Never Call It Love (33 page)

"I
did not." Patrick yawned. The five kinds of wine served at dinner had made
him sleepy. He added, "Although I would not blame them for being annoyed
about that rum contract."

"What
contract?" Here on St.-Denis, Patrick of course was less reticent about
his activities than he had been back in Ireland. Nevertheless, there was much
she did not know about his business affairs.

"A
three-year contract I signed with a rum buyer from the American colonies."
He chuckled. "Colin and I did it by underpricing every distiller on the
island."

"I
don't think it was that which made people seem so strange tonight. I think it
was something else, something to do with the drums."

"The
voodoo drums? Well, of course the whites don't like hearing them. They are
afraid of having the blacks assemble in large numbers for any reason, religious
or otherwise. That's why voodoo has been outlawed on this island Nevertheless,
I guess we'll go on hearing the
drums several nights each week all through the dry
seasons."

"But
did you notice how everyone looked at you when the drumming began?"

"Nonsense.
The Frenchies can be annoyed with me for beating them at their own game, but
they can scarcely blame me for anything the blacks do."

Less
than a week later she learned that the Frenchies not only could, but did.
Invited to a morning coffee at a Madame Ribeaux's, Elizabeth sensed the tension
in the atmosphere as soon as she entered the elaborately furnished salon. The
usually languid ladies sat bolt upright on red plush chairs and sofas,
coffeecups rigidly poised, smiles fixed.

Madame
Ribeaux, a brunette of forty-odd, who somehow, despite rich food and little
exercise, had remained thin to the point of scrawniness, evidently had been
chosen spokeswoman for the group. As soon as she had served coffee to
Elizabeth, she leaned forward and said, "Lady Stanford, we all hope you
can influence Sir Patrick."

Puzzled
and wary, Elizabeth said, "Influence him? How?"

Madame
Ribeaux's reply was indirect. "I am sure you know that the blacks still
hold their illegal gatherings in the hills. Don't you realize that we all live
in fear of a slave revolt?"

"A
revolt? With a fort filled with soldiers on the island, and warships in the bay
more often than not?"

"But
once our war with England is over, the ships will be gone, and many of the
soldiers too. Who will protect us then?"

"I
don't know. But I cannot see what this possibly has to do with my
husband."

"Lady
Stanford! Everyone knows that Sir Patrick and his brother oversee operations at
his distillery."

"And?"

"That
alone would be bad enough," the Frenchwoman rushed on. "Other
distillers and plantation owners use mulatto overseers. But it is also said
that sometimes Sir Patrick and his brother work alongside the blacks, chopping
the cane and carrying it to the hoppers!"

Aware
of the ring of hostile faces, Elizabeth tried to speak calmly. "Sometimes
a great quantity of cane is floated down from the plantation above. My husband
and brother-in-law must lend a hand at the chopping tables, if operations are
to continue smoothly." An indignant tremble came into her voice. "Is
there a law against that?"

"There
should be!" a woman on her right cried, and Madame Ribeaux said,
"Exactly! Every one of us must maintain a position of superiority at all
times, and in every relationship, with the slaves. Not to do so may encourage
them in... rebellious ideas."

Elizabeth
got to her feet. "If the slaves on this island ever revolt, it will not be
because my husband sometimes stands at the chopping table! It will be because
they feel a not unnatural disinclination to go on being slaves. Good day, ladies,"
she said, and walked out.

Driving
home in the gig, she seethed with anger. Lazy, greedy women! French bourgeois
snobs! How dare they criticize Patrick? Whatever his faults, he was vastly
superior to them, just as he had been superior to the other Anglo-Irish
landlords on that other island far to the north...

With
a sense of shock, she realized the significance of her emotions. Why, she was
not only proud of him, but defensively so. When had her bitterness slipped
away, leaving her free, not just to desire him, but to feel this pride, this
fierce protectiveness? She did not know. She only knew that until he came
riding home from the
distillery for luncheon, every minute was going to seem an hour.

Her
anger did not abate even after she reached home. She was pacing up and down the
bedroom when she heard Patrick's footsteps along the hall. The moment he
appeared in the doorway, she flung herself into his arms. "Oh, Patrick!
Those awful, awful women!"

"Here,
now! What is all this?"

"The
women at Madame Ribeaux's this morning! They... they acted as if you and Colin
were about to get them all murdered in their beds. I mean, just because you two
sometimes work at the chopping tables, they think you are encouraging the
slaves to revolt. Oh, they made me so furious! I told them that if the slaves
ever revolt, it will be because they don't want to go on being slaves. What
makes them think that black people enjoy sweating out their lives so that fat,
lazy women like them can get lazier and fatter—?"

"Here,
now!" he said again. He was laughing. "Apparently you gave as good as
you got. And what do we care what the Frenchies think? They will continue to
ask us to their houses, if only in hopes of learning how well or badly my
distillery is doing." He kissed her. "What sort of meal are we
having?"

Her
arms tightened around him. "Later." Her voice sounded drowsy.
"We can have it later."

"Well!"
he said after a moment.

Fingers
busy with the hooks at the back of her gown, he went on, "Promise me
something, Elizabeth. Take coffee with those harpies four mornings a week. Not
more often than that. I need to save enough energy each afternoon to ride back
to the distillery."

"Don't
make jokes!" He often teased her at such moments, and Elizabeth,
single-minded in her feverish need, found it distracting.

"Very
well. No more jokes."

As
Patrick had prophesied, the French families continued to ask them to dinner.
After an interval of almost three weeks, the island women again began to invite
Elizabeth to morning coffees. She accepted some of the invitations. Evidently
the women had given up hope that, through her, they might induce Sir Patrick to
keep a proper aloofness from his workers, because they never brought up the
subject again.

