Pride of the King, The

The Pride of the King

Amanda Hughes

Copyright © 2011 Amanda Hughes

All rights reserved.

ISBN:10 1463589123

ISBN-13:978-1463589127

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my children who never lost their faith in me.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to The Killion Group for cover art and design and Amy Nord for her editing skills.

New Orleans 1748

Chapter 1

Lauren De Beauville needed a hurricane. She was never satisfied with gentle rainfall or a passing shower. To feel alive, Lauren always needed a tempest, and that is what she received on her wedding day.

*    *    *

A crack of thunder greeted Lauren as she emerged from the chapel door. At fifteen, she was now a married woman. Before she could pull up her hood, old Monsieur Heathstone, her husband, hustled her out into the horizontal rain. It was practically impossible for her to keep her eyes open as the drops pelted her in the face. Her garments were a poor match for the downpour, and she was soaked within minutes, her skirt hanging heavy with mud.

Street vendors were frantically packing up their wares, seeking shelter from the intensifying storm. Even the colorful peppers and apples looked drab and dreary today. Only the catfish and oysters seemed to enjoy the deluge.

Heathstone rounded a corner, pulling Lauren along behind him and entered L'hotel de la Marine. Lauren had seen it once when Sister Giselle had taken her to the docks to pick up a shipment of silk worms. It was large and well kept. The logs stood vertically; the posts set directly onto the earth. It was two stories in the back with a small dining room addition in the front.

Although the dining room was empty when Lauren entered, it was not cold. Monsieur Berne, the proprietor, had taken great pains to make the inn cozy. There was a fire crackling and several tables were set with candles and high-back chairs awaiting customers. The interior walls were plastered and whitewashed, and a massive cherry cupboard stood in the corner. Pewter plates and tankards filled the shelves, and the drawers in the bottom held Madame Berne’s fine table linen.

Monsieur Berne was bending over these drawers as Heathstone and Lauren burst in, the wind banging the door. He was a stout, jovial fellow and greeted them heartily. Heathstone had chosen this inn because the proprietor spoke English, a rarity in the province of Louisiana.

   "Come in! Come in!” he roared in English. His large stomach preceded him as he advanced, arms outstretched. “You have returned with the lovely bride! The weather--is it not severe?"

   In spite of the owner’s jovial demeanor, Monsieur Heathstone did not smile. He sat down in front of the fire indicating the same to Lauren. The smile dropped from the innkeeper’s face. The French did not like the English in New Orleans and Heathstone's attitude did not help relations.

   Monsieur Berne continued, "If it's food you want, I have only three eggs and a half a loaf of bread. No one is getting through in this storm, so I have nothing to cook." He wiped his brow and looked out the window. The wind was now blowing branches off the trees and unsecured items tumbled wildly down the street. "May the Virgin Mary protect us all!” prayed the innkeeper as he turned toward the kitchen.

Heathstone grumbled something, sinking down into his chair. Lauren arranged her soaked skirts and looked across the table at him. His appearance and surly attitude disgusted her, and she was grateful he had shown little interest in her so far. Nevertheless, the thought of bedding him tonight terrified her.

The nuns had shared nothing with the girls regarding procreation. Her twin sister, Simone had made it her business to learn about the facts of life early and passed what she learned on to Lauren.

   She watched Heathstone pull a hankie out of his waistcoat and blow his nose. Her heart began to pound furiously.
Where will he take me? What will he do to me?

Suddenly, there was a loud crash outside and water started streaming down the plaster behind the massive cupboard. "Oh Mon Dieu!" cried Monsieur Berne rushing into the room. A tree had fallen on the dining room addition. Too unsympathetic to help the worried innkeeper, Heathstone shrugged and turned back to the fire.

   Lauren watched the innkeeper push a ladder in front of the cupboard, climbing up to inspect the damage. "It is
not
good,” he moaned in French. “I don't know how--” 

Suddenly, he screamed, and the cupboard toppled over on him. A torrent of water had smashed through the walls of the inn, and it turned Lauren and Heathstone over in their chairs It slammed Lauren against the opposite wall, pinning her against the plaster. She choked and sputtered, her lungs filling with water. The pain was excruciating as the furnishings trapped her against the wall, her ribs snapping. Heathstone was swept away under the water. The innkeeper was caught behind the huge cherry cupboard, screaming in pain as the floodwaters rushed into the room.

Suddenly, the logs of the inn began to crack like toothpicks as water filled the room pushing the cupboard and the innkeeper through the timber frame of the house. Monsieur Berne was killed instantly. His body, limp as a rag doll, bumped and banged into debris as it washed away.

Lauren spilled out of the hole too, into the street, the current carrying her away in the storm. Struggling desperately in the black water she gasped for air, the wind raging all around her as debris flew past her head. Her heavy woolen skirt began to tangle around her legs. Suddenly, a maelstrom sucked her under, and the roar of the water filled her ears. Her lungs felt as if they would burst. A branch caught her skirt, trapping her underwater. She struggled frantically, pulling and tugging on the material trying to free herself and surface for air, when someone grabbed her hair and dragged her up. It was Heathstone.

