It was easier to be a tree than a Lily these days. Sighing, she draped herself over a large fallen limb covered with furry green moss and rested her head on her arms. Faintly, she heard Madame calling for her again, but Lily was exhausted. She had to learn how to eat at the table, how to dress French, and now she was learning how to draw lines and curves that made sounds. “Letters,” Madame called them. Lily even surrendered to taking a bath in a giant bowl instead of in the river. The French soap smelled horrible, though, and when she pushed it away, she could tell Madame Girard was unhappy. Papa seemed to understand her, and she loved him for that and for his kindness. Talking to him eased her.
Drowsily, Lily watched a snow-white egret wade through tiny green dots that covered the water and spotted its spindly legs. It thrust its beak into the water and came up with a frog. The bird worked it backward in its blade-like bill until the frog became a huge lump in the egret’s slender throat. Nearby, a mother duck paddled with eight fluffy ducklings behind her.
Lily’s throat grew tight around a knot that felt as big as the frog in the egret’s neck. She envied those baby ducks, who still had their mama. They looked so much alike; there was no mistaking they belonged together.
Once more, Madame’s voice sounded, but it was even more distant this time. Ignoring her, Lily let her arm drop down and gently stroked the shell of a napping turtle. Madame was kind, but she couldn’t speak a word of Mobilian. Trying to understand and please her only made Lily miss her mother more. At least in the swamp, with the turtles and the trees and the birds and the wind, she never felt like she didn’t belong.
A sunbeam flickered. Lying as still as she could, Lily’s gaze darted toward the faint sound of rustling leaves. A man in deerskin breeches and a linen shirt threaded through the trees in the distance, a gun strapped to his back. His skin was nearly as tan as a native’s, but the cypress-colored hair tied at his neck told her he must be French. Languidly, she raised her head and watched as the hunter walked away from her, wondering if he searched for alligator or something else.
“Lily!” Madame called again from some unseen place, and Lily flattened once more upon the limb.
A moment later, she looked up again. The hunter she had seen was gone.
Julianne’s heart pumped faster as she whirled around. Where is she? Standing on a narrow sand beach among a forest of cypress and gum trees, she looked at the swamp and saw only danger. Please, Lord, keep her safe.
“Li—” A hand clapped over her mouth from behind and yanked her backward against a hard chest. Panic burst open inside her.
“Shhhh!”
The hiss in her ear ignited her, and she stomped as hard as she could on his instep.
“Stop it!” he whispered harshly. “It’s me!” His arms relaxed enough for her to spin around.
“Benjamin!” she gasped.
“You could have hurt me if you had shoes on.” He smiled roguishly.
“I meant to hurt you!” She pressed her hand over her frantic heart to calm it. “I didn’t see you coming!”
“Forgive me.” But he laughed under his breath. “How have you been since I saw you last? You look beautiful, as always.”
Pulse still racing, she fought the urge to box his ears. “Did you learn to track and hunt from Red Bird?”
Faint lines fanned from his eyes as he looked down at her, so weathered by sun and wind was his face. A yellow-throated warbler flashed behind him, singing a tune as bright as its feathers. “What do you know of Red Bird?”
“I know you lived with his family. He speaks fondly of you, Benjamin.”
“You spoke to him? You didn’t tell him I live, did you?” His tone pleaded.
“Of course not. But if you are working for the good of France, we are all on the same side.”
“We are not—” He stopped himself, seeming to gather his thoughts. “I already explained this to you. I’ve been condemned to death already. If you tell anyone about me, I die. Now, what can you tell me about your husband’s next mission? For the good of the empire.”
Frustration expanded in her chest. “I don’t know anything about his next mission. I’m not even certain he does, until Bienville gives him orders. How would this information be of use to you?”
“Hundreds of miles away, there is a war, in case you forgot. Communications between here and there are increasingly interrupted by hostile native raiders.”
“So you’re a courier?”
He hooked a thumb under the strap that looped his gun over his shoulder. “Yes, a courier. I need to know the state of things.”
