by Jackie Ivie
“I’ve waited to talk with you all day and I can’t wait a moment longer.”
“Come in then. It’s your house,” she answered crossly, pushing the covers away while she sat. She couldn’t possibly have been in bed all day, could she? What of Raoul? Had he come for her? And what would they have told him?
Rhea entered holding a lamp, a servant girl on her heels.
“We’ve brought you a bit of sup. Put it there, please.” Rhea waved to a small table.
“Sup? Surely it’s not that late.”
“It’s near seven. Sundown is less than an hour away.”
“Sundown?” Linna felt the quiver of what she recognized as fear in the pit of her stomach. She swallowed it away. Fear was for spineless women - like Rhea. She turned her face away so her sister wouldn’t spot the disgust that was probably written over it. “You...didn’t wake me? Why not?”
“You were exhausted. I had you undressed and it’s by the grace of God it was Midwife Jenkins assisting. I quail at what anyone else would have said at the state of your attire, and your...general condition.”
“So?” she countered.
“Well, you—uh. You didn’t even stir the entire time.”
“What did you tell him when he came for me, then?”
“Who?”
“I don’t have time to talk. I can’t take time to eat either,” Linna replied, covering the floor to her armoire before the servant girl reached the table. “I have to get ready. You let me sleep the day away when he was arriving at any moment?”
“He who?”
Linna tore the nightgown over her head and started tossing on underthings. She didn’t look to see what expression either woman had. She didn’t care. Caring was also for women like Rhea.
“What are you doing? You don’t need to dress. It’s nearly bedtime again. I didn’t mean for you to get all het up and—”
“Why didn’t anyone wake me?”
“Because I told them not to. You looked exhausted. You were exhausted.”
“What? You don’t know how much it meant! You may have ruined everything!”
“What are you talking about?” Rhea shook her head as she spoke. Linna tossed her hands in the air.
“What am I talking about? My future! What else?”
“Perhaps we should be speaking alone. You’d best leave, Molly.” Rhea sat in one of the chairs and waved the servant girl out. Nobody said anything as the door shut.
Linna tore a thumb through the weave of one stocking and made a face at it. She couldn’t go to him with torn stockings, too!
“Now, come and sit and tell me what this is all about.”
Linna looked over her shoulder at her sister and bit the acidic tone back. “I don’t have time to sit. Aren’t you listening? I have to get ready. I’ve found a husband. He was calling for me today.” Linna finished gartering a stocking into place and dropped her petticoat.
“You did? You really found a husband?”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
“That’s amazing. It’s more than—”
“What it is, is moot, since you let me sleep the day away! He probably called for me and no one answered his knock.”
“No one called, Linna.”
“How can you be so certain? He might have come during your nap.”
“I was awake all day. I swear. I’ve not had an easy time with this babe, and...Drake was here. He...was out late. He drank too much. Let’s just say it wasn’t conducive to sleeping. I was up all day. No one called. I swear.”
Linna sat on the other chair. She might have been reacting inside, but nobody was going to know about that. She forced the calm into place, took a big sigh, and turned her head to her sister. “No one called for me? All day? That’s impossible. You must have missed him.”
“Who?”
“Raoul.” Linna said the name and had to hold involuntary shivers at bay. She couldn’t believe it! She closed her eyes to keep it hidden. Raoul Larroquette was such a man. That was the problem. As amorous as he was? He didn’t call for her? What trick?
Her eyes flew open. “Oh, dearest God! I didn’t tell him where to find me! Oh, Rhea, what have I done?”
She slapped both hands to her cheeks. He was probably headed to the Daniels estate, if he knew how to ask of it. He could hardly ask that coachman where to find her. The blackguard had tried to ruin her. Raoul would need to know about that, too. Linna covered her eyes. Even if he found the Daniels Plantation, what good would that do? There wasn’t but the staff there. What would Raoul do then?
“What now?” Rhea asked.
“I think...he’s gone to the plantation,” she told the floor.
