by Linda Ladd
A tap on the outside door preceded Elise's entrance. "Mamzelle? Marster wand you," she said with a bobbing curtsy. "In de library, if zou pliz."
"Who? Luke?"
"Oui, mamzelle."
Suddenly reluctant to find out what he planned for her, Bethany clasped her hands nervously together as Elise gathered up her discarded clothes.
"Elise?"
"Oui, mamzelle?"
"Did he-the marster, I mean-seem very angry when you saw him?"
Bethany saw a flare of fear in the chambermaid's chocolate brown eyes. "Non, mamzelle. He only said dad he wand to see zou."
"Have you known him long, Elise?" Bethany asked, remembering that Luke had been to New Orleans in the past.
"Oh, non," the maid answered quickly, then busied herself with the bed linens, as if reluctant to discuss the matter further.
Bethany stood in indecision, not looking forward to going downstairs. She moved to a polished cherry wood table and bent to look at herself in the small oval mirror. She stared at the ugly, perpendicular bruise across one cheek and several other red scratches on her neck, not at all pleased with her appearance. Her hair was still wet and tangled, and she picked up a heavy ivory-and-silver brush, taking a moment to examine the exquisite flower design on the silver handle. She'd never seen anything so beautiful. She sighed, drawing the bristles through her hair. She had better not make Luke wait or he might be even more angry with her.
"Tante Chloe says lil' marster be needin' hiz breakfast," Elise said as she smoothed the creases from the fresh sheets she had put on the bed.
"Who is Tante Chloe?"
"She be de one in charge of all de house peop', mamzelle."
"All right, but tell Petie I'll find him as soon as I can, would you?"
"Oui, mamzelle."
Bethany hesitated a few more moments after the maid left the room. Then, angry at herself for her own cowardice, she walked resolutely out the door. Nevertheless, once beyond the sanctuary of her room, she decided she should peek in on Michelle before she faced Luke in the library.
The octoroon's bedchamber was very dim, the heavy draperies drawn over the balcony door. Bethany tiptoed across to where Michelle lay asleep on the bed. Her face was still too swollen and discolored for Bethany to make out much of her features, but at least she slept peacefully now. She wore a clean nightdress, and someone had plaited her long brown hair into a heavy braid that lay over one shoulder. Bethany shook her head, her eyes on the splint wrapped with strips of white linen around the girl's left wrist. What horrors had Michelle experienced at the hands of the Hacketts? She left quietly, knowing that the girl needed a long, undisturbed rest more than anything. Tomorrow, perhaps, they could try to communicate.
In the upstairs hallway again, Bethany leaned over the banister, watching a downstairs maid glide silently over the gleaming white and black tiles below. When the girl was lost from sight near the back of the house, Bethany descended the curving steps and stood before the library door. She took a deep breath, fighting her urge to find Peeto and flee again.
"Come in," said Luke's deep voice in answer to her timid knock, and Bethany turned the knob, hoping the man named Andrew would be there as well. He had seemed a friendly sort. At least he smiled a lot. Unfortunately, Luke Randall sat alone behind a long, cluttered desk.
Large unadorned windows stretched tall behind him, revealing a lovely view of the tree-lined avenue leading to the river levee, but Bethany stared instead at Luke, barely able to recognize him as he stood to greet her. He had shaved off his thick black beard, and gone as well were the fringed Indian garments he had worn since she had known him.
Now, he had on a shirt of snow-white linen, unbuttoned at the throat, which made his bronzed skin appear as dark as teak. As he moved around the desk and came toward her, she saw that tan riding breeches molded his hard-muscled thighs, and his high brown boots were shiny enough to reflect her own scuffed and muddy shoes. He looked every bit like the rich aristocrats of St. Louis and Natchez-Atop-the-Hill, whom Bethany had seen so many times in their grand carriages. All of a sudden, she felt shabby and awkward and ill at ease in his presence.
