Tears of Gold (61 page)

Nicholas glanced down at her briefly but didn’t slow his pace. “Words aren’t enough this time, Mara. Paddy needs to learn that he can’t do whatever pleases him regardless of the consequences. He needs to learn the lesson now, or he never will. I only wish I’d been around when you were his age and could have given you a similar lesson,” he added shortly, as if he sorely missed having had that opportunity. “It would have saved a lot of unhappiness all around. Now stay out of this, Mara,” he warned her grimly, “or I may yet have that pleasure.”

Mara stopped in her tracks, staring after him in disbelief. By the time she moved after him, he’d already reached the top of the stairs.

Mara stood at the bottom of the stairs indecisively, trying to think what she should do. Jamie stomped down wearing a look of puzzlement on her face.

“What the divil’s goin’ on around here?” she demanded. “And just what the divil’s he doin’ to Master Paddy?”

“Paddy was riding Sorcier with Damaris and Nicholas caught them,” Mara explained, wondering why it was so quiet up there.

“Well,” Jamie sighed regretfully, “reckon he needs to be taught a lesson.”

“Jamie! He’s whipping Paddy,” Mara cried.

“’Twill be doin’ the lad good to know a man’s keepin’ an eye on him,” Jamie said. Then, as she heard a cry of pain, she sniffed and walked toward the kitchen wing. “Think I’ll be gettin’ meself a cup of tea.”

It is too silent, Mara thought. She moved up a couple of steps, then hurriedly climbed the rest as she made her way to Paddy’s room. Before she reached it, she heard voices from a partially opened door and, pausing, found herself listening to the words.

“No one can always do as they want to, Damaris,” Nicholas told her gently.

“I always have,” Mara heard a muffled reply. “No one has ever cared what I did around here.”

“I care,” Nicholas said, “and that is why I didn’t want you riding Sorcier. I’d hate to see that little neck of yours broken,” he added with shocking bluntness.

“Why should I listen to you? Why should you care about me? Nobody else ever has.”

“That’s not true, Damaris.”

“It is so. Papa never had any time for us. We were just
les petites filles
. Never did he talk to me, never did he smile at me as if he would want me to kiss him good night. And then Nicole, she has always been Mama’s favorite, at least she was until
le petit
Jean-Louis was born. But she does not care because she has a fiancé now and will be living in her own home. Mama only has eyes for Jean-Louis. So did Papa when he was alive. Never did he gaze at me that way. Sorcier has always been mine. He is my
only
friend, Nicholas, he is
all
I have. Why are you being so cruel to me?” Damaris demanded tearfully. “You must hate me so much to do this to me. Why are you taking him from me? Why?”

“Oh, Damaris, little one,” Nicholas spoke softly, with a gentleness that Mara had never heard before. She knew he was touched by his little half-sister’s pathetic confession. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to know and love you, for I think you would have been my favorite.”

Mara risked glancing into the room as she tiptoed past and was surprised to see Damaris, auburn head resting against Nicholas’s broad chest as she cried. Mara opened Paddy’s door to see him standing before his bed with a solemn expression on his tear-stained face. He glanced up nervously as he heard the door, then when he saw it was Mara, he ran to her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“I hate him,” Paddy cried, his voice muffled in Mara’s skirts.

Mara smoothed Paddy’s ruffled curls soothingly. “I’m sorry you had to be punished, but you know what you did was very dangerous. How do you think I would have felt if something horrible had happened to you? You know that Nicholas is master here, Paddy, and when he lays down a rule it must be followed. You did disobey him.”

Paddy sniffed. “I only did it because Damaris dared me to. I was frightened,” he confessed as he hid his flushed face against Mara.

“And you won’t be riding that horse again?”

“No! Never!” Paddy answered without hesitation, and Mara wondered which had frightened him more, the thought of the horse or Nicholas’s anger and swiftly painful retribution.

Mara bent down and kissed Paddy’s forehead. “I suspect Jamie’ll be up soon with some milk and a piece of that pecan pie you like so much, so why don’t you just play up here for a while,” she suggested.

Paddy nodded his head. “All right, I think it’s going to rain again anyway,” he said as he found his favorite book of illustrated fairy tales and sat on the edge of his bed. “I’m not goin’ to tell Nicholas my secret now either,” he said to himself as he opened his book.

