Guarded Heart (11 page)

“But why, adored one?” He moved with a flexing of heavy muscles to join her on the settee, sweeping aside the needlework she had left there and dropping his hat and cane on top of it. Picking up her hand that lay in her lap, he cradled it in his own. “What have I done to offend you?”

“Nothing, you've done nothing,” she declared while resisting the urge to remove her cool fingers from his damp and too warm grasp. “The fault is in me. My nature is not…not passionate.” The memory of her enthrallment at being snatched against the Englishman's hard body intruded, but she pushed it from her thoughts.

“I could undertake to convince you otherwise if you will only give me leave.”

“Unlikely, I assure you. More than that, I'm certain my attraction for you is simply that I am not disposed to fall into your arms as do other females.”

“You wound me, madame. I am not so shallow.”

“I don't say it's the challenge to your manhood alone. The novelty intrigues, perhaps.”

“I love you, this I swear.” He carried her hand to his lips, his pale blue gaze intense above it.

Ariadne took a breath and let it out again as she thought how much easier it would be if she could accept his devotion. She could not. She was not even sure if he believed in it himself or if the pretense was only a habit. “You think so because you have had no chance to grow bored with my close company. It will pass.”

“Never.”

His mustache tickled her palm before he flicked it with his warm tongue. It was all she could do not to jerk away and wipe her skin dry. “Sasha, please.”

“I cannot live without you. Your skin is so pale and fine, the curve of your elbow so delicious.” He kissed his way from her wrist to the turn of her arm. “I am enraptured by the grace of your neck, so like a dancer's or, better, a proud swan.”

She drew back, placing her free hand on his chest to hold him off as he tried to draw her close enough to nuzzle the skin at the turn of her neck. “Swans are dangerous birds, you know. They attack when capture is attempted.”

“Attack?”

“I assure you. A slap, so I am told, is permissible under such circumstances.”

He frowned while the scar on his cheek darkened. “Who said this?”

“The
maître d'armes,
if you must know.”

Abruptly, he released her. “Is that why you prefer the swordsman, because he teaches you these defenses?”

“I prefer him, as you would have it, because he doesn't make them necessary. He would never attempt to instruct me in anything other than the use of a sword.”

“Then he cannot be much of a man.”

“If this is how you view my misjudgment in seeing you alone, as an opportunity to prove your masculinity, then I must ask you to leave,” she said, rising to her feet so he was forced to stand. It was not so much that she thought he might seek to overpower her, but rather that she was reluctant to prolong what had become a disturbing interview.

“You will regret this, Ariadne. So will your paramour.”

She stepped away from him. “Threats and insults, Sasha? They are unbecoming after all this time. And if you would speak ill of Monsieur Blackford, you might remember his sword is always close at hand.”

“I could cut that yellow-haired popinjay in half with a single blow.”

“So you might, if you could touch him.”

The instant the words left her mouth, she regretted them. It might sound as if she dared him, and she did not mean it that way. It was only that she had seen Monsieur Blackford's skill first hand and could not allow it to be disparaged. She was also fond of Sasha, or had been, and did not like to think of him facing off against the sword master.

The Russian drew himself up to his full height. “I may be no maître, but I am not without skill.”

“I am aware, and did not mean to suggest otherwise.” She clasped her hands tightly at her waist, torn between the need to soothe his bruised ego and her longing to speed his leaving. “There is simply no need to go to such lengths. Nothing in my association with Monsieur Blackford requires it.”

“Nor will you allow me the right to resent it if it should, in spite of what has been between us.”

“The only thing between us was friendship which conveys no rights.”

“We shall see, my Ariadne. We shall see.” Snatching up his hat and cane, he stalked from the room.

Ariadne stared after him with a frown between her brows. She had thought only to make her position clear. Instead, she seemed to have made the situation worse.

