Gabrielle

by Theresa Conway

  “Welcome to the ‘Golden Palace,’ beautiful lady,” he said, kissing her hand in most elegant fashion.

  “Thank you, M’sieur Paul. I am happy to be here.”

  A woman dressed entirely in frosty blue, from the feathers in her brown hair to her satin slippers, came up and introduced herself as Madame Paul. After they had moved on, Bernard leaned over and whispered in Gabrielle’s ear, “She’s no more his wife than you are, my dear, but the real Mrs. Paul refused to accompany her husband to the opening of the ‘Palace,’ so his mistress must do the honors.” He snickered a little to himself. “You will find, my love, that most of the women here are the mistresses of their escorts. I truly doubt that any well-bred New Orleans wife would attend amid such distressing company.”

  He winked, and Gabrielle hid her laughter behind her fan. “Well, then, at least I don’t feel out of place.”

  They moved among the crowd into a room where tables were set up, piled high with an assortment of cold meats, fresh vegetables and fruits, nuts, and pastries, all of which caused Gabrielle to wish she hadn’t eaten so much at dinner. Another room opened into the main gambling hall, where square tables were lined in neat rows, all covered with the same green baize cloth, and featuring a variety of card games all called in unobtrusive voices by the dealers. The dealers themselves were all fine-looking gentlemen with modestly downcast eyes and clean fingernails. They were dressed in identical blue serge suits with beige trousers.

  “Do you want to try your luck, my dear?” Bernard asked, nudging her gently towards a table.

  Gabrielle seemed to feel the money stuffed into her reticule as a large lump that she suddenly did not want to part with. Of course, Bernard had no idea that she had brought along her own money and was taking out his wallet, preparing to lay down money for her. Gabrielle thought it best that she let Bernard pay for her first attempts at the game.

  She promptly lost twenty dollars and felt as though she had swallowed a piece of ice. Good Lord! At this rate, she could wind up owing him more money than she did already.

  “Why don’t you let me watch you for a while?” she asked timidly.

  Bernard agreed and sat in her chair while she stood behind him watching intently. She was so wound up in the play that she didn’t even notice the tall, handsome man clad in black who entered the room and gazed at her with amused recognition. A small titter passed through the ladies like a ripple on the crest of the sea. The man was soon surrounded by females and their unwilling escorts, and when Gabrielle looked up casually at the commotion, she noticed nothing unusual.

  She promptly became absorbed in the game once more.

  The dealer’s fingers were nimble, and he shuffled the cards with practised ease. Bernard played with the conservative’s skill, losing a little, winning a little, driving her half-mad with nervous excitement.

  “Bernard, I simply must try it again,” she said finally, gathering all her courage. She seated herself and felt his breath on her shoulder as he leaned over her.

  “If you do well here, we can move to the other tables where players can compete against each other. It can get quite exciting, and I have heard everything used as ante, including a night of love or a racing horse. It really is tense at times, but I think you’ll enjoy it. You won’t win much at these tables,” he added.

  Gabrielle nodded and concentrated on the game. She used her memory to record the cards that had been played and was careful not to bet too much. After half an hour, she had a sizeable little pile next to her.

  “Fifty dollars!” she said excitedly. “Oh, Bernard, now I can pay you your twenty dollars that I lost before, and I still have thirty dollars of my own.”

  “Bravo, my dear. Do you want to try your luck elsewhere?”

  “Oh, yes, but first I must have a cool drink. It’s terribly hot in here.”

  He took her arm and led her into the room where the food was and sat her on a small gilt chair next to the wall. Several ladies and gentlemen were talking, drinking and eating, and listening to the small orchestra set up on a dais in the back of the room. Bernard returned with a glass of chilled wine, seating himself beside her.

  “Bernard, darling!”

  Bernard looked up, and Gabrielle saw the small frown between his eyes. “Good God! It’s Madame Bringier,” he groaned. “Lord, she’ll keep me for hours. Adieu, my sweet. Please try to amuse yourself for a few moments, and I will do my best to escape her as soon as possible.”

