Patricia Rice (4 page)

"I doubt that any woman could be bought for a price high enough to support herself and a child for the rest of their lives. Marriage might be a gamble, but the odds are better than what you suggest."

Nicholas laughed softly and actually turned to look at her. "You have a fascinating mind, Mrs. Dupré. Not one woman of my acquaintance would have stated her worth in such a manner. You should give the brat some interesting ideals."

Not wanting to debate that topic, Eavin remained silent, and Nicholas seemed willing to accept this end to their conversation. Calling for his news sheet and an additional lamp, he settled down to read while Eavin took up her mending.

The days turned into weeks in this odd manner. The few callers who arrived after the funeral were turned away either by Nicholas's absence or his refusal to see them, until they eventually stopped calling.
 

Eavin occasionally felt a tweak of loneliness having no one to converse with but the black servants and occasionally Nicholas for a few minutes in the evening, but she was satisfied with her choice. Her duties here were not strenuous, and the pleasure of holding Jeannette and watching her grow far outweighed the onus of loneliness, and certainly outweighed her only alternative.

Eavin saw no further examples of Nicholas's formidable temper. She became aware that he had other interests outside the plantation that drew him away from home. He often went into New Orleans, where she suspected he kept an office and perhaps another house, as so many of the plantation families did. What knowledge she had of family life in the new state of Louisiana came from the servants, but they knew little more than she did.

She wanted to know more. If she was making her home here, she needed to know how people lived. But Louisiana was such a new state, with such a confused history, that she could find little in Nicholas's library on the topic. Perhaps there was more in the French volumes, but Eavin knew nothing of that language. Frustrated by her limitations, she saved the American news sheets Nicholas left scattered about and read them avidly when she was alone.

Surprisingly, the newspapers that Nicholas brought home approached the topic of war from a different angle than the ones at home. Whereas the sheets she remembered were incensed at the huge debt acquired by purchasing Louisiana Territory and wanted to give the whole of it back to the Spanish or French, these sheets swore they would be better off if the South declared independence of the elitist North. They loyally backed the president and supported the war with the British. They wanted to extend enlistments and form an army and build a navy to fight off the condescending aristocrats who would dare to stop American ships and limit their access to foreign ports.

Eavin thought it confusing that the aristocratic society that Nicholas lived in would condemn any form of elitism. These papers seemed to appeal more to someone like herself, someone who had little but craved the opportunity to make more. But this area was French-oriented, and England had been at war with France since time immemorial.
 

Still, the France of Napoleon Bonaparte was not the France of aristocrats any more. She wished she had someone to discuss it with.

Throwing down the paper, Eavin went to check on Jeannette. At three months, the child was sleeping through the night, but she still felt the need to feel her breathing, stroke the warm, moist hair of her head to be certain all was well. Having satisfied herself that the infant was sleeping soundly, Eavin still felt too restless to return to bed.

Nicholas hadn't appeared in the salon, and she assumed he had gone into New Orleans again. It would be nice if he left some word as to where he could be found or even if he meant to eat his meal here or elsewhere, but this was his house. She had no authority to ask him to change his ways.

But she knew the bread that he hadn't eaten was still in the pantry, along with some strawberry jam, and probably the little cakes that had been prepared for dessert. Any of these sounded good at the moment, better than retiring to her lonely bed to stare at the ceiling.

She wished for some way of preparing tea. The awkward system of placing the kitchen out back, where the slaves could contend with the heat, and the house's inhabitants could stay cool, was a constant source of irritation. How difficult would it be to move the kitchen into the storerooms under the lower gallery? A fire down there couldn't generate that much heat upstairs.
 

Eavin had never seen the floods that the servants promised would come, but surely water in the kitchen couldn't be worse than the mud in the yard.

Her mother had always said that Eavin was never content with the way things were, and perhaps she was right. Why be content when just the simplest of changes could make things better? But she had no power to make changes and never had.
 

Finding her way down the narrow back stairs with just a candle, Eavin screamed when the light suddenly sent a large shadow dancing across the wall in front of her. A moment later, she recognized Nicholas on the landing. Her hand flew to the unfastened neckline of her nightshift, and she edged backward up a stair. The familiar fear returned as it had not this past year or more, and she quaked before the powerful man with whom she shared this house.

Eavin could smell the liquor on Nicholas as he halted a step or two below her. He still seemed to tower over her, but he didn't appear to be drunk as he looked at her through amused and weary eyes.

"Midnight raids on the pantry, Mrs. Dupré?"

He always said that as if the name were an unspoken jest, but Eavin had learned to ignore his sardonic humor. Retreating another step or two until his masculine proximity no longer terrified her, she recovered her wits and wished she hadn't, for then she remembered the only people who used these stairs were the servants. The slave quarters were directly out the door at the bottom.
 

There could only be one possible reason for Nicholas Saint-Just to be visiting the slave quarters. She hadn't been widowed so long that she had forgotten a man's habits, and the smell and look of him confirmed her suspicions.

In disgust and dismay, Eavin blurted the first thing that came to mind. "Sure, and that is why that Jezebel is after shirking her chores and laughing about it! I've naught to say to the likes of you, sir." Lifting the hem of her nightshift, Eavin retreated to the safety of her room, more shaken by the encounter than she would ever admit.

Below, Nicholas laughed, the sound echoing up the stairwell and through the hall after her.

"Sweet dreams, Irish," she thought she heard him call, but Eavin buried her head in the pillows and refused to acknowledge it.

Imagining the golden Nicholas making love to that snotty black maid irked her beyond the bounds of all reason. She wanted to smack them both. And now that she recognized Saint-Just as a man just like any other, a deep apprehension filled the hollow in her middle.

