Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets)

by Jennifer Blake

  Thinking back, she realized she had not been troubled by her monthly courses since leaving Natchez. In addition to her recurring nausea, her breasts were swollen and tender. She was, in a word, enceinte. Her child would be born in the autumn, perhaps six to eight weeks after Aunt Em’s great-grandchild.

  Why now? Why could it not have occurred before she ran away from Alhambra — or perhaps two or three months hence? At either of those times it might have brought her closer to Rafe. Now it could only drive them apart. Her husband could hardly be blamed if he refused to believe the child was his. It would not be surprising if he concluded it was her sole reason for returning to his protection. To see either accusation written upon his face would be insupportable. There was only one thing to be done. Shivering a little, Catherine drew her cloak closer around her, staring with bleak, unseeing eyes at the wide gray river. Loneliness stretched, like the river ahead of her, moving toward a limitless gulf.

  “Why aren’t you eating?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Catherine said, summoning an uneasy smile as Rafe came to stand beside her. Jonathan had taken his place at the stern while Rafe went to supper.

  “I’m not surprised. You’re frozen,” he said, touching the backs of his fingers to her numb cheek. “What is the matter? Why are you out here?”

  “Nothing is the matter,” she answered, allowing a trace of her tight-held distress to escape into irritability.

  “No complaints? That is a novelty, after listening to your friend’s wife. You would think breeding was an ailment visited on her alone.”

  Did she, in her sensitive state, read more into his regard than was there? She must have. “I suppose most women share a little of that feeling.”

  Rafe shifted so that his body blocked the wind. “Not all of them feel they must put it into words. That is one of your most endearing charms, Catherine. When you speak, what you say has meaning.”

  “I thought I was enigmatic,” Catherine fenced.

  “Only in self-protection, I think.”

  “Then let me protect my blushes by asking what you intend to do when we arrive in New Orleans,” she said with brittle composure.

  For a moment it seemed doubtful that he would follow her lead, then he gave an abrupt nod. “General Wade Hampton must be contacted. There is little doubt that he will put a detachment of troops in the field. I intend to join them.”

  “But your head—”

  “Your concern is flattering,” he said quizzically, “but I know these people, and the country, as no other. I must go.”

  “Yes — yes, of course,” Catherine agreed. “It was not such a desperate wound after all.”

  “The merest graze.”

  “Yes,” she said dully.

  “Nothing to vex yourself over.”

  “No.” Frowning, she missed the laughter that sprang like the devil’s imp into his black eyes.

  The barracks, then, was their first stop when they reached the city. For all Rafe’s haste to reach the city others were before him. Several of his neighbors, alerted by the smoke at Alhambra and the ringing of the plantation bell, had been able to escape to the river ahead of the insurrectionists. The news had also been carried upriver to Baton Rouge.

  According to reports, the number of Negroes in revolt was steadily increasing as plantations were looted and burned and the slaves drawn into the swarming columns. They were moving downriver at a ragged quick-march, spreading destruction as they came. It was feared their objective was to overrun New Orleans. From that stronghold they could find the men and the means, the money, arms, and ammunition, to launch a new offensive. It had been done in Haiti, it could be done in the territory of Orleans. Instead of admitting a new state, the congress convened in Washington might be called upon to recognize a new Black Republic. This was not a mere slave revolt. It was war.

  The militia, under General Hampton, would pull out at dawn. It was only a short while till that time. Catherine tried to persuade Rafe to allow her to find her way to her mother’s house alone. But there was already a stirring in the streets as rumors of the rebellion began to fly. Crowds of gesticulating men were gathered around the doors of the coffeehouses and barrooms. Carriages and wagons rattled up and down the streets and there was considerable activity around the levee as people searched for some means of getting out of the city. Her husband declined to let her make her way unaided through this climate of growing panic.

  Catherine did not appreciate such solicitude. It made it much harder to do what she knew she must. The sooner the break was made, the better. She did not feel, however, that it would be fair to force the issue now. Was it cowardice that urged her to postpone it? She did not like to think so — and yet she would infinitely prefer to leave him by stealth, without bitterness. She would like the taste of a kiss of trust to remember.

