The Magnolia Duchess (Gulf Coast Chronicles #3)

by Beth White

  On the thought, the first redcoat appeared, then a line of them marched past the window, their boots and breeches coated to the hips in slimy mud. They carried their bayonetted muskets in firing position, cocked hats precisely set upon their heads, mouths grim but eyes alight with excitement. They were ready to kill.

  She sank to the floor. The Villeré women had lived in a flutter of morbid dread for so many days, with nothing, absolutely nothing, transpiring, that Fiona had grown complacent. Now, complacency gave way to utter terror. She was all alone and unarmed.

  Her body began to quake, her teeth chattering audibly.

  Wait, that noise came from the other side of the darkened room, something drumming against the floor, likely under the bed. Then she heard sniffling.

  “Who’s there?” Fiona whispered. “I won’t hurt you.”

  A soft, gasping sob, then a young female voice, “I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t feel good is why I ain’t in the field.”

  Definitely under the bed. Fiona sat back, absurdly relieved to have company, even if it was a scared young colored girl. “It’s all right. I told you, I won’t hurt you. But there’s trouble outside, so we’ve got to be quiet. The British are here.”

  “Where’s everybody else?”

  “In the sugarhouse, I think. Is there a gun or a knife here?”

  The girl uttered a weak giggle. “Miss, they ain’t gonna give none of us a weapon.”

  “Oh.” Of course not. “Where are the machetes that cut the cane?”

  “Overseer keeps ’em.”

  Stymied, Fiona thought hard. “Where’s that? Can we get there from behind these cabins?”

  “Maybe. You could try it.” Fiona’s companion was clearly reluctant to move.

  But if they just sat here, one of those soldiers, maybe a whole rank of them, was going to burst in. Fiona wasn’t as pessimistic as the Villeré women, but neither was she naive enough to assume her virtue would survive such an encounter.

  “I’ll go,” she said with as much firmness as she could muster. “Which direction?”

  “Back toward the orange grove.”

  Fiona hesitated. “Before I go, what’s your name?”

  “Penny, miss.”

  “All right, Penny, stay right where you are and pray for me—and I’ll pray for you.”

  “I will. Be careful, miss.”

  As she crawled toward the back door of the cabin, Fiona felt a tiny measure of confidence return. If the Lord was likely to listen to anyone, it would be this thrown-away, petrified little slave. “I’ll come back for you,” she said, and reached up to inch the door open.

  And found herself looking at the filthy, mud-caked boots of a British soldier.

  “Well, hello,” he said, kicking the door wide. “Look what we have here.”

  “Catch him or kill him!” Colonel Thornton shouted as Charlie ran past his commander to take chase after Villeré.

  The Creole militia officer and his younger brother had been their prisoner inside the house for all of five minutes before he jumped out a window stupidly left open by the private guarding the room. Behind him, Charlie could hear the rest of his company running and firing at their quarry. He prayed they wouldn’t hit him instead.

  Villeré, miraculously dodging bullets, scrambled over a five-foot picket fence that separated the yard from the sugarcane fields ten yards ahead of Charlie.

  The American was built to run, and Charlie’s injured limb wasn’t as strong as it used to be. Sweating with exertion in spite of the cold, he jumped and clawed at the fence but couldn’t get his leg over. As he sank to the ground, thigh aching abominably, the men behind him swarmed over, howling like hounds after a fox. “Don’t let him get away!” Charlie groaned. “He’ll sound a warning.”

  But it was too late. Villeré knew the terrain, knew where to go to ground, knew how to twist out of their reach. Which meant they would have to act quickly in order to take the American forces in New Orleans off guard.

  Pushing himself to his feet, Charlie limped back to the house, where Thornton waited on the verandah. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m afraid he’s gone.”

  Thornton muttered a curse. “There goes our element of surprise.”

  Charlie took out his spyglass and trained it on the orange grove through which the rest of the eighteen-hundred-man contingent would arrive from up the bayou, one barge at a time. Even as he watched, a group of twenty soldiers marched into view. He lowered the glass. “The 43rd is on their way up. That’s the next-to-last barge of our group. General Keane should be here anytime now with the first of his.”

