“I’d like to know what idiot came up with the idea of firing cannons to chase away the fever!” he said. “He must have been hiding when the brains were passed out!”
Nicolette giggled.
“It’s good to hear you laugh again, darling,” Laffite said, kissing her cheek. “And it won’t be much longer. I’m as anxious to leave as you are. I have a meeting with Grymes and Livingston later this week. If they still haven’t made any progress by then, we have an alternate plan that we’ll put into motion.”
Nicolette sat up and looked at him, her eagerness apparent. “Tell me!”
“Not a word of it!” he answered. “It’s a secret. If it works, fine. If not, I don’t want you to be called in as a witness against me.”
“I’d never…” she tried to protest.
“You’d have to, if Claiborne called you to the stand. Now, that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. I want you to rest. It’s getting late.”
“Kiss me goodnight,” she demanded.
Laffite leaned over her to let his lips capture hers. They were warm and ever so soft—not the icy flesh he had tasted the day he brought her home. Her arms went about his neck and she drew him closer until their bodies found their fitted contours. He pulled away quickly.
“Oh, no! A kiss is all you get until you are fully recovered, you little temptress!”
“Then I’ll be well in no time,” she answered sleepily.
He laughed. “My kind of woman!” she heard him say softly as she drifted off.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The news reached New Orleans late in August that the British had burned Washington. The Crescent City, already suffering in the grips of a yellow fever epidemic, plunged into an even blacker depression on hearing this disastrous turn of events. Near-panic set in. The Dragon would breathe its fire on New Orleans; the only question was: How soon?
Jean Laffite worried that the somber atmosphere was infecting Nicolette and keeping her from a full recovery. She needed to be away from New Orleans, but as yet he was afraid to attempt the grueling trip through the bayous back to Grande Terre.
He returned one afternoon from a meeting with Pierre’s lawyers to find Nicolette, still in her dressing gown, sitting in the stuffy, shuttered salon. Her eyes seemed to focus on nothing and she looked pale and unhappy. She didn’t bother to rise or embrace him when he bent down to kiss her.
“That bad, is it?” he said, frowning.
“What?” she asked absently.
He knelt before her and took her hands. “Darling, look at me,” he ordered in a gently scolding tone. “What would make you happy at this very minute?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Jean. I simply don’t seem to be able to pull myself out of this depression. I hate staying indoors all the time, but I know I can’t go out until the fever threat is past. Still, I miss seeing people, feeling the sun on my face.” Her voice, which had been quivering badly as she spoke, suddenly took on some of its old fire and determination. “Dammit, Jean, I want to go out! That’s what would make me happy! I feel like a prisoner locked up in a palace. Does it matter whether I die of yellow fever or boredom?”
He chuckled and kissed her fingertips. “That’s my girl! Give me a little hell like in the old days! I love it!”
She matched his laugh. “Have I been so terrible to live with these past weeks?”
“Never terrible, darling, but hardly yourself. I did miss my old Nikki. And on the outside chance that she might be waiting for me when I got home, I stopped by and purchased these. There’s a special benefit performance tonight.” He reached inside his fawn-colored coat and brought out two tickets.
“Oh, Jean!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck. “The theater!”
He caught her up in his arms, laughing and almost crying he was so happy to see the spark in her eyes and the smile of enthusiasm on her face once again. She found his lips and clung to him, feeling familiar stirrings which she had denied for many days. Her breasts ached for his touch and she pressed them hard against his chest, at the same time fitting the rest of her slim body to his rising contours.
“Do you think it’s safe now?” he whispered.
“That’s another threat to my life,” she answered, smiling into his eyes. “I could die from lack of being loved!”
“Not under my roof, you won’t!”
Marie Louise, they knew, would be at the market for another hour at least, and she had Xavier and Gator-Bait in tow to carry her bundles. With the house to themselves, they didn’t bother going up to the bedroom.
