New World, New Love (6 page)

It was an overcast morning in early May when Miss Sullivan looked up from her rosewood and ormolu desk to see Daniel Lombard enter her shop. Swiftly she went to meet him, anticipating another good sale.

‘Good day, sir. Did your sister like the hat that I shipped to her?’

‘The hat? Oh, yes. She was very pleased with it, but I’m not here for another one today. My reason for calling is that I should like to have Madame de Vailly’s address.’

Miss Sullivan was taken aback and her brows arched. ‘I couldn’t do that without her permission and I think she would be unlikely to give it.’ Louise’s cool farewell to him on the hat-buying day had not escaped her notice.

‘Then allow me to ask her myself.’

‘Out of the question! I have a rule that my employees cannot interrupt their work for any social reason.’

He roamed restlessly around the showroom. ‘Come, come, ma’am, there’s no need for anyone’s work to be interrupted. You can give me the information easily enough. Let’s have no more prevaricating.’ His glance fell on some gauzy stoles and he picked up one at random, which shone delicately with silver threads, and tossed it on to her desk, knowing that it would be expensive. ‘I’ll take this.’ Then, as he drew some golden dollars from his pocket into his gloved palm in readiness to pay, he added crisply, ‘And so where does the widow live, ma’am?’

Previously, when Louise had displayed the hats for him, he had noticed that she wore a wedding ring. Although she had come to America on her own with her sister, he wanted confirmation that she did not have a husband in France or elsewhere in exile.

‘You’ve made the most irregular request, Mr Lombard.’ Miss Sullivan did not want to antagonize him now, or else he might change his mind about taking the stole. She hated to lose a customer who chose what he wanted without asking the price. She was well aware that his purchase was a sop to her protests, but she felt her dignity demanded a final show of reluctance. ‘It is against my principles.’

She saw him pick up another gauzy stole, sparkling with gold threads this time and double the price of the first, and she caught her breath slightly.

His sharp glance shot towards her as if she had spoken. ‘Well, ma’am?’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said without further hesitation. ‘As you are already acquainted with the young widow, it is a different matter. I’m sure Louise would have no objection.’ She hoped he realized that she had given him a bonus in letting slip the Frenchwoman’s Christian name in case he did not know it already.

‘Thank you, ma’am. I look forward to doing business with you again.’

He departed with his purchases, which at his request she had packed separately, the pink-striped boxes tied with ribbons. Miss Sullivan went to the door and peered after him through the glass panel. He was not a man to be thwarted, she thought, and considered him all the more dangerous for it.

T
hat evening Daniel had no difficulty in finding the address he had been given. It was in one of the old Dutch houses. He entered the dingy hallway, thinking he would have plenty of stairs to climb, but instead he found Louise’s name on a door at his right hand. He drew off a glove and knocked. A most appetizing aroma wafted out as Delphine opened the door to him. In her surprise she did not speak.

‘Good evening, mademoiselle,’ he said with a smile, before looking beyond her into the candlelit room. Instantly he was reminded of paintings of Dutch interiors. The walls were panelled, the floor black and white tiles, and an old red tapestry rug, which in its heyday would have graced a fine Dutch table, had been hung across the window as a curtain. Louise, a striped apron tied around her waist, was stirring a cooking pot on the range, the glow of the fire flickering over her face and creating a golden nimbus about her figure. She straightened up as she saw him, the spoon dripping in her hand.

‘Mr Lombard!’ she exclaimed in a startled voice.

He switched to speaking in French. ‘I apologize for arriving unannounced, but I arrived back in New York today and wanted to invite you and your sister to dine with me this evening.’

Delphine spun round on her heel to look eagerly at Louise. ‘Do let’s accept!’

Louise put down the spoon and came across to the doorway. Her face was flushed, but whether it was from annoyance or the heat of the range, he did not know.

