The booming report rolled over the water. Before the sound reached the racing pirogues, there was a high-pitched whine overhead. Cyrene flinched but did not stop paddling. Risking a glance behind her, she saw a gray cloud of powder smoke floating out over the water and Touchet lying on the ground, nursing his jaw with one hand. Of the soldiers and René, the only sign was their retreating backs as they raced toward their concealed boat.
Bend, dip, pull. With aching muscles and back-wrenching effort, they sent the pirogues speeding over the water. The distance separating them from the place of attack lengthened. Ahead of them lay a winding curve. They began to take it, cutting across it to save precious time.
Behind them, there was a yell. They looked back to see a longboat just bursting through the pall of smoke. It was crowded with soldiers plying the long, sweeping oars that jutted out along the sides. They worked in unison, sending the laden craft skimming over the surface of the bayou like a waterbug skating down a drainage ditch. The soldiers yelled as they caught sight of their prey. The speed of the boat increased.
The two pirogues leaped ahead as fear pumped new strength into the veins of the Bretons. Cyrene scrambled forward to snatch up the paddle René had put down, then took her place once more, bending, dipping, pulling. They swept around the lower bend. They were lost to sight behind the trees.
Cyrene snatched a quick look at Pierre. He was scanning the bank, his gaze anxious. Before she could speak, Jean called out across the space of water that separated the racing pirogues.
“We leave the bayou?” he shouted.
Pierre gave a short nod. “Around the next bend, it may be.”
“If we make it! Touchet will go after the pirogues with the goods if we turn them loose.”
“So he would, but Lemonnier is in charge,” Pierre returned.
Jean shrugged, his dark gaze never losing its bright light. “We can only hope.”
The chance, or so it seemed to Cyrene, was a paltry one. The bigger boat with its superior crew was moving so fast it might well overtake them before they could put whatever plan it was that Pierre had into action. The trade goods were important as evidence and must be retrieved by the governor’s soldiers, but it could be done at their leisure after they had taken their prisoners. Even if they managed to make land, there was nothing to keep their pursuers from giving chase and running them down. Nor was there anything to prevent them from shooting them on sight. René had held the soldiers back from firing before, perhaps for her sake, but he could not be expected to do that again, not if he expected what was apparently his mission to stop the smugglers to be a success.
Why? Why was René on such a mission? The question battered at Cyrene’s mind. The answer was clear, no matter how much she might seek to avoid it. René, like Touchet, was the marquise’s man, her spy and lackey. Madame Vaudreuil did not care for competition in her trade with the English; moreover, it was important that her husband give at least the appearance of trying to comply with the order to stop such commerce. Therefore, René, having been so fortunate as to gain a foothold on the flatboat of the Bretons, had been ordered to attach himself to them and draw them into the marquise’s trap. He had, with Touchet’s aid, done just that. And she had helped him also. Dear God, she had helped him.
From some deep reserve, Pierre brought forth added effort. Jean, not to be outdone, kept pace, and Gaston and Cyrene did what they could. The pirogues flew over the water, barely touching the surface. They swept into the next turn, scudded around it. A few more gasping pulls of the paddles, then they turned the prows of the two pirogues toward the bank and, with straining shoulders and vibrating sinews, sent them plowing into the overhanging willows.
At any moment the others would round the bend, would be upon them. There was no time to lament the rich goods left behind, only time to grab a food sack and leap ashore. The pirogues were shoved back out into the stream with mighty thrusts that sent them pitching and heaving away from the landing where they would mark the exact place too well. The two small crafts, lighter now, floated, still rocking a little, easing away with the slow creep of the current.
The three Bretons and Cyrene did not wait to see them go. They plunged at once into the wooded swampland that edged the bayou. Swift and silent as the Indians from whom they had learned their forest skills, they melted away out of sight.
It was the swift descent of darkness that saved them, something Pierre had held in account as he had made his plan. They heard the soldiers land, heard the shouted orders of René and the yells back and forth as the floundering search began. It did not last long. A half hour of tramping to and fro with torches, plunging into knee-deep muck where it had appeared there was firm ground, shooting at imaginary animals and each other in the growing dimness and increasing cold, and then the signal for recall was given. The pursuit retreated, died away, moving back to the bank where a fire was lit for reassurance and to boil coffee and beans. It leaped high, a distant beacon.
The darkness and damp of the winter night closed in. Cyrene, Pierre, Jean, and Gaston turned into the vastness of the swamp and put the beacon fire as far behind them as possible.
It was two days later when Cyrene and the Bretons emerged from the wetlands. Footsore, insect-bitten, they approached the outskirts of a plantation house. With no way of knowing what kind of search had been mounted for them, they could not make themselves known or ask for help. They waited until night fell once more, quieting their hunger pangs with their last few handfuls of dried sagamite. Under the cover of darkness, they searched out and borrowed a small sailboat that was beached on the bank of the bayou. By the time the sun rose, they were asleep in their hammocks on the flatboat.