A splash turned her head. But it was only a muskrat plopping from a cypress knee into the water. “The state of things,” she repeated, and waited for him to clarify.
“How many soldiers are in New Orleans?” Sunlight slanted in shafts through branches that trembled in the wind, painting bright, quivering stripes across his body.
“Around fifty-five, I think, including officers.”
“What about at Fort Rosalie near Natchez? The Yazoo post?”
“Saints alive, I have no idea!” She didn’t care that impatience clipped her tone. “I’m not one of Bienville’s troops.”
“But you married one. You must know more than you realize. For example, how are the supplies holding out—guns, powder, balls? Are you able to pay the Choctaw what you owe them for fighting the Chickasaw?”
Julianne’s mind whirred. “I don’t know.” Sand itched across her bare feet, and she rubbed one on top of the other to brush it off. Chafing at so many questions, she took a step back, away from her brother.
“Then find out, please. It’s important. But be prudent. Arouse no suspi—” His gaze shifted. Narrowed. “Don’t move.” Slowly, he reached for the hatchet slung at his hip, his eyes fixed on the ground, where a rattling sounded.
Holding her breath, she looked down to see a snake coiled by her bare feet. Its jaws were open, its tail flicking vigorously in the fallen leaves. The hair rose on her neck and arms.
In one lightning-fast strike, Benjamin’s blade sailed into the reptile and separated its head from the rest of its writhing body.
Julianne’s voice returned in a cry as she watched her brother wrest his weapon out of the ground, wipe it clean, and thrust it back into its place at his hip. She dashed away from the dead animal.
Benjamin draped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I’d never let harm come to you while I’m around. But would you consider, for your next outing into the swamp, a pair of shoes? And perhaps some caution. Stepping on a venomous snake is not recommended.” He smiled teasingly, then kissed the top of her head and let her go.
Thoughts of Lily, barefoot and prone to wandering, rushed back at her. “Benjamin, I need to go.”
“Ah yes, looking for someone named Lily, aren’t you? A little girl about this tall? Who perhaps enjoys disrobing in the swamp?”
“Where? Where is she?”
“Be at ease, sister. I’ll help you find her. Watch your step.” He winked.
Turning, he led the way through swarms of flying insects, between lichen-encrusted trunks, and by woodpeckers drilling into the trees above shallow pools of water. Lifting her skirts a bit higher, she tiptoed through dozens of spiky brown globes dropped from the sweet gum tree overhead.
And almost ran into her brother’s back. He held his hand up to stop her. He crouched low, and she did the same, feeling ridiculous in her painted silk dress.
“I’ll turn around here,” he whispered, “but she’s lying on a limb over there. Look for the yellow color of her skirt.”
Relieved, she squeezed Benjamin’s arm. “Thank you.”
“Who is she?”
“Our daughter,” she replied without hesitation. “We’re raising her.”
Benjamin’s eyebrows arched. “She’s Indian?”
“Half.”
Tenderness swept into his grey eyes as he angled to catch one more glimpse of the child before facing Julianne again. His smi
le brought an ache to her heart. “If you raise her half so well as you raised me, she will be most fortunate indeed.”
And yet here he was, crouching in a swamp, afraid for his life. She pushed the thought away. “Benjamin, when you lived with the Choctaw, how did Fair Sky do it? How did she make you feel loved even when you couldn’t speak her language?”
His nose pinked as he looked down at his moccasins for a moment. When he lifted his head, tears misted his eyes. “She wasn’t afraid to touch me, for one. I can still feel her hand on my cheek sometimes when I sleep. She talked to me though she knew I missed most of it at first. She didn’t give up on me. But in the beginning, she didn’t push me either. When I needed to be alone, she didn’t grab me and pull me back.” He shrugged. “You’ll know what to do, Julianne. You always do. If I haven’t said it before—thank you.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him lightly on both cheeks. “You have always been a gift to me.”
