Come Love a Stranger

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  Chapter Seven

  NEW ORLEANS! Crescent City. Gateway to the Mississippi. Lustrous pearl of the Delta. A city loved by saint and sinner alike, a place of lazy days and sultry nights, a rich and ever-expanding boomtown with a unique mixture of customs and cultures. A paradise where one could seek his own, a place of revelries, of sweet bliss captured in the darkest hours and nurtured beneath the warming sun, where time passed as effortlessly as the wide, muddy river that lapped at its banks. The sights and sounds gave flavor to the metropolis, while the aromas, both zesty and sweet, stirred the senses of all who strolled the streets. Sweet shrubs added a heady fragrance to the air, while azalea bushes provided a mass of riotous color across spacious lawns and behind closed gardens, wherever one was wont to look. It was surely an Eden for lovers.

  From the time of the Wingates’ disembarking, it became an adventure that produced memories rather than brought them to mind. The floating palaces were docked three deep along the city’s levee, and as the River Witch nudged its way through to the quay, the drum of excitement began to beat with quickening rhythm in Lierin’s heart. The whistle blew high above her head, adding to the exhilaration of the moment, while the tall smokestacks belched in satisfied relief. Eagerly Lierin searched the waterfront and could find no spot where the pace was leisured. Everywhere she looked there was some sort of frenzied activity. Straining teams of mules pulled away wagons heaped high with cotton bales or hogsheads of molasses and such, while stevedores hustled across planks and captains barked orders to their crews.

  Whisked down the plank on the capable arm of her husband and handed into the open barouche of a hired livery, Lierin felt as if she were soaring as high as the sea birds that shrieked overhead. Glancing about with the enthusiasm of a child, she espied a small group of colorfully dressed quadroons waiting in a nearby carriage. They were quite elegant in their silken finery and lovely beyond the common meaning of the word. Their unusual attire and appearance fascinated her until she noticed their flirtatious smiles and glowing eyes directed toward Ashton; then she began to understand some of the jealousies provoked by these women. Ashton laughed as she snuggled closer, and accommodated her desire to show possession by laying an arm about her shoulders.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter to them that you’re married,” she commented in a miffed tone.

  “It matters to me,” Ashton murmured with gentle fervor. He raised her chin and, while all the world watched, kissed her softly parted lips in a most loving manner, causing an eruption of giggles to come from the nearby conveyance.

  Lierin’s anxieties were completely appeased when he finally lifted his head. Her own eyes were warm and shining as they caressed his face. “Does the bliss ever stop, Ashton, or does it just keep getting better?”

  He smiled. “Sometimes it takes hard work and tenacity to make love last. It can grow stale from misuse.”

  “It’s been so easy loving you this last month,” she breathed. “I can’t imagine having to work at it.”

  “Would you like to see the place where I first saw you?”

  Lierin nodded eagerly. “Oh, yes. I want to know everything that we did together. I want to relive those moments with you.”

  Ashton leaned forward and instructed the driver to take them to the Vieux Carré, then settled back to enjoy the ride as the horses clip-clopped their way across the cobbled wharf. He had been half afraid to take her on the steamer, not knowing how she would react or if he would be encouraging more nightmares. Though he had watched her closely, ready at any moment to give the command to dock, she had shown no qualms. Indeed, she had displayed as much exuberance as anyone going on their first excursion. Hoping that something would stimulate his wife’s memory and encourage its return, he had made arrangements to have the same suite at the St. Louis Hotel wherein they had, as a slightly younger couple, explored the delights of their newly wedded status. The view of the streets would be the same, with similar sounds drifting in through the tall french doors. He would take her to the restaurants where they had dined and wander through the same shops, visit the parks where they had once strolled and attend theaters where troupes had entertained them. As much as could be controlled, all would be the same. It was the best he could do; he could only hope it would be enough.

