Triumph in Arms (3 page)

“How could they be worse? We will have to leave here, and where are we to go? We may be able to put
up for a few days in a hotel, but if you have lost so much—” Reine stopped, closing her lips in a tight line to prevent herself from saying more. It went against the grain to expose the full extent of the disaster to their guest.
On lave son linge sale en famille,
the old wives said, wash your linen within the family circle only.

Her father rubbed the back of his neck, a harassed look tightening his features. “Nothing so drastic should be required. Monsieur Lenoir and I have come to an agreement that seems workable.”

“For more time to arrange your affairs, you mean? I’m sure that’s very accommodating of him, but hardly improves matters.” She sent the sword master a fulminating glance. The more she considered it, the more unlikely it seemed that her father had wagered everything, particularly in a game with this man. It was too coincidental, unless, of course, they had fallen into play because of the incident outside the Théâtre d’Orléans.

“The matter is delicate,
chère,
but should prove satisfactory if it works out as planned.” Her father rose to his feet so quickly that his knees popped. “I should go to your mother before she decides to come down to greet our visitor. Monsieur Lenoir will be better able to put the situation to you in a way that…that must meet with favor. I’ll leave him to state his case as he put it to me.”

Reine’s heart beat high in her throat as she watched her father depart in such haste that the tail of his frock coat flapped around him. When his footsteps had faded
away inside the house, she turned to the man in the chair next to hers.

Christien Lenoir leaned forward slightly with his elbows on the wicker arms. A rueful smile curved his mouth as he met her gaze, though it did little to change the expression in his eyes. That remained watchful, as assessing as if she were his opponent on a dueling field.

“Well,
monsieur?
”

“This may be awkward, is almost certain to be in all truth. I trust you won’t hold that against me.”

“I can hardly promise since I have no idea what you mean.” She was distracted by the feel of her heart thumping against the wall of her chest, also by the odd magnetism of the man that made it almost impossible to look away from him.

“No, I suppose not. The thing is, my proposal seemed perfectly rational and straightforward when it first came to mind. Discussing it with your father was a matter of business. Now it appears more problematical.”

“That will not, I feel sure, prevent you from making it.”

“By no means. After seeing you again, I’m more inclined than ever.”

She searched his features one by one. His eyes, black as a moonless night, were shuttered by a thick fringe of lashes, holding all feeling in abeyance. The sun’s glow, which slanted across the strong planes of his face and glinted in the shining blackness of his hair, provided no illumination for his thoughts or intentions.
His nose, between thick, expressive brows, might have been large in a less masculine face; its bladelike jut had the look of an eagle’s beak and the same commanding arrogance. The tilt of his chin was determined, almost threatening.

Christien Lenoir was not handsome in the pale and refined fashion of the moment, yet he had a dark attraction made up of harsh planes and strong bone structure like a son of Lucifer himself. His masculine presence, the sense of steel-hard resolve under a thin layer of civilized intentions, seemed to overshadow the morning. Nothing she saw gave her reason to hope that he would relent to the point of erasing her father’s gambling debt.

Lowering her gaze, she allowed it to rest for an instant on the cuff of his shirtsleeve, which rested on the chair arm closest to her. The linen was paper-thin and frayed at the edges. His cravat, she saw, had the reddish tint of age under its black dye. The knees of his woolen pantaloons were worn more than was acceptable, and his boots could use new heels. It was quite probable he had just as much need of River’s Edge as they did, was just as determined to hold on to it. What, then, could he want of her?

An odd thought shifted through her mind, one that sent heat rushing along her veins. He had mentioned a proposal. What if he meant that quite literally?

No, it could not be.

Unclenching her teeth, she said, “I can’t begin to guess what you have in mind, unless you mean to suggest that my father lease River’s Edge from you.”

“That would not suit me at all.”

“I feared not, for you would have no need to involve me in such a plan. Do you mean to set up as a planter so require his expertise? Well, and perhaps my aid in arranging your household?”

“Something along that line.”

“You can’t expect Papa to become your overseer,” she said in dismissal. “Not because he would wish to be disobliging, you understand, but because he has not the skill. He is, always has been, a gentleman.”

“So forbidden to earn his keep like a common laborer. I am aware of the distinction.”

She ignored the rough note in his voice as she went on. “Still less would my mother ever consent to move into the overseer’s cottage. It just isn’t…isn’t suitable.”

“Madame Cassard would rather become the pensioner of some relative than give up the benefit of a household with an abundance of servants to do her bidding. Perfectly understandable. But in that case, she and your father, also your young daughter, may as well become my pensioners.”

