A mixture of blind panic and stubborn determination drove her now. This was a crazy thing she was about to do. But, she reminded herself, drastic situations required drastic measures. Truly, Camille was fed up. Cousin Morris’s unreasonable demands had finished things as far as she was concerned. She had endured the unending lines of boring fortune-seekers that the Pinards forced upon her, but she refused to endure their threats.
The moment Cousin Morris demanded she choose a husband was the very moment that had sent her dashing through this stormy night, headed for New Orleans, headed for the little house on rue d’Amour.
“The Street of Love,” she whispered. “How appropriate!”
The house at number ten was where her father had known love, where Camille hoped she, too, might find the secret to this greatest mystery of life. Surely, the woman named Fiona would be willing to help the daughter of the man she had loved so deeply for so long.
But as the hours crept by and Camille neared New Orleans, her resolve began to falter. What if Fiona refused to see her? What if Fiona hated her for being the offspring of her lover’s wife? And, most seriously, what if Fiona scoffed at Cami’s plan and refused to help her? Where would she turn then?
“Don’t think about that,” she warned herself. “Just ride on and keep hoping.”
Black Vic still hung back. He was enjoying this cat-and-mouse game, even if the little rodent up ahead had no idea it was under close scrutiny. He had a plan in mind. He would shadow the runaway, but not overtake him too soon. If he went after the slave now, the hapless fellow might make a dash for the swamp and lose himself in that murky den. A search of that quarter would prove highly taxing and extremely unpleasant, especially on a night like this. And after all, Vic wasn’t exactly dressed for a search through the swamp. He was wearing his only remaining suit of evening clothes. He couldn’t afford to ruin them. A gentleman must dress properly to sit at a poker table.
“No. I’d best wait,” he muttered. The slave was headed for New Orleans. He probably had friends there who would hide him. Vic decided to hold off until he reached the city. Then, if he needed help, he’d find it close at hand. The reward would still be his for tracking and apprehending the fugitive.
In the eerie pre-dawn light, the marshy site of the Battle of New Orleans was coming into view ahead. The old Chalmette Plantation. Vic felt an odd twinge whenever he came near this place. His own father had died here back in January of 1815, defending the city he loved against the British invaders. Vic had been a brash youngster then, but he’d been forced to grow up fast after his father’s heroic death.
Shifting in the saddle, he bowed his head and tried to say a prayer. No words came. Somehow he no longer felt worthy of the honor his father’s death had placed on the family name.
However, he more than deserved the epithet, “Black Vic,” he reminded himself. But how he longed to feel worthy once more of the revered family name, Navar.
Cami breathed a sigh of relief. Her muscles ached with tension after such a long, unpleasant ride. She allowed herself to relax slightly. The worst, she hoped, was behind her. Ahead, she could see the outskirts of town. Even though the lazy sun still slept behind boiling, purple-black clouds, New Orleans was coming awake. Street lamps still glowed, but the first peddlers were starting their rounds. She heard their melodic calls—sing-song wails echoing through the quiet streets of Faubourg Marigny. Just knowing that other human beings were once more close at hand made her feel safer.
She decided to follow the river to Esplanade. That wide avenue should be safer at this early hour than the narrower back streets favored by the city’s drunken sailors, prostitutes, and thieves. Once on Esplanade, she had only to ride to its junction with Rampart to find the Street of Love.
“Giddap!” she cried and her powerful black stallion streaked toward New Orleans.
Cami let her guard slip as she rode into the city. Just up ahead, she could see the first great homes that lined either side of Esplanade.
“Almost there,” she said with a sigh of relief.
The comforting aromas of Creole coffee and fresh-baked French bread drifted by, mingling with the moss-humid smells of old bricks and river dampness. A breeze brought a sweet waft of oleander from a courtyard. Another stirring of air made Cami wrinkle her elegant nose in distaste—an overflowing gutter nearby—reminding her that New Orleans was, indeed, a city of vast contrasts. To live in the Crescent City, one must be prepared to take the bad with the good, the ugly with the beautiful, the poor with the rich. As for the love Cami sought, she knew she must guard herself well against the lurking lust of this city of sin.
