Creole Hearts Read online

  Something plopped into the water as they came up to the pool.

  "Ooh!" she exclaimed, pressing close to his side.

  "A frog," Guy assured her. "We've disturbed his serenade." He put his arm about her waist and she resisted only slightly. "You won't be cold next to me," he said. "I'll keep you warm." He touched his lips to her hair, breathing in the scent of gardenias.

  "I hope you'll stay in New Orleans," he murmured. "You brighten the city with your beauty."

  "Ah," she said, "sometimes New Orleans reminds me of Madrid. Other times . . ."

  "I'll make you forget those other times," he said, moving his lips to her temple. She half turned toward him and he kissed her mouth.

  Her lips were soft and sweet. They quivered beneath his and desire flared. He had to have her as his wife.

  Senalda pulled away. "I must go back inside," she said.

  "So soon?"

  Her laughter was like the tinkle of crystals on a chandelier when a river breeze blew. "Oh, but we've been here too long already." She slipped from his grasp and he cursed his useless arm. A one handed embrace was a poor imitation of the real thing.

  At the party the following evening, de Laussat made a point of steering Guy to a circle of men that included Governor Claiborne, then leaving him there. "How do you do, Governor?" Guy asked, pronouncing the English words carefully, hoping his accent wasn't too atrocious. He'd found Spanish much easier to learn.

  The governor brightened when he heard Guy's words. "You know English, monsieur!"

  Guy bowed. "Tanguy La Branche, Governor. I speak a little English, yes. I'm still learning."

  "I admire your industry."

  "Prefet de Laussat encouraged me."

  "I thought I recognized you. One of his aides, I believe." The governor examined Guy quite frankly.

  Guy looked back at him with interest. This was the closest he'd been to Governor Claiborne. They were much the same size. The Americain was older—near thirty, Guy thought—and wore his brown hair short. Though he wasn't fat, there was a hint of beginning plumpness under his chin. His eyes were shrewd.

  "You're a New Orleans resident?" Claiborne asked.

  "I was born here," Guy said proudly.

  The governor nodded. "I look forward to seeing more of you," he said.

  Later, de Laussat took Guy aside. "Has he offered you a post?" he asked.

  "Non."

  "He will. Either with himself or perhaps he'll arrange for a place on General Wilkinson's staff. I could see he was impressed with you. Work with the Americans. You have a flair for politics and Louisiana will need you. Fight for what she needs, don't merely fight against the Americans as so many of your friends are doing."

  Guy stared at the prefet.

  "You know I'll be returning to France in a few months," de Laussat said, clapping Guy on the left shoulder. "I can't stay to help Louisiana make the change, but you'll be here. I haven't pushed you, for all would be suspicious, then. The Creoles. The Americans. With no reason to be, but men are like that—seeing deviousness where none is intended and missing the obvious threat. Work from the inside, Guy, don't stand on the outside, complaining. And good luck."

  Guy drifted through the courtyard, let himself out onto the banquette and walked aimlessly, his thoughts a blend of disbelief and excitement.

  Did he want to be on the Americain staff? Being de Laussat's aide had been rewarding but Claiborne wasn't French. He'd had a favorable impression of the governor but still—work for an AmericainAmerican? He was a Creole, after all.

  Non, wait, since yesterday he was also an Americain. No, an American, as Claiborne would say. Like it or not. Many Creoles would condemn whatever Claiborne did, right or wrong. He was no more eager to be a United States citizen than they, but the fact remained that they all were.

  It wouldn't do any harm to work with the governor. Perhaps it would do some good, as de Laussat seemed to think. He admired the prefet, had learned something of diplomacy from him. Certainly his advice was worth considering.

  Very well, if Claiborne approached him with an offer—and that was still to be seen—he'd take him up on it.

  Guy took a deep breath, looked around and found he was nearing the rue des Ramparts. He stopped abruptly. Without realizing where he was going he'd headed toward Aimee's cottage. He turned on his heel to go back to the ball. He didn't want to see Aimee again. Not yet.

