Merline Lovelace (8 page)

“It is good that this is costly. Me, I have a wish to buy it.”

The clerk’s glance darted from her to the man at her side and back again. “You have the wish, but do you have the funds?”

“
Mais oui!
Daniel, he shall pay you from what he gives me for my furs.”

“Ahh. You’ve brought furs to trade.”

“But, no. Daniel, explain to this one how I shall have this silk.”

“Best we explain to Monsieur Thibodeaux. Tell him Rifle Sergeant Morgan would like to speak with him,” he instructed the clerk. “And Madame Louise Therese Chartier, wife to—” He caught himself. “Widow to Henri Chartier.”

The clerk’s eyes widened. He shot another look at Louise before scurrying off.

He was back within minutes with his master at his heels. Thibodeaux was a portly man clad in a blue broadcloth frock coat and embroidered waistcoat. His welcome more than made up for his underling’s lack of warmth.

“Madame Chartier! At last we meet. Henri mentioned you often in the letters he sent each spring with his cache of furs.” Taking her hand in his, he bowed over it. “My wife and I are most distressed to hear you are now a widow. Come upstairs and take a dish of tea with us while you tell us what happened to Henri. And you, Sergeant Morgan. Please, join us.”

Daniel followed them up the stairs to a well-appointed set of apartments furnished with great luxury. Thick carpets softened the tongue-and-groove oak floors. Brass sconces held beeswax candles. Velvets and brocades covered the furniture, crafted in the French style with flourishes and gilt-edged scrolls.

Thibodeaux’s wife and two daughters fit well into their surroundings. As befitting the womenfolk of a
wealthy merchant, they were dressed in the height of fashion. Louise eyed their lace caps and high-waisted gowns with interest while they in turn listened openmouthed to the series of misadventures that had brought her to New Orleans.

“But of course Madame Chartier must stay with us,” the merchant’s wife exclaimed when the tale was done. A dimpled matron, she possessed an ample bosom, a generous smile and a warm heart.

“And she need not worry about the matter of funds,” her husband put in. “Henri asked me to bank half his profits each year we did business.”

“You and Henri did business for many years, I think,” Louise said.

“Yes,” the merchant confirmed with a smile. “For almost four decades. If you can establish your legal claim to his account, you’ll inherit something close to fifteen thousand gold louis.”

Daniel’s jaw dropped. He’d worried for months about this woman, had fretted over how to keep his promise to her dying husband to see she was cared for, had pledged her every penny of his wilderness pay. Now, it appeared, she didn’t need him or his paltry pay. She’d inherited a damned fortune!

He should take great satisfaction from knowing she’d be well set up. Instead, he felt the most ridiculous sense of loss, as though someone had just relieved him of a burden he very much wanted to be rid of but wasn’t quite ready to give up.

Louise seemed less concerned about the amount
of her inheritance than how to make it hers. Frowning, she leaned forward in the brocaded chair.

“What is this, ‘legal claim’?”

“You must prove you were indeed married to Henri.”

“I have the marriage lines the priest writes.” She gestured to the haversack resting beside her chair. “The paper is there, with the gold cross Henri gives me when I am baptized.”

“That’s good. Very good. But, ah, you see…”

He looked to his wife. Madame Thibodeaux reached for Louise’s hand and gave it a small pat.

“When Henri married you, he— Well, there’s a possibility he may have already had a wife back in France.”

“Henri says she is dead,” Louise responded with a shrug. “Me, I think he lies, but by then we have already shared a blanket for two winters and it matters not.”

“Yes, well, we’ll sort it out,” the older woman said hastily to preclude any more such indelicate disclosures in front of her daughters.

“In the meantime, I’ll advance you any monies you need,” the merchant assured her. “No doubt you’ll want to buy yourself some dresses and bonnets and such.”

“Yes!” Louise exclaimed. “That is exactly what I want.”

Her delighted laugh should have eased the turmoil in Daniel’s mind. She’d be happy with these people, he told himself. Thibodeaux would look after her and
no doubt earn a hefty commission on the settlement of Henri Chartier’s estate. Still, he wasn’t prepared for her casual air of acceptance when he stood to make his farewell.

“I’ll leave you now. I must report to my company.”

“Here in New Orleans, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then I shall see you again. You will come to visit me.”

“If my duties permit.”

