Nicolas reached for a nearly empty bottle that sat on the mantel. Below it, a fire blazed, and the head of another ax was wedged among the pulsating coals. “Give him the rest of the brandy.”
She took the bottle, knelt at the head of the bed, and lifted François’s curly head to hold the bottle’s mouth to the hot, dry lips. More of the amber liquid spilled over the fever-cracked lips than was swallowed. While she did this, Nicolas bathed the wound with more salt water.
“Bien," he said. “Now come around to this side. I want you to lie across his chest, to hold him down when he starts to struggle.”
“Nicolas, for God’s sake!”
“Do it!”
She did as he demanded. When she eased her upper torso over François’s chest, he gave a little grunt. His lower lip sagged with the brandy’s relaxing effect. She looked from him to Nicolas. He nodded. She pressed down on François, and Nicolas raised the ax. She turned her head and squinched her eyes shut.
She heard the swish of the descending blade, abnormally loud in the room. It sliced through the air with an awful swiftness. Its impact was instantly followed by a violent jerk of François’s body. An inhuman, bloodcurdling shriek pierced the air, echoing and reechoing against the cabin walls.
Nicolas grabbed the other ax embedded in the fiery coals. At the same time, she gripped the bed frame so that the writhing body beneath her wouldn’t buck her off. She saw that her hands and one sleeve were splattered with blood. Nauseous bile rose in her throat. Bon Dieu, if only the ear-shattering howling would stop!
She might have made it through the ordeal, but when Nicolas immediately applied the sizzling-red ax blade to cauterize the open stump, she smelled the reeking odor of seared flesh and the memory of another time, of her own flesh burning, shriveling, smoking from the white-hot brand, flooded into her brain and washed out all consciousness.
When she came to, she saw bright blue sky splotched with leathery green leaves. The magnolia tree she had noticed earlier that week. The few fragrant, hand-wide white blossoms that had survived the passing of summer had reminded her of her greenhouse cape jasmine in a way.
She turned her head. Nicolas sat in the grass, watching her, his back against the magnolia’s trunk. “You carried me here?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t of much help, was I?”
“You did what I wanted you to, you held Françoise still.”
“Is he going to be all right?”
Nicolas rubbed the side of his jaw. “Probably. Physically, at least.”
She sat up. A dead leaf clung to her hair, and she brushed it off. “Physically?”
He fixed her with his obsidian glare. “I mean that his body may heal more rapidly than his mind. With a leg gone, he may feel that part of his manhood is gone also. It happens that way sometimes.”
Her brow knitted, and he said roughly, “Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you understand that you may have to help him regain his confidence in his masculinity?”
She nodded jerkily.
“I wonder if you do,” he mused irritably. Then, “I’ll be blunt, your ladyship. Whatever you’ve done with other men to entice them, you may have to do with Françoise.”
“I have never enticed men!” she exploded.
He sighed and plowed his fingers through the shaggy black hair where it had swung forward across his jaw. “I apologize. If we’re to get through the winter together, we must call a truce.”
“I am not a prostitute—or a criminal, despite the contrary evidence,” she said, staring listlessly at a waxy white flower far above her. “I am innocent. You must believe me. I have only done what I had to do in order to survive.”
When he said nothing, she looked at him again, her eyes pleading with his to understand. “Haven’t you ever had to do something that on the surface would condemn you before the world, but to do otherwise was unbearable?”
“Yes,” he said after a moment, his eyes bleak. “I had to kill my father.”
At the admission, her breath rattled in her throat. He laughed drily. “The brandy, I’m afraid, has loosened my tongue. Normally, I make it a rule never to drink anything stronger than table wine.”
“Why?” she rasped.
“Because I do and say things I generally wouldn’t.”
“No, why did you kill your father?”
She knew he was wrestling to control his emotions. It seemed as if several minutes passed. His iron will won. “It was a coup de grace” he said simply. “Better immediate death than slow, tortured death.”
