Freedom to Love

by Susanna Fraser

  He spoke simply, and for all that he was a stranger and she had no reason to trust him, Thérèse believed him. He probably had money of his own. She knew enough of military uniforms from watching Gratien Roche drill with the militia of the gens de couleur libres, the free men of color, to guess that this redcoat must be an officer. He carried a sword, and though his uniform coat had clearly seen years of wear, it seemed too well tailored and elaborately trimmed to be something issued to a common soldier. Officers were usually gentlemen, even more so in aristocratic England than democratic America. This treasure that was everything to her might be a trifle to him, not worth putting the theft on his conscience.

  But what was he doing so far from the battlefield? She and Jeannette had heard it that morning, booming artillery and the sharp crack of rifles and muskets. For all that it sounded terrifyingly close, Jeannette had sworn the plantation where the American army had made its fortifications was nearly two miles away. “You’re far from your army,” Thérèse commented in French, keeping her voice neutral.

  He blinked, pain and confusion written on his face. “I got lost.”

  What if he was lying? What if he wasn’t a proper wounded officer, but a deserter looking to rape and plunder? Maybe he’d gotten those wounds from someone he’d attempted to rob, not from an American bullet. Maybe he wasn’t as badly hurt as he seemed, and she needed to shoot him before he attacked them.

  But then why would he be going about in full bright red uniform, marked as an enemy to anyone who saw him? Being hurt or sick could certainly confuse someone enough to get them lost. She remembered how Fontaine, who lived next door to her mother, had acted just after he’d taken that blow to the head fighting with Bosque, and how badly Father’s wits had wandered in the last days of his illness. He’d been so sure it would be easy to locate this treasure, saying again and again, Capucine helped me bury it, and never mind that Capucine had been dead two years!

  She sighed. It was useless to repine over Father’s failings, especially when he hadn’t been lying about the jewels after all. He had left something to his daughters, though how she was to dispose of anything as rare and spectacular as these emeralds without his erstwhile employers, the Lafittes, learning of their existence, she couldn’t begin to guess.

  But she could help this man. He was lost, he was injured, and though he might be her nation’s enemy, away from the battlefield the accidents of birth that had made him English and her American were nothing to kill over. “We’ll take him to the house,” she told Jeannette. “There’s still some furniture there.” They’d slept in one of the cabins last night for fear that soldiers might find the empty plantation house too tempting to leave alone, but they’d need the better comfort, light and furniture available at the house to treat his wounds.

  “Merci,” the man said. He sank farther into the mud, resting his weight on his hands. Thérèse hoped they’d be able to get him as far as the house, though a practical corner of her brain pointed out that if he died of his wounds despite her willingness to help him, his blood wouldn’t be on her hands, and the trench they’d dug to find the little casket of jewels was big enough for a shallow grave.

  “Are you crazy?” Jeannette said.

  “I’m not leaving him to die.”

  “You mean you’re not letting me leave him to die.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Do you know how to treat a wound worse than what you’d get from stabbing yourself with a needle?”

  Thérèse reckoned she could manage a little more than that. Maybe a slip of a penknife, or a very long splinter. But her sister was right. Each of them had her own mother’s skills, and Thérèse was merely the daughter of the most esteemed seamstress in all New Orleans. Jeannette’s mother—their father’s slave mistress Capucine—had been a healer, and she’d begun teaching her daughter her art at an age when Thérèse had been lisping her alphabet and learning to count to a hundred. “No, I don’t,” she admitted.

  “But you do?” the English officer asked, his eyes widening with amazement as he surveyed Jeannette.

  The girl grinned, and Thérèse saw that he had won her sister as his greatest champion by the simple act of doubting her. She and Jeannette had only lived in the same household for four months, but it hadn’t taken a quarter of that time for Thérèse to learn that the surest way to get her sister to throw her heart into any task was to suggest she wasn’t capable of it.

