Emilie (The Cajun Series Book 1)

by Claire, Cherie

  Emilie righted herself and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I thought everyone imagined I was the one in love with him.”

  The sadness that routinely lingered in Gabrielle’s eyes returned and she looked at the shore, now ominously close. “That was a long time ago.”

  Emilie straightened her skirt. “That’s just my point, Gabi. We have been living in exile for thirteen years. Thirteen years without a father, without our own homes, without rights, without knowing where our extended families were shipped to. Now we’re landing in a swamp that smells like hell itself. Things like love are unimportant in these times, don’t you think?”

  The two women felt a jolt and knew the ship had landed against the dock. They couldn’t make out the landing for the masses of people at the railing, but they could see the chimneys of New Orleans peeking out above the crowd.

  “Do you think we’ll be able to sleep in a real bed tonight?” Emilie asked. “I know you don’t mind these rolling bedrooms but if I don’t have my feet on solid ground soon I will turn into a fish.”

  Gabrielle remained silent and Emilie wondered if she had insulted her sister again. When she turned and gazed into her sublime face, the wisest, most remarkable face in the world despite Gabrielle’s young age of twenty, Gabrielle appeared to be somewhere else.

  “I have a feeling solid ground won’t last long.” Before Gabrielle could explain her words, the sailors were shouting orders for the Acadians to disembark the ship.

  “Something’s not right here,” Alexis Braud repeated. A fear had taken hold of the man and he would not let it go.

  “We’ll wait for the reply from the Spanish Governor,” Jean Depuis answered. “He told us his wishes and we’ve told him ours. Let’s see what happens.”

  Alexis stood and began to pace through the meager storeroom of the warehouse where the Acadians were housed, the only private place the men could find to discuss their plans. “Ulloa’s not the Spanish Governor,” Alexis insisted, nervously dragging his fingers through his hair. “He has never officially taken over the colony, even though France ceded the territory to Spain several years ago.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Alexis,” Jean said. “He is the authority here and his policy is to transport the incoming Acadian refugees to the frontier, to settle the areas vulnerable to English occupation.”

  “And keep us separated!” Alexis turned and faced the others. “He wants to place us upriver from the other settlements, isolated from the other Acadians. We are no better off than we were in Maryland. I say we fight this edict. We demand to go to St. Gabriel, no matter what answer this governor gives us. We must demand to be reunited with the other Maryland Acadian refugees.”

  “We don’t have the right to do as we please,” Henri Babin added. “We came to Louisiana to join our families and to hopefully recreate our homeland. But that doesn’t mean we can take matters into our own hands. If the Spanish want us to defend the frontier, then we must do what they ask.”

  “When have we ever been allowed to do as we please, Henri?” Alexis asked softly, followed by a silence so intense Lorenz could feel his heart beating. It was a pain he knew well. “We are merely asking to settle at St. Gabriel where the other Maryland exiles are. I am not a young man and I am tired of being ‘sent’ places. My family is at St. Gabriel. And I shall join them if my life depends on it.”

  Jean moved between the men, drawing slowly on his pipe. “You have sent a message to the governor of your wishes. Let us see what happens. We’re facing exile from Louisiana if we don’t do what the Spanish ask of us, Alexis. We must not act rashly.”

  Alexis shook his head and moved toward the door. When he threw it open, letting in a blast of frigid air, Lorenz could have sworn they were standing in his father’s house in Canada, discussing the harvest and drinking wine like the old days. Alexis placed his woolen cap on his head and glanced back at the anxious men, one in particular.

  Honoré Braud, Alexis’ brother who had originally been sent to a different county in Maryland and who echoed Alexis’ thoughts about reuniting family, stood and joined his brother at the door. Lorenz knew Honoré was just as tired of having friends and family scattered to the wind. Whether their obstinance would convince the Spanish governor was another matter.

  When the door shut behind them, the remaining men shivered, then began another round of discussions. It was fruitless, Lorenz assessed, but talking helped alleviate everyone’s anxiety.

  “Where is this Natchez district?” someone asked.

