FIERCE EDEN
BEGINNING
MID-POINT
AUTHOR’S NOTE
LOUISIANA DAWN
BEGINNING
MID-POINT
EMBRACE AND CONQUER
PART 1
PART 2
ABOUT JENNIFER BLAKE
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without the written permission of publisher or author, except where permitted by law.
Individual Book Cover Designs by LFD Designs For Authors.
Boxed Set Cover Design by SM Reine.
Fierce Eden
Copyright © 1985 and 2011 by Patricia Maxwell
First Trade Edition: July 1985
First Mass Market Edition: November 1990
E-Reads Edition: 1999
Sourcebooks Casablanca Classics Edition: 2011
Steel Magnolia Press Digital Edition: 2012
Louisiana Dawn
Copyright © 1987 and 2012 by Patricia Maxwell
First Trade Edition: October 1987
First Mass Market Edition: 1993
First E-Reads Edition: 1999
Steel Magnolia Press Digital Edition: 2012
Embrace and Conquer
Copyright © 1981 and 2012 by Patricia Maxwell
First Fawcett Columbine Trade Edition: November 1981
First Ballantine Mass Market Edition: October 1983
Seventh Printing: October 1987
E-Reads Edition: 2003
Steel Magnolia Press Digital Edition: 2012
1
THE GATHERING WAS sparse. At the board of Commandant Chepart, with its cloth of Flemish linen scattered with bread crumbs and ringed with spilled wine, there were a number of conspicuously empty chairs. It was not to be wondered at, of course, not when every day brought fresh rumors of unrest among the Indians. The village of the Natchez tribe was so close and tempers so uncertain that few cared to risk being caught on the road at dawn, should the evening be prolonged.
Elise Laffont had felt a qualm or two herself. She did not usually attend such affairs as the commandant’s soirée, nor would she have this evening if it had not been most important. She had kept to herself during the past three years since her husband had died. Some considered it, she knew, a becoming show of grief and modesty in such a young widow. The truth was that she preferred her own company and had far too much to do managing the estate left to her for frivolous amusement to be an attraction.
From the head of the table came a roar of laughter. Chepart, chuckling at his own joke, signaled the servant behind his chair to refill the glasses of his guests with the excellent Madeira that was to accompany the dessert course. The light of the candles in the crystal chandelier, hanging from the rough rafters overhead, gleamed among the waves of Elise’s honey-brown hair, bright despite their dusting of white powder, as she turned her head to glance at her host. The warm amber of her eyes turned cool with the disdain that rose to her finely molded features.
Two places farther along the board, Madame Marie Doucet leaned across her husband to catch Elise’s eye. Her plump face was alight with good-natured amusement and pleasure. “Commandant Chepart is quite the bon vivant tonight, is he not?”
“Certainly he thinks so,” Elise said under her breath.
“What was that, chére? I didn’t quite catch it.”
The older woman had been quite pretty once, in a doll-like fashion. She had kept the quick coquettish mannerisms and light tone of voice despite the gray in her fading blond hair. She had been a good friend to Elise, however, in the past few years and a good neighbor who lived less than a third of a league away. Elise had learned to overlook much of the silliness for the sake of the kind heart underneath.
Elise shook her head in quick dismissal. “Nothing.”
The commandant of Fort Rosalie, the representative of his Royal Majesty King Louis XV here in the wilderness known as Louisiana, was indeed given to good living. Elise, with a slight curl of her mouth, which was smooth and a trifle wide, thought that he was more of a debauchee than a bon vivant. Chepart had been a tankard friend of her husband. He and Vincent Laffont had spent many an evening drinking each other under the table and guffawing at crude stories. When her husband had had the consideration to drown himself while fishing on the Mississippi, the commandant had come to her. He had been all concern, most solicitous of her comfort and well-being; so solicitous in fact that he had pressed her down upon a settle and thrust his hand into her bodice to fondle her breasts. She had snatched a wooden knitting needle from the basket in the corner of the settle and done her best to skewer him with it, then had taken down Vincent’s musket from over the fireplace and ordered the commandant from her property. When he had gone, she had cried for the first time since Vincent’s death, tears of rage and disgust, and of gladness that she need never again submit to any man.
It was distressing, then, that she must now ask a favor of Commandant Chepart. She did not like to accept his hospitality, much less endure his company; still, she would do it until she had what she wanted from the fat fool.
She allowed her gaze to wander around the room, noting the jewel-colored Turkish rug underfoot, the silk hangings at the shuttered, glassless windows, the Watteau pastoral scene that hung above the enormous fireplace where red coals pulsed with fire and a back log smouldered. How out of place these things seemed in the simplicity of the house provided for the fort’s commander. With the elaborate table setting and the ridiculous grandeur of the crystal chandelier that shed as light upon them, the furnishings were an indication of both the commandant’s pretentious arrogance and his ambition. Chepart intended to use his office as a stepping-stone to greater things, perhaps an appointment at court, but in the meantime it pleased him to live comfortable splendor, regardless of how his underhanded dealings with the commission merchants might affect supplies for the fort and the men who manned it.