There was no hue and cry. The Bretons could only assume that it was because they had not been captured with the trade goods that would have proven their guilt. The governor could have had them arrested on the strength of René’s word and tortured until they confessed, but he made no move to do so. Pierre, ever the cynic, said the governor was waiting until he had evidence so that he could make an example of them. Jean declared that they need not worry, then; they would never be caught because they no longer had the means to venture out as traders.
The truth in the jest was slight comfort. Without the money brought in by trading, the next year would be hard. With the English goods now in the hands of the French government, the Bretons would have to hire themselves out as laborers, working for a pittance compared to what they could have earned trading. It wasn’t fair that their activities could be so restricted, that they could be told who they could buy from and sell to and when, not when the food in the mourns of a man’s family and the clothes on their backs depended on it. Let the government go and meddle somewhere else. Let the king and his ministers see to something a good deal more important, such as the pirates in the gulf or the steady western encroachment of the English farmers from the Carolinas.
If Cyrene and the Bretons wondered what René would do now, they were not left long in doubt. He took up his occupation of dancing attendance on Madame Vaudreuil and was seen riding out with his sponsor in her carriage, escorting her to various entertainments, standing up with her at the balls, and acting as her chamberlain at the absinthe socials that it was her delight to arrange at Government House. A sycophant was the least of the names he was beginning to be called for catering to a woman old enough to be his mother, but there could be no denying that he was in the midst of everything of interest that was happening in New Orleans.
Cyrene despised the man. She could not bear to hear his name spoken. The thought of the way he had used and betrayed both the Bretons and herself burned like a red-hot coal in her brain. To remember how she had given herself to him once, and come so near to offering herself again, gave her such shamed pain that she felt murderous with loathing for him. It had been that rage, and the images of the things she would do to him given the opportunity for revenge, that had kept her spirits alive in the swamp.
They haunted her,
those images of vengeance, but she was also haunted by memories of René: the things he had said, how he had looked, the taste of his kiss, the feel of his caresses. She missed him, something that was as disturbing as it was unexpected. At odd times she looked up suddenly from what she was doing, expecting, wanting to see him on the floor of her sleeping cubicle, though knowing full well it was impossible.
She wondered if he thought of her at all, if he had regrets or if he was merely annoyed that his ploy had not been successful. She imagined him speaking to Madame Vaudreuil of her, laughing at how gullible she had been, how awkward and inexperienced, how eager. She imagined him with other women, smiling at them, flattering them, taking them into his bed. And she pictured him with the aging wife of the governor, bowing to her demands whether in the drawing room or in the boudoir, bending his handsome head in smiling acquiescence.
The torment of her thoughts made her temper so uncertain that she snapped at Pierre and Jean and Gaston and filled her days with a constant round of tasks that exhausted her in body and mind so she could sleep at night. Still, she sometimes thought she would not be able to know peace until she had found a way to make René pay for the damage he had done. She wanted to make him suffer. The problem was finding the means.
It was a week after their return when Cyrene saw René. She had gone to the market, walking there without escort in a concession that gave her much less satisfaction than she would have expected a few short weeks before. She had bartered the braided coat René had given her for a gratifying amount of food and clothing, then turned homeward, walking back across the Place Royale. René came from the barracks building that faced her across the square. He was striding along beside a uniformed officer, the two of them in close conversation. They stepped from under the barracks gallery, angling toward the church.
Cyrene came to an abrupt stop. It was, perhaps, that sudden lack of movement that caught René’s attention. He looked up, said something to the officer, then, as the man moved away, came slowly toward Cyrene.
His coat was of ultramarine velvet, a deep purple-tinted blue, with silver basket-weave buttons. Under it he wore a waistcoat of satin in the same color, which was embroidered in black, and black breeches. His powdered wig, topped by a tricorne with a small black plume, was tied back with a black bow, and on his shoes were silver buckles. He carried a long ebony cane and a handkerchief edged with lace, which he transferred to his left hand as he swept off the tricorne and made his bow in front of her.
Cyrene did not wait for him to straighten before she turned sharply to step around him. He moved with swift ease to forestall her.
“A moment of your time only, Cyrene. I heard you had returned. I can’t tell you how glad I was to have the news.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, the words scathing in their fury. “Your concern for us was, of course, the reason you searched the river so diligently.”
“I can see you wouldn’t believe me if I said it was.”
“How astute of you.”
René was silent as he gazed at her. She was magnificent with her hatred of him glinting in the dark brown of her eyes and the high color of rage burning across her cheekbones. She held herself like an empress, with her head up and her breasts straining against the material of her bodice with every deep and angry breath. He wanted to sweep her up in his arms and take her away to someplace where he could make her understand, where he could banish her fury and try to bring back that lovely light of surrender to her face, a light he had begun to think he had only imagined. But it was impossible.
“Smuggling is a crime against the crown,” he said abruptly. “Did you think you would never be stopped?”
“Not by a man I had pulled from the river.”
“I see. You think I should have been more grateful.”
“I think—”
She stopped as her throat closed with pain and the onslaught of emotions too confused to express. It seemed suddenly that he was too near, that his shoulders were too broad and the gray of his eyes too intense. She did not want to be affected by him. She wanted to be cold and vindictive, not feel as if she needed to walk into the comfort of his arms.
