"That thought had occurred to me. She's damned, appealing, I'll grant you that." Shooting his older brother a speculative glance, Dominic asked, "Well, what do we do about the situation?"
"At the moment, I don't know," Morgan confessed. "I've written to Jason in New Orleans, hoping that, perhaps, he can find out something down there. I have the queerest feeling that the truth, if there is any truth to discover, lies in New Orleans." Morgan let out a sigh. "Dom, I have never felt so helpless in my entire life. I know she's lying. And, fool that I am, by confirming her story, I've dug an even deeper pit for myself than the one she prepared. My only hope seems to be to find the man, if there is a man—sometimes, I even wonder about that—and shake the real truth from him."
"What about Gaylord Easton?" Dominic offered slowly.
Morgan grimaced. "I've thought of him, but..." Morgan's voice trailed off, a frown creasing his forehead as he reconsidered the idea. Thoughtfully he mused, "It could be, Dom, it just could be. It was Gaylord who brought her to the hall. Gaylord who supposedly met her at King's Tavern. And if anyone had reason to wish for my discomfiture, it was young Mr. Easton."
"Of course! Morgan, that has to be it!" Dominic said quickly, the gray eyes flashing with excitement. "Who would suspect him? And it's well-known he needs money. For all we know, Leonie has been his mistress for years. After all, gentlemen don't go around flaunting their whores, or their bastards for that matter. Certainly he would have been discreet and kept her and the child nicely tucked away... and you could damn well wager your last penny that she wouldn't be introduced to polite society. Gaylord has a reputation for being a bit of a wild one, so why not? Why couldn't he be the man behind it?"
"He might not be the mastermind, if such a figure does in fact exist, but I do think it behooves me to have a long conversation with Mr. Easton, don't you?"
"By God, yes!"
Unfortunately, when Morgan called at the Easton ancestral mansion that afternoon, he was met with the unpleasant news that young Master Easton had decided to visit with relatives in Baton Rouge and wasn't expected home for several months. Gaylord's absence seemed sinister, almost as if having set the plan in motion, he now removed himself from the source of danger... or had he gone to meet with the real mastermind? Morgan wondered sourly.
Some judicious questioning by Dominic of a few of Gaylord's cronies, shortly after Morgan returned with the news of Gaylord's departure, elicited the information that the elder Eastons, upset and distressed by his part in the ugly scene at the Marshalls' ball, had literally ordered him to remove himself for several months from the district.
"They want everything to die down before the darling boy shows his face again. Or, I should say, that's the tale they're telling," Dominic said dryly.
"You think it might not be true? Or merely convenient?" Morgan asked quietly as they sat in his study that evening before joining the ladies for dinner.
"Damned convenient, if you ask me. He wants to lie low for a few months, and his parents providentially furnished him with a perfect excuse to leave Natchez." Glancing over at his older brother as Morgan absently sipped a glass of well-aged Kentucky whiskey, Dominic inquired, "What are we going to do now?"
"You," Morgan said slowly, "are going to remain here and make certain that my dear wife and son don't suddenly disappear, and I—well, I think that I shall take a brief trip to Baton Rouge. It was Baton Rouge where Gaylord went, wasn't it?"
Part III
Whispers on the Wind
There was never any yet that wholly
could escape love, and never shall there
be any, never so long as beauty shall
be, never so long as eyes can see.
Daphnis and Chloe
Longus
Chapter 18
It was a fast, grim trip that Morgan made down the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge that June of 1805. Litchfield, after a certain amount of argument between Dominic and Morgan, went with him. As Dominic had heatedly pointed out, and Litchfield had swiftly agreed, they had no way of knowing precisely what Gaylord was doing in Baton Rouge. It was possible he had gone to meet with another member involved in the charade—the man who might be the mastermind, and if by chance this was true, Morgan might find himself in need of protection.