§ CHAPTER THIRTEEN §
Large snowflakes floated like puffs of dandelions against the gray winter sky. Shivering, Natalie pulled the shutters closed. “So much for John Law’s tropical paradise,” she muttered.
Nicolas looked up from the shaft of wood he was whittling, the fragrant wood shavings scenting the cabin. His close scrutiny made her nervous. Lately, he watched her as if he expected her to sprout wings suddenly. “St. Denis claimed the winters are usually temperate,” he said mildly.
“That’s because he wants us to become a permanent part of his settlement,” Françoise said. He scowled as he shifted his lower torso on the stool so that he faced the fire. “He’d tell us anything if we’d work with him.” He slapped his thigh just above where the empty pants leg was knotted and said, “Though just what kind of work I could be expected to do is beyond me.”
Nicolas rose and went to hunker before Françoise. He held the wooden shaft next to François’s other leg, measuring. “With a peg, you’ll do just about all you did before, mon ami."
“Ah, yes,” he responded with a cynical smile after Nicolas returned to the bench and his whittling. “Maybe even more. With a peg leg, why I could apply for court jester. Just think of the amusing—”
“Stop it!” Natalie spat. She took the bowl of salve and pine resin she had spent the morning preparing and knelt before Françoise. She looked up at him, her eyes snapping. “I find you a handsome, intelligent, and charming man—when you’re not feeling sorry for yourself. Now let me look at your leg.”
“Leg?” he asked. Beneath the moustache, his mouth twisted in a grotesque smile. “What leg? You mean stump, don’t you, Angelique?”
She still wasn’t accustomed to the name of Angelique, and when she didn’t respond immediately, he said, “Say it. Stump. What an ugly sound the word makes!”
She ignored him and set the bowl on the bench so that she could unknot the empty pants leg.
Embarrassment at what she was about to do mottled his face. “I can take care of myself!” he told her, and slapped her hand away. Her fingers caught the rim of the bowl, and it spun and flipped onto the floor, where the salve oozed onto the rough planks.
She shot to her feet. “Then you clean up the mess yourself.”
She grabbed her cloak, stalked past Nicolas, who silently observed the scene, and flung the door open to storm outside. The air was sharp and crystal-fine. Somewhere in the distance, cane cracked with the cold, sounding like gunshots.
Earlier that winter, Nicolas must have taken pity on the loneliness of her isolation, for he had allowed her to accompany him while he checked his traps. Patiently, he had showed her how to move through the tall cane, as thick as a man’s wrist, backward, so the face was protected from the sharp, wet blades.
Creeping quietly through the bramble bushes, she had dogged his footsteps as he followed his traplines. The first three had been empty, but the next contained a raccoon. “Par Dieu!” Nicolas muttered, kneeling beside the animal that bared its teeth at them. “Nothing but a coon.”
Astonished, she watched him set it free and reset the trap. He looked up and explained, “Its meat wouldn’t have been worth chewing.”
A smile had struggled to her lips. “I think, Nicolas Brissac, that you’re tenderhearted.”
He had shrugged and grinned, one of the few that he allowed himself. “The coons seem almost human.”
<
br /> Living in close proximity with him that winter, she had come to realize that his detachment masked a capacity to be amused by the absurdities of life. His presence made the strain of François’s mercurial temperament more bearable.
She held out a palm, caught several soft flakes, and watched them melt. With nowhere in particular to go, she walked down to the stream. The sun set more quickly at this time of year, and already the eastern sky was darkening with dusk. In the stark quiet of the late afternoon, the stream’s gentle trickle was soothing. She followed the water’s meanderings, heedless of where or how long she walked. Gradually, her anger subsided. In retrospect, she could see that François’s actions were understandable, natural.
But, ciel, how could she live under such tension for almost a year? She’d go crazy first. What had happened to her cool demeanor that had always amazed everyone but Philippe?
“Philippe.” The whispered word lingered on her lips and was gone, swallowed up by that vast wilderness, with no one to hear it. She might never have said his name, he might never have existed.
