The Magnolia Duchess

by Beth White

  Just as she reined Button to a halt behind Sergeant Morris, the balcony doors above her opened, and Jackson himself stepped out. Tall and gaunt as a pine tree and just about as ugly, with his wizened, jaundiced face and wild head of gray hair, the general still managed to convey the impression that he was in control of this dire situation and convinced that victory was his due. A great cheer went up from the crowd, just as three other men in civilian dress came out onto the balcony. The first two gentlemen Fiona didn’t recognize. Then the third—a tall, broad-shouldered Spaniard in a beautifully tailored gray coat and striped waistcoat—moved to lean on the rail and scan the audience below.

  In her absorption with getting herself enlisted with the cavalry and keeping her identity hidden all this time, she’d forgotten Desi Palomo was coming to New Orleans with General Jackson. Surreptitiously she looked around. Wedged in as she was, horses in front, carriages and foot traffic to the sides and behind, there was no getting back through the crowd and out of sight. She grabbed her hat brim to shield her face.

  Sensing her anxiety, Button sidled, knocking her sideways. Fiona’s arms instinctively flew out to maintain balance, and off came her hat.

  Horrified, she righted herself and looked up just as Desi’s gaze passed over her—and swung back. Eyes widening, he straightened. The man next to him spoke to him, and he looked away from Fiona to answer.

  She waited, hands clenched on the reins.

  Don’t faint, she told herself. It will be all right.

  In the end what had betrayed her was not Catlett but her own nervous stupidity. She was going to be sent home in disgrace.

  DECEMBER 5, 1814

  MOBILE

  Maddy opened her front door and found her cousin Israel standing on the porch, shifting from one oversized foot to the other, his cheeks red and chapped from the raw wind that had blown in during the last few days.

  “Morning, Maddy.” Giving her his shy, freckle-faced grin, he thrust a sealed letter at her. “Pa said you’d want to see this right away. It’s from Desi.”

  She snatched the folded missive and grabbed the startled Israel in a hug. “Would you like to come in for something warm to drink?”

  “No thanks.” He squirmed out of her hold. “I’ve got to get back to finish my declensions so Pa will let me watch the rest of the troops move out toward New Orleans.”

  “All right.” Patting his shoulder, she backed into the house and shut the door, already picking the seal off with her thumbnail, smiling at the sight of Desi’s firm scrawl. He had only been gone a little over two weeks, and she hadn’t expected to hear from him so soon. Please, God, let it not be bad news.

  “Who was it, chéri?” Mama wandered into the hall from the kitchen, where she had been baking something that smelled of cinnamon and cloves. She dusted flour off her hands and peeked over Maddy’s shoulder. “Ooh! Desi has written! Will you read it aloud? That is, unless . . .” She paused and batted her long eyelashes. “Unless it is too personal.”

  Maddy regretted her inability to squelch a blush. “I’ll be happy to read it. Come let’s sit down in the parlor where we may be comfortable.” She led the way into the front room and perched on the edge of the sofa, smoothing the letter in her lap.

  Mama dropped down beside her with a little “Oof!” and regarded her, golden eyes sparkling. “Hurry, please! Is he well?”

  “Patience, Mama!” Maddy smiled. “He says, ‘My darling Maddy—’”

  Mama squealed in delight. “That is a very good beginning! Read that again.”

  Maddy laughed out loud. “What a spectacular idea. ‘My darling Maddy, I couldn’t wait to put pen to paper and tell you that the only thing that made our cold, wet, and miserable ride to New Orleans bearable was knowing that you and Elijah wait for me safe and sound in your little house in Mobile. I hope you will make notes of the funny remarks that come from that busy little brain and report them to me. And I want to know how you occupy your time as well. I miss you both, more than I can express.

  “‘General Jackson keeps me busy translating and delivering messages to and from the Creole citizenry. His speech upon our arrival was well received, and he has used the week since then to assess and inspect all possible points at which the British might attack. He has also begun to unite the several factions of local defense committees, as well as to requisition funds from the state legislature for supplies and repairs to forts and barricades. He is a sometimes impatient and abrasive personality, but the more time I spend with him, the more I respect his leadership ability. With that said, I’m afraid I have some disturbing news of a more personal nature. Brace yourself, sweetheart, and please read this portion to your mother and father.’”

