  NEW ORLEANS

  OCTOBER 15, 1778

  As she and Sofía descended the stairs to the Gálvez ballroom behind Doña Gonzales and the colonel, Lyse couldn’t help comparing this harvest ball to the one she had attended this time last year at Burelle’s. For one thing, the robe à la français Madame Gálvez had sent for her to wear seemed to have a lot less fabric at strategic points than had her former teaching garb.

  She had worried a little when she put the dress on this afternoon, but Sofía had refused to let her look in the mirror until her hair was dressed and jewelry added. “Trust me, Lyse,” Sofía said with a giggle, “you are going to turn heads tonight.”

  But then there had been a rush to get in the carriage, and there was no time to preen in front of a mirror. She would have to trust Madame’s exquisite taste. What she had seen of the dress was stunning. Its skirt and petticoat were of a clear green satin, ruched in bands along every edge, with large leaf-shaped appliqués in green satin sewn along the open skirt front—a clever and striking design, to be sure. The bodice, of the same fabric, was edged with delicate blonde lace and ribbon, pleated to mimic the design of the skirt. She felt elegant and fashionable, almost worthy to attend such a grand affair as a governor’s ball.

  Then, suddenly, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the huge mirror placed opposite the staircase. Horrified, she grasped Sofía’s wrist, and almost turned to run back the way she had come.

  She would indeed be turning heads. The squar
e-necked bodice, emphasized by the ruched lace, might be the height of Parisian fashion, but it was cut lower than any garment she’d ever worn.

  “What’s the matter?” Sofía, already two steps below, looked up at her in concern.

  Lyse craned her neck to check the necklines of other women already in the ballroom. Most were even less modest than she and Sofía. “I’m . . . feeling a draft.” She put her gloved hand over her bosom.

  Sofía frowned, then suddenly giggled. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “No. I won’t. I shouldn’t. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you’re a prude. And the governor wants you to charm the gentlemen.”

  “But Madame didn’t say . . .” She bit her lip. Madame had said for her to dance often, laugh a lot, and listen all the time. Governor Galvez wanted as much information as he could get about what people thought, and especially what they knew about British, Indian, and American aggressive activities. Was dressing like a Parisian courtesan part of listening?

  She knew her cheeks were on fire. But perhaps that would be assumed to be a result of the excessive warmth in the room from all the lamps and candles. With mirrors everywhere, the whole ballroom seemed to be one big blaze of light and heat and glitter.

  Sofía’s eyes softened. “Come, nobody will think you . . . what is your so-useful French word . . . outré? Relax and have a good time. You have earned a little fun, si?”

  Since she could hardly walk home alone, Lyse had no choice. She released Sofía and followed her down the remaining steps into the ballroom. The Gálvezes stood ready to receive each of the guests as they entered, and Lyse was gratified to be warmly hugged by Madame and kissed on the cheek by the governor. Wouldn’t Grandpére be impressed at the company she was keeping now? She must be careful not to let pride turn her head.