Iron Lace

by Lorena Dureau

  Grandmother Chausson smiled and turned momentarily to Miguel. “Monique really is well versed,” she told him proudly. “The child has always devoured every book she can get her hands on, and I’m sure she can hold her own with most of the learned men of the colony.”

  She turned then to Monique. “But there are always new things a governess can teach you, my dear. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t hurt you to learn to speak Spanish better, for example, and although you play the harpsichord very well, I’m sure one never really reaches perfection in such things. But most of all, as I said before, there are still so many more things you should be learning socially.”

  Vidal immediately seconded her.

  “Your grandmother is right, Monica. Besides, Celeste undoubtedly still needs some instruction in scholarly things, and if we only hired a companion for you, the woman might not be well versed enough to serve as governess for your sister. On the other hand, a governess can always serve as a companion.”

  “But a governess! Why, many women my age are already married and have one or two children, and here we are talking about a governess for me!”

  “You may refer to her any way you wish— governess or companion, it’s all the same to me—but you’re never too old to learn, and at any age you’re going to need a chaperon, so enough said on the subject. That’s my decision, and if I’m to be your guardian, I’ll have to ask you to abide by it.”

  Monique’s stubby nose crinkled up as her brow lowered to meet it in a disapproving frown. Things were taking a very unpleasant turn, indeed!

  Chapter Five

  In the days that followed, Monique chafed under what she repeatedly referred to as “the Spanish yoke”, which she declared weighed down not only on the Louisiana colony but on her own shoulders now as well.

  After having been under little or no restrictions for so long, it was difficult to have to yield suddenly to another will—a will that she was discovering with each passing day was as strong as or stronger than her own.

  From the very beginning, her cousin took charge with the air of one accustomed to exerting authority and who expected to be obeyed. Although he was not nearly so tyrannical and heartless as Monique made him out to be, Vidal did put a closer rein on his restless little wards and, living up to his word, would not tolerate their leaving the premises unless they were well chaperoned.

  On more than one occasion Monique angrily accused him of setting the servants to “spying” on her, but he simply gave that maddening half-smile of his and admitted he had indeed ordered them to “keep an eye on her.”

  Late that first day and all the following morning, there had been a steady stream of traveling trunks and crates coming into the town house from the Maria de la Concepción, which the new head of the Chausson family had immediately set about unpacking with the help of the Negro servants.

  The upstairs front bedroom, which had been kept locked off from the rest of the house since Louis Chausson’s death six months before, had been reopened for Vidal. It seemed strange to Monique to go past its door and catch glimpses of her cousin’s personal belongings strewn about amid the familiar furnishings that had once been her father’s.

  Cousin Miguel also had a few pleasant surprises for his new family. One of the first trunks he had unpacked from among the mountain of suitcases and trunks he had brought with him produced a colorful array of gaily embroidered white fringed shawls and a wide assortment of black lace mantillas, from the tiny triangular headscarfs for church to the regal full-length ones to be worn on more festive occasions.

  Celeste and her grandmother were delighted, and even Monique had to admit somewhat reluctantly that her guardian had exquisite taste, but she was certainly far from ready to relinquish the misgivings she still felt about him and the entire arrangement.

  As for Cousin Miguel, he might have found many aspects of his new position not to his liking, but if he did, he kept his feelings to himself, going about his new responsibilities in his characteristically unruffled manner. It seemed as though, having once decided to take on the management of the Chausson affairs, he was determined to do so as efficiently as possible. He might have missed the pomp and glitter of his former life in Madrid, but he also seemed to find the challenge of his new life rather invigorating.

  He spent much of his time going around town getting to know its prominent citizens as well as the geographical terrain of the region. By the end of his first week, he probably knew more about the city than the residents themselves did. What’s more, because of the lofty position he had held in Madrid society, the doors of New Orleans were readily opened to him wherever he went, and when he asked questions, he usually received answers.

  Before that first week there was out, he had also paid a two-day visit to the Chausson plantation, but on his return, he had had little to say except that he was afraid the worms were going to get the indigo crops in the colony again that year. Whenever the women asked him what he thought should be done to save the plantation, however, he simply replied it was too soon to come to any conclusions and either changed the subject or sank into a pensive mood.

  On more than one occasion Monique and her new guardian had their clashes. They especially had a confrontation the day he returned from the plantation and caught her trying to sneak out, as was her custom, through the carriage entrance just as he was entering the courtyard on horseback.

  “And where might you be going, my little cousin?” he asked tartly as he dismounted his mare and turned it over to the stableboy.

  Monique tossed her pale gold mane defiantly as she glared back at him. “I was only going as far as the gate,” she replied, making no effort to hide her annoyance.

  “And do you have your grandmother’s permission?” He stood there towering above her as he tapped his riding crop impatiently against the top of his black leather boots and waited for her to think of a suitable reply. “Of course you don’t,” he finally answered for her, “for why would you be sneaking out of the entrance to the stables if you did?”

  “But you weren’t here to ask, and grandmother is sleeping,” she retorted defensively. “What should I do under such circumstances?”

