Read an Excerpt
From One
The gathering was sparse. At the board of Commandant Chepart, with its cloth of Flemish linen scattered with bread crumbs and ringed with spilled wine, there were a number of conspicuously empty chairs. It was not to be wondered at, of course, not when every day brought fresh rumors of unrest among the Indians. The village of the Natchez tribe was so close and tempers so uncertain that few cared to risk being caught on the road at dawn, should the evening be prolonged.
Elise Laffont had felt a qualm or two herself. She did not usually attend such affairs as the commandant's soiree, nor would she have this evening if it had not been most important. She had kept to herself during the past three years since her husband had died. Some considered it, she knew, a becoming show of grief and modesty in such a young widow. The truth was that she preferred her own company and had far too much to do managing the estate left to her for frivolous amusement to be an attraction.
From the head of the table came a roar of laughter. Chepart, chuckling at his own joke, signaled the servant behind his chair to refill the glasses of his guests with the excellent Madeira that was to accompany the dessert course. The light of the candles in the crystal chandelier, hanging from the rough rafters overhead, gleamed among the waves of Elise's honey-brown hair, bright despite their dusting of white powder, as she turned her head to glance at her host.
The warm amber of her eyes turned cool with the disdain that rose to her finely molded features.
Two places farther along the board, Madame Marie Doucet leaned across her husband to catch Elise's eye. Her plump face was alight with good-natured amusement and pleasure. "Commandant Chepart is quite the bon vivant tonight, is he not?"
"Certainly he thinks so," Elise said under her breath.
"What was that, chère? I didn't quite catch it."
The older woman had been quite pretty once, in a doll-like fashion. She had kept the quick coquettish mannerisms and light tone of voice despite the gray in her fading blonde hair. She had been a good friend to Elise, however, in the past few years and a good neighbor who lived less than a third of a league away. Elise had learned to overlook much of the silliness for the sake of the kind heart underneath.
Elise shook her head in quick dismissal. "Nothing."
The commandant of Fort Rosalie, the representative of His Royal Majesty King Louis XV here in the wilderness known as Louisiana, was indeed given to good living. Elise, with a slight curl of her mouth, which was smooth and a trifle wide, thought that he was more of a debauchee than a bon vivant. Chepart had been a tankard friend of her husband. He and Vincent Laffont had spent many an evening drinking each other under the table and guffawing at crude stories. When her husband had had the consideration to drown himself while fishing on the Mississippi, the commandant had come to her. He had been all concern, most solicitous of her comfort and well-being; so solicitous, in fact, that he had pressed her down upon a settle and thrust his hand into her bodice to fondle her breasts. She had snatched a wooden knitting needle from the basket in the corner of the settle and done her best to skewer him with it, then had taken down Vincent's musket from over the fireplace and ordered the commandant from her property. When he had gone, she had cried for the first time since Vincent's death, tears of rage and disgust, and of gladness that she need never again submit to any man.
It was distressing, then, that she must now ask a favor of Commandant Chepart. She did not like to accept his hospitality, much less endure his company; still, she would do it until she had what she wanted from the fat fool.
She allowed her gaze to wander around the room, noting the jewel-colored Turkish rug underfoot, the silk hangings at the shuttered, glassless windows, the Watteau pastoral scene that hung above the enormous fireplace, where red coals pulsed with fire and a black log smoldered. How out of place these things seemed in the simplicity of the house provided for the fort's commander. With the elaborate table setting and the ridiculous grandeur of the crystal chandelier that shed its light upon them, the furnishings were an indication of both the commandant's pretentious arrogance and his ambition. Chepart intended to use his office as a stepping-stone to greater things, perhaps an appointment at court, but in the meantime it pleased him to live in comfortable splendor, regardless of how his underhanded dealings with the commission merchants might affect supplies for the fort and the men who manned it.
What means could she use to persuade someone like Chepart to listen to her? She did not have the funds to offer him monetary inducement, and she refused to consider bartering that commodity she felt might interest him most: herself. But perhaps she was wrong in thinking that he would want something in return for what she would ask. It was not so great a request, not so unusual after all, however much it might mean to her. It would be no loss to the commandant to allow the prisoners now in the guardhouse at the fort to build a storage barn and poultry yard for her.
The men were not dangerous, being charged officially with nothing more serious than insubordination, for all Chepart's railing about sedition and a blatant attempt to undermine his authority. The crime committed had been the spirited representation by these men, all of them officers of the fort, of the wisdom of preparing a defense against the coming Indian rising. That there was going to be one, they were positive. Their information had come straight from the Indian village of White Apple, from women who had heard it direct from Tattooed Arm, mother of the Great Sun, who was the ruler of the Natchez.
Chepart had not been impressed by their source. He had declared that French soldiers should know better than to be swayed by their Indian whores and that his officers would learn better if he had to whip the skin from their backs to bring home the lesson. No puny Indian tribe would dare to challenge the might of France. Hadn't the diplomacy of the French governors of Louisiana always ensured amicable relations with their Indian allies? They were as children in the hands of men of intelligence and guile. Besides, no Indian chieftain would dare to order an attack knowing that the armed force of France would be turned against his people for such treachery.
In Elise's opinion, it was just such blatant disdain for the Natchez, just such lack of judgment in dealing with them, that was the reason for her pressing need for a barn and fenced yard. It was Chepart's bungling that had caused the recent unrest of the Indians, had turned them into marauders who took delight in carrying off her chickens and ducks, hogs and calves. Not that the Natchez had any great appreciation for property rights at the best of times, but everyone knew that their depredations in the last months were made from a sense of ill-usage and spite. And every day they became bolder.
Unconsciously Elise turned her amber gaze upon the corpulent figure of her host. Chepart, catching her eye, raised his glass to her. His expression held a hint of barely concealed lust as he surveyed her high-piled hair, the proud tilt of her chin, and the determined self-possession of her features in the oval of her face. He lifted his hand to twist a curl of his long, full wig where it fell over his shoulder as he permitted his overwarm gaze to drop to the low bodice of her gold brocade gown, which cupped the gentle swells of her breasts. His thick tongue came to lick his lips, leaving them wet.
