The Creole Princess (21 page)

Every time the door opened, she turned, hoping to see him swing through, bearing the fresh scent of salt air and his unique bold energy. But he had told her he would not come, had no time for frivolities like dancing. No, he was working on some errand of which he would only vaguely speak, except to say that it would enable him to someday apply to her father for her hand in marriage.

Someday! While time marched on, and beautiful days they could have spent together passed. She wasn’t so ridiculous as to claim loneliness, for she had her father to care for and Lyse’s friendship, and of course her students filled her days with intellectual challenge and laughter. But she longed to share with Simon the sweet oneness she had observed in her parents’ marriage.

“Miss Redmond—
perdón
, Miss Redmond!”

She blinked and focused on Don Rafael’s smiling face. “Oh dear! Were you speaking to me?”

“Well, I was, but if you are busy, I will take myself off and speak to someone else.”

She laughed, unable to tell if he was serious or seriously stupid. With him, it was hard to tell. “I was woolgathering, I’m afraid.” She looked around and saw that they were relatively alone, tucked away in the corner she had gravitated to when she realized Simon really wasn’t coming. “Where is Lyse?”

“Serving weak lemonade to thirsty soldiers and fishermen.” He tipped his head toward the refreshments arrayed on the bar, where Lyse officiated with evident pleasure. “Apparently that is all we are to partake of, on this night of free entertainment. Our tenderhearted Miss Lanier was concerned that you might be feeling abandoned and sent me to fetch you—or better yet, to ask you to dance.” He bowed with extravagant grace. “Would you care to dance, Miss Redmond?”

He really was the veriest dandy, and she should be grateful for his attention, but all she wanted was to go home and take off her shoes and corset, have a cup of tea, and go to bed. She sighed and stood up. “I suppose so.”

Rafael winced. “And I am thus most firmly put in my place.”

“Ah, Don Rafael, I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you did.” He shook his head. “But never mind, I am commanded by the queen of my heart to make you dance, so dance we shall.”

Laughing, she allowed him to tuck her hand through his arm and lead her into the set forming. The men bowed, the women curtseyed, partners crossed and hooked arms, and the dance began.

Don Rafael, the musician, demonstrated a keen sense of rhythm and a remarkable ability to keep less-experienced dancers from embarrassing collisions. However, there was nothing he could do about Daisy’s wandering attention. When Simon’s tall figure entered the ballroom, she stopped stock-still, heart beating like a kettledrum.
He has come for me.

The other dancers stepped around her with curious looks, then, following her gaze to the doorway, moved on with indulgent smiles.

She had never in her life expected to see him dressed thus—like a prince out of some fairy tale. She had heard stories of the American General Washington’s sartorial splendor: the coats imported from France, with buttons ornate but never ostentatious, boots made of fine Italian leather, and a variety of waistcoats in beautiful jewel-toned silk brocades. Yet tonight her Simon would surely have put Yankee Doodle George firmly in the shade.

Watching him, she stood shaking like a leaf in a winter wind. The Song of Songs flitted through her mind—
This is my beloved, and this is my friend.

He went away from her, threading the crowd along the wall, until he reached the corner where her father stood in conversation with Sergeant Anderson, the Guillorys, and Niall McLeod. She watched her father look around in surprise when Simon touched him on the shoulder, saw his gaze flick up and down, taking in the beautiful evening clothes and hair neatly tied back with a dark blue ribbon.

Was Simon going to ask to court her? Now? In this room full of people?

Suddenly aware of the dancers circling awkwardly around her, she skipped to find her place in the set, blushing when Don Rafael teasingly chided her for leaving him partnerless. There wasn’t time to reply, as the motion of the dance pulled her away again. She was
peripherally aware of Simon and her father excusing themselves from their companions. They wound back through the crowd to the door and disappeared into the night.

The next twenty minutes were exquisite torture. Daisy laughed at Don Rafael’s nonsense, tried to cheer up poor Niall, whose obvious jealousy threatened to spoil the party for everyone, and somehow kept one eye on the door. What would Papa say? When she was a little girl, he had treated Simon—when he happened to tag along with Lyse—to the good-natured pity one would accord a half-starved young alley cat. Then, when a more specific affection blossomed between Daisy and Simon, everything changed. Simon became the interloper—the thief come to steal a beloved possession—and he was tolerated with gritted teeth.

