“Those two small wharves will improve anchorage and protect the levee from damage. Yet the larger wharf isn’t supported by the merchants. They refuse to pay daily wharfage fees.” Geralde shook his head. “Have you kept up on the news from Europe? General Bonaparte is still in Egypt, trying to stop the British expansion in the orient.”
“Sadly, England’s Admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet in Aboukir Bay—”
Volet poked Jean’s shoulder. “No business or war discussions, we are here to carouse and make merry.” She pretended to sulk as she hung on Jean’s arm.
People continued to jostle them on all sides.
“A splendid idea, making merry.” Geralde rubbed his hands together, looking at the three of them. “Mes amis, I know of a party at the Maison Roumoulet. All the upper crust will be there. The Creoles savor their private balls, but I’ve been invited to this one...and any guests I care to bring.”
“Roumoulet? You do have envious connections,” Jean said with a hearty laugh.
“I did Monsieur Roumoulet a great favor once.” Geralde winked.
“Oh, by all means, let’s go.” Volet pressed a hand to her cheek, her face glowing like a woman half her age. “I think I knew a Roumoulet in Paris.”
Geralde’s gaze settled on Bettina and he offered his arm.
“I am honored, sir.” She curled her hand around his sleeve and he led them through the maze of people. Flattered by his attention, she’d banish her reluctance and enjoy his company. Pleased with the warmth of his touch, dare she encourage him again? “You are very kind, as always. I do not deserve it.”
“I don’t hold grudges, Madame. I will admit, I’m still attracted to you, but…” He shrugged. “How are your children?”
They fell into easy banter, talking of Genevre and Christian.
The sun had set. An array of bonfires and colorful lanterns festively lit the city as they followed Geralde’s lead. He showed them to an impressive mansion, one street over from Bourbon Street, on Rue Royale. People meandered in and out of the wide, double front doors at the top of steep stairs and languished in groups on the upper gallery supported by brick pillars, viewed over a plastered wall. Boisterous laughter could be heard inside.
A small group of musicians played lively music in front of an open wrought-iron gate, emblazoned with an elaborate R. People began to dance, taking off their shoes and prancing in the dirt.
“Leave it to the Roumoulets to entertain out here as well. I suppose it’s to discourage gate crashers.” Geralde now faced Bettina and bowed. “May I have the pleasure, Madame?”
“Dance, dear, you can do it.” Volet nudged her in the ribs. “You need to experience pleasure.”
“Allow me a minute. Though I will keep my shoes on.” Bettina thrust her wineglass into her mother’s hands. She slipped into Geralde’s arms, and let him twirl her to the music. She delighted in the vibrant beat as his touch gently guided her. She shut her eyes and enticed the sounds to infuse and rearrange her thoughts. As the music ended, Bettina and Geralde laughed after she tripped over his foot. He hugged her and kissed her cheek. She shyly hugged him back.
“Shall we go on up?” he asked.
At the top of the stairs, a butler decked out as a seventeenth century French footman verified their right to admission. Entering the foyer they were accosted by liveried servants passing trays, with wine and delicacies offered in abundance. The place was packed with lavishly dressed, costumed people. Many wore masks.
Jean grasped her mother’s hand and they moved to join the people dancing. Zeus and Hera on Mount Olympus.
“I see a governor’s aid I must speak with. I’ve been searching for him all week.” Geralde stared between several people. “If you won’t mind?”
“Of course not,” Bettina replied. She had no command on his concentration, though she was disappointed. A change of heart, or was she full of wine and whimsy? “You must do as you wish.”
“I’ll find you when I’m finished.” He squeezed her shoulder and slipped into the crowd.
Bettina accepted another glass of wine and wandered into the main ballroom. She watched the other guests with interest. Princesses and devils shuffled past her, and a few Marie Antoinettes and Cleopatras, Indians, and Louis XIV with a huge black wig.
Pomade and French perfume thickened the air as the people milled about or danced to a small orchestra set up on the far left side of the room. The place was sumptuous with sparkling candles in silver candlesticks, silk and damask, double cut velvet draperies, and plush Turkey carpets.
