by Beth White
“Don Rafael!” came the cultured, but carrying tones of their hostess, rapidly approaching. “I was so afraid you would forget to come!”
Rafa patted Lyse’s hand, which had suddenly gripped his arm again, and murmured, “Courage, infant!” His blinding smile bloomed as he towed her with him in the direction of Madame Dussouy’s ostrich-feather coiffure, which waved above the crowd. “Of course I remember to come, Madame Señora! And I bring my little prima with me, because I know it will make my Grandmama the Doña Magdalena de Ibanez y Rippardá so happy that our Lyse has been presented to your fine company.”
Oh, this was such a ridiculous charade, and nobody was going to believe his lies, because everyone here had known her family since before she was born. Even as she dropped into an awkward curtsey, Lyse wanted to dash out of the house, skin back into her own comfortable clothes, and never show her face in town again.
But Madame Dussouy was staring at Don Rafael with her stupid mouth ajar. Her eyes darted to Lyse, then back to the Spaniard. One could clearly see her inability to reconcile this outrageous dilemma. “Ah, of course,” she said at last, looking stricken by rigor mortis. “You are most welcome, and I pray you will avail yourself of refreshments. In fact, here comes Scarlet with hors d’oeuvres right now. Scarlet! Set that tray down, and bring mint juleps for Don Rippardá and . . .” She flapped a hand. “Mademoiselle Lanier.”
Lyse rose jerkily and whirled to meet her cousin’s—her real cousin’s—astonished brown eyes.
“Lyse?” Scarlet squeaked, juggling the teetering tray. “What are you doing here?”
Madame rounded on her. “Girl, how dare you address the guests directly. Obey me instantly!”
Scarlet managed to land her heavy tray on a nearby table and, after one more frightened look at Lyse, hurried away toward the butler’s pantry.
Lyse wanted to run after her, but she felt Rafa’s long fingers gently squeeze her hand. A slight shake of his head and a sly wink kept her from flying to pieces. She forced herself to smile at her hostess with composure. “It’s kind of you to accept me, Madame. As you can see, Don Rafael is . . . difficult to resist when his mind is made up.”
“Yes, indeed,” Madame said with a frosty smile. “Besides, I would never have it said that my charity is lacking.” With Lyse firmly set in her place, she turned to Rafa with a flirtatious flip of her fan. “Don Rafael, I believe you have not met my husband.” She turned to call to a tall, stooped gentleman in a powdered wig holding forth nearby in a cigar-smoking circle of men. “Monsieur Dussouy! Come here, sir! There is someone I would have you meet.”
Lyse had met Michel Dussouy on a number of occasions, usually at church, and she had found him to be kind, absentminded, and yet a remarkably astute businessman. Whatever his wife’s personal prejudices, his business dealings with the Lanier family had generally been conducted in fairness and without rancor.
Dussouy shook hands with Rafa, acknowledging the introduction, and when his gaze lit upon Lyse, he simply bowed courteously over her hand without even a raised eyebrow—for which she would have liked to kiss his pocked cheek.
Instead she smiled and dipped a curtsey. “Monsieur, I wanted to thank you for giving my stepmother your seat at mass on Sunday morning.”
“Please do not mention it. At the rate she’s going, Madame Justine will soon need a whole new pew to seat the Lanier clan!” As Lyse laughed, Dussouy turned quizzical gray eyes on Rafa. “My wife has told me all about the young Spanish don marooned in our city for ship repairs. I hope you have secured what you need, but if there is aught I can do to assist, you have but to stop by my offices just down on St. Francis. We deal in ship repairs and merchant marine supplies of all sorts.”
“Kind of you, sir,” Rafa said. “It looks to be nearly a week before the necessary materials can be pulled together. In the meantime, my partner, Señor Pollock, has given me leave to dispense with all cargo likely to spoil before we reach New Orleans.”
Dussouy’s face creased in a smile. “Are you indeed associated with Oliver Pollock? I met him once on a trip to New Orleans, back before the American rebels took to blocking trade between our cities. Capital fellow! Hair as red as a rooster’s comb!”
