Guarded Heart (24 page)

She did not look at him as she answered, though her color deepened, even touched the tips of her ears which gleamed, beguilingly, through the curls that spiraled around them. “Perhaps I will, since it has been so instructive. You are ever the consummate tutor. It may be you will have another lesson for me.”

His brows drew together over his nose. “I did not mean to mock you.”

“Did you not? It turned out that way nonetheless. I will remember, never fear.”

He was left with nothing to say while she went quickly from the bedchamber. He sat quite still for long moments while her footsteps faded. Then, clenching his teeth against the drawing ache of his stitches, he poured more wine and sat turning the glass, frowning into the fire. By the time Nathaniel returned, the wine bottle was empty and the crystal stem lay in shining, sharp-edged pieces on the marble hearth.

His self-appointed valet-cum-nurse came to kneel before him, picking up the broken shards of crystal. Intent on the chore, he asked, “You have an accident or a tantrum?”

“Either way, a replacement is owed Madame Herriot.”

“And Madame Faucher, what is owed to her?”

Gavin directed a hard stare at the back of the boy's head. “What do you mean?”

“She looked upset when she came outa here. Yeah, and like she'd been in a hurricane.”

“No one else saw?”

“Happens not. I was sitting down in the courtyard. “Don't much like cheese and nuts, so was having a smoke while Madame Herriot and the others got done. Monsieur Nick was at dinner, you know, and Madame Juliette.”

“I am obliged for the information. But you were speaking of Madame Faucher.”

“Saw her goin' along to her chamber as if the fiends of hell were after her. So what went on up here?”

“Nothing of importance or that the lady did not invite.”

“You certain-sure?”

It was a question that had exercised his mind without results during these past several minutes. “Any error can be founded in a truth. How then can we be certain of anything?”

“You can.”

“Your faith might be touching were it not so damning.”

“You are.” Avoiding his gaze, the boy moved away to the bed where he began to straighten the covers.

“Chivalric and morally pure as a young knight of old. What a pity the lady doesn't know she has a champion. Though how you learned your attitude toward women while living on the street is more than I can see.”

“I learned it from Madame Lisette and Madame Juliette along with a tad more grammar. Yes, and from you.” Nathaniel returned to stand in front of him, straight and tall with the firelight behind him. An unlikely avenging angel, but an effective one. “Are you ready?”

“As ever.” Gavin used the arm the boy offered to hoist himself from the deep chair, accepting its support as he eased toward the bed. Settling on the mattress, he closed his eyes.

A short time later, he dismissed his helper to his adjoining chamber for an hour or two of the privacy they both required. The boy's words remained with him, however, routing the healing sleep he might have managed.

What if Nathaniel was right and he was wrong? What if he had misjudged Ariadne? He had condemned her on scant evidence. It could be mere coincidence that she was closely connected to Francis Dorelle. That she had refused to allow him to dispatch her enemy for her could be a matter of pride rather than because it was physically impossible for him to challenge himself.

What if she did not want him dead? What if all she had offered with his dinner had been companionship with no trace of seduction in it?

If that was all that had been in her mind, then he had insulted an innocent lady and led her down the path toward corruption. He had taken her kisses and her sighs and turned them into something he could not bear to look upon.

If he was wrong, then he owed her an
amende honorable
with whatever weapon she might care to choose. There must be a way to discover if it was required. He had only to find it.

It was a quest at which he could not fail for the consequences were much too grim. He would meet the lovely Ariadne on any ground she preferred, if that was the way it must be, but his heart shrank inside him at the thought of facing her with nothing to prevent injury to either one except a few layers of linen and his best intentions. Sterling objectives on his part had not, in the past, prevented tragedy.

He was still staring into the cream-colored sunburst of cotton fabric that lined the tester above his bed, when a knock came on the door. It was brisk and totally without diffidence. To guess who it heralded was easy, given Nathaniel's report of the dinner guests.

“Come.”

Nicholas Pasquale, with the prerogative of a half brother, had already advanced three long steps into the bedchamber. Glancing around, he found a straight-backed chair against the wall that he pulled forward, then turned and straddled. “Still wrapped up in sheets and nightshirts, I see,” he said, crossing his arms over the back and giving Gavin a thorough appraisal. “Nothing like the care of a female household to keep a man flat on his back.”

“You wound me,” Gavin said in mock protest. “Malingering is the last thing I would attempt under such strict supervision.”

“Yes, I'm sure Madame Faucher is formidable, though we all know Maurelle has nougat for a heart. If she had not, you would be elsewhere. And complaining about it.”

“Is that how you see the lady, as formidable?”

A wry smile curled Nicholas's mouth as he shook his head. “The description is Juliette's. She was most impressed with the report of her generalship in getting you loaded and hauled here from the dueling field.”

