The Danice Allen Anthology

by Danice Allen

  Anne wasn’t sure just how much she and Reggie agreed on who and what were “preferable,” but she had no desire to cause him undue distress by debating the point as they were about to leave for an evening on the town. She smiled sweetly and answered just as she ought. “I will be as good as an angel, Uncle.”

  Relieved, Reggie smiled and offered his arm to Anne. “Shall we go, then? The carriage has been waiting this quarter-hour.”

  Anne slid her gloved hand into the crook of Reggie’s elbow. As he was about to lead her into the hall, she squeezed his arm and smiled up at him. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Uncle?”

  Reggie’s brow furrowed. “I’ve a gardenia for my lapel, my opera glasses, money, and a clean handkerchief. What could I have possibly forgotten?”

  “Ahem!”

  They turned at Katherine’s exaggerated imitation of Reggie’s habitual throat clearing. Her lips were pursed, her arms were crossed, one slipper-shod toe was tapping the Persian rug beneath her feet, and her gaze was directed at the ceiling. There could be no clearer message to Reggie of exactly what—or whom—he’d forgotten.

  Before any other vanity the modest man might own, Reggie prided himself on his gentleman’s manners. Turning the rosy shade that was fast becoming his usual complexion, Reggie offered Katherine his other arm. He cleared his throat, caught himself, then blushed more deeply. “Yes … er … Katherine, why don’t we … er … go?”

  Katherine’s teeth gleamed in a benign smile, much in the manner of a potentate forgiving an underling. She floated majestically across the short distance that separated them and rested her fingers lightly on Reggie’s forearm, holding her ever-present cane in the opposite hand. Anne squeezed his arm gratefully, and the three of them sashayed into the hall with a rustle of silk and satin, and the infinitesimal squeak of new patent-leather pumps.

  Lucien arrived late at the opera. Dandy Delacroix considered punctuality a fashion faux pas. He headed straight for his parents’ box, intending to stay through the first act, then slip away to an elegant little house on Rampart Street and into the voluptuous embrace of his mistress. After the news of Bodine’s most recent deplorable crimes, he was in no mood for the trivial gossip and smug self-importance of society’s “best.”

  Lucien’s four jeweled rings winked in the bright candlelight spilling from the large chandeliers in the hall as he strode to his parents’ box. Just outside the curtained entrance, he shook down the cuff of his white silk shirt and adjusted his cravat. A single white rose adorned the lapel of his black evening jacket. One last deep breath, and he was ready to face his family.

  He slipped inside and quietly took stock of the situation before making his presence known. Just his mother and father, his younger brother, Etienne, and one of his numerous sisters, Renee, were present. Renee, who had turned sixteen last month, was making her come-out. Just like all his other sisters, Renee was beautiful—tall, slender, and raven-haired.

  During first intermission, the box would be bombarded with would-be beaux, vying for her attention. Champagne would flow, and compliments would be thrown around like so much confetti. Within the fortnight, there would be offers for her hand. After weighing each competitor’s wealth and family genealogy, Jean-Luc Delacroix would make a choice for Renee. A betrothal would be announced, and she would be duly married after a decent interval of engagement. Unless Renee was very different from his other sisters, she would acquiesce to this method of courtship without the slightest complaint. It was the way things were done.

  Just then his mother turned and motioned to him. Lucien stepped forward, kissed his sister on the cheek, and bowed to Etienne—who returned the bow with a curt nod—before sitting down beside his mother in the front row. Etienne was highly critical of Lucien’s wastrel pastimes and, just like their father, he took every available opportunity to manifest his disapproval.

  Lucien’s father was scrutinizing the audience through a pair of opera glasses, paying not the least attention to the beautiful aria being performed or even bothering to acknowledge his son’s presence.

  “Maman, you look charming as usual.”

  “Lucien, mon fils, how delicious to see you.” She tapped his knee with her pearl-seeded fan and smiled warmly. Even after bearing twelve children, only seven of which had lived beyond infancy, Marie Delacroix was still an attractive woman. Her black hair was streaked rather strikingly with silver, and her waist, with the help of a corset, was only a couple of inches thicker than it had been on her wedding day thirty-five years before.