“But why?”
“I didn’t tell him where to find me.”
“Have some broth. We’ll sort it out. I promise.”
“Broth?” Linna exclaimed and despite every bit of control she exerted, her voice rose. “Broth! Who gives a damn about broth when my future hangs in the balance! I’ve got to get to the plantation. Now. Tonight!” Linna was on her feet again and racing for clothing. There. A skirt. Weskit. Where had she put her broadcloth striped blouse? It was made from the sturdiest material. It would travel well.
“Linna, calm yourself.”
“Calm? I don’t have time for calm either!” Linna slammed the armoire door shut. It banged right back into her palm.
“You can’t leave at night. It’s dangerous.”
“So? Everything’s dangerous according to you.” Linna crossed to the dresser. If their maid had folded her broadcloth blouse and creased it haphazardly, she was going to shake the girl. She wanted that particular blouse, she wanted to be dressed as befitted her station, and she wanted everything in her past put behind her. Far behind her. Linna glanced up, kept the cry of dismay at her mirrored image inside with all the other emotion, and picked up her hairbrush. She looked like a banshee. She couldn’t go to him like that.
“I’ll send a man out to check. Just let me get Molly back....”
“Stay seated. I’ll do it. You’re much too slow. Molly!” Linna crossed to the door, yanked it open, and surprised the girl perched at the keyhole. She barely stopped the snarl on her lips. “Don’t stay there eavesdropping, get a man to go to the plantation! Send one immediately. You heard the mistress.”
She slammed the door on the girl’s face. Her heart was moving too rapidly, and she put her free hand to it. She was going to miss Raoul, and all she had was his promise. He already took what he wanted.
Linna moved in a daze over to her full-length cheval mirror. That’s not true, Linna, she told herself. He didn’t take it. You gave it to him. She was too distraught to eat. Her stomach warned her of it, too. She sat on the chair again, wrapped her arms about her middle, and rocked back and forth.
“Linna?” Rhea said softly, “I know I’m not good for much, in the Daniels’ eyes, but I’m here for you. We’ll get to him in time. I know it.”
“You don’t even know him. How can you know that?”
“He’s been promised your hand in marriage, hasn’t he?”
It’s not worth much, anymore. Linna kept the words inside, where they wouldn’t hurt as badly. She pulled in a shuddering breath and held it. She wasn’t going to cry and definitely not in front of Rhea. She was going to push any emotion to where no one could see it, then she was going to force it away. That was what she was going to do. She was getting very good at it.
“We’ll reach him, Linna. I promise. The man gave you his promise, didn’t he?”
Linna ignored her, unwrapped her arms, and brushed at her hair again.
“All you have to do is exercise some patience.”
“Patience?” She pulled the brush out and with it came uprooted strands. She winced. “It will take all night to get there and back! I can’t wait that long.”
“Well, you’re going to have to, just like the rest of the world.”
Linna shot her sister a look from beneath her eyebrows. Rhea
smiled. “How like Father you are. I can’t even believe it sometimes. No wonder you’re his favorite.”
Linna rolled her eyes.
“Give it some time, Linna.”
“Time? That’s your answer to everything. Well! I don’t want to give it time! I want to find my bridegroom, wed with him, and leave this horrid place once and for all. It shouldn’t be too hard. Damn me for not telling him where I am! Damn me! Damn! Damn!” Linna pounded at her own temples as she said it, banging the brush handle against the right side. Rhea didn’t say anything for so long, Linna peeked over to see why. Her sister was watching her with the strangest smile on her mouth.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re acting like one of my children when they don’t get their way. Angry. Spoiled. I find it hard to believe you’re grown and that we’re trying to locate a husband-to-be for you. You didn’t net this proposal with behavior like this, did you?”
Linna dropped her arms. “No,” she replied finally.
“So tell me about this fiancé of yours.”
“Why?”
“Time passes more swiftly if you fill it with something. Talk is good. Memories the same.”