  Lierin leaned with comfortable ease against Ashton’s side and took in the remarkable sights that whisked past in an ever-changing panorama on either side. She had no idea where they wended, but was content and happy in her place close beneath his arm. The barouche passed along a street where hotels and eating establishments abounded, and then turned down a narrow lane where myriad shops were adorned with ornamental iron lace and overhanging balconies. Ashton pointed, drawing her attention to a cluster of small boutiques that hugged the street.

  “Over there! That’s where I first saw you, but it took you a while to learn I existed.”

  Lierin responded with an amused chuckle. “I probably knew you were there all along and was just playing coy. I can’t imagine any woman not being aware of you.”

  “Nevertheless, madam, you gave me a fright. I was sure my life had ended when you got into the carriage and rode away with your chaperone.”

  “Then where did we actually meet?”

  “Ahhh, Providence was with me.” Smiling, he nodded and gave another address to the driver. “A band of miscreants had cast a shadow of blame on my crew, no doubt to escape the penalties they justly deserved. They bribed a man to give a false account of pirates attacking other steamers and then taking refuge aboard my vessel. By the time the officials recognized the ploy for what it was, the blackguards had slithered free, leaving me outraged and determined to confront a particular judge who was reviewing the evidence against my men.”

  “My grandfather? Judge Cassidy?”

  “Aye, madam. A wise man who allowed me to speak my piece until a certain young lady came to his defense. I shall be eternally grateful that he did.”

  The barouche entered a tightly turning passage where brick fences rose on either side. Wrought-iron gates hung beneath rounded brick arches, permitting a view of blossom-bedecked gardens and meandering stone paths. The conveyance swept out into a wider street where tall townhouses snuggled close against each other. As they progressed on their way, the houses became larger, with narrow spaces appearing between. The gardens became lawns, and the lawns widened, with moss-draped oaks and a variety of other trees shading them. The barouche passed every style of house, from columned colonials to dwellings found in the West Indies, and it was in front of one of these latter types where they finally halted.

  Recognition might have been hindered by the fact that shutters had been nailed over the windows of the house, but the interior was hardly more comforting, for it was dark and rather morbid. Ashton opened several windows and pushed the shutters free, allowing the sunlight to spill into the rooms. Ghostly shapes of sheet-draped furniture stood like dreary sentinels about the room, but the presence of these lifeless creations apparently had not discouraged the entry of a recent visitor who had left signs of his passage in the layer of dust on the floor. The manly footprints wandered aimlessly through the lower part of the house, but in the judge’s study it seemed the man had had a definite purpose in mind, for the tracks went directly from the door to a lowboy and returned to the portal in the same unswerving manner. On the wall above the table a pair of hangers were spaced wide apart, as if two paintings had once hung side by side above the piece. Ashton could only make a guess as to what might have hung there.

  “When I received your portrait, it was accompanied by a letter which explained that the painting was one of a pair given to the judge by your father. The other was of your sister, Lenore, and they were both in your grandfather’s possession at the time of his death. The one of Lenore might have been sent back to her, but these footprints are fairly recent, and as you can see”—he drew her gaze downward to the footprints—“once the man entered this room, he came directly to this table.”

>   “What interest would anyone have in a portrait when”—she swept her hand about the study—“when there are other things of more value to interest a thief?”

  Ashton chuckled. “I never saw the portraits while they were here, but if Lenore looks anything like you, I can understand why a man would want it.”

  “Now don’t tease, Ashton. Someone must have had a more sensible reason than that for taking it.”

  Ashton shrugged. “I can’t imagine any plausible purpose. No one had a right to come here except by our authority. Your grandfather made provisions to leave everything in this house to you and made no attempt to change the will even after he received word that you had drowned.”

  “But why didn’t he do so?”

  “Lenore and your father left here at odds with the old gentleman, and I guess he figured I was the only family he had left. At least, that’s what he indicated when I came to see him. He was on his deathbed, and he muttered something about me inheriting everything that he had meant for you, so I guess he knew what he was doing.” Ashton gazed thoughtfully about the room as if seeing it for the first time. “I couldn’t bear to come back here while I believed you dead. This house held too many memories.”