  “Well, in the future if I’m not around, you will simply have to decide whether your reasons for wanting to go out are important enough to awaken your grandmother to ask her for permission or not. If they aren’t, then just stay home and find something else to do.”

  With an exasperated sigh, Monique spun around on her heelless slipper of pale blue satin and began to walk back across the palmetto-lined patio.

  “It’s so boring to be locked up in the house all the time!” she flung back at him, pausing momentarily by the little brick well, as though dreading returning inside.

  “Well, all of that will soon change,” he assured her. “Come Monday, you’ll have a governess to keep you busy once more. I just hired one for you and your sister today on the way back from the plantation.”

  Vidal looked at her standing there bareheaded in the bright daylight. How dazzling her hair was in the sun, he thought. And that shapely little doll mouth of hers between a pout and a dimpled smile, just begging to be kissed. He wondered whether she had ever been kissed… really kissed, the way a man kisses a woman. How he would love to savor the taste of that fleshy little lower lip and probe into the sweet recesses beyond to meet the tip of that saucy little tongue!

  He caught himself quickly. What was wrong with him? He knew better than to think such things about, of all people, his ward! Besides, despite her pleasingly rounded little figure, it was evident she was still more of a child than a woman. He was annoyed with himself for having thought of her in such a way even for a moment.

  Suddenly he remembered the way those ruffians had looked at her that day on the square, and the memory chilled him. The girl might still be a child, but she was certainly highly desirable. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to have the slightest idea of how much just the sight of her could rouse a man. He felt a sudden
urge to protect her. He must think of her and Celeste as the sisters he had never had…

  “Just a minute, Monica,” he called after her as she continued now to walk on ahead of him toward the house that embraced the patio from three sides.

  Pausing, she looked at him in surprise. “Come, sit here for a moment,” he invited, motioning toward the bench beneath the shade of the tree. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  She hesitated, the petticoats beneath her light blue muslin skirts still swaying from the rhythm of her gait.

  “Please, little cousin,” he insisted, his voice taking on a less impersonal tone than usual.

  Reluctantly she sank down on the bench, her dress billowing about her, leaving little room for him to sit beside her, but he didn’t seem to mind. He came nearer and, removing his high-crowned felt hat, he rested a booted foot on the partially exposed edge of the bench and stood there looking down curiously at her.

  For a moment, as his eyes lingered on the fullness of those firm young breasts rising up beyond the ruffling that edged the deep square neckline of her dress, he found it difficult to continue thinking of her as his ward. Despite himself, he could feel the desire suddenly rushing through his veins and swelling to a burning hardness that he knew could not be fulfilled. Qué barbaridad! He’d have to tell the new governess to see to it that the girl cover herself more…

  Monique lowered her lashes, feeling suddenly self-conscious beneath his penetrating gaze. She prepared herself for another scolding.

  But when he spoke there was a gentleness in his voice she had never heard before. “Now tell me, little cousin, why are you so bored? I was an only child, and I confess I sometimes missed the company of a brother or sister with whom to while away the hours. But you at least have Celeste. What’s she doing now? Is she so bored, too?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She’s working on her sampler.”

  “And don’t you have something like that to work on, too?”

  Monique puckered up her tiny nose. “Of course, but I’m not especially fond of needlepoint.”

  “I see.” Vidal smiled sympathetically. “But there must be other things you could do. How do young ladies your age usually pass your leisure time? Your grandmother said you liked to read, didn’t she?”

  “I was reading to Grandmother when she fell asleep.”

  “But what do you personally like to read?”

  “Just about anything, but I especially like the new French philosophers, and, of course, I’ve read some of Molière’s plays and… and translations of one or two Shakespeare works, as well.”

  “My! That’s commendable, and heavy reading for one so young. I had no idea a girl your age could be interested in such things.”

  “Perhaps I’m not as much the child you think I am,” she retorted, tilting her upturned nose even higher. “Oh, of course, I like the romantic novels, too,” she added quickly, “but I seldom get to read any, since Grandmother doesn’t care for them, and Mlle. Fortier, our former governess, used to forbid Celeste and me to read them. She said they filled young girls’ heads with silly notions.”

  Vidal looked at the drooping head of pale gold ringlets and chuckled. “Well, we’ll have to see what we can arrange for you with your new governess— or, if you prefer, companion—when she begins next week,” he promised. “But surely there must be something you enjoy doing—I mean really enjoy. It’s a calamity to be only seventeen and already so bored with the world!”

  Monique was pensive for a moment. “I… I used to like to play the harpsichord,” she confessed at last. “People said I was rather good at it.”

  “Used to? Don’t you play anymore?”

  “Not very much since we lost the one we had here in the fire. Of course, there’s still one at the plantation, but we only go there a couple of months in the summer, that’s all.”

  “Well, I’ll have to see about getting another one for the town house, or have the one at the plantation brought down to New Orleans whenever you’re here,” he told her.

  “When the town house was finally rebuilt and we began to stay here again in the winters, Papa promised to get me another one, but then the crops started going bad, and I hated to keep bothering him about it.”

