Love Be Mine (The Louisiana Ladies Series, Book 3) (41 page)

It was a tantalizing thought. She told herself she was ridiculous to think him innocent, to make excuses for his behavior. He had made no attempt to see her again. In fact, he had never, to her knowledge, set foot in New Orleans again.

Suddenly that fact began to take on enormous importance. Why had he not come back again? Too ashamed to face her? Or had there been another reason? Such as being so shattered by her betrayal that he could never return to New Orleans? Her heart began to beat swiftly, and she was annoyed at her reaction to the possibility that there was more to the sudden ending of their love affair than she had been led to believe.
Ma foi!
she told herself sternly, I am just being a silly old woman. Of course, he had not been shattered by her supposed defection. But the idea would not go away—suppose that he
had
been so hurt to think she would toss away their love that he could not...

Finding a small shady glade, John halted their horses, and, lifting Lisette down, he tied the horses at the edge of the clearing. A huge fallen log lay at the side of the glade, and, after checking around it for any unwelcome wildlife, John spread a blanket on the forest floor, using the log as a backrest. To Lisette's bemusement, he immediately unpacked a tasty picnic and proceeded to arrange the various packets of food and drink on the blanket to his satisfaction. Only after he had finished setting things to his liking did he turn and look at her.

An unreadable expression in his dark eyes, he held out a hand and said softly,
"
Will you join me for refreshments?"

Warily, Lisette put her hand in his and allowed him to help her to the ground near the log. The skirts of her riding habit tucked under her legs, she settled against the blanket-draped log, her eyes never leaving his dark, intent face.

John smiled at her. "Would you like something to drink? Cook sent along a jug of lemonade, and there is also some orange juice."

Lisette shook her head, her lovely features mirroring all the uncertainties, mistrustfulness, and half-acknowledged yearnings that were within her. "You said," she began quietly, "that you wanted to talk to me where we would be uninterrupted." She glanced around, a wry expression crossing her face. "I doubt that we shall be bothered here."

Seating himself across from her, John nervously plucked at a tuft of grass growing near the blanket. "It seemed so simple," he explained, his eyes fixed on hers, "when I planned this little outing. But now that the moment is upon me, I find myself at a loss for words."

"I do not remember that you were ever so in the past," Lisette murmured, wishing that her pulse was not acting erratically and that her heart was not behaving in the most peculiar fashion. But so many taunting and tempting thoughts were running through her brain that she could not control either them or her reaction to them.
Had
they been lied to? Had John loved her after all? She had certainly believed so. More importantly, if she had not believed him implicitly, she would never have given herself to him. Confused and yet hopeful, she did not know if she really wanted to find out the truth. Life had been so much simpler thinking him a cad and a liar all these years. Painful and lonely, but simpler. She did not know if she wanted to learn that her father and her husband had coldly rearranged her life to suit themselves.

John smiled crookedly at her. "Then I put on a very good act. Whenever I was with you, I felt as tongue-tied as a country bumpkin in the presence of a goddess."

Ignoring the painful thump in her chest, Lisette tossed her head. "You see, you claim not to have a facile tongue, and yet you easily spout charming nonsense."

John shook his head. "It is not nonsense—it is true." He suddenly reached for her hand and pressed an ardent kiss to her warm palm. Then he said, "Lisette, do you not know that I always thought of you as a goddess—that I wondered how I could have been so lucky, so damned fortunate to have gained your love?"

"Then why did you leave me?" she cried, her hand trembling violently in his grasp.

"I did not leave you." His mouth twisted. "At least not until your father and Renault had made it painfully obvious that you were not going to run away with me, that you were marrying Renault before the month was out and that I was just an embarrassment to you."

Her fingers tightened around his. "And you believed them?" she asked in a low shaken voice. "You believed them?"

"Their words alone, no, but, you see, they gave me a note you had written to me."

"What note?" Lisette demanded with a frown. John released her hand and, from the inside of his jacket, withdrew a much-folded piece of paper. It was obviously many years old and had obviously been much handled. Wordlessly, he handed it to her.

For several long moments Lisette stared at the small, torn scrap of paper in her hands as she might a poisonous snake. Just when John thought he could stand the suspense no longer, she unfolded the note and read the contents. There was not a great deal written, just a few lines, but those few lines, John reflected bitterly, had destroyed him. Over the years since that terrible day, he had read and reread them, and each time he had read them he had felt as if each word had been etched in acid on his heart.

Please, I beg you, if you care for me at all, do not continue to importune me. I will not marry you. I love another.

Lisette

Chapter 19

"They tricked us! Oh, you dear,
dear
imbecile—I never wrote this to
you!"
Lisette exclaimed. "It is part of a note that I wrote to
Renault
when I knew that I loved you." Her eyes huge, dark pools in her white face, she said, "Renault wanted to marry me;
Papa
approved, and, before you appeared in New Orleans, I had been drifting into a betrothal with him." She hesitated and, even after all these years, a blush stained her cheeks. "But once I had met you..." Her eyes seemed to grow even more luminous, more mysterious, her expression indescribably tender. "Once I had met you, I knew that I could not marry him. I loved you. And only you."

