by Jackie Ivie
“Tell her the truth,” Simons said from his position above them.
“In my own words. And in my own time.”
Simons snorted and returned his attention forward. Cord watched as Linna glanced up at the Frenchman and wrinkled her nose. He was gratified Simons hadn’t said more. It was probably more because the road took every bit of his attention. Cord guessed that, as Linna bounced and jostled atop him. He held her to him and tried to absorb every jolt with his own body.
“What is he talking about?” she asked.
He sighed. “The little bit he was told.”
“What?” Linna glanced from one to the other before returning to Cord’s face. “I don’t understand,” she said.
Cord squinted against her perusal. He hadn’t even realized it, but on the voyage over with her, he’d changed. Markedly. Where before he’d lived only to rip out his cousin’s throat before they hanged him, now there was more he had to do. He had to provide for his wife and his child first. For them he needed proof. Real proof. Until he had it, any knowledge was dangerous. Marcelle was the man that had sent a 16-year-old innocent to hell. He’d been desperate then. He’d be even more desperate now. That made it worse than dangerous.
“Well?” she prompted.
Cord sighed again, heavily enough that it moved her up and down with it. “The fourth marquis - the one with the foresight? He had three sons. The eldest inherited. The second son moved to the French Canadian province, the youngest was a wastrel and blacked from the records.”
“I think I saw that.”
Cord blinked slowly. His eyes felt filled with sand. “When?” he asked.
“When I made them grant me access to the Larroquette Mansion in the
Vieux Carres.”
Her admission made her blush. Cord caught the twitch in his shoulders as he watched her face. He wasn’t tightening his hold, he told himself. He was just dull from lack of exercise and stiff from an uncomfortable cart ride.
“You went back there?” His throat was dry and the words choked. He needed a drink, a meal for four, and about a week’s worth of sleep. As he wasn’t getting any of that, he grimaced, then he ignored it. “Why?”
She straightened her back, looked down, and he watched her lower lip tremble. For some reason that little gesture made the area she had her head against heat up, sending warmth to the roots of his hair. He hoped he wasn’t coming down with another fever.
“To find out that I’d been given a child by a liar and...an impostor.”
Her whisper was barely audible, but he heard it. He knew Simons had too, by the man’s snort of derision. Cord felt the heat recede, leaving a chill in its wake. It wasn’t pleasant. He kept his features as stone-stiff as possible. He knew it was working as she glanced up at him, then looked away. He didn’t want to feel anything. It was so much better that way. He cleared his throat.
“The fifth marquis died without an heir. They searched for the second son. They found him. He was unacceptable to inherit, however...so were his offspring.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He’d wed with an Algonquin. Their children were half.”
“Half what?”
“Native. An Algonquin is an Indian.”
“You mean...a-a half-breed?” she asked, wrinkling her brow.
“Yeah. Pretty much the same social consequences, too.”
“Well! I would hope so!” she remarked. “This is horrible.”
Cord let the instant reaction die. It wasn’t surprising. White folk always reacted the same. He wondered if she was capable of changing and damned himself for caring enough to ask it. Once she knew what his seed had sown and what her own body was carrying, would she turn the disgust and dislike she felt right now...toward his babe?
He gulped. He’d seen the perfect expression of love on her face when she’d allowed him to touch where his child nestled. He wondered if she’d be able to handle the truth. He had to will his entire body not to exhibit how any of his thought process. He was grateful for the years of practice, when it worked.
“So what happened then?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. His voice worked, and it wasn’t shaking. “They let the plantation continue, pretty much as it always had. Then something drastic happened.”
“What?”
“The wastrel showed up. About twelve - no thirteen years back. Had a son in tow. Another wastrel. The land suffered. The slaves suffered. According to stories, just about everybody suffered.”
“So...what did they do?”
“Solicitors being what they are, they figured even an Algonquin part-breed had to be better than the devil, especially when the coffers were getting raided. That didn’t leave much for legal fees and such.”