  “Then we will start forming up. Have the men you sent to clean out the outbuildings reported back?”

  “All but . . .” Charlie frowned. “I haven’t seen Osmond and Drake.”

  “Go look for them. I want everybody accounted for before Keane arrives.”

  “Aye, sir.” Charlie walked down the steps, pausing as he passed a grizzled marine guarding a group of slaves. “Did you see which way Osmond and Drake went?”

  “Yes, sir.” The marine yawned. “The sugar mill over there—they said they were going to look inside it, as well as the slave cabins behind it.”

  The large building indicated sat about a hundred yards northeast of the main house, just visible at the edge of the orange grove. Shouldering his gun, Charlie headed that direction.

  He was tempted to linger as he walked through the grove. But maybe there would be time to bathe in the river and rid himself of the stinking mud that clung to the lower half of his body if he hurried to complete his task. He kept going and came out in the canefield, where he walked another ten yards or so to the sugarhouse, a rectangular wooden building raised on pilings, its doors standing open. Figuring the missing marines must have already cleared it out, he walked past. A scuffling sound followed by a muffled feminine squeal and a man’s yelp brought him to a halt.

  The Villeré females—mother and two daughters—had been confined to their sitting room in the main house, and Thornton had given orders not to molest the slave women. But most of these marines and sailors were hard-bitten enlisted men, not gentlemen. All had been without the company of women for months.

  “Drake! Osmond! Is that you? Come out of there.”

  Drake, hat askew, leaned out the doorway. “Yes, sir. Coming, sir.” He looked over his shoulder. “Come on, Osmond, just bring her with us.”

  “Not on your life. She’s mine, the little—” Another yelped curse came from inside the house. “I’m bleeding!”

  As Charlie stalked toward the house, Drake said more urgently, “Osmond, come on before you get us—”

  Charlie hauled Drake out of the way. Taking the step up into the house, he saw Osmond behind a row of tables and a large machine, crowding a woman against the far wall. He couldn’t see her face or upper body, but she was clearly struggling to get away.

  “Osmond!” Charlie roared. “Attention!” By the time he crossed the room, Osmond had relaxed his hold on his captive.

  The marine turned, livid of face and eyes narrowed. “Look what she did to me!” He touched his lower lip, from which blood welled and dripped onto the floor.

  “You will address me as ‘sir,’ and I don’t care what she did to you—no woman deserves to be manhandled like that. Get out! And if you run, I’ll have you hunted down like the dog you are and shoot you myself. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Osmond snarled and left.

  Charlie’s attention focused on the woman, who had sunk into a crouch against the wall, hands over her face—a young white woman with wild blonde curls chopped off between chin and shoulders. Her dress was dusty and torn at the shoulder, its dirty hem raised to expose a pair of small muddy boots.

  “Are you all right?” He reached a hand to help her up.

  She flinched, peeking through her fingers. “No. Leave me alone.” Then, reluctantly, “But thank you.”

  He withdrew his hand, overcome with an eerie sense that he knew that vo
ice. Undoubtedly exhaustion and lack of food had left him slightly mad.

  “Come on,” he said gently, “I can’t leave you here. I’ll take you back to the house. Are you one of the Villeré sisters?”

  Seconds ticked by as she sat, head lowered, breathing into her hands, then at last she dropped them to her knees and looked up. “Hullo, Charlie.”

  “No. Oh, no.” His moratorium on profanity nearly overcome by shock, Charlie looked around to make sure he hadn’t landed in some insane warp of time and space. Sugarhouse, Louisiana plantation, America.

  Fiona Lanier sat on the floor at his feet, and he had barely kept her from being raped by a couple of barbaric whelps calling themselves British marines. At least—

  “Did they hurt you?” He fell to his knees and took her chin to examine her tear-streaked face. She didn’t seem to be bruised, though there was blood drying on her bodice. “They didn’t . . .”

  “No.” She sniffed. “He just tried to kiss me, and I bit him.”

  “I should be grateful you never tried that on me.”

  “True.” Her lips, puffy from crying, curved.