  As he approached the house where the party was going on, he could hear laughter, music and the agreeable noise of merrymaking. He stood for a moment outside the gates, listening, feeling a strange sense of being set apart, of actually being an outsider.

  A ridiculous notion. Guy shifted his shoulders uneasily, feeling pain stab through his right arm. He'd known those inside all his life. There were few strangers except for the Americans. He belonged if anyone did.

  He pushed open the small gate, crossed the lighted courtyard and went into the house, eager to banish his uncomfortable feeling, to take a drink, to plunge into the party mood. Glass in hand, he looked for Senalda and saw her dancing. With Nicolas.

  Rage tensed his muscles. He took a step toward the couple, then stopped. This damnedable sling. The wound had seemed trivial once Dr. Goodreau had stopped the bleeding, but it was slow to heal. The doctor had suggested leeches, but Guy had refused. Certainly he was incapable of challenging Nicolas at the moment.

  Deliberately, Guy turned from the dancing, his eyes scanning the gaming tables. He headed for one, then stopped. He had little heart for the dice tonight, he felt drained of vigor. Slowly he turned his back on the tables and walked away, again finding his way to the courtyard.

  The night was so chilly few couples braved the cold. He sat on an iron bench beneath a large fig tree, staring down at the flagstones between his feet. I'll be the St. John of this courtyard, he told himself wryly. The notion failed to amuse him.

  The year was ending, another would soon begin. He felt like old Father Time himself tonight. Where were his friends, Gabriel, Rafe, Andre, that they didn't rally round and help him shake his dark mood?

  "Have you forgotten me so soon?" a woman's voice asked softly. Senalda's voice.

  Guy looked up, got hastily to his feet.

  "Now," she said. "Don't rise. I'm teasing, for I know the pain in your shoulder is what drives you from the party."

  He said nothing, tongue-tied by the sight of her before him like a visitation in a dream with her gown of white, embroidered with the palest pink, the enticing rose lips, the blonde curls falling to white shoulders.

  She sat on the bench and nodded her head to indicate he should sit beside her. Guy reseated himself.

  "I could never forget you," he said, leaning toward her. "I'd like to sweep you onto my horse and ride off where none would find us, to keep you to myself for the rest of time."

  Senalda smiled and lowered her lashes. "Is it only your arm that prevents you?" she murmured.

  Guy's eyes widened at this encouragement. He leaned closer, ignoring the slice of pain down into his chest.

  "I want you to be mine," he said. "Say you'll marry me, say you'll live with me and make La Belle as radiant as any casa in Madrid."

  She swayed toward him, then straightened. "You must know I can't give you a hasty answer," she said so softly he could scarcely hear her words, "but if anything would compel me to stay in New Orleans . . ." She left the sentence unfinished.

  Guy's heartbeat quickened. As good as a yes. He reached to embrace her, but the throb of agony in his shoulder stopped him. She edged away with a cry.

  "Your wound—it's bleeding."

  Guy glanced down at his right shoulder and saw the stain on the sling of white silk. The pain increased until sweat broke out on his brow. Senalda bit her lip, her eyes frightened.

  With an effort, Guy stood up and bowed. "I'm sorry to distress you," he said, feeling his head whirl, his legs tremble. "Please pardon me."

  He walked away from her, determined to get out of her sigh
t before he showed any sign of weakness. Mon Dieu, why did this have to happen at such a moment?

  Once outside the small gate, he leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths. He must get home, get to bed, have the doctor summoned. The rapier wound was putrefying and making him sick. He'd have one of the slaves here send round for his carriage.

  No, he wouldn't go back inside. It was less than a mile to his townhouse. He could make it on foot. He would make it. Guy pushed away from the wall. His head spun as he set off and he had a dim awareness that his thoughts weren't logical.

  "Feverish," he muttered. "Must get home."

  The banquette stretched out endlessly, then dirt, mud underfoot. There shouldn't be mud on the way to—where? Where was he headed down these endless streets? He was dreaming, a nightmare . . .

  Someone screamed his name and he was falling, falling.

  "Guy!" she called again. "Guy!"

  With great effort he forced his eyes open and found himself looking into the yellow cat's eyes of Aimee, then everything went dark.

