“Where are the servants?” Estelle, lying back in a chair with her hands folded uselessly in her lap, looked around as if she expected the counterpart of Colossus to appear from nowhere.
“I thought we might manage without,” Rochefort answered, his attention on the ticklish business of opening a bottle of champagne without losing half its contents.
“By drafting Mam’zelle Caroline as a slave,” Estelle said tartly.
His task accomplished, Rochefort looked up. His smile was perfectly pleasant, and yet a distinct chill had crept into his emerald eyes. “Not at all. By requesting Mademoiselle Pembroke, as the most mature lady present, to act in the capacity of my hostess.”
The explosion Caroline expected did not come. Estelle dropped her gaze. An instant later, she looked up, her sherry-brown eyes swimming with tears. “I meant no insult, Mam’zelle Caroline, truly I did not.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Caroline answered, though at the sight of such easy contrition her heart misgave her.
“Could I not help?” Estelle offered.
“I believe it is all done,” Caroline said, surveying the repast spread out before them.
“You may pass these.” Rochefort handed the girl two brimming glasses, then sent a smiling glance after her as she reached to place them before Caroline and Amélie, frowning in concentration to keep from spilling the golden wine.
His expression as he turned back to Caroline was once more impassive, however. Holding her chair at the foot of the table, he bowed. “Shall we eat?”
They had reached the last stage of the meal, the nougat and strawberries, when the wind began to rise. The sun disappeared behind a looming bank of gray, and the river began to heave. Around them fell light the color of new green leaves, aching, bittersweet in its clarity.
The far oaks and cypress began to sway. A distant bend ahead of them was filled with mist, a mist that drove toward them relentlessly.
Rochefort and Victor jumped to their feet, reaching for bottles and glasses, clapping lids on serving dishes, piling plates atop one another regardless of bones and scraps of food. Caught up in their urgency, Caroline knelt to take the items flung at her, stowing them in the hampers. Theo and Amélie entered into the fray with zeal, leaving little room for Estelle and Anatole. After a half-hearted effort, they stepped back out of the way. When the first fat drops of rain began to splatter on the deck, these two were the first to scurry for the companionway.
Laughing, Amélie and Victor took up a hamper between them and dived for shelter. Theo followed, lugging the other. Rochefort helped Caroline up with a hand under her elbow, and they reached the overhang of the door just as the ship was engulfed in the lance-filled fog of the storm.
With a hand on the doorjamb, Caroline turned back. The current of the river had disappeared under choppy, foam-laced waves. Color was washed away, leaving ship, shore, water, and sky a uniform gray. High above them, crows driven before the wind rose and fell, calling back and forth in jubilant warning. Blue cranes passed them flying low, their wing tips dipping into the waves.
An unexpected excitement caught at her as she felt the wind tearing at her hair and flapping her skirts about her ankles. Her spirit seemed to soar, and in wonder she lifted storm-colored eyes luminous with joy to the man beside her. In that instant a strong gust of wind struck the ship, causing it to heel. Unprepared, Caroline staggered. The Marquis reached out at once to steady her with an arm about her waist, a faint smile tugging at his mouth as he stared down into her startled eyes.
A vague feeling of recognition stirred in the back of Caroline’s mind. Before it could take definite form, an abrupt downdraft from the opposite direction threw a handful of rain into her upturned face. With a sound — half a gasp at the cold wetness, half a shaky laugh — she disengaged herself. Turning, she made her way with heightened color down the steps of the cabin.
~~~
THE DAY FOLLOWING the river excursion was enlivened by a morning visit from Rochefort and his cousin. Their ostensible purpose was to assure themselves no harm had befallen the young ladies from their rather damp experience, but they were easily persuaded to stay for a luncheon of cold meats and oven-warm tartes aux pêches.
They were not the only addition to the table. A friend of Anatole’s, Hippolyte Gravier from the plantation downriver from Beau Repos, had also been pressed to extend his visit past the noon hour.
