by Nan Ryan
All this talk about buying anything or anyone he wanted was a bit disturbing. He had always vowed he wanted no one but her. Could she believe him? What if he decided, once he was wealthy, that he no longer wanted only her?
Or, that he no longer wanted her at all?
Dominique decisively laid the hairbrush aside, rose from the vanity stool and came to the bed. She leisurely untied the sash of her silk dressing gown, but did not take it off. Allowing the lord only glimpses of her satiny brown nakedness, she sat down on the bed and said, “How would you like to experience a new sexual thrill?”
Still laughing uncontrollably, the lord slowly turned his head and looked at her. When he could catch his breath, he said, “Nice try, Dom, but I’m afraid there’s nothing we haven’t done.”
“You’re wrong, my love,” she said with a sly, catlike smile. “Shall I tell you what it is?”
His laughter had now completely stopped. His full attention was on her. His body was beginning to tense with anticipation. Could it be there was still something erotic that the two of them hadn’t tried? Excitement flooded him. Blood surged through his veins. With growing interest, he watched her rise and move seductively across the bedroom to the tall mahogany armoire.
She opened the twin polished doors, pulled out a lower drawer, and took something from it. He couldn’t see what it was. She closed the drawer, shut the armoire doors. She turned and came back to the bed with her hand behind her back, concealing what she held in it.
The supine lord’s eyes widened when she ordered him to sit up, move to the edge of the mattress, and put his feet on the floor. Obeying, his heartbeat hammered in his chest.
Standing directly above him, her hand still behind her and the silk robe hanging open, Dominique leaned close and put her lips next to his ear. She whispered in the most graphic terms exactly what she was going to do to him. Lord Enfield, so shocked and excited he couldn’t speak, could only nod eagerly.
Dominique straightened, smiled, and asked pointedly, “Tell me, is there now, or will there ever be, any other woman for you, my lord?”
“No, God no, Dom, just you, only you.”
Forty
The hour had arrived.
Time, for Madeleine, had run out.
The first day of June was steamy, sticky hot in New Orleans. The summer sun beat down with a vengeance and the humid air stirred not at all. No cool breeze blew off the river. No billowy clouds appeared overhead to offer a faint hope of rain.
At straight up noon, a meeting of all concerned parties was getting underway at the Toulouse Street offices of Jay E. Jernigan, a respected New Orleans attorney who had been appointed by the courts.
Lord Enfield, hardly able to contain his excitement, was present with his personal attorney. Smiling, confident, the lord rose from his chair and bowed grandly from the waist when Lady Madeleine arrived. She did not acknowledge him, but he was unbothered by the snub. But when he looked up and saw Armand staring at him with cold loathing, his smile faded somewhat.
He shrugged and sat back down.
At the attorney’s instruction, Madeleine and Armand stepped up to the polished conference table and took chairs directly across from Lord Enfield and his attorney. The windows across the front of the office were all open wide, but it did little good. It was uncomfortably warm in the room.
“Is everyone present that is expected here today?” asked Jay Jernigan, looking from Madeleine to Desmond.
“Yes, sir,” Madeleine replied, unfurling a fan to stir the still air before her flushed face.
“Everyone’s here,” said Desmond. “Shall we get on with it?”
Lawyer Jernigan gave Desmond a sharp look over the tops of his wire-rimmed spectacles. The attorney took a seat at the head of the table, opened a folder, and withdrew Colfax Sumner’s provisional will. He placed the document on the table before him, folded his hands atop it, looked apologetically at Madeleine and said, “Lady Madeleine, under the terms laid down by the courts of the state of Louisiana, you are aware, are you not, that unless on this the first of June you have in your possession a last will and testament written by your late uncle after the date that this provisional will was made, I have no choice but to…”
As the proceedings continued, Avalina, accompanied by Big Montro, arrived at the law offices. For weeks, Avalina had been eagerly looking forward to this moment.
While Montro waited outside, Avalina went quickly up the steps of the building and, rushing past a startled clerk, forcefully opened the door into the chamber where the meeting was taking place.
The points of her signature white tignon dancing, Avalina, with Jernigan’s flustered law clerk at her heels, marched directly inside as if she had been invited.
