Tainted Lilies

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  Nicolette’s fingers moved delicately, letting the tissue silk of the gown her aunt offered slither over her hand. The color had no name that Nicolette could think of—sunset-rose, coral-fire, or ruby-glow, perhaps. She’d never seen such a shade on a young woman and certainly she had never worn any color so vibrant. She held it up and smiled, the hue reflecting a warm blush on her face.

  “I hope you like it, ma chère. It is also my gift of apology to you.”

  Nicolette stared at her aunt, not understanding. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  “Oh, come now, Nikki! We both know I behaved abominably this afternoon toward your young man. I’m sure I embarrassed you as much as I did him. I’ve simply lived too long in Paris and I’ve become far too outspoken because of it. I promise to make amends to Monsieur Bermudez as well.”

  “Aunt Gabi,” Nicolette said, hugging the woman, “you are wonderful!”

  “Bien! Enough, Nikki! I know when I’ve been naughty. You are a dear not to scold me as I deserve. Now let’s get you dressed. That charming Diego will be here any moment.”

  When Gabrielle had helped Nicolette into the gossamer gown, they both stood back from the mirror, appraising the effect. Nicolette frowned.

  “I can’t wear this,” she said apologetically.

  “Why ever not, my dear?”

  Gabrielle tried to hold a look of surprise on her face for her niece’s benefit. She knew as well as Nicolette that the gown was cut along all too revealing lines, that the sheer, clinging fabric left almost nothing of Nicolette’s form to the imagination, and that the vibrant color gave the girl’s face and the shocking expanse of exposed bosom a passionate glow that would have seemed daring even on one of Napoleon’s courtesans. But, if her plan were to work, she had to convince her niece that the gown looked fetching and proper on her.

  “Oh, I see the problem now, Nikki! How silly of me not to have thought of it before. It’s your hair, dear. To allow the costume its full impact, we’ll have to put your hair up, of course.”

  Nicolette grasped her long curls with a horrified look on her face, as if her aunt had just come after her with shears. “Oh, no! I couldn’t! Jean likes it… She stopped and laughed with nervous embarrassment. “How stupid of me! I almost said that Jean wanted me always to wear it down.” She grabbed a handful of ivory hairpins and began doing up her hair with a vengeance, forcing back tears. “Always!” she repeated. “But that always doesn’t exist, does it, Aunt Gabi? It never really existed at all!”

  Nicolette’s words and her pathetic, heartbroken tone wrenched Gabrielle’s heart. Gabrielle renewed her resolve to go ahead with this plan, no matter that it would hurt them both for the time being.

  “Nicolette, you foolish child!” she chided. “You don’t mean you believed all those things that pirate promised you? Why, you’re working yourself into a frenzy over the man at this very moment. I went along with you when we were on Grande Terre because I felt it was our only way of escape and you did seem willing enough to make the sacrifice. I admit that I was shocked when I arrived here and found you ready for another wedding so quickly. But I thought you were resigned to this arrangement. Then, after I met Diego and saw that he was everything your papa had promised, well, I just assumed that all was as it should be. My cross-examination of him was no more or less than I would have subjected any man to under the circumstances. You can’t be telling me now that you are having second thoughts?”

  All the while that Gabrielle talked, she worked her magic with Nicolette’s hair, pulling it high in curls and waves to add years and sophistication to her niece’s appearance.

  Mon Dieu! She’s a ravishing beauty! she thought. No wonder Laffite fell so helplessly in love with her so quickly! And Diego Bermudez, that pompous ass, thinks he can make up for what she’s known and lost! Never!

  But Gabrielle DelaCroix thought one thing and spoke the opposite—all a part of her plan.

  “There, Nikki!” she said, putting the last touch to her niece’s new coiffure. “Your darling Diego will be dazzled. Stand up! Let’s have a look at you.”

  Nicolette did as ordered, but in a halfhearted manner.

  “Beautiful! Exquisite! Magnifique! Why, if Jean Laffite could see you now, he wouldn’t send you away!”

  Nicolette turned and stared at her aunt, a look of pained anguish in her eyes. “He didn’t send me away. I left him!”