“Lily can be a gift to you too. Give her time.” He reached into his pocket with a smile. “Speaking of gifts, hold out your hand.”
She did. Benjamin placed two silver hair combs in her palm. It took her only a moment to recognize them. “I thought I lost them! You had them all this time?”
“I took them with me when I left Paris for the army. They were all I had to remember you—all three of you—by.”
She turned the combs over and read the engraving etched into one of them: Devotedly yours. Her father’s words. Her mother’s combs. The ones Julianne had worn so often to feel close to her after she died.
“They are yours again, at last. I always intended to return them, you know.” Leaving the precious gift in her hands, Benjamin rose, touched her shoulder in farewell, and with a few muted footsteps, disappeared among the trees.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. As shadows disappeared beneath a full-bellied sky, Julianne traced the combs with her finger and tucked them into the pocket of her gown. Images of Fair Sky and Benjamin, and her own two parents, swirled in her mind as she watched Lily relaxing on a fallen limb, wearing Willow’s shell necklace.
Hand in her pocket, clutching the only link she had to her own mother, Julianne waited until the first raindrops of the afternoon storm pattered through the foliage and Lily climbed down from her perch. Only then did Julianne meet her along the path with a smile and an outstretched hand. She pulled from a nearby shrub a sprig of white, star-shaped flowers and offered it to the little girl. Lily cupped it in her palm and watched water bead on the petals. Blinking the rain from her eyes, she peered up at Julianne and grinned.
It was a start.
Marc-Paul paused in the doorway to his bedchamber, wishing Julianne were here to see this too. He wondered if he should scold Lily but whisked the thought away, too curious to stop her.
The little girl sat before Julianne’s toilette table, eyes aglow at the bounty of silver pots before her. Tentatively, she reached for a small pot of rouge, smeared her finger in it, and drew pink circles on her cheeks. Tilting her head, she gazed at her reflection with one eyebrow raised, drawing a smile to Marc-Paul’s lips. The art of cosmetics remained beyond her, but that expression was the very image of Julianne.
Savage, indeed, Marc-Paul thought, recalling Bienville’s words during their most recent confrontation. Since Lily came to New Orleans, the governor had made no effort to disguise his disapproval. And for the first time in memory, Marc-Paul didn’t care that his superior officer found fault with him. Not for this. His conscience in this matter was clear. His heart full.
Lily coiled the braid that hung down her back and pinned it to her head, then inserted two silver combs in her hair. Beaming, she peered into the trifold mirror to inspect her handiwork.
“Ah, mademoiselle!” Marc-Paul entered the room, and Lily covered her giggle with her hand. “You’re growing up so fast, ma belle! Before I know it, you’ll have suitors!”
“Oh no, Papa!” she laughed. “It’s just for play.”
“And do you suppose you should be playing with Madame’s things?”
Her lashes lowered over her too-bright cheeks. “Are you cross?”
Marc-Paul knelt on one knee to look into her eyes. “No. But let’s put these things away. Next time you want to use them, ask Madame to help you, yes?”
Nodding, she tidied the toilette table while Marc-Paul unclipped the pin from her raven hair and drew the silver combs out as well. The combs winked at him from his palm. Frowning, he held them up to examine them further. He’d never seen these before. Tastefully engraved but not loaded with gemstones, they were simpler than the rest of the ornaments on the table and more elegant. Why had he never seen them grace Julianne’s hair?
He turned them over. The inscription seized him. The man who came to her on Lundi Gras. He gave these to her. Of course she’d never wear them around you. Wild imaginings. The fears of an oft-absent husband. He pushed them aside and swallowed.
“Where did you get these, Lily?”
“I found them.”
His shoulders relaxed. No wonder he’d never seen them before. “You didn’t steal them, did you?”
“No, no. They fell from the pocket of Madame’s gown when I moved it to sit down.” She pointed to the discarded dress Julianne had shed in her haste to don more serviceable attire for midwifing.
“She kept them in her pocket?” An ache swelled behind his forehead. Suspicion banged against his mind.
