Louisiana History Collection - Part 1

by Jennifer Blake

  There came then the time for parceling out to the men a fair division of the spoils of the Black Stallion. The assembled crew watched with anxious, avid eyes as Valcour directed the barrels and chests and bales to be brought forth. On this dealing out their night’s pleasure depended. How else were they to afford the favors of such high-class beauties?

  Félicité retreated to the hut. She had no interest in the spoils, but the advent of the women was just as disturbing to her. She was not immune to the prospect of competition, or the general air of refurbishing. She took out her bundle and unwrapped her feminine attire. The gowns were hopelessly crushed after all this time, and there was no chance of pressing them. They were, in any case, serviceable day gowns such as she had thought she might need for wearing on the streets of Paris. Compared to La Paloma and the other women, in them she would be quite extinguished. Not a man on the island would be aware she was even present, so dowdy and rumpled would she appear.

  Morgan, finding her with her gowns spread over the coverlets, was unsympathetic. She would be beautiful in anything, he said. There was no need to upset herself.

  She was in the process of telling him, most vehemently, that she was not upset when a man stepped into the open doorway, blocking the light.

  “Forgive me if I intrude,” Valcour said, his smile belying the politeness of his words.

  “What do you want?” Morgan turned to face the other man squarely, his features hard.

  Valcour still was forced to stand slightly bent at the waist in spite of the healing of his wound. He turned to indicate the man carrying a chest who trailed him. “I regret to disturb your quarreling, but since neither you, Sailing Master McCormack, nor Félicité was present just now, I thought it best to deliver your three shares to you before they were lost in the confusion.”

  “Our shares?” Félicité inquired, a frown drawing her brows together.

  “But of course. As odd as it may seem, as an officer of the pirate crew of Captain Bonhomme, Morgan is due two shares of the Black Stallion’s captured English prize — taken before she reached Las Tortugas.”

  “And the third share?” Morgan asked.

  “Belongs to Félicité, hers by right for her indispensable aid in the taking of your brigantine,” came Valcour’s answer.

  She had forgotten. She might have known Valcour would not, especially if there was the least chance of causing trouble. She ran her tongue over her lips, sending a quick glance to Morgan’s unyielding face, before she turned back to her brother. “I told you then, and I tell you again; I don’t want it.”

  “Want it or not, it’s yours, ma chère. You earned it.” Valcour made an imperative gesture, and the man behind him stepped forward to up-end the chest in the middle of the sand floor. An ivory chess set spilled out, the pieces tumbling from a box of inlaid teak and gold. There was a shower of gold coins, a cascade of cloth, a gleam of green jade. And there was also the slither and slide of a gown of cream satin brocade. It lay shining in the slanting rays of the dying sun, a glistening pool of decadent, beckoning luxury.

  Félicité stabbed a look of hate at Valcour. He had always been too clever in matters of women’s dress, and also women’s weaknesses, much too spitefully clever.

  He bowed, his smile baleful. “I trust I will see you both later.”

  His footsteps retreated with those of the seaman, crunching in the sand. Félicité clasped her fingers together as Morgan moved slowly to take up the shimmering satin gown. His fingers crushed the fabric as they closed on it.

  “You have something new to wear now,” he said, his voice quiet.

  “I — I swear by the virgin, I did not help take your ship for gain, or willingly.”

  “Don’t repine. There is a certain justice in it. I was well served.” His face was averted, without expression.

  “But I tell you—”

  “Don’t! Don’t tell me.” He cut across her words with the command, dropping the gown as if it were hot.

  “I would have died if you had not saved me. Don’t you remember?”

  He turned his head to stare at her, dark-jade grief mirrored in his eyes. “It might have been best if I had not.”

  Her mind closed tight against the pain, leaving her nothing to say. She watched him swing from her and stride from the hut. When he was gone, she sat down on the coverlets, stacked together, doubled now. Stretching full-length, she buried her face in her arms. A shiver ran over her, and then another. Despair, black and blighting, crept in upon her.