"Grab my hand!" he shouted, reaching for Lauren. He was clinging to a floating log. She caught his hand, but it was slippery, and her heavy skirts dragged her out of his grasp and under again. As the waters pulled her down a second time she thought, “If I swim away, I will be free
.
If I take his hand--"

She made her decision. It was worth the risk. Lauren stayed under as long as her lungs would allow, riding the ravaging current. When she finally burst to the surface, he was gone. She grabbed a log that sailed past, pulling herself on top of it. Suddenly, she realized that this was no log at all, but a decomposing corpse. Lauren stared at the shriveled face in horror, then hurtled it away. Dead bodies were everywhere; surfacing from the St. Peter cemetery, worm-eaten children, decrepit adults, skeletons and coffins rushing by on the torrent.

Swiftly, she grabbed a casket and tipped the box, looking inside. It held a corpse about her size, and without hesitation she dumped the body into the water. It was painful and grotesque pulling herself into a coffin, but she knew that now she would survive. Bruised and battered, she put her head down on the soaked wood of the coffin and fell into a swoon.

Lauren fell in and out of consciousness, confusing dreams with reality. The storm swept the casket down the torrent slamming it against uprooted trees and debris, tipping and bumping it madly. In a fog of delirium, Lauren tried to recall where she was and why she felt pain. Try as she might, she could not remember the events of the day, and she fell back into a swoon.

Chapter 2

Only yesterday Lauren was sitting contentedly in a large oak tree in the convent courtyard watching the people on
Le Rue Conde.
She loved watching the townspeople as they passed on their way to market.

She wasn’t expecting Sister Gertrude to call her name. When she heard the nun, Lauren jumped, and began to tumble out of the tree. Frantically, she grabbed for branches falling down through the tree, slamming onto the earth below with a thud. The air expelled so abruptly from her lungs that she could not breathe until the nun pulled her upright.

"My dear, my little one, are you hurt?"

Coughing and sputtering, Lauren pushed tangled volumes of hair from her face. "I think I’m alright, Sister," she said breathlessly. She rose to her feet, and brushed off her apron. "Oh please, don't tell anyone, Sister Gertrude. I promise I won't climb--" Lauren caught herself. She was about to lie to a nun and that would mean damage to her immortal soul. She did not intend to stop climbing trees and to say otherwise was a falsehood.

Sister Gertrude smiled. At the same age, she would have been in that tree. She liked the tall willowy girl with copper-colored tresses.

Lauren returned her smile.

She has a reckless smile, thought Sister Gertrude.
It is the smile of a pirate
.

"The abbess would like to see you in an hour," she said.

Lauren's tawny eyes grew wide. Everyone knew the abbess only talked with the girls when it was a very important matter. Maybe this was it, Lauren thought, maybe they had found a placement for her. She was old enough to leave these walls, to find her true home and make her way into the world as a lady of distinction and education.

"Don't be late!" said the Sister cheerfully and she turned, leaving Lauren alone in the garden.

She sat down on a stone bench as if reeling from a blow. She had been waiting so long for this day and news about her future. Over the past weeks, she had felt it coming. She had grown restless and irritable, snapping without reason at her sister, and it had been harder than usual to attend to her studies.

Lauren had always been a restless, impulsive girl. She approached everything at breakneck speed, embracing new experiences with enthusiasm and delight until the inevitable boredom struck, and she yearned for a different adventure.

Lauren and her twin sister Simone had called the Ursuline Academy for Girls, home for ten years. They had only dim memories of the rice plantation and their French-born parents lost to them long ago. The gentle Ursulines raised the orphaned twins tutoring them in religion, academics and social graces. Lauren would miss her home at the convent, but she and Simone had to go. The time for seclusion and sanctuary was over.

Waking from her thoughts, she jumped from the bench and raced into the dormitory, slowing her pace when Sister Bona came around the corner. Lauren threw the door open of her room and found Simone with her chin on her arms, looking out the window. Her brown eyes were bloodshot and her blonde hair was falling out of the knot at the back of her neck.

"What's wrong?" Lauren asked.

Her sister shrugged.

Lauren rolled her eyes. "Oh, I see we are taken with melancholia again."

"I don't want to fight with you today, Lauren," Simone said, without looking up.

"I don’t either,” said Lauren. “I bring good news. Mother Marie Margarite wants to see me today. I’m sure it’s about a placement. I wonder where it will be. Of course, she will place us together. What do you think, Simone?"

Simone turned away. She was in no mood to talk. Lauren suspected she was having trouble with her young man, Joffrey. Twice a week, boys came to the school to do repairs at the convent and immediately Joffrey noticed Simone. Young men frequently noticed Simone. Her face resembled the angels painted on the wall of the sanctuary, sweet and ethereal, but her full curved body was unmistakably of this world.

Although twins, it was hard to tell that Simone and Lauren were sisters. They bore little physical resemblance to one another and their personalities differed as well. Simone was pensive and sultry given to frequent brooding and melancholy, whereas Lauren was carefree and impulsive. Simone agonized over beaus; Lauren had no time for boys. In spite of all their differences, the girls were best friends.

"Did you hear me? What do you think Simone? Will they keep us together?"

Simone did not answer. She looked up at the sky, "The clouds have an odd turn to them today. I wonder if there will be a storm."

"Oh, don't be foolish. The sky is blue," barked Lauren as she marched to the window and thrust her head out. The clouds did look strange, Lauren had to admit, but it was nothing more than a curiosity.
Leave it to Simone to overreact
.