Emilie (The Cajun Series Book 1)

by Claire, Cherie

  Phillip smiled warmly and Emilie realized she was going to miss her friend, especially the calming influence he offered when she and Lorenz launched into argument. “Do get some rest. It’s Saturday and there is always a dance after the sun goes down. You wouldn’t want to be too exhausted to have a turn with me later.”

  Music, Emilie thought. When was the last time she had danced? She couldn’t remember. Tears formed in her eyes and this time she didn’t bother wiping them away. Phillip pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “Everything will be fine,” he assured her, then headed for the north side of the village.

  “Where’s he going?” Lorenz asked, coming to her side. “And why are you crying?”

  Emilie wiped her nose with her sleeve smearing mud across her face. “Merde,” she shouted, stomping her foot.

  Celestine’s eyes grew enormous at her use of vulgarity. Lorenz shot her a look of consternation. “What?” she asked him angrily.

  When Lorenz glanced over her shoulder, Emilie’s heart sank. She turned to find Celestine’s entire family staring at her, including several children and an elderly woman cupping the ears of the youngest child. Emilie wished a crawfish hole would open up and swallow her whole.

  “I am Lorenz Dugas and this is Emilie Gallant of Grand Pré, most recently of Port Tobacco.” Lorenz extended his hand, which thankfully turned their attention away from the large cussing woman with a filthy face and bare feet. The father shook Lorenz’s hand and welcomed them, but it was clear he was not pleased with Emilie’s unladylike behavior. The mother, an older mirror image of Celestine, cautiously welcomed Emilie into their house.

  “She needs a bath, Maman.” Celestine didn’t hesitate to slide her arm into the crock of Emilie’s elbow, helping her into their home. Emilie protested, that Celestine’s help would only smear mud on to her own shirt, but Celestine insisted with a smile. Emilie sighed, giving in to the forces at work that day. She was competing with a saint after all.

  The sun began to disappear between the live oak trees and still her clothes remained damp. A fitting end to a horrendous day, Emilie thought. After Celestine and her mother had removed her clothes and insisted upon helping her with her bath, the two women asked the nearby families for clothes, only to return home empty-handed. Emilie wouldn’t have minded wearing her jupon, or petticoat, until her clothes dried, but even her undergarments were caked in dirt. She ended up wearing one of Celestine’s father’s shirts, which draped over her torso like a priest’s cloak, and Charles Braud’s tight britches, which threatened to suffocate her. And as if to mock her and all her inadequacies, her large feet protruded from the inches-short trousers like those dreadful cypress knees. She would have cried, but she was past tears.

  “The dance is going to start soon,” Lorenz said as he approached. “Will your clothes be dried by then?”

  When Emilie glanced up at Lorenz’s towering figure, dressed in a clean, pressed shirt and trousers and a dark blue vest and looking every bit as handsome, the tears returned. Despite his height, Lorenz never had trouble finding clothes to borrow. And there would be dozens of women eager to catch his hand in a dance that evening, looking as breathtaking as he did. Emilie wouldn’t be one of them.

  “My clothes are still wet,” she said, not caring of the emotions emerging in her voice.

  Lorenz sat down next to her on the back stairs leading up to the house. Emilie pulled her exposed shins up underneath the enormous shirt and Lorenz sent her a sly smile. It was a fruitless gesture; he had witnessed her legs many times before.

  “It’s not proper, you seeing me like this,” Emilie said anyway.

  “True.” Lorenz twirled his hat in his fingers. “Since we don’t intend to marry, it’s best we stop enjoying the liberties we’ve shared before.”

  Emilie felt the tears rise in her eyes thinking that not only would Lorenz forget their passionate secret kisses and marry another, but their livelong friendship would be over. It was all well and good. He was better off with the likes of angelic Celestine, but she couldn’t bear the thought of it.

  “Have you heard news of Papa,” she said fighting back the anguish.

  Like so many times in the past, Lorenz caught an escaped tendril of Emilie’s hair and tucked it behind her ear. “There are men here who remember him.”