The heir to Bonne Chance was a pleasant young man, solidly built, with a high-colored complexion, curling black hair, and a happy outlook on life. Like his father before him, he believed in his great good luck and would place a wager at the drop of a hat. He had once bet on which of two tree trunks floating in the river would reach New Orleans first and, with his takers, commandeered a passing flatboat to follow the sodden logs to town. He had collected. He unabashedly enjoyed good food, good drink, and good company. With less excuse for it in the way of looks, he was a worse dandy than Anatole.
The noise in the dining room as five children, five nurses, five young people, and six adults ate, drank, clattered china and silver, and talked was incredible. M’sieur Delacroix made a determined effort at frequent intervals to reduce the din, but it did little good. Madame did her best to carry on a conversation above it with her noble guest, though more often than not her hardest task was attracting Rochefort’s attention.
The Marquis appeared to find the spectacle of so many drawn up to the table bemusing. Leaning back in his chair sipping his glass of wine, he watched the children with a faint smile, possibly of self-derision, curving one corner of his firm mouth.
Hippolyte Gravier had been a close observer of the Marquis since their introduction. Unconsciously he too lounged back in his chair, his wineglass in hand. He allowed a small smile to play about his mouth before turning to M’sieur Delacroix.
“A good vintage, this. Mon père would be happy to know from what vintner you had it. The last cask consigned to us was just a shade sour. Largest cask I ever saw. Taking forever to see the last drop of it. Tell you one thing, I’ll lay you a dix—”
He was interrupted in his wager by young Baptiste who, reminded by mention of it, decided to taste the watered wine in his own glass. His grip was none too steady. The result was a spreading purple stain on the linen cloth.
Madame signaled frantically. Face impassive, Colossus moved to blot up the spill.
“I don’t know what you must think of us,” Madame said, turning to Rochefort with a nervous laugh. “I’m sure this is not at all what you are used to in your own home.”
“No,” he admitted with a glance at his cousin in close conversation with Amélie. “Victor and I are seldom so merry.”
Victor Rochefort looked up. “Did I hear my name?”
“I was telling Madame Delacroix how charming we find her family,” the Marquis said with his slow smile.
“Yes,” Victor agreed. “Indeed, yes.”
As sometimes happened in the summer months in that southern latitude, the afternoon brought another storm near the same hour as the day before. The master and mistress of Beau Repos refused to allow their guests to think of leaving in the downpour.
Rochefort demurred, saying he and Victor had trespassed too long on their hospitality. But M’sieur Delacroix would not have it so.
Victor took a chair on the gallery where they had congregated to watch the rain fall in silver streams from the overhanging roof. “Give over, Jean. You know you don’t want to go, and it might be disastrous to suffer a wetting when you’ve only just got your strength back.”
This hint of illness brought glances of polite and not so polite inquiry from half those within earshot. The Marquis appeared blind to their promptings, favoring his cousin with so stern a look that Victor seemed sunk with remorse for at least a half moment. An instant later Rochefort was in the thick of a complicated wager concerning which of the two rivulets of water inching across the gallery floor from blown rain would reach the house wall first.
; It was evening before the last carriage rolled away along the muddy levee road. The rain had lifted to reveal a cool, purple twilight. The rest of the family scattered to their various chambers and occupations, Caroline was left alone to listen to the chorus of frogs and insects and the plaintive call of a lonely whippoorwill away in the woods beyond the cane field.
It was seldom she achieved a moment to herself. She savored it, relaxing in a fan-backed rattan chair, letting her hands lie idle in her lap.
The serenity she craved was elusive. There was a disturbance in the back of her mind, something she could not quite put her finger on.
