LAVENDER BLUE (historical romance) (11 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

T
he tall figure, so dark it almost blended with the night’s velvety backdrop, stood on a narrow wrought-iron balcony that was identical to a score of other balconies that decorated the homes in the French section of Brownsville. Settling one hip on the balustrade, the man leaned back against the iron-laced column and, lifting his flushed face to the frost-scored February wind, exhaled a wreath of smoke.

“
Monsieur, you are still much too ill to be out,” a little man, a dwarf, reproved in French.

With an amused twitch to his lips the man looked down at his valet. “
Fresh air is beneficial to a fever,
n’est-ce pas
, Henri?”

“
Non
!” reprimanded the dwarf, a Frenchman of the Gascon type with glittering black eyes and thick, coarse, jet-black hair. “Not when you’ve been severely wounded and you persist in standing bare-chested on a winter night!”  He padded over to the man and passed up to him a Turkish silk brocade dressing gown of an elegant cerulean blue. “At least drape this over your shoulders, monsieur.”

Hampered by bandaged ribs, the man allowed Henri to wrap the dressing gown about him. When the dwarf left, muttering dire predictions of consumption, the man returned to his cigar
—a long-nine brought out on the Havana run. Still, he was destined to be interrupted once again, this time by a slender, wiry Mexican.

“
Caramba
, Cristobal!” The gaunt young man crossed the balcony’s threshold. “You should be abed!”

Cristobal emitted a grunt of smoke. It was hopeless. His two friends were worse than the do
ddering old sister at the convent who had bandaged the gun wound. “How about sharing a glass of brandy, Solis?”

“
Bah! A keg would be more like it. It’s the only way you’ll get the young woman out of your mind.” He punched a finger at Cristobal’s chest, who winced. “She has claws, eh?”

“
At last,” Cristobal said drily, “we’ve found something we can agree on.”

“
I warned you that you were playing with fire.” Solis ambled off to the sideboard in the adjoining room. “A little spitfire.”

“
A spitfire no taller than an Enfield rifle and weighing less than a keg of whiskey.”

“
Why did you ever agree to run guns for her,
amigo
?" he threw over his shoulder.

Cristobal inhaled one last time and tossed the cigar over the railing. “
I’ve asked myself that a hundred times if I’ve asked it once.” And he knew the answer. When someone wants something badly enough, it doesn’t matter the terms or conditions.

And he had wanted her since
—since he was a boy. The lissome girl had been a bright flame dancing with warmth, enchanting two little boys, keeping pace with them, daring them, taunting them, laughing with them. And even after the
gringos
had taken his father’s ancient land holdings, after the
Yanqui
courts of law had confiscated what should have been his inheritance—one hundred
sitios
of land granted by the King of Spain in 1757—he still wanted the
Yanqui
sea captain’s daughter. Through all those years of his family living in poverty, living off the bounty of French relatives who made his family grovel, he had not forgotten Jen.

On
e day he would return to Texas, a land almost as large as the Republic of France, as a man in his own right. He struggled for an education, working the docks of Nantes to pay for a tutor. Had he also in mind returning one day to win the
Yanqui
girl who possessed all the pluck of a worldly adventurer?

He didn
’t know. He never assessed the feeling for her that was so much a part of him. But during the years he was trying to establish a line of packet ships between New York and Nantes, he had not lost that want of her. There was not a night in all the hellholes he had slept in that the mere memory of those lively, lavender-blue eyes did not invade his heart’s light.

He had told himself the feeling was only one of nostalgia. Even when he learned she had married his best friend and his guts ached with the thought of her belonging to anyone but him, he told himself that wer
e he ever to meet her again, she would be a plump little wife approaching middle age.

Sacré
tonnerre
! When he returned to Brownsville, he found Jeanette St. John was even more attractive as a woman. Character now molded her face. Had Armand been responsible for that growth of her spirit, that vitality? He thought not. Armand had been a dreamer, not a catalyst.

