Dark Masquerade

by Jennifer Blake

  Joseph, comforted by the closeness of his nurse, went to sleep in the curve of Callie’s arm. When Callie’s eyes began to droop also, Elizabeth got up from the chair where she had been watching them to see that they were both going to be none the worse for their ordeal. Grand’mere had sent for her correspondence from the downstairs sitting room. As Elizabeth opened the bedroom door, Grand’mere looked up from the small portable desk she held in her lap.

  “Tired?” she asked in a carrying whisper, then answered herself. “You must be. Nothing is so tiring as a fright. Come, sit here beside me and tell all about these missing items. I am not at all sure I understand.”

  Elizabeth complied willingly enough. When she had finished, Grand’mere sat staring at the long slender wooden pen in her hand with its sharp nib.

  “You are certain, quite certain, that you brought these things with you?”

  “Oh, yes, Madame. I have seen them at least twice a day since I left Texas, every time I opened the trunk. There was not that much in the trunk, after all.”

  “I see. And you could not have left them at some stop? Your servant could not have carelessly laid them out and forgotten to put them back?”

  “I’m sure she didn’t.”

  “It isn’t impossible, you know, that she is somehow at fault and is trying to cover her guilt?”

  “Not Callie,” Elizabeth said firmly.

  “Very well, let us look at it from our angle. Who do you think would take your papers and for what reason? You do not answer. You see?” She spread her hands.

  Did the old lady really intend to dismiss what had happened so easily? Was there to be no inquiry? No alarm?

  “It is like the spiders,” Elizabeth suggested softly. “I do not know who did that either.”

  Grand’mere’s face froze. “You need not concern yourself unduly, I think. There will be a complete investigation made into these matters. Bernard will see to that.”

  And with that Elizabeth had to be satisfied. “Excuse me,” she said, and rising, left the room.

  As she closed the door behind her she looked up to see Darcourt standing in the opening of the doors out onto the upper gallery. A thin ribbon of blue smoke curled up from the cigar he held between his fingers. He turned warily at her footstep, and then as he saw her he smiled and, flipping the cigar out and over the gallery railing, came toward her.

  “I have been hearing about the disturbance. I feel I ought to apologize for our hospitality,” he said, holding out his hand. He brushed his lips across the back of her fingers as she put her hand into his. Then, keeping her hand, he tucked it into the crook of his arm with an easy, natural gesture, and led her outside onto the gallery.

  The sun had moved nearly directly overhead and the gallery was shadowed and cool. A breeze wafted across the open space, lifting the fine hair that had escaped from her tidy chignon and blowing her skirts against Darcourt’s boots. Sword ferns, cascading over the sides of their wrought iron containers, made a fresh green bower around several chairs at one end of the gallery, and they strolled toward it.

  As they seated themselves, Darcourt lounged back in the delicate wrought iron chair and Elizabeth found herself smiling at him with sudden friendliness. With his undemanding acceptance of her, and his admiring glances and air of relaxation, he seemed more approachable than anyone else in the house. She realized that he was exerting himself to be charming and she appreciated it. No one else had bothered.

  They spoke casually about the mild spring weather, the conflict in Texas, and the likelihood of the territory becoming a state. Darcourt had no firm opinion about the latter, and little concern. In that, he reminded Elizabeth of Felix, who had marched off to war for the ideal that anyone who wanted their own government badly enough to fight for it deserved a helping hand, especially if they were Americans. Felix had gone to war for the glory and romance of battle, and for the excitement of it. She had thought for months that he had gone without a thought for his bride and the possibility of a child from his marriage with Ellen. It took some adjustment in her thinking for her to credit him with the forethought to provide for his wife. What of the child, though? Joseph was heir to his father’s estate. She had been hasty in closing the discussion of money without asking Bernard about that when she had the chance. It was not enough for him to say simply that he was the baby’s guardian.

