Underground Captive (16 page)

Underground Captive
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
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He sighed with dejection, bitter misery piercing his anguished soul.  Seeing his father, a week ago with the other planters, brought on unrelenting homesickness.  More than anything he wanted to go home and make peace with Charles.  With Nicki back, it took all the willpower he possessed not to return to Crescent Wood.  He missed his sister.  She was his best friend.  The only thing he had never told her about was his love for Yvonne, the mulatto girl....

    
             
Manda placed a bottle and a glass before him.  "Here's ya whiskey, Sean."

    
             
In response, Ricard nodded distractedly.  When he realized she still lingered at his side, he turned his head away.  When Manda went to the next table, Ricard grabbed the bottle of whiskey, poured it, and nearly filled his glass to the rim.

    
             
Yvonne had died in childbirth two years ago; his son was stillborn.  Thinking of Yvonne's death always hurt deeply.
             
The same went for the man and woman in the cabin.  That harsh night haunted him.  He hated violence of any kind but sometimes it was necessary.  It had been his only way out three years ago.  He was sure the woman died in his arms.  He would never forget the promise she made that her husband would avenge her death nor the terror in her green eyes as the knife was plunged into her chest. 

    
             
Seeing the gunshot wound in that man's head...God, he'd remember that violence with eternal clarity.

             
After securing Yvonne's passage on a steamer bound for Baltimore, he'd gone back to the cabin the next night to bury them but their bodies were already gone.

    
             
The muscles in his jaw tensed and without needing to look at himself, he knew his expression had turned tight and grim.  Whatever the reason for the bloodshed that night, it still sickened him.

    
             
Those people had been strangers.  Yvonne had been his wife.

    
             
He gripped his glass and took a generous swallow.

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Damn! Where was that money hungry toad, Captain Duplessis?  He didn't have time to sit and swirl into almost unbearable reminiscing.  Besides Ricard didn't want to run into Louis Aupre like he had the last time he was here.  Just what the hell Louis had been doing here would be a most interesting story.

    
             
Of course, Ricard denied that he
was
Ricard, hoping Louis would attribute alcohol to mistaking him for someone else.  But he didn't think Louis had been convinced.  Even with his disguise of a thick beard, Irish brogue and fake name, Louis still pulled on his damned beard.  Luckily, it was real.  That didn't take away the fact that the beggar had a lot of nerve.  That was one of the times Ricard had desperately wanted to resort to violence.  He could have thrashed Louis for his persistence.

    
             
Taking a second swift gulp of his drink, he decided he'd wait half an hour more before leaving.  If Captain Duplessis wasn't there by then, he'd find the sonofabitch and throttle him within an inch of his miserable life.  Ricard groaned at his conflicting thoughts.  If he hated violence so much why was he so eager to resort to it?  A good tongue lashing, he decided, would be effective for the owner of the heretofore Southern Beauty.

His eyes well adjusted to the room, he studied Manda's ample breasts as

she flaunted them to a brutish beast of a man.  Feeling the tightening of his loins, he groaned once again.  Without preamble, he drained his glass of whiskey.

    
             
Pouring another drink, he decided that after the opera tonight he would visit one of the brothels.

    
             
He threw back his head and laughed at his imprudence in going to the opera.  No doubt there would be many familiar faces there.  If Louis recognized him, wouldn't they?

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Ricard tucked that possibility away.  When he left New Orleans three years ago, he was still a gangly, awkward, unsure boy.  The only reason Louis had known him was because they had been in France together and had spent a lot of time with each other.

    
             
Precaution be damned.  He was going to the opera tonight so the voice of the diva would soothe the disquiet in his soul.

*  *  *   

             
Nicollette dragged herself inside the manor. 
Mon Dieu
! she'd spent a long day in the saddle.  Still, she headed for the music room.  Reading, the opera, and music always brought tranquility to her soul.

    
             
She would give her father a good tongue lashing!  He was looking for a new overseer in New Orleans.  She, damn her stupidity, volunteered to take the job until her father could replace
Monsieur
Williams, lucky, pilfering bastard that he was.

She couldn't believe
Monsieur
Williams was only fined and then let go! That incompetent little
Monsieur
Laurent, the good constable, said Williams hadn't actually done anything wrong.  The fine was a result of his assault on Nicki.  Even with her father's political connections,
Monsieur
Laurent let the man off.  Apparently,
Monsieur
Williams had connections also.  One
Monsieur
Edmond Falgout, who immediately hired
Monsieur
Williams as his overseer.

    
             
Nicki stopped in her tracks, a disconcerting chill running along her spine.  Not many people wanted Edmond Falgout as an enemy.  She took in a deep breath to calm her thinking.  Edmond Falgout wasn't her enemy, she reminded herself.  Her upset came from the knowledge that a slave was beaten to death at New Hope by
Monsieur
Williams under
Monsieur
Falgout's direction.

    
             
She continued on to the music room.  Why didn't the Black Rider go to
Monsieur
Falgout's New Hope more? 
Mais non
!  Was she siding with the Black Rider? 
Oui
.  But only in this instance.  There was no reason to treat a slave like an animal.  After all, slaves
were
humans.