Chapter 14

The following days passed in a flurry of activity as Celeste made her final preparations for leaving Beaumarais. Plans had already been made in advance for Nicole and her family to spend the rest of the month with her future in-laws on their plantation upriver, and then to travel to New Orleans with them to enjoy the rounds of balls and soirees accompanying the Mardi Gras season. Word had been received that her fiancé, who’d been traveling in France, was due back any day. Nicole was in a state of euphoria that kept her on her best behavior through the busy days. Packing and sorting clothes and possessions had the household in complete disorder.

Except for certain personal items of sentimentality and favorite pieces of furniture, Celeste chose to leave the furnishings of Beaumarais to Nicholas. She was a very wealthy woman now, thanks to Nicholas’s more than generous terms for Beaumarais. When she arrived in Charleston, she would be able to start fresh and purchase all new furnishings. She wanted few reminders of the past when she left Louisiana, and even though Nicholas assured her that it wasn’t necessary to leave in such haste, it was Celeste’s wish to finish everything now so that she would not have to return to Beaumarais. And so, in compliance to her wishes, Nicholas made sure that everything ran smoothly for her, seeing to her every need.

During the intervening days Amaryllis found reason to consult Nicholas on all manner of business. Often her elegant figure could be seen wandering in and around the house, her blond head bent close to Nicholas’s shoulder as she attentively listened to his opinion about something. Paddy on the other hand studiously avoided any contact with his one-time hero, his dark brown eyes full of reproach whenever they happened to linger on Nicholas’s tall figure.

It was the night before Celeste was due to leave and Mara was waiting patiently for Paddy to finish saying his prayers and climb into bed when he suddenly stopped. Balancing precariously on one foot, he suddenly hopped around excitedly. “I remember now!” he cried as he raced to the door, his bare legs showing beneath the hem of his nightshirt.

“Paddy!” Mara called after him.

“Master Paddy,” Jamie repeated in surprise as he bumped into her as she entered the room with a stack of freshly laundered linens piled high in her arms. “And just where d’ye think ye’re off to, young man? ’Tis time ye was in bed and asleep, now come back here right now,” she warned as he paused hesitantly in the opened doorway.

“But I’ll forget in the morning, Jamie,” he told her with a pleading look at Mara. “I’m just going down to get my missing soldier. I hid him, then forgot about him. I’ll be just a minute,” he added as he scampered out the door.

Paddy soundlessly made his way down the stairs, waiting at the foot. All that he heard were voices coming from behind the closed parlor doors. He quickly crossed the cold tiles of the floor and hurried to the closed door to the study. He entered the darkened room, not noticing the candles burning in a single candelabrum placed on the desk and sending a shadowy light throughout. Paddy walked without hesitation to the windowsill. With quick ease, he slid back the panel and removed the errant soldier from his hiding place. With a happy sigh he turned around and ran from the quiet room, closing the door behind him as he left.

The silence of the room continued for a minute after the door had been closed. Then one of the shadowy shapes near the wide expanse of bookcases moved, detaching itself from the wall as it steadily and purposefully made for the window, and the secret compartment that had just been so unbelievably revealed to the frustrated searcher.

A hand felt down into the black depths of the hollow paneling, jerking involuntarily when coming in contact with the bundle placed at the bottom. It withdrew, holding the bound documents and a leather diary. The figure moved surely across the room to the desk where the light from the candles flickered across a face tight with excitement, the nostrils flaring with heightened breathing while the hands, untying the ribbon, trembled slightly.

In mesmerized fascination the glowing eyes scanned the documents, one of which was a set of instructions for drawing up a new will naming Nicholas de Montaigne-Chantale heir. The other was the original will. The piece of paper naming Nicholas as the new heir was held with a steady hand until the edges began to curl and blacken as the flame from the candle touched it. It burned as it was dropped into a heavy ashtray. Deft hands quickly turned the pages of the diary, then systematically tore them from the binding and threw them on the small pyre burning brightly now in the ashtray. The document that had escaped the fire was carefully folded and placed inside a pocket, while the harmless diary was replaced within the secret panel, the incriminating remarks having been removed.

