The Creole Princess Read Online Free Page B

that, then?” He did not, Rafa noted, answer the question.
    “’Tis news likely to spread at the rate of fleas in a kennel.” He spread his hands in a gesture copied from his Gallic friends in New Orleans. “This so-called declaration of independence , which is as stupid as it is appalling, is like to create shock waves in all manner of unexpected places.”
    “It was indeed ill-advised.” Durnford exchanged glances with Redmond. “What do you know about it, Don Rafael?”
    Rafa smiled and brushed an invisible speck of lint from his breeches. “That your King George is the grossest villain since Caligula. He has, they say, ‘obstructed the administration of justice,’ making judges dependent on his will alone. That he and his minions subject colonial citizens to a ‘jurisdiction foreign to their Constitution and unacknowledged by their laws.’ That he has erected a multitude of new offices and sent ‘swarms of officers’ to harass people and to eat them out of house and home. That he levies taxes without the people’s consent. That he has, in short, fundamentally altered all aspects of British government.”
    Rafa had kept his voice quiet, but by the time he finished, he was aware that a certain intensity colored the words. The women had abandoned the topic of fashion and turned to listen, Mademoiselle Lyse staring at him with wide golden eyes.
    He would have given much for a window into her brain at that moment. Many French Americans resented British presence but were, for a variety of reasons, unable to leave their homes and businesses in order to start over elsewhere. Those who did remain were required to swear at least nominal loyalty to King George.
    Before he could ascertain anything like truth, the heavy lashes fell, shielding her gaze.
    Daisy Redmond sat forward, her small fists clenched. “How dare they make such absurd claims! King George is—is . . . Why, he’s the king! He has a perfect right to tax anyone he chooses! And how else could he pay for the military protection provided by my papa and his soldiers?” She glared at Rafa. “How dare they?”
    “I am only repeating the main phrases that have been passed along the information circuit.”
    Colonel Durnford tapped his fingers against his lips. “That is quite a mouthful of accusation. And you say they have literally declared themselves independent of their sovereign nation?”
    “It would seem so.” Rafa sipped from the fragile cup in his hand. “Personally, I think it’s all a tempest in a teapot, so to speak.”
    He got the expected laugh from that. Miss Daisy sat back, and the conversation veered to less volatile topics, such as the price ofsugar and the problem of freebooters who infested the shipping lanes between Havana and Pensacola.
    Fortunately, as he had hoped, Rafa seemed to have laid to rest any suspicions the officers might have harbored regarding the purpose behind his visit. Both men continued to treat him with a mixture of amusement and mild disdain.
    Which was perfectly acceptable. Desirable even.
    Eventually Miss Daisy remembered that he was to have entertained with his voice and guitar. Agreeably he rose and fetched his instrument, a beautiful rosewood guitar designed and built by his grandpapa. He pulled it from the protection of its red velvet drawstring sack, made by his grandmama, grinning at the expected gasp of admiration from his audience. The inlaid mosaic of colored chips of turquoise and ebony encircling the sound hole made it a thing of great beauty as well as augmenting its resonance.
    He rippled off a minor scale and chord progression, grimacing to find it out of tune, then bent to pluck the strings and turn the pegs to his satisfaction. Finally he tried the same cadenza and shrugged, glancing at the French girl. “It is as good as I can make it in this terrible heat. What would you like to hear?”
    Lyse straightened, apparently startled to find herself the one being addressed. “The rest of ‘ De