Louisiana History Collection - Part 1

by Jennifer Blake

  She did not stop until she reached the shelter she shared with René. There she halted abruptly with the leather curtain of the low doorway crumpled in her hand. She was shaking with sick rage and at the same time she felt unclean, as if she had been touched by something loathsome.

  What exactly did Touchet want of her? Why should he need her to inform against the Bretons when he himself knew what they were doing? The answer seemed to be that she would provide proof of their activities, would be a witness to their guilt.

  Never. She wanted security, but not at that price. If Pierre and Jean and Gaston were utter strangers she would not be able to betray them; how much less could she do it when she owed them everything. Her friends, she had called them, but they were so much more, as she had come to know in the last days. They were the nearest she might ever come to a family.

  She drew in a deep breath and turned to look out over the bay with the shimmering glow of starlight dancing on its dark surface. Regardless of everything else, there was one good thing about the offer Touchet had made her. If the little man was looking for an ally in her, then it followed that he did not have one in René. She had not known how strong that fear was until it was removed or how much pain it had caused.

  9

  THE FEAST CONTINUED, increasing in noise and frenzy as the cups of tafia made their third and fourth rounds. There was no hope of sleep until the last drummer and dancer had sought his bed of branches. Despairing of rest while the drums throbbed in the night, Cyrene returned to the fire.

  Pierre had moved away from the inner circle around the flames. He was watching as she approached. As she caught his eye, he motioned to her and indicated a seat beside him on the sand. She made her way toward him, threading among the men and women who lay about on their blankets.

  “Are you well?” he asked, peering into her face with a frown drawing his thick brows together as she dropped down beside him. “You look a little pale.”

  “Yes, fine.” His concern was like balm, soothing the nerves that leaped under her skin. He did not seem inclined to accept her assurances, for his expression remained grave.

  “Tell me, chère, are you happy? Is this with Lemonnier what you want?”

  She held his gaze with difficulty. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t like the way you act, the way you look since we made this bargain. There is nothing that holds you to it, neither law nor church, nor any other obligation. If you don’t like it, walk away. Now.”

  “You would not mind?”

  “Mind? Why should I mind?”

  “I thought perhaps—” She paused, looking toward the glowing red coals at the heart of the fire before she went on. “I thought you and Jean and Gaston might be relieved that I’m off your hands.”

  “Sacré, but what a thing to say! You are our angel, our luck. We will be desolated without you. The only thing that makes us let you go is that we want you to have what you desire. If Lemonnier is the one, good. We are happy. If not, then something must be done.”

  “Oh, Pierre,” she said, tears rising in an ache behind her eyes.

  He reached out to clasp her shoulders in an awkward hold, clearing his throat with a rough sound. “Bien, that is settled. But are you happy, chère?”

  Her chest rose and fell in a deep sigh. “I don’t know. I suppose so.”

  “This thing of love, it is difficult, no?”

  “It is difficult, yes.” There was no love, but she could not hurt him by explaining why she had gone to René without it, especially now.

  “Ah, yes. I remember — but you don’t want to hear that. Tell me, does Lemonnier mistreat you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly.

  “I saw Quick Squirrel and one or two of the other Choctaw girls making eyes at him. Is he running after them?”

  “I — No, I don’t think so.” She did not know it for a certainty.

  “Does he not please you in bed?”

  “Pierre!”

  “Do I shock you, petite? But you have no mother to ask these things. If he does not please you, you must tell him, or show him, what he is doing wrong. A man cannot know it otherwise. Women are different, one from the other, in their needs.”

  “You speak from vast experience, of course?” she said in a pretense of teasing composure.

  He lifted a massive shoulder. “Enough.”

  She looked at him there in the flickering firelight, at his weathered face cut with deep lines and his laughing blue eyes that always seemed to hold some incalculable sorrow in their depths. “You were married once, I think. What happened?”

  “My wife… died.”

  “And you never thought of taking another?”

  “Never. There was no other woman who could take her place.”

  “You had no children, I suppose.” She could not imagine him not having a child of his with him, just as Jean had Gaston.

  He turned his gaze from her to the night. “These things are as God wills.”

  They were silent for a few moments. The drums had taken on a deeper note. Red sparks spiraled upward, crackling, as more wood was added to the fire. The skin of the dancers glistened with the sweat of their efforts. The others watched them as if mesmerized or else stupefied with tafia. A few couples had disappeared, giggling, into the darkness at the edge of the woods or farther along the shore.

  Cyrene ran her gaze around the circle about the fire. René was not there. Where had he gone, and when? He had been at his place when she came to sit with Pierre, for she had walked past him. Unconsciously, she looked toward Little Foot’s hut some distance away. It huddled dark and still. It might be empty, then again it might not. But perhaps it was. Both Little Foot and her daughter were among the women at the edge of the firelight.

  Cyrene spoke without looking at Pierre. “You are a judge of men. What do you think of René?”

  “He is a good one to have at your back or on your side,” he said with the deliberation that indicated previous thought, “but a bad one to cross. A man who goes his own way in most things, though he can pull with others if need be. One who sees a great deal, more than he makes known, but keeps his mouth shut.”

