The liveliest feeling grew in her that he was watching her in the dimness. Breathing immediately became awkward, a matter of careful coordination. Her arm itched, but she did her best to ignore it; the last thing she wanted was to invite more comment by appearing restless. She wondered if the neckline of her nightgown was too revealing, for there seemed to be a hint of coolness across the top of one breast. She wished she knew the time, for it seemed this night would go on forever.
Daylight was streaming into the room when she opened her eyes again. A small sound had brought her awake, the quiet opening of the French doors, she thought. She turned her head in that direction.
The doors were thrown wide, letting in a draft of cool air and the usual smells of coffee brewing and bread baking from the kitchen, as well as an odd scent of fresh-turned earth. Renold, with his dressing gown pulled around him, was standing on the balcony. His hands were braced on the railing as he gazed out over the courtyard. The look on his face was assessing, and not quite pleased.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Come and see,” he said without turning.
She swung from the bed and found her dressing sacque, groping for the sleeves as she moved to join him. He glanced at her as she stopped at his side. She met his gaze and lifted a winged brow in inquiry. He nodded toward the ground below.
Swinging to look, she caught her breath with the onslaught of surprise and enchantment. The tangle of vines, fig trees, weeds, and household trash that had crowded the courtyard was gone. In its place was a floor of gray-blue slate set with a center fountain of black wrought iron stacked in a triple tier. Paths radiated from the sparkling flow of water. Between the walkways were parterre beds in geometric designs that were planted with a rich array of iris and shrub roses and herbs, all outlined with violas. The plantings were new and small, with the earth showing dark and rich between them, but the potential for fragrance and beauty was plain.
Last night there had been nothing there; this morning there was a garden. The task, with all its complications of piping water to the fountain, laying and leveling the stones, digging the beds and setting the plants, was formidable. To complete it all required a high level of knowledge, planning, and organization. To see it done in a single night needed a will of tempered steel and a consummate ability to command men.
“Astounding,” she said in dazed tones. “How did you manage it?”
“You approve?”
“How could I not?” She paused, then said dryly as realization struck her, “A neighbor burying his money, was it? And I believed you.”
His smile flashed and was gone. “If there’s anything you want changed, please say so and it will be done. I only wanted some semblance of the finished garden installed quickly — to surprise you.”
“You did that, of course,” she said, watching him, “but I’m amazed at your memory. There isn’t, that I can see, a straight row of anything down there.”
“No regimented soldiers of blooms or greenery,” he agreed quietly.
“And I can really change it as I like?” she asked.
“Anything about it, or everything if that is your whim.”
There was warmth in his voice that had not been there before. They stood for a long moment, staring at each other while beyond them the morning sun struck over the courtyard wall, making patterns of bright light across the new earth and sturdy green plants, pausing to dance in the fountain.
Bit by bit, her eyes cooled, turned a deep and distressed cornflower blue. “I should thank you,” she said, “and might, except that I’m waiting to hear what you expect as a reward for such a gift.”
His face did not change. She might not have known of the abrupt surge of his anger if she had not heard the gallery railing creak under the pressure of his hands. His voice as he spoke was even, however, and only slightly shaded with self-mockery. “You have so obviously divined my character and my motives. It would be useless to pretend, then, that I want nothing. More, I would not wish to disappoint you at this stage of the affair. The answer must be that, in spite of last night, I anticipate the ultimate sacrifice.”
She had thought to hear a denial, or at most a vague hint wrapped up in a pretty speech. She said in disbelief, “You admit it?”
“Shocking, is it not, to hear such a depraved declaration? Especially as you so are virginal, so untouched. Still, it would give the infinite pleasure to accept that great boon and to return it in double measure, plunging in deep and remaining long.”
“Don’t!” She whirled away from him.
He shot out a hand to catch her arm. “Why so upset, chérie? Unless you are not so pure as you would have me think? Unless you know the gift I want?”
“I can guess it, pure or not,” she said, twisting her wrist in his hands in a futile effort to break his hold.
“Can you? There is a name for it. Do you know it?” The words were low, suggestive.
“No,” she snapped in fury, “nor do I want to hear it.”
“But it’s such a beautiful word, with so much of joy and happiness and bright glory in it.”
She gave a violent shake of her head. “Yes, and so much degradation.”
He turned pensive. “Do you think so? I would not have guessed it, given your nature.”
“You know nothing whatever of my nature!” she said, the words scathing. “All you care about is—”
“The word,” he said, softly incisive, “is love.”
Chapter Seven
Renold absorbed the blank amazement in her face, looking for what might lie beneath it. Skepticism, he thought, and a search for a motive. There was no pleased vanity that might be exploited, no melting gratification, no hint of surrender.