Memories? Her sister was mad. Memories were painful and just made one cry. They should be avoided.
“Well?”
“There’s not much to say,” she replied, finally.
Rhea clucked her tongue. “Describe him. What’s he look like?”
“Why?”
“Because I asked you to. That’s why.”
She recognized the rebuke in Rhea’s tone. How like their mother she was; putting the reprimand in her tone so nobody could see it coming. Linna forced the instant thought away and looked at her image. Her eyes sparkled strangely. That wasn’t good. At all.
“Well?” Rhea asked again.
Linna blinked and looked inward. She no longer saw her image. She was remembering Cord. “He’s big. Strong. Much more so than...,” she almost said Drake, but caught it, “...Vincent, or Father. He’s very handsome, too. All the girls last night thought so. Everyone did. I did.”
“They did?”
“The musicians even stopped playing when he entered. He’s that eye-catching. That manly. That—”
Her voice stopped. She blinked again and focused on her pained expression.
“So...what did he do?”
“This is stupid. You’ll know what I mean when you see him. If you meet him. If I don’t run out with him the moment he comes.”
Rhea sighed. “Did he dance? What happened then? How did he say it? How did you get him to ask?”
“Of course he danced. And only with me. It was divine.”
A deep breath and she was back in his arms, twirling amidst the other couples, and yet far enough away to be unrecognizable. “We danced two sets. It wasn’t enough to be unseemly but enough to start talk. He dances wonderfully, he’s well-spoken, he’s handsome, and he’s rich.”
“No wonder you’re in a tantrum. What did he say?”
“He didn’t say it. I did.”
“You did?” Rhea’s shock was in her voice. “How?”
Linna slitted her eyes, and she was back in his antechamber, sitting at the table, watching the champagne bubbles. “I told him I needed a husband.”
“You didn’t!”
“And then I told him I wanted it to be him.”
“What did he do then?”
Linna snapped her eyes wide open again - and stanched everything. Her body was trembling, her palm was slick against the brush handle, and her breathing was quick enough to be called panting. She didn’t want to re-live any of it. Not when that man wasn’t there and definitely not in front of her sister. It was better to be an emotionless shell. Much better.
“What did he say?”
“He said yes. This isn’t making the time pass quicker. This is making it worse! And getting us nowhere!” She was on her feet again. “I can’t believe I have to wait until they find him! How can I wait? I can’t! That’s the proper answer. I can’t.” She wanted to be back in his arms...and in his bed.
“Well, you’re going to have to.”
“How? Like you?” She sneered it. She couldn’t prevent it. She didn’t even try.
“No. Not just like me. Like everyone else does, too. With as much forbearance and grace as possible. If you have any.”
Linna spun, aimed her brush, and threw. She was more accurate than usual. The mirror took the brunt of it. She kept the scream of anger inside with all the other emotions. All Rhea did was gasp.
CHAPTER TEN
Nearly three months later, Linna no longer thought in terms of being in anyone’s arms. She thought in terms of before Raoul and after. Before she’d been an arrogant, pride-filled, sharp-tongued, volatile, stubborn - but trusting, fool.
Now, she was just a fool.
Luthor continued to call on her, albeit surreptitiously. His family couldn’t know about it. They wouldn’t condone his associating with a fallen woman. Linna looked over at her broken mirror and knew it reflected her perfectly. Besides, it was better than watching the raindrops slide down the outside window panes.
The rainy season dragged on, hot and muggy with daily storms. Linna turned away from the mirror to watch the rain. She might as well allow the mirror to be replaced, although she’d resisted. She didn’t want it fixed. She didn’t want to look too closely at herself.
She should be lucky Rhea still put up with her and let her live here. Linna caught the self-pitying emotion before it became a tempest of sobs that would encompass and obliterate her. She wasn’t giving into tears. Not now. She had too much to do and not a bit of it was going to be easy.
