He had promised not to embarrass her with his choice of wedding raiment. He had kept that pledge.
One or more of his trips into New Orleans in these past days must have been for fittings with his tailor as well as to choose his corbeille de noce gifts for her. If she had not known he had other motives, other loyalties than to her, she would have been touched by the effort. She did know, so refused to be impressed by his sartorial perfection or be made stupidly maudlin, refused to acknowledge the sting of tears behind her eyes.
Yet she could not but notice the exotic and sensual attraction he acquired from the contrast between the darkness of his skin and the pristine paleness of his linen. It made him look so foreign it was impossible to believe she had lain in his arms, had taken him inside her, had shuddered to the purest pleasure of his touch. Yes, and surely would again. Soon, so soon.
He held out his hand as she reached him. She put her fingers in his. For a single instant, she met his dark and somber eyes with their half-hidden glimmers of gold. She was transfixed, unable to look away, to move, to think what they must do next. His gaze searched hers, looking for…what? Some sign of whether she realized his perfidy and meant to renege? Let him wonder. It was little enough by way of retaliation.
He smiled and kissed her fingers, all loving urbanity, before placing them on his arm. Turning, he moved with her out the front door and down the steps. There he ceremoniously passed her hand to her father.
All occurred exactly as if should, yet it seemed a foretaste of his desertion.
The way to the chapel was lit by lanterns hanging from the great limbs of the live oaks, by pine-pitch torches that flared with orange-and-blue light, and by distant flashes of heat lightning. Reine and her father led the way, the hem of her skirt and petticoats whispering over the dusty grass. Following them was Christien with her mother on his arm, and behind them came the tall, thin figure of Vinot, arrived at last, who smiled down at Marguerite as if charmed beyond measure. A handful of cousins followed—those who lived nearby and could not be slighted. After them walked the whole panoply of sword masters and their wives and children, and also the nursemaids and tutors assigned to watch over them. Bringing up the rear was Alonzo and those house servants who could be spared from last-minute preparation for the wedding supper. So trooping through the late-evening shadows they went, under the murmuring oaks, through pools of lantern light illuminating the pathway, past the torches whose acrid black smoke hung on the still evening air.
“You are all right, ma chère?” her father asked as the white walls of the plantation chapel came into view.
“Perfectly, Papa,” she answered, keeping her voice as even as possible. If she said no, said she didn’t want this marriage, she was sure he would support her. She could not force him to make that choice.
“I wish you every happiness, you know. Though I expect it will come easily if you will only put your trust in Christien.”
Trust. How peculiar that he should mention it. “Have you reason to think that might be difficult?”
“No, no. I am quite confident in my mind about this business after these days of getting to know him. I believe he has your best interests at heart.”
“I’m sure he does.” She smiled automatically at the dark brown faces of the field hands gathered outside the chapel to see the wedding procession, lifting a hand in recognition of their murmured good wishes.
“Chère…” Her father tipped his head as if trying to look around her veil into her face, perhaps disturbed by the odd note in her voice.
“Yes, Papa?” She turned a clear gaze upon him.
“Nothing.” Glancing away, he heaved a sigh. “Nothing at all.”
The massed bouquets of fern and China roses that decorated the chapel were already drooping in the heat. The candles in the floor candelabra set here and there oozed wax, adding to the suffocating airlessness without doing a great deal to brighten the surrounding gloom. Their fitful light gleamed here and there on the painted faces of saints in their niches, the gold-leafed crown of the Holy Mother, the peaceful agony of Christ on his crucifix. It picked out the shimmering vestments of Father Damien where he awaited them behind the low railing that enclosed the altar.
Reine gave her bouquet to Marguerite to hold. Her father kissed her cheek and gave her gloved hand into Christien’s keeping once more. Her fingers shook a little as her groom’s closed firmly around them. The two of them performed a small genuflection, then he opened the small gate in the railing. They passed through to approach the altar, leaving the others behind as they must leave them behind when they were married.
