He smiled. The woman was a font of suggestions . . . and information, some of it outlandish, some of it interesting, and some of it downright fascinating, like multiple orgasms, G-spots, and oral sex. But he had news for her. He knew a few things about sex that she didn’t.
Tonight he was going to show her the “Rebel’s Last Stand,” and he wasn’t talking about the military.
You could call them Donald Trumps in crinolines . . .
They were riding in the buckboard, heading toward New Orleans by dawn a week later. Lettie was driving so that Margo could make notes on their upcoming Speed Dating Garden Party.
She was also making signs advertising their wares on the back of some old letters she’d found in Laurent’s office.
Fleur and Sulee, the girl with the club foot, were in the back of the buckboard making sure the two rosewood tables with pedestal bases didn’t topple over. In an empire style, possibly even Duncan Phyfe, they were going to be substitutes for yard-sale-type folding tables. Delilah had wanted to come help, bringing her baby, but they figured her absence, along with theirs, would be too suspicious.
In addition, there were twenty jugs of wine and twenty-seven jars of rouge—lard mixed with beet juice—put in pretty miniature salt dishes and sealed with a thin layer of wax. Twenty-seven was all they could find. If they’d had more containers, they could have had two hundred or more. Oh, well, this would give them an opportunity to study the market and see what sold, or not.
Jonas had provided them, along with a bunch of intricately carved animals, with fifteen little wooden statues of naked women, some with really big breasts. She’d teased him that, if these sold, he might want to offer a few naked men, as well, next time. To which he had laughed and said, “If it sells, I’ll make it.” The joy of being appreciated and the hope in this legless man’s eyes were worth all the trouble they would probably be in.
Fleur and Clarence, who were becoming quite the couple, had worked together on their project. He gathered the juju plants with their alleged Viagra qualities, while she sewed pretty silk sacks with ribbon ties to hold the dried and crushed flowers. At one point, Fleur had whispered to her and Lettie, “It really works.”
Margo doubted that. It was probably subliminal suggestion, like the placebo effect, but who was she to argue?
They would have liked to start earlier, but they’d had to wait until Laurent left. They weren’t taking any chances. As it was, they’d lied unabashedly, telling him they would need the wagon to visit a neighboring plantation where Lettie had friends.
“Okay,” Margo started, “I figure that the most people we should have this first time around is forty . . . twenty men and twenty women.”
“First time! Forty!” Lettie shook her head as if it was impossible.
It wasn’t. Margo wouldn’t let it be.
“And let’s see. There’s you . . .”
Lettie moaned and her face turned beet red.
“Isn’t there some man . . . or men . . . you would like to get to know?”
“Well, the pickin’s are slim since the war, but I always liked James Fontenot. He works at the bank in New Orleans. He was a friend of Samuel, my betrothed, who died in the war. James is a widower with two children.”
Margo wrote his name down. Not the ideal choice, but a possibility, and, hey, if he didn’t work for Lettie, he might for someone else. “And?” she prompted.
“Henri Gaudet is a small sugar planter up the river a ways, handsome as sin, but he is so bitter these days. Like a bear with the miseries. Lost nigh everythin’.”
Just like Laurent, except Laurent kept plugging away. They all did. Either that, or lay down and die.
“Come on, give me some more names. Women and men.”
So, Lettie went on and on, and the list grew, amidst the four of them alternately giggling, snorting, scoffing, and outright laughing.
“Sue Mae Elliott is a biggety spoiled brat, even with her threadbare clothes. About twenty-five. Probably a mite crazy. Thinks she’s still back in 1860, before the war.
“George Saunders, a cotton agent, but, whooee, does he have the beatin’est bad breath!” Lettie fanned her face and the girls in back giggled.
“We’ll give him breath mints, or sprigs of mint to chew on.”
“Pierre Lawrence hasn’t changed his underdrawers since the war started.”
“You would know that, how?”