‘Thank you, but no, Mr Lombard. It was kind of you to think of it, but our dinner is already prepared.’ Her tone was adamant in her polite refusal. She had nothing against him personally, except that she was wary of the penetrating look she met in his eyes, which seemed to be seeking out the very depths of her. ‘Displaying the hats for you in Miss Sullivan’s showroom was part of my work. There was no need for you to feel under any obligation to return a courtesy.’ She stood ready to close the door.

‘That’s not the reason I came. I wanted to see you again.’

Delphine intervened quickly, glad of a diversion on this evening, which otherwise she and Louise would spend on their own. She gave him a dazzling smile. ‘Then since you are here and our meal is ready, do stay and eat with us. You’re very welcome, isn’t he, Louise?’

Louise hid her exasperation with her sister, her upbringing and the rules of hospitality making it impossible for her to say other than, ‘Then please come in and sit down.’ She indicated the table with two chairs in the shadows. At the range she lit a taper through the grill and took it across to give a flame to the table’s candlestick.

As Delphine laid a third place, Daniel brought forward a wooden stool for himself. There was no cloth, but the table was scrubbed white and although the crockery did not match, the cutlery was silver and very fine. He guessed the sisters had salvaged it before leaving home in their flight from France.

Delphine poured some red wine from a flagon into three engraved glasses. These were too delicate to have been carried in the bundles that the sisters had brought ashore and must have been bought locally. He thought how very French it was that the two of them, obviously existing on the most meagre means, had not been able to consider drinking wine from coarser containers.

‘We hadn’t treated ourselves to wine in New York before the other evening,’ Delphine explained. ‘Which is why we have some now. It’s from Madeira and very good, We couldn’t afford the French wine, but I suppose the problem of importing it at the present time has made it soar in price.’

‘It has indeed. What was so special about that particular evening?’

Happily Delphine told him about her birthday celebration as she cut up chunks of a long, freshly baked loaf, which she said Louise had made from a French recipe.

Louise served the cassoulet straight from the cooking pot. There was little meat in the rich sauce, but he found it as delicious as the aroma that had drifted from it, and he guessed she had used some of the wine in it.

‘Where did you learn to cook so well?’ he asked her appreciatively, accepting another chunk of bread to go with his second helping.

Louise smiled ruefully. ‘Through necessity and the help of an old book of recipes that I found when Delphine and I were without servants before we escaped from France.’

‘Whereabouts was your home?’

‘Just a few miles from Bordeaux.’

He would have liked to ask her how she and her sister had escaped, but since she had not offered any information, it would be tactless to ask questions. In any case it might be painful for her to recount it, stirring up sad memories. He had been reading in the newspaper only that day that under the present reign of the terror the guillotines were not able to cope with the number of victims and other gruesome methods were being used in wholesale slaughter.

‘I’ve never been to Bordeaux,’ he said. ‘Although, as a boy, I was once in France with my parents. It improved my command of the language, which was sometimes spoken at home.’ A fondness for France warmed his voice as he spoke of visiting Paris and Rouen and other parts of the country.

‘You crossed that terrible Atlantic Ocean just for a visit!’ Delphine threw up her hands dramatically. ‘I’m determined never to set foot on a ship again!’

‘My parents’ reason for taking me to France was to introduce me to our Huguenot roots.’ Daniel smiled. ‘It’s said that all Huguenots know their ancestry. Mine had fled here to the New World in the last century when Louis XIV began prosecuting Protestants for their religious beliefs. So, my forebears settled in South Carolina, as did many other Huguenots at that time. I was born in Charleston and my sister, Elizabeth – for whom I bought the hat – and her husband still live in the family house that my great-grandfather built. Did you know that when Marie Antoinette was imprisoned, there was a plan in the offing to smuggle her out of France and bring her to safety in Charleston?”

“We have never heard that!” Louise exclaimed, both she and Delphine showing their surprise. “If only that could have happened!”

“Sadly time ran out,” Daniel said gravely.

Louise shook her head in deep regret. “She was such a brave woman and didn’t in any way deserve her fate.”

In spite of herself, Louise was becoming more relaxed in his company. Conversation with him was easy. They found that they shared a deep appreciation of music, and Delphine offered to play her flute for him when their meal was over.