Reine clasped her hands in her lap, clenching them as irritation surged through her. “They aren’t…that is, we aren’t dependent on your charity.”

“Aren’t you?”

The question was accompanied by another disturbing flash of sympathy, an infinitesimal softening of his eyes that revealed hints of gold in their darkest depths. She rejected it with only the slightest hesitation. “By no means.”

“I’ll agree the matter is different with you, given
that you have something to offer in return. You would, of course, become the mistress of River’s Edge.”

She stared at him a long instant. “Mistress,” she said in tight incomprehension.

“Rather than your mother, who currently holds that position, I mean to say. The responsibility would naturally fall to you as my wife.”

She held his black gaze, uncertain the words he had spoken in such soft precision could have the meaning she thought. At the same time, a peculiar flowering sensation moved over her, tightening her nipples, settling hot and heavy in her lower body. It made her feel a little dizzy, so she reached to grasp her chair arm with tight fingers.

“Your wife,” she said faintly.

“It’s the obvious solution, you must agree. As your husband, I would take possession here without ousting your family. Very little need change except that we will be joined by a legal tie.”

Take possession.
What a very suggestive phrase, one that curled her toes inside her slippers.

Reine had been married. The last thing she needed was anyone to take possession of her ever again. Her vision blurred at the edges, and she gave her head a quick shake to clear it. “Impossible.”

“Unlikely, perhaps,” the swordsman returned with no relenting in his expression, “but not at all impossible.”

“You don’t understand. I have no desire whatever to marry again.”

“You would see your parents and your daughter put out of their home instead?”

“No, but I don’t…really can’t…”

“You are revolted at the idea of being wed to a man who has made his living as a sword master.”

“It isn’t that.” She meant it, for her ideas concerning social stigma had changed since the death of her husband. Becoming a pariah could do that to someone.

Still, it seemed strange that she should receive a proposal from such a man. Theodore had always had a particular fear of sword masters. They had formed a special Brotherhood made up of a select few who went about exacting vengeance for the wrongs done to those weaker than themselves, especially to women and children without male protection. And they were not, so he said, too particular about their methods, showed little regard for the status and dignity of their victims.

“I revolt you personally,” Christien Lenoir went on.

She gave him a scathing look that encompassed the symmetry of his face, his powerful shoulders and long, hard-muscled legs outlined so faithfully by thin wool. “Don’t be absurd. My preferences don’t come into this.”

“I don’t revolt you, then. We make progress.”

His light tone was like a match to tinder. She lifted her chin while fiery temper rose above the turmoil inside her. “If you must know, I am said to have had my first husband killed. That is, of course, if I didn’t bludgeon him to death with my own hands. You would be sharing your bed with an accused murderess.”

She had said the wrong thing; she knew it instantly. It was because Theodore had been killed while he
slept, but this swordsman wasn’t to know that. With suffocating chagrin, she waited for his reply.

He didn’t keep her waiting.

“But I should be harder to kill, so am willing to accept the risk,” he said, a wickedly amused smile curving his mouth, lighting the darkness of his eyes with a startling glow like aged cognac. “In fact, I can think of nothing more certain to please me than to have you share my bed.”

“Y
ou don’t believe me.”

Christien could not deny the charge. It seemed ridiculous on the face of it, that the lady before him could have the fortitude to strike a death blow. What interested him about her claim, beyond the hot flush on her cheekbones for her inadvertent placement of him in her bed, was that she thought it might deter him from marrying her. Well, and the fact that she would go to such lengths to put him off the idea.

“Let us say it seems doubtful,” he allowed. “Unless your husband was a much smaller man?”

“Not smaller than I am, but certainly not so large as you.”

He could almost feel her gaze travel across his shoulders and along the length of his outstretched leg as she spoke. The tingling sensation left in its wake was difficult to ignore.

“But all men must sleep sometime,” she went on. “He was attacked in our bedchamber, you understand.”

“So you dispatched him while he snored beside you. Then what? Lay back down and waited until someone came to find him?”

“Certainly not. I didn’t—”

She stopped, drew a breath that swelled the gentle curves of her breasts against her bodice in a manner far too enticing for his comfort. High color stained her cheekbones again, and her eyes were the dark gray-blue of a storm sky, revealing her annoyance. Christien didn’t mind. It was better than the stricken pallor that had been in her face a moment ago. To continue the effect seemed a worthy cause.

“There,” he said with the greatest affability, “I knew you could not be so callous, just as you won’t reject my suit out of hand.”

“Is that what you are presenting, your suit? I thought it an ultimatum.”

He shook his head. “I am offering you my hand and everything I possess. You have only to be reasonable enough to accept them.”