  Here she and Morgan had lain and loved in the week past. Here she had found deep pleasure. Held through the night in Morgan’s arms, she had felt safe, content, secure. Gradually she had allowed herself to hope, to dream, to trust.

  It had been a mistake. The certainty of it was like a swordthrust to the heart, one from which she could not flinch, had no protection. In this contest she had been for some time disarmed.

  Was that true?

  She sat up, resting her back against a pole support. With narrowed eyes, she considered Morgan’s undeniable passion for her, the way he turned to her in the darkness with soft words and gentle caresses, seeking the solace of her body again and again as if his thirst for her could not be slaked. Was it possible, could it be that this aspect of their alliance could be forged into a weapon?

  Her brown eyes intent, Félicité uncoiled from the coverlet and gently picked up the satin gown, shaking it out, holding it against her.

  * * *

  La Paloma’s tactics were admirable. After a day of careful preparation the pirate crew and common seamen alike were as diffident as schoolboys promised a treat. Men who would have bedded a trollop with gusto and scant notice, or tossed any unsuspecting, chance-met maid and gone on without a backward glance, were after a day of waiting nigh sick with expectation. They crowded the shore peering toward the new brigantine long before there was any sign of departure from her.

  The women came at last, boatload after boatload, to the number of near a hundred, few enough in all events for the combined crews of the Raven, the Black Stallion, and the Prudence. Except for Isabella in her usual black, they were dressed in bright-colored gowns of fine floating silk, and with silken flowers in their hair. They laughed, they chattered, fluttering here and there, exclaiming over everything in clear voices to rival the calls of the birds in the trees. Not the usual waterfront trulls, they were still females without the impediment of virtue, and so there were roguish glances, sly innuendos, and the air of availability even as pinches and clutching hands were avoided.

  Wearing the gown of satin brocade, Félicité left the hut to join the others. It felt strange to be trussed up in stays and panniers again, and to have the swirl of skirts at her feet. She looked well enough, as far as she could tell in the steel shaving mirror Morgan had tacked to a tree outside their cramped quarters. The gown was a trifle large in the waist, but was a fair fit otherwise. The cream color was a perfect foil for the golden tint of her skin and the sun-bleached fairness of her hair. Without pins, it was difficult to do anything with her long tresses, but she had drawn them back from the temples on either side of her face, and tied the mass with the ribbon from her chemise so that it cascaded in waves and curls down the back of her head.

  She came to a halt near the fire at the upper end of the spread sailcloth. Its flickering orange glow, edged with the blue-green of salt-soaked driftwood, played over her, reflecting on the shining fabric of her gown with a strange, unearthly light. Morgan was standing with Captain Bonhomme and Isabella. He turned, then went still, as if transfixed. The seconds passed. His face masklike, he did not move, gave no indication that she was welcome to join their group.

  Unhurriedly, Félicité looked away. Juan Sebastian lounged against an oaken barrel of pitch. Forcing a smile to her lips, she strolled toward him.

  He came to his feet as she drew near. Inclining his head in a bow, he sent Morgan a quick glance before he spoke. “Good evening, Mademoiselle Félicité.”

&nb
sp; She returned his greeting, asking, “Why are you here alone when there is other company to be enjoyed?”

  “The other company is not to my taste.” His dark, admiring gaze brushed over her, implying the direction his taste might run. “May I ask why you are not in the company of my friend Morgan?”

  “A difference of opinion,” she said, looking away toward the other fire at the opposite end of the sailcloth before she gave him a brilliant smile.

  “I trust it is not — serious.”

  She moved one shoulder in a weary gesture. “I fear so.”

  “One man’s misfortune can be another’s happiness. If you are truly at odds, perhaps you will sit beside me at supper.” The expression in his eyes grew warmer.

  “I would be delighted,” Félicité answered without hesitation.

