Steamy Southern Nights

by Nancy Warren

  What if he told her? What if he came right out and told her where he’d been?

  No, he decided. Too dangerous.

  Lucy kept herself busy all that day. This was a working holiday, after all. She was glad she’d made her decision not to get involved with Claude. Glad he hadn’t tried to argue her into his bed when he wore nothing but boxer shorts. And she would not even think about how that man looked in nothing but boxers, his body still warm from sleep, his eyes heavy lidded and — No. There were too many excellent reasons why sex with Claude was a very bad idea. And only one reason why it was a good one. Because her body wanted his.

  Now she had two burning questions. Where had the family money really come from?

  And what possible business did an antiques dealer conduct between the hours of two and five a.m.?

  Lucy puzzled over this as she rode the St. Charles Streetcar to Tulane University campus where she was doing some local research.

  Lucy loved research. Not only would she dig into the campus library and archives while she was here, but she wanted a sense of place. The atmosphere and conditions her ancestors would have faced. She wanted to feel their plight so that when she wrote about the expulsion and starting over in Louisiana, her book would be more than a series of dry facts.

  Victims of the wars between France and England, the Acadians had been French settlers to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They’d displaced the Micmac Indians and settled the land for themselves and their families. Some of the Acadians had been there for generations when the British expelled the French settlers from the rich land. More than eight thousand of them were thrown out. They’d forced the young men and boys out first. The present and future soldiers were sent off on boats. The women and children to follow. She could never think about that part without hearing the wails and the tears, the begging that must have gone on. Longfellow’s Evangeline always made her cry.

  The men were shipped off, or escaped to hide in the bush. And later, when the women and children were sent away, they didn’t always end up in the same place as their fathers, husbands and sons.

  So many families broken apart, or finding each other but having to begin again from nothing. What must it have been like?

  After a day with genealogy charts and obscure texts, sometimes in old French, Lucy was glad to leave. She made her way back home only to find Beatrice and Claude working together on the masonry.

  Her girly bits got pretty excited when they spotted Claude. Could the man never be fully dressed when she saw him? He was shirtless again, looking manly and sweaty as he hefted flagstones in a pair of well-worn leather gloves. Beatrice was happily aiding him.

  “Oh, honey, here you are home and I haven’t even started supper. We got carried away in the garden. Give me a minute to clean up and I’ll get your dinner on.”

  “No, really,” Lucy said. “I’m not that hungry. And I’ve been inside all day. Why don’t I change and then I can help you get the rest of those paving stones in.”

  So, she found herself five minutes later outside in one of her old running T-shirts and a pair of shorts.

  It was good to have something manual to do after a gorgeous day spent inside a stuffy library. She liked the feel of the cool, rough flagstones and the dirt creeping under her nails, and there was something satisfyingly artistic about the emerging pattern. They left the big pieces to Claude, naturally, and if she indulged herself with the odd sideways peek at his muscular torso at work, that was her business.

  “So, what’s this book about exactly?” Beatrice asked her.

  “I’m planning to write about the expulsion of the Acadians through the eyes of one family. Ours. We’ve got a great network because of the family newsletter and we try to have the odd family reunion, so lots of us are in touch. I’m trying to trace what happened to the ones who left and what happened to the ones who remained. I want to make it a sort of living history, I guess.”

  “So you’re going right up to modern time?”

  “That’s the plan. It’s why I was so excited to discover we were related.”

  “Will I be in your book?”

  “If you give me your permission, I’d love for you to be in my book. I’ve brought my camera. I think photographs add so much.”

  “Well, imagine that. Claude? We could be in Lucy’s book.”

  “It’s an interesting project,” he said. Not sounding as excited as his mom about being in her book.

  Beatrice wasn’t a silent stone layer, and while they worked, she chattered about her day and the people she’d seen at the market and the women she’d had coffee with. She’d pause to fill Lucy in on who the characters were every once in a while, until Lucy was certain she’d recognize these people if she bumped into them at the market. Even the gossip was entertaining until Beatrice said, “Oh, and Claude, you must have heard about the robbery last night.”

  She glanced up sharply to find Claude’s gaze flash her way for a second before flicking away again. “Yes. I heard. Some customers talked about it in the shop.”

  “What robbery?” Lucy asked.

  “The Guillotine diamonds. They’re famous.”

  “The what?” She dusted off her hands and stood straight.

  “Well, they’re famous here. A French noblewoman who was to be guillotined during the French revolution bartered her release and that of her children with a priceless set of family diamonds. Some greedy revolutionary took the diamonds, one piece at a time as her children were smuggled out of the country. I always thought she must have had a sense of humor, for she swapped the final piece, her tiara, for her head.”

  “That’s quite a story.”

  Beatrice chuckled, like someone about to share a favorite joke. “The best part is that she bargained with the paste copies she’d had made years earlier. She rarely wore the real jewels – too frightened to lose them I suppose. Anyway, her copies fooled the revolutionary and I’m sure she and her children enjoyed wearing them even more after they escaped to England.

