The Creole Princess (40 page)

They had treated it as some shameful thing, to be the daughter of a slave—freed though she might have been. Recoiling as if the darkness of her skin were some infectious disease. Discussing the shock of it as if she couldn’t hear them.

But she
could
hear, and it hurt. It hurt because she’d thought they loved her for her own sake, and not just because Rafa had brought her to them. It seemed even Rafa’s affection wasn’t enough to cover her Africanness, that quarter-blend of alien blood.

And it still hurt, though she’d pretended to Scarlet that it didn’t. Scarlet had endured much worse, so what right did Lyse have to whine about the turned-up noses of a couple of Castilian society belles?

She released the breath she’d been holding, relaxed her hold on the door frame. “Daisy, they’ve lost everything. They don’t even have a place to sleep. Jesus was kind to those who crucified him. Can I do less?”

The first step was the hardest, the next a little easier. She kept walking until Nardo, who had been napping on Scarlet’s shoulder in a corner of the room, started to cry, and Sofía turned around to look for the sound.

Sofía gasped. “Mama, it’s Scarlet! And there’s Lyse.”

Lyse stopped a few feet away from her and smiled. “Yes, we’ve been here long enough to get settled, so we’ve got a pot of stew over the fire. Are you hungry?”

Sofía shook her head, but her gaze went back to Scarlet and the baby. “My goodness, he’s gotten so big! Can I hold him?”

Doña Evangelina looked like she might spontaneously burst into flames, but Sofía ignored her and went to her knees in front of Scarlet. Sofi clapped her hands, then held them out to Nardo.

He stuck his thumb in his mouth and leaned over in that boneless way he had when he was just waking up.

Sofía caught him and snuggled him close, closing her eyes.

Scarlet, wide-eyed, said, “Watch out, he may pee on you.”

Everyone in the room laughed, and the unbearable tension broke.

“I’m not a bit hungry,” Sofía said shyly, swaying with the baby. “You eat first, Scarlet.”

Later that night, as the room grew darker and the storm continued to rage outside the walls of the fort, Lyse sat on the floor with her back against the wall, listening to Scarlet tell stories by the light of a single candle. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised that Doña Evangelina had ended up in charge of ladling soup. Somewhere in her dim past, she must have been a young officer’s wife, used to making do with military rations. In any case, as she and Sofi pitched in to help make others welcome and comfortable, there was no mention of birth or social rank.

Lyse felt the wall of pride she’d built slowly crumble. She could only hope that she wouldn’t be pierced again. She didn’t think she could bear it.

She
was
here. His father had told him so, but he had wanted to see for himself.

Rafa stood in the storeroom doorway, a weak splash of dawn light showing Lyse asleep in a corner like the princess in a fairy tale, curled on her side with her hand under her cheek, head pillowed on a sack of coffee beans. He wanted to lie down beside her and sleep for a week, but he had promised his father that he would only briefly check on the women before reporting to the Cabildo once more for duty.

Outside the rain still fell in slow, fat, noisy drops, adding to the gush and rush of the swollen bayou below the fort, but at least the howling wind had died down during the night. The danger of trees and boats and dead animals being plucked up and whirled against shaking buildings was past. He should be able to safely attend to provisions for the cattle he had left in the care of the
vaqueros
who had accompanied him from Béxar—and whatever else his father saw fit to assign him.

But he hesitated another precious few moments, studying the curve of Lyse’s chin, the soft droop of her lips, the fan of her lashes against her cheekbones. In a hundred years he would never tire of the sight.

“She has worked herself into exhaustion, poor dear, as has your little sister. They both have surprised me.”

Rafa turned to find his mother leaning against the wall behind him, her posture weary but alert. Suddenly her face scrunched in a cracking yawn, and they both laughed.

“You surprise me too, Mama.” He propped his shoulder against the door frame. “It is good to see you and Sofi serving
others—as Lyse and Daisy and Scarlet have apparently been doing for weeks.”

She stiffened at the note of censure in his voice. “No one can accuse me of being lazy.”

He regarded her silently, respect and affection for his mother warring against the injustice Lyse had suffered. Carefully he said, “I wish you to explain to me how Lyse comes to be living here instead of in our home—and I don’t believe she left on her own, so don’t try that one on me.”

Mama’s soft lips pressed together in a thin line. “How dare you speak to me thus?”

“Mama, I am no longer five years old.” He sighed and scrubbed his hand against a day’s growth of whiskers. “I will give you the benefit of the doubt, if you’ll only
explain
—”

“There is nothing to explain. Sofía and I overheard you talking to Lyse about the letter that got her so upset, just before you left for Texas. We naturally inquired as to the nature of her distress.” She shrugged. “She explained about this Madame Dussouy and the history of her conflict with Lyse’s father. When I expressed a certain amount of sympathy for the poor woman—”

“
Sympathy
? For Isabelle Dussouy?” Straightening, Rafa gaped at his mother. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

Mama stared up at him coldly. “To be rejected in favor of a Negro slave is no small insult.”

“Compared to what? Being cast onto the street because one is the daughter of that slave? Mama, think! What if you had been born into like circumstances? Would you have accepted your lot with the grace and humor that Lyse has? With all her struggles and disadvantages, would you have become half the lady she has?” Feeling his eyes glaze with emotion, he closed them. “Forgive me if I doubt it.”

