by Beth White
Then she took the heavy silver cup and shivered to find it still warm from Tristan’s mouth. She suddenly had a glimpse of why Christ had compared the church to a bride accepting the sustenance and protection of her bridegroom. It was indeed a profound mystery that the Messiah would join himself in intimate communion with sin-stricken human flesh and blood. She drank, closing her eyes, letting the same wine that her husband had tasted flow over her tongue, bitter and sweet as a blood sacrifice. Was it too much to hope that her life with Tristan would bring that kind of love to them both?
She handed the cup back to Father Mathieu, blushing as he set it aside and took her hand and Tristan’s to clasp them together between his palms. “May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. What God has joined, men must not divide. Amen.” The priest smiled broadly. “It’s done, my children. Your time together will be brief tonight, so I recommend beginning your celebration without further delay.” Chuckling, he clapped Tristan’s shoulder and kissed Geneviève’s cheek, then stepped away.
The small congregation of witnesses, released from solemnity, stood and rushed forward. Aimée still pouted, Madame was openly crying, and Marc-Antoine seemed perplexed. He leaned in to mutter into Tristan’s ear, but Geneviève was right there and couldn’t help overhearing.
“Had you thought where you and your bride will spend the night, my uncharacteristically impetuous brother? The barracks is off-limits, as is officers’ quarters. Are you really going to consummate your marriage in a room above a public tavern?”
Looking exceedingly uncomfortable, Tristan glanced at Geneviève, who looked away, pretending to be deaf. He clicked his tongue against his teeth for a moment, then gave his brother a sheepish grin. “Do you have any suggestions?”
Marc-Antoine grinned back, clearly pleased to have the upper hand for once. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
11
Thunder grumbled over the river as Tristan assisted his clearly petrified new wife up the steps to the gallery of Charles Levasseur’s vacant cabin. At some level he was saddened by his old friend’s absence, but he could only be glad that Marc-Antoine had arranged for the cabin to be made available for him and Geneviève. He could imagine Bienville’s ire at being informed that one of his precious Pélican brides had been stolen out from under his nose by “Monsieur Nothing,” as Bienville liked to call Tristan. But once the marriage was consummated, there would be nothing he could do about it.
Tristan had every intention of claiming his bride in every sense of the word before he left for Alabama territory. He had weighed all the consequences and prepared for all eventualities. If he should die while on the trip, Geneviève would be well cared for, and should he have the blessed good fortune to sire another child, so much the better.
He smiled, thinking of Marc-Antoine’s incredulous reaction to the information that his presence was required as witness to his brother’s last-minute nuptials.
“I wanted you to marry!” he had shouted, flinging his hands in the air as he was wont to do when excited. “In fact, the whole thing is entirely my idea! But to do it less than twelve hours before we depart for a two-month journey—this is insanity. And I can’t believe Geneviève Gaillain would consent—” Marc-Antoine stopped, frowning. “What have you done to her? Is she drunk?”
Tristan burst out laughing. “I don’t think so. But if she is, I don’t care. I want her, Marc-Antoine.” Sobering, he sank into a chair in Marc-Antoine’s room, and repeated softly, “I want her.”
Marc-Antoine stared at him for a moment, then finally shook his head. “All right, then, I suppose we’d best write your will. You’ll want to leave her cared for, in case neither of us comes back.”
Now Tristan stopped with a hand on Levasseur’s front door and looked at Geneviève. His wife. Lips pressed together tightly, she was staring at her hands linked together across her stomach.
“I’m sorry I can’t take you to your own house tonight. Tomorrow you’ll go back to the L’Anglois family, stay there until I come back, and then I’ll take you to my—our cabin down at the Mobile bluff.” He waited for her to answer, but all he got was a flash of her eyes and a quick nod before she looked at her hands again. He sighed. “Geneviève, please, look at me.”
Her long eyelashes fluttered, then lifted. He could imagine what was going on in her head. The blue-green eyes were glassy.