  Emilie’s hazel eyes shot up to his and Lorenz felt the power of her gaze deep in his soul. God, how the woman could move him, even after three days of endless arguments or refusals to talk sense. The woman’s power over him was a constant mystery. Every logical thought in his brain urged him to move on, to marry another, to find a sensible girl who would be happy to marry a healthy, hard-working man. But Emilie owned a piece of his heart, and no matter how hard he vowed the contrary, she would always do so.

  She appeared so lost in her oversized shirt and boy’s britches, so fragile, so emotionally raw. This was not the typical Emilie he knew and loved, not the woman who helped him bring in the crops last autumn or the rallying force on the ship from Maryland when storms set in and the children grew afraid. Emilie the undefeatable he called her, only now she appeared as if misery had taken the upper hand.

  He wanted to believe she pined for him, that his attention to Celestine was the cause of her sadness, but he knew she was only concerned for her father’s welfare. He didn’t blame her for that. He knew she had fears for their future, that they might have traveled to Louisiana in vain. But he so much wanted dearly to hold her close, to offer her comfort and be a safe haven no matter what the future brought, including the loss of her father.

  “A man of your father’s description was in the village several months ago,” Lorenz began. “He said he had arrived in Louisiana with Joseph Broussard, with the first boatload from Halifax.”

  “Halifax?” Emilie asked, eager to hear more. “Why would he have been in Halifax?”

  “According to what the men told me today, Joseph Broussard, who some call BeauSoleil, led a group of men into hiding in the Canadian wilderness when the English exiled us. Some went to New Brunswick, others to Isle Saint Jean. Your father, if this man was your father, went with Broussard.”

  Emilie’s eyes brightened and she sat up straight, her long, slim legs emerging from beneath the shirt. Lorenz smiled. Even at her worst, dressed as a half-man, half-boy, the woman’s sensuous beauty was awe-inspiring.

  “They led ambushes against the English, but they eventually surrendered when they ran out of food and proper clothing,” Lorenz continued. “They were imprisoned at Halifax.”

  “Then how did they get here?” Emilie inquired.

  Lorenz grinned broadly. Acadians weren’t the richest or the most educated people in the world, but damned if they weren’t smart. “It seems the English brought in their own people to live on our land, but they didn’t know how to operate our dike system. So they paid your father and BeauSoleil to teach them how. Of course, your father and BeauSoleil and the rest of the imprisoned men charged them a pretty penny for the lesson, enough to pay for a passage to Louisiana and freedom from the yoke of the Crown.”

  Emilie smiled then, as proud as he was that her father had outsmarted the English. “So, is he near here? Is he at St. Gabriel waiting for us?”

  Lorenz glanced back down at his hat. He honestly didn’t know what to expect. “A man of Joseph’s description came through here, Emilie...”

  “Is he here, Lorenz?” she asked anxiously.

  “He came through here, Emilie, but no one knows for sure where he is now.” He stared at her troubled eyes, her smile gone. “He said he had a land grant out west of the Great Swamp, that he was traveling across the territory to find his family. But the last they saw of him he was heading toward New Orleans.”

  “New Orleans?” Emilie eyes grew enormous and she shook her head. “We got word that he was in St. Gabriel. That’s only a few more leagues up the river, no?”

  Lorenz grasped both her hands and rubbed his thumbs across her fingers. “I told you before,
my love, we’ll find him.”

  The tears finally broke through Emilie’s resistance and flowed down her cheeks. Lorenz moved a hand to gently wipe them away, relishing in the feel of her soft countenance. “What if we missed him, if he was in New Orleans all the time...?”

  “I sent out inquiries when we were there and received nothing. He would have met the boat, Em. He would have known we had arrived.”

  “But then where...?”

  Precisely the question Lorenz wanted answered. “I don’t know. We’ll continue on to St. Gabriel and keep our hopes up.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Emilie, if it takes the last breath in me, I’ll find him.”

  Emilie reached inside his breast pocket and retrieved a handkerchief, then blew her nose soundly. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said, wiping the rest of the moisture from her face.

  “What?”

  Emilie pulled away from his embrace and looked away. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll never change.”

