When Delphine was told after dinner that evening, triumph radiated from her, but Louise could also see that there was genuine affection for both Madeleine and Theodore when she embraced them in turn. Once again Louise recognized her sister’s ability to love generously.
When Friday evening came Louise dressed with care and touched her throat and wrist with perfume from a bottle that Madeleine had given her as a welcome gift. Lastly she opened her jewel case. There were only a few pieces left, for she had sold them off one by one to cover the cost of many things. At the farm her good friends had made it clear from the start that she and Delphine were entirely their guests, just as Daniel had done, but she had forestalled him by paying Nurse Annabelle and settling Dr Harvey’s account. But she still had her emerald necklace and earrings, which she would wear this evening. In the jewel case’s secret drawer, her sister’s sapphires and other inherited pieces lay untouched. Delphine had confessed they would have gone with her in her flight to Boston if she had known the case’s secret mechanism, which had saved them from falling into the hands of the thief.
Daniel opened the door himself as Louise came up the steps, the glow from the hall behind him flooding on to her. It highlighted the pale oval of her lovely face upturned to him, her smile meeting his frown, and threw rich lights into her hair, which she had dressed in the latest mode, drawn back smoothly into a knot at the back of her head with short curls on her forehead. It suited her.
‘Good evening, Daniel.’
He returned her greeting as she entered his house, swishing past him in olive-green silk with her fragrance drifting after her. Then she paused, looking over her creamy shoulder as she waited for him to reach her side. ‘It’s a perfect evening,’ she said composedly. ‘So warm, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sky so full of stars.’
‘That’s why I decided we should dine on the terrace.’
‘I was hoping that might happen.’
The table was laid for two, with tall candles held by a silver candelabrum, and the supper dishes were set out on a side table.
‘I thought we’d wait on ourselves this evening as we’ve much to talk about,’ he said, thinking that he had never before seen her in such high spirits, which was in marked contrast to his own sombre mood.
‘An excellent idea.’
She thought the dishes looked more than usually appetizing. Curls of cucumber garnished the dressed lobsters, as if in the heart of a bouquet, the salads were crisp and bright, with edible flowers, and the collation of cold meats was arranged in fans, colour added delicately with tiny vegetables. Then she saw the heart-shaped dessert, set on a plate of celestial-blue porcelain beside a crystal bowl full of Chantilly cream, which was decorated with crystallized violets and rose petals.
‘I believe you’ve acquired a French chef!’ she exclaimed delightedly. ‘I haven’t seen a tarte Tatin since I was at Versailles!’
Daniel relaxed slightly at her show of pleasure. ‘Yes, he’s an émigré from Rouen. Mrs Carter took him on to the staff yesterday. She said he’s a boastful fellow, so let’s see if his cooking merits the praise that he seems to think he deserves.’
As they ate, Louise appreciated the chef’s subtle use of herbs and his skill in bringing out the fine flavours. She sat opposite Daniel and by unspoken mutual consent they kept their conversation to safe subjects. It was after the caramelized apple tart had proved to be as delicious as it had looked that Louise rested her elbows on the table and her chin on her linked hands as she made her announcement.
‘I’ve something important to tell you, Daniel. You’re the first to hear my news. I’ve bought a shop with accommodation above it! I’m going to make and sell exclusive millinery. What have you to say? I hope you approve my venture.’
His gaze was on her wine glass, which he was refilling from a decanter, and he clenched his jaw slightly before he spoke. ‘Where is it?’
‘Washington Street. It’s only small, but it’s in a good position with plenty of people constantly passing by. Whenever it’s been possible to get away on my own, I’ve been everywhere in the city to locate other millinery establishments and view their windows. I believe I can outshine them all.’
‘I’m sure you will.’ He set down the decanter and took up his own refilled glass for a toast. ‘To your success!’
‘Thank you, Daniel.’
‘Have you ordered your shop sign yet?’
‘No, I wanted to ask you about that. I need to find a good sign painter.’
‘I know just the man.’
‘That’s most helpful. I’ve been to suppliers to order felts and straws, ribbons, feathers and beads, as well as English fashion plates. I’ve also purchased pressing irons, hat blocks and all else that I’ll need. For a month I’ll build up a stock myself and take on two workers to assist me. On Monday a decorator and a carpenter will start work on the paintwork and the alterations and fittings that I want. I wasn’t sure that everything could be arranged before today, which is why originally I suggested meeting tomorrow evening.’
‘Who’s backing you in this enterprise?’
‘Nobody. I raised the money myself by going back to the jeweller whom you recommended a while ago when I wanted to sell something. He was extremely pleased when I offered him the chance to buy my diamond parure.’
Daniel looked shocked. ‘You didn’t sell that! But those diamonds were superb. I’ve never seen anything to match them.’
‘That’s what he said. It was a wedding gift from Fernand, but as I eventually paid for it myself when I settled the first of his endless debts, I’ve never been at all sentimental about it. It would be a different matter if I had to part with my emeralds.’ She touched her necklace lightly. ‘They were my grandmother’s and for that reason I treasure them. She died when I was seven and, although I remember her as being kind and loving towards me, my father always said she was a fierce old lady who ruled the family with an iron will. That makes me sure that she would have approved of my standing alone in my enterprise.’
