The door of the tavern called the Cock and Hen opened and disgorged three men, all in uniform, all unsteady on their feet from drink. Celebrating Christmas in the time-honored fashion by escaping the family for more genial company. One of the men was Philippe Espinoza, a planter with a passion for dice but no head for arithmetic. Honoré had spent many happy evenings with Espinoza, and would have gladly joined him tonight. But Wyndham had sold him out to Jackson, and it would mean hanging if he showed his face in New Orleans.

He would have to stay just where he was until the British took the city.

The only time he ever ventured out was very late at night, in a hooded cape. A calculated risk he took, for fear of simply losing his mind from boredom.

Now he was tempted to sleep, warmed by the fire and the brandy and the meal he had been served by Noelle Soileau herself. No one else was allowed in this room. There were spies everywhere, as he knew very well. Noelle Soileau herself was a gamble, but a fairly safe one. She knew the value of a bird in the hand, especially one who had just inherited a large family fortune that included two plantations, numerous houses and other real estate, warehouses of cane and cotton stuffed to the rafters, and investments in every lucrative business in a five-hundred-mile radius. After the British took the city there would be more land, and perhaps even enough money to settle his gambling debts.

Unless, of course, the Americans prevailed. It was a thought he did not often entertain. In that case he would have to flee, and once he was safely away he would have to liquidate everything through his lawyers. He could live a comfortable life in the islands, but the arrangements were complex enough to give a man a headache.

He still had the ship he had taken from Bonner in Pensacola, hidden away in a safe harbor thirty miles away. It would be easy enough to pick up a crew, then sail to the Antilles. Now that Dégre was gone from Priest’s Town, he could imagine making it his headquarters. There was a fortune to be made in slave running, and the life suited him.

But of course none of this would be necessary. The Americans had no chance against Wellington’s army, and New Orleans would change hands again. Better the English than the Americans.

Honoré didn’t realize he had dozed off until he heard the door open. He sprang up from the divan as he grabbed for his pistol.

Noelle went very still, one brow raised in censure.

“ ’Stie d’tabernac,” he said. “You gave me a fright.”

Noelle inclined her head, as close as she would come to an apology.

Honoré reached for the glass which had rolled off, dribbling brandy over the fine carpet, and picked up the brandy bottle to fill it again. When he had taken a swallow he looked at Noelle, who still stood near the door.

She was an unappetizing sight, far too thin and with a hard mouth and harder eyes, her hair dyed a deep and objectionable red. He preferred darker complexions, and younger women. Honoré had gone without release for too long, but he was not so desperate as to contemplate using Noelle Soileau.

He said, “News of the war?”

“No.” She went to the windows and looked out to the street. “I need this room,” she said. “I have to ask you to go.”

His laughter gave way to a cough. “If you want to raise the rent I won’t refuse you.”

“I want the room,” she said, glancing at him over her shoulder.

Honoré rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “Or what?”

She lifted a shoulder and let it drop. He waited for what would come next, her real demand. She delivered it in the same cool tone.

“You will need a widow,” she said. “To see to your family’s holdings once they hang you.”

Honoré coughed for a full minute. When he had regained his breath he found she was studying him as she might study a bug caught in a web.

“You want me to marry you,” he said.

“I want to be your legal heir.”

“And how do you suppose to find a priest who will marry us?”

A quirk of the mouth. “I have someone in mind. He owes me a favor.”

“I’m sure he does,” Honoré said darkly. He said, “You are proposing a business arrangement.”

“It’s not the pleasure of your company I yearn for,” said Noelle.

“So we marry,” Honoré said. “And then you report me to the authorities and weep prettily at my hanging.”

“Think, Poiterin,” Noelle said in the voice of an irritated and put-upon teacher. “If I turned you in, I would hang next to you.”

That was true. Honoré turned his head away and tried to gather his thoughts. In the worst case—if the British gave up and retreated, and he had to flee—Noelle would try to sell everything and run off with the money. But in some things the law served a man’s best interest, and a wife couldn’t sell property without her husband’s consent and signature. Once he was dead, it wouldn’t matter to him who got the Poiterin family fortune, and in the meantime it would secure his position here while he finalized his plans.

He said, “I find the idea of a Christmas-morning wedding in a whorehouse amusing. Call in your priest.” And yawning, he turned his attention back to the street.

Chapter 54

In the days following Christmas it sometimes seemed to Hannah that she might have dreamed her father and Runs-from-Bears, so little did she see them. The fault, she determined, was not just the war, but also Mrs. Livingston, whose annual Christmas party had turned her father and uncle into objects of curiosity.