Patricia Rice (13 page)

Nicholas clenched the polished rosewood of the banister and stared down at his lovely, cold mother. "Jeannette is my daughter and Mrs. Dupré is her aunt. They are to be given all due respect as such. This is my house,
maman
, and my wishes are to be obeyed. I will see my child and her aunt treated as members of the household. I assume you at least put Mrs. Dupré in the rose room."

"Mrs. Dupré? You mean that common Irish tart the foolish Dupré boy ran off and married? Is that who she is? Nicholas, you have taken leave of your senses."

Michael crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his gaze to see how his employer would take this direct assault. Nicholas growled and swung around to take a different direction, disappearing down a connecting hall with a furious tread that did not bode well for someone. When the crisply elegant Madame Saint-Just turned to discover him there, Michael offered a wolfish grin and said nothing.

Hair still damp and flowing wildly over his open collar, Nicholas stormed into the tiny nursery with the force of a hurricane wind. Speaking to a servant scurrying behind him, he pointed at the assorted trunks and boxes in the corner. "Take the lady's trunk over to the rose room. Have someone start a fire in the grate. Send up hot water and a maid to help the lady change for dinner. We ought to have enough damned servants in this house now to see it done immediately."

Having just reconciled herself to her fate, Eavin wasn't ready to be thrown arbitrarily into the world inhabited by her enemies at the hands of this madman. Without giving half a thought to what she was doing, she promptly sat down on her trunk and glared at the man who had ordered it removed.

"What in hell do you think you're doing?" Already furious, Nicholas didn't need more fuel added to the fires of his temper. He glared at the slender figure in hideous black perched like a malevolent crow on the trunk and dared her to defy him.

Which she promptly did. "This is my trunk and my room, and you're not welcome here. I suggest you leave if all you can do is order me about as if I'm a piece of furniture."

"It's my damned trunk and my house, and you're damned well going wherever I tell you to!" Nicholas exploded. "Now get your pretty
derrière
off that trunk and upstairs where it belongs."

"I'm your child's nurse and I'm staying here where I belong." Eavin crossed her arms across her chest in a manner reminiscent of her brother's.

With a muttered expletive, Nicholas crossed the small room in two strides. Before Eavin was aware of his intentions, he caught her by the waist, heaved her over his shoulder, and slammed out of the nursery with the fury of a man pushed beyond his limits.

Eavin's screams of outrage carried down lengthy hallways to the two people waiting above. Madame Saint-Just stiffened and sniffed suspiciously. Michael shoved around her to take the steps at the same speed as Nicholas had earlier. Behind him he heard the rustle of satin petticoats following.

"Nicholas, you bastard, you put me down right now!" Eavin screamed as she clutched the back of his coat and swung her feet in a blatant attempt to maim him. His arm only tightened around her thighs, and she screamed again as her position became more precarious.

Taking a different path than their concerned relatives, Nicholas dropped Eavin unceremoniously to her feet when they reached his destination. Hands on hips, he glared down at her. "Don't ever defy me again, Eavin O'Flannery Dupré. I've suffered more than my share of bitches in this lifetime, and I'll not endure another. Get ready for dinner. I'll be back in half an hour."

Before he could turn to escape, Eavin launched herself at him with both fists. She had learned to defend herself in Michael's days of street fighting. But before she could land even the first blow, Nicholas caught her in his arms and crushed her against his hard chest, rendering her helpless.

And when his mouth closed over hers, she found herself rendered speechless also.

The kiss was searing and regrettably brief. The heat of Nicholas's lips burned like the fire of brandy down Eavin's throat and through her middle before the sound of flying feet down the hallway intruded. With swift sureness Nicholas released her and stepped away, but the amber of his eyes glowed with the demons of hell. Eavin brought the back of her hand up to her mouth to wipe away the brand of his kiss, but she felt it searing through her soul like poisonous venom, and the look in his eyes told her that he knew it.