“I’m beginning to see. I think. They weren’t in any hurry to find the legal owner before, because they could bill anything they wanted and there wasn’t anyone to stop them.”
“Close enough. Only these solicitors hadn’t counted on the wastrel and his son. Thieves recognizing each other and all that, they weren’t about to stand by and watch rampant theft instead of legal theft. So they sent a representative to Canada to hunt down the real heir.”
“Did they find him?”
“Yeah,” he answered.
“He’s the one who drowned...on the voyage over. What a shame.” Her voice cracked mid-sentence, and Cord raised his eyebrows.
“He drowned, did he?” he answered, noncommittally.
“That’s what their family Bible says, written in ink, as plain as day. I know. I saw it. You know it, too.”
“Now what would go and make you say a thing like that?” he asked, in the lightest teasing tone he could manage,
“Because...his name was Raoul. You know. You assumed his name. You’re still assuming it.”
“My middle name is Raoul, cher. I can’t assume that.”
“That Dominique called you Raoul though.”
“I use it when I need to. It comes in handy.”
She paled. He watched it and cursed his own tongue as her liquid brown eyes gleamed with moisture before she blinked it away. “When you need to? As in...when you’re parading as a relative? Thank you for the reminder, Cordean. I almost forgot. You’re very good at being an impostor. What must the new marquis think of you...of us?”
Simons exhaled a whistle after she finished. Cord didn’t move a muscle.
He didn’t know what he felt, but he’d rather take a blow in the mid-section. He was afraid of guessing the reason, too. It was enough that it hurt. He shrugged very carefully, moving her with it again.
“He doesn’t know anything about me, love. He’s too het-up with all the trappings and social standing of himself to bother with a hired hand and his little wife.”
“Good for him. He obviously has better eyesight than I did. He’d be able to spot a fraud the moment he saw you, whereas I? Well, you already know how long it took me.”
“And how long would that be?” he asked, in such a tightly controlled voice he wasn’t surprised when Simons glanced over his shoulder and down at him. He kept his features stiff and stony. He took pride in that. He didn’t have a heart. Thank God. Then he remembered. God wasn’t there anymore. Hadn’t been in over ten years. He silently thanked the fates instead.
“Long enough to curse me with marriage to you,” she answered.
“I think you’d be better served perching on wheat sacks now, Linna love. I think I’ve about served out my sentence as your mattress,” he answered. He still had his voice. That was all right then. If he had a heart, it would have been pounding with agony. He decided it had to be something else. Hunger. That was it. He was hungry. And he dawn light was too bright.
Cord blinked at moisture that came from nowhere and actually felt soothing against the gritty sensation of his eyes. He wanted to move a hand to rub them but knew he wouldn’t. He knew why his eyes watered. He was tired. He knew that was the reason. He still didn’t want anyone noticing or putt
ing another purpose to his actions.
He watched Linna settle onto her gunny-sacks. He inhaled very deliberately, held the air until his lungs started hurting, and then exhaled. It helped dissolve the film of tears in his eyes and the tickling sensation at the back of his throat. It didn’t do a damn thing for the ache spreading through his chest.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Well, he didn’t exaggerate. It is definitely a shack.”
Linna mopped at her brow as she surveyed the one-room dwelling. She was speaking aloud as much for the noise as any other reason. Cord lived in the end shanty, along a small street of them, if one could call the grass-lined lane in front of the building a street.
It was poor; bare except for the bedstead, a table, and a small fire-pit thing, but it was clean. It hadn’t taken long to put it to rights either. Cord had two trunks of soiled laundry, and she had one, along with her portmanteau. It hadn’t even bothered her to have to bring them inside by herself. There wasn’t much bothering her, and yet there was everything at the same time.
Linna sat on one of the trunks and surveyed her new home. It was three times the size of Cord’s berth but smaller than her rooms at the plantation had been. There was a beaten, earthen floor, although nearly every inch of it was covered with a crazy pattern of age-dulled rugs, and the plank walls had such an uneven texture, she could use them for any array of shelves she wanted.
