Silver-Tongued Devil (Louisiana Plantation Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  Yes, he knew. But accepting was another matter. He took a swift step toward her.

  “Stop,” Laurence said as he strode forward into the double parlor. “Didn’t you hear Angelica? She has no use for you now that we have found her.”

  “Laurence!” Carew said, spinning around so quickly he staggered. “I asked you to stay out of this.”

  “It looks to me like you might need some help. Come on, Angelica, let’s get out of here.” A faint sneer flitted across the younger man’s face as he glanced at Renold, then he reached and closed his hand on Angelica’s arm.

  She gasped at the bite of Laurence’s fingers. That soft sound snapped Renold’s tenuous control. He shot out his hand to grasp the other man’s wrist.

  Carew wavered on his feet “Here now. No rough stuff, I told you, Laurence—”

  He broke off, his face twisting. Clamping a hand to his chest, he crumpled his shirt and coat in a hard grip. He swayed, gasping. Then he caved at the waist, pitching forward.

  Renold saw him falling, spun around in time to receive the older man in his arms. He eased him to the floor and knelt beside him.

  Edmund Carew stared up at him. His fine old eyes were mirrors of pain and doubt. They held also the same abject despair that Renold felt inside.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Angelica sat in a chair in the dimly lighted bedchamber and contemplated, wakeful and desolate as an orphaned owl, the ruin of her wedding night. Only it would not actually have been her wedding night, of course. Renold had, amazingly, told her the truth.

  She did not want to be here, still, at Bonheur. Her instinct was to get away. She required distance between Renold and herself so she need not see him, need not hear his voice, need not have any reminder of all the things he had done, the things he had said. She needed nothing to weaken her defenses. Most of all, she wanted her father well away from anything that might upset him.

  Impossible.

  Did Edmund Carew mind that he had been put to bed at Bonheur? Did he even know it?

  His collapse had been brought on by the strain of the confrontation in the parlor on his weak heart. His condition was the same as that which had caused him to be set on seeing her married and secure in the first place. Yet, it was worse now, aggravated by all he had been through in the past weeks.

  He had stayed in the water for hours, Laurence said. The two men had been separated. Her father, who had tied himself to a floating log, had been swept to the bank far downstream. It had been touch and go for several weeks; he had been out of his head, among strangers. He had finally sent word back to Natchez. Laurence had gone to get him, at the same time telling him of Renold’s message to her aunt indicating that Angelica was alive.

  Angelica could not get over it; He was alive. He was here at Bonheur where he had so looked forward to being. Here, finally, with her.

  Her father had been desperately ill, near death, and she had not known, had not been there. Her own injuries would have made her useless, she supposed, but she should have been there.

  At least she was with him now.

  Heart failure. There was nothing that could be done for the problem. Rest, quiet, an easy mind and a pleasant future, these were the only things that could be prescribed. None of them seemed likely.

  Her father was determined to wrest Bonheur from Renold and his mother. She could not permit that, knowing as she did that he had no right to it. What was left, then, except to go back to Natchez and live with her aunt? There, her father would fret and scheme over her future just as he had before; it was inevitable.

  How long could he live in such a stew? A few weeks? A month or two? Perhaps a year? She could not bear thinking of it.

  There came a soft rustling from the direction of the bed. She was on her feet instantly, moving to stand beside it. Her father was awake, his head turned toward her. There was doubt in his face before it was replaced by a slow smile.

  “I thought I . . . might have dreamed that I found you,” he said weakly.

  His face was so gray and drawn that it hurt her to see it. She said softly, “I’m here, and it’s no dream. Could I get you something? Water? A little broth? Another pillow? Or perhaps you need Tit Jean to help you?”

  “No, nothing. I just — want to look at you.”

  It seemed a little of his usual force had returned to his voice. Regardless, she said, “You need to rest and regain your strength.”

  “In a moment.” His gaze roamed her face and he shifted his hand, opening the fingers, so that she reached to clasp them in her own warm grasp. He said, “I should have stayed away. It would have been . . . better, I think.”

  “No. Never.”

  “You have a home, someone to care about you. It’s what I wanted.”

  “It was built on lies. No, we’ll go away as soon as you’re strong enough, just as you said last night. I don’t want Bonheur, never want to live in this house. There are too many things here I would rather forget.”

  “Can you do that?” he asked, his gaze open, steady.

  “I can try,” she answered, unblinking. “Maybe — maybe we could find a little place, a cabin somewhere off to ourselves, just the two of us. We could have a garden and keep a few chickens, I could take in a little sewing. It wouldn’t take so much to live—”

  “That’s no life for you,” her father said in revulsion. “I wanted — I wanted so much more. Divorce is difficult, ugly, but can be arranged. Afterward, you and Laurence can be together.”

  “No,” she said before he even finished speaking. The word was final, her tone without compromise.

  “He won’t hold this marriage against you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Laurence and I — it just isn’t possible. Please, we can talk about this another time. You should rest.”

  “I can’t. What will become of you after I’m gone? You’ll be alone, all your life long. I know what that is, you know. After your mother — no, it isn’t good, isn’t right.”

