Silver-Tongued Devil (Louisiana Plantation Collection) (22 page)

In drawing her hair away from her face, he uncovered the dark shadow of a bruise along her jaw. He paused, his gaze lifting to its reflection in the mirror before them. It was necessary to control his sudden rage before he said, “Estelle saw to your wrists and ankles for you?”

“She applied some kind of salve. It smells of carbolic and something else not exactly medicinal.”

“Or pleasant?” he suggested. “I thought I recognized it. Contrary to what you might think, it helps.”

“I never doubted it,” she said with a wry smile.

He contemplated the curve of her mouth while he worked at a snarl with more delicacy than effect. From there, his gaze drifted to the shadows under her eyes. Abruptly, he said, “I apologize for not allowing you to rest before we go. But you are not to disturb yourself, all will be taken care of for you. You should be able to sleep once we are on the steamboat.”

“You think so?” she murmured without meeting his gaze.

“The journey upriver will take some time. From what I know of the plantation, we should not arrive for something more than twenty-four hours.”

She looked at him, then away again. “I don’t know that I can even board the boat, much less sleep there. The mere idea of it makes me feel — peculiar, as if I can’t get my breath.”

“As if you were drowning?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“Something like that. It may seem foolish, but I would so much rather stay here.”

“It’s a natural fear, perhaps, but will pass. You’ll be fine once you are in your stateroom and we get under way.”

There was a skeptical lift to her brow, though she made no direct answer. After a moment, her expression turned thoughtful and a little sad. In husky tones, she said, “I’ll be glad to see Bonheur. It meant so much to my father to own the place; he had such plans for it, and for living there.”

“Did he?” That comment was the most he could manage.

“It was supposed to be my security when he was gone. I think, too, that he enjoyed the thought of leaving something behind for his grandchildren, and their children after them. He so wanted to see them before he—”

As she stopped, her voice closed off by grief, compunction moved over Renold. He said, “He must have cared a great deal for his daughter.”

She tried to smile as she wiped at the moisture under her eyes with the edge of her hand. “All he wanted was to see me settled and happy, to know that I needed for nothing and had a firm and proper place in life.”

“There was some mention, I think, of a grand wedding.” The tangles had melted away under his slow strokes. Her hair lay like a shining shawl across her shoulders and down her back. A few contrary and shining filaments clung to his fingers, however, as if permanently attached.

“Oh, he intended to make a great to-do about the affair, but it wasn’t because he cared for it. Rather, he wanted to get off on the right foot with his neighbors.”

“Now everything is different,” Renold said softly. The words tasted bitter in his mouth because they were so false. She was in pain because of the loss of her father, pain he could banish if he would. Guilt was not an emotion with which he was familiar. He accepted it now with grim recognition.

“Yes,” she whispered, then sent a quick look at him in the mirror before lowering her lashes and reaching to adjust the position of a jar of hand pomade which did not need it. “He would have approved of you as a son-in-law, I think. You are very like him in many ways.”

Both the shock of the suggestion and the impulse to repudiate it had to be suppressed. Renold’s voice was still rigid with the effort as he said, “In what particular can that be — unless you mean that we are both not quite reputable?”

A frown creased her brow, but her voice was even as she said, “My father cared very little for what other people thought and was ready to risk everything for what he wanted. His intelligence was fearsome, and he had an affinity for words and phrases which said more than was readily obvious.”

Careful, careful, he told himself, even as he felt his conceit expand. To counteract the unwanted gratification, he said, “And he had the devoted love of his daughter.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, then stopped, her gaze flashing up to meet his again. She went pale as she saw where her answer could lead her if he so desired.

The temptation was overwhelming. Perhaps for that very reason, it had to be resisted. He said, “Unlike his son-in-law.”

It was a release for her from her fear, even against his best interests and best judgment. He gave it because he did not have the nerve to force the thing to its natural conclusion. He lacked the nerve because he feared that she would say, plainly and without hesitation, that she did not love her husband. Without waiting for a reply, he leaned to place the brush he held on the table before her, aligning it precisely with her comb and mirror. “I will send Estelle to help you dress.”

He had nearly reached the door before her answer came with a soft sigh. “Yes.”

The need to turn back, to demand which of his three comments she might possibly be answering, was almost more than he could bear. Logic insisted that it must be, had to be, the last, yet he was in no condition or mood to be logical. It was, perhaps, a good thing that time was pressing and imperative duties awaited him. Forcing himself to continue walking, he let himself out of the room and closed the door quietly behind him.

Dawn hung like a gray shroud over the city when they reached the wharf. There was the glow of lanterns up and down the water’s edge, either hanging from docking poles or gleaming from the decks and windows of the steamers pulled up to the levee. Most of the boats wallowing in the river’s wash were quiet, with gangplanks up and guards posted. It made the activity around the
General Quitman
seem noisy and even frantic.

Angelica, glancing at the boat as she was handed down from the carriage, felt a shiver run down her spine. It almost seemed she could smell scalding steam and hot metal, could hear the crackle of flames and screams of women and children. Perspiration garnered across her upper lip. Her hand in Renold’s grasp felt clammy, and it was a moment before she could force herself to release him.

“Are you all right?” he said, his gaze resting on her face with concern.

She gave a brief nod. She would not complain. She had voiced her objection without avail, and now it was too late to turn back. Besides, she was tired of being weak and sickly and having allowances made for her. Her apprehensions were the result of overwrought sensibilities, that was all. She would conquer them.

The distraction of a light carriage rattling up to the dock was welcome. It was Michel who piled out of it and came toward them while his manservant and driver began setting down bags and boxes. He was greeted with a sally by Deborah on the amount of his baggage. Renold, dealing with the unloading of his own party’s luggage from the dray which had brought it, merely gave him a salute. Still, the general atmosphere of the departure became lighter.

