Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (147 page)

Félicité came to her feet, shifting to rest her shoulder against the wall end of the bunk. “Of what nature?”

“I thought I told you,” he said, his face bland. “You are going swimming — in this.”

She caught the gown of rich golden velvet as he flung it at her. The folds hung in her hands, dragging, weighing her down with their great width even dry. “You must be mad. It’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible if you want it badly enough, and I want Morgan McCormack dead badly indeed.”

Félicité looked up at him. “If I go into the water in this, it will be my death you will achieve, instead of his.”

“I think not,” he said, and slowly, carefully, began to explain what he meant for her to do.

When he had finished, she stared at him. She shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“What if he knows I can swim?”

“You mentioned it to him?”

“I may have.”

“In that case we must make the picture even more distressing.”

“You presume too much, Valcour. He — may care not at all what happens to me. What then?”

“Think you I would allow you to perish?” he inquired with a narrow smile.

“Without a qualm.”

“You underestimate your attractions — or my attachment.”

“But I would be a party to murder!” she cried. She felt as if there were a noose being slowly tightened around her neck.

“You would also be very rich. I have been authorized to offer you a seaman’s share of the Black Stallion. It seems Morgan and his men overtook an English vessel heading for Jamaica and captured for themselves a right valuable cargo of silks and satins, spices, jade, and ivory, plus a chest of bullion meant for the governor’s pay chest.”

“Blood money.”

He lifted a brow in provocative misunderstanding of her scorn. “So far as I know, the English merchantman struck her colors after the first shot. Quarter was given upon request of the captain. Not a man was killed.”

“You know very well what I mean!”

“Yes,” he agreed, his voice taking on an edge, “and I warn you, I have listened to your parading of objections and scruples as long as I intend. Time grows short. You will take off your breeches and garb yourself in this gown, or I will be forced to perform that service for you. You will not enjoy it, I’m sure. But suffer though you may, my darling sister, you shall do as I say.”

“Valcour, for the love of God—”

“God,” he said, coming to his feet, stepping to where the sword she had removed, his own, leaned against the washstand and picking it up, “has nothing to do with my actions, nor ever has had.”

“But I can’t do this, I tell you. I can’t!”

“Only think of what this man has done to you. Or did you, perhaps, come to like it after a time?”

“No, no, but—”

He unsheathed the sword and turned toward her, stretching out his arm until the point of the blade glittered before her eyes. “Or perhaps it is as I said once before. You are in love with him.”

“No!”

“Prove it. Join with me in destroying him. Together we will wipe out the shame. Together, you and I, Félicité.”

She watched him in fascinated horror as the tip of the sword dropped lower, coming to rest gently against her abdomen. He leaned slightly, increasing the pressure, the look on his face one of maniacal enjoyment. Félicité held her breath.

He tightened the muscles of his arm, twitching his wrist, and the blade sliced upward, cutting through the linen of her shirt until it met the ruffle-edged placket of the head opening. The material fell away, exposing the proud curves of her breasts. On her upper abdomen a small scratch oozed a drop of crimson against the whiteness of her skin. He studied the effect for a long moment, his head on one side.

“Valcour,” she breathed.

His eyes glazed, he flashed her a smile. “You must permit me to congratulate you on your nerve, ma chère. Most men would have flinched, and quite spoiled the picture.”

He dropped the sword edge to the buttons of her breeches, flicking away first one and then the other, so that the front flap fell open. Félicité grabbed for it with both hands, but he reached out left-handed to snatch one wrist. The length of a thigh was exposed from hip bone to knee. The sword point wavered, coming to rest on the back of her other clutching hand.

“The gown, Félicité,” he suggested, his tone silken.

Refusal might gain a point of honor, but what use was it if she lost dignity and more in the process? This contest was unequal, weighted heavily in Valcour’s favor. Later there might be a chance to even the odds.

She nodded. “All right, the gown.”

