Patricia Rice (15 page)

"Michael, I've been married." Temper rising, Eavin jerked her hand from her brother's arm. "It's not as if I don't know what goes on between men and women. And after some of the suggestions that were made to me in Baltimore, I cannot believe the men of New Orleans are any worse. I have not received one improper proposal since arriving."

Michael cursed and grabbed her arm, restoring it to its former position. "That doesn't mean one won't be forthcoming. Keep away from Saint-Just, colleen. He's a man without scruples."

"I know that. I'm not a fool. But I cannot see that I have anything to fear if that woman back there is his mistress. I could not begin to compare with anyone so fascinating. I am just curious, that's all."

"Well, you can remain curious. I've never seen her before. Nicholas has a closed mouth and secretive ways. He's not likely to let mere employees know his business."

Seeing the red-haired newspaper editor heading their way, Eavin smiled and ignored Michael's sarcastic remark. The article on an "eastern" point of view had been remarkably vivid. She had another suggestion or so she wished to make.

* * *

"Fire! There is fire at the docks!" The voice echoed up the stairwell as Eavin came from the nursery after settling a fretful Jeannette to sleep. She watched as Nicholas's bedroom door slammed open, and he raced into the hall, pulling on his coat over his partially opened shirt. He had obviously just been preparing for bed, although she was quite certain it must be after midnight.

He didn't see her on the back stairs but ran down to question the messenger. Eavin crept to the top of the stairs and openly listened as the small black boy excitedly poured out his story to the old servant at the door and to the master of the household. Nicholas's face was livid as be gave orders sending both boy and old man scurrying. Before she could offer help, he was gone, striding out with none of the languid air of the gentleman he occasionally purported to be.

It was the middle of the night, and she was wearing naught but her gown and robe. She couldn't follow. There was nothing she could do if she did. But she couldn't go to bed, either.

She found a window overlooking the courtyard and watched as Michael raced down from his room to load male slaves into a wagon with whatever implements could be located in the shed. This was a city house with little use for the hoes and shovels of the plantation. The selection was limited.

She admired the way Michael efficiently handled the half-asleep servants. The wagon was trundling out of the courtyard within minutes of the warning. She had always known that her older brother was an intelligent man, but she had doubted his ambition. She would never have thought him capable of taking on the job as overseer. But somehow the relationship between Michael and Nicholas had given him the confidence that he needed to prove himself. Eavin didn't understand it, but she was grateful that Nicholas had given him the chance.

She had reason to be grateful to Nicholas for many things. The man was a smuggler, probably little better than a pirate if his conversation with his mother meant anything. He had no doubt killed Raphael Reyes for dallying with his wife. He slept with his slaves and no possibly any other woman who crossed his path.
 

In the eyes of the church and the law, Nicholas was a totally reprehensible criminal. But to Eavin, he was a man who loved his wife's child, who took his sister-in-law in when no one else would, who provided her brother employment not only without recommendation but without knowing he was her brother. That wasn't the mark of a criminal in her eyes.

Eavin sent the house servants aroused by the noise to begin making pots of hot coffee, boiling water, and biscuits, while sending others searching for warm blankets and dry clothes. She knew very little about fighting fires except that it required lots of water, and on a night as cold as this one, it would be a thankless, unpleasant task.

Perhaps having a father who manipulated the law and a mother with few morals made her a poor judge of character, Eavin pondered as she waited for some sign that the fire had been doused. She had seen honest, churchgoing men beat their wives into a pulp on Saturday nights. She had watched children starve in the streets because their parents were too drunk to work.
 

She had seen little of the finer side of life, the life of Nicholas's society, where men were supposed to be morally upright and monogamous and women, chaste and obedient. But Nicholas had told her what had happened to Francine, and she had seen for herself the way these "moral" gentlemen behaved when they consumed too much alcohol. Perhaps they had enough wealth to keep their children from starving in the streets, but she didn't think their manners were so much different from the men she knew.

Eavin didn't understand the law that made smuggling illegal any more than she understood the law that made her father's bid-rigging notorious. They were both making a life for their families. But she did know that her father had eventually paid for his cost-cutting with his life, and Nicholas would inevitably do the same if he continued.

For Jeannette's sake, she hoped Madame Saint-Just's accusations were untrue. Nicholas couldn't have sailed the ship that brought in that lace. He had been here all the time. But he very well could have owned that ship. Did that make a difference?

The fire fighters straggled in some hours later, drenched by a downpour of rain. Soaked to the bone, shivering, and covered with soot, they greeted the coffee and blankets and dry clothes with weary gratitude. Once she saw that Michael had returned safely and the servants were provided for, Eavin turned back to the house, only to be met by Nicholas in the doorway.

His frilled shirt was ruined with soot and damp, his coat was lost, and the filth on his face made the gold of his hair even more incongruous. Lines etched beside his mouth indicated his mood, and Eavin gently pushed him to a bench in the back room while she summoned a maid to bring coffee and a bowl in which to wash.

"What burned?" she asked bluntly as Nicholas spread a warm cloth over his face and scrubbed off the worst of the soot.

"Part of the warehouse where the cotton was stored. The rain will drench the other goods unless we get back there with tarps. Thanks for the coffee." He gulped the black brew hastily when it was handed to him, then set the mug aside and began to strip off his wet shirt. "Have someone find me some dry clothes. I've got to get back out there."

Remembering vividly the ridges of muscle beneath that shirt, Eavin escaped into the hallway to send someone upstairs for his clothes. How Madame Saint-Just slept through all this was beyond her comprehension, but someone had to look after Nicholas. She was wondering if anyone ever had.

