Tainted Lilies
- Tainted Lilies
- Copyright
- Author’s Note
- Prologue
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
- Chapter Twenty-Three
- Chapter Twenty-Four
- Chapter Twenty-Five
- Chapter Twenty-Six
- Afterword
- More from Becky Lee Weyrich
- Connect with Diversion Books
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 1984 by
Becky Lee Weyrich
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email
[email protected]
First Diversion Books edition
June 2014
ISBN:
978-1-62681-335-9
To Michaela Hamilton, who stuck with me faithfully through Death Pearls, Rainbows, Virgins and Bulls.
“He left a Corsair’s name to other times.
Link’d with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.”
Lord Byron wrote these lines in his poem,
The Corsair,
in 1816, having gained his inspiration from newspaper accounts of Jean Laffite’s brave part in the Battle of New Orleans.
Corsair, privateer, smuggler, freebooter—Laffite freely admitted to being all of these. But ony a man who placed small value on his life would dare call Jean Laffite “pirate.” That very epithet, in the end, drove him from New Orleans, the city he longed to adopt as his home.
The youngest son of a wealthy family, Jean Laffite grew up at his grandmother Zora’s knee on tales of his ancestors’ past glories in France and their later persecution in Spain, where his Jewish grandfather became a victim of the Inquisition. These events fostered in Laffite an ever-growing hatred of oppression and the Spanish crown, and shaped his character and the pattern of his life.
Laffite, according to his own accounts, was born and raised in what is now Haiti. The slave revolt in that former French colony brought the French Revolution to the North American continent in the late eighteenth century and changed Jean Laffite’s destiny. Together with his seafaring brothers and uncle, he helped transport refugees to safety from the island, bringing thousands to New Orleans between 1802 and 1805. When the polyglot society of that city welcomed these homeless citizens, Jean Laffite decided he had found his home as well.
Though New Orleanians-Creoles, blacks, Indians, and
Americans—
all cheered his arrival, corrupt government officials wanted no part of the “gentleman smuggler.” Those in high offices were lining their pockets with gold from excessive taxation before the brothers Laffite entered the scene. Together Jean and his older brother Pierre set up a commercial network, manned by other homeless sailors, which stretched to every ocean, with a home base on the islands of Grande Terre and Grande Isle in the Baratarian region on the Gulf. From the warehouses on his island outpost, goods were brought to New Orleans for sale, duty free, to the tax-burdened citizens of the city.
Jean Laffite became a hero to all but the competing merchants and the outraged customs officials. The U.S. governor of Louisiana, William C. C. Claiborne, waged his own vendetta against the man who was, he felt, stealing his gold and making a fool of him. He dared to brand Jean Laffite a pirate.
For years, Laffite eluded arrest and continued his smuggling activities. When the British threatened to take New Orleans, Laffite volunteered his men, guns, ammunition, and his own services, in hopes a victory might clear his name.
Not until he had fought for the United States and the battle was won did Jean Laffite discover that some men are without honor.
Though
Tainted Lilies
is basically a work of fiction, many of the characters lived, loved, fought, and were buried in and around New Orleans. I have tried to recreate the events of history faithfully, though full details were not always available. Here I have allowed my imagination to supply what I believe might have happened, given existing circumstances. I hope my readers-and Jean Laffite—will forgive any liberties for the sake of a good tale.
New Orleans, 1811
Slowly, deliberately, as if hoping the darkness might banish her fears, the young woman, swathed in cream-colored satin and lace, snuffed out all the candles about the room, then went to her window to gaze out through rain-spattered panes.
The wet glass reflected like a mirror, limning high cheekbones and brow, sensually flared nostrils, and fragile lips—now trembling slightly.
Nicolette Vernet’s face, curtained on either side in thick skeins of raven’s-wing black, radiated a pale, mysterious beauty—the Creole ideal of delicacy and refinement.
Her black-sapphire eyes searched muddy Toulouse Street three floors below. Carriages lined the narrow way, each stopping briefly to deposit party-going passengers at the banquette before churning on to make room for the next vehicle. But Nicolette could see by the guttering gas street lamp overhanging the intersection that the burgundy landau bearing the golden Castaigne crest had yet to arrive.