  “Are you all settled in, Maman?”

  “After so many years of setting up housekeeping in the city each autumn, Lucien, I have perfected a system. That is why your father insists we stay at Bocage till the very day the opera begins. He feels there is no need to come sooner, and you know how he loves the country.”

  Lucien glanced at his father’s stern profile, his thick silver hair combed in a smooth pompadour above his high brow, his mouth a thin, straight, unequivocal line. “How is Papa?”

  Lucien’s mother leaned close to him and whispered. “Not as well as he pretends to be. He’s short of breath sometimes. I worry for his heart.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Oh, Lucien, you come so seldom to Bocage!”

  “I come as often as business dictates.”

  “Your father would enjoy it if you came just to see him, you know.”

  “You’re mistaken, Maman, if you think I’m a comfort to my father. Once we’ve talked about the crops, we’ve nothing to say to each other. He won’t discuss his health, and I’ve learned not to inquire after it unless I want my head bitten off.”

  “It would make him so happy…” She paused and took Lucien’s hand, squeezing it till the facets of his rings cut into his fingers. “It would make us both very happy if you married this year, Lucien.”

  Lucien smiled warily. “Must we argue, Maman?”

  “Lucien, have you seen Liliane Chevalier since their visit to Bocage last spring? She is enchanting, so grown-up now. Here, take my glasses and look at her. Next to Renee, I believe she’s the handsomest girl in the house.”

  Grudgingly, Lucien accepted the opera glasses his mother handed him. Then he remembered that Katherine Grimms had a box at the opera and made it a point to attend opening night. In his depression over the murders at Belle Fleur, Lucien had forgotten that he might catch a glimpse of Anne Weston tonight. That sudden realization caused his spirits to soar to the domed ceiling of the Orleans Opera House. He looked through the glasses with a boyish eagerness that frightened him.

  Dutifully, impatiently, he panned the room first to locate the Chevalier box. Finding it quickly by the coordinates whispered in his ear by his mother, he gave Mademoiselle Chevalier a cursory inspection. She was good-looking enough, even-featured, plump in all the right places, ruddy-lipped, dusky-haired, and dressed in the usual white. But she radiated about as much liveliness as a marble statue.

  “Well, aren’t I right, Lucien? Don’t you think she’s lovely?”

  By now Lucien had turned his head slightly to the right and up a tier, and was looking at a vision in midnight-blue; a vivid, animated female with smiling lips and sparkling eyes. Among the several guests Katherine Grimms had already attracted to her box, Anne Weston stood out like a full-blown wild rose in a patch of field daisies.

  She was just as he remembered her. No, she was more than he remembered. More lovely, more alive, more desirable than ever. And she was sitting by a man Lucien knew well by reputation. Jeffrey Wycliff was an editorial journalist and reporter for the American newspaper, the Picayune. They were whispering to each other, smiling and laughing as if they were old friends.

  “Lucien … What do you think of her?” his mother prompted.

  “I think she’s lovely,” he replied truthfully, his eyes still trained on Anne.

  “Bon. I knew she would be just to your liking. Will you visit her at intermission?”

  “Who
, Maman?”

  “Why, whom do you think? Will you pay a call to the Chevalier box?”

  Lucien slowly lowered the opera glasses and handed them to his mother. “I won’t have time.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve business to attend to.”

  “But surely, Lucien, you have time to say bonsoir?”

  “There will be hordes of men clambering to say bonsoir to Liliane Chevalier. I’m sure I won’t be missed in such a crush.”

  “All the more reason why you should go. Do you want to lose your lovely lady to someone else?”

  Lucien paused and pondered his mother’s question. He didn’t suppose he had any hope at all of preventing Anne Weston from getting romantically involved with any one of the numerous men who might pursue her. He had no right, no business even wishing he could pursue her for himself. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to be near her. And now that he’d seen her again, he didn’t think he could help himself from spending just a few precious moments in her presence. Even if she hated him for it.