  “I believe it to be about ninety leagues above New Orleans,” Lorenz answered, which caused the men to stop talking and glance his way. Everyone knew Lorenz had the best sense of direction, a talent equaled by his knowledge of farming. His father used to tease him that such talents were contradictory, that the best Lorenz could utilize such talents were to find his way through a wheat field.

  If only his father could see him now, Lorenz thought, in a humid, muddy land thousands of miles from Acadia, where a sense of direction finally came in handy.

  “I have seen the maps,” Lorenz added. “It’s quite a distance from both New Orleans and St. Gabriel.”

  The other men became silent, and Lorenz could easily guess their thoughts. So much uncertainty. First the English, then the colonial government of Maryland, now the Spanish. Years of questions. Years of subservience to governments who promised nothing in return, where a man’s word could never be trusted.

  Lorenz had been old enough to accompany the men of Grand Pré to the church on that fateful day thirteen years before. He had felt honored to participate in the discussion between the Acadians and their English occupiers in Nova Scotia, to feel a vital part of the decisions of his community.

  “You’re a man today,” his father told him proudly as they walked into town. Little did his father know how true that statement would be.

  The men and boys of the region had entered the church at promptly three o’clock, as the English had demanded. They greeted each other warmly, optimistic that the king would grant their requests as long as they continued to do as they were ordered.

  Instead, the hundreds of English soldiers living at the church’s presbytery surrounded the church, barred the doors and promptly arrested the four hundred Acadians within as “enemies of the Crown.” Then, several days later, the men were led to the beaches of Minas Basin. Reunited with their wives and children on the shore, the residents of Grand Pré were shipped away from their homeland as they watched the English soldiers burn their homes, slaughter their livestock and destroy the country they had struggled to create one hundred and fifty years before.

  Lorenz shut his eyes reliving that brutal scene. The women of Grand Pré beating at the doors of the church, his own mother begging the British soldiers for their release. The men shouting, “Cowards,” at the soldiers for trapping the men as they did. His grandfather’s hand on his shoulder, telling him to be brave, that even men were allowed to cry and that he shouldn’t be ashamed.

  Lorenz had cried that day in the crowded, suffocating church. He had cried later when he found his mother on the beach, deathly pale and trembling. Her health had always been precarious; her heart couldn’t take the trauma. She died in his arms while his father pleaded with her to hang on.

  His own father, a tall, rugged man who could plow circles around his neighbors, who chopped wood effortlessly, who had a smile and a story for every occasion, died shortly thereafter. The soldier on board the ship said Abraham Dugas had died from exposure and fever, but Lorenz knew his father had died from a broken heart.

  Funny, Lorenz thought, how the heart could destroy a man quicker than life’s toils and tribulations. Lorenz survived the brutal winters of Canada, the rage of small pox that swept through Grand Pré, then le grand dérangement, their exile from Nova Scotia where half of the Acadians perished from disease and neglect. He survived thirteen long years of exile in Maryland with no family to support him. But Emilie’s refusal the night before was ki
lling him for sure.

  Lorenz felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to find Jean Depuis’s concerned face. “How are you these days, Lorenz?”

  Lorenz had only confided in Gabrielle, but he knew the others suspected his actions with Emilie. The men were always urging him on, encouraging him to propose. After a boisterous round of whiskey in the ship’s galley the night before, Lorenz had promised the men he would finally act on his heart’s desires, to ask the woman he had known and loved since childhood to be his wife.

  No one understood Emilie more than Lorenz, appreciated her fiery disposition or her incredible strengths. She had kept her family going, been the backbone of the exiled Gallants through thirteen trying years. Emilie had been Lorenz’s savior as well, never leaving his father’s side on the ship bound for Maryland when Abraham slipped beneath death’s grip, never relinquishing Lorenz’s hand during his grief over losing his parents.

  Asking Emilie to marry him seemed the most logical step in their relationship. After all these years, they had remained the closest of friends; it was time to move forward.

