Guarded Heart (10 page)

Within minutes, or so it seemed, the chaos settled into an orderly removal of those who still lived, as well as the shaken passengers and crew. Finally, as the doctors and all who could be saved were hurried away toward the newly refurbished Maison de Santé on Canal Street, the Charity Hospital and private hospitals, the dead were brought ashore.

One of those brought off first was a young woman, to judge from the dark hair that spilled in waving tresses over the edge of the litter borne by two stevedores. As they turned toward a waiting wagon, the wind whipped away the sheet that covered her. She was young indeed, hardly more than thirteen or fourteen. One side of her body appeared undamaged, but the other was waxen in its steamed destruction, and her twisted features spoke of agonized last moments.

Ariadne turned sharply away while sick pity rose inside her. She had seen death before, had been at her husband's side as his difficult breathing stopped; it wasn't that she was shocked. Still, it had not been like this, a painful wrenching from life, dreams, promise and all that was bright and good in being alive. It had not seemed so very final or so tragic.

“Come, permit me to escort you to the town house,” Gavin said, his voice low as he appeared at her side, taking her hand and tucking it in the crook of his elbow. “You should not be here.”

He was the last person she wished to see her in her weakness, so of course it was he who noticed. “Yes, certainly,” she answered, her voice husky as she gathered the tatters of her composure around her. “If Maurelle is ready.”

“She will go ahead with Caid and Lisette. The others are naturally seeing to their wives. You are, perforce, left with me.”

“I…must thank you then.” What else was there to say?

He bent his considering gaze upon her. “It's not to be wondered at that you are upset.”

“I'm not upset.”

“No, certainly not. Why should you be, after all? Death for a stranger is less than nothing. It touches no part of the heart or mind, rouses no contemplation of chance events or future loss. One life, more or less, is only a droplet spilled from the bucket brimming with souls, endlessly replenished from the well of life and loving.”

“Do be quiet,” she said, her voice thick in her tight throat. She would not look at him for fear he could see the tears that crowded the corners of her eyes.

“I am silent,” he said, “but not, praise all the gods, as the tomb.”

He was being deliberately irritating to distract her, she realized after a glance at his set face—a startling insight under the circumstances. Yet to presume to know how she felt was a great impertinence. Ariadne turned to blast him for it.

It was then she saw the middle-aged woman running toward the levee. Her eyes were wild, her mouth opened in a silent cry, and tears streamed down the lines of her face. Her bonnet slid back from her head, held only by its strings as it flopped against her back. She lifted her skirts high as she ran, unmindful of the exposure of petticoats and ankles. Reaching the young girl, she fell to her knees with a moan while grabbing at the arms of the litter bearers, forcing them to lower their burden to the ground. She searched over the girl's body with wide tear-filled eyes, touched a trembling hand to her waxen cheek, then fell across the stretcher with a great rasping sob.

Ariadne stood perfectly still. The woman was the same one who had come to Maurelle's theater box, the woman who called herself her mother. She had said—What had she said? Something about her husband and her daughter arriving in town this evening, she was almost sure. The girl on the litter—might be, must be, her half sister.

“You really are ill. Shall I find a hackney?”

Gavin Blackford took her hand from his arm, holding it while he put a strong arm at her back. She could feel the warmth of him seeping into her chill skin, was grateful in that instant for his support. “No,” she answered in shuddering distress. “Just…just take me away. Take me away now.”

He made no answer, asked no questions, but steered her in the opposite direction from the scene of grief and horror. For these things, too, she was grateful.

The remainder of the day passed for Ariadne as in a dream. The sword master did not stay on reaching the town house, but gave her into the care of Maurelle and politely took his leave. Her hostess, on learning what she had seen, was all concern, insisting that she lie down while she made a tisane of soothing herbs for her with her own hands. Later in the afternoon, Maurelle sent a servant to learn how Ariadne's mother fared and discovered that her stepfather, Monsieur Arpegé, had perished along with her youngest sister. Her mother and the daughter whom she had brought for her debut were in deepest seclusion, receiving no visitors. According to the hotel servants, they were in disarray, too lost in grief as yet to know whether they would have the double internment in the city or transport the bodies back upriver for burial in their home cemetery.

Ariadne was no more decided concerning her own conduct. There would be no call upon her by her mother. She had dreaded that interview, so should be relieved she need not face it. It was odd to recognize that she was not. Something inside her regretted the lost opportunity to learn more of the woman who had given her birth. Something within longed to know why she had been handed over to someone else like the unwanted kitten in a litter.

Should she pay a condolence call now, leaving her card if not admitted, or just let it go? The blood relationship was undoubtedly there and some things were a matter of common decency. Regardless, she had never met her stepfather or any of his daughters by her mother, did not know them at all. Her mother might have sought contact before, but would she wish it in her sorrow? What possible use could she be to her blood relations at this time? What comfort could she offer? It seemed purest hypocrisy to visit now when she had been so very determined to avoid them. Yes, and did she really wish to become enmeshed in their lives when she had other concerns, other aims of her own?

What did the social conventions require of her in this peculiar situation? Did filial duty enter into it at all?

Going back and forth in her mind with the choice was driving her mad. She could not think what she wanted to do, much less what was required of her. Still, it seemed she should do something.

She could not get the scene she had witnessed out of her mind. Her mother's grief remained with her, weighed on her. Her obvious love for the girl who had died, her horror-stricken despair over the manner of it, had been so very piteous. Ariadne could not help wondering if she had felt even a portion of that desolation over her own removal to the Dorelle household. She had not died, it was true, but she had been just as lost to her mother. Somehow, she had never considered how the woman who gave birth to her might have felt about giving her away. She had always assumed she had been glad to be free of the burden.