“You must make them permit. You will come to visit me,” she repeated with a merry smile, “and I shall be wearing a robe of silk.”

“That will surely be a sight worth seeing.”

Yes, Louise vowed, her smile fading as his broad back disappeared down the stairs. It surely will.

Her feelings for this man confused her. He confused her. During the weeks of their journey, she’d given him her trust and gifted him with her friendship. She’d also come to respect him for holding to his vows to the wife so far away.

Yet the woman in her, the woman who’d come to crave his smile and his touch and the sound of his voice, wanted nothing more than to open his eyes to all else she offered him.

She would do that, Louise vowed, in a robe of red silk.

W
armly gracious, Madame Thibodeaux and her daughters escorted Louise to a guest chamber on the third floor.

“It’s a bit small,” Helene apologized, “but bright when the sun shines. I think you’ll be comfortable here.”

“We’re right next door,” the youngest daughter, Bertrice, informed her. A berry-eyed maiden with blond hair cut and crimped into curls, she plopped down on an alcove bed. An iron ring was suspended above the bed. Folds of sheer white cloth hung from the ring.

“To keep the mosquitoes from you while you sleep,” the helpful Bertrice said in answer to Louise’s query. “You pull the netting around you like so.” With two quick tugs, she drew the fine cloth around the bed.

“And you have your own water closet,” the elder daughter said shyly.

“What is this, ‘water closet’?”

As tall and slender as her sister was short and plump, the doe-eyed Marie smiled and opened a door built into the wall.

“A private place for you to bathe and use the chamber pot.”

Louise poked her head into the closet. The rose-patterned china pitcher and washbowl delighted her almost as much as the covered pot. She wouldn’t have to trudge down three flights of stairs and go outside to relieve herself!

“You can hang your things here in the clothespress,” Madame Thibodeaux informed her, indicating a high cupboard decorated with hand-painted ceramic ovals containing pictures of flowers. Dubiously, the matron eyed the haversack that contained all Louise owned. “Do you wish me to send one of the servants to help you unpack?”

“I pack and unpack for many weeks now. I need no help with it.”

“Very well. We’ll leave you to rest.”

“Rest?”

“You must be tired after your arduous journey.”

“But, no! Me, I wish to buy a dress.”

She soon discovered one dress, in Helene’s words,
simply would not do.
As the plump matron earnestly explained, a lady—particularly a wealthy widow such as Louise looked to be—required several changes of clothing a day.

Calling to her manservant to ready the carriage, Helene pulled on kid gloves and a caped pelisse and
hustled Louise and her girls down the stairs. Her husband’s clerk loaded the carriage with the bolt of shimmering ruby silk that had caught Louise’s eye, along with a half dozen other bolts selected by Helene and the girls.

A short drive took them to the shop of Madame Celeste du Clare. The seamstress greeted Helene with a smile. Her eyes widened at her first glimpse of Louise, but she gasped with delight when she was informed that Madame Chartier required fitting from the skin out.

“Georgina! Eloise!” Clapping her hands, she summoned her assistants. “Bring the striped muslin morning gown we just sewed for Madame Tolbert. And the underlinens I stitched for Justine Alberville’s trousseau.”

Bustling Louise into a backroom, she drew a curtain and stripped her to the skin with cheerful ruthlessness. The stained buckskin tunic and leggings were tossed into a corner.

“Shall I discard them?”

“But, no! I tan the skins and sew them myself.”

“Very well. I’ll have my girls clean them. Here, step into these.”

She held up a pair of drawers double the width of Louise’s buckskin leggings.

“They are too big! They will fall off.”

“No, they draw in at the waist.”

Tugging on the string, she cinched the soft fabric, then dropped a chemise trimmed with lace over Louise’s head. The straps settled on her shoulders, but
the neckline of the garment dipped almost to her nipples.

“You hardly need this corset,” Madame du Clare observed as she laced the boned garment around Louise’s waist. “You are small of stature, but well formed. Very well formed. Slender of hip, narrow of waist and full at the bust. You shall do justice to my gowns. And those eyes—”

Louise stiffened.

“So blue,” she murmured. “So beautiful. I have a sapphire silk that matches them perfectly.”

While Helene and the girls sipped some orange-colored drink, the seamstress and her assistants trotted out a bewildering array of morning gowns of kerseymere, walking gowns of striped muslin, afternoon robes, dinner dresses and frilled, laced nightgowns.

