by Janet Dailey
"Enough," Remy broke in, holding up her hands in mock surrender, then laughing and shaking her head. "It's no use, Cole. I'll never be able to tell a container ship from a tanker."
"That isn't exactly something to brag about," he chided, faintly amused.
"That's no brag—it's a fact." She turned her back to the rail and leaned her elbows on it, letting the breeze play through her hair. "Now, if you want to talk about porcelain, that's something else."
Her remark served to remind him that she was porcelain and he was ordinary river clay. Neither fact was he likely to forget, even if she pretended to. His glance strayed to the ferry in the distance, plowing its way across the swirling channel waters to the landing on the opposite bank. Cole turned from the rail to watch it.
"The ferry's making its run to Algiers." He nodded his head in its direction, pointing it out to her, then watching as she turned to look, pushing back the strands of tawny hair that blew across her face. "That's where I grew up—in a ramshackle house off Socrates."
Properly it was called Algiers Point, the origin of its name long ago lost. During French and Spanish rule, slave pens had been built there to hold newly arrived blacks from the West Indies and Africa. Although separated from it by the Mississippi, Algiers was a part of the city of New Orleans, called black Algiers by many, and not because of its origins.
"Some say Algiers is where the blues got their start," Remy said, gazing at the jutting point of land. Then she turned her head and fastened her eyes on him with typical directness. "Have you been there lately? There's some marvelous renovation and restoration work going on. In fact, it's becoming a fashionable place to live."
Cole sensed immediately that that was more than just an idle comment; it had some other overtones in it. "Are you suggesting I could become fashionable?"
"I don't know," she returned lightly, a tiny smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. "Do you think you could be a candidate for renovation and restoration?"
"No."
She laughed. "I didn't think so. And truthfully, I can't imagine you being anything other than what you are. 'Take it or leave it'—that's you." She pushed away from the rail and swung to face him in a lithe, graceful move, then slid her hands up the front of his shirt without any interference from his suit jacket, since he'd left it in the backseat of his car, along with his tie. "And I'm so glad I decided to take you."
He stopped her hands before they crept around his neck. "The question is, where do you plan to take me, Remy? Your family doesn't approve of this—affair—we're having."
The faint smile never left her face, but her fingers stopped their caressing play on his shirt as she withdrew from him and stepped back. "Has someone said something to you about us?"
"No." But he wasn't surprised by that, either. "Your father is in an awkward position. I may be good enough to run the family business, but I'm not good enough for his daughter. I can't pass the blood test—the one that checks the amount of 'blue' blood in a man's veins."
"Why do you keep bringing up this nonsense?"
He saw the anger slowly building in her expression, and ignored it. "Because it's true, whether you want to admit it or not."
"Do you want to know what's true, Cole Buchanan?" It flared hotly then, yellow fire flashing in her eyes. "It's true you were raised in Algiers and I come from the Garden district; you were poor while I had plenty; you struggled to survive, but for me, life was yachts on the lake, summer dances, and Carnival balls; you worked your way through college and I attended an expensive one; you've fought to get where you are, and I haven't! And I say, so what? My God, do you think I judge a man's worth by where he's from or what he was?"
She said it now—with the same heat, the same outrage, remembering it clearly, both the words and the emotions. Hearing her, Cole again felt that surge of feeling breaking through his restraint.
That time, those months ago, she had abruptly turned from him. But he hadn't let her stalk away in anger. He'd caught her arm and spun her around, needing to see her face, needing to see she'd meant it. Then he'd kissed her, there on the dock, amidst the whistling approval of the longshoremen, and her anger had turned to a loving passion.
The urge was in him to replay the rest of the scene to its former conclusion—and the desire was there in her eyes too. But he'd believed her then, he'd believed she was different, he'd believed— and he'd paid the price for it, a price that might still go higher. No, too much had changed, too many things had changed. He wasn't a believer anymore—and, more damning than that, neither was she.
Cole watched the light of desire fade from her eyes, and he never moved, never reached out to keep it there. Maybe he ought to. Maybe she'd forgotten. Maybe she never would remember— except he knew her family would see to it that she did.
The morning breeze blew a lock of hair across her cheek. She brushed it back, breaking eye contact with him in the process. "I remember that moment," she said quietly. "That is what happened, isn't it?"
"Yes." He sounded curt, and he knew it. Trying to cover it, he glanced at his watch. "I have to be at the office in ten minutes. You'd better come with me, and I'll arrange for a taxi to take you home."
Remy shook her head. "I can walk."
"Not at this hour, and not in this area." Taking her arm, he steered her away from the dock. She briefly stiffened in resistance, then abandoned it and let him guide her to his car.
As they drove away from the wharf area, Remy sat silently in the car. When she'd left the house this morning, she'd hoped she might remember something. She had. She'd found another piece of her memory—in many ways a beautiful memory. Yet . . . afterward, she'd had the strongest feeling that she'd lost something. Why? Why did she think that? Why did she feel it?