Rafa laughed. “Indeed, sir. And a temper to match. He’ll have my head if I can’t make it back to port by the end of March.” He paused and leaned in. “Are your ships indeed having difficulty reaching their markets? I would have thought the British military presence enough to keep pirates and privateers at bay.”
Dussouy’s thin lips compressed. “You didn’t hear it from me, but there’s a shadowy devil based out of the islands near Mobile Point, who has chased my lads into shipwreck more than once. Some say he’s American, others claim he’s a Frenchman, looking for Spanish gold.”
Rafa looked skeptical. “So shadowy that the lines of the ship cannot be identified? I find that hard to believe.”
“She’s small and fast, and according to my men, the captain’s disguise bars any discovery of his identity.”
For some reason, Lyse’s pulse jumped. “What kind of disguise?”
Dussouy waved a hand. “Scarf over the head, face blacking, indistinguishable clothes. Clever sort.”
“My brother fishes out of the islands near the Point. He’s not mentioned anything like that.” Lyse watched Rafa’s face, wondering if he’d seen any such pirate.
He merely looked vaguely confused. “Why would the French be this far north and west? Their ports are all in the Caribbean.”
“Laddie, this was a French port for sixty years. Just because a British flag flies over the fort doesn’t mean the French are gone completely to ground.” Dussouy spread his big hands. “Besides, as I’m sure you know, we—the French, I mean—entered treaty with the Americans some weeks ago. Lafayette himself has put on a uniform and come over to aid Washington.”
“Monsieur my husband.” Madame firmly took her husband’s arm. “Everyone knows we are loyal British subjects now and have no knowledge of what the French would be up to.” She gave Rafa a coy smile. “Though I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that our Spanish neighbors have thrown in their lot with those bourgeois continentals. King Carlos is notoriously interested in gaining back his control of Gibraltar and Minorca.”
Rafa laughed. “Madame, you are pleased to jest with your guests. Why would His Majesty give aid to a group of colonists rebelling against their monarch, when that would endanger his own God-given authority? Have you not heard about the American captain who took port in New Orleans? Captain Gibson was apparently selling rum in an attempt to cover purchase of clothing and blankets and gunpowder for their little uprising. I assure you Governor Gálvez arrested him in short order.”
“And rightly so,” said Dussouy, frowning at his wife. “Women, as you will discover, have only a vague understanding of politics as it applies to the daily running of a household, and none at all of its international complexities. Monarchies aside, Carlos is far too fond of his treasury to risk it in such a fly-by-night endeavor as colonial self-government.”
Lyse had heard her grandfather and her papa arguing over just these subjects on many an occasion—and had been taught to vigorously participate.
Before she could object, however, Rafa smiled down at her and patted her hand. “One must agree that such topics are tedious in the extreme, when there is music to be danced to with the loveliest of partners. Señorita, would you honor me with the minuet?”
She had not noticed that the dancing had stopped, and the musicians were retuning. She cast a desperate look around. It was a test. A mild, but signally cruel test. The minuet—complex, dignified, and performed one couple at a time while everyone else watched—could establish one hopeful debutante and set another up for a future of obscurity and social ruin. What could it do, she wondered, to a girl who was neither debutante nor hopeful?
The Spaniard held her eyes with a lazy smile as she slowly dipped into a curtsey. Grandmére Madeleine had once taught her and Simo
n the dance, though of course they’d had little opportunity to practice. What if she forgot the steps? What if this stupid bum roll decided to shift again? What if her hair fell down from its tower?
The thought made her want to laugh. Rising from the curtsey, she went palm to palm with Don Rafael as they performed the opening honors to each other and then the audience. She would show him. She would show them all!
Dancing parallel to Rafa, she followed him in the lead-in figure. To her relief, she found the stately four-step, six-beat pattern coming without conscious thought. Curving sideways, they met at the rear of the open space, then danced forward to the middle, where Rafa wheeled her in a three-quarter turn and danced her sideways to a corner. By the time they had completed the initial crisscross figure, her knees had stopped trembling.