She also displayed a rainbow of fringed shawls, pelisses, evening capes and silk stockings embroidered with clocks.

“To draw the eye to your ankle when you walk,” Marie explained with her shy smile.

One of Madame du Clare’s assistants was sent running to the boot-maker next door, who hurried in a few moments later with an assortment of high-heeled shoes in leather and silk. A hatter was also called in. He produced straw chip hats, poke bonnets trimmed with dyed ostrich plumes and something he called a turban.

“There,” Madame Thibodeaux announced after insisting her new houseguest choose an astounding number of garments and their accompanying fripper
ies. “That should do you until Madame du Clare has time to make up the rest of the gowns you’ll need.”

With an airy wave of her hand, she told the seamstress to send the bills to Doumaine Street and shepherded her charges out of the shop.

Dressed in a lilac afternoon dress with a matching pelisse trimmed in green braid, Louise wobbled out of the shop. Her high-heeled red shoes pinched her toes and she was sure her lacy drawers would drop around her clock-trimmed ankles at any moment.

Daniel spent his afternoon being re-outfitted as well.

Glad to be shed of his buckskins, he drew a new fatigue uniform from the quartermaster. The white woolen britches felt scratchy after his supple buckskins, and the dark blue cutaway coat stretched tight across his shoulders, but the supply clerk found a pair of boots that fit. The clerk also provided him with a new black leather cross belt, a short-sword and scabbard, and the white worsted epaulets denoting his rank. Daniel rubbed his sleeve over the plate on his tall black shako until the U.S. Army insignia gleamed.

Feeling like a proper soldier again, he joined his captain and the men of his company at mess that night. Over tankards of ale, he regaled them with the details of his journey down the Arkansaw. They in turn supplied him with the latest barracks gossip and a detailed update of the conspiracy that now gripped the attention of the entire nation.

After amassing men, arms and a small flotilla of boats on the Ohio, Burr had left with a small contingent for New Orleans, where he was to gather more men and boats. He had learned he’d been betrayed when he reached Natchez and read a newspaper transcript of his coded letter to General Wilkinson. The governor of Mississippi Territory had then demanded his surrender. He’d complied, had been brought before a grand jury and, amazingly, had won his release. Disguising himself as a boatman, he’d then melted into the wilderness.

As additional information about his plot became known, a new warrant was issued for Burr’s arrest. He’d been taken into custody once again in mid-February and hustled to Fort Stoddart, where he was now being held under close guard. Rumor was, he’d be sent to Richmond to stand trial for treason and other high misdemeanors.

“They’re saying he intended to rouse the whole of Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico territories to arms,” one of Daniel’s company commented. “Word is, he intended to march clear to Mexico City, drive out the Spanish and set himself up as king of a new country.”

“They’re also saying our general was up to his ears in the plot,” another put in. Puffing on his pipe, he blew a cloud of fragrant Virginia tobacco into the air. “We all know how the old man fawned over Burr when he came to St. Louis last spring. Damned if he didn’t turn us all out in the pouring rain for a formal review.”

“Parading the troops is one thing,” the captain said sharply. “Conspiring to commit treason is another. Smoke your pipe, Jackson, and shut your hole.”

His mind whirling, Daniel left the group clustered around the mess table and went to his room. The last hour before he doused the lanterns he spent writing a letter to Elizabeth. He couldn’t tell her whether his company would return to St. Louis or when he’d see her again. All he could do was provide her written authorization to draw upon his wilderness pay—and hope she’d remember who he was.

He sent the letter off with a courier leaving for St. Louis the next morning. He had no sooner returned from that task than his captain plunged him back into the duties and responsibilities he’d left behind when he trekked into the wilderness seven months ago.

By noon, Daniel had reviewed the company rosters, revised the schedule of work details and walked patrol with his men to get a better feel for the mood of the city. He’d also ordered the appropriate punishments for the inevitable infractions of military discipline that occurred when troops were housed in close proximity to strong spirits and accommodating women. He was at the stables, inspecting the horses and wagons used to transport the company’s extra supplies and ammunition, when the order came to report at once to General Wilkinson.

Clean-shaven and a good stone lighter than when he’d last met with the general, Daniel reported to the
cabildo.
His new shako tucked under his arm, he waited while Wilkinson’s aide de camp announced his presence. The aide came out, held the door, and Daniel strode inside.

