Merline Lovelace (11 page)

The front room contained a fireplace fronted with hand-painted tiles and a swinging metal hook for boiling water and cooking. The backroom was bare except for a rickety three-legged stool left by the
previous occupants. A small walled garden behind the apartments gave access to a well for fresh water and a brick oven for baking.

Daniel carried the stool into the front room. “Sit here by the window, sweeting, while I help the draymen carry in our furniture.”

She went where he led her.

Working alongside the cart men, he got the clothes chests up against the wall of the bedroom and assembled the bed frame. The oak plank table and spindle-back chairs went into the sitting room, along with the dish cupboard and Elizabeth’s long-unused pianoforte. The boxes and bundles he’d unpack later, after he found someone to help care for his wife.

“I’m going to speak to our neighbors,” he told her after paying off the draymen. “Maybe one of them will know someone who can come and keep you company while I’m on duty.”

Luckily, the sergeant’s wife two apartments down was in dire need of funds to supplement her husband’s pay. The small, birdlike woman returned with Daniel to meet Elizabeth and get a grasp of her needs.

“I can’t promise to stay with her every minute,” Polly Tremayne warned when they stepped back out into the hall. “I’ve got eleven of my own to care for. I’ll look in on her every chance I get and see she’s fed a good meal at noon. My youngest can sit with her between times.”

That would do. It would have to do. Passing the
woman sufficient funds to cover the first week, Daniel went back to settle his wife into her new home.

The next morning, he reported to the officer who was now his superior. Captain Obadiah Bissell was a good man and a fine officer. Daniel had served with him in the field and held Bissell in every bit as much respect as the captain did his new sergeant major.

“It’s good to have you here, Morgan. What with keeping the local militia to arms and our regulars at the ready, I’m up to my ears, I can tell you.”

“I’ve no doubt.”

“We’ve had the devil of a time meeting the requirement for firing drill. You’ll have to get with the company sergeants and work out a schedule.”

“Yes, sir.”

“As soon as possible, Sergeant Major.”

The title raised a ghost of a smile. With everything else pressing down on him these past weeks, Daniel hadn’t had time to get used to, much less celebrate, his new rank.

“I’ll make the rounds of the companies today, sir.”

He soon realized that it would take more than a day to get a grasp of what was needed in terms of training. Worry over Burr’s private army had compelled President Jefferson to call up the militia from several states. General Wilkinson’s imposition of martial law had put a good number of New Orleans’s citizens under arms, as well. Adding to their ranks were the companies of regulars the general had
brought with him when he moved his headquarters from St. Louis.

Every company carried a wide variety of arms. Regulations required the militiamen to report for duty with “a good rifle, if to be had, or otherwise, with a common smoothbore firelock, bayonet and cartouche box.” Daniel found the militia’s definition of a “good rifle” varied considerably from company to company and man to man.

The regulars were every bit as diverse in their armament. Most were equipped with horse pistols and Wilson military fusils, a lightweight version of the British army officer’s rifle. A lucky few carried the French Charleville or the 1795 Springfield, one of the first American-made muskets produced after the War for Independence.

Each weapon handled differently and required slightly different firing drills. As a consequence, Daniel worked from dawn to well past dusk for the first three days following his return from St. Louis. The hours after he returned to his quarters were spent caring for his wife.

He made his way back to Bienville Street on the evening of the fourth day, determined to change into his dress uniform, bundle Elizabeth up in the silk shawl he’d purchased for her the day after their arrival and take her with him to the Thibodeaux house. The need to see Louise, to make sure she’d fared well during his absence, gnawed at him….

So much so that he stopped dead when he opened the door to his quarters, sure he’d conjured up her
image out of smoke and air. But the woman seated on a low stool beside Elizabeth’s chair was flesh and blood, and so alive that his wife looked like a pale wraith beside her. His heart squeezed painfully as Louise sprang up, her face alight.

“Daniel!”

In the few seconds it took for her to rush across the room, hands outstretched, he knew he was damned to the fires of his own private hell.

D
aniel took Louise’s extended hands in his and managed to find a smile.

