The Creole Princess Read Online Free Page A

West Florida, less than two hundred miles away, he had expected the same. But Lyse gazed upon him, not with superiority, but rather as if she found him entertaining—a sort of egalitarian amusement which oddly heated his blood.
    He swallowed a sigh along with the last of his dinner ale. How he wished he could shed Don Rafael’s shallow persona, just long enough to prove to her that he was a man, and not a musical manikin.
    Ah well, he had neither time nor mental energy for serious courting, even had she been so inclined.
    Still. She was very good to look upon, in a wildflower sort of way. He mentally entertained himself by imagining her family. She lacked the polished femininity of Daisy Redmond, whose smoothgolden hair, milky skin, and blue eyes proclaimed the aristocratic English lady; indeed, Lyse’s coppery complexion, wild black curls, and exotic mouth bespoke native or African descent, belied by the beautiful gold-shot eyes, which would be an anomaly amongst the dark browns and blacks of the African, mulatto, and mestizo slave culture.
    Parsing that culture was part of his assignment here. As they all adjourned to the salon, the two British officers, Major Redmond and Colonel Durnford, lagged behind the ladies. Daisy took her place behind the tea tray, settling in with a precocious matronliness that was as funny as it was charming. Her lady mother having succumbed to yellow fever shortly after the family’s arrival in Mobile, Daisy had functioned since as mistress of the house.
    The fact that she served the town as schoolmistress only added to her general air of I am in charge, so do not cross me . Rafa kept expecting her to remind him to tuck in his shirttail and not to belch in public—which he wouldn’t have done in any case, as his own dear mama had drilled him endlessly on the etiqueta of a gentleman while he was still in short coats.
    He was pleased to discover that the men and women did not separate in the parlor, as was customary in many places he had visited. Even the children gathered to play Spillikins in a quiet knot at their mother’s feet, while the adults conversed over their heads.
    Rafa sat listening for a moment, taking in his surroundings with the eye to detail his father had taught him long ago. The Redmonds’ home was built in the French fashion, a square two-story construction elevated on stilts above the muddy ground, with a broad front porch facing Conception Street. Inside, it was two rooms across, with a breezeway between—one room for family living space, the other for dining. At the other end of the breezeway, he presumed, one would find the kitchen and another service room, with bedrooms upstairs. Judging by the softening wood andwattle of the walls, the house was about four years old, comfortable without being overly fine.
    Rafa shifted in the sturdy, ugly armchair to which he had been assigned; it was short of back, high of arm, hard and uncomfortable as only a stiff-rumped Englishman could conceive. He thought wistfully of his mama’s elegantly appointed parlor in New Orleans, with its rich jewel-toned rugs and curtains, plush upholstery, and tasteful artwork. She had taught him to appreciate fine architecture, good books, and the French love of cuisine, to complement his father’s head for commonsense military and business practices.
    Fortunately, his own quirky sense of the ridiculous rescued him during these ever more frequent trips to barbarous outposts like Mobile and beyond. That, and a certain talent for extracting—and planting—pertinent information.
    “Colonel Durnford,” he said, firing the opening salvo, “it is my hope that British ports along the Gulf Coast will not be closed to Spanish merchants such as myself—now that the crazy colonials in the northeast have elected to cut off the nose of their collective face. We Spaniards, of course, have no interest in making war with our best customer.”
    Durnford’s mottled complexion darkened. “You heard about