by Linda Ladd
"Tante Chloe sent Jemsy for me," Michelle answered. "He told me what happened. Are you all right?"
Bethany nodded, looking away from Michelle's worried amber eyes. "Have you seen Luke this morning?" she asked.
Michelle shook her head. "No, but Jemsy told me he was in the library all last night and is still there now."
A stricken look entered Bethany's eyes. "Andy broke his leg, Michelle, and it's all my fault."
"Non," she answered sadly. "The blame is mine. You only rode Osiris for me."
"You know about that?"
"Oui. Philippe came to Toulouse Street early this morning to ask about you. He said that since you won, I can now see father any time I want." Michelle clasped Bethany's hand warmly. "I can never thank you enough for all you have done for me. I will go to my father today, but I couldn't leave without first seeing how you were."
Though Bethany tried her best to smile, her expression faltered when she realized she would soon have to answer to Luke.
"Would you look in on Petie and Raffy for me, Michelle? They're playing in Petie's bedchamber."
Michelle nodded, and Bethany watched her friend move down the upstairs hall before she descended to the tiled foyer. The door to the library was closed, and Bethany was relieved, since she was not yet ready to face Luke. She didn't blame him for being angry with her, though. Not the way things had turned out.
She went to the dining room, halting abruptly when she saw Andrew at the table, his injured leg propped up on a chair. Afraid that he would be as angry with her as Luke was, she hesitated in the doorway, but Andrew saw her almost at once.
"Beth! Come in! I need more whiskey, and Elise is nowhere to be found, as usual."
Bethany hurried to oblige him, amazed at his good spirits, but wanting desperately to make up for her part in his accident. She poured the golden liquid into his glass, and Andrew smiled as he sipped it.
"Where'd you learn to ride like that, woman? You made me look bad."
"Oh, Andy, I'm so sorry about what happened!" Bethany's words rushed out in a guilty flood. "I didn't mean for you to get hurt! I didn't even know you were going to ride. I only did it because Philippe Benoist-"
"I know. Philippe's already been here to see Luke. He seemed willing enough to assume the blame, and as far as I'm concerned, he was nearly blackmailing you. You couldn't have known I was riding Onyx. I didn't decide to enter until the last minute."
He grimaced as he shifted his leg, and Bethany bit her lip.
"Is it very painful?" she asked with a heavy heart.
"Some, but don't worry. I have another leg right here." He grinned, patting his good leg.
Bethany's smile was wan.
"Anyway," Andrew continued, lifting his glass of whiskey, "it gives me a good excuse to drink at breakfast. Who knows, maybe it will even make Miss Ludlow come back from her troupe's theater up in Natchez to see about me. It broke my heart when she left without a word."
Bethany shook her head, unable to summon up a response to his jokes.
"Luke hates me now, doesn't he?" she said in a forlorn tone.
"Luke hasn't said much this morning," Andrew answered with a smile. "He's too busy reading all the apologies from those impulsive young Creole gents who challenged him to duels."
"They apologized to him?" Bethany asked, surprised, but even more relieved to hear that there would be no fighting.
"I figured they would when they found out who he was. According to legend around here, no one faces le sauvage and lives to talk about it."
His grin was contagious, but Bethany felt so bad inside that hot tears welled up and fell down her cheeks, despite her attempts to stop them.
Andrew leaned over, handing her one of the fine white linen napkins from the table, and Bethany wiped her eyes, feeling so low and disheartened that she began to tell Andrew things she wouldn't have ordinarily uttered to anyone.
"I only wanted Luke to love me and Petie, and now he hates me and he's going to leave us. I know he always said he was going to, but I didn't want to believe it. I tried not to love him, Andy, because he said he wouldn't ever love me and that I shouldn't expect it, but when he took me to bed and was so gentle and tender, I thought-"
Bethany suddenly remembered herself with a hot blush, appalled that she had mentioned such personal matters, but Andrew only shook his head.
"Luke can be so blind sometimes, Beth, but let me talk to him for you. Maybe, I can shake down that brick wall he keeps building around him."