  Maddy stopped and watched her mother’s eyes widen in dismay.

  Biting her lip, she continued. “‘Right before General Jackson began that wonderful, stirring speech from the balcony of Headquarters—I was with him, translating his words to the Creole populace—I chanced to look down at the crowd and noticed a group of cavalry officers just below the balcony. There was a young boy on a mule among the officers, dressed in the most disreputable garb you ever saw. Suddenly the crowd jostled the mule, the boy’s hat fell off, and I realized it was no boy at all but our own Fiona! She has cut her hair off below her ears, and pasted her face with a layer of dirt, but there was no mistaking the blue eyes and those Lanier eyebrows—’” Maddy choked, unable to continue, and Mama snatched the letter from her.

  “‘Imagine my relief,’” Mama read aloud, “‘to have at last found her, safe and sound. But here is where the story gets difficult to tell. I was about to excuse myself to go to her, when General Jackson began to speak. You can also imagine my distress at being so torn between family duty and patriotic responsibility—I could only pray that Fiona would remain where she was until I could get to her. I tried to keep an eye on her, but after one moment of distraction I looked, and she was gone, leaving the mule riderless—just disappeared as if she’d never been there!

  “‘I have since looked for her all over New Orleans to no avail. I first questioned the cavalry officers who had surrounded Fiona. They had been calling her Israel Lanier, which explains how she managed to pass herself off as a boy—you’ll have to admit she and Israel do favor one another to an astonishing degree—and she was functioning as the company’s horse wrangler. But none of the men could agree on exactly when she vanished from among them or where she might have gone. An officer named Morris was particularly worried for her safety, but in the end he could provide no additional information. An exhaustive investigation of the surrounding environs of the Royal Street headquarters proved equally fruitless.

  “‘Grieved I am to have to give you such frustrating news, but rest assured I shall not give up my search, and I will not come back to Mobile without Fiona. And so, dearest Maddy, I beg your forgiveness and ask you to pray with me for our cousin’s safety until she can be returned to the bosom of her family—and pray for my wisdom and success in the search. With all my love, your Desi.’”

  The letter fell as Mama put her hand to her mouth and stared at Maddy in horror.

  Maddy felt numb. “Oh, Mama, what are we going to do?”

  “We are going to do just as Desi suggests,” Mama said grimly. “We are going to get on our knees and pray.”

  DECEMBER 10, 1814

  VILLERÉ PLANTATION, NINE MILES SOUTH OF NEW ORLEANS

  During her weeklong incarceration, Fiona’s days had been filled with a succession of mind-numbing activities like wrapping lint for bandages and hemming shirts for the militia expected to arrive any day from Kentucky and Virginia. When Madame Villeré announced that they were to have guests that afternoon, she barely restrained a whoop of joy.

  The Villeré’s Creole mansion made a beautiful and luxurious prison. An army of servants kept fires going in every room, and in moments when she felt she could not endure to eat another petit four or popelin (which happened more times a day than she could count), Fiona cou
ld step out the French window of her second-story bedroom and get a breath of cold fresh air. There she would lean her hands on the wrought-iron balcony railing, staring at the orange trees heavy with ripe fruit and the stubbled sugarcane fields. She could imagine herself back on the beach with Bonnie, currying one of the cavalry horses, or even lumping along behind Sergeant Morris on the stoic little Button.

  But that was as close as she got to escaping. When she asked to borrow Madame’s riding habit and go for a ride along the river on one of General Villeré’s blood thoroughbreds, the answer—in French, of course—was inevitably, “Oh, no, mademoiselle, that would be too dangerous. Besides, your brother has said . . .” With a shrug of her elegant shoulders, Madame would add, “I am sorry. Please, have another cup of tea.”

  Her brother said.

