“It’s for the best, ma sœur.” Benjamin reached for her hand, and she let him take it but would not return his squeeze. “You’ll be happy in Carolina. Just as we discussed. Whatever your heart desires, you’ll find it there. We’ll be together, at long last.”
His smile was a barb to her heart. Did he not realize it was kidnapping all the same? Had he so long rebelled against his conscience that he didn’t notice the hatred blazing just beneath her skin?
Time flowed backward in Julianne’s mind. “Must I choose between the little brother I raised and the husband I love?” she heard herself ask, followed by Marc-Paul’s response: “You cannot be devoted to both of us. I would have you, wife. But you must choose. . . .”
Now her husband would have her answer. And every word of it would be a lie.
Chapter Thirty-two
Disoriented, Julianne opened her eyes to find herself curled up on the floor. Benjamin sat on a barrel across from her. Rope bit into her wrists and ankles. Head spinning, she righted herself. “You drugged me.” Hazily, she wondered if it was the same stuff Pascal had once given Marc-Paul, for she had no recollection of the time since she took it. No wonder her husband had sworn off strong drink.
“For your own good. And I made sure Dupree didn’t touch you while you slept.”
Small comfort. The cobwebs slowly cleared from her mind, and her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Barrels crowded the space behind Benjamin. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. The floor creaked and tilted. The damp air smelled of—tar and salt? Oh no.
“What have you done?”
“You’ll thank me once we’re in Carolina, I vow. Look, Running Deer packed some of your clothing for you and even brought your midwife bag.” He nodded toward the leather satchel in a crate just beyond her reach.
But it was what she didn’t see that sent her stomach rolling. “Where is Lily?”
“In the wind. Maybe she and Running Deer ran off together.”
“What?”
“She vanished.” Benjamin chewed on a piece of straw as he spoke. “No trace of her. After Running Deer brought your things, Dupree sent him out to track her, but he never returned, and we couldn’t wait.”
Julianne scarcely knew what to think. Lord, protect her. Be her light in the darkness. She had to get back home. Pascal was not the only Frenchman who would turn the girl into a slave. Please, let Etienne find her first. As she prayed, Julianne fastened her gaze on the floor between Benjamin’s boots. It was dusted with fine white powder.
“This ship. Isn’t it the one that just arrived in New Orleans from France? The colony needs this flour! Women and children are hungry!”
Feet firmly planted on the floor, Benjamin crossed his arms. “They need to abandon the colony. The sooner they reach that conclusion, the better off they will all be. Louisiana is not the land of promise the crown insisted it was. Mark my words, the Chickasaw will block traffic on the Mississippi in a matter of months, and then they’ll learn what hunger really is.”
Julianne couldn’t see his face to measure how convinced he was by his own logic. His voice came from the shadows.
“How long will they rely on France to feed them before they die? Better to relocate to a land made for farming,” he went on. “Be independent of King Louis—and the colony that bears his name—for good.”
Julianne didn’t respond. While Benjamin sat on a barrel of stolen flour, preening himself with sleek self-assurance over the merits of his cause, her stomach flexed weakly, and darkness seeped through her veins. She was her brother’s prisoner.
After a silence broken only by the lapping of water against the hull, the slide of crates across the listing floor, and the scratch of rope on her skin, Benjamin spoke again. “The ropes were Pascal’s idea. I’m sorry. Merely precautionary, you understand.”
She didn’t.
As footfalls clambered over the deck above them, memory came swimming back to Julianne. “We leave tonight, if the men are ready to desert.”
“How many did you persuade to come with you?”
“Persuade? These soldiers were only too eager for the opportunity. They didn’t want to risk being sent up to Yazoo to be scalped by the Chickasaw. If it’s numbers that concern you—only a handful. The rest went with Bienville and your husband to—wherever they are now.”
The ship pitched to one side, and Julianne banged her head on the corner of a crate beside her. Wincing, she returned his stormy gaze. “You used me. When you knew I wouldn’t approve.”
“Because you wouldn’t understand.”