  “But what of his notoriety with women? Can he ever be trusted?”

  “He will settle down when he finds the right one. There’s truth in the saying that there’s no husband so faithful as a reformed rake.”

  “But can I reform him?”

  “Do you wish it?”

  That was, of course, the question. It was not one she could answer at the moment, even if she wanted to. Instead, she said, “There is something I should tell you.”

  “About Lemonnier?”

  “No, about Touchet.” She outlined her talk with Madame Vaudreuil’s toady in a few brief sentences.

  “Name of a name, what a piece of filth that one is!”

  “You aren’t afraid of what he may do?”

  Pierre snapped his fingers. “He has been trying to catch us with the goods for years and has not succeeded.”

  “This is different. He’s never been so bold before.”

  “Perhaps, chère, it’s you who are different.”

  She turned on him, her tone sharp. “What do you mean?”

  “You are more — more…” He waved his hand in a comprehensive gesture.

  “You think I invite men?”

  “No, no, only that you… know yourself a woman, and so oblige a man to take notice of it also. It’s no bad thing, nor should you try to stop it, for to do that goes against nature. It’s meant to be this way.”

  He was right, she knew. She had felt what he was trying to say herself, though without putting it into words. She supposed she had René to thank for this awareness, though it might also have begun before. The source of her discontent these last few months might be that she was a woman in need of a place of her own, a future of her own, a man of her own.

  “As for Touchet,” Pierre went on, “I don’t think he’ll give you any more trouble so
on. He has gone back to the ship for tonight, and I heard him tell Dodsworth that he leaves for New Orleans early in the morning. But if he troubles you again, you must tell René at once or else come to me. Touchet is used to taking what he wants, when he wants, with no one to stop him since he has the governor’s wife in his pocket.”

  Cyrene narrowed her dark brown eyes. “If he tries to take me, he will find he has more on his hands than he bargained for.”

  “Have a care,” Pierre said with a slow shake of his head. “If he ever had any good in him, it was snuffed out long ago. He would take the greatest pleasure in forcing you to his will for his own sake, to repay you for refusing him, but it will be doubled if he can also revenge himself on Jean and me for the way we have made him look the fool in the past.”

  It was good advice and she would follow it. But it was beginning to seem that in giving herself to René she had acted to lessen her freedom instead of adding to it.

  Pierre’s attention was claimed by an old man who had a lump of blue stone that he wanted to trade for a keg of the Englishman’s tafia, a stone taken many years before from an Indian who had come from far away to the west where the earth rose to meet the sky, or so he said. Cyrene left Pierre trying to persuade the man to keep his treasure and made her way out of the circle once more.

  She had no particular destination. She was just too restless to sit still, she told herself, but her footsteps took her to the shelter again. The leather curtain flapped in the wind. Inside, the bearskin lay straight and flat. René’ was not there.

  “If you are looking for Lemonnier, he’s aboard the Half Moon.”

  Cyrene whipped around with a gasp, her eyes wide. Captain Dodsworth was so close her skirts brushed his legs and she could smell the rum on his breath. She took a hasty step backward and saw the concern rise in his eyes.

  “You startled me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to walk up on you like that, but it’s infernally dark.”

  “You said something about M’sieur Lemonnier?”

  “Right, that I did. I thought you might be wondering where he was. He paddled out to my ship a few minutes ago, something about a few short and pointed words with Touchet. I’m going now myself, but Pierre mentioned in passing this morning that you had a few items in my stock you wanted to see. Thought I’d offer you a place in my boat for the trip out if you care to go now. You can come back with Lemonnier.”

  Was it possible that René meant to quarrel with Touchet over her? She could not think how he knew that the little man had offered her an insult, nor did it matter; there was no need for his interference and she would tell him so. The arrangement the captain proposed sounded good enough and would be an admirable excuse for her presence on the ship. It was even possible that now might be the best time to do her own trading if the situation allowed.

  The decision was made almost before Captain Dodsworth finished speaking. Her voice firm with purpose, she said, “Let us go, then.”

  The Half Moon rode the swells in the bay like a ghost ship, without lights, without sound, and with gray wisps of fog clinging to its sheets and tall masts. The officer of the watch materialized out of the darkness to help Cyrene aboard, then stood aside respectfully as the captain jumped to the deck. Captain Dodsworth gave the man a curt nod and an order to bring aboard the two casks of indigo that Cyrene had brought out with her, then took her arm.

  “This way, mademoiselle. I’ll send to tell Lemonnier that you are here and in the meantime I’ll just lay out the special stock I have that you might be interested in seeing.”

  Cyrene hung back a little. “I would really prefer to go to Touchet’s cabin or wherever you think he and René may be.”

  “Most unwise, I should think,” he said with a laugh. “There’s no telling what state of dress, or undress, the fellow may be in, and you wouldn’t want to embarrass him.”

  He meant that she would not want to be embarrassed. “I don’t care,” she said. “Suppose they are fighting? I have to stop them.”

  “Must you? It seems a hare-brained thing to do when Touchet has been needing a good hiding for these many years. But if you insist, I’ll send the watch to break it up. Come along.”

