Tears of Gold (64 page)

Nicholas lifted Mara into the coach, then Paddy. Looking around while Etienne was assisted inside, he assured himself that no one had been left behind, saw Sorcier tied to the back of the carriage, the wagons loaded with people and possessions. He signaled to the coachman and they pulled away from the house.

Nicholas sat down inside next to Mara, who was being fussed over by Jamie, and watched the little Irishwoman’s professional administerings with a critical eye before asking, “How is she?”

“I’m fine, Nicholas, truly I am,” Mara reassured him. She grimaced slightly under Jamie’s probing fingers.

“’Tis just a scratch,” Jamie diagnosed as she tied a clean, linen handkerchief around the fleshy part of Mara’s upper arm. “But what I can’t understand is why anyone would want to shoot Mara.”

Nicholas looked at Mara for a long minute before saying quietly, “He was aiming at me until Mara stepped in front of me, shielding me with her body.” Nicholas’s palm gently cupped Mara’s chin. “That was a damned foolish thing to do,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” Mara replied softly as she stared out the window, avoiding Nicholas’s gaze.

Etienne moved slightly in the corner of the coach where he had been huddled and looked around him despondently, as if becoming aware of his surroundings for the first time.

“Etienne,” Nicholas spoke quietly, “can you tell me why all this happened? Why my father didn’t claim Alain as his son?”

Etienne nodded, his eyes brimming. His lips trembled as he fought for control. “It was so long ago, and yet at times it seems as if it were only yesterday that Olivia was living here. How many years?” he mumbled, frowning. He was trying to recall events of well over a quarter century ago.

“Can it be
forty
years? So long ago it is hard to see it clearly anymore, except for the face of my Olivia,” he said, the name a caress. “She was so beautiful, so exquisite, and so very much in love with Philippe. He saw her at one of the Quadroon Balls and set her up as his placée. They were happy for a while, but then he wed Danielle, my sister. She was also a great beauty, and the woman that Philippe genuinely loved. He was wild about her, the way he’d never been about another woman.

“But Danielle was delicate and very sensitive to her surroundings. She often brooded, and I think it was only Philippe’s great love for her that kept her happy. She was very possessive of Philippe and it drove her mad to think of him with another woman. As every wife expected her husband to have a mistress in New Orleans, Danielle knew that Philippe would too. She begged him to give the woman up, and for Philippe, loving her as he did, that was easy.

“He set Olivia up in her own boardinghouse in the city where she would have a decent living, and he never saw her again after that—at least for some time. But I think sometimes that Danielle never believed he gave her up. It preyed upon her mind.

“For a while things were good between them. Then Danielle lost her first baby. She couldn’t carry him the full time and she was very ill. After that she wanted a child so badly. I think she suspected she would lose Philippe if she didn’t give him a son, and so she thought this was the only way of keeping him. Well, she tried,” Etienne said sadly, “and lost yet another child, this time a son that she had prayed for. She was inconsolable, and thought she had been cursed by voodoo. She became a woman possessed, and for a couple of years she would not let anyone near her, especially Philippe. So, Philippe, he was no saint, he was a very virile man. And he was hurt. It was only natural that he would turn to someone who could give him the companionship he needed, and so he sought out Olivia again. For several years after that they were lovers, and Olivia gave Philippe a son. He was named Alain. Olivia satisfied Philippe’s lusts, but it was still Danielle whom he loved so deeply, and gradually Danielle began to recover. Perhaps she sensed that if much more time passed she would lose Philippe forever. She became pregnant again, and because she had been so ill, she stayed in bed the whole time. Perhaps this is why she was able to give birth.

“That baby was Denise, your sister, and although it was not the son she wanted to give Philippe, it gave her hope that she could bear more children. She changed miraculously after that and was a completely different woman. Gone were the depressions that had seemed to drive her wild at times, and she and Philippe were very happy. But there were those who would tell her rumors of Olivia and Philippe, and he did not wish to have his happiness destroyed a second time—especially as Danielle was once again pregnant.”

Etienne looked around at the silent occupants of the carriage. Then he took a deep breath and resumed.

