Tainted Lilies Read Online Free

he was loading heavy hogsheads of molasses onto a wagon on the levee. Odd that her aristocratic aunt should know that ruffian’s jargon.
    She brushed these bothersome thoughts from her mind as she brushed the night tangles from her hair and smiled into the mirror. The reflection there bore little resemblance to the young girl who had left New Orleans almost two years before. She stared at a woman, full of body, ripe now and ready for the more sensuous side of life.
    “We’re so close,” she sighed, drawing in a deep breath, “that I can almost smell the marshes along the Mississippi. Nothing can stop us now! My life is set!”
    Nicolette frowned suddenly, and made a sign with two fingers to ward off any bad luck that might be summoned by her high spirits and confident words. Hadn’t she thought the same thoughts, said almost the same words, the night of the engagement party?
    “And look what happened then!” she reminded the face in her mirror.
    But her charm against the evil eye came too late. Even as she made the sign, the boom of thunder reached her ears. A cannonball roared across the calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico to smash through the deck of her father’s ship with such force that Nicolette was thrown to the floor, stunned when her head collided with an edge of her brass-bound trunk.
    Sukey, having delivered Gabrielle’s breakfast to her cabin, came through the door with another tray at the moment of impact. She fell atop Nicolette’s still form and the carafe of coffee went flying. The thick, aromatic liquid spilled on the sheet of paper beside Nicolette—causing Claude Vernet’s words to his daughter to run together, melting his hopeful promises away to a grayish-brown blur.
    “Mam’zelle Nicolette!” Sukey sobbed, her arms protectively caressing her charge.
    The hatch cover banged against the bulkhead and male voices intruded. “Get rid of the nigger woman, Hernandez. I’ll take care of the girl!”
    Jean Laffite stretched his powerful body beneath the mosquito baire enveloping his bed. He patted the spot beside him, thinking he might assuage his morning’s passion. The place was still warm, but the woman who had shared his space for the night had gone. He sighed his resignation and put all amorous thoughts from his mind for the time being.
    The sheets felt sticky and clung to his bare skin. No early morning breeze from the Gulf breathed in to cool him. The oppressive humidity was a sure sign that summer was closing fast on Louisiana.
    He felt the hair stand up on his arms and along the back of his neck suddenly and his eyes shot open. This was a lifelong reflex with Laffite, the ability to sense danger before it presented itself. He was staring hard out the window, his heavy brows drawn together in a frown, watching stripes of red bleed into the pearl-gray dawn when it happened. The boom of cannon fire thundered out in the Gulf, rocking his bed and sending gulls squawking and flapping over the island of Grande Terre.
    “Xavier!” he yelled, sitting up and pulling on britches in one fluid motion.
    An undersized servant who looked as if he had been dipped in a pot of India ink, only the whites of his eyes and his large teeth escaping the dousing, appeared at once.
    “Boss, you call me?”
    “Damn right I called! Who’s blasting away out there and at what?”
    Before the valet could answer, Dominique Youx, Laffite’s older brother and chief lieutenant, burst into the room. His bearded face twisted in barely suppressed rage and his barrel chest heaved with indignation.
    “Me and Reyne, we got the Tigre and the Spy ready for sea, Boss.” He threw up his beefy hands then, losing what little control he had mustered before. “Them bastards! Them bloody sons of diseased whores!”
    “Dom, will you tell me what in God’s name is happening?” Laffite was on his feet now, striding through his mansion toward the front entrance, which looked out over the Gulf. “Is Grande Terre under attack? Has