Andrew left Bethany dabbing at her tears in the dining room, wincing with each step as he hobbled painfully across the hall on his crutches. He leaned on one to open the library door and entered without knocking.
"You're not supposed to be walking yet," Luke said from behind his desk. Papers were strewn before him in many piles, as if he had been working on several different projects at once, and his jacket was slung over the back of his chair. "How's the pain?"
"Just like any other pain. It hurts like bloody hell," Andrew answered, easing himself into an armchair near the desk. "Beth's a little upset, too, if you have a mind to care."
Luke gave him a level look. "I don't have a mind to care," he said, going back to work.
Andrew frowned, leaning forward to lift his splinted leg to a small hassock.
"What are you doing?" he asked Luke sourly. "Writing Beth out of your will?"
It was Luke's turn to frown blackly. "Not that it's any of your business, but I'm getting things in order for you. I'm leaving you in charge of everything when I'm gone, and I hope you'll keep tabs on Beth and Pete, too. God knows she's going to need it now that she's ruined the good reputation you and I worked so hard to establish for her."
Andrew glared at his brother. "How long are you going to be gone, if I might ask? A mere decade this time, or are you going to wait until your grandchildren are born, so you'll only have to make one trip back."
"What the hell's your problem?" Luke asked mildly. "I told you I was leaving in January. Why the devil are you making such a big issue out of it now?"
"Because you have a wife now, and a little boy who needs you, for God's sake."
Luke shuffled papers into a neat stack, seemingly unperturbed by Andrew's angry outburst. "They'll do just fine. Beth always lands on her feet, and Pete can't stand me anyway."
Andrew heard it then, lurking subtly beneath the words, an underlying, uncharacteristic vulnerability. Luke wasn't made of stone after all, he thought in triumph, and now all he had to do was make his stubborn brother admit it. And, he knew exactly how to do it. He leaned back, gazing at Luke over his steepled fingers.
"You thought you had it all figured out, didn't you, big brother? You thought you'd marry poor little tomboy Beth so she would take care of your son and you could escape back to the mountains without having to make any kind of commitment to your son, or to your wife, or to anybody else."
Luke's quill pen stilled, his jade-colored eyes coming up to lock with his younger brother's blue ones. "Shut up, Andy. It's none of your business."
"What's worse," Andrew continued, disregarding Luke's warning, "you found you were actually human enough to start feeling something toward them. You, the cold, unfeeling le sauvage-you actually fell in love with your little made-over-to-order tomboy bride, and now you don't know how to handle it, Isn't that right, Luke?"
Luke's palms hit the desktop with a hard double thud. His eyes blazed. "Damn you, I said to shut up!"
Andrew watched silently as Luke stalked out of the room with a face like frozen granite, then, he leaned back, his laugh loud in the quiet room.
"Well, I'll be damned if I wasn't right. Luke is doomed."
Andrew rose then and made his way slowly back to the dining room, where Bethany was helping Peeto with his breakfast. When she looked up, Andrew's face split into a wide grin.
"You have nothing to worry about, Beth. He's so in love with you he can't see straight."
Bethany's smile was tentative,
and more than a little doubtful, but Andrew didn't give her time to question him. "I just put the first burr under his blanket," he said, "and together, my dear, we'll plant enough of them to make him buck like a stallion. Trust me."
The next day they put Andrew's plan into action. But, as Bethany sat in the garden surrounded by a half dozen of Andrew's young gentlemen friends, both Americans and Creoles, she wasn't at all sure her brother-in-law knew what he was doing. She kept a bright smile on her face as Andrew had instructed, listening attentively to the young men's compliments and glowing accounts of her win at Métairie. But, she felt as empty as a dry sponge.
She hadn't even seen Luke since the race, and she missed him. She missed his strong arms around her in bed at night, his hungry kisses, his low, sensuous laugh when she was the one to lead him to their bed. How could she bear it if he returned to the Rockies?
She couldn't help but think that Andrew was wrong. He thought Luke would care if other men called on her, but clearly Luke didn't care what she did. Hadn't he been in the library all morning long without coming outside, even though Andrew had arranged for her to meet her gentlemen callers just under the open windows behind Luke's desk? Even their laughter and loud talk had not appeared to faze him. It was useless. Everything they did was useless, because Andrew couldn't make Luke love her any more than she had been able to.
