Timeless Passion: 10 Historical Romances To Savor

by Rue Allyn

  “No pineapples?” asked Gray with a grin.

  “Some pineapples.” Louis named a prominent company. “Pineapples are their domain — a major agribusiness. It would be — what is the phrase — selling out.”

  “Never been tempted to sell out, yourself?” asked Vig.

  “I have sold out,” said Louis quietly, “and discovered I had made a serious mistake. I begged to be allowed back in the business. And here I stay. This is what I know. I won’t be such a fool a second time.”

  Some of the men grunted approval. Bishou marveled that, under other conditions, these redneck, macho men would consider a Frenchman too effete for comfort. Yet here was Louis Dessant, speaking their language — tobacco — and admitting his own mistakes. And they were accepting him.

  “What made you sell out?” Vig asked.

  “My wife. She wanted to live in Paris, and living in Paris takes money.”

  “So you went back to the tobacco plantation after she died?” asked Gray.

  “A while after, but yes.”

  He spoke only the truth, but now Bishou understood the meaning behind it. He never mentioned the agony and humiliation he had gone through. All he offered was a bare statement about a woman he had married. Bishou kept her eyes on her plate, and ate.

  After dessert, they adjourned for a few minutes before the afternoon sessions started. Outdoors, Louis lit up a cigarette — a Dessant, of course — and inquired, “Do you smoke?”

  “Not much. It bothers my throat. Usually I just steal a couple of puffs off someone else’s cigarette.”

  He smiled, took another puff, and held the cigarette almost to her lips. She accepted, taking it from his hand. She inhaled the pleasant, distinctive fresh smoke of a Dessant cigarette. After she exhaled, she commented, “I haven’t had one of these since I was in Paris, a few years ago.”

  “Oh? Where were you in Paris?”

  “The usual tourist and student places. The Louvre, Versailles, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Notre Dame, Sacré Coeur, the Left Bank.”

  “We visited only the restaurants and cinemas when we were there. Were you there by yourself?”

  “Non, my fellow students were in Paris for two weeks, and then my brother Bat came over. Bat and I spent two weeks there together.”

  “Bat?”

  “Jean-Baptiste Howard. They call us the twins, but he is actually a year older than I am. He’s my best friend.”

  “You are the only children?”

  “Oh, non. We have two younger brothers as well.”

  “And your parents?”

  “You are asking a lot of personal questions, Monsieur,” Bishou said.

  Louis reddened immediately. “I’m sorry. But it was only because you mentioned Paris. I did not mean to offend.”

  “You didn’t offend.” She took another puff of the cigarette he handed her, and then gave it back. “We have had trouble with our parents. My parents were in a car accident seven years ago, and my mother has been in a wheelchair ever since. Possibly it was by choice, at first, but by now, her muscles have atrophied.” Bishou shrugged unhappily. “My father is more than a little eccentric, probably because of the head injuries he received then. We don’t know. Sometimes it is a struggle. I wouldn’t leave the boys with them if Bat wasn’t there.”

  Louis cupped his hands around his cigarette, and focused on it carefully, not looking at her. “At least my wife and I did not have children to worry about.”

  “Sometimes that’s a good thing.”

  “Yes,” he said, gazing into her eyes for a moment. “I suppose so.”

  • • •

  The seminars were interesting and thought-provoking, if you were a tobacco-growing man. Bishou was hard-pressed to keep up the translations. At the end of two seminars, she felt like she had just come from gym class.

  In the now-empty lecture hall, an amused Louis Dessant took her papers from her and copied over some notes in his nice French handwriting. “I need to make these presentable, Mademoiselle Howard, while we still remember what they are.” His gaze flicked to her face, then back to his copywork. “Tomorrow is the Wednesday break. Will you go on the tour with us? By autobus?”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Parts of North Carolina and Virginia. The auction barns are not yet in session, but we can see them, and they will give us tours. Vig and his family are all excited, to have us in their territory.”

  “I’m not surprised. Welcoming his own tribe, so to speak.”

