LAVENDER BLUE (historical romance) (10 page)

Never had the soldiers looked so dashing and so handsome, the women so lovely. The upper story of the market, which was used as an assembly room for public receptions, had been cleared of chairs. Its chandelier blazed with a hundred sparkling candles over the multitude of guests gathered to welcome in the New Year of 1863, which suddenly looked so bright for the Confederacy.

Since there were no telegraphic signals south of New Orleans, the people of Brownsville had only just learned of General Le
e’s victory at Fredericksburg, Virginia, nearly three weeks earlier on December 13. As a result of the terrible defeat, General Grant removed General Ambrose Burnside from the command of the Army of the Potomac.

Yet even here in Brownsville, the Confederac
y’s southernmost city, not every citizen was loyal to the Cause. Indeed, over a third of Texas was pro-Union. Many, like Jeanette’s father, had emigrated to Brownsville from the North. Others had lived all their lives in the Deep South but were loyal to the Union and had moved to be closer to the border of Mexico, whose President, Juarez, was sympathetic to the Federal Government.

If any of them discovered Jeanette
’s furtive activities, her hope of aiding the Confederacy would be endangered. Thus she flirted outrageously and whirled through the waltzes and quadrilles with one soldier after another, praying that no one would ever associate the shallow, slightly promiscuous widow with anything that required substantial thought. Her aunt was right. For all purposes she and the feckless Cristobal appeared to be a perfect match.

As it was, Cristobal did not return in time to illuminate the New Year
’s Eve ball with his presence. And neither had the Frenchman returned to Bagdad.

This upset Jeanette far more than Cri
stobal’s absence upset Aunt Hermione. Almost every day that first month of 1863, Jeanette either sent Trinidad or rode herself to the Bagdad wharves to search among the forests of masts for the
Revenge
. Although she dreaded seeing the steamer, knowing what its captain would require of her later, she dreaded even more its absence, which meant a costly delay in her gunrunning.

It had been more than three months since his steamer had put out to sea. He should have returned by now. Had the
Revenge
been captured? Or had he merely decided it was not worth his while to run the Brazos Santiago’s Federal blockade? After all, there were other Confederate ports that would pay dearly for his services.

And Confederate women.

Damn the blackguard to Hell!

CHAPTE
R TEN

W
ith seeming nonchalance Jeanette leaned against the peeling stucco siding of the wretched cantina that fronted the busy Bagdad harbor. As she huddled in a thick, grimy navy coat, her boy’s disguise protected her from the flotsam and jetsam of humanity that crowded the streets. For more than a week her anxious gaze had constantly scanned the Gulf of Mexico’s horizon for the
Revenge
. At last, the sloop had put in with the high tide that chilly gray February morning.

Jammed into the coat
’s pockets, her hands clenched and unclenched furiously. Impossible! But too obviously true. Lighters moved to and from the
Revenge
, depositing their cargoes on the shore. As she watched through anger-filmed eyes, the loads of contraband were deposited in two separate areas for the customs officials. At one end of the wharf Solis supervised the loading of war materiel that presumably would go to the same warehouse from which she made her last collection.

But at the other end
—God rot the Frenchman in Hell! The contraband being stacked there under the supervision of one of Juarez’s soldiers was not the niceties desired by people deprived by the war—fine silks, foreign coffee, elegant dinnerware. No, the contraband was also war materiel. Arms and ammunition that the Frenchman had declared he would dare risk at only one price—her body! As surely as burros brayed, the Frenchman was not collecting a night in Juarez’s bed as the price for his services.

She had sold herself for naught! She could just have easily paid for the arms
and ammunition, the quinine and medical equipment, from the proceeds from the sale of the cotton. She had debased herself—no! The Frenchman had debased her. Her sacrifice for the Cause was reduced to a farce. She was little more than a whore! Oh, how the Frenchman must be laughing at her noble sacrifice! How amusing she must be to him!

Damn him!

Tears of helpless rage blinded her eyes during the stagecoach trip back to Matamoros and the journey from there to the Santa Maria Chapel where she changed back into her camisole and day dress. All that afternoon she paced her bedroom like a restless spirit would wander through a haunted house, knowing there would be no peace for the soul until she was avenged.

Several times the back of her hand came up t
o wipe away the tears that flooded her eyes. The beauty of the marriage she had shared with Armand was sullied beyond reclamation. No modern-day instrument, no thermometer or scale, could gauge the depth or intensity of her hatred. She abhorred herself only a little less than she did the Frenchman.