Bettina stopped in front of a huge marble fireplace where Chinese porcelain figurines sat on the mantelpiece. She picked up and ate a sugared almond from a nearby silver dish set out on a cypress table. Crunchy and sweet.
She turned at a sharp tap on her shoulder, to find a statuesque woman dressed all in green waving a matching silk fan. A jeweled tiara sparkled on her head as she held an emerald satin mask in front of her face.
The woman lowered the mask to reveal the perfect, glacial features of Lucrece Bardou, Geralde’s former fiancée. She looked exquisite in her flowing gown, neat honey curls and red-rouged lips. “Good evening, Madame Camborne.”
“A lovely evening, Mademoiselle Bardou.”
“I would like a word with you, can you come upstairs?”
“Have a word with me here.” Bettina took another drink of her wine, suspicious of this woman’s intent.
“It’s very private and important.” Lucrece waved her fan between them, her gaze darting about the room. “I want no one to hear us.”
“We have never spoken before, except when you’ve ordered at the café. What could be so important?” Bettina set down her empty glass, about to walk away.
Lucrece raised her elegant brows. “Very well, we’ll talk here. Are you seeing my Geralde? You have been noticed with him these past months.” She swatted her fan. “And you were dancing with him out front, like two peasants.”
Bettina half-expected this and stifled a laugh. The wine seeped into her muscles, relaxing her. “We have spent time together, yes. Why is it your business? I heard you were involved with someone else.”
Lucrece tipped up her perfect chin. “That didn’t work out. Geralde and I were practically married. I plan to convince him to change his profession and settle down, with me.” She poked her fan into Bettina’s face. “Without you underfoot.”
Bettina swiped the fan aside. “If he wants to court me, that is our affair.” She grew irritated, yet the idea of his courting her again sent excited quivers along her body. “I have nothing more to say to you.”
“You stay away from him, I’m warning you.” Lucrece turned. A masked man bowed in her path. She jabbed her fan into his chest. “You had better not be a Negro, sir. The law forbids you to mask.” She tossed her curls in superiority and flounced off.
Bettina laughed and walked in the other direction from the shrew. She looked around for Geralde, unsure if she should warn him about Lucrece. He may not even want to court Bettina again, and she couldn’t blame him. She’d find him and ask him to dance with the others, under the gigantic crystal chandelier that shimmered and reflected candlelight in sprinkles across the ceiling and walls.
Someone tugged on her sleeve. Bettina glanced down to a Negro child dressed in white cap and apron. “Yes, dear?”
“Pardon, Madame. A man wishes to speak to you.” The girl stared up with large black eyes. “He is on the side gallery.”
Was it Geralde, hiding from Lucrece? “Show me where. Is he a handsome man in buckskins?” She followed the child down a short hallway to a set of long windows. Then she hesitated, uneasy in the shadows. “Can you ask him to come inside?”
“He says he has news about your children.” The girl opened the windows.
Could Fred be here? Were th
e children ill? Bettina winced and poked her head out to scan the dark porch. “Who is here?” Now she wished she’d brought Jean with her.
A man stepped forward, and waved the girl off. The long windows clicked shut. “I have news from your nephew. You must return to the cottage.”
“What has happened? Are my children all right?” She hurried out, thoughts confused.
He clasped her arm. “Come with me, Madame, and I will explain.”
“Tell me who you are first.” She resisted his tug on her arm, her skin prickling.
His grip tightened and he shuffled her toward the steps. “Do not fight me, I have a gun.”
“Mais non. How dare you. Let me go!” Bettina gasped and struggled. A pistol barrel stabbed into her side.
“Keep quiet. I don’t want to hurt you.” He dragged her down the steps into an alley.
“Please, what do you want?” She scuffed her feet over the dirt, panic squeezing her chest. “My mother is with the sheriff of Mahieu.”
He forced her down the dark alley. Their footsteps echoed off the looming walls on both sides. Laughter and shouting came from somewhere, the revelers still out in the night.
