Creole Fires (45 page)

Finally he pulled away. “You haven’t given me an answer.”

Nicki smiled and kissed him again. “It seems I’m already betrothed,” she teased. “What am I to do with my fiancé?”

“Simon Stillwater has been gracious enough to decline
his suit—once he understood you were already spoken for.”

Nicki grinned. “Then, M’sieur du Villier, since you have asked so nicely, I would be proud to marry you.”

Alex bent his head and kissed her, a long, sensuous kiss that stirred thoughts better dealt with someplace else. “I promise you’ll never be sorry.”

Nicki smiled softly. “I have never regretted a single moment I’ve spent with you.”

Looping her arm through his, Nicki let him guide her down the aisle toward the altar. From the depths of a doorway, a small black-haired priest stepped forward, his long robes billowing out behind him.

“May I be of assistance?” he asked.

“Father, I know this is a bit unusual,” Alex said, “but we need to be married as soon as possible.” He flashed Nicki a grin that dimpled his cheeks. “I intend to have this lady installed in my bed within the hour—and I wouldn’t want to soil her honor.”

“Alex!”

Alex’s grin only deepened. “Well, Father?”

The little priest, seemed nonplussed. “There are times, my son, when the rules must be bent just a little. This, it seems, is one of them.”

Alex turned to Nicole. “We’ll do it in grand style when we get home, but I’m not taking any more chances of losing you.”

“Nor I you,” she agreed. “I promise I’ve made my last escape.”

Alex and Nicole were married by an indulgent priest in a tearful, joyous ceremony quite unlike the uncertain ones performed in the dusty Galveston street outside the church.

Ram gave away the bride and acted as Alex’s best man while an elderly Mexican woman, weeping sentimentally beneath her black lace mantilla, stood beside Nicki. After the final vows were spoken and Alex kissed his bride, he slid an arm beneath her knees, lifted her up, and carried her off down the aisle.

“A honeymoon in the Galveston Hotel is not exactly what I had in mind,
chérie
, but for now it will have to do.”

“I don’t care where we go as long as we’re together,” Nicki told him, hugging his muscular neck.

“We’ll rest here a few days, then we’re going home.”

“To Belle Chêne?”

“Yes,
ma chère
, Belle Chêne. Where you should have been all along.” Alex gave her another resounding kiss. “We’ll be back in time for Christmas—and afterward, the sugarhouse ball.”

“Christmas at Belle Chêne,” she said wistfully. “It must be beautiful.”

“Mrs. Leander has been working on the decorations for weeks.”

Nicki smiled softly. “I can hardly wait to get there.”

Once they were outside the church, Alex set Nicki on her feet. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Ram, whose face looked more somber than the joyous occasion called for.

“What is it, my friend?” Alex asked.

“Friend?” Ram repeated with a sarcastic twist. “If I had truly been your friend, I would not have doubted you. After all these years, I should have known you would do what was right.”

“You acted just as I would have wanted you to—you protected the woman I love. That’s exactly why I entrusted her to you in the first place.”

Looking vastly relieved, Ram broke into a grin. “I hadn’t thought of it quite that way, but I suppose you are right.” Ram clapped Alex on the back. “Now that my job is finished—and you’ve someone else to look after you—I’ll be leaving.”

Alex was not surprised. “Where will you go?”

“There is a ship of the Texas Republic heading to Mexico, looking to arm a group of rebels fighting the Mexican government on the Yucatán. Since the overthrow would help their cause, the Texans are looking for mercenaries. I have never been to Mexico. I mean to sign aboard.”

“I know of the expedition,” Alex said. “Morgan Trask’s brother is among the soldiers who are going. I spoke to him briefly when I arrived.”

Nicki’s attention swung to Alex. “I believe we met him when we docked.”

“He looks much like his older brother. Brendan’s a bit impetuous, not nearly so sensible as Morgan, but a good man, I believe.”

Nicki turned to Ram, sorry to see him go, but knowing the adventure would make him happy. “We’re going to miss you.” As the sun broke through the clouds, Nicki rose on tiptoes to kiss his smooth-skinned cheek.

“There will always be a place for you at Belle Chêne,” Alex told him, clasping Ram’s beefy hand.

Across the way, most of the men and women of the Peters Colony had retreated to their wagons to make final preparations for their journey, but the white-collared preacher who had performed the marriages still remained. He was about to complete the last couple’s ceremony when Nicki noticed the man speaking his vows was Simon. The woman beside him was short, dark-haired and buxom, with brown eyes and a sturdy chin that stirred a faint chord of memory. The sixth woman had finally arrived.

And Lorna Mackintosh had chosen Simon Stillwater to be her husband.

With a cry of joy, Nicki grabbed Alex’s hand and raced toward her friend. Lorna turned at the sound of running feet, and her eyes went wide in recognition.

“Nicki, lass! Can it really be you?”

“I can’t believe it,” Nicki said, hugging her tightly. “How did you get here?”

“Man who bought me died last month. While the vultures were fightin’ o’er his possessions, I made off. They willna come this far to bring me back.”

“Knowing you’re free at last is the best wedding present I could have been given.” The women hugged again and wiped happy tears from their eyes.

“Seems there’s a present ye’ve given me, as well,” Lorna told her, with a warm glance at her new husband.

Simon grinned, obviously pleased with his bride.

“This is my new husband,” Nicki said, smiling up at Alex. “Alexandre du Villier, meet my dear friend, Lorna Mackintosh.”

Lorna flashed him a winning smile and extended her hand, which Alex warmly accepted.

