Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (130 page)

7

FÉLICITÉ SOAPED HERSELF SLOWLY, frowning at a point on the whitewashed plaster of the opposite wall. The tepid water was soothing, a balm to the aches and bruises of her body. Other than such physical reminders, she did not feel different. Nothing had changed; she was still the same person. The trembling inside her had died away. She felt exhausted but calm, ready for her bed.

However much she might pretend to normalcy, things were not as they had been. Lieutenant Colonel Morgan McCormack waited beyond the door of her room, a man who thought she had wronged him, who felt he had some authority over her, some right to her company, as a result. That he was able to enforce his opinion with both coercion and main strength was doubly galling.

What was she going to do? What could she do? With her father in prison and Valcour a hunted man, she had no one to protect her. Her father’s friends had been arrested with him. Her mother’s people were dead, her father’s family left behind in France. The French director-general was not only powerless under the new regime, but was a sycophant, accused of collaborating with the Spanish for his own gain. The only man who outranked Colonel McCormack in Louisiana was O’Reilly, and it was useless to think he might interfere in the private affairs of his second-in-command over a mere woman, and she the daughter of a Frenchman to be tried for treason.

She was at the mercy of Morgan McCormack, then. It might be said that she had brought it on herself, though she could not see how she might have acted otherwise. Very well. If there was none to stand between her and the colonel she must see to her own preservation — and let the colonel look to himself!

Ashanti entered the room. Over her arm she carried fresh linens with which to remake the bed, and in her hand was a cup of steaming tea. It smelled of herbs and spices, one of the African maid’s tisanes. Ashanti set it on the floor beside the tub, in reach of Félicité, then moved to unfold a sheet, spreading it on the feather mattress.

Félicité raised herself, reaching for the hot drink. She took a sip. “What is this? I don’t think you’ve ever made it for me before.”

“There was never the need before, mam’selle. This tisane will prevent you from conceiving a child after this night’s work.”

There had been no time to think of such things for Félicité, or at least no inclination. She stared at the dark brew, a bleak expression in her eyes.

“Drink, mam’selle. It will be best, as long as you remain unwed.”

“Yes,” she sighed, and obediently drank. “Is — is Colonel McCormack still—”

“He is still in the outer room. I wrapped his wound well; it will not bleed any more.”

“I hope he appreciated it,” Félicité commented, her tone tinged with bitterness.

“I think so, mam’selle, he did thank me. I wonder if you saw this man’s back?”

“His back?”

“Yes, mam’selle. It is a thing of horror, scars on top of scars. I saw as I tended him.”

“He spoke once of being a sailor on an English ship. Flogging with a whip with nine strands is much practiced on board such vessels, I believe.”

“It is terrible,” the maid said as she tucked the top sheet tightly under the mattress, sending Félicité a fleeting glance. “Scars of shame.”

“Shame? Why?”

“That men should treat other men so.”

“Men are capable of much cruelty,” Félicité said, staring into her teacup. “Why it should be so, I don’t know.”

“He — does not go, this colonel?” Ashanti went on, her tone puzzled, and also curious.

“He has refused,” Félicité said shortly.

“For this night?”

“For this night, and the next, and the next. He means to live here!”

“Ah, that is good, mam’selle.”

“Good?” she exclaimed. “You don’t know what you are saying!”

“He will protect you, and keep you safe.”

“And who will save me from him?” Félicité set down her cup and, catching the rim of the tub, came to her feet so violently that water splashed out onto the cypress floor.

“You will, mam’selle,” Ashanti said, moving to fetch a towel, holding it for Félicité as she stepped from the tub, her frank gaze holding certainty as it slanted over the slender curves, glistening with water, of her mistress. “The question is, who will save him — from us?”

What the maid was suggesting so subtly was that as long as Morgan was domiciled in her house, he was on her ground. There was much that could be done to make him uncomfortable in such a case, much to cause him to wish that he had never set eyes on her.

There was no time to consider the possibilities. Félicité was dusting herself with the starch scented with violets and Ashanti was holding her nightrail, ready to slip it over her head, when the, door opened. In a fluffy of movement, Félicité dropped the lamb’s-wool puff she held and dived into the nightrail, letting it slide down over her as she thrust her arms into the armholes outlined with cap sleeves. Jerking the ribbon tie at the neckline into a bow, she swung to face the man in the doorway.

“What do you want?” she asked, her fury heightened by the flush of embarrassment that colored her cheeks.

“I thought if you were through with the tub, I might take advantage of the water that’s left.” There was an odd light, almost like amusement, at the back of his eyes as he watched her.

It was a moment before Félicité realized she was standing in front of the candle, that it outlined her body in its bright-yellow nimbus. She stepped quickly to one side, her features set in lines of hauteur that dared him to comment. “You wish to bathe?”

“Is that so strange?”

“For most people, yes,” she answered in all frankness.

“It’s a habit I picked up in the Indies. I was used to swimming and saltwater bathing on ship. Do you object to my use of your tub?”

There seemed no point in that. “You know you shouldn’t get your shoulder wrappings wet?”

“I think I can undertake not to do that.”