  “Yes, and to prove it, I’ll save your life,” Jeannette said with a proud toss of her head. With that she took charge. Cautiously she inspected the man’s bleeding side through the tear in his uniform. He winced and turned white as paper. Thérèse bit her lip. If he fainted here, they’d never be able to drag him all the way to the house, and surely lying in the open in the wintry muck wouldn’t help him.

  “I think you’re right,” Jeannette said. “We’ll need to take him to the house. Come here and let him lean on your shoulder. I’ll carry the casket.”

  Reluctantly, Thérèse put the emeralds back in the casket with the rest of the treasure, closed it and passed it to her sister. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Jeannette—neither of them had any other family left now, and they needed each other. But at thirteen Jeannette was too short and slight to bear a grown man’s weight for such a distance. She, Thérèse, had to be the one who supported him.

  Still, she hesitated to go to his aid. Something about him disturbed Thérèse—maybe those light, alert eyes, or the way he spoke elegant French with such courtesy even while he wore an enemy uniform and stank of blood and gunpowder. But there was no other way, so Thérèse crossed to his uninjured side and tentatively slid her arm around his waist, careful to grip below the wounded spot on his ribs. She’d lifted both her parents often in their last illnesses, but this was different. This man was young. Handsome. A stranger. Even wounded and wobbling, he felt hale and solid against her. He was deceptively slim, but every inch of him was solid, wiry muscle.

  He flung his arm over her shoulder, his fingers digging in with a surprisingly strong grip. Thérèse gasped.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m none too steady on my feet just now.”

  “Never mind. Lean on me.” She started toward the house, forcing herself to take small steps, trying to ignore the startling intimacy of being pressed so close to a stranger. She’d danced with Gratien and other young men, and once or twice allowed Gratien to kiss her hand, but it hadn’t been like this tight desperate grip.

  Jeannette darted ahead of them, the casket of jewels tucked against her side.

  “Resourceful girl,” the officer commented between labored breaths. “Your...servant?”

  She could hear the distaste even through his pain and weariness. She’d heard that the British tended to abolitionist sentiments—though not so much so that they’d freed the slaves on their sugar islands—and they’d offered freedom to any slave who joined them. Jeannette had wanted to run to their army, but Thérèse had persuaded her to try for the jewels first. If a girl and a woman digging for pirate treasure on an abandoned plantation was risky, a girl trying to make it past General Jackson’s slave catchers to an army who might or might not actually offer a kind and respectful refuge to a pretty thirteen-year-old slave—now, that was downright perilous.

  “My sister,” she said firmly.

  “Oh.”

  She could feel him looking from Jeannette’s brown skin to her own pale ivory. She was three quarters white, cuarterona to Jeannette’s parda, but she’d always been able to pass, at least among strangers. “Half sister,” she clarified, though surely that was obvious.

  “I see.”

  The house stood perhaps a hundred yards from the slave quarters, but it felt like a mile at this snail’s pace. “If I may ask,” she said, “what is your name?” Maybe he would feel less like a stranger, and touching him would feel less
like a brand searing her skin, if she knew who he was.

  “Of course.” He huffed out a laugh, or the best hint of one a man in his circumstances could manage. “We have no one to manage a proper introduction, but surely it would be ruder to not exchange names.”

  “Surely,” she agreed, and waited.

  “I’m Henry Farlow,” he said, switching from French to English. “Captain, the 43rd Regiment of Foot.”

  “Thérèse Bondurant. And my sister is Jeannette,” she replied in the same language.

  “French?”

  “Oui. Unless I am with Spanish speakers, in which case I become Teresa Bondurante. My mother was Teresa Molina.”

  “You do look Spanish. Lovely Spanish lady.”

  She shrugged, as much as she could with his weight heavy on her shoulders. Between her maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother, she was half-Spanish, so she supposed it made sense that part of her heritage was more obvious to the eye than the quarter that was French and the eighths that were African and Choctaw Indian.