  “You look sad,” Darcourt told her. He let the front legs of the chair he was leaning back in fall forward with a thump. “You don’t have to be sad for Felix. He wouldn’t want that, you know. Felix was a grand person. He never lectured or came on his high horse. He was always willing to share what he had, whether it was a drink, his mount, or his last two-bit piece. He didn’t like black dresses or crepe and all that rigmarole that goes with funerals any more than I do. He hated that mausoleum down there in the family cemetery. I’m glad he isn’t in it; I’m glad they buried him where he fell.”

  Elizabeth looked away out over the front lawn at the new grass spreading green beneath the trees. “Since he had to die, then, yes, so am I,” she answered.

  “He wouldn’t have wanted you to pine. He was partial to a bit of gaiety himself.”

  “You knew him well, it seems.”

  “We were like brothers, rather than half-brothers. He was closer to me than to Bernard. We liked, and disliked, the same things. I know he would not have wanted you to go around looking like a—a—”

  “Crow?” she supplied.

  “I did call you that this morning, didn’t I? I apologize, but that doesn’t make it any less apt.”

  “Three years is not too long to mourn a loved one.”

  “It will be the rest of your life, if you don’t remarry. You realize that will be expected of you, don’t you? But three years or life, what’s the difference? We will all be dead of boredom before it’s over. It must be worse for a woman. A man can get away for a time, but you have to stay mewed up here like a goose in a pen.”

  “Please!” she said laughing. “Geese in pens are being fattened for the kill! But you were not so closely related. You shouldn’t have to give up all invitations. A few quiet dinner parties cannot be considered making merry, surely?”

  “You don’t know Grand’mere and her ideas on the strength of family ties, even those of marriage. But it doesn’t matter, there aren’t that many invitations to be refused.”

  “Aren’t there neighbors, friends?”

  “Oh, yes, neighbors. But few real friends. This area is filling up with Americans.”

  “Really now. You are as American as I am.”

  “In name only,” he said, laughing a little. “Most of our friends and relatives live in New Orleans. We move to town during the season, that is, we have in other years. We didn’t this year because we were in mourning. What was the point? The soirées, the balls, everything but the dullest of family dinner parties, would have been denied to us. I slipped into town for New Year’s, drank my share of eggnog at each visit—no gentleman caller is allowed to escape until he has sampled the recipe of the lady of the house, you know.”

  “Yes, the gentlemen used to call upon the ladies on New Year’s day when we lived in Mississippi.”

  “Did the young ladies expect a cornet of French confection?”

  “I don’t think so, but then, I was hardly out of the nursery when we migrated. What is a cornet?”

  “A rolled tube of gold or silver paper, like a cornucopia, with lace frills and usually a miniature of some simpering damsel in gaudy colors.”

  “I see, and you gave these to all the girls—or to only one?” she said teasingly.

  “Oh, I must have scattered hundreds, the ladies collect them like scalps, to prove how pursued they are. If they don’t receive what they consider their due, some ladies have been known to buy a few more to supplement their collection.”

  “You aren’t serious?”

  “My word of honor.” He grinned. “But of course you would never stoop to such a deceit.”
/>   “No? All is fair, they say, in love and war.”

  “People have been using that saying for two thousand years to excuse their misdeeds.”

  “Are you so virtuous, then?” she asked mildly.

  “I refuse to admit to that! But I have no use for hypocrites either.”

  There seemed nothing to say to that. Elizabeth thought there was some meaning behind the words, but she did not feel she had known Darcourt long enough to ask him to explain.

  “You enjoy the New Orleans social round?” she said after a while.

  “Immensely, as long as I have the feathers to fly with.”

  “You prefer it to Oak Shade?” Because it was so warm and pleasant on the gallery, with the breeze sweeping now and then from around the corners of the side galleries, there was a shade of censure in the question.

  “Oak Shade doesn’t belong to me,” Darcourt said deliberately, and then shrugged. “If it did, I don’t know. I would certainly have the money to enjoy New Orleans society—besides being even more socially acceptable to all the match-making mamans.”

  “An estate is a great responsibility. You wouldn’t be able to spend all your time socializing or you would be bankrupt before you knew it.”