The months of carrying on the charade were taking its toll on her nerves. Was it only January? It seemed like at least a year since she had stepped onto Ship Island. God, she was so alone. And lonely, with nothing but Nicolas’s friendship to ease the days. Even that he proffered sparingly and seldom.
She put her fingertips to her temples and rubbed until the panicky, trapped feeling ebbed. Everything would work out, she told herself. Patience.
The wet snow was seeping through the leather stitching of her shoes, and the sky was darkening rapidly. She forced herself to retrace her steps back toward the cabin. The wick of the oil lamp had been turned down low. François was absent, and the door to the other room was closed. Her gaze went to the floor. The salve had been cleaned up. She crossed to the door and tapped lightly. “François, will you talk to me?”
“Go away,” he said, his voice muffled.
Nicolas sat with his back to her, still whittling. At that moment, she resented his calm, his detachment. None of what had happened was of her making, yet remedying it was her responsibility all of a sudden.
“What can I do?” she demanded of him. She circled around to face him, bracing her palms on the table. “You heard Françoise. He won’t even talk to me. What else can I do?”
He studied her eyes. Did he expect to find an answer there? “Well?” she asked. “You always know what to do.” She knew she sounded childish, but she couldn’t help herself. For her, there was no respite, no escape behind a closed door. Night after night, she lay across from Françoise, afraid that he would want her, ashamed of her relief that he did not call for her in the darkness.
“What you have is cabin fever,” Nicolas said. “Being penned up for months at a time makes everyone edgy.”
“Not you,” she bit out.
He set aside the knife and the shaft he was carving and stood up. “Come here.”
She tilted her head, puzzled. He nodded reassuringly. She moved around the table until she stood directly before him. His mahogany-colored hands began pulling the wooden pins from her bound braids so that they swung free against the small of her back. She looked up into his face. “What are you doing?” she rasped.
Hands on her shoulders, he rotated her to face away from him. His fingers worked at one braid, loosening it little by little. Then the other. She held her breath, waiting. Then his fingers began to comb through the snarled tresses gently. After a few minutes, what he was doing relaxed her, and she felt the stiffness literally flowing from her bones. Her head lolled back. “That feels so good,” she murmured.
His fingers paused. “Your hair—a lovely color, like a tapestry.” Praise from Nicolas was rare. She was always astonished by the nuance and articulation reflected in his voice. She almost turned to look at him but didn’t have the courage. “Thank you.”
His hands lifted the heavy white-gold mass, sifted through the strands, and let them fall into place once more. “With your hair loose, you don’t seem quite the remote queen. Go to Françoise. Now. Go to him and . . . seduce him.”
His words were a dash of cold water in the face. Reality washed over her. She turned to stare at him. His expression was unreceptive. “You know what I am, Nicolas? I am one of those Turkish houris. In order to survive, I must please my maître, mustn’t I?”
“I’ll quote you, Madame de Gautier. ‘You’re feeling sorry for yourself.’”
She felt like slapping him. Her fingers clenched against her palms. She got control of herself and said, “You’re right, of course. I’ll go to him.”
She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, her breath harsh in her ears. Across the room, she could see François’s shadowy bulk, stretched out in sleep on the bed. He was a good man, as Nicolas had told her. She could have been much worse off in marriage to someone else. But she was already married. Philippe . . .
Putting thought behind her, she began to undress, her fingers mechanically working at her basque’s fastenings. The gown slithered to the floor, and she stepped out of it. Her undergarments drifted behind her as she crossed to François’s bed. The mattress crunched beneath her weight, and he stirred restlessly. She lifted the bearskin and eased herself down alongside him. His naked skin was warm, his snoring a gentle sound in the darkness.
Oh, dear God, how could she do it? She took a deep, steadying breath. Leaning on one elbow, she gingerly laid her hand on his chest. It was broad and thickly covered with hair, unlike Philippe’s smooth, velvety skin. What did she do next?
