The Emerald Queen (A Vieux Carré Romance)

by Karen Jones Delk

  When the fencing was finished and the others had departed, Simone and Alain lingered in the gathering dusk,

  “I’ve had so many good times in this ballroom,” she murmured, looking around.

  “I enjoyed Twelfth Night here, though you might have warned me about the Martin females,” Alain said with a wry smile.

  “Sorry.” Simone flashed an unrepentant smile toward him, looking more like her old self.

  “You should be,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “I did everything but barricade myself inside the garçonnière. Madame Martin is a determined woman.”

  “But she did not catch the elusive Alain de Vallière for her Nell,” Simone joshed gently.

  “Non,” he murmured, his dark eyes pensive. “May I come again tomorrow?” he asked as they walked to the allée.

  “I don’t think that is a good idea.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked. I would do nothing to damage your reputation, to hurt you.”

  “No, not anymore,” she said simply.

  “I know I was a cad when I returned to New Orleans, and I have behaved badly,” he admitted. “I hurt inside, and I wanted you to feel the same pain. But now I would do anything to take your hurt away, Simone.”

  “You’ve become a good friend, ‘Lain.” Tiptoeing, she kissed his cheek, then stepped back and offered her hand formally. “I enjoyed your visit, but I should not see you again for a while.”

  “I understand. Au revoir,” he murmured regretfully, kissing her hand in farewell.

  As he rode away, Simone returned to the house, feeling her loneliness acutely. Yet she knew she had done the right thing in telling Alain to stay away. Though he had behaved well, had even apologized, and had offered genuine friendship, she had seen something unsettled—and unsettling—in his eyes. It would be better if he stayed away.

  “She tries,” Batiste told Lisette as he paced before her fireplace at Hideaway. “When the slaves gathered for their gifts at Christmas, she was almost the old Simone.”

  “I had hoped she was getting better,” Lisette said with a sigh. “For nearly two months she threw herself into harvest, riding at your side as Tom would have, but now I see, she fills her days with work so she doesn’t have to think.”

  “I don’t think she has ever cried, ever gotten her sadness out,” the big man said. “And now Twelfth night is coming.”

  “I agree she should not be alone,” Lisette mused, “but I don’t think she will welcome a houseguest, even me. Still, I plan to visit LaVictoire on New Year’s with a gift for Rory. Maybe...”

  “Simone, come quickly!” Batiste bellowed as he bore Lisette in his brawny arms toward the house.

  Her heart in her throat, Simone flew to meet them on the gallery. “What happened?”

  “How stupid! I turned my ankle getting out of my carriage,” Lisette answered through clenched teeth. “It’s nothing really.”

  “Napoleon,” Batiste summoned the gawking boy, “bring ice from the icehouse. Petite amie, could you fetch some bandages?”

  “Oui.” Simone raced to do his bidding. When she returned, Lisette groaned, “I do not know what has come over me, chère, but I feel so faint.”

  “I’ll get you a cordial.” Shoving the bandages toward Batiste, Simone hurried into the library.

  By the time she came back, he had wrapped the injured foot and was telling Lisette, “It’s a bad sprain, and you’re going to have to stay off of it. You should not travel, not even to Hideaway.”

  “Oh, dear.” Lisette gazed at Simone helplessly.

  “Don’t worry,” her hostess soothed. “We’ll send word to Monsieur Guilbeau that you won’t be home for a few days and ask your servants to send some clothes for you.”

  “Oui, I’m ill-prepared for a long stay,” Lisette agreed. “I hope you don’t mind having a guest for a few days, ma petite.”

  “Of course not.” Already searching for paper and pen in order to write a note to Monsieur Guilbeau, Simone did not see the satisfied look that passed between her two old friends.

  After a couple of days Batiste declared Lisette fit enough to hobble around the house with the aid of a cane. Simone was glad to have her friend staying with her, and she did not seem to notice how everyone watched her or that no one left her alone.

  The day of Twelfth Night passed without comment from Simone, and, though she seemed preoccupied, she behaved as if it were a day like any other. As Lisette watched her trudge away early to bed, she wondered if perhaps they had worried for no reason.