Though there was nothing particularly seductive about the dance—except for her partner’s refusal to let his sleepy gaze drop from her face—this was far different from dancing with her older brother. By the time they came to the two-hand turn and ending, Lyse felt as if the blood beneath her skin might burst into spontaneous flames. She was aware of the calluses on the palms of his hands, the blood-red signet ring worn on his left index finger, the small moon-shaped scar at the corner of one eye. Together they honored the audience, then, turning face-to-face, she curtseyed to him as he bowed. She held the curtsey, heart thudding, breath coming in shallow gasps. Surely if she moved she would fall.
As if he had seen her terror, he reached down to grip her elbow. “Come, prima, don’t faint on me,” he murmured, boosting her to her feet.
“How could you do that?” she whispered, regaining her balance. “You know I’m no society girl.”
“What? Have you no faith in my leadership?” He guided her toward a corner of the room amid a patter of polite applause.
With her back to the wall and his tall figure between her and the rest of the room, there was nowhere to look except at his snowy, elegantly tied neckcloth and the firm chin above it. “Faith? I barely know you! I must balance your kindness in dealing with my father against the silly way you serenade my friend with love songs and antagonize my brother with nosy questions. For all I know, you are the pirate Monsieur Dussouy was describing earlier.”
His mouth pursed in a soundless whistle as he stared at her. For a moment the brown eyes had narrowed, darkening to a frightening near-black. She thought she saw a flash of not only intelligence but hurt.
Ashamed that her discomfort had led to thoughtless words, she placed her fingers over her lips. “I am sorry, Don Rafael,” she mumbled. “There was no need to be rude.”
Easy laughter dispelled the darkness in his expression. “A pirate! You have caught me out—and how clever I should be to damage my own ship so that I might steal the gold in my hold and hide it from myself!”
“No more ridiculous than paying someone else to buy gifts for you.”
He bowed in genial self-mockery. “And so we have established that Don Rafael is ridiculous and silly. I refuse to be drawn into bickering over the obvious. I am much more interested in discovering what is your relationship to the pretty little slave named Scarlet—who has already caused you such grief this day.”
Ah. And here it was. If she didn’t tell him, someone else was bound to. Besides, he already knew that she was a fisherman’s sister and daughter of a drunken ferryman. There was little reason to withhold the whole truth.
She focused her gaze once more upon the garnet pin nestled in the folds of his neckcloth. “It is a long, tedious story, I warn you.”
He smiled and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Then let us find refreshment and walk about the room. I am not in any hurry.”
“Very well.”
The refreshment table was a six-foot buffet table placed between the French windows opening onto the front gallery of the house. An obscene amount of sugared pastries on tiered silver trays flanked a crystal punch bowl filled with some pale liquid that might have been champagne but was probably watered lemonade. Rafa filled a goblet and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” She sipped, resisting the urge to make a face. Some drinks were made for decoration.
He toasted her lightly with his own goblet. “I’m fairly certain we shall both survive.”
Arm in arm they began to make the round of the salon. After a quiet moment, Lyse peeked up and found Rafa observing her contemplatively.
“Come, prima,” he said. “Out with it.”
She smiled in spite of her reluctance. “You have met my papa.”
“Ah, the papa. I felt certain he must be somewhere in this long tale.”
“Yes, but he wasn’t always so—so—outré.”
“Outré? I am not familiar with this word.”
“Unconventional. Outside the accepted social norm.”
“And what has your unconventional papa to do with the Harpy of la Mobile?”
This time she did chuckle. “My papa and Madame Dussouy were at one time betrothed!”
5
With a tray of dirty champagne flutes balanced in her hands, Scarlet stood on the back porch, facing the freestanding kitchen. Music and conversation poured through the open French windows at the front of the house, lashing her skin like the thongs of a poisoned whip. Not for you. Not for you, girl. No dancing, and don’t speak to the guests, even if the same blood runs through your veins.