For a moment, Cami’s own thoughts frightened her. What was she doing here, anyway? New Orleans was a dangerous place in the best of seasons. No one came to the city in the summertime, and those who lived here had left for healthier climes until the first frost. The Pinards’ townhouse in Toulouse Street was closed and shuttered until the fever-ridden months of heat and stench had passed.
“All the better,” she said aloud, trying to bolster her spirits. “They won’t dare come into the city to search for me. Cousin Beatrice is far too terrified of contracting yellow fever.”
She glanced from side to side. The great homes of fine old Creole families looked like so many ghost houses this late in June. Not until now had she realized she might be in any real danger—a woman traveling alone up this wide, deserted avenue. It seemed almost as if she were lost in some city of the dead. She urged Voodoo onward.
Black Vic picked up his pace as well. He could easily overtake the rider now, he assured himself. The street of unoccupied houses would work to his advantage. No interference from outsiders could be anticipated, and all doors would be locked against the fellow if he ran for help. Yes, now was the time, Vic decided.
Had he brought along his pistol, he might have simply fired a warning shot to halt the runaway. However, the only weapon he had on him was his colchemarde. His trusty sword-cane came in handy in a polite, gentlemen’s disagreement, but it was of little use in this instance.
“Damn foolishness!” he growled. “No guns allowed at balls!”
He resigned himself to taking the fellow by manual force if it came to a struggle. He would hardly have wanted to shoot the slave in any case. Owners seldom paid the full reward when one damaged their property before returning it.
Camille heard the hoofbeats thudding behind her. Her heart leaped with fear at the sound. Grabbing her hat, she whipped it viciously at Voodoo’s quivering flank. The pins in her hair flew out, giving the wind free rein with her dark tresses, but Cami never noticed.
“Faster!” she urged. “Go, boy, go!”
Had Victoine Navar been on foot, he would have stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her long, black hair whipping over her shoulders. As it was, he reared back in the saddle and gasped, “Good God, it’s a woman!” Then he chuckled to himself and leaned close down on his horse’s neck. “This could turn out to be as entertaining as it is profitable.”
Cami heard the rider closing on her. She was so frightened she could hardly breathe. He drew nearer every second. A moment later she could actually feel his horse’s hot breath on her back.
“Go, Voodoo!” she cried. “Go!”
“Whoa there, boy,” a deep voice rasped.
The other horse drew abreast of Voodoo, who bucked and stamped angrily. A hand shot out and wrenched the reins from Cami. The next moment, a strong arm imprisoned her waist.
“In something of a hurry this morning, aren’t you, missy?”
Cami stared at the dark figure towering beside her. The slouch brim of his hat hid his face in shadows. But the set of his features mattered little. Handsome or grotesque, he was a terrifying threat. All that mattered at the moment was that she escape, and she knew she couldn’t match his strength.
Cami stopped fighting him and let her body go limp, hoping he would relax his tight hold. She had to get away. She had heard terrible tales of women being kidn
apped in the city and never being seen or heard of again. She trembled, remembering one tale she had heard from the servants at Mulgrove about a lady from a fine Creole family who had been abducted and shipped off to a brothel in some distant city.
“I’ll bet you’re a pretty thing when you’re all cleaned up.” The tall stranger leaned closer, his hot breath warming her cold cheeks.
Cami tensed as he tested the size of her waist with strong fingers. Still, she didn’t fight him. She must feign surrender until her chance came. Rue d’Amour was only two blocks away. Providing Voodoo could outrun the man’s horse and providing Fiona was at home and would let her in, Cami figured she might have a chance.
He was talking to her, but she wasn’t listening. The sudden mention of her cousin’s name brought her attention back to what the man was saying. “I’ll wager you’re one of old Morris Pinard’s bed-warmers.” He punctuated his words with a clucking sound of pity. “If that’s the case, girl, then I can’t blame you for running.”