Should she send to warn the sword master? How vain it would sound, that Sasha was so jealous of her company that he might issue a challenge over losing any portion of it. Added to that, it was not certain he would actually seek a meeting. What would be the pretext, after all? His temper would likely cool in the winter rain and that would be the end of it.

She hovered, staring at nothing, while her heart thudded against her ribs with slow, sickening beats. She felt both cold and hot at the same time, and it was difficult to breathe. Of what was she afraid? That the sword master would be hurt when she had longed for months for nothing so much as that he should know pain? Or only that Sasha might steal the revenge she plotted?

It was ridiculous to be so affected. She would make no move to intervene then.

But what if she was wrong?

What if she was wrong?

G
avin stared at himself in the mirror attached to the wall above his washstand with something less than his usual detachment. He had cut himself shaving, something so rare as to be unheard of. It wasn't that his hand was unsteady, he knew, but rather that he had been trying to scrape his beard too close.

“I coulda done better.”

That pithy observation came from Nathaniel, his young apprentice who stood holding Gavin's redingote of gray merino with silver buttons and black velvet collar. It was a new acquisition. That he had chosen this evening for its inaugural wearing was part and parcel with the blood congealing on his chin. He really should have more sense. Madame Faucher was unlikely to see him in the new coat for more than the few seconds it would take him to strip to his shirt sleeves.

“I don't doubt your prowess with a blade,” he answered while dabbing at the blood with a length of damp toweling, “but you are not my valet,
mon vieux,
nor are you likely to be.”

“I do for you. We agreed.”

“You keep the salon clean, make the morning coffee and run the errands that annoy me, such as summoning the washerwoman.” Gavin gave the gangling sandy-haired young man, once a street boy called Squirrel, a severe glance in the mirror. “You do not act as my personal servant since I am no babe needing its chin wiped or bottom washed. In return, I have undertaken to teach you the finer points of swordsmanship and, not incidentally, French and English. That,” he finished with emphasis, “was our agreement.”

“You had somebody to do for you back in England.”

The boy, always touchy, had turned obstinate of late. He was growing up, must be—what? Around seventeen now, though he looked older. Life on the street was not kind to beasts or children, Gavin thought. Nathaniel had filled out considerably in the year or more spent in his employ but could still use a few pounds.

He looked back at him in the mirror. “I had a gentleman's gentleman in England, true, a man well-trained for the job. But I am not, you will note, in England.”

Alarm crossed Nathaniel's expressive face. “You ain't about to go home!”

“Aren't,” he corrected. “Banish the thought. The dubious pleasure of cleaning the cuspidors and ridding the salon floors of tobacco juice shall be yours for longer than you'll want it.”

“That's all right, then, though I'd like it better if you had fewer Americans as clients.”

“Agreed. A great reason to love the French in this fair city, that they scorn chewing tobacco as a heathen habit.”

Nathaniel grunted, his idea of adequate conversation among gentlemen. As Gavin reached for the redingote, Nathaniel held it up for him. “You going to teach the Widow Faucher again?”

“To brave the harridan, rather, and see how much can be accomplished without a bloodletting.”

“Yours or hers?”

“Brat,” Gavin castigated without heat while sliding into the long, full-skirted coat and fastening the double-breasted front. It had been a mistake to confide in the boy, he suspected. He had made a habit of it in the last few months since it was not unlike talking to himself.

It was Nicholas who had asked as a personal favor that he take Nathaniel in and instruct him. It was not something he could have refused his half brother even if he had wished, which he did not. The lad had native wit, initiative and a prickly sense of honor all his own which made him a pleasure to know. In doing his possible to help him grow into a man of worth instead of a street tramp, Gavin had come to look on him almost as a younger brother. In his more introspective moments, he thought the relationship a deliberate cultivation, to compensate for his past loss.

“Want I should wait up for you?” Nathaniel asked, putting his shoulder against the door frame and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Ready to greet me, all bleary-eyed condemnation, on my return? I think not. Beside, I have no idea how late I shall be.”