Only Lyse seemed to understand her anxiety. Her eyes were soft with concern, and once she gripped Daisy’s hand and whispered, “Don’t worry, it will be all right.”

Daisy couldn’t help glancing at the door, which remained firmly closed. “Maybe,” she whispered back.

How many sleepless nights had she prayed for this time to come? How many times had she begged God to soften her father’s heart, only to watch the distance grow between the two men she loved?

She didn’t realize she had drifted toward the door until it opened and Simon came in alone. His eyes sought hers. His sun-bronzed skin had an ashy undertone, as if blood-leeched to deter some dreadful disease, and his mouth was set in a tight line.

Dread nearly suffocated her as she waited for him to reach her. He bowed over her hand, the heat of his lips burning through her lace mitt, his long fingers clasped loosely around her wrist. She stared at the back of his head, where the black curls were tied at the nape of his neck.

And then he rose, unsmiling. “Your papa says I may speak to you.”

“Y-yes. All right.” She swallowed against a dry throat. “Where . . . ?”

“There.” Simon nodded toward a doorway that led to one of the small anterooms where guests could enjoy a private game of cards or otherwise entertain in small groups. He dropped her hand and walked off without looking to make sure she followed.

But she did. She would go with him anywhere, God help her.

Miraculously, the room was empty, lit by a candle someone had left burning on a spindly Louis XIV desk between the curtained windows. A velvet sofa and a couple of wing chairs sat upon a beautiful gold-and-scarlet rug in the center of the room. Daisy stopped just inside the door, waiting to see what Simon would do. His demeanor was so odd, his movements jerky and forced.

It wasn’t as if they’d never found ways to be alone together. But this occasion, sanctioned by her father, conducted in this bloodless manner in a shadowy room with a noisy crowd just beyond a thin wall, set her adrift in an ocean of anxiety.

“Shut the door and come sit down.” Simon dropped into one of the wing chairs, leaving her to choose the sofa or the other chair.

The sofa was closer to him. As she sat, the hem of her skirt fell across one of his boots, and she stared at it, afraid to look at him. He was going to hurt her in some way, and she didn’t want to see it in his eyes.

“I can’t ask you to marry me.” He threw the words like stones into the silence.

She absorbed them. Do not cry. Do not.

He took a harsh breath. “But I will, when I come back. If I come back. Your papa said I might.”

And then she looked up into his face. His deep-set eyes, so dark as to be nearly black, bored into hers with a banked passion that flooded her with such relief that she came close to fainting.

Then she realized what he’d said. “When you come back? Where are you going?”

“I can’t tell you. And you mustn’t wait for me. I’m leaving in the morning at daybreak.”

“I m-mustn’t wait for you? W-what do you mean?”

He looked away. “If I’m not back in a year, you are to find someone else to make you happy, because—because that would only be right.”

She jumped to her feet. “Simon! What have you done?”

“I’ve found a way to gain your father’s blessing. A way to make a fortune for us—so you can live like the English lady you are.”

“No! I don’t want that! Why did you not ask me what
I
want? All I need is you!” She had said it aloud, and if that made her a pathetic beggar, so be it.

His head bowed, and he clasped his hands across the nape of his neck.

“Look at me, Simon Lanier! I know you love me, and I know my father loves me, but in this case you are both a hundred miles away from wisdom.” When he didn’t move, she flung herself to her knees in front of him and put her arms about him. “Please, beloved, don’t go away from me. I’ll talk to Papa and make him see I’m determined to—to belong to you. If he won’t agree, then we’ll just find another place where we can live together in peace. I’d rather—”

“No!” He sat up, taking her hands and holding them still, his eyes blazing. “Don’t you see, that is exactly what I cannot do? My father destroyed his relationship with his family forever by marrying beneath him, and I won’t let you do that with me. You can’t possibly know the misery that kind of poverty brings. It’s—please, Daisy, I couldn’t bear it.”