“James tells me you have returned,” she scolded. “But you do not come to see me. I wait and wait, and decide I must come to you.”

“I meant to call on you sooner, but my new staff duties have kept me hard at it.”

“Yes, I hear you have the promotion.” She eyed the shiny new epaulets adorning the shoulders of his uniform jacket. “You look most important.”

“And you look most fashionable.”

“It is this bonnet James buys me,” she replied with a laugh. “Me, I think these feathers make me look like the wild turkey, but Bertrice says it is—How do her words go? It is quite the thing.”

He surveyed the high-brimmed creation lavishly decorated with green-dyed ostrich plumes. It was as dashing as her figured silk walking dress and lavender kid half-boots. She’d cropped her hair, he
saw. The feathery black curls framed her face in a way that stopped the breath in his chest.

“I agree with Bertrice.” Somehow he managed to keep both his voice and his smile easy. “It is quite the thing. But who is this James who’s buying you bonnets?”

“Your lieutenant.”

“My lieutenant?”

“The general’s son. James Wilkinson.”

She gave a trill of laughter at his astounded expression. “James calls on me almost every day since you leave for St. Louis.” Her eyes danced under the feathery ostrich plumes. “It is of all things the most foolish. He has decided he wishes to marry me.”

Shock slammed into Daniel. Shock and something else, something he didn’t want to think about with his wife sitting a few yards away. He clamped his mouth shut on the hot response that leaped to his lips. He didn’t realize he’d clamped his hand as well until he saw Louise wince. Abruptly, he released her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You do not,” she said, but he knew she lied.

Once he worked his way past a swift, instinctive denial and considered the matter with his head, he supposed young Wilkinson’s attentions made sense. The man had displayed no sign of being enamored of Louise during their weeks in the wilds, but now she stood to inherit considerable wealth. No doubt the lieutenant had had his eyes opened to her charms. By his father, Daniel would guess.

“I tell James I have no wish to share his bed, but—”

“But what?”

“He is most insistent,” she said with a small sigh.

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

“I thank you for the offer, but it is not necessary. If he begins to annoy me, I shall speak plainer.”

Her glance went to the fair-haired woman sitting by the window. “I hope you do not mind that I come to see your wife.”

“You know I don’t.”

She brought her gaze back to Daniel. For the briefest moment, he saw a regret in their blue depths that seared his soul. Then she tipped her chin and gave him a bright smile.

“She is very beautiful, your Elizabeth.”

“Yes, she is.”

“She has come to New Orleans as I did, alone but for you. I think perhaps she needs another woman to befriend her, as Helene Thibodeaux and her daughters did me. Shall I take her with me when I go to the shops with Bertrice and Marie and Helene?”

He didn’t answer, loath to subject his wife to the stares of strangers and shopkeepers. Louise understood his hesitation and laid a hand on his arm.

“You gave me your protection when I was in need of it. Let me give your Elizabeth my friendship. I will see she takes no harm.”

Her quiet offer eased a small portion of the guilt and helplessness crushing in on Daniel’s chest. The weight didn’t go away entirely. He suspected it never
would, but it lifted enough for him to answer with a smile.

“Thank you.”

Louise gave his arm a quick squeeze before gliding back to the figure sitting silently in her chair.

“I shall come again to visit you. Tomorrow afternoon, yes? We shall put on our finest bonnets and go out to take the air. Perhaps visit Madame du Clare’s shop. She has of all things the most beautiful.”

Louise kept her promise.

A hazy spring sun warmed the city streets when she walked the few blocks to Daniel’s quarters the following afternoon. She’d thought better of including Helene Thibodeaux and her two daughters in the expedition, though. The few moments she’d spent with Elizabeth the previous evening were more than enough to make her aware of the dark spirits holding Daniel’s wife in their maw.

Lifting her skirts to avoid catching the dust and refuse on the raised walkway, she wondered again at her impulsive offer to befriend Daniel’s wife. Truth be told, her heart had twisted inside her chest when she’d first peered inside the open door to his quarters and spotted the woman with the so-pale hair and green eyes. Her first reaction had been the fury and hurt and all-consuming envy of one who longed fiercely for this woman’s man.

