Louisiana History Collection - Part 1

by Jennifer Blake

  The main door of the house was locked, at René’s express command. Cyrene heard him knock, then knock again. She lay undecided, wondering if she should not abandon her pose and let him in, worrying that it would be best not to anger him by keeping him locked outside. The questions were settled for her as Martha came from somewhere in the back of the house in answer to his summons.

  The footsteps of the serving woman padded away again, fading from hearing. René moved about the salon. There came the rattle of the latch as he secured the door once more and the shifting of ashes and crackle of sparks as he banked the fire. His boots thudded one after the other to the floor. Then all was silent. She opened her eyes a slit and saw the flaring light of a candelabra being moved, approaching the bedchamber. She closed them tightly once more, forcing herself to relax, to breathe deeply and evenly.

  Through her eyelids, she could see the glow as René neared the bed. She heard him place the branch of candles on the walnut table that stood beside the headboard. He set down his boots, and then came the rustle and slide of clothing as he removed his coat. It landed on the foot of the bed. A moment later, he stripped his shirt from his breeches and drew it off over his head.

  He moved away then, through the connecting door into the small dressing room beyond the bedchamber. A vigorous splashing sounded as he took advantage of her cooling bath water. The splashing stopped.

  Cyrene’s mind presented her with the image, one entirely too vivid, of him standing naked in the semidarkness of the dressing room as he dried himself with the length of linen toweling, sweeping it quickly over his chest and shoulders, down his belly and along his thighs. The thought of it and of his leisurely preparations for bed were a severe strain on her temper. If his actions had not been so prosaic, and if she had not been pretending sleep, she might have suspected him of delaying his bedtime for the purpose of trying her nerve.

  She had given a great deal of thought to where she would sleep. Since there was only one bedchamber, the choice had not been wide. She had thought of searching out Martha’s room and asking to share a corner of it or else demanding the means to make a pallet before the fire in the salon. Either course would have risked René removing her bodily to his bed and might have required from him a display of the purpose for her being in it. No, it had seemed best to appear to accept his decree and depend temporarily on his better nature, saving her strength for more devious measures.

  It was odd how sure she was that he had a better nature. Or perhaps it wasn’t; she had benefited from it more than once. Except for the fact that he had led the soldiers in the attack on the pirogues and the attempt to jail her and the Bretons for smuggling, he had treated her with exquisite consideration.

  It didn’t make sense. It had not from the beginning, but particularly not now that he had done a volte-face and saved her from arrest on what was hardly a less serious charge. She didn’t understand him, and it troubled her.

  He moved so quietly on his bare feet that the first she knew of his presence beside the bed was the sag of the ropes under the mattress. She controlled a start and tensed her muscles as the bed sloped toward his greater weight.

  He did not lie down at once, she thought, but propped himself on an elbow. Her every sense acutely alert, she knew that he was looking down at her in the candlelight. Her heart throbbed against her ribs and her lungs felt constricted so that it was nearly impossible to continue her even breathing. The nerves under her skin fluttered. The need to yawn came from somewhere in her chest to torment her.

  René watched the throb of the pulse under the smooth skin of Cyrene’s throat and the slow deepening of the wild rose color across her cheekbones, and his lips twitched in a smile. Asleep or awake, she was his. She was wearing his nightshirt, even if its neckline was half off her shoulder, and she was in his bed. Her hair spilled over his pillow as well as her own, the strands shimmering with the color of old gold, faintly damp where they were thickest, redolent of his sandalwood soap. He wanted her with a sweet and nearly intolerable ache, but he did not have to make love to her to possess her. Not at this moment.

  It crossed his mind to give her the satisfaction of refusing him. It was little enough, after the way he had forced her capitulation. But it would not be right to let her take a stand that she could not hold. And she would not continue to refuse him, not if he could prevent it.

  There was the shadow of a bruise on her wrist, a memento of her struggle with the lieutenant. The sight of it sickened him. He had come so close to killing the man who had inflicted it. The soldiers in Louisiane were the dregs of the French army; hardly a day passed that one wasn’t flogged for some crime from drunkenness and petty thievery to insubordination. Some were worse than others, less open with their vices, more cunning. The lieutenant would bear watching.

  René picked up a tress and let it drift like warm silk through his fingers. Lifting it, he pressed it to his lips, then carefully brushed it aside with the rest of the shining swath before he lay down and reached to blow out the candles. For long moments afterward he stared up into the darkness with his hands clasped behind his head, thinking of what it would be like if he stretched out his arms and drew Cyrene to him. The desire grew, suffusing him until his stomach muscles grew as hard as steel with the effort of self-abnegation. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw tight. Control came. The need slowly subsided. He drew a deep, healing breath and slept.

  Cyrene was elated, if a little surprised, as the moments passed and her escape became certain. She had depended on René not to force her, but she had expected some attempt to persuade her. For him to give up so easily was not much of a compliment.

  The contradiction of her own thoughts was briefly amusing. She had not wanted him to try to make love to her, far from it. Still, he might have at least acknowledged her presence in his bed.

