The Creole Princess (41 page)

“That was no betrothal. It was a trick to keep me out of prison. Your mother doesn’t think I’m good enough for you, and you didn’t—you didn’t disagree with her—”

To his horror, her face screwed up, she threw a piece of cake at him, and she bolted from the room, slamming the door behind her.

What had just happened? He absently brushed cake crumbs from his shirt. Was he betrothed, or was he not?

Also, she forgot the plate. Now he would have to take it to his mother himself. And she was likely to do more than throw cake at him.

N
EW
O
RLEANS
O
CTOBER
20, 1779

Lyse and Daisy had been sent to market by Doña Evangelina, and they were both grateful to get out of the close confines of the fort and the hard work of the warehouse. But even two months after the hurricane, the French Quarter streets were still muddy, old houses were patched together with new timber, and the rank odor of mildew turned a pleasant outing into a chore to be gotten over as quickly as possible. Lyse turned the corner which led to the slave market, intending to hurry Daisy along, until she caught sight of an ebony-skinned woman being led, hands chained, to the dais for sale.

“Daisy! Does that woman look familiar to you?”

Daisy paused to look, her forehead creased. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“She looks like that woman who used to cook for Madame Dussouy. I saw her that time Rafa took me to the soirée. Remember?”

Daisy looked amused. “I remember when you went, because you quizzed me about kissing Simon that night, and I couldn’t go to sleep for hours! But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Madame’s cook.”

“Oh. Well, even so, she looks like Cain around the mouth. Doesn’t she?”

“Tell you the truth, I don’t remember much about Cain. All I know is he’s Scarlet’s mate and Nardo’s father. Don’t look at me like that—I guess they’re married in God’s eyes.”

“Of course they are. But the point is, I’m going over there to talk to her. Maybe she knows what happened to Cain after you left Mobile.”

“Wait—Lyse! You can’t just walk up to a slave on the auction block and start asking questions! Lyse!”

Lyse barely heard her. She pushed through the crush of people around the dais.

“This woman is healthy and still young enough to give you many good years of service,” the auctioneer yelled over the mumbling of the crowd. “I have it on good authority she was the best cook in the environs of Mobile, save maybe the woman at Burelle’s Tavern. She’s been cared for well, has all her teeth, and never been sick a day. Now who’ll start my bid at two hundred pounds?”

Lyse stood on her toes to see between a woman with a large straw hat and another with a parasol. Someone had already bid two hundred, and someone else raised it to three. She’d better hurry. But what was her name? Scarlet had talked about her life at Madame Dussouy’s, how all the slaves had been belittled and treated roughly except Cain’s mother, the cook, who got uppity because of her superior value in the kitchen.

She couldn’t just call out, “Hey! Are you Cain’s maman?” Her name was . . . Martha, maybe? No, but something like that.
“Martine,” she said aloud. That was it. “Martine!” she shouted during a break in the bidding. “Martine, look here!”

The woman turned her queenly head, the dull dark eyes suddenly narrowing, looking for Lyse’s voice.

“Martine! It’s Lyse Lanier! Right here!”

Martine’s mouth fell open. “Miss Lyse?” Lyse saw her mouth the words.

“Yes! It’s me!” Lyse pushed her way to the edge of the dais, ignoring the scowls of the auctioneer. “Do you know what happened to Cain and—and my little brother Luc-Antoine?”

“Miss, don’t you see we’re in the middle of a business transaction here?” The auctioneer crouched, snarling at Lyse. “You’d better get your dark face out of here before you wind up for sale too!”

Frightened, Lyse stood her ground. “I’m not a slave, and I just want to ask this woman about her son. I used to know them in Mobile.”

“I don’t know. You look like a slave to me.”

Daisy stepped through the crowd and took Lyse’s arm. “I assure you my friend is a free woman,” she said firmly. “We are part of the governor’s staff, and Madame Gálvez will vouch for us.”

“Oh is that right?” the man sneered.