  His blue eyes flashed and his teeth gleamed white beneath his dark gold mustache, as he grinned at her serious expression. “What I need, I suppose, is a position where I would be paid for making merry, say as a courtier. I would have been a huge success at the French Court a hundred years ago.”

  “I expect you would have,” Elizabeth agreed, returning the smile, her gaze on the indention in his cheek that was almost, but not quite, a dimple. He had the ready wit, the friendliness, and the audacity that would have made a good courtier. “But being a courtier wasn’t all dancing and gaiety. What about the bowing and scraping, the bootlicking and back-biting?”

  “What, in a word, of the hypocrisy?”

  “Yes, I suppose that is what I meant,” Elizabeth admitted.

  “My scruples would be as firm as rock, I expect, until they were tried.” He laughed across at her, and then his smile faded. “Isn’t that the way of it?”

  The bitterness in his voice found an echo in Elizabeth’s mind. She did not reply. The question came too close to home.

  As she stared out through the tree limbs with unfocused eyes, Bernard came into view beneath them with Celestine beside him. His head was bent to her vivid upturned face as she clung to his arm with both hands. They were following the curving path of the drive, strolling apparently without destination.

  “Celestine is at it again, turning Bernard up sweet. She is a heartless jade, but pretty, you must admit. She will be marrying him if he doesn’t look to himself.”

  “Will she?” Elizabeth could not have said why the idea was so unacceptable. She did not like Celestine, but as far as she could see they were well-suited.

  “She expects it, of course. Celestine was cheated of a husband—no offense intended,” he added hastily as Elizabeth glanced quickly across at him. “But Celestine has no objection to Bernard as a substitute. I would not be surprised if she wouldn’t prefer it.”

  “That wouldn’t be jealousy I hear?’ Elizabeth asked lightly. The subject, and the look on Darcourt’s face as he watched the graceful figure of the Creole girl, made Elizabeth vaguely uncomfortable.

  “Possibly.” A wry look crossed his face, and then blossomed into a short laugh. “There won’t be any great hurry about it. If I know Celestine, and I think I do—she has never bothered to hide her feelings from me because I am not good, affluent husband material—she will wait to see if the Delacroix still have money when this recession talk dies down.”

  “Are you serious?” Elizabeth asked, turning her eyes back to the couple moving slowly down the gravel drive.

  Darcourt frowned as he stared after them also. “I’m not quite sure. I wish I was.”

  Silence descended over them and Elizabeth was thinking of an excuse to go back into the house when there came a shout.

  “Darcourt! I have done it again! I left silly Denise primping and perfuming for you and—”

  The girl Elizabeth had seen earlier that morning in the hall stopped short as she saw Elizabeth. Her face lost the gleeful gaiety that had given it animation and stood with wide eyes that were strangely frightened.

  “What was it you did, chère?” Darcourt spoke to her in a soft teasing voice. He held out his hand and she came to stand beside his chair, leaning against his shoulder.

  “It wasn’t anything,” she murmured with her eyes on the floor.

  “Theresa, have you met our new sister-in-law?”

  The girl shook her head, drawing close to. Darcourt until she was almost hiding behind his chair. She seemed tall for her age, nearly as tall as Elizabeth, and unaccountably shy for a girl who must be almost ready to leave the schoolroom.

  “Ellen Marie, my sister Theresa.” He took his sister’s hand, pressing it as if to give her courage, and drawing her forward. “This lady, Theresa, was Felix’s wife, the mother of the baby I am sure you have heard.”

  “Oh, yes!” The color crept back into Theresa’s oval face. “They would not let me see him. I expect it is because—”

  She glanced at Darcourt and he said, “Because you have been ill.”

  “Yes. You have to be careful with babies, don’t you?”