  Torchlight flared before an arch wide enough to admit a carriage, grilled with intricately patterned wrought iron. The hired hackney drew up beside it

  “This isn’t my mother’s house.” Catherine protested as Rafe reached across her to open the door.

  “It’s my town house,” he answered.

  “But — I thought—”

  “The servants here are elderly. They are more concerned with a full belly and a warm fire than the dubious joys of rebellion. Most of them were born in the service of the Navarros. I trust them much more than your mother’s people — if your old nurse is any example.”

  This was not the time to argue. He was waiting to help her step down. In any case, she would not be remaining long once he was gone.

  With a hand beneath her elbow, he escorted her across the banquette to a small door of wrought iron set into the grillwork arch. Hanging to one side was a bell, but the door creaked open at a touch. A frown drew Rafe’s brows together, still they passed through it and moved down the dark tunnel of a porte-cochere which led to the courtyard. In the center of the ballast stone-paved court a small fountain stood, its bowl filled with sour, wet leaves. Around the edges were planted ferns, roses, and palmetto palms untouched by frost, all overshadowed by the spreading arms of a young live oak tree. A spiral staircase much like the one at Alhambra reached toward the upper gallery and the main rooms on the second floor. The rooms above were in darkness. The only light beneath the gallery was the faint orange glow of a banked kitchen fire.

  The hesitant light of a pale, cold moon cast the shadow of the oak toward them across the court. From this shadow stepped the figure of a man. The moonlight gleamed auburn across the waves of his hair and slid with a silver streak down the barrel of the pistol in his hand.

  “My dear Rafe — and Catherine,” Marcus Fitzgerald said with deadly affability. “This is a double pleasure. Do come in.”

  A sudden stillness was the only outward expression of Rafe’s surprise, though he caught Catherine’s arm as if he would place her behind him. The rapier at his side was useless against the greater reach and quickness of the gun. He confronted his enemy, his face showing none of the tense watchfulness hidden in the depths of his eyes. “So kind of you to play the host in my absence, Marcus, but then you have always had a penchant for usurping my place.”

  Marcus frowned. “You took what was mine first,” he replied, his reasoning frighteningly childish.

  “Did I? I was under the impression you threw Alhambra away, tossed it carelessly upon a baize table. Do you deny it?”

  “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was foxed, and you took advantage of it.”

  “Men who can’t drink should not mix cards with liquor.”

  “So superior. See how much good that high tone does where you are going.”

  The pistol in Marcus’s hand leveled. Catherine made an abrupt movement with her hand. “Why, Marcus? Why are you doing this? Isn’t it enough that you have destroyed his home? That you caused the death of the child-mistress, Lulu, and helped me dishonor his name?”

  “No, never! I’ll not be satisfied until he lies dead at my feet!” His eyes g
littered with a savage light. Flecks of spittle appeared on his lips, gleaming wetly in the moonlight. He was mad, quite mad.

  “Why?” she asked again.

  “Everything I ever loved, everything I ever wanted, has been his. He put his mark on them and ruined them for me. But if I can’t have them, neither can he. Even you — I have plans for you when Navarro is dead. I was enraged when those stupid animals with their craze for freedom got out of hand. I think now that, before they are all killed, their idiotic revolution will have its uses. It shouldn’t be hard to make it appear they murdered your husband, then violated you. I will have to stop your tongue afterward, but you must have expected that.”

  Her arm felt paralyzed by her husband’s grip upon it. All she possessed or ever hoped to possess Catherine would have given for the feel of her knife against her thigh; a moment’s inattention, a flip of the wrist and she might have evened the odds. It was gone, gone since Rafe had taken it from her while she lay in a drugged sleep aboard the keelboat. She must try the effect of an insolent smile as a defense, insolent words as a distraction. If his anger could be diverted to her it was possible Rafe could discover an opportunity to disarm him.