Time was of the essence, as much because Morgan had a growing need to have things settled as because he feared that Leonie might somehow escape Dominic's watchful eye and disappear as swiftly as she had appeared. It had been decided to tell no one of his trip until after his departure so that no one could interfere. It also gave him a head start if Leonie tried to send any messages warning Gaylord. Naturally not a breath of his real reason for traveling so suddenly and unexpectedly to Baton Rouge came to light. Dominic stoutly maintained the fiction that Morgan had decided that he wished to move his newly acknowledged family to his own property, Thousand Oaks, and had gone to inspect it and see that work was begun to make it comfortable for his bride. Noelle looked at Dominic closely, and Matthew's lips thinned, but no one challenged him.
Predictably, Leonie had been furious when Dominic had broken the news to her that morning. The ugly scene with Morgan the previous day had hardened her resolve to resist the attraction he held for her and to forge ahead with her original plan.
After the things he had said to her in his office, and the way he had treated her, it was painfully apparent to Leonie that her first assessment of him had been correct. He is, she had thought scathingly the previous night as she had lain sleepless in her bed, a handsome, dangerous serpent! Mon Dieu, that I should have been fool enough to believe even for one moment that he might have changed.
Growing angrier by the second, as much at her own folly, as at his trickery, it wasn't surprising that when she did finally fall asleep she slept badly and woke like an enraged tigress. Intent upon at last letting Monsieur Morgan Slade know exactly what she thought of his tactics and of settling things between them once and for all, when she learned from Dominic that Morgan had left at dawn to make ready a house she had no intention of ever setting eyes on, she was engulfed with fury.
Dominic had been in the breakfast room at Le Petit when Leonie entered. She was taken aback at first, but as she had grown used to Dominic, as well as Robert, more or less running throughout the house at will she hadn't thought much about it; she wasn't going to let Dominic's presence interfere with what she had to say to his brother.
They exchanged greetings and then casually Dominic informed her of Morgan's departure. There was a thunderstruck silence in the charming little room and then with one small foot tapping with ominous rhythm, the golden flecks in her eyes glowing dangerously, she regarded Dominic unnervingly for a long moment. In a tight voice she demanded, "He has left already? For Baton Rouge?"
Dominic smiled and gave her a correct little bow. "That is correct, madame. He wished to tell you himself, but the boat was leaving at dawn and he was certain you would understand."
Holding on to her rising temper by a slender thread, Leonie took a deep breath and asked levelly, "When will he return?"
Dominic shrugged his shoulders. "I really couldn't say. I suspect it depends upon how long it takes him to get things in order at Thousand Oaks. He might be gone for only a week... or a month. It all depends."
"A month!" Leonie burst out appalled, the devastating thought occurring to her that if Morgan did indeed remain away from Le Petit for that period of time, any hope of regaining Chateau Saint-Andre would be shattered. Almost despairingly she added, "But he can't be gone that long. Not a month!"
Up until this moment Dominic had found the confrontation going as he had expected, but the stricken expression that had flitted swiftly across her lively face disturbed him, and suddenly he didn't find himself quite so aloof. "Is something wrong?" he felt compelled to ask.
Recovering herself, unwilling to let one of the detestable Slades see her pain, Leonie sent him a bitter, proud little smile. "Wrong, monsieur? Now why should you think that
?"
At a loss, Dominic muttered, "I don't know, you looked... you looked hurt."
Again furious, Leonie snapped, "Does it matter that I might be hurt, monsieur? Does it matter that because your brother has proven himself a dishonorable man that I may lose the only home I have ever known? I never wanted to be his wife! Never! It wasn't to take my place as his wife that I came to Natchez. It was only to receive what was mine, what was promised to me when I agreed to marry him." Taking an angry step nearer to him, her cheeks flushed with the emotion that ran deep within her, she said fiercely, "I never wanted anything from him but what was mine, and I didn't even want that for myself. I wanted it to save my home, the home my great grand-pere carved out of the swamps, the home where my grand-pere was born, where my father was born, and where I and my son were born. It is our home, can you understand that? Chateau Saint-Andre is dear to me, dearer to me than Bonheur is to your family!" The golden-green eyes shimmering behind a veil of tears, she spat, "I had until the first of July to repay the debt on it and now by your brother's cowardly act of running away, of reneging on his debt to me, he has deprived me of any chance of saving it. And you dare to say I look hurt!" Mortified at her outburst, choking back the tears that threatened to spill, she whirled on heels and fled the room.