But Jen had wanted a man who sighed longingly in fourteen-line iambic-pentameter poetry. And so he had been willing to play the effete fop in order t
o enjoy the flame of her presence—although the pretense had served him on innumerable occasions when dealing with the Federal Army and Navy, neither of which would normally divulge confidential information to a blockade runner.

As the hapless, lazy hidalgo
, he had been able to learn much more—for instance that Brownsville, Galveston, and Indianola each had three Federal blockaders, sloops-of- war on station with two actually on duty at all times. They lay off these towns’ long white sandy beaches, along which continually strolled Texans to watch these men-of-war. And the men-of-war waited, knowing that when a favorable moment arose—a fog bank, a stormy, dark night—the blockade runners would make a dash for it.

Yes, knowing that a Federal sloop
’s engine had blown, or in one instance that an iron-clad had every man down with yellow fever, helped him immeasurably.

Solis returned with two glasses and passed one to him. The mestizo
’s dark eyes glowed in their sockets like coals. “You know that it was wrong, Cristobal—taking the young woman as you did, bargaining with her for . .

“
For her love,” Cristobal murmured harshly, not bothering to hide the pain in his face.

“
To Juarez’s victory over the French pigs,” Solis said, raising his glass and tossing down the contents. “Bah!” He wiped the back of his sleeve across his mouth. “You really have become a hidalgo.
Aguardiente
goes down much better.”

Cristobal cut an amused smile at the friend who as a child had faithfully served his father; faithfully enough to follow him
willingly into the exile of poverty in France. Keeping with that tradition, Solis now faithfully served him. He raised his glass to Solis. “To Juarez—to Mexico.”

“
Tell me,
amigo
, why did you ever agree to run the guns for the little boy-woman?”

Cristobal
shrugged. “I told you—that it was to help fight the
Yanquis
. Did they not take my inheritance?”

"Si, but the
Yanquis
support our own cause—Juarez’s government. And you were already running guns against the French, when she came to you. Why take more chances with the
Yanquis
—when your services are much more needed by Juarez? And don’t tell me it was for a woman— the boy-woman. You already have enough women—
Dios,
Rubia is enough woman to last you until the mescal’s worm rots.”

Cristobal tossed down the brandy
—and was reminded of Jen, of the way her face had blanched then washed back in crimson when she so boldly swallowed the entire glass of brandy. The corners of his mouth twitched. It did seem pretty damned silly to tell someone you would risk your life for a single night in the arms of one special woman. He had known it would be the only chance he would ever have to love her as he had always dreamed of doing.

And, then too, there was the knowledge that if he did not agree to run the guns for her, with her wi
ll and determination she would eventually find a way—and at what price? Her midnight visit to the captain of Matamoros’s National Guard proved that. Did the little fool not realize the danger in which she was placing herself? And then where would her grand idea of serving the Confederacy be?

He sighed, relieved at least that he had had the foresight to keep a tail on her at all times, for all the good it had done in that last little encounter she had with the two highwaymen. The tail had not counted on Jen
making such good time. But then the tail did not know Jen the way he did. No one did.

Not her father. No, not even Armand. God rot his noble memory.

“Another brandy, Solis.”

“The Lord have mercy on us!”

The shriek only whispered through Jeanette
’s dream, and her legs and arms stirred in lazy protest. Sleepily her hand groped for the mosquito netting that had been draped across the bar against the annual swarm of insects that took wing with spring’s warm weather—as if the netting could shut out the repeated shrieks for heavenly intervention.

The cries only became louder, and then the netting was jerked open. Groggily Jeanette slit one lid. Wide-eyed and snorting, her aunt looked like a horse just confronted with a rattling sidewinder. “
They’re here! Listen! The guns. They’ll rape us all! Get your clothes, Jeanette. We’re going to the convent.”

Jeanette sat up and pushed her braid over her shoulder. She tried to focus her eyes
—and her thoughts. Aunt Hermione stood before her in a high-necked muslin nightgown with a spoon bonnet perched on the bird’s-nest hair. Jeanette gave up and, shutting her eyes, languorously stretched her arms.

“
Whatever are you talking about, Aunt Hermione?” she yawned.

