Merline Lovelace (19 page)

“He is weak. If we marry, I will arrange matters to suit me.”

“He may be weak, but his father is not. I tell you, Louise—”

She gripped the agitated merchant’s arm, stilling
him. “I am no untried maiden who has never shared a man’s blanket. I know what I do here.”

“Daniel would not agree!”

No, he would not. Daniel didn’t believe in the legend, wouldn’t accept that one cursed such as she brought only disaster to those she loved. Nor would he agree Louise owed this to him—and to Elizabeth.

“This is not Daniel’s decision,” she said quietly. “Nor is it yours, Bernard.”

“A wheelbarrel full of difference that will make!” the red-faced merchant retorted. “Morgan will have my head when he hears I was the one who brought you here.”

“If you had not, I would have come alone.” She squeezed his arm and stood up. “I thank you for all you have done for me. You and Helene and your so kind daughters. Now I must ask you to leave. Send my things to me here, if you will.”

He made a final, desperate plea. “Louise, this is madness. Will you not reconsider?”

“No.”

When the servant answered her knock for the second time, his eyes were as round as moons. He craned his neck and searched the hallway in either direction before stepping aside to allow her entry.

James stood beside the mantel, nervously fingering a pistol that lay within easy reach. He’d exchanged his uniform jacket for a dressing gown and his boots for felt slippers, but still looked as though his linen stock choked him. When his servant shut the door
behind Louise, the lieutenant’s breath escaped on a low, whistling sigh.

Relief that she’d returned? she wondered. Or regret?

She walked to the center of the room and stood silent while James studied her face. Whatever he saw there seemed to reassure him. Waving a hand, he dismissed his servant.

“That will be all for tonight, Simons. You may return to your quarters.”

“Yes, sir.”

When the door thumped shut, James seemed at a loss over what to do next. Finally, he reached out to relieve Louise of the cashmere shawl draped over her elbows. Carefully, he folded it across the back of a chair.

“Shall I take your hat? And your bag?”

Wordlessly, Louise untied the ribbons of her bonnet. She handed him the feathered creation, which he laid beside the shawl. When he took the reticule, however, the weight of it drew a surprised glance.

“What do you carry in here?”

“A handkerchief. Some coins. My skinning knife.”

His cheeks lost their color. “I’ll put it on the mantel, shall I? Out of the way.”

Shoving aside the pistol and leather-framed miniatures, he made room for the bag. When he returned, she asked whether he’d written the letter he’d promised.

“Yes. It’s there, beside my writing desk.” With a
little flourish, he indicated the small wooden box with a slanted lid.

She’d seen him use it many times during the journey down the Arkansaw to write notes in his journal. Its lid was propped up, revealing a supply of papers, quills and ink. A page filled with writing lay beside the box on the table.

“Do you wish to read it?”

She wouldn’t admit that she could not. She didn’t trust him not to go back on his promise and change the wording.

“I do not need to read it. You must know I will use my knife on you while you sleep if you do not hold to your end of our bargain.”

“I’ll hold to it. Will you?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated several moments before bending his head. His lips were dry with nervousness. His breath carried the flavor of brandy.

Opening her mouth to him, Louise used her tongue in the way Henri had taught her.

James was young, but not as strong as Daniel. And, she soon discovered, nowhere near as skilled as Henri at bringing a woman to pleasure.

He escorted Louise into the bedchamber and stripped both her and himself down to their small clothes with fumbling haste. He didn’t take the time to remove her chemise. Yanking the straps down to her elbows to bare her breasts, he suckled eagerly. His teeth tugged too hard on the nipple, but she made
no complaint. Nor did she protest when he rolled her onto her belly, found the slit in her drawers, and rammed into her from behind.

Two thrusts and he was groaning.

Five, and he was done.

He fell atop her, grunting. His body was damp with sweat, his breath hot in her ear. She lay under him, pressed into the bedsheets by his weight, until he slid off and flopped onto his back.

She lay awake, staring into the darkness, long after he began to snore.

