By the Bay (12 page)

After the breakfast rush, she took a few minutes to run home and check on her sister. To her surprise she found Juanita, today’s caretaker, smiling and serene. “She is much better today,”
said
the girl who was not out of her teens yet, but trained to responsibility by being the oldest girl in a large family, “Christine is very happy today.”

Florence
could hardly believe it, but when she entered the house to find Christine up and dressed and sitting on the living room sofa while she listened to a radio program her own body seemed to relax a little from some of its stress.

Being on constant alert for Christine’s welfare was taking a toll on her physically and mentally.

“Hi, Sis,” she said, bending to brush a kiss against the other woman’s cheek and then seating herself on the sofa beside her. “Feeling better today?”

“I’m fine,
Florence
, but you look exhausted. You work yourself to death in that restaurant
.”

“Most times I like being busy,”
Florence
brushed aside the complaint.

Christine nodded. “I don’t have enough to do. You and Jillian take such good care of me.”

They sat and chatted about the old days, remembering times together and recounting familiar stories of family and friends from their growing up days.

Florence
loved these times when Christine was herself again and made the most of them, basking in the affection of the big sister who had raised her. Long ago she’d given up hoping that such moments would go on and on and that Christine
would be
c
u
red of this strange ailment that took reality away from her.

“Remember,” Christine said suddenly, her expression dreamy, “when we first met Davis. He came by the house to see Papa about buying a horse and Papa invited him to dinner.”

Florence
nodded. “I remember
that
dinner. He was such a handsome man.”

“And still is.” Christine smiled.

Florence
wasn’t about to argue that point. “He didn’t seem to pay much attention to the
meal
, he was to
o
occupied with noticing you.”

“It was love at first sight,” Christine admitted. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him either. We married a month later and came down here to live. Times were hard and jobs impossible to come by, but Davis got hired right away as a policeman. He always make
s
such a good impression.”

Florence
could believe that. Bitterly she wished her sister had never met Davis Blake.

Christine sighed deeply. “I was in such despair to think I’d lost him forever,” she confided, “and I am in such bliss to have my darling
home
again.”

Florence
leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Well, Christine’s moments of sanity had been nice while they lasted.

Chapter Sixteen

Jillian loved the feeling of the long skirt of her gown swirling softly about her legs as she waltzed across the ballroom in Philippe’s arms. Even more she loved being held
close to him
.

For a little she allowed herself to savor the feeling of being the heroine in a costume drama
, a
sense
that briefly intensified as they drifted past the spidery tall old man and his little dumpling of a wife, such a mismatched pair and yet so devoted to each other.  Andrew Jackson and his wife Rachel, she couldn’t believe she was actually seeing them for real.

But then, if Philippe was right and she suspected he was, this was not her own history she was seeing, but some strange alternative, a world possibly created when Philippe had first inadvertently moved across Laguna Madre, the bay at Port Isabel, and through the years to another time.

Somehow without meaning to, they’d messed things up and now it was their responsibility to straighten it all out, or when they went back they might find a really screwed up world. Maybe the Germans would have won the war and America become a captive nation. She couldn’t allow anything like that to happen.

And right now it all seemed to depend on being
able
to pull the Baratarians back to support the American troops.

The governor and his lady had danced the first dance and now they stood on the sideline, smiling benevolently on the dancers, but from the first moment they arrived, it had been all too obvious that the governor hated Philippe with every fiber of his being and was finding it really difficult to even pretend to be polite.
It was only the fact that the privateer was his link to the quickly fading hope of support from the Baratarian buccaneers that kept him from immediately arresting his guest and throwing him into prison.

Jillian kept wondering what the fabled Jean
Lafitte
would do under these circumstances, but Philippe seemed to have no such doubts. He smiled infrequently, but seemed like a man having a charming time with his beautiful wife, quietly in command not only of himself but of the situation.

His only complaint, whispered softly to her, was that since they’d been transported to an alternate reality, why
had
fate or a great spirit or whoever arranged this allowed them to keep their mixture of memories of that other time. It would be so much easier if what lay in their minds was only one line of memories.

She flashed a smile up at him. “Beside the point.”

“So true.”

“At least we know why people weren’t speaking to you on the street. It wasn’t that they didn’t recognize you, they were scared to acknowledge you.”

His dark eyebrows rose slightly. “Because they were afraid of the government or afraid of me?”

“A little of both, I suspect.”

He nodded. “I know most of these people from my association with the
Lafitte
s, but a few are unfamiliar. Probably shifted in with the change.”

“What happens next?”

“Significant meeting with the governor and the general in about half an hour. We’ll know more after that.”

“I don’t suppose that ‘we’ includes me?”

His smile was regretful. “I would much prefer having my first mate at my side, but that is not possible.”

“First mate? I thought that was Mac.”

“He is first mate on board the Belle Fleur and my good and loyal friend. You are the first mate of my life as I am of yours or so I hope.”

She sighed. Frenchmen had such a way with words. ”But you still can’t take me to that meeting?”

