Iron Lace (27 page)

“Do you get out to the lake often?” he asked, after the train had moved out of the station.

She removed her hat and set it across her knees. “Not often enough.”

“Then you enjoy the beach?”

“It’s a nice change from the river levees.”

“I won’t go in the water myself. I never learned to swim.”

“No? What if you fall off one of your own barges?”

“I sign enough pay vouchers that one of my employees would be sure to rescue me.”

“Not if you’re as hard to work for as they say.”

He laughed a very male, very appreciative, laugh. She was struck by it, suddenly aware of how little laughter she had shared in during the years since her father’s death.

“Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you my secrets,” he said. “One of your faithful followers might get ideas the next time I steal one of your contracts.”

“Faithful followers?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t understand.”

“I don’t, Mr. Gerritsen.”

“Please. Henry. You have a reputation for engendering amazing loyalty in the men who work for you. I’ve offered some of them more pay if they’ll come and work for me. Nearly every time they’ve refused.”

“Nearly?”

“I’m still working on one of your men, but I won’t say who.”

“As long as it’s not Tim.”

“You should pay me to take Tim off your hands.”

She was silent. Loyalty demanded that she protest; common sense demanded that she listen.

“Gilhooley’s not doing you any favors with his hemming and hawing,” Henry said. “But I think you already know that.”

She considered his words. “Tell me about yourself,” she said, when the city was behind them and the summer heat was rising in waves from the palmetto scrub marsh outside the train window.

“I’ve probably already told you everything you’ll ever need to know.”

“Shall I tell you what I’ve learned?”

He sat back and folded his arms, turning so that they were even closer. “I’d enjoy that.”

She didn’t move away, although she imagined he had expected it. “You’re brash, and prone to shortcuts. You can be ruthless and charming at the same time, which probably explains why you’ve come so far in New Orleans, despite being from nowhere. For some reason I can’t fathom, you’ve decided I’m worth cultivating. But I’ll tell you right now that Gulf Coast Shipping isn’t for sale.”

His smile was wide and appreciative. There was something possessive about his gaze, something that sharpened all her senses. “And neither am I,” she added.

“Shall I tell you what I’ve learned about you?”

“I live in a man’s world these days. I suppose I have to take the consequences.”

“Your eyes turn a darker blue when you’re angry, and anything that threatens Gulf Coast angers you. You’re every bit as loyal to the men you employ as they are to you, even to the detriment of the company you love. You have nothing else in your life, but
you’ve discovered you can’t feed on the past without endangering the future. And you want and need a future.”

She stared at him. “You don’t look like a voodoo priest.”

“You’re a very complex woman, but underneath, don’t all women want the same thing?”

“And men?”

“Men want power. Women want love.”

“Then perhaps women and men should stay with their own kind.”

“On the contrary. There’s room for power and love in a marriage.”

“And if that’s true, why haven’t you married?” she asked boldly. The entire conversation was so far outside polite boundaries that nothing seemed too shocking to ask.

“Until now, I hadn’t found the woman who could give me the power I crave.”

“May I ask who this paragon could be?”

“You, my dear.”

It was much too late to rebuke him. Instead, she gave a throaty chuckle. “You make me laugh, Mr. Gerritsen. I wasn’t certain I still could.”

“We both know I’m perfectly serious.”

“But this is the first conversation we’ve ever had.”

“I know everything about you.”

For a moment, she was pricked by fear. Then reason asserted itself. He couldn’t know everything. She and Tim had gone to the greatest lengths to be sure that her past stayed hidden. “Noticing that my eyes turn a darker blue and my loyalties can be foolish is hardly everything.”

“You want what I want, Rory.”

She frowned at both the nickname and the sentiment.

“No, I don’t see the Creole belle when I look at you,” he said. “Oh, Aurore Le Danois has her attractions. A name, a home in New Orleans society, a history to guarantee my daughters a place in the best carnival courts and my sons access to the best families, despite the temporary blemishes. But it’s Rory who attracts me. A woman thought to be unfeminine by the men in her social circle because she works like a man every day. A woman thought to be headstrong and difficult, perhaps just a touch wild. A woman with a past that doesn’t bear close scrutiny—”

“I think you’ve said enough.”