“That is right,” came a cultured French-accented voice behind Lyse. “These young ladies have been in my home many times.”

“Madame!” blustered the auctioneer. “I’m sorry—I did not see you with them!”

Madame Gálvez nodded with regal condescension.

Lyse had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

“I’ll be happy to pay whatever you think this woman is worth,” Madame said. “I have need of a new cook.”

The man’s eyes squinted. “She is very expensive, Madame. The bidding has already gone up to five hundred twenty.”

“That’s a lie!” exclaimed Lyse.

“Never mind.” Madame smiled. “I shall pay six hundred and call it a bargain. Yes?”

The man’s mouth opened and closed. “Yes, Madame! That will do very well.”

Madame completed the transaction and extended her hand in its elegant glove. “You will please to take off the manacles, good sir. I wish Martine to walk without losing her balance, and I am in a hurry.”

The auctioneer hurried to comply. Martine was soon stepping down from the dais, rubbing her wrists. Tears slipped down her face. “I didn’t know I was worth six hundred whole pounds,” she said, sniffing.

“You are worth much more than that,” Madame said, “but it’s a good thing he agreed, as that’s all I had with me! Now come, let us get out of the sun before my skin becomes as brown as yours!”

She twirled her parasol and led the way across the street to a coffeehouse frequented by ladies of the elite social set of New Orleans. Lyse, Daisy, and Martine followed like ducklings behind a particularly elegant hen. Inside the coffee shop, Madame furled her parasol and seated herself at a little round iron table with graceful wrought iron chairs. Lyse and Daisy joined her, while Martine stood awkwardly to the side.

“Now,” Madame said, “please explain to me what is all the excitement about.”

“Oh, Madame, thank you so much for interceding,” Lyse said fervently. “I was so frightened! And I’m sorry you had to spend so much money. But I only wanted to know about Martine’s son, Cain. He has been training my little brother, Luc-Antoine, who was indentured to Martine’s owner, Madame Dussouy, to be a blacksmith.”

Madame looked a bit confused. “Madame Dussouy is a blacksmith?”

Lyse laughed. “No, she is the harpy who owned Martine and
Cain, and also my cousin Scarlet. Cain is her blacksmith slave, who was Scarlet’s . . . mate.”

“Ah. Harpy I understand. Go on.”

“Well, Madame Dussouy sold Scarlet, perhaps two years ago, and she ended first on a plantation in Natchez, then here at the market, where Rafa—I mean, Don Rafael bought her for you and then—but then, you know how all that happened. What I want to know is what Martine can tell me about my brother and Scarlet’s Cain.”

“Wait a minute, miss,” Martine blurted. “Excuse me, but are you telling me Scarlet is here in New Orleans?”

“Yes! She has a baby—Cain’s baby! His name is Nardo, after the governor—” Lyse smiled at Madame—“and he looks just like Cain. That’s how I recognized you so easily, I think.”

Martine stared for a moment. “Cain’s baby?” The tears started falling again. “Oh, my. My grandbaby.” After a moment, she pulled herself together. “Cain’s alive. A troop of American militiamen raided the Dussouy plantation, and they brought several of us slaves here, but Cain managed to get away from them. I think your little Luc-Antoine must’ve followed and helped him. I don’t know where they went, though.”

Lyse pressed her knuckles to her mouth. Luc-Antoine and Cain were alive. They had gotten away. “W-What about Madame and Monsieur Dussouy?”

“They escaped to the fort, I guess.” Martine shrugged.

“I don’t guess you’ve heard anything about my grandfather, or my stepmother and the other children? Or—or my papa?”

“Your grandpapa and that bunch are fine, as far as I know. Not much there for the Americans to carry off. But your papa . . .” Martine flicked a glance at Daisy. “I heard terrible things happened after Miss Daisy ran off.”