“Philippe came to me for help. Please do not think that I am as self-sacrificing as this might lead you to believe. I took the responsibility of Olivia and Alain. It allayed Danielle’s fears as nothing else would have, and it gave Alain a name. But you see, it was no great sacrifice for me, for I loved Olivia too, and I always had,” Etienne admitted. “But Philippe had seen her first, and, well, next to his commanding and handsome figure I didn’t seem like much. She had always had eyes only for Philippe.”

“Françoise?” Nicholas spoke for the first time, his voice hoarse. “Is she my sister too?”

Etienne shook his head. “No, Françoise is my daughter. I think I made Olivia happy, and I think that she eventually came to be fond of me. But I know I never replaced Philippe in her heart. He was much as you, Nicholas, and I think once a woman has given her heart to you, it will never again be hers. It was that way with Olivia. But I was grateful for even a small piece of her heart, and she was faithful to me and kind.”

“But Alain never knew that Philippe was his father?” Nicholas asked, touched by Etienne’s confession.

“No, he was too young to remember Philippe. And after that I was always there. So I became his father,” Etienne explained. “After Danielle died, there was no purpose in revealing it, for he had grown up knowing me. By then, you and François were Philippe’s sons. Forgive me, Nicholas,” Etienne said unhappily, “for believing you guilty of murdering François. Never did I imagine the truth.” He put his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes clear of tears as he glanced up with a ravaged face. “Never did I believe it was Alain. Mon Dieu, but I never knew he had the slightest knowledge of his birth. Maybe if I’d given him more love…I don’t know, but I suppose I always saw him as Philippe’s son, and maybe I resented him. All those years he knew—and waited. How it must have panicked him when Celeste gave birth to a son and he saw all he had worked for slipping away from him. He must have been desperate. And so, one last time, he decided to do something about it.”

“Does he really think he is master of Beaumarais?” Nicholas demanded.

Etienne shrugged, despair crossing his tired face. “He knows not what he is doing, Nicholas. This sickness has been eating away at him for all these years. To have lived with the thought that you killed your brother,” Etienne said, then stopped abruptly with a look of contrition. “I’m sorry, Nicholas, for you would have lived with, that all these years.

“But Alain knew that he’d done it, and in cold blood. For many years he had the hope of becoming the heir, but then when Philippe found out the truth, he cut Alain out of his life as he would a gangrenous leg. It was too much for Alain, and I think he must have become insane. Certainly he must have after killing his father, for that is something a man cannot live with. And what was it all for? He could not find the will, and there was no way of proving his claim. He must have gone crazy with frustration as he waited for Celeste to sell Beaumarais. I see now why he was so pleased to see you and then for you to become owner of Beaumarais. It gave him more time to find the will, and with you here, time was no obstacle anymore. You realize,” Etienne said in a shaky whisper, “that this morning near the levee he probably tried to kill you? What better way of disposing of you, Nicholas, than during the excitement of a flood, when so many tragic accidents happen. Poor Alain, I can pity him, yes,” Etienne said with a note of firmness in his tremulous voice as he saw the hard look enter Nicholas’s eyes. “I still have it in my heart to feel this, for he was my son in all but blood,” Etienne spoke wearily.

“Don’t ask me to, Etienne,” Nicholas told him. “He destroyed my family. He destroyed Beaumarais and the life I knew. That I can never forgive,” he said coldly. Mara knew with an instinctive fear that Nicholas would go back for Alain. One of them would not leave Beaumarais alive.

Mara gradually became aware of the carriage slowing down, moving with great reluctance along the road. Nicholas looked out at the deep mud that the carriage wheels were slicing through, noting the heavy coating of mud clinging to the rims. Suddenly the horses were halted and Nicholas opened the door and jumped out, his boots quickly disappearing beneath a foot of bright red mud.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Etienne inquired softly, a look of deep concern on his graven face.

Mara smiled slightly, her lips trembling with delayed reaction as she reached out and patted his blue-veined hand. “I’ll be fine, but I’m worried about you, Etienne. You’ve suffered far more than I have. I’m so sorry,” Mara told him simply.

“Look at all the water!” Paddy cried as he craned his neck out. A light drizzle was falling and drifted into the coach as a cold, wet breeze.

