Iron Lace

by Lorena Dureau

  Monique’s eyes were brimming over with tears once more. “Please, you mustn’t think I really wanted that horrid man to… to…”

  “Then whatever possessed you to behave as you did? I know you’re impulsive and headstrong sometimes, but I’ve never seen you flirting like a bawdy-house wench before. Are you in the habit of going around offering yourself to every man who murmurs a few pretty phrases in your ear?”

  “Oh, no, of course not! I’d never let anyone take liberties with me.”

  “Well, he seemed well on his way to doing just that. I certainly hope you’re not accustomed to letting men take you off into dark corners and have their way with you!”

  His face was still livid.

  “Oh, no… believe me, I’ve never…” The intensity of his rage awed her.

  “Don’t lie to me, Monica. What about your precious Maurice? If you let Roget, surely you’ve let him?” The nerve in his jaw was twitching as the knuckles of his hand went white over his sword hilt. He seemed to be wishing he had Foucher there, too, at that moment, so he could run him through along with Roget.

  “Of course not!” she exclaimed indignantly. “What do you think I am? A fallen woman?”

  He saw how offended she was, and the anger drained out of his eyes. He had never had any sisters, but after the courtesans of Europe and Azema Ducole, he had forgotten just how naive a seventeen-year-old girl in the provinces could be. He had to keep reminding himself that the sensuous woman standing there before him was really still a child in so many ways.

  “All right,” he acquiesced crossly. “At least it’s a comfort to know I won’t have died in vain if I should lose my life defending your virtue tomorrow.”

  The pale gold of her hair blended with the moonlight as she bowed her head. “That’s what we were fighting about when you came out and found us,” she confessed timidly. “He’d pulled me back of the palmettos and was trying to take liberties with me, but I wouldn’t let him.”

  Vidal continued to eye her sternly. “Well, let that be one of your first lessons in womanhood,” he said sharply. “Don’t dangle the bait if you don’t want to get caught. You see, my little ward, that’s one of the big differences between a woman and a child. A woman considers the consequences of her actions. She doesn’t just plunge headlong into trouble, pulling everyone else around her into the whirlpool with her as well. Now do as I say. Go inside to your party.”

  She turned to obey, her head still hanging dejectedly, the tears rolling unchecked now down her cheeks. Suddenly she paused and looked back at him from where she stood on the gallery.

  “Miguel… Cousin Miguel…” She hesitated.

  “Yes?” he asked impatiently.

  “Please… please be careful tomorrow.”

  He lifted a dark, inquisitive brow. “I have every intention of doing so,” he replied, but he was staring at her with renewed curiosity.

  “I’m… I’m sorry… truly sorry you have to fight because of me.”

  “I hope you’ll bear that in mind next time you feel tempted to act rashly.”

  She paused yet a moment more, as though loath to return to the party in progress within. The peals of carefree laughter and the tinkling of mandolins and guitars spilled out into the warm summer evening through the open doors farther down the gallery, but the merrymaking suddenly had a distant, unreal sound to the two motionless figures silhouetted there in the moonlight just then.

  “I… I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you because… because of me,” she insisted.

  “I wouldn’t, either,” he agreed, a faint smile tempering the annoyance in his dark eyes for the first time since he had found her behind the palmettos with Roget.

  “Now go back in,” he said, a little less severely, “and don’t say anything for the moment. You don’t want to worry your grandmother, and the less scandal the better. I’ll be careful tomorrow, you can be certain of that much.”

  He watched her walk the rest of the way down the gallery and disappear into the house. The rustling of her silk skirts still echoed in his ears as he stood there in the semidarkness a few minutes longer, trying to collect his thoughts. He wondered whether the day would ever come when he’d be able to understand that bewildering little ward of his. He could have sworn she seemed genuinely concerned for him when she was leaving. But then, Monique was a good-hearted girl underneath all that hostile exterior. It was probably just her guilty conscience reacting, once she realized how her foolish behavior had put him in danger. Whatever made the girl act the way she did sometimes?

  The memory of her in Roget’s arms came back to haunt him, and his blood began to boil anew. The damn bastard… pawing her like that! And Roget hadn’t been playing, either. He’d have taken her if he could have gotten away with it!

  Just the thought of another man’s lips pressed against that fleshy little mouth, of irreverent hands caressing the fullness of those proud, hard-tipped breasts, set him to trembling with rage. At least he’d seen enough to know she’d been trying to fight him off… that she hadn’t wanted him to go on. The foolish child! He’d have to keep his eye on her even more from now on. She was at an age where her own passions might betray her. The very thought of her responding to another man’s caresses, of someone violating, even touching, the sweet wonder of that warm, vibrant body, tormented him to the point of madness. He had to come out of tomorrow’s duel alive… if only to protect her when she needed him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Monique was desolate. She had wanted to show her guardian that she was a full-grown woman but instead had only succeeded in making him look on her as more of a child than ever—and a foolish one, at that!

  Worse yet, she had put him in danger of losing his life. Although it was true she’d often wanted to rid herself of her interfering guardian, she certainly had never wanted anything to happen to him, much less to be the cause of his misfortune!

