by Lady Vixen
She shook her head slightly. In a voice barely above a whisper she asked the question that had been at the back of her mind for days. "Will you be in the fighting?"
Christopher sighed and gently smoothed the fire-dark head. "Yes, I'm afraid so," he said honestly. "You wouldn't expect me not to be, would you?"
Her throat tight, she looked up at him. "You'll be careful?"
Christopher sighed and gently smoothed the fire-dark caressing her cheek, he murmured, "When I have such a delightful bride waiting for me, you think I'm going to be taking any chances?" And then his mouth captured hers in a gentle kiss. At least it began gently, but her soft body so close to him was more than he could resist. His lips hardened with desire, and impatiently his hands sought out the fastenings of the gown.
Nicole responded as always to his lovemaking, yet conscious of where they were, she asked against his mouth, "Sanderson?"
The glitter of passion in his eyes, he promised thickly, "Anyone opens that door and I'll break his neck!"
A soft gurgle of laughter shook her, and without another thought she gave herself up to Christopher's demanding body.
It was only later, much later that night, that she recalled the conversation and a little chill crept around her heart. Lying in her bed, Christopher's sleeping form curved protectively next to hers, she touched him, as if reassuring herself he was still there, that the battle everyone knew was coming had not yet taken him from her.
This wouldn't be the first time they had been under fire, but this time it was different; this time he would be out there amongst the cannons and muskets, and she would remain behind. For just a minute she considered disguising herself as a boy to follow him, but knew it was a wistful, impractical idea. Besides, if a British bullet didn't kill her and Christopher found out, he would kill her!
Her loyalties about the coming battle were unclear even to herself. She knew that she wanted Christopher unharmed, but whether New Orleans was in the hands of the British or Americans made little difference to her. She had been just a little surprised and shocked to discover how deep Christopher's feelings were about America, and Louisiana particularly. Feeling slightly guilty that she could not summon up the same fierce loyalty that burned in Christopher, she sighed unhappily. She hated this war; it was as though brothers were warring against each other. It depressed her unbearably to know that perhaps some of the young officers she had met and liked while in England were going to be locked in mortal combat with her husband and her neighbors and friends.
Not surprisingly she thought of Allen. He was in her mind frequently these days, not only because Christopher had admitted carelessly one night last week that Lafitte had turned him over to some British officers, but she would have liked him to know that she and Christopher were married, that her seeming sacrifice hadn't been such a sacrifice after all. Her mention of Allen had pointed out how far they were from erasing the past. Christopher hadn't liked it when she had questioned him further about it—his eyes had narrowed, and suspicion and jealousy gleamed in the golden depths.
She stirred uncomfortably under the quilts, thinking that while she and Christopher were closer than they ever had been, there were still a great many pitfalls in their path. Time after time she had seen how a thoughtless word could shatter the peace between them.
Despite Christopher's avowal of belief in her story of that last night in England, she sometimes wondered if he had really accepted it. An innocent mention of Robert's name was enough for that shuttered expression to cross his face, and whether he still believed she was like her mother she didn't know. And while they had loved gloriously these past weeks, they had also fought and argued hotly, both proud, both still a little wary of this acknowledged emotion between them.
Christopher was the worst, she decided almost angrily. He shut her out whenever something he didn't want to face was mentioned, and infuriatingly she was confronted once again by the cold and sardonic Captain Saber. But then she smiled. At least it was Christopher who made love to her, ending most arguments in the age-old masculine manner by making violent love to her until she no longer cared what the argument had been about or who had been right. It was only later, like now, that all the doubts came back.
Sleepless and bedeviled, she twitched restlessly in the bed until she accidentally woke Christopher. Irritably he demanded, "What in the hell is wrong with you? I feel like a wiggling puppy has invaded my bed!"
