virginal bourgeois filles a la cassette, come straight from a convent in France to the Ursulines convent here.'
'Charite!' Hippolyte exclaimed, all but covering his ears. 'No sweet little 'casket girls,' with their dowry trunk direct from the King for their goodness,' Charite scoffed. 'Oh la, never the street whores swept up to be auctioned off as wives. Never dregs from prisons… excess peasant girls turfed off the estates of the great, heavens no!'
'You are so scandalous, so…' Helio spluttered.
'We may be richer, but no better,' Charite remorselessly continued. ' Louisiana then, as now, is still sans religion, sans justice… sans discipline, sans ordre, et sans police. Sans moralite, too, the lot of us. And nothing the hated Spanish, the Americans if they take us over, or the British will ever be able to change our Creole soul. No matter how long they hold us in bondage.'
'If that's so, Charite,' Hippolyte gently asked, near a broken heart, 'then what is the point of our hoped-for rebellion, if we free ourselves from Spain, yet remain so… if we reunited with beloved France, but-'
'Oh, Hippolyte!' Charite laughed, worldly-wise for her tender years, and rising to go to him and take his hands in hers. 'We will he free to be French again. Free to take joy in being sans moralite… of being ourselves… Creoles. Then, laisser les bons temps rouler, and to hell with rest of the world!'
'Even so,' Helio, the far more practical brother, said. 'You must not see… your Alain again,' he somberly decreed, playing the role oi pater familias in their papa's absence. 'Even if he doesn't spy on us, he's drawn the Americans' attention, and sooner or later he'll draw the Spaniards'. Our cause, our movement must grow in secret 'til we're strong, well armed, and ready to strike. We can't afford the risk of exposure.'
'I told you, Helio, he thinks I'm a Bonsecour,' Charite calmly explained, though chafing at being told what to do. 'He only knows you two as the Dar-bone brothers. He has no way to find me, or either of you.'
'He could spot you, one of us in the markets, and follow one of us here,' Helio fretted. 'Anyone he asked could steer him right!'
'Then I will cut him off as a passing amusement,' Charite was quick to rebuff. 'Alain aspired once to be a British officer, one of the gentlemanly class. And we know how mannerly and reticent les Anglais are, n 'est- ce pas?' she said, chuckling. 'They do not press themselves where they are not wanted. I snub him in public, deliver a 'cut-sublime,' it would tell him that I am… unattainable. Does he find our address, I do not have to answer his notes. One from me to him at his lodgings, saying that I am affianced and never to be his, well… he had his one glorious night, like a footman with a great lady,' Charite affected to sneer, though her heart was not in it, 'and he'll know he is much too lowly to ever aspire to-' 'Then do it,' Helio demanded.
'Only if he becomes tedious,' Charite snapped, whirling back to her breakfast table to sit down and spoon sugar into her coffee, pour fresh cream, and stir. She saw that that seemed to satisfy them.
'Though lowly footmen have their uses,' she could not help suggesting, twiddling one foot under the table in anxiety.
'What?'
'He is a trained naval officer, or was once. Alain might come cheaper than Capitaine Lanxade, or that buffoon Balfa,' she schemed aloud, making it up as she went along. Unwilling to be ordered about, certainly; to give up a pleasureable relationship just because Helio said to. Averse, too, because Alain Weelooby (however one said that!) had amused her, gratified her… touched her heart, and she doubted if she wished to give him up, unless her brothers' fears were proven.
'Non non, mon Dieu, non!' Helio erupted, squawking like a jay. 'What are you thinking? If the British didn't trust him, why should we?'
'He has no love for Creole freedom, for us, Charite!' younger brother Hippolyte chimed in, in similar screechy takings. 'He'd sell us out in a heartbeat. He might be a spy. What a horrid idea!'
'We're in more danger of being sold out by faint-heart Creoles, Hippolyte,' Charite pointed out. 'Both of you are illogical. Alain is a spy, or he is not. He is trustworthy, or he is not. He may be useful, or he is not. The only way to discover if he's a danger to us is for me to continue seeing him, sounding him out. You cannot argue both ways,' she said, as if the subject was resettled.
'Whether this… Weelooby creature is a British agent or not,' Helio gravelled, disgruntled at his sister's refusal to obey his dictates, 'perhaps it would be best if we all avoided any involvement with him, before he discovers we're not the Darbone brothers, or that you, sister, aren't Charite Bonsecours, and he becomes suspicious…'
'Even if Alain is really harmless?' Charite asked, smirking over the rim of her coffee cup.
'Capitaine Lanxade has paid our crew from our last cruise, but he said they could spend it in a week and drift away from us without a good chance for more,' Helio reminded them. 'If we left town, went back to sea on another raiding cruise, made another pile of money…'
'Yes, we could!' Hippolyte enthused, suddenly in better fettle. 'If agents look for us here, we could fool them and be where they cannot find us. The Gulf of Mexico is a very big place.'
'Before poor Jean loses all his booty money at Boure,' brother Helio snickered. 'Even if the cruise is fruitless, by the time we get back, M'sieur Bistineau and old Maurepas will have the prize ship sold and there'll be something to show for it!'
'And we can set Aristotle and the other boys to keep an eye on Alain and his party,' Charite chimed in. 'If he goes upriver or inland with trade goods, doesn't linger in New Orleans and ask after us, then he's harmless. Will that satisfy your worries, Helio… Hippolyte?'
'Mmm,' her brothers grudgingly allowed.
'Bon!' Charite chirped. 'Then I can continue seeing him after we return. And if we're to leave town, I must give him a reason why. After all, a mysterious, sudden disappearance might spur him to ask too many questions. No, think of it!' she insisted, to their sudden querulous expressions. 'If I must go upcountry to the family plantations to… comfort my sick grand-mere, and you two 'Darbones' must tend to farm business or take a hunting trip, a harmless Alain will accept the tale and make no enquiries, you see?'
They may not have liked it, but they could see the sense of it. Charite, both sated and pleased with their surrender, dabbed her lips with her napkin and rose from the table, secretly thrilled to have one more meeting with her entrancing, yet possibly dangerous, Englishman.
'Oh la, dear brothers, but I am going to bed,' she said, rising. 'If you wish to scheme or plot… or continue to complain about me… then do it quietly. In one of your thoroughly masculine coffeehouses, peut-etre. Bonsoir, chers … bonjour, rather.
'And don't clatter going down the stairs,' she added, swirling at her bedchamber door to face them for a moment. 'Your chase after my pursuer has already upset poor Madame D'Ablemont once this morning.'
'Better safe than sorry,' Helio said in a harsh whisper as they gathered up their stylish hats, canes, and gloves to go out for coffee and their own breakfasts. 'What did the old buccaneers say… 'Dead men tell no tales'? Not a word to Charite about it, but… before we sail, I think we should eliminate this pesky Anglais. That American, El-isson, too. He was too winded and too hurried, like he had followed her, when we saw him. What do you think, Hippolyte?'
'Both at once,' his brother casually, happily agreed. 'We get Rubio and Jean to help. They're both excellent shots. And Rubio will love it. Oui. Bon. Let's kill them!'