She did not think it involved their visitors this day. She might feel a twinge of self-pity at not being an active participant in such gatherings, but she thought she had too much strength of character to let it trouble her unduly. In any case, she could have taken a more active part had she wished. She was no downtrodden drudge. As a relative by marriage to the family, she enjoyed certain privileges denied most women in her position. She was accepted at the family table, included in most invitations, and given a greater than average freedom concerning working hours and habits. True, Madame Delacroix was often capricious in her remembrance of the relationship, treating her as an employee scarcely worth her wage one moment and loading her with the responsibilities of blood kin the next. A case in point was the sea voyage to bring Amélie home.
Caroline shook her head. She had promised herself she would not recall the incident of the privateer again. Memory of it recurred too frequently of late for her comfort. She found herself at odd times wondering if she had inflicted much damage on the Captain of the Black Eagle. Try as she might, she had been able to hear no news, either on board the prize ship as it was being brought into port, or later. He had apparently disappeared from the face of the earth. Of course, within weeks of the capture of the British merchantman, a treaty had been signed at Ghent, the war finished. Letters of marque and reprisal would have been made useless at the stroke of a pen. There would have been no more need for the Black Eagle or its Captain to roam the seas.
The most peculiar thing was that she could no longer bring the features of the privateer into focus in her mind’s eye. She saw him merely as a tall, bearded, faceless figure somehow larger than life, touched with immortality. Perhaps because the ball from her pistol had seemed to incapacitate him so little, she could not feature him as being dead.
So much preoccupation with the one man in her life — and such a specimen — who had dared to kiss her must surely indicate something. Could M’sieur Delacroix be right? Could it be time she began seriously to consider marriage?
The consideration in that eventuality was a husband. There were, naturally, so many to choose from! The French Creole gentleman desirous of finding a wife inquired first, always, for the amount of the prospective brides dot. Not only was she dowerless, she was English, a heinous crime; a governess, which was worse; and fully as tall as any Creole gentleman of her acquaintance. The Marquis overreached her, but he could not be classed as a Creole, having been born in France. Not that it mattered, of course.
And then there was the burly American owner of Cypress Grove, Fletcher Masterson. Punctually every Sunday afternoon he came calling. Whether he was sincerely attracted to her or whether he came because she was the only lady within a reasonable distance who spoke his language as well as he did, she could not tell. His courtship, if it could be called that, had been going on since the family arrived at Beau Repos from New Orleans just after Easter. They had met at an evening party given at Bonne Chance, and Fletcher had lost no time in following up the meeting. Once or twice he had asked her to go for a drive with him, but something had always prevented it.
A more inventive, less careful man would have found a way to achieve his aim, Caroline thought, but Fletcher was circumspect, careful, formidably well-mannered. Caroline could not feature him demanding a forfeit under any circumstances.
Might that not be to the good, however? There was nothing dashing about sandy hair, blue eyes, and well-muscled shoulders, but wasn’t dependability a more valuable commodity?
Disgusting to be weighing a man’s value like a barrel of flour or so many blocks of sugar. Such cold-blooded commerce was no basis for deciding to marry.
“May one intrude?” M’sieur Philippe did not wait for an answer but stepped behind Caroline’s chair to take the one beside her. He crossed one knee over the other, then clasped his hands together across his not so flat stomach. For a long moment he said nothing, scanning the pale oval of her face in the fast-dimming light. At last he opened the conversation he had obviously sought.
“What think you of our noble friend?”
“You mean the Marquis de Rochefort?”
“But of course,” he said, his clipped tone betraying his irritation.
“I find him gracious and kind.”
“Do you indeed? Are you quite sure you don’t mean condescending?”
Caroline looked at the tutor. “Does he seem so to you? I hadn’t noticed it.”
“How could you not? The man goes about making pronouncements with the aplomb of royalty. My ears ring with hearing from Theo: ‘The Marquis says this, Rochefort says that.’ It is not to be borne! And now Anatole, the boy I have raised with the kindness of a father, tells me that for gentleman lace is passé, M’sieur le Marquis says so!”
Caroline sternly repressed a smile. “Do you intend to continue to wear it?”
“Naturellement,” the tutor replied, though for an instant he appeared torn as he smoothed the lace over his hands.