  “Beg your pardon. Shouldn’t be so...familiar, but I’m...so very tired.” His breathing was growing more labored, and no wonder. She didn’t know how he’d managed to walk as far as he had with so dreadful a wound.

  “Never mind,” she said. “We’re almost there.” Indeed, another five yards took them to the kitchen entrance, where Jeannette extended a hand to help him stagger inside.

  “I started a fire and put on some water to boil,” she said.

  Thérèse nodded, relieved that the house still offered that much comfort. Bondurant Plantation had stood almost empty since October when Father had come to the city just before falling ill. He’d left an overseer to guard the property, but fortunately that man had fled to New Orleans as General Jackson began building his fortifications just downriver. Thérèse had rejoiced to see the overseer in town. His cowardice had given her and Jeannette their chance to seek their fortune, such as it was. And since the house had only been wholly abandoned for a few weeks, it was still furnished.

  Together they led Captain Farlow to the parlor and guided him to a low sofa. He hesitated. “I wouldn’t want to bleed on your best sofa. Not proper behavior for a guest.”

  Ah. Courteous of him. Properly speaking it wasn’t her sofa, but her cousin’s—her legitimate, white cousin, the lawful heir to Father’s property in the absence of the will he’d never gotten around to writing. Once Bertrand found time to take possession, he could have the thing reupholstered to get rid of the bloodstains. He could well afford it. “But I would be a poor hostess indeed if I left you to bleed on the floor.”

  He smiled and she caught her breath. He was already handsome, with a fine high forehead, well-shaped cheekbones and those blue eyes that had struck her from the first. The smile made him the most appealing man she’d ever seen. It lit his eyes and dimpled his cheeks and invited her to share his happiness. It was unfair.

  So she smiled back, but only the tight, distant smile she’d used to rid herself of unwanted suitors, back when her parents had been alive, when life had seemed full of promise, and she’d had more than one suitor.

  If Captain Farlow knew she was putting up a wall, he gave no sign, but instead submitted to her and Jeannette’s aid in sinking down onto the sofa. “You’re the only ones here,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  Thérèse shrugged. “Only if someone finds us.”

  “I found you.”

  “You were lost. And you said you wouldn’t hurt us.”

  “Of course not. But I’m not exactly in a position to keep anyone else from hurting you, either.”

  “We don’t need your help,” Jeannette said.

  “I’m sure you don’t, but—a woman and a girl alone on a place like this, so near two armies...” He shook his head, and his eyes narrowed. “Are you thieves?”

  “What if we are?” Jeannette asked.

  Thérèse held up a silencing hand and ignored her sister’s exasperated exhalation. “We’re not,” she said. “We only came to claim what’s ours, I swear.”

  He smiled again, this time a wistful expression that didn’t have quite the same dizzying effect on Thérèse’s innards. Now she only wanted to smooth his rumpled dark blond curls and assure him all would be well. “I’m glad you were here,” he said simply. “Only, I hate to think of you in danger.”

  “You’re the one who’s in danger until that wound is cleaned,” Jeannette said briskly. “Thérèse, help me undress him.”

  “Wait,” he said. “I think I can do that much myself.” He fumbled at his sword belt and managed to unbuckle it and set his sword and pistol down on the floor, but after the effort he sagged awkwardly on the sofa, one leg dangling off the side. His chest visibly rose and fell with each breath.

  Thérèse inhaled deeply, knelt beside him and began unfastening his muddy, stinking uniform coat. “With any luck, after a night’s rest you’ll be strong enough to go back to your army, and we’ll return to New Orleans. Then we’ll all be safe and sound where we belong.”

  “If my army hasn’t already retreated.”

  She and Jeannette exchanged dismayed looks. They’d been quietly hoping for an enemy victory in this invasion because it could make securing Jeannette’s freedom so much easier. Everyone knew that Spain had been furious when Napoleon sold Louisiana to the Americans ten years ago. Apparently selling it again so quickly violated the terms of the treaty he’d made with them when he bought it just three years previously. And then Spain had become allied with Britain in the late war in Europe. If the British defeated the Americans, mightn’t they give Louisiana back to Spain, its rightful owner?