  But during the night she was awakened by light footsteps on the stairs. Rising, she went to the balustrade and peered down into the foyer. Simone’s nightgown-clad figure was unmistakable in the darkness as she crossed to the ballroom.

  Stealing downstairs, Lisette opened the huge sliding doors a crack to see Simone standing in the middle of the ballroom, bathed in moonlight. Her heart ached when she heard her friend’s words.

  “Tom,” Simone whispered into the darkness, “are you here? It is Twelfth Night, when we always celebrated our anniversary. You wouldn’t leave me alone tonight of all nights, would you?”

  The only sound was the wind in the trees.

  “Alone,” she muttered dismally, sinking to sit on the floor. “All alone.” Suddenly she buried her face in her hands, and her body shook with sobs. “I need you so, Tom. How could you leave me?”

  Lisette stayed where she was for a moment, letting her friend weep cleansing tears. Then she went to kneel beside her huddled figure. “You are not alone, Simone,” she said quietly.

  The grieving woman raised her tear-stained face, and an anguished cry rose from deep inside her. “But I have never felt so alone.”

  “I know, dear one.” Lisette sat down beside her and placed her arm around her quaking shoulders. “Cry and get it over. Scream and wail, if you must, but let your sorrow out. Tom would not want you to live in this lonely, silent mourning forever.”

  “No, he believed in living life to the fullest,” Simone sobbed. “That makes it even worse. I should have been the one Marcel killed. How I wish I were. I was the one he hated. I was the one he wanted to destroy. Tom had done nothing to him. Don’t you see? It’s all my fault. Marie LeVeau was right—I bring danger to those I love.”

  “Hush, you are not to blame.” Lisette rocked her gently. “Marcel Baudin was a madman.”

  “But if it were not for his hatred of me, Tom would still be alive,” Simone wept.

  “And if it were not for you, Tom would have missed out on the happiest years of his life,” the other woman argued kindly. “Tom loved you, and he would want you to go on living . . .to the fullest.”

  “I know what you say is true,” Simone sniffled, “but it is so hard without him.”

  “But you will go on living. It will take time, and there will be pain, but you will do it.” Lisette rose and offered a hand. “After all, you are the stubbornest woman . . .”

  Simone smiled through her tears and allowed her friend to hoist her to her feet. “I know, I’m the stubbornest woman you’ve ever met. Merci, Lise.” She kissed her cheek.

  “Tell me,” she said as, arm in arm, they went upstairs, “how is it you are no longer limping?”

  “Oh, my ankle is much better, chère, ” Lisette answered with a rich laugh. “In fact, I think everything will be better now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  It was nearly midnight when Alain and Lisette lingered over coffee. The windows and doors of Hideaway were open, and a small slave operated the punkah over the table, but nothing relieved the discomfort of the muggy summer night.

  “Will you see Simone while you’re here, Alain?” Lisette asked. “It’s been more than six months since you saw her last, after all.”

  “I plan to try,” he answered, sipping his coffee. “The worst she can do is to say no again. Sooner or later, she must say yes.”

  They were silent for a moment, then he asked, “Simone takes an interest in LaVictoire now?” />
  “Oui,” she affirmed. “Since January, she’s been keeping the books, much to Batiste’s relief. He’d rather be outdoors, especially now. Harvest is coming, and he is trying to finish the installation of that centrifugal machine Tom wanted.”

  “I’m glad Batiste stayed with Simone,” Alain said sincerely. “She needed him.”

  “He’s been invaluable,” she agreed. “He makes a lot of the decisions at LaVictoire, though most factors think they’re dealing with his mistress through an agent.”

  “She is well?” His voice was low but urgent.

  “She works too hard, and she tries to be both mother and father to Rory, but she seems fit enough.”

  “And how is Aurora?” He smiled indulgently.

  “The most perfect child who ever lived,” her godmother answered promptly, her gray eyes twinkling. “You’ll see. Celestina will bring her over later this week.