He propped himself up on one elbow, and when Nicole saw his tousled hair tumbling across his forehead, his muscled naked chest, she felt a wave of love sweep over her. Christopher caught the look and his irritation vanished, and with a smothered laugh he reached for her under the quilts. "If you wanted me to make love to you, why didn't you say so?" he teased and proceeded to do just that.
***
On December second General Jackson arrived in New Orleans and the inhabitants took heart. Some of the apathy disappeared, although the Creoles still couldn't seem to comprehend that they were going to have to defend themselves. Besides, they argued, New Orleans had seen so many flags flying overhead in the past, what did one more mean?
On December third General Jackson reviewed the gorgeously deplumed battalion of New Orleans volunteers in the Place d'Armes. Tall, gaunt, his iron-gray hair worn long and drawn back from his sallow hawklike face, he watched expressionlessly the pitiful number of men that marched before him.
Christopher, too, stared at those same pitiful troops and decided to tackle Lafitte once more. First, though, he would have to see if Jason could put the general in a receptive mood.
At first Jason was skeptical. "Look, I know we need those men, but Jackson sided with Claiborne earlier. What makes you think he'll have changed his mind?"
"Because," Christopher retorted levelly, if a little heatedly, "he doesn't want New Orleans to fall to the British and without those men, it surely will!"
Jason regarded him sourly. "Very well. I shall talk to the general."
"Today?"
"No," Jason replied decisively. "The general must first see for himself that using Lafitte's men is the only way to save the city. Then I will approach him about Lafitte."
Christopher didn't like it, but Jason was unmoved. He merely smiled and said mildly, "Why don't you go prime Lafitte? That should satisfy your urge for action."
Unable to decide whether to laugh or smash his fist into Jason's sardonic features, Christopher stormed out of the room and headed for Lafitte's cottage on the ramparts.
"Come in, mon ami," Lafitte cried happily. "I was wondering when you would come back to see me."
His lips twisting disagreeably, Christopher lounged down in one of the wooden chairs and snapped, "I suppose you know why I have come?"
Looking seraphic, Lafitte murmured, "Let us say I hope I know why you come? The Americans need me rather badly, don't they?"
"Goddamnit, yes!" And forgetting all his careful arguments for convincing Lafitte to throw his forces in with theirs, he demanded, "Are you going to join us?"
His eyebrows rising in mock surprise, Lafitte admitted, "But of course! Did you doubt it?"
Narrowly Christopher regarded him. "What is your price? Surely it is not sheer nobility of purpose that motivates you?"
"Ah, well, there is that, but you are right, mon ami— I do have my price." Suddenly very serious, Lafitte said, "I want my men freed, I want my goods returned, and I want no more interference by Claiborne."
"I cannot guarantee you anything," Christopher admitted candidly. "What I can do, I hope, is arrange a meeting between you and General Jackson—between you, you will have to work out your differences."
Lafitte nodded. "That is fair enough. Jackson, I have heard, is not an unreasonable man . . . nor is he in much of a position to be particularly high-stomached about where his ammunition and added men come from."
Christopher could agree with that, and after confirming Lafitte's willingness to meet with the general as soon as it could be arranged, he depart
ed, feeling as useless as he had to begin with.
From that point on the New Orleans area was a hive of activity. One of the general's first orders was for brigades of axemen to block the swamp-hemmed watercourses that surrounded the city with fallen trees. Because Christopher was spoiling for action and knew those areas well, due to his time with Lafitte, on Claiborne's recommendation to Jackson he was appointed as one of the men in charge of the hurriedly assembled army of axemen. Though the work was hard, Christopher was pleased that at last there was a concerted effort being made to protect the city.
On Lake Borgne Commodore Patterson was posted with five gunboats to act as the general's "eyes" for the defense of the eastern routes into the city. Having decided not to attempt any defense of the river below Fort St. Philip, Jackson inspected the fort, and on his orders the inflammable wooden barracks were demolished and the existing cannon were augmented by the addition of a thirty-two-pounder. Two new batteries were erected, one across the river at the derelict old Spanish Fort Bourbon and the second a half mile upstream.