“Wait, you have made a mistake.” Bettina fought sobs, confused, this couldn’t be happening. “You haven’t harmed my children, have you?”
“I said to stay quiet, citizen ci-devant.” His voice calm, even bland, he twisted the pistol barrel into the side of her neck. He jerked her arm behind her back and pushed her along.
Bettina swallowed a scream, the cold metal prodding her flesh. The image of Gaspar the Hunter and Bernard Little sliced through her mind. Both revolutionaries who had stalked her in Cornwall.
At the alley’s end there was no street, but a dark lane.
He shoved her forward. She groaned at the pain in her arm, staggering down the shadowed road. They traversed more dark allies, then side streets, avoiding the celebrating populace. A cat meowed from one of the shacks they passed.
“Slow down. I cannot breathe.” Bettina coughed and sputtered, in an effort to stall him. Her stomach clenched in terror. “Where are you taking me?”
The tiny pistol barrel jabbed into her flesh again. “Typical aristo, you don’t listen. We’re almost there.” His voice lowered to a sinister calm. His grip tightened on her arm.
The fishy stink of the wharf rose up. Bettina’s heart seemed to climb into her throat. She sucked in her breath, about to jerk away and risk being shot.
Her captor pulled open a shack door in a jumble of buildings. He shoved her inside.
Bettina stumbled over ropes and up against a wall, then turned to face this insane stranger. He lit a candle and set it on a barrel where the light flickered, enhancing the pallor of his skin. He wore the rough clothes of a laborer.
“Mon Dieu, I demand to know what is the meaning of this.” She choked and wheezed, as anger cut into her fear. “My mother is with the sheriff of Mahieu and he won’t stand for your behavior.”
“Patience, Miss Jonquiere. You don’t need to know the particulars as yet.” The man crouched down to dig through a canvas bag at his feet.
Bettina pressed against the wooden wall, reminded of the cottage in Cornwall where Gaspar had cornered her. Every time anyone called her Miss Jonquiere, she ended up in danger. She stifled a groan. “Are you a revolutionary? I have nothing of my father’s, if that’s what you seek. I have no money. I beg you to let me go.”
“What I seek will all make sense soon enough.” He straightened and strode forward, his smile smug in his ghostly face. He held up a vial of liquid.
“Merde! Stay back!” She lashed out, clawing her nails across his cheek, raising her knee to ram into his groin. “Help me, someone!”
He lunged against her, pinning her with his thick shoulder. The breath knocked from her, she whipped aside her head. He grasped her hair at the crown to still her and crammed the vial under her nose.
Bettina screamed, struggling to push him away. The acrid smell invaded her nostrils as lights wavered and sparked before her eyes and across the man’s face. She gagged, her lungs burning and her muscles lost substance as she sank to the floor.
Chapter Twelve
Bettina’s head throbbed behind her eyes. Her chest ached when she breathed. She felt weak and sleepy. She finally raised her hand and trailed fingers across her scalp to push at the pain. Her hair felt tangled, her crown stung. What poisonous alcohol had she imbibed to put her in this condition? Her fragmented memory was walking through New Orleans with her mother and Jean...Carnival.
She moaned and squinted, while trying to open her eyes. She was in a dark-paneled room that wasn’t her bedchamber. The cramped chamber’s windowless walls pushed in on her. The stink of fish and brine thickened the air. She struggled to sit up, but even that simple movement irritated the thudding in her brain.
In a surge of nausea, she flattened once more on the thin mattress and stared up at the ceiling. A lantern suspended there swung back and forth as the bed seemed to heave beneath her.
“Mon Dieu,” Bettina whispered, her thoughts spinning.
The door in front of her opened. A man and a woman entered. Upon seeing the man, Bettina had a flicker of recognition, a cringe of fear. This man had dragged her down an alley.
“The ci-devant is finally awake,” the woman snarled in clipped French through her thin lips.
