Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (88 page)

René took charge of the message. It would be best to have it in the hands of the Bretons as soon as possible to prevent them from doing anything foolhardy, he said. He would find someone to deliver it at once while she made herself more comfortable. His serving woman, whose name was Martha, would see to her needs; she had only to ask for whatever she required.

Cyrene sat staring at the door when he had left her alone once more. Events had moved so quickly. Only a few short hours ago she had been at the flatboat, going about her usual tasks; now she was the mistress of René Lemonnier. It did not seem possible.

Soon he would return and what would happen then? What would he expect of her? She knew, of course, but could not bring herself to accept the reality. One thing was certain. If he thought to have a complaisant, smiling woman in his bed, eager to please him or satisfy his decadent whims learned at the court at Versailles, he was much mistaken. She had been compelled to this position by circumstances, but that did not mean she was prepared to submit abjectly to his demands. He thought he had won, but he would discover that the battle had just begun.

12

REN
É
WAS SLOW in returning. By the time Cyrene heard his tread on the stairs, she had bathed in the small porcelain tub that Martha had filled with hot water and washed the smell of smoke from her hair. She had also had time to brush her waist-length tresses dry before the fire, using René’s silver-backed hairbrush and wearing his silk nightshirt, which had been laid out for her.

At the measured sound of his footsteps, she leaped up in sudden panic. Throwing down the brush, she fled to the darkened bedchamber. The ropes that supported the moss-filled mattress creaked and jounced as she flung herself onto the high bed and jerked up the linen sheet and down coverlet. Twisting to her side so that her back was to the door, she closed her eyes and concentrated on pretending that she was in the deepest sleep. He was, she knew, a considerate man. If he thought she was too tired to remain awake, he might leave her to rest alone. As a defense against his male ardor, it was not much, but it was the only one she had.

The main door of the house was locked, at René’s express command. Cyrene heard him knock, then knock again. She lay undecided, wondering if she should not abandon her pose and let him in, worrying that it would be best not to anger him by keeping him locked outside. The questions were settled for her as Martha came from somewhere in the back of the house in answer to his summons.

The footsteps of the serving woman padded away again, fading from hearing. René moved about the salon. There came the rattle of the latch as he secured the door once more and the shifting of ashes and crackle of sparks as he banked the fire. His boots thudded one after the other to the floor. Then all was silent. She opened her eyes a slit and saw the flaring light of a candelabra being moved, approaching the bedchamber. She closed them tightly once more, forcing herself to relax, to breathe deeply and evenly.

Through her eyelids, she could see the glow as René neared the bed. She heard him place the branch of candles on the walnut table that stood beside the headboard. He set down his boots, and then came the rustle and slide of clothing as he removed his coat. It landed on the foot of the bed. A moment later, he stripped his shirt from his breeches and drew it off over his head.

He moved away then, through the connecting door into the small dressing room beyond the bedchamber. A vigorous splashing sounded as he took advantage of her cooling bath water. The splashing stopped.

Cyrene’s mind presented her with the image, one entirely too vivid, of him standing naked in the semidarkness of the dressing room as he dried himself with the length of linen toweling, sweeping it quickly over his chest and shoulders, down his belly and along his thighs. The thought of it and of his leisurely preparations for bed were a severe strain on her temper. If his actions had not been so prosaic, and if she had not been pretending sleep, she might have suspected him of delaying his bedtime for the purpose of trying her nerve.

She had given a great deal of thought to where she would sleep. Since there was only one bedchamber, the choice had not been wide. She had thought of searching out Martha’s room and asking to share a corner of it or else demanding the means to make a pallet before the fire in the salon. Either course would have risked René removing her bodily to his bed and might have required from him a display of the purpose for her being in it. No, it had seemed best to appear to accept his decree and depend temporarily on his better nature, saving her strength for more devious measures.

It was odd how sure she was that he had a better nature. Or perhaps it wasn’t; she had benefited from it more than once. Except for the fact that he had led the soldiers in the attack on the pirogues and the attempt to jail her and the Bretons for smuggling, he had treated her with exquisite consideration.

It didn’t make sense. It had not from the beginning, but particularly not now that he had done a volte-face and saved her from arrest on what was hardly a less serious charge. She didn’t understand him, and it troubled her.

He moved so quietly on his bare feet that the first she knew of his presence beside the bed was the sag of the ropes under the mattress. She controlled a start and tensed her muscles as the bed sloped toward his greater weight.

He did not lie down at once, she thought, but propped himself on an elbow. Her every sense acutely alert, she knew that he was looking down at her in the candlelight. Her heart throbbed against her ribs and her lungs felt constricted so that it was nearly impossible to continue her even breathing. The nerves under her skin fluttered. The need to yawn came from somewhere in her chest to torment her.