  “Of course you did! How careless of me to forget your story, Nikki. Let’s see, your papa and Diego tricked you, wasn’t that it? I’ll remember from now on.”

  Gabrielle avoided her niece’s mournful look by going to the dressing table and pretending to study the scent bottles there.

  “You certainly learned your lessons from me well, Nikki. One of the first was never to let it be known you were ever spurned by a man. And any gentleman will allow a lady to pretend she has broken the association. I suppose Laffite had some training in etiquette, years ago.”

  “Aunt Gabi, you don’t understand. I told you the truth! I left him and wrote a note telling him why and where I was going. He didn’t really want me to leave!” There was desperation in her voice. Her thoughts went back to the morning of the day she left. Jean had been so angry with her. Would he have sent her away, if she hadn’t left before he had a chance to?

  “Nicolette,” Gabrielle said sternly, facing her now, “did it ever occur to you that there might have been three conspirators in the plot to return you to New Orleans?”

  “Three? But I don’t understand what you…”

  Suddenly Nicolette did understand. She gasped and buried her face in her hands.

  “There’s nothing to cry about now! The time for tears is over, Nikki. You’re home again and the date of your marriage is set. Forget what measures were needed to bring about this end!”

  Gabrielle saw from the secession of tears and the new resolve on Nicolette’s face that her niece was actually beginning to believe that she’d been used by her lover. Now the final thrust of her verbal blade to put Nicolette’s feelings in order once and for all.

  “Forget Laffite’s kisses, his caresses, the endearments he must have whispered into your ear during the wee hours when the two of you were alone and… intimate with each other. The feel of his hands stroking your flesh was no different from what you’ll experience with your husband. And, take it from one who speaks from a vast store of knowledge, in bed in the dark, one man’s thrust hurts no more or less than the next!”

  “But Jean never hurt me!” Nicolette gasped, discomfited by her aunt’s outspokenness, but wanting to defend Laffite.

  Gabrielle gave her niece the barest smile, as if she didn’t believe her. “Really?”

  Nicolette knew her face was flaming. No woman had ever spoken to her so frankly about these matters. Her aunt only stood there, waiting and watching her.

  Nicolette shook her head to clear it. She couldn’t speak for several minutes. Her aunt’s words had sparked such memories, such deep, longed-for feelings. She trembled, remembering how Jean Laffite could fire her senses.

  “I can’t… describe… can’t talk about it,” she whispered finally.

  “Very well. I’ll leave you to think about it then.”

  Gabrielle DelaCroix closed the door behind her and gave a sigh of relief. She wondered if the conversation had been half as taxing for Nikki as it had been for her.

  “But it had to be done,” she told herself. “And now for the finishing touch. I must speak to Diego alone.”

  She glanced back at Nicolette’s door when she heard a sound come from within. Crying? No, she realized. It had been a heavy sigh almost like the sound a passionate woman might utter at that special moment of ecstasy with the man she loves.

  And so it was. Nicolette stood where Gabrielle had left her. But now her eyes were tightly shut and she swayed to inner rhythm. Behind her closed lids, she watched Jean Laffite’s love-filled face, his naked body stalking toward her like a panther courting its mate. So viv
id were her memories that she could almost feel his hands caressing her breasts, fondling her, inflaming her.

  Not until she heard the bell at the carriage entrance downstairs did she snap out of her euphoric trance. Alone again, once the fantasies of her lover had fled, she felt empty and older—not at all like the young girl who had been manipulated these past days by her family. Perhaps she would do well to give her present situation more consideration before she rushed into anything.

  If Gabrielle DelaCroix understood her niece and knew exactly how to trigger the responses she wished in Nicolette, the opposite was true when it came to Diego Bermudez.

  She judged him wrong from the outset. He was not the proper Creole she imagined. He did not possess that well-spring of honor so pronounced in the breed. Nor was he in the least concerned with tradition, propriety, or a virgin bride. In fact, he found shy, inexperienced women quite boring. But Gabrielle knew none of this.

  “My dear, Monsieur Bermudez,” Gabrielle gushed, meeting him in the salon with an ingratiating smile as she captured his arm. “I do hope you won’t mind my entertaining you for a few moments until the others come down.”