“Sir, I’m sorry,” explained the law clerk, “I tried to stop her, but she—”
“It’s all right, Benny.” Jay Jernigan waved him away. Then turning his full attention on Avalina, he asked, “Madam, what is the meaning of this? We are conducting very important private business here and you are interfering. You must leave at once.”
“I’ll leave, sir, as soon as you take a look at something I have.”
With all eyes resting on her, Avalina smiled, reached into her reticule and withdrew a folded parchment document. She proceeded directly to the seated attorney, shook out the document and declared, “The last will and testament of Colfax W. Sumner!”
A collective gasp issued from all present, including the attorney Jay Jernigan. Armand and Madeleine exchanged surprised glances. Then a moment of stunned silence fell over the gathering.
Commotion immediately ensued.
While the attorney studied the will, Lord Enfield, wringing his hands, began to protest vehemently.
“Have your law clerk alert the authorities at once,” said Desmond anxiously. “Somebody needs to get this crazy old woman out of here so we can finish our—”
Ignoring him, an astonished Madeleine asked, “Avalina, where? Where did you find it?”
The black woman smiled sheepishly and admitted, “I have had it all along, Lady Madeleine. I took it from the wall safe shortly before your uncle’s death.”
“You’re lying!” shouted Lord Enfield, his face bloodred. “You don’t have a valid will! The provisional will is the only authentic one! For God’s sake, tell them, Lawyer Jernigan, tell them!”
The court-appointed attorney paid no attention to the disturbance going on around him. He was totally absorbed, carefully studying the document that Avalina had produced.
Baffled by Avalina’s behavior, Madeleine inquired of the loyal friend and servant, “But why, Avalina? Why did you take the will?”
Avalina said earnestly, “Because I was afraid something terrible was going to happen to Master Colfax. And so it did.”
Nodding, comprehending, Madeleine asked, “But why, if you’ve had it all this time, have you waited until the last moment to produce it. I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand,” Lord Enfield snarled. “The document she’s brought here is obviously nothing more than a worthless piece of paper.”
But he was growing exceedingly nervous. The will had been missing the night he’d had Colfax murdered. Had this snooping black servant taken it before he could get to it?
As if he hadn’t spoken, Avalina said to Madeleine, “I had to do it this way, my lady. If I had not, you might have made the terrible mistake of marrying Lord Enfield.” She cast a mean, narrow-eyed glance in his direction and said, “You needed time to see this unprincipled cad for what he really is. And time, as well,” she smiled in Armand’s direction, “to see Mr. Armand for the kind of man he is.”
“I see.” Madeleine began to nod.
“I suspected that Lord Enfield wouldn’t see the need to marry you as long as he thought the provisional will would take precedence,” Avalina continued. “It’s control of Colfax’s money he wanted.”
“Bless you, Avalina,” the smiling Armand spoke for the first tim
e. “You did the right thing.”
Indignantly rising from his chair, the angry, red-faced Lord Enfield, sensing that the vast fortune was slipping through his fingers, began to tongue-lash Avalina. But he got out only a few harsh words before the attorney’s office door once again opened and two uniformed officers of the law stepped inside.
“Finally!” bellowed Lord Enfield and pointed an accusing finger at Avalina. “Take her, take this mad black woman out of here at once!”
“It’s you we’ll be taking, sir,” said the taller of the two officers as both crossed directly to Lord Enfield.
“Me?” Desmond’s eyes widened and he frantically turned to his attorney. “Don’t just sit there, you fool, do something! What’s going on?”
“I—I don’t know,” replied his dazed attorney, rising.
“You can’t do this to me! Do you know who I am? Stop it!” shouted Desmond as the officers calmly forced his hands behind his back and clasped irons on him. “God almighty, what is happening? Is everyone insane? Why are you doing this to me?”
One of the officers laconically informed him, “You, Lord Enfield, are under arrest for the murder of Colfax Sumner.”
“Murder?” Desmond choked, truly terrified now. “Why I was nowhere near Sumner’s home on the night he was killed.” He looked to Madeleine for confirmation. “Ask her! She was with me. We were at the opera and—”
“We know where you were,” interrupted the officer, “but your hired assassins were at Sumner’s town house carrying out the cold-blooded murder you paid them to commit.”
