Patricia Rice (2 page)

Within the first few minutes after the rapiers met, it became apparent that the match was more equal than expected. Saint-Just was accustomed to the weapons of his size—rifles, pistols, swords, and knives
—
weapons that he could use well with his greater strength. The rapier required greater finesse, and the dapper Raphael wielded his slender blade well.

But as the minutes rushed closer to an hour, and the sun rose over the horizon, throwing the clearing into long shadows, observers realized that the man with the cognomen of Old Nick earned his name well. He merely played with his opponent, pricking him occasionally to feed his anger, then slowly torturing him with exhaustion before he moved in for the kill.

Raphael's seconds muttered angrily, but there was little they could do. First blood counted for nothing in this argument, and all concerned understood why. When Raphael finally found an opening in Saint-Just's defense, they prayed to their Catholic God, but the larger man was quicker than they imagined. The blade merely cut through Saint-Just's clothing and scraped his side before he lunged, piercing his opponent's shoulder.

Cries from the onlookers did nothing to persuade the two combatants from their goals. Their brows beaded with perspiration, their breath coming a little faster, they circled, looking for further openings to close in for the kill. Raphael's fashionably cut hair fell about the immaculate folds of his cravat. The ruffles at his throat and wrists hung in tatters, ingeniously sliced to pieces by the man meaning to kill him. And now blood seeped through the rent in his elegant cranberry waistcoat, although it was not as noticeable as that staining Saint-Just's side white linen.

Weary, Raphael stumbled over a tree root but recovered before Nicholas could do more than slice his sword arm. It was easy to see that the Spaniard was on the defensive now, wearing down slowly, and for the first time fear flickered behind his taunting expression as Nicholas pressed onward.

"Nick, call it off! Can't you see he's done for? It's slaughter, damn you!"

Amber eyes gleamed golden briefly as Saint-Just's rapier caught Raphael's riposte and held it. "Shall we call an end, dear friend?" he asked with deceptive calm.

In reply, Raphael spat at his feet and spun his rapier with a lightning-like move that nearly rendered his challenger's sword hand helpless.

The match ended swiftly after that. Tired of the game, no longer fed by anger but hollow with despair, Nicholas allowed his enemy to close in, then in a flurry of movement no one could possibly describe later, dodged, swung around, and lunged, bringing Raphael to his knees with a deadly gut wound.

As a doctor rushed onto the field, Nicholas wiped his blade on the grass and stalked away, leaving his seconds to carry out the necessary duties. Jeremy ran after him, demanding that he wait for his wound to be tended, but the pain in his side was easier to bear than the hurt buried where no one could see it.

It scarcely seemed important whether he lived or died any longer. Gaining his saddle with a wince of pain as torn muscles pulled with the effort, Nicholas rode off without a backward glance.

Let them hang him. The reason he had stayed alive all these years was dead, killed by another man's child. What purpose was there in living now?

Chapter 2

"The wound in his side is not serious. He will recover, more's the pity."

Eavin glanced at Francine's mother with surprise. The small woman had seemed mild and meek since Madame Dupré had arrived a week ago. Not a cross word had ever left her tongue. This remark about the man who had so obviously loved her daughter did not seem natural.

Seeing her daughter-in-law's look, Madame Dupré sighed and dried her hands on the towel Eavin held out. They had left Nicholas sleeping in his chamber. Safely in Madame Dupré's room, they could speak unheard by the servants.
 

"He is more animal than man," she tried to explain. "Francine adored him, but she feared him, too. And rightly so. Nicholas has no control over his temper. When he is enraged, he strikes like any animal would do. Not that I can say I blame him in the circumstances, but no gentle woman could live like that for long.

Thinking of how Francine had lived in silks and lace and more comfort than Eavin had ever known in her life, she could not quite grasp this concept, and she protested. "I never saw him lift a hand to her. He treated her like the finest porcelain. They seemed to love each other very much."
 