There was a long space of shocked silence. “You are going to marry her, aren’t you?”

“If she’ll have me.” He opened his eyes, turned his back on his mother, and looked hungrily down at Lyse. “Which is doubtful, now that you have succeeded in alienating her.”

“But, Rafael . . . you could have any one of the lovely Spanish girls among Sofía’s acquaintance.”

“I don’t want any Spanish girl. I want this Creole girl who is brave and loyal and resourceful and a hundred other beautiful things I don’t have time to enumerate.” He looked wearily over his shoulder at his mama. “You’ll have to take my word for it that I will not change my mind—and if you value my love, you will accept Lyse and take her as your beloved daughter. Do you understand me, Mama?”

She nodded, stricken of face. “I didn’t know—”

“Well, now you do.” He turned, gave her a brief peck on the cheek, and swung away, reenergized, down the passage to the outside door. That had been a difficult conversation, but now that it was behind him, he could concentrate on his other responsibilities. When given a choice between wrangling ornery cattle and obstinate women, he would choose the cows every time.

N
EW
O
RLEANS
,
THE
C
ABILDO
L
ATE
A
UGUST
1779

The Cabildo was an anthill of activity, with Spanish officers slamming in and out of Gálvez’s office; Oliver Pollock—bankrupt after the storm, having decided to go along on the Mississippi River campaign—following the governor around, recording every order he made and some he didn’t; and a number of American soldiers as well, trying to help but generally getting in the way.

Rafa considered it a miracle, a direct intervention of God Almighty, that Gálvez had regrouped and resupplied his fleet in less than two weeks. Gálvez was hoping to surprise the British with
a quick strike after the brutal storm, and the Spanish fleet under Girón’s command would sail with the evening tide, first to Manchac to take Fort Bute, then, once it was secure, heading north to Baton Rouge. Gálvez himself would advance on foot with a battalion of soldiers made up of Spanish infantry, French Creoles, Americans, free Negroes, Indians, and a mixture of all. It was a cultural gumbo of an army, built on Gálvez’s charisma and leadership, fired by motivations ranging from national pride to greed to starry-eyed idealism.

Rafa would have given anything to be part of it.

But the governor had seen fit to leave him and Simon Lanier in New Orleans. Simon was to supervise the continued refitting of every available vessel that came into the port, while Rafa saw to restocking arms and ammunition in the warehouses of the Cabildo. He was also to make sure the cattle brought from Texas—which had miraculously survived the storm—stayed fed and healthy, and that other foodstuffs for the army continued to stream in from outlying farms and plantations.

As if all that didn’t keep him busy twenty hours a day, seven days a week, with barely time to stuff in the occasional meal, Rafa’s final responsibility involved uniform repair and replacement, including boots, undergarments, and other accessories. As Gálvez and his army marched out of the city and the fleet set sail, Rafa finally threw up his hands and turned to the displaced women who were waiting in the fort for the water to recede from their homes so they could begin cleanup.

To his surprise, he found in his mother a deep well of common sense and physical strength. That she agreed to help—truth be told, she more or less shoved him out of the way and took over—was a welcome source of amusement as well as incredulity. Doña Evangelina marshaled her troop of laundresses and seamstresses with the deftness and ingenuity of El Cid, taking over a warehouse and reorganizing it so that Rafa could lay his hands on whatever item might be required with a minimum of time and effort.

Lyse, Daisy, and Scarlet served as subordinate officers to the Little General, as he took to calling his mama, each taking on an area of responsibility and making it her own private battlefront.

Rafa couldn’t have been more grateful, but there was little time to confer with his female staff. Instead he left them to their tasks and tended to his own.

One evening in mid-September, he sat down, hungry and exhausted, in the governor’s empty office to read a letter from Gálvez. It informed him that both Manchac and Baton Rouge had been secured in the name of His Majesty Carlos III, and they would be moving on to Natchez soon. That was good, he thought as he laid his head down on the desk. He would rest, just for a minute.

Some time later, he awoke to an aroma that had his stomach rumbling like a kettledrum in a military band. Bacon. He would sell his soul for a rasher of bacon right now.

Sitting up, rubbing his eyes, he realized he didn’t have to do anything so drastic. Someone had put a plate of fried eggs, barley toast, and—yes, bacon, here on the desk. As he ate, he almost cried with pleasure. He was mopping up the last of the egg yolk with half a slice of bread when the office door opened.

Lyse put her head round the edge of the door, her eyes bright as stars. “The Little General wants to know if her favorite subaltern has finished his dinner so she can wash the plate.”

He groaned, rubbing his stomach. “Yes, but you’ll have to come get it. I’m so full I can’t walk.”

She came in, swaying, hands behind her back. “That’s too bad, because there might be another surprise . . .”

Instantly he was on his feet. “You haven’t kissed me in months.”

“Three months and ten days, but nobody is counting,” she said, laughing, “but that’s not it.”

“Oh.” He yawned. “Then I’m not interested.”

“Rafa, I am reformed. I don’t kiss men to whom I’m not betrothed.”

“That’s ridiculous. Of course we’re betrothed.”

Her pretty mouth tightened. “We are not.”

Suddenly he was no longer amused. “I don’t know why you say that. You agreed. Daisy is my witness.”