“You disappeared for seven months, Rory, after your father’s death. Do you know what they say about you?”

She turned back to the window. Now the landscape was cypress trees and ribbons of swamp. The fact that a train track had ever been laid through this watery wilderness seemed a miracle. “What do they say?”

“That you went a little mad. Like your mother.”

She closed her eyes in gratitude. “Would any sane man want to marry a madwoman?”

“Would a woman of your breeding want to marry a man whose great-grandfather came downriver from Kentucky on a flatboat and met his wife in a floating whorehouse?”

She didn’t answer.

“Haven’t you learned that in business it’s best to have leverage?” he asked. “Most workable contracts are negotiated by two parties with completely different strengths…and weaknesses.”

“And to you, marriage is a contract to negotiate?”

“Has it ever been otherwise?”

She watched the flight of a heron, its wings spread wide
as it sailed to the shade of a large tree. Then she turned back to him. “You’ve told me what you might gain. You neglected to say what I might.”

“A merger with Gerritsen Barge Lines.” He held up a hand to stop the words rising to her lips. “To be called Gulf Coast Shipping. I can see the advantage of an old, trusted name. Perhaps if you hadn’t been so determined to pay off your father’s debts, that might not be true. But you gained respect for Gulf Coast by playing fair.”

“Only that? A larger company? More problems?”

He smiled. She noted that his eyes remained the same clear green, whatever his expression. “Fewer problems, because I would manage the company and leave you to manage our home.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Gulf Coast is mine.”

“Gulf Coast would be ours. That wouldn’t be negotiable. Your place in it might be.”

“My place in it would not be negotiable. I’d share in all decisions. All of them. That would be enforced by a legal document signed before marriage.”

“Very good. You’ve learned a few things about business, haven’t you?”

“What else would you offer?”

“My knowledge and experience, and enough funds to set Gulf Coast firmly back on its feet. A house of your own design in the Garden District—I already own a choice lot on Prytania. Respectability, because even if I’m not of your class, marriage to me will stop the rumors about you.” His eyes focused on her lips, then trailed to the lace at her neck and
below. “Children. You want children, don’t you, Rory? And a man to warm your bed?”

The steam whistle shrieked a final blast that made it impossible for her to answer. They were reaching the end of the line. She knew Sylvain would be waiting for them in his newest toy, a pearl gray Stanley Steamer. She wondered if Henry had discussed her with Sylvain before issuing his unorthodox proposal.

She could feel heat rising to her cheeks as Henry continued his frank perusal. “What does Sylvain say about this?” she asked.

“That you’ll continue to lose ground without me. That I can’t hope to do better than you.”

“We’re so much merchandise to be sorted and priced according to quality.”

“I think I’ll enjoy marriage with you. I think I can make it tolerable for you.”

She could feel his gaze roaming her body, a physical, visceral sensation. The heat rising to her cheeks was more than embarrassment. She could imagine his hands caressing the same places, Henry’s hands, a man’s hands, marking her forever, the way Rafe’s hands had marked her.

Through the years she hadn’t allowed herself to think of the moments of euphoria that she had experienced in Rafe’s arms. With those memories came the bitterness of betrayal. She had hoped never to think of them again. Now, she could think of nothing else.

“You’re a woman who needs a man in her bed,” Henry said. “And I’ll fulfill that part of our contract with the greatest pleasure.”

She turned away, but she could still feel his gaze. Outside her window she could glimpse the blue of the lake. She felt
his hand on hers, felt his fingers glide along the skin above her glove.

She did not pull away.

B
y society standards, the wedding wasn’t large, but the guests were important. At first Aurore hadn’t realized the extent of Henry’s contacts in the city. Now, five months after their ride out to Milneburg, she knew she was about to wed a man who had spun a web of influence that drew together a variety of political and business interests.