  “How?” she asked. “You have only one charge in that pistol. I can promise you that if you touch me you will have no time for reloading.”

  “There are other ways,” Marcus said, his lips stretching back over his teeth in a humorless smile.

  Rafe, watching for an opening, made an involuntary movement. The barrel of the pistol swung, centered on his heart.

  “That disturbs you, does it? You don’t like the idea of our Catherine thrashing under me?”

  Catherine, afraid Rafe might be goaded into action, said quickly, “I am not your Catherine, I have never been, nor ever will be. You are a destroyer, Marcus. Lulu, India, Alhambra, the men, women, and children who will die in this holocaust you have begun. Even me, in your devious way. Now you intend to add killing an unarmed man, defiling a woman, to your list. Do you think you will never pay for your crimes? A fool’s wager, Marcus. Those who sow destruction will themselves be destroyed.”

  “Eloquent indeed, Catherine. You failed only to appeal to my sense of honor to stay my hand.”

  “Because I doubt you ever had any,” came the biting retort.

  Senseless rage contorted his pallid features. “You will pay for that,” he breathed.

  His gaze flicked to Rafe. The pistol trembled as his grip tightened, his finger curling lovingly around the trigger. Catherine could feel the coiled strength in the man beside her as he made ready to whip his sword out and launch himself forward at Marcus.

  In that instant a ringing cry shattered the night, vibrating around the courtyard. From the dark opening of the porte-cochere a man appeared, running with a swift but lopsided gait that gave him an inhuman appearance. A white turban shone about his head, a cloak of white and black stripes streamed from his shoulders. Held with both hands before his face, the blade pointed skyward Berber fashion, was the curving silver blade of a sword. It was Ali, looking neither to right or left, glaring with black avenging eyes as he bore down on his quarry, Marcus Fitzgerald.

  Marcus started at the yell, the gun in his hand wavering.

  Rafe lunged, then stopped short at a shout from Ali.

  “Mine! He is mine!” was the cry.

  With a visible effort Marcus braced himself, raised the pistol, and fired.

  The ball struck Ali. Catherine saw the sudden dark blossom appear on his tunic. He did not slow, he gave no sign he felt the jarring hit. He raised the sword high above his head, and as he reached Marcus, brought it straight down in a blow that cleaved the skull.

  A strangled gasp caught in Catherine’s throat. Wide-eyed, she watched blood splatter wide from the open wedge in Marcus’s face, saw him topple backward, his eyes bulging in disbelief. Ali dragged his blade free, then drawing it back stabbed down into the heart of the fallen man.

  Bloodied sword in hand, Ali turned slowly to face Catherine and the man beside her. He inclined his head in a bow, but the weight of his turban seemed too heavy to allow him to raise it again. He leaned toward them, then as Rafe moved to catch him, crumpled, falling full length on the gray ballast stones.

  Rafe turned him on his back. As Catherine knelt beside him, his eyelids fluttered.

  “India—” he sighed.

  Catherine felt the burning of salt tears behind her eyes. There was a gaping hole in Ali’s chest filling like a well with the pulsing fluid of his life. Her voice was no more than a whisper as she answered.

  “India will be proud and will rest easy beside you tonight in paradise.”

  A smile touched his mouth and was gone. “My — son?”

  Rafe answered. “He shall receive the sword of his father and be raised as my own, free, in possession of no one other than himself and the hands of destiny.”

  “You, Madame, will teach him love — by loving him?”

  “I will try,” Catherine said.

  “I ask — no more.”

  His gaze seemed to find and hold the silver disk of the moon, and for the space of a dozen heartbeats it was reflected in his dark eyes. Then their surface clouded like steam on a mirror, hazing over the image. Ali was dead.

  ~ ~ ~

  There were certain disadvantages to being a strong woman. At the time one most wanted to weep and be comforted, pride required an unbowed head, a show of competence. Blankets to wrap the bodies, a table to lay them on, these things were found as the servants, awakened by the shouting, came creeping from their rooms. And then it was time to turn to her husband, give him her hand, and send him away to where duty and inclination demanded his presence. There was something in him, she thought, which, after his passive participation in the scene of danger, required violent action. He did not tarry long.

