Forbidden Affair

by Patti Beckman

  "Let me look at you, child. Are you sure you're all right?" He scowled.

  Jacquelyn had the distinct feeling she was being X-rayed again for broken bones. She felt ashamed that she had allowed herself to be absent so long from the presence of someone who obviously cared so much about her. She forced a laugh. "Positive, Uncle Luther. Just a little sore is all."

  "Wretched reckless driver," he muttered. "Ought to be thrown in jail for life. Have the police caught the scoundrel?"

  Jacquelyn shook her head. "I doubt that they will."

  "Spaced out, no doubt," he grumbled. "Full of drugs, probably. Terrible what the world has come to. Just terrible. But we'll talk about that later. Now, you get yourself settled and then we'll have a nice chat before dinner. Hattie's got the front bedroom all ready for you."

  Then he acknowledged Austin with a brief greeting and a request, which was more of an order, to see that her bags got upstairs. Austin led the way, carrying her luggage. Jacquelyn followed, worrying over how deeply she may have hurt Uncle Luther by her long absence. Did he understand why she had not been able to return to Cypress Halls these last two years? While she had never discussed her feelings about Scott with Uncle Luther, the man had a way of reading her soul. He had never urged her to come back against her will until now, when circumstances dictated a rest for her complete recovery. He seemed genuinely happy to see her, not bitter, as she might have supposed. He obviously understood that the reason for her absence had been both deep and personal.

  Austin opened the door of the spacious front bedroom, with its elegant canopied bed, exquisite nineteenth-century furniture, handcrafted by New Orleans cabinetmakers over a hundred years ago, and walls freshly papered with a pink rosebud pattern to match the drapes and bedspread. Jacquelyn was surprised at how cozy the room appeared. Its splendor was a sample of how the main section of the house must have looked in its heyday.

  "Do you have a room in the north wing, Austin?" Jacquelyn asked. "You wrote that you were living here on the grounds now."

  He shook his head. "Uncle Luther had the old plantation overseer's house renovated. I'm staying there. It's not bad, and I'm not far away when he needs me."

  A puzzled frown crossed Jacquelyn's brow. Something strange was going on. She knew Uncle Luther was in no financial position to be refurbishing the place. Yet there was clear evidence of recent remodeling.

  Austin moved closer, looking at her with dark, brooding eyes. For a moment, they did not speak. Jacquelyn touched his cheek, then he bent and kissed her. In spite of her fervent wish that she could experience some kind of thrill at Austin's advances, Jacquelyn felt nothing.

  "It's good to have you home, Jacquelyn," he said huskily.

  "Yes, it's good to be here," she whispered, more in love with this place than she had ever been with Austin. They had shared a thousand childhood experiences in this house, experiences that were memories now, shared by both of them and forming a bond between them. Perhaps there were too many memories going too far back. Perhaps she'd known Austin too well and too long, like a brother, and that had been a barrier as well as a bond.

  "Well." He brightened in one of his sudden changes of mood. "I guess I'll get over to my humble abode."

  "You're not going to have dinner with us?"

  He shook his head. "Not tonight. Uncle Luther wants you all to himself. But I'll be seeing plenty of you while you're here."

  "That's a promise?" Jacquelyn asked, hoping to ease some of her feelings of guilt for not caring more deeply for Austin.

  "You'd better believe it," he said throatily. His tone made Jacquelyn sorry she had seemed so eager. While she didn't want to encourage Austin unnecessarily, she also didn't want to hurt him. And she knew that no matter how much they saw of each other, she would never feel any more for him.

  He kissed her again, lightly this time, and left happily whistling a current popular tune.

  Jacquelyn washed her hands in the adjoining bathroom, freshened her makeup and ran a comb through her hair. Then she rejoined Uncle Luther downstairs in his favorite room, the study. He greeted her with a glass of sherry.

  "My, but it's a fine sight to have a pretty young woman under this roof again. Just what Cypress Halls has been needing."

  "From a practical standpoint, Cypress Halls needs a good deal more than that!" Jacquelyn quipped, beginning to relax with Uncle Luther. "But thank you for the gallant compliment."