“The smell,” Lettie, Sulee, and Fleur said as one.
“That man ain’t fittin’ ta roll with the pigs,” Lettie added.
On and on, they went, eating up the miles, as they came up with their invitation list.
“Does having no teeth bar a candidate?” Lettie asked.
“Hell, no!”
“Margaret Despain is a shrew, very unpleasant. Always was. Almost forty and never married.”
“Maybe that’s why she’s a bitch.”
“Harry Torrent has a tic.
“Melanie Sulent has an overbite like a horse.
“Clive Theriot has a wooden leg that creaks.
“Mary Ann Vincent ain’t got a lick of sense. She’s holdin’ out for a rich husband, doan matter if he’s old or ugly.
“Devon Hebert is godly good-looking with the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen, but I swan that man has poked every girl he could since he was twelve.”
Fleur made a choking sound.
“What?” Margo asked.
“When I was goin’ to the Quadroon Balls, M’sieur Hebert was noted fer his slippery hands and stingy ways.”
Margo crossed him off the list.
And Lettie continued: “The Comeaux twins, Jolene and Julia, are sweet, and have had plenty of beaus over the years, but they both want to marry at the same time, neither leaving the other behind.
“Alain Fortier has no arms.
“Jacques Billaud lost an eye and wears an eye patch that keeps slipping.
“Aubrey Cuvier has a glass eye that’s kind of . . . well, cock-eyed.
“Charlotte Sullivan hasn’t been able to keep her pantaloons up since Oliver Parsons first cornered her in her daddy’s sugar shed. Gave her the appetite, if you know what I mean.
“Dawson Sorbet cusses too much.
“George Evers is dog homely and mean as a dog, as well.
“Carter Dulaine is fifty and bald.
“Catherine O’Brien is forty and has a bald spot on top of her head. Hmmm. Maybe she and Carter would make a good pair. Maybe this matchmaking business isn’t so hard after all.
“Marilee Fontaine was married to a Yankee and has five children.”
“A double handicap.”
By the time they were nearing the city, they had their list and a rough draft of the invitations they would be sending out by messenger . . . probably Jacob.
“I think we should charge only one dollar each,” Lettie said. “Folks just doan have much money, even for essentials.”
“No. If you place a lower value on your service, it will be undervalued. At least five dollars. And I can’t believe I’m saying that. I charge five thousand dollars at my agency.”
“Per person?” a shocked Lettie asked, even though Margo had told her this before.
“Per person, and they are privileged to be accepted.” Still, five dollars times forty people would be two hundred dollars, with little overhead, and that was probably comparable to two thousand dollars in her time. Even though it rankled, she sensed that they needed to start small. Plus, with the money they earned today, she was hoping to exceed five hundred dollars, which was what the delinquent tax bill amounted to, according to Lettie. Laurent balked every time she asked about it.
They arrived at the French Market at noon, which was late for the New Orleans customer who liked to be out of the heat before the afternoon. Still, they were set up quickly and had their products set up nicely on lace-tablecloth-covered tables and damask cloths laid out on the ground.
Business was brisk, and they were sure to be sold out soon. M
argo taught Lettie how to give a high five, and they were giving them to each other repeatedly.
Until disaster struck.
Seven
The thing about secrets is they can’t be kept . . .
The first hint Laurent had that something was amiss came when he noticed Fleur and Sulee missing from the noontime meal.
“They went with Lettie and Margo,” Granny Belle told him, with a decided cackle. Cassius, who was asleep in his adjacent chair, snorted at the interruption, then went back to sleep.
“Visiting the Comeaux twins? It’s only two miles away. Why would Lettie need to take those two with her?”
Granny Belle just shrugged.
Then he went outside and found Clarence and Jonas whispering to each other. When he stepped closer, they stopped, and looked guilty.
The topper came when, as he was walking away, he heard Jacob ask his father, “With all the money they’s gonna make fer us t’day, do ya think I could buy me a new straw hat and some of them fancy fishin’ hooks?”
