Creole Fires (29 page)

The man was as tall as François, but much more slender, his cheekbones high and his lips well formed. He smiled at François almost seductively and moved so gracefully he appeared to float. When he flushed at something François said, François touched his cheek and the young man captured his hand, holding it in a manner that somehow seemed improper.

Nicki felt as if she were intruding on an intimate scene between two people who shared something deeper than mere friendship. Something more like love.

She blanched as if a blow had struck her. Eyes wide in disbelief, she started to look away just as François glanced up. For a moment they stared at each other, then Nicki turned away.

She returned to Michele and Thomas, feeling shaken and uncertain. She knew little about men whose affections belonged to other men, only whispered
rumors of their existence. Certainly nothing of their forbidden passions.

Yet instinctively she knew François to be among them.

He returned looking as pale and shaken as she. “Jean Pierre is an old school friend,” he said by way of explanation, but wouldn’t meet her eyes.

At the town house, he hastily took his leave, still withdrawn and looking a trifle upset. Thomas departed grudgingly, and then only after receiving permission to call on Michele at her aunt’s. Finally the two girls were left alone.

“You like him, don’t you?” Nicki asked, when they were seated on the tapestry sofa.

“Oui
, he is very charming. And so handsome.” Mi-chele rolled her pretty green eyes.

“I like him too.”

Michele pulled off her gloves. “I am glad that I met him, but I came here to see you. What are these stories I hear? Surely they cannot be true.”

“What—what have you heard?”

“Ma tante
says you belong to Alexandre du Villier. That you are his bond servant. She says everyone in the
Vieux Carré
knows he bought you at the prison for an outrageous sum of money. Surely M’sieur du Villier was only trying to help you. After all, he and your father were friends.”

Nicki came to her feet and began to pace in front of the fireplace. There was nothing left to hide, no more reason to lie. “Alex did help me. In most ways he’s been good to me.”

“Most ways?” Michele pressed.

“It’s a long story, Michele, but suffice it to say it took a very long while for me to trust him. Eventually
I did. I believed he cared for me. I … allowed my feelings to get involved … did things I now regret. Since then, I’ve discovered that his intentions toward me were not what I believed.” It was all she was willing to say. Let Michele deduce what she would.

“Mon Dieu”
she whispered.

“I thought I loved him,” Nicki said softly, praying her friend would understand.

“And now?”

Nicki sighed and sat down on the sofa. “I don’t know what I feel anymore.”

“Surely, if you asked, he would release you from your contract.”

“He will not.”

“But why? It is what his father would have wanted,
n’est-ce pas?”

Nicki sat forward, turning to face her more squarely. “I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. I don’t know why.”
Because he wants me. Because he owns me and Alex keeps what he owns.
Still, Alex was not an unkind man, nor one given to putting his own happiness above that of others. That she belonged to him wasn’t answer enough—yet what else could it be?

“Is there nothing I can do?” Michele asked.

“Only be my friend.” Nicki smiled forlornly. “It won’t be that easy, I assure you. I’m surprised your aunt allowed this visit.”

Michele released a hesitant breath. “Actually, she forbade it. But I will tell you this. We were friends then. We are friends now.” She squared her slender shoulders. “We will always be friends and nothing can change that.”

Michele came to her feet and gave Nicole a hug. “You must let me know if you need anything.”

“Alex sees to my needs,” she said with a touch of bitterness. She didn’t add she had no intention of seeing to his.

With little or nothing to do all day, the week dragged interminably. How she missed the wide-open spaces, the sense of freedom she had felt at Belle Chêne. Though the courtyard provided a place of solace, and the bustling city excited her, Nicki would always prefer the country.

Once she had made her escape, she vowed, she would return to that quieter existence.

Escape, however, without careful planning and with Ram underfoot, would not be easy.

The first step in her scheme involved finding the big Turk’s weakness. Bent on that end, she spoke to him whenever she got the chance, asking him questions about Alex and their longtime friendship. He always answered politely, but with a watchful eye that seemed to be gauging whether or not she was worthy of Alexandre’s attentions. It was obvious he thought a great deal of his friend.

For the first few days, Nicki watched him closely. He was a mysterious man, silent much of the time, and ever observant. Sometimes he seemed almost able to read her thoughts.

At night his wariness increased, as if he expected her to attempt to leave. Several times in the night, she thought she heard him in the hall outside her door. Twice she had seen him below her chamber windows, walking in the moonlit shadows of the garden.

Successfully escaping the Ram would be no easy task, but Nicki was sure that sooner or later she would find a way.

“Tell me about Algeria,” she asked him one evening after supper. Ram sat at Alex’s desk in the study, where he seemed to feel most comfortable.

Recalling long-ago events, Ram smiled and looked off into space. One beefy hand skimmed over his massive clean-shaven head, then his eyes returned to her face.

“We were young and foolish back then. Alexandre fighting for his French homeland, me fighting just for the fun of it—and of course, the bounty it would bring. The rebels captured severed dozen mercenaries and some of the troops, and we were taken to a cave they were using as a prison. It was a terrible place, full of rats and the stench of dying men.”

Nicki’s stomach tightened as she recalled her own hellish experience. “But you and Alex didn’t die,” she prodded.

“No. In this place the strong survived. I was used to hardship. For me the prison was merely an inconvenience. Not like Alex, with his fine manners and fancy soldier’s uniform. Alexandre was little more than a boy.”

“Then you must have helped him.”