The floor rocked violently. Benjamin sprawled but caught himself, while Julianne rolled and smashed helplessly into a barrel with the small of her back. “Free me,” she groaned.
“I’m sorry.” Benjamin pushed himself to his knees, paused until the ship leveled, then stood and walked away, leaving Julianne alone in the hold.
Time had no measure beyond the scant meals that were delivered to her, and even those were not regular. She was no more certain of the hour or the day than she was of ever seeing Lily or Marc-Paul again.
When sleep took her in its fitful grip, Julianne dreamed the ship that rocked her was Le Marianne. Hair shorn, she wore the thin grey uniform of Salpêtrière, the dirt of the Saint-Nicolas Tower still under her nails, and she was sailing to New Orleans for the first time. Buoyed by the hope of finding her brother despite the marriage so recently forced upon her.
But when she woke on the stolen frigate, reality returned like a sour taste in her mouth. Julianne had found Benjamin in Louisiana after all. And now she was deserting the family she’d grown to love, just as her brother had deserted France.
The sea was calm. Horribly so, Marc-Paul thought as he gripped the brig’s rail and scanned the horizon off the stern. They’d managed to sail away from the Florida coast just before winds gusted to fifteen knots and the seas rose to twelve feet. Now the gulf was once again a smooth surface of watered silk.
As he looked east toward Pensacola, the smell of burning timber and thatch still lingered in his nose and mouth. The mission had not been a pleasant one. A peace treaty signed across the Atlantic dictated Pensacola’s return to Spain after three years of French occupation. But first—and the reason for this voyage to the barrier island—Bienville had commanded that Pensacola be burned before they abandoned it to the Spaniards. Now that it was out of French control, it would surely become a magnet for French deserters once again, which was the reason this trip had been kept secret from the rest of the garrison. No need to court temptation.
As Marc-Paul leaned on his elbows and gazed at the gulf waters, it was Julianne he saw. Was she thinking of him now? Would she have an answer for him upon his return? He prayed for the grace and strength to bear up under whatever the future held.
The wind snatched his hat and sent it cartwheeling south, over the larboard side of the ship. Straightening, he watched it disappear into a wall of fog. It was not a good sign. The wind was restless, shifting from quadrant to quadrant all afternoon. At first it came from the southeast. An hour later from south-southwest. Now it came from due north. And the pressure in the air was steadily sliding down an invisible slope.
A storm was coming. So was evening.
The wind strengthened, and crewmen swarmed up the ratlines to take in the sails and secure them fast to the spars, their queues like flying ropes behind them. Marc-Paul inspected the deck, double-checking every cleat and line. The last thing they needed was a loose cannon in high wind.
A shout rang out from the deck above. “Sail! Off the starboard quarter. Headed this way.”
Marc-Paul set the spyglass to his eye. Frowned. Les Deux Sœurs. “French supply ship.” Why is it sailing back now, ahead of schedule? His skirted coat flapped against his breeches as he continued observing through the glass. A few sailors dotted the decks, but none climbed the ratlines. The sails, fully unfurled, quivered and snapped on the masts. No one hurried to secure the decks.
Marc-Paul marched
fore, joining Bienville. “Signal her,” the governor shouted over the wind, one hand keeping his hat securely atop his white powdered wig.
Armistead, the brig’s captain, had already given the order. But Les Deux Sœurs made no response.
Marc-Paul looked through his spyglass again. “She’s veering south by southeast. She’s running.” Or trying to.
“Deserters,” Bienville muttered, and Marc-Paul promptly agreed. The queasiness that always accompanied him at sea was quickly doused with something stronger. Fury licked through his veins and burned in his belly. Would the interests of France always be undermined by her own men?
The brig was half the size of the 216-foot supply frigate, and faster. If the weather was fair, Armistead would have pursued Les Deux Sœurs, disabled her if necessary, and boarded the vessel. But thunder pounded the skies like a galloping, nettle-fed mare. If those who had commandeered the frigate didn’t know enough—or have crew enough—to take their sails in during a storm, the seas would thrash her far more than any cannon could. The seas would thrash them all.