"Smile, Beth, stop looking like you've lost your only friend," came Andrew's whisper from where he sat beside her. Bethany obediently put a smile on her lips, knowing full well that it must look terribly false. She wondered why the men around her continued to linger.
"Voilé," Andrew murmured under his breath, and Bethany's heart leaped into flight as Luke appeared suddenly on the garden path in front of them.
He was dressed immaculately in a jacket of claret velvet over a black waistcoat and trousers, and she drank in every facet of his bronzed, rugged face as he strode toward them, then sat down on a bench a short distance away. He proceeded to present each male visitor in turn with an intense, unwavering stare that radiated hostility.
For a while, Bethany's guests made a concerted effort to ignore his silent regard, but in truth, little time elapsed before the animated conversation began to wane followed by long, uncomfortable lulls. One by one, Andrew's friends began self-consciously clearing their throats and claimed they had just remembered previous urgent engagements. Even the most determined of Bethany's admirers were no match for the hard green eyes that were riveted unblinkingly on their flushed faces. Soon, the last of them bowed graciously in front of Bethany's outstretched hand and nodded apologetically to Andrew before scurrying away with a great show of relief.
"You'd think I had the plague," said Luke with a sarcastic smile.
"Poor Luke," Andrew murmured as he watched his brother depart for the house. "He's got it worse than I thought. His days are numbered, for sure."
Seeing Bethany's glum expression, he squeezed her hand. "Trust me, you'll see."
"Mon Dieu! I nod ever see de lag of dis entertainin'," Tante Chloe muttered as she pulled a baking tin from the brick oven. Wiping sweat from her ebony brow with the hem of her long white apron, she focused her eagle-keen gaze on the three kitchen maids who stood at the table and frosted fresh-baked petit fours with Tante Chloe's special butter icing. Peeto and Raffy stood at the table as well, nearly drooling over the large silver tray filled with the miniature cakes.
"Go on den, teg wad you wand, but you godd to ead dem oud dere on de poach, heah?" Tante Chloe told the two small boys.
The children hastily helped themselves before the big woman changed her mind, and Tante Chloe made sure to look the other way so they could steal a second handful. Her gaze rested on Bethany, who sat in a rocker beside the fire, still sunk in the low spirits that had wrapped her in gloom since she found disfavor in the eyes of her husband nearly a week before. Tante Chloe's broad forehead wrinkled. She hated to see her sweet, fair-haired mistress so morose.
"It'd be dat le sauvage dat be doin' all dis to my lil' girl. He bez de debil," she grumbled under her breath, causing Bethany to look up.
"Please don't talk about Luke like that. He's not a savage. He says Indians aren't all that bad anyway, once you get used to their ways." To Bethany's dismay, the tears she had been suppressing for days began to flow, and she lowered her face into her palms. "Oh, Tante Chloe, I'm so miserable without him. All I want is for him to love me, and I'm so tired of sitting around with Andrew and his friends, and now Luke hardly ever comes home at all."
"Iz dat why you bez hidin' in here all de mornin', so you don godd to see all doz Creole mens?"
Bethany nodded. Tante Chloe watched her dry her eyes, then, she shooed the maids out of her domain, shutting the big oak door behind them. She wiped her big hands on her apron, then pulled one of the cane-bottomed chairs up close beside Bethany.
"Bez you shore you wand dat man to love you?" she whispered, her sharp black eyes searching Bethany's tearstained face.
Bethany nodded, glad she could finally express all the hurt she felt. Tante Chloe was gentle and caring, despite her dictatorial ways, and Bethany was tired of disguising her grief behind a facade of happiness.
"Wad you knows 'bout hoodoo, madame?"
Bethany looked blankly at Tante Chloe, wondering why the Negress's voice had lowered to a conspiratorial tone.
"Hoodoo?" she repeated. "Like Raffy's gris-gris, you mean?"
"Oui. Id bez magic, chile, an' I can mague dat black-hair, green-eye debil love you iv you wand him to. But, I nod sayin' you wand do dad," she added quickly, hoping her low opinion of the ominous master of Cantigny might bear some weight with Madame Bethany. Unfortunately, Madame Bethany looked more than a little interested.