What means could she use to persuade someone like Chepart to listen to her? She did not have the funds to offer him monetary inducement, and she refused to consider bartering that commodity she felt might interest him most: herself. But perhaps she was wrong in thinking that he would want something in return for what she would ask. It was not so great a request, not so unusual after all, however much it might mean to her. It would be no loss to the commandant to allow the prisoners now in the guardhouse at the fort to build a storage barn and poultry yard for her.
The men were not dangerous, being charged officially with nothing more serious than insubordination, for all of Chepart’s railing about sedition and a blatant attempt to undermine his authority. The crime committed had been the spirited representation by these men, all of them officers of the fort, of the wisdom of preparing a defense against the coming Indian rising. That there was going to be one, they were positive. Their information had come straight from the Indian village of White Apple, from women who had heard it direct from Tattooed Arm, mother of the Great Sun who was the ruler of the Natchez.
Chepart had not been impressed by their source. He had declared that French soldiers should know better than to be swayed by their Indian whores and that his officers would learn better if he had to whip the skin from their backs to bring home the lesson. No puny Indian tri
be would dare to challenge the might of France. Hadn’t the diplomacy of the French governors of Louisiana always ensured amicable relations with their Indian allies? They were as children in the hands of men of intelligence and guile. Besides, no Indian chieftain would dare to order an attack knowing that the armed force of France would be turned against his people for such treachery.
In Elise’s opinion, it was just such blatant disdain for the Natchez, just such lack of judgment in dealing with them, that was the reason for her pressing need for a barn and fenced yard. It was Chepart’s bungling that had caused the recent unrest of the Indians, had turned them into marauders who took delight in carrying off her chickens and ducks, hogs and calves. Not that the Natchez had any great appreciation for property rights at the best of times, but everyone knew that their depredations in the last months were made from a sense of ill-usage and spite. And every day they became bolder.
Unconsciously Elise turned her amber gaze upon the corpulent figure of her host. Chepart, catching her eye, raised his glass to her. His expression held a hint of barely concealed lust as he surveyed her high-piled hair, the proud tilt of her chin and the determined self-possession of her features in the oval of her face. He lifted his hand to twist a curl of his long, full wig where it fell over his shoulder as he permitted his overwarm gaze to drop to the low bodice of her gold brocade gown that cupped the gentle swells of her breasts. His thick tongue came to lick his lips, leaving them wet.
Elise clenched her teeth, but could not prevent the shudder of repugnance that rippled through her. In sheer reaction, she covered herself as best she could by drawing up the edges of her shawl as if against a chill draft.
“Are you cold, my dear Madame Laffont?” Chepart called down the table, clapping his hands at the same time for a servant. “Now that we cannot allow!”
An African slave, little more than a boy, came running. The commandant gestured toward the fire and the boy went quickly to the hearth. At the same time, a serving woman emerged from the back of the house with a tray of cakes and custards. A small silence fell as the diners watched the mending of the fire and waited for their dessert to be placed before them. The only sound was the crash of logs being thrown on the hot coals and the crackling rush as they caught. The flames leaped up the chimney in a burst of yellow-orange light that chased the shadows from the corners of the room. The bright glow also penetrated, through a doorway that stood open, into the dimness of the connecting salon, a reception room with access to the outside.
A shrill scream shattered the quiet. “An Indian! Come to murder us!”
It was Madame Doucet, her eyes glassy with shock as she pointed with one trembling hand toward the salon. Men surged to their feet, looking around wildly. Women gasped and cried out, springing up to clutch at their husbands. The serving woman threw her tray into the air, then stood rooted as custard and cake dishes crashed to the floor, scattering their sticky contents over her feet. Chepart cursed, flinging down his glass so that wine streamed across the table and dripped like blood down the cloth to the floor. Elise clutched at her shawl with white-knuckled hands as she turned in the direction Madame Doucet indicated.
The Indian moved forward from the salon doorway into the dining room with silent animal vigor, tall as the Natchez were tall, magnificent in his sculptured barbarian grace, infinitely savage. The firelight was reflected in a copper shimmer from the muscled planes of his chest that were shadowed by intricate lines of tattooing unobscured by the faintest trace of body hair, lines that gave mute evidence of his ability to bear pain. The light also caught the beading that patterned the white doeskin of the moccasins on his feet and the breechclout that covered his loins, and shimmered in the soft white nap of the cape of woven swansdown that hung from his shoulders. More swan feathers had been used to form the circlet that he wore on the crown of his head in the fashion of the Natchez males of royal birth, those of the Sun class. Just behind that circlet was the knot of his hair where it had been drawn up, the thick, black knot that offered an easy hold for an enemy in deliberate scorn for any prowess other than his own, one that would become a scalp lock should that prowess fail. But his hairline had not been plucked for a higher brow in the Natchez fashion, and his eyes, watchful, dangerously opaque, were not black but gray.
“Merde!” the commandant exclaimed, the oath bursting from him in his relief. “It’s Reynaud Chavalier!”