  He was used to sleeping with women, of course. No doubt he required more animation; a man of such experience and sophistication would think it beneath him to pay his addresses to a woman who lay like a log. He would expect coy glances and scintillating banter, oblique enticements and elegantly lascivious caresses — all the stately advances and retreats that passed for flirtation at court. He could not be overly familiar with disappointment; she trusted it would not sour his disposition too much.

  Long minutes passed. Cyrene grew cramped from lying so still. Apprehension had chilled her hands and feet until they were like ice, preventing the comfort that would permit her to sleep. She eased a little more to her back. There was no reaction from the man beside her. She turned more fully. He slept on. She had felt a current of warm air as the coverlet shifted. The heat was radiating from René’s body. Inch by careful inch, she pushed one foot over the mattress toward him. The nearer she moved, the more the cold receded. She must take care not to touch him, she reminded herself; he was a light sleeper. She moved her other foot closer to the first.

  René shifted uneasily in his sleep, turning to his side. The bed ropes tipped toward him. Cyrene slid and felt her cold foot touch his warm calf. An instant later, there came a soft expletive and strong hands reached out for her. She was drawn against René, fitted to the curve of his body, cradled in his warmth.

  “You have the coldest feet I ever came across,” he said against her ear, his voice rich with amused exasperation. “I don’t mind warming them, but just don’t sneak up on me.”

  “I didn’t sneak—” she began, pushing at his arm.

  “Oh, go to sleep, for the love of God,” he growled, clamping her to him in a hold that could not be broken. “We can argue about it in the morning.”

  Did he mean her cold feet, his embrace, or their situation? There was no way of knowing, and it did not seem prudent at the moment to ask.

  “I didn’t send your message last night; I took it to the flatboat myself.”

  They were at the breakfast table when René spoke. Cyrene had been drinking her chocolate and pulling her brioche into sections and wondering if Pierre and Jean, and
especially Gaston, had got away the evening before. She looked up, certain for an instant that René had read her thoughts. But he was looking at the pile of crumbs on her plate, his gaze all too knowing for her liking.

  “You saw the Bretons, spoke to them?”

  He inclined his head in an assent. ‘They were all safe, but out of their minds with worry over you.”

  She could easily imagine it. “What did you tell them?”

  “That you were safe with me but had nearly been captured and needed my protection. That it would be best if they left quietly on an expedition to the Choctaw for trade and did not hurry back. That they could depend on me to keep you safe until their return.”

  “And did they go?” she demanded.

  “They did.”

  “Just like that?”

  “It was time and they had the goods to make it profitable.”

  She could not believe she had been left behind. It was as if the Bretons had deserted her. The pain of it rose in her throat, pressing behind her eyes with the bitter sting of tears.

  “Besides,” René added, “they thought it best, for you.”

  She swallowed hard. “Best? It will look as if they are running away, as if they are guilty!”

  “There are those who will swear they have been gone for days. You, it seems, decided to stay with me, and I’m prepared to explain to anyone who asks that you have been living secluded here since they left.”

  “And that will suffice?” She allowed her doubt to show openly.

  “My word has never been questioned before.”

  There was steel in his voice, just as there would be a steel sword in his hand should any man choose to take issue with his explanation. For the first time his protection began to assume solid proportions. It was consoling but also disturbing. What kept her safe could also make her a prisoner once more.

  She looked away from him, a fluttery sensation in her stomach. He was distractingly handsome in a saturnine fashion this morning as he lounged at the table in the dining room without his coat. His shirt was finely pleated at the shoulders for fullness. He had not yet put on his cravat and the neck slash flared open, revealing the strong column of his neck and the curling hair at his throat and upper chest.

  It was difficult to believe that she had spent the night in his arms. When she awakened this morning, there had been only a spot of warmth in the bed to show that he had occupied it, that she had not dreamed his presence. He had shaved and donned his clothes in the dressing room. When he had emerged, he had tossed her his dressing gown and waited in the dining room for her to join him for breakfast. The show of tact had been unexpected and disarming.

  Cyrene would have given much to avoid the intimacy of this midmorning meal. It had seemed cowardly to huddle in bed waiting for him to depart, however, and so she had trailed in to breakfast with his long velvet dressing gown wrapped around her and her hair spilling in an untidy curtain down her back. It was not easy to meet his eyes and pretend that she was unaffected by the events of the night. It was almost worse than if he had forced himself upon her.

  She had meant to fight him, to refuse to be touched. Where had her resolve gone? Was she so trusting, so easily mollified or intimidated mat he had only to tell her he meant her no harm and she believed him? Or was it that she was too susceptible to him, to his touch, to resist?

  René sat watching the woman beside him with his gaze hooded and his hand idly toying with his chocolate cup. It was fascinating the way the color came and went across her cheekbones, not all of it the reflection of the ruby velvet of his dressing gown. She was totally charming in her naturalness as she sat with that oversized garment wrapped around her, the sleeves folded back to show her blue-veined wrists, and the fine, curling strands of her hair caught on the thick nap. He wanted to reach for her, to take her on his lap and part the lapels of the dressing gown, exploring the warm curves and hollows underneath. He restrained the impulse. He had the feeling that if he moved so much as a millimeter in her direction, she might jump up and lash out at him.