  Looking into her face, he might have thought there were twin sisters in the house—the ogre who had attacked him earlier and now this charming seductress clinging to his arm and staring up at him with warm eyes.

  His smile was slow, cautiously inviting. “Madame DelaCroix, I presume?” he mocked with the words she had used on him earlier. “I hardly recognized you with your claws sheathed.”

  She lowered her lashes flirtatiously and looked away. “I was a witch this afternoon, wasn’t I?”

  “I plead a gentleman’s right not to answer that question, madame.”

  “And a gentleman you were not to answer me harshly at the time. It’s just that Nicolette is so dear to me, and after what she had to endure at the hands of that brute, Laffite! Well, you can see my concern for her, can’t you, Diego?”

  “Cenainement!”

  Her expression grew grave suddenly. “I knew I could count on you to understand.” She paused, but Diego realized it was only a slight hesitation. He waited for her to go on. She did.

  “There are other areas in which you must show understanding, if you plan to marry our Nikki, Diego.”

  She led him to the settee and they sat down together. He became more than curious as she took his hands in hers and looked up at him with a doleful expression.

  She gave a deep sigh before she continued. “Diego, you appear to be a man of the world, not a moonstruck boy. So I feel that I can speak frankly with you. Nicolette is not the girl you expected to marry. Forgive me if I seem brazen or if I stumble on the words. Poor Nikki, of course, couldn’t bring herself to tell you and I can’t destroy my brother-in-law by explaining to him so that he can talk to you. That leaves this odious task up to me.”

  Gabrielle paused for such a long time that Diego, his curiosity getting the better of him, prompted, “Go on, madame, please.”

  “Nicolette is no longer untouched!” she blurted out. “Of course, she and her family will understand if you wish to call a halt to the wedding plans.”

  Now the silence came from Bermudez. Wonderful! Gabrielle thought. He’s so shocked he can’t even find his tongue!

  He looked at her, his face totally expressionless though his pulses pounded with excitement. “Laffite?” he asked.

  Gabrielle clenched her teeth and offered a silent prayer for forgiveness before she answered, “For one.”

  “Raped?”

  Odd, Gabrielle thought. That quiver in his voice sounded almost as if he relished the thought. She must be mistaken.

  “Repeatedly,” she whispered.

  Diego rose on shaky legs, the thought of tender Nicolette at the carnal mercy of hordes of lust-hungry pirates making him weak with desire for her.

  “How she must have suffered!” he said in a tight voice.

  “Shall I explain to them all that you’ve decided against the marriage?” Gabrielle asked, trying to keep the hopeful note out of her voice. “They’ll be shattered, of course, but under the circumstances .

  “On the contrary, madame!” Diego answered quickly.

  Damn! she thought. He’s more noble than I’d counted on. I’ll have to go on with this.

  “Very well! I suppose I must tell you everything, Diego. Nicolette has changed since she left home. The things she’s been through have damaged her very soul. She imagines that she’s in love with Laffite. She’s sworn to return to him—to be his woman. Why, she’s even dressing now as if she were one of those dreadful tarts from the ramparts. You couldn’t possibly think of taking a wife who dresses and behaves like an octoroon mistress!”

  Diego wasn’t listening any longer. Every word Gabrielle had spoken only served to fire his blood. So, the little mouse of a girl he had chosen to wed offered more promise than he could have ever dreamed of. She had been seasoned by many men, would come to him knowing secrets learned from experienced lovers. He wouldn’t have to coddle and cajole on their wedding night. If she can’t have Laffite, by God, she’ll submit to me in short order, he thought.

  Somewhere in the room, Gabrielle DelaCroix was going on and on about a blasted dress.” He couldn’t care less about a dress!

  Diego caught a ragged breath when Nicolette appeared at the door. She was draped in the most magnificent, indecent gown he had ever seen on a decent woman.

  God! What a body she has! he thought.

  His eyes traveled down the tight fabric of the bodice, which fit so snugly that her breasts seemed to overflow the brilliant silk. Her ripe nipples stood out in bas-relief. When she moved, the skirt clung to her from thighs to ankles, showing him what petticoats had denied his vision up to now. His lower body gave a spasm of delight and longing.