"Well, Jesus Christ!" Dominic said to the empty room. "I wonder if Morgan knows this."
Morgan, of course had heard something to that effect during his questioning of the servants, but he hadn't paid a great deal of attention to that particular information, and the blunt truth of the matter is that even if he had, it wasn't likely that he would have done anything any differently. Leonie's oddly moving little admission he would have put down to being simply another ploy to get the money out of him. The initial scheme wasn't working, so why not try tearing at his heartstrings? Unfortunately, as Morgan would have told Leonie bluntly, his heartstrings had been torn out long ago.
* * *
The trip down the river was without incident and Morgan might have enjoyed it under other circumstances, but to his intense annoyance he discovered that absence did not lessen Leonie's hold upon him. She drifted like a beckoning, tawny temptress into his every thought, her slender form seeming to dance seductively around each curve and bend of the mighty Mississippi River, her soft laughter ringing in his ears. It was at night that she truly haunted him; time after time he would wake up abruptly, the feeling of her in his arms so strong, the taste of her on his lips so real, that for several seconds he didn't realize he had been dreaming again. With a virulent curse, he would fling himself over on his side and force himself to sleep, only to have the same insidious dream weave itself through his subconscious.
Morgan also discovered that it wasn't only Leonie who had insinuated herself into his thoughts; he found that he missed Justin. In the short space of time he and Justin had been together, he had grown rather used to the boy's exuberant greeting in the morning as, his green eyes alight with enthusiasm, he came flying down the stairs in search of his "Papa." The boy was hard to resist, Morgan admitted, knowing that he had taken more than a little pleasure in those rides around the estate with Justin following happily on Thunder. It would be so easy to accept Justin as his real son, so easy to love the boy as he had Phillippe. So damned, easy!
In the short span of barely a week the two of them have possessed me, he reflected furiously. Just the fact that he even gave Justin a thought revealed how entwined his life had become with the Saint-Andres. And the nights, the nights were proof of how completely Leonie had invaded his entire being.
At least the journey gave him something constructive to do, he told himself repeatedly. And Gaylord Easton could conceivably hold the key to the entire puzzle, the information he might learn from Gaylord effectively ending the mockery of marriage he shared with Leonie.
The certainty that there was another man involved somewhere had grown even more firmly in Morgan's mind as he and Litchfield came nearer to Baton Rouge. He had some reservations about that man being Gaylord Easton, but Gaylord was the only other link to Leonie that he had at the moment. Obviously someone had fathered the child, and it seemed reasonable that Justin's father would be the man who governed Leonie's actions. Whether that elusive shadowy man was Gaylord Easton remained to be seen. Morgan did have some doubt that Gaylord was Justin's father, but surveying the murky waters of the Mississippi as they approached Baton Rouge he admitted that he should have questioned Gaylord immediately, instead of having so blithely dismissed him.
Baton Rouge had been one of the earliest French settlements in Louisiana but was now considered part of West Florida. Controlled by the Spaniards, it was a bustling port city situated on a pleasant bluff on the left bank of the Mississippi. Finding a comfortable set of rooms proved no obstacle and, leaving Litchfield to unpack their few necessities, Morgan sought out a livery stable and bought a pair of horses. He and Litchfield would need them for the journey home. That business accomplished, he set about finding Gaylord Easton.
After a few questions, Morgan learned that a family named Easton lived some five miles north of Baton Rouge. From what he had gleaned, they sounded as if they were the relatives that Gaylord had come to visit.
Morgan was up early the next morning impatient to find Gaylord, but he restrained himself from calling upon the Michael Easton family until the respectable hour of ten o'clock. He found the house, an elegant three-storied white mansion, with little trouble and he hoped he would find Gaylord with equal ease.