Rustling, whispering, the gathered guests found seats, including the hands from the quarter who filed in to take the rear benches. The priest gestured, and more rustling ensued as all knelt. The benediction for the bride and groom began.
Though Reine closed her eyes, she was excruciatingly aware of the man so close beside her—his height, his strength, the brush of his sleeve against her bare forearm below her veil. The blood throbbed in her veins, rushing so strongly that she felt a little light-headed. It was difficult to breathe against the press of her corsets. She could feel perspiration gathering at the nape of her neck, creeping slowly from her hairline under the covering of Valenciennes.
Thunder rumbled, so low and far away it was a mere jarring of the thick air. Reine’s grasp tightened involuntarily upon Christien’s. He turned his head to glance at her, for she heard the quiet shift of his clothing. Greatly daring, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.
His eyes held concern and the faint gold reflections of candle flames. As he searched her face, his firmly molded lips curved in a smile of such warm beguilement that she felt her heart alter its beat. Her own lips answered it without her volition. The moment stretched while the fluttery panic inside her slowly faded away.
The die was cast; there could be no turning back now. Whatever happened in the hours, days and years ahead, she would have this brief moment of perfect rapport to remember.
A gust of wind swept through the chapel, a draft that entered through the double doors standing open to the sultry night. It brushed over the gathering and out through the doors inset on either side behind the altar. Thunder rumbled again. Father Damien ended his blessing. He looked up with a signal for those congregated to regain their seats. Obediently, they followed his lead.
The priest stood as if turned to stone. His wide gaze was fixed on the wide, dark rectangle of the open entrance doors. His lips moved in what appeared to be a silent and near blasphemous exclamation.
Reine turned her head to follow his line of sight. At her side, Christien did the same. A quiet whispering filled the chapel as the congregation swung around in their seats to see what held their attention.
A man was poised there with his feet set wide and his hat in his hands. He shifted, took a step, then another, pacing forward with deliberation. His sardonic gaze moved over the priest, the altar, the candles and flowers, the gathered friends and family. Then he met Reine’s eyes and his full lips moved in a grim smile that twisted the scarred ruin of his face into a sneer.
“Stop the wedding,” Theodore called out in angry demand. “The bride requires no husband. She has one already.”
21
Theodore Pingre. At last.
Cries and exclamation rang through the chapel. Madame Cassard screamed and sagged into her husband’s arms. Paul whispered an oath, his eyes wide with shock as he clutched the back of the seat in front of him. Reine stood in stunned immobility, as deathly pale as a statue in chalk-white Parian marble.
Christien had scant attention for the chaos. Every particle of his being was centered on the threat posed by Pingre.
He would have known him anywhere, he thought, in spite of the sunken scars that separated his face into mere lumps of flesh half curtained by a straggling growth of beard. The shape of his head, the way his hair grew, the set of his shoulders were features carefully memorized from his portrait. Then there
was his supreme arrogance, as if no single person in the chapel had value except as they might serve him.
Vinot had been so certain that Pingre was alive. Christien had been less convinced in the beginning. Lately, however, he had grown as positive as his old mentor. It had been only a matter of smoking him out of his hiding place. He wasn’t proud of the method used, but the results could not be faulted.
Beside him, Reine inhaled with a harsh gasp, as if her breath had been trapped in her chest until that moment. Her gaze was not on Pingre, however, but on Vinot and her small daughter, who stood next to him. Dread and despair limned her face, darkening the blue of her eyes.
Marguerite stood between the old sword master and the man Vinot hated with a passion so virulent he was almost unhinged by it. The child stared at her father, her eyes wide and her small face a perfect match for the white lace that edged her dress ruffles. Her small, pale lips opened but no sound came from them, not even a cry.