His
rum business continued to prosper. On some nights both Patrick and Colin
returned to the distillery after supper to work on the books and to answer
correspondence from importers in America and Europe. Elizabeth felt a growing
hope that Ireland, and the fiasco in which the long-planned-for revolt had ended,
were fading from Patrick's consciousness. As for herself, she found life on
St.-Denis increasingly pleasant. With the steady trade winds mitigating the
tropic heat, the days were cool enough that she could work in that lush rear
garden. Some evenings she and Patrick sat on a stone bench she had placed out
there, enjoying the fragrance of jasmine and frangipani, and the sight of wild
white orchids, ghostly in the darkness, which clung to the trunks of palmettos.

One
afternoon Elizabeth lay on a wicker chaise lounge on the terrace outside her
bedroom, relaxing until it was time to start preparing supper. The eaves
shadowed her face and closed eyes from the sun, but she could feel its pleasant
warmth through the thin fabric of her white gown and petticoats.

Light
footsteps sounded along the terrace. She realized it must be Jeanne Burgos.
Even though her wages were not due until the next day, the little maid had
asked if she might come by for them that afternoon.

The
footsteps stopped. Someone's shadow blotted out the warm sun from Elizabeth's
body. She said, not opening her eyes. "Your money is on the dining-room
table."

An
amused voice said, "So there is where it is. And I thought I had lost it
in South America."

Elizabeth's
eyes flew open. A vision in yellow silk and a black hat ornamented with a
yellow ostrich plume, hands crossed on the handle of the closed yellow parasol
she held planted on the terrace flagstones, Moira Ashley smiled down at her.

Elizabeth
sprang to her feet. Shocked out of any semblance of courtesy, she cried,
"What are you doing here?"

Moira's
eyes widened innocently. "Why, when my knock on the door was not answered,
I came around to see if there was a side entrance. Tell me, don't you keep a
servant?"

"I
meant, what are you doing on St.-Denis?"

"I
came to make my fortune, or rather to try to recoup it." She glanced about
her, as if looking for another chair. "Is there a place where we can
talk?"

Aware
of the pulse hammering in the hollow of her throat, Elizabeth looked at the woman
in whose arms her husband had spent so many nights. After a moment she managed
to answer, "Come this way."

She
led her visitor through the bedroom, aware that Moira's gaze must be lingering
on the bed, and then into the hall. As they moved along it, Elizabeth asked,
"How did you find out...?"

"That
Patrick was on St.-Denis? In Dublin some weeks ago I met a couple named
Lestrand. Madame Lestrand
was a Dubliner before her marriage. They are from your neighboring island. What
is the name of it? St-Michael?"

"St.-Marc."

"Oh,
yes. The Lestrands mentioned that an Irish baronet, Sir Patrick Stanford, had
taken refuge on St.-Denis."

Elizabeth
led the way into the parlor, not caring how poor the wicker furniture and straw
rug might appear in Lady Moira's eyes, and waved her to a chair. Then she
asked, "May I serve you something? Wine? Tea?"

"No,
thank you. I can stay only a few minutes. I must not keep Lieutenant Serraut
waiting. We were introduced at the inn, and he asked to escort me here."

Elizabeth
looked through the window. One of St. Denis's three carriages for hire stood
out in the road. Seated in it was a young man with reddish sideburns and a
surpassingly handsome profile showing beneath his tall officer's hat. The sight
brought Elizabeth small comfort. It would be foolish to hope that Moira, after
following Patrick these thousands of miles, would be distracted by a
lieutenant, however handsome.

She
sat down opposite her visitor. "You said you came here..."

"To
try to mend my fortune. Surely Patrick can help me. He always has given me good
financial advice, which unfortunately I haven't always followed." She
paused. "He is not at home now?"

"No,
he's at the distillery."

"Ah,
yes, the distillery. I heard about it from the Lestrands and also from the
innkeeper here. You see, I intend to invest what money I have left either in a
sugar plantation or in the manufacture of rum. Perhaps Patrick can guide me in
the purchase of a plantation or distillery."

"As
far as I know," Elizabeth said coldly, "there are no such properties
for sale on St.-Denis."

"Unfortunate.
Perhaps on one of the other islands...." She got to her feet. "It has
been pleasant to see you again, Lady Stanford."

Elizabeth
wanted to make the conventional response, but the words stuck in her throat. Moira's
smile seemed to say she knew that. "Well, good day, Lady Stanford."

"Good
day, Lady Moira."

Four
hours later, Elizabeth, white-faced and saying little, sat opposite Patrick at
dinner. She knew Moira must have sent a message to the distillery, or perhaps
even gone there, and yet Patrick had said nothing about it. He would have to be
the first one to speak of the Irishwoman. Certainly she would not

A
night-flying insect struck the jalousied window. At the sound, Elizabeth's
overstrained nerves snapped. She blurted out, "Moira Ashley is here."

His
eyes, half-hooded, met hers through the candlelight. "I know. She sent a
message to the distillery."

"A
message?"

"She
wants to see me at the inn at nine tonight"

"Why?"

"Her
note said that she needed my advice about financial matters. I gather her South
American investment did not turn out well."

"She
told me it did not." In answer to his startled look, she went on,
"Yes, she was here today, looking for you. But I don't think she has come
all this way just for your advice."

Patrick
remained silent. He had his own suspicion about why Moira Ashley had come to
St-Denis.

"Are
you going to see her?"

"Of
course. No matter why she is here, she is an old friend and neighbor, many
miles from home."

Elizabeth
cried, "I forbid you!"

Patrick's
right eyebrow arched. "Forbid?"

"Yes!
As your wife, I forbid you!"