Merline Lovelace (16 page)

“No.”

“Because of Elizabeth.”

“Because of her. And because I’m no deserter. I still wear a uniform. I don’t know for how much longer, after last night, but…”

“We will not speak of last night,” Louise said fiercely. “For what time we have left together, we will not speak at all.”

His fingers fisted in the linen and dragged it over his head. The shirt caught at the cuffs. She tugged at it impatiently and muttered a curse when the buttons wouldn’t give.

“Here, let me.”

Sinking back on her heels, Louise caught her breath as he discarded the shirt and went to work on his boots and trousers. His sheer beauty made her blood sing and her pulse soar like a hawk in flight.

He was more muscled than the men of her mother’s people, and dusted with hair. Light brown and curling, it swirled across his chest and down his belly. His shaft hung from another nest of brown.

Her womb clenching in anticipation, Louise closed her fingers around it. The skin was hot, the veins rigid. One slow, sliding squeeze, and he grew thick and hard as a tent pole.

Whatever, whoever had come before lost all significance. Henri. Elizabeth. The nameless, faceless men who swam in the shadows of her mind. None of them mattered. There was only this tall, bronzed warrior she’d hungered for all these months.

When he joined her on the bed, she lifted her mouth to his eagerly. And when he kneed her legs apart, she opened for him joyously.

Daniel tried to go slowly. He worried she’d been hurt by the men who had used her, feared the feel of him pushing into her would drive the pleasure from her face and bring on panic.

His fear was for naught. Her mouth was welcoming under his, her hands urgent on his back. She clenched muscles around him, drawing him in, wrapping him in hot, wet flesh. His breath coming hard and fast now, he drove into her.

All too soon, he felt his body harden. His blood pounded like a drum in his veins. He pushed up, bracing himself on his elbows.

“Louise.”

She arched under him, panting.

“Louise, look at me.”

“Daniel—” It was a wail, a plea.

“Look at me!”

Her lids raised. As he had the very first day he’d encountered this tangle-haired creature, Daniel saw himself in the clear, shimmering blue of her eyes.

He flexed his hips, and with a hard, sure thrust, he sank home.

L
ouise lay in Daniel’s arms, her head nested on his shoulder, her legs tangled with his. She didn’t have any idea of the hour, guessed it was some time yet before dawn.

“We’d best get you out of here.”

The quiet words shattered the stillness. Louise nuzzled her face into the warm skin of his neck and pretended not to hear. Everything in her cried out for another hour. Just one. Despite what she’d endured in this small, hot room, she’d give every penny of Henri’s fortune to stay huddled on these dingy sheets.

Daniel pushed up on one elbow, the straw mattress sagging under him. The movement rolled Louise onto her back. Sighing, she stared at this wide-shouldered, square-jawed man she’d come to love more than she’d ever thought it possible to love. His brown hair stood up like a partridge’s ruff where she’d thrust her hands through it. His cheeks and chin
showed the shadows of a new beard, and the look in his eyes told her he’d accepted what she had not.

Their time together was done. This stolen hour would have to see them through the months and years ahead.

“I will carry you always in my heart, Louise Therese.”

“And I you.”

Giving in to the urge to touch him one last time, she cupped his cheek. He turned his head and pressed a kiss against her palm.

“Will you send word of how you fare when you reach France?”

“I will. And you will let me know how you and—”

She broke off, silenced when Daniel frowned and raised his head.

“What is it? What do you hear?”

“It’s not what I hear.” The slash between his brows deepened. “It’s what I smell.”

Louise sniffed, but with him leaning so near to her, all she drew in was the sharp tang of their sweat and the yeasty scent of their loving.

“That’s smoke,” he muttered, “and not from cook fires.”

Rolling off the bed, he reached for his trousers. “Get dressed.”

She scrambled up and dug through the pile of discarded clothing. She could smell the smoke now, too. A faint whiff drifted in through the eaves.

Ignoring her corset, she pulled on the muslin che
mise and grabbed her soiled walking dress. By the time she’d fumbled with the buttons that closed the dress at the neck, Daniel had stamped into his boots. Louise was reaching for her ribboned leather shoes when she heard the tramp of feet on the wooden stairs.

Her glance flew to Daniel. “Could it be the men who took me?”

A feral gleam came into his eyes. “I surely to God hope so.”

Snatching his pistol from the shelf above the bed, he checked the firing pan for powder, then gave her a quick shove.

“Get over there, behind the door.”

The chair Daniel had propped against the broken lock wouldn’t keep anyone out for long.

“I wish I had my skinning knife,” Louise muttered as she scurried across the room. “I would peel the hide from those two Spaniards.”

With a small grunt, Daniel tipped up the flap of his cartridge pouch. “Happens I have it with me.”

A flick of his wrist sent the long-handled knife across the room. The blade became buried in the wooden door. Louise wrapped her hands around it and felt the blood rise in her veins.