“I’ve much to thank you for,” he said, recalling now the dark-haired woman who had tried to help Nicki at the prison.

“Dinna be thankin’ me. It was yerself who saved her. Ye married a woman ye kin be proud of.” She laughed, a hearty, robust sound Nicki had seldom heard in the confines of their dismal cell. “Ye thought ye’d bought yerself a pig in a poke, but look what a treasure ye got instead.”

Alex heartily agreed. “Nicole has spoken of you with great affection. She has never forgotten the way you helped her.”

“I tried to warn her against that blackguard, Fortier, but I fair believed he was bound to have her. When I saw ye had bought her instead, I knew she’d be all right.”

“Fortier has done his last evil deed.” Alex turned Nicki’s face with his fingers. “A few days after I repaid the note, Valcour died by his own hand.”

“Dear God,” Nicki whispered, tightening her hold on Alex’s arm.

“Good riddance, I say,” Lorna put in.

“As much as I should have hated him,” Nicki said, “I felt only pity. I believe he wanted to change, but his scars were just too deep.”

“You may be right,” Alex agreed. “He left a great deal of money to Lisette. I think he may have loved her after all.”

Nicki blinked back a sudden mist of tears. “I hope she’ll be all right.”

“Lisette’s young, and still unsure of what she really wants. This will give her some time to find out.”

From a few feet away, Simon Stillwater pointedly cleared his throat and all heads swung in his direction. “I don’t mean to break up this happy reunion, but the cap’n’s gettin’ anxious to leave, and I ain’t kissed my bride.”

Everyone laughed, and Lorna flashed Nicki a grin. “We kinna have that, kin we, husband?” In two determined steps, Lorna reached the lanky farmer, slipped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down for a long, thorough kiss. When she broke away, both of them seemed a little shaken.

“I believe I’ve made m’self a bargain after all,” Lorna told them with a smile of pleasure.

Simon grinned. “I may be a little shy to start with, wife, but I expect you’ll find that bargain even better once I git you between the blankets.”

Lorna blushed—and so did Simon, who looked as if he couldn’t believe he’d said the words. With final farewells and warm wishes, the travelers departed, and Ram headed off toward the docks.

“Well,
wife,”
Alex said, mimicking Simon, “why don’t I get you between the blankets so you can see what kind of a bargain you made?” His eyes turned dark and drifted to the curve of her breast.

“As I recall,” Nicki teased, ‘Tve yet to earn the two thousand dollars you paid for my contract. Maybe now’s a good time to start.”

Alex chuckled softly. Pulling a document from the inside pocket of his coat, he unfolded it and handed it to Nicole. “Even if you had said no, this would have been yours.”

Nicki read the words that had caused her so much grief. With a determined rip, she tore the contract in half and then in half again.

She smiled and pointed to the beautiful aquamarine-and-diamond wedding ring she wore on her third left finger. “This contract is far more binding. Now I belong to you forever.”

“You’re wrong,
ma chère.
It is I who belong to you. What you didn’t know was that I have been yours from the start.”

Nicki kissed him then, unmindful of the passersby who watched them with envy, feeling only the warming rays of the sun on her back, and her husband’s strong arms around her. She was Nicole St. Claire du Villier. Alexandre’s wife and partner. She would love him, give herself more freely than ever before.

Then they would return to Belle Chêne. To the life she was meant for. At last she was going home.

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SAVANNAH HEAT
by Kat Martin
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Savannah, Georgia
1841

Escape! It was all she could think of, all she could dream. The word possessed her, crowding her thoughts and blotting her senses until it formed a prison all its own.

Silver Jones sank down on the low wooden cot in the corner of the rat-infested storeroom. Her blood still pumped from her latest unsuccessful effort: stacking heavy wooden crates and boxes one atop the other, then climbing the unstable pyramid to the small dirty window a dozen feet above her head.

This morning she had finally succeeded in prying open a side door, and though she hadn’t found an avenue of escape and only succeeded in tearing her nails and bloodying her fingers, she did find enough boxes in the adjoining room to build her shaky ladder.

Damn it to hell! Silver slammed her slender fist against the cot, then cursed again for her self-inflicted pain. She’d been so sure that once she reached the window she’d be able to squeeze through the opening and make her escape. Instead she’d discovered, even as slenderly built as she was, the opening was just too small. Hours of shouting for help had only made her hoarse.

Silver released a weary sigh and glanced at her dismal surroundings. Along with the heavy boxes and her narrow wooden cot, a chipped pink porcelain water pitcher sat in a basin on an upturned crate next to a partly burned candle. The place smelled moldy and abandoned. Flies buzzed above a tray laden with a half-eaten crust of bread and an empty bowl of mutton stew.

From the corner of her eye, Silver spotted the gray-brown fur of a rat as it skittered behind a hogs-head barrel in the corner, and clenched her teeth to stifle a scream. God, she hated the dirty little creatures. Bugs and spiders she could stand; there were lots of them where she came from. And lots of them here in the hot and humid climate of Savannah.

But rats—even tiny little field mice—were another matter altogether.

Silver shivered as the rat raced by just a few feet away and eventually disappeared. Ignoring thoughts of when it might return, she ran her fingers through her hair, tugging at a snarl here and there, and worked to comb out some of the tangles. The long, usually glistening silver strands that had inspired her nickname hung in grayish ropes around her face. Her low-cut white cotton peasant blouse and simple brown skirt, the uniform of the tavern maid at the White Horse Inn, where she had been working, were stained from the grime that covered the walls and floors and torn in several places.