Linna wondered what bothered her the most. It had bothered her that Cord had put his hat on, stood and flexed some of his frame before leaping from the wagon. This just as they’d reached the turn in the lane leading to the houses. She knew he had to work, and her heart went out to him, although for the life of her she couldn’t fathom why. He was used to labor. That’s what he did. It bothered her that he hadn’t had any rest, but that was his own fault. He shouldn’t be so amorous.
And she shouldn’t love him so much.
Despite everything he was.
Still.
She’d returned his farewell gesture and dropped her hand back to her lap before Simons had pulled the wagon up to this shack. Then he’d finished his service to her by tossing their belongings to the grass, without so much as a by-your-leave.
“You going to need an assist?” he’d asked.
“If there’s a stepping rail, I’ll be fine.”
“You fake your own fear of heights? Bright girl. He doesn’t even suspect.”
Linna had given him the most derisive filled look she could manage. “I’ve been climbing steps, getting in and out of wagons, and riding horses for years, Monsieur. I have an aversion to excessive heights and small ramps. I do not fake anything, not even my disgust of you.”
He’d shrugged. “I don’t have time to bandy words with you today. He likes to eat, and you probably don’t cook.”
“You’re staying then? What about your new...friend?”
“I have to go back to town to meet him. I can’t just take the wagon and go. I have to wait for the next trip. Next week. Maybe.”
“I hope he’ll wait for you.”
“Oh...he’ll wait.”
His face had taken on a dreamy expression. Linna’s lips curled. There was another man like him on the island? Ugh. “Someone I know?” she’d asked in a falsely sweet tone.
“Hardly. He’s large, dark, and manly. He doesn’t fancy women, either, so it’s useless to turn your brown eyes on him.”
“Sounds divine,” she’d answered sarcastically. “He have a name?”
“Matthew. From Dominique’s.”
“Poor Becky,” Linna had replied and started walking toward her shack. She hadn’t waited to see if he heard. She didn’t care. She was tired, she was disgusted, and she was depressed.
Cord’s house was pathetically impoverished, but she hadn’t expected much better. It was also hot. It wasn’t yet November, but it was still hot.
Linna sighed and stood. She was sweating again in the black wool traveling ensemble, and her head was pounding with a headache. She’d bet the marquis and his family didn’t have to contend with such heat. No. They’d be ensconced in their open, airy mansion, sipping tea, probably with a servant, or two alongside, to fan them. How she envied them! It wasn’t fair!
Then again, nothing was.
Linna hung her skirt over a peg in the wall. She found another for her jacket. It was hardly worth bothering to take the blouse off, but it was stuck to her, and that was more material than she needed. Besides, she had to do her own laundry, and she already had three trunks of it waiting for her. She sighed again, unbuttoned her broadcloth blouse and hung it, too. She’d do laundry in the morning. Maybe. It depended on how cool it was later, how easy it was to get soap and a bucket, and how amenable Cord was to helping her fetch water. She hoped a pump wasn’t far off.
There was a net over the bed, cocooning it in mesh. Linna climbed beneath it, found the sheets clean and pressed, which was a wonder, and the mattress heavenly. She arranged the netting about the bed and slept.
~ ~ ~
“Good eve!”
Linna lifted her head at the greeting and blinked rapidly at the figure standing at her doorway. “Who is it? What do you want?” she croaked.
“My name’s Drew Fletcher. At your service, Ma’am.”
He bowed and flourished his hat in an exaggerated gesture. Then he put it back on and surveyed her room.
“What are you doing in my house?” she asked.
“I’m the overseer. I heard my best hand went and got himself hitched. I came to see why.”
Linna sat up, holding the covers to her chin and tried to pierce the netting. She’d slept hard. Her skin was slick and clammy. There was a stranger in her home, and he had no right to be there. Or did he? she wondered.
