Triumph in Arms (5 page)

“Your son-in-law returned and came to River’s Edge to be with them, I suppose.”

“It would appear so.”

Christien lifted a brow. “Meaning?”

“No one saw him arrive on that night, just as no one saw him leave. Or be taken away, as the case may be.”

“How did he get into the house? Was the butler not on duty?”

“Alonzo had been sent to bed after more than twenty-four hours on his feet, carrying trays up and down, also endless cans of hot water. The doors were not locked as Reine and the baby’s old nursemaid, Demeter, were still going in and out to the kitchen. Everything was at sixes and sevens, you perceive, as we feared for Marguerite’s life.”

Christien gave a nod as he pictured it. To close off access to the outdoor kitchen would not have been practical. “No one saw or heard anything unusual?” he asked after a moment.

Cassard shook his white head. “The sheriff came and put the same question to the house servants and everyone else on the place. Yes, and with the same lack of results. Monsieur…”

Christien lifted a brow as he waited for his host to arrange his thoughts. When he failed to continue, he said, “You meant to say?”

“I hesitate to speak for reasons that may be obvious,
yet honor compels that I be frank with you. The circumstances here are more difficult than you imagine. Because of it, I shall not hold you to your offer of marriage. That’s if you think to withdraw it.”

“No.” It was the last thing Christien intended.

“You are not put off by the notoriety surrounding Pingre’s death?”

“It was a trying time, I’m sure, but I can’t imagine your daughter was at fault. My concern is only for how she came to be implicated in such a bloody affair.” As he was not inclined to pursue his release from his proposal, he went on with hardly a pause. “What do you believe happened?”

His future father-in-law looked at him for a second while relief eased the lines of strain in his face. Glancing away again, he said, “I cannot answer that, I’m sorry to say. I was not at home that evening.”

“You were in town?”

“Gaming, you mean?” Cassard grimaced. “I can hardly fault you for wondering, but no. The upset with Marguerite had brought on one of my wife’s nervous spells. She had but a single dose left of the laudanum she takes at bedtime. I drove to town late that evening and slept at the town house overnight so as to purchase a new supply the instant the apothecary opened next morning. By the time I returned with it, the sad business was done.”

It made sense, Christien saw. If Cassard had been on the premises, the murderer would surely have thought twice about entering the house. “Exactly how long ago did all this take place?”

“Over two years now, as Marguerite was five her
last birthday. She saw it, you know, or we must suppose so as she was in the same room. You might think she would recall nothing, being so young. Nevertheless, she has horrific dreams, sees monsters everywhere since that night. Why, she even claimed she saw one the night you saved her outside the theater. I’d thought her release from mourning black might improve matters, but…” He trailed off with a shake of his head.

Papa. Oh, Papa.

The child’s soft cry echoed in Christien’s memory, the undercurrent of his every thought concerning that night outside the opera house. He’d thought he might have reminded Marguerite of her father, but it seemed unlikely given what he’d just heard. What did it really mean?

“Marguerite and her father,” he said with a frown, “they were close?”

Cassard gave Christien a quick glance from under lowered brows. “Theodore was not what one might call a doting parent. He was far more occupied with his friends and their round of cockfights and barrel houses.”

“Wild, in a word.”

“Immature, I would say instead,” he answered with a sigh of weary tolerance. “It’s a failing of men who marry young, before they have time to become jaded with town pursuits or to settle into the role of husband and father. They improve with age.”

“Hard on their wives.”

“Who are equally young and inexperienced, yes, though usually have their families to support them.”

“It was an arranged marriage, I suppose?”

“It seemed a good match,” Cassard said in immediate defense. “Theodore was his parents’ only heir, as I told you before. He and Reine played together from the time they left their cradles, were of the same age and didn’t dislike each other. His family had been friends and neighbors for many years. Worse alliances have prospered.”