One glimpse of a gold earring. That’s all she needed. Just one glimpse.

Her fingers fisted around the hilt, she flattened herself against the rough board wall. A sudden hammering mere inches from her ear had her biting down hard on her lower lip.

“You in there! You and the wench!”

“It’s the tavern keeper,” Daniel grunted, kicking aside the chair.

“There’s a fire,” the man huffed. “They’re calling for all able-bodied souls to man the bucket brigades.”

Louise came out from behind the door. The fat, puffing tavern keeper didn’t spare her so much as a glance.

“I’m going myself. Last time fire swept through the city, it damned near took this place and me with it.”

Daniel’s stomach clenched. Fire was a constant threat, especially in crowded cities like this. Wooden shingles and old timbers went up in a flash. Leaping flames consumed whole districts. The
cabildo
and the cathedral next to it had burned to the ground and been rebuilt a number of times.

And he had left Elizabeth alone!

“Where is this fire?”

The tavern keeper had already started back down the stairs.

“I don’t know how far it’s spread,” he called over his shoulder, “but they’re saying it started over in Bienville Street.”

What should have been a twenty-minute race back to the regimental staff quarters became a journey through hell.

The streets were jammed with people, some running frantically to the river with bundles of posses
sions in their arms, others toward the fire. The stench of smoke grew stronger with every turn. Scorching heat rolled through the narrow streets. Nearer the old quarter, whole blocks were ablaze and flames turned night into day.

Eyes watering, lungs heaving, Daniel shoved through crowds and dodged barricades. Someone shouted at him to grab a bucket. A frantic woman caught his sleeve and begged his help lifting her husband’s portrait onto a cart. He yanked his arm free, heaved the portrait atop the other furnishings in the wagon and ran on.

Louise kept up with him, panting and cursing the high wooden heels on her shoes. She lost one, didn’t dare run through the dark streets without it.

“Daniel! Wait!”

She raced back, jammed her foot into the shoe, came pelting after him again. The flames forced them west, then north. In a desperate attempt to get around the conflagration, they cut through back alleys and clambered over gates.

Finally they reached Rue de Duc Bourgongne, some blocks above Bienville. The flames were well south of them now and moving toward the river. What remained behind were charred, blackened skeletons of buildings.

Some walls still stood. Others had caved in under the weight of collapsed roofs. Fire brigades were hard at work, throwing bucket after bucket of water on sizzling timbers to kill any remaining sparks. Women and children with faces blackened and wide,
ghostlike eyes clutched whatever meager possessions they’d managed to save from the flames.

Louise’s stomach roiled when she stumbled over a dog lying in the gutter. The stench of its charred fur filled her nostrils. Stables and chicken coops had gone, too, as had the swine penned in backyards. She could only pray Elizabeth, little Tess and the others in the apartments housing the regimental staff had escaped the terrible flames.

When they reached what used to be the apartments, she thought at first her prayers had been answered. The building was a smoldering mass of fallen timbers, but a frantic search of the crowd standing numb with shock a safe distance away gave her a clutch of hope.

“Daniel!”

She tugged on his arm, tried to turn him from the burnt timbers. He couldn’t be moved. He stood like one turned to stone.

“Daniel, it’s Tess! Over there!”

He turned then, and the despair on his face hit her like a blow.

“It’s Tess,” she said again, digging her nails into his sleeve. “The little one who stays with Elizabeth.”

His wife’s name pulled him from the dark place where he’d gone. He spun around, shook Louise off like a pesky fly and raced toward the girl.

“Morgan!”

A burly figure separated from the rest. Artillery Sergeant Tremayne was as big and barrel-chested as
his wife was small and birdlike. Leaving his daughter to the care of her brothers, he strode forward.

“Elizabeth?” Daniel asked urgently.

“She’s alive, or was a few hours ago,” the sergeant told him, his voice raw and hoarse from the smoke. “She was badly burned when my Polly found her.”

Louise put a fist to her mouth. Her glance flew to Daniel. His face could have been carved from the gray granite in the hills above the Arkansaw.

“How did it happen?”

“A candle toppled over. The missus smelled smoke and ran to your apartments. She found the bed ablaze and Elizabeth’s nightdress alight.”

“Mon Dieu!”

Both men ignored Louise’s agonized whisper. “Polly dragged her out of bed and tried to smother the flames with a blanket,” Tremayne continued grimly, “but the whole room had already gone to smoke. It was all she could do to get Elizabeth out and sound the alarm.”

“Where’s my wife now?”

“They took her to the hospital. Sisters of Charity, over on Canal Street, I think.”

Daniel wheeled and set off at a run. Louise started to follow, but he threw a harsh order over his shoulder.

“Stay with the Tremaynes.”

“No, I come with—”

“Stay with the Tremaynes,” he snarled.

He was drenched in sweat and black from smoke by the time he reached the cluster of brick and mortar buildings that housed the Sisters of Charity Hospital.