She steeled herself, looking away over his shoulder. Her gaze fell on the flogging post that stood at the foot of the gallows before the church. The sight of both post and gallows was an effective reminder of what she and the Bretons had so narrowly escaped. When she returned her gaze to his, her expression was blank. Her tone almost casual, she asked, “What did you do with our trade goods?”
“They were confiscated, the property of the king.”
“Were they, indeed?”
His face darkened. “You needn’t sound as if you think I took them for myself.”
“How am I to know where you draw the line? There’s so much you will do, from conniving with scum like Touchet to dupe and betray those who saved your life to prostituting yourself for a rich woman of — shall we say — uncertain age and unlimited influence, that it’s difficult to tell.”
“You forget,” he said softly, “the prostitution for the sake of a young woman.”
“You mean what you did for me? No, I haven’t forgotten. How can I forget something I will regret to my last breath?”
“You may regret it now, but you didn’t then.”
Her eyes flashed at the ungentlemanly reminder. “You flatter yourself. I did what was necessary for my purpose. The regret I have is that I did not choose a worthier man.”
“A worthier man,” he said, his smile bleak, “might have expected more in return.”
“In return? I owed you nothing. The debt, I believe you said, was yours.”
“Then if it was paid, you can’t accuse me of ingratitude.”
It was odd how much pain the thought gave her, that he had made love to her for no other reason than to repay her for saving his life. It was not as if she had any reason to believe he had desired her. She had only wanted to think so.
Her voice trembling, she said, “It was repaid, all right, repaid with deception and treachery, repaid by taking from us our means to make a living. Too bad it brought you no gain. Only think what a feather it would have been in your cap if you could have brought us all back in irons!”
She saw the leap of anger in his eyes before he inclined his head in a bow. “It may happen yet,” he said, and turned on his heel, walking away from her.
So great was her rage and chagrin, so many were the things she thought of that she could have said, that the walk back to the flatboat was as nothing. Gaston was alone on the front deck, whittling shavings from a limb to form a peg, as she strode down the gangplank. He watched her, his hands falling idle.
“Let me guess,” he said in a pretense of frowning concentration. “You saw Lemonnier.”
“I did, and I advise you not to tease me about it.”
She moved past him into the flatboat where she thumped her basket down on the kitchen table. Gaston came into the room behind her and stood watching as she took off her coif and put it away, then took down an apron that she tied around her waist. Only then did he speak again.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing of interest.”
“I see, and that’s what has you in a lather?”
“I’m not in a lather.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, a shading of desperation in her voice. “Where are Pierre and Jean?”
“Gone to see if M’sieur Claude will let us have more indigo and permit us to pay him when the trading is done.”
“He won’t.”
The young man shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.”
There might be something salvaged of the trading season if they could get more indigo, though it would be dangerous, involving a long trek through Chickasaw country to meet with the English traders from Carolina since they could not wait for another ship. Even then, the profit would be small. She went to the table and began to unload
her basket. She stopped.
With her hands clenched on a pair of nutmegs, she said in low tones, “It’s all my fault.”
“No, chère, there is no fault. These things happen.”
She was grateful for the understanding in Gaston’s voice, even as it surprised her. “If I had not brought Lemonnier on board-”
“And if I had not helped you? Don’t blame yourself, I beg, because if you do I’ll have to share it!”
There was wry humor in his gaze, which was so like Jean’s. He meant what he said, but there was more to it than that. He meant also to cheer her.
“Did I ever tell you, Gaston, what a nice person you are and how much I like you?”
He heaved a sigh of mock gratification, though the glint in his eyes was as bright as the gold ring in his ear. “I thought you hadn’t noticed. Do you think I’m nice-looking?”
“Excessively.”
“And charming?”
“In the extreme.”
“I like you, too,” he said as if confessing some dark secret, and loped into the room to gather her in a bear hug and swing her around.
Cyrene laughed, hugging him in return, and felt a lightening sensation in her chest. It was horseplay, nothing more, but there was comfort in his impulsive embrace and an odd sense of belonging. As he set her down, she brushed a quick kiss along his neck.
His gaze was warm and there was a flush under his skin as he stepped back. He smiled down at her for an instant, then his gaze strayed to her basket. His tone casual, he asked, “What are you cooking?”
Pierre and Jean returned. They had had no luck with M’sieur Claude. It was well known about town now that the Bretons were under the governor’s eye for their smuggling. As much as M’sieur Claude commiserated with them for their bad luck, he could not risk their losing his indigo to the soldiers; he had his own family to think of.
For once, Jean was dejected. Pierre was angry. He sat frowning into his coffee made with the last of the beans that they were likely to have for some time, and there was a smoldering look in his eyes. Gaston strode up and down. He alternately damned the governor and the policies of the French crown and flung out farfetched suggestions of places he might find a job. He was not afraid of work and could set his hand to anything. On the whole, he would rather fish or trap or trade with the Indians than resort to physical labor, but if he must, then he was ready. Of course the best position in New Orleans, the one with the best prospects and the least work, might be held by René, as the gallant friend of Madame la Marquise. What did they think of his chances of dislodging that gentleman?
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