T
he batman, Simons, arrived the next morning with rich, steaming chocolate and sugar-dusted beignets fresh from the inn’s kitchens. Avoiding Louise’s eye, he laid out a small table by the wavy-paned window in the sitting room.

“Sit here, my dear.”

James held a chair for her. Louise smoothed the wrinkles from her blue gown, accepted a cup of chocolate, but refused the pastries. She could not eat now if a whole roasted deer sizzled on the spit.

The lieutenant suffered no lack of appetite. He devoured his in two bites and reached for another. “You really should eat one of these cakes.”

“I have no hunger.”

“They’re quite delicious.” He ran an indulgent eye over her. “And if truth be told, you could use a bit more meat on your bones.”

“Were you not satisfied with my bones?” she asked coolly. “You made no complaint last night when you spilled your seed in me.”

Flushing, he shot a look at the valet, who quickly went to busy himself in the bedroom.

“You must learn to be more circumspect in your speech when we are married,” the lieutenant admonished when the door had closed behind his aide.

“What is this, ‘circumspect’?”

“More careful. One doesn’t speak of, er, bedroom matters in front of the servants.”

“Mmm.”

Toying with the handle of her cup, Louise studied the man she’d given herself to. She’d seen him at his worst, sick with fever and lying in a pool of his own sweat. Now hale and healthy, he looked almost handsome. He’d brushed his hair back in a neat queue and tied it with a black ribbon. His white linen shirt molded shoulders that, while not wide and well muscled, were well proportioned to his frame. It was the intricately tied neck cloth he and his manservant had fussed over for so long that gave him something of a dandy’s air, she decided.

“Why do you marry me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why do you marry me? My skin is dark. My words are not careful. I have no strong affection for you, nor, I think, do you for me.”

“You mistake my sentiments. I have a great regard for you.”

“For me or for Henri’s money? You may speak honestly,” she added when he began to bluster. “I have made a bargain with you and I will keep it. I just wish to have the truth between us.”

“The truth?”

He gave a small huff. But not of laughter, Louise thought as he poured himself another cup of cocoa.

“I will admit your inheritance adds to your appeal,” he said after a moment. “What man would not rather take a wife who brings him great wealth than one who does not? Henri Chartier’s ancestry is also a benefit.”

She leaned forward, frowning. “Why do you care so much for Henri’s ancestry?”

“You were wed to someone with ties to royalty. That makes you a duchess by marriage in the minds of some. As for your Osage blood—”

He looked away from her, his glance fixing on some point across the room. “He’ll use that, as well.”

“Who?” She followed his gaze, saw that he looked to the leather-framed portraits on the mantel. “You speak of your father?”

“Yes.”

“I do not understand. Tell me how your father makes use of my Osage blood.”

“He thinks our union will bind your people to his cause.”

“Pah! It will not bind my uncle. You saw how eager he was to be rid of me. And what is this cause you speak of? My uncle has already granted your father land for an outpost deep in Osage country. What more does he want?”

His mouth twisted. “He wants it all.”

“All of Osage country?”

“Ha! If only he’d be satisfied with that. No, you’re the key to the empire he thought was lost when—when other plans came to naught.”

Confused, Louise struggled to understand his meaning. Did the general think to claim all the lands hunted by the Osage? Or did James refer to this so absurd Indian Removal Plan? Perhaps his father supported the notion of moving Cherokee and Choctaw and other eastern tribes to lands beyond the Mississippi. Could he really believe a union between Louise and his son would reconcile Big Track to such a scheme? Before she could ask any further questions, James pushed away from the table and called for his servant.

“Simons! My uniform jacket and sword, if you please.”

The batman helped him into the blue coat with its red facings. Rolling his shoulders to settle the cloth, James buckled on his cross belt with its attached sword and sent his man for his shako.

“I dislike leaving you, my dear, but I must attend to my military duties. I’ll return as soon as possible.”

“You will speak with Colonel Matthews before you attend these duties,” Louise reminded him sharply. “And send the letter you wrote to your father.”

“I’ll go right to the
cabildo,
where the colonel has his office.”

And where Daniel was being held.

