Patricia Rice (36 page)

Chapter 30

"Are you out of your damned bloody mind?" Michael gulped back the last swallow of whiskey in his glass and held it out for a refill. Daniel Fletcher obliged without a word. He, too, waited for some reply from the man at the table across from them.

"I sense a certain sort of irony in the situation, actually." Nicholas lifted his own glass, examining the contents carefully as if the quality of the drink was all that mattered at this point in time. The raucous noise of the tavern didn't seem to intrude on his reverie. "After all, she comes with a lucrative dowry that Reyes is watering at the mouth to have. That young fool Alphonso has chosen a terrible time to turn rebellious."

"You need her dowry like the Mississippi needs water." Daniel grimaced at his partner's insouciant attitude and took a swallow of his own drink. "There is more to this than meets the eye."

"There aren't going to be any eyes when I get finished punching them out," Michael growled, his fingers clenching the glass, his gaze fastened intently on the elegant Frenchman looking so totally out of place in this noisy American bar. "The only satisfaction I can find in this is that Eavin will finally come to her senses and leave you."

Nicholas very gently set his glass on the table and leaned forward, speaking slowly and with great care. "No,
mon ami
, she will not. There will be no change,
comprenez- vous
?"

Michael's chair scraped back and he began to rise, hands clutched into fists. Daniel shoved him back down. Both men were drunk enough to tilt off balance with the sudden movement.

"He's not telling you everything." Daniel clipped the words out with remarkable accuracy considering the state of his tongue. "Listen to what he isn't saying. That's the secret."

If it was, it was a drunken one. Michael continued glaring, but obediently he waited to hear what wasn't being said.

Nicholas chuckled a trifle grimly. "I need an heir, gentlemen, it is as simple as that. Would you begrudge me an heir?"

Not knowing of Eavin's inability to have children, both men continued watching him owlishly, waiting for the moment of revelation. Sighing, Nicholas sipped his whiskey, swirled it in the glass, and returned to contemplating its color. "Lafitte thinks Claiborne is considering his offer of neutrality. Claiborne won't even listen to me until this wedding is over. The British are practically knocking on our door. What would you have me do?"

That made some kind of drunken sense. Still fighting the inevitable, Michael suggested, "We can join the pirates."

Once, the thought would have appealed to Nicholas. Perhaps he was growing old. Perhaps family life was making him soft. If so, he did not regret it. He didn't want to go back to being alone, one man in a ship full of men. He knew what it was like to have a woman's welcoming embrace, a child's laughter, the trust and confidence of his neighbors. He didn't want to give them up.

Standing, exhibiting none of the loss of balance of his companions, Nicholas shook his head regretfully. "Pirating is in its last days, gentlemen. We will all be good, honest Americans shortly. Or dead ones."

Nicholas strode off, leaving his companions to stare after him, waiting for some stumble to reveal he had drunk more than half the bottle on his own. His head never turned; his footsteps never faltered. Shaking their heads, even in their drunkenness, they could see the handwriting on the wall.

* * *

"There's someone to see you, Miss Eavin." Nervously Annie glanced over her shoulder as if expecting the visitor to appear in a spectral vision behind her.

Putting Jeannette in bed for her nap, Eavin replied patiently, "I will be right down. Just give me a minute."

"Not here, Miss Eavin. She won't come in here. Out by the oak grove, she said. You've got to go to her."

That didn't make any more sense than anything else had lately. Since Nicholas had left, there had been reports of pirates on the river and in the swamp at the edge of the fields, but none came to the house. The slaves had told her of bands of militia camping in the marsh. She'd even received some kind of drunken letter from Michael demanding that she pack her bags and be ready to leave.
 

Another letter had arrived from Daniel Fletcher in which he had all but proposed to her, although she scarcely knew the man. Jeremy had ridden by to tell her his family would always consider her a friend and their home would always be open to her. But when pressed, he would tell her nothing more.