  He walked over to the other side of the room and sat down next to an immensely fat woman whose painted cheeks contrasted sharply with the rest of her pale face.

  Gabrielle sat quietly, sipping the wine and fanning herself idly. After a few moments, she became aware of someone’s eyes on her, and she let her own eyes roam the room uncertainly. The feeling persisted, and she began to feel a slow flush creep up her neck. She farmed her face furiously now and stubbornly kept her eyes on the floor to discourage any unwanted suitors.

  There appeared before her downcast eyes two tall, black boots topped by black trousers.

  “Good evening, ma’m’selle,” came a voice above her head.

  Angrily, her eyes flashed upwards. “Good—”

  She drew in her breath, her mouth suddenly frozen, and the words died on her lips. Her eyes widened, first with incredulous amazement, then with a paralyzed dread as they took in the dark, slightly curling hair, the sun-browned face that only accentuated the cool, green hardness of the eyes, the whiteness of the even teeth behind firm, sensual lips that were just now smiling in ruthless amusement at her. She saw the broad shoulders beneath the black coat and the dazzling white jabot and cuffs, in such contrast to the brown hands, long-fingered and fine-boned.

  The man moved to sit down beside her, and she noticed the pantherlike grace and agility of his finely toned body. Still unable to speak, she could only stare at him until he finally reached over to take from her paralysed hand the glass of wine, which was in greatest danger of spilling all over her gown.

  She flinched as his fingers grazed her hand and snatched it away as though he had burned it. The movement seemed to bring her to her senses, and her mouth shaped the words, “You! You—here!”

  “So, you do remember me, kitten. I am flattered,” he remarked, noticing her flushed cheeks. With the casual air that distinguished everything he did, he leaned over and set the glass of half-finished wine on a small table next to her. “What?” he went on indolently, “no sweet embrace, no welcoming kiss? How can you have forgotten the one night of passion we shared, kitten?” He was baiting her, and with an effort Gabrielle threw off the feeling of unreality that was enveloping her.

  Her violet eyes narrowed as she surveyed him coldly. “My memories of that night are only filled with rage and disgust,” she got out, incensed by his mockery. “And if I ever thought I would see you again in my worst nightmares, I—”

  “But however did you come to be here—in New Orleans?” he interrupted her, his left brow raised questioningly.

  Stopped short in her tirade, Gabrielle stared at the man helplessly. Then, choosing to ignore his question, she posed one of her own. “And what of yourself? I knew you in France as the owner of a ship and a smuggler by trade, a despicable rogue and brigand by nature. What—how have you managed to—”

  “Hush, kitten, lower your voice or people will begin to look at you. Certainly you wouldn’t want to make a fool of yourself?”

  Gabrielle controlled herself with difficulty, feeling an overwhelming urge to rake her nails across that amused face. How dare he—how dare he come back into her life!

  “My memories of you, if you will forgive me, kitten, are somewhat foggy—although I can assure you they retain an aura of pleasant sensuality.” He was laughing at her, mocking her in a way that she suddenly remembered only too well.

  It was as though three years had just disappeared, and his casual, offhand manner succeeded very well in goading her temper.

  “Well, I’m sorry to in
form you that the memories I hold are hardly pleasant! I would rather say that they are among the worst remembrances of my life!” She shivered uncontrollably, her mind dwelling for a moment on the prison cell in Paris.

  “You have not answered my question, kitten,” he reminded her smoothly, observing the look of haunted fear that appeared briefly in her lovely eyes.

  “What? What—?” she asked him, her voice uncertain, wavering for a moment while her mind was still held by the spell of her memories.

  “How did you come to be here?” His grin turned engaging. “Come now, kitten, I promise I will confess all to you, but I am most curious. How did you happen to fall upon the most exclusive position of mistress to de Marigny?”

  “Oh, yes, you can laugh very easily, can’t you?” she threw at him, feeling the rage building up within her. “Especially when everything that has happened to me was your fault!”