20

N
EW
O
RLEANS
, G
ÁLVEZ
MANSION
C
HRISTMAS
E
VE
1779

All the women were in the finest of their finery. Lyse no longer had anything fit to wear to such a grand occasion as a Christmas Eve ball at the Gálvez mansion. But she wasn’t the only one with barely a change of clothes this year. The hurricane had wiped out many ladies’ entire wardrobes, and there had been neither time nor extra funds to have more made. Material was always expensive, and in this time of war it was especially dear.

The Gálvezes owned one of the few residences that sustained only minimal damage to the ground floor; thus Madame looked as elegant as ever in a butter-colored sarcenet dress over a lace petticoat of the same color, her hair dressed high and fastened with topaz jewels. She stood greeting guests with her handsome father, the famous French planter and spy, Gilbert de St. Maxent, by her side in the absence of her husband.

Lyse greeted Madame after Daisy and Sofía, and was rewarded with a warm kiss on the cheek.

“You will be happy to know,” Madame whispered in her ear, “your friend Martine is happy as a clam in my so-big kitchen, and
she has created those spectacular cream puffs on the table over there. You must be sure to have one.”

Lyse agreed that it was a requirement and moved on feeling happier about being here dressed in nothing more elegant than Scarlet’s blue Sunday dress, which had been turned and retrimmed four times since rescued from a charity bin last summer. To give Scarlet credit, it was actually a lovely dress, albeit a little threadbare, if one didn’t look at it too closely in the light.

Besides, since Rafa was not here to see it, a little of the shine had worn off the evening. She had looked for him, as she always did when she entered a room, but there were very few men here at all. All the soldiers had gone to the Mississippi with Don Bernardo, except for the few who worked night and day with Rafa and Simon, getting ready for the offensives against Mobile and Pensacola. There were a few civilian men still available to dance with one, but they were mostly elderly—all of fifty at least!—or infirm.

Sofía kept complaining that it was quite depressing, when one thought about it, and Daisy would nod absently. She watched the door when she thought nobody was looking, clearly hoping Simon would slip in unexpectedly.

Lyse kept her chin up, determined to enjoy herself, no matter whether Rafa stood up to Doña Evangelina or not. If he couldn’t choose a bride without his maman’s good opinion, Lyse didn’t want him anyway. And he deserved to be beaten about the head daily, for good measure.

Smiling at the thought of tiny Doña Evangelina whacking her tall, muscular son with her beaded reticule, she turned to go for the cream puffs and smacked right into him, nose to chest.

Rafa caught her by the shoulders, held her away, and gave her a pirate grin. “What are you smiling about,
prima
? Oh, I see. It’s the pastry. Are you going to chuck that at me too? Lots of little missiles this time, instead of one big one.”

She scowled at him. “Let me go, or I’ll find a Mardi Gras king cake somewhere. Then you’ll be sorry.”

“Sorry for what? I haven’t done anything! However, if I’m going to be battered—haha, battered? Get it?—then I might as well have something to show for it.” He swooped and planted his mouth on hers. Before she could protest, he lifted his head, winked, and disappeared.

She stood sputtering like a landed fish until Sofía walked by and said, “You’d better get out from under the mistletoe—you look like you’re issuing invitations.”

She looked up and, sure enough, clever Madame Gálvez had attached a nice little clump of the green parasite, woven into a ball, to the chandelier. “Oh, my goodness,” she muttered, fanning her face.

But she moved.

Just before midnight, the grandest surprise of all came when Governor Gálvez walked in his own front door, went straight to his wife, and kissed her in front of the whole company. “My dear, I’m home,” he said simply. “We accomplished what we set out to do—the Mississippi River is clear for Spanish and American transport. Mobile and Pensacola are our next objectives. What do you think of that?”

Madame clung to him. “I think I missed you.”

Lyse wanted to melt into a puddle. Oh, to be loved that way, with a man staring at one as if he wanted to consume her like a grand feast.

“A woman like that could get anything she wanted from a man.” Rafa’s voice came from behind her shoulder.

“A man like that would deserve whatever she gave.” Lyse plied her fan and watched the Gálvezes begin the minuet.