Something was wrong, but there was little she could do about it until she knew what it was. If she hadn't burned her bridges behind her, she could have ordered the carriage up and gone into New Orleans, but she wouldn't scandalize Nicholas's mother by appearing on her doorstep. Besides, that would indicate some distrust in Nicholas, and she wouldn't do that for the world.
 

But curiosity and fear were potent motivators. Leaving Jeannette in Annie's capable hands, Eavin located a parasol and set out on foot to the oak grove. She wasn't brave enough to ride a horse by herself, although an excellent riding habit had arrived from New Orleans. On her own, she was too accustomed to using her own two feet.

The humidity wasn't as severe as it had been, but the sun was still warm as Eavin crossed the lawn in the direction of the spreading oaks. Deep shadows lingered beneath the veils of hanging moss, and she shivered at the hint of evil in that concealment. Perhaps she was being foolish in coming here alone. Nicholas had warned her that the pirates weren't innocent. But Annie had said "she." She had nothing to worry about from a woman.

Until she saw the woman. Eavin halted abruptly when the shadow melted from the trees. She recognized her at once, but the circumstances were different. On a public street in New Orleans, with crowds of people around, that face looked like any other.

In the sensuous silence of the oaks with shadows playing across her exotic features, the same face reflected otherworldly knowledge. Had Eavin come face to face with a ghost, she couldn't have been more paralyzed.

"You remember me?" the husky voice murmured with the languid accents of Santa Domingue.

"Labelle." Eavin was surprised to discover that her tongue still worked. She was superstitious enough to believe in ghosts and devils, but only ones that couldn't be seen. This woman was flesh and blood; she would stake her soul on that. "Am I supposed to be afraid of you?"

The woman shrugged. "White folks aren't afraid of niggers."

Curious, Eavin stepped closer. Nigger wasn't a word she applied to anyone, least of all a woman like this one. "Annie is afraid of you. Why?"

Labelle met her gaze with a hint of defiance. "Niggers are afraid of everything."

"That is ridiculous. You're not afraid of me." That statement became almost a question as the woman's delicately plucked eyebrows rose.

"Not for myself. For Nicholas," was her enigmatic reply.

"Nicholas isn't afraid of anything," Eavin answered adamantly and began to turn away. This was a ridiculous conversation.

"Nick is afraid of many things. Nick is afraid of ghosts," came the soft reply.

Eavin swung around again. The woman's words hit very close to a truth she hadn't recognized.

"You never spoke to Nicholas of me." Belle's tone was affirmative, not accusing, certain now that she had Eavin's full attention.

"I saw no reason to. Should I have?" The parasol felt unfamiliar in her hand, just as this conversation made her feel awkward and uneasy. Eavin set the parasol against a tree and wished for somewhere to sit. Belle seemed perfectly at ease in this jungle paradise, although at their first meeting she had appeared a creature of the city. Today she wore dangling gold at her ears and loops of beads and crystals around her neck and wrists. Her elegance had become something else, something much more primitive and striking.

The woman's laughter tinkled in the unmoving air. "I see why Nicholas likes you. He is impatient with the old ways. He believes in directness. You possess that quality. There is not another woman in New Orleans who could say the same."

"I am certain there must be; she just wouldn't be among the crowd he knows. Why have you come here?"

"To be certain you are what Nicholas needs. He is a strong man, one so confident in his strength that he will do what he perceives as necessary even if it is the wrong thing. But even strong men have weaknesses. From things he has said, I think you know him well enough to destroy him. I would destroy you before I would let that happen. But if you can hurt him, you also have the power to help him, to drive away the ghosts. If you choose that road, I will stand by you in whatever way I can."

Puzzled, Eavin gestured toward the house. "Wouldn't it be better if we talked inside? I am not very good at riddles. Perhaps if we..."

Labelle smiled and moved away. "I will not taint my magic with yours. But I will give you this." She produced a small vial from the folds of her skirt.

