Jack Iron (6 page)

More than forty townspeople were crowded into the west wing of the house, and Raven O’Keefe had long since given up trying to remember names. It didn’t really matter. The ladies all seemed so beautiful in their finery and the gentlemen as chivalrous as knights. She found herself a woman of two worlds and made this observation while standing off to the side, leaning against the dining room wall while Negro servants hurried past her bearing trays of custards, petits four, and honey-glazed tea cakes filled with wild plum jelly. Zenon and Marie Raux introduced themselves. The woman was a sweet-natured soul with an inviting smile and dimpled cheeks and a round full figure barely constrained by the pale pink cotton confines of her festive gown. Zenon, her husband, was a quiet unassuming individual of forty, an umbrella maker by trade. He had avoided service in the Louisiana Battalion by purchasing horses for a contingent of dragoons and outfitting the men with uniforms, rifled muskets, and an umbrella for their commander, Major DuClerc.

Raven listened and smiled and glanced around as discreetly as possible for some sign of Kit or the dashing buccaneer Cesar Obregon, who had presented her with the dress. Her father’s warnings nibbled at her conscience. But she was enjoying herself. The room was filled with music and light and gaiety. She did not pretend for a minute that such a life was for her, although she didn’t mind teasing her father to the contrary. But for all the excitement of the evening and the delights to be found in walking a different path for a few days, Raven knew where her heart lay. The eternal hills had worked their special magic on her, the spirits had whispered her name in the wind. No quadrille could match the great forests awash with the music of bubbling spring-fed brooks and the rustle of leaves in the passing breeze. The voice of an umbrella maker ended her reverie.

“You must come by my shop,” said Zenon after describing in detail how his parasols had become the rage of New Orleans society. “I have a shipment bound for Mobile if this dreadful fellow Packenham will ever see fit to allow us the use of the Gulf again.”

“Rest assured he shall get his comeuppance,” Marie Raux spoke up. Her belief in the inevitable triumph of the Americans was unflagging. “General Jackson will send the British on their way in good order.”

“My wife is a champion of Old Hickory,” Zenon added.

“As well she should be,” Olivia LeBeouf interjected, coming toward them with the uniformed Major DuClerc following her like an obedient pet. The commander of the Louisiana Battalion had fallen under the widow’s spell. Although Raven genuinely like the widow, she did not pity her father, who would be sleeping alone this night. Better he should rest than attempt to satisfy the widow LeBeouf, whose sexual appetites could exhaust a man half her age, if rumors were to be believed.

“Andrew Jackson is going to be an important man one day. Just you wait and see,” the widow added. “Too bad he’s so sickly. I’m told he can’t keep anything on his stomach but cornbread and buttermilk.” She sighed and shook her head.

“Now, there’s a lonely gentleman I wouldn’t mind keeping on
my
stomach.” Madame LeBeouf chuckled as she looked toward the front of the house. Cesar Obregon had just entered the room. He cut a dashing figure, all dressed in black with his blond locks trailing out from under his black bandanna. He bowed to every lady as the dancers swept past him in the arms of their escorts. Bootheels rap-tapped upon the wooden floor, and ladies’ dresses swirled and brushed against one another, underscoring the music with a sound like hushed whispers.

“Olivia LeBeouf—how you do carry on,” Marie Raux exclaimed. But it was her husband, the umbrella maker, who blushed at the widow’s risqué remark. “Best you save your flattery for Major DuClerc,” Marie continued. “It’s plain as spring flowers who the Hawk fancies.”

Raven felt color creep to her own cheeks as both women gave her their undivided attention. They made no attempt to conceal their envy as Obregon skirted the dance floor and made his way to the side of the dark-haired half-breed in her dress of Spanish lace.

“And I thought this dismal evening was shorn of stars but now I find your radiance has illumined the night,” Obregon said with a sweeping bow. Off to the side, Olivia LeBeouf and the umbrella maker’s wife nearly swooned. Obregon straightened, he nodded in their direction, and, eyes twinkling, grinned.

“Why, ladies, never have I seen such lovely creatures. I say, Zenon, take heed lest someone come a-creeping to your wife’s bedroom window and spirit her away.”

“Well, I never…” Zenon stammered. “Indeed, the very notion, I mean—sir, do you take me for a fool?”