Moving stealthily, the figure blew out the candles and returned the study to darkness. Then, as a noise sounded in the hall beyond the study door, the figure slipped silently out the French windows to the safety of the darkness beyond, leaving the study looking undisturbed.

***

“Au revoir, Mademoiselle O’Flynn,” Celeste said as she was being assisted into her carriage. “Perhaps we will meet in New Orleans?” she said politely, knowing that would probably never happen. “I will be leaving for Charleston in April, right after Nicole’s wedding. So if I do not have the pleasure of meeting you again, mademoiselle,” Celeste said with a shrug of regret, “then I wish you good luck.”

Mara smiled, knowing that she wouldn’t see her again, for Mara O’Flynn had no intention of still being in Louisiana in the spring. “I wish you a pleasant journey,” Mara told her. She stepped aside while Nicole was helped into the carriage, her face glowing.

“Au revoir, mademoiselle,” she cried happily, her red velvet bonnet framing her dark curls and matching the new pelisse Mara suspected had come out of her trousseau. “I’m sorry you will not be coming to my wedding, for it will be the most beautiful ceremony ever,” Nicole told her before settling back into the carriage with a dreamy expression.

“Good-bye, Damaris,” Paddy called into the coach even though he couldn’t see her. There was an awkward silence following his farewell as Paddy stared up hopefully, then glanced down at his boots as if finding them of sudden interest.

Suddenly an auburn head appeared at the carriage window and a pair of gray green eyes stared sadly at the group standing on the steps of Beaumarais. Her lips trembling, Damaris whispered, “Au revoir, Paddy.”

Nicholas walked slowly down the steps and up to the window where Damaris sat watching him nervously. He reached inside the opened door of the carriage and swung her out of the coach, her squeal of fright startling the team of horses. As he whispered something in her ear, her next squeal was of joy. She wound her thin arms around his neck and kissed him warmly.

“You’ll be good, little one, and mind what your mama says?” Nicholas ordered with a gentle smile as he returned her to the carriage.

“I will, Nicholas, I promise,” Damaris cried, and was still waving from the carriage window as it turned off the oak-lined drive and onto the road heading to the river. They could now hear the whistle of the steamboat as it neared the Beaumarais levee.

“Now what on earth did you promise her to make such a change of spirit?” Mara asked as they walked back into the great house. A chill gust of wind whipped her skirts around her ankles and the first big drops of rain splattered against the ground.

“One of Sorcier’s foals,” Nicholas replied. With a devilish twinkle in his eye, he whispered, “but you seem surprised, my dear. I thought you, of all people, knew that I had a way with women, and do my very best to satisfy their most fervent desires.”

Mara sent him a speaking glance, then couldn’t resist taunting, “And have you satisfied the widow’s?”

“Ah, it wouldn’t be gentlemanly of me to say, now would it?” Nicholas responded. There was a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes as he caught the confused expression that crossed her face.

“And here I was thinkin’ to meself that ye wasn’t a gentleman. Now I’ll have to be watchin’ me manners for sure,” Mara mocked.

“
C’est magnifique!
” Etienne laughingly complimented Mara from the doorway. “I’ve never heard a finer Irish accent.”

“Why thank you, kind sir,” Mara replied, “but ’tis me natural tongue.”

“You should hear her French accent, Uncle,” Nicholas commented lazily as he poured out two brandies, handing one to Etienne who had made himself comfortable on the sofa. “Mara’s a good companion to have on a long journey, for one never knows who she will be next. Therefore, one can never become bored with her.”

He raised his drink in a silent toast to her before taking a sip.

“Ah,” Etienne sighed, “the quiet is so welcome. Please,” he added apologetically, “don’t misunderstand me, I quite adore the family. It is just that a baby’s constant crying is nerve-racking, especially when not even your own grandchild. And Nicole, charming child that she is, is most tiresome at times,” he explained with a smile that took the sting out of his words.

“Of course, I may just be getting old, and I suspect it is time I visited Paris again before it is too late. Well,” Etienne said regretfully as he finished off his drink, “I must be off. Shall we dine at the same time, and maybe have a few hands of piquet, Mara? You did promise me you’d play.”

“Of course, Etienne, I shall look forward to it,” Mara returned his smile as she watched him leave the room with an anticipatory gleam in his soft blue eyes.