  The ponderous velvet curtain fell at the end of the first act. He got up, kissed his mother good-bye, exchanged brief stilted pleasantries with his father and siblings, then excused himself just as Renee’s first admirers stepped through the curtained entryway. He walked quickly around the opera house and up the stairs till he found Katherine Grimms’s box. Muttering “Caution be damned” under his breath, he stepped inside.

  Chapter Five

  “Mr. Wycliff, I believe you’ve managed to make me talk about myself through the entire first act!” Anne said gaily. “I’m embarrassed, and Uncle Reggie is looking very disapproving.”

  “I hope he doesn’t lecture you on my account. I don’t believe I’ve ever enjoyed the Barber of Seville quite so much.”

  Anne smiled. “Do you always know exactly what to say?”

  Jeffrey Wycliff smiled back, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m a writer, you know. I’m never at a loss for words. At the opera I’d always rather converse with someone than watch the dramatics on stage, but I’ve never been fortunate enough before to sit next to a good-looking female who goes after a subject with the same relish that you do, Miss Weston.”

  Anne laughed. “What? Don’t you like the opera, Mr. Wycliff? How gauche of you to admit it! And how very much I like you for being so unfashionably honest. But if you don’t enjoy the drama and the music, why do you come?”

  Anne was aware that behind her someone had entered the box, but she was enjoying her talk with Mr. Wycliff so much, she was determined to avoid the inevitable callers as long as politely possible. Since Katherine had been away several months, Anne hoped that her aunt would be the center of their attention for a few more moments while she enjoyed a rather stimulating conversation.

  “I come to the opera because everyone comes, and it amuses me to watch society all tricked out in their finery and playing their circumscribed parts. I have the natural curiosity of a journalist.”

  “And the natural cynicism, I see.” Anne gave him a sagacious once-over. In his black evening trousers and jacket, complete with the usual white gardenia at the lapel, she thought he looked a little too formally rigged out to suit her overall impression of him. With his straight sandy-brown hair, his attractive, square-jawed, wholly American face, he looked as if he’d be much more at home in a suit of buckskin and fringed boots. “But you are dressed as finely as the others, Mr. Wycliff … What part are you playing?”

  His tone was low and playfully conspiring. “I’m a chameleon, Miss Weston, very adaptable to my surroundings. Wherever I go, I manage to fit in. But I don’t play a part. I’m always intrinsically myself.”

  “And who are you?”

  “No one special. Just an orphan from Baltimore with the lucky knack of putting pen to paper.”

  “Why did you leave Baltimore?”

  Jeffrey shrugged his wide shoulders. “There was nothing for me there. No family. No inheritance, certainly. I came where I thought there would be opportunity for advancement. And there is.”

  “You’re ambitious.”

  “Very. I haven’t any choice.”

  “Do you wish you did?”

  Jeffrey’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Actually I find it rather challenging to have to grasp and claw my way to the top.”

  Anne raised a brow. “You’re teasing me. But somehow I think you’re still telling the truth.”

  He shrugged again, his expression coyly noncommittal. “New Orleans is fascinating, a place on the cusp of profound change. Writing about change, and maybe even inciting a bit of it with my seditious journalism, is very exciting.”

  “I’ve read all your articles since coming here. So far I’ve agreed with everything you’ve written, particularly on the subject of slavery and your abolitionist views. I’ve especially enjoyed your accounts of the derring-do of the Fox.” Anne felt the warmth creep up her neck and flood her cheeks. Even after two weeks, just the thought of Renard made her blush like a schoolgirl.

  Mercifully Jeffrey didn’t seem to notice Anne’s blush. Instead he grew sober and sincere, all remnants of teasing gone. “Yes. I’ve the highest regard and admiration for the Fox. If I weren’t such a cynic, I’d call Renard a hero for the times.”

  “Don’t let your cynicism keep you from so natural a conclusion, Mr. Wycliff,” Anne replied, delighted to find someone who thought exactly as she did. She leaned confidingly close and impulsively laid her hand on his arm. “Renard is a hero.”

  “Who is a hero, Mademoiselle Weston? Could you possibly be talking about me?”

