Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (17 page)

The unaccountable low spirits that had settled upon her as the dinner came to an end seemed to be firmly attached. They remained with her through a labored game of piquet in the salon with Reynaud, Madeleine, St. Amant, and Madame Doucet. After a few hands, she excused herself and moved once more to the harpsichord, leaving the three to play on. Henri had wandered away in the direction of the library and had not returned. Pascal, after taking a turn outside, had returned to fling himself down on the settee. He accepted a small glass of liqueur from a servant, then sat, staring at the card players with a sullen expression on his face while he scratched his nose.

Elise, letting her fingers move over the keys of the harpsichord, glanced from Pascal to Reynaud. The contrast between the coarse, sprawling merchant and the half-breed dressed in satin, sitting relaxed at the card table, was marked. Even St. Amant seemed to lack both refinement and force in comparison. Reynaud had the urbane elegance of a courtier without the mincing airs, vicious wit, or condescension of that species. It was ridiculous, even unfair, that he should be able to move so easily between the roles of savage and gentleman. She had thought she was beginning to understand him and now she was no longer sure. Even as she appreciated his chameleon-like facility, she mistrusted it.

I have no people
. He had spoken those words on the trail. Had he meant them? Did he really feel no greater loyalty to the people of his father than to those of his mother? If not, then even he did not know which guise was the true one. And if he did not, how could she tell?

She glanced up, startled from her thoughts, as Pascal came to stand in the curve of the narrow instrument. His voice was rough and faintly slurred as he drawled, “Do you know you’ve been staring at that twice-damned half-breed like a she-cat in heat?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” He was drunk, but his voice was carrying. She sent a quick look to be certain the card players had not heard.

“Oh, no, not I. You’re the one. Can it be that that savage bastard has thawed the ice widow? Maybe it was what you needed all along, to be forced to give it up.”

“You are insulting,” she said, rising to her feet and stepping away from the harpsichord. “I will expect an apology when you are sober.”

He reached out to fasten hard, moist fingers on her arm “If you’ve started to thaw, maybe I can finish melting you. I’ll come to your room in an hour.”

She wrenched at her arm in the sudden, frenzied return of her old revulsion, but she could not release herself. “Do,” she invited in a hiss, “and I’ll kill you.”

“I’ll wager my welcome will be warm enough when I’ve got you under me,” he said, his grasp bruising as he jerked her nearer.

“You will lose,” came a hard reply from behind them.

Elise was freed abruptly as Reynaud came between them. He took Pascal’s wrist, bent, and lifted one hip, and the merchant went flying to land flat on his back on the floor.

Pascal shook his head, raising himself on his elbows. The words thick and shaken, he said, “What kind of Indian trick was that?”

“A wrestler’s throw. Shall I demonstrate again?”

The merchant sent him a look of black dislike, but managed to signal that it would not be necessary.

“You will make your regrets for your conduct to Madame Laffont.”

Pascal stared at Reynaud with his thick lips folded, but apparently something he saw in the other’s face decided him. His gaze wavered and he mumbled an apology.

Reynaud took Elise’s cold and trembling fingers and placed them on his arm before turning to his guests. “The evening, my friends, is at an end.”

The salon was quiet as he led her away. Only Madeleine followed with quick footsteps as Reynaud pushed open the door of Elise’s bedchamber and guided her through. His cousin closed the door behind them and moved to stand nearby, her anxious gaze upon Elise’s pale face.

“Cognac,” Reynaud said to the woman. When she slipped away to fetch it, he turned Elise toward him. A soft curse left him as he saw the look in her eyes. He made an abortive gesture as if he had meant to take her in his arms, then realized he could not. His voice curt yet quiet, he said, “Hold to me.”

It was as if she had not been able to breathe since Pascal had touched her. She heard the command with a sense of limitless release. Sliding her hands inside his coat, she clasped her arms around him and rested her face on the brocade of his waistcoat. Closing her eyes, she let out a deeply held sigh. She felt his cheek against her hair, the delicate touch of his fingers against the back of her gown, settling at her waist. She did not move. They stood thusly until Madeleine returned.

Reynaud stayed to see Elise take the restorative, to watch as she sipped it. Satisfied that she was all right, he let himself out of the room. His cousin, mystified but sympathetic still, bustled around, turning down the bed and laying out a nightgown. Finally she approached and took Elise’s glass to set it aside before beginning to unbutton her gown with a competence that did not brook refusal.

The cognac was potent. Elise seemed to have little will of her own left and allowed herself to be turned this way and that. She sat down to have her stockings and shoes removed, stood to have her nightgown slipped over her head, then sat down again to have her hair taken down in front of the dressing table.

As Reynaud’s cousin began to draw a brash through her long, honey-brown strands, a thought occurred to Elise. Without pausing to consider it, she spoke. “The women m’sieu brings here to his home, do they stay long?”

“Women, Madame Laffont?”

“The women of a certain kind.”

“I don’t understand you. There have been few women here, only one or two, and they the wives of the officials who visit from time to time. Sometimes a
coureur de bois
will pay a brief visit in passing, bringing with him his Indian woman, but such do not stay in the house, being uncomfortable in so civilized a place.”

Elise suppressed a smile at the pride she heard in the woman’s voice. “But the — the lady whose dress I was wearing, what of her?”

“Which one do you speak of,
chère
?”

“The lady who died.”

“Ah,” the woman said with a slow nod. “Reynaud will have told you of it and I can add no more.”

Had his cousin been warned not to speak? If so, it would serve no purpose to tease her. In any case, there was no further opportunity, for the door behind them opened and Reynaud stepped inside.