  Judah, the traitor. If she’d suspected he would dump her here in this aristocratic lockbox, she would never have gone with him that day outside Andrew Jackson’s headquarters.

  She had been sitting there, frozen, expecting at any moment that Desi would either shout her name from the balcony where he stood with General Jackson, or that he would rush downstairs and out to the plaza, where he would snatch her off the mule and haul her . . .

  Where? To some Creole plantation, to be treated like a child or a French doll—exactly as Judah had done. Judah, the rebel, the pirate, the traitor.

  When her panicked gaze had fallen upon him in the crowd that day—over at the edge, where a group of men in the rough dress of fishermen had congregated to listen to the general’s speech—she had simply slid off the mule and pushed her way toward him. When she tugged at his sleeve, he looked down, blinked, blinked again, and suddenly grabbed her by the scruff of the neck.

  “Eh, bah,” Judah had muttered to his nearest companion, “it is my pestilential little cousin, escaped from his tutor’s custody.” Scowling down at Fiona, he shook her until her teeth rattled. “If you are thinking that you may strut about amongst the adults without consequence, you are fair and far off, my lad. Come and I will show you the business end of a cypress switch before I return you to your mama.”

  As the other men laughed, Judah had marched her away, down the street, where he had left a carriage hitched outside what looked to be a tavern. After a moment’s hesitation, he had pulled her inside the tavern, shoved her into a chair at a corner table, and sat down opposite her. There he proceeded to grill her mercilessly as to how she happened to be alone in a city two hundred miles from home, lacking a proper chaperone, and most scandalous of all, looking for all the world like an actress in a penny opera.

  Her explanation that she was serving her country, just as he was, fell upon deaf ears.

  He continued to ring a peal over her until she burst into tears, at which point he looked ashamed and at least removed the profanity from his harangue. As she continued to blubber, Judah wound down. Then, putting his handsome head in his hands, he laughed until the tears ran down his face.

  Finally he wiped his eyes and looked at her with what she thought might be secret admiration. “What am I going to do with you, Duchess? Why will you not stay where you are safe?”

  “Israel,” she said, sniffing. “I am Israel Lanier, horse wrangler for General Coffee.”

  Judah sobered. “Only a moron of a cavalry officer would look at you and see anything other than a beautiful young woman. My little sister.” He thumped the table with a force that made her jump. “Well, clearly no one has yet managed to convince you that a young lady does not ride cross-country in pursuit of escaped spies, and neither does she dress as a boy and travel with an army. But you have tangled with the wrong brother, my girl. What you need is a husband who will beat you daily, and I am going to find one if I have to pay him the price of a ship to take you on!”

  Fortunately, Judah had been too busy with something related to business since dumping Fiona with his friends the Villerés to attend to that husband threat. But she had been biding her time, hoping for a chance to get a message to Desi—who at least would send her home rather than keep her prisoner in this gilded cage—but the Villerés and their horde of servants watched her like the proverbial hawk. No, she could not go riding. No, she could not have paper and ink. No, she could not go walking about alone.

  It was enough to make one crazy.

  But today there was to be company. She could hardly wait.

  She stopped in front of her dressing table mirror to check her appearance. This morning Madame’s maid had clipped back her chin-length curls at the sides with a pair of beaded combs, twisting the top into a little knot secured with an ivory hairpin. One of the Villeré daughters had lent her a day dress of turquoise silk. Its long, fitted sleeves fell from puffs at the shoulders and ended with double bands of blonde lace at the wrist, echoed in the decoration at the high waist and the hem. It was the loveliest garment she had ever worn, finer even than Maddy’s creations.

  Sehoy would have been thrilled to parade about in something so fine and feminine. Why, she wondered, did she resent it so much herself? Was it a symbol of her existence as so much property? Even Judah, as much as she adored him, seemed to think of her primarily as a responsibility to be dealt with. Only one man had ever responded to her on an intellectual level, with friendship and equality, even as a girl. Especially as a girl.

  She opened the dressing table drawer, and there it lay, Charlie’s signet. She couldn’t wear it, even on a chain, because Juliet Villeré’s dresses were too low cut. But it cheered her to look at it. She poked it with her finger, then gently closed the drawer and made her way downstairs.