Indeed they had, Christien thought, and this one must have been compatible enough given that it had produced Marguerite. Before he could express that unpalatable thought, however, he caught the thud of quick footsteps. He turned to see the object of his thoughts racing toward them down the lane they had been following.

Marguerite Pingre wore a ruffled pinafore over full skirts and pantaloons and narrow boots of white kid on her small feet. The pink ribbon that held her bright, flying hair away from her face was tied in a bow on top of her head. It threatened to come loose from its moorings with every pounding step. Gamboling around her was the big red bloodhound that had greeted Christien on his arrival. With his tongue lolling out and his eyes bright with joy, he had no aspect of fearsome watchdog whatever.

“Help,
Grand-père,
help me!” the child called. “I’ve run away from Babette to see the gentleman with the sword she and Cook talk about. I run fast, fast so she can’t catch me. She says I’m naughty and the
loup-garou
will get me.”

Monsieur Cassard bent and closed his arms around the child as she threw herself against his legs. Lifting
her, he gave her a firm buss on one flushed cheek, smiling into her piquant little face. “What would any old werewolf want with the likes of you,
hein?
Such a small kitten as you are would hardly be a mouthful for him. Now say hello to Monsieur Lenoir,
ma chère,
for he is our visitor and we must make him welcome.”

The child lifted clear blue eyes fringed with fine, dark lashes to him. They widened and she gave a quick gulp. She made no other sound, but held so still she might have been a small wax effigy.

“Have you nothing to say, Marguerite? It’s impolite to ignore a guest.”

“It’s the man,” she whispered, her face serious as she leaned to confide this news into her grandfather’s ear.

“C’est vrai?
But which man,
ma petite?”

“The man who knocked me down in the street. Yes, and
Maman,
too, so the horses wouldn’t hurt us. Is he the man with the sword? Will he kill the
loup-garou
?”

Cassard shot Christien an amused glance. “You must ask him, yes?”

The hope in the child’s deep blue eyes as she turned them on him was too much for Christien to resist. “But certainly I will slay the beast for you,” he said, making her his best bow. “Only show him to me, and he won’t live a minute.”

Her expression was uncertain, and still she didn’t smile. “Truly?”

“I swear it on my honor.” It seemed a safe enough vow considering werewolves existed only in childish nightmares. The best thing to be done to rid young
Marguerite of these fantasies, and perhaps her nightmares as well, would be to see to it her nursemaid ceased using the threat of monsters to frighten her into obedience. That was, of course, if he was allowed a stepfather’s right of interference, or any right at all where she and her mother were concerned.

“I like you,” the child said with abrupt decision.

“You are very kind,
mademoiselle,”
he answered, his voice as grave as hers had been, “just as a lady should be.”

“
Maman
isn’t always, or
Grand-mère.”

“Marguerite!” Monsieur Cassard exclaimed in protest.

“I’m sure they have their reasons.” To prevent irony from surfacing in his voice took more effort than Christien expected.

“I am a trial, and so is
Grand-père.
Will you be a trial?”

“My angel, please.”

Christien shook his head, both for the child and to allow Cassard to know there was no need for his concern. “I shall endeavor not to be one.”

“
Maman
will like you, then.”

“We must hope that’s the case.” Seldom had he meant anything more.

They returned to the house, the child walking between Christien and her grandfather and the big hound trailing protectively at their heels. She was not a chattering sort, he discovered as they moved slowly toward the graceful white structure seen through the screen of oak branches. She was thinner than he remembered, as well, and seemed to have a pinched look to her
small features that he did not recall. Her thoughts did not make her happy, apparently, for she frowned as she walked.

Yet now and then she looked up at him with an expression in her small face that bordered on wonder. The expectation in it flicked Christien’s heart on the raw, troubling him more than he cared to admit.

Guilt was never a comfortable companion.

D
inner, served at the usual hour of three in the afternoon, was a sumptuous meal in several courses, beginning with creamed soup and continuing with two fish dishes, two of poultry, three baked or smoked meats, a medley of vegetable selections, syllabub in dainty cups and a final tray of cheese and nuts.