  When he came to himself, the first thing he noticed was a pungent but not unpleasant smell. Guy stared about at a familiar room, he lay in a four poster bed, the one he'd bought for Aimee. He was in the cottage bedroom, he was at Aimee's. And the smell—he felt his right shoulder, his fingers encountering a soggy mass of leaves plastered over the wound.

  "Aimee!" he shouted, sitting up.

  She ran into the room.

  "You're better, merci de Dieu" she cried.

  "What's this?" He touched the poultice bound onto his shoulder.

  "Healing herbs from maman. She said they'd draw out the evil and heal the wound."

  "Voodoo," he said with distaste. He flexed his arm, testing the shoulder. Very little pain. Cautiously he shifted the shoulder. Definitely improved.

  "Much evil flowed green and yellow from your shoulder," Aimee told him. "Now it's all gone."

  "Voodoo or not, your maman's herbs seemed to have cured me overnight," he said in apology. "You must thank her for me."

  "Oh, but you've been here three days," Aimee said.

  "Dieu!”

  "Your sister sent a slave to inquire and I told the woman you were sick but recovering."

  Guy eased himself onto the edge of the bed, feet on the floor. He only vaguely recalled leaving the party, feeling sick. Surely he'd meant to go home, yet he'd come here. And luckily, for this herb poultice was less repulsive than Goodreau's leeches.

  "I worried that you'd never come to me again," Aimee said, sitting beside him. Timidly she touched his face, brushed his hair back from his forehead.

  He looked into her eyes, large and fearful, and remembered Nicolas, the duel.

  He moved his head and Aimee's fingers fell away. She clasped her hands in her lap, gazing down at them. He sighed, watching her.

  Estelle was right—Aimee wasn't a fighter. For all her cat's grace she was only a harmless kitten, afraid to use even her tiny claws.

  No match at all for any man who tried to force her. He gritted his teeth. As Nicolas had forced her, there was no doubt in his mind that had been the way of it. Aimee came willingly only to him, to Tanguy La Branche.

  How could he hold her to blame? And yet he did.

  "Aimee?"

  She looked up hopefully.

  "Aimee, I know you couldn't help what happened," he said. "What I have to tell you has nothing to do with that. I plan to marry in a month or so."

  She put her hands over her face and began to sob, rocking back and forth with grief.

  He put his arm around her shoulders. "You've always known I'd marry one day," he said. "Don't cry."

  She raised a tear stained face. "I knew you'd marry but I hoped . . ." her voice broke but she swallowed and went on. "I hoped you'd come to me sometimes even afterward. Now you won't. Because of what happened. And I—I love you so."

  His heart twisted in his chest. He loved her, too, in his way. How could he hurt her? "I'll see you again," he promised. "Now, smile at me and be done with tears."

  Her quivering lips trembled into an attempt at a smile and he pressed her head to his chest. She flung her arms about him, her soft full breasts close against him. Guy felt his loins quicken with desire.

  Aimee pulled away. “I too, have news.” She stood and put her hands one over the other on her belly. “I carry your child.”

  A bolt of joy and pride shot through Guy. A child. He’d sired a child! He smiled at Aimee, a smile that slowly faded,

  The baby might well be Nicholas’.

  Chapter 5

  Madelaine bristled with impatience as she waited for Guy to return to the townhouse. This was February and in only a few weeks more the season would be over and they'd be back at La Belle and she wouldn't be able to attend the public balls, not that many were held in the heat of summer. She twirled in a circle, arms out to an imaginary partner. How she did love to dance!

  If only she and Philippe could be together in public, could dance in front of everyone, acknowledging their love.

  She tapped her foot restlessly. Why didn't Guy come home? He never let her go anywhere without him in the evenings and he was so often late these days. No one could understand why he'd taken a post as aide to General Wilkinson.

  "What, Madelaine, your brother works for the Americains?" her friends asked, eyebrows raised.

  He had no answers for them or for herself. All Guy would say was that he wanted to do it, that Americans, as he now called them, were human beings not ogres.