“You plan more than a lesson then.”

“Remove your mind from its former home, guttersnipe. I plan nothing.”

“You sure of that?” Nathaniel squinted at him, as unfazed by the insult as he was by the occasional compliment.

Gavin wasn't sure at all, which had formed another part of his momentary distraction with his ivory-handled razor in hand. He had a matter or two to discuss with Ariadne Faucher this evening, including her interest in the lady whose daughter had been killed, also the identity of the man who had raised her deadly ire. What happened afterward could depend on the answers.

“I go to my fate,” he said, reaching for his gloves and sliding them on. “Whatever that may be is in the lady's hands, as it must always be in any meeting between a man and a woman.”

“And if it's not?”

“That, stripling, is one reason you learn to wield a sword, to see that a lady always has a choice.”

He left the atelier with a jaunty step and twirl of his cane that came, he recognized in wry amusement, from anticipation. Though Ariadne, Madame Faucher, had been upset when last he saw her, there had been no message canceling their lesson this evening, and so he must suppose it would proceed.

It might be better if it did not; this particular client was absorbing far too much of his time. Not that their meetings had been lengthy; rather, they were so often on his mind. The lady, what she wanted of him and what she intended, was fast becoming an obsession.

The way she moved, the turn of her head, the curve of her breast and the faint impression of a nipple under the linen of her shirt flashed across his mind a thousand times a day. He seldom gave an instruction or illustrated a point on the piste without some thought of how he might present the same idea to her. Sleep was only possible if he exhausted himself with teaching bouts, and his dreams were haunted by encounters that woke him with a racing heart and state of arousal so painfully acute it seemed it might become permanent. If he had an ounce of intelligence or self-control, he would sever the association this very evening. Unfortunately, those qualities had deserted him.

The rain had ceased for the time being, but the streets, even those paved with stone, were awash with mud. Further away from the central Vieux Carré, where the paving ended, they were bottomless quagmires. Not for nothing were the city blocks called islets, or little islands, as they were often surrounded by streets of running water. Treading the banquettes of the streets beyond Rue Royale, he took extra care. Made of wood taken from the gunwales of discarded keelboats, the sidewalks were known as dandy traps since the heavy wood lay half afloat in muddy water and an unwary step could force a geyser of it upward to splash pantaloons and polished boots.

Gavin arrived at the Herriot town house unscathed. It was not Solon who opened the door to him, however, but a maidservant he had not seen before. The butler was laid up with a cold in his chest from doing the marketing in the rain, she said, and would the so beautiful monsieur care to step into the salon while she went to fetch her mistress?

This was a change from the discreet entry of his prior visits, but Gavin thought it might serve to bolster the impression that his was merely a social call upon Maurelle. He followed the girl's switching skirts up the stairs and tread lightly into the room she indicated.

His client was not present. Instead, it was Zoe Savoie who occupied the salon in solitary state, with her feet in scarlet leather boots propped on a stool and a chocolate pot at her elbow. “Monsieur Blackford, what a delight,” the diva exclaimed as he strolled toward her. “Pray come sit next to me and tell me something scandalous. Maurelle has just now descended to the kitchen to see to our supper so there is no one to prevent you from regaling me with your worst. Or failing that, you may give me your critique of my last performance, though I warn you I pout at anything less than fulsome compliments.”

“Pure as the nightingale, soft as the dove and all as required—you were in excellent voice as you very well know,” he said, bowing over her hand. “On the subject of bird life, where is Napoleon this evening?”

“At home with his head under his wing. He doesn't care for night air, you know. Was I truly all right? You did not hear the flat note in the second aria?”

“I refuse to believe you could be flat in any respect,” he answered at his most droll as his gaze brushed her rounded form.

“Devil.” She dimpled at him, not at all insulted. Then she sighed. “I hope you may be right about the note. It's only that I know I cannot go on forever, and I hear faults from dread of failure. Still, I have had a nice long run and should not complain.”