So many nights had Louise spent wishing Daniel would join with her. So many times had she wished
he would forget his vows to his wife and feed the hunger gnawing at them both. Often she’d reviled him in her mind for holding true to his honor, yet she now suspected she would not crave his smile or his touch nearly as much as she did if he
had
taken what she’d offered him.

After seeing Elizabeth, Louise understood the rope that bound him. It was woven with more than the affection for the woman he’d taken into his bed and his heart. More than the responsibility of a warrior to provide for those in his lodge. This rope had been braided by the spirits who called to Elizabeth.

For the first time in many months, Louise wished heartily for the chance to speak to someone of her world, a shaman who could build a sacred fire to read omens in the smoke. Or to concoct a powerful medicine that would call to the winds to blow away the mists in Elizabeth’s mind.

Lacking a priest, she would have to use her own skills, such as they were. She would do this for Daniel, to ease the anguish in his heart that he tried so hard to hide. She owed him this and more, so much more.

She found Elizabeth sitting in the same chair as she had the afternoon before, beside the same window. Her hair was unbound, her shirtwaist haphazardly buttoned over a skirt of blue homespun. An empty wooden bowl and spoon sat on the floor beside her. Across the room a gap-toothed girl sat
cross-legged beside the hearth, playing with a rag doll.

Louise rapped on the door that had been left part-way open and stepped inside. “Hello.”

The girl sprang up. A thumb went to her mouth.

“Who are you?” Louise asked with a smile.

“Tess,” she mumbled around the thumb.

“I’m Madame Chartier. I’ve come to take Madame Morgan to walk with me.”

“The sergeant major told mam you was a’coming. She said me ’n’ dolly was to stay here till you did. Kin I go now?”

“Well, I—”

“I’m supposed to do my letters. Mam said to come straightaway when you got here.”

“Then, of course you must go.”

The towheaded girl gathered the bowl and spoon along with her doll and slipped out without a word to the mute Elizabeth. As Louise crossed the room, she caught the faint stench of urine. She chewed on her lower lip for several moments before untying the ribbons of her bonnet and setting it aside.

“I see you are not quite ready for our walk. I will brush your hair and put it up, yes? And perhaps wash your face a bit. There is porridge on your cheek.”

Pulling off her gloves, she went into the other room. Someone had left fresh water in a pitcher painted with delicate pink roses. The same someone had left clean, neatly folded underlinens on the quilt-covered bed. Daniel, Louise suspected. Her heart aching for him and the woman he’d taken to wife,
she returned to the sitting room and took Elizabeth’s hand in hers.

“We will go into the other room,” she said, drawing the older woman gently out of her chair. “The bowl and pitcher are there. You will wash and change, and then we shall go out in the sun.”

The stroll proved more difficult than Louise had anticipated. She kept her pace slow and Elizabeth’s arm tucked firmly in hers, but the other woman shrank away from every passerby and started violently at every sudden, unexpected sound.

And there were many sounds. This so-crowded city buzzed with them. Sang with them. The
clip-clop
of hooves on the cobbles. The cry of merchants hawking their wares. The shouts of children chasing wooden hoops with sticks. After almost a month in this city where people spoke in so many different languages, Louise had come to feel at home amid the noise and clatter. Keeping a steady hold on Elizabeth’s arm, she guided her along the banquette.

Perhaps she’d buy her a fan, she thought. One of chicken skin painted with the designs that seemed so favored right now from this faraway country called China. The days were growing longer and the afternoon carried a muggy warmth. A fan would help to stir the air.

When Louise suggested as much, however, Daniel’s wife merely gripped her arm and crowded close against her side. Louise kept up a stream of chatter and had begun to think she’d eased the other
woman’s fears, when Elizabeth jerked to a halt in the middle of the banquette.

Startled, Louise glanced at her. “What is it?”

The blonde said nothing, but a sheen of tears collected in the corners of her eyes. With a small whimper, she stared at some point in the distance.

“Elizabeth! What do you see?”