“But she doesn't care for her?”

“Oh, that doesn't follow at all. Madame Faucher may be lacking the gentle disposition of my lady wife, but Juliette admires her prodigiously, having no prejudice against ladies who know what they want and do their utmost to get it. Beneath my Juliette's smiles and willingness to please lies a will of iron, I do assure you. She merely prefers using sweet reason to have her way.”

“Which you prefer to allow, being no more eager for a fight.”

Laughter leaped into the rich brown of his half brother's eyes. “It's so much more…pleasurable that way, you see.” He sobered. “Are you malingering, in truth, or have you some fever or putrefaction of your wound to keep you here?”

“Neither. It's a question of will and wiles.”

“So I suspected. Juliette believes you have some veiled purpose of a Machiavellian nature that may rebound on your head.”

“Being something of a conspirator herself, according to her husband, she won't reveal this suspicion?”

“Doubtful, I should think,” Nicholas said, the smile fading from his eyes. “She believes in signs and portents, you know, so feels Ariadne Faucher has been sent to lead you from the labyrinth of your own dark design, a savior like her namesake.”

The Greek myth had not been far from Gavin's thoughts since meeting Ariadne. It was not surprising to hear someone else had made the association. “I am no Theseus of old, hanging onto a piece of thread for my salvation.”

“You must argue that with Juliette. Still, I would not say she is wrong. I learned better months ago.”

Gavin let it pass, but the image would not leave his mind. It remained while he told his half brother, his only real confidant in the city, something of what he intended, also while he asked, again, after the black stallion from Caid's stable that he had ridden in the duel. It was there as they spoke of the latest developments concerning the annexation of Texas as a state, principally the addition of Southern-born John C. Calhoun to President Tyler's cabinet as Secretary of State following the death of former Secretary Upshar in the calamitous explosion aboard
U.S.S. Princeton
while it was being inspected by the president's delegation. Calhoun seemed certain to sign any annexation treaty presented to him, but it was questionable whether the senate would approve it with the Mexican government declaring that as tantamount to a declaration of war.

If this last event came to pass, as had long been expected in New Orleans, then the legions that tramped back and forth every week in the Place d'Armes would finally march away, courage high, down the long road to Mexico.

Gavin was not anxious to see war happen. In the first place, the exodus of these would-be soldiers would leave the Passage de la Bourse extremely quiet. Then he had no particular wish to see the men he faced on the fencing strip in his salon buried in Mexican sand or returned to the city in a preservative bath of raw rum. As for going himself, this was not his country, therefore loyalty did not require it nor intelligence recommend it.

When Nicholas, his concern and curiosity satisfied, went away again, Gavin returned to his perusal of the tester above his head. His thoughts were not on war or its possibilities, however, but on Ariadne as a Greek goddess, daughter of the sun god Helios of Crete, gowned in flowing white draperies over unconfined curves and with her hair drifting in a dark cloud around her. Imperious, tempting and possibly kind, she seemed to beckon. But if she had a life-preserving thread to offer, she kept it hidden. And it was impossible to see what lay behind her smile.

Goddesses, insofar as he remembered from his study of their stories while learning his Greek and Latin, were not known for their mercy.

I
t was on her return from a fitting with Madame Pluche for her mourning wear two days later that Ariadne saw Sasha for the first time since the duel. He approached her on the street just outside the dressmaker's house, tucking his cane under his arm and sweeping the banquette with his hat as he bowed to her and her companion, Madame Zoe Savoie. “What a joy it is to see you, my Ariadne,” he said when greetings had been exchanged and the requisite pleasantries broached and dismissed. “I so longed to come to you before I go, to explain this affair with the Englishman and my conduct which must seem unforgivable. But you surely see how it is, the difficulties, when he is there in the same house.”

“Yes, of course,” she said to deflect what could be embarrassing excuses. “You really are leaving?”

“With the greatest reluctance, you may be sure. My dear one, only say you will join me for the return to France. I shall be the happiest of men in spite of my disgrace.”

“My plan has always been to remain here through the
saison des visites,
as you know. I'm sorry, but I cannot change it at a moment's notice.” She tried to keep the coolness from her voice but wasn't sure she managed.

“Because of the events on the dueling field, yes? I know not what came over me, I swear to you. It was madness, I think, because the Englishman seemed so certain of having you.”

“Did he indeed?”

“He spoke so slightingly, with such calculation, during the exchange which led—”

Madame Zoe, waiting until that moment with a look of determined patience on her face, reared back her head as she spoke in interruption. “You are certain of that, monsieur? It does not sound like the Monsieur Blackford that I know.”

Sasha barely glanced at her. “You were not there, madame. I was, to my eternal regret.”