Papa. Oh papa…
A single thought seized Christien’s mind, and with it came the blackest of revulsion. Reine knew what he and Vinot had done. She might not guess the whole underhanded scheme, but she understood why he had arrived at River’s Edge, why he had proposed marriage, why he had almost made love to her in a wooded clearing. She understood and was sickened by it, not for herself alone but because he had involved Marguerite.
He had used a child to further the cause of revenge. What kind of monster had he become that he inflicted pain on others in order to remove that of a friend? He prattled of honor, but where was it in this?
Reine turned her head, lifting her eyes to his face with such desolation pooled in their depths that he felt it as a blow to the heart. He whispered her name, taking a step toward her. And was cut to the quick when she backed away.
There was no time to explain even if he could find the words. Vinot was easing Marguerite behind him as he stepped out into the aisle. Head high, shoulders back and an expression of terrible retribution on his thin face, he squared off in front of Pingre.
“So you are alive, after all,” he said, his voice like a lash.
Pingre halted as if he’d hit a stone wall. His face turned a sickly yellow hue in which the scars stood out like purple ribbons. “You!”
“You thought never to see me again? But of course, you expected to hide like a coward from a father’s wrath. You are a miserable excuse for a man, Pingre, taking your pleasure with a young girl too innocent to know your kind, leaving her to bear your bastard alone, yes, and die for it. You will pay for what you did, one painful sword slash at a time. Name your seconds!”
“You malign me, old man. Your daughter was free enough with her favors, as pretty a young wh—”
“Stop there! Shut your filthy mouth or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“Gentlemen!” the priest cried out in protest. “This is a house of God.”
Christien, moving with precision, left the altar and passed from the enclosure to stand beside Vinot. He expected Reine to remain behind, but heard the soft whisper of her skirts as she followed him up the narrow aisle.
Pingre snapped his teeth together on the words he’d been about to say. His eyes glittered and his lips protruded as he stared around him. His gaze passed beyond Christien and Reine, tracking over those assembled as if searching for a friendly face.
There was none.
“I see how it is,” he said, throwing back his head. “This was a trap from start to finish. Clever, Vinot, using a younger sword master as decoy, one who could worm his way into River’s Edge and set my wife up as bait. Did you agree to it, madame? Is it your pleasure to see me die so you may be a widow in truth?”
“I was told you were dead,” she said, the words falling from her lips in a leaden whisper. “I wore mourning for the full two years, and you let me do it.”
“What of it?”
“Your body…Paul saw it.”
“It was my old uncle who died, rather. He had passed on a few days before so served well as my corpse after a week in the water and with my alliance ring on his finger. My mother’s suggestion, that, before she shook the dust of Bonne Espèrance from her skirts.”
A murmur ran over the wedding guests. More than one lady pressed a gloved hand or handkerchief to her lips in token of sick revulsion.
Bitterness corroded Pingre’s tone as he stared around him. “I was to join her in Paris. But that was before she heard how hideous I had become. She rescinded her invitation, would not send the fare. I was to remain here with nothing—no money, no amusement—in a hovel with a nursemaid too withered to tend anyone. I could rot for all she cared. But I mean to have money, yes, and to rejoin my dear mother.”
He had been in hiding from what he had become as well as from Vinot, Christien thought, hiding with nowhere to go. He could pity the poor devil if not for the knowledge that his soul had grown as twisted as his face.
“Enough,” Vinot said with a slicing gesture of one hand. “Do you accept my challenge?”
“Willingly,” came the answer. “If I can’t best an old man like you then I deserve what comes to me.”
“But you will not be meeting me,” Vinot said with austere satisfaction in his voice. “As you pointed out, my day as a swordsman is done. I hereby claim the right to appoint a champion. For the post, I choose the best pupil ever to grace my salon, my Sophie’s old playmate, Christien Lenoir.”
Christien expected it, of course, had known it would come from the moment Pingre walked through the chapel doors. Not so, the rest of the guests. A babble of voices erupted again, questioning, explaining the dueling code that allowed the substitution.