She had spent a l
ong night supervising the moving of cotton bales from the church to the warehouse at Bagdad. She gingerly rubbed the small of her back. In the haste to beat the dawn, she had even assisted the
campesinos
in hefting the heavy bales.

With the sleepy smile of
a satisfied cat she stretched again. Things could not be working out better. Fortunately for the Cause, the cursed Frenchman had survived. And apparently his close brush with death had deterred him from further pressing his charms on her. Miracle of miracles, Alejandro had passed the message to Trinidad that the Frenchman required only the standard five thousand dollars for each round trip. It still left her enough profit to cover Columbia’s operating expenses, though her reduced share from the sale of the cotton decreased the amount of war supplies she bought off the
Revenge
. But as long as she did not have to see the Frenchman again, it was enough.

So why had she awakened with the name Kitt on her lips?

“What am I talking about?” her aunt echoed. “Land’s sake, girl! Can’t you hear the explosions? Trinidad says Federal landing boats are shelling Brazos Santiago beach with field guns. Hurry!”

“
Hell and damnation!”

“
Jeanette!” Aunt Hermione gasped.

Jeanette sprang from the bed. Mechanically she began yanking
clothing from the wardrobe and tossing the articles on the bed. Her camisole, the day dress of magenta faille, her corset. The steel hoops of the cage crinoline got twisted in the bedsheets. Drat! She had known to expect an invasion by the Federal armies. Her Morocco gaiters— no, the heavy brogans would be better. She began lacing the high tops. The Yankees couldn’t permit the Confederacy’s contraband trade out of Bagdad to continue its phenomenal growth and still hope to win the war. Where was her polonaise? But she had counted on the invasion coming when Fort Brown was better garrisoned—and better supplied.

She jerked on the hoops, and they became even further entangled with each other and the bedding. “
Get Tia Juana up here to lace me, Aunt Hermione,” she muttered in distraction, fighting with the crinoline that seemed to have taken on perverse animated capabilities.

The great house locked up at last, Aunt Hermione was ready to evacuate. Accompanied by a grim Jeanette and Tia Juana, who muttered darkly abo
ut Yankee scum, the old woman ordered Trinidad to drive them to the convent. The shelling, which had sounded only like a distant drum, increased in volume to resemble crashing thunder. From the fan-leaved palm trees along the River Road an ashy pall could be seen hanging like a curtain just beyond Brownsville. The city’s streets were empty of morning traffic when Trinidad reined the carriage to a halt before the gray-stoned convent.

Jeanette made no move to get out of the carriage, and Aunt Hermione said im
patiently, “Dear, do hurry. The beastly soldiers could enter the city at any moment.” “I’m not going to the convent right now,” Jeanette answered, just as impatiently. She had to find out exactly what was happening. “Tia Juana, guard Aunt Hermione for me.”

“
Have you lost your mind, child!” Aunt Hermione shrieked. “There’s going to be rape and murder and—and, get down from that seat this instant, Jeanette St. John!”

Jeanette laughed gaily. “
Fie, Aunt Hermione. How often does one get to see the real fireworks? It’s been deadly dull, and I mean to enjoy the excitement!”

Tia Juana smacked a good-bye kiss on Trinidad
’s forehead, but Aunt Hermione’s mouth fell open. Her bird cage dropped to the ground, powdering the old woman’s skirts with a thick white film of dust. For once she disregarded Washington’s shrieked imprecations. “I know you’re a flighty girl, but this is sheer madness!”

Jeanette waved merrily and instructed Trinidad to drive on to Brazos Santiago. “
I’m writing your father!” Aunt Hermione yelled after the departing carriage. “Do you hear me, Jeanette St. John?”

The carriage rocked on down the road that in the dry season lay ankle deep in dust and in the rainy season was a sea of mud. Jeanette felt a twinge of guilt at the worry she was causing her aun
t. But she had no other choice than to carry on the charade of a giddy young widow. At least until the South won the war and Armand’s memory was vindicated. Besides, she was a grown woman now, and there was nothing her father could do to stop her.