  “You will be all right?” he asked, taking both her hands in his, holding them against his chest

  “Yes,” she replied. It was a lie, but if she could keep the tears from rising to her eyes it might pass for the truth.

  “You won’t be frightened, here, alone?”

  She shook her head, producing a small smile. That at least could have an honest answer.

  “If there is danger to the town, you know I will come for you?”

  Her smile wavered, but she managed to nod. If he came she would not be there.

  Staring down at her, he frowned. “Something is wrong,” he began.

  “No, no,” she said hastily. “Only — take care.”

  He caught her close, satisfied it was anxiety for his safety he saw in her amber eyes. His lips were warm and firm against hers, and then she was forced to let him go.

  She watched, hands tightly clasped, as he strode across the court and was swallowed up by the dark entranceway.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ladies in New Orleans were spared the ordeal of attending funerals. Defying convention had become commonplace to Catherine, however; she made a point of seeing Ali placed in the Navarro family vault. With her went the child, Rif, staring solemn-eyed from the arms of his nurse. He would not remember, of course, but it was possible that he would absorb something of the moment, something that in later years would help him understand the manner of man his father had been.

  Following the funeral she returned home to finish packing her trunks. She had booked passage aboard a ship which was leaving for France via Cuba with the dawn. She would have liked an earlier departure, but the hordes of people fleeing the city had made it impossible. Now that the danger had passed, there had been a number of cancellations.

  Discreet inquiries among her mother’s friends brought news of a free stateroom well before it was known at the booking office. She had hastened to engage it. Arranging burials, procuring staterooms were only two more things expected of a woman of strength.

  The revolting slaves on their rampage had fired five plantations other than Alhambra, and recruited a rabble army of more than five hundred. They had laid waste an
area ten miles below where they had started, and were thought to have killed at least thirty people, though an accurate count could not yet be made. At one point, however, the entire force had been held at bay by a single man. M’sieur Trepagnier had sent his wife and children to safety, but he himself refused to flee before the swarming columns. He had set in place a brass-bound ship’s cannon on his front gallery and dared any man to come within reach of his fire. None had.

  It was a mile below the Trepagnier estate, some twenty-five miles above the city, that the militia under General Hampton, reinforced by men under Major Hilton from Baton Rouge, met the insurrectionists. The engagement was brief, but decisive. The slaves attacked in a dark and sweeping tide. The troops fired a single volley into the mass. Sixty-six fell dead on the field while scores of wounded broke ranks and ran for the protection of the swamp. Several companies of the militia, who had received no injuries, were sent in after them. At last account they were still recovering bodies. This was one reason the militia had not returned to the city. Another concerned the sixteen men who were taken prisoner. They were being escorted back to the city by slow stages, exhibited as an example at each landing. Among them was the one-armed mulatto who had challenged Rafael at Alhambra, a Santo Domingan who had entered the territory illegally by way of Barataria.

  It was said the captives would be publicly executed in the Place d’Armes. Their heads would be struck off and placed at intervals on poles along the river. Already Catherine had heard some of her mother’s friends discussing the ensembles they would wear to view the spectacle.

  The time for vigilance was past, now was the time for rebuilding. Despite fear and smoke, sweat and carnage, men must always rebuild. The great estates would rise again. The wounds would heal. The lot of some slaves would be worse for what had happened; for some, those owned by men of insight like her husband, it would be better. The land along the river would return to something approaching normality, except she would not be there.

  Catherine had returned to the house of her mother. Because the older woman would not understand otherwise, Catherine told her of her dilemma. Madame Mayfield was not in sympathy with her daughter’s scruples. She hinted, delicately, that since Catherine knew the child was Rafe’s there could be no harm in living with him a time before she informed him of its advent, then claiming an eight-month baby. Failing to persuade Catherine, she made plans to join her as soon as she was settled, perhaps in a village near the Mediterranean. She would remain with her until after the birth.