He was rubbing himself down with a blanket when she returned behind the maid carrying his clothes. He nodded his thanks and started to drop the blanket until he realized Eavin remained; then he lifted his eyebrows warily.

"You have done enough,
ma chèrie
. Return to bed. Jeannette will rise early, as always. She is your responsibility, not me."

"Have you ever considered what would happen to her if anything happened to you?" Eavin asked curtly, not even knowing the question had formed in her mind until it was out.

Nicholas looked startled, then smiled bleakly. "I had not. Thank you for reminding me. I will look into it in the morning. Nothing will happen to me before then, I assure you. Now go to bed."

Eavin had the oddest urge to go to him with a hug and a kiss, but she was well aware that was her fantasy and not his. She might wish that he needed her, but he did not, and the frown on his face proved it. With no other acknowledgment Eavin turned around and swept out.

Nicholas watched her go with a mixture of relief and regret. The sleepy look in her green eyes and her flushed color against a long, black braid had combined to give Eavin O'Flannery Dupré a seductive look of innocence he found hard to resist. Despite being cold and wet, his body had responded to her with a lust that he found remarkably irritating. He didn't mind seducing her when he had nothing better to do, but he'd be damned if he would have her seducing him.

Yet he knew, if he had taken her in his arms just then, she would have come willingly, and something inside him ached for the little bit of comfort she could offer.

Growling at the thought of any woman offering more than trouble, Nicholas proceeded to throw aside the blanket and dress, ignoring the tittering maids.

* * *

"Ship 'em before they rot. The new warehouse will never be done in time." Michael sipped his coffee and eyed his employer, who was in the blackest humor he had ever seen him in, and considering Saint-Just's temperament, that was saying something.

"They could as easily end up at the bottom of the sea that way. With Napoleon defeated, the British will be turning their navy full force on us. I don't wish to lose my ships and men as well as the cotton."

"You're not getting any money out of either of them the way things stand," Michael reminded him practically. "And if it comes to a sea battle, you're just as likely to lose your ships defending the city as in shipping cotton."

"And you'd have no need to defend the city if your cotton was already gone," Eavin interrupted cynically, sitting down at the table with her toast.

Michael gave her a distrustful look, but Nicholas smiled humorlessly. "That is so. They could shell it to pieces and I'd have nothing to lose but this house. Perhaps we could send out welcome signals to the next destroyer that sails by."

Understanding some of the pain in his sarcasm, Eavin gave him a shrewd look. "I'm certain society would expect it of you. Why disappoint them?"

"You're quite right. I must be getting soft in my old age. Ship the cotton, Michael. You know the procedure. I doubt if anyone will question if I move my cotton after a fire." With that bland statement Nicholas rose from the table and walked out, leaving brother and sister glaring at each other.

"You know what that means, don't you, oh brilliant sister of mine?" Michael stared at his plate with disgust.

"That he's willing to risk his ships and men for his cotton and not for the city," Eavin replied.

Michael looked up sharply. "Perhaps you're not quite as brilliant as I assumed. It means I'll be loading his cotton aboard a smuggling ship and sending it out to dodge the blockade. They'll be lucky to find a friendly port once they manage that. The whole world's at war, in case you haven't noticed."

"So, what else is new?" But Eavin felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Michael not only had confirmed her conjectures, but admitted his part in it. She had done him no favor by finding him work here.

She wondered once again if she hadn't been overly hasty in seeking what had appeared to be the security of Nicholas's protection. But as she settled Jeannette down for her nap later that day, she couldn't see how she could have done any differently. Touching the infant's dark curls, she turned around to find Nicholas in the doorway.

"From this morning's conversation, I ascertain that you are having second thoughts about your choice of homes." His voice was dry as he watched her visibly retreat from him.

"Everyone is entitled to contemplate his future upon occasion. I merely agreed with what you were already thinking. You have worked hard for your reputation as a scoundrel. Why should I be the one to reform you? I'm not Francine."

"No, you're not, but I have provided for you and Jeannette as if you were, so you need not worry about the future any longer. When my enemies grow tired of waiting for each other to do the deed and one of them finally cuts my throat, you will be a wealthy woman. Now you need only sit back and wait."

The glitter of emerald in Eavin's normally hazel eyes gave fair warning of the tempest to come. "How very generous of you. You wouldn't mind making that sooner than later? Somehow, I imagine it will be rather difficult to introduce Jeannette into a society that scorns her father. It will be made much easier if she is orphaned."

The grip on her arm was painful as Nicholas jerked her away from the crib and out of the room. Closing the nursery door softly, he leaned against it as he regarded her as if she were a viper.

"I could defend that same society single-handed, and they would still scorn me despite their smiling welcomes. I could buy half the women in this city, but they would never accept me as anything more than my father's son. I can't think of any particularly good reason why I should hold a high opinion of their concerns."

"No one asked you to. Most people naturally think the worst of everyone. Why should you care? Francine is dead. You don't need to win her anymore. You don't even owe her daughter any respect. There is no one to condemn or condone what you do but yourself. Your father has nothing at all to do with it."

Nicholas's eyes glittered in the gloom of the unlighted hall as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I shall remember that when we return to the plantation. Last night's rain didn't hurt the roads much. They will be dry in a day or two. Are you coming back with me or have you found New Orleans society more to your liking? I'll not stand in your way if you have."

Puzzled, Eavin backed away a step or two. "I go where Jeannette goes. Nothing has changed."

Nicholas had a bleak look at the future Jeannette would have with a smuggler for a father and an Irish maid for a companion, but he was too angry with himself and others to ponder the implications for long. He unfolded himself from the door and glared down at her. "Then begin packing your bags."