“Where can Octave be?” she whispered, her warm breath filming the glass.
“Nicolette, unlock this bedroom door.
Now!”
Her mother’s voice was high-pitched, nearly hysterical.
“No, Maman. Not until Octave arrives.”
“He’ll be here any minute!”
“You’ve been saying that for nearly an hour. Please, leave me alone! When he gets here, I’ll come out… not before! Surely, you can’t expect me to attend my own engagement soirée without my fiancé!”
“But our guests are here, Nicolette. I’ve used up all my excuses for you. You are as impossible as your Aunt Gabrielle! And we all know how
she
turned out!”
Nicolette made no answer, but moved hesitantly toward the door. She leaned her ear close to the painted cypress and heard shuffling sounds in the hall.
“Please, Nikki, for me?” It was Claude Vernet’s quiet voice.
Nicolette knew she couldn’t resist her father’s request. “For me” was a phrase that always worked its charms. She might defy her mother occasionally, but never, ever her patient, soft-spoken papa.
Hadn’t he gone to a tremendous amount of trouble and expense for her special evening, even refurbishing their townhouse for the occasion? The quaint old building at Toulouse and Royal, which had survived the disastrous fires of 1788 and 1794, breathed new life tonight, glowing through the misty April twilight like a miniature crystal palace for her engagement party.
Because Claude Vernet wanted his home to reflect what he considered his daughter’s perfection, he had ordered a new coat of ivory paint for the exterior stucco covering the sand-brick façade, and fresh blacking for all the lacy wrought iron on the galleries.
“Nikki?” Her father’s softly pleading voice jolted her thoughts back to the present, and the problem at hand.
Squaring her shoulders, she tried to shrug off this bothersome feeling of…
What?
she wondered. Anxiety? Fear? Pre-engagemeru jitters?
“Octave Castaigne, this is all your fault!” she said to the miniature on her dressing table. “When we’re married, I’ll see that you mend your tardy ways. For now, I’ll have to face our guests alone and make the best of it. But nothing will go wrong. Our life together is set-engagement, marriage, children, love,” she ticked off on her fingers. “Just as it should be!”
“Nikki, please answer me.”
“I’m coming, Papa. Give me a moment.”
She touched the curls piled
à la Grecque
on top of her head, took a deep breath, and counted to ten.
“There!” she said. “I’m ready for anything now—even Octave Castaigne,
if
he decides to show up!”
Her father trained his eyes, as midnight-blue as hers, on Nicolette as she came out of her room. He waited at the top of the stairs to offer his arm. She took it almost shyly, wondering if he would scold her for the anxious hour she had given her mother and Mammy Sukey. But, of course, he didn’t.
“You look perfectly regal tonight, Nikki. I’m not sure I’ll hand you over to Octave Castaigne when he does arrive. You’re too good for him or any man!”
“Oh, Papa, don’t tease me so.”
Sensing her nervous state, he went on in a bantering tone. “Thank God I’ll have a year to keep my little girl before this wicked man steals her away!”
“Papa! How can you call Octave wicked when you chose him for me? Why, I’ve only set eyes on him twice in my whole life and the first time, ten years ago, I was barely seven years old! I trusted you. You haven’t promised me to some
roueé
who’ll drink too much absinthe and beat me with his sword cane, have you? It’s bad enough that he’s late for our party!”
He patted the soft, lace-encased fingers that lay in graceful repose on his arm, but Nicolette noticed a small frown crease his brow.
“He’ll be here, Nikki, or I’ll have satisfaction from him! As for his character, you needn’t worry, my dear. Octave is well-bred, comfortably situated, and even-tempered, from all that I’ve seen of him. He’ll give you a fine home, a large enough family to make any Creole maman proud, and he’ll give you the place you deserve in society.”
“And will he give me love, Papa?”
The question, which had been gnawing at her for weeks, popped out before she let herself think about it. This was not the sort of thing a daughter discussed with her father. Nicolette felt uncomfortable for her papa as he struggled to find an answer. The silence lengthened between them.