At English Turn, below the city on the Mississippi River, he ordered the immediate construction of batteries protected by earthworks and another battery to be mounted at a point covering part of Bayou Terre aux Boeufs.
Jackson was out of the city for six days during his inspections, but there was a constant stream of orders relayed back to his engineers in New Orleans, and demands to the governor and requisitions for troops and stores. On his order the slaves of riverside plantations were called in to throw up earthworks and erect batteries. With gladness he accepted Pierre Jugeat's offer to raise a battalion of friendly Choctaw Indians and approved the request of Jean Baptiste Savary to form a battalion of free men of color from the refugees from Santo Domingo.
In the city Nicole watched the activity with growing unease and dismay. She longed desperately for Christopher and worried constantly. She cursed herself a dozen times a day for her silliness, knowing in her heart that Christopher was enjoying himself immensely in the swamps, and that he would have detested being a mere spectator. She supposed it was her own restlessness that made her so inclined to worry about him, and ruefully she admitted she envied him.
Jackson returned to the city on the tenth, but set out again two days later to inspect the routes from the head of Lake Borgne. And as a result of his inspection a battery was mounted on Chef Menteur Road, and Fort St. John was strengthened and reinforced. He had done what he could and with what he had to work with; now there was little he could do but wait.
Jackson had barely returned to the city again, when on December 13, the news reached him that British ships were dropping anchor off Cat and Ship islands at the mouth of Lake Borgne. Unwisely he wrote to Major General John Coffee at Baton Rouge, "I expect this is a feint to draw my attention to that point when they mean to strike at another," never realizing that the British did intend to attack through the lake. So Jackson settled down to wait, confident the lake was too shallow for big ships to anchor within sixty miles of New Orleans.
Christopher himself was back in the city by the second week in December, tired and irritable. His moroseness disappeared when Jason informed him that the general was agreeable to a meeting with Lafitte.
In a private meeting between the two principals in Maspero's Coffee House they agreed that Lafitte would fight for the Americans. Upon hearing the news, Christopher felt a wave of hope sweep through him. With only five thousand men to face an enemy of twice that number, it was definitely encouraging to know that there would now be ample ammunition and that some of the best-trained fighting men in the world were on their side.
And now there really was nothing else to do but wait —wait and wonder where the British would begin their assault.
Christopher, at Claiborne's recommendation, was appointed to the general's staff as the liaison between him and Lafitte and his men. It both gratified and pleased him, for now there was something he could definitely get his teeth into.
Nicole found the waiting excruciating and wished she possessed some of her husband's enjoyment of the preparations. Like the other ladies, she had been busy making bandages, but for the women there was little to do except wait and tend to the absentminded, distracted men who were their husbands, brothers, and lovers.
Then the stunning news reached New Orleans that the British did indeed mean to attack by way of Lake Borgne, having captured Patterson's five gunboats. Jackson was enraged. Not only had he lost his "eyes" and valuable men, but now the British had the use of his shallow-drafted vessels to transport their troops. From his Royal Street headquarters he wrote frantically to Major General Coffee: "You must not sleep until you reach me."
The citizenry was panic-stricken at the news of the British attack on the lake. On December 16, Jackson declared martial law.
Major General Coffee and his men arrived on the twentieth, and on Wednesday of the same week Jackson called a briefing session at his headquarters. Christopher was in attendance, and as Nicole had a fitting at Madame Colette's just down the street, they had decided that Christopher would meet her there after the meeting.
The briefing lasted longer than either of them had expected, and Nicole, growing weary of waiting, told Madame Colette to explain to her husband when he arrived that she had gone home. Her cloak fastened securely around her, Naomi in attendance, she walked out and accidentally bumped into a neatly dressed young man.
Laughing, she stepped back and exclaimed, "Excuse me! I'm awfully sorry, but I didn't see you, if you can believe that!" And the next instant the color drained from her face as she found herself looking into Allen's features.