“That certainly shows great strength of character,” Caroline said in an encouraging tone.
The tutor allowed himself a smile of gratification before his brows drew together once more. “Not every young woman has your powers of discernment. I fear for the gentle daughters of the house.”
“Fear? What do you mean?”
Delighted to have drawn a more decided reaction than before, M’sieur Philippe elaborated. “I speak of the unfortunate effect on Mam’zelle Amélie and Estelle of being daily in the company of such a man of the world as Rochefort. They are guileless innocents, unable to realize that half of what he says to them is the merest gallantry devoid of sincerity. He has no intention of the sort of serious involvement which leads to wedded bliss — would, in fact, reject with horror any such suggestion.”
“How can you be sure?” Caroline asked. She did not for a moment credit what he said as the truth, but was interested in his reasoning.
The tutor shrugged. “It is the way of men and women who belong to that station in life.”
“The Marquis belongs here, now that he has made his home at Felicity.”
“A nobleman’s whim,” he said with a dismissing gesture. “It does not change the attitude of one of his kind.”
“I see,” Caroline murmured.
“I tell you this to put you on your guard, and so that you may arm the ladies also against losing their hearts to such a one.”
“You make him sound a monster.”
“Not at all! I protest, that was not my intention. I do not say the Marquis realizes the damage he can inflict.”
Caroline lifted a brow. “Stupid as well as uncaring?”
“Upon my sacred honor, I did not say so. I meant only that it is easy for the unwary to be taken in by what is merely a surface charm.”
“Shallow, stupid, and uncaring.”
“You willfully misunderstand me,” he expostulated.
“I think not,” Caroline said, rising to her feet.
M’sieur Philippe stood at once. “Ah, well. Perhaps I have been too hasty in my judgment.”
“And unwise in your choice of a confidante.”
“Never that,” he assured her, reaching out to catch her hand, holding it close between his own. “I am aware that you would never betray me.”
“Betray you? There is no question—”
“I was sure of it,” he broke across her words. �
�Let me hasten to spare your blushes by assuring you that I return your admiration.”
Caroline stared. Her first thought was that the man had taken leave of his senses. Return her admiration indeed! As if she could admire such a popinjay.
Before she could put her objections into words, Theo swung around the end of the steps and came bounding up them two at a time. To continue the discussion in front of an audience was impossible.
Sensing an atmosphere, Theo stopped his tuneless whistling, looking from his tutor to Caroline with interest. When neither seemed disposed to satisfy his curiosity, he bethought himself of the message entrusted to him.
“Cook would appreciate a word with you in the kitchen, Mam’zelle.”
Perforce Caroline had to turn in the direction of that outdoor structure, though it was galling beyond endurance to leave M’sieur Philippe in possession of his peculiar misapprehension.
In the next few days they saw nothing of Rochefort and his cousin. The tedium of fittings for the modiste, Madame Hébert, was done with, and that indefatigable lady packed her leftover bits of lace and muslin, rendered her account, and returned to New Orleans. Time hung heavy on their hands. With lowering spirits, the young ladies returned to their mending and lessons and embroidery.
“Depend upon it,” Madame Delacroix said comfortably. “The Marquis is being besieged by callers. Everyone with any pretension to gentility will feel he must be welcomed. I congratulate myself that Beau Repos was the first home to extend the hand of a neighbor, but I cannot think we were the only ones.”
“No, and I expect the Marquis’s chef has recovered, too,” Estelle said mournfully.
“Perhaps we shall see them Sunday after Mass,” Amélie suggested, coloring a little under her mother’s sharp glance.
Madame nodded in slow agreement. “Sunday after Mass.”
The chapel that the Delacroix family attended, the only chapel within thirty miles, was a small, white, lath and brick affair. The interior was beautifully paneled, however, and boasted a marble font, hand-carved Stations of the Cross from European craftsmen, and a rose window which had been salvaged from a demolished cathedral in Normandy.
Sweet Piracy Page 6