  “You weren’t alone,” she said quietly. “You had me.”

  He looked away. “Yes, and I love you dearly, but still.”

  “It isn’t enough? I do understand; you never remarried.” She went on quickly, afraid the reminder might upset him. “Anyway, I was trying to tell you that I may not be alone. If I’m right, you will have to stay around a long time, after all, to see your grandchild and watch him grow.”

  “What are you saying?” There was doubt and incredulity suspended in his face.

  Her smile trembled at the edges. “The ceremony last night was not the first; Renold and I were married some weeks ago.” She hurried on to explain as best she was able.

  “And you think there may be a child.” Excitement burned bright in the depths of her father’s eyes.

  “I would rather not tell anyone yet, especially Renold, but the chance is there. Do you think it makes a difference?”

  He watched her face while he gave a slow nod. “It may, yes, a great deal of difference.”

  Uneasiness touched her. “It’s far from certain. My — my monthly courses are only a little late, barely more than two weeks. It could come to nothing.”

  “You are a healthy young woman, your body has regained its tone since the accident.” He paused, “I suppose all was as it should be with you the month before, just after you were injured?”

  She nodded in agreement, though she was a little flushed. These were not matters she had ever discussed with her father.

  He pursed his lips in consideration. “Women have an instinct.”

  “I would still prefer to be sure before it’s mentioned to anyone.”

  “Yes, yes. This is news, indeed. It requires thought.” He closed his eyes as if suddenly exhausted. At the same time, there was much more color in his face.

  Angelica stood for long moments beside the bed. It appeared her father had fallen into a sudden light slumber. She turned away at last

  The dusky light of dawn was edging around the draperies that we
re pulled over the French doors. She pushed the long silk panels aside, along with their lace undercurtains, then opened the door.

  The air was fresh, clean, and cool. She breathed deep of it, even as she wrapped her dressing sacque closer around her. Obeying a strong impulse, she stepped out onto the gallery.

  The quiet was pervasive, broken only by the distant crowing of a rooster. It was welcome; the celebration of the wedding in the quarters, with the music of banjo and fiddle and shouts of laughter and enjoyment, had gone on far into the night. At least someone had wrung some pleasure from the proceedings.

  She wondered what had become of Laurence. She had looked around for him while the doctor from town had been with her father. He seemed to have disappeared, perhaps going back to the boarding house where he and her father had put up when they arrived. She had thought to offer a bed at Bonheur, but was relieved that it had not been necessary.

  No doubt he would return some time during the day to check on the older man, since he had been looking after him. It would be convenient if he did appear; she wanted to talk to him. She was curious to hear more about how he and her father had found her. Most of all, however, she owed him the courtesy of an explanation and a formal release from any obligation he might still feel toward her.

  There was a movement at a doorway farther along the length of the house. Nerves jumping, Angelica whipped around in that direction.

  It was Deborah, also in a dressing sacque over her nightclothes and with her hair spilling down her back. The other girl smiled and walked toward her. As she came closer, she asked after the patient. Angelica answered her with guarded optimism.

  Conversation ground to a halt. They stood in awkward silence, staring out over the dew-spangled fields of cane that rolled away from the edge of the lawn beyond that section of the gallery. A flock of pigeons wheeled above the house and lit in a silver-white flutter of wings on the roof of the pigeonnier. The morning breeze stirred the two women’s wrappers, lifting the folds and dropping them again.

  Deborah glanced at Angelica, hesitated, then said abruptly, “You aren’t really going, are you? I mean, I’ve grown used to having you here and seeing you with Renold. Even mother thinks you are good for him now, though she had her doubts at first. Isn’t there some way to make it work?”

  The concern in the other girl’s voice made Angelica’s throat close for an instant. She swallowed before she said, “I don’t think so. There are too many things between us. If they were not enough, there is the fact that I was about to leave him, go with my father. Renold is unlikely to overlook that. I have been told that he — he is not a forgiving man.”

  She had heard those words in New Orleans. She had good reason to remember them.

  “What things?” Deborah demanded. “What can matter so much?”

  “He told me my father and Laurence were dead so that I would be forced to depend on him, to stay with him.”

  “He thought they were at first. I know because Michel told me so. Renold would not have given you the pain of thinking them dead if he had not believed it himself. Later, when he learned they were alive, the damage had already been done, and he wanted time to win your love.”

  “Time to see to it that the marriage could not be easily dissolved.”

  “Oh, please, Angelica! Renold is many things, but I don’t think you can accuse him of being cold-blooded. If he had wanted to do what you are suggesting, he could have accomplished it the moment you regained your senses. Or before. What was to stop him except common decency?”

  “He always intended it; he said as much.” The words were defensive.

  “Yes, and what could be more natural in a husband? What else did you expect?”

  She hadn’t expected anything because she had never been certain she was wed. She still had only the most vague recollection of that first ceremony. And yet, her heart must have known what it wanted and needed.

  She said, “Renold set out from the first, even on the steamboat, to use me to regain Bonheur and avenge your father’s death. He did that. He need not have carried it so far, unless — unless the intimacy of marriage was a part of his plan.”