And she would tell him so in the most scathing terms and have done with the scoundrel, that scum of the sea, once and for all. She waited impatiently through the rest of the day for him to send word via Alejandro
that the supplies—and his invoice—were ready. Word did not come that day, and she had to suffer through one of Aunt Hermione’s poetry-reading parties. Browning, Carlyle, Poe— the literary giants of the day all had their works read. Washington thought the reading tedious, for after each lady had read and taken her seat the bird responded with a “Help!”

“
Quoth the Raven, Nevermore,” Jeanette hoped fervently.

She sat in the parlor with a vacuous smile pasted on her face, delivered pretentious praise for write
rs whose works held little interest for her, and trilled laughter reminiscent of Cristobal’s chortle. But she passed when her time came for a reading, and Aunt Hermione directed a worried frown at her.

Tia Juana was unlacing Jeanette
’s stays that night when Aunt Hermione came into the bedroom. Her lantern-jawed face puckered in an uneasy expression as she moved nervously about the bedroom, touching Jeanette’s brushes on the dressing table, fingering the ivory voile curtains at the window. “Is it that man you’ve been seeing, Jeanette?” she asked at last. “Have you two had a lovers’ quarrel?”

Jeanette sliced a glance at Tia Juana. The old Mexican woman wore a guarded expression. Shrugging the dress off her shoulders, she passed it to Tia Juana, commenting airi
ly, “Of course not, Aunt Hermione. I guess I’m just a little tired tonight.”

“
You’ve been riding too much, that’s what.” Her aunt peered at her closely. “And look at your complexion. Tanned! Dear Lord, Jeanette, there won’t be a man who’ll look at you if you don’t start protecting your skin. And look at your hands, will you!”

Jeanette pulled her hand from her aunt
’s grasp. “I’ll put some rosewater and glycerin on them before I go to bed.” Having extracted the promise that Jeanette would also wear her cotton gloves to bed, her aunt departed, leaving Jeanette to wait through a long, sleepless night for the Frenchman’s summons. It came early that next morning with Trinidad’s appearance at the kitchen door, talking in low tones with Tia Juana. The black giantess patted the little man’s leathery face consolingly. Jeanette wondered if the two had guessed what her mission had cost her or knew of the Frenchman’s deceit.

At the old chapel she changed into the boy
’s clothing. But this time she tucked Trinidad’s derringer into her pocket. With Trinidad at her side she rode the bay through Matamoros and on to Bagdad, rather than wait for the stage. As usual, Alejandro could be found pushing his water cart along the wharves. And, as usual, the boy contemptuously spit a wad of tobacco on the splintery planks on which they stood. At another time and place Jeanette would have had to smile at the dirty-faced splay-footed boy. If only she and Armand had had a child . . . Her hand ached to ruffle Alejandro’s shaggy brown hair.

As
it was, the tension, as strong as the cable that held the ships at anchor, permitted her only the merest physical motion. Trinidad put a hand on her arm. “I go weeth you,
sobrina
.”

She shook her head. She could not afford to involve him in what could well
be a violent confrontation. “Wait for me here, Trini. I’ll need your help.”

“
Sometheeng ees wrong. I sense eet.”

She forced a smile. “
Something
is
wrong—your imagination.” She turned her gaze back to the Gulf. It looked black under a sky boiling with gray, bilious clouds. An appropriate day, she thought grimly, for the task at hand.

A lighter bobbed the waves toward them. A woman clutched its railing with one hand and her hat with the other. Even with the porkpie hat hiding the blond hair, as the lighter d
rew closer Jeanette recognized the woman by her regal bearing. Rubia. The swine of a pirate had the insolence to make love to another woman before he coerced her to crawl into his bed. Oh, God, the meeting she always dreaded could not come quickly enough this time!

She was half-tempted to shoot the snake with the derringer she carried for protection, but she had not sunk so far that killing came that easy. Not yet.

Rubia’s gaze passed over the two dirty boys who took her place on the lighter with only the barest flicker of interest. But Jeanette’s eyes, blue-black as the ocean beneath her soil-stained hat, burned in wrath. The cold wind clawed at her clothing as she rode the lighter out to the
Revenge
, but she scarcely noticed how icy her face had become as she kept it relentlessly turned toward the Frenchman’s steamer.