  Captain Bonhomme, a short distance away, stepped forth then. “What are we waiting for, men?” he shouted. “To the table!”

  The glassy-eyed seamen were no less anxious to get the preliminaries out of the way. They urged the women toward the spread cloth, plying them with food, then falling to themselves. The wine and punch and ubiquitous bumboo were passed up and down the table. Faces grew flushed in the firelight. Voices trilled or guffawed in an ever-rising crescendo. More frequent slaps and laughing protests rang out, as hands groped in the semidarkness.

  The French captain sat at the head of the cloth, with Isabella at his right as guest of honor, and Morgan beside her. Félicité and Bast were seated halfway down on the opposite side. It was a trial to watch Morgan and Captain Bonhomme vying with one other for the woman’s attention. Though Bast piled her plate with food, Félicité had little appetite. She sipped from her cup of punch, and promptly choked on the breath-snatching mixture. Bast pounded her on the back then until, laughing, with tears streaming from her eyes, she begged him to stop.

  The sense of constraint between them was eased after that. Bast felt it too, for he caught her hand, gazing at her with something near adoration in his eyes. “Mademoiselle — Félicité, you are beyond compare in loveliness tonight.”

  “Thank you, Bast. It is kind of you to say so.” Her smile was perhaps more confiding than it might have been under other circumstances.

  “You grow more beautiful every day. I have watched you and marveled, when you did not know I was there.”

  “Bast—” she began uneasily.

  “Does it trouble you to know that I keep you in my sight? It has become a habit with me, watching you from a distance, when you are with Morgan. It gives me pleasure only to be able to see the place where I know you rest, though it also brings pain to think of you with another.”

  How could she be unaffected by such a declaration? “Oh, Bast, I didn’t know.”

  “How should you, if in my pride and despair I hide it, at times even from myself. Ah, Félicité. I must speak to you, later, when we may be private.”

  His voice was low and hurried. He flicked a look at Morgan. The other man sent them a hard stare, then leaned close to hear Isabella as she spoke over the increasing noise.

  “I don’t know,” she began.

  “Please, the time grows short.”

  Her lips curved in a smile of determined gaiety. “But the night has only begun.”

  “I wasn’t speaking of this night only—” He stopped, closing his mouth in a tight line, though the look of pleading did not fade from his eyes.

  How uncomplicated he was, and how faithful. Did he fear that she and Morgan would be reconciled before he could make his declaration? He need not. The possibility was remote. But why should she not allow him to speak? There could be no harm in it.

  “Very well,” she said, “later.”

  Before a half hour had passed, the food was gone, down to the last crisp curl of pork skin. While the rum punch made another round, a jew’s harp, a squeeze box, and a fiddle were brought out. A man from the Prudence danced a hornpipe as his shipmates bellowed the words. A jig followed, and then a quadrille and a gavotte. The seamen pulled the women to their feet and whirled them over the sand. Dipping and swaying, laughing, staggering, they kept time to the music.

  The inky waves pounded on the shore as the tide came in, sending salt spray toward them in a fine mist. The stars sifted down, hanging just above the sea as if caught in a netting of cloud. The fires burned down to red embers over which small devil flames played. The shadows of the palm forest darkened, becoming impenetrable, and the dark crowned heads of the trees rearing toward the sky were silhouetted, blackness upon blackness. Gradually, the crowd about the table grew thinner as men and women drifted into the woods. The sound of muttered voices and small panting cries echoed on the wind.

  Then from the sea rose the glittering edge of a silver disc. The water took on a lighter, more turquoise tint, and the sky softened to gray. By small jerks visible to the naked eye, the great, round, full moon leaped upward. It threw down a glaring track along which waves rolled, and silvered the world with brightness so hard and blazing that the dimmest printed folio could be read with ease.

  There were only a few couples left at the table. They gazed at each other with drunken ardor, or else were locked together with cohesive mouths hungrily agape. Turning toward the head of the table, Félicité saw with a small sense of shock that Captain Bonhomme sat alone, nursing a mug of rum and staring with brooding eyes at the rising moon. Morgan and Isabella were gone.