She stole a glance at Cole. Even in profile, his strong-featured face wore that same cold and forbidding expression he'd shown her on the dock. It was as if he hated her—this same man who'd made love to her so fiercely, so desperately, so thoroughly, only a day ago. Why had he changed? What had she done? Or—was it something he'd done?
She felt herself tensing, straining to recall, and immediately tried to make herself relax. Her memory wasn't something she could command to return, as she'd so painfully learned.
Seeking a diversion, Remy fixed her attention on the business district of New Orleans, rising before her with its canyonlike streets running between lofty buildings, an eclectic collection of architecture, with examples of nineteenth-century styles intermingling with the concrete-and-glass towers of the twentieth century. She waited for Cole to turn on Poydras Street and enter the heart of it. Instead he made the jog and turned in to the entrance to the International Trade Mart.
"What are we doing here?" She directed her bewildered frown at Cole when he opened the passenger door and offered a hand to assist her from the car. "I thought you had to be at your office."
"This is where the corporate offices for the Crescent Line are located," he replied, waving a hand in the direction of the thirty-three-story building as she stepped out of the car without his help.
"I don't remember that." Why? she wondered. "Have they been here long?"
"Since early in the sixties, shortly after the building was completed. I understand it was your grandfather's decision to move the company headquarters here." He took her arm and guided her toward the entrance. "A smart move, considering that some twenty-eight foreign consulates and trade offices are located in the Mart, as well as a number of import-export businesses, barge lines, and other shipping companies."
She would have commented on this rare expression of approval for something one of her family had done, but she was still bothered by the discovery that the company offices were in this building. She didn't dispute him, exactly; she just had a vague feeling there was something he wasn't telling her—something she almost remembered for herself.
"There's a taxi pulling up now." His hand tightened on her arm.
When he started to steer her toward
it, Remy pulled back. "No. I don't want to go home yet. I want to see the offices."
He opened his mouth as if to argue with her, then clamped it shut and swung toward the building.
When they reached the fifteenth floor, she saw the company logo on the door, gold lettering edged in black below it spelling out the name THE CRESTCENT LINE. The world map showing the major ports and shipping lanes that dominated one whole wall of the reception area was too typical of a decor associated with shipping. So were the models of racy clipper ships and sleek, modern vessels.
She followed Cole down the wide hall to the executive office area. She responded automatically to his secretary's greeting but didn't pause by her desk when Cole did.
"Have they arrived yet?" Cole asked as Remy wandered restlessly around the outer office, searching for something familiar, trailing a hand over the armrest of the leather sofa, wondering if it was the one Cole had set the framed print on to inspect it for damages, then moving on when it failed to strike any chord in her.
"Not yet, Mr. Buchanan," the painfully slim secretary replied, adding, "I put a stack of letters on your desk that require your signature."
Remy paused in front of the door to his corner office, vaguely aware of Cole's saying, "Miss Jardin will be leaving shortly. Make sure there's a cab waiting downstairs to take her home."
"I'll see to it right away."
Remy's hand reached for the doorknob as she realized it was imperative that she see inside. She turned the brass knob and gave the door a push, letting it swing open. She hesitated, then walked slowly into the room, the heels of her boots sounding loudly on the hardwood floor until they were muffled by the cushion of the thick Tabriz rug.
The morning light coming through the large windows gave a lustrous glow to the paneling, revealing the mahogany's rich patina—a patina that her mind told her couldn't be achieved over a few decades. A century, perhaps, but not mere decades. The wine leather chesterfield and wing-backed chairs in the small sitting area showed the wear of many hands. And the massive kneehole desk was clearly an antique—Sheraton, she thought.
More bewildered than ever, Remy turned and found Cole watching her from just inside the door. "I don't understand. This office is . . . old."
"Yes. Your grandfather moved the company headquarters but kept his office. It was dismantled in sections—floors, walls, and ceiling," he said, thumbing a hand at the coffered mahogany ceiling above them, "and then reassembled here, with allowances made—grudgingly, I'm told—for the Mart's larger windows."
"Subconsciously I must have been remembering how very old this office was—without remembering it had been moved here." She reached down and gave an antique globe a turn in its Chippendale stand, wondering if she'd played with it when she'd come here to see her father as a child.
"If you've satisfied your curiosity, or whatever it was, I have work to do," he stated, abruptly and briskly crossing the room to his desk.
Remy looked up, well aware that he wanted her to leave and doubting that his reason was solely the press of business. "I do have one other question."
"What is it?" There was a hardness in his expression, as if he was setting himself against her, as he'd done at the docks.
"Why did you leave the airport last night without a word to me or anyone else?"
"I have a question for you: why didn't you come after me?"
"I don't have an answer for that."
"And maybe that, in itself, is an answer."
"Maybe it is." As she moved away from the globe, the light from the window glared on a framed picture, obscuring the subject and drawing her attention to it. In her mind's eye she had a fleeting glimpse of a silver-haired man, stiffly posed in a boxy jacket with wide lapels. "Grand-père." She immediately identified the brief image. "Is that his portrait?"