Muscles stiff with reluctance, Valcour drew back the sword, and gave her a mocking salute with it before he rammed it into its scabbard. “Wise, as well as steady of nerve. What a pair we shall make, ma chère, as soon as you learn to obey the instant I command. That is something it will please me to teach you. I will return on the quarter hour. Do not fail me.”

She was ready, wearing the gown of golden velvet, captured no doubt from some Spanish ship’s cabin. She had made no attempt to put up her hair without the help of Ashanti, but she had brushed it, pushing it behind her shoulders, where it hung like a honey-gold cape, blending with the shimmering velvet.

They left the cabin and climbed upward through the quiet ship. It appeared deserted of men except for the cabinboy kicking his feet on the edge of the wharf. He stared open-mouthed at Félicité as she came down the gangplank, his face in the light of the stern lantern both amazed and slightly knowing.

There was no moon. The night, wine-dark and impenetrable, lay on the gently heaving water, shot by shifting beams from the Black Stallion’s lanterns as it rose and fell on the swells. That light was the beacon toward which Valcour, in the stern of an island pirogue, directed his unwieldy craft, made of a hollowed-out log. At the snub-nosed bow, the waves that slapped beneath the hull threw spray upward. The droplets clung to Félicité’s face and shoulders, jeweling her brows and lashes, as she sat forward. She blinked against their salt sting again and again, but could not wipe them away, for her hands were tied behind her back. Valcour had added that refinement to the plan he had outlined just before they had stepped into the boat.

Félicité scarcely thought of what she was doing. She should be happy, she told herself. In a way Valcour was right; retribution for what she had suffered at Morgan’s hand should be a great satisfaction. The method of gaining it mattered little.

Or did it? Against her will, she thought of how Morgan had come to tell her of her father’s death, of his attempts to prevent her from learning her father’s motive for suicide. She thought back over her days with the former lieutenant colonel and of the nights, and the searching light of the lantern was reflected with a golden glow in the depths of her wide eyes.

The side of the ship rose above them. They could hear the creaking of the anchor cable as the ship swung against it, and soaring above that the long-drawn notes of a jew’s harp. As a counterpoint to both came the drone of the voices of the watch. Valcour stopped paddling.

Félicité glanced back. Valcour was an odd figure in the stern. He wore a henna-red wig on which was perched a puffed cap with side lappets such as was worn by older women. He had a satin cloak flung over his lap to simulate skirts, and another swan’s-down-edged capelet swung around his shoulders. Laying down his paddle, he picked up a slim dueling pistol, allowing Félicité to see it before he cocked it with a loud double click and concealed it under the cape. He sent her a narrow, probing stare, then, raising his voice, called out in a wavering falsetto.

“Ahoy, the ship! Ahoy, I say!”

A sailor’s head appeared over the side. He took in the bobbing pirogue and its cargo in one brief, contemptuous glance. “What do ye want, you old whore?”

“I have a special cargo for the captain,” Valcour whined.

“Our captain don’t do business with such as you. Be gone with You!”

“This is a special one, she is,” Valcour insisted. “One such as the captain has been looking for. You tell him his Félicité is here, and he can have her without charge if he will come and get her!”

“I don’t believe a word of it, you sniveling harridan! Go!”

“You are making a mistake, one you will regret, my friend. You just whisper the name Félicité in your captain’s ear and see how fast he comes running.”

The man at the rail above them was joined by others, and others still, until they lined the side of the ship. They muttered among themselves, then one among them noticed Félicité’s bound hands. They passed Rabelaisian remarks then that made her cheeks burn. How could such noise go unnoticed? she wondered. Perhaps Valcour’s scheming would be for nothing, perhaps Morgan was not on board?

Abruptly he was there. “What is this, you scurrilous sons of Neptune?” he demanded. “The way you are gaping and gawping, a man would think you had spied a mermaid at the very least.”