Not the slightest protest passed Nicolette’s eager lips concerning the smoky afternoon sun still streaming through the slits in the shutters. She lay back on the carpet, her dressing gown thrown in careless haste over a chair, and stared hungrily at Laffite’s naked body poised above hers. She opened to him immediately.
When he began slowly manipulating her toward ecstasy before entering her, she begged, “Now, darling! I can’t wait!”
Their hunger for each other was such that they reached the heights more quickly than ever before. And after the weeks of self-enforced abstinence, their shared climax came with crashing intensity. Afterward, they both lay back on the carpet, recovering.
“My God!” Laffite gasped. “I never knew it could be like this, Nikki. Every time it gets better. I’ll never get enough of you! The more you give, the more I want. Is there no end to it?”
She laughed softly, having thought similar words just before he spoke them. “I hope there’s no end to it! I can see us now, darling, fifty years in the future. You a silver-haired grandfather and I a prim and proper, elderly matron, tossing my skirts up for you to…”
“Nikki!” he interrupted, trying to sound shocked. “That’s indecent! Old couples don’t .
“Well, I certainly intend to!” She sat up and stared at him, eye to eye. “If you think I plan to give this up just because you get a little old and crotchety, you’d better think again!”
He tried to stifle a chuckle, saying very seriously, “But, dear, what will the children think… and the grandchildren?”
“I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks!”
“And that’s another thing. I want you to watch your language in front of the youngsters. Why, they’ll think you were raised among pirates!”
“You!” she shrieked, realizing suddenly that he had been teasing her. He tried to pull her into his arms, but she pushed him back to the floor and straddled his middle, tickling him unmercifully.
“No, don’t!” he pleaded through gasping laughter. “Nikki, please… stop it!”
“Not until you give me your solemn promise that you won’t leave my bed until you go to your coffin! I don’t plan to spend my old age withering up for lack of love!”
“But my heart,” he managed between outbursts of frantic laughter. “Suppose I develop a bad heart. You wouldn’t expect me to…”
“Don’t give me any excuses!” she said, digging her nails into his sides. “All I want is your promise!
When he still refused to answer, she attacked a new area—his belly.
“All right! All right! I promise! Anything!”
The sound of the door opening from the outside stunned them both to immobility for an instant—long enough for Marie Louise to peek through the open door and see their entwined, naked bodies.
“Pardon,” she whispered in an amused tone, then closed the door to the room.
“Oh, God, Nikki! How could you do this to me?” Laffite groaned. “I’ll never be able to face the woman again!”
“You bastard!” she said, laughing. “Always thinking of yourself. I’m the one who’s embarrassed. Letting you take me this way—in broad daylight—in the salon! I could just die of shame!”
Laffite quickly rolled her over onto her back. He paid back in kind what Nicolette had been dishing out to him. She squealed and thrashed as he tickled her.
“Take it back!” he ordered.
“What you just said.”
“Never!” she shrieked. “You are a bastard!”
Though Nicolette had been able to wring a promise from him, he could not make her give in. The sight of her lovely body, writhing at his slightest touch, her mouth wide and inviting as she panted for breath between bursts of giggles, soon turned his tormenting fingers into instruments of pleasure. Nicolette stopped her thrashing and moaned softly as he caressed her breasts, her belly and thighs.
“Oh, please, darling,” she cooed, opening her body to his once again.
But he would have the final victory. Standing up suddenly and pulling her to her feet, he said, “After the theater, my anxious one. That will give you plenty of time to enjoy the anticipation.”
Nicolette felt as nervous as the night she had been presented to society. Tonight would be the first time that she and Jean Laffite had appeared as a couple in prominent circles. And the Theatre d’Orleans, newly reopened, was the place for Creole society to gather. All her family’s friends would be there to accept or scom their relationship. She dreaded their reaction.
As the carriage horse clopped slowly through the quagmire of Bourbon Street, Nicolette sat silent, staring at Jean Laffite. This being a Tuesday, one of the two nights when formal attire was obligatory at the theater, he was dressed in black, down to the diamond-centered onyx studs gleaming in his ruffled shirtfront. His thick, long hair, gone dark again now, enhanced the handsome figure he cut.