That need not be true. She might have grieved.

Had she misjudged her mother all these years?

What else might she have misjudged?

Ariadne's head ached with the confusion inside her. She wasn't sure she was capable of leaving the town house for fear of being sick. She hovered constantly on the verge of tears when she had thought never to cry again after weeping so much for Francis and then Jean Marc.

Rising from her bed, she went to the armoire. She pushed aside her gowns to expose a long case that lay at the back. Lifting it from its hiding place, she carried it to the bed. It was of highly polished ebony wood inlaid with silver, a sword case of fine craftsmanship. She unfastened the catch, opened the lid and laid it back onto the mattress.

Nestled in the case, in a bed of black crushed velvet, was a pair of matched rapiers, traditional dueling swords, with their black leather sheaths beside them. Beautifully made, they had leather-wrapped handles and swept-back hilts of ornately wrought metal plated with silver and black enamel. The maker's mark, a fleur de lis, was stamped into the upper blade which was also chased for a few inches with a design of leaves and vines. She had purchased the set in Paris after walking past the window of a weapons store where they had been displayed. They appealed to her on a visceral level she could not have explained if her life depended on it. Owning them had given solid form to her vague idea of retribution for Francis's death.

She touched the chasing on one blade, thinking of Gavin's disparaging suggestion that she was attracted to fencing for the sake of such beautiful metalwork. He might be more correct than he knew, though the deadly power of the sword also satisfied something inside her. Unladylike as it might be to dwell on such things, owning the means to protect herself, as well as exact recompense for injury, made her feel stronger inside.

Could she really use one of the blades? The anger that had driven her seemed to burn less bright. Everything was more complicated than it had appeared from a continent away. The depression of spirit occasioned by the tragedy she had witnessed that morning made it all seem too great an effort.

This uncertainty would pass, she was almost certain of it. The question was how she might feel when it was done. Closing the sword case lid again, she put it back in the armoire.

Gray skies gathered, lowering, becoming steadily darker as the day advanced. Candles and lamps had to be set alight by mid-afternoon. Ariadne, in the attempt to break free of the impasse that gripped her, dressed and took her needlework, a petit-point fire screen, into the salon.

Maurelle was not there. She had grown sleepy after a strenuous morning followed by a dreary afternoon, or so Adele said when Ariadne discovered the maid loitering on the gallery. She was resting in bed.

Ariadne set a few stitches in her canvas while sitting before the salon fireplace, but could find no real interest in the pattern. When the rain began to fall, she laid her handiwork to one side and went to the window where she stood leaning on the frame, watching the wind-whipped sheets of water that blew down the street and the silver streams that poured from the eaves onto the balcony outside.

She was still there when a visitor was announced. At the sound of a masculine tread, she turned quickly, her eyes wide.

It was only Sasha. He shook the raindrops from his hat and thrust it under his arm with his cane as he came forward. Unlike the sword masters who were more familiar in Maurelle's house, he kept to the European visiting style which limited calls to a scant fifteen minutes. In token of this short stay, a gentleman did not give up his belongings but kept them in his grasp.

It was bizarre to be disappointed that the caller was not Gavin Blackford. She was surely not in such an odd humor that the prospect of sparring with the Englishman could be preferable to her own company or that of any other. Was she?

“How kind of you to call when it is so wet out. I had not thought to see anyone for what is left of the day.” Ariadne's greeting as she gave him her hand was, perhaps a shade warmer than it might have been to make up for her lack of real welcome.

“Should I stay away when you require a friend,
ma chère?
I came the moment I heard how overset you were after witnessing this morning's sad events.”

“You heard? How was that?”

The tops of his ears turned red as he waved a careless hand. “These things are bruited about, you know. The important thing is that I am here.”

“As I said, it was good of you to trouble.”

“What disturbs you must rouse the same emotions in my breast, fair one. Tell me what you require for solace and I will bring it to you. Only command me, for I am at your service.”

À votre service.

The English sword master had said the same not so long ago. The words Sasha had spoken seemed but an echo of another voice, another promise.

“I hardly know which way to turn,” she said with a small shake of her head. “In truth, I'm almost persuaded there is nothing to be done.”

“You know best, but I fear you are more disturbed than you will admit. Why else would you allow the escort of Blackford on the street, or suffer that he should touch you in so public a manner?”

She moved away from him, returning to the settee before the fire, staring at the coal lumps like small glowing pillows behind the ornate grate. “Is that what this is really about? That I was seen with the
maître d'armes?
”

“You must admit it was indiscreet,” he said, standing at rigid attention.

“I will do nothing of the sort. How dare you suggest—” She stopped, took a calming breath. “Please sit down, Sasha. We must talk.”

“I am not sure I care for the sound of that.” His gaze was wary as he lowered himself to the fauteuil that sat at a right angle to the settee.

“Possibly not, but it must be done. We have known each other for a number of years, have shared good times and bad. I am grateful for your constancy and the way you stood by me while Jean Marc was ill. I care for you…”

“And I adore you,
mon ange.
”

“Allow me to finish, if you please.” She waited until he subsided. “As I was about to say, I care for you as a friend, which makes this difficult for me. It is immensely flattering that you followed me here from Paris. I am fully aware of the honor you have paid me. It may be that I even encouraged you in some fashion, though unwittingly, I swear. I have told you time and again that I have no interest in being married again, also no inclination to indulge in…in an affair.”