“Bed-warmer?” Cami gasped. What on earth was the man talking about? “I don’t know any Morris Pinard,” she shot back.
He only laughed. “No? Then why did I see you riding off his place? Perhaps you ran away from another plantation and only stopped by Mulgrove to steal this fine horse. In that case, I’ll collect two rewards. A nice night’s work!”
“The horse is mine!”
“Come, come! Slave wenches don’t own anything, not even themselves.”
A sick feeling twisted through Cami’s stomach. At last she understood. The man was a slave-catcher. He’d seen her leave Mulgrove in these ragged clothes and assumed she was a runaway—not from a threat of marriage, but from a life of bondage. Had she not been so frightened, she might have smiled at the irony. Were the two so different, actually?
In the next instant, however, realization struck with a mighty blow. Camille’s whole life flashed before her eyes. Young Juno, one of the Pinards’ houseservants, had run away last fall. Cami had helped nurse her back to health after the bounty men finally brought her home. They had taken their time about returning her, using her first for their own pleasure in their swamp hideout. The filthy brutes had kept her for nearly a month before they tired of their sport and brought her back to Mulgrove to collect their reward.
“I am not a slave!” Cami protested. Then before she thought, she added, hoping to throw him off the track, “I’m a free woman of color. I have rights.”
He stared at her in silence, then drawled, “Not many.”
“You let me go!” she cried, trying to wrench her arm free from his iron grip.
Once more he laughed at her. “Feisty little spitfire, aren’t you? If you are what you claim, let me see your papers.”
Cami stared blankly at the man, straining to see the face hidden deep in shadow. “Papers? I don’t understand.”
“If you were truly free, you would. My guess is you’re a liar and a poor one at that. Old Pinard will pay plenty to have you back in his bed. Come along quietly now.”
“No, please…”
He reached out and touched her cheek. “Soft,” he murmured. “So soft. If I weren’t strapped for cash at the moment, I’d be tempted to let you go. A pretty octoroon like you shouldn’t have to put up with a fat bastard like Pinard. I might even try to talk you into coming home with me. It’s been quite a while since I had…”
His words trailed off wistfully. He leaned closer, and the next thing Cami knew his mouth was on hers. She struggled to pull away, but he held her in a vise-like grip. His kiss, though, was soft, almost tender.
Pretending to react to his surprising gentleness, Cami turned her head slightly as if she meant to place a kiss in his palm in a plea for mercy. Instead, she sank her teeth into the fleshy part of his hand, so deeply that she tasted his blood and felt it dribble down her chin.
He roared with pain and rage, but he released her as she had prayed he would. In that instant, Cami dug her heels viciously into Voodoo’s sides. The big stallion reared, then shot off like a devil chased by angels.
“Damn you to hell, come back here!” he yelled. “When I catch you—and I will—you’ll be sorry! You wait and see, you blasted wench!”
Cami felt inclined neither to wait nor to see. All she wanted was the safety of number ten rue d’Amour.
The pure shock of her actions worked to her advantage. By the time the man recovered, she was far ahead of him, already turning into the street called Love. Frantically, she searched the doors of the trim, white, shotgun cottages for the right number. Just as she heard his horse approaching the intersection of Rampart and Esplanade, she spotted Fiona’s house.
Camille leaped off Voodoo and gave his rump a smart whack. “Go home, boy!” she commanded.
Too spooked to fumble with the gate latch, Cami leaped over the low cypress board fence. She raced up the narrow walk and pounded at the door. By now she was frantic.
“Answer, Fiona!” she begged. “Oh, please, open up!”
The door opened as if on command. Standing before her, however, was not the beautiful octoroon she had expected, but a handsome young man with reddish-brown hair and the bluest eyes she had ever seen.
Startled, Cami lost her voice for a moment. Then hearing the sound of approaching hoofbeats, she cried out, “You must help me! I am Edouard Mazaret’s daughter. Please, let me come in.”
