The Pelican Bride Read Online Free

we’ve half a day’s travel ahead of us.”
    He sighed and glanced at her. “That’s right. My brother has instructed your priest to be ready by daylight. The journey will be much more pleasant if accomplished before the heat of the day presses in.” His lips tightened. “Besides, you’ll have much to do once you land at Fort Louis, and I must get home before sunset.”
    She wanted to ask him where “home” was. Presumably not Fort Louis. “Where shall we reside? No one was able to prepare us for the details of life here.” She touched the itchy upstanding collar of her dress. “I suspect we all brought wildly inappropriate clothing for the climate.”
    Lanier’s dark eyes skimmed over her. “Certainly less . . . confining attire will be more comfortable.” He scooped up the last ofhis stew and said offhandedly, “I imagine you will be housed with families in the settlement who have made room for you.”
    “But we were promised homes of our own!” Aimée had apparently overcome her determination to maintain a dignified silence.
    Lanier eyed Aimée, his expression unreadable. “Bienville won’t be concerned about promises made by those without the power to fulfill them.” He shrugged. “When you marry, your husband will provide as well as he is able—and you must learn to make do with that.” He stood and bowed with more than a hint of mockery. “But don’t rely upon my word alone. After all, I will not be staying to find out.”

    The sun was no more than a strip of pink chiffon along the eastern horizon as Geneviève followed Father Mathieu’s black-robed figure across the damp sand toward what looked like a glorified fishing boat bobbing in the dark surf. She looked around to make sure her sister followed. Aimée had had the nightmare again last night, her scream jolting Geneviève from a sound sleep. She’d managed to wake Aimée and soothe her gasping tears without creating a scene, but she’d gone back to bed with a bite mark in the side of her hand and a renewed rage toward the dragoons who had invaded their home.
    To her relief, Aimée rounded a sand dune just then, enfolded in a gaggle of the four youngest girls. They were giggling at the galumphing gait of rotund nursing sister Marie Grissot, who marched ahead of them with more determination than grace. Sister Gris, as they called her—to distinguish her from her companion, Sister Marie Linant—held her billowing habit off the sand with one hand, and with the other struggled to keep her wimple from blowing off.
    Geneviève congratulated herself that her own cap was tied snugly beneath her chin and her skirts too short to tangle around her ankles. She’d thought about keeping her Bible with her, to whileaway the long trip up to the fort, but had decided not to risk unnecessary questions. It lay at the bottom of her trunk—which, along with the rest of the baggage from the Pélican , had already been trundled to the beach on a cart pulled by a spavined ox. The poor animal’s indignation at this task expressed itself as a series of grunts only exceeded in their ferocity by Sister Gris’s snoring last night.
    “What gives you a smile, little one?” Father Mathieu had dropped back to match her steps, one arm extended for balance like the wing of a glossy blackbird, the other clutching a painting of the Madonna and Child he had brought all the way from Rochefort. His button-brown eyes crinkled with teasing affection.
    “The joy of walking on solid ground, even for a few more minutes.” Geneviève offered her elbow for support, and he took it with a grateful look. The priest rarely showed his age, which, judging by the sparse fringe of gray hair which brushed his shoulders, must be over sixty. She studied the shadows beneath his eyes, the yellow tinge of the leathery skin. The fever had hit them all hard, and Father Mathieu had helped with nursing duties during the most difficult hours of the nights at sea.
    He sighed. “Do you suppose