Silver-Tongued Devil (Louisiana Plantation Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  The French market was situated along the levee near the Place d’Armes. There were steps leading from the levee to the river for the use of the market boats that drew up there in the early hours every morning. The building had a low-pitched roof of red tiles and arcaded sides open to the movement of air and the coming and going of buyers. Inside, there were more than a hundred stalls along a length of some three hundred feet.

  There were other markets in the city, according to Tit Jean; the Americans frequented one on Poydras Street. The French market, La Halle des Boucheries, was of course superior.

  As a beginning, since Angelica had never been to the market before, they made a circuit of the stalls. Tit Jean consulted them about their preferences and took careful note of their responses, since a lady did not bargain or carry money for purchases. The manservant soon wended his way back to the meat stalls, however, since that was the commodity most likely to disappear early. The two women were forgotten as he greeted friends and butchers and haggled over the price of a fat goose and a huge slab of pork loin.

  Angelica and Deborah wandered here and there, threading their way between sellers of cheeses and sausages, onions and cabbages, greens and strawberries, ground peppers and cinnamon, strings of garlic and bouquets of sweet peas, and a thousand other things. They eased past the lines of freewomen of color ready to hire themselves out as laundresses and scrubwomen. The next moment they were stepping over the feet of Indian women who sat weaving baskets, grinding sassafras leaves to the thickening powder known as file, and nursing, openly and unashamedly, babies with enormous black eyes.

  Around them was a hubbub of voices speaking in Parisian French and also the French-based African-Indian patois used by servants; in Spanish, English, German, Gaelic, and a smattering of some half-dozen other languages from the seaports of the world. The noise rose in a dull roar under the market roof, disturbing the gray rags of spiderwebs and nesting sparrows clinging to the cross beams, and forcing the two women to lean close to hear each other speak.

  It was exhilarating, fascinating; Angelica did not want to leave. Still, it would not do to let the fresh meat Tit Jean had bought spoil. After a short time, she and Deborah turned back to look for the tall black man with his huge baskets.

  Angelica was glancing at a tray of dried figs as she moved past it when she felt a firm grip fasten on her arm. “Don’t look just yet,” Deborah said in low tones near her ear, “but I think that man is following us.”

  “Which man?” Angelica pretended to study the figs.

  The other woman barely tipped her head to the left behind them. “Over there.”

  “I don’t see any—” Angelica began, then trailed off as she saw only too well. It was the small gray man she had seen at the townhouse. “Oh.”

  Deborah lifted a brow. “Don’t tell me you know the creature?”

  “I believe,” came the slow answer, “that he works for Renold in some fashion.”

  Confusion followed rapidly by chagrin crossed Deborah’s face. “Mon Dieu, don’t tell Renold I pointed the man out to you.”

  There was only one reason it could matter. “You think he sent him to watch us?”

  The color in the other woman’s face deepened. “Something like that.”

  What Renold’s sister apparently thought was that Renold had sent the man to watch his wife. Was it possible?

  “Please don’t look like that,” Deborah said in a rush. “I’m sure Renold is only concerned for you. You are very important to him.”

  Angelica gave her a fleeting glance before moving on again. “He told you so, I suppose.”

  “If you are wondering if we discussed you behind your back, the answer is no. On the other hand, some things are obvious if you know how to look for them.”

  “Which you do?”

  “An acquired habit. Renold, you will have noticed, says a great many things but doesn’t give much of himself away.”

  That was too true to be denied. Angelica thought, however, that it was merely an introduction to something more Renold’s sister wanted to say. Slipping past an elderly black woman with a tray of pecan confections on her lap, she gave Deborah a frown by way of discouragement.

  Undaunted, Deborah said, “Renold has been solitary for so long that I despaired of his ever taking a wife. He keeps so much to himself that I felt — as did our mother — that he could never break free to love. You have no idea how intriguing it is to see him with you now. It’s as if years have fallen away, as if he never left home, never embarked on his quest for power and riches.”