Lily shrugged, took the combs, and placed them in the silver box with the other ornaments. “I keep my treasures there too.” She pulled an oyster shell from her pocket and held it aloft. “See? No cracks. It’s perfect.”
“I see!” Marc-Paul forced a smile. Were these combs a treasure to Julianne as well? Why? “It’s getting late. Off to bed with you.”
After Lily changed into her nightdress, washed the rouge from her cheeks, and brushed her teeth, Marc-Paul brought her a glass of water and sat on the edge of her bed. While he told her a story, he heard Julianne come home. Questions burned on the tip of his tongue until he finished the story, bade Lily good-night, and sought his wife.
He found her in her nightdress in their bedchamber, searching the pockets of the crumpled gown. “Looking for something?”
She startled at the sound of his voice. Then, recovering, she folded the gown over her arm. “The birth went well.”
“I’m glad of it.” He spoke over the whisper in his head that suggested perhaps she was not at a birth at all but visiting the man who gave her the combs, the man who came here when Marc-Paul was away.
But it was madness to leap to such conclusions. He chided himself for bowing to his fear. “Lily played at your toilette table this evening,” he told her. Lifting the lid of the silver box, he drew out the combs. “She found these.”
She laid her gown in a basket and took the combs from his hand. “Ah, thank you.” She tucked them back inside the box and closed the lid.
“I don’t recognize them. Are they new?” His voice was calm despite his rippling doubts.
“And do you keep an inventory of all the ornaments that came with this set?” But her smile was flat, her gaze dim. “I’m exhausted, mon coeur. The day has been long.”
Seating herself at her toilette table, Julianne brushed her hair while Marc-Paul stood rooted behind her. Was she hiding something? Or was he only seeing monsters in the shadows like a frightened child? Combs in her pocket. The word of two drunken soldiers. It could mean nothing. And yet he could not coax the unease from his heart. “Is there—anything we should discuss?”
Her hand stilled, then she set her brush on the table before swiveling to face him. Her eyes flashed. “Yes. I think there is.”
He steeled his spine, bracing himself. “I’m listening.”
Julianne shook her head. “I’d much rather listen to you.”
Marc-Paul frowned, unable to guess what she meant.
“My brother,” she breathed at last. “You never told me how h
e died.”
Her words crashed over him like water bursting its dam. “You never asked.”
“You let me believe it was fever. I’m asking now. For the truth.” She folded her hands on her lap.
Marc-Paul trapped a groan in his chest. “Even if it hurts you?”
“Tell me.”
Exhaling, he sat on the foot of the bed and pinched the bridge of his nose. What were two silver combs compared to this? “I’ve never lied to you, Julianne. But since you’re asking, I’ll fill in the missing pieces. I once told you about a time one of my soldiers went missing.”
“Benjamin.”
He met her gaze. “Yes. He did have a fever when we brought him back to the garrison, and we nursed him back to health. But he never adjusted back to soldiering very well. It was a hard enough life as it was, I suppose, but the transition from the Choctaw village to the garrison—” He rubbed at a muscle in his neck. “It didn’t suit him. When he went missing somewhere around Mobile, I was genuinely worried. Red Bird helped me find him. But as soon as we did, war cries rent the night air, and we found ourselves battling Chickasaw. We were outnumbered, but by how many, we couldn’t tell. I was struck by one of their arrows. Your brother watched me fall and ran from the fight.”
“He didn’t.” Julianne rose, indignation filling her voice.
Before she could walk away, Marc-Paul was on his feet. He pulled his shirt hem from his breeches, grabbed her hand, and pressed it to the scar on his side. “You asked for the truth, and I’m telling you. I bear the proof.” He drew her hand to the back of his waist until it covered the groove where the arrow had been wrenched from his flesh.
With her other hand, Julianne pushed against his chest to be free of him, but he caught that hand too. Slid her palm over the ridge beneath his linen where she once dug out an arrowhead. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast against his body.
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