“Take you? No,
compadre.
I much prefer the company of ladies,” Obregon slyly replied with a wink and a shake of his handsome head. Like a stallion among his herd, he moved across the crowded dance floor with Raven on his arm. She was in step beside him before she even had time to resist. Not that the bemused woman intended to pull away. Obregon was charming and in his own way irresistible. He led her out into the quadrille and proceeded to dance with all the grace of a gentleman bred to the salons of Paris or the boudoirs of Castille. Poor Raven stumbled from time to time and her cheeks reddened as she attempted to keep in step with the couples around them. She managed to bluff her way through the experience; however, she did not regret when the music ended. Obregon was perceptive enough to offer his arm and escort Raven from the floor.

“I enjoy watching everyone,” Raven said. She wasn’t the type to remain embarrassed for long. “Oh, I could learn to move with as much grace, but…” Then she grinned and sighed good-naturedly. “No, I couldn’t.”

That was one of the qualities Obregon most liked about Raven O’Keefe: her self-effacing honesty was wholly refreshing. The half-breed probably glided through the forests as soundless as a cat at home with the wilderness and unfettered by the constraints of civilized men and women.

“I will teach you,” Obregon said, “my savage flower.” He bowed courteously and kissed her hand. The buccaneer had started to say “tame” but caught himself in time. Yet that was what he desired, to tame this Irish-Choctaw maiden and make her his own. By God she set his blood afire.

The west wing of the house was warm from the press of bodies and the cheerful blaze consuming the logs in the fireplace. Iron screening had been placed before the hearth to prevent some woman from trailing the hem of her dress too near the flames.

“Walk with me into the night, Raven O’Keefe,” said the buccaneer. He thought about the barn. A man and a woman might not be perceived as a threat and manage to get inside.

“But you just arrived,” the woman replied.

“I did not come to drink the widow’s punch or taste her tea cakes or brush elbows with the aristocracy of New Orleans.”

“Then, why are you here?” Raven’s long lashes fluttered as she lowered her gaze.

“Because you are here,
mi querida.
You are the light. Look, and you will see my shadow.”

Raven managed to suppress a laugh. Cesar Obregon certainly had the gift. His poetry of passion was nigh overwhelming, especially when spoken in such silken tones. Looking out the window, she saw, through her own reflection, nothing but the dark outline of a courtyard wall that belonged to an adjoining house. The whitewashed wood frame surrounding the panes of glass rattled at the touch of the wind’s unseen hand.

“It would seem uncomfortably chilly,” she commented.

“I will keep you warm,” Obregon said, his soft brown eyes daring her to chance his company, alone in the night.

Raven toyed with the notion. There was no denying the effect he had on her. She had experienced the feelings before, and even more intensely, with another who had captured her heart.

Cesar Obregon stepped closer to the woman and lifted her hand to his lips. His kiss was slight, warm as a spring breeze, inviting… no, daring. Ah yes, there was the word again. Daring. And in another time and place, Raven might have succumbed. For they were kindred spirits, these two.

“I am almost tempted, my dashing friend.” Raven gently freed her hand from his grasp.

“Surrender to your temptations. I always do,” Obregon said, curling the tip of his blond mustache. The chattering guests all seemed to blend together, becoming a single droning noise that only served to underscore the rush of sound he realized was his own breathing. His passions were aroused. And so was his curiosity. The Hawk of the Antilles was unaccustomed to having a woman resist his charms.

“I think it would be for the best if we remain inside,” Raven replied.

“As you wish,
mi querida
.” He lifted his sleepy gaze to the musicians as Major DuClerc called out to the performers that enough time had passed for the music makers to refresh themselves with cups of sangria and rum punch. The gallant Louisianan offered his arm to Olivia LeBeouf and walked her to the center of the room, and as the musicians struck up another quadrille, the guests followed suit and escorted their ladies to the floor. The oil lanterns in the chandelier overhead flickered and gleamed. Wall lanterns hung from brass armatures cast a cheerful glow. The servants continued to feed the crackling flames in the hearth with oaken logs whose crumbly bark instantly caught fire as soon as the logs were lowered to the existing pyre.

“Perhaps I can learn something from these people after all,” Obregon said with a nod to the dancers. “At least when the musicians play, the gentleman embraces his lady; then anything is possible.”

He was hardly the forlorn cavalier he pretended to be. But Raven found his performance amusing. She had never in her life met anyone quite like the black-garbed buccaneer. And as Kit was off somewhere serving General Jackson, what was the harm in allowing the Hawk of the Antilles his moment in her sky?