Nicolette thought it almost insane that, though she loved him desperately in canvas britches and a sailor’s jerkin, she loved him ever so much more intensely when he was turned out so elegantly. Smiling at her own silliness, she reached out to take his hand.
“Don’t be nervous, darling,” he said. “You’ll capture so much attention tonight in that gown that no one will notice or care who your escort is.”
His eyes raked the creamy flesh at the top of the low-cut, violet brocade. The silver threads running through the rich fabric glittered, competing with the diamonds in her dark hair and the excited sparkle in her smoky-blue eyes.
“Where will we be sitting, Jean? In one of the loge grilles?” she asked, referring to the boxes which could be closed off by curtains from curious stares.
“Nikki,” he began in a reproving tone. “I am not ashamed of you or our love for each other. I will not hide from the rest of the world. Sooner or later we have to face this. If you aren’t ready yet, I can have the driver take us home now.”
“No, Jean, don’t take me home! I’m not ashamed. I’m very proud to be with you. I’ll be the envy of every woman there tonight!”
“That’s my girl!” he said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.
The driver pulled up to the banquette and the doorman reached for the carriage handle. Nicolette stepped down onto the red plush carpet, which had been rolled out over the muddy banquette to protect the ladies’ gowns. As Laffite offered his arm and she took it, she raised her diamond-crowned head a trifle higher and cast off the shrinking-violet demeanor she had worn since they left the house. She would not be cowed by curious stares or pushed to embarrassed tears by snippy women “whose talking strings had been cut at birth,” as she remembered Sukey used to say of gossips.
As they walked through the pillared entrance to the arched doors, the hubbub of conversation in the lobby fell so silent that Nicolette was conscious of the tap-tap of her silver slippers on the black-and-white marble floor.
Several women she knew to be her mother’s friends hid behind their lacy fans or turned away completely to avoid speaking. Nicolette felt Laffite’s arm tense under her hand.
She looked about, feeling her panic rise as she searched for a friendly face. Among all these people who had known her, was there no one willing to offer friendship openly when it was most needed?
Then she noticed a movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look. A quietly dressed young woman with lovely golden hair came toward them, holding her gloved hand out in greeting. A smile trembled uncertainly on her pale lips.
Laffite bowed to her. “Bon soir, Mademoiselle Eleanore.”
“Captain Laffite, how very nice to see you again.”
As Laffite exchanged pleasantries with the young lady, Nicolette stood by, silent and observing. The woman, though she looked like a mere girl, caused a reaction in Nicolette that she neither understood nor enjoyed. Instead of feeling grateful to this kind person who chose to ignore the coldness of her companions, she experienced the unmistakable pangs of jealousy. There was something in the woman’s eyes—the way they lit with blue fire when she looked at Jean Laffite—and the warm flush of her cheeks when he complimented her. For the first time, Nicolette was aware of how much she resented the other women who had been a part of Jean’s life.
“Nikki, darling,” she heard him saying and quickly pushed the unpleasant thoughts from her mind. “I’d like you to meet Mademoiselle Eleanore de Beaumont.”
“Enchantée, madame,” Eleanore said, with the barest curtsy.
Nicolette forced a smile. “Aren’t you Dr. Charles de Beaumont’s sister? You’ve been in France for a number of years, as I recall.”
“Oui, madame, though I returned to New Orleans some time ago.”
“I was there myself,” Nicolette said, then looking pointedly up at Laffite, commented, “I wonder which of us returned first?”
Laffite pretended not to recognize the fiery flash in Nicolette’s eyes for what it was. He was delivered from her accusing stare by the approach of Dr. de Beaumont. The ice was broken. Conversations and activity resumed in the crowded lobby.
The foursome chatted amiably for a time until Eleanore was hailed by other friends. Dr. de Beaumont excused himself as well.
“Darling, the curtain should be going up soon,” Jean said. “Do you mind waiting here for me while I check on our box? If you don’t object, I’d like to invite the de Beaumonts to join us, if the other two seats aren’t taken already.”