Without waiting for Cole to confirm it, Remy walked over to see for herself. She stared in surprise at the somewhat dashing figure in oil, dressed in a black frock coat and a silver brocade vest. His hair, far from being silver, was a deep, dark shade of red, cut fairly short, just covering the top of his ears and parted slightly off-center —the only hint of anything even slightly tamed about him. His eyes gleamed with laughter, and a smile lifted the corners of his mustache and creased his deeply tanned cheeks. The whole impression was one of a strong, vigorous man who relished challenge regardless of the odds.
"Who's the man in the portrait? Is this painting one of yours?" The instant the words were out, Remy turned with a start, paling slightly. "I've asked you that before, haven't I?" He nodded that she had, then waited, as if to see what else she remembered. But it was all blank after that. "What did you tell me when I asked?"
"It's a portrait of the company's founder. I found it buried under a hundred years of dust in one of the company's warehouses along the waterfront."
She took another look at the painting. "How strange. He doesn't look like a Jardin at all."
"That's because he isn't a Jardin," Cole stated.
"What? That's impossible. A Jardin has always been the owner of the Crescent Line."
"Not always. Certainly not in the beginning. That man—Brodie Donovan—started the Crescent Line."
"Donovan." Inwardly she wanted to reject everything Cole said, certain that he had to be wrong. But she couldn't remember. Was he right? Was this another piece of information about her family trapped behind that wall of blankness?
"By rights, Remy," Cole went on, "your name should be Donovan, not Jardin."
"What are you talking about?" she demanded, thoroughly confused.
He started to answer, then glanced at the connecting door to the outer office and paused for a fraction of an instant, smiling without warmth. "Maybe you should ask your uncle to explain."
Remy swung toward the door that had been left open. Marc Jardin stood with one foot inside the office, his dark eyes narrowed at the portrait, his mouth compressed in a tight line of displeasure. Then the look was gone, wiped away without a trace, a bland smile in its place.
"This is a surprise, Remy." He walked across the rug to her.
"Uncle Marc. Good morning." She was certain he'd overheard the statements—the assertions— Cole had just made about their family, yet he seemed to be deliberately ignoring them. Why? Did his silence mean they were true? Or was Brodie Donovan a subject he didn't wish to discuss in front of Cole? Some little voice inside her head said, Family secrets should stay just that. She obeyed the dictum and followed his lead, explaining instead, "I went for a walk this morning and . . . this is where I ended up."
"What brings you to the office so early, Marc?" Cole inquired with a faintly aloof indifference. "At this hour you're usually huddled with your buddies at the coffee shop of the Hotel Pontchartrain, aren't you?"
"Usually," her uncle admitted. "But with the meeting this morning—"
"There is a meeting scheduled for this morning. But what does that have to do with you?" There was a forbidding coldness in Cole's expression, which seemed to cause the temperature in the room to drop several degrees.
"I felt I should be here," Marc Jardin replied, his smile becoming a little forced around the edges.
"Why?"
A redness began to creep up her uncle's neck. "Why?" He laughed, a little self-consciously. "I am an officer of the company, Cole, as well as a director and major stockholder."
"So you are," Cole agreed. "But I think you've forgotten that I do the talking for the company now. And your presence isn't required."
"I see," her uncle murmured, a stiffness—a rigidity—in his expression and his stance.
Realizing there was no way he could make the graceful exit that his pride desired, Remy spoke up quickly. "If you aren't needed here, could I persuade you to give me a ride home, Uncle Marc?"
He turned, a flicker of gratitude showing in his dark eyes. "It would be my pleasure, Remy." He offered her his arm in mock courtliness. Remy took it and walked out of the office at his side.
11
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Ensconced in the passenger seat of her uncle's gray Mercedes, Remy listened to the soothing sound of his voice as he drove along St. Charles Avenue, en route to her home. As he had from the moment they'd left Cole's office, Marc Jardin talked about his son and daughters and their children, telling her about the recent parades and festivities his grandchildren had attended and recounting amusing incidents concerning their reactions to them. Remy smiled at the appropriate times, but her attention drifted, her glance straying out the window to observe the morning brightness along the avenue—seeing it now without the darkness that had shadowed it the night before and without the swirling fog that had layered it in the early dawn hours of this morning.
Reminders of the current Carnival season were visible all along the popular parade route, brightly colored beads—the "throws" from the floats— winking at her from the branches of the majestic oaks lining the street, and plastic cups—the ever-popular "go-cups" that held revelers' favorite spirits—lying almost hidden beneath the azalea bushes planted the length of the neutral ground, their tightly budded blooms nearing the day when the median strip would burst into its pink glory.
And here and there Remy caught a glimpse of the official Rex flag of the elite Carnival club flying in front of a stately home in the Garden district, safe behind elaborate wrought-iron fences and guarded by towering magnolias. Seeing the insignias, she recalled that by tradition, only former rulers of Mardi Gras—the ex-Rexes and their queens—were allowed the privilege of displaying the purple, green, and gold flags in front of their homes. Purple for justice, green for faith, and gold for power, of course.