Mayor Behrman was present, along with other officials of the city government. Men who daily feuded over power and how it should be distributed stood shoulder to shoulder as she started up the aisle of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. With her head held high, she walked slowly toward the imposing golden altar, savoring the moment. She was wearing her mother’s wedding dress, carefully preserved with vetiver and fragrant herbs.

She was superstitious enough to wish she could have worn a new dress. She was not marrying for love, yet she had hopes for this marriage that didn’t include the experiences of her mother. But Henry had paid for the wedding; she couldn’t allow
him to buy her dress, too. Instead, she and Cleo had lowered the modest neckline and added rows and rows of tiny satin and pearl blossoms salvaged from the dress in which she had made her debut. Her hair and face were covered by a gossamer lace veil that trailed the floor behind her, and she carried a long spray of gardenias, orange blossoms and tiny cream-colored roses that Henry had sent to her house that morning.

The mixture of heady scents was as brash, as individual, as the man who had sent them. He stood at the altar now, under a dome as high as heaven, watching every step she took. Sylvain walked beside her, visibly giving his blessing to this union, but Henry’s eyes were on her alone.

His eyes remained on her during the reception at Sylvain’s Garden District home. Men and women who had given her only the barest nods of recognition since Lucien’s death now beamed with smiles. An Italian Renaissance table by the parlor window groaned under the weight of gifts, and the newest crop of debutantes hoped out loud that their own weddings would be as stirring.

Aurore saw the young women gazing at her new husband, wondering, perhaps, about the wedding night to come. But Henry only had eyes for her. He stayed close by her side, taking her arm whenever appropriate, touching her waist, her hand. Once, when no one seemed to be watching, he kissed her; it was a hard, possessive kiss that plucked a nerve inside her until she vibrated with apprehension.

She knew what was to come. All too well she remembered the stolen moments in Rafe’s arms, the intimacies, the emotions. She had thought of Rafe during the ceremony, not the man who had destroyed her world, but the one who had offered her love, the man who had touched her, warmed her,
taught her the mysteries and pleasures of her body and his. It had been the first time she had thought of him without hatred since the night of the fire. Perhaps, while the priest droned the familiar litany of the mass, hatred hadn’t dared to intrude.

Whatever the reason, she had been shaken. As the priest bound her irrevocably to Henry, another man had filled her mind. She didn’t believe in omens, but what good could come from disloyalty? Henry offered her everything that Rafe had taken, yet as she gazed at him through the delicate clouds of her veil, she saw him more clearly than at anytime in the months he had courted her. He offered her everything she craved, but she was suddenly afraid he would give her nothing she really needed.

The disquieting thoughts continued throughout the afternoon. She told herself they were to be expected. She broached her fears with Ti’ Boo as her friend helped her prepare for the trip out to Milneburg, where she and Henry would stay in the Winslows’ cottage for a week. Ti’ Boo, growing round with her third child, said only what was expected. Aurore had married Henry in the eyes of God and the church, and in the even more judgmental eyes of New Orleans society. She must give him her loyalty and trust, and work, from that day forward, to be the wife he deserved.

Ti’ Boo said this without emotion. “What do you really think?” Aurore asked, gripping Ti’ Boo’s lace-trimmed sleeve until she stopped bustling around the room. “Don’t just say what you’re supposed to say, Ti’ Boo.”

Ti’ Boo fell to the bed beside her. “Why do you ask me now, when for months I hoped to tell you my thoughts?”

Aurore considered her friend’s question. She hadn’t asked because she hadn’t wanted to hear any criticism of Henry. She
had seen him as her last opportunity to set her life back on its intended path, a chance to have children to replace Nicolette, a chance to infuse Gulf Coast with cash, a chance to take her place in the community again. Marriage to Henry had offered all these things, and that had been enough.

She stood and straightened the skirt of her dress. “He’ll have my loyalty until the day he doesn’t deserve it, but he’ll never have my trust. I’ll never trust a man again.”