The image of François’s severed leg, the reddened skin shriveled and puckered, intruded on her numbed mind. She shivered with repulsion. If she loved him, she knew that it would not have mattered. But she didn’t, and it did.
“Your hand is cold, Angelique.”
She jumped at the sharp reproval. “Françoise,” she begged, her voice barely above a whisper, “I can’t be your wife . . . in all ways . . . unless you help me.”
His hand gripped hers so that she thought her fingers would crunch. “I don’t want your pity.”
“It’s not pity,” she said sharply. “I just don’t know how to go about—”
“Making love to a one-legged man?” he sneered, and flung her hand away.
“No! That’s not what I meant.”
“I assure you, it’s no different.” His voice cracked, and words poured out in a raw whisper. “I may be an oddity, but, God, oh, God, Angelique, I’m still a man. I’m still a man!”
She lowered her head and brushed his lips with hers. His breath sucked in. In that moment, she forgot her own fear, her repulsion, Philippe. Beneath her hand, François’s body went rigid. She tentatively stroked the furred chest and kissed his temple, then his eyelids, which were tightly closed.
“Angelique,” he said huskily. “Angelique, Angelique. It’s been so long.” His lashes were wet with tears.
She could pretend.
She took his hand and placed it on one soft breast. He made no move to caress her; she paused, uncertain, then began to rotate his hand over her breast until friction aroused the nipple.
He groaned.
“Françoise, make me your wife.”
His fingers closed over her breast, hurting her slightly, but she made no sound.
“Yes, yes,” he mumbled, and bent his head to her nipple. She gasped when he pulled it into his mouth. It had been so long for her, too; so long that her breasts had forgotten the pleasure that could be had.
But his mouth deserted her aching flesh, and he rolled over atop her. She stilled, waiting. His breathing was loud, irregular, in her ears. For long seconds, there was only his breathing. Then he threw back his head and let out an unearthly howl. “God! Damn you, God!”
He shoved her out from under him. “Get out, Angelique! Get out!”
The snow melted, but drizzling rain mixed with occasional sleet continued to fall during the following weeks, and Natalie wondered if spring
would ever come. The tension in the cabin was stifling. She knew that Nicolas was aware of what had happened the night she had gone to Françoise. How could he not be when François’s shouted banishment of her from his bed had rung in her ears? Even if Nicolas were deaf, François’s coldness toward her ever since was obvious.
How Françoise must hate her; she was a symbol of his impotence. It would be best if she left, if only for his sake. She knew Nicolas would be relieved. Her presence had disrupted their friendship. As it was, whenever weather permitted, he stayed away during the daylight hours, trapping or hunting with his bow of acacia wood and quiver of reed arrows. With her gone, he would have his bed back and wouldn’t be forced into building a place of his own, come spring.
Spring. Come spring, the chestnut trees would be blossoming in Paris. She yearned for the things she had taken for granted: a night at the opera, a hothouse camellia in winter, café au lait, good wine. One day she would go back, one day . . .
Late in February, on a day when the rains had ceased but the sky was left overcast with one last threat of a winter storm, visitors arrived. She stood at the door watching them approach, their red clothing flashing among the dead brown of the trees on the stream’s far side.
“Françoise!” she said. “Visitors!”
He looked up from where he sat, fastening the wooden extension to his leg. Uncertainty played across his handsome face. She knew he wasn’t ready to face anyone. He had only just managed to walk on the stump without wincing when the wood rubbed against flesh not yet fully callused.
When she turned her attention back to the approaching visitors, she saw Nicolas off to her left, loping from the drying racks toward the cabin. “Did you see—” she began.
He cut her off, saying brusquely, “Four of the men wear the uniforms of the Royal Musketeers.”
She blanched. Her fingernails dug into the door’s wood.
“What do you think they could want?” Françoise asked, his high forehead wrinkled. “Do you think they’re investigating St. Denis’s smuggling activities?”
BLUE BAYOU ~ Book I (historical): Fleur de Lis Page 15