For a frozen moment neither of them said a word, Allen Ballard's face as white as Nicole's. Unaware that she did it, Nicole reached out to rest her hand on his chest, as if to reassure herself that it was not an apparition. "Allen," she said at last in the merest whisper. And Allen, after throwing a sharp glance around, grasped her hand and said urgently, "I have to talk to you. Is there someplace we can be private?"
Still stunned by the unexpected meeting, still not quite assimilating what his presence in New Orleans on the eve of the British attack might indicate, she shook her head slowly. Then looking at Madame Colette's, she murmured reluctantly, "I suppose Madame would let us use one of the fitting rooms."
It wasn't what Allen wanted, but it would have to do. Thrown as completely off guard as Nicole, he was still fighting with the shock that she was here in New Orleans and not in England as he had been led to believe. She had to be silenced—at least long enough for him to escape the city and report to his commanding officer on the city's woefully inadequate defenses.
Allen hadn't wanted to be sent to spy out the city, but he was the only one who was totally familiar with the area, and reluctantly he had agreed. He had been aware that he might be recognized, but was relying on the frail hope that not everyone had known he was a British spy during his imprisonment on Grand Terre. Besides, dressed as he was as a young man of the city in a tight-fitting coat of Spanish blue, buff pantaloons, and highly polished boots, the brown hair cut short and wearing a cocked hat, he had thought it unlikely that anyone would connect him with the Allen Ballard who had sailed on La Belle Garce. But then he hadn't counted on Nicole Ashford to be tripping merrily down the banquettes of New Orleans either. It was the devil's own luck, he thought exasperatedly; another half hour and he would have been safe.
At that very second Christopher was strolling in the direction of Madame's when he was brought up short by the unpleasant sight of his wife making overtures to a strange young man. Then as the two of them turned and walked back into Madame's, his eyes narrowed in disbelief. Allen Ballard! What in God's name was he doing in New Orleans? It took Christopher less than a second to realize the reason, and his mouth went grim as he approached the dressmaker's.
His wife consorting with a damned spy! By God, for all he knew this wasn't the first time they had met. Perhaps that betraying little bitch had been supplying Ball
ard with information all along. In the grip of raging anger Christopher was blind to anything but the fact that Nicole was with Allen and acting in a furtive manner.
For just a moment he considered reporting that a pair of British spies were meeting at Madame Colette's. Let Nicole pay the price for her duplicity! But in his heart he knew that he could not. Whatever she was, she was his. That knowledge twisted like a knife in his gut, destroying the peace and contentment he had felt these last weeks, making him bitterly aware of how easily he would have succumbed to her spell. He had begun to believe her protestations of love, to believe that she was as different from Annabelle as Robert had been from Simon, and now this!
He hesitated only a moment outside Madame Colette's, his mind coldly made up. Nicole must be protected from her own deceit and guile. She was still his wife, and he would not have her dragged into the gutter by the likes of Allen Ballard. Ballard would have to die before he could implicate Nicole.
Almost nonchalantly Christopher entered Madame Colette's just a second later, having decided to act as naturally as possible until he could get his hands around Ballard's neck. But his plans suffered a check the instant he entered the premises, for Madame Colette, her finger to her lips, had hurriedly led him to the back of her shop.
Madame had been profoundly shocked and disillusioned when Madame Saxon had returned with a young gentleman in tow. She was even more disapproving when Madame Saxon had dismissed her maid and requested the use of one of the dressing rooms for a few minutes of private conversation. And while her dressing rooms had often been used as rendezvous places by many married ladies with their lovers, she had not suspected Madame Saxon of being that sort. The wad of notes Allen had quickly put in her hand would have kept her quiet about the meeting if Monsieur Saxon had not suddenly appeared.
Now Monsieur Saxon had been a valuable client in the past. It was likely he would be a valuable client in the future—far more valuable than Madame Saxon—and she had promptly decided on whose side she would align herself.