“I will call the upstairs maid, and she and Ashanti can move the tub into one of the other bedchambers for you,” she said with as much graciousness as she could summon.

“There will be no need.”

She stared at him, a suspicious look coming into her velvet brown eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he answered quietly, “that I would as soon have it right here — that is, if your maid has finished?”

“I am done, colonel,” Ashanti said, and dropping a curtsy, moved toward the door.

Félicité took a step forward. “Ashanti, no—”

“Yes, mam’selle?” The maid came to a stop, her gaze questioning, and yet touched with compassion.

“Nothing. You may go.”

The door closed behind the slim black woman. Morgan began to unbutton the side flaps of his uniform breeches. Félicité stood undecided in the middle of the floor. The urge to go, to leave the colonel in undisputed possession of the bedchamber, was strong, but stronger still was her pride. She would not have it appear that she was running away.

To run away, to snatch open the door and go racing into the night, was a great temptation. But where could she go, how could she live? She had no money, no means of paying her fare to another place, and as long as she stayed in New Orleans, there was no one who could save her from the might of Spain, and its representative in the colony, Lieutenant Colonel Morgan McCormack. Beyond that, there was her father. What would become of him if she deserted him? While he was held in a Spanish prison he was a hostage for her good behavior. The events of the night might already have prejudiced the colonel against helping him. It would be best if she could put aside her grievances and do what she might to convince Morgan McCormack she had no part in the attempt against his life. In that way she might prevent her loss this evening from becoming total.

Behind her, the colonel was stepping into the tub. Her movements jerky, Félicité moved to the dressing table and took up the hairbrush that lay on its surface. She pulled it through the soft mass of her hair, working the tangles from the shining, honey-blond strands that fell to below her hips. After a time, she glanced at the mirror, and found that it reflected the scene behind her where Morgan sat in the small gravyboat-shaped tub with his knees beneath his chin, scrubbing gingerly at his ribcage just under his bindings. That view made him seem more human, less the overpowering, vengeful figure of authority.

There was a pin caught in her hair, one that had been loosened in their struggle. Félicité slipped it free, then turned, drawing the long tresses over her shoulder as she smoothed them. She sent the colonel a quick glance from under her lashes. “You take a great deal on yourself, don’t you?”

“What makes you think so?” He squeezed water from the linen cloth and ran it over his face and around the back of his neck.

“Everything you have done since the moment we met,” she answered plainly.

“You mean my methods of assuring that events turn out the way I want?”

“Something like that,” she agreed.

“One thing you learn quickly as a sailor, pirate, or mercenary — if you don’t control events, they will control you.”

“That’s all very well if you have the strength or the power to prevail.”

His green eyes narrowed as he watched her. “What are you getting at?”

“I suppose,” she said carefully, “that I am trying to ask what you mean to do now, about my father.”

“I’ve told you before, his fate doesn’t lie in my hands alone.”

“You also said that under the right circumstances, O’Reilly might be disposed to leniency,” she reminded him, her voice sharpening in her anxiety.

Deliberately, he squeezed water from the cloth, draped it over the edge of the tub, and stood up. “The situation has changed.”

“It hasn’t, not really. If you would only believe me—”

She averted her gaze as he reached for the towel left lying on a chair, but the subject was too important for her to turn her back on him.

“Why should I believe you? What cause have you given me to accept anything you say as the truth?”

“If it’s causes that matter, what cause had I to wish you dead? My father’s only hope for justice lies in you.”

“No doubt you discovered that I had already put in my report on your father’s case, stating my views on his lack of active involvement and my recommendation of pardon or a token sentence. If that was the case, there would be nothing more to be gained by continuing our agreement. It would only be good tactics to rid yourself of a possible threat.”

She stared at him, shaking her head. “No,” she whispered.

“Not that I blame you, the situation being what it was,” he went on as if she had not spoken. “On the other hand, I see no reason to throw away my present advantage because of your lack of success.”

“Meaning?” She raised her head, her brown eyes clouded with doubt.

“I think you can guess.”

Despite the soft timbre of his voice, the words were implacable. “You — you expect me — my compliance, now that you will be staying under this roof.”

“It seems only reasonable to me.”

“There are no words strong enough to tell you how it seems to me!”

“Oh, I’m sure there are,” he countered, leisurely wiping the droplets of water from the lean, muscular length of his legs and tossing the toweling aside.

She sent him an annihilating glance, then looked hastily away again as he made no move to cover himself. “If — if I agree, what then?”

“What?” He stretched his right arm as if testing it for soreness, then raked a hand through his hair where it had become loosened from its queue.

“I mean,” she said, holding hard to her rising temper, “will you let things remain as before, or will you find it necessary to report what happened here tonight?”

He frowned. “A report will have to be made; how am I to explain this little nick of mine otherwise? As to what, exactly, the wording of it will be, that depends.”

“On what?” she snapped.

“On you.”

He moved toward her, looming over her. There was darkness in the depths of her eyes as she stared up at him. “This is wrong. You will regret what you are doing someday.”

“Threats?” he queried, a musing tone in his low voice.