He touched her face. “It isn’t too late to change your mind. According to the church, an unconsummated marriage can be annulled.”
“No!” Blood fired into her pale cheeks. “I mean, I won’t change my mind.” Her chin lifted, and she gave him a trembling smile. “This is my choice too, Tristan.”
Oddly encouraged, he bent to kiss her cheek. But she turned her face under his hand, and her lips met his, cool and innocent, then parted on a gasp, and he was all undone, pulled into teaching his wife how to kiss on his deceased friend’s front gallery.
Somehow he got them inside the door, shut it behind them, and located Levasseur’s bedroom. He would forever be grateful to interfering Madame L’Anglois, for sometime during the simple supper they had enjoyed at the tavern, the hostess had come in and fluffed the mattress, covered it with a new blanket, and left a fragrant pile of Geneviève’s personal belongings on a small table in the corner.
Much later, while rain sluiced down upon the thatched roof, he paused to cup her face and make sure one more time before he was beyond the bounds of control. “I don’t want to . . . hurt you,” he whispered. Then swallowed, incurably honest. “Sometimes, I think, it—”
“I don’t care,” she whispered back. “I trust you.”
After that, he made her his wife in truth as well as words.
Sometime in the middle of the night, he woke and loved her again, overwhelmed that this beautiful woman had given herself to him. The rain had stopped, and the moon through the window shone carelessly upon his bride, allowing him to study the porcelain whiteness of her skin, so fair against his own swarthiness. He didn’t know how he was going to leave her in just a few short hours.
He found himself praying for her, something that had never occurred to him when he slept with Sholani. Truthfully, it had been a very long time since he’d felt the presence of his Creator, but there was something about Geneviève that reached a deep spiritual well within him. He knew that he would never be the same after this night.
When he lay still again, with her curled against him, he stroked her back, smiling at her deep, contented sigh.
Suddenly his fingers paused upon a ridge of raised flesh striped across her shoulder blades. He moved his hand down and found another, then a third thicker than the first two. “Geneviève.”
“Yes,” she said drowsily. “It’s me.”
He moved away from her, turning her so that the moonlight fell upon her back. He wanted to retch. “Who did this?”
She lay very still, her face turned away from him. After a long moment she said, “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. I will kill him. Who did this?”
Moving one muscle at a time, she sat up, drawing the blanket up to cover herself. She hung her head so that her long, beautiful curly hair, which he had released from its braid, rippled about her face, shielding her expression even in the bright moonlight. “I don’t know his name.”
She had been a virgin. Nothing made sense. What could she have done to earn a whipping that would leave such violent scars? He couldn’t force her to tell him anything, but perhaps, if he were patient, in time she would trust him with the truth.
So he bent to plant kisses along the scars until she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him back down to the bed.
“I don’t want you to go,” she said.
“I know.” He laughed softly. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. But my brother is right. If we don’t intervene, the British will continue to stir one Indian clan against the other until they destroy each other. And that will l
eave us vulnerable to invasion from the east. I don’t understand why Louis doesn’t send more troops here, but—”
“Would he do that? I thought this was a peaceful settlement.”
Her question struck him as odd, but he supposed women weren’t taught to understand the colonization process. “Marc-Antoine is in a better position to know the plans of Bienville, Pontchartrain, and—by extension—the King himself. But generally speaking, there must be military support and protection for a settlement to prosper.” He sighed, twining a lock of her hair round his finger. “The difficulty comes in balancing friendly overtures to the natives and response to aggression.”
“That sounds very . . . complicated. What good will your presence on this trip do?”
“I’ll be along mainly as a guide. Marc-Antoine is very good at his job as a diplomat and translator, and your Father Mathieu seems to be a man of reason. But the others will need to be watched carefully, lest misunderstandings arise and conflicts escalate. If we can diplomatically convince the more warlike Indians to ally themselves and stop the slave trafficking, our troop deficits won’t be so dangerous.”
She was silent for a moment. “Why do you think the Crown has been so reluctant to provide support for us here?”
