The Creole Princess (24 page)

With a sigh of contentment, Lyse crossed the yard to the porch, where her grandfather sat on a bench shucking oysters. She bent and kissed his cheek, then sat down on the steps. “Grandpére, what can I do to help you? Justine is bringing rice and bread pudding.”

Grandpére tipped his head to the big iron cauldron suspended over a fire pit out in the middle of the yard. “Everything’s good,
cher
. Let’s just throw these last few oysters in the gumbo and wait
for company to come.” He winked at her. “Might not be as tasty as your Grandmére’s was, but nobody’ll go away hungry.”

“I’m so glad we could come.” She sighed and propped her chin in her hands, elbows on knees. “Something tells me it might be the last time for a while.”

“You’re mighty young to be showing signs of the second sight. What makes you say that?”

“Well . . . Simon’s gone, nobody knows when or if he’ll be back. Madame Dussouy almost refused to let Luc-Antoine off for the day. And me—if I marry Niall, there’s no telling where we’ll be next year. He could get sent anywhere.”

Grandpére gave her his patented inscrutable look. “Is he still courting? I notice you didn’t bring him with you.”

“He—he’s on duty later tonight. And he doesn’t celebrate Mardi Gras like we do. He thinks it’s heathen.”

“Hmph.” Grandpére clearly had thoughts about Niall’s thoughts, which he chose not to express. “Nobody wants a party-spoiler around anyway. Do you love the boy,
cher
?”

Lyse looked away. Not an easy question to answer. “I’ve always liked Niall, Grandpére. He’d make a good husband.”

“For someone else maybe. Not for you.”

“Grandpére!” Lyse rarely heard her grandfather, the master of oblique references, speak so bluntly about anything. She stared at him. “Why do you say that?”

“If you loved him enough to marry him, you’d have accepted him a long time ago. You’re dragging your feet, and I think you know why.”

Lyse felt her face flame. “I am not! Dragging my feet, I mean. I’m just . . . taking my time because—because, well, because Daisy needs me at the school.”

“If you say so.” Grandpére shucked another oyster and popped it into his mouth whole.

There was a long moment of silence, until Lyse finally blurted, “Why do
you
think I’m dragging my feet, as you put it?”

But she knew the answer, and she ought to be ashamed that she couldn’t get a dandified Spanish trader out of her dreams and daydreams. Even now she could close her eyes and feel his hands, warm and callused, cupped against her cheeks. The familiar sensation of a bird taking flight fluttered beneath her rib cage.

At Grandpére’s soft chuckle, she bent double, hands over her face. “Oh! I wish he would just go away!”

“Niall? So do I.”

“That’s not what I mean, Grandpére, and you know it,” she mumbled.

“And it would not be fair to wed Niall if your heart is given to someone else.”

She looked up at her grandfather, aggrieved. “But the
someone else
hasn’t spoken for me, and I’ll likely never even see him again! I can’t wait for him forever! Besides, my father married for love and made
everybody
miserable, even you!”

Setting aside his bowl and knife, Grandpére leaned down and took her hands. “Listen to me,” he said gently. “I was a fool, and I was wrong about that. Your mother and father had a difficult time, but they were happy together. Can you imagine Antoine married to Isabelle Dussouy? Pah! What a stupidity
that
would have been!”

“But Grandpére—”

“I say
listen
. I was wrong, and I have been trying for fifteen years to crawl out of the ditch I created between my son and myself. What I want for you is the joy I had with your grandmother. We were cousins and friends, yes, but we had a union of mind and spirit that the Bible calls holy. And that, my child, is worth waiting forever for.”

Lyse found herself without an answer. When she was still a little girl, her grandmother had told her something very similar. To hear it, unsolicited, from Grandpére seemed more than a coincidence.

She scooted close and laid her head upon his knee. “But what if he doesn’t want me?”

“How could he not, precious girl?” The strong, gnarled hand caressed her hair. “Wait and see what God will do.”

There was an odd note in his voice. “Grandpére,” she said, looking up, “clearly you know something I don’t. What happened that day Rafa came with you to Bay Minette?”

He hesitated. “Let me just say that young Don Rafael is a herald of changes coming to the world that my brother and I could never have foreseen when we were small boys in the Mobile Indian village. My mother married a Frenchman, and they divided Louisiana between the British and the Spanish—so who can predict the victors of this present tussle?” He tipped her chin. “There may come a time when you and the children will have to flee the city. Your Rafael will come for you, and you must go with him.”

Fear crawled along her spine. “Grandpére! What do you mean?”

“The less you know, the safer you will be.” His lips pressed together in a stubborn line, then he released her chin with a little push. “Our guests will be here within the hour. I’ve put out goods for the king’s cake in the kitchen, along with your grandmére’s receipt. Maybe you feel brave enough to put it together for me?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“No more questions. Tomorrow brings the time for fasting and regret. Today we revel in God’s goodness.” He smiled. “And we need a cake!”

F
ORT
C
HARLOTTE
, M
OBILE

Daisy smiled up at the new adjutant on duty in the guardhouse at the wooden gates of the fort. “Would you please tell my father I’m here and have someone escort me to him? I’ve brought him something to eat.” She showed him the covered basket on her arm as proof of her intentions.

Gone were the days when she and Lyse could sashay in without
prior permission. She had not seen her father for more than half an hour at a time in the past week. Colonel Durnford had come over from Pensacola to stay, this time without his family, and the two men had been closeted in Papa’s office at the fort for hours on end.

