Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (135 page)

Morgan’s threat to remain with her was not idle. Immediately after breakfast he sent Pepe with a message to O’Reilly’s headquarters. The governor-general would not be surprised to receive it, he said; he had suggested several times the day before that his second officer would be better off for a few days of recuperation in bed. Until now, Morgan had not appreciated how well O’Reilly understood these matters!

In the dimness of the shuttered room they napped through the morning, rousing to wakefulness from time to time before drowsing again. They partook of a light luncheon while sitting propped up by pillows, then settled again to pass the torpid, overheated hours of the afternoon. Morgan was demanding, and yet his need of repose was real. While he lay relaxed in slumber, Félicité was able to collect her thoughts, to sort through her emotions. That she could feel anything approaching passion in his arms was debasing. She knew that this assault upon her senses need not necessarily have anything to do with love; still, she would have preferred to remain unmoved. She could not. And yet, insofar as she could prevent it, she would not let Morgan see how he affected her. His hold upon her was strong enough; there was no need to add to it.

Still, for the first time in days, Félicité was able to relax. As the time spent in bed with Morgan lengthened, the darkened room began to take on the aspect of a retreat. Here she could drift, unmindful of what might be occurring beyond these four walls, unheeding of events she could not change. Let it go, then. As long as she must bow her will to Morgan’s wishes, what use was it to look beyond this moment, this circumstance? She might as well close her eyes and seek the soothing opiate of dreams.

It was just before dinner when a messenger delivered a packet of close-written sheets for Morgan, along with a three-page letter of instructions and questions. The second officer in charge of the Spanish army of occupation was, apparently, indispensable. There were limits to the time he would be allowed to absent himself from duty.

Morgan looked over the papers, then tossed them to one side. When the evening meal was over, however, he climbed out of bed, donned his breeches, and spread the sheets out over the desk in the study. Félicité watched through the doorway for a time as in the light of a branch of flickering candies he sent a quill slashing over page after page of parchment. Now and then he would lean back, checking a list with his lips pursed, or rake his fingers through his hair in frowning concentration as he came to a decision. He seemed engrossed, oblivious of his surroundings, though now and then his green gaze wandered to the white-draped bed and her shape beneath the sheet.

Restlessness crept in upon Félicité. She felt peculiar sitting, waiting. The house was quiet as Ashanti and the others had their meal in the kitchen. It was well after dark, a late dinner hour being the custom in this semitropical land where appetites stirred only fitfully until the cool of the evening. Soon the moon would be rising.

Félicité slipped from bed, finding her saque, drawing it around her. She let herself out of the bedchamber and moved across the salle to her own room. There on the dressing table she found her brush and used it to bring some order to the tangled mass of her hair. Running water into a bowl from the lavabo fastened to one wall, she bathed her face and neck for coolness. On impulse, she added more water to the bowl and sponged her entire body. She had bathed that morning before Morgan, but she relished the sensation of freshness.

Dusting herself with violet-scented cornstarch, she took another clean linen night rail from her armoire. Its well-washed softness felt good against her skin. At the same time, with it covering her nakedness beneath her dressing saque, she felt less vulnerable within herself.

She had picked up her hairbrush, trying to decide what would be Morgan’s reaction if she braided the long length of her hair for the night ahead, when she heard the strains of the guitar. The sound came from the street, a soft and haunting air tinged with melancholy. It drew closer. As Félicité stood listening, the musician paused in the street outside the house and lifted his voice, a soft, clear baritone, in the words of an old Spanish love song.

Juan Sebastian Unzaga. The voice could belong to no other. Embarrassment and dread gripped Félicité, along with an odd sadness. She cared nothing for the Spanish soldier, but still his persistence and his willingness to make his feelings plain by this public salute were touching. He could not know of her recent change of status, or he would not have come. No doubt he would learn of it soon enough; such things could not be kept a secret in so closely knit a community. In the meantime, what was she to do?

She put down the brush and glided from the room with the skirts and shoulder capelet of her saque billowing around her. At the doors that opened out onto the balcony, she paused, glancing toward the study. The door to that room from the salle was closed. She could hear no movement inside. Perhaps Morgan had not noticed the serenade, or, noticing, had not realized the Lafargue house was its object. There was one other possibility; that he realized, but did not care.

It was not that Morgan had any right to object, and of course she didn’t mind one way or the other. It would be best, however, if there was no confrontation, nothing to draw attention to the house and its new occupant. The best way to ensure that might well be to do nothing, to ignore the man in the street below, letting him finish his song and move on without acknowledgment.

The only trouble with that resolve was that Juan Sebastian seemed disinclined to curtail his performance. As soon as he finished one song his nimble fingers began to draw forth another melody from his guitar. The music soared upward, pouring in through the doors that stood open to the evening breezes. He could not see Félicité where she stood, she was sure of that. Regardless, it was as though he sensed her presence, so full and resonant with longing was his voice. It caught at her imagination, vibrating through her, stirring the impulse to see him, to step out onto the balcony and accept the homage he offered, knowing full well that such humble supplication was the creation of the night and the music, nothing more.

At a slight sound behind her, she turned. Morgan stood with his hands on his hips, his dark-green gaze raking her where she stood in the shadow of the portieres. His tones tight with sarcasm he said, “How much longer is this caterwauling going to go on?”

“I — I couldn’t say.”

