The frontiersmen exchanged glances and shrugs. “Are you?” asked the second man.
If he was right that their new friends were looking for mischief and adventure, then he needed to give them a good story. “Suivre mon exemple,” he whispered to his companions. He tugged Thérèse into his arms. “My only crime,” he said, switching back to English, “is to love this lady.” He cast her an ardent look and tightened his grip around her waist. After a moment’s hesitation she nestled against his shoulder.
“Her father did not approve and would force her to wed another,” he continued. “I fought a duel with this other. He wounded me, and I killed him. Since then we have hidden with only this faithful maidservant to help us.” He smiled benevolently upon Jeannette, who contrived for the moment to look meek and devoted. “We thought it safe now to slip away and look for a ship, but it seems we were too soon.”
The two men considered them, favoring Thérèse with especially lingering looks. The second man spoke, too low for Henry to hear, but the first cut him off with a few abrupt words that looked like rebuke.
“Would you like to sail on that steamboat you were admiring?” he asked. “Most of its cabins are empty, and the captain would be glad of anyone to fill them if they pay the fare.”
If it could be trusted not to explode—but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “We can pay,” he said. “When does it sail?”
“Within the hour.”
“Where is it bound?” Thérèse asked.
“Natchez.”
Henry had no clear idea of where that was. He only knew that it was upriver and therefore yet farther away from his army. How he was to avoid being classed as a deserter, he had no idea. But escape they must, and this was their only chance. “Natchez it is, then,” he said. “If you can get us to the boat.”
“Trust us for that.”
“So we must—and, ah, if I might have the honor of knowing to whom I am entrusting my life?”
The frontiersman barked out a laugh. “I like you, Frenchie. I’m Ben Cutler, and this is Obadiah Wilson.” The quieter man acknowledged his name with a nod. “And you are?” Cutler asked.
Henry sketched a bow. “Henri Langevin, at your service, and Madame Langevin, or so she will be once we can go to a priest. The girl is Jeannette. But surely we must hurry.”
“By all means. Obadiah, go see if it’s safe.”
Thrusting his hands behind his back with an elaborately casual air, Wilson strolled back into the open. After a minute that seemed an eternity, he reappeared. “They’re still trying to catch those horses,” he said. “But hurry.”
They followed, carefully slipping out from between the warehouses when no one in the shouting crowd seemed to be looking their way, and wove their way through the throng to where the steamboat waited.
“What took you so long?” a well-dressed man whom Henry took to be the boat’s captain asked. “Where’s Stone? And who are these?”
“Stone won’t be coming,” Cutler replied. “Got into a fight in a whorehouse over a girl and ended with a broken leg and a great big knot on his head. Barely knew who we were.”
“Fool. But we’ll manage without him. And these?”
“Passengers. Paying passengers.”
The captain looked them over doubtfully. “You need to go to Natchez, sir?”
The man had a grave, practical mien, and Henry doubted he would be swayed by a tale of an elopement. “Yes,” he said. “My wife’s sister, she is ill.” He hoped Natchez was the sort of place it made sense for a genteel lady such as Thérèse appeared to be to have a sister.
“We were so glad when we heard you were bound for there,” Thérèse added. “Ordinarily we might ride or drive, but we feel safer on the river with the British about. We would’ve waited, but my sister’s time will be upon her within the month, and she couldn’t bear to face it alone, without any woman of our family.”
“Well, ma’am, I doubt the British will be anywhere above the city anytime soon, but if General Jackson insists upon commandeering my boat to bring more guns and powder, I’ll gladly take you as passengers to keep it from being an empty trip upriver. Welcome aboard, Mr. and Mrs...”
“Langevin,” Henry said.
“I’m Captain Shreve. Wilson, take them to the stern cabin. There’s a smaller cabin adjoining if you’d rather your girl slept there.”
“Certainly,” Henry replied. He’d take that cabin and leave the larger one for Thérèse and Jeannette to share, but there was no reason for the captain to know that.
“Glad to have you aboard, sir, madam.” He paused and stared thoughtfully out over the wharf. “I don’t suppose you know what all that noise and hubbub was about, a few minutes ago.”
“A few horses got loose,” Henry said lightly.
“It was frightening,” Thérèse added, leaning against him. “I was afraid we’d be trampled.”
“I’m glad you were not.” The captain inclined his head in courteous dismissal. “Now, I must see to the engines. We should be gone in half an hour.”
They followed Wilson along the deck toward the stern, where the entire area behind the great smokestacks was taken up by a low, white-painted set of cabins and storage rooms. “You lied to the captain,” he commented as he led them inside.
Henry considered his response. Wilson seemed less friendly than his friend Cutler and therefore in need of more careful handling. “Your captain did not strike me as a romantic man,” he said. “And I did not wish him to suspect us of anything to do with the...commotion on the wharf.”
“He’s not our captain. Ben and me and a few of the others are just along to take charge of the supplies in Natchez and see them back to the army. So I don’t care what you tell him. Just be careful you can keep your lies sorted out.”
“Oh, I will.” Henry refrained from adding that he’d had a great deal of practice at concealment for fear it wouldn’t improve his position.