Claude Vernet stopped on the stair and searched his daughter’s face with melancholy eyes. “He
will
love you! And if his love is half as great as mine for you, Nikki, you can count yourself fortunate indeed.”
“Oh, Papa, I love you too,” she said, blinking back tears.
A happy tide of friends and relations engulfed Nicolette and Claude Vernet when they reached the bottom of the stairs, sweeping them along to the
petit salon.
The room had been magically transformed into a ballroom for the evening by sliding the heavy doors, which connected to the
grand salon,
into the thick walls. The rugs of winter had been taken up, beaten clean, and stored in protective sleeves for the hot months ahead. Even the grass matting, which served as carpet pad in winter and floor covering in summer, had been removed and the wide boards had been polished to a high gloss for dancing.
Three musicians, on flute, violin, and French horn, were tuning up to begin playing. The formal room glowed with candles reflecting crystal and silver, and a rainbow of fashionably gowned ladies and their elegant gentlemen.
Nicolette’s uneasiness at not having her fiancé at her side subsided somewhat amidst the compliments and good wishes showered upon her.
“Ma chère,
you look
très élégante
!” Aunt Phoebe enthused, her purple bombazine bosom heaving hugely with excitement. “You will be a beautiful bride, dimming even the prayer candles on the altar of Saint Louis Cathedral.”
“The image of your dear maman,” Uncle Alphonse added with an approving twitch of his waxed gray moustache.
Then Nicolette’s cousin, Clementine, a confection in pink-and-white ruffled dimity, chimed in, “Oh, Nicolette, I’d just die if a man as handsome-as your Octave wanted to marry me!” bringing the missing man back to the forefront of her thoughts.
Suddenly, she felt a cool palm clasp hers. She looked up into glass-black eyes in a faintly familiar face. The tall, slender young man, dressed all in black except for the snow-white ruffles of his shirt, said with the barest hint of a smile, “Mademoiselle Nicolette. Your father has spoken of you often, but I assumed he exaggerated your charms. I owe you both an apology on that account.”
Nicolette tried to place him. She had seen him somewhere only recently. Then it came to her. “Why, Monsieur Bermudez, of course! You are Papa’s new clerk at the Exchange. Maman pointed you out to me only last week when we were shopping in Royal Street. You were going into Jean Laffite’s showroom, I believe?”
Diego Bermudez stiffened and shot a glance toward her father. “Not so loud, please! If Monsieur Vernet found out I do business with those smugglers, I might lose my job. He has little respect for the
banditti
of Barataria.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Nicolette restrained a wayward laugh with the tips of her fingers. “Papa seldom loses his temper, but I saw it happen once. His ship, the
Carlotta,
was seized in the Gulf. He swore that Jean Laffite was behind the raid. The loss of that cargo and ship almost ruined him. He’s never forgiven The Terror of the Gulf.’”
“And rightly not!” He took her arm and said, “I think we should dance now.”
Surprised by his forwardness, Nicolette stammered, “Why, yes… I mean, no… thank you.”
He looked both amused by her confusion and annoyed by her reply. “Ah, you think you should wait for the man of the hour… allow him the first waltz? Well, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. Monsieur Castaigne has been detained and I’m quite sure he won’t be here tonight.”
“Of course he will!”
“Have it your way, mademoiselle.” A strange, cold smile twitched his thin lips. “But if he fails to show up, I offer myself as a willing and quite suitable substitute. I’m not married, you know.”
Diego Bermudez did an about-face and moved across the room. Nicolette, her mouth open to protest, stared after him. Was this arrogant young man serious, or only making light of a desperate situation? In either case, his attitude and outspoken proposal were in the poorest taste.
The brass knocker on the front door banged insistently. Nicolette whirled around, dismissing all thoughts of the brazen Monsieur Bermudez. She raced Jonah, the butler, to open the door, sure that Octave had arrived at last.
She threw the door wide and gasped when she saw the two men standing there. Octave Castaigne, his eyes glazed over and his smooth face pale and drawn, leaned heavily on a tall, red-haired man for support.
