Patricia Rice (39 page)

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Eavin stared out the small window at the activity around the stable in the distance. Saddlebags of provisions were being loaded onto two sturdy field horses. Men were scrambling everywhere. She had seen several messengers ride
in earlier. One of them had apparently already returned with Jeremy. She saw him now talking with Michael. She didn't see any sign of Nicholas.

She reached for the tea Annie had prepared earlier. It was cold now, but she sipped it without conscious thought. Annie had obviously liberally laced it with Labelle's herbs, but whiskey would have done more good. She needed something to warm her insides against this pervading cold.

Not that the weather had changed. It was still hot. Flies still buzzed along the gallery. Hummingbirds darted in and out of the honeysuckle. But there was a coldness in her middle just the same.

Perhaps this was what it was like to be dead and a ghost. If so, Eavin felt sorry for Francine. It was a horrible, helpless feeling watching life march on without her. Nicholas was married and going off to war. Her only brother was following him. And she was left to stare at four walls and wonder what to do with her life after she had destroyed all her other options for a man who had turned his back on her.

Even thinking like that did not fire her fury. She truly must be dead inside.
 

She didn't dare leave the room until Nicholas was gone. She was relieved that he was leaving. She didn't know how she would ever face the women in the house again, but she knew she could never face Nicholas. It would be better for all concerned if she packed and left, too, except for Jeannette. She couldn't leave Jeannette.

She stared at the child happily playing on the floor and wondered if she was wrong in that, too. Annie loved Jeannette and would take care of her. In a few months Jeannette wouldn't even remember Eavin existed. She had a new mother who could introduce her to society when the time came. Even this one last purpose was denied her.

Eavin hardened her heart against self-pity as a rap came at the door. Thinking it was Michael come to say his farewells, she absently called for him to enter and set her empty cup back on the tray. She would have to take the tray back to the kitchens. She couldn't expect Annie to wait on her hand and foot from now on.

When Nicholas entered, filling the small chamber with his presence and the scents of horses and perspiring male flesh, Eavin stepped backward, grasping the windowsill. His gold mane of hair had recently been cut short and was damp now from exertion, but it still framed his sun-bronzed face, accenting its strengths. The faint hairline scar along his jaw was barely visible now. He hadn't spent much time with his wardrobe. Her gaze fell with fascination to the rivulet of sweat running down the V of his open shirt.

"I wanted to see Jeannette before I left," Nicholas said stiffly. Despite his words, his gaze didn't fall to the infant but fastened on her.
 

She was aware her black curls tumbled in a disheveled mass to her shoulders. He didn't look lower but hungrily devoured her with his eyes.

"Of course. I will leave you to say your good-byes." Eavin didn't offer to move. The bulk of Nicholas's body blocked her exit.

Since the child in question was now clinging to his trousers, calling to be picked up, he bent and lifted her. "I want you to promise to stay in the house while I am gone. I don't like you and Jeannette out here alone."

"I'll have Annie take Jeannette back to the nursery," Earvin agreed woodenly.

Nicholas's eyes narrowed and amber flared golden. "That house is your home. Do not let anyone drive you from it. I will build a new one for Gabriella when I return. Don't look at me like that!" he snapped when he read the angry refusal in her eyes. "I haven't had time to change my will. You and Jeannette are still the beneficiaries. I don't know what that means under the law, but if anything should happen to me, I ask that you look after my mother and Gabriella. If the will holds, they have nowhere else to go. Even the house in New Orleans will belong to Jeannette."

Anger faded to fear as Eavin searched his face. He was going to war and there was every chance that he would never return. She could read that in his expression.
He didn't want to return.
He hugged Jeannette as if this were farewell. Tears stung her eyes for the second time that morning, tears that she hadn't shed in years and seemed to shed too easily anymore.

Refusing to give in to them, Eavin shook herself back to anger. "I'd recommend that you come back alive if you want to see your wishes carried out. I'll not promise to play rug to their feet."

A wistful smile crossed his lips. "I'm counting on you not to. I want Jeannette to grow up like you, not like Gabriella. Will you do that for me?"

"You're coming back!" she insisted angrily.

And as he watched Eavin bristle with life and fury, felt the flow of blood beating her heart as strongly as his, and knew the heat boiling beneath the womanly curves of breast and hip, Nicholas knew she was right. He was coming back, and when he did, this treasure would be his again.

Nicholas didn't dwell on this discovery. He felt only the stirring of life where all had been dead, and read the same in Eavin's eyes. The caring that was so much a part of her was more than he had ever experienced. With that thought he handed the child into her arms.

"I'll be back, then, and you'd better be in that house where you belong.
Comprends-tu
?"

"Oh, I'll be there all right," Eavin replied maliciously. "But I won't promise that your mousy little wife will be. I may just eat her for supper."

"That's what cats do," Nicholas responded calmly. "But you'd do better to sink your claws in me and not the innocent. I'm the one you want to punish."

"And so you are." Eavin straightened and glared at him. "Hurry back so I can see justice done."

"With pleasure." And with a mocking grin that did not quite reach his eyes, Nicholas tilted her chin, pecked her briefly on the mouth, and walked out before she could throw something at him.

Chapter 33

Eavin didn't keep to the letter of her agreement. Nicholas might call the house hers, but the constant company of two helpless women kept it from being the haven it once was.

She compromised. During the day she brought Jeannette to the house to be pampered by her grandmother while Eavin commanded the servants in the day-to-day details of living. Jams and vegetables were put up from the gardens and orchards under her vigilance. The laundry was boiled and scrubbed and hung out to dry regularly every Monday. The ironing was done on Tuesdays. The cooking for the household and the field hands went on constantly.
 