A great, shield-shaped
chasse-mouche
of mahogany, pulled by a velvet rope in the hand of a small, yawning kitchen boy, swung back and forth over the polished board to discourage the circling flies and also to cool the diners. Regardless, beads of sweat ran down the water glasses filled with cool spring water and oozed in golden beads of oil from the cheese. Perspiration also shone on the faces of the servants, who moved quietly around the table, removing plates, offering dishes and replenishing water and wineglasses.

Christien was impressed. His own meals were Spartan indeed in comparison, and that was on the rare occasion when he dined in his rooms instead of a restaurant. Familial boards were not a large part of his life
in spite of invitations from friends and former sword masters Gavin Blackford and Nicholas Pasquale, Caid O’Neill and the Conde de Lérida, and also the Kentuckian Kerr Wallace when he and his Sonia were in town for the winter. Christen was reasonably certain any leftover food would be enjoyed in the kitchen by the more privileged house servants, yet the array was a telling indication of the bounty produced at River’s Edge.

They were six at the table. Monsieur Cassard had tried to relinquish the head of the board to him, but Christien had refused in favor of a place at the right hand of his hostess. Across from him was Reine, with Marguerite seated on a cushion beside her mother. By default, the remaining place was taken by Reine’s brother, Paul Cassard.

The younger Monsieur Cassard was no longer a boy, but perhaps a year or two away from his majority. With a thatch of brown hair and hazel-green eyes, he seemed more suited to the outdoors than to the salon; certainly his frock coat and pantaloons were those of an unpretentious countryman rather than a town dandy. He had, so it appeared from a brief exchange with his father, been responsible for the fish that was a part of the meal, only returning from a foray upon the river in his skiff in time for his catch to be cooked.

He had witnessed the boy’s return, Christien realized, though he’d not known who he was at the time. Glancing out his bedchamber window while washing for the meal, he had seen him trotting toward the house. In his hand had been a willow branch stripped
of its bark and left with a thumblike projection of side limb to hold the fine catch of bass and bream that wriggled upon it. Loose-limbed, sunburned, with hair a rough tangle and his clothes stained with river water, he’d seemed carefree and cheerful.

The boy was less so now. No doubt he’d been informed of the situation at hand. He could not be pleased to learn the house and land he might have been expected to inherit were lost to him. It was regrettable, but a problem that could be dealt with later.

“Your accommodations are quite comfortable, Monsieur Lenoir?”

The query came from the frail lady seated at the foot of the table. Madame Cassard appeared older than she should as the mother of a young son and a daughter barely in her twenties. Her hands shook as she manipulated her spoon and fork, her skin had a grayish cast and her thinning tresses were augmented by rolls of false hair tucked into the massed curls on top of her head. Her pale blue eyes seemed uncomfortably searching in their appraisal as they rested upon him. Though her husband had said she was not to be told of present events, Christien wondered if she had not gleaned the knowledge by some other means.

“They could not be more so.” It was not mere politeness. He’d been pleasantly surprised by the size of the bedchamber and connecting dressing room allotted him.

“If there is anything you require, you have only to ask for it. But permit me to say that you seem familiar,
monsieur.
Who was your father, if you please?”

“It’s unlikely you ever met him, Madame Cassard,” he said, keeping his voice rigorously even. “He was Jules Lenoir, a defrocked priest and former missionary to the tribes along the Mississippi. That was until he made his home to the north, in the swamplands of central Louisiana.”

The lady lifted her brows, her features set as she digested that piece of news. After a moment, she went on. “And your mother?”

“Her name would mean even less, I fear.” It was, Christien reminded himself, the kind of catechism that might be expected by any visitor, but particularly one who came as a suitor for her daughter’s hand. Widowed or not, she must be protected from those who were unworthy. He would certainly be counted among that number under normal circumstances.