That was perhaps pushing it a little far, but Eavin's romantic nature occasionally colored her usual skepticism. In the few months that she had been here, Francine had never left her chambers. But Nicholas had visited her with regularity and they seemed much attached. She had seen nothing to bring on the old lady's displeasure.

"Perhaps they did, in their own ways." Madame Dupré collapsed in the nearest chair and held her fingers across her eyes. "They were friends as children. Francine may have been his only friend. Nicholas was a strange one even then. When his father died and left the family bankrupt, he went off to sea and promised to return for her, and she believed him for many years."

With exasperation, Isabel Dupré looked at the young woman who had married her only son waiting for explanation. She could not imagine what her genteel and well-bred young son had seen in this common Irish beauty, other than the usual thing that men looked for. Surely he could have had that without marriage. But it was too late for that old quarrel, just as it was too late for this one. Both her children had disappointed her, and now they were dead.
 

She wished the child her son's wife had carried could have lived to carry on his name, but Eavin—such a plebeian name!—hadn't even succeeded in doing that correctly. But her daughter's child still lived, and arrangements had to be made.

"None of that matters now. The child must be baptized. I think she should be named after Francine. Nicholas will have to be made to see to her support now that Raphael is dead. Not that Raphael would have had any way of supporting her. So much has been lost since the Americans came. There is scarce room for the poor babe in my rooms, but she is all I have left. I suppose I will have to find some way."

Eavin's fear returned when Madame Dupré offered no invitation for her to accompany her to New Orleans.

When she finally left her mother-in-law sleeping and found the comfort of her own small chamber, Eavin lay across the bed, mind racing despite the weariness of her body.
 

It was increasingly obvious that the child sleeping a few doors away did not belong to Saint-Just, the man who had given her a home when she had traipsed across half a continent, pregnant and homeless and newly widowed. Dominic had told her to come here, to his sister and safety from the insanity of the war raging on the East Coast. Francine had been the one to invite Eavin to stay.

And now Francine was gone. As was Dominic. And it appeared even Francine's child did not belong here. Despairing for the poor child as well as herself, Eavin turned over and buried her face against the pillow. What would become of them all?

Exhausted, she fell asleep, but even in her sleep there was no rest. The distinguished man standing by her mother's side when she had waved Eavin off on her journey haunted her nightmares. The pressure on her breast where her stepfather had squeezed it, the heat of his arousal as he pressed her against the bedroom wall, made her toss feverishly.

Eavin's subconscious dragged her from that memory and into another one. This time the man smelled not of cologne but of whiskey. The realization that she had fallen asleep before locking her door came to her just as clearly as the night it had happened, just as she felt his heavy weight cover her. She screamed, but he muffled the sound with his slobbering mouth. As his hands groped beneath her nightdress, her terror threatened to overpower her as much as his greater strength, and some small part of her brain disconnected and coolly reacted with violence.

It had only been a knee to the groin that time. The intruder had heaved the best of a bottle of whiskey from his stomach to the floor. But after that Eavin had begun carrying a gun that Michael had bought for her.

She jerked awake with the remembrance of her hand reaching for that gun. Swearing, she sat up and noted the lateness of the hour from the position of the sun through her window. Bemoaning her fate solved nothing. If she was going to stay here instead of being forced out into the world, she needed a plan. She had survived this long by her wits, she would do so again.

When Nicholas woke, it was to find the black-clad figure of his sister-in-law grimly waiting for him, a glass of sherry near one hand and fresh bandages at the other. He winced as he reached for the glass, and she sat down beside him and held it so he could sip.

"What in hell is the brat screaming about?" The infant's cries pounded through his brain with the remains of the brandy he had imbibed the night before.

"She is most likely hungry. Annie will see to her shortly. She will need a name, you realize."

The woman he had scarcely noticed these last months spoke curtly, with only a vague hint of the lilting accent of her ancestors. Still, in this place the sound struck his ear oddly.