  “But, Fiona, it could have been worse. Much worse. What are you doing here?” Was she never going to stop showing up when he least expected her? Just when he’d somewhat reconciled himself that he might never see her again. He touched the ragged curls. “What have you done to your hair?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  And he had to report in to Thornton. He looked over his shoulder. Osmond and Drake waited outside the door, no doubt cooking up some story to explain their reprehensible behavior. “Which I must hear. But you’re not safe here. You’ve got to come back to the house with me and stay with the other women.”

  “Yes, but first we have to get Penny and take her with us. She’s in one of the slave cabins, under a bed.”

  “Penny, eh?” Sighing, he rose. “Nothing is simple with you, is it? All right, then, take me there.” He extended his hand again.

  This time she took it and let him pull her to her feet. When he stood there a moment, cradling her hand between both of his, absorbing the wonder of her presence, she blushed. “I know I’m a mess. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble.”

  “I won’t lie. We’re both in no end of trouble. But let’s just take one thing at a time and soldier on. Can you follow my lead on this one?”

  Her eyes filled, drenched blue oceans of regret. “I’ll try.”

  “All right then.” He crooked his arm and drew her hand through it. “Shall we, Duchess?”

  She kept staring at him, thinking, He’s going to disappear any minute, and I’ll wake up in my bed at Navy Cove.

  Then she’d blink, and there he sat on Madame’s settee. Real, human flesh and blood—one blue eye, one half-hazel eye, rumpled dark hair, two-day beard, and smelling like a barnyard.

  But oh, so beautiful.

  She didn’t like to think what might have happened if he hadn’t come. God might have sent some other officer. Then again, she might have been violated. But at least she’d gotten the two soldiers to leave the slave cabin where Penny cowered under the bed.

  The little colored girl, who probably wasn’t more than thirteen or fourteen, hadn’t wanted to come with her and Charlie at first, but finally Fiona coaxed her out by making Charlie wait outside. When Penny peeked out the window and saw him in the light, noted his weary, compassionate smile and humorous eyes, she’d followed right along—and now you couldn’t pry her away from him. She sat cross-legged on the floor beside his chair, waiting to be given something to do. Quite the knight in shining armor he was.

  The two redcoat commanders, Colonel Thornton and the newly arrived General Keane, clearly placed much confidence in Charlie’s ability to sort out their Creole prisoners, including Fiona. They’d put him in charge of the house, while they left to move the army up to the line where the Villeré and Lacoste plantations joined. Madame Villeré, captivated by Charlie’s ability to converse in French, offered to have one of the colored girls draw him a bath so that he could refresh himself while his uniform was cleaned—for all the world as if he were an invited guest at a house party rather than an invading army officer.

  Eyes dancing, he’d declined until given official permission to go off duty, but did take off his boots and permit her to place an old towel on the settee to protect the furniture.

  One had to admit the dashing blue naval uniform suited him, even covered in mud.

  “Fiona?” Madame snapped her fingers to gain her attention. “So I am to understand that you and Lieutenant Kincaid are previously acquainted?”

  Fiona jerked her gaze from Charlie’s face. “Yes, ma’am. Our families have been connected for many years.” That sounded much better than I chased him on a horse and shot him in the leg, then visited him in prison and fed him false information.

  “How fascinating!” cooed Juliet, leaning forward so that the bodice of her dress gaped. “Do tell us how that came about, Lieutenant.”

  To his credit, Charlie kept his gaze on Juliet’s forehead. “I’m afraid it was a rather mundane situation after all. I had been sent down from public school to my grandfather’s estate, and Miss Lanier happened to be visiting there with her relatives. We were only briefly acquainted, and I barely recognized her when I saw her again today.” He glanced at Fiona, his eyes warning her to let him lead the conversation.

  Juliet sat back, pouting. “Oh. Yes, Fiona, is very . . . different.”

  “But such a delightful girl,” Madame said, patting Fiona’s hand. “Perhaps you would like to run upstairs and change your dress before dinner.”

  Then she would miss whatever Charlie decided to tell them about their “connection.” On the other hand, she probably smelled as bad as he did, considering the amount of swamp detritus at the bottom of her skirt.