  During those long restless hours later in her room, she had lain awake tormented with visions of his seconds suddenly appearing at the front door carrying his bloody body between them… that fascinating, vibrant body she had felt pressed so close to hers, pulsating to the rhythm of her own! She’d never forgive herself if anything happened to him now because of her!

  Shortly after dawn, unable to lie there sleepless any longer, she had risen from the twisted, tortured sheets of her bed and gone in search of her guardian. She had a great longing to see him again… to let him know how truly worried she was about him.

  But he had already gone… gone to keep his appointment perhaps with death! If only she could have at least told him goodbye… seen him just one more time! Just the thought that she might never see him alive again made her physically ill.

  Mlle. Baudier, noting the quiver of her charge’s lower lip and the dark shadows under her eyes, called her quickly aside. Vidal had taken her into his confidence before leaving, she said, and had ordered her to say only that he had been called into the city on urgent business if Grandmother Chausson should ask why he wasn’t there.

  The governess’s eyes seemed even larger than usual as she scolded Monique for her folly of the night before and repeated Vidal’s warning that they were to say nothing to anyone about his real reasons for going into New Orleans.

  By midday the last of the guests who had accepted the hospitality of Le Rêve for the night had gone. Normally Monique would have been sorry to see such festivities come to an end, but on this occasion she was only too happy to be relieved of her role as hostess.

  Celeste sensed something was amiss and tried her best to find out from Monique what was wrong, but the older girl remained dolefully silent. Once she even broke out into unexplained weeping.

  Grandmother Chausson immediately declared that Monique must be suffering from an attack of the vapors and told the governess to give the girl a good purgative and put her to bed. Monique would hear none of it, however, since she wanted to stay as close to the main entrance as possible. All that day she woul
d start at every sound in the driveway and, heart pounding wildly, run to the front window to see who might be arriving.

  But as night fell over the plantation and there was still no word of her guardian, she felt so ill that she finally retired to the refuge of the mosquito netting, where she could find welcome relief from prying eyes and let the tears flow freely.

  That second sleepless vigil seemed longer than ever, for this time there was no distraction of guests to attend to until the early hours of the morning as there had been the night before. What’s more, the fact that the duel had undoubtedly been fought by now only made her guardian’s continued absence seem more ominous than ever with each passing hour.

  When Celeste entered the bedroom to retire to her own four-poster, Monique pretended to be asleep so her sister wouldn’t try to ask her anything more. She simply lay there wide-eyed behind the veil of netting, her back to the night candle on the table between the two beds, clutching her rosary in her hands and trying not to let the sob caught in her throat become audible.

  As the second day wore on and there was still no news Monique was on the verge of letting the tears welled up inside of her burst their dam and confessing all to her grandmother and Celeste. Only the stern warning in Mlle. Baudier’s watchful eyes forced Monique to keep the emotions churning inside of her in check.

  It wasn’t until near dusk Thursday afternoon that Miguel came riding up the long lane of oaks leading to the main house from the levee road. He came at a leisurely pace and even paused to say a few words to the stableboy, a quick-witted lad who took over the gelding he dismounted.

  At the sight of her guardian Monique gave a little cry of delight and for a moment stood there by the window devouring his familiar tall figure with joyful eyes, while her heart pounded wildly and the blood raced through her veins, bursting the dam of her pent-up fears in a flood of relief. He was alive! Thank God, he had come back to her at last!

  Unable to control herself any longer, she ran out on the gallery to meet him. She would have continued down the stairs to the driveway where he still stood talking to the boy if he hadn’t seen her pert little figure in pale green muslin waiting for him and immediately gone up to join her on the porch.

  He couldn’t help noticing the vestiges of the two sleepless nights she had passed lingering on her woebegone, tearstained face, despite the fact that its paleness was momentarily flushed with the emotion of seeing him at last. The possibility that she could have been so upset did surprise him, but he chalked it up to remorse.

  “How nice of you to come out and greet me,” he said with a casualness that contrasted notably with her rush to the edge of the gallery as he reached the top step.

  “I thought you’d never come!” she exclaimed breathlessly, all the while sweeping her eyes hungrily over his impressive figure in its rust-brown riding habit and black jackboots. She longed to throw herself into his arms and feel the hard reality of him once more!

  “I didn’t realize you were waiting so anxiously for my return,” he replied, continuing to be maddeningly unruffled in the face of her effusive reception.

  “I’ve been so worried!”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it.” He smiled, beginning to enjoy the first real evidence of concern he had ever seen her show for him.

  “I mean really worried!” she assured him emphatically.

  “Well, if that’s true, I’d say it was high time.”

  Anger and confusion crept into those wide gray eyes, swollen from weeping and lack of sleep, as they focused accusingly on him. “Then you just kept me hanging fire like this on purpose?”

  “No, but since I didn’t realize how upset you were, I decided to take care of some business in New Orleans while I was there so I wouldn’t have to go back into town later on this week.”