“Everything you possess,” she repeated in bitter condemnation.

He watched the compression of the lovely lines of her mouth with tight interest and a drawing sensation in his lower abdomen. “Your father’s losses are a debt of honor, Madame Pingre, and as such must be paid. No one forced him to wager so deep or remain at the table so long.”

“You only took advantage of it.”

“That I did,” he agreed with instant candor. “Someone was going to have his holdings at the end of the evening. I decided it might as well be me.”

She met his gaze for a long moment, her own fathomless as she studied him. He wondered if she heard
the stark truth in his voice, could recognize somehow that taking a hand in the game with Cassard had been more than mere happenstance. It was he who looked away first, allowing his gaze to drift again to her lips, so lush and inviting in their graceful curves and smooth surfaces that he had to steel himself against the impulse to reach out, pull her close and take them.

She drew a swift breath, looked away in her turn, shifted to put a little more distance between them. “If you had any consideration at all, you would allow Papa to give you his note of hand for the value of his losses. To dispossess him at his age, much less my mother who is…is not well, is heartless beyond belief.”

“But I’m not dispossessing either of them. I’m trying to see to it they need never leave their home here. All you have to do is—”

“Is offer myself up as a sacrifice for their security,” she interrupted.

“It seems reasonable enough, given the alternative.”

“It isn’t reasonable at all! I’d thought to be a widow for the rest of my days.”

He frowned, aware of a hollow sensation opening in the center of his chest. “You buried your heart in your beloved’s grave.”

“Please,” she said with a weary gesture.

“Nothing so melodramatic? Nor are you so spineless, I’ll warrant.”

“I should hope not.”

“Being married was a disappointment?”

“No, not at all.”

He heard the insistent denial but judged it false. And he wanted her as his wife, wanted to erase all her past knowledge of a husband with a fierceness so sudden it was like a sword thrust to the vitals. “No,” he echoed on a hard-drawn breath. “I’m at a loss, then, to see why you are so opposed to what is, after all, a perfectly acceptable arrangement.”

“To a man I don’t know and with whom I have nothing in common? Yes, and for reasons that give no consideration to compatibility of mind or circumstances, much less affection. Our ideas of what is acceptable differ greatly,
monsieur.
”

“You prefer a love match.”

“I hope I have more common sense. Yet a man of my own kind would be preferable.”

“So you want to enjoy the pleasures of the social round for a season or two before you choose him, now that your mourning is at an end. Or do you have someone in mind already?”

“Certainly not!” The blue of her eyes carried more heat than the summer sky. “I was speaking in the abstract. I did say I have no interest in another husband.”

“But I am at liberty to doubt it. You are far too attractive a woman to wear the willow.”

She shook her head in rejection of both compliment and conclusion. “The way my first marriage ended is not likely to make me welcome another offer.”

He noted that she made no mention of going back into society. The reason for that was clear enough; few invitations would be extended to a woman suspected
of murder. Avoiding that subject seemed best for the moment. “It’s my heritage that offends,” he went on in dogged persistence.

“Not precisely, though I fail to see why you expect me to be comfortable with a man from a background so unlike my own.”

“I have spent several years making a place for myself in the Vieux Carré, Madame Pingre, and have succeeded well enough to draw many gentlemen of good family to my salon,” he answered while something cold and hard settled inside him. “Though possibly that’s the crux of the matter, after all, the detail that I labor for my living. Yes, and in such an
outré
profession.”

“It isn’t in your favor.” The look in her eyes dared him to make something of it. “What kind of life might I have tied to a husband who believes every quarrel can be settled at sword point? It would be worse than…”

“Worse than your first, perhaps? I do see the objection. About my birth I can do nothing. I am of the ancient native people, the Natchez. Yet French Creole ladies have married and civilized those of other nations before.” He gave her a tight smile in recognition that such civilization might be required. “As for my profession, I will pledge to put down my sword on our wedding day and never again raise it against any man.”

A startled look rose in her eyes as she stared at him. “You would do that?”

“If you require it.” There were few things he would not undertake to gain her agreement.

“And suppose I required…”

“What?” He had to ask the question as she trailed to a halt, though he suspected the answer.

“To…to occupy our marriage bed alone.”

The image of her lying in that bed in lawn and lace, with her hair spread in a curling mass around her, shimmering in the lamplight in all its wild glory, rose in his mind’s eye. She might start out alone, but it would not be for long if he had any say in the matter. Breathing deep to control the surge of his body in reaction to such thoughts, he said, “So you would condemn us both to celibacy and childlessness?”