“Master Paddy,” Jamie intoned with a disapproving look, “sit back down.”

But Paddy continued to ignore her as he watched Nicholas returning through the muddy roadway. He scurried back into the coach as Nicholas’s shoulders filled the opening.

“The river’s flooded the low part of the road ahead. The horses won’t go through it by themselves. The wagons will follow in our wake, and I’m going to take our team’s head and guide them through. Some water will come into the coach but don’t panic, just sit still and we’ll be across in no time.” Nicholas’s green eyes met Mara’s for an instant, his look reassuring her before he slammed the door and marched off through the mud.

Nicholas stared at the muddy torrent of water filling the hollow in the road, and with a sigh of regret that he didn’t have the Swede’s broad shoulder on the other side of the team, he plunged in, feeling the cold water swirling around his thighs as he fought against the swift current. Several times he nearly lost his footing on the slippery road bottom, his feet stepping blindly into deep holes.

He could feel the muscles in his arms and shoulders tightening, screaming out against the weight and strain of holding onto the harness. He continued until he began to feel the water receding around his thighs and the current lessening. He led the horses up the sloping road. The water was murky and slow near the high part of the road, and it was as he neared the crest that he felt the sudden sharp pain in his thigh, and then the stinging that penetrated even the numbing cold of his wet skin. He cursed as he caught a flash of something moving quickly beneath the surface. He moved up the last stretch of flooded road and led the carriage to safety.

Walking slowly, his legs feeling as if they were made of iron, he made his way back to the coach. He leaned against it, watching until the wagons cleared the stream and rolled up behind the coach. With a signal to the coachman to drive on, Nicholas climbed into the coach.

Mara started to say something to him as he stumbled onto the seat beside her, relief evident on her face, but his next actions froze her into silence. She watched him take a knife from his pocket and quickly and efficiently cut away the material of his breeches.

Etienne came out of his self-absorption, his eyes meeting Nicholas’s over the flare of the match Nicholas was holding to the knife.

“Cottonmouth,” Nicholas told him grimly as he stared down at the puffy, pinkish purple skin that surrounded two small punctures in his thigh, just above his knee. He glanced around the coach impatiently. “I need something to tie around my thigh.”

Mara stared in horror at the ugly marks on his thigh. Then, with shaking fingers, she untied the thin ribbon around her ankle. Quickly slipping off her satin slipper, she pulled up her skirt and petticoat, all sense of propriety forgotten as she reached up beneath her drawers and rolled down her silk stocking, her slender white leg bare as she held out the needed tourniquet.

Nicholas smiled as he took the stocking and tied it around his upper thigh, above the wound. “I appreciate your sacrifice, ma petite,” he murmured as he took the knife and pressed the red-hot blade against his flesh, making an X-shaped cut across each puncture.

Mara held her hand over her mouth, her teeth biting into it as she watched him unflinchingly bend down and suck the wound clean of the poison, spitting out the venom after what must have been an excruciatingly painful procedure.

Nicholas fell back against the seat looking pale and weak as he tried to slow down his breathing. “Someone’s got to tighten this tourniquet. I don’t have the strength,” he said quietly, his eyelids growing heavy over his darkening eyes.

“I might be small, but I’m strong as an ox,” Jamie pronounced determinedly as she untied the stocking and pulled it tighter, the muscles in her wiry body straining with the effort.

The carriage bumped along, slowing down every so often when the road became almost impassable. The big wheels turned slower and slower under their buildup of thick mud. Mara was cradling Nicholas’s head against her breast, oblivious to her own wound. She kept watching his pulse, which fluctuated rapidly in his neck.

Mara had never thought Sandrose could seem such a welcoming sight. They were a sorry-looking troupe of people who rolled up before the elegant doors, their carriage and wagons covered in red mud. The rain began to fall in earnest, blowing in cold sheets as the little party struggled from the carriage.

Amaryllis had been standing at the head of the steps staring down at the procession in silent amazement. As she saw Nicholas unconscious in Mara’s blood-stained arms, she quickly issued orders. The servants who’d been standing curiously around the foot of the steps were sent in running groups to take charge of the wagons. Another group helped carry Nicholas to safety.