It was quiet in the house, even in the back areas where the kitchen staff would soon be stirring to clear away the debris left by the party. Unwilling to chance meeting an early riser, Sherry turned in the opposite direction, letting herself out the front door.
The sky was growing lighter in the east. In a short time the sun would begin to creep over the horizon, inundating the land with its warm golden light. As she passed beneath a palm tree that leaned over the driveway, she could hear a pair of mockingbirds chattering in its topmost fronds. Nesting, she thought, and her lips moved in a brief smile. Before the house, Lake Pontchartrain stretched blue-brown and placid with a tugboat pushing a barge just visible on its surface in the uncertain light. Small with distance, they had the look of children's toys too impossibly tiny to be of use.
Halfway down the drive, Sherry realized that she still wore the Villeré betrothal ring. She had meant to leave it behind in her room. Even if she could bear the suspense of returning to the house to leave it, there was no time. Paul had arranged to meet her at the end of the drive in order to keep from rousing the house. Even now she could see his low-slung sports car approaching, gliding toward her. He would be livid if she kept him waiting. Of course. She would give it to Paul for safekeeping. That would be returning it full circle. She quickened her footsteps, a smile of anticipation beginning to form on her mouth.
The car slid to a halt just as she reached the edge of the pavement. The driver leaned across to open the door for her, then drew back. She stepped in and slammed the door. The instant the latch snapped, the car began to move once more in an operation as swift and smooth as if it had been practiced a hundred times.
With a grin of satisfaction and triumph, Sherry turned to the man beside her. Abruptly her elation disappeared, banished by cold disbelief. The man at the wheel was Lucien. As she watched him, he touched the door panel at his left side. With a metallic click, the right car door beside her was electronically locked. Only when that was done did he turn to look at her.
Under the sunburned darkness of his skin, his face was pale and his mouth was set in a straight line. “Good morning, Chérie," he said.
"Where are you taking me this time?” she inquired, unable to keep the bitterness she felt from seeping into her tone. “Or am I allowed to ask?"
"First I am taking you to a place where we can talk, and then, if you still want to go, to the airport."
What answer she had expected she could not have said. Still, the one she had been given was not satisfactory. It was a moment before she could recognize the emotion that crept over her. It was disappointment.
"How did you—I suppose Paul told you what I was going to do?"
"I'm afraid so. He had this idea, you see, that you were making a mistake. Correcting mistakes, one way and another, seems to run in the family."
Sherry could not believe it. It made no sense that Paul had given her away. He had only caused her more distress for nothing. Conserving her strength, she did not speak again until the car came to a stop.
They were in the French Quarter. Though they had come by a different route than before, Sherry had recognized its narrow streets and distinctive architecture the instant the car entered the old section. She could see the tall spire of the St. Louis Cathedral and, closer at hand, the long, graceful colonnade of the French market. With a sense of discovery she realized they were only a short walk from the Café du Monde and the scenic walkway over the Mississippi.
Lucien pressed the button which unlocked her door. Sliding out, he came around to open it for her, then slammed it shut behind her. He took her arm, turning in the direction of the river.
A Sunday-morning quiet filled the streets. A truck rumbled past, followed by one or two cars. There were a few customers at the coffee shop, but the river walkway they had to themselves. Lucien strolled a short distance, then stopped, turning to lean on the railing. Sherry moved on another step before she came to a halt also.
It had been dark with the blackness of midnight when she had stood here last. Then she had not been able to see the full majesty of the river. Now she watched the wide, enormous rush of silt-laden water surging past on its way to the gulf. There was something strong, remorseless, and yet benign.
"Why were you running away?” Lucien asked abruptly.
Sherry controlled a start. She had not forgotten Lucien's presence, only his anger. “I asked you to let me go,” she answered, “and you refused."
"Had it occurred to you I might have had a reason?"
"Oh, I don't doubt it,” she said with a wan smile. “You were sorry you had misjudged me, sorry that you had driven me to half kill myself in order to escape you. You felt there was some reparation due for the way in which Paul had attempted to use me, and you found me—not unattractive."
"That may all be true as far as it goes."
"Don't tell me it doesn't go far enough? Oh, yes, I had forgotten. Given your heritage, I suppose it is entirely possible that you might have felt some impulse of honor, the need to restore my good name by replacing it with yours."
For the first time, a smile curved Lucien's mouth. “A romantic notion, but I am not quite that steeped in tradition. Will you listen to me now?” At her reluctant nod, he went on. “I think you know what I thought of you when we left from this spot a week ago. I had a preconceived idea of you as a goodtime girl, out for the fun, ready for the sake of an airline ticket and a week's holiday in New Orleans to pretend to be Paul's fiancée. To be sure, you were more intelligent, more sensitive than most, but it was still the only explanation that fit the facts as I knew them. What's more, I was attracted to you, more entranced than I could ever remember with a woman at a first meeting. It was that last discovery, as much or maybe more than a need to separate you from Paul, that tipped the scales in favor of Bayou's End. I thought a few hours, a few days, would be enough to give me a surfeit of your charms."