“Of course, Jean.”
Not a few eyes followed Jean Laffite surreptitiously across the floor, but Nicolette was conscious only of the pale blue pair gleaming their love toward him. She almost choked on her unreasonable jealousy.
“Nicolette!” a voice hailed from the entrance. “Nicolette Vernet! Can that really be you?”
“Micaela!” Nicolette gasped when she spotted the young woman coming toward her. “I thought you were still in France!”
“No, no, amie! I arrived this very day to visit my family for a time.”
“Is Celestin with you?” Nicolette glanced about, but Micaela’s husband was nowhere about. The pretty young matron with hair as fiery as her temper had flaunted conventions once again by seeing herself to the theater.
“No. He has bought a tiresome farm outside Paris and he’s playing at being one of the landed gentry these days. He’d never leave his vineyards… or his dear maman and papa. I escaped the dreary place to pay a brief visit only. Tin-Tin’s papa, the old blackguard, made sure my stay would end in return to his castle by refusing to allow my two sons to accompany me. They are locked safely in his chateau at Mont l’Eveque until my return. As Baroness Pontalba I am a virtual slave to my husband’s family!”
Nicolette felt a tug of sympathy at her friend’s dejected tone and expression. The wedding between Micaela Almonester y Roxas and her French cousin, Celestin, had been the most glittering affair New Orleans had ever seen. Now the lovely Micaela, her old friend from the convent school, showed the strain of an unhappy marriage and the birth of two children in as many years.
Brightening perceptibly, Micaela rushed on, “And how have you been since your return? My dear, if you don’t find a husband soon, you’ll be making tapestry with the old aunties, you know!”
Nicolette tried to break in and bring Micaela up to date on her life, but the young woman ran on—not allowing her a word in.
“I heard about poor Octave from friends in Paris, but I haven’t had much news since. I kn
ow you’ve been through hell, poor dear, and I am so sorry. But I see that more interesting men are taking notice now that you’ve added a year or two and some becoming inches to your once-flat chest!” Micaela’s laughter bubbled to the surface as it always had when she succeeded in embarrassing her good friend.
“I don’t know what you mean, Micaela. What men?”
“Mon Dieu, Nicolette, don’t pretend you haven’t noticed! This is me, Micaela, your oldest friend and partner in crime! You should be strutting and preening for him, not trying to deny any interest. Goodness knows, I tried hard enough to get him! Haven’t you ever wondered why my mother was so eager to have me safely married to my pretty cousin and packed off to France?” She paused for an answer, but Nicolette still wasn’t following her meaning. “My dear girl, I had set my cap for this same dashing scoundrel and Maman was terrified!”
Nicolette, frowning, glanced in the direction of Micaela’s intense gaze and exclaimed, “Why, you can’t mean Jean Laffite!”
“Is there any woman alive who wouldn’t want him? Just look at Eleanore de Beaumont clinging to his arm. Why, that shameless girl looks as if she could eat him with a spoon!”
Nicolette’s eyes narrowed. Micaela was right! It wasn’t Jean’s fault—he simply attracted females. Nicolette frowned at the thought.
“Nicolette, take the advice of a married woman. I think you may need it. Laffite keeps glancing in this direction, even with Eleanore clinging like a vine. The man is obviously attracted to you. Don’t get involved unless you are sure he will marry you. I’ve heard stories—painful tales— about some of the women in his life. Poor Eleanore looks right now as if she might die of love for him. Of course, the dear innocent hasn’t a chance with a man like Laffite. But you may. See that he marries you!”
Nicolette couldn’t have told anyone what the play was about that evening. Afterward, she didn’t even recall the title. Her mind had worried over Micaela’s words like a dog gnawing at a bone the whole time. And as conscious as she was of Jean’s presence beside her, his hand caressing hers from time to time, she was even more aware of the wide-eyed Eleanore, sitting in the chair behind hers. How many other women would she meet who looked at Jean with longing eyes?
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