“No, it is impossible. To these others,” he made a slight gesture with one long, slim hand to indicate the dancers around him, “you are my lady wife and should not be bothered with such troublesome details.” His expression hardened into solemnity. “Do not leave the ball room while I am gone. Stay in public sight. I do not think they can offer you harm in such a situation.”

“And I’ve got my pistol tucked in a little pocket
pinned
under my skirt in case of necessity.”

He laughed softly. “I pray there will be no such necessity, but I am proud that my first mate has come prepared.”

“Speaking of first mates, have you heard from Mac and the crew?”

He nodded. “I ordered them into the bayous where they know their way much better than do the Americans. They wait for orders there.”

The dance ended and they strolled to the sidelines, Philippe nodding to those he recognized and occasionally stopping as he introduced her to another couple.

Even though it was winter, the evening was warm and Philippe secured for her a glass of orangeade spiced with a tingle of something extra. She felt self-conscious, fully aware that while nobody was looking directly at them, many were sending covert glances in the direction of the buccaneer and his lady.

She didn’t see when the signal was
given
, but he bent to kiss her hand. “Remain in plain sight, beloved. I will return soon.”

He moved unobtrusively across the room toward one of the open doorways and she was fully aware she wasn’t the only one watching him depart. Glancing quickly around, she saw Madame Jackson was now chatting with a group of ladies that included the governor’s lady. Neither of those gentlemen was in sight so she felt sure this so important meeting was about to begin.

Waiting was the hardest thing and so often fell to the lot of the female sex. Still, no one seemed to be eager to talk with the
bucaneer’s
wife so she had little option but to drift over against the wall with the neglected young ladies who adorned  it and try to look a whole lot more comfortable than she felt.

The dance now was one of elaborate patterns and she could no more have gracefully participated than she could have sw
u
m home to Port Isabel. She made an attempt to strike up a conversation with a neighboring wallflower, but was icily rebuffed as the girl moved away to stand closer to her
chaperone
.

Perhaps she had imbibed too much of the fruit
drink
because after a while she began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. She needed to find a bathroom and fairly quickly and yet Philippe had insisted she must not leave the ballroom.

Finally deciding that even Philippe would not expect her to remain to the point of public humiliation, she edged her way to the n
earest exit and, discreetly inquired
of a female servant the location of the nearest ladies’ room. So directed, she found surprising amenities such as she’d not seen since leaving home, and luxuries such as scented soap and warmed towels on which to dry her hands after washing them in the marble basin.

Feeling much relieved, she made an adjustment to a lock of hair that was trying to slip out of its careful arrangement, and then went back out into the corridor of the governor’s graceful mansion, intending to immediately return to the ballroom and pretend she’d never disobeyed the one command her lord and master had given. She grinned at the thought and was halfway back when suddenly she was seized, a hand placed over her mouth
,
and dragged to a side door.

No one seemed to notice, or didn’t want to appear to notice until they were outside when she heard familiar swearing and yelled, “Mac!” as her would-be rescuer attacked.

Unluckily even though her kidnapper went flying as the burly pirate struck him, others
immediately
took his place and both she and Mac were quickly in custody
, the first mate having been rendered unconscious and bleeding by blows to the head,
and carried away to an unknown destination.

The only comfort she had was though she had been unable to retrieve her loaded pistol for use, it was still hidden in its holster under her skirt, and would be available when the right moment came.

She would show these ruffians what a Texas girl could do!

Quickly bound and gagged, she was tossed into a wagon of some sort with the still unconscious Mac at her side. She would have feared him dead except for the occasional grunts of pain that came from his limp body.

The wagon rolled through bumpy terrain so that she knew with indignation that she was bound to be black and blue by the time it came to a stop, bogged down in a swampy mire. They were being taken into the bayous, she guessed, and from the sound of the voices around them, she knew they were in the hands of the enemy.

             
After than she was carried in the arms of one red-coat after another while Mac was placed on a kind of travois and dragged. After a
while he came to a groaning consciousness and she guessed that under his gag he was trying to mouth some backwoods obscenities.

Dawn began to flicker across what promised to be a cold, raw day by
the
time they finally arrived at what she guessed must be a plantation house and not the pirates nest in the backwoods after
all and a tall Britisher in his red uniform carried her in to an interior room and dumped her on the floor. Minutes later they dragged Mac in,
threw him at her side, then departed, locking the door behind them.

What a pickle they were in! Philippe was surely going to be very unreasonable about her having to leave that ballroom.

Chapter Seventeen

As one of Jean
Lafitte
’s chief lieutenants, Philippe
d
e Beauvois was well accustomed to doing business with men who detested him, but
from the first it was obvious
if the governor had the vote, he would see him shot before morning.

Fortunately General Jackson was more pragmatic. He had joined his army of Tennesseans with Choctaw Indians and Louisiana Creoles and he wasn’t about to quibble about adding a few diabolic bandits, as the governor liked to call the Baratarian privateers, to their number. In fact, considering the buccaneers
owned
serious artillery,  fighting ships, and knowledge not only of the bayous around New Orleans and
possessed
fighting skills extraordinaire, he was eager for the union and distinctly annoyed that their offer of help had been rebuffed by force.