  “You mean he didn’t have those things from his stepfather?” Angelica asked.

  “As if he would have taken them!” Deborah said with a quick shake of her head. “No. What he has, he earned himself, by methods conventional and unconventional, by buying and selling and taking chances.”

  “On cotton bales and ships, sugar and land and cattle,” Angelica said, stirred by a memory.

  “And warehouses and investment in the construction of railroads, not to mention a considerable interest in at least one house of chance.”

  “Gambling,” Angelica said in laconic tones.

  “You don’t approve? There is nothing illegal in it, and men will seek risk somewhere, whether it’s with their lives or their money, in a gaming house or out of it.”

  “My father was a gamester,” she said. “It — took him from me.”

  “Mine also,” Deborah said with a thick sound in her voice.

  They had wound their way back to the vegetable stands where the aisles were wider and quieter and they could again walk side by side. Passing the new green peas, Angelica said in stifled tones, “Why do they risk so much? What can it give them that they can’t find elsewhere?”

  “For many, I think, the feeling of being alive and of winning against the odds. For others, those who cannot afford to lose, it gives them the hope of something, anything, better.”

  “You’ve thought about it.”

  “I never said I approved of all Renold’s methods of gaining wealth. Anyway, he sold the gaming house just recently, you know.”

  “So I was told.”

  “I think he had never considered how destructive gambling can be, having few such weaknesses himself. The moment he realized it, he acted. But that is his way, to make amends for his mistakes without counting the cost.”

  Angelica gave the other girl a close look, her attention snared by some shade of meaning in her tone. She was given no time to question her, however, for Deborah turned abruptly away to wave to Tit Jean, who was coming toward them.

  “Ah, mamzelles, here you are,” the manservant exclaimed, looming up beside them with a full basket in each hand. “I thought you had lost yourselves.”

  Deborah and Angelica exchanged a humorous glance. As they turned to accompany the manservant homeward, it occurred to Angelica that Tit Jean made a formidable guard. Why on earth, then, should Renold require another to keep an eye on her?

  There was, of course, no answer.

  The carriage that came hurtling in their direction when they were halfway home was handled with verve and dash and a reckless lack of control. An expensive equipage, it was pulled by a pair of glossy blacks and had a shining ebony body perched high on slender wheels. The interior was of burgundy leather with silver appointments. The driving costume of the woman on the seat matched to perfection, as did the tailored suit of the boy who sat at her side and the livery of the frightened groom who stood up behind her.

  The carriage splashed muddy water from a pothole as it pulled up beside the banquette. Watching Angelica and Deborah brush the droplets from their skirts, Madame Petain gave them a cool smile, “My apologies, ladies,” she called down without noticeable remorse. “Deborah, how nice to see you; I heard you were in town. I left my card just now, as I was told you weren’t at home. This is much better.”

  Renold’s sister made a polite answer as she surveyed the woman above her. She added, “How daring of you to
drive yourself, Clotilde. Are you setting a fashion?”

  “You know, I believe I am. It’s quite the thing in Paris. Soon all the ladies will be tooling their carriages as women did thirty years ago. Besides, it gives one a certain independence of movement.” She turned toward Angelica. “Perhaps, Madame Harden, you may be able to persuade Renold to indulge you.”

  Angelica had been somewhat interested until she heard the suggestion. Suddenly, she conceived a preference for being driven. “Oh, I don’t think I shall bother. I wouldn’t want Renold to worry.”

  “How considerate of you,” the other woman said sweetly. “Perhaps as you have his interests so much at heart, you will give him a message?”

  “Yes, of course.” Manners required no less.

  “Tell him, please, that Bernard is well and sturdy, and grows more like his father every day.”

  “Bernard?” Angelica looked instinctively at the boy next to Clotilde. He was a handsome youth of perhaps ten years, slender and well made, with dark, curling hair and wide-spaced eyes of soft, indeterminate green.