“But it was you who forced the duel upon Gavin, you who sought him out at his atelier for that purpose. Those who were there say you gave him no choice except to issue a cartel, and used references to Ariadne to achieve it.”

Ariadne had guessed something of the matter, but this was the first time she had heard it confirmed. Madame Zoe, as the sword masters called her, being on terms of friendship with them and their wives, doubtless had sources of information denied to her.

“The heat of the moment, as I said before,” Sasha proclaimed with a wave of his hand, as if brushing away an annoying fly. “The exact words I do not recall, merely that the exchange grew so insulting it could not be endured.”

“But it was Blackford who challenged you,” Madame Zoe insisted with lifted brows. “I believe it must have been he who heard something which required redress.”

“Really,
madame
,” Sasha began.

“Never mind, the thing is finished and can't be undone,” Ariadne said, overriding his protests as she held out her hand to him. “All that is left is to wish you godspeed on your journey and good fortune on your landing.”

“You are kindness itself, as always,” he said taking her fingers and lifting them to his mouth, his lips hot through her glove. “It may be I will give myself the pleasure of taking a more formal leave of you before I sail. When is it that Monsieur Blackford removes to his lodgings?”

“As to that, I can't say. He was most grievously injured.”

Sasha gave a disparaging shrug. “I barely touched him, I'm sure, and the flow of blood makes these things appear worse than they are in fact. Besides, men of his stripe heal with astonishing ease.”

To argue was pointless and might make it appear her concern was more personal than it should be. “You must do as you think best.”

“I shall, madame, never fear,” he said, his pale blue gaze hooded. Releasing her, he tipped his hat and nodded a farewell to Madame Zoe. He strode away down the banquette with his shoulders back, swinging his cane forward like a weapon with his every stride.

“A dangerous ass, that,” Madame Zoe said as she stared after him, “but an ass all the same. You would think one of his canes had been shoved up his—but never mind.”

“Do you think so?” To Ariadne, he seemed merely pompous and overly fond of having his own way.

“Those who do not see themselves and events as they are, who can't recognize that others may have a different view, are always dangerous. They so often must force matters to conform to their desires, removing anything that stands in their way.”

“Or anyone? Sasha tried that and discovered it did not work.”

“That doesn't mean he won't attempt the same again.”

A shiver feathered down the back of Ariadne's neck as she considered how unfit Gavin was as yet to face another such threat. Abruptly, she was glad beyond words that Maurelle had insisted he recuperate at the town house. Not that his life was so important. No, it was simply that she wanted no other injury he might sustain to be upon her head. If that seemed a bit ridiculous in light of her vowed intentions, then she could not help it. It made a difference in her mind.

“Perhaps I am wrong,” Madame Zoe said as she adjusted the long bottle-green shawl she wore, throwing an end over one shoulder with theatrical aplomb. “We must hope so, yes? If we cannot feel that joy and pleasure will always triumph over death and destruction then we might as well all slit our wrists and be done with it.”

Beneath her flamboyant manner and sense of fashion, the diva was a wise woman, Ariadne reflected. Not so long ago, she might not have seen it, or, seeing, appreciated it. What had changed? She thought it might have something to do with the easy manners and laissez-faire attitude of the New Orleans French Creoles. Or maybe the change was in herself, she didn't know. She was glad of it, regardless.

“What say you to a pastry to take the sour taste from our mouths,
chère
?” Madame Zoe nodded toward a
pâtisserie
with its blue and gold window decor just down the street. “I feel the need of a crème coronet, and there are tables on the sidewalk so we can't be accused of plying the oldest trade by seating ourselves inside without a male escort.”

“An excellent idea, and a coffee to go with it, I think. I'm a little chilled.”

It was a pleasant interlude, made even more agreeable by the stories told by the diva. She regaled Ariadne with the fraught courtships of the sword masters who were Gavin's friends, particularly that of his half brother, Nicholas, which seemed to have taken place in the midst of a horde of street boys. He and his Juliette were currently trying to entice the youngsters into the newly endowed St. Joseph's Orphanage which Nicholas helped to support or else find positions for them, such as Nathaniel's with Gavin. Their luck was spotty, since the boys were not always ready to give up the freedom of the streets. In the meantime, the sword masters seemed to have appointed themselves their guardians, keeping an eye on their movements, protecting and correcting as necessary.

The impression Ariadne gained was of a unique solidarity among the masters at arms. She had thought of Gavin Blackford as living in isolation, like an outcast. This increased perspective on the fullness of his life was disturbing.

She parted company with the opera singer, finally, at the entrance to the Herriot town house. Walking through the tunnel-like entranceway, she removed her bonnet of fine Italian straw shirred inside the brim with pink silk to match her gray and pink walking costume, then tied the bonnet strings in a bow and looped them over her arm like a basket while she began to loosen the fingertips of her pink gloves. She was almost at the end of the passage, where it emerged into the courtyard, when she heard a rhythmic beat and clang that had become all too familiar. She stopped, standing quite still, listening for long seconds before continuing with quickened steps. By the time she reached the open court, she was almost running.