“Well, sir, if anything is possible, then teach me to walk the trails of the widow’s dance floor.” Raven opened her arms to him. “That is, if your toes can withstand the punishment.”

Obregon smiled. It appeared he would get no closer to the barn tonight. But there was always tomorrow. At least he had learned something of the way the wagon was being guarded. So much for future profits. Tonight he embraced a treasure of another sort. One he did not intend to allow to escape his grasp.

“Follow my lead, senorita. And I will take you places and show you sights the like of which you have not dreamed.”

“I’ll be happy if I learn the quadrille,” Raven replied, hoping to defuse his intensity. She remembered her father’s advice. She heard O’Keefe’s cautioning voice replay his warning in the back of her mind. But then the music began and Obregon swept her away into the heart of the gaiety, into the innocent temptations of the dance.

“G
OOD EVENIN’, SUH,” SAID
the widow’s manservant, a mulatto with salt-and-pepper hair combed flat against his skull. “Lieutenant McQueen, isn’t it, suh?” The mulatto spoke in a low melodic voice, deeply resonant and bearing a sense of authority as befitting the manager of Olivia LeBeouf’s household.

“Yeah, Mr. Flatt, it’s me,” Kit said, stepping through the doorway, where he paused a moment and stood still and listened to the music and took his bearings, surveying the few people in the foyer of the house to see if any of them were Obregon or his crew.

Kit was soaked to the waist. His buckskin breeches were caked with dried mud, and his blue regulation-issue coat was spattered from his recent trek through the bayous to the south. His cheeks were flushed and stubbled with the red beginnings of a beard. The manservant shivered before McQueen’s smoldering gaze.

“Is Obregon…” McQueen began. His voice cracked and he started again. “Is Captain Obregon here?”

“Why, yessuh. He preceded you by half an hour ago. Maybe more. I believe I saw him enjoying the company of Miss O’Keefe. Yessuh, they made a dashing couple, if I do say so myself.” Flatt made a valiant effort to block Kit’s path. “Mr. McQueen, you aren’t properly attired…”

But the servant was summarily brushed aside by the soldier, who headed straight for the dining room. Ladies gasped at the sight of him and hastily grabbed the hems of their dresses to avoid contact with such a disheveled character as this latest arrival to the party.

Kit ignored the women. He did not care a whit for their hushed remarks of disdain. A gambler in a frock coat and ruffled shirt stepped forward to intercept him, but Kit halted the man in his tracks with a single malevolent glance in the fellow’s direction. There was death in McQueen’s hollow gaze and a fury that his genteel New England upbringing barely managed to contain. The gambler retreated to the arms of his lady standing near a table laden with cakes and cobblers and platters of tea biscuits.

The couples on the dance floor paid him no mind. They were lost in the music and gay conversation and the excitement of being arm in arm. Olivia LeBeouf swept past, this time in the embrace of a young Creole merchant. The merry widow was twenty years his senior, which made his attentions all the more flattering. Another couple of dancers whirled past and then Raven in her dress of Spanish lace. She was laughing at her partner’s remark and concentrating so hard on her footwork that she was completely oblivious to the arrival of Kit McQueen.

The lieutenant scowled at the sight of Cesar Obregon. The buccaneer had abandoned his post and disobeyed orders. His negligence had nearly gotten them all killed, and here he was enjoying the widow’s hospitality and the charms of the woman Kit loved. Dark was his fury. His fists clenched and unclenched as he struggled to contain the anger that demanded to be unleashed.

“The hell with it,” Kit muttered, and skirted the dance floor as he made his way to a long low table topped with a lace coverlet and three crystal bowls of punch de crème, an island drink favored by the widow. It consisted of sweet cream, eggs, nutmeg and cinnamon, sugar, and lime peel, which she had stored in stoneware crocks two days before the party and then laced with a liberal portion of rum for the festivities.

The guests parted as the spattered man approached, giving him all the room he needed to hoist the nearest punch bowl in his brawny arms. He winked at a powdery-white-haired matron seated in a curved-back chair like a queen on her throne. She was the mother of William D. D. Pentwell, a personal aide to the governor of the state. She was a fragile-looking woman with a lively smile and a twinkle in her eyes, and though age had curved her back and plagued her with aches, Kit, during his stay in New Orleans, had never known the elderly woman to complain. Jackson had introduced him to Letitia Pentwell a few weeks ago. The charming lady had trounced Kit at chess three times in a row, but he had proved himself a good loser, at least at chess. Love was an entirely different matter.