  “He loves you; he said so in front of everyone. And you love him. Surely that changes matters?”

  “Love, the panacea for all ills?” Angelica lifted a hand to press her fingers to her tired eyes. “It isn’t, you know. There are some things nothing can mend.”

  “Maybe it can’t, maybe it can,” Deborah said, “but do you really think, knowing Renold, that he will give up so easily?”

  Angelica was afraid he would not, which was why she wanted to get away the instant her father could travel. “Do you think,” she said, “that I will give in so easily?”

  Deborah sighed. “I suppose you can’t,” she said, “but oh, how I wish you would.”

  The morning advanced. The brazen ball of the sun rose higher in the sky, laying its furnace heat across the galleries of Bonheur, raising the temperature inside the house so that all the doors were flung open except those keeping out the direct rays. Summer had arrived.

  Angelica, dressing for the day, stood in indecision. Her armoire was filled with black which she no longer needed, having no one to mourn. A single colorful gown hung on the hooks, her blue silk wedding gown. It was difficult to say what was more inappropriate.

  There was no real choice, of course. The black gown with the shortest sleeves, lowest bodice, and most white trim would have to do. Wearing it was a potent reminder, if she had need of one, of exactly how things stood.

  Her position at Bonheur was as muddled as her wardrobe. As neither the mistress of the house nor a guest, she once more had no place, no duties, no right to order her father’s sickroom or even request a cup of tea or coffee for herself. It was disconcerting. She had not quite realized that she had come so far toward being the lady of the manor.

  All that had been lacking were the symbolic keys. Madame Delaup had hinted lately that these would be forthcoming after the wedding. Now it was too late.

  She kept mainly to her father’s room, where she read or did needlework while he dozed. Even her breakfast and luncheon were served on a tray in the bedchamber.

  Now and then, she stepped out onto the gallery for air and to stretch her legs, sometimes even making a full circuit of the house. She never lingered, however, since she did not like leaving her father alone for any length of time.

  It was on her return from walking in late afternoon, as the sun’s heat began to fade, that she heard voices in the sickroom. She stepped inside, then came to an abrupt halt. It was Renold who stood at the end of her father’s bed with his hands braced on the footboard.

  Her heart throbbed in her chest. The others had come and gone on courtesy visits, but it was the first time she had seen her husband since the night before.

  His gaze stabbed, his hands were clenched on the wood, but his voice remained polite. “Good evening, my dear,” he said. “We have just been having a pleasant chat about various things of no particular importance, your father and I. Squabs for dinner, the waters and gaming at White Sulphur Springs — the mathematical odds of my wife’s first child being a son or a daughter. I have my money on a boy, but will pay up gladly for a daughter in her mother’s image.”

  Angelica turned on her father, her hot gaze accusing. “You told him!”

  “I have given it much thought while lying here today,” Edmund Carew said, his head turned toward her on his pillow. “It seemed best.”

  “You don’t know what you have done.”

  Her father’s pale lips curved in wry acknowledgment. “I have tried to right a wrong, or perhaps several of them.”

  “And I am grateful for the consideration,” Renold said to the older man, “I would be even more grateful if you will give me leave to speak to Angelica alone.”

  Edmund gave him a straight look. “The time has passed when you might have needed my permission for anything.”

  “Still.” Renold waited.
>
  The older man gave a slow nod. “I see no reason to object. I was about to ring for Tit Jean to help me dress for dinner in any case. I do — have my standards.”

  Recognition and something more that might have been appreciation flickered in Renold’s eyes. He inclined his head before turning to Angelica. “Shall we walk outside?”

  “I don’t believe it will benefit either of us.” She held her head high as she gave her answer.

  A line appeared between Renold’s brows and his mouth took on a hard set she had never seen before. He said bitingly, “There can be no benefit for us in a shouting match guaranteed to attract friends, relatives, and the entire complement of house servants, either. But I am willing to oblige if that is your whim.”

  “My whim,” she said with emphasis, “is for solitude.”

  “It is, of course, the best milieu for sulking, but my indulgence does not extend quite that far.”

  “Or your consideration?” she said. “What point is there in discussion if we only run around in circles and return to the same place?”

  “We won’t do that,” he said with frightening resolution. “There’s too much at stake.” He walked past her to the French door where he turned. “Coming?”

  She had time to think as she followed him, time to marshal her arguments while they skirted the house, descended the steps, and moved out under the spreading oak trees. It was his error that he insisted on going so far away from the house.

  As he turned to face her in the deep shade, she said, “This is about your son by Clotilde Petain; isn’t it?”

  “It’s about my weakness in preferring to have the people I care for near me, if that’s what you mean.” He moved to put his back to the wide trunk of the oak.

  “Possessiveness is hardly an attribute of a good parent,” she said. “And being responsible, however noble it may appear, is no substitute for integrity.”

  “I only want any child of mine to know its father and be acknowledged by him, to have a place in the world where he belongs without question. I understand, as you apparently do not, the importance of it.” His hands were behind him, pressed hard into the woody bark so that his fingertips gleamed bloodless in the fading light