"Can you, really? How?"
"Wid a love gris-gris. I mague dem for de udder girls in de quaders when dey's got dere heart set on a body. Id work, fo' shore."
Bethany stared at Tante Chloe, not sure she could put any credence in such talk, but wanting very much to believe a gris-gris could help her. She had come to the conclusion that it would take magic to make Luke love her the way she loved him.
"How does it work?" she asked, hiding her skepticism.
"Id bez a charm yous puts under you pillow. Id mague him come to you, mais certainement."
"Will you make me one?" Bethany asked, ready to give anything a try. Tante Chloe nodded, but when Andrew appeared at the threshold of the kitchen, the big Negress rose quickly to return to her baking.
"So, there you are," Andrew said to Bethany, leaning heavily on his cane. "Come on. Luke's expected out here sometime today, and I want you surrounded by men when he arrives."
Bethany went with him, but it didn't take Andrew long to notice her melancholy disposition.
"Now, Beth, you're not going to give up on him so soon, are you? We've hardly begun. Luke's not an easy nut to crack, but we'll get him eventually."
"But, don't you see, Andy? I don't feel right doing this to him. He's my husband, after all, and I don't want him to think I'd be unfaithful with your friends. I want him to think I love him and want him. I feel…well, I feel disloyal being with all these other men, and it's not fair to them either, because everything I say and do is so fake."
Andrew looked down at Bethany's sad, beautiful face, thinking of Luke's less-than-discreet appearances of late in the Vieux Carré with a certain redhead. Thank goodness Bethany didn't know. It would devastate her.
"All right," he said, "but promise me you won't give up on him. I know he loves you, and I'll think of some way to make him admit it."
The next day Bethany tried to keep Andrew's words in mind as she sat on her bed, turning over in her hands the strange charm that Tante Chloe had brought up to her the night before. The gris-gris consisted of a small burlap bag hanging from a leather thong. Inside were several black feathers and a curious green stone the color of Luke's eyes. Depressed because Luke hadn't come yesterday when expected, Bethany didn't believe for a moment that th
e gris-gris would work for her. Nevertheless, she replaced it under her pillow, not willing to pass up any chance to win Luke back.
When she opened the sliding wooden doors of the downstairs dining room, however, and found Luke sitting at his place at the head of the table, she was suddenly much more hopeful that Tante Chloe's love gris-gris might, indeed, work.
"Good morning," he said politely, though he didn't rise to help her with her chair.
Bethany moved to her place, unable to take her eyes off him. He had been in town for a week, and she was so happy to see him that she sat down without filling her plate at the sideboard.
"Aren't you going to eat?" he asked solicitously, and Bethany shook her head, the thought of food furthermost from her mind. "Coffee, then?"
"Yes, please."
He raised his hand slightly to signal the dining room maid to pour for her, then went back to reading his newspaper. Bethany sipped the strong chicory brew to which she was finally growing accustomed. She wanted to ask him why he had come back and, more important, if he intended to stay at Cantigny with them. She didn't dare, however, her primary fear being that he would get up and walk out again. Instead, she picked up the copy of the Daily Picayune laying beside her plate. Luke's name nearly jumped off the page at her, and she leaned over it with interest, slowing making out the words. Though she didn't know a few of the French expressions, she could read enough to learn that Luke had escorted a redheaded actress to the opera.
A stabbing pain knifed through her heart, only to be replaced by raw, agonizing jealousy. She struggled with it, trying desperately to control the overwhelming anger she felt. How dare he do such a thing, then come home and flaunt the news in her face.
Another thought struck her, a realization that sent her initial fury dwindling appreciably. He had wanted her to know; he had intentionally laid the paper out for her to see. That probably meant he intended to either hurt her or make her jealous. If he wanted to hurt her, that probably meant she had hurt him by riding in the Métairie, and if he wanted to make her jealous, he probably wasn't sure she really loved him. Hope rose on the ashes of her jealous wrath. Maybe Andrew's plots had not been in vain, after all.