It was late afternoon by her guess, still sunny, but it wasn’t conducive to seeing him clearly. It was mostly his fault. She’d been asleep in a dim room, and he had an open doorway of light behind him, silhouetting him.
“Now that you have?” she questioned.
He was approaching the bed, although it wasn’t but fifteen-odd feet away. He looked very familiar. She wondered why.
“I was told Cord’s wife was a stunning woman, a beaut’. That true?”
“What if it is?”
“Well, the women on this plantation are here at my approval. If you’re a beauty, it’ll be easier to get it, if you catch my drift.”
She sucked in her breath at his arrogance. Her voice showed every bit of the disdain she’d meant it to. “And...if I’m not?”
“Then we’ll see what we’ll see. As you’ve been described to me, it’ll be interesting to find out which it is.”
“Now who would go and describe me?” It couldn’t be Cord, she surmised. He hated the attention. That left Simons.
“Near everyone I asked. It’s not a surprise. Larket is described as a handsome sort. To wed anything else would be a wager against the odds, I’d say.”
“You fancy men, too?” she asked.
She had his anger then. It sounded in his reply. “Not hardly, lady. I fancy women. Lots of women. Even married ones. They usually fancy me, too. Unless they have a look at your husband first. He’s stiff competition. It’ll be a comfort to know he’s not available anymore. If you can keep his interest. Can you?”
Linna narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t you ask him that question?”
“I won’t have to, if you’ll come out of there. I can’t make you out behind all that net. Come along. I won’t bite.”
“I’m not prepared for impromptu visits from uninvited men, Mister Fletcher, wasn’t it?” Fletcher? It didn’t seem possible there was another one on the island. It certainly wasn’t fair.
“Call me Drew, and I’m not a visitor. I’m the boss. Makes me more than invited. I’m the overseer of this here plantation. I have to oversee everything about my men. Everything.”
“I’m beginning to get annoyed with you,” Linna answered.
“Only beginning to, h
uh? Shows you have spirit at least. Are you going to come out of there...or am I going to have to come in and fetch you?”
He stood beside her bed, surveying the tent of netting that hung from a peg in the ceiling. Linna watched him. He was very familiar, and then she knew why. It was her brother.
She pushed away from the bed and shoved a hand through the netting. “If that’s you, Vincent Daniel, I’m taking a stick to you! And that’s after I scream you deaf. Do you hear me?”
“Linna?” He staggered back.
She jabbed a finger in his direction. “How dare you? How? I’ll die of embarrassment if it becomes known that my brother acts like this! How dare you?”
“You already asked that.” He grinned, then everything about him altered. Stilled. “Oh no. No. You? You’re Larket’s new wife?”
“Yes. With the proper ceremony and everything. Why?”
“He—he...he’s...”
“I know. A pirate.”
“You know?”
His astonishment as well as the way he’d wrinkled his nose made her feel as filthy as she had when she first learned. Linna glared at him. “What of it? I had to have a father for my child, didn’t I...Drew?”
“You’re—. You’re—.”
“You heard me. I said I had to have a father for my child. What better candidate than the real one?”
“Jesus Christ and bloody hell! And rotten damn! How could you?”
“You’re swearing like a sailor,” she informed him, without any inflection.
“I was a God-damn, bloody sailor!”
“Then keep such words to yourself. I am still a lady, you know.”
“You’re...you’re...Jesus! There are no words. Do you know what you’ve done?”
“Why don’t you just leave, so I can slam the door as hard as I want to before I bolt you out?” Linna asked sweetly.
“He’s not good enough for you! God-damn it to hell! And then back. I should have been there.”
“Stand aside. I need to get some clothing on before my husband arrives. I don’t want him thinking anything untoward of me. Especially with your reputation.”
“I have it. You’ll move in with me. It’s the only course. We’ll tell everyone it’s my baby, and he only brought you to me. It’ll work. I’ve disclaimed the Daniels name.”