The young man only stared at her with a vague expression of surprise, as if he were not quite awake yet. Then from somewhere inside the house, a woman’s voice called, “Show mademoiselle in, Prospere.”
The man named Prospere stepped aside, making a gesture that allowed entry if it did not exactly exude welcome. Cami threw herself across the threshold, then slammed the door behind her, bolting it securely.
“Fiona?” she gasped.
A diminutive, alabaster-skinned beauty stood before Cami. Only the woman’s dark hair hinted at the drop of black blood somewhere far back in her ancestry. Eyes like pale amber, she was as light-skinned as the young man beside her.
“You are Camille Mazaret?” Fiona’s passive features and tone betrayed none of her doubts as she gazed at the wild-eyed, rumpled creature’s bloody mouth.
“Yes,” Cami answered breathlessly, “and there’s a terrible man chasing me. He’ll be here any moment. I’m in grave trouble and you’re the only one who can help me. Please, Fiona, for my father’s sake? Hide me!”
Fiona’s features remained calm and expressionless. “Take her to the back bedroom and stay with her there, Prospere. If he comes, I will handle the situation.”
Prospere nodded, then showed Camille through the four rooms to the back.
Even though Cami was safely hidden away with Prospere to protect her, she whimpered, terrified, when she heard the pounding at the front door.
“Don’t let him take me,” she sobbed hysterically. “Please, oh, please!”
Prospere closed the bedroom door and motioned for her to sit down.
“You will stay quiet now,” he told her in a heavily accented voice. “Trust Fiona.”
Cami was more than happy to do that. She sat very still, trying to imagine what was happening between Fiona and the bounty man. Although she could hear muffled voices from the front room, she could make out nothing of what was being said.
“Open up, Fiona, I know you’re in there!” Black Vic shouted.
Fiona, accustomed to a quiet, tranquil life, allowed herself a mild curse at all this sound and fury so early in the morning. What on earth was happening? First, that ragamuffin who claimed to be Edouard’s daughter. Ridiculous! And now, if she was not mistaken, that was Victoine Navar attempting to beat down her door.
Unbolting the latch, which she never locked, Fiona opened it to find the very man she had expected. What she hadn’t anticipated was the sight of his hand dripping blood all over her porch.
“Victoine!” she gasped. “What has happened?”
“Damn slave wench bit me!” he exclaimed, holdin
g out his injured hand to her as a puppy might offer a hurt paw.
“Come in,” she said. “Let me see to that while you tell me, please, what this is all about.”
She showed Navar into her cozy sitting room—a room furnished to her elegant tastes with Edouard Mazaret’s generous gifts. The injured man slumped down on the pink brocade sofa.
Fiona brought brandy—for drinking and for healing. Having poured him some and doused his hand liberally, she wound a fresh strip of linen about his wound. He would live.
“Now, M’sieur Navar, an explanation, please. From the beginning, if you do not mind.”
Black Vic confessed to his evening’s escapades, starting with trying to crash the ball at Mulgrove and ending with the runaway slave wench sinking her sharp fangs into his hand, then slipping out of his clutches. He had no idea she was hiding in Fiona’s bedroom, and the lady made no attempt to enlighten him.
“Dammit all! I even let the black stallion get away,” he lamented. “He would have brought some reward money.”
“Victoine Navar, when are you going to get control of yourself and your life again?” Fiona scolded gently, her large eyes soft with sympathy. “You simply cannot live in this careless hand-to-mouth fashion any longer. Tell me this—if you had captured the runaway and the horse, and if M’sieur Pinard had paid you a more than generous reward, what then would you have done with the money? Paid your debts? Put it in the bank to save until you have enough to buy back Golden Oaks?”
He looked directly into her honey-warm eyes, his own wide and alight with a peculiar, dark fire. “There’s a poker game scheduled at Gaspard’s tomorrow night. Big stakes! I could win enough to set me up for life, Fiona. I might even be able to buy back my home.”
Whispers in Time Page 11