“I helped him only to discover the man he was inside. It took just a little reassurance. A bit of knowledge.
An ounce of skill. While the others withered away, Alexandre’s strength grew. The men who challenged him learned the hard way that he was a man who gave no quarter. In time, he was feared and respected. To put it simply—he survived.”

“As did your friendship,” she said.

“Yes. When the French soldiers overran the prison, Alex fought two of his own people to keep me alive. I have not forgotten.”

No one forgets Alexandre
, she thought with quiet desperation.

She started for the door, but Ram’s deep voice stopped her.

“I don’t suppose you play chess?” he asked.

“Chess?” It seemed absurd coming from one so mighty.

“Yes. Alexandre taught me. We carved wooden pieces and played on a board drawn in the dirt on the floor of the cave. It helped to pass the time.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Nicki smiled. Needing a little distraction, she took a seat across from him. Ram smiled in return and reached for the beautiful inlaid chessboard.

As the week wore on, Nicki’s worry turned from Alex’s pending arrival to thoughts of François. She had hoped he would come to call, that maybe there was something he would say to her, or something she might say to him to bring back their once-close friendship.

“Danielle,” she called to the ever-smiling French girl, who sat quietly sewing in her small upstairs room, “I was wondering if we might talk for a moment.”

“But of course.” She flashed Nicki a knowing
glance. “You are having trouble with
M’sieur le duc?”
Danielle seemed to get a secret thrill out of calling him that—though she never said it to his face.

“I’m always having trouble with Alex, but that’s not the problem.”

“What then?”

Nicki sat down on the edge of the bed across from Danielle, who set her embroidery aside. “I weis wondering if you might have heard something about … well … men who are … different from other men. I know a little bit about them, but not enough.”

“Different? In what way different?”

Nicki flushed just to think of it. “They’re not interested in women. They’re attracted to men.”

“Sacrebleu!”
Danielle’s gray eyes went wide.

“Then you do know something ….”

Danielle smiled, flashing an expression of innocence that always made her look pretty. “I know only what I have heard when I should not have been listening.”

“And?”

“They say it is a sin. The curse of the devil. A woman should pretend not to know, even if she does.”

“Do you think they—”

“I do not know. And even I would not ask.” Danielle’s look turned impish. “But if you find out, you had better tell me.”

Nicki almost smiled. The curse of the devil, she thought, picturing François’s tortured face when he had spotted her standing at the window. Maybe it was.

Later that same day, after working up a second round of courage, she spoke to the Ram about it. He
was, she was sure, the last possible person she should ask, but he did have a certain worldliness that most men lacked. And nothing seemed to bother him. She had never seen him embarrassed or judgmental.

“Good afternoon, Ram,” she said, approaching him in Alexandre’s study.

“For some maybe. I would prefer to be out-of-doors.”

“And I would prefer you and Alexandre both take your leave, but apparently that is not to be.”

The big Turk laughed, a heavy rumble that shook his massive chest. “I will only be here a short while longer. Just until after the harvest.”

Nicki’s temper fired. “Alexandre is certainly sure of himself. What makes him think I won’t leave just as soon as you’ve gone?”

“You’ll have to ask him that question.” Ram glanced back down at the book he was reading, presuming she would leave.

She didn’t, just watched his black eyes move carefully across the page. He was reading Richard Henry Dana’s
Two Years Before the Mast.
At first she’d been surprised a man of his rough nature would be able to read, but he had explained that Alex had arranged for his instruction when he’d expressed a desire to learn.

“There is something I would know, Ram,” she said, interrupting him again.

He swung his smooth-lidded gaze in her direction and smiled indulgently. “Yes?”

Nervous, she twirled a long copper strand of her hair. “It’s a subject women aren’t supposed to discuss.”

“If you ask and I know, I will tell you.”

Nicki wet her suddenly dry lips. “It’s about men who are … attracted to other men.”

“What is it you wish to know of them?” he asked, apparently nonplussed.

“Then you know of such men?”

“I have known a few. In the East it is more acceptable than here.”

“What—what makes them that way?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I do not know. Some say it is the work of Satan. I say it is only a whim of nature. Many seem to have the inclination from birth. Since I am not so afflicted”—he grinned wickedly, strong teeth white in his nut-brown face—“it is not for me to say.”

“Is there nothing that can be done?”

“Not that I know of.” He looked at her hard. “Why do you ask these things? I do not believe it is just curiosity.”

“I think I know such a man.”

“François,” he said flatly.

Nicki sucked in a breath. “How did you know?”

“The signs are there. Alexandre refuses to see them.”

“He loves his brother.”

“That is so. But denying the truth cannot change it.”

“I don’t think most people suspect,” Nicki said.

“That is also true, but Alexandre is not most people. And François is so afraid of causing his brother unhappiness, he ruins his own chance for happiness.”

“I wish there was something I could do. I feel so sorry for him.”

Ram watched her closely. “And what do you feel for Alexandre? Hate? Fear? Passion? Or love?”

Nicki lifted her chin but didn’t look away. “Alexandre du Villier is my master. At one time or another I have felt all of those things and more.”

“And now?”

“Now I only wish to be away from him.”

The Ram said nothing else.

On Wednesday, the day of Alex’s planned arrival, Nicki received a note from him. He had been detained at Belle Chêne, but would greatly appreciate the honor of her company on Friday evening at a performance of the Italian Singers at a place called the Verandah.

She scoffed at the formal invitation. It was a command, not a request, and they both knew it.

“Danielle!” she called out, marching determinedly up the stairs. “I need a servant’s uniform. Something old and dismal and tattered. What can you find for me?”