  Uncle Luther smiled knowingly. "Sit down—sit down, dear," he said in his deep, resonant voice.

  Jacquelyn felt a wave of warmth rush over her. Good old Uncle Luther. It was as if she had never left. They were taking up their relationship from where they had left off over two years ago, and it was clear Uncle Luther was not going to question her about her motives for her long absence. Neither was he going to hold it against her.

  Gratefully, Jacquelyn took a seat in a comfortable morris chair. The room enveloped her in an aura of comfort and elegance. She'd always suspected that Uncle Luther had spent the small remains of the once considerable Cordoway family wealth in restoring and keeping in good repair this one wing of the old mansion. That was a bit pathetic, like having a handsome captain's quarters in a sinking ship. But, except for Jacquelyn, Uncle Luther was the last of the bloodline of the Cordoways, and the house and grounds and family traditions were the focal point of his life.

  This room, except for the modern touches of a window air conditioner and a color television set in one corner, was exactly as it must have been in those prosperous bygone days, with its bronze chandeliers, black Carrara marble mantel with andirons of hammered polished brass, crimson brocade draperies and matching wallpaper. The rosewood furniture, like that in the bedroom upstairs, had been fashioned by the most skilled craftsmen in New Orleans.

  On the walls were portraits of some illustrious ancestors, including a famous Civil War general, done in oil by a well-known Philadelphia artist. In a mahogany bookcase imported from France was a collection of rare books of antebellum vintage. It was easy, sitting in this room, to fall under its spell and convince oneself that outside, the Cordoway sugar plantation was in full production, pouring endless streams of gold dollars into the already swollen family coffers, forgetting that that had been more than a hundred years ago.

  "Now I want to hear all the details of this misfortune you've had," Uncle Luther said, taking his seat in an easy chair facing Jacquelyn. "All we had were the barest details—that you had been struck by a hit-and-run driver."

  "There's not much I can add to what you already know, Uncle Luther," Jacquelyn said. "One night last week I was walking back to my apartment after work. A car went out of control and hit me a glancing blow. When I regained consciousness, I was in a hospital. Nobody got a good look at the car, and of course it was gone by the time the police arrived."

  "Shocking," Uncle Luther said, his face grave. "It was a miracle you weren't killed."

  "I was lucky." Jacquelyn nodded, a shiver running down her back at the recollection. Then she fished in her dress pocket for the letter she had placed there before coming downstairs. Giving Uncle Luther a sideways glance, she said, "Now, let's talk about this mysterious letter I got from my favorite uncle while I was in the hospital. Beautiful bouquets of flowers every day, a huge basket of fruit, then this letter that has my curiosity working overtime."

  Uncle Luther had a sly twinkle in his eye. Obviously, he was enjoying his little mystery to the hilt.

  "What's all this secret business about 'the most important commission of my career'?" Jacquelyn asked, eyeing the letter before handing it to Uncle Luther. "Uncle Luther, it was mean of you not to give me more details in the letter," she chided humorously. "I almost tried sneaking out of the hospital two days early, just to get down here and find out what you meant."

  He chuckled. Then he leaned back and gazed at her thoughtfully. "Jacquelyn, I've heard through some of my contacts in New Orleans that you have been making quite a name for yourself as an interior decorator. Yo
u did over the Lanier mansion in the garden district recently. That old Creole family would never be satisfied with anything but the best."

  "You knew about that?" she asked with surprise.

  "Oh, I keep in touch with things. Not as buried away down here as you might believe." Then he leaned forward. His face grew flushed and his eyes were suddenly intense. "How would you like to take on something bigger and grander than you've ever dreamed of before—something that would make that Lanier house look like a weekend cottage?" He paused for effect, then delivered his surprise. "How would you like to restore Cypress Halls?"

  Jacquelyn stared at him blankly for a moment, wondering if she'd understood correctly. "Restore Cypress Halls?" she repeated dazedly. "Why, Uncle Luther, it would cost a fortune."

  "Yes, it would, but the resources are now at my disposal!"

  The news came as a shock to Jacquelyn. She eyed Uncle Luther closely. Was the old man taking leave of his senses?