The harsh ring of truth was in his voice. Sherry stood still, hardly daring to breathe as he went on.
"I was wrong. I found myself watching you in fascination, enjoying raising your temper, waiting for your smile. I wanted you as I have never wanted another woman. And then I discovered what I took to be proof that you belonged to my brother. I came back to New Orleans. I questioned Paul about you without letting him know that I had seen you. He was cagey. Even then, when he had your telegram and knew you weren't coming, he still pretended the engagement was real. I suppose he didn't want to admit to me that he had lied. I knew him well enough to be certain his feelings were not too much involved, but I could not trust him to stay uninvolved if you were put in his way again, if he saw you and decided to make your engagement public I would have been honor bound not to interfere. There was no other way; you had to stay with me. I went back to Bayou's End with a little more insight into your character, but also with the knowledge that I had given you reason to hate me. Looking at you, so soon after coming from Paul, I knew you were not right for him, nor was he right for you. I could not help but realize, however, that by my actions I had destroyed my own chances. Given time, the damage might have been mended, but time was limited. I knew our idyll on the bayou could not last, knew we would not be left long in peace. I knew also that at the first chance you would go as far away from me as you could. If I ever wanted to claim you as mine, then I had to bind you to me in some way."
"And so the fais-do-do,” Sherry said, her voice low.
"To me, the commitment I made that night was as sacred as though it had been spoken in the cathedral yonder, before a priest, and just as valid a symbol of the love and honor I felt for you."
Lost in contemplation of the memory of that bayou ceremony, and afterward, of the way he had made love to her and his restraint, it was a moment before what he had said made an impression. “Love?” she asked, swinging to face. him. “How can you speak of love when the next morning you left me to come back to New Orleans, to Aimee's party, as though I didn't exist?"
A black scowl drew
his brows together. “What makes you think I came back for the party? If it had been only that I would never have left Bayou's End. No, Paul came for me because of a business emergency, the same matter that kept me occupied yesterday afternoon. Even so, if you will remember, I turned back, and not only for the storm. I turned back because I had gathered from what Paul had said of Aimee that they were beginning to recapture what had been between them so many years ago. That being so, I could not bear to leave you behind. I wanted everything open and above board, with it fully understood that you belonged to me."
"Oh, Lucien,” she said, pain threading her soft tone.
"You should pity me,” he said, “for you will never know what I endured searching for you in the storm, knowing that if you died I was to blame, that my arrogant rearranging of your life was the cause of it."
"Don't, please don't,” she said, drawing nearer to touch his hands, clenched so tightly on the railing that his fingertips were white. “It would not have been true. It wasn't what you had done or even the way you had treated me that made me run away. I was running from myself, from the love I felt for you, and from the pain of thinking that you had been playing with me, that to you it had all been a game."
As if released by her touch from his rigid self-control, he turned and swept her into his arms. His mouth found hers and clung in a kiss that was tender in its possessiveness. She molded her body to his, offering wordlessly the most effective solace for pain—love.
With an unsteady laugh Lucien loosened his hold. “Sherry—Chérie," he breathed, brushing his lips against the soft hair at her temple. “So you do love me?"
"More than I can say. I have been so unhappy, lying to you, deceiving you."
Lucian gave an unsteady laugh, his breath warm against her temple. “When Paul told me last night there had never been an engagement, I didn't know whether to half kill him for it or shake his hand for relieving me of the guilt of taking the woman he loved. And then, just as I was beginning to realize my luck, I saw the way you looked at him and it occurred to me you might be in love with Paul. As a final insult you tried to give me back the ring. The only thing that kept me from losing my mind was the feeling I had deep inside that you belonged to me. And then last night, or early this morning, Paul redeemed himself by giving me a strong hint of how you felt and offering me his place as your taxi to the airport."
"The traitor,” Sherry murmured. “He just wanted to make certain I wasn't around to plague him."
"So do I,” Lucien said, his hands gentle as they smoothed over her back. “I know a doctor who would open his office to give us a blood test this morning as a special favor. We could be married in seventy-two hours."
"We could?"
"After that we could go anywhere you wanted, anywhere in the world."
"Could we?"
He drew back, staring down at her hemmed face and the radiance in her turquoise eyes. The grip of his fingers on her arms tightened a fraction. “I have not, I know, made my proposal in the most romantic fashion, but if I followed the inclination of my blood and the example of at least one of my ancestors, I would tell you flatly that I am going to have you regardless of what you want. The instant you were legally mine, I would take you to Bayou's End and keep you there for as long as I could hold the world at bay. And yet, I would prefer a willing bride."
"If it is to be Bayou's End, then you have one,” she answered, her eyes dancing with sweet mischief before she closed them and lifted her face for the warm and gentle passion of his kiss.
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Bayou Bride Page 19