  His good humor and easy manners were hard to resist. She went with him, though not without a doubtful look around the quiet ship from over her shoulder.

  The captain’s cabin was by no means large; it contained a bunk, a basin recessed in the top of a small cabinet, and a table set under a lamp that hung, constantly swaying, from the ceiling. Cyrene sat down on the single chair at the table. Captain Dodsworth stepped around to drag a small chest forward until it sat at her side, then straightened.

  “Would you care for a glass of wine?” he asked, his eyes bright. “I have an excellent madeira.”

  It appeared as if he might easily be offended if she refused and that would be a bad way to start their trading session. In any case, she did not like rum and had drunk next to nothing all evening. “That would be very nice.”

  “Good,” he said, his smile widening. “I’ll be right back with it when I’ve seen about your friend. In the meantime, you can be taking a look at the things in the trunk.”

  He departed so quickly that he left the door swinging on its hinges behind him. His pleasure seemed all out of proportion, as if she had granted him a favor. Cyrene stared after him with a frown between her eyes. She had never spoken to the man before without Pierre or Jean being present. She liked what she knew of him, but that was little. Surely a man who spoke so openly of his wife and children would not misconstrue her acceptance of the invitation to go with him to his ship. No, she was being foolish. René was about somewhere and would be arriving at any moment. She was safe enough. And confident enough of her safety to be wryly amused at her dependence at this moment on René’s much-despised protection.

  She pushed back her chair a bit and leaned to look at the latch of the chest. It was simple and yielded easily to her manipulation. She lifted the lid and laid it back on its hinges. Then she stopped, bemused.

  There in the trunk before her lay a sparkling, glittering array of pearls, sapphires, aquamarines, and topazes in brooches, rings, hair ornaments, and buttons; delicate Venetian glassware in jewel colors; silver-backed mirrors set in china and painted with roses and cherubs; tiny colored glass vials of perfume with silver caps; cobweb lace edged with gold and silver thread; and coils of shimmering ribbons in rainbow shades. There was nothing there that was not beautiful and rare and incredibly expensive. If they were trade goods, they were to suit the taste of a marquise or a courtesan.

  Cyrene reached to close the lid, letting it fall shut with a thud. These things bore no resemblance to what she needed, and Captain Dodsworth must realize that well enough. What his purpose was in showing them to her, she did not know, but she sat back in her chair with her hands on its arms and her eyes narrowed as she watched the door, waiting for his return.

  He was not long in coming. He carried in his hands a pair of glasses and an open and dusty bottle. He stepped forward to set them on the table and began to pour the ruby liquid. “Well,” he said with a quick, smiling glance, “what do you think?”

  “About the goods in the trunk? I think they are too dear for my purse.”

  “Nonsense! They are nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Not for some, perhaps, but as much as the Indian women might enjoy them, there’s hardly enough woven baskets and powdered herbs among them all to equal a tenth of the value.”

  “Have you no ambitions beyond the Indian women?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Suppose you could present these things to the ladies about the governor? Would they not be able to afford them?”

  “Possibly. But you must realize that I could not pay you for them.”

  He handed her a glass and sipped his own wine before he answered. “It’s possible we might form a partnership.”

  “Of what kind?” Cyrene’s questi
on carried swift suspicion.

  “One, shall we say, of mutual benefit?”

  It was possible that he meant nothing more or less than what he said. Or was it? “I don’t think I understand.”

  “I will provide the goods, you’ll sell them. We’ll divide the profit equally between us.”

  “That’s a very generous offer.”

  “One that promises an excellent return. The French ladies are extremely fond of their fripperies. Take this perfume, for instance.” He reached into the trunk and picked up a vial, removing the top so that the rich and heady fragrance of damask roses filled the room.

  She made a swift, dismissing gesture. “Perfume is something they are quite able to purchase from France.”

  “Yes, sight unseen. I believe they will leap at the chance to buy what they can put their hands on, particularly if they see the items suitable for dress occasions being worn by someone such as you.”

  “Me? I couldn’t do that; it would be too ridiculous with my rough clothes.”

  “I could give you a dress allowance. In fact, it would be my pleasure to do so.”

  “For the sake of business, of course.”

  He smiled at her dry tone, confident that she understood the implication of his words, certain the two of them would reach an understanding. “Not entirely.”

  “I see.” She got to her feet and moved around the table. “I fear I must refuse your offer.”

  He reached out to catch her arm. “Why, may I ask?”

  “That must be obvious.” She looked pointedly at his fingers wrapped around her forearm, but he did not remove them.

  “Not to me it isn’t. You are friendly enough, apparently, with Lemonnier, not to mention the Bretons. I’ve kept my distance until this year because I didn’t relish tangling with Pierre and Jean, but if they are loaning you out—”

  Cyrene wrenched her arm from his grasp and stepped back. “That’s a vile thing to say!”

  “I meant no insult,” he said, moving after her. He was daunting in his size and confidence. “I’m grateful to the Bretons for finding you and bringing you here. It seems as if it was supposed to be this way. You are so very much as I always dreamed a woman should be; I’ve waited, wanting you, for what seems like an age. I admire you, and I think we could work well together, but most of all I want you.”