‘You’re too much like her for your own good, Louise,’ he stated unsmilingly.
She raised her eyebrows, laughing. ‘But I take a comparison with her as a compliment! I’ll need to keep that way if I’m to succeed in business.’
He sat back in his chair, shaking his head impatiently. ‘I wasn’t thinking of your ability in commerce.’
‘Am I such a shrew?’
A smile curled his lips. ‘You’re stubborn enough.’
She flung back her head and laughed merrily. ‘I don’t deny it.’
‘You mentioned accommodation being included in your new acquisition. Is that to be the workshop?’
‘No, there’s room behind the shop for that purpose. My new home will be upstairs.’
‘I thought the Bradshaws wanted you to make your home with them.’
‘You heard me say when they invited me that it would only be for a while.’
‘They probably thought you had marriage in mind.’
‘Then they’ll discover that they were mistaken when I tell them my news.’
Daniel, losing patience, sprang up from his chair so quickly that the legs scraped the stones of the terrace. He stood looking out over the moonlit lawn as he questioned her bitterly. ‘Did what happened between us in the library mean nothing to you? Have you even remembered what I said?’
There was silence for a few moments before she answered quietly. ‘I remember.’
‘So?’ He heard her leave the table and the whisper of her skirts as she came to stand just behind him.
‘I can’t be your wife. I see marriage as a trap that would shut me in, no matter that I love you more than you could ever know. Instead, let us be lovers, Daniel!’
He turned in astonishment at her words. ‘Do you know what you’re saying? I want you with me for the rest of my life, not for some transient affair!’
‘It won’t be. I didn’t want to fall in love with you. I fought against it for longer tha
n I care to remember, but eventually I realized you were part of my whole being and I was destined to love you till the end of my days.’
Stunned, he took her face slowly between his hands and bent his head to kiss her lips, lightly at first, as if memorizing their contours, and then with an almost savage joy as she began to kiss him frantically, clinging to him with her arms about his neck.
Together they left the terrace to go into the house and up the stairs, their progress slow, for most of the way they paused to kiss and kiss again, barely able to break apart. In the moonlit room that had been hers on her visit, he threw off his coat and stripped her with loving haste until she stood naked in a tumbled circle of her own garments. Exultantly, she raised her hands to comb the pins out of her hair before lifting her arms high, her head back and her spine arched as he kissed her throat, before his mouth moved slowly downwards to travel the contours of her breasts and make her nipples stand erect. Dropping to one knee, he continued his passionate exploration of her, cupping her buttocks in his hands and lingering at her most secret place until she clutched his head, scarcely able to bear such pleasure, and turned his adoring face up to hers. Her eyes were brimming with love.
It was then that he lifted her about the hips and carried her across to the wide bed, where he ripped back the covers to lay her down. He discarded his own clothes swiftly and then came to take his place beside her, his body in full power and she so eager in her longing for him that neither could hold back. She gasped with joy as he entered her with such a gathering of their love between them that it was a moment unlike any other she had ever known. He prolonged their passion until at last their shared ecstasy burst forth together, throbbing through her with a force that made her leap within his embracing arms and finally sealed the love that they had long held for each other.
There followed a night of loving that left each knowing the other’s body as intimately as their own. Neither would ever forget those moonlit hours together. She was finally sleeping when he awoke in the dawn light and propped his weight on his elbow as he gazed down at her. Gently, he smoothed back some tendrils of hair that lay across her cheek, being careful not to disturb her, but she had been on the edge of wakefulness and his touch was enough to cause her to open her eyes and smile dreamily at him.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, reaching up her hand to run her fingers gently down the side of his face.
‘My darling,’ he answered in soft tones.
He moved over her and made slow and contented love to her in the dawn light.
Fourteen
Louise was still sleeping when Daniel rose from their bed, put on a silk robe, and parted the drapes at the window. Then he jerked the bell-rope to summon breakfast on a tray. When the maidservant brought it, he took it into the room himself. By now Louise was awake and he set the tray on the bed between them before he fetched another robe and helped her slip her arms into it.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said, kissing her. She sat back against the propped pillows, her chestnut hair in lovely disarray, and he buried his face in it before kissing her again.
With a smile she pushed him gently back. ‘Have breakfast now before you upset the tray. I must return to Independence House before I’m missed.’
He sat down on the bed to face her and drew up one knee to rest his arm across it as he gazed at her. The early rays of the sun bathed them in its warm, golden glow.
‘There’s plenty of time yet,’ he said. ‘And we need to discuss the future. In talking about your shop yesterday evening you mentioned wanting to outshine all the other milliners in Boston.’ He helped himself to a slice of fresh peach. ‘I hope you realize that you’ll never get the clientele that you seem to have been expecting.’
‘Why not?’ She would have thought he was joking if it had not been for the seriousness of his expression. ‘I know relations between our two countries have been deteriorating with French ships attacking American vessels in the West Indies, but personally I’ve never met any animosity.’
‘That’s not what I had in mind. I was referring to the scandal that you and I are going to create as soon as people find out about us.’