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She wouldn't even consider the Black Rider's activities such a personal affront if he didn't visit Crescent Wood so regularly.  He was threatening her ancestral home, not her way of life like the abolitionists did.  New slaves could always be bought to replace the slaves the Black Rider stole.

    
             
Nicki sat at the piano that stood near a pair of French doors which led to the veranda.  She began playing a classical piece, almost immediately switching to a Christmas carol.  Christmas was over a month away but Nicki was already pulling out decorations, ordering new gowns, and buying gifts.  She'd even bought a gift for Ricard and Jared.

    
             
She stopped playing and leaned gloomily against the piano.  Although her mother had been dead for five years, this was only the second holiday season for Nicki without Marie-Claude at Crescent Wood and her first without Ricard.     Resting her chin in one hand, she idly tapped the piano keys with the other.

    
             
She wondered how Jared was.  She really should have gone to Fleming Carriage Company to thank him for his rescue.

    
             
Nicki was curious to know what the stamp on his carriages meant.  It had become the status symbol for the planters.  It looked like some sort of crest or coat of arms.  A crowned lion with an upraised paw wielding a sword sat atop a caped armor head.  The lion and armor rested on a gold shield where a black, masted ship sat in the middle.  There was a white banner above the lion with the words
ESPOIR, FOI, CHARITE, SOLIDE,
printed in black letters.

    
             
Why would Jared use what was so obviously an ancient crest as his stamp? Hope, faith, charity, and solid.  A motto, perhaps?

    
             
"
Ma petit
, there you are."

    
             
Nicki looked toward the door.  "
Tante
Blanche! I didn't know you were here."

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Blanche sat down on the rose-colored sofa.  "
Oui, cherie
.  I arrived two hours ago.  When I got here, Sophie told me you were in the cane fields."

    
             
Her mood brightening, Nicki laughed.  "
Oui
.  I volunteered for the job.  Pa Pa was in a bind so I couldn't refuse."

    
             
"Posh! Your
pere
truly makes no sense at times," she said, her vexation evident in her features and her tone.   "He complains of your behavior until my ears pop than he has you out in the fields.  I will never understand him."

    
             
Nicki sighed.  Clasping her hands together, she sat in lonely silence for a moment.  "
Tante
Blanche, what is so important in New Orleans?  I know I haven't been back at Crescent Wood very long, but Pa Pa never spent so much time at our house on Rue Dauphine."

"Rue Dauphine?"

    
             
Worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, Nicki sighed again.

    
             
"
Cherie
, I have an idea."  Blanche stood and walked over to Nicki, taking her hands into her own.  "Why don't we go to the opera tonight?  It will bring you out of your doldrums.  Your father will be surprised, to say the least, that you have come to the city.  We can spend the night on Rue Dauphine."

    
             
"Oh,
Tante
Blanche, do you mean it?" Nicki glanced at the silver timepiece resting on the mantel above the fireplace.  "It's already five o'clock.  Will we have enough time to make it to the city?"

    
             
"
Oui
.  Quickly, pick your gown," Blanche instructed as Nicki pulled her hands out of her grasp.   "We will change in the city.  Odessa can prepare your bath and fix your hair."

  
             
"I'm going to wear my hair untethered.  Jared likes it that way."  Realizing what she let slip, Nicki gasped.  "So does Ricard, Tante Blanche," she amended indignantly, standing from the cushioned bench.

"
Oui
, but your brother will not be there," Blanche goaded, a thoughtful

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smile curving her mouth.

    
             
"Neither will
Monsieur
Fleming!" Nicki shouted defensively.  "I like my hair untethered also.  You know that,
tante
."

    
             
"There is no need to yell, Nicollette," Blanche scolded, shrugging nonchalantly.  "I was merely teasing."

Nicki glared at Blanche and flounced out of the room.

    
             
The telling blush on Nicki's face assured Blanche that Jared Fleming had reached the woman in her niece.

*  *  *

    
             
"You seem preoccupied, Charles," Antoinette Vermierre said, laying beside Charles in her large four-poster bed at her apartment in the Pontalba building.

"Forgive me, Antoinette.  It's Nicki.  Her determination to find her

brother is frightening.  She was almost killed last week.  If Jared hadn't gone to get her, she would have been."  His deep frustrations showed in the tautness of his jaw and in his salt and pepper eyebrows, drawn together in anguish.

    
             
"You owe
Monsieur
Fleming a lot." Antoinette laid a hand on his bare chest.  "Nicki still insists on searching for Ricard?"

    
             
"
Oui
." Charles took her hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed it gently.  "But I wonder how Jared found out where she was going?" 

Antoinette drew back to look directly at him.  "Have you asked him?"

    
             
"I haven't had the chance.  But the question is gnawing at me."

    
             
"Does it really matter?"

    
             
"
Non
, it doesn't!  But I don't want my son-in-law frequenting such places!"

    
             
Antoinette's soft laughter bubbled in the air.  "It's not your business where
Monsieur
Fleming goes.  Remember, he isn't your son-in-law yet and may never be.  Remember also, that your
son
was spotted in that place."