Worried, Louise swept the scene before her. She spotted merchants in embroidered waistcoats, sailors from the nearby ships, a voodoo woman with dancing dolls on sticks. Nothing to alarm, unless it was the slavers marching a long line of manacled men to the auction house. The captives must have just come off a ship. They looked dull-eyed and half-starved. Louise could have counted their ribs as they passed. Their scant clothes hung in rags. Many wore raw, unhealed scars on their backs.

The Osage took captives and used them as slaves. All tribes did. Yet Louise couldn’t remember seeing any that looked as badly treated as these wretched men. Wondering at the foolishness that would cause a slaver to starve and otherwise mistreat his captives, she started to turn Elizabeth away from the sight.

Only then did she notice her companion’s gaze wasn’t on the slaves but on a couple strolling along the opposite banquette. The woman walked alongside the man, making lively gestures with one hand as she spoke. Her other arm held a swaddled babe at her shoulder.

“Elizabeth? Do you know these people?”

She gave no answer.

“Why do you watch them? What do you look at?”

Louise glanced at the young couple again, trying to see what it was about them that had upset Daniel’s wife. They’d strolled past by now, and all she could see was the baby peering over its mother’s shoulder, its cheeks fat and its eyes berry bright.

She turned back to Elizabeth, caught a glimpse of shattering grief in her pale green eyes. Understanding came on a swift rush.

“Did you have a babe?” she asked softly. “You and Daniel?”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. When she opened them again the grief was gone, leaving only an empty mask behind.

Louise chewed on her lower lip for a moment, then gently turned the other woman back the way they’d come. “I think perhaps I tire you. We shall walk to Royal Street another time, yes? Today we shall buy fish for your dinner. And fresh bread.”

Less than an hour after escorting Elizabeth down the front steps of the house where she and Daniel were quartered, Louise guided her back up again. Relieving the pale, trembling woman of her shawl and bonnet, she led her to the rocking chair by the window.

“Sit now and rest. I will put a kettle on to boil. We shall have coffee and some of this still-warm bread.”

When Daniel returned to his quarters just past dusk, the tantalizing aroma of fish stew started a rum
ble in his stomach halfway down the hall. The rumble grew to a growl when he discovered the spicy scent came from his own hearth.

His glance shot to the woman stirring the bubbling contents of the cast-iron pot hanging from the iron hook of the fireplace.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” he said, fighting the pleasure that spread through him like an onrushing tide. “Bending over a cook pot, and in a silk gown yet.”

Louise waved a careless hand. “The gown does not matter. Elizabeth and I, we go to the shops this afternoon and buy bread and fish instead of feathers and shawls. We decide to cook you dinner.”

“Did you?”

His clutch of worry faded when he sent his wife a quick look and saw she’d come to no harm during her foray into the outside world.

“But I do not find wild onions in the shop,” Louise warned with a frown, giving the stew another stir. “Only potatoes and these dried red roots the fish seller says to put in the pot. They burn my tongue when I taste one, so I use only one or two for flavor.”

Propping his musket against the wall, Daniel hung his shako on one of the wrought-iron hooks beside the door. As he went to his wife and knelt beside her chair, regret bit into his unexpected pleasure. It had been so long since he’d come home to a hot meal and a warm smile. So long since a woman had made him feel welcome in his own quarters.

“Hello, Elizabeth.” Gently, he took her hand in his. “So you went to the markets this afternoon? They’re quite something, aren’t they? Not like in St. Louis. Did you see the flower stalls? They’re like a rainbow.”

He stayed at her side for some moments, speaking slowly, hoping for a flicker of a smile, a sideways glance, anything to indicate she heard him.

Across the room, Louise stood beside the bubbling pot and chewed on her bottom lip until she tasted the salty tang of blood. She had not thought it would hurt so much to watch Daniel with his wife, his big frame stooped low, his voice gentle. Feeling as though a fist had plunged into her chest and closed around her heart in a brutal grip, she tugged at the cloth tied around her waist and used a fold to swing the pot away from the fire.

“The stew has cooked enough,” she announced briskly. “There is fresh bread on the table. Now I must go.”