  Félicité drew her feet under her, preparing to rise. Bast came quickly erect, putting a hand under her elbow to help her. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I — I don’t know. Shall we walk?”

  “If you like.”

  He fell into step beside her, retaining a light grasp on her arm. Under the circumstances, the beach seemed to offer the least chance of embarrassing encounters. By common consent, they turned in that direction. Bast shifted to walk nearest the water’s edge, touching his fingers to her arm once more. The wind ruffled his hair, fluttering the ribbon of his queue, and slapped his shirt collar against his cheek. It sent the ends of Félicité’s hair flying and billowed her skirts so that she was forced to keep one hand on them to hold them down.

  The cove where the ships were hove to had a shape like a sickle. On the two curving points at either end, the palm forest grew almost to the water’s edge, blocking the view of the beach farther along the island. The thatched hut shared by Félicité and Morgan was near the western end of the half circle. Almost by instinct, Félicité glanced toward it as they passed, but it sat dark and still and, to all appearances, empty. They took a narrow path that cut across the westernmost point of the cove, passing under the bent and twisted shape of sea pine. Before them lay the long stretch of open beach, shining pale gold with the light of the moon.

  In the shadow of that thin band of forest, Bast halted, his fingers tightening on Félicité’s arm so that she stopped beside him. “Querida, my dearest one,” he said. “Once I asked you to come to me unwed. That was a grievous mistake, perhaps the most terrible I have made in my life. I should have offered you my heart, my life, my lands that will come to me from my father, in short, everything that I am, I have, or ever hope to own, and with it, my name. I beg you to forgive me for the omission, and to accept it now.”

  What had she expected? A declaration of love to soothe her shattered vanity? An expression of desire that she could not answer in kind, but might, if he were gentle and caring, have agreed to assuage on this night with Morgan and Isabella somewhere on the island together? She should have known it would not be so simple.

  “Oh, Bast,” she said. “It’s impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible. When we leave here we can return to New Orleans—”

  “Return to New Orleans! It cannot be.”

  “Why? Is it because you fear how people will behave toward you? I assure you they understand now, since you left so soon after your father’s death, that what you had done, your association with a Spanish officer, was for his sake. They honor
you for your sacrifice, even if it was in vain.”

  She stared at him, wishing she could see his features more clearly there in the moving shadows. “If that is true, I can only be thankful, and indebted to you for telling me of it. But soon enough they will learn that I am with this band of pirates, a corsair’s woman. What will they say then? And what will they say of Juan Sebastian Unzaga, a Spanish officer turned renegade? If you return you will be arrested on sight.”

  It was a long moment before he spoke, and then his voice held a tone of reluctance, as though there were arguments to be presented for his case if he cared to use them. “Yes — I suppose you are right. We could go to Havana then, and from there take ship for Spain.”

  “But surely even there you will be a wanted man?”

  “My father is not without influence at court.” He made a careless gesture with one hand. “Something may be done to clear my name.”

  A frown drew Félicité’s brows together. He was taking a most cavalier attitude toward his career as a buccaneer. “Bast,” she said slowly, “I don’t think you realize—”

  “But I do. I realize I love you, Félicité, that I want you as my wife. Whatever it takes to have you, to pluck you from this damnable coil in which you are caught, I am ready to do.”

  It seemed so remote, this future that he was suggesting, like a dream that could not possibly come true. The only reality was the island and the sea and the ships that waited. What more was there? What more could there ever be?

  She turned from him, walking once more so that he had either to hold her by force, release her, or walk with her. He chose the latter course, falling into step beside her.

  “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head so that her hair streamed like a gold curtain behind her.

  “I do,” he said. “Only put yourself in my hands and I will arrange everything.”

  “What of Morgan?”

  “What of him? You owe him nothing, since he has not even seen fit to tell you—”