John made an inarticulate sound and dragged her into his arms. "I have always loved you," he swore huskily against her lips. "
Always!
Even when I believed that you had lied to me, deserted me, and loved another."

"Oh, John!"

There were still many explanations to be aired, but for the moment, John and Lisette cared for nothing but the fact that they were in each other's arms once again. They kissed many times, kisses as passionate and loving as they had shared in their youth, but there were now two new elements in their embrace—an aching sadness for what they had lost and a sweet ecstasy that came from knowing that in spite of deceit and trickery and even marriage to other people, their love had never lessened, never faltered.

It was quiet in the glade, the only sounds the soft, tender murmurings of two lovers, cruelly, deceitfully parted for decades. Their arms entwined around each other, hands caressing, lips almost touching, they spoke for a long time of things shared only by lovers.

It was the startled snort of a buck which brought them back to the present. Together they stared as the sleek brown form disappeared into the forest once more, then they looked at each other and smiled.

John was leaning back against the log, Lisette's head resting in the crook of his arm. Toying with the button of his jacket, she muttered, "They deceived both of us! Lied to both of us.
Dieu!
It does not seem possible now that they managed to make us believe their lies."

"Your note was pretty convincing," John said dryly. "I was certain they were lying until your father handed it to me. Once I had read it, I was so hurt and stunned that it was easy for Renault to hustle me out of town, while your father hurried back to you with the news that I was nothing more than a black-hearted scoundrel who had taken base advantage of you."

Lisette squirmed around and sent him a severe look. "You should have tried to see me yourself."

John sent her a look. "I suggested that, my love, but your father informed me most sincerely that I would only embarrass and upset you. He said"—John's voice hardened—"that if I really loved you, I would not cause you any more pain. I followed his advice." He cocked a brow at her. "What exactly did they tell you?"

Lisette sighed and snuggled closer to him. "You put it rather succinctly a moment ago.
Papa
was very kind, but he made it clear that you did not love me and that you did not want to marry me, that I had mistaken your intentions.
Papa
said that you had only been toying with me, amusing yourself, and that I was a silly little goose if I really believed your declarations of undying love. I did not believe him at first." Her lips twisted. "I was very angry with him, and I accused him of lying. He said that if I did not believe him, he would take me to town himself and prove to me that you had no intention of meeting me as we had planned and that you had already left New Orleans for Natchez."

"Which, of course, I had, thanks to him!" John said bitterly.

Lisette nodded. "I did not really begin to believe
Papa
until we had gone to the hotel where you had been staying and the concierge informed us that
Monsieur
Lancaster had paid his bill and had left the hotel that morning for Natchez." Her voice grew very small. "
Papa
even took me to the docks and let me talk to a pair of dock-workers, who described you and swore that you had gotten on a keelboat heading for Natchez not two hours previously." Tears sparkling on her lashes, she confessed, "It was then that I truly believed that you had left me."

John took her into his arms. "In my heart, I never left you, Lisette. Never," he murmured as his mouth found hers. His lips were warm against hers as he kissed her with infinite tenderness, and Lisette trembled from the very sweetness of it. When he finally lifted his head, her eyes were full of stars, and a dreamy smile curved her mouth.

"I love you," he said simply. "I always have. Will you marry me? As soon as it can be arranged?"

Lisette's hand gently caressed his lean, sun-lined cheek.
"Oui, monsieur,
I shall be honored to be your wife."

After that there were no words between them for a very, very long time....

* * *

The news that John and Lisette were to be married came as no surprise to Hugh. Watching as John lifted Lisette down from her horse and seeing the glow on Lisette's face and the tender expression in John's eyes several hours later when they returned to
Amour,
one would have had to have been blind not to understand the situation between them, and Hugh was not blind—at least not where other people's emotions were concerned.

Smiling, he met them at the top of the broad steps, and, after glancing again from one face to the other, he murmured, "I take it that congratulations are in order?"

Two heads nodded simultaneously, bemused smiles meeting his words.

"We are to be married as soon it can be arranged," John said, his hand tightening on Lisette's.

Having heard the horses approach, Micaela came out onto the front gallery, and, like Hugh, she took one look at the other couple's faces and knew immediately what had occurred. An enchanting smile curving her mouth, she flew across the wide gallery and threw her arms around her mother.

"Oh,
là
!" she exclaimed gaily. "Things have been explained? He is not the villain you thought? And I am to have a step-papa?"

Lisette chuckled. "Indeed, you are—in a remarkably short time, too!"

The happiness of the older couple was infectious, and, for a little while, the constraint between Hugh and Micaela disappeared. They exchanged looks of amused satisfaction just as if they had planned the outcome. Hugh suggested that a toast was in order, and so, laughing and talking at the same time, the four of them went inside.

They had just entered the spacious hallway when they met Jean descending the main staircase. Like Hugh and Micaela, well aware of the past and what had occurred, he took one look at Lisette's and John's faces and realized what must have happened. A silence fell as the four in the hall stared up at Jean's unrevealing features.

"So," he said slowly, "you have discovered the truth."

John nodded curtly, his arm closing possessively around Lisette's slim shoulders. "Yes, we have. How much did you know?"