  But she had laughed at his declaration of love, then appeared shocked he would suggest such a thing. The next thing Lorenz knew Emilie was comparing marriage to a ship’s anchor, with the wife being chained and dropped into an ocean of misery and despair. A “freedom-less pit of drugery once a woman says ‘I do’ ” was how she described it, if memory served him well.

  Hell, Lorenz didn’t want to change Emilie. He wanted to love her, as she had loved him all these years. Only now, Lorenz realized with a pain more hurtful than a knife plunged through his chest, the love Emilie felt for him was simply platonic. He doubted it would become anything else.

  “She turned you down, didn’t she?” Jean asked.

  Lorenz closed his eyes, tilted his head back and sighed. The agony tore at his heart.

  “Don’t give up, Lorenz.” Jean squeezed his shoulder. “She’ll come around eventually.”

  Lorenz shook his head, remembering Emilie’s laughter the night before. “I can’t. It’s a slow death.”

  Jean moved to the nearby table and poured them both a drink. “It’s the first time, no? At least wait until the fifth time to give up.”

  Lorenz looked at Jean and wondered if he was speaking from experience. “Marie finally said yes because she was tired of me asking,” Jean said with a laugh.

  Lorenz accepted the glass and threw back the dark whiskey that left a tantalizing burn down his throat. “Marie loves you. It was a matter of when, not why.”

  Jean threw back his own glass and winced. Whiskey was not his drink of choice. “That’s just my point, my boy. Give her some time. These are tough days for us. Not the best opportunity to ask a woman to marry you.”

  Perhaps Jean was right. Perhaps it was absurd to ask such a thing as they entered a new territory, unsure of where they would settle. He had taken her by surprise, crossing a threshold Emilie had not anticipated.

  Then there was the kiss. The consummation of a lifelong desire. She had kissed him back, hadn’t she? It had all happened so fast, the details were unclear, but Lorenz was certain she had slipped those long fingers into his hair and sighed with pleasure.

  Despite his logical mind telling him to find another, Lorenz wanted more of Emilie’s kisses. But waiting for Emilie Gallant to change her mind would either make him insane or incite him to rage.

  At that moment, Lorenz Dugas wanted nothing more than to punch some sense into a certain Spanish governor.

  “Do you wish to establish yourselves on the land assigned to you?” Pedro de Piernas bellowed to the group of Acadians filling the back room of the riverside warehouse. “Are you ready to give us your answer.”

  When no one spoke, Jean Depuis moved to the front of the crowd. “Monsieur Piernas, Honoré and Alexis Braud have beseeched you to allow us to join our families at St. Gabriel. As they mentioned in their letter to Governor Ulloa, we came to Louisiana in the hopes of exercising freely our Catholic religion and restoring our communities. We simply want to join the others.”

  Piernas held up a hand to silence the elderly Acadian. “Alexis and Honoré Braud have refused passage to Natchez, left the city and gone into hiding. They are outlaws of the Spanish crown. If anyone wishes to join them or refuses to obey this order, they will be exiled from Louisiana and deported immediately.”

  A collective murmur rose from the crowd and Emilie felt a sense of panic rush through her. She grabbed Gabrielle’s hand and squeezed. They had to get to St. Gabriel. They had to find their father. But the man was talking exile.

  “You will depart aboard the three vessels waiting for the journey upriver,” Piernas continued. “You will settle at the fort San Luis de Natchez. They will be no more discussion on the matter.”

  The Acadians stood together speechless. The Braud brothers had been their leaders since Maryland and they had fled. There were no more choices. All diplomatic avenues had been tried and failed. There was little else they could do.

  “We agree,” Jean said softly.

  Piernas nodded. “Then we leave immediately.”

  Emilie turned toward her mother and saw the heartbreak of thirteen years reflected in her hazel eyes. Gabrielle wrapped her arms about Rose, who was trying valiantly to be brave. They had traveled so far and were now so close. If Joseph was indeed alive, he was living and breathing only several leagues away. But it might as well be the moon if they were forced to settle at Natchez.

  “We’ll find him,” Emilie commanded them all. “We won’t give up.”