Eavin had it in her hands without realizing she had reached for it. Staring at it blankly, she looked back to the woman fading into the trees. "What do I do with it?"

"A pinch in your tea every morning. It will make you whole again. It will give you strength. I do this for Nicholas. Betray him, and you will regret it."

The words were said in such elegantly rounded tones that Eavin couldn't quite believe their threat, and she certainly didn't understand it. Fear mixed with anger to make her slow in reacting, and when she did, it was too late. Nicholas's half sister had gone.

Studying the path Labelle had taken, Eavin saw nothing but the undisturbed debris of innumerable seasons beneath her shoes. The trees were not so thick that she couldn't see between them, but she might as well have been talking to a ghost for all the indication Labelle had left of her presence.

More puzzled than alarmed, Eavin returned to the house. The vial in her hand reminded her that the woman actually existed and wasn't just another figment of her imagination. Opening the lid, she sniffed the ingredients, recognizing the scents of some of the herbs but not all of them. The Creoles used a variety of seasonings with which she wasn't familiar. Perhaps Labelle just meant to improve the flavor of her tea. Give her strength, indeed! For that she had the power of the Lord.

Annie looked at her fearfully when she returned upstairs. At the sight of the vial she flinched. "What that voodoo woman give you?"

"Voodoo?" Amused by this reference to some strange religion she had heard that some of the slaves practiced, Eavin set the vial on the chest of drawers. "She's a little odd, but I wouldn't call her that. She seems to think I'm weak and need strengthening. Either that, or she thinks my tea needs strengthening. Personally, I think she's had too much sun."

"What she say that for?" Annie nodded at the vial.

"To make me whole again." Eavin laughed and looked down at herself. "I don't think I'm missing any parts, do you? But a pinch a day is supposed to make me stronger. If I remember, I'll try it tomorrow. My mother always recommended chamomile, but I hate the stuff."

Annie looked relieved and nodded. "Voodoo woman take care of you, then. Do as she say, and everythin' be all right."

Eavin doubted that, and she promptly forgot the vial as soon as she went back to her writing. She worried over Labelle's words about Nicholas, though. He did have weaknesses. His temper was a terrible weakness. And his bitterness toward his mother hid a child's desire for love. No one could entirely erase the need for a mother's love. That could be a weakness if
 
Hélène wished to use it against him

* * *

"She is too young to be treated as a pawn,
maman
." Nicholas shoved his hands into his pockets and stared out at the brilliant blue of the sky over the roof of the house across the street. Odd, but he had thought it was raining.

"The banns have been declared, Nicholas. Do not humiliate her by changing your mind now. You had to marry someday."

That was the refrain that had been drummed into him for weeks. He had to marry someday. Now that he had ruined everything for Eavin, she couldn't be the one to bring Jeannette out in society. He would need a proper wife to do that, preferably a Creole who would be accepted by his peers. He and Eavin had both known that someday he would have to marry, if only to produce a son to bear his name. Or he thought Eavin knew that. It wasn't a topic that they had discussed.

He didn't know how to tell her. Never in his life had he been a coward, but these weeks had melted away and still he hadn't found the words. A letter wouldn't do. But Claiborne and his men watched him every minute, and a hasty ride home to break the news to his mistress would give them something to gossip about for months to come.
 

So as he had these last weeks, Nicholas tried to consider the pale child he would take as bride. "I think I frighten her. Shouldn't she be given some choice? Claiborne is forcing us both into an untenable position."

"She is very young and will learn to be as you wish with time, Nicholas. Would you have preferred she married Raphael?"

That was his mother's first admission of the possibility that he might be innocent of Raphael's death. Nicholas studied the woman who had given him birth.

"I doubt if it could have been much worse than being married to me. I don't remember Francine complaining of his having beat her. She loved him. Her cousin might do the same. The only difference is that Gabriella has a dowry and Francine didn't."