Ti’ Boo didn’t try to change her mind. She rose and took Aurore’s cape and draped it around her friend’s shoulders. Aurore and Henry would make the trip out to the lake in Henry’s new Packard, and there was a chill wind blowing from the north. “I wish you the greatest happiness,” Ti’ Boo said wistfully. “The happiness I’ve had with Jules.”

Aurore suspected that same kind of warm acceptance wasn’t within her reach, but she didn’t spoil the moment. She hugged Ti’ Boo, and the two women stood together for a long time. Then she pulled away and went to begin her life as Mrs. Henry Gerritsen.

When the Winslows went out to Milneburg, they took remnants of their household staff, but Aurore and Henry had decided to spend their time here alone. A local woman would come in to clean for them each morning and leave them something for dinner, but no one else would disturb them. February was not the fashionable season to enjoy the peaceful vistas of the lake; the city was firmly in the grip of carnival.

The woman, Doris, was waiting to unpack their trunks when they arrived. Aurore went outside on the gallery jutting over the water while Doris worked. The gallery was nearly as wide as a steamboat’s deck, and the view as spectac
ular as the most colorful river bend. The sun was setting, and purple faded into a thousand subtler shades.

She leaned against the railing, entranced. Geese flew across the sky in a perfect wedge. She had never seen the lake so calm. No sailboats broke the glassy surface of the water; no fish leaped into the air.

“After the wind we had this afternoon, I’m surprised it’s so still now.”

She hadn’t realized Henry had come to stand beside her. It disconcerted her that he could move so quietly. “It’s a beautiful sunset, isn’t it?”

“It’s cold, and far too quiet.”

She turned to him and smiled. “It’s beautiful, Henry. Enjoy it.”

“I wonder, will you spend the rest of your days trying to convince me to think as you do?”

For the first time, she felt the cold, too. “I hope I’ll spend them more productively than that.”

He was watching her, not the spectacle of the sun’s disappearance. “Your eyes are the color of the lake this time of year, just as cool and still. I can almost believe what I see. No passions, no secrets. Nothing to stir the surface.”

She had never told him anything about the events that had scarred her, and she didn’t now. “I’m no different than anyone. I have passions and secrets, but none grand enough to worry you.”

“No?”

She turned her back to the rail and faced him. “No. But you must know that. You’re not a man who’d marry a woman he didn’t understand.”

“I understand you.”

“Well, not completely, I hope. There should be a little mystery, don’t you think?”

“None.” He fingered a strand of her hair that had come loose from the fashionable high knot that Ti’ Boo had arranged. “Tell me exactly why you married me, Rory.”

She sensed he would settle for nothing but the truth. “Because you can give me everything I want. And I think I can do the same for you.”

“What do I want?”

“Beyond what you told me that first day we talked?” She considered. “You don’t want peace, you’re not a peaceful man. I don’t think the pleasures of hearth and home appeal to you.” She considered again. “I think you want a challenge. And I can promise you that.”

“A challenge?”

“You would never be happy with a woman who tried to make your life comfortable or simple. You don’t want an equal partner, but you don’t want a servant.”

The image that came to her mind as she spoke was of a gymnasium that Tim had once described. Tim’s boxing days were long since over, but he still got into the ring from time to time, just to prove he could. There were men at the gym who made their income fighting others. They weren’t content to be pummeled indiscriminately. They were good enough boxers to give back some of what they took, but only some, and then only so that the men who paid them could hone their own skills.

“You want a sparring partner.” She hoped he would deny it.

He laughed. “And what do you know of such things, Rory?”

“Enough to see the similarity.”

“Right now I just want the woman.”

She shivered. The sun was gone now, and Doris must be, too. The house was theirs, and since the reception had been sumptuous, there was no need to eat a meal before they retired.

She sensed that this was no time to act the shy maiden. Henry would relish signs of weakness, and the results would not bode well for the rest of their marriage. Her gaze didn’t waver. “The woman is yours.”