And then it hit.
Whether the brig entered the storm, or the storm suddenly materialized from nothing, the change was as instant as stepping from one room to another. The sea was the marbled grey of spoiled meat. Winds close to forty knots parted through the rigging with a scream. Swells mounded up chaotically, ominously. Eight-foot waves grew to twelve-foot, fifteen-foot seas. Twenty-foot. Within five minutes, a forty-foot wave broke over the brig. The rigging caught Marc-Paul like a net, and he clung fast to the ropes to keep from being washed overboard while the brig recovered.
“Get below, sir!” he called to Bienville. Louisiana would not survive its governor being lost at sea.
While Bienville made his way to his cabin, sea spray raked Marc-Paul, and his stomach heaved. Stumbling on the rolling decks awash with foaming seawater, he crashed belowdecks while the brig took the seas head-on, straining up the swells, struggling to maintain steerageway, then plunging back down the other side. Wind moaned as it sheared through the rigging.
Even if he had been above decks, the frigate would have been lost to sight, but Marc-Paul could imagine its plight. Unless it had turned about to head into the swells, they were going downsea, which was far worse. A ship headed downsea would be lifted on a wave, which would then just drop out from beneath it, and the frigate would fall back to the sea.
The soldiers belowdecks doused the lanterns to prevent fire. Darkness engulfed them as they collided with the floor and each other. The brig lifted on a swell and leaned dangerously starboard. No one said anything. There was nothing to say. If the vessel broached, turning broadside to the waves, they would roll and find themselves upside down in the water.
Back down they dove, and the smell of vomit and alcohol grew thick in the blackness belowdecks. Sea slammed over the stern, again and again, and the ship listed dangerously.
Even in the dark, Marc-Paul could tell the gulf waters were confused. Mountains of water converged, diverged, and piled up on themselves from every direction. If the brig buried its bow in the trough between waves, they would flip. If a hatch cover tore loose, they’d have one minute, maybe two, before the hold filled with water.
“It’s only a storm. We’ve weathered storms before,” said a voice.
“No,” came another. “Not like this.”
Water streamed through the cracks in the deck above Julianne. Standing, she pressed herself against the partition behind her, but the ship rolled, and she rolled with it. Wrists and ankles still bound, she tumbled into the water already sloshing over the floor. Pascal might leave her to her fate, but Benjamin, at least, would come for her. Surely her brother would come.
He didn’t. No one did.
Seawater swirled around Julianne before she could raise herself up again. Her chemise was plastered to her skin, and her skirts billowed around her. Unable to swim with her limbs tied, she would drown in the cargo hold. She would be dead within the hour, and no one would ever know. At home, on dry land, where sunshine squeezed sweat from his pores, Marc-Paul would read the note she had been forced to leave him, and she would never be able to explain her final lie. She would be buried with secrets in the deep, between nations.
Shouting for help would be in vain; her voice was lost the moment it left her throat. Wind moaned, waves crashed, and the ship creaked in distress.
All was blackness. As water climbed up her body, she was buoyed up from the floor. She felt her hair fan out about her head, like eels floating on the water. Barrels of ruined flour rammed against her as the frigate was tossed about in the sea.
Suddenly, Julianne was somersaulting under the water, skirts over her head, with no idea which way was up. She held her breath, but she’d had no warning, no time to fill her lungs.
Something smooth and round and narrow nudged into her hand. The handle of her midwife’s bag. She grasped at it blindly, even as her chest burned for air.
Another roll of the ship, and water cascaded down over her shoulders. She gasped and sputtered, vomiting seawater into the dark. But her bag was still in her hand, bobbing in the water. Please, Lord. With clumsy fingers, she unclasped the satchel and reached inside with both hands. Water had filled it, and darkness concealed it, but didn’t she know how to see with her hands?
There. The scissors for cutting a baby’s navel string. Her fingers curled tightly over them and let all else float away.