“Monsieur Vernet, please,” the green-eyed stranger said, but Nicolette didn’t hear for the furious rushing of blood in her ears.
“Octave, how could you?” she cried angrily. “On the very night of our party!”
“This is no time for a temper tantrum, mademoiselle. The man needs help!”
Nicolette shot a quick, cold look at Octave’s partner in crime, himself a shabby sight with mud covering his bottle-green velvet evening clothes and his longish hair in wild disarray. She was forming a few choice words for the pair of disreputable tipplers, but got no chance to speak them.
Her father appeared at her side suddenly, his manner controlled, but anxious.
“Monsieur Laffite,” he said, sizing up the situation at a glance. “Help him through the carriage drive and the courtyard to the servants’ quarters. We mustn’t let our guests see.”
Nicolette hissed, “He’s falling-down drunk, Papa! We
’ll
never get him sober enough to be presentable tonight!”
Claude Vernet pulled Nicolette quickly through the door and closed it behind them, following the two men into the drizzly night.
“Hush, child!” was all he said to her.
When Jean Laffite lowered Octave to the moss-stuffed cot in the room next to the kitchen, Nicolette saw the scarlet stain for the first time. His evening cloak had hidden it before.
“But he’s been injured!” she gasped.
Octave’s bluish lips moved slightly and a word escaped in a ragged whisper that sounded like “mortally.”
“We have to do something for him! Get water, bandages, a doctor!” she cried, tearing at his brocade waistcoat, trying to open his dress shirt.
A strong hand gripped her shoulder. “You’ll do the lad a favor, mademoiselle, by leaving him in peace. Only a priest can help him now. I’ve sent for Pere Antoine.”
“Oh,” she said and stilled her hands. She sat by Octave’s side, watching his life flow away through a sword-wound near his heart. She felt as if she should be screaming, fainting, crying her heart out. But no tears came. She experienced only a queer numbness, as if she were wading into deep, icy water. Her breathing grew shallow with Octave’s. She took his cold hand and held it, not wanting him to be alone when the end came.
Her father and Jean Laffite were talking only a few paces away, but their muffled words seemed to drift to her over a vast distance.
“He was at the St. Philip Street Theater earlier this evening, Monsieur Vernet.”
“At the quadroon ball?”
“Yes. He’s a regular. But tonight he brought his mistress, Lizette.”
“Not so loud, man, my daughter!”
“Forgive me. I heard about the engagement… So did Lizette. She was furious… out to find a new protector this very night. Castaigne took her scandalous behavior for as long as he could stand it, then he challenged several gentlemen in a fit of irrational jealousy. You can guess the rest, sir.”
“Swords under the oaks?”
“Castaigne had the better of the first two. But the third man did him in.”
“And who was the third?
You,
Laffite?”
“I’ve heard you have no use for me, Monsieur Vernet, and you probably won’t believe me, but I was only passing by. I went to see what aid I could give. But it was too late. Young Castaigne begged me to bring him to this address.”
A murmur from Nicolette drew the men’s attention.
“What is it, Nikki?” her father asked gently.
“He’s gone, Papa. I’m a widow before I was ever a bride,” she answered, still dry-eyed. “I’ll go into mourning immediately.”
“That’s crazy! For a man you hardly knew? A man you never loved?” The angry questions came from Laffite.
Nicolette jerked her head to face him, fire in her dark eyes as she challenged, “What business is this of yours?”
“None,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle. It’s only that you’re so young, so lovely, and I know how marriages are arranged among you Creoles. Little consideration is given to the heart’s desires.” His eyes caressed her for a moment. “Besides, mourning won’t suit you.”
“Monsieur Laffite and I have had our differences in the past, Nikki, but this time we agree,” Claude Vernet added quickly. “I won’t see you wrapped in black bunting like an old crow to shrivel away for months on account of the foolish indiscretions of a man you hardly knew, much less loved.” He paused and looked pleadingly into her eyes. “I’d rather see you exiled than have you in the center of this
scandale.”