The fear that had gripped the men in the room dissolved into anger. Tight-lipped, they exchanged glances before turning back toward the intruder. The women sighed and whispered among themselves with nervous titters. Elise sat very still, staring in horrified fascination. She saw the man called Chavalier sweep the room with a glance that seemed to hold an edge of contempt, felt the glance touch her in stinging appraisal, pause, then move on as if there was nothing there to hold his interest.
Madame Doucet bent toward Elise over her husband’s empty chair. “He’s a half-breed,” she said in a trilling undertone.
“I know,” she replied.
She did know, as who did not? She had never met Reynaud Chavalier, but she had heard of him. He was the son of Robert Chavalier, Comte de Combourg, and the Natchez woman called Tattooed Arm, and the brother to the man now known as the Great Sun. He had been raised by the Indians until his thirteenth year. At that time he had been taken to France by his father, when the comte had returned to his native land after his service in Louisiana, to be educated. The old comte had died some years later, leaving Reynaud a sizable fortune and an immense tract of land on the west side of the Mississippi River. Reynaud had tarried in France to settle his father’s affairs, which had included a French wife and a legitimate heir to the title and estates.
Then five years ago he had returned, melting into the wilderness of his holdings and dropping the mantle of civilization as easily as he had shed his satin small clothes. He spent most of his time on his lands across the river where it was rumored that he had entertained the governor and his entourage in great state on occasion. No one believed it. When he visited the Grand Village of the Natchez in the jurisdiction of the commandant of Fort Rosalie, he always wore the trappings of his mother’s people.
Reynaud Chavalier surveyed the startled faces before him with grim impatience. He was here on a fool’s errand he was certain, but it must be carried out. At last he swung toward the commandant, sketching a bow totally without subservience. “I give you good evening.”
“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” Chepart blustered, snatching at the remnants of his self-possession as he jerked his napkin from his neck and flung it down on the table.
“I sent a request to see you this afternoon and was told I must wait on your convenience. Not wanting to trouble you while you were occupied with the weighty affairs of your office, I thought to seek you out during your leisure.” The words were smooth, but carried the whiplash flick of irony.
“You thought to see me at a time when I would be less likely to have you thrown in the guardhouse for your impudence! I’ve half a mind to call my men—”
“Certainly, if it pleases you. I trust you will not be too disturbed if they fail to come.”
Chepart gripped the table edge as he leaned forward, demanding, “What have you done?”
“Merely disarmed them.”
His speech carried the cultured tones of Paris, his voice was deep and vibrant. If she closed her eyes, Elise thought, it would be possible to suppose that she was listening, at the very least, to a courtier, if not a member of the French nobility. She stared at the silver armbands that compressed the muscles of his upper arms, aware of a feeling of disturbance inside her that she did not like.
“How dare you!” Chepart demanded.
Irritation gathered inside Reynaud, combining with a hard anger as he regarded the corpulent and self-important fool before him. “Because I felt it necessary. It is of the utmost urgency that you listen without doing something so stupid as ordering yet another arrest. The lives of your c
ommand, the people you are here to protect, even those assembled in this room, depend on it.”
Chepart stared at Reynaud, then dropped heavily back into his seat. “I will disregard the insult,” he drawled, “if you win tell me that you are not going to present to me yet again this rumor of imminent attack by the Natchez.”
“It is no rumor, but fact.”
“One I am to accept because you say it is so? What proof have you?”
“My mother was told of it by my brother, the Great Sun. Because of the love she had for my father, she does not wish those of his blood removed by violence from this land. She has charged others with this warning and you would not listen. Now she has charged me.”
“That makes you a traitor to your mother’s people, does it not?”
“I would be just as much at fault if I allowed the French, the people of my father, to be slaughtered. It is my hope that if the Natchez see you well-armed and prepared to defend yourselves, they will not attack.”
“I don’t doubt it, cowards that they are.”
Reynaud Chavalier stared at the man before him until he had conquered the strong urge to plant his fist in the greasy face of the commandant. “Not cowards, but realists who see no glory in dying without purpose.”
“We won’t quibble over the term,” the other man said with expansive condescension.
“It’s a distinction you would do well to remember, Chepart.” Reynaud’s voice was even, deadly earnest. “My mother’s people are proud; yet you have, in the last weeks, had a warrior stripped and flogged for a misdemeanor that should have been brought to the attention of the Great Sun for punishment. They are just; and you have allowed a soldier of the fort to walk about free after shooting and killing an old man whose only crime was his failure to pay back a measure of corn on a given date, when his corn was not yet ripe in the fields. The Natchez have held this land for centuries, but you have demanded that they move from one of their oldest villages, that of White Apple, because you covet the richness of their cleared fields for your own use. These are only a few of the events that have tried their temper. They are sworn to move against you in concert with the Yazoos, Choctaws, Tioux, Tensas, and others. The date has been set and a bundle of reeds sent to every tribe; one reed must be removed daily until the day comes for the attack. My mother found the bundle in the Temple of the Sun, risking much to remove a handful of the reeds. Because of her action, the attack here will come early as a warning to the French in the Mississippi Valley. If you are ready, it will come to nothing. If not, then you must be ready to face the holy war of the Natchez called the Blood Vengeance.”
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