Madeleine gave a final smoothing to the thick curtain of hair that shimmered around Elise’s shoulders, then put down the brush, said good night, and went away. Reynaud reached up to drag off his wig and throw it onto the dressing table as he moved to stand behind her. He watched her in the mirror, his gaze running with a hint of possessiveness over her hair and the low-necked gown of white batiste that she wore. His voice soft, he said, “Charming.”

She ignored the comment. “You will be sleeping here?”

“It is the arrangement.”

“One you have not taken advantage of since our arrival.”

“A sign of my commendable patience. Did it trouble you?”

“Hardly. I merely wondered if the rules had changed.”

“No.” He smiled at her in the mirror as he shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the back of her chair.

“I wasn’t even sure if you used a real bed.”

“Occasionally.”

He kicked off his shoes with their high heels and rolled down his stockings, removing them. As he straightened and began to unbutton his waistcoat, Elise found that she could not look away until he had stripped it off, revealing the linen shirt underneath. She met his gaze with its trace of quizzical humor in the mirror, then her attention was drawn to his hands as they grasped the fullness of his shirt and pulled it from his breeches. He crossed his arms over his belly and drew the linen garment up and off over his head in a single, fluid movement.

The gray-black lines of his tattoos were there, unchanged, undulating in rows across his chest. Without conscious thought, she turned in her chair and reached out to touch them, tracing their course with her fingertips. He drew in his breath as he accepted her touch, the first she had given that was of her own volition. He stood, unmoving, his eyes darkening to the gray of the night sky; then, slowly, so as to pose no threat by towering over her, he dropped to one knee beside her chair. One strong, brown hand lifted to cover her fingers where they rested-on his chest, which swelled as he prepared to speak.

“If I were not forsworn,” he said, his voice deep, “I would wrap my hands in the wild silk of your hair and draw you to me, enclosing you in my arms, holding you to me until I could feel the beat of your heart. I would touch your lips with mine, holding their sweet warmth until they opened to me. I would taste the essence of your mouth and probe its source, inviting you with every wile at my command to do the same. I would kiss your forehead, your eyes, the softness of your cheeks, that small seductive hollow behind your ear. Gently I would slide your gown from your shoulders, following its fall with a trail of kisses.”

“Please,” she whispered, a heated flush rising to her face that was not entirely due to embarrassment. She felt as if every word was a caress, as if each had weight and substance that she could feel against her skin. They seeped inside her, bringing a heaviness to the lower part of her body, a languor that prevented movement.

“Your breasts I would take in my hands, cupping their gentle shape flint is both soft and firm, stroking the nipples with finger and tongue until they were tight buds of sweetness. I would press my face into the white flatness of your belly and breathe your scent before searching out those secret places that bring you joy. And when you were ready, when you yearned for me, only then, would I fill you, banishing thought of any other man. I would use the force at my command to your service, your good, bringing to us both that boundless pleasure that is our birthright, our solace, our only certain reward for living. These things I would do, if I were not forsworn.”

There rose inside Elise a terrible need to have him do precisely as he had said. Her eyes were wide and her lips parted, but the words that would grant him release from his vow would not come. An odd anguish ran with a shiver along her nerves. Her lashes flickered. Unable to sustain his gaze, she lowered her own to her hand, which was still pressed to him.

He bowed his head and raised his fingertips to his lips, kissing them briefly before placing them in her lap. Rising to his feet with the swift flex of taut muscles, he reached to pinch out the candle flames in the candelabrum on the dressing table.

“Come to bed,” he said, his voice weary.

They lay together in the dark with a foot of feather-stuffed mattress between them. Outside could be heard the sighing of the night wind. Now and then the house creaked with the gathering cold. From the salon came the delicate ticking of the ormolu clock. It marked the minutes well and chimed the hours with a soft persistence.

Two hours had passed and most of a third when Elise turned on her side, facing Reynaud. In the shelter they had shared on the trail it had been nearly impossible not to lie against each other. In her exhaustion the night before, she had not missed that closeness, but now she could not seem to rest without it. Casually, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, she reached out to span the space between them, placing her fingers on the curve of his shoulder. He did not move. He must be asleep. She was glad. She closed her eyes and let her tense muscles relax.

Reynaud, lying on his stomach because it seemed best in his present state of restless arousal, felt that soft touch and was barely able to control a start. Did she know what she was doing or had she turned to him again in her sleep? He was a fool to let it matter. Still, it did. He preferred to think that she knew. It gave him a small measure of peace to pretend that it was so. He slept.

The days continued clear and the sun shone so bright that it dazzled the eyes. As always happened during that season, the earth absorbed the warmth and reflected it back at night so that the air grew mild once more and it began to seem as if winter might be held at bay indefinitely. A week passed, then another, and part of a third went by with hardly a ripple as they all in their various ways absorbed the tranquility of this backwater. The horror at Fort Rosalie faded until it took on the cast of a bad dream that could be forgotten for hours. The time was full, for Reynaud constantly had some outing or expedition that must be made: a duck shoot; a hunt for the wild pigs he had turned loose in the woods some years before to mate with those left by de Soto during his ill-fated meanderings nearly two hundred years ago; or any of a dozen other challenges to the marksmanship of a man. He offered the stimuli of games, whether it be an Indian form of dicing called “toss corn” where they took turns throwing out a number of kernels with one side painted black to see who could land the most with the black sides uppermost, or a race on scrawny Indian ponies traded from the Caddo, who had them from some tribe on the distant plains of the far west country.

Sometimes Reynaud would take on all comers, one after the other, in a battle with buttoned épées, each man protected by a padded vest; at other times he would spend an idle afternoon trying to show Henri the finer points of wrestling Indian style or fighting with a knife. The activities seemed to provide some outlet for his energy and also for that of his guests, those of the male set, at least.