  Louis chuckled. “Probably true. Would you accompany me? I will pay for your lunch, and for your autobus fare.”

  With anyone else, she would make a joke about a date, but she didn’t feel right joking with him. “I don’t have a morning lecture, but I do have tutoring sessions later in the day.”

  “Are you able to cancel them?” This time, he made eye contact. “Or would you rather not? I know it is arrogant of me to assume you are free.”

  She caught her breath again. “It’s still early in the semester, so the students aren’t in trouble yet. They can afford to skip tutoring sessions. I’ll see what my schedule looks like.”

  “I will tell them you are attending, so there are enough box lunches. If you do not come, well then, the more for me, I suppose.” A smile barely touched his lips. “I am getting better at the English, too, but still, it is nice for me to have someone to fall back on. I hope you can come.”

  “Hey, kids,” Vig Hansen called from behind them. “You coming to dinner? Sukey wants to meet you, Bishou.”

  “Is Madame outside?” asked Louis.

  “Not for another half an hour or so.” The old tobacconeer eyed their paperwork. “Brushing up your notes?”

  “Oui. I want to be able to remember tomorrow what I wrote today.” Louis made another note. Then he looked at Bishou. “Well? Are you coming to dinner?”

  A small note of frustration crept into her voice. “Monsieur Dessant, here are the choices. If I go to dinner with you tonight, I cannot go on the bus trip because I won’t have a chance this evening to check the student schedules and cancel tutor sessions. If I go home right now and get working, I will be able to go on the bus trip and spend all day tomorrow with all of you. Which shall it be?”

  Vig chuckled. Louis’s eyes opened wide and looked very apologetic — yes, he was a born heartbreaker, whether he realized it or not. “I choose the autobus all day tomorrow. And I will owe you a dinner myself then.”

  “No, sir, you won’t. I’m representing the university here, and I have to stay within the lines. I’m enjoying everyone a lot — this is a great job — but I’m still a collegiate representative and I have to behave like it. No private dinners.”

  “No more than if it was a man I asked?”

  “That’s it, exactly.”

  “Bien entendu.” Louis nodded, satisfied.

  “I’m gonna send Sukey in here,” Vig threatened.

  Louis held up a hand. “Non, non, mon ami. Bishou is part of our business relationship with the university.”

  “He’s right, Mr. Hanson. I’m sorry,” Bishou apologized.

  Louis and Bishou gathered up their paperwork, and left the hall with Vig Hansen. At the door to the Medlin Convention Center, the men turned in one direction while Bishou turned in the other and hurried off into the darkness.

  She reached the grad-student housing, unlocked the big front door, and went inside. The smells of laundry and steamy suppers filled the air. She said hello to Marie Norton, her downstairs neighbor, and climbed the stairs to her rooms. Once inside, with the door locked, Bishou looked with dismay in the mirror in her tiny bathroom. She had really wanted to go with them, but she hadn’t realized she looked that sad.

  Bishou was consoled to see that she had no labor-intensive students on her Wednesday schedule. She spent a few minutes writing notes to all of them saying she was unavailable today and would see them next Wednesday. Then, she took a deep breath, sat down with a fresh piece of paper, and
started to write.

  Dear Bat,

  Don’t yell at me, please. I’m doing my best, really I am. I’m still on the straight, and staying there. But I just met the only man I would ever marry, if we both weren’t trying so damn hard not to ruin our lives.

  He’s a cute Frenchman, and I’m tutoring him for pay, so I have double the reason not to screw up.

  He’s got everything wrong with him. He’s a widower, he’s done time, and he was involved in a scandal. Remember when we were in Paris, the papers printed something about a crime of passion involving a member of the Dessant Cigarette family? Well, this is Louis Dessant. Triple the reason not to screw up.

  But, man. Talk about my dissertation coming to life and hitting me in the face. Quadruple the reason not to screw up. Fortunately, I’m only the interpreter. Apparently, he still carries a torch for the woman who screwed him to the wall. She blew her brains out while he watched, and left him to be arrested as accessory to all her crimes. Okay, so maybe he’s not smart. Or maybe it really was passion. I’ve heard him speak of the tobacco business, and he’s got his head together on that, so I’m inclined to think it’s the latter.