“I think not. But she soon will be.” He stepped closer. His fingers were warm against the back of her neck, and unyielding. She didn’t close her eyes when he kissed her, and he didn’t close his. She rested her hands on his shoulders, but she didn’t push him away. She let him kiss her, let him take greater intimacies with his tongue, without a murmur of protest. Only when she tried to ease her position and found he wouldn’t allow it did she feel the first flicker of fear.

Relief filled her when the kiss ended. He put his arm around her waist and guided her toward the house. From a great distance she could hear the honking of geese, but she and Henry were so very alone.

Inside, the lamps had been lit. There was no electricity here, and the softer glow should have been romantic. Instead, it seemed only to blur boundaries, as if nothing in the house were defined. As undefined, perhaps, as what was about to occur.

He left her alone in the guest room to dress for bed. The covers had been turned down, eyelet-trimmed sheets over a sprigged muslin comforter. A small coal fire burned in a decorative corner stove, but the room was still chilly. She undressed hurriedly, slipping into a gown and robe of handkerchief linen she had embroidered herself. She took her hair down at a table by the window. She was brushing it when Henry came into the room.

He stood near the doorway, watching her. He was wearing dark pajamas and half a smile. She turned so that she could see him as she finished. He stood with his weight on his front foot, as if he were ready to spring. She returned his smile, half for half, as she laid her brush on the table. When she separated her hair to braid it, he spoke. “Don’t.”

She nodded. “All right.” She stood and shook it back over her shoulders. He seemed larger, somehow, and completely a stranger. Without the stiffness of a corset encasing her, she felt far too pliable and tempting, like a rag doll at the mercy of a spoiled child.

“Come here, Rory.”

She wanted him to come to her, but even more vital, she didn’t want him to be angry. She moved toward him, her eyes focused on his. She could read nothing there, neither desire nor a lack of it. He waited, as still as the water outside their window. Then she was in his arms, and no part of him was still.

Only later, when she was naked against him, her hair twisted tightly in his hands to keep her close as he slept, her body bruised and plundered, did she close her eyes and weep.

He had never lied to her. He had told her that he sought power, and she had foolishly accepted it as part of his masculinity. She had believed her own power was great enough to resist him. In the early hours of the morning, Aurore knew she was a fool.

Henry had taken her joylessly twice more in the night, both times just as she had finally relaxed into a restless sleep. He seemed to savor catching her defenseless, sinking into her before she could prepare for the onslaught, pinning her beneath him so that she couldn’t adjust for what was to come.

He had poured out obscenities about her lack of virginity, and she had known better than to deny them. She had felt like a virgin, as if this humiliation were the real deflowering and the foolish joy she had felt in Rafe’s arms a childhood dream.

She had stared at him in the darkness, willing herself not to cry or cry out. She had made no attempts to refuse him her body, had not even pleaded with him to be gentle. She had borne his abuse with silence and the shreds of her tattered dignity, and just before dawn, when his lust was finally satisfied and he slept, exhausted, she lay quietly beside him and considered what to do next.

Henry knew that she had once had a lover, and when he awoke again, she was certain she would be forced to answer questions. The truth was a great temptation. Henry would investigate and discover who and what Rafe was. He might even be furious enough to take revenge against him.

Aurore’s heart quickened at the thought. As sunrise lightened the sky, she realized that today she hated Rafe more than ever. She felt none of the wistful warmth she had felt at the altar. Rafe had taught her love, made her believe in its mystical possibilities, so that a night in Henry’s arms seemed even more of a blasphemy. The desire for revenge was a knot inside her that tightened until she could barely draw a breath. If Henry punished Rafe, then some good would have come of the night.

But if Henry punished Rafe, then Nicolette might be punished, too. Aurore couldn’t let that happen. Her child’s life was precarious enough. She could only imagine what Nicolette was exposed to in that house, that despicable house on Basin Street. If Rafe wasn’t there to offer his protection, what might happen? The day he took Nicolette, he had warned her
that if she tried to harm him, she might harm their daughter instead. Now she could see how neatly the trap protected him.