Iron Lace

• Acknowledgments
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-one
  
• Chapter Twenty-two
  
• Chapter Twenty-three
  
• Chapter Twenty-four
  
• Chapter Twenty-five
  
• Chapter Twenty-six
  
• Chapter Twenty-seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-eight
  
• Chapter Twenty-nine
  
• Chapter Thirty
  
• Chapter Thirty-one
  
• Chapter Thirty-two
  
• Chapter Thirty-three
  
• Chapter Thirty-four
  
• Chapter Thirty-five
  
• Chapter Thirty-six
  
• Chapter Thirty-seven
  
• Chapter Thirty-eight
  
• Chapter Thirty-nine
  
• Chapter Forty
  
• Chapter Forty-one
  
• Chapter Forty-two
  
• Author's Note
  

"I Hate You!" She Cried. "I Never Asked You to Come After
Me."


Suddenly he caught her by the shoulders, his lips seeking
her out in the darkness. A fresh gust of wind lashed them together,
their bodies molding one to the other. A flash of lightning illumined
her up-turned face, and he saw her eyes were half-closed, her lips
lifted expectantly to his. He could feel her rain-soaked body swaying
in his arms, readily yielding herself to him.


"You're just a child in love with love."


She cringed as though he had struck her. "You arrogant
scoundrel," she exclaimed angrily.


Silently Miguel turned away from her, grateful now for the
darkness. He couldn't bear to see the hatred in her eyes, nor did he
want her to know how those brief moments of intimacy with her had
really affected him.

Copyright © 1983 by Lorena Dureau

First published in the United States of America 1983

by
Pocket Books

Coronet edition 1983

ISBN 0-340-33770-2

To my many friends in Mexico who taught me to know and
love their country—and most of all, to those very special
amigas
who were always there to help and encourage me over the years:

Alicia Kamel Ortega

Adela Dinorah Ponce de Mejia

Josefina Saldana de Marin

—and the late, but dearly remembered—

Bertha Valencia U.

and

Sally Zeitlin

Besides the usual sources of information consulted while
researching such a book, the author wishes to give special thanks to
the following people for their invaluable assistance:

Miss Florence Jumonville, Head Librarian

The Historic New
Orleans Collection

Dan Gill, Asst. Area Agent, Horticulture

The Louisiana
Cooperative Extension Service

Vaughn L. Glasgow, Chief Curator

Louisiana State Museum

Dr. Charles Nolan, Associate Archivist

Archives of
Archdiocese of New Orleans

Sidney Villere, Louisiana historian and author

Dr. Joseph A. Polack

Audubon Sugar Institute

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La.

"Mon
Dieu
,
Monique! We
shouldn't be out alone on the street like this. There will
be the devil to pay when we get home!"

"Oh, stop your fretting, Celeste. Grandmother will still
be dozing when we get back. She'll never know we've been gone."

The traveling marionette troupe had already begun its
show, and the two young girls had run all the way to the plaza, not
wanting to miss any of it.

The Plaza de Armas was bustling this afternoon, yet the
Chausson sisters attracted considerable attention as they wended their
way breathlessly through the clusters of townsfolk milling around the
large square. Seventeen-year-old Monique and her sister Celeste,
younger by less than two years, were a delight to behold as they darted
about in the warm spring sunshine like bright-winged butterflies fresh
out of their cocoons. Beneath their tiny ruffled parasols, their golden
curls bobbed merrily about their shoulders as they swished along in
their full-skirted gowns of diaphanous white muslin draped over
colorful petticoats of rustling taffeta, their wide satin sashes
streaming behind them. They fancied themselves quite the grand ladies
of fashion, even though they were surrounded mostly by other youngsters.

"Heaven knows we have little enough distraction these days
now that Papa's gone," sighed Monique, the rosy glow of her deep pink
underskirts momentarily opposed by the shadow of sadness that flitted
across her round doll-like face. "Grandmother never likes to go
anywhere these days except to mass or the cemetery, and now we don't
even have a chaperon to accompany us if we want to go somewhere. I'm
afraid we're well on our way to becoming old maids!"

Celeste smiled as she adjusted a fold in her sash of
crushed green satin. She was accustomed to her elder sister's tendency
to dramatize. "Oh, I doubt that, my dear. You already have more than
your share of beaux. Every time we go promenading on the levee, there
are always more young men around you than there are orange trees along
the walk. Grandmother will have to let you begin going out with them
before too long."