  At least, that was the theory Thérèse had preferred to believe, of all the rumors flying about the city. Under Spanish law, arranging her sister’s freedom would’ve been not only possible but easy. But under American law their sole hope was that her rightful owner, Bertrand Bondurant, might be willing to sell Jeannette to Thérèse if she could pay whatever price he asked. If Bertrand proved contrary, or if he took a fancy to Jeannette, Thérèse had no way to force him to sell. It was only their good luck that the tumult of warfare had distracted him from claiming his new property, human and otherwise, in the month since Father had died.

  “You lost, then?” she said tightly.

  “Yes. I’d expect you to be happy about it, though.”

  Thérèse bit her lip, but Jeannette spoke up. “We wanted you to give us back to Spain. Spanish laws are better. Fairer.”

  “Oh?” Now he looked baffled. “But I was in Spain, and I can’t imagine...”

  “Never mind,” Thérèse said. “Here, sit up, so I can take this off.” She helped him pull upright, then pushed the coat off his shoulders. More unfamiliar intimacy for her. Growing up in a dressmaker’s shop and attending a convent school, she had lived in a largely female world, and Gratien had been everything proper and chaste in their courtship.

  This was new. She caught her breath at the feel of this English stranger, so solid and broad-shouldered under her hands. His face, not a foot from her own—the vivid clear eyes full of warmth and gratitude, the dark golden hair tumbling down over his forehead.

  Very handsome and very white.

  Don’t make my mistake, Mama had warned her as she lay dying. Don’t fall in love with a white man. Promise me.

  So she drew back and tried to be brisk and efficient as she unbuttoned the suspenders that held up the Englishman’s trousers so she could peel away his shirt to expose his wound. But, unaccountably, her fingers fumbled at her work. Even if she’d never undressed a man before, she was a dressmaker’s daughter and apprentice, for God’s sake. She knew her way around clothing and its fastenings, and the mere fact that a set of buttons fastened a man’s trousers rather
than a woman’s pelisse ought not to trouble her.

  It was the way he looked at her, she decided. He ought to be too weak from loss of blood to be able to watch her with that steady regard. But she got his shirt free from his trousers and suspenders at last. Jeannette rolled her eyes and came to her aid to spare her the need to lean too close to Captain Farlow as they stripped him bare above the waist.

  But all Thérèse’s thoughts of his handsome face and well-made form fled as she got her first close look at his wound, a ragged, uneven gash in his left side along the lower part of his rib cage. It was a good six inches long and surrounded by bruises already turning yellow and purple. She bit her cheek and sucked in a careful breath. It couldn’t be as bad as it looked, or he wouldn’t have made it this far. “Should we stitch it up, do you think?” she asked Jeannette.

  Jeannette bent to inspect the wound, probing it gently with her fingertips. “No,” she said after a thoughtful moment. “We’ll wash it, bandage it and see how he does. There’s stores enough left in the pantry for a poultice, too.”

  Captain Farlow breathed a relieved-sounding sigh. “You do sound as if you know what you’re doing.” At Jeannette’s indignant look, he added, “I wouldn’t expect someone so young to be a healer.”

  The girl shrugged. “My mother taught me. This used to be a busy place, with thirty slaves. Planting cotton and sugar, there will be accidents.”

  “What happened to the others?”

  Jeannette sighed. “Our father was in debt, so he sold them all—well, not my mother. She died, almost two years ago. And he wouldn’t sell me, not his own flesh and blood.”

  “But won’t he free you?”

  The captain sounded scandalized, and Thérèse couldn’t decide whether to honor his sentiments or to be annoyed at his presumption.

  “He can’t now,” she replied before Jeannette could respond. “He died last month. And he couldn’t before, either. A slave less than thirty years old can’t be freed. Not under American law, at least.”

  “I call that infamous,” Captain Farlow said.