  “I’m glad you’re here, ‘Lain,” Lisette added candidly. “Much has happened in the past year, but I feel have my old friend back.”

  “I’m glad to be back,” he responded with a smile. But Lisette saw the glimmer of pain that lingered in his deep brown eyes.

  In a bedroom at LaVictoire, Jupiter was instantly awake when his mistress sat up in bed. It was no use, Simone brooded, she could not sleep in this heat. Clawing at the baire, she climbed out of bed, her nightgown clinging to her sweat-dampened body. Tugging the fabric away from her skin, she padded barefoot across the room to shove the window open farther and await the breeze that did not come.

  Opening the French doors, she stepped out onto the moonlit gallery. Jupiter yawned loudly behind her, and his nails clicked on the floor as he followed her outside.

  In the flowerboxes, red geraniums drooped pitifully. Not a breath of air stirred as Simone’s eyes alit on the summerhouse near the shadowy woods. Its white latticework seemed to shimmer, beckoning in the moonlight.

  “Come, Jupiter,” she murmured and set out for the coolest place at LaVictoire.

  Stripped down to his shirtsleeves, Alain wandered along the bayou that bordered Lisette’s property, listening to the croaking of frogs and a plop in the water as a snake slid down the bank. Finding the path from the water, he made his way past LaVictoire’s chapel and the crypts gleaming and ghostly in the moonlight. At the edge of the lawn he stopped beneath a tree and stared at the dark house. He didn’t know why he had been drawn here at this hour of the night, but he had felt compelled to come.

  When a spectral figure flitted across the lawn, his eyes narrowed. Simone’s nightgown took on an unearthly glow in the moonlight. Behind her, Jupiter seemed to weave in and out of the dappled shadows.

  Purposefully, Alain followed when they disappeared into the summerhouse. As he approached, he heard the dog growl.

  “Who is it?” Simone asked without fear.

  “Alain.”

  “Friend, Jupiter,” she said. Immediately the big dogs bounded down the steps, tail wagging, to meet the man.

  “Bonsoir,” Simone said simply when Alain joined her. She sat on one of the cushioned benches that bordered the interior of the summerhouse. Her face was obscured by shadow, but her hair, hanging almost to her waist, seemed to reflect the silvery moonlight pouring through an open window behind her.

  “What are you doing out here, Simone?” he asked in greeting.

  “I might ask you the same thing.”

  Suddenly, Alain felt ill at ease and acutely aware that neither of them was fully dressed. “I. . .I’m staying at Hideaway. I couldn’t sleep, so I took a walk. Somehow I ended up here.”

  “I couldn’t sleep either,” she said quietly.

  “It’s not good for you to be out alone . . . unprotected.”

  “I have . . .” Her voice trailing off, she looked around. “I had Jupiter with me. He’s probably off chasing rabbits now.”

  “Why don’t I walk you back to the house?”

  Safe in the shadows, Simone was unwilling to move, afraid to be near Alain, chagrinned at being caught in nothing more than her batiste nightgown. “Non, merci,” she demurred. “Jupiter will return soon.”

  “I’ll wait with you,” the man insisted, sitting down across from her on the bench beside the door. For his own sanity, he could not go too close to her. At their last farewell, it had taken all his control not to hold her and kiss her and comfort her. He could not sit beside her in the summer night without taking her in his arms, and he would not risk scaring her away.

  “You don’t have to wait.” Simone’s nervousness was apparent in her protest.

  “I want to.”

  She said nothing, but she leaned farther into the shadows. Uncomfortably aware of each other, they sat in silence, the cries of the night birds the only sounds.

  What was wrong with her? Simone asked herself. She was a grown woman, widowed, with a child, and still Alain made her nervous and uncertain. Her heart pounded at the memory of the love they had once shared. He had still wanted her when he reappeared in her life. Perhaps he did yet. But desire alone would never be enough. Why, then, did her body yearn for his touch?

  “Perhaps I should go in, after all,” she blurted out, rising.

  Alain’s breath caught as the moonlight washed over her, illuminating her delicate features and outlining the curves under her sheer nightgown.