Raoul Larroquette might as well have been a figment of her imagination. In fact, he might not even exist at all. There was only one Raoul listed in the Larroquette family bible, and he’d perished at sea over a decade ago on his voyage across from some place called Quebec.
Linna knew all of that for a certainty.
She’d seen it.
It hadn’t been hard getting Luthor to agree to take her to the Larroquette Mansion two months ago. What had been more difficult was getting entry into it. Only the estate manager lived there. He’d had to be bribed. Linna had let Luthor do it for her. She didn’t have any funds. Rhea would be out-of-sorts with her just for coming.
Dust sheets had covered lumps of furniture, unrecognizable in their anonymity, and the ballroom had looked just like what it was, a big, empty room. Linna had still stopped and been forced to swallow around the lump in her throat.
Such emotion was futile, just as waiting for him had been.
Luthor had to pry her away from the family bible, although she was looking at it with unseeing eyes anyway. Who had he been? If not this Raoul Larroquette, then who? And, why did he pick me?
She knew the answer to the last, of course. She’d been easy. She’d been unescorted, unchaperoned, too forward, too arrogant...and she’d been the one asking for it. Literally.
Linna knew then that what Ryan Daniels or Drake Taggett had done to her paled into insignificance when compared to the impostor’s act. If Luthor had noticed her inattention he made no remark of it as they finished their drive along the waterfront, her eyes filled with the endless span of water.
That man had just used her...and then he’d disappeared!
Linna had shaded her face with a parasol and hid behind the wide brim of her hat. No one must know Luthor Evans was sneaking out to see her. They might tell his mother, then she’d lose him, too.
Linna couldn’t even tell Rhea the extent of her shame. Rhea didn’t know about the night of the ball. And every time she looked at Linna, Rhea looked like she was going to cry. Who was Linna to add to it? She’d been misled, corrupted, and she’d betrayed. That certainly solidified her opinion of men. That, and catching Drake Taggett’s eye on her when he thought no one was looking. The moniker she’d tagged him with fit and fit well. Drake really was a snak
e.
She shook herself for such maudlin thoughts, but it didn’t stop them. Perhaps all men were snakes. Luthor was a harmless garden variety. But Raoul? He would be so much more venomous, like a big, lurking cobra. What did she know of it anyway?
The raindrops in front of her nose had no answers. Linna twisted her face at them, then cocked her head at the sound of her new niece and namesake, Linnette, crying.
Rhea’s time had come six weeks earlier, filling the mansion with the bustle of the new arrival. Linna’s heart had swelled oddly every time she visited with the baby...especially since she loathed the child she was carrying.
Linna finally admitted it to herself, as she watched the drops slide into each other on her window. She’d been hiding from the truth for so long, it was like second nature. She’d also made up her mind what she was going to do about it. She only had one choice, anyway; the impostor had made it impossible not to take it. He’d ruined her. Pure and simply.
She stood and went to see her sister.
Rhea was in her chamber, the baby in her arms. Linna looked aside the moment she entered, caught the agony, and sent it back. Again.
“Linna! Come in. I’m grateful for the visit. It’s terribly boring to be bed-ridden like I’ve been, although Midwife Jenkins says it’s for the best. Please take the baby, Molly. See her changed and fed. Thank you.”
Linna didn’t answer. She pulled a chair over to Rhea’s bedside as the maid took the child and left. Midwife Jenkins might think it best, but Rhea looked paler and sicker than before the birth.
“She’s going to let me up in two days. I’ll be able to see to my own household for a change. That should be a relief for you.”
“I haven’t been doing much,” Linna remarked.
“I know the truth. Everyone tells me daily about how efficient you are. I’m so grateful to have you. The boys are, too. Eric speaks of nothing except his favorite aunt.”
“Considering I’m his only aunt, that isn’t much flattery, but thank him for me, will you?”
“You can thank him yourself.”
“He’s already asleep, Rhea. I won’t disturb him.”
“He’ll be up at dawn tomorrow. You know him.”