  Her grand-daughter came here, to Louisiana, bringing the set with her. They were only sold out of the family a couple of years ago.” Beatrice shook her head. “They’d held on to those jewels through so many turbulent times, it was a tragedy. And dreadful dot.com people bought them. But they got a very good price so the woman who had to sell them was able to keep her home, at least. Claude can tell you more. He handled the sale.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. Cousine you are mangling that plant.”

  She hadn’t even noticed, but sure enough, her right hand was pulling on a pretty flowering plant in the walled planter behind her. “Oh.”

  He was at her side, his skin gleaming with exertion, smelling like a hard-working sexy man. Carefully he took out the plant, used his gloved hand to make a dent in the earth. Where had he been last night? She wondered, as she watched him engrossed in saving a small plant. Did his mysterious disappearance have anything to do with stolen diamonds? He was so close to her that his arm brushed hers when he turned the plant and carefully spread its roots before re-planting it. “There,” he said, turning and looking down at her. “Now it will grow better.”

  “Thank you.” She watched him. “Were they very beautiful, those diamonds?”

  “I’ve never seen so flawless a set.”

  “Must have been hard to let them go?”

  “If I kept everything for myself, Cousine, I wouldn’t have much of a business.”

  She smiled, as he’d meant her to, but she wondered.

  There could be all kind of things that took a man out in the middle of the night, she decided as they resumed work. The coincidental timing did not make Claude a thief.

  Three days later, she still didn’t know whether her distant cousin Claude was a thief. But she knew for damn sure that he was a liar.

  She was jogging early to avoid the heat and to get her exercise out of the way before she went to the university for a few hours. Her days were already falling into a routine aft
er being here less than a week. She ran early, although this morning was earlier than ever. It was five thirty and she would still be asleep if some bird hadn’t mistaken her for its mother or love interest and trilled at her from outside her window.

  Oh, well, Lucy decided, it was a gorgeous morning, the early light soft and mellow and if she ran now she’d have time to catch up on her emails while she drank her coffee.

  Then, she and Beatrice would breakfast together and afterward she’d take off for the library and her hostess would go shopping or lunch out or go to one of her many activities with her wide circle of friends. Lucy soon discovered her hostess was a respected New Orleans socialite and philanthropist, and few charitable or social committees existed that she wasn’t involved in. She was also an inexhaustible source of information about New Orleans society past and present.

  There were loads more distant relatives in the area and Beatrice was busy planning a family get together that would include lots of story telling and reminiscences. Lucy was ready with her tape recorder and video recorder. Already, ideas for her book were flowing and her notes were often interspersed with a few paragraphs of her own text. Altogether this was turning into a very productive work holiday, she thought, as she jogged along dawn-quiet streets. The Lafayette Cemetery was on her right, free of tourists at this time of the morning, the dead, in their above-ground marble mausoleums, at rest in rare peace.

  She was in a nice rhythm, her mind already planning ahead to the day’s research, when she heard the rumble of a car engine coming toward her. It was more idleness than curiosity that caused her to look at the two people inside the car. The driver was an attractive woman in her early thirties at a guess. She had café au lait colored skin and gold streaks in her long, dark hair. She was looking at her companion, and her expression was intense. Lucy glanced over and stumbled over her feet.

  Claude was the passenger. Claude, oh, Lucy, trust me. I can’t tell you where I was but I wasn’t with another woman LeBlanc.

  He was so busy talking to the woman in the car that he had no attention to spare for a lone, early jogger and in a second they’d passed her. She listened and sure enough heard the engine slow as it rounded the corner to the street behind Claude’s house and then a few seconds later, came the slam of a car door. She wasn’t positive it was the same car as the other night, but she felt certain it was. So, he hadn’t been with a woman, huh? At least if he was off having sex, he couldn’t have committed the diamond theft. Though, she realized, as she plodded along the street, sweat dampening her shirt so it stuck to her unpleasantly, that part of her would have preferred him stealing jewels to shagging another woman.

  She decided to be philosophical about Claude and quietly celebrate that she hadn’t done more than kiss him before she discovered what a rat he was. She was so busy being philosophical that she jogged an extra couple of miles out of her way so that by the time she returned to Beatrice’s house, she was overheated, sweating like a pig and exhausted.

  In no mood to face the man sitting at the breakfast table sharing an early morning coffee with his mother. She was perfectly aware that she could win a one-woman wet T-shirt contest, she didn’t need Claude’s gaze licking at her like an eager tongue to remind her. And yep, her shorts were snug. Let him look. It was as close as he was going to get.

  Refusing to bolt up to her room like a coward, she walked slowly to the fridge and drew out the jug of water with lemon slices Beatrice kept there. She drank down one huge glass and then poured another, sipping this one more slowly.

  “Looks like you had quite the workout,” Claude said.

  “I could say the same to you,” she muttered under her breath.

  “What did you say honey?” Beatrice asked.

  “I asked Claude what brings him here so early.”

  “A party.”

  She turned. “Really? What kind of party?”

  “The historical society’s annual ball. I was offering myself as an escort for you and mama.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t have thought that was your scene at all.”

  His smile glinted. “Surprise.”

  “It will be lovely, Lucy. If you don’t have a gown, I’m sure I can find something I could lend you. Perhaps something from when I was younger and slimmer. It would be classified as vintage.”