How had Lyse come to be in Madame’s salon dressed like a French doll? She’d nearly dropped that whole tray of sparkling drinks, so unbelievable was the sight of her cousin promenading on the Spaniard’s arm. Judging by the masterful way he had managed Madame this afternoon in the Emporium—she had been all but cooing as he extricated Lyse from her talons—he must have been the one to arrange for Lyse’s invitation. She’d heard it said that Spanish men came equipped from birth with a certain hubris, an awareness of masculinity and authority that emanated from their pores like an exotic scent.
Scarlet was the one who had borne the brunt of Madame’s sharp temper afterward. Questions, all the way home from the Emporium. Why would Don Rafael entrust so much money to barefoot, dirty-skinned Lyse Lanier? Why had Scarlet thought it permissible to ignore her mistress and converse with free persons in a public place?
With nothing to be gained by arguing or explaining, Scarlet had remained silent, further angering her mistress. If she hadn’t been needed to help prepare for the party, Scarlet would doubtless have spent the rest of the day, hungry and alone, in the windowless carriage house. And she wouldn’t have spoken to Lyse—which had only gotten her into further trouble.
She shut her eyes against useless tears. With Madame, there was no peace. Every second she stood here invited reprimand and punishment. Oh, how she missed her mother. Her father, a field hand who had been sold when she was a young child, was barely a memory. But Maman had had a way of reminding her whose bondservant she really was. That persecution was God’s purification tool. That joy was more than beautiful clothes and rich food.
But God had taken Maman away too. Last summer she had died in Scarlet’s arms, gripped by a fever that came with an infected tooth, of all things. Madame had been so angry to have lost her seamstress that she almost sold Scarlet in a fit of pique. But M’sieur intervened, gently reminding his sulking wife of Scarlet’s value as a breeder and her talent with a needle, that Madame would not likely be able to replace her for the money. He’d given Scarlet a compassionate, cautioning look that told her to keep quiet.
M’sieur would release her if he could afford to do so. He had once told her so. But he could not, and that was that. She was lucky that she had been mated with the Dussouys’ young blacksmith, though they couldn’t legally enter into a marriage contract. Cain treated her with shy, inarticulate respect bordering on terror, and she liked him well enough. Her circumstances could be much worse. The field slaves were considered livestock. At least she lived in the house, in a room off Madame’s bedchamber where her clothes were stored. She followed Ma
dame to church every Sunday morning and sat in the balcony with the other slaves, and she was allowed to spend the afternoon with Cain and his parents and two older sisters.
She almost had a family.
But Lyse was her family. Same blood. Free blood under God.
Pulled by some compulsion outside herself, she carefully set the tray of flutes down upon the porch, away from the door so that they wouldn’t be knocked over, then crept down the porch steps and ducked under a low limb of the magnolia tree beside the house. The night was dark and still, thick with spring fog, the ground moist and cool under her bare feet. As she slipped around to the front of the house, the violins grew louder, harmonizing with the music in her head, and the rhythm tugged at her feet until she was dancing. If she were caught here, she would be whipped, but she couldn’t make herself go back.
From the shadows, she watched the swirling guests through the window, and Lyse went by, still on the arm of the Spaniard. She was looking up at him, eyes sparkling like jewels, her black curls beginning to escape from their beribboned tower to dangle against the low neckline of her dress. He bent his head to listen to her, his eyes full of some smoky emotion of which Lyse seemed unaware.
Scarlet caught her breath, pierced by unwanted but inevitable envy.
Not for you, never for you.
She sank to her knees, her heart bleeding aloud. “God, my Father,” she whispered. “Oh, God, my rock and my fortress, my master. Is this truly your will? I’m asking again—deliver me, set me free! I’ll serve until you do, but oh, God, rescue me from this bitterness.” She bent forward, wrapping her arms about her head, heaving silent sobs. There was no knowing how long she lay there before finally she sat up, spent, aching with weariness and sadness, and dried her swollen face with her apron. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” she sighed. “Be it unto me according to thy word.”
Rafa whistled through his teeth. “Your papa was engaged to the Harpy? Truly?” Now this was a turn he had not seen coming.