  “My fault? Excuse me, but now I am the one who is confused. You are telling me that I was the one who put you into Madame Renée’s whorehouse? Who handed you over to Jean Lafitte? Who forced you to become de Marigny’s mistress?” His words were uttered without a trace of concern as he saw her face go white with horror.

  “You—you know all about me, don’t you? How could you, how—”

  He shrugged. “I'm afraid, kitten, that I can hardly remember your name, much to my extreme embarrassment, but when I carried you out of that burning house on the night Jim West tried to rape you, I looked into those beautiful violet eyes and I knew there couldn’t be another woman in the world who had eyes like that.”

  “You! You carried me—you! But I was told that a Mr. St. Claire—” Her fingers flew to her mouth. “But you can’t possibly be—”

  He smiled. “Pardon me, ma’m’selle, in the excitement of the reunion, I completely disregarded my manners. Rafe St. Claire, ma’m’selle.” He bowed his head mockingly, and his grin was anything but contrite.

  “St. Claire—no! You can’t be! I—I knew you as Rafe Savage! You’re lying to me—”

  He laughed as though she were a stubborn child, refusing to learn her lesson. “I can see how confusing this must be for you,” he began. “You see, I couldn’t use my own name in such a dangerous undertaking as I pursued in France. My name is Rafe St. Claire and has always been so, according to my birth records. Aliases are not uncommon among those who deal in undertakings not entirely legal.”

  Gabrielle felt as though someone had just delivered a well-aimed blow to her stomach. “My God—and it was your—your house that you took me to after the f-fire?” she whispered, memory of that night in a stranger’s bed coming back in a rush of embarrassment He could read her thoughts by the expression on her face. “I wanted to see, kitten, how experienced you had become since my first initiation,” he returned wickedly.

  “Oh!” Her face was aflame, and she looked around wildly as though seeking to hide. Then she faced him, fighting for control. “But—but if you knew—if you knew who I was, why—why didn’t you come back after—”

  “I did come back, but I learned from Madame Renée herself that you had been returned to your rightful owner—Jean Lafitte—and I hardly felt it was worth the trouble to go and carry you off his island like some damned heroic knight.” Again that sarcastic smile.

  “If you were any kind of gentleman, you would have tried to—tried to—” she stopped suddenly and put a trembling hand to her mouth as though seeking to remember something.

  St. Claire watched her movement, and he was aware of a growing desire, noticing the fair expanse of bare skin exposed by the cut of her gown. She was really a beautiful woman, he thought. At least he had remembered that much.

  “Oh, what does it matter,” Gabrielle was saying, her voice suddenly weary. “How could you have known that I was a prisoner in Renée’s house?”

  “You mean someone was boarding you in a whorehouse, for God’s sake! Christ! That is a little hard to believe!” he returned disdainfully.

  “It’s true, I was a prisoner!” Gabrielle blurted. “I was put there—for the exclusive pleasure of one man. Why do you think Renée didn’t go ahead and just let Jim West have me?”

  St. Claire tried to read the expression in her eyes. “Lafitte—a man who is reputedly indifferent towards all women—you are telling me that he installed you in a house of prostitution?”

  “I was not a prostitute!” Gabrielle cried. “Why is it that all of you men like to flatter yourselves that such things are all a woman cares about! First Charles, then Lieutenant Rué, Jean, and now you! I am sick to death of hearing all of your sly implications about how a woman, once exposed to the—the degradation of it, thinks only of obtaining it again! How you disgust me!” She felt herself to be on the verge of crying and tried desperately to stanch the flow of tears—she would not be humbled in front of this hateful wretch!

  “Charles? You must be talking of M’sieur de Chevalier, if I can remember correctly, the son of my benefactor in France. Did he bring you to America?”

  She shook her head violently. “No, no! I doubt that he even thinks of me—or cares what happened to me,” she murmured, her throat thick with sobs.