  “Yes, Madame, I believe I would like to do that. If you’ll excuse me.” She stood up, dipped a curtsey, and headed for the stairs. She didn’t look back at Charlie once.

  But she could feel his eyes on her back all the way across the room. A delicious shiver took her as she closed the bedroom door.

  It was very hard to remember that they were at war and she was his prisoner.

  Shortly after Fiona left to change clothes, Charlie excused himself and went to check on progress with formation. By now, British presence on the plantation consisted of Thornton’s Advance—the 85th Foot and the 95th Rifles, plus the 4th Foot artillery and some rocket men, sappers, and miners, nearly a thousand men—as well as the 1,615-man first brigade under Keane, made up of the 93rd Highlanders, the 5th West India, and one company of the 1st West India. The second brigade under Cochrane, still to come, would increase the total force to around sixty-four hundred.

  He marched along the colorful, disciplined half-mile line of soldiers and marines, not in the least worried about their ability to engage and defeat the demonstrably mismanaged American force. But as he approached the two senior officers, his confidence plummeted. Charlie stopped within hearing distance, reluctant to interrupt the heated debate.

  “We’re only eight miles away!” Thornton shouted. “The Americans have no significant defense between here and the city. If we don’t go now, we lose the advantage we gained in slogging through that confounded swamp.”

  “But we don’t know for sure what they have waiting for us in New Orleans.” Keane’s tone was adamant. “We could be walking into disaster if we don’t wait for the rest of our troops to arrive.”

  Thornton threw his hands upward. “But, sir—”

  “What is it, Kincaid?” Keane demanded, wheeling.

  Charlie approached and addressed Thornton. “Easton and I have inspected the ranks, sir, and everything looks good.”

  “All right, then,” Thornton said, still looking disgruntled, “dismiss them to make camp. They may bathe in the canal and forage for food, but have them bring it back for officers to choose from first.”

  Charlie saluted. “Yes, sir.”
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  Keane stopped him. “Wait, Kincaid. Aren’t you the fellow who spent six months here during the first part of the year? And then some time imprisoned in Mobile?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have anything to add to this discussion?”

  Charlie hesitated, glancing at Thornton. “A credible source indicated to me that until very recently Jackson expected us to attack Mobile again, or somewhere else off the Mississippi coast—not New Orleans. This leads me to infer that his forces here may not have yet had time to coalesce.” He paused, then blurted, “I think Colonel Thornton may be right. Sir.”

  Keane’s face darkened. “And your source would be . . . ?”

  “A young lady in Mobile who had no reason to lie to me.”

  “A young lady?” Keane looked incredulous. “You take the word of an American woman as proper intelligence? No wonder you were caught and imprisoned!”

  “But, Keane,” Thornton interrupted, “our sources reporting huge numbers of American troops in the city are equally suspect. I still think we’d do better to move in to attack—”

  “Enough!” Keane made a slicing motion with his hand. “Thornton, you are hasty and overaggressive, and Kincaid’s judgment disappoints me as well. We shall attack at dawn, after Cochrane arrives with the second brigade and the troops are rested for battle. You are both dismissed.” He wheeled and stalked away.

  Charlie glanced at Thornton. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “You reported what you knew. So did I. But we are outranked and overruled.” Thornton clapped Charlie on the shoulder and followed Keane.

  Shaking his head, Charlie could only comply with Thornton’s order to dismiss the men from ranks. Leaving a large Union Jack snapping in the breeze from a tree limb, he found Easton guarding the toolshed where they’d locked up the thirty-man Louisiana militia picket they’d surprised that morning and rounded up like so many goats.

  The clergyman’s son sat in a cane-bottom chair tipped back against the toolshed’s outer wall, sound asleep.

  Smiling, Charlie left him alone, repaired to the canal with several other officers, and stripped down for a much-needed bath and shave. Feeling much more himself, he rinsed the mud from his uniform, wrung it out, and put it back on, still wet. Then, scrounging an extra blanket from someone’s pack, he lay out in the sun for a nap while his clothes dried.