“I have a child, my daughter, Marguerite.” Her gaze was directed somewhere past his shoulder.

“And I will be proud to be a father to her if it pleases you and she will permit it, but hope to have other children.”

She looked down at her hands. “I see.”

“It’s not an unreasonable expectation,” he said quietly.

“It would not be if the situation were normal.”

“The situation is ours to command. It can become normal if we will it so.”

She looked up, her gaze wary yet shaded with the barest hint of humor. “You have an answer for everything.”

“It’s a failing of mine,” he said in solemn agreement, “and not the only one.”

“There are more?”

That small show of interest seemed promising, if not particularly flattering. “I am an early riser and like to ride before breakfast. Idleness is difficult for me. I must
always be doing something, so will expect to be involved in the day-to-day operation of the plantation. I enjoy working with my hands and hope you won’t be embarrassed if I am seen at it. Though I have no objection to attending a social event now and then, my preference is for quiet evenings at home. I am, in spite of what you may suppose from my occupation, a rather dull man.”

“You will forgive me if I find that unlikely?”

“You are free to think whatever you please,” he said in dry concession. “Oh, and I should add that I have certain obligations to friends in and around New Orleans so must spend an occasional evening away from you.”

“I shall try to bear up under your absence.”

He thought his heart failed to beat for a second. “Does that mean you agree?”

“No, no, not in such haste,” she answered as confusion amounting to near panic flashed across her face. “I merely—It was only a comment. No, I must have time to think, to discuss the matter with my parents. Something so important, so…so permanent as this, can hardly be decided in a half hour.”

“You’re wrong. It can be decided in a moment.” He knew that much with absolute certainty. It was the reason he was here, the reason he owned River’s Edge.

“By some, perhaps, but not by me.” She looked down, watching her fingers as she smoothed over the worn wicker that wrapped the arm of her chair. Abruptly she clenched her hand into a fist. “Why?” she demanded. “Why are you doing this?”

“Rather than simply turning you all out into the road? Consider it a whim.”

“I don’t think you are a man who has whims,” she countered, searching his face, “much less one who acts on them. Is it that you require a wife to maintain your home? Perhaps you feel I owe you for your quick action outside the theater so will agree to anything.”

“I have no expectation of your gratitude and no use for it.”

“Yet you must have a reason.”

Oh, he did that, but it was not one he cared to explain. Such knowledge could become a weapon in the wrong hands. He answered with a question of his own. “You don’t feel the chance to improve my position is enough?”

“In society, I suppose.”

“No marriage vow is likely to make me acceptable among the
haut ton.
The only position of interest to me is as owner of River’s Edge. To be a landowner and beholden to none is enough.” His lack of status was an essential truth he’d accepted long ago. To speak of it caused no particular distress.

“And this outcast state is one you expect me to suffer as your wife.”

“I had thought,” he said with quiet reason, “that you were already beyond the pale due to the odd nature of your husband’s death. We seemed to be a pair of outcasts, you and I.”

Her eyes darkened and she pressed her lips together in a thin line. Somewhere a squirrel chattered, a crow called and a woman with a rich and mellow voice sang
a mournful ballad. The warm summer breeze sighed through the trees, then died away again.

“You are quite right,” she said abruptly, looking away from him. “Nevertheless, I need time to consider. If you will return tomorrow…”

“I have your father’s invitation to remain as a guest at River’s Edge until matters have been arranged, one way or another.”

She swung back to study his face. “Is that by chance a threat?”

“A statement of fact, rather.” Christien allowed a shading of irony to darken his tone. “Though reluctant to wound your sensibilities, I must point out once more that you could all be considered as my guests.”

“So we could.” She came swiftly to her feet, so he was forced to do the same. “I will give you an answer at the earliest possible instant.”

“I would be grateful for it,” he said, and had never been more sincere in his life.

If she heard, there was no sign. Turning in a whirl of skirts so wide and fast they polished the dust from his boot tops, she walked from the gallery. He watched her go, noting the straight set of her shoulders, militant tilt of her head and ladylike glide that could not quite conceal the faint, seductive sway of her hips. He felt as strung out as if he had been in a fight to the death. His neck was stiff, and he was uncomfortably aware of another, even more rigid portion of his anatomy.

Whether he had won or lost was impossible to say; he would have to wait on the lady’s pleasure for that answer. In the meantime, he was established at the
plantation. He was a part of the family, at least temporarily. He was under the same roof as Madame Pingre and her daughter, could breathe the same air, eat at the same table, sleep only a few doors away.

He should have been satisfied, and was in one sense. He also felt like the worst kind of interloper. And why not, when that was exactly the part he played?