Luck was with him, for these were indeed the relatives that Gaylord had come to visit. And, fortunately, from Morgan's point of view, Michael Easton, a bluff hearty man of some fifty years, proved to be an easy agreeable fellow.
"Want to see my nevey, do you?" he asked interestedly, his shrewd brown eyes quickly sizing up Morgan's tall elegant form. At Morgan's nod, he added, "Well, I hope you can take him from the path he is on! Since he's arrived from Natchez he's done nothing but drown in my best whiskey and moan and blubber over some chit by the name of Melinda. Says if he had it to do over again, he'd go ahead and let her commit bigamy. Says he never thought she'd blame him for the broken engagement! Can't say as though I don't agree with him. All the boy did was the right thing, and I'm afraid I don't see how this Melinda hussy can say it's his fault when all he did was save her from making a damned fool of herself."
Morgan smiled slightly and murmured, "I doubt anyone can stop Melinda from making a fool of herself."
Michael Easton cocked a rusty-brown eyebrow at him. "Oh-ho, like that is it? Well, I can't say as I'm surprised. Sounded like a Canterbury tale to me!" Nodding to his left, he continued, "You'll find him in the garconniere."
Walking away from the elder Easton, Morgan was thoughtful. From the remarks dropped by his uncle, it seemed Gaylord was deep in the throes of self-pity and certainly not involved in any scheme with Leonie.
Entering the garconniere, a small two-storied building that was a greatly reduced replica of the main house, Morgan found Gaylord in his rooms on the second story.
Gaylord was drunk, sprawled in a large overstuffed leather chair, when Morgan walked into the room. Blearily Gaylord gaped at him, the stubble on his face and chin giving him a decidedly unsavory appearance, and the red-rimmed eyes were more than adequate proof that his uncle had not exaggerated the situation. A glass full of what Morgan assumed was whiskey was clasped loosely in one hand and as Morgan stopped just inside the doorway, it suddenly slid from Gaylord's slackened hold and shattered on the floor.
"You!" Gaylord blurted out with loathing and astonishment, ignoring the shattered glass and widening ring of liquid on the floor. "Isn't it enough you have taken the only woman I shall ever love from me? Must you hound me too? Melinda will not even speak to me! And do you know why?" Rising clumsily to his feet, his hands clenched into fists, he snarled, "Because I saved her! I saved her from you and now she hates me! I begged her forgiveness for the way I ruined her ball; I've pleaded with her to understand that my
one thought was to protect her; I've admitted I shouldn't have created such a scandalous scene. But good God, what could I do?" His fine dark eyes full of dull misery, he said bitterly, "When I met your wife that night at the tavern I couldn't believe my luck! I was so damned excited, I never thought of anything but of saving Melinda from your dastardly clutches." He threw back his head and gave an angry shout of laughter. "What a jest! I think the worst thing that ever happened to me was finding your wife! Believe me, I wish now I'd never laid eyes on her!"
Morgan said nothing for several seconds as a number of things raced through his brain. After an intense scrutiny of the younger man's features, the first thing that struck him was that Gaylord bore no resemblance to Justin, and Morgan found himself uncomfortably relieved by this. Did it really matter to him who Justin's father was? He gave Gaylord another assessing look, deciding he must have been mad to think even for one moment of this poor besotted fool as a partner in an underhanded scheme to part him from his money. It was obvious that Gaylord was, for reasons which totally escaped Morgan, pining grievously for Melinda Marshall. It also appeared that he regretted bringing Leonie to the Marshall house that night.
But aware that it could be an act, Morgan proceeded to explore the matter further. Idly he murmured, "I can sympathize with your dilemma, but I wonder if you would mind explaining to me precisely how you came to so opportunely discover Leonie? It is something that has mystified me for some time."
The conversation that followed was acrimonious and mercifully brief. But Morgan was able to ride away from Gaylord Easton a short while later, confident in his own mind that while Gaylord was a hot-tempered fool, determined to waste his emotions on a silly chit not worth a moment's thought, his only connection to Leonie was a chance meeting at King's Tavern.
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