  “I don’t remember being here at all, and yet…” Lierin shivered as a sudden chill went down her spine, and she glanced around in growing dismay. “I sense something here….” She lowered her gaze beneath his questioning stare and continued in a whisper: “It’s almost as if the house were crying out in mourning…or warning….”

  “Come, my love,” Ashton urged gently, drawing her with him to the door. “We’ll go back to the hotel now. I can’t see any reason for staying here if it upsets you.”

  Lierin let him lead her from the house, but at the front gate she turned and stared back at the house with its sloping roof and shaded galleries that stretched across the front of the house. Beneath the wide eaves of the higher porch, the dark, lusterless windows seemed to gaze back at her in sad reflection, as if they were compelling her to stay and bring them back to life again. The bolted shutters on the lower veranda were dusty and in need of repair, and nearby the flower garden was overgrown with dried weeds. A trumpet vine had obviously feasted well on the rich soil, for it stretched its tentacles skyward above the roof. Her eyes followed its thick mass to the lower porch, then flew upward again to one of the windows on the higher level. The glass was a dark void, frustrating her efforts to see beyond it, yet she could almost swear she had caught a movement there. Curiosity knitted her brow as she searched the other windows, but they were equally blank, providing no glimpse beyond their translucent panes. Was it only her imagination? Or simply a reflection of a bird flitting past the window?

  “What are you thinking?”

  Lierin turned with a laugh as the masculine voice intruded into her musings, and shook her head. “Spooks! They haunt me when I look at the place.” She slipped her arm through his. “My grandfather must have loved this old place dearly. I can see where once a lot of care went into keeping the house and yard.”

  Ashton squeezed the slender hand that rested on his arm. “He’d have given it all away just to have you near him.”

  She sighed rather sadly. “It seems a shame to let it go to ruin.”

  “We can open it up and hire a few servants to maintain it if you wish, and on future visits, we can come here and stay.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Who knows? Perhaps one of our children would like to make a home of it someday.”

  Lierin slipped her arms about his lean waist and smiled up into his sparkling eyes. “We’ll have to make a baby first.”

  “I’m at your complete disposal, madam,” he offered with gallant zeal.

  “Perhaps we should talk about this for a while…say, in bed at the hotel?”

  Green lights danced in his eyes as he stared down at her. “I was about to make that very suggestion.”

  “Shall we get started?” she inquired with a coy smile. “You’ve often mentioned how much fun we had together, you’ve made me inquisitive about our suite at the hotel.”

  Ashton grinned as he handed her into the waiting barouche, and as they leaned back into the cushioned seat, the driver roused the horses and clucked them into a brisk trot. The carriage flitted through the sun-dappled shade of the lane, and Lierin blinked as the flickering light evoked disjointed memories of another such ride, when she had sat beside a tall, darkly garbed man who had patted her hand…consolingly? She canted her head as she tried to grasp the mood of that moment. The haunting ride seemed somehow associated with another’s death, but she could not be sure, for the feelings were as illusive as the identity of her companion. The shape of him was strangely familiar, but from some inner source she perceived that the man was not Ashton. The figure was slightly bulkier…and was there a mustache?

  The images disturbed her, and she tried to push them from her mind, wanting nothing to mar her happiness, but they were like ghosts from the past playing a teasing game with her memory. They flitted through her mind, leaving impressions of a shadowy shape here and the low murmur of a voice there, but all the while resisting her efforts to draw them into the full light of her consciousness.

  She heaved a sigh in frustration, and when Ashton glanced down at her with a questioning brow raised, she smiled and laid her arm along the length of his thigh. “I wish I could remember being here with you. I fear I’ve forgotten too many wonderful adventures.”

  “Aye, madam, you have, but we’ll make new ones for you to take home.”