Chapter 4

Eavin hastily rose from her chair when Nicholas entered the salon the next evening. She dreaded the thought of being in the same room with him, but the scowl on his face at her movement brooked no disobedience.

"Sit," he commanded, pointing at her chair. "I'll not be judged and condemned by a damned piece of Irish skirt."

Rage replaced embarrassment and fear, but Eavin did as told. She'd been forced to control her temper long ago, but letting it simmer for any length of time wasn't healthy. Clipping off the first words coming to mind, she opted for a more objective reply. "I don't remember judging your morals, sir, only the results."

Nicholas gave a sharp bark of laughter as he reached for his news sheet instead of the decanter. "A philosopher. How quaint. Then by your terms it would be preferable if I would fornicate somewhere outside the household."

Color flooded her cheeks, and Eavin dutifully bent over her mending and counted to ten. She'd heard men use worse words. Helping run a boardinghouse for men had taught her a great deal more than her religious upbringing would approve of, a fact which had never bothered her mother.
 

But somehow when this man said such a thing, the meaning seemed much more personal. Perhaps it was the fact that they were the only two people in the room, and his male dominance permeated the atmosphere. It took a moment before she could recover her tongue.

"The church teaches fornication outside of marriage is a sin." She had never discussed such a topic with a man, knew it was highly improper, but she had never learned to hold her tongue when given the opportunity to use it.

Nicholas chuckled and glanced over his newspaper.

Even in the dim light of the lamps he could see the color staining her cheeks, but he knew defiance when he heard it. In those blasted black gowns, with her hair pulled tightly to the back of her head, she gave the appearance of every self-righteous old woman he'd ever known. But he suspected there was more behind that respectable facade than was readily apparent. He couldn't judge by the drunken glimpse he'd had the night before, but the memory of her irate Irish brogue placed her in a different category than prudish widow.

"The church teaches us to go forth and multiply," he answered wickedly.

Eavin treated him to a scathing glance. "That's disgusting."

Fully entertained now, Nicholas allowed his paper to fall to his lap. "What happens between a man and woman is not disgusting. It's perfectly natural. God created us, after all."

Color warmed her cheeks under his close regard. 'This discussion can have no proper ending, sir. I'll thank you to discontinue it."

Nicholas grinned. Even her ears were red. He'd not thought a little Irish molly could be so prudish. One would almost think she was one of those cold fishes that called themselves ladies and pretended babies grew under cabbage leaves. But she was from one of the peasant classes, which reveled in their physical natures, and she had been married. She knew precisely what he was talking about.

Relenting, he picked up his paper. "They say the Indians are on the warpath again. The governor's called for volunteers."

This was at least a safer topic, if no less worrisome. "Are there still Indians around here? Dominic told me they were all gone."

"Generally speaking, the Indians have more sense than the French. They know better than to fight over a piece of worthless swamp. The rebellious ones are farther north of here. But when they go on a rampage …" He shrugged carelessly and looked up. "Do you know how to use a rifle, Mrs. Dupré?"

He was needling her. She could see it in his eyes. He had the most damnable laughing eyes when he wasn't raging or sulking or ignoring her. Eavin thought she might prefer to be ignored. Before she could form a suitable reply, the front door knocker thumped loudly, and she nearly jumped from her seat in startlement.

Nicholas did laugh then. "Indians won't knock, Irish. You can rest easy."

Despite his sensible words, Eavin still felt the tension in him as he waited for a servant to answer the door and announce the caller. From the number of footsteps approaching, the visitor or visitors had refused to be left waiting. Eavin glanced anxiously at Saint-Just to see if she should depart, but he wasn't paying attention to her, as usual.

"There he is, damn you! Arrest him,
señor
. No more excuses."

Eavin's eyes grew large as the two men pushed in behind the maid, filling the parlor with the scents of the night wind, horses, and leather. The man who had spoken was only slightly larger than she, with a thin mustache and graying hair and the tight, intricately embroidered clothes of a Spanish dandy. The man with him had the look of a soldier, but he wore a leather vest and an ill- fitting sack coat instead of a uniform. After so many years of living on the thin edge of it, Eavin could smell the law a mile away.

Nicholas didn't bother to rise but regarded his guests disdainfully. "So nice of you to stop by, gentlemen. What can I do for you?"

"Hang! I will see you hanged, Saint-Just."

The Spanish pronunciation of the French name was almost as intriguing as Eavin's attempt at it. She lifted her eyebrows delicately, ignoring the Spaniard but keeping a wary eye on the lawman. He had the grace to look embarrassed.

"There's any number of people I would like to see hanged, Reyes, but I generally don't break into their homes and demand it without reason," Nicholas replied calmly.

The night was too warm to demand a fire, and the room was lit only by the two oil lamps beside their respective chairs. The shadows of the newcomers danced along the far wall, over the elegant French wallpaper, the gilded mirror, and the delicate, inlaid escritoire that had been Francine's.
 

A cold chill shivered down Eavin's spine, as if her sister-in-law's ghost had entered the room with the onset of danger. The air seemed redolent of Francine's jasmine perfume, but the men were oddly oblivious to her presence. Eavin turned to watch Nicholas, but the amber glow in his eyes warned of his dangerous mood, and she remained silent.

"Without reason! You killed my son! Murderer! You will hang. I will see you hang." The Spaniard ranted, shaking his riding crop and ignoring all else but his own rage.

Nicholas lifted a world-weary eyebrow to the lawman. "You will explain what he raves about, Brown?" An impatient French accent tinted his words.