“How do you feel?” The man leaned over the bed, his voice a touch concerned. Fresh scratches marred his pasty cheeks. Bettina glared at him. So many accusations trembled on the back of her tongue. He turned to his companion. “She isn’t speaking, bring her some water.”
The woman grimaced and strode out. She returned with a tin cup, which she thrust at her.
Bettina dragged herself up on one elbow and drank the brackish water, desperate to wet her throat and unglue her tongue. “Where are you taking me, and why?” she demanded in a raspy voice.
“All in good time,” the man replied, half-smiling. “Would you like something to eat?”
“I want an answer to my question.” Bettina gulped down her anger and lay back on the mattress, her hand pressing on her brow.
“Yes, get some rest. We’ll talk when you’re feeling better,” the man said.
Bettina groaned after they withdrew. Obviously she was on a ship with this rhythmic rise and fall. Terror filled her mind, while worrying she was kidnapped forever from her children washed over her. She gripped the mattress. Her eyes blurred with tears. After several deep breaths, she rubbed her aching temples. She feared what they wanted. Their actions had to involve her father’s discovery at the beginning of the revolution.
She must learn their tactics, then she’d know where to bargain. The ship creaked around her and her memory edged back in painful bits and pieces.
* * * *
Later, the woman returned and plopped a bowl down on a small table. “Here, eat this. Renew your strength, he says.” Her tone mocking, she pushed the table next to the berth, slopping a measure of soup over the bowl’s rim.
“I refuse to eat anything until you tell me why I’m here.” Bettina stiffened on the bed, her fingertips kneading the rough sheet beneath her. “Where are we sailing to?”
“Don’t try your high and mighty attitude on me. You’re nothing now. No more special than anyone else.” The woman’s hard gray eyes glared out from her plain face, her mouth a colorless gash. She might have been in her thirties, but grizzled hair hung lank along her sunken cheeks.
“I don’t understand what you are talking about and demand to be released.” Bettina gritted her teeth. “There has to be a law protecting people from being snatched by insane–”
“Shut up, you worthless parasite.” The woman loomed over her, hand raised, her sallow face sharpened in anger. “I’d like to wring the truth from you now.”
“Don’t you dare touch me.” Bettina jerked up and the room lurched around her. Her brain thrashed inside her skull. “I have nothing you want.”
“If you value the lives of your children, you will cooperate.” The woman tossed a spoon on the blanket and with a last sneer stomped out.
“My children! What have you done with my children?” Bettina crawled from the bed, stumbled forward and banged on the closed door. She jerked on the knob. “Come back here and tell me what you mean!”
The door opened and the man stepped in, frowning. He held out his large hands. “Calm yourself, Miss Jonquiere.”
Bettina scuffled back to the bed and sat down, her head so dizzy. Panic threatened to choke her. “Has anyone harmed my children?”
“Mais non. We are only keeping an eye on them in your little cottage. To insure you cooperate with us.”
“Please, don’t harm them. I’ll…I’ll do what you want.” She pressed her hands on both sides of her head, her children’s laughter echoing in her memory. She wished she could think clearly, devise a plan. Her lips quivered. “What do you require of me? Where are you taking me?”
“C’est vrai, you have reason to be upset.” He pulled over a crate and sat down. The wood creaked under his bulk. “Still, you should eat. Stubbornness will get you nowhere.”
Bettina stared at the congealing soup and stifled a retch. “Who are you, and your ungracious woman friend?”
“My name is Emile Zacharie.” He scratched at his blond stubble of beard, his skin milky-white like the underbelly of a fish, with his cheeks red slashed by her nails. “I was a member of the Jacobins. We worked for the revolution, gathering large sums of money from our members, and others, to buy weapons, horses, and such. Your father, an aristocrat, tried to prevent this by stealing our funds. It didn’t stop us, but made things difficult and infuriated many people.”
Bettina’s heart tumbled, but she wasn’t shocked. She’d suffered through similar altercations with the previous men sent to find her. She clasped her flimsy dress close and wondered what had happened to the thicker over tunic. “I know most of this.”
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