She must see him, tell him about the bargain she’d made before he heard of it from Bernard. Shoving
back her chair, she crossed the room to scoop up the bonnet and gloves James had relieved her of last night.

“I will accompany you.”

“There’s no need for that. I gave my word I would speak to Matthews and so I shall.”

“While you speak with him, I shall speak to Daniel. You must write me a pass.”

The lieutenant’s head snapped around. “I’ll do no such thing! Your name has already been linked with his in connection with his wife’s death. I can’t have you consorting with him any further.”

“I know not this ‘consorting,’ but I must speak with him.”

“I cannot allow it.”

This one would learn, Louise thought as she jammed the bonnet over her hastily woven coronet of braids and tied the ribbons. Just as Henri had learned.

“When we are married,” she informed him coldly, “you soon discover I am used to following my own mind.”

“Louise, I insist you—”

“Daniel must know it is my choice to stay here with you,” she snapped, impatient now to be gone. “If he does not hear this from my own lips, he will think you feed me opium to keep me here. Again.”

He blanched. “I didn’t— I never— I swear, I knew nothing about—”

He lies, Louise thought disdainfully. And he fears. Although he tried to pull a mask over his face, she
saw the panic ripple over him like the shadow of a cloud passing over the earth.

She had no concern for his private fears. He could drown in them for all she cared. She’d come to this place with one purpose, and that was to save Daniel. She only hoped he would agree to be saved.

“You will write a pass for me, James. Now, if you please.”

He drew himself up. “I’ll write it, if you promise me this is the last time you’ll go to Morgan. You must leave me some pride.”

She’d already made her bargain with the devil. This was but an extension of it.

“You have my word.”

Louise showed the pass to a succession of officials.

Once she was granted entry to the prison, a guard escorted her past the jailer’s quarters and the offices of the city’s police guard to a dank tunnel secured by two separate gates. She yielded her purse along with the skinning knife and a substantial bribe at the first, waited while it was locked behind her, then proceeded to the second. This one opened onto a roofed-in courtyard at the rear of the prison.

“She’s come to see the bugger what burnt his wife,” her escort informed the guard at the gate. “Sergeant Major Morgan.”

The guard held out his hand, palm up. She dropped two more coins into it. He bit down on each coin to test it, pocketed them and twisted an iron key. The
spiked iron bars creaked open, and she walked into a cesspit.

Never had she seen such a foul place. The walls surrounding the yard contained two tiers of cells. Most looked too small for a man to stand upright, and the odors spilling through their iron grates were so fetid, Louise almost retched. Swine and chickens rooted in the filth littering the yard. They shared the crowded space with the prisoners allowed out for exercise. Debtors, vagrants, runaway slaves and the insane rubbed elbows with military men awaiting trial, serving sentences or pending execution.

Male and female prisoners mingled with the animals in the yard. Clumps of men were gaming, using limestone marbles as counters. Others puffed on clay pipes. One scarecrow-thin female with matted hair and oozing pustules on her face was servicing a hulking male prisoner right under the avid eye of the others. Another sat in a wallow alongside a fat-bellied sow, cradling a piglet in her arms and crooning to it like a mother to a babe.

“You’re allowed fifteen minutes,” the guard warned, clanking the gate shut behind her. “Mind where you put your feet.”

Holding her skirts high, she picked her way across the yard. The gamblers ceased throwing their bones. The woman cradling the piglet looked up, hollow cheeked and hopeless. A bald giant with a livid scar running from temple to chin dug an elbow into his companion’s ribs.

Louise felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise
as the two men began to drift toward her. Other inmates followed. New odors rose with each shuffle of their feet, along with a chorus of murmurs.

“Fresh meat.”

“Fancy lookin’ piece, ain’t she?”

“If no one claims her, she’s mine.”

Louise raised her chin. These mangy dogs couldn’t drag her kicking and screaming into one of those foul cells. The guards were within earshot. Surely they’d intervene. She pinned her eye on the giant.

“I have come to speak with Sergeant Major Morgan,” she stated firmly. “Where is he?”

“What do you want with that one,
cherie?
” Grinning, the giant splayed a hand over his crotch and jiggled. “Big Jean has what you want right here.”