When he asked them both how they had settled down in surroundings so different from all they had known in the past, it was Delphine who answered first – and forcefully.

‘I’ve never been used to being shut in all day, working my fingers to the bone! I hate it! I know lots of exciting things are happening every day and night in the city, but we never get the chance to see anything or go anywhere, except that one and only visit to the theatre. At home I’d have gone to Versailles with Louise if our uncle hadn’t prevented it in the first place and afterwards her husband put obstacles in the way. Then came the Revolution, which ruined any last chance for me!’

It was a bitter tirade. Daniel turned to Louise, whose weary look showed she had heard it all many times before. ‘Do you feel the same about this new life of yours?’

‘No,’ she answered without hesitation. ‘But then I had a surfeit of balls and parties and great occasions, all the excitement that Delphine missed, and which I hope she’ll have the chance to enjoy one day on a more moderate scale. I’m determined that we should make a success of our lives here.’

‘Well said!’ Daniel said admiringly. In his turn he told them that his business was importing silks from India and China. ‘I used to get wonderful French silks from Lyons as well, but the Revolution has put an end to that source for a while. I came to New York this time to inspect a cargo of silks from Delhi before shipping them on to my warehouse in Boston.’

‘What drew you to the silk trade?’ Louise inquired with interest.

‘I suppose it was to be expected, since my ancestors were silk weavers, but I started my career in my father’s business, exporting raw cotton from the South to the mills of Lancashire in England and other destinations. I often visited my uncle’s cotton plantation in Alabama to get to the basics of the whole process. After my father died from a heart attack, never having overcome his grief at losing my mother, I kept the business on for a while and expanded it, but it was never what I really wanted to do every working day of my life. So I decided to sell up and make a change.’

‘Why did you decide to go as far north as Boston?’ Delphine questioned.

‘There were several reasons.’ He did not elaborate, but went on to talk of Boston itself and its history, which held Louise’s interest. But Delphine, quickly bored, broke in to ask him about fashionable life there, which she did want to hear about, and he answered her questions readily. She became quite starry-eyed as she pictured the balls and soirées and parties he described for her benefit.

‘We have cousins in Boston. I wonder if you know them?’ she said eagerly. ‘Mr and Mrs Theodore Bradshaw.’

‘Yes. I’m acquainted with them, but not closely. Our paths cross at local gatherings. He is prominent in local politics and she devotes herself to charity work. I shall look forward to telling them I’ve met you both.’

The meal had ended, but after Louise had cleared it they sat on at the table with the last of the wine, there being nowhere else to sit. Delphine gave a short recital on her flute, the sweet music dancing around the room as she stood with her back to the window-hanging, which glowed ruby-red behind her in the candle glow. Daniel applauded her enthusiastically when she sat down again.

As the evening went on, none of them noticing the clock, he recounted some amusing incidents, taking particular pleasure in making Louise laugh. She had a way of tilting her chin, exposing her long white throat, her eyes half-closed with merriment under her long lashes, making him yearn to put his lips to her smooth skin and kiss her beautiful mouth.

When the time came to leave he hoped that she had forgiven his brash acceptance of her sister’s invitation to him, but as she must have guessed, it had been a chance to get to know her better that he had not been able to resist. Yet did he know her any better? A slight melting of her coolness had not given him an insight into the mysterious depths of her. He was uncertain whether she would accept an invitation for her and her sister to dine with him the following Saturday evening, but he tried his luck after thanking them for their hospitality.

Louise, seeing Delphine’s undisguised excitement at the invitation, felt obliged to accept for her sake, but as she closed the door after him she was uneasy. He was too vibrant and powerful a man to let into their lives. Then she reminded herself that after he had entertained them he would be going back to Boston, their brief acquaintanceship at an end.

Daniel, making his way back to the City Hotel, knew that, even more than before, Louise was going to dominate his thoughts and everything he did until he saw her again.

The following evening Delphine opened the door to a messenger boy from the hotel. He handed two striped boxes to her and left again. She had recognized them instantly as being from Miss Sullivan’s shop.