"Give it any name you like." Removing the glass from her hand, Nicholas gulped the sherry. When she did not move, he regarded her through narrowed eyes. Until now he had barely exchanged three words with this woman. She was a timid little thing who stayed out of his way, but because she gave Francine someone to talk to, he had not objected to her presence. Shortly, he would be forced to acknowledge the awkward situation.

"The child is a girl, not an it. Francine wanted her very much. Perhaps you could call her Francine in remembrance."

Instead of going away, the irritating woman began probing the bloody bandage at his side. Nicholas closed his eyes and let her fuss. Dominic had always been naive when it came to a pretty face, and this Irish female had more than a pretty face. Unfortunately, she had none of the manners of her betters.

It was a pity she couldn't resemble Francine more. A soft voice and delicate charm would go a long way toward ending this pain eating at his innards. With his eyes closed, Nicholas could almost see his wife's frail, blond beauty, hear her enchanting southern voice with the exotic hints of her parents' French and Spanish accents. Dominic must have gone out of his way to find a woman so opposite to his sister in looks and breeding.

Grimacing as the bandage came off, Nicholas opened his eyes again. The witch wore black as usual, but it went well with her white complexion and black hair. Heavy black brows and thick lashes should have looked coarse, but instead they accented damnably wide green Irish eyes and rose-stained cheeks. She never met his eyes, but he could feel the contempt with which she treated his wound.

"Call the creature anything you like, just keep her out of my sight. And hearing." The screams in the other room were escalating.

"Francine for her mother and Jeannette for St. Joan." Eavin cleansed the angry slash with a solution left by the doctor. "And Madame Dupré means to take her to New Orleans, so you needn't worry about hearing her for long."

"Over my dead body!" Abruptly shoving Eavin aside, Nicholas threw his legs over the edge of the bed, only to discover he wasn't dressed. Holding the sheet to his waist, he shouted, "Bring the old biddy in here! And get the hell out while I find some clothes."

Not certain how well her plan had worked, Eavin scampered to do as told. It would be much more pleasurable to stay and tell the arrogant creature what she thought of him, but she knew better than to beard a lion in his den. And Nicholas Saint-Just was no less than a ferocious lion as he began yelling for servants. Eavin just hoped she hadn't unleashed an uncontrollable beast.

For now, she thought only of the home she didn't have and would make if he would let her. It was obvious that Nicholas Saint-Just was a man alone, and men were incapable of making homes. She wanted to keep the place she had created for herself these last months in the neglected mansion. And she wanted to keep the child.

Oh, how she wanted to keep the child. Sending one of the maids to find her mother-in-law, Eavin reached the comfort of the nursery in time to see Annie take the child to her breast again. She ached to hold that tiny body, but the black nurse had just lost a child, too, and she cuddled the white infant as tenderly as anyone could wish.
 

It didn't seem fair that she couldn't have one of her own, but Eavin wasn't one to bewail the fates and do nothing. If her choices were to stay here and fight for the child or return to Baltimore and the disorder of that boarding house, she would choose to fight.

Comforted now that she had seen the babe quieted, Eavin returned to the hall to hear Nicholas shouting at Madame Dupré. He would tear open his stitches if he continued in that manner, but she wasn't one to interfere. He was lucky he was still alive if he had truly fought a duel this day. She wouldn't think about what had happened to his opponent. She didn't know these people or their histories, and she really didn't want to know them. She just wanted to be left alone to make a place for herself. And the child.

Eavin returned to Nicholas's room to find her mother-in-law weeping quietly into her lace-edged handkerchief. Madame Dupré and Francine were much alike with their elegant grace and soft, swishing silks. Eavin knew very little about the kind of genteel life they lived, but she did know a distraught woman when she saw one. She put her arm around Francine's mother and lifted a questioning glance to the man still trying to shove his shirt into his trousers.