Indeed Daisy could hardly reconcile herself as the naive young girl who—less than two years ago—had been horrified at the thought of Englishmen shooting at Englishmen in rebellion against the king. She loved her father and certainly wished him no harm. But she was the daughter of a soldier. War had already come, and men of strong principles fought on both sides. The hard, cold truth was that George III had sent armed regulars to fire upon his own people, hardworking men who stood in protest of the fruit of their labor being wrested from them at the point of a bayonet.

Part of her indignation came from awareness that Papa, and men like him—including Simon—thought her too weak and too silly to understand the ramifications of the conflict. She was neither, and if that made her a rebel, then so be it.

Still, her father had to eat, and she was, if nothing else, a dutiful daughter.

She shifted the heavy basket to the other arm, impatiently looking around for anything interesting to pass the time while Ensign Whoever-He-Might-Be returned for her. There seemed to be significant improvements in the condition of the shoddy little fort since the last time she had occasion to enter. Some of the rotten wood of the fences had been replaced with new planking, and the crumbling mud wattle which stuck the bricks together had been newly cemented in critical places. Even the stone that formed the bastions had been newly shored up with a mixture of clay and dirt.

Frowning, she walked toward the east bastion, where a new cannon sat upon a wooden platform atop the earthworks. A couple
of soldiers in ragged uniforms were cleaning and reloading the huge weapon. Eighty-pounder? What on earth? She knew that in January Papa had been ordered to begin refurbishing the fort, when news of the British loss at Saratoga reached the West Florida command in Pensacola. Had things gotten to such a point that, even in the relatively unimportant little port of Mobile, there was danger of an attack?

Now that she thought about it, she had noticed Indians from the surrounding villages pouring into the city, camping under their tents at the outskirts like animals seeking shelter from an approaching storm. She had thought they were coming in search of food, as they sometimes did when the harshness of winter struck. But this winter had been unusually mild, and yet there seemed to be thrice the normal numbers of savage children peeking into the schoolhouse windows and giggling at the sight of the white-skinned boys and girls stuck indoors in the middle of the day.

With a pang she thought of Simon, somewhere, possibly in danger from enemy guns.
Please, God, keep him safe and bring him home to me.

“Miss Redmond? What are you doing?”

The deep voice behind her made her jump. She turned to find Papa’s administrative assistant, Corporal Tully, mustache bristling, watching her with his arms folded across his chest.

“Oh! You startled me!” She smiled to cover an odd feeling of guilt that heated her cheeks. “Can my papa see me now?”

Tully stared at her for another moment, then nodded. “Yes. Come with me.” He wheeled and stalked toward officers’ quarters.

Odder and odder. She clutched the basket to her stomach, skipping to keep pace with his long military stride. Tully looked suddenly older, his usually ramrod-straight back bent like a pine tree in a strong wind. His reddish brows came together above his nose in a permanent scowl.

“Corporal Tully, are you all right? You seem . . . worried.”

He gave her a sidelong look, a ghost of his dry smile appearing. “I work for your papa. Don’t I always look worried?”

She smiled. “I suppose so, now that you mention it. But everyone seems more sober than usual, and isn’t that—wasn’t that a new cannon?”

Now he definitely looked unhappy. “You’ve always been an observant little thing. More than your da gives you credit for.”

And he hadn’t exactly answered her question. “Why are so many Indians coming into the city? I’ve noticed them in the market, more every time I go. Is there some news about the war?”

Tully chewed the end of his mustache. “Now, miss, you know I don’t talk out of turn. You’ll have to ask your da.”

“Well, all right, I will. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Tully grunted.

A moment later they reached officers’ quarters, where the corporal rapped upon the door with his knuckles, then opened it without waiting for an answer. “Here she is, sir.” He nodded at Daisy, then disappeared.

Daisy found her father standing behind a table, poring over a map with Colonel Durnford. Both men had looked up at her entrance, expressions stern.

Papa glanced at the basket. “You could have left that with Tully,” he said on a note of admonishment. Then he saw her expression. “What’s the matter?”

She didn’t like speaking this way in front of another officer, but there was no help for it. She set the food on Papa’s desk and busied herself with emptying it and arranging the contents in a tempting display. “I’ve been worried about you, Papa. You’re eating little and hardly sleeping.” Her hands stilled, clutched around a cloth-wrapped cheese. “Is—is there anything you can tell me about the progress of the war?” She looked up and caught the colonel’s eye. “Forgive me, Colonel Durnford. I know I shouldn’t—”

But the colonel stopped her with a raised hand. “Never mind,
my dear. You’re right to be concerned. I had to leave my own family in considerable distress.” Exchanging glances with Papa, he sighed. “The news is official anyway, and word will quickly spread. France has declared war and allied herself with the thirteen rebel colonies. This makes our ports here and at Pensacola critical—which is why your papa and I are working hard to keep you and the other ladies and children safe.”

She caught her breath. “Papa—!”

“Now, now, don’t worry overmuch,” Papa said. “As you can see, the situation is well under control. Our men are preparing for all eventualities. However, the time has come for you and me to make the move into officers’ quarters here in the fort. I need you to begin packing your belongings—only the most necessary items, of course—and be ready by tomorrow morning. I will send around a cart.”

Daisy stared at him openmouthed. “Papa, I cannot—What about Lyse?”

Papa looked uncomfortable. “There isn’t room for her here,” he said gruffly. “I know she has been as a sister to you, but none of her family have taken the oath of loyalty to the king. They must be treated with extreme caution, and I warn you above all not to confide in her further.” His voice hardened. “I’m afraid that from now on the connection must be completely severed.”

“But the school—”

“You may continue to teach any of the children who reside inside the walls of the fort.”

Daisy felt as if her limbs might no longer hold her up. She dropped the cheese and leaned heavily against the desk.

No more friendship with Lyse? How could she bear it on top of losing Simon?