  Elizabeth agreed, a sense of disquiet touching her as she saw the avid interest that replaced the shyness in Theresa’s eyes. Then, as she acknowledged the introduction and asked the polite, impersonal questions expected, memory stirred. Although it was nearly midday, Theresa still wore her dressing gown. Her feet were bare and the thick rope of her dark hair hung over her shoulder. Earlier, in the hall, the girl had been wearing a dress, not a gown and wrapper. But perhaps she had been sent back to bed because of her illness, Elizabeth told herself, and dismissed it. Or she tried. But something about Theresa troubled her. The girl that stood before her with her dressing gown to the floor barely covering her slipperless feet seemed older than the girl she had seen so briefly in the hall with her skirts halfway to her ankles. She found herself wondering what she would look like with her hair up, that metamorphosis that changed a girl into a young lady. Because her mind was full of speculation she was more than cordial to her.

  “You must be sure to come and see Joseph when you are well again.”

  “I would like that, if Grand’mere and Denise will let me,” Theresa said, looking down at her fingers, which she had twisted together.

  Replying to that oddly submissive tone of voice more than to the girl’s words, Elizabeth said, “It is my baby, and I will certainly let you see him.”

  Theresa smiled up at her, a flashing radiance that was quickly gone.

  A beetle, shiny and black, was crawling along the planking before them. Even as Elizabeth noticed it, Darcourt reached casually out with his booted foot and crushed it.

  “Don’t! Oh, don’t!” Theresa cried out, clapping her hands to her ears. “Don’t kill it! That sound, I can’t stand that sound!”

  Surprise mixed with remorse covered Darcourt’s face, but he bent down and picked up the dead beetle, throwing it over the gallery railing. Then he put his arm around his sister.

  “Hush, now. I just wasn’t thinking. Hush.” When she began to breathe normally he laughed. “Good Lord, Theresa, a man never knows what is going to set you off next. Be quiet now, that’s a good girl. It’s not as if you had never seen a dead bug before, not with poison in every corner to kill the creeping things.”

  “You don’t understand,” Theresa cried, hiding her face in Darcourt’s shoulder. “You won’t understand.”

  Over her bowed head, Darcourt looked at Elizabeth and lifted one hand in a helpless gesture. Elizabeth understood his predicament but felt too much of an outsider to interfere. She was afraid Theresa would reject any comfort she might offer. Darcourt continued to speak softly to his sister. Out of consideration for their privacy, Elizabeth
looked away out over the railing. She sought Bernard and Celestine and saw them moving among the trees, the lavender of Celestine’s dress a spot of flashing color in the shade. They had reached a wide curve in the gravel and shell drive and had turned back toward the house.

  “They are coming back,” she said, hardly realizing she had spoken aloud.

  “Who?” With a quick swing of mood, Theresa raised her head to follow Elizabeth’s gaze, her intense distress forgotten as if it had never been.

  “Celestine and your brother,” Elizabeth replied, glancing curiously at the girl.

  A frown came between Theresa’s eyes, and then her face cleared. “Oh, you mean Bernard. He isn’t my brother. Only Darcourt.”

  “He isn’t?”

  Theresa shook her head, watching the couple, oblivious of Elizabeth’s puzzlement.

  “She means that Bernard is related to us only by marriage,” Darcourt explained for his sister. “Theresa and I are not Delacroix. Our mother married into this family after our father died. Bernard and Felix were half-grown then, children of the first wife, Amelia. They were about thirteen and fifteen at the time. I think their father, old man Gaspard Delacroix, intended to give his sons the softening influence of a mother. A pity.”

  Elizabeth failed to see what had amused him in that last cryptic utterance, but at least he seemed inclined to talk about the family. That was more than anyone else was willing to do.

  “I think Grand’mere mentioned that her son had married twice, but she didn’t say how long ago it was. Do you mean that you have been living together all this time, something like fifteen years or more, and you still don’t feel like brothers and sisters?”

  “It takes more than time.”

  “Your step-father, Gaspard, is dead?”

  He nodded. “Has been for nearly three years. He broke his neck in a fall from the framework of this house while it was being built.”

  For no reason that she could see, a shiver ran over her and the roots of her hair prickled. She looked at Darcourt and found him watching her, and she wondered if he had expected her to be shocked or to have an attack of sensibility at his revelation. His concern, if that was what it had been, was embarrassing, and she was glad when the dinner bell rang.