When Luke smiled, the first smile she remembered seeing from him, her gaze dropped from his strong white teeth and penetrating jade-colored eyes.
"Good morning, Beth."
She looked up again, instinctively aware that something had changed between them. Last night had made some kind of difference, at least to him. Hope trembled alive inside her.
"Please sit down," he said politely.
Bethany did so, and he moved around the desk again, lounging in his big swiveling desk chair. There was something unsettling in the piercing green of his eyes, something she couldn't quite define. When he continued to study her without speaking, she looked down at her lap, growing hot with embarrassment.
"Would you care for some breakfast?"
She shook her head.
"Coffee or tea, perhaps?"
He even talked differently now, she thought. It was as if, when he took off his buckskins, he shed every other trace of his fur-trapping life, and that confused her. How could he be two different people at the same time? She didn't know the other Luke Randall well, but she didn't know this tall, handsome stranger at all!
She dared a quick look up at him through the veil of her long lashes, thinking he was acting awfully polite when she had just tried to steal his son again. He was treating her…well, almost like a lady, and she knew for an all-out fact that he didn't consider her one! What was he up to? She was suddenly very suspicious of him.
"How are you feeling today?" he asked with his newfound, unfamiliar solicitousness, and Bethany quickly covered her wrists with her fingers when she saw him looking at the bruises.
"I'm fine," she answered quickly. "And, I'm surely grateful to you for coming for me." She looked away from those pure green eyes. His lashes were long and very black. That's what made his eyes appear so green, she thought irrelevantly. "I didn't think you would," she added.
"Why not?"
"Because I thought you wanted to put me in jail. You said you did, and I heard you send for the sheriff last night." Her finely arched brows drew down slightly. "I figured you'd be a mite angry with me. Why aren't you angry with me, anyways?"
Luke smiled again, and Bethany felt a ridiculous desire to smile, too, which she immediately stifled.
"I was perturbed at first," Luke admitted, "but I think you had already learned your lesson by the time I got to the Cabildo. You didn't need to run away last night, you know. I called the sheriff to put out an award on the Hacketts. It didn't have anything to do with you."
Bethany was relieved to hear that, but she looked down without answering.
"How old are you, Beth?"
Now, why did he want to know that all of a sudden? "I don't rightly know. Eighteen, I think."
"You don't know how old you are?"
A defensive note she couldn't help crept into her answer. "I can't help it if Pa didn't write it down, can I?"
It still hurt her even now to think about why her father hadn't cared enough to put her birth date into his big black family Bible. He had wanted a boy; a girl didn't count enough to be written down.
"Your father's dead, I assume?"
"Yes, he got drowned. That's when I got put in the orphanage."
"That's where Anne found you, isn't that correct?"
Bethany nodded.
"Do you have any other kin?"
Why was he asking so many questions? "No."
"No one at all? No friends or distant relatives back on the Ohio? That's where you were born, is it not?"
Bethany hesitated. "Well, I have some friends. Valerie Goodrich and Captain Richmond. And, especially Marcus Main. He's gone off to sea now. He said he's coming back, though, and he'd take care of Peeto and me."
Bethany was glad she could say that. She didn't want Luke Randall to think her totally unlovable, even if she was. She watched for a c
hange in his expression, but there wasn't one.
"Indeed?" he murmured a moment later. "Where did you meet this man?"
"At the orphanage. He was an orphan, too."
"Was he your accomplice when you took Peeto?"
"He's not an accomplice. He's a friend," Bethany said, defending herself staunchly.
Luke stared at her until she felt obliged to drop her gaze.
"What are you going to do with me? Are you going to send me away?" she finally asked, suddenly tired of all the pointless questions. She wanted to know exactly where she stood with him.
Luke rose from his chair, pacing the few steps to the windows. Bethany watched nervously as he set his gaze on the distant river.
"Do you like it here, Beth?"
She was so startled by that out-of-the-blue question that for a moment she didn't know what to say.