  I never really forget you. Fair’s fair. I’m doing my hitch for the doctorate, just as you did yours for the Marines, and yep, I’ll come take up the slack when I’m done. But whew, this guy affects my breathing. Is it love, or just tobacco fumes?

  Write back. Without yelling.

  Love, Bishou

  She needed a breath of fresh air and decided to walk to the campus post office with the letter and the notes to her students. But first, she changed out of her skirt and stockings, into slacks — the last thing she needed was another run in her stockings, and this was evening, her leisure time, after all — and put on her comfortable walking shoes.

  It was nearly dark out, a soft warm April evening. Bishou couldn’t distinguish people’s faces underneath street lamps, although their hair glowed. She walked across campus on the paths, reached the post office, and popped the notes and letter in their respective slots.

  Then she just walked around the campus, and thought a lot. Yes, she’d rather be at a nice dinner with some fun people — but around here, that would be a ticket for destruction. Now that she’d written Bat, she’d got it out of her system. Bat would either send fatherly advice, or else a diatribe that would scorch the paper, no telling which. But she wasn’t worried about that. Bishou smiled to herself. She was in a good place in her life right now. President Lanthier and Dr. Roth were completely right. Get that sheepskin, and then the world would be her oyster. More or less. Just don’t start a tradition of blowing things.

  Chapter 4

  The bus was one of the university’s oldest — a flop-windowed, low-slung, green-and-blue diesel-stinking nightmare. Bishou climbed aboard, to discover Louis already had a seat for them near the rear of the bus and was waiting for her. She sidled back to him. He rose and stepped into the aisle.

  “No, no, you take the window seat,” she said. “You’ll want to see things on this tour.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, in the voice of someone who really wanted the window seat anyway.

  She smiled. “Absolutely.”

  He didn’t need much persuading to slide in. He stared out the window, looking like a kid on a school bus.

  “Where on earth did they come up with this antique?” she asked.

  “It looks average for my island,” Louis said. “Most of ours don’t even have roofs, let alone windows.”

  “What do you do when it rains?” she asked.

  He looked at her, his eyes twinkling. “Get wet.”

  “I had to ask.”

  The bus started up. Dr. Gardiner, bus microphone in hand, was their tour guide. He pointed out the rivers, the soils, the tobacco fields, the plantations, the cotton fields, the forests and mountains as the bus rolled along slowly.

  Louis Dessant was not the only kid on this school bus. The men were all talking, pointing to this and that feature. Louis took it all in. He asked questions of Vig, seated a few rows ahead of him, and Gray, in the back, and the Texans who were all over the bus. Their wives were here, too, interjecting occasional comments.

  They stopped at the first tobacco plantation, got out, and walked around. For the men, it was almost a calming experience to be among tobacco leaves again after a few days in academia. Bishou saw Louis stroke a tobacco plant like an old friend, and he was not the only one. The damp, almost steamy atmosphere had its own particular young-tobacco scent. From the look in the eyes of these men, their concentration, even the way they walked, this was serious business. Bishou watched the men with interest as they came to life.

  Louis, deeply in conversation with a host tobacco planter, motioned her to him. “Mademoiselle, comment dit-on ‘filtre’ en anglais?”

  “The same as in French,” she replied, in English. “Filter.”

  “Oui, merci,” he said and continued speaking to his host.

  Bishou felt someone grip her arm, and looked to see a substantial Southern lady hanging on to her. “You’d be the interpreter, then. The college professor?” she drawled.

  “Yes, that’s me,” Bishou admitted with a smile.

  “I’m Sukey Hansen. How come you didn’t come to dinner last night? I wanted to meet you.”

  “I had to write excuses for all the courses I’m skipping today, to come on this trip,” Bishou answered.

  “It’s nice of you to make time for Messyoour Dessant,” Sukey said, “though he’s awfully sweet. Definitely worth a woman’s time. You known him long?”