“I’d be careful, my sweet, about what you wager,” Nicholas advised, “for Etienne fancies himself quite a gambler.”

Mara smiled mischievously, thinking the evening might not be so dull after all. “And I’m not Brendan O’Flynn’s sister for nothing, mon cher.”

Nicholas laughed, the rich sound startling Paddy who’d been sitting quiet as a mouse before the fire. He looked up nervously from his contemplation of the flames.

“No, I guess you’re not, are you,” he murmured curiously. “I shall have to remember that.”

***

Mara yawned, turning over as she stretched beneath the covers, then woke up as she felt the empty space beside her. Glancing around her in the darkness, she saw Nicholas’s dim shape near the French windows.

“Nicholas?” she spoke into the cold air of the room.

“It’s raining again.”

Mara propped herself up on her elbows as she strained to see him in the dark. “And that worries you?”

Nicholas left the window and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes, very much, my dear.”

“Why? Don’t you have a lot of rain here? It’s normal, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s expected, and that is why we, especially those of us living near the river, take certain precautions. It’s the flooding I’m worried about, and with this continued rain it’s going to come. The river’s been rising steadily since dawn yesterday.”

Mara frowned, beginning to feel some of the fear that was apparently worrying him. “Celeste mentioned that the first floor of Beaumarais had been flooded a couple of years ago. Could it happen again, do you think?” Mara asked as she sat up.

Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t think it will get up that high again. But that doesn’t matter, because it is the damage it did a couple of years ago that has me worried. The plantation’s been allowed to rot. The levees are in a deplorable state and haven’t been rebuilt up high enough to be effective should the waters rise much more. I don’t know how extensive the damage was before. Beaumarais sits down too low, but in the past we’ve always had the levees to protect us, as well as a small army of field hands to keep it built up when the floods came. All I’ve got is a handful of house servants and some stableboys,” Nicholas explained.

“But how could this have happened?” Mara demanded. “Wouldn’t your father, or surely Alain, have seen to it?”

Nicholas rubbed his hand through his hair tiredly. “My father wasn’t the same man he’d once been. I don’t think he really cared. And Alain, well, he could only stand by and take orders. I know my father wanted to get the fields planted again, but by then Celeste would have none of it. All she could think about was selling out and moving back to Charleston. Alain couldn’t do it by himself, and who could blame him for not really wanting to when he knew the place would be sold out from under him eventually?”

“What are you going to do if the river floods? Shouldn’t we leave here?” Mara asked worriedly, thinking of Paddy and Jamie, neither of whom could swim.

“I don’t think it will come to that. Alain says it won’t, and he has lived here his whole life. He would know. But if I think there is a danger then I’ll borrow some men from Amaryllis and get them to shore up the levee. I’m going to take the precaution of sending the livestock on over there tomorrow, and some things from the house. I’m relieved that Celeste took the girls and Jean-Louis away. I didn’t want to frighten her unnecessarily, for I can imagine the hysterics it would have thrown her into, not to mention Nicole. I think she would have been more concerned about her wedding dress being ruined than her own life.”

Mara sighed as she sank back against the pillows. “You’re really concerned.”

Nicholas rolled back onto the bed and took her in his arms. “Of course I am, I’d have to be a fool not to be. But I wouldn’t put you or young Paddy in any danger,” he reassured her as he began to caress her face, smoothing away the lines of worry with his kisses.

“Now go to sleep, there’s nothing we can do about it tonight,” he murmured as he felt her relax against him trustingly.

Mara awoke to a ray of sunlight shining into her eyes through the window. She let consciousness seep slowly, knowing that as soon as it did she would feel the familiar nausea. Mara suddenly became aware of Nicholas’s head, still beside her. Usually he had already risen by the time she awakened, and so had never witnessed her morning sickness. Mara willed herself to resist the queasiness she could already feel sneaking into her stomach, but when she felt the beads of cold perspiration breaking out on her forehead, she knew she hadn’t succeeded. Carefully removing the covers, Mara slid from bed and quickly wrapped her robe around her shivering body. She raced against the nausea that was quickly overcoming her and, realizing she would not make it from the room in time, just barely managed to bend over the washbasin.