  Some of the Americain dances were so funny—jigging up and down as they did. Still, she thought she'd like to try the reel sometime, though with a Creole, not an Americain.

  With Philippe she dreamed of the quadrille, being held in his arms as they executed the movements of the dance. She circled again, smiling.

  "Oh, mademoiselle, may I have the pleasure?"

  Madelaine whirled to find her brother grinning at her.

  "You were lost in a world of your own with your imaginary partner," Guy said. "Who was he? Gabriel?"

  "I—no—that is, I imagined I was dancing with a French prince," she said.

  His eyes took on the glaze she'd come to associate with his infatuation for Senorita Gabaldon. "I, myself, dream of dancing with a Spanish princess," he said.

  "Will she be there tonight?"

  "At the public ball? No." Guy frowned. "Senalda can't abide the Americains."

  How does she like your new position then?"

  He shrugged. "What I do must be my concern."

  Madelaine suppressed a smile. Senalda could be quite outspoken and she must have told Guy in no uncertain terms what she thought of his being General Wilkinson's aide.

  "At least you can dance again," she said, "now that your shoulder's healed."

  Guy flexed his right arm, relaxed it, flexed it again. "Come to think of it," he said, "I don't see Gabriel calling on you of late."

  "Oh, Guy, will you stop trying to marry us off? I've known Gabriel so long that I think of him as a brother. I'm certain he still sees me as the little nuisance who trailed after the two of you, spoiling your fun."

  "You're much prettier now," Guy told her. "Plus certain other differences. Gabriel's noticed the change, there's no doubt of that."

  She made a face at him. "Do get dressed," she urged, "or we'll never get to the ball."

  As Guy escorted her into the ballroom, Madelaine looked quickly about for Philippe but didn't see him. The orchestra was playing a quadrille, with the dancers circling and dipping through the patterns. She was pleased with her gown, a brilliant green satin with gold embroidery at the edge of the bodice and shirt, and a gold ribbon about the high waistline. It was made in quite the latest Paris fashion. Guy had let her wear a small emerald pendant set in gold that had belonged to their mother, and Madelaine knew it complimented her gown perfectly. Along both sides of the long, girls sat with their mothers in loges against the wall, reached by stairs. Bedoilles, they were called, wal
lflowers, as they waited to be asked to dance. She rarely sat up there, for when Guy had first allowed her to come with him he had made certain his friends asked her to dance. Now most of the men were eager to dance with her.

  "Dieu," she heard Guy mutter, "those men are armed."

  Madelaine looked behind him at a large group of Creoles who had followed them into the hall. She picked out Henri Leroque, Antoine Beaumont and others she recognized. She tightened her hold on her brother's arm. "Why?" she asked.

  "Trouble." He guided her farther into the room, away from them.

  Madelaine saw a few Americains forming for a quadrille on the floor, while others stood in groups near the loges. Suddenly, one of them left his group and strode between the dancers to the center of the floor. There he stopped and began to sing at the top of his voice:

  "Hail, Columbia, happy land

  Hail ye heroes, heaven born band

  Who fought and bled in Freedoms’

  Cause…”

  Other Americain voices took up the song and the orchestra playing the French quadrille faltered and fell silent. The dancers paused uncertainly. Men crowded onto the floor.

  An armed Creole thrust his way to the front of the crowd, turned his back on the Americains and shouted at his friends to join him as he began a new song:

  "Allans, enfants de la patrie

  Arise, ye sons of France to glory

  Le jour de gloire est arrive ..."

  Your day of freedom bids you rise…

  A hurricane of cheering burst from Creole throats. Men rushed their partners from the dance floor and Madelaine saw the fear on the women's faces. She felt none. Her pulses pounded with excitement and outrage. How dare these Americains cause trouble here?

  "A reel, play us a reel," an Americain shouted at the musicians.

  "The quadrille, continue the quadrille," Creole voices ordered.

  A woman screamed as the Creoles swept toward the Americains. Guy, seeking to protect Madelaine, was jostled off balance and she was torn from his grasp. Someone bumped into her from the rear and she stumbled forward, falling. A strong arm caught her, brought her to her feet.