  “Business? You could think of business at a time like that? What about the duel? I was so afraid you might have been… have been… You weren’t hurt, were you?” Once more her eyes anxiously scanned him from head to foot, searching for signs of wounds.

  “Fortunately, I wasn’t,” he assured her. “As you can see, I’m still all in one piece.”

  “And… and Roget? He isn’t… you didn’t… ?”

  “I’m glad it’s occurred to you to ask about him, too, for although he did behave very badly the other night, you must admit you led him into his predicament.”

  She blushed and lowered her eyes guiltily.

  “I… I never meant for him to take me so seriously.”

  “But you were flirting.” His dark eyes were uncomfortably penetrating at that moment.

  She hesitated and then gave an impatient toss of her head. “Perhaps a little,” she admitted reluctantly, “but women do sometimes flirt, don’t they? I mean, that’s all part of being a woman, isn’t it?”

  Vidal stifled his laughter. “Yes, I suppose you females are given to having a little sport with us men from time to time,” he conceded, “but you shouldn’t play the game unless you know the rules. And might I add that the game is, as you said, for women, not children!”

  She smarted under that observation but bit her tongue since her curiosity was stronger than her pride at that moment.

  “Well, aren’t you going to tell me what happened?” she demanded impatiently.

  “About the duel, you mean?” He was rather enjoying the opportunity of finally being able to do a little taunting himself.

  “Of course, the duel! My, but you can be exasperating!”

  “Well, by ten a.m. we were all assembled in the field back of the ramparts,” he continued calmly, seeming to savor the suspense he was causing in her.

  “Yes, yes… will you please get to the outcome!”

  “Well, just when we got to the point where our seconds, as is the custom, asked us whether there was any possibility of reconciling our differences without resorting to bloodshed, Roget finally spoke up and acknowledged he’d been wrong. Rather shamefacedly, he confessed he’d been imbibing all afternoon long at the fiesta and blamed the wine for having made him forget how young you were by the time the two of you had stepped out on the gallery. The upshot of it, therefore, was that he offered me his apologies, and since he seemed sincere, and I thought it best not to encourage a scandal, I decided to accept them instead of going on with a senseless duel provoked by a senseless girl.”

  Monique was relieved to learn that no duel had been fought, after all, but she didn’t appreciate that continual reference to her as a silly child. She was in no position to object at that moment, however, so she bit her tongue and followed her guardian into the house, resolving to settle that particular point with him at some later date.

  Although Grandmother Chausson never knew about the affaire d’honneur between Vidal and Roget, nor any of the circumstances that had led up to it, the elderly woman was, nevertheless, pleasantly surprised by her granddaughter’s sudden recovery from her vapors and her obvious improvement in deportment thereafter. At least the girl was a little more subdued for the remainder of their stay at the plantation that summer.

  Monique did confide the truth of what had happened, however, to Celeste, but only after she made her younger sister take their “sacred oath” not to repeat a word of it to Mémère or anyone else.

  After listening with wide, incredulous eyes to the entire tale, Celeste had sighed and exclaimed, “Oh, Monique, do you realize Cousin Miguel was going to risk his life in a duel over you? Why, he could have been wounded or—or even killed!”

  “Oh, they settled it without even firing a shot,” she replied airily, reluctant to admit even to her sister how worried she had really been.

  Suddenly Celeste giggled. “I’ll wager Azema didn’t like it any when she knew Cousin Miguel was fighting a duel with Claude Roget because of you!”

  Monique’s large, clear eyes lit up, and she began to laugh. She hadn’t thought of that particular aspect of what, until then, had been a rather tragic incident in her seemingly dramatic young life, but now tha
t Celeste had suggested it, the idea pleased her enormously.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  During the weeks that followed, Vidal made very few trips to the city. Now that it was September, the time had come to plant his first crop of sugarcane. The cuttings were laid out in the furrows and then well covered with soil at a depth that would ensure them ample protection against any hurricanes or frosts that might threaten them during the long fall and winter months ahead. It wouldn’t be until the spring before the cane would really begin to grow, but then it would shoot up by leaps and bounds.

  He had decided to make arrangements with one or two nearby planters whose crops were failing to pay them for the services of their idle field hands during the month or two when he would need extra help with the planting and perhaps later for the harvest in the fall of the following year. Heaven knows, there were more than enough bankrupt planters around Louisiana these days only too happy to make a little extra money to help tide them over until their conditions improved. The rest of the time, Miguel felt, Roselle could manage well enough with the hands they already had.

  He took the girls around with him once or twice so they could see how the cane was being planted in the furrows and learn some of the pertinent details about the process, but for the most part, with so much activity and strange workers on the grounds, he preferred them to stay closer to the main house now. It was time to move back to their town house for the fall season anyway.

  When Miguel announced that Don Andre’s Almonester, the richest man in the colony, was planning a ball to open the social season the last day of the month, Monique and Celeste were unbearably excited.

  As far as Vidal was concerned, about the only advantage of making the town house headquarters again was that he would be nearer his business contacts, since just about anyone of importance could be found in the city during the social season.