Beside him, Christien felt the movement when Reine turned toward him. He glanced at her, caught the stark question in her eyes. He saw, and realized suddenly that he held the power to free her from Pingre, to rearrange their lives to suit himself. All he had to do was forget the meticulous punishment Vinot had decreed for his daughter’s seducer and simply kill the man.
Pingre gave a snort that might have been meant for a laugh. “Why not?” he inquired in tones of scorn. “An old man or a cripple, it’s all the same to me. Besides, I owe Lenoir something for daring to touch my wife.”
Christien gave Pingre his attention once more. “And how do you know I’m a cripple?”
Pingre laughed, a crude sound. “I know more than you imagine. I hope you enjoyed my wife’s devoted nursing, for it will be the last you’ll have of it.”
“You plan on resuming your place at her side.”
“With you out of the way and Vinot turned feeble, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t.” Pingre turned his misshapen grimace on Reine. “Unless you can think of one, my dear wife?”
Christien longed to hear Reine denounce her husband, to swear she would never return to his home and his bed. She did neither. Turning from them both, she crossed to where Marguerite stood half hiding behind the skirt of Vinot’s frock coat. She took her daughter’s hand, drawing her to her side. Looking neither right nor left, she turned her back and walked from the church into the thunder-edged night.
Christien watched her go and waited to see if she would give some small sign, some fleeting glance or change of expression that might indicate whether his life or death meant anything to her. There was nothing. Though Marguerite craned her neck to look back over her shoulder with her small face a mask of fear and woe, her mother stared straight ahead. And why not, when he had done nothing since the day he arrived at River’s Edge except make use of her, one way or another?
The pair moved beyond the light until only the pale shapes of their light-colored clothing could be seen in the darkness. Christien watched until the last pale shimmer was gone.
Savage in his disappointment then, he turned his concentration to the duel that was to come and the man who would be Reine’s husband again once it was over. That was, of course, if he did not kill him first.
Pingre had moved, taking a step as if to follow after his wi
fe and daughter. The look in his eyes was grim, his jaw set.
“I wouldn’t,” Christien said in soft warning. “You aren’t wanted, for one thing. Then, we have unfinished business here.”
The look Pingre turned on him was so bleak he felt an errant flicker of sympathy. It went out immediately as he spoke.
“They would not have walked away from me before you came.”
“You should have staged a resurrection sooner. Why didn’t you?”
“I’m here now,” Pingre said by way of an answer. He looked Christien up and down, allowed his gaze to rest on his side where the pistol ball had been removed. “My seconds will call on yours.”
“As you prefer.” Christien lowered his voice. “Your friend Kingsley won’t be among them, however. What a pity.”
“He’s no great loss, being less than a gentleman.”
Few would be a loss to Theodore Pingre, Christien thought. “You used that excuse for refusing to meet Vinot two years ago, as I recall,” he said. “I’m no more of a gentleman by your lights, but you’ve agreed to meet me.”
Pingre’s lips lifted in his one-sided smile. “Even a gentleman must stoop now and then to kill a snake.”
Christien might have resented the insult more if he had not felt it held some truth. The salient point in it was that Pingre intended a fight to the death rather than a mere bloodletting. Inclining his head, Christien said, “He can try.”
Hatred flared in the other man’s eyes, along with an edge of cunning. “Till the meeting, then,” he said, and turned away, moving from the chapel into the rain that had begun to fall, swaggering into the gray evening as if everything he’d planned had been accomplished.
Perhaps it had, Christien was forced to admit. Pingre had certainly halted the wedding. He had also ended any pretension Christien might have had toward taking his place. Neither was unexpected; still, virulent anger for it burned in his mind.
Pingre’s seconds would arrive at River’s Edge in the morning, most likely. The time and place for the meeting would be hammered out between them and his own men. Doctors would be agreed upon and messages sent to request their presence. Time must be allowed for both participants to settle their affairs and make their wills. Make it two days, then, before he would face Pingre.
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