He wondered, suddenly, about her life with the harridan of an aunt who had brought her up and the father who had left her while he roamed the world. It was as a child that a person learned to expect love, to receive and to give it. To be deprived was to grow up malformed, that much he knew well. Bastard or not, he had enjoyed the full sun-blast of his mother’s affection. There had been desperation in it that had affected him, unknowing, and later, when she had married Gerald Delaup, it had dimmed. Still, it had been there. How much had Angelica known?
“Love,” she repeated.
He smiled with a twist to his lips. “A four-letter word meaning—”
“I know what it means,” she said in sudden annoyance. “But I can’t think why you would use it, much less expect it in return for a garden. Love has nothing to do with gratitude.”
This was promising. “True. Maladroit, wasn’t it? I resented, you see, the implication that everything I do has calculation behind it.”
“You are saying there was none?”
He considered his answer, said finally, “None beyond a wish to show you that I take note of your likes and dislikes, that I have a care for what might give you pleasure. If such a thing can cause you to feel more kindly toward me in return, well and good. But that isn’t its purpose.”
“Still, you would not object if I developed an affection for you?”
His voice was not dependable for more than a simple answer. “No.”
“I don’t understand you. You could have left me where you brought me ashore after the accident. Or, if your conscience required more, it should have been easy enough to arrange through the steamboat line for my return to my aunt since you knew I came aboard at Natchez. There was no need to take responsibility for me.”
“None whatever,” he said, regaining his equilibrium and his penchant for taking chances at the same time. “I have no excuse, except that I loved you the moment I saw you, and could not resist the opportunity to take your life and your body into my keeping.”
Her gaze widened while rose shading crept up her neck into her face. “But you said before that there was no question of caring or affection between us.”
“It was you who said it, I think. I only agreed because I didn’t want to alarm you. In any case, such
mild words are too tame for what is between us.”
“So now you expect my love in return, just like that.”
“The game, so often, goes to the bold.”
“My life isn’t a prize in a game,” she said. “And I have great trouble believing that you take love and marriage so lightly. You might, on the other hand, go to great lengths to make amends for a wrong.”
“The wrong of pursuing you into your stateroom?” he said, cutting through her euphemisms to the crux of the matter. “I am not so noble. Believe me.”
Her gaze was clear as she examined his face. “The alternative,” she said slowly, “is to believe that you have a less exalted reason for keeping me with you.”
“I did tell you, I think, that I want you,” he said, a feral edge to his smile. “That need is as base as you may suspect, a crude desire to take you in my arms and teach you all the various ways of pleasing a man and being pleased by him. I want to see you lying in my bed clothed only in the glory of your hair. I want to see limitless passion in your eyes. I want to strip from you all modesty, all restraint, to have you cry out for me as I—”
“Don’t!” she said, and put her hands to the heat in her face.
He stopped midstride and swung to look out over the courtyard until he was certain he could speak without passion. Drawling, the words in his throat dry as dust, he said, “Was that base enough?”
“Yes. But — but preferable to hypocrisy,” she answered after a moment.
“It doesn’t preclude love.”
“Are you sure,” she said in quiet reflection, “that for you the two things aren’t one and the same?”
Was he? He turned his head to answer, but the words died on his lips. She had left him to step back into the bedchamber. The most astounding thing was that he had been too intent on his own reactions to her question to hear her go.
~ ~ ~
Tit Jean brought the message to Angelica just before she lay down to rest after the midday meal. A lad had come with it to the back door, he said. The maître had promised the boy a picayune for the labor of delivering it
Angelica had been reading Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, which she had found in a secretaire in the salon. She put it aside and took the note in her hand.
The script was harshly black, the letters upright and without flourishes beyond the traditional scroll below the signature. The only salutation was her name on the front of the folded square. Regardless, she would have known instantly from whom it came, even if Tit Jean had not told her.
Renold had secured a loge grille for the evening performance of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore. The opera, he wrote, would start late and was fairly lengthy. He suggested a long afternoon rest so she might be fit. He would be with her for dinner before the performance.
Looking up at Tit Jean, who stood waiting, she said, “What on earth is a loge grille?”
“A box for the theater or the opera, maîtress, but one which screens the occupants from view. It is much used for ladies who have been ill and do not wish to receive visitors between the acts, or else who are enceinte or in mourning.”
“It’s an accepted thing, then, going out to entertainments while wearing black?”
“Indeed, yes. Grief is no reason to be deprived of life’s pleasures.” The large eyes of the manservant were hooded as he inclined his head.
Angelica pursed her lips. “You would not say that just to convince me to do the bidding of your maître?”
A shocked look crossed the brown features. “No, maîtress. You must do as you feel is right. Only—”
“Only?” The word was wry.
“Only I know you would not want to disappoint him. You are a lady with a kind heart, and he is in great need of kindness.”
It was a novel view. Frowning a little, she said, “Why would you think so?”
The big man smiled, and it was a transformation. Gone was the impassive correctness. In its place was worry and rich concern. “May I speak of what may be personal, Mamzelle Angelica?”