“I can,” he grated, and walked past her out onto the balcony.

“No!” Félicité cried, moving swiftly after him to clutch his arm, to draw him back. It was too late. They were caught in the silver-white gleam of the halfmoon just swinging above the rooftops of the town.

“Félicité,” Juan Sebastian breathed as he caught sight of the white shimmer of her nightclothes and the golden cape of her hair about her shoulders. “How beautiful you—”

He stopped short as he saw the dark shape of the man beside her. For long seconds no one spoke, no one moved.

Morgan stepped to brace his arms on the railing. “Well, Bast?”

“I — I did not know. I never dreamed—” On the upturned face of the Spaniard the brief delight was replaced by confused disappointment.

The tableau they presented was damning. A gentleman did not remove his coat, much less his waistcoat and shirt, in the presence of a lady unless they were on terms of intimacy. And although the ladies of the French court and the haut ton received both male and female callers in dishabille, enjoying tidbits of gossip while being dressed by their maids, that was an amusement for married women, not young girls, and for the daylight hours only. By appearing as they had, they could not have made their relationship more plain.

“Now you do know,” Morgan said quietly.

“Yes.” Juan Sebastian drew himself up with all the pride of a grandee, which indeed he was by birth if the gossips were right. “I will bid you goodnight.”

The disillusion in his tone, and the bitterness, struck Félicité like a blow. She wanted to call after him as he turned away, to explain. With the realization that she could not came some small recognition of how the days ahead were going to be. Her face set, she swung back into the house.

Morgan entered behind her. His features impassive, he watched as she moved about the room in agitation, avoiding the doors that led to either bedchamber.

“Am I to take it,” he drawled, “that you would rather I had not sent Bast away?”

She sent him a venomous glance. “I would rather you hadn’t made it so obvious that you were staying here.”

“I can’t see that it matters.”

“Oh, no, I’m sure you can’t. You weren’t the one who was branded a harlot.”

“Nor were you. Bast is unlikely to spread the news of my presence to all and sundry.” His tones were laden with rigidly contained patience.

“He won’t have to. It wouldn’t surprise me if half the town knows already.”

“If that is so, there is nothing we can do about it. It strikes me that you weren’t overly concerned until Bast came on the scene. Can it be it’s not your loss of honor and respectability that troubles you so much as the loss of a suitor?”

She stared at him, a cold sparkle in her brown eyes. “How can I expect you to understand my feelings? You a mercenary who traded honor for gain so long ago you have forgotten how it feels to be without it.”

“You haven’t answered my question,” he reminded her, his face taking on a metallic hardness.

“Why should I? You have taken from me my chastity, my character. You have seen to it that I will be reviled and despised as a traitor and an immoral woman. Because of you and what you represent, my father has been imprisoned, shut away from all contact as though he were already dead before the eyes of the world. My brother has fled, my home and everything I possess has been listed for confiscation and will almost certainly be taken. By what right do you question me about anything? By what right do you dare?”

“I did offer recompense,” he reminded her, “and future security.”

“Recompense? Security? As well to offer the innocent man held in custody the compensation and safety of prison walls!”

“It is a pity you feel that way.”

“What else can you expect?”

“Gratitude?” he suggested.

“Gratitude?” She almost spat the word. “For what?”

“For risking my career and my future prospects to intervene for Olivier Lafargue.”

“That you did, if indeed you did so bestir yourself, as a part of a bargain in which I was to be seen in your presence, though you seem to have carried it a great deal further than was intended.”

“You are not entirely without blame in that last instance, if I remember correctly,” he countered, an emerald glitter in his eyes.

“I may have told Valcour of your attendance, and even let fall the fact that you would be escorting me home that evening, but as I tried to tell you before, I never plotted to have you killed. I could not have done such a thing, any more than I could have ordered a chamber pot emptied on your soldiers from yonder balcony.”

He lifted his head, a blank look descending over his features. “If you didn’t order the chamber pot emptied, then who? — Valcour. I might have known.”

“Yes, Valcour! Since he has gone beyond your reach, there can be no harm in admitting it.”

“It seems I must readjust my thinking,” he said, his voice silken as he moved toward her. “A closer examination of your — thought processes may be in order.”

The expression in his eyes was anything but detached. Hastily, Félicité said, “I see no necessity. You have only to believe me.”

“I am afraid I have become too cynical, too dishonorable, for that. I require to be shown.”

“How — how can I do any such thing?” Félicité queried, a trifle breathless as she retreated before his advance.

9

FÉLICITÉ’S MISGIVINGS CONCERNING the attitude of the town toward her fall from grace were well founded. In the next few days, as she went back and forth from her house to the prison or the market, hardly a soul spoke to her. Her neighbor from next door who had brought her news on the day her father was arrested came no more. The gifts of food that had temporarily sustained them ceased. On the day when, with the rest of the inhabitants of the town, she put in a reluctant appearance at O’Reilly’s headquarters for the swearing of the oath of fealty to Spain, she caught sight of her giggling friend from convent days. The young woman spared not even a smile. Stiffbacked, she and her husband turned away, cutting Félicité dead, leaving her isolated among the people who shared her birthright. Compared with the abusive taunts that were sometimes whispered after her in the streets, or called in louder tones in the market, this snub was nothing, and yet it hurt her more than anything she had yet endured.