  “Well, I think we can find a way of getting you a harpsichord for here at the town house, too. Would you like that?”

  She lifted her head, and at that moment her eyes seemed like a pair of enormous aquamarines as they reflected the pale blue of her gown with its wide satin sash and large flounce running around the edge of the skirt.

  “Oh, yes, I would… I…” But the impact of his direct gaze suddenly inhibited her, and she immediately lowered her lids once more. She was annoyed with herself for letting this enigmatic guardian of hers affect her so. Her thoughts were always so confused when she was near him. “Yes, that would be nice,” she concluded lamely and fell into an uneasy silence.

  “And I haven’t forgotten my promise to take you and your sister to the theater, either,” Vidal continued, hoping he could put their relationship on a more friendly basis. “If I get good reports from your governess about you, I’ll take you the end of next week.”

  “That would be nice,” Monique repeated as she shifted self-consciously on the bench, acutely aware of his nearness as he bent his knee and leaned forward slightly on his booted foot and a disturbing masculine scent of tobacco and lavender tickled her nostrils. It was a pleasant odor, strangely appealing. Celeste had been right to call him handsome, and he was especially so in his brown riding habit, with the tousled locks of his blue-black hair cut stylishly short about his face and the slightly longer back neatly braided with a black ribbon into a short queue at the nape of his neck. It was difficult to continue hating someone who had brought her such lovely gifts, had just promised to buy her a new harpsichord, and was going to take her to the theater!

  But suddenly she felt guilty, as though she were betraying the memory of her mother. She could well imagine what Eugenie Chausson would have said at that moment. The latter would have called Miguel Vidal an overbearing, presumptuous Spaniard, intruding on their lives and dispensing favors which, for the most part, could have been obtained sooner or later with or without him as her guardian.

  “You know, Monica,” he was saying, “although music and the theater may both be important to gracious living, you shouldn’t scorn your sewing and other household activities so completely. Granted, you have servants, but you should know how to do such things for yourself, if only to be able to better instruct those under you when the time comes for you to be mistress of your own house. I’m sure you’d like to marry someday and have your own home… a husband… children… right?”

  She shrugged her blue puff sleeves listlessly. “That’s what Maurice keeps saying, too,” she sighed.

  Vidal put his booted foot back on the ground and planted himself in front of her. “Maurice? And who, pray tell, is Maurice?”

  “Oh, just a young man I know.”

  “You must know him quite well if he has already spoken of marriage to you.”

  Monique sensed a sudden sternness creeping into his tone once more. “Oh, he’s a beau of mine,” she replied with a flippant toss of her head, suddenly enjoying the opportunity to boast a little of a suitor. Now perhaps her pompous guardian would stop thinking of her as only a child and treat her more like the grown-up woman she really was.

  “Well, this Maurice had better present himself in the proper manner and ask permission first to call on you before he even entertains any thoughts of marriage,” he snapped. “Are you interested in this young man?”

  “Oh, I guess I like him the best of all my beaux,” she replied pertly. “I have several, you know.” She could sense she was ruffling that usually frustrating calm of his and was rather enjoying it.

  “I don’t doubt you do,” he retorted dryly, “but, of course, you realize you’re too young to take any of them seriously yet.”

  “Oh, I don’t know… After a
ll, I’m seventeen. Many women my age are already married and have a couple of children.”

  “Well, I do know, my little cousin, and you may look like a woman outwardly, but you’re far from being one inwardly. There will be time enough to think of matrimony once you’re of age.”

  “But that’s almost four years away!”

  “You’re exaggerating, but it only goes to show how much growing up you have to do yet.”

  “Do you mean I have to be tied to your will all that time before I can do as I please?”

  “The only way you could contest my authority over you would be to go to the courts and ask that they emancipate you before you’re twenty-one, but before they would even consider your petition, your grandmother and I would have to testify that we feel you’re old enough to be responsible for your actions. Since I couldn’t say such a thing in all honesty, I’m afraid you’ll just have to reconcile yourself to the situation and let time take care of it. Meanwhile, please bear in mind that, from now on, your regiment of beaux will have to line up to pass inspection before they can pay you court. Is that clear?”

  Monique tossed her head angrily. “If I decide to marry, I’ll do so when and with whom I please,” she declared airily.

  “Don’t try me, Monica,” Vidal warned her, his voice taking on a sharp edge. “I have no intention of letting you make a fool of yourself or of me.”

  “And stop calling me Monica!” she retorted. “That’s Spanish, and I’m French!” She rose indignantly, pulling herself up to her full height, which unfortunately was only to his shoulder.

  “What an incorrigible little brat you are!” exclaimed Vidal in exasperation. “I’ve been trying to make allowances for you, reminding myself that you’ve had no mother for so many years and have been allowed to run about with very little discipline until now, but even my patience has its limits.”

  “And so has mine!” retorted Monique, venting her fury with her slippered foot on the flagstones beneath her feet. “I don’t like any part of this arrangement!”