The new overseer brought squabbles among the slaves to Eavin since they respected her decisions over his own. She dipped into Nicholas's store of coins to provide shoes for everyone when a cobbler came to spend a week. The tasks of the day were endless.

But the night was hers. After the last meal of the day, Eavin packed Jeannette up and returned to the bachelor's quarters. The new overseer was a married man with a wife and children he installed in one of the small outlying cottages. The
garçonnière
was hers to do with as she would.

It was better than sitting in the salon doing needlework and listening to the complaints of
 
Hélène and Gabriella. Eavin appropriated books from Nicholas's library and taught herself to read French from the phrases she learned daily. She sewed new curtains for the windows, decorated the tables with bouquets of autumn flowers, stole supplies from Nicholas's desk and installed them in a small escritoire she appropriated for her own use. She wrote articles for Daniel and sent them by any manner she could contrive. His replies contained all the news and gossip of the city, more than the newspapers ever revealed.

From the newspapers Eavin knew the legislature had convened to discuss raising militia and means of fortifying the city. Daniel's letters revealed they did nothing more than argue, fuss, and fight while accomplishing nothing. She read that Baltimore had bravely withstood the British attack, coming to little harm while their guns mercilessly bombarded the mighty British navy.
 

Daniel reported that neither side could claim victory, but that in itself was a victory for the Americans. To hold their own with no navy or army to speak of against the mightiest war machine in the world was not to be taken lightly. His reasonable explanations of the happenings around her reminded Eavin of Nicholas and tore the hole in her heart a little wider, but she wouldn't do without those letters for the world.

For Nicholas didn't write. The women in the house waited daily for messengers. Daniel's stream of letters to Eavin caused suspicion until she read a few aloud and they grew bored and left her alone. New Orleans went about its pleasure as usual, and invitations arrived with frequency, but unless someone offered to escort them, they were stranded. That made it even more imperative that they receive some word from Nicholas as to his return. But none came.

As much as Eavin wished for some word from Nicholas, she didn't expect it. He had left carrying a load of anger and bitterness. She didn't expect the trials of traveling to alleviate his fury. Listening to
 
Hélène and Gabriella, she was beginning to understand the pressure under which he had left.

"He is a terrifying man. I do not know how you have suffered him," Gabriella confided in her soft Spanish accent. "I think he would blow me out the window if I stood up to him."

Patiently, Eavin replied in the French that Gabriella would have to learn if she meant to live here. "Did he ever hurt you?"

Gabriella's eyes widened in distress. "No, but he is so big." She held her hands out wide at the shoulders and then raised them to indicate height. "And he rages so. Is like a storm come into the house."

Eavin had to smile at that. Gabriella was correct there. The fault lay in fearing the storm. "Jeannette isn't afraid of him. You shouldn't be, either," she said firmly.

"You are right, of course." Gabriella sighed and turned back to her needlework. "Will you go with us to this American soiree tomorrow?"

The Howells' invitation was all that had been talked about these last few days. Eavin would have liked to see her friends again, but she felt uncomfortable appearing in public now. The neighbors had been kind to her, visiting and treating her the same as Gabriella and Hélène
, but it was different in a room full of people, half of whom could be strangers.

"I would rather stay here. Jeannette seems to be coming down with a cold. You can tell me all about it later."

That satisfied Gabriella, but
 
Hélène was a different matter. Coming upon Eavin directing an army of servants in cleaning the chandelier, she caught her by the arm and steered her into the
petite salle
.

"You must come with us to the Howells."

Bewildered, Eavin stared at her before she realized the command related to the invitations and not some emergency. Recovering, she removed her arm from the woman's grasp. "I think not." She started to return to the hall, but Hélène
's voice halted her.

"Nicholas would want it. To stay away would only confirm the rumors."

Eavin gritted her teeth. "The rumors have been thoroughly confirmed already. I will not give them something to talk about all night."

Nicholas's mother drew herself up to her relatively tall stature. "What you and Nicholas did before he married no longer counts. You are a free woman. If you appear in our company, they will know there is nothing between you and Nicholas. It will all pass over. For Jeannette's sake, you must come."

"For Jeannette's sake I have sacrificed all that I am or could be. Do not ask for more than that."

"It is we who will give to you," she replied coolly. "I cannot say that Gabriella will ever be a mother to the child, but she would be your friend. By restoring your name in exchange for all that you have done for Jeannette, we will be even."

Eavin was certain that made sense in some crazy Gallic way that she didn't hope to understand, but it didn't necessarily make the situation easier. She shook her head and walked out.

In the end, it was Jeremy and his new betrothed who made the decision for her. They arrived to escort the Saint-Justs and refused to leave until Eavin dressed and accompanied them.

It wasn't as horrible as it could have been. Mignon Dubois even greeted Eavin with graciousness and introduced her to a cousin of hers who immediately appropriated the first dance of the evening. Clyde Brown claimed her for his usual reel and stayed at her side until Alphonso discovered them. The young Spaniard instantly named himself Eavin's protector and almost engaged in a duel over an imagined slight from one of the other guests until Eavin threatened to slap him if he didn't behave. After that, even Señor Reyes nodded a stiff acknowledgment, and she felt almost justified in dancing the rest of the night away.

Not that it made it any easier to sleep when she returned home. Although the weather was cooler, Eavin tossed restlessly beneath the covers, finally throwing them aside to open the window. The cool night air poured in and she breathed deeply of it, wondering if Nicholas was out there sleeping beneath the same stars. It was a foolish thought, but she felt better to think of it. She could picture him wrapped in a blanket, his saddle beneath the rumpled gold of his hair, his broad shoulders resting on the ground as she had seen them so many times on her pillow. As she would never see them again.