Stubborn pride limned every angle of his face. She would not easily get around it. “All right, but there’s got to be another way. What about your grandfather? Lyse says he has reestablished the connection with your father. He’s still a wealthy man and would undoubtedly sponsor you in business. Or—has he already?” She
frowned. From where she knelt before him, the polished bronze buttons of his waistcoat were in her direct line of vision. “Simon, where did you get these clothes?”

“I paid for them—I worked for them. Just like everything else I own. Nobody—
nobody
, do you hear me?—is going to give me anything I didn’t earn. Not my grandfather, not your father, not even you.”

“But that isn’t how love works! It isn’t earned, it’s given freely, expecting nothing but love in return.”

“And if you love me, you’ll understand why I have to make my own way. Daisy, this is who I am, it’s how God made me—like the color of my hair and the shape of my hands.” He let go of her to spread his big hands, palms up, fingertips brushing the ruffle on her fichu. “There’s something I have to do, to prove to myself that I deserve you. It’s—it’s already in motion anyway, and there’s no going back.”

She stared at him for a long, hopeless moment, sensing him retreating from her by the heartbeat. Finally, she bent to press a kiss in each of his callused palms. “All right then. But know this. If you’re not back in a year, I will come looking for you.”

10

W
atching the anteroom door, Rafa conferred rather at random with the violinists regarding the next choice of music. As he stood pretending to listen to one of the fiddlers rhapsodize over a new tune called “Love in a Village,” he watched the colors of the company shift like a series of glass windows in a cathedral.

Earlier, while dancing with Daisy, he had seen a tall young man whom he didn’t recognize from the back approach Major Redmond. The dark blue coat fit smoothly over broad shoulders, rich lace fell from the piped cuffs, and the buff-colored breeches were carefully tailored. Curly, unpowdered dark hair was clubbed in a neat queue. There couldn’t be many men in this backwater little town who dressed with such fashionable flair—so who was he?

When the younger man abruptly bowed to the major and turned on his heel, Rafa had nearly swallowed his tongue.
Simon Lanier?
When had he turned into this—this dandy? No wonder poor Daisy was so taken aback.

And what subject had so completely occupied Simon and the major that the two of them quit the room for nearly half an hour? When they returned and Simon closeted himself in the anteroom
with Daisy for a most improper length of time, Rafa’s curiosity sprouted like mushrooms after a rain. Something odd was afoot.

Suddenly the anteroom door opened, and Simon emerged alone. He pushed through the crowd and stalked outside again with nary a word to a soul.

Rafa turned to the violinist, waving a hand. “Yes, yes, señor, of course, but I must leave you now and return to the ladies, else they will think I’ve more interest in music than in dance—which is true, but not the impression one likes to leave with one’s hostess. Yes?” He dodged a bow, then leapt from the dais and followed Lanier to the door.

There was time to speak to neither Daisy nor Lyse, but he took a quick look over his shoulder on his way out the door. Judging by the uniforms crowding the far corner of the room, Lyse was being inundated with offers of dance partners. Regretfully forfeiting the satisfaction of swooping her out from under the noses of all those redcoat rubes, Rafa slipped outside onto the gallery. The mission had to come first.

Lanier had disappeared into the darkness. Rafa hesitated, listening, anxiously searching the quiet innyard. There was no knowing whether Lanier had arrived on foot or on horseback, but supposing Major Redmond had given him some assignment, he would likely need some means of transport.

Before he could take action, a quiet voice rumbled from the shadows beside the tavern door. “You need some’n’, sir?”

Zander, Burelle’s houseman.

Rafa hesitated, decided not to waste time. “I meant to speak to Señor Lanier regarding transport of supplies out to my ship, but I see he has slipped away. I don’t suppose he mentioned where he’s off to?”

Zander’s dark form materialized as he moved into the light beside the door. “No, sir. But he left on foot, headed toward the water. You might catch him, if you hurry.”

“Ah. Thank you, Zander.” Flipping a coin in the slave’s direction, Rafa vaulted over the porch rail to the ground.

As he rounded the corner of Royal and Dauphine streets, he could see a few lights flickering along the wharf, where the piers jutted into the water. Fishermen, oystermen, and shrimpers were cleaning nets and dumping the remains of their catches into wagons. He walked the short block to Water Street, aware of every movement and sound. Lanier could have stopped in any doorway, and he knew he could pass by his quarry without knowing it.