The trunks and bags were carried on board. Up the gangplank after them went the boxes containing spices, oils, and wines to enliven the plantation table, the linens and pillows and fine soaps for making up the staterooms, the bolts of cloth and ribbon Deborah had purchased from the drapers, and various other crates of goods. Attended by Estelle, Angelica stood talking with Deborah and Michel while Renold went aboard with Tit Jean to see that everything was stowed away and the paperwork was in order.

At last the smoke drifting in a gray pall from the
General Quitman
’s smokestacks turned black and was shot with sparks. The deckhands gathered at the gangplank, ready to hoist it aboard.

“Well, ladies,” Michel said with a whimsical smile and a brief gesture toward the vessel, “Shall we?”

“I expect we had better,” Deborah said, “before Renold decides we have deserted him.”

“Permit me, then.” Michel offered an arm to Renold’s half-sister. As she took it, he extended his other elbow toward Angelica.

She wanted to accept Michel’s laughing escort, to make some gay quip and march up the gangplank with the others. She wanted to be sensible and brave.

It wasn’t possible. She just couldn’t do it.

Her knees felt as if they might give way if she took a single step. Her hands were shaking and her stomach uneasy. She issued firm mental orders to herself to move, to behave, to stop acting like a senseless ninny. Her body paid no attention.

“Angelica, what’s the matter?” Deborah said with a look of sharp concern.

“I — I can’t go,” she whispered, her voice jerking in the middle. “All I can think of is the last time, the explosion. I don’t know why I feel like this, I wish I didn’t. I wish—”

Deborah, her eyes dark with sympathy, broke in. “Oh, I should have realized! I’m so sorry, chère; I wasn’t thinking. Would it help, do you suppose, if I held your hand?”

Angelica gave a quick shake of her head that turned into a shudder. “Nothing will help. No. I can’t do it. I really can’t.”

“But we can’t leave you here,” Deborah said with a worried frown toward the steamboat where the deckhands were untying the gangplank ropes. “Everything is ready; it’s too late to take our things off.” Suddenly her voice changed, becoming silvery with relief. “Oh, good. Here is Renold.”

“I hesitate to interrupt the party,” he said, “but it’s time to go. River pilots wait for no man, or woman, when the mood is on them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Deborah said with a sharp look at her brother’s flushed face. “Angelica is frightened, as anyone would be after such a harrowing accident. Tending to your wife will be much more useful at the moment than chiding us as if we were children.”

“When did you become her protector, chère?” Renold said with a crooked smile. “Never mind, I expect she has need.” He turned from his sister toward Angelica. “Do you?”

“No,” she answered, hardly knowing to what she replied. “Please, couldn’t we go back to the townhouse? The pilot will wait for you to unload our things.”

“Your faith in my influence is touching, but misplaced,” he said, his eyes keen on her face. “What is this? Perhaps a sudden premonition of disaster? Or have you suddenly realized that we will be duplicating the circumstances, incendiary as they might have been, of our first meeting?”

“Don’t!” she cried, her nerves rasped by the mockery in his voice with its gently slurred consonants. “I just don’t want to go!”

His voice soft, he said, “Not even if I ask it? Or can it be because I ask it?”

“It has nothing to do with you or the way we met,” she said, the words tumbling out as if shaken from her by her shuddering. “The thought of being shut up inside, of steaming away upriver, makes me feel sick. I think — I think I’ll die if I have to endure it.”

“Overemotional,” he said, “and highly unlikely.” He took a step toward her with purpose in it, and the hint of a threat.

Estelle stepped forward then, a deep frown between her dark eyes. “Maître, if you will permit, perhaps I could give her a calming draught?”

“No time,” he said, his gaze so forbidding the housekeeper blinked. With a panther’s grace, he moved closer to Angelica.

“You have to believe me,” she cried, panic and tears rising in her eyes as she backed away from him. “I can’t do it!”

“You must,” he said, “because the penalty for going back is the same as for going forward. Caught between two devils, which do you choose?”

She knew the answer, but that did not mean acceptance. A sharp denial rose in her throat, but it was too late.

“The devil you know,” he said, his voice soft and his eyes a bright, daring green. Immediately, he swooped upon her and caught her high in his arms.

Her scream was thin, instantly extinguished by her own disbelieving horror. Rigid with shock and dread, she sank her fingers into his coat, snagging a wrenching hold on his lapel. She pressed her forehead against the hard line of his jaw and squeezed her eyes shut so tightly she felt the prickle of her own long lashes against her eyelids.

The gangplank swayed under them, the deck seemed to dance and swing around them. The main cabin was cavernous and filled with people, all exclaiming, whispering. The iron hold of Renold’s arms was painfully tight, yet he was her only security in a formless world of terror. Her breath was rough-edged, tearing in her chest, sawing at her throat. The shivering that wrenched through her in violent waves clattered her teeth together so that she could taste blood where she had bitten her tongue.

Hide, she wanted to hide, needed darkness and oblivion, and something, anything, to stop the pain of betrayal. She had thought Renold of all people must understand. He had been there. He had known, had felt the fire. He was part and parcel of her nightmare, yet her refuge from it. How could he push her back into it and hold her there with his hard arms?

The slam of the stateroom door was muffled and far away, yet it reverberated through her mind. The strides he took to reach the bed were uneven, almost staggering. She felt the soft mattress come up to meet her back. Crying, she twisted away, but he landed beside her in a hard jounce of the bed ropes.

“Don’t, don’t,” he said in a low supplication as he reached to drag her close. “I didn’t know, was too busy to see. God, I — I am as drunk as a politico and only a step away from comatose. Drive and necessity blinded me, but are no excuse. Another time, any other time, I would have known, seen. Curse me, hit me, but don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”