Louise looked confident. ‘But they won’t. Our love is a private matter between us.’
‘It will be a secret impossible to keep. Already you’ve spent the whole night away from the Bradshaws’ home, which will be known already below stairs there, and my household knows of your presence here. Servants’ tittle-tattle travels like lightning along the grapevine and soon spreads out into the community.’
‘That’s true in a small place, but Boston is like New York, where people are too busy with their own lives to concern themselves with the affairs of others.’
‘That’s where you’re mistaken. Boston isn’t like New York in that way or any other. There is still a small-town mentality here in that everybody of importance knows everyone else on the same social level. You’ll never get the Beacon Hill matrons crossing the threshold of your shop if there’s even a whisper of gossip about us. They’ll stop their daughters and all the rest of their female relatives and friends from buying from you, even though they might be drooling over your hats in the window.’
Louise raised her chin determinedly. ‘Then I shall make elegant, but less expensive hats for those with smaller purses. They will enjoy coming to my shop.’
‘But a lower pitch for customers whose interest in fashion is not all-consuming will put you on a level with all the other milliners and you’ll lose your chance to use your creative abilities to the full.’
‘Nevertheless I don’t intend to submit myself to any kind of subterfuge in being with you. I’m not afraid of scandal. I’ll face whatever comes.’
‘It’s of no consequence to me either, but that’s not the solution. You have to think about your cousins. Any scandal about you would rub off on those two highly respected people. And then there’s Delphine. She would suffer from having a sister with a notorious reputation. You could be responsible for ruining her chances of the good marriage that she’s hoping to make. Believe me, the social importance of position and class and outwardly impeccable reputations for women is probably stronger here in Boston than anywhere else in the country.’
Her face was bleak. ‘Does this mean that we must stay apart?’
‘That’s a sacrifice I’m not prepared to make and it’s one too many for you after all you’ve done already for your imp of a sister. No, but I have a solution.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We’ll have a marriage of convenience by which you can live above your millinery shop and I’ll continue to live here. People will think it strange, but since we shall be married, there will be no cause for gossip. We can be together whenever we wish. Otherwise, my dear Louise, I fear you’ll end up bankrupt and your diamonds will have been sold to no purpose.’
She tossed her napkin down on the tray and swung her legs over the side of the bed to spring to her feet. ‘You’re trying to trick me into marriage!’ Her voice was sharp and defensive. ‘It happened to me once before and I won’t let it happen again!’
He had not moved, but continued to look at her. ‘Every word I’ve spoken is the truth. You have to make a decision.’
She stood for a few moments, her fingers pressed to her temples, wretched that once again her original aims had been thwarted, but in declaring her love for Daniel, she had crossed the Rubicon and there was no going back. She could not live without him and behind his words she had heard his desperate need of her.
Thoughtfully, she sat down again on the edge of the bed. ‘Do you really mean that we could go on leading our separate lives?’
‘I give you my word. You’ll have your freedom and we shall go on being lovers just as you planned originally, but causing no harm to anyone. If we should have a child, he or she would not be illegitimate.’
‘It’s a bizarre arrangement!’ she exclaimed in protest.
‘But a practical one. You told me once in New York
that you always tried to deal with matters in a practical manner.’
‘That’s true,’ she admitted.
He clambered across the wide bed to swing down his feet and sit beside her. He tilted her chin up to him and there was laughter in his eyes. ‘I think we’ve found a way to keep married love alive. Maybe we should recommend it to others.’
She jerked her chin away, remote in her thoughts. ‘If I should decide that marriage is the only solution,’ she pondered uncertainly, ‘it would have to be a quiet wedding. Just two witnesses and us.’
‘That’s easily arranged. Let’s get married today! This morning!’
Once again she sprang to her feet, close to panic for the first time in her life. ‘It’s too soon! You’re rushing me into this! I must think about it for a few days.’
‘Take all the time you want, but don’t expect wagging tongues to wait too.’
She clasped her hands distractedly, lifting them up and down as she paced the floor several times before coming to a halt. ‘I see that I’ll have to do as you suggest,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘I can’t let anything I do taint the lives of my cousins or my sister. If we are to marry, it might as well be today.’
He came to put his arms around her, speaking softly. ‘You won’t regret it. Maybe there will come a day in the future when you’ll decide that the time is right for us to be together for the rest of our lives.’
She frowned, putting a finger firmly against his lips. ‘You mustn’t count on that, but you’ll be the only one I’ll love until my last breath.’
He drove her back to the Bradshaws’ home to wait while she changed, for she was certain that no minister would marry her in her present gown, which had such a low décolletage. She ran up the steps and a servant admitted her. Nobody else saw her arrive or leave, for it was not yet nine o’clock and Madeleine and Delphine were still in their rooms. Theodore was always up early, but he was shut away in his study.
When Louise emerged into the sunshine again she was wearing a cream straw hat that she had made, and the amber-hued muslin of her gown flowed against her legs as she hurried down the steps. On the way to the church, Daniel stopped the horses and jumped out to buy her a posy of flowers from a street seller. She inhaled the scent of the blossoms as they continued on their way.
New World, New Love Page 19