“There’s an old brothel bitch down there, captain,” the first man began.

Another broke in, “Got a female with her all right, even if she don’t be one of them half-fish sirens. And the old lady’s got her trussed up and right ready for plucking, you being the lucky man they got picked out for the job!”

“Name they gave for the piece was Félicité,” a third chimed in. “They thought you might be interested.”

Morgan’s head and shoulders sprang into view. He gripped the rail, staring down at them.

“Ah, Captain McCormack,” Valcour crooned. “I thought you might like to say goodbye to Félicité.”

Even as her brother spoke, Félicité drew in her breath. “No, Morgan! It’s a trap!”

Valcour shot his hand out in a vicious blow that made the pirogue roll. It caught her in the small of the back, sending her diving forward, toppling head first into the water. Even as she fell she heard the crashing explosion of the pistol as Valcour fired.

Down and down she went, with her breath, hastily caught, aching in her lungs and the burning of salt water in her nose. She struggled frantically to free her hands, wrenching against the bonds, twisting, jerking at them. The velvet skirts were clamped to her, muffling her kick, weighting her so she was carried deeper and deeper still. The sounds of shouts and cries, of heavy splashes and sodden thumps, radiated through the water, receding. She knew that high above her, on the opposite side of the brigantine, the men of the Raven were swarming upward on grappling nets thrown from a pair of longboats. Under the cover of darkness, with muffled oars, they had slipped from the shore, waiting for the diversion she had been forced to provide.

Such things had no reality for her as she swirled slowly in the water. To die in the darkness with the turquoise sea of the Caribbean filling her lungs for so mean a cause seemed a wretched and debasing absurdity.

How long it had been since she had sneaked away to dog-paddle in the river with Valcour and his friends! She had not forgotten how to swim, but she lacked the strength to try for long against such odds. She righted herself, pushing, straining upward against the drag of her skirts and the hampering awkwardness of her bound arms. But she could feel the tiredness of that tremendous effort pulling at her. It was as though there were stones fastened to her ankles and a steel hoop about her chest, pressing on the tight-held air, trying to force it from her body. The world was an infinite swirl of water, one she had been suspended in for eons of time. It seemed that if she would cease fighting, would let herself float free, after the first sharp pain she might breathe the sea and become one with it.

A long gliding shape brushed past her, roiling the water. She cringed as she felt a touch on her arm. An instant later, she was clamped in a hard, encompassing hold. She surged upward with dizzying speed, trailing the fine-jeweled air bubbles of the last of her pent breath.

Her head broke the surface. She gasped, choking, coughing. She nearly went under again, only to find the support of strong hands at her waist. She opened her eyes.

Morgan was beside her, his face no more than a blur with a trace of dark red running from the nicked lobe of one ear. He shifted his grip, reaching lower, and with a great upward heave somersaulted her into the empty boat floating beside them. For the merest flicker of time, he stared into her face. Reassured, if not overjoyed, he kicked away, the sweep of powerful arms taking him through the water to the rope ladder that dangled over the side. He went up it hand over hand, but even as he climbed there came the cry of “Quarter! Quarter!” The rattle of musket fire and the clatter of cutlasses faded, dying away. Morgan disappeared over the bulwark. A voice called, sharp with warning, and suddenly everything was quiet.

Félicité lay gazing with wide eyes at the stars, panting, unable to accept either the reprieve or the certain knowledge that ebbed through her brain. She was alive, but Morgan had saved her at the loss of his ship. Without their leader, his men had thrown down their weapons and given up the Black Stallion with the seaman’s ancient cry for mercy. But would there be any mercy, any quarter, for the ship’s captain?

It was Captain Bonhomme who came for her at last. With Gallic curses, he slit her bonds and pulled the boat nearer the ladder so she could gain a foothold. He steadied the swaying hemp for her assent, then climbed up with careless agility. He gained the deck in time to step near, steadying her as she swayed.