  He wanted to demand an explanation, but Lorenz heard voices approaching the rear gallery. Emilie threw him the handkerchief and scurried behind the clothesline, well hidden behind the billowing sheets and dresses.

  “Bonjour,” Celestine said happily as she exited the house. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  “I’ve come to talk to you,” Lorenz answered. The young girl’s cinnamon eyes nearly doubled and her face exploded in a smile. “It’s about Emilie.”

  To her credit, Celestine didn’t so much as blink. Perhaps she envisioned Emilie merely a friend of the family. He wished he could think the same. Marrying a sweet, attentive woman like Celestine would be a nice alternative to the relentless pain of Emilie’s refusals. If that was what he wanted.

  Celestine’s mother joined them on the rear gallery. “Lorenz,” she said as happily as her daughter. “So good to see you again.”

  He was in trouble, Lorenz thought, as he absorbed the two women’s overeager smiles. Better to state his case and he gone. “Madame Bourgeois,” he answered, bowing. “I have a request to make of you. It concerns Emilie.”

  “Anything,” Victorine Bourgeois answered less enthusiastically. Lorenz almost laughed thinking back on Emilie’s use of vulgarity in front of the Bourgeois family. He was sure they would offer no obstacle to his demand.

  “Louis Hébert has left on a hunting trip and is not expected back for several days,” Lorenz began. “I have been given the use of his cabin in his absence. I can sleep anywhere and would be happy to use the barn, so I was hoping I could offer the cabin to Emilie instead.” Lorenz swore he heard a gasp from behind the sheets and he fought the urge to smile. “She needs it more than I.”

  “But we can’t let poor Emilie sleep in a man’s cabin by herself,” Celestine retorted. “She would be lonely.”

  Now Lorenz did smile. “I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, but Emilie is in need of solitude these days. I doubt she will be lonely. You may have noticed her disagreeable nature this morning. Searching for her father has not been easy for her.”

  “All the more reason for her to be near other people,” the mother said. “We shouldn’t let her out of our sight.”

  For a moment Lorenz feared his good intentions had backfired and that the two women would be more attentive to Emilie than before. “Emilie has long taken care of herself, her mother and two sisters,” he insisted. “And I will make sure she wants for nothing.”

  “You are very sweet, Lorenz.” Celestine sent him an adoring look. “But women need to take care of their own kind.”

  He had to arrange this, Lorenz thought. If he was the cause of Emilie being made over by two insistent females, she would never speak to him again. For a moment, the revenge was tempting, but he knew Emilie was in no emotional state for such a game.

  “Madame, mademoiselle,” he began earnestly. “Surely you have noticed that Emilie is not your typical female.” When the women remained silent, he almost laughed. “Then let me impress upon you, since I have known her since childhood, that the best thing Emilie needs now is solitude and peace. We shall be moving on to St. Gabriel and only God knows what we will find there.”

  Lorenz hated speaking the words. They pierced his heart and he knew Emilie felt their power from behind her thin shield of laundry.

  “We will bring her meals,” the mother began. “Every day. And make sure she has clean clothes.”

  Celestine moved toward the clothesline. “I’ll get her clean sheets.”

  “Let me.” Lorenz grabbed the end of the sheet from Celestine’s hands and their contact brought a bright blush to the young girl’s cheek. While she fought to regain her composure, Lorenz slid the sheet off the line with his back to Emilie, watching Emilie move out of sight through the corner of his eye. He slowly folded the sheet, then turned in Emilie’s direction and sent her a wink. “All taken care of,” he said before heading toward his cabin.

  “What a thoughtful man,” Emilie heard Victorine remark as Lorenz strolled down the lane leading to the other houses. “I wonder if Emilie realizes what a friend she has in Lorenz.”

  They didn’t know the half of it, Emilie thought. No one, save her mother and sisters, would ever know her like Lorenz did. And there were times when only Lorenz understood the inner workings of her soul.

  She watched his tall form disappear around the bend of the path and felt his absence intently. She had sent him away, most likely for the last time, but she felt helpless to change the course of fate. Despite what Anna insisted about love giving one strength, Emilie felt defeated and empty. Lorenz and his brush with the soldiers had nearly destroyed her. Knowing that he could have been exiled for his insubordination had robbed her of all rational thought that night. Her chest had constricted, her breathing labored. A knife in her gut would have been a preferred choice of pain than watching Lorenz being outcast.