"I guess so," she answered in confusion as he turned back to her. "We only just got here."
"Enough to live here with Pete?"
A great, numbing flood of relief spread over her. "You'll let me stay here with him?"
He was silent, taking his chair again. He steepled his fingers together as he leaned back. "Do you remember that first day we met, Beth, back in Natchez?"
She nodded, frowning slightly at the roundabout way he had of making conversation.
"You asked me then why I came back now after three years. Remember?"
She nodded again. He was doing an awful lot of talking and not saying anything, and he didn't usually do any talking at all.
"I came back because I learned that Anne had died, and I knew I had to see to my son's welfare. When I found him stolen away, I realized I didn't even know him and that I might never get to know him if I didn't find him."
Bethany listened with new interest, still not sure what he was trying to say.
"To get to the point," Luke went on, "I think what Peeto needs is a mother, a real mother. Someone who will love him and take care of him in my absence. Someone who won't ever leave him."
"You're leaving?"
Bethany sounded so pleased with the idea that Luke's mouth twisted in a half smile.
"Yes. I plan to return to the mountains by the first of the year. But before I go, I want Peeto's future assured. He is my son, and the only child I'll ever have. I owe him that much."
"Peeto's mother is dead, isn't she?" Bethany asked. "He won't talk about her much, but I think he remembers more than he tells me."
She watched Luke's face tighten like a patch of parched soil. "His mother is dead, and nothing about her needs to be discussed now or ever. I also think it best if you discourage any talk of his Indian background. It'll be hard enough for him to survive in New Orleans society without everyone knowing he's half Sioux."
It was nothing less than a command, uttered in a voice that was rock hard, and Bethany took heed of it.
"In order to get him a suitable mother, I'll have to marry again, of course, which is something I swore I would never do," Luke went on calmly. "Of course, it will strictly be a marriage of convenience, which is common enough. No one will hold that suspect. And, another bank draft will keep Rachene quiet as to your background," he added, as an afterthought to himself.
Bethany said nothing, wondering why he was going into all of this with her. It was enough to know he was going to let her stay at Cantigny and take care of Peeto.
"Then, you agree?"
"Agree to what? To be Petie's nanny?"
"Of course not," Luke answered with a tinge of impatience. "To marry me."
"Marry you?" Bethany echoed in shock, rising unknowingly to her feet. "Marry you?"
Luke smiled grimly at her change of emphasis. "That's right. You're certainly the prime candidate since Pete already loves you like a mother. And, you love him, too. I can see that now."
"Me? Me? You want me to marry you?"
"Sit down and calm yourself, Beth. It's not as if I'm asking you to share my bed, or my life. I'm just asking you to be Pete's mother."
"Share your-" She dropped back into her chair at that horrible thought.
Luke leaned forward to pour her some brandy from a crystal decanter. He pushed the goblet toward her, but she didn't touch it. She was still staring at him in stunned dismay.
"As I said, it's nothing more than a business arrangement. There are other women whom Pete could probably grow fond of, given time, but if I marry a Creole or anyone else hereabouts who is socially prominent enough to be suitable, it would mean a long, elaborate courtship, and frankly, I can't stomach the thought of that. Besides, it might prove difficult since I don't exactly possess a sterling reputation in these parts."
"You don't? Why not?" Bethany managed to say, feeling as if she were still upstairs in bed, having some kind of fantastic, nonsensical dream.
"Because," he answered with a sardonic twist of his lips, "I'm not exactly a sterling kind of man. What's more, I'm gone for long periods-years at a time, in fact-and any well-placed girl in Creole society might not take to that kind of abandonment, not to mention how her family would feel about it. You, on the other hand, wouldn't care if I never came back, would you?"
"No," Bethany answered truthfully, barely noticing the amused grin that appeared on Luke's dark face. "But, this is all so crazy. I don't want to marry you. What if I find someone else, someone I really love?"