Her anxious tone tugged at his heart, making him long to reassure her. “Cherie, there is nothing to worry about.” He kissed her softly, and then more urgently. “I will come back to you, and we will live on our little plantation away from all this political maneuvering. You can meet my friend Deerfoot and his family and bake all the bread and cakes you want.”
“Deerfoot?”
“One of Bienville’s runners. When we first arrived at the Mobile River, we were all stationed at Massacre Island until Iberville could determine where the fort and settlement should be built. The Pascagoula clan there were friendly to us. Deerfoot in particular helped me with the native languages, and we often went fishing together. My wife, Sholani, was his relative.” He stopped. He had told himself not to mention Sholani. Not tonight, when his union with Geneviève was still so fragile and new.
But she put her hand on his chest, over his thumping heart. “I’m so sorry you lost her.”
Some piece of his broken spirit fell back into place. “I remember the good times so that I can survive the bad times.” His fingers traced the ridges on her back. “Perhaps you can do that too.”
Her voice cooled a little. “Perhaps.”
He was silent. She didn’t want to name her enemies, but neither would she forget them. Because he understood that, and because they had so little time, he comforted them both by holding her close until her breathing became regular and she relaxed in his arms.
He didn’t sleep after that, as his thoughts revolved in an endless cycle of awestruck wonder at his good fortune in finding two such women in one lifetime, of mental preparation for the coming negotiations, of bone-chilling fear for the real possibility of disaster.
God, he prayed at last, just as the first rays of dawn chased away the moonlight, since I have to leave her, would you watch over her until I return? Would you grant me wisdom and courage for the task ahead? And would you help me to understand your purposes as Father Mathieu seems to do?
He didn’t know what else to ask. So he rose and dressed, then stood looking at Geneviève for several precious moments. He didn’t dare kiss her for fear that he wouldn’t leave at all, so he backed away, closed the bedroom door behind him, and quietly left the cabin.
He had few illusions that a God as big and inscrutable as the one the Catholic Church championed had any interest in a ragged Canadian mapmaker. But with the welfare of Geneviève Gaillain unexpectedly in his hands, he wasn’t willing to take any chances.
From Levasseur’s cabin he walked the short distance to the riverfront, where he was to meet Marc-Antoine and the others at daybreak. He found Father Mathieu, dressed in his usual black robe cinched at the waist with a plain hempen cord, the bald spot at the top of his head covered by a black cap, and sturdy leather sandals on his feet, rocking on his heels at the top of the bluff. The priest hailed Tristan with twinkling eyes, then pointed down at the landing below, where Marc-Antoine supervised the loading of two pirogues commandeered for the trip. Crates of clothing and household items set aside as gifts for the Indian chiefs had been wrapped in waterproofed tarps, as had packs of dried foodstuffs that the personnel would eat when hunting and fishing proved unsuccessful.
Trying to look nonchalant, Tristan scrambled down the sandy bluff, which the rain had left soggy and soft, and landed with a thump of boots at the bottom.
Marc-Antoine, standing amidships of the near pirogue, looked around and whistled between his teeth, grinning. “Good morning, brother. You’re here bright and early. How fares your lovely bride?”
“Asleep and likely to stay that way until we’re well upriver.”
“Worn out, poor girl, I daresay.” He ducked, laughing, as Tristan picked up a canvas bag of sugar and flung it at him.
“Jealousy is unattractive in an officer,” Tristan said mildly. He looked around at the sound of voices on the bluff above, and frowned. “What’s Dufresne doing here?”
“Don’t know.” Marc-Antoine squinted into the half light over Tristan’s shoulder. “Let’s go see.” Leaving the packing to a couple of young cadets in the second pirogue, he leaped lightly onto the beach.
The two of them climbed the bluff, Marc-Antoine making it to the top just ahead of Tristan. He vaulted up the last few feet and caught his brother just as Dufresne pulled a roll of parchment out of his coat and opened it with an obnoxious flourish in Marc-Antoine’s face.