What she expected to see, she could not have said—Nathaniel holding the stairs against Sasha at the sword point, perhaps, or even Gavin protecting himself at all costs. She did not expect to see Maurelle's injured guest conducting a lesson in the open air, moving gingerly back and forth over the slate-gray paving stones that were damp with the first droplets of a blowing mist while his lilting voice mingled with the whisper of the rising wind in the tattered leaves of the banana tree.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, coming to an abrupt halt with alarm jangling at her nerve endings like a servant's bell. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

Gavin spared her the briefest of glances while parrying in tierce. At his signal, then, the two men stepped from their guard positions and turned to face her with foils in hand. “Nursemaid or scold, we are undone by your concern,” he said with a wry smile. “The idea was merely to limber stiff muscles and prevent dead monotony from claiming another victim.”

“Told you she wouldn't like it,” Nathaniel said in accusation.

“And who is supposed to stitch you back up like an unraveled seam if you go too far?” she demanded. “It isn't the kind of needlework at which I excel. Or enjoy.”

His eyes turned brightly blue with amusement allied to what seemed startled acceptance. “You really are responsible for the row of silk knots down my back?”

“Since the doctor's stitches looked like shoe lacing.”

“I don't mean to complain, but…”

“Then don't.” Annoyance made her voice shake.

“Oh, I recognize the ingratitude, but it's a matter of sleeping, you understand. If you could see your way to making them more comfortable…”

“It's too early to remove them, as you should know if you have as much experience as you claim.”

“Five full days, almost six with today. A lifetime.”

“Not long enough,” she insisted. At least he seemed to have caused no damage. The white bandaging which covered the stitches, faintly visible under the linen of his shirt, showed no seeping spots of blood. His face was a little flushed but that could be from exertion. His breathing, though deep enough to cause an obvious rise and fall of his chest, did not seem labored.

He appeared, in fact, to be amazingly fit as he stood there in his shirt sleeves and pantaloons, with his hair tousled into unruly strands of gold, and Turkish slippers on his feet. More handsome than he had any right to be, able to take on his portion of the known world and more, he left her breathless, shaken to the core, and incensed that he could do it with no intention of affecting her whatsoever.

Or was that strictly true? Something bright and hot in his eyes sent the blood tripping along her veins while memory blossomed inside her of his mouth upon hers, his bandage-wrapped chest under her spread fingers, and his hand, oh, his hand beneath her skirts…

The same memory was in his smile, his eyes, the sudden tightening of his grasp on the hilt of his foil. It lay between them like a thrown gauntlet, impossible to ignore, dangerous to contemplate, exhilarating to anticipate.

And she did look forward to what might come next. It was like a bout on the fencing strip, attack and parry, move and countermove, defense and riposte in a time-honored dance that moved inevitably to a single conclusion, a similar, ultimate penetration.

When?

She could not tell. She only knew that it would happen. It must. There was no other way unless she withdrew from the sensual
phrase d'armes
which held them. That she could never do, not and remain true to her vow.

“If you are well enough to instruct Nathaniel,” she said slowly, “it may be that we can continue our lessons by tomorrow evening.”

Gavin considered her with an unblinking gaze for long seconds while swift thought moved behind his carefully schooled features. Or so it seemed to Ariadne, though the impression vanished scant seconds later.

“Yes, of course, madame,” he answered, inclining his head so light caught in the gold waves of his hair even in the overcast gray of the afternoon. “Or it could be tonight if you wish it.”

Tonight. Did he mean…?

It was impossible to know what he meant. He was far too armored inside himself to be so easily read.

Her smile was cool, or at least she hoped that it might appear so. “I do wish it, Monsieur Blackford. I wish it very much.”

“Your pleasure is ever my goal,” he answered with bright audacity and a sweeping salute of his sword.

He meant that exactly as it sounded, she knew that much with absolute certainty for she had experienced the full demonstration of it. Heat surged into her face in a blinding rush, and the urge to slap him was so strong that she almost wrung her kidskin gloves from her hands. Turning with conscious grace, she moved toward the stairs, speaking over her shoulder. “Until our usual hour, then, Monsieur Blackford.”

“I shall be waiting.”

No doubt he would be, she fumed to herself as she mounted to the main floor. He thought she would melt into his arms as she had two nights before, would turn to him in glad surrender for the hot, sweet fervour of his kisses and incredible knowledge of feminine responses. He expected her to succumb for the unsuspected tumult of passion he could arouse in her, an upheaval such as she had never known in her marriage. He was wrong. It would not end as he intended tonight, not if she could help it.