  Despite her brave words, panic began to consume her. She needed Lorenz. As she searched the room, Emilie found it increasingly difficult to breathe. Where was he?

  Since the evening he had proposed, Lorenz refused to speak with her. Even in their close quarters, Emilie would sometimes go days without seeing Lorenz. He spent a lot of time surveying the river, talking to residents and bartering food for the group. Emilie tried to follow him one day when he left the warehouse and headed into the wilderness outside of town with an Acadian she did not recognize, but she quickly lost sight of them. He was up to something, and Emilie was dying to find out what.

  Emilie finally spotted Lorenz across the room, the silhouette of his tall, broad frame shadowed against the back wall. He was carrying supplies, a large satchel of some sort, and watching the room suspiciously. It was time he forgot this silly notion about marrying, resumed their friendship and spoke to her. They needed each other, especially now that they were being sent upriver to Natchez while Papa waited at St. Gabriel.

  She moved toward the other side of the room, but Gabrielle caught her sleeve. “Don’t.”

  Emilie wanted to demand an answer but the cautionary look in Gabrielle’s eyes held her tongue. Suddenly, she knew.

  “Not without me,” she exclaimed to Gabrielle. The panic rose in her throat and Emilie thought it would strangle her for sure. Lorenz was leaving, going into hiding like the Braud brothers.

  And leaving her behind.

  “He’s going to get word to father,” Gabrielle whispered. “Leave him be before the Spanish notice.”

  Emilie swallowed hard, but remained insistent. “Not without me.”

  Gabrielle stared hard at her sister, then glanced back toward Marianne and Rose who were busy collecting their things for the trip upriver. “You can’t. You don’t know what’s out there.”

  “I have to go, Gabi,” Emilie pleaded. “Tell mother I’m with Lorenz. I’ll be safe with him. If anybody can find their way through this marshland, it’s Lorenz.”

  Emilie spotted a satchel of clothes belonging to Charles Braud, one of the younger boys in the group. Without his noticing, she grabbed the small bag and stuffed it under her shawl.

  “Please, don’t do this,” Gabrielle said.

  Suddenly Emilie felt calmer than she had in days. “I’ll be fine, Gabi.” She embraced her sister tight. “Tell mother I’ll see her in Natchez with father by my side.”
>
  Gabrielle attempted to hold on to her, to keep her sister safe at her bosom, but Emilie broke free. She quickly moved through the crowd and left through the back door. The same one that Lorenz had just exited.

  Emilie

  Chapter Two

  The men had traveled two days before they realized they were being followed. The footsteps echoed quietly behind them, so minute they stopped several times to make sure it wasn’t the wind. After the mid-morning break of the third day, Lorenz saw a shadow in the trees and knew for sure.

  “You can make yourself known and enjoy our company,” Lorenz yelled at the trees, “or remain hidden and force us to come pull you out of those woods.”

  Only the sound of the wind and the waves of the Mississippi River lapping against the shore answered Lorenz’s summons.

  Phillip Bellefontaine, a resident of the Acadian settlement north of New Orleans who had agreed to accompany Lorenz as far as his home, shook his head. “Why would anyone want to follow us? The Spanish wouldn’t bother. They would have arrested you by now. Thieves would have grabbed us in our sleep. There is no reason for a person to be hiding out in the woods following our journey upriver.”

  Lorenz considered Phillip’s logic. It hadn’t made much sense to him either. Why indeed would anyone bother following two poor Acadian refugees with no money, no boat and a rapidly diminishing supply of food.

  Unless.

  “I will say it again,” he yelled back at the trees, hoping against hope that his last thought was unfounded. “If you don’t come out and make yourself known, I will come in there and pull you out.” Lorenz held up his rifle. “You must have noticed by now we are armed. And I’d hate to land a musket in her head shooting at shadows.”

  There was a slight rustle in the palmetto palms lining the river bank above their encampment. A body emerged from its cover, its face covered by an enormous felt hat. The person approached them cautiously, stooped over with eyes focused on the ground.

  “Who are you?” Phillip demanded, but the body said nothing.