“Good. And if you cause any trouble—well, Cutler may take everyone he meets for a new boon companion, but I keep my own counsel.”
“Very wise of you, I am sure. And I hope my wife and I have already caused all the trouble we ever will for a lifetime.”
Wilson only shrugged and pointed out the two cabins. They were simple and sparsely furnished—the smaller of the two only held a low cot—but they were all the refuge Henry could ask for, especially when just a few minutes later the Enterprize’s engines stirred noisily to life, and shortly thereafter the boat crept out into the river.
* * *
It seemed to Thérèse that the Enterprize crawled along like a turtle, but Captain Farlow didn’t share her anxiety. “Either they suspect where we’ve gone or they don’t,” he said as they walked back to their cabin after dinner at the captain’s table. “No one seems to be following us upriver, so that’s something. An ordinary boat couldn’t keep pace, of course, but I kept watching for riders along the banks. But with this ship commandeered to move munitions, I can’t imagine anyone daring to hinder her. No, we’re safe enough until we get to Natchez.”
“And then?”
“Then we’ll see,” he said imperturbably. “I’d like to get a look at a good map, without making it too obvious that I’m not from here. We’ll need to decide which port to make for and how best to get there. Mobile is close, I know, but I know nothing of the quality of the roads.”
“Nor do I,” she admitted ruefully. “Whenever anyone talked of traveling there, they always took a ship downriver and around by the gulf.”
“I suppose we could stay in Natchez for a few days, then find a ship bound for the gulf from there.”
“It would stop at New Orleans to take on passengers and cargo,” she pointed out.
“We could feign illness and stay aboard.”
“That sounds risky.�
��
He patted her hand, which rested demurely in the crook of his arm. “We’ve made it this far. We’ll scout the approach to the next bridge once it’s in sight. Meanwhile we’ve a few days to rest.” He paused outside the door of the cabin. “And it sounds as though someone is already resting.”
They stepped inside to find Jeannette, fully dressed, sprawled across the bed and snoring loudly. Thérèse laughed and sighed. “To think I was relieved we stopped for the night, because I couldn’t imagine sleeping through that endless clacky-clack-clack of the paddle wheel!”
“I think she’s even louder.”
“I’ve never heard her snore as loudly as that before. I hope she’s not getting sick.”
“Likely she’s only tired. I know I am. I was going to ask her to take a look at my wound, but it can wait till morning.”
Thérèse studied him by the light of the candle lantern they’d been given to guide them back to their cabin. Even allowing for the weak, flickering light, he looked almost as worn and exhausted as he had the morning after Jeannette had cut the shell fragment out of his side. If he were to sicken again and die, what would she and her sister do, out in the wide, dangerous world without such a trustworthy man to pose as husband and master until they could reach safe harbor?
“I’ll look at it,” she said. “If it looks worse, we’ll wake her up.” She’d been helping Jeannette with his bandages every day. Surely she knew enough by now to judge if his wound was festering dangerously.
“Thank you.”
She bit her lip. He must be in more pain that he’d let on. She’d expected him to protest. “We’ll go in the other cabin,” she said. “There’s no place for you to lie down here.”
“Very well.” They crept out and tiptoed into the other cabin, under an unspoken agreement that the less their fellow travelers knew about their true sleeping arrangements, the better. “You were splendid at dinner, by the way,” he said as he closed the door behind them.
“What do you mean? I hardly said a word.”
“Yes, but you hardly said a word in just the way a fond but shy wife who was concerned about her sister, but otherwise perfectly happy, would do. No one would suspect you had anything to hide.”
“Oh, good. I know I’m not a good actress, but I’m trying.”
He grinned, and she felt the warm dart of pleasure all the way down her spine that was becoming her predictable response to his smile. Why did she react to him like a giddy, lovelorn girl when she knew he didn’t want her and she couldn’t have him if he did?
“You’re learning quickly,” he said. “You’re already a better actress than you were this morning.”
“What about you? You’re so natural I’d almost suspect you’d been a spy instead of an officer.”
One of his eyebrows quirked up. “Oh, amateur theatricals are very popular in England.”
Thérèse somehow doubted that enacting a comic farce or even a Shakespearean tragedy for one’s friends and neighbors was adequate training for the wild improvisation that Captain Farlow had been performing all day. Maybe he was a spy. “You were wonderful at dinner, too,” she said. “The way you kept the captain talking about the steamboat so you wouldn’t have to talk so much yourself.”
He sat down on the low cot and began removing his boots. “But I really am interested. Think how it will change the world, to be able to travel upriver almost as easily as down, and to no longer be at the mercy of the winds on the ocean! Though I hope someone will work out how to make a quiet steamship one of these years.”
“Gratien and his father and brother have talked of building steamboats. I admit I never paid close attention.” She was coming to realize that she’d lived in a narrowly bounded world, content in the comfortable place in the free black community she’d been born into. As soon as she’d grown mature enough to understand that her father’s dreams for her of France and grandeur could never come true, she’d happily accepted her mother’s more modest aspirations that she would become a prosperous, respectable wife and mother among her own people. Now all that was lost, and she needed to learn more of the world, and quickly. Even of steamboats, perhaps.