  Anne looked up into the mocking face of Dandy Delacroix. She hadn’t seen him since their encounters on the Belvedere. In the interim she’d tried to erase him from her thoughts, but had failed utterly to do so. She felt an unwilling attraction to him, and felt desperately guilty about it. She reasoned that she was only responding to the external male charms he obviously possessed, not the real man inside. But she still deplored her weakness, especially after she’d actually been kissed by someone truly heroic—Renard.

  Lucien Delacroix was even more handsome than she remembered. And more smug. His dark, sardonic gaze held her transfixed for a moment, till he broke eye contact to glance down—then stare most pointedly—at her gloved hand still resting on Jeffrey Wycliff’s arm.

  A rebellious part of Anne bristled at the notion that Delacroix disapproved of her physical contact with Jeffrey. Who was he to pass judgment on her? If she wanted to behave in such a friendly fashion to a man she’d just met, it was no concern of his. Following this willful line of reasoning, Anne left her hand on Jeffrey’s arm another lingering moment.

  Finally she offered that same hand to Delacroix with a defiant smile. “Mr. Delacroix. Charmed to see you again.”

  He kissed her hand, the light pressure of his lips sending an odd, shivery feeling through her.

  “Charmed to see you, mademoiselle. You are a vision, as always. I trust you are comfortably settled in your new home?”

  “Quite comfortable, thank you. Do you know Mr. Wycliff?”

  Delacroix’s gaze shifted to Jeffrey, his expression cool and impatient, as if he’d rather not take the trouble to acknowledge him. Jeffrey stood up, and they shook hands. “Monsieur Wycliff and I have met before.”

  “Yes, we have. I did a piece on gaming hells in the city, and Mr. Delacroix was one of the gentlemen who figured prominently in it.”

  Delacroix smiled blandly, apparently unconcerned by the derogatory suggestion of Jeffrey’s words. “I was winning splendidly that night. Perhaps you should have stayed longer and taken notes on my celebratory party afterward and included it in your article? Readers nowadays have such a taste for anything that smacks of debauchery. Whatever sells the news, eh?”

  Jeffrey pursed his lips and said nothing. Anne had to admit that Delacroix had turned the tables on him. He was a cad, but he was clever. His gaze shifted back to her. His eyes gleamed wickedly and, in
the dim light, appeared as black as his jacket. “What do you think of debauchery, Mademoiselle Weston?”

  “I’ve had little experience with it,” she replied with a prim smile, though she knew her eyes must be alight with amusement.

  “Ah, if one can’t live a debauched life, one can at least read about people who do. Let me rephrase my question. Do you like reading about debauchery?”

  “I like a good novel now and then,” she admitted, holding back her smile and wanting to kick herself for finding him so entertaining. “But in novels the people who behave badly—as debauched people generally do—usually die at the end.”

  Delacroix nodded sagely, his dark hair full and lush in the candlelight. “Very appropriate, I’m sure, and instructive to the youth. But Mr. Wycliff writes about real people doing real things. As is frequently chronicled in the newspaper, bad people sometimes never get caught and never pay for their crimes.”

  Anne nodded. “That’s why we need heroes, Mr. Delacroix. And I believe I’ve found one in this fellow Renard. Mr. Wycliff writes about him all the time. Do you know who I mean?”

  Delacroix shrugged his wide shoulders. “Everyone knows Renard. Seems a foolish fellow to me, risking his neck for nothing.”

  Anne immediately bristled and was about to take up her usual argument for abolition when Delacroix smoothly diverted the conversation. “How do you like New Orleans? It appears that New Orleans likes you.” He motioned toward the people filling the box, the men seeming anxious to make their way to Anne’s corner for introductions. There were three females, too, eyeing Delacroix as if he were a giant bonbon. Katherine had them all detained at the door while Reggie handed out champagne. Anne wondered how Delacroix had politely managed to get past her talkative aunt so quickly.

  “I like everything I’ve seen so far, but I’ve seen very little, really. Aunt Katherine has been busy receiving calls from old friends and generally settling in. I’d love to tour the city, but Uncle Reggie won’t allow me to go out alone—even with my abigail and a footman or two in attendance—and he won’t accompany me, either. He claims it’s too hot to go gadding about during the day.”