  Clotilde reached out to smooth the boy’s hair. As he flinched away from the gesture, scowling down at his hands on his knees, her lips tightened in irritation. Still, there was cool pleasure in the glance she gave Angelica as she said, “Bernard, yes. My son.”

  Angelica flinched as surely as the boy, though she had been expecting it. The behavior of her heart, knocking back and forth against the walls of her chest, was sickening. Her head began to pound with the same heavy beat. It took two deep breaths to steady her voice before she said, “I will try to remember.”

  “Do,” the woman said on a laugh. With a careless farewell, she whipped up her horses and sent the light carriage spinning away down the street.

  Deborah turned an indignant face in Angelica’s direction. “That woman lives to make trouble. You won’t let her do it, will you?”

  “You think I should forget her message? Then what if she asks Renold if it was delivered? He will think I was either jealous or afraid to mention it.”

  “She won’t do it, she wouldn’t dare!” The words were scathing.

  Angelica frowned as she met the gaze of Renold’s half-sister. “She did mean what I think, that the boy is Renold’s son? If he is, then why wouldn’t she dare anything?”

  Deborah stopped and looked around her. There was no one near. Even Tit Jean had developed a sudden intense interest in the cramped window display of an apothecary shop down the street. Still, Renold’s sister lowered her voice to just above a whisper.

  “I am not supposed to know of this, but was told by Estelle — who learned of it from the downstairs houseboy at the Petain house and who had it in turn from Clotilde’s personal maid. It seems Madame Petain was very much enceinte at the time she was wed to M’sieur Petain. After the baby was born, she received a visit from Renold, during which he demanded to know why she had chosen to allow another man to play father to his child. The answer had to do with money and prestige and birthrights. He left. But this much I know because I saw it with my own eyes when he returned: Clotilde hurt him as he had never been hurt before. He has not forgiven her for it, nor will he.”

  Was Deborah right? Angelica, turning and walking on toward the townhouse in dazed confusion, wished that she might be sure.

  The problem remained at the back of her mind all the rest of the day. It was there while she and Deborah pored over the dress plates in a copy of La Mode Illustrée, while she lay down in the afternoon to rest, and when she dressed for dinner. It stood white-hot in the forefront of her mind during the meal, and afterward while she and Deborah and Renold sat drinking sherry in the salon, alternately talking, reading, and listening to the ticking of the French ormolu mantle clock.

  By the time Renold came to her in their bedchamber, she could bear it no longer. Sitting up straight in the bed the moment he closed the door behind him, she said, “Deborah and I saw Madame Petain this morning. She entrusted me with a message.”

  Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, but the look on his face remained perfectly pleasant. “Am I to guess what it was? Or are you waiting to see if I am able to bear its weight before you burden me with it?”

  “Actually, I’ve come to think that the information was for me, while you were merely to have a reminder.” She continued with the exact words that Clotilde Petain had given her to say.

  He studied her a moment before he said, “You are taking the fact that I have a son with remarkable calm.”

  She wasn’t, but it was some consolation that he thought so. “I can’t change what’s already done, and he appears to be a fine, strong child.”

  “I see. Assessing my worth for breeding purposes?”

  “Hardly.” She ignored the inevitable sweep of color into her face. “But I would not blame you for being interested in his welfare.”

  “No? How magnanimous. Unfortunately, his mother is not of the same mind. I am not permitted to visit, therefore any report is in the nature of salt in the wound. You, of course, are the salt cellar, a bit corroded around the edges from the contents, but effective.”

  In all the turning of her thoughts during the day, she had not considered that she might be used to hurt Renold. It was an indicator of the selfish turn of her mind, and of her uncertainty with him. She said abruptly, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Tit Jean told me you were accosted, though not what was said. I have been impatient to discover if fear, rage, or simple embarrassment would keep you from coming to me with whatever poison the lady might have seen fit to administer. I am honored by your show of confidence.”