Luke's eyes grew shuttered. "Then, you'll have to be discreet in your affairs, as I intend to be with mine. I won't allow Pete to be hurt by your dalliances."
That last comment stopped Bethany as nothing else had. "No, no, this is all impossible. I can't do it."
"Not even for Pete's sake? He loves you. You should have seen him last night when I brought you home. He was scared to death that he had lost you. That's when I decided this was the best thing to do."
"But, couldn't I just be his nanny, like before? There's no real need for us to get married, is there? I-"
"And have you run off with your accomplice, Marcus, or whatever his name is, when he returns from the sea? If that happens and I'm not here to prevent you, you'll either take Pete with you, robbing him of this plantation and his birthright, or you'll leave him behind and break his heart. I don't want either of those things to happen, and the only way to keep it from happening is to make you my legal wife and mistress of Cantigny."
"Mistress of Cantigny?" Bethany repeated weakly.
"Of course. Think about it, Beth. You'll have everything you want here-servants, clothes, money, and you'll be Pete's mother. Where else could you have those things? You've been a servant all your life."
Bethany bit her lip. "But, what if I want to marry? What if I want a child of my own? I always wanted lots of children."
"As I said, I don't expect you to share my bed. I won't even be here much." His jade eyes glinted. "But, if you should ever decide you want your own children, I daresay I'll do my best to oblige you."
His comment made her remember the way his muscular body had looked, naked and powerful in the firelight the night they had camped beside the river. The same sensation she had felt then, a thrill she didn't like, shot through her loins, bringing a blush to her cheeks.
"No, no," she assured him with embarrassed haste. "I'd never want that."
She frowned, trying to think of more reasons to dissuade him from his absurd idea.
"But, I couldn't be the mistress here. I don't know how to do things like that. I could never act like the grand lady."
"Perhaps not right now, but you're clever enough to learn. You've certainly proven that. Andrew and I will help you, and Tante Chloe runs the household anyway. The girl upstairs, Michelle, can probably teach you a lot about the Creole way of life. Her father's probably one of them."
"How do you know that?"
Luke ignored her question. "And, I assure you I won't return to the Rockies until you are completely accepted by the Creoles. As soon as you are, Pete will be, too."
"But, you said they didn't think much of you.
"
"They don't, but I have twenty times more money now than all of them put together, and the trappers I have working for me in the Rockies are adding more to my wealth every day, not to mention the profits from this plantation. People will begin to like me more and more around here as time goes by, you can count on that. And Andy is very well thought of by both the Americans and the Creoles. Before I leave, we'll make sure everyone loves you and treats Pete as my legitimate heir."
Bethany began to panic as he continued to outline her future as if he had given it a great deal of consideration. What was worse, she was running out of arguments. Luke watched her, his thoughts well hidden behind his handsome face, but somehow she intuitively knew he was anxious for her to accept his proposal. Perhaps, he really loved Peeto after all.
"And, what if I say no?" she asked at last.
"If you say no, you'll still have to stay here because I had to sign an agreement to that effect last night to get you out of jail. You're in my custody until Hugh arrives and nullifies his St. Louis warrant."
"Hugh's coming here?"
Luke recognized the fear in her silvery eyes, and he wondered if she was afraid Hugh would put her in jail for striking him.
"He's coming, but he'll drop the charges against you if I tell him to. Now, what's your answer?"
"Can't I at least have some time to think about it?" Bethany cried. Everything was happening much too fast!
"Of course. Think about it all you want," Luke agreed amicably, and Bethany breathed easier until he qualified his statement. "Until tomorrow morning, when I intend to have your answer, one way or the other."
Chapter 6
When Bethany arose early the next morning, she was no more ready to accept Luke Randall's cold marriage proposal. She had spent the previous day hiding in her bedchamber with Peeto while she tried to decide what she should do. Luckily, Luke had left Cantigny for town just after their conversation in the library and hadn't returned, so she hadn't had to face him. Not yet.
