Creole Fires (6 page)

Awaiting Marie’s return, Nicole sat down on the tapestry stool in front of the dressing table and looked out the window at the garden below. She was enjoying the riot of color, the yellows, lavenders, and pinks, when the door slammed open with a rush of air and Alexandre du Villier strode into the room.

His thunderous expression told her all she needed to know.

“I thought you understood,” he said, his voice again hard. “I’ll not tolerate your thievery—” Alex stopped in mid-sentence. For an instant he thought he had entered the wrong room. The girl who stared back at him bore little resemblance to the waif he had purchased at the auction.

“Thank God Fortier never got a good look at you. He’d damned well have paid the two thousand.”

“Two thousand?” she squeaked, coming to her feet. “That’s what you paid for me?”

“Yes, though you may rest assured I already regret it.” God, did he. The girl was little more than a child, yet he felt a tightening in his groin just to look at her. Hair the color of newly minted pennies, eyes like aquamarines. Her lips were full and the loveliest shade
of pink.
Nom de Dieu
, he had never been attracted to such a young girl.

“This is your last warning,” he told her. “Unless you wish to wind up back on the auction block, you’ll learn to behave yourself.”

“Please … it wasn’t the way you think.” Just the thought of being sold again made her feel sick. “I was just … looking around … at … at all the pretty things you have.” Women’s things, she realized, the truth finally dawning. Frilly lace and heavy perfume. Alex was married! “I—I just couldn’t help myself.”

Alex was watching her face, and it was clear he knew she was lying. She wanted to die.

“Those pretty things belong to somebody else. You’ll do well to remember that.”

“M’sieur du Villier,” she said softly, repeating his name as the maid had, careful to say it with a trace of an English accent. “I appreciate what you’ve done.”
So far.
She hadn’t forgotten his ominous threat about her being an
amusement.
“I won’t steal from you. I give you my word.”

“And just how much is a thief’s word worth?” His look said not one franc.

“I’m not a thief. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth. I didn’t do the things they say. I’ve never stolen anything. As far as my word is concerned, I value it above all things. It’s all I have left.”

Alex regarded her closely, the straightforward way she met his eyes, the proud tilt to her chin. This time she was telling the truth. He was sure of it. There were hundreds of people living on Belle Chêne. Hundreds of people who were his responsibility. He had
learned quickly how to judge a man or a woman, and he was rarely wrong.

“All right, Nicki. I’ll accept your word.”

“You will?” She looked so surprised, he almost smiled.

“That’s what I said.” He extended his hand, but the girl just stared at it, reminding him of some untamed wary animal. He held his hand immobile, allowing her to test his intentions until tentatively she reached for it. Her fingers felt small and warm in his, but it was her smile that touched his heart. It was only the second time he had seen it and instantly his regret in buying her began to fade.

“I don’t imagine you’ve had a lot to eat lately.”

She wet her lips at the mention of food. “No.”

“Why don’t you go downstairs and see what Cook can find for you? I told her you’d be down.”

“Thank you,” she said, but didn’t move.

“Go on,” he prompted.

With another quick smile she was gone, leaving a certain dimness in the room. For the first time Alex realized it was getting dark outside.

Nicki had been just a child when last she had seen Belle Chêne.

Too little to remember the magnificence of the great white plantation house rising two stories, with an attic above the half story that lifted it off the damp black earth near the river. Dozens of columns ten feet apart surrounded each level, creating wide galleries that kept the rooms cool in summer. A massive hip roof, enhanced by tiny dormer windows, separated tall brick chimneys at each end of the house.

But even as the carriage rumbled up the oak-lined
drive beneath draping gray-green moss, Nicole remembered the beautiful black mantels of rare Belgian marble she would find in the receiving rooms downstairs, the pink Baccarat crystal chandelier with its hand-blown chains of small individual links that lighted the entry. As luxurious as Meadowood had been, none compared to Belle Chêne.

The grinding of the carriage wheels against the oyster-shell drive in front of the house marked their arrival. Alex helped her down, and they walked inside.

“I’ve brought you some help,” he told the housekeeper. “Nicki, this is Mrs. Leander. She’ll get you settled in.”

Mrs. Leander, a buxom, graying woman at least half a head taller than Nicki, took her firmly in hand and led her to a tiny attic room on the third floor of the house.

“We can always use a good worker,” Mrs. Leander said pointedly.

“I’ll do my best,” Nicki promised.

That night she slept fitfully, tossing and turning in her unfamiliar surroundings. She shivered, though the room felt warm, and dreamed of Armand Laurent. Dark, disturbing dreams of lashing fists that battered her body, and broken bones that tore through her tender flesh. Of blood that turned her world red and oozing, and tears that would not end.

Then the haunting laughter of the guards rose up, the anguished cries of the women.

Nicki bolted upright. Her nightshirt, damp with sweat, clung wetly to her body, and her heartbeat hammered in her ears. It took a moment for her to realize there was no threat of danger, but eventually
the warmth in the room seeped into her awareness, dissolving the cobwebs of fear; and the cheery quilt that covered her comfortable bed eased her mind.

Pulling the gay little pink squares beneath her chin, touching it almost reverently, she finally drifted to sleep.

That had been nearly two weeks ago. She’d seen Alex only a few times since, but she
had
made some discoveries. She found out his household was well run and her work schedule not too strenuous. Her duties, mostly working in the kitchen outside the main house, ended right after supper, often before it got dark. She had Saturday afternoons and Sundays off, just as the sugarcane workers did.

A simple parish church, constructed for the workers, held Catholic services every week. Nicki attended, though she still kept much to herself. For the most part, she was allowed the run of the plantation, more freedom than she had known in the last three years.