The ship lurched and lifted higher. Julianne flew backward, banging her head against the partition, but she held her twin blades fast. Braced herself for what she knew would follow.
The ship dropped freely from the sky back into the sea. Julianne’s head knocked the ceiling before she plunged back down into the churning water that now reached to her chest. Blood trickled warmly from her temple.
The scissors were still in her hand. Awkwardly, she opened them, gulped a lungful of air, and dove under the surface to saw back and forth against the ropes binding her ankles. Over and again the frigate rolled, but still she kept blade to rope until her legs could snap the remaining fibers.
Kicking wildly against her skirts, Julianne emerged from the water and caught her breath. Wasted no time in cutting through the rope at her wrists. Finally, her arms were free.
But the weight of her sodden gown still pulled at Julianne. While water splashed at her face and seaweed tangled between her fingers, she cut the heavy embroidered silk from her body, leaving only her full-length chemise to cover her.
Her heart should have been racing, she thought, but it was honey-slow when she needed to think and act with lightning speed. In the belly of the frigate, she was three levels below the upper deck, maybe four. She needed to escape all of them, and she needed to do it in the dark.
Lord, be my light. Vaguely, Julianne remembered the layout of the flute on which she had sailed from La Rochelle almost three years earlier and wondered if it could be similar to the frigate on which she now sailed. Images sparked in her mind, of Simon in the hold and of the path she’d taken to reach him belowdecks for a visit. If she could only get her bearings . . .
Violently, the ship rocked, but whether it was larboard, starboard, aft, or fore, Julianne could not tell. She was thrown like a rag doll. Pain sliced through her when she landed. Water streamed down from above.
“Julianne!” A shout came down with the water. “Julianne!” It was Benjamin.
She spewed salt from her mouth before answering. “I’m here!” She pushed back her hair and turned toward his muffled voice.
“We need to get you out of there. Can you climb?”
The ladder. The rungs dug into her back. “Yes!” Turning, she clenched the wood and pulled herself through the abyss, toward the sound of her brother’s calls.
When her hands slid over Benjamin’s boots, he reached under her arms and lifted her to stand on the next deck. His stubble scratched her face as he pressed a hurried kiss to her cheek. “Here” was all he said, and Julianne felt a rope
snake around her waist and pinch her skin through her chemise. Felt the tug of a knot being tightened. “Quickly now. Up we go.”
Blindly, Julianne followed the rope’s pull, stumbling over a deck that jerked and lunged. She tripped, and her hands grew warm and sticky as her tether ripped through her palms. Salt burned in the channels freshly carved from her flesh. Kelp caught between her toes.
“Two more decks to go,” Benjamin called over his shoulder.
“And then what?”
But he only pulled her harder, faster, up toward the raging sea.
Chapter Thirty-three
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Wind roared through the swamp where Lily hid, cracking trees in half with the force and sound of French cannons. Running Deer had told her to stay tucked away as long as possible, but it couldn’t be safe to stay here.
Darkness poured down upon her, cold and wet, until she was drenched with night and rain, though it should be day. Treetops bowed beneath an iron grey sky, their branches whipping sideways. A tangle of Spanish moss tore from its limb and caught on Lily’s head, and she clawed the wet strands from her face.
The sand beneath her feet spread and loosened as she turned around, desperate to find her way home. The howling wind knocked her over, and she struggled on hands and knees. Which way? Which way? Fallen limbs and broken tree trunks barred the ridge she no longer recognized.
Panic beat in her chest. Papa was gone. Madame was lost. Lily couldn’t even hear her own scream. Rain-pocked water lapped at her feet and wrists as she crawled to the base of a cypress tree. Nearly paralyzed by wind and fear, she clung to its ribs, terrified she would blow away like the Spanish moss. Another crash sounded, and the top of her tree tore off and smashed to the ground.
Wailing, she hugged the trunk of her tree and prayed to the Jesus-God who made the wind and the rain and the trees, begging Him to calm the storm, to bring her home, and to bring Papa and Madame back to her again.
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