  Claude would often drop by during the day to work in his mother’s garden. He spent a few hours every day at one of his stores, but he obviously had staff putting in the long hours. Leaving him more time for his late night rendez-vous.

  Beatrice and Claude seemed to enjoy the time together. It was difficult to hold onto her contempt for the man when he could be so sweet to his mom.

  She tried though.

  A few nights he stayed to dinner and the three of them talked about family and shared history. She enjoyed him most, then, for he wasn’t trying to hit on her. Sometimes she’d catch his gaze on her and read the heat within and she knew then that the blazing attraction between them wasn’t imagined and, despite what she knew of him, it wasn’t going away.

  5

  It was like dressing a panther in a tux, she thought, seeing Claude in his finery on the night of the ball. If anything, the elegant evening dress only made him appear more predatory.

  Not having brought anything appropriate with her for a society gala, and not wishing to wear one of her cousin Beatrice’s ‘vintage’ gowns, she hadn’t minded at all having an excuse to splurge in one of the amazing boutiques on Magazine Street. Her dress was a sea-green silk-chiffon number with a low cut bodice featuring tiny crystal beads, and a long wrap in the same breezy fabric, complete with its own scattering of bling.

  Finding pretty, strappy shoes in the same color had consumed an entire afternoon, but the results, she decided, as she swung in front of the mirror in her room, were worth it.

  “I do love a party,” said Beatrice, sparkling with excitement. She wore a long skirt and jacket in gold brocade and looked regal. Since she was wearing the fat pearls and the diamond and pearl drops in her ears, Lucy had to assume they were real.

  But it was Claude who took her breath away. The sight of him in evening dress was like seeing Clive Owen at the Oscars. The tux only emphasized the animal qualities of the man inside it. Her breathlessness at the sight of him irritated her so much she could barely manage to be civil. The fact that his eyes glowed with admiration when they rested on her, only mildly relieved her annoyance.

  Claude drove them in his convertible – the roof up in deference to their carefully styled hair – to an antebellum mansion outside of town. Gas lamps lit the way up an avenue of ancient oaks leading to the manor house that sat on acres of sloping land.

  They headed into the lavishly decorated ballroom and Lucy took a moment simply to enjoy the spectacle. Even though she didn’t know a soul she could have guessed what Beatrice had told her — that anyone who was anyone would be here. An air of money and entitlement about these people suggested they knew their worth and, based on some of the gems and fashions on display, they knew how to flaunt their wealth.

  Beatrice pointed out a few of the people she thought Lucy might be interested in. There was a famous writer, there a prominent historian. That woman had lost a son at Pearl Harbor. Over there was the mayor. She had a few anecdotes to share about some of the more colorful people, most of them good natured.

  “Oh, I should have known they’d be here,” Beatrice said, with unaccustomed animosity in her tone. She motioned to where a man in a toupee that seemed to be channeling Donald Trump stood with a woman so thin it hurt Lucy’s bones to look at her. “She boasted to a friend of mine that she has to have her clothes custom made. Even a size two has to be taken in.”

  “Ouch.” The form-fitting black sheath dress the woman wore certainly fit where it touched. She wore her blond hair up and her neckline low so her long, Audrey Hepburn neck was the focal point of her ensemble. She wore a choker with three stings of marble-sized pearls – the only thing fat on her body
– centered by the biggest emerald Lucy had ever seen.

  “Is that emerald real?” Lucy asked in a whisper.

  “Oh, yes. The Grimmels. Husband’s trying to develop land that he maintains is swamp and everyone knows is irreplaceable habitat for a rare species of frog. Horrible people.” Beatrice was usually willing to give everyone their due, but Lucy had discovered that she despised people who took from society and gave nothing back.

  Lucy might not know a soul, but it was quickly apparent that both Claude and his mother knew pretty much everyone. Beatrice was soon swept into a laughing group of men and women. One older gentlemen with silver hair and a tan who looked a bit like Cary Grant in his older days kissed her cheek and obviously wanted her all to himself. Another man, balding but with an attractive smile, rushed off to get Beatrice a drink.

  “Will they fight a duel?” Lucy asked Claude.

  “No. Mother says she’ll never marry again. She likes men, though.” He shrugged in a typically Gallic way. “You never know.”

  She watched Beatrice for a few minutes, feeling proud of this strong, independent woman. She realized with a start that she’d become as fond of Beatrice in the couple of weeks she’d been here as she would be if they’d known each other all their lives.

  “I love your mom,” she said to Claude.

  “She’s pretty crazy about you, too,” he replied. “Come on, let’s find a drink.”

  They made their way to the bar and, since there was some kind of bright pink punch that came out of a fountain, she went for that. How often did she go to the kind of parties where drinks came out of a very pretty mermaid’s mouth? Coors in a bottle she could get any day.

  It was surprisingly fun having Claude as a date. He knew so many people that they were usually part of a group, and it didn’t miss her notice that a lot of longing glances were sent his way by women in the room.

  “Do you want to dance?” he asked after they’d been talking to a group of some of the younger people present.