“I — yes, please.” She could think of nothing the manservant might have to say that would encroach too far. Moreover, the title just given her was one of respect usually reserved for ladies of the family being served, therefore a sign of acceptance that should not be discouraged.
“Never have I seen the maître concentrate his great will and mind to pleasing a woman as he has you. He has taken you to wife, something I thought would not come to pass in my time. You have routed the bitterness of that other one, have made him believe in beauty and goodness. You could have much influence, if you wished for it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know that I do, or what use I would make of it if I had it.”
“Yes, yes, I would expect you to say this,” the manservant said with a satisfied smile. “You have no evil in you, no petty snatching for trinkets, no desire for power for its own sake. You are true quality. After the other, and also his childhood, M’sieur Renold needs this in you.”
“The other. You are speaking, possibly, of a woman who loved him?”
“She said so, Mamzelle, but she only pretended. Perhaps she did feel as much as she was able. No matter, she didn’t want him. He was too different. He did not come of pure French bloodlines, was outside her circle. She thought to marry another who was all the things her kind set such store by, but to keep the maître for her amusement. He is not a man for this light frolic. No.”
“He — cared for her, you think?”
“He was young, she was beautiful and, it seemed, above him. He was enamored, perhaps. It was not love or, if it was, he cut it out of his heart afterward. He does not love her now.”
The deep, lilting voice trailed away. After a moment, Angelica said, “The lady’s name? What was it?”
“Madame Clotilde Petain she is now, since her marriage. You will meet her, perhaps. If so, you must smile and bow, and never become her friend. If you do, she will use you.”
“Why do you say Renold was not her equal?” There was diffidence in the question, but she could not prevent herself from asking.
“He came here from Ireland as a child, and to Madame Petain this means he is of an inferior race. Worse in her eyes, his father never married his mother so that he is a mongrel without a name. These things — how can I say it? — they disgusted her and excited her at one and the same time. She would meet him for a midnight ride around the lake, but not accept his invitation to dance at a ball. She walked with him through the streets on Mardi Gras while wearing a mask, but two days later married the man chosen for her by her parents.”
“A strange lady.” Angelica did not like the sound of this woman at all. Nor did she care for the thought of Renold being enamored of her.
“Perhaps. Or it may be she is only a creature of her class. Yet a name, respectability, is important here where so many have endured so much for generations to achieve it. Once, it was common for the maître to hear the slur of bastard spoken of him, before he made saying it to his face too dangerous. In any case, he does not regard it, having become so secure within himself such things can no longer wound him.”
The thought of these slights in Renold’s past gave her a hollow feeling in her chest. He was so proud, so contained inside himself. Or was he, perhaps, barricaded there? She said, “Yes, I can see that.”
“But touching on your influence with the maître — there is something troubling him, something that is occupying his mind and his time. With his attention to you as well, he neglects his business affairs. I think that he is after someone or something. I have seen this application of effort before, you understand, this sending out of spies and messages and waiting for a return. Whether he should have what he seeks is another matter. If it is as I fear, it is unhealthy, can give him no contentment. You could distract him from it, I know — if anyone could.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s likely.”
“But, yes. You have only to offer yourself instead.”
S
he had been wrong about Tit Jean. For him to encroach too far had been all too easy. Her head came up and the warmth faded from her features.
The manservant said in haste, “Your pardon, Mamzelle, I meant no disrespect. It’s only my great uneasiness that forces me to speak. M’sieur Renold — he is not a forgiving man, and he gets what he goes after, for he never stops until it is in his hands. At the same time, he despises injustice. If he should do a terrible wrong while in pursuit of another end, I fear the deed could destroy him.”
“Your concern does you credit,” she said with a line between her brows, “but I’m not certain I understand what you mean.”
“I can explain no further, Mamzelle, for the matter is private and I have already said too much. Only I beg you will consider what I have said. I think you will have no reason for regret.”
When the manservant went away, Angelica sat staring into space. She felt so unsettled inside, so uncertain of what she should do, even what she could do.
Offer herself. Surrender.
Those words were like hammers pounding on her will. How easy it would be to give in to them, to accept Renold’s name, his protection, and his presence in her bed.
“— he gets what he goes after, for he never stops until it is in his hands.”
How very odd those words made her feel, almost as if resistance was of no use. Perhaps it wasn’t, perhaps it was fate that had put her on the steamboat, fate and providence that had caused him to rescue her and take her into his house.
Why was she so reluctant? He was strong and attractive and generous. His intelligence and humor had enormous appeal. She responded to him as she had never thought to respond to any man.
Yet a number of things prevented her from giving her complete trust. She could not forget the terror she had felt when he had invaded her stateroom that first night. More, there was, in spite of his denials, a sense of something calculated behind his every action and word spoken in her presence. His efforts to persuade her to accept their marriage seemed excessive given the circumstances, as if he had some motive for wanting it consummated that he had not yet made known to her.
Silver-Tongued Devil (Louisiana Plantation Collection) Page 10