Candlelight glanced across her strong face, caught in her fine, clear eyes to illuminate the diffidence inside her. As with most great artists, Gavin knew from some years acquaintance, she had little concept of her enormous gift thus was in need of constant reassurance. “You have no peer, madame,” he said. “And have had none these many years except, perhaps, an angel or two singing in excelsior.”

She laughed, a gratified sound. “Yes, and I am also madly fond of you, and for good reason,
mon brave.
I would even share my chocolate with you, if you insist, though I prefer to direct you to the wine decanter.”

“I would not dream of depriving you.” He had embarrassed her, he thought, though she hid it well. Moving to the wine tray on a side table, he kept his gaze on the glass of cut crystal as he filled it with the red-brown sherry. “Where is Maurelle's houseguest this evening?”

“Ariadne? Dressing, or so I believe. Something to do with a special delivery from the fine needle of Madame Pluche. She may not join us. She has had a shock, you know.”

“Yes. Regrettable, that she should be at the levee when the Natchez packet came in. But I had not thought it a personal misfortune.” He spoke over his shoulder, keeping his tone carefully noncommittal.

“Then you do not know? But I understood you were there.”

“I was present when a young girl was brought off the steamer, also when her mother claimed her. That the lady's grief was trying to watch, I can attest, but it should not have been shocking.” He paused with the wine decanter still hovering over his glass. “Unless…”

“Just so,
mon ami.
Unless the woman and her daughter were known to Ariadne. Which they were, you comprehend.”

He had suspected as much. Turning to face the diva with his wine glass steady in his hand and his lashes shielding his eyes, he said, “I meant to ask if they were among your acquaintance, since the elder lady was the same who appeared in Maurelle's box at your benefit.”

“I did not see that, being otherwise occupied, though Maurelle told me of it later.” Madame's Zoe smile was brief. “The woman is the ambitious mother of several daughters. She has apparently married off a number of them but exhausted the husband possibilities of her home ground upriver so came to the Vieux Carré for fresh hunting. Her husband and youngest daughter were to join her, but now, alas…”

“And her name is Madame Arpegé.”

“Does it convey nothing to you?” She sipped her chocolate, her eyes brightly watchful above the rim.

“I depend upon you to enlighten me.”

“She is Ariadne's mother.”

He had half expected something of the sort as his brain quickly made sense of face shapes, voices' textures and long, loose tresses of familiar shining black. And yet he was puzzled. “I thought her mother and father—all her family, in fact—dead these two years and more.”

“That was her foster family.”

“Which one acquires, usually, when there is no other. Or am I missing something?”

She told him then, speaking in tones from which all sympathy and meaning were so carefully expunged that they struck his mind like blows. Rosebud-tender Ariadne, given away like an unwanted kitten, spitting and mewling in helpless fear. Petted and cuddled close through tender girlhood, she had then been mated to an old tom for the absolute safety of it—until she became as still and hidden inside herself as a sphinx, a she-lion of the desert which can rend and feel nothing for the victim.

When Madame Zoe's voice stopped, finally, he stared into his glass for inspiration but could find no reason to avoid the pertinent question. “The name of the foster parents?”

“They were her
marraine and parrain,
the godparents chosen for her at birth from among cousins of her mother, thus all in the family so to speak. Monsieur and Madame Dorelle were their names.”

“The honored parents of a young man late of this city, one Francis Dorelle.” His voice, he hoped, was rigorously even. He had made every effort to keep it that way.

“So I believe. He died…” The diva stopped, her face blanching a little while her eyes darkened with sudden comprehension.

“Yes, at my hand. To my infinite regret.”

“How very strange,” she said, her voice tentative.

“That I should now instruct his foster sister in the use of the sword? The jest of a malignant fate, you think? Or is it merely my folly?”