Dufresne eyed Tristan, his lips curled as if he’d just eaten a bad persimmon. “I want to check your supplies against this manifest from La Salle,” he said with his nasal Continental drawl. “Where are they?”
Marc-Antoine jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Already in the boats. La Salle checked it himself last night, so I know he didn’t send you. Give me that.” He tweaked the parchment out of Dufresne’s grasp and scanned it. “This is somebody’s shopping list. La Salle wouldn’t tell you what we took, so you came to see for yourself.” He grinned at Dufresne. “Didn’t you?”
Dufresne bristled. “What if I did? I’m detached to Bienville, not La Salle, and it’s my job to keep the commander informed.”
“And yourself in the process.” Marc-Antoine flicked the parchment at Dufresne, who grabbed it, startled. “Take your scaly self back to headquarters and spy on someone else. I’ve got work to do.” He turned to Father Mathieu. “Are all your goods onboard, Father?”
“Yes, I—”
“Wait.” Dufresne interrupted the priest with a chopping motion of the parchment. “Father Mathieu, you take too much upon yourself. Father Henri says you have superseded his authority on many occasions of late, and he insists that you back off. Is it true that you performed a marriage ceremony yesterday without his permission?”
Father Mathieu glanced at Tristan. “I did perform the wedding of Monsieur Lanier and Mademoiselle Gaillain. But I don’t see that Brother Henri has any say in the duties I take on as chaplain.”
Dufresne’s complexion rivaled the color of his hair. “But as Father Henri is pastor of the Louisiane parish, duly commissioned by the bishop, protocol requires that you request permission from him before ministering to civilians.”
Tristan stepped between the aide-major and the priest. “Dufresne, you are ridiculous. What possible difference could it make to you who performed my wedding ceremony?”
“It—I—it is the principle of the thing!” Dufresne blustered. “Ridiculous, am I? That wedding was illegal, and you have ruined that young woman. Who will want her, now that—”
Tristan’s fist connected with Dufresne’s jaw, sending him flailing backward to tumble, cursing, head-over-heels down the bluff. Tristan leaned over the edge of the bluff to watch, shaking out his bruised knuckles, while Marc-Antoine shouted with laughter.
Father
Mathieu gave a sigh of irritation before following Dufresne at a safer, more decorous pace. “Tristan,” he called over his shoulder, “please collect yourself while I check on the poor fellow.”
“Yes, Tristan,” his brother mocked, “you have exploded all over the lot of us. What demon has prompted you to such violence? Oh, wait, I know—it is lack of sleep. Nothing a good nap won’t put to rights.”
Ignoring him, Tristan watched Dufresne crash to a halt against one of the boats and lie there dazed until one of the cadets reached to give him a hand to his feet. The aide-major stood there with mud streaking his hair and face, one epaulet dangling off his shoulder, holes ripped in both knees of his fancy breeches, mouth opening and closing like a river bass.
Satisfied, Tristan turned and gave his brother a sour smile. “I’ve been wanting to do that.”
Geneviève woke up when a mannerless rooster announced daylight. She opened her eyes and stretched, yawning, then sat up, looking around for Tristan. The only remaining evidence of his presence was the mussed bedding and the fact that her clothing lay in an untidy heap on the floor just inside the bedroom door. She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples as floods of sensation washed from her toes to the roots of her hair and back again.
Married. Taken as a woman. Abandoned.
Her elbows went to her updrawn knees, and her hands slid to cover her face. She hunched, trembling, afraid to move lest she retch. Dear Lord, what had she done?
Several ragged breaths later, she began to calm, and the nausea faded. Another deep breath, slower this time, and she took her hands from her eyes. Clenching them against her abdomen, she looked around the room. She was in Charles Levasseur’s cabin, one of the larger houses in the settlement. The thatching of the roof had rotted in places, allowing last night’s heavy rain to penetrate and leave wet patches on the floor. Fortunately, the ceiling above the bed remained intact, else she and Tristan would have had a miserable wedding night.