René watched the throb of the pulse under the smooth skin of Cyrene’s throat and the slow deepening of the wild rose color across her cheekbones, and his lips twitched in a smile. Asleep or awake, she was his. She was wearing his nightshirt, even if its neckline was half off her shoulder, and she was in his bed. Her hair spilled over his pillow as well as her own, the strands shimmering with the color of old gold, faintly damp where they were thickest, redolent of his sandalwood soap. He wanted her with a sweet and nearly intolerable ache, but he did not have to make love to her to possess her. Not at this moment.

It crossed his mind to give her the satisfaction of refusing him. It was little enough, after the way he had forced her capitulation. But it would not be right to let her take a stand that she could not hold. And she would not continue to refuse him, not if he could prevent it.

There was the shadow of a bruise on her wrist, a memento of her struggle with the lieutenant. The sight of it sickened him. He had come so close to killing the man who had inflicted it. The soldiers in Louisiane were the dregs of the French army; hardly a day passed that one wasn’t flogged for some crime from drunkenness and petty thievery to insubordination. Some were worse than others, less open with their vices, more cunning. The lieutenant would bear watching.

René picked up a tress and let it drift like warm silk through his fingers. Lifting it, he pressed it to his lips, then carefully brushed it aside with the rest of the shining swath before he lay down and reached to blow out the candles. For long moments afterward he stared up into the darkness with his hands clasped behind his head, thinking of what it would be like if he stretched out his arms and drew Cyrene to him. The desire grew, suffusing him until his stomach muscles grew as hard as steel with the effort of self-abnegation. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw tight. Control came. The need slowly subsided. He drew a deep, healing breath and slept.

Cyrene was elated, if a little surprised, as the moments passed and her escape became certain. She had depended on René not to force her, but she had expected some attempt to persuade her. For him to give up so easily was not much of a compliment.

The contradiction of her own thoughts was briefly amusing. She had not wanted him to try to make love to her, far from it. Still, he might have at least acknowledged her presence in his bed.

He was used to sleeping with women, of course. No doubt he required more animation; a man of such experience and sophistication would think it beneath him to pay his addresses to a woman who lay like a log. He would expect coy glances and scintillating banter, oblique enticements and elegantly lascivious caresses — all the stately advances and retreats that passed for flirtation at court. He could not be overly familiar with disappointment; she trusted it would not sour his disposition too much.

Long minutes passed. Cyrene grew cramped from lying so still. Apprehension had chilled her hands and feet until they were like ice, preventing the comfort that would permit her to sleep. She eased a little more to her back. There was no reaction from the man beside her. She turned more fully. He slept on. She had felt a current of warm air as the coverlet shifted. The heat was radiating from René’s body. Inch by careful inch, she pushed one foot over the mattress toward him. The nearer she moved, the more the cold receded. She must take care not to touch him, she reminded herself; he was a light sleeper. She moved her other foot closer to the first.

René shifted uneasily in his sleep, turning to his side. The bed ropes tipped toward him. Cyrene slid and felt her cold foot touch his warm calf. An instant later, there came a soft expletive and strong hands reached out for her. She was drawn against René, fitted to the curve of his body, cradled in his warmth.

“You have the coldest feet I ever came across,” he said against her ear, his voice rich with amused exasperation. “I don’t mind warming them, but just don’t sneak up on me.”

“I didn’t sneak—” she began, pushing at his arm.

“Oh, go to sleep, for the love of God,” he growled, clamping her to him in a hold that could not be broken. “We can argue about it in the morning.”

Did he mean her cold feet, his embrace, or their situation? There was no way of knowing, and it did not seem prudent at the moment to ask.

“I didn’t send your message last night; I took it to the flatboat myself.”

They were at the breakfast table when René spoke. Cyrene had been drinking her chocolate and pulling her brioche into sections and wondering if Pierre and Jean, and especially Gaston, had got away the evening before. She looked up, certain for an instant that René had read her thoughts. But he was looking at the pile of crumbs on her plate, his gaze all too knowing for her liking.

“You saw the Bretons, spoke to them?”

He inclined his head in an assent. ‘They were all safe, but out of their minds with worry over you.”

She could easily imagine it. “What did you tell them?”

“That you were safe with me but had nearly been captured and needed my protection. That it would be best if they left quietly on an expedition to the Choctaw for trade and did not hurry back. That they could depend on me to keep you safe until their return.”

“And did they go?” she demanded.

“They did.”

“Just like that?”

“It was time and they had the goods to make it profitable.”

She could not believe she had been left behind. It was as if the Bretons had deserted her. The pain of it rose in her throat, pressing behind her eyes with the bitter sting of tears.

“Besides,” René added, “they thought it best, for you.”

She swallowed hard. “Best? It will look as if they are running away, as if they are guilty!”

“There are those who will swear they have been gone for days. You, it seems, decided to stay with me, and I’m prepared to explain to anyone who asks that you have been living secluded here since they left.”

“And that will suffice?” She allowed her doubt to show openly.

“My word has never been questioned before.”

There was steel in his voice, just as there would be a steel sword in his hand should any man choose to take issue with his explanation. For the first time his protection began to assume solid proportions. It was consoling but also disturbing. What kept her safe could also make her a prisoner once more.