“She or your father must have been of Spanish blood, yes? You are, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, as dark as a Moor.”

“
Maman,
you must not say such things,” Reine said, reaching to put her hand on her mother’s arm. The glance she sent across the table to Christien carried only the slightest trace of apology.

“But how else am I to learn anything? I can hardly ask others about him in the usual way, now, can I?”

“Answer that if you can,” Paul Cassard told his sister without looking up from his plate. “Does King know he’s here?”

“I think not. At least, not as yet,” Reine answered in clipped tones.

“Bet he won’t be happy.”

“King?” Christien inquired, his tone mild in deliberate contrast to his heightened interest.

“Merely Owen Kingsley, the overseer,” Reine answered. “As for my mother’s questions, you are not obliged to answer if they offend you.”

“I have no particular objection.” Christien committed the overseer’s name to memory before turning back to Madame Cassard. “You asked about my coloring,
madame.
My mother was not Spanish but rather descended from the last Great Sun of the Natchez.”

The gaze of his hostess turned bewildered. “I beg your pardon?”

“Truly?” Paul demanded, his eyes wide as he looked up at last. Cassard paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth, his expression arrested. Only Reine continued to eat, having heard something of it before.

The copper tint of his skin, a different hue from the olive cast of those claiming Spanish ancestry, had been a sore point since his arrival in New Orleans. He’d endured less polite inquiries about it than that of his hostess. Too many were obsessed with skin color in their fear of whispers concerning a touch of the tar brush. To be descended from one of the older native tribes of the area was no great step upward in their estimation.

“The Natchez tribe is no more,” he went on evenly. “You may recall that they were scattered more than a hundred years ago, after they rose against the French at Fort Rosalie. Some were sold into slavery in the
Caribbean, while others fled to tribes in Louisiana and Mississippi, where they remained until more recent years. My father lived among them, and my mother was a member of his flock. She was baptized with a Christian name a short time before they were wed.”

“Quite a romance.” Paul’s voice held barely repressed doubt. “No wonder he was defrocked.”

“As you say.” Christien gave him a level look before he continued. “The last remnants of the Natchez were rounded up almost ten years ago, along with the Tunica and a half dozen other tribes along the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers, then sent with the Cherokee on the long march to the Indian Territory some call the Trail of Tears. As a woman married to a white man, my mother might have been spared, but her family would certainly have been taken. They all fled into the swamps.”

“They escaped the march, then?”

That question came from Reine. Christien was glad of the excuse to turn to her. “For what good it did them. They made a home in the back reaches of the swamp that lies along the river named for the Duc du Maine, but it eventually defeated them.”

“You were with them?”

A fugitive sympathy seemed to lay pooled in her eyes, but it might have been an illusion caused by the moving shadow of the
chasse-mouche
swinging above them. He inclined his head. “I was there, being only a year or so older than your brother when we went into the swamps.”

“But you didn’t remain.”

“I could not. All but a handful were gone after a few years, dead of fevers, snakebite, blood poisoning and a half-dozen other things it would be impolite to speak of at the dinner table.” Nor did he care to speak of them. The images of death and dying were burned into his soul. The only escape was in banishing them from memory.

“How came you to avoid these perils?”

It sounded rather like an accusation, though that might have been in his ears only. “I was sent away so the last of the Great Sun’s bloodline would not die out in Louisiana. My mother, sister to the last man officially selected in secret to wear the mantle of the Great Sun and the only female of her family left alive, chose me to carry on the tradition. It was her right in accordance with Natchez tradition. Though the Great Sun is male, the title descends through the female line.”

He had been sent into the world alone, banished from his remaining family and heritage. He’d not heard from them again except to be told they were gone. He thought some few others of his mother’s people had arrived in the Indian Territory, but had no idea if they still lived. For all he knew, he might indeed be the last of his kind, the last of the Great Sun’s line.

“Extraordinary,” Monsieur Cassard said.