“Rifle Sergeant Morgan reporting as ordered, sir.”

Wilkinson returned his salute and strutted forward, his hand outstretched. It was an egalitarian gesture inconsistent with his rank, but not unexpected considering how he’d handpicked Daniel for a particularly hazardous expedition.

“I was overjoyed to hear you’d returned safely.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Sit down, sit down!”

Daniel hooked his sword out of the way and took a chair carved in dark wood in the Spanish style. Wilkinson rounded his desk to claim the chair opposite. He was a short man, with dark, busy eyes, a deep cleft in his chin and a protruding belly, but he wore his uniform with an impressive air. Gold braid dripped from his blue jacket and his epaulets glittered with the embroidered stars of a general officer. The loss of his wife and, Daniel guessed, the intrigues swirling around him had carved deep brackets on either side of his mouth that hadn’t been there when they last met.

Not that Wilkinson was any stranger to intrigue. This was the man who’d taken part in a plot to remove General Washington as commander of the Continental Army. Who’d been relieved as clothier-general of the army for alleged discrepancies in his accounts. Who’d faced a court-martial following al
legations by a subordinate that he’d deliberately held back badly needed reinforcements at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in order to embarrass his rival, General Anthony Wayne.

This was also the same officer who’d conducted a brilliant campaign against the Iroquois, Daniel reminded himself. The general who had risen in rank to become commander in chief of the Army of the United States. The man who now coadministered with Governor W.C.C. Claiborne an area larger than the country that had purchased it.

It wasn’t the officer he faced now, however, but the anxious father.

“How did you leave my son?”

“Weak with fever, sir. Very weak. He’s in good hands, though. Private Wilson is with him, and the goodwife of the house where he rests seems to know what she’s about.”

“I pray to God she does.”

His distress was real. Daniel could do little more to relieve it and offered his sympathies on the death of his wife. The general accepted them with a sigh.

“Her lungs troubled her for some time, and the climate here in New Orleans did not agree with her. I shall miss her greatly.”

With an almost visible effort, he wrenched his thoughts from his family to his official duties.

“My son’s report is most thorough until the last weeks of your expedition.”

“The fever struck him in mid-December. He made only brief entries in his journal after that.”

“From what he’s written, the Arkansaw appears to be navigable only in certain stretches.”

“Yes, sir.”

Daniel moved to the elaborately inscribed parchment map of Louisiana Territory nailed to the wall. The sheer size of the wilderness he’d just journeyed through almost stole his breath. Slowly, he traced the course of the Arkansaw.

“Here to the north, where the river crosses the plains, it’s shallow and sandy bottomed. Further south, it widens, deepens and flows with dangerous currents. Particularly after a snow melt.”

Inked lines on a parchment couldn’t begin to encompass the endless sky, the rolling hills, the forested slopes. A dozen images flashed through Daniel’s mind. Of the warlike Pawnee with black-painted faces. The Osage who roamed the hills and bluffs. The French and English who trapped the rivers and lived their lives in splendid isolation.

“And the Native tribes?” the general asked. “My son writes they received you well, for the most part.”

“For the most part.”

“Where is this parcel of land Chief Big Track wants to gift us with?”

Daniel thumped his forefinger on the map. “Here, where the Arkansaw, the Grand and the Verdigris flow together.”

“Those rivers are rich with beaver and otter,” Wilkinson murmured. “Their confluence constitutes an ideal location for a trading post.”

“Or a military fort.”

“What? Oh, yes. Of course. It may come to that, particularly if Congress approves the Indian Removal Plan. We’ll require a military presence in the area to keep the Osage and Choctaw from warring with each other.”

They’d require more than a presence, Daniel thought. They’d require a whole damned regiment.

He spent the next twenty minutes answering detailed questions about the topography of the terrain and the character of the tribes his small detachment had encountered. Finally, Wilkinson brought up the subject of Louise.

“What of this widow? My son makes no note of her in his official report, but his private letter includes a rather interesting reference to the woman.”

“What sort of reference?” Daniel asked carefully.

Now that he’d had a day and a night to grasp the scope of Burr’s treachery, he very much regretted mentioning Louise to Colonel Matthews. She’d heard only vague rumors about someone coming up the river with men and boats, nothing that would in any way substantiate the charges and countercharges sure to come in what looked to be a wildly sensational trial.