  “I’ll be fine.” She hastened toward the door. “You needn’t bother to walk me.”

  “No bother,” he forced himself to reply calmly. He stood, but he could not, would not, take her arm or touch her at all. After all, he was only flesh and blood.

  Wordlessly, they crossed the lawn. At the foot of the stairs, Simone stopped to bid him good night, but Alain began to climb to the lower gallery.

  She stared after him. “Where are you going?”

  “To see the lady to her door. Yours is the one that is open upstairs, isn’t it?”

  “Oui.” She passed him, unaware that he watched the sway of her full nightgown as she preceded him along the dark gallery.

  When they reached the stairs that led to the upper floor, Simone stopped again and turned to say good night. Unprepared for the rapid halt, Alain collided with her, his arms reflexively catching her, steadying her against his chest.

  She gasped, feeling the heat of his hands and his bare forearms encircling her waist, searing her body through her thin gown. One of his long, lean legs was pressed insistently between hers.

  With Simone’s sudden intake of breath, Alain felt her breasts, soft yet firm, crushed against his chest, and suddenly, he was in no hurry to let her go. When she had feared she was falling, her hands had gripped his broad shoulders, and there they rested as she looked up at him in dismay, her green eyes jewel-like in the moonlight.

  “Alain, don’t--”

  “I haven’t yet.” His husky voice floated over her like a caress as he lowered his mouth to hers.

  She became very still in his arms. But her heart pumped blood, like liquid fire, to the very core of her being. His kiss did nothing to lessen the burning within her, but she craved it all the more. Her arms stole around his neck, and her fingers laced through his hair.

  Then his hands were on her everywhere, kindling flames of desire. His mouth blazed a scorching trail downward to the breasts straining against the gauzy fabric of her nightgown. Her pulse pounded beneath his lips as they grazed the soft flesh of her neck.

  Alain stared down at her as if looking for a sign. Simone’s unguarded face was luminous with desire, inviting his caresses. Her head was thrown back, her throat offered for kissing. Her eyes closed, she stirred in his embrace, her lips seeking his.

  Having found his answer, he scooped her into his arms and bore her up the stairs. In her moonlit room, he stood her beside the bed and untied the ribbons at her shoulders. Her nightgown slipped down, sliding over her hips to the floor.

  “You’re even more beautiful than I remembered,” he murmured when she stood naked before him. His hungry gaze fed upon he
r small, slender frame with its high, firm breasts and flat stomach, and he starved for more. His eyes roamed over her, pausing at the scar marking her side, showing silver in the dimness, before they drifted down, lingering at her most secret place.

  Simone felt no embarrassment at his admiring gaze, only a smoldering passion stunning in its intensity. She watched with a hunger to match his as he swiftly shed his clothing and came to stand beside her. She found his powerful body beautiful and could not resist tracing the cleft in his muscled chest with her fingers. The muscles twitched at her light touch, and Alain drew a ragged breath. Crushing her in his arms, he kissed her.

  Laying her gently on the bed, he joined her, caressing her, exciting her, inciting her to fiery response. They came together urgently, rapturously, as on the night they had first made love. Scaling the heights of passion with dizzying speed, they reached the peak together, then slowly, languorously, they descended to luxuriate in the tenderness of each other’s touch. At last they slept.

  Simone awakened near dawn. Hearing the rustle of fabric, she opened her eyes and saw Alain dressing as if he could not wait to leave.

  Appalled by her actions last night, she sat up, shamefaced, and propped herself against the headboard. Pulling the sheet up over her breasts, she tucked it under her arms.

  When he saw that she was awake, Alain came to sit beside her on the bed, but she would not meet his eyes. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he kissed the top of her bowed head and whispered, “I must go before anyone knows I was here.”

  “Of course,” she agreed harshly, shrugging from his grip.

  Crooking a finger, he lifted her chin so she looked into his eyes. “What is wrong, Simone?”

  Though he held her chin, she shifted her gaze away from him and muttered, “I wish last night had never happened.”