  All her vacillating and anxiety had been for nothing. Through tight lips, she said, “I might have known.”

  “Next time you will,” he said, his smile crooked, “and then where will I be?”

  He turned from her, striding toward the door. His hand was on the knob before she found her voice. “Where are you going?”

  The glance he gave her over his shoulder was no longer amused, nor was there light in his eyes. He said softly, “Why do you want to know?”

  Did she dare tell him? Why not, when honesty had served her so well? “I would rather not be the cause of you visiting Madame Petain to demand an explanation for her conduct.”

  “Now which is it that troubles you more, my love, the visit or the explanation?”

  She blinked rapidly, her composure all but destroyed by the endearment in that caressing tone. “I just see no reason for either one.”

  “Don’t you? The lady has upset my wife, meddled in my marriage, and involved my son in her petty revenge. Tolerance is a virtue, but it has its limits. She has reached them.”

  “You won’t — that is—”

  “Are you concerned that I may use methods which require physical coercion? No. Those I reserve for you alone. Aren’t you gratified?”

  “Not,” she said, “especially.”

  He might not have heard, of course. He had already gone, snapping the door shut behind him.

  Angelica lay awake, watching the shadows cast on the ceiling by the bedside candle and thinking, endlessly thinking. Until it occurred to her that it might look as if she were waiting up for a report on his meeting with Madame Petain. She heaved up on one elbow, then, and blew out the candle. Lying down again, she settled herself so that it might appear she was relaxed and on the edge of sleep.

  She wondered if Renold would join her in the bed, as he had the night before. She had not known when he arrived, but had been awake when he left her, rolling from the mattress before dawn. And the space next to her had been warm, while she seemed to have some vague memory, like the remnants of a dream, of being held close with a hard arm across her waist.

  To doze was not her intention, nor did she recognize the line between waking and sleep, and yet she jerked and opened her eyes as a sound came inside the room. She lay listening, trying to place the clicking noise that had roused her.

  There was a faint glow be
hind the draperies at the French doors giving onto the balcony, one coming from the street lamp further along the way. In its light, she saw the heavy folds shift, wavering as if from a draft. And suddenly she recognized the noise. It was the quiet snap of the latch on the doors.

  Had Renold come in, then decided to step outside for a moment? He might have used a certain stealth if he had thought she was sleeping.

  Or perhaps Estelle or Tit Jean had discovered some errand on the balcony overlooking the street? They might also have been reluctant to disturb her.

  No. Renold moved so quietly he would not have awakened her, while Estelle and Tit Jean would never have risked disturbing her at all.

  There was one other possibility.

  “Deborah?” she asked.

  The dark shadow of a man swooped from behind the draperies. He barreled down on her. Hard hands snatched at her and she was dragged against a damp, smelly form. An arm clamped her throat, closing off her scream.

  She was lifted, swung. Her head swam dizzily and gray darkness crowded her vision. No air. She couldn’t breathe. Choking, she kicked at the man who held her. Reaching back toward him with fingers curled into claws, she raked tough, bearded skin.

  The blow came from nowhere, a reverberating thud that sent sickening pain through her head. Blackness rose like a thundercloud behind her eyes. Golden sparkles lit it, raining around her as she fell with them into the dark.

  ~ ~ ~

  Diligent in his cold rage, Renold traced Clotilde Petain from her Italianate mansion on Esplanade to the home of a lady friend who resided on Dumaine Street, and from there to the house of a woman known for her card parties, her oyster suppers, and her racy style of living. Clotilde had apparently told her husband she was going to a meeting of her sewing circle. Renold’s advantage was that he had not believed the story for an instant.

  The butler who took his hat, cape, and cane was burly and sharp-eyed, the kind who might be expected in an establishment where trouble sometimes erupted over losses. Otherwise, the house was perfectly ordinary, with brightly lighted rooms and pleasantly ornate furnishings. The music coming from the double parlor was competent and the company excellent.