Through the endless night she had thought this moment would never come. Now her breath was ragged; her heart thudded out its impatient fury. Her feet carried her swiftly up the rope ladder to
the deck. Solis met her with that same deferential smile that changed to an apologetic one as he held the blindfold to her eyes and knotted it behind her head. After binding her hands behind her, he led her toward his captain’s quarters. Her heart galloped like a racehorse’s. The door shut behind her. And though there was only silence in the cabin, she knew the Frenchman was there. She could scent him—as the lioness scents danger. Her enemy!

Waiting, she shifted her weight with the roll of the ship. Why did
n’t he say something? Then at last she heard his booted tread, bringing him nearer to her. When his hand, warm, firm, was laid on the side of her neck, she flinched. "
Mon âme, m'as-tu manqué
?” he asked in a husky voice.

She shrugged her shoulders. “
You know I don’t understand French.” It was said carelessly, in an attempt to disguise her rage.

His lips brushed hers, lingering at the comers of her mouth, but she sensed the hunger contained in the light kiss. For what seemed a long moment he stood before her,
so much taller. Silent. His hand gently rubbed along her neck, his thumb playing with the hollow at the base of her throat. As if he had come to some decision, he scooped his arm behind her knees and back to hold her against his chest. Her hat slipped from her head to plop on the plank floor. Then the bed rose up to meet her. She expected the attack now. The removal of her trousers and then being taken. She would let him believe he would have his way with her as usual—and at the last minute she would put an end to this damnable farce.

With some surprise she felt him stretch out on his side next to her. She thought she heard a sigh. She tensed, waiting for his hands at her clothing. But instead a callused finger traced the bowlike curvature of her upper lip.
He said something she could not understand. “Speak in English!” she snapped. “I know you understand it.”

His lips covered hers now, and his tongue pried her teeth for admittance. Her body would not heed the warning screamed by her brain. Traitorously her
teeth parted, her tongue met his, answered the question posed: her want of him. Her torso shifted to strain against his long, hard, well-aroused frame. When his lips at last released hers and his fingers went to her coat, her head moved frenziedly from one side to another. She could not give in to the lure of this man’s sensuality. She could not let the man who had defiled all that had been good and honorable seduce her so easily.

“
My—my hands,” she gasped. “Free them.” His fingers halted at her buttons. She was glad he could not see her eyes. “Please. I want to . . . I want to feel you . . . as you feel me.” Still he paused, and she blurted out, “I want to touch you . . . everywhere.”

She heard his sharp intake of breath. The waves slapped against the ship
’s hull while she waited for his answer. “
Non
.”

She gasped, thwarted. “
You tricked me,” she cried out in a tear-rasped voice. “You—you opportunist, you scurvy swine. You have been selling firearms to the Mexicans!” She hiccoughed on her tears but hurried on, “And I bet you didn’t take a soldier to bed as your price!”

“
Non
,” he said again, gently but firmly. “
Tu te trompes
. ”

She cared not what his reply was. There was only her hurt, her anger. “
You rutting beast!” It came out a hoarse whisper. “Do you think I would ever let you touch me again?”

Her hands itched to scratch his eyes out, to mark his flesh as he had marked her soul. With an enormous effort, spurred by her outrage, she twisted her arms, struggling to free her hands. “
Doucement
,” he said in a calm voice that only infuriated her more so that she was kicking and screaming expletives she was scarcely aware she knew.

He wrestled with her, trying to pin her motionless. And that was when the derringer went off. The explosion ripped thro
ugh the room. The acrid odor of gunpowder filled her nostrils—as the Frenchman’s surprised groan filled her ears. The sound of pounding feet on the deck echoed outside the cabin, and the door’s hinges creaked as it was shoved open.

“
Madre de Dios
!” she heard Solis swear.

Hands were jerking her roughly from beneath the dead weight of the Frenchman and thrusting her outside the cabin. Another voice said in the King
’s English, “You blimey little slut! There will be hell to pay for this!”

The English sailor lef
t her then, and she huddled against a damp, briny coil of thick hemp rope. It seemed forever that she sat there, growing cold as the sun hid behind the clouds and the wind off the Gulf blew angrily about her. She shivered, more with terror than cold. What had she done? How could she take another life so carelessly. So this was what war did to people. Hardened them. Made them hold life so cheaply. And now she had destroyed the only lifeline she could establish to run the cotton. Her noble plan to aid the Confederacy was shattered just because her pride had been trampled.

Men were right. Women could not make good soldiers. They allowed their emotions to get in the way. And her tears soaked her blindfold as she waited for judgment to be passed on her.