  “I’m afraid I’m not following you, kitten, so you shall have to shed a bit more light on this, or—”

  “What do you care? Why do you bother?” she cried. “You could have saved me from those long months with Lafitte, you could have kept me from—from so much pain if only you—. Dear God! It was the least you owed me after.... I remember you made your profit in France and sailed away, leaving Alexandre and myself to face the authorities. I—I was arrested. But of course that wouldn’t concern you at all,” she gulped, her eyes wide and staring as though reliving the experience.

  A flicker of concern showed in St. Claire’s eyes as he leaned closer to her, and she continued. “They never told me anything—why I was being held, why I was not allowed to get word to anyone. Lieutenant Rué—hateful—he was in charge. He gave me to him—to the slave-trader!” She laughed bitterly and struggled away from the hand he placed on her shoulder. "You—you were the guilty one and you were gone, out of their reach, free! While I—”

  “I finally begin to make sense of all this. You mean that you were suspected of duplicity in the smuggling venture. And our friend’s son, Charles—I suppose he came away from it all with clean hands?”

  “Of course, he had nothing to do with it—but then, neither did I.”

  St. Claire smiled. “There’s no need to convince me of that,” he said lazily. “I could most assuredly attest to your innocence in all things.” His point was clear to Gabrielle, and she faced him, her eyes dark with fury.

  “Please—do not remind me of—of things I would rather forget,” she faltered.

  “On the contrary,” he said, his voice deepening. “Such things only serve to jog my own memory quite pleasantly.”

  With the smug self-assurance that only served to gall Gabrielle even more, St. Claire laid his hand on her arm and let it travel caressingly downward to her hand.

  “Don’t!” she said angrily, seeking to free her hand from his grasp.

  “Come now, kitten, first I find you in a house of joy, then as mistress to a man whose trade is that same smuggling that you professed to loathe so much in me, and then as mistress to the most immoral dandy in New Orleans. Surely you cannot refuse a potential customer?”

  “I am not M’sieur de Marigny’s mistress,” she hissed, her eyes blazing at him.

  “If it would make you feel any better. I’ll be glad to pay you what I would normally give a woman for her time and effort,” he continued, ignoring the dangerous look in her eyes.

  With a swiftness that caught him off guard, Gabrielle slapped him across the face with all of her strength.

  How dare you! How dare you!” she breathed, her violet eyes spitting fire at him. “You put me in the same category as—as—” she stopped for breath. “I remember another time when you sought to ease your conscience, if you rea
lly have one, by giving me money. I’ve waited three years to slap your face for that!” Her eyes were fairly snapping now with her outrage. “Oh, yes, Mr. St. Claire, if that is really your name, you with your pompous arrogance, your disgusting self-confidence—you forced yourself on me and then thought yourself very obliging by leaving ten gold pieces for all the trouble you’d caused. Did you think the money would make me feel any less hatred towards you—or myself?” she sneered.

  His face had darkened with anger to match her own. “Don’t air your offended virtue in front of me, kitten,” he spoke deliberately. “You are a beautiful and desirable woman, even when you’re screeching and shouting like an ill-bred slut. Do you think your virtue would have lasted very long? If it hadn’t been me, then some other likely young stallion would have been eager to hurdle your defenses. The question of deflowering you, my girl, is quite irrelevant. Right now, I’d like to sneak you off into the gardens outside and see what they’ve taught you at Madame Renée’s.”

  “Oh-h! I hate you, I hate you!” she said, nearly beside herself with raging frustration. “How I wish I had a sword! I’d run you through!”

  “Calm yourself, kitten. I see your escort coming towards us now, wondering what is causing the anger in your face. Look out, or I believe he will be only too happy to oblige you by lending you his own weapon.”

  Gabrielle looked up in dismay—she had quite forgotten where she was! She could see Bernard coming towards them, a questioning look on his face.

  “Ah, St. Claire, I see you have introduced yourself to my friend, here, but let me make my own formal introductions. Gabrielle de Beauvoir, Rafe St. Claire. See, darling, you said you would like to meet him, and now you have!”

  Gabrielle blushed agonizingly, and Rafe’s smile was positively wicked.