  Chapter Two

  Uncle Luther rose and began pacing the room with considerable agitation. "Restoring Cypress Halls has been a lifelong dream of mine, but the cost was always out of the question."

  "Yes, I know," Jacquelyn agreed.

  "The Cordoways, as you know of course, were once a wealthy family. They came to Louisiana in the 1840s, migrating from the East, and became successful sugarcane planters," Uncle Luther went on as if talking both to her and to some phantom listener who had never heard the family's background before. "They bought a great deal of land, and by the mid-1850s had built this beautiful plantation house, Cypress Halls. They entertained presidents and European royalty. Their children were sent to Paris for an education. It's difficult for us today to visualize the kind of aristocracy and feudal society they lived in. It had its immoral aspects, but its moments of grandeur, too—a flowering of great culture and appreciation of arts and fine manners."

  "You love that era, don't you?" Jacquelyn asked.

  "Yes. Still, it was destined to pass from the scene. The upheaval of the Civil War, the decline in the cotton and sugarcane markets—these things ended the great plantations. However, unlike many of the plantation families who had to abandon or sell their big houses, the Cordoways somehow managed to hold onto Cypress Halls through successive generations. They had owned a great deal of land, and by selling that off a little at a time and having mild successes in other ventures, my grandfather and father were able to keep a fraction of the original family fortune. But there was never enough to keep the big house up, and it gradually went downhill. By the time the place fell into my hands, I had to settle for keeping this one wing livable."

  He paused for a sip of sherry, then continued, waving his cigar for emphasis. "I've spent my life trying to regain some of the Cordoway prestige and wealth. But financial success has eluded me, Jacquelyn. It's been like a tantalizing phantom, teasing me in many guises, but always evading my grasp at the last moment. Finally, after a lot of deep reflection, I realized that I was never destined to achieve my life's goal through my own efforts. I had to turn to somebody else for the solution. It was when I had almost given up hope that I was handed an opportunity to achieve my dream of restoring the mansion."

  "What happened, Uncle Luther?" Jacquelyn asked, curiosity making her tingle all over.

  "I've been offered a deal," Uncle Luther said, his eyes sparkling with a mixture of excitement and a hint of despair. "An interested party has agreed to buy the mansion and property, with the stipulation that I can live here the rest of my life as the proprietor of the house. Everything will be under my control, just as it is now. But on my death, the entire estate will revert to the buyer. In exchange for this agreement, the new owner will furnish the funds for a total restoration of Cypress Halls. And Jacquelyn, I want you to do the refurbishing."

  Jacquelyn suddenly felt her mouth go dry. This was astounding news. She didn't know what to say or exactly how she felt about it. She recognized a growing anger that fate had played such a cruel trick on Uncle Luther. He could realize his lifelong dream to restore Cypress Halls only at the expense of deeding it after his death into the hands of a stranger. What kind of a hideous joke was that?

  "This affects your future, too, Jacquelyn," Uncle Luther went on, eyeing her closely. "If I had hung on to Cypress Halls, it would have been yours and Gerrard's some day. I know he has never cared for the place in the same way you have. I did everything in my power to preserve the mansion for you. But the matter has been taken out of my hands. The place is deteriorating badly. If it's not restored soon, there will be nothing of any value left to leave you. I had a hard choice to make, Jacquelyn. Sell, and see our family home rise from its foundations to its former splendor, or keep it, and watch it waste away into certain ruin."

  A sudden pang shot through Jacquelyn. While she had left here two years ago not knowing if she would ever return, she had always harbored in the back of her mind a certain sense that this rambling structure was her home, a place where she had put down roots and could always return if she felt the need. But now, Uncle Luther was telling her that someday Cypress Halls would fall into the hands of a new owner and she would have no further claim on the place.

  Jacquelyn sat stunned, her mind still reeling from Uncle Luther's revelation. It was something she was going to have to think about. It took time to digest a concept that struck at the very foundations of a basic belief she had held but had never really thought much about before. She had always assumed Cypress Halls would be open to her any time she needed it. She had just taken it for granted.

  Uncle Luther paused for a moment. He looked directly at Jacquelyn. She saw him studying her puzzled expression.