  And now, in a sense, he was going away. He would be happier with the likes of Celestine, she assured herself. That was what he wanted: a home, a family, a woman to love him.

  Emilie shut her eyes tightly to ward off the image of Lorenz in another woman’s arms. Despite her best intentions, she couldn’t let him go.

  The fiddler concluded his mournful ballad about a lover waiting for her soldier to return from war and launched into a joyful tune. Most of the village’s women lit up with excitement and the men responded gaily by grabbing them for a turn around the campfire. Several of the men, as was usual, eyed Emilie throughout the dance, waiting for a signal. Brave souls even crossed the void to where Emilie sat with the older women of the village and asked for a dance. But Emilie refused every time.

  “Why don’t you dance, chèr?” Widow Melancon asked. “The men are dying to make your acquaintance.”

  Emilie knew well what the men were dying to do and she wasn’t interested in playing those games. She wasn’t up to small talk and requests for further courting from men who appreciated her figure and most likely little else. If she was in the market for a husband, which she wasn’t, the man was already bought and paid for. Of course, she had practically given her merchandise away, giftwrapped.

  “I much rather enjoy hearing la ’tite causette,” Emilie answered the elderly woman, remarking on their constant stream of gossip. “It’s gratifying to hear news of people I haven’t seen since childhood. Not to mention that I met three people here tonight that I knew in Grand Pré.”

  “And I’m sure you will meet more when you get to St. Gabriel,” Widow Melancon added. “But now you need to dance.”

  Emilie glanced across the stretch of field laid flat by the beating of the dancers’ feet, highlighted by a blazing fire in its center. Lorenz never missed a chance to turn a girl around the campfire, asking Celestine for at least three dances. Amazing how he could delight in other women’s company when she had no desire to so much as talk to another man.

  The familiar pain returned, like a blow to the chest. He wanted a wife, no doubt he was working his way to the altar. But
was that all she had meant to him, a love to be cast off so soon?

  Stupid girl, she berated herself. What did you expect him to do, wither up and die at your feet?

  “Yes,” she practically said aloud. Their separation was nearly killing her and he was the one who first proposed marriage. Why wasn’t he suffering as she did?

  “You love that boy, don’t you?” Phillip asked as he approached her for a drink.

  “Who?” Emilie moved her gaze back to her work filling mugs of water and cutting slices of gateaux de syrup, a cake laced with a Louisiana syrup, one that came from cane growing from the ground instead of the kind that dripped from maple trees.

  “Don’t be coy with me, silly girl,” Phillip said with a fatherly grin. “Remember how we met? You were covered in mud and pretending to be a boy, just so you could follow that man upriver? Or follow that man anywhere perhaps.”

  Emilie filled his mug and met his gaze as she handed it to him. “I had to get to St. Gabriel to reunite my family. And as you can plainly see, Lorenz doesn’t seem to be missing me, nor I him.”

  Phillip took a long drink than returned the mug to Emilie. “You’re both fools. Life is too short for such nonsense. You too should have learned that in the past thirteen years. Be glad you’re alive and that you have each other. So many of us were not as lucky.”

  Emilie’s gossip session with the older women had revealed that many of her neighbors and friends in Grand Pré had perished in le grand dérangement. Phillip had a point, one they would take to heart if Lorenz and Emilie were rational people.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” she told him.

  Phillip smiled and took his wife’s hand for a slow dance. Out of habit, Emilie searched for Lorenz through the crowd. When she spotted him returning a young woman to her mother’s side, she noticed his smile disappear and a cloud pass over his eyes. It was then Emilie recognized the song.

  A La Claire Fontaine was a soft ballad Lorenz’s mother used to sing to them at bedtime. Emilie had heard it many times when their mothers had visited and the children were put down for naps around the family’s enormous hearth. Her voice was exquisite, much like Rose’s in its clarity and range. The children actually delighted in naps just to hear Lisette Dugas’ magnificent voice.