About Alex himself, according to Mrs. Leander and some of the other women on the staff, he could probably part the Red Sea. They fussed over him endlessly, worried that he worked too hard, worried that he didn’t eat properly, worried that he worried too much. Nicki found herself more and more intrigued.

“Why does his wife live in the city, while he spends most of his time out here?” she asked, careful to keep her interest nonchalant.

“M’sieur Alex is not married,” Danielle Le Goff, the upstairs maid replied, tittering behind her hand. She was a short, plump, giggly girl with wistful gray eyes. Pretty, in a robust sort of way, with thick darkbrown
hair that glistened in the sunlight slanting in through the open window. “But he is not lonely. He has his lady friends.”

“You mean he has a … mistress?”

“Oh, yes. Mademoiselle Lisette has been … entertaining him of late, but—”

Mrs. Leander’s heavy footfalls stopped Danielle in mid-sentence.

“She’s too young to be knowing about such things,” the housekeeper said. “Once she’s grown and married, she’ll find out for herself.” She thrust the broom Danielle had laid aside in the dark-haired girl’s direction. “Get on back to work.”

She turned a kinder eye on Nicki. “As for you, young lady, if you’ve finished with the floors, there’s a trunkload of silver needs polishin’.”

Nicki followed her into the dining room, thinking how much she liked the kind-hearted older woman. But her mind was not on the silver caddies that awaited.

It was on Alex and his mistress.
Lisette.
The woman who lived in his town house on Toulouse Street. She had known such women existed, of course, but she’d never really seen one. It was said that Richard Pax-ton, the man who had last owned her contract, was having an affair with a married woman, but that wasn’t quite the same. A mistress was supposed to be beautiful, witty, and exciting. She was certain Alexandre’s mistress would be all those things and more—and for reasons she wouldn’t examine, the thought put a damper on the balance of her day.

Nicki had just finished her second week at Belle Chêne when François du Villier arrived—and with him the first hint of trouble.

Since one of the older servants was ill, Nicole was helping serve supper in the dining room.

It was a sumptuous room, with a Hepplewhite table seating twenty, carved high-backed rosewood chairs, and a gilt-and-crystal chandelier. Peach silk draperies hung at the windows, which overlooked vast manicured gardens and a small man-made lake.

Carrying a cut-crystal water pitcher, Nicki pushed open the heavy swinging door that separated the warming pantry from the dining area. For an instant she thought the man who glanced in her direction was Alex, but the only real similarity between the two men was their dark-brown hair and eyes. François was more slender and several inches shorter. He was handsome, but his features were finer, almost feminine, while Alex had a far more masculine appeal.

“I wondered when you’d find your way home,” Alex said to him, speaking in French, which he seldom did, his tone far from kind. “I take it you ran out of money.”

“I’m back on the dole,
mon frère”
François’s
mouth turned up in a cynical smile. “What’s the matter, not glad to see me?”

“I used to be. Before you discovered your main ambition in life—to do as little as possible and spend as much as you possibly can.”

François’s face turned red. “Easy for you to say. You’re the one with the title and lands. All I have to my name is what your
generosity
provides.”

Nicole busied herself with the water goblets, but she didn’t miss the muscle that bunched in Alex’s jaw.

“Belle Chêne was all yours, François. I’d have stayed in France if you could have made it work. You were the one who put everything at risk.”

“There was a depression, for God’s sake—a panic. I was lucky to keep the place running at all!”

“Lucky?” Alex repeated. “I’ll grant you, times were tough, but luck has nothing to do with the success of a place like Belle Chêne—it’s hard work that counts! Something you, younger brother, know very little about.”

François shoved back his rosewood chair and stood up, slamming down his napkin in the process. “I won’t be talked to this way. I’m going back into town.”

He started toward the door, but stopped at the sound of Alex’s voice, whose tone had changed to one of regret. “François … why must we always quarrel like this? We never used to.”

His brother didn’t answer.

“What’s happened is past,” Alex added. “What’s important is Belle Chêne. I could use your help.”

“I’m no good at running a place like this—as you so clearly pointed out. You’ll figure out something.
You always do. In the meantime, I’ve taken a suite at the St. Louis Hotel. That’s what I came here to tell you. If you need me, which I doubt, you’ll find me there.” Without a backward glance, he stalked out of the room. A few moments later, the front door slammed behind him.

Alex shoved his nearly untouched plate away and leaned back in his chair. Nicole stood at her post beside the door.

“Ah,
ma petite,”
he said in French, assuming she wouldn’t understand, “why must life be so complicated?” He looked defeated, as she had never seen him before.

“You should eat, m’sieur,” she said in English, pushing the plate back in front of him, the mountain of buttered squash still steaming beside the delicate, wine-basted chicken.

He smiled at her concern. “If you will sit with me a moment,” he answered, surprising her, and maybe even himself.

“I have duties … things I should—”

“So do I,
ma chère
, so do I.”

She sat with him, beginning to see why the others watched after him so. Alexandre du Villier was an island. A man with grave responsibilities, and no one with whom he could share them.

“It must be difficult,” Nicki said, “having so many people to watch out for and no one to help you.”

For a moment he looked at her oddly, wondering, it seemed, if she might have understood what he had said, then brushing the notion away. “It was a simple task when we were a family—my father, François, and I—but all that has changed.”

“What about your mother?” Nicki asked.

He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “I didn’t see her much. My father raised us. The three of us were very close.” Some of the tension in his body seemed to ease. He dug into a golden-brown crab cake, then started on the chicken. “Are you hungry? I could have them bring you a plate, if you like.”