“I might recommend that my brother invest in steam, once I’m back in England,” Captain Farlow said. “If it comes along as our captain expects, we’ll see fortunes made.”
He removed his second boot and began to shrug off his coat. When she saw him wince, Thérèse set the lantern on the floor and went to help him, tugging the tight superfine wool gently past his shoulders. “This coat would be difficult to remove even if I weren’t injured,” he said.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she soothed. “You’re bigger through the shoulders than Jean-Baptiste.”
“A little, and he has the taste of a dandy to boot.”
“Both of them have always been dandies. Had.” She bit back an unladylike oath. She still couldn’t quite believe that Bertrand was dead and she was a fugitive. Surely she’d wake up soon and everything would be as it was the night before—or even longer ago, when her parents were alive and she’d still believed herself an heiress with a secure future before her.
“My older brother has a bit of the dandy about him, too,” Captain Farlow said. He spoke calmly, as if he hadn’t noticed her distress, but from the sharp look he gave her she knew he’d seen. “I daresay I might have myself if I hadn’t gone into the army,” he continued. “I didn’t like a coat so tight I couldn’t get out of it without a valet’s help when we were on campaign, and now that I’m in the habit of it, I like to have room to move my shoulders and arms. Here, if you’ll just give one more tug...”
She obliged, and he shrugged his way free of the coat and shook out his arms. “Tomorrow I think I’ll take Ben Cutler up on that offer of a spare shirt. I never thought to dress like a Tennessee woodsman, but at least they look comfortable. I draw the line, however, at a coonskin cap.”
She bit back a laugh at the image he conjured. “Are you sure? You’d look most dashing, and no one would guess you were English.”
“Nonetheless. There are limits to how far I will go. Here.” He slid his suspenders off his shoulders, unbuttoned his trousers with a perfectly businesslike air and pulled his shirttails free. With a sigh, he lay flat on his back, his shirt pulled up to reveal his bandaged side. “Let the inspection commence.”
She took a deep breath. Why must he be so distracting? All she wanted was to examine his wound and have done so she could go back to her own cabin and all of them could get some much-needed sleep. So she shouldn’t be lingering upon the sight of his flat stomach, at the little trail of crisply curling hairs, a darker gold than the hair on his head, leading down from his navel to disappear into his trousers.
He shifted with elaborate casualness, moving his good arm to half shield his groin.
Thérèse felt her face heat. She swallowed hard, then applied herself to her business. Surely that ugly wound of his would distract her from any thought of him as a man, and once she was poking and prodding at it, he’d be in enough pain to drive out whatever carnal reaction he had to her presence.
It didn’t mean anything, she reminded herself. Male lusts were simple, and he’d thought less of her since learning of her mixed blood. It wouldn’t do to forget that, now that she must spend who knew how many days and weeks in his company. Biting her lip, she untied Jeannette’s careful knots securing the bandage and pulled away the cloth pad—exactly the same kind she and Jeannette used for their monthly courses—covering the wound.
Captain Farlow drew in a breath on a hiss.
“I’m afraid it is a little worse,” she said. And indeed it was, though not as much as she’d feared. Some pus and blood had leaked onto the cloth over the course of the day, but it hadn’t soaked through. She took up the lantern and held it closer to inspect the wound. She thought it was redder around the edges than
it had been when Jeannette had last bandaged it. At least there weren’t any red streaks radiating from it. That had to be a good sign. Cautiously she patted the area around it, which felt hotter than the unwounded skin of his stomach. She set the lantern down and rested one hand on his forehead, the other on hers, just as her mother had always done when she’d complained of illness. She thought he was a little warmer than she was, but not with the raging fever of the nights he’d lain near death’s door.
“I think we can wait till tomorrow to have Jeannette look,” she said. “Sleep will probably help all of us more than anything else.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“I’ll redo the bandage.” And she did, substituting a clean cloth from Jeannette’s saddlebag. She worked quickly, making a sloppy job of the knots, but her sister could redo them in the morning.
When she had finished, she tugged his shirt down, tucked him under the blanket and made to rise, but he caught at her hand. “I’m sorry about today,” he said.
Thérèse knew she should pull away, but his hand was so strong, warm and secure. “You’ve already apologized.”
“And it made you angry, I know. But I’m still sorry. I just—reacted to each moment as it arose. It didn’t occur to me until too late that I was upending your whole existence. You and Jeannette saved my life, and I’ve repaid you by forcing you into exile from the only home you’ve ever known. I never meant to kill him, you know. I never meant to cause you so much trouble. That requires an apology.”
She shook her head and squeezed his hand. “You defended Jeannette. That requires no apology. When I think of what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there...”
“She reminds me of my sister. It never occurred to me not to defend her.”
“Your sister?”
“When I left for the army, Felicity was twelve, and so much like Jeannette—all fire and temper, full of resentment for every imperfection and injustice the world offers, and clever and brimming over with wild dreams. She’ll be almost grown by now. I hope she hasn’t changed too much.”
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