But Monique had her doubts. Although her grandmother often
boasted that her nieces were among the most outstanding beauties of the
Louisiana colony, Monique was far from satisfied with herself. Secretly
she hated the babylike chubbiness of her cheeks that were not pale
enough to be fashionable, and that silly button nose of hers that made
her look more like a child than the classic-featured Parisian lady she
so yearned to be.

Of course, beaux like Maurice Foucher insisted that the
dimples in the middle of her cheeks made her all the more charming, but
then he was always reciting pretty phrases. She knew better. Her face
was too round, her nose too small, and her mouth often made her look as
if she were about to go into a pout. There was absolutely nothing
classic about her at all!

What's more, her eyes had a way of changing color. Instead
of being an intense violet or emerald-green, they mirrored whatever
happened to be near them at the moment. Although they were a strikingly
clear gray, heavily lashed and well set apart, they had no color of
their own as far as she was concerned, and Maurice's assuring her they
were all the more fascinating because of their unpredictability didn't
do much to console her.

About the only thing she could really be proud of was her
generous mane of pale gold hair. Sometimes she was not above calling
attention to it by giving her head an extra toss or two. She was doubly
glad, therefore, that it was no longer the style to powder the hair now
except for formal occasions.

Monique cast an affectionate glance down at her younger
sister. At fifteen, dainty little Celeste might still be immature in
many ways—an inch or two shorter and not very developed yet
under her fichu —but the girl had a beauty all her own. Her
hair was of a darker gold, more honey-colored, and she had inherited
her father's hazel eyes, giving her a doelike appearance that seemed to
match that air of calm about her that often bordered on timidity.

The bond between the sisters was a strong one. Six years
before, their mother and younger brother had died in the epidemic that
had followed the Great Fire of 1788, when four-fifths of New Orleans
had burned to the ground. Since then the girls had been raised under a
loose rein. Their father had been engrossed with the rebuilding of
their partially destroyed town house and trying to get the family
plantation upriver on a better-paying basis. He had left them to the
vigilance of their doting grandmother and their well-meaning but easily
manipulated governess.

Six months ago, however, Louis Chausson had suddenly been
killed in a freak accident when his horse, startled by a snake, had
thrown him to the ground and broken his neck. The shock of losing her
son so tragically and without warning aged Aimee Chausson almost
overnight. Now she left the running of the plantation almost entirely
to the overseer. Most of the time she just sat sighing or dozing over
her sewing, murmuring that the burden that had been left on her
shoulders was more than she could bear.

As luck would have it, two months after the death of Louis
Chausson the girls' governess had suddenly resigned to marry a simple
but hardworking planter on the German Coast farther up the Mississippi.
Since then, Grandmother had not been able to find a suitable
replacement for her, so Monique and her sister had been enjoying even
greater freedom than ever lately.

Sometimes Aimee Chausson even spoke of closing up the town
house and going to live permanently at their plantation upriver.
Monique hoped they wouldn't move. She much preferred the more active
life of New Orleans to that of the plantation. In the city there was
always something exciting going on. She especially loved to come to the
Plaza de Armas. There was always so much to see: elegantly clad
noblemen and uniformed soldiers with long slender swords swinging
impressively at their sides… street vendors hawking their
wares in singsong voices… hooded friars gliding calmly
through the busy throng in dark homespun robes and bare sandaled
feet… buckskinned rivermen who had poled down from the Ohio
Territory to sell their produce in New Orleans… and in the
midst of all this activity, the laborers working feverishly away on the
new cathedral.

The broad expanse of the mighty Mississippi could even be
glimpsed from the plaza. From one of her favorite spots, Los Naranjos,
Monique would often sit for hours on the levee, just watching the
continuous parade of vessels going by—as imaginative a
collection of man-powered or mule-drawn barques as was ever contrived
by merchants to get their wares to market.

Although the loading and unloading docks were farther down
the embankment, a distance away from the main plaza, the sounds of the
activities going on there could be heard. The shouted orders, the
squeaking of the pulleys, the warning cries, occasional grunts and
curses… they all drifted into the square to mingle with that
reverberating symphony of innumerable sounds that made up the thriving
little port of Nueva Orleans, political and ecclesiastical seat of His
Catholic Majesty Carlos IV's Louisiana colony. Of course, it was still
better known as Nouvelle Orleans by the majority of its citizens, who
continued to be passionately French at heart, despite the fact that
well over a generation had gone by since they had become a Spanish
colony.