  "Stored away in trunks are all the original plans, specifications and descriptions of the house and its furnishings when it was new," Uncle Luther offered, as if prompting her to agree to help him. "You can use that information as a guide. With your training and talent in interior decorating, you can do an excellent job. Whatever it costs, I want you to restore Cypress Halls to its original magnificence."

  "Oh, Uncle Luther!" Jacquelyn cried, her large blue eyes sparkling with excitement overshadowed by dismay. "Me? Restore Cypress Halls? I—I don't know how to respond. It's a dream job. But to redecorate it for somebody else, I don't know…"

  "Say yes, Jacquelyn," Uncle Luther urged. "We are living in an ugly, barbaric age of utilitarian concrete and plastic, an age when good manners and morals have gone out of the world. I believe it is important to preserve these symbols of the past with their great charm and elegance."

  "It is fashionable these days to think we must have a homogeneous society in which each person is a dreary equal of his peer. Bah! Equality is a myth, Jacquelyn. Some of us are smarter than others, some more productive. The individual is what is important —what he can achieve in open competition with others. I don't believe in a classless society. Equal opportunity, yes, but guaranteed equality, never. Therefore I want this proud old house to stand as a link with an age when men dared to be proud and aristocratic."

  Uncle Luther was breathing hard. His face was flushed. He seemed a little mad. But his obsession was contagious. The thought of transforming those ruined halls to their original grandeur, of restoring or duplicating the work of the original craftsmen, was intoxicating.

  "Well, what do you say, Jacquelyn?" He was standing before her, his shaggy head bent forward eagerly, his fierce brows looking like wild hedges, his eyes blazing feverishly.

  "I—I really don't know, Uncle Luther," Jacquelyn confessed. "You've floored me with all this so suddenly. Please let me have a little while to get used to the idea. I'll admit I'm tempted."

  "Of course." He patted her hand. "I didn't mean to high-pressure you the minute you arrived. Come now, Hattie is ready to serve dinner. She's cooked some of her best Creole dishes especially for you."

  Uncle Luther gallantly escorted Jacquelyn to the dining room. She smiled, chatting aimlessly about life in New Orleans, trying to cover the concern in her voice
.

  The prospect of restoring Cypress Halls to its former elegance thrilled her beyond comprehension.

  It was a project any interior decorator would give half her life for. But Jacquelyn was not an ordinary decorator. She had lived much of her life within these walls… and near Scott McCrann, after he had taken possession of the neighboring estate. How could she give Uncle Luther an answer until she'd had time to sort through her own feelings? There were so many things to consider. Could she cope with the possibility of seeing Scott from time to time? Could she handle the pain of restoring the mansion for someone else? In her still weakened state from her accident, she couldn't make a decision like that now.

  Hattie's dinner, which consisted of turtle soup, a main dish of baked eggplant with shrimp and crab-meat, a dessert of crepes suzette, everything ending on the proper final note with café brûlot, was equal to anything the best chefs at Antoine's or Galatorie's could have prepared. After the hospital fare Jacquelyn had been having the past week, every morsel was pure rapture.

  But Jacquelyn's mind continuously strayed from the delicious meal to Uncle Luther's surprising news. The possibility of restoring Cypress Halls was staggering. She, too, was emotionally involved with this old house. She had grown up in the shadow of its legends, played in its deserted galleries, listened at night for ghosts. The Cordoway blood coursed through her veins, too, and as long as this old house stood, it would be a symbolic factor in her psychological makeup. Not to help restore it would be to deny a part of her own identity.

  Still, there was Scott McCrann to consider. And it was because of him that she had moved away in the first place.

  On the other hand, what an opportune excuse for staying away from New Orleans for a while! Jacquelyn had to admit to a disquieting uneasiness in the city. The French Quarter had provided her with a link to the Old World atmosphere she had grown up with and had come to love. But still, she was living in the city, and shopping trips into the modern areas of town and clients in the affluent garden district were daily reminders that her apartment in the Old World part of town was merely an enclave surrounded by the plastic and concrete Uncle Luther had so severely criticized. She had to admit she agreed with him.