A nun swathed in stained white robes met him at the entrance to the main building. Her eyes widening at his wild appearance, she hurried forward.

“Are you badly burned?”

“Not me,” Daniel ground out. “My wife. Elizabeth Morgan. They brought her here.”

“I don’t know. We have so many—”

“Thin. Blonde. Green eyes. Wearing a muslin nightdress—or what remained of it.”

“Ah, yes. She’s in the women’s ward. I’ll escort you, but—” Her brown eyes filled with sympathy. “You must prepare yourself.”

The wooden rosary hanging from her rope belt rattled as she led him down a short hall awash with the odors of camphor, eucalyptus oil and charred flesh. The women’s ward occupied a long, open hall. Cots crowded the room, every one occupied. Heat rose in palpable waves and mingled with the stench from the slop buckets. A half dozen or so sisters tended the injured. Blood and vomit stained the aprons they wore over their white robes.

“Your wife is there,” the sister said, gesturing to a cot placed halfway down the hall. “The netting helps keep the mosquitoes from the fluids seeping through her bandages.”

Agonizing images of an injured Elizabeth had haunted Daniel all the way to the hospital, but not
even the worst of his imaginings compared to what he saw when he lifted the netting.

Bandages stained to a pale pink swathed her head, her shoulders, her entire body. Even her face was covered, leaving only small slits for her nose and mouth. A few charred strands of hair—her once beautiful, moonlit hair—showed through the bandages.

“The only mercy is that she feels no pain,” the sister said quietly. “She’s not awakened since they brought her in. Nor will she, until God decides she’s strong enough to bear the agony.
If
He so decides,” she added. “Her lungs were seared. Each breath comes harder than the last.”

She spoke the truth. Daniel could hear the shallow rasp over his own labored breathing.

“Do you wish to stay with her?”

“Yes.”

She moved to the next cot, returned with an empty bucket. Too numb to voice any thanks, he upended the wooden bucket and sank down.

He ached to reach for Elizabeth’s hand, to stroke it as he so often did, but he kept his clenched fists in his lap. He’d seen his share of oozing, festering blisters, had heard the howls of pain from troopers who’d set their tents too close to campfires or been set ablaze by barrels of burning pitch flung over palisades. Remembering their shrieks, he could only sit and damn himself with each slow, rattling breath that his wife drew into her tortured lungs.

He shouldn’t have brought Elizabeth to New Or
leans. Shouldn’t have left her with only Polly Tremayne to look in on her.

And he surely to God shouldn’t have spent that stolen hour with Louise in a squalid tavern by the river.

Slumping, he propped his elbows on his knees, covered his face with his hands and prayed his wife would forgive him.

Elizabeth died two hours past dawn.

She didn’t wake, didn’t so much as stir. Daniel was beside her cot, listening to every tormented breath, branding each one on his conscience until the terrible rattling ended.

He sat on the upturned bucket, staring down at her bandaged form, until another sister came and stood with him. Over the moans of the other patients, she fingered her beads and murmured a quiet prayer.

“We must move her,” she said after a moment. “The injured still arrive. We need the cot.”

Like an old, bent man, Daniel pushed to his feet. “Give me time to build her coffin.”

“Of course. We’ll wrap her in clean linen and say prayers for her soul. Come and claim her when you’re ready. It must be soon,” the sister warned gently. “Today, if possible. The heat, the flies, they will grow worse.”

His jaw working, he nodded.

Daniel walked outside to a dawn made gray by smoke and low clouds. Thunder rumbled across the
river. Rain drizzled down to mingle with the sweat and soot on his face and send stinging rivulets into his eyes.

Most of the flames were out, he noted in a distant corner of his mind. The rain would soon finish the job the volunteer fire brigades had begun. Weary men and women streamed past, carrying buckets and pails and tubs. The fire had threatened every home, brought every citizen running. Merchants in waistcoats and shirtsleeves, some in nightcaps. Streetwalkers decked in gaudy stripes and scorched feathers. Soldiers, rivermen, voodoo sellers with red-rimmed eyes and bright kerchiefs wrapped around their heads.

Even, Daniel thought as his entire body went taut, Spaniards with thin black mustaches and gold rings in one ear.

His fury when he’d found Louise sprawled naked on a bed in a hot, stuffy attic chamber didn’t begin to compare to the rage that exploded inside him now. This man—or one who looked much like him—had invaded his quarters, kidnapped Louise, put hands on his wife.

With a savage cry that sounded much like the scream of the panther that had ripped out Henri Chartier’s throat, Daniel lunged through the straggling crowd. Nightcaps went flying. Pails clattered against the cobbles. Shouts and curses followed him.

The dark-haired Spaniard heard the commotion, glanced over his shoulder as Daniel charged straight for him. Any doubt he was one of the men who’d
stalked Louise to the regimental staff quarters vanished when he dropped his bucket and ran.