  The afternoon light filtered through the bed hangings and set the draperies aglow with a shimmering whiteness. Now and then an airy rush billowed the translucent silks and caressed the naked bodies that lay entwined. The breezes blended with murmured questions and softly spoken vows of love, while kisses and whispering sighs fell on willing lips. Manly fingertips brushed bare ribs and stroked pliant peaks and creamy breasts. Others, more dainty, traced down a lightly corded neck and the rugged swell of muscles in a brown arm, then ventured on to a flat, hard belly. Pale thighs yielded to dark as love welled up with a surging rush of emotions. It was a leisured feast of sensual pleasures, a blissful interlude that took place in the confines of a silken tent. It was a coming together of man and wife, and a renewing of all that had been and would be again.

  The night was black and rather coolish with low clouds pressing a misty haze down upon the city. Ashton left his sleeping wife and, donning a robe over his naked body, stepped out onto the balcony. A lantern glowed with a halo of pale yellow light, like a lone beacon in the darkness, showing the streets devoid of life at this approaching midnight hour. From the distance drifted the elusive sounds of music and accompanying revelry which attested to the fact that there were those who clung to the moment and resisted the passing of time. So it would be with him if he could accomplish that magical feat. He luxuriated in this present, enchanting period so well, he became almost fearful of it being swept away from him again.

  Drawn to the warmth of the one he cherished, Ashton returned to the room and paused at the foot of the bed to gaze down upon his beloved. Lierin lay curled on her side, lost in the deep slumber of the innocent. To his knowledge, nothing yet had prompted a recall, and the fact that she had forgotten every pleasure they had once shared rasped like a dull saw at the back of his mind. As for himself, he had the whole three years etched firmly in his recollection, even though there were quite a few events he would have chosen to forget. The night of horror on the river was one he would have banished to oblivion, and then, there were the long, agonizing days when he had lain in bed unable to move, and in every waking moment his yearning for her had savaged his mind. Even when the strain had overtaken him and he had fallen into exhausted slumber, he had awakened with the same word on his parched lips: “Lierin?” And the answer always came, “No sign of her. Not even a trace. Nothing. The river has swallowed her up.” Then he went through weeks of healing, and when he could walk again,
he had paced the floor in restless misery. The ravaging thoughts allowed him no more than a few hours of sleep at a time, and the long nights crept past with uncaring slowness until he had cried out and begged for the dawn to come. It came…and was worse than the dark, for he could see the empty chair at his table, the bed where only he slept, the place at his side that no other woman could fill…and in the cold light of day he finally had to face the tormenting reality that his love was gone forever.

  The trip to her grandfather’s had been a pain he had forced himself to bear after his convalescence. He had found the old man ill and bedridden. The news that Lierin would never return to brighten his day had been too much for the judge, and though they were bitter in his mouth, Ashton had affirmed the words, “Lierin is dead,” then had shared the elder’s grief, and a short time later the news had come to him that the old judge had slipped away.

  Seeking a haven from his anguish, he had fled to the east and then further still, to Europe. He had avoided that part of the universe where Robert Somerton nurtured his hatred; not that he was afraid of the man, but because he had a need to put all the memories of Lierin behind him…if he could. Travel had failed to ease the hurt, and he had buried himself in work. The family businesses fared well under his forced attention. He had bent himself to the firm establishment of the steamer trade that plied the same river which had taken his most precious possession. Then, when the aches were just beginning to ebb, Lierin had by some miracle come back to him like a wraith out of the night, and here she lay in gentle repose where he could feast his eyes upon her. Yet he was plagued by the lost years, for he could find no plausible explanation for her extended absence. Why had she not come back to him?

  “Sweet plaguing love, where will you lead me now?” His whisper was barely audible in the silent room. “I’ve been delivered from my torment, but if you should ever be taken from me again, what will I do?” It was impossible to think of existing without her. If such an event were to occur, it would be easy to surmise that he would plow the universe in search of her, never resting until death gave him ease. “Have mercy on me, Lierin, and stay forever by my side. Do not vanish from me again, for surely I would be no more a man.”