“No, I…that’s…you’re wrong…that’s not true. Sumner died of heart failure, everyone knows that. You’re making a terrible mistake. I had nothing to do with his death and—”
“You picked the wrong killers to do your dirty work, Lord Enfield,” the officer informed him. “One of them talked, bragged to a lady of the evening about the murder. Told her it was you who hired them to do it. When we went to arrest the brothers, they immediately gave you up. Said it was all your idea, that you wanted Sumner dead so you could get your hands on his fortune.”
“No, no, you have it all wrong, I’m telling you,” whined a distraught Lord Enfield. “My mistress. Go see my mistress and she’ll—”
“We did. We spoke with the quadroon named Dominique earlier today. Under questioning she broke down and admitted that you had masterminded the murder.”
“That ungrateful bitch!” groaned Desmond. “She’s in on it. Did she tell you that? Have you locked her up?”
“No, we don’t think she’s responsible, so we took it easy on her. I believe she’s decided to leave New Orleans.”
“She’s as guilty as I!” he raged. “She is! She wanted Sumner dead more than I ever did. You should arrest her, not me!”
Cursing and struggling, the handcuffed Desmond Chilton was taken away with his anxious attorney following closely on his heels.
Well,” breathed the calm attorney, Jay Jernigan, once things got settled down, “now we can proceed with the business at hand.”
He smiled warmly at Madeleine and stated, “This document I hold in my hand is without question the last will and testament of Colfax Sumner and supersedes any prior wills he may have made.” The lawyer looked over his spectacles and added, “As you well know, Lady Madeleine, everything he owned now belongs to you.”
“Thank you, Attorney Jernigan,” Madeleine replied, elated.
“Don’t thank me, thank Avalina,” he said with a wink and a smile. Then added, “Now, shall we adjourn? It’s so miserably hot in here I need something cool to drink.”
Forty-One
Sunset on that same hot June day.
A bell tolled in the church tower.
A beautiful woman wearing a lace veil over her gleaming russet hair stood beside a tall, dark man before the lit candles in the old St. Louis cathedral.
Only two guests were present to witness the twilight nuptials. Avalina sat quietly in the front pew, fanning herself and beaming from ear to ear. Big Montro was at her side, his face shiny with perspiration, his mouth stretched into a wide grin.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” said the stooped old priest.
Armand turned, took his bride his arms and kissed her.
Then, with Avalina and Montro tossing rice at them, the happy pair hurried up the aisle, out the heavy front doors, down the stone steps and into a waiting carriage. As Armand pulled the carriage door closed, a flash of lightning briefly illuminated the summer sky, followed by the clatter of thunder.
A light shower began as the embracing couple were whisked directly to the St. Louis Hotel. By the time they entered the luxurious bridal suite, a torrential rainstorm had begun. The sheer curtains in the spacious boudoir fluttered in the wind-driven rain and the heavy air that had been scalding hot all day had cooled dramatically.
“I guess we should close the windows and French doors,” said Madeleine.
“No, let’s leave them all wide-open,” Armand suggested.
“It may rain in, darling.”
“Let’s take that chance.” Then grinning wickedly, he added, “As I recall, you like making love in the rain and the wind.”
“Don’t you?”
“I do, chérie.”
Ignoring the sumptuous wedding supper that had been laid out on the hotel’s famed gold place settings, Armand popped the cork on a bottle of chilled champagne, poured two glasses and handed one to Madeleine.
While the rain hissed against the stone balcony outside and the winds rose, the newly married couple toasted each other and vowed their undying love.
Armand asked politely, “Chérie, have you an appetite?”
“Not for food,” was her smiling reply as she reached up and took the gold clasp from her hair. The lustrous tresses cascaded down about her slender shoulders, the silky ends dancing in the rain-filled wind.
His heart full, his hunger for her potent, Armand took their champagne glasses, set them aside and drew Madeleine into his embrace.
She put her arms around his neck, sighed with bliss, smiled, and said dreamily, “Oh, my love, I am so happy.”
Armand swung her up into his powerful arms and started for the bed. Together they laughed when the wind and the rain, blowing into the bedroom, pressed their clothes against their bodies and peppered their faces and cooled the sweet-scented night air.
Beside the bed, Armand lowered Madeleine to her feet, and she said again, “So happy.”
Armand kissed her tenderly, and promised, “Sweetheart, I’m about to make you even happier.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-6393-5
THE COUNTESS MISBEHAVES
Copyright © 2000 by Nan Ryan.
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