Paul Cassard nodded in agreement as he watched Christien with an unwavering gaze. “I’ll say. You have a Natchez name?”

He inclined his head. “You would translate is as
faucon nuit.”

“Nighthawk. How picturesque. Did you choose it yourself?”

“By no means.” He looked from one to the other, his features rigorously composed. “You don’t believe me.”

Paul Cassard’s eyes narrowed in concentration. “You know, it almost seems to me I’ve heard that name…”.

Monsieur Cassard stepped in before his son could complete the thought. “Don’t take us up so quickly,
mon cher.
It’s only that we had not thought to meet one such as yourself.”

The French Creole gentleman had never expected to have someone like him as a guest under his roof or be forced to accept him as a possible son-in-law, Christien thought. It would be interesting to know if Cassard would have agreed so readily to his unusual proposal had he known his background. It seemed doubtful.

“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere,” Madame Cassard insisted, her voice fretful. If she had heard or understood a single word of what had been said in the few moments just past, it was impossible to tell it from her expression.

Reine’s gaze was just as shuttered, though for other reasons altogether, he was sure. She was deliberately concealing her thoughts concerning the prospect of a Natchez for a husband, also her belief concerning his hereditary position as ruler of a tribe that no longer existed. He would have given much to know her impressions, though they mattered little in the long run. He meant to have her, whatever she might think of him.

The meal came to an end and Christien retreated
to his bedchamber. Someone, Alonzo perhaps, had brought up his valise from where it had been tied behind his saddle and placed the contents in the armoire that anchored one wall. His sword case, an item never far from his side, rested on the table beside the bed. Inside was a pair of matched rapiers that he had bought from his friend Gavin Blackford, or rather Gavin’s wife, since they had belonged originally to the lady. Of French manufacture, with blades of finest steel ornately chased along half their length, they had hilts of wrought silver enameled in black, and leather-wrapped handles. They were as beautiful as they were deadly.

The room was spacious but dim as the tall French doors that opened out onto the front gallery were closed against the late afternoon heat. Its walls were wainscoted, with cypress planking below a chair rail and plaster above that was painted with a series of murals after Watteau. A convenient commode table with pitcher and bowl, an armchair, a rosewood armoire and matching half-tester bed completed the furnishings. Comfort underfoot was provided by an Axminster carpet in shades of cream and green. Connecting to the bedchamber was a small dressing room with a chest of drawers, bootjack, coffin-shaped zinc tub for bathing and hinged screen to prevent chilling drafts.

It was not the master bedchamber. Christien had not expected it would be. Still, he could not help wondering if that more commodious room would be turned over to him in due time. Nor could he prevent himself from speculating on whether the master’s lady would
sleep there with him, or if she would have her own bedchamber accessed through an interior door.

The confrontation with Reine rose up in his mind. It had gone as well as could be expected, he thought. She had been cool to his proposal, which was hardly surprising, but had not screamed, cried or begged to be spared, had given him no outright refusal.

Thank God the task of putting the proposition before her and her father was over. He’d been steeling himself to it for a week or more, dreading how it might be received. Now he had only to possess his soul in patience until he had an answer.

Christien had not slept well the night before. The great half-tester bed beckoned with its pristine white counterpane and gently moving mosquito
baire.
He slipped from his frock coat, removed his cravat and the studs from his shirt, levered off his boots. Mounting the bed steps in one bound, he stretched out on the mattress with his fingers laced behind his head.

He was still covered in perspiration. Levering up to one elbow, he stripped off his shirt, scrubbed his chest and arms with it and flung it toward the nearby chair. He lay back again, wiping his face with his hands.

The half-tester overhead had a lining of pleated yellow muslin and side curtains of gold damask over a mosquito
baire
of pale yellow netting, all of which were drawn back at the midpoint. The mattress beneath him seemed stuffed with high-grade cotton for sublime softness. A faint breeze sifted through the louvers at the shuttered windows, stirring the under curtains at the windows so they wafted in lazy waves.