Laurent stopped dead in his tracks and turned slowly. Jacob had a hand clamped over his mouth and tears welling in his eyes for letting slip some secret. Clarence and Jonas appeared guilty as cats with cream mustaches.
He walked back and demanded, “Tell me.”
Clarence and Jonas exchanged glances, then nodded with resignation.
Clarence spoke first. “Miss Lettie ’n’ Miss Margo went ta market.”
Why would they tell me they were going to visit the Comeauxs if . . . ? “What market?”
“The French Market.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! “In N’awleans?”
Clarence stiffened with some kind of umbrage inconsistent with Laurent’s question. “Is there any other?”
Clarence’s insolence rankled. It really did. After all he’d done for him!
“So, Lettie and Margo, and I assume Sulee and Fleur, as well, went all the way to N’awleans . . . for what?”
“Ta sell some things,” Jonas spoke up.
“Like your wood carvings?”
Jonas nodded.
That wasn’t so bad, he supposed, but why couldn’t they have told him that. He probably would have objected—ladies did not set up a stall in a public market—but the motive was certainly kind-hearted. “Do you think your animal carvings will sell for a good price?” Enough to warrant a long trip and four “venders”?
“Well, I carved more than deer and horses and dogs this time.” Jonas’s face heated with a blush.
This was like pulling teeth from a snake. He folded his arms over his chest and scowled. That’s what everyone said he did best. “Exactly what did you carve, Jonas?”
“Nekkid women,” he blurted out.
“What?” Laurent shouted.
“Now doan you be takin’ yer ire out on Jonas. We all had a hand in this pot.” This from Clarence.
“We?”
“Me and Fleur made juju tea and put it in little silk bags ta sell,” Clarence explained. His chin was seeking the sun, too.
“You’re selling tea?”
“Not exactly ‘tea’ tea?”
Laurent crossed his eyes.
“Afro-diss-ak tea.”
At first, Laurent didn’t understand until he sounded the word out, but then he did. “Oh, my God!” Once he had cursed a blue streak and berated the two of them for keeping secrets, he cooled down. “Is this all? Please. No more secrets.”
“Uh . . . did I mention the beet rouge what Miss Lettie and Miss Margo made up? Fer ladies’ cheeks. And . . .” Jonas stopped himself from revealing more.
Laurent put his face in his hands, counted to ten, then dared to ask, “And?”
“Jist one little other thing,” Jonas said. “The okra wine.”
“They made wine? Out of okra?”
“Yep?” Both men said.
“Tastes like horse piss,” Jonas said, “but doan tell ’em I said so.”
“How? How could they make wine without my knowing?”
“They did it when you were gone in the mornin’,” Clarence revealed.
Ah! The odd smells and secretive looks. “What time did they leave?”
“About dawn. Right after you left.” Jonas was relaxed now, as if everything was going to be just fine now. It wasn’t.
The sly deceiving witches! Lettie and Margo, the witch twins, that’s what they are. Lettie never used to be like this. It’s all the other witch’s fault.
Laurent had soon bathed in the stream, changed clothes, and was down at the wharf catching a flat boat to New Orleans. Steam practically seeped from his ears as his blood roiled with anger. How dare they? How dare she?
Someone was in big, big trouble.
Paddling a female ass never held so much appeal.
It was a good day and a bad day . . .
By three o’clock most of their goods were sold and they were ready to pack up the wagon to return to Rosylyn.
Lettie was almost ecstatic that they had made three hundred dollars so far. Everything was gone, except for one jug of okra wine and three rouges. During one of the lulls, Margo had gone off and bought a half dozen readymade dresses, a bag full of slipper shoes, and four ladies’ hats with the money she’d earned earlier from selling her diamond. She planned to share these things with her fellow sales ladies.
Then everything started to fall about.
A woman came up with bright red circles on her cheeks screaming, “I can’t get it off, I can’t get it off.”