  As she reached the landing, she heard Judah’s hearty laugh and followed it to the front drawing room. There she found her brother seated on a yellow striped sofa beside another gentleman dressed in a finely tailored blue coat and white linen. The man’s boots were polished to a mirrorlike shine, his breeches fitted to long legs, and his mustache and sideburns were neatly trimmed, his short hair brushed forward in a fashionable Brutus style.

  He rose at her entrance and bowed, giving her a charming smile. “And who is this lovely mademoiselle?” His black eyes twinkled.

  “Laffite, meet my little sister, Fiona,” Judah said carelessly. “Come sit down, Fi, and tell us what you’ve been up to. Madame says you’ve been so circumspect that I’m afraid you’re brewing up trouble.”

  She gave her brother an annoyed look as she sat down in a chair next to her hostess. “There has been no opportunity for trouble, I assure you. I have been all but locked in a tower.”

  Judah laughed and glanced at his companion. “I told you she was a handful. Madame Villeré has my undying gratitude for taking her in.”

  “I do not believe half what this scoundrel says,” Laffite said gallantly, returning to his seat.

  Madame smiled. “I was just about to pour tea, chéri, would you care for a cup?”

  “Yes, please.” Fiona tried not to stare at the renowned pirate. He wasn’t at all what she’d expected. There was no evidence of an eye patch or saber anywhere. “Judah, what is going on in New Orleans? Did you speak to Desi? Does he know where I am?”

  “Desi still has not deigned to ask me for help. And to answer your first question, New Orleans is about to be in an uproar.” Judah crossed his legs calmly. “Laffite’s men have spotted British warships heading for the Chandeleur Islands.”

  Fiona gasped. “That’s right at the entrance to Lake Borgne!”

  “Indeed.” Laffite nodded. “Which means the enemy will be upon us within a few days, if your bumptious and proud General Jackson does not bestir himself to ask for help.”

  “Does he know they are this close?” Madame asked.

  “If not, I’m sure he will soon. Commodore Patterson stationed a flotilla of gunboats off the coast of Mississippi with orders to report anything from that direction.”

  “Gunboats.” Judah rolled his eyes. “As if those little Jeffs are going to be able to fend off the British navy.”

  Fiona wr
inkled her nose. “Jeffs?”

  “Cheap shallow-draft, sloop-rigged vessels commissioned by Thomas Jefferson to be the core of the American navy. Four or five cannon per boat at best.”

  Laffite spread his hands. “My men and I would help if permitted. We have stores of ammunition we would contribute if Jackson would give up his insistence on prosecuting us.”

  Fiona looked at her brother. “Judah . . . are you wanted by the law as well?”

  “I have told you I am not. I don’t lie.”

  She supposed she’d have to believe him.

  “’Scuse me, Madame,” said a slow, deep voice before she could answer. Madame’s butler, Ishmael, stood in the sitting room doorway. “They’s a guest comin’ up the drive. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the Governor’s carriage.”

  Madame jumped to her feet. “Oh, my lands! Why would Mrs. Claiborne choose today of all days to come for a visit?”

  Lazily Judah rose as well. “Never mind, ma’am, we can come another day. We’ll just slip out the back door—”

  “Don’t be silly, I will not let my invited guests be run off by a busybody, be she ever so highly connected. Let me think.” Madame clapped her hands in an agitated fashion, then stilled, a crafty expression narrowing her eyes. “Ishmael, you will send all the other servants out to the quarters until I send for them again. You will be the only one serving us this afternoon. Just remember to address Mr. Laffite here as Mr. Clemente.” She speared the butler with a stern look. “Is that clear?”

  Ishmael bowed, a slight smile curving his full lips. “Yes, ma’am. We’re pulling a little social juju ’round here.”

  Laffite laughed as the butler turned for the door. “Mr. Clemente. I like it, Madame. What a commanding officer you’d make!”

  Preening, Madame sat down and settled her skirts. “Indeed. Just ask General Villeré!”