  His gaze rested on the dressing gown once more. He said abruptly, “You will need new clothing. I’ll send a seamstress to you this afternoon.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind!” Her stare was militant. Here was something she could refuse in order to wipe out her weakness of the night.

  “There will be functions to be attended at Government House.”

  “As your mistress? No, I thank you.”

  “You would not be the only woman not a wife by any means. There are many—”

  “Officers’ doxies. I don’t care to join their number.”

  He lifted a brow. “If you prefer to remain shut up here like some concubine in a seraglio, that is, of course, your choice. The festivities of the Mardi Gras season are under way, however. There will be several masked balls.”

  “A Parisian conceit introduced by Madame Vaudreuil. What use do we have for such mummery? It’s ridiculous.”

  “What use is music and dancing at all except to lighten our woes. You must admit that the masquerades are excellent diversions.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said baldly, “I’ve never been to one.”

  “A situation easily remedied. You will attend, at my side. I’ll have the seamstress also construct a costume for you.”

  She glared at him in defiance. “I think not. I won’t see this seamstress of yours, so you may as well save yourself the trouble of sending her.”

  “I see. Then perhaps I had better hie myself to a tailor.”

  “What?”

  “If you will not have clothing made, then I must, if you intend to share my wardrobe.”

  Cyrene glanced down at his dressing gown, which he was studying with such a pensive expression. “You gave this to me to wear! But I will naturally go to the flatboat for my own clothes.” It was comforting to know that though the Bretons had gone, the flatboat still rocked at its mooring, a refuge in case of need.

  “Wearing what you have on? I’m sure the officers’ doxies will be titillated, not to mention the officers.”

  “Of course not in this! In my own things I was wearing last night.”

  He raised his brows in surprise. “You wanted them? But they were so torn and stained. I told Martha she could dispose of them.”

  “You what?” The exclamation was involuntary. She did not doubt him for a moment.

  An apologetic expression came into his eyes, one so false it set her teeth on edge. “Well, how was I to know you had an affection for them?”

  “You did that on purpose.” Her eyes were narrow as she accused him.

  “How can you say so?”

  “Easily, not that it matters. Martha can go for my things.”

  He shook his head regretfully. “I fear I can’t permit it.”

  “You won’t, rather.”

  “Exactly,” he said, his gaze direct as he smiled at her.

  She abandoned her outrage since it appeared to have little effect on him and less chance of changing matters. Seconds passed while she stared at him, then she said, “Why do you want to humiliate me?”

  A dark tide of color rose under the bronze of his skin. He said shortly, “I have no such desire. Is it so wrong to wish to see you gowned in a way that will best display your face and form, to want you beside me, to desire to see you enjoy the pleasures that are to be had?”

  “I have no use for these things.”

  “I do,” he said softly.

  “I won’t go.”

  “I believe you will.”

  Since neither could or would abandon their stand, the contest must inevitably go to the one in the strongest position.

  René got to his feet. “I will not send the seamstress,” he said in cool tones, “I’ll bring her myself. You will permit the necessary measurements or I’ll also take those myself.”

  “You will not find it easy,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Maybe not, but it should be a distinct pl
easure.”

  The trace of returning humor in his words, with its indication of his supreme confidence, galled her. “Even if you succeed, I’ll never wear these gowns.”

  “You’ll wear them or I’ll be your maid as well as your seamstress.”

  “You can force me to stay here, even force me to wear what you will, but I will never be paraded as your kept woman!”

  It was unwise to defy him so openly. She knew it but could not stop herself. It had to come sometime, but not now, not so soon.

  He leaned toward her, bracing his hands on the table. His voice as he spoke was hard, yet it carried a rough edge. “You are indeed my kept woman. Until I choose to let you go, you will grace my table, warm my bed, and be a public ornament for my person as surely as my lace handkerchief or the nosegay in my buttonhole. There is no alternative. There will be none. The sooner you accept that, the better it will be for you.”

  He pushed away from her, moving toward the door. She stopped him with a cold and clear question.

  “And why should I stay to enjoy this grand position you have for me? You sent the Bretons away, arranged to have them cleared of any charge. What threat will you hold over me now?”

  He turned slowly to face her. “I could say no threat, only the requirements of honor, of a bargain struck, but I doubt you would see it that way. That being so, I’m left with the alternative of explaining to the governor that I was deluded, temporarily deceived by you; blinded by your beauty, lulled and gulled by your charms. Do you think,” he added gently, “that he will believe me?”

  The governor would believe him. Cyrene, surveying with despair the look of dark remorse and regret René had summoned at will, knew she was defeated. There were always terms of surrender, however, and those terms would be her own. They would.

  Surrender. She did not like that word. A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the chill of the day. She pulled the heavy velvet of the dressing gown closer around her.