  “As long as you have,” Bishou said. “I’m a paid translator from the university.”

  “Good golly! I didn’t know that. You’re doing this for money?”

  “Beats waitressing.”

  “I suppose it does.” Sukey looked impressed. “The menfolk told me you two were a couple.”

  “If we were a couple, I’d be fired,” Bishou replied, putting it as plainly as she could manage. “It’s against the rules.”

  “I’m sorry, honey. I was mistook. But he is cute, isn’t he?”

  Bishou admitted, “Yes, he is. And completely hands-off.”

  “That stinks,” said Sukey Hansen. “I won’t nudge you the way Vig wanted me to, then.”

  “Vig wanted you to nudge me?”

  “Mmm-hmm. He said that lonely widower would fall into your arms at a touch, and that I should tell you to touch him.”

  “And I would be in deep shit,” said Bishou.

  “Mmm-hmm. Now I can tell Vig to mind his own business, with good reason. Okay, if you don’t want to accept our invitations to dinner, I understand. Like matches to the kerosene. But I wish you’d come sometime, just to talk. Us womenfolk have got to stick together, you know.”

  Some of the other women gathered around them. They were curious about the interpreter, college professor, whatever they wanted to label Bishou. Her daily life was completely beyond the imagination of most of these women.

  “You got other college professors in your family?” one woman asked her.

  “Yes,” Bishou said. “My father was a college professor, and my mother taught in an exclusive private school in New England.”

  Before the men returned from their inspections of the tobacco barns, Bishou’s biography had been thoroughly brought out and examined by the women on this tour. She felt like she had passed some kind of test, or at least hadn’t been thrown out of the ring.

  Back in the bus, Bishou asked Louis, “Where is your jacket?”

  He gestured toward the front of the bus. “Up there. It is too hot to wear it.” He wore a silk shirt, decorated with small white grids and tiny colored squares. His shirt was unbuttoned at his throat, and he had rolled up the sleeves not quite to his elbows. “La grange était comme un four.” The barn was like an oven. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  For a few moments, Bishou regarded his handsome face, the dark brows, the closed eyes, the perfect lips
. His forearms were slightly bronzed and muscular. Muscles strained against the silk shirt — no undershirt, probably. Frenchmen wouldn’t wear them in the African heat. This is like a French movie, Bishou thought uncomfortably, where the woman lies back seductively and waits for the man to touch her and undress her, except the roles are reversed. He may mean it or not, but if I don’t find something else for my hands and eyes to do, I’m going to be in very big trouble. For a few moments, Bishou regarded his attractive face, the dark brows, the closed eyes, the perfect lips. His forearms were slightly bronzed and muscular. Muscles strained against the silk shirt – no undershirt, probably, either. Frenchmen wouldn’t want them in the African heat.

  Bishou reached for her tote bag, took out one of the books she had assigned to her Intro to World Lit class, and sat back to read. She made notes in the margins, guessing where students would have problems or would miss an important point. She needed to bring these points out in her lectures. Can’t expect them to continue with their studies if you don’t give them a few handholds, she thought. Bishou glanced at Louis and realized he was sound asleep. Quietly, for another half-hour, she worked on her notes while the bus trundled down the highway.

  The bus shuddered and turned down a rustic road, probably the driveway to the next stop. They arrived at a large farm. The first thing she saw was an open-air building with picnic tables in it. Our lunch stop, she realized. People were waiting for them. The bus vibrated to a stop in front of the group. People rose from their seats.

  One of the Texans grinned at her. “Out cold, is he?”

  Bishou nodded, and smiled back at him. Waking up Louis Dessant would be awkward. She grasped his shoulder, feeling silk and damp warmth. “Monsieur Dessant, levez-vous.” He did not respond. She shook his shoulder. “Monsieur Dessant. Louis. Levez-vous.”

  Gray Jackson now stood in the aisle beside her, grinning. “Louis said he was having trouble sleeping in a motel room, but it doesn’t seem like it’s any problem at all on this old bus.”