  “Monsieur Bermudez?” Gabrielle’s voice, urgent and questioning, interrupted his visual feast, demanding an answer.

  “The wedding will be on Monday, as scheduled!” he shot back at her. Then he went to Nicolette and took her into his arms to kiss her and declare his intentions.

  In spite of the consuming heat Diego’s kiss spawned in his own body, his mind worked old channels. Unlike Gabrielle DelaCroix, he had no qualms about telling Claude Vernet of his daughter’s soiled virtue. That knowledge, and his willingness to marry Nicolette anyway, should be worth at least another couple of thousand to the man. That money would cover most of his gambling debts at the moment.

  Yes, he decided, forcing Nicolette’s lips apart to find the sweetness of her tongue, Madame DelaCroix had done him a great service. She had provided him with the knowledge he needed to inspire his lust for his bride and with the perfect wedge to pry more funds out of Claude Vernet.

  Nicolette, consumed with longing for Jean Laffite after her mental intimacy with him, was caught off guard by Diego’s unexpected embrace. Her first impulse, to fight him, soon melted as he touched remembered chords, triggering passionate impulses. For a time, she relaxed in his arms and savored the sensations he aroused. Perhaps, she thought, Aunt Gabi is right—one man’s love is the same as any other’s. I’ve been through all this anguish for nothing. It wasn’t Jean Laffite I wanted. It was love!

  She pressed her body close to Diego’s, feeling his surge of longing, which nourished her own. Her mental turmoil eased. She pushed all thoughts of Jean Laffite to a far, dark edge of her mind.

  Diego is here, now, and will be forever, she thought. He loves me and I will love him.

  Chapter Twelve

  Claude Vernet regretted having ordered the expensive cargo of spiders from China. He felt he had been irrationally extravagant, too, when he commanded his slave blacksmith to grind all those gold and silver coins to dust. But it was too late now!

  He stood on the veranda of his upriver plantation, Belle Pointe, staring down the long avenue of giant oaks. He watched as seventy-five field hands worked among the trees, using hand bellows to blow a fortune in gold and silver particles into the mil
es of cobwebs spun by the Chinese spiders.

  True, the treasure-dusted branches would form a glittering canopy for Nicolette’s wedding and the reception planned for three hundred guests afterwards, but had he known that Diego Bermudez would demand more dowry money at the last minute, he might have counted the cost of preparations more frugally.

  Once again he had that pirate, Jean Laffite, to thank for his misfortunes. According to Bermudez, Laffite was the one who had forced his daughter—ruining her reputation, costing him another two thousand to secure her future.

  Even at that, the money was well spent. Suppose she was carrying the man’s bastard seed! He forced his mind away from that onerous thought, but not from Jean Laffite and his smuggler band.

  His own import business was in dire straits at the present time, thanks to the illicit trade carried on by the Baratarians. He couldn’t say he blamed the citizens of New Orleans. They had suffered long under Spanish tariffs. Why, then, should they not take advantage of the duty-free goods Laffite offered, rather than paying much more for the similar merchandise he imported? Still, there were laws against trafficking in contraband, and Governor Claiborne should do something about it. The whole economy of New Orleans was suffering these days, thanks to Jean Laffite.

  “Papa?” Nicolette said, slipping a hand through her father’s arm. “Why such a sour expression? You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”

  He forcibly smoothed the wrinkles from his brow and smiled down at his lovely daughter.

  “No, Nikki. Everything must be just so for your wedding. I’d happily spend twice as much to see you properly wed.”

  Nicolette frowned now. That wasn’t what she’d meant, and for her father to mention money in even this slight way told her he was concerned about finances.

  “I meant second thoughts about Diego, Papa,” she corrected gently.

  “Diego?” he laughed. “Why would you even ask such a thing? No, ma cherel Diego has a business head on him that will keep him as solid as the new levee. And he seems ever so fond of you. If I could have chosen from all the men in the world for you, I believe I still would have picked Diego Bermudez to be your husband, Nikki.” He bent and kissed her forehead. “I want you to be happy, ma petite.”