Margo had explained to every one of their customers that only a tiny dot would do, but apparently this woman had not been listening.
Then a man stormed up yelling, “Do you know what this wine tastes like? A jug of Mississippi muddy water would be better than this slop.”
Everyone who’d indicated an interest in their wine had been offered a thimbleful to taste. Apparently they didn’t get the full effect that way.
Next came a heavyset matron dragging her husband by the ear, waving the naked woman carving. “Sinners! Jezebels! That’s what you are. Sellin’ sinful statues to poor innocent men.”
Yeah, right.
But then their biggest trouble arrived in the form of one raging Creole man with blue gray eyes and a limp.
He said something through gritted teeth which they couldn’t understand.
“Doan be mad, Laurie,” Lettie tried to tell him.
“Get. In. The. Wagon!”
Lettie, Fleur, and Sulee scurried to do his bidding, carrying the last jug of wine, tablecloths, and other items. But Margo stayed.
“Don’t test me now, Margo. I might just kill you.”
“I have to help you carry the tables,” she said.
He didn’t speak to her the entire time, even as she returned the money to those three fuming customers. Lettie, the traitor, crawled into the back with Fleur and Sulee.
“I blame you for this,” he finally said.
“That’s all right. It was my idea, mostly.”
“How dare you? Interfering in my family . . . with my workers. You have no right.”
Now that hurt. He was treating her as if she were an outsider, not the woman he loved. If he loved her, that was.
“I just wanted to help. We all did. Maybe you ought to give that stupid pride of yours a vacation.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Or your sister’s. Or your former slaves. Give me a break. Everyone needs help some time.”
“Not by making a scandal of me and Lettie.”
“What’s the big deal? We became merchants. Where’s the sin in that? And we made three hundred freakin’ dollars for you, you ungrateful bastard.”
“What?” Clearly he was surprised that they’d earned so much. Not proud, like she and Lettie had been, but surprised, nonetheless. “Do you honestly think I would take any more money from you?”
“You have no choice. If you won’t take it, I’ll give it to Lettie, and she’ll pay the taxes.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Probably. You’ve told me I am enough times. Good enough to fuck, but too crazy for anything else.”
He made a growling sound of disgust at her language, and the three women in the back gasped. Well, she didn’t care at this point. She didn’t like crude language, either, but sometimes it was the only thing that would do.
Despite her righteous indignation, she couldn’t control the tears that leaked from her eyes.
Laurent glanced her way and said more softly, “Margo.”
She put up a halting hand. “No, dammit! You don’t want my help, I don’t want your pity.”
He went still. He hadn’t expected her anger in return. Well, good.
So, there was silence the rest of the way, even when Laurent chuckled, then burst out with a laugh at one point, muttering something about naked women, dimwitted women, and okra beer.
When he tried to take her hand in his, she jerked hers away.
No one spoke to her that way and then expected a little kiss and make up. Not even the man she loved.
Maybe this whole time-travel business was a mistake.
Maybe I should try to go back.
But then she sneaked a glance at Laurent, and he glanced back at her.
Maybe not.
Stubborn is as stubborn does . . .
Margo would not talk to him for the next two days, let alone make love with him. Hell, no one else would talk to him, either.
He was the one wronged here, and yet everyone blamed him. With the money Margo had pushed on him when they’d first met, and the money Lettie had forced on him from their crazy market endeavor, he had almost enough to pay the taxes. That should have made him feel good. Instead, he fumed beneath the surface, shamed by his inability to handle the problem himself.
“You’re a fool, Laurent,” Lettie told him finally, coming up to him by the old slave quarters where he was helping Ivory fix the fence rail around one of the cabins. Delilah was whitewashing the outside. The reunited happy family would be moving in tomorrow.
“What now, Lettie?” He straightened and arched his back to get out the kinks. “What have I done now?”
Ladies Prefer Rogues: Four Novellas of Time-Travel Passion Page 15