“Where is he, if you please?”

She heard a stir of movement behind her and spun around, half expecting an attack.

“What are you doing here, Louise?”

If he hadn’t spoken, she might not have recognized Daniel. His once-white linen shirt and trousers had been stained with soot from the fire when he’d been arrested. Now they were black with grime and filth. The beginnings of a beard furred his cheeks and chin. A great bruise purpled one side of his face, and his left eye was swollen shut.

“Sacre bleu!”
She reached up a gloved hand. “Did the guards do this to you?”

“No.” He jerked away from her touch. “Why are you here?”

He knew about James. She saw it in his face, heard it in his voice.

“Bernard Thibodeaux has already spoken to you?”

“He came last night, after he left you at the Royal Arms. It cost him a fortune in bribes, but he got the guard to call me to the gate.”

She refused to look away. “I will not plead with you to understand. Nor will I beg you to believe I sold myself to James to save you. You know that.”

“Yes,” he ground out. “I do.”

“And you hate me for it. So it must be. But you will—”

“You little fool!”

Wrapping a fist around her upper arm, he hauled her through the ring of onlookers. Her skirts dragged the dirt. Mud and excrement squished into her shoes. She tripped over a squawking chicken that didn’t get out of the way fast enough and would have gone down if not for Daniel’s bruising hold. He yanked her upright, dragged her to a corner of the wall and pinned her against the brick.

“I don’t hate you!” he raged, his one good eye blazing. “How could I hate you for what you did? I know it was done for love, or from this misguided belief that you’re somehow to blame for what happened.”

“Who else is to blame? Me, I caused you to dishonor your vows to Elizabeth. I brought heartache to you and destruction to—”

“Damn it, Louise! You didn’t cause anything.”

His grip brutal, he brought her up until they were almost chin to chin.

“
I
broke my vows.
I
left Elizabeth alone.
I
didn’t protect her or you.
I
sent you to Wilkinson’s bed.”

“No!”

“Yes! I despise myself more with every breath I breathe.”

The bitter bile of fear rose in her throat. He was so ready to take the blame for Elizabeth’s awful death that he might well disregard the bargain she’d struck with James and willingly climb the gallows steps.

“Listen to me, Daniel. Please. Perhaps— Perhaps we must both carry this burden of grief and guilt. Perhaps we will never find forgiveness or peace within ourselves. If that is our punishment, we must accept it.”

His hands loosed their vicious hold. The rage went out of him and left only desolation.

“I have.”

He would have turned away from her then, but Louise pulled him back.

“Then you must also accept this bargain I make with James. Swear to me you will not protest if they delay this tribunal. Swear you will not object if General Wilkinson agrees to lift the charges against you.”

“I’m to live with the hell of knowing you spread your legs for his son every night, is that it?”

She didn’t so much as flinch. “Yes.”

As promised, James convinced Colonel Matthews to delay the trial by court-martial until General Wilkinson was apprised of the charges laid against Sergeant Major Morgan and provided written guidance as to how to proceed.

The colonel dispatched a courier with orders to catch up with the general. Days stretched into weeks. April gave way to May, then to June. With the resilience of a city plagued regularly by flood and fire, New Orleans covered its blackened scars with new buildings, new squares, new gardens.

News from Virginia gradually pushed the fire to the back of people’s minds. On June 24, 1807, Aaron Burr was arraigned before Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, who also presided over the Fourth District Court in Virginia. Marshall’s narrow interpretation of the charges and his instructions to the grand jury allowed Burr to evade a charge of treason, but he was indicted for conspiring to invade a nation at peace with the United States.

General Wilkinson was called to give testimony before the grand jury and barely escaped being bound over for trial himself. The vote was close—nine to seven against indictment—and the resulting flood of revelations about his role in the conspiracy led New Orleans newspapers to paint the man they’d once hailed as the city’s savior as a villain of the first order. Presses turned out broadsheet after broadsheet detailing the general’s lucrative fur dealings and his close partnerships with many of the men who had
supplied soldiers and equipment for Burr’s private army.