When Michael slammed into the room, they were glaring at each other like two cats in a cage, but both seemed singularly unharmed by the battle. Michael's gaze flew to his sister, but she didn't look any more disheveled than she had when she arrived earlier. Color flooded her cheeks, but it did that when the temper was on her, and Michael almost felt sorry for the poor bastard who had aroused her fury. Eavin in a temper had the viciousness of a cornered animal.

Nicholas seemed to have endured her fury remarkably well. He calmly brushed off the arm of his rumpled coat, made a polite bow to the woman he had just molested, and turned to greet his overseer and nod at his mother following close behind.

"We have had a minor disagreement over the arrangement of rooms. Everything is settled now. Maudine, you may bring in that water." Stepping toward the door, Nicholas forced their audience into the hall so the black servant could carry in the pail of hot water, leaving Eavin trapped in the room behind him.

And such was the force of his personality that no one questioned him.

Chapter 12

"The rain may go on for weeks or it may stop tomorrow. You may as well take advantage of the opportunity to have your wardrobe improved. Surely it has been over a year since your husband died."

The woman at the end of the table spoke woodenly, as if it were an effort to maintain a polite conversation. Only the presence of her glowering son at the far end could have forced her to broach the subject.

Eavin set her lips and made no reply. She had no intention of spending her hard-earned coins on fripperies of no use to her in the backwaters of civilization. Someday she might need those coins to survive. She couldn't politely say that out loud, no more than she could say that she refused to have Nicholas buy the clothes for her. Faced with two impossible alternatives, she wisely remained silent.

Nicholas answered for her. "I will send a seamstress over in the morning. In the press of business I have neglected my responsibilities."

Eavin seethed. Providing a wardrobe for his daughter's aunt or nanny wasn't his responsibility. She was beginning to have a very good idea of what position entailed that particular liability, however. The burning taste of his kiss had not yet left her.

"That won't be necessary,
monsieur
," she replied with the sweetness she had heard employed by the likes of Mignon Dubois. "I have no wish to come out of mourning. If we are here long enough, I will inquire about having a gray one made so I will not shame Jeannette."

Eavin sensed that only the presence of Madame Saint-Just and Michael brought this topic to a draw. Nicholas neither agreed nor disagreed but turned the conversation to a less volatile subject. Why should it be that in this large house filled with more people than had ever been present in the other, she suddenly felt confined more intimately with this man than before?

His closeness grated on Eavin's nerves. Even though she retired after dinner to the nursery in the servants' quarters, she was aware that Nicholas and Michael lingered over brandy two floors away. The despised servants' rooms suddenly became a haven when she eventually realized that now her room would be on the same level with Nicholas. It was with great reluctance after leaving the nursery that she entered the charming room Nicholas had so demonstratively assigned to her. Although she was certain he hadn't come upstairs yet, she could almost feel him in one of the rooms nearby.

The rose-velvet-draped tester bed enveloped in clouds of netting was something out of her dreams and not meant for the reality of her world. Eavin touched the lush fabric longingly, then retreated to the window to look over the rain-swamped courtyard below.
 

Something strange was happening to her in this foreign place. She lived in far more comfort and ease than she had ever known, but she was more uncertain of herself than she could ever remember being. When times were hard and her frustration enormous, she had been able to fight and claw and strike out at the forces holding her down. But now she was engulfed in this cloud of cotton gauze with nothing concrete to fight, nothing more than these odd sensations that twisted her thoughts around until she was too dizzy to know whether she were standing or crawling.

Two men had kissed her this day. One had been gentle and loving and honorable. The other had been demanding and passionate and intent on dishonor. Why was it that last kiss she remembered so clearly and not the first? And why would she respond to any kiss when her husband's had stirred nothing in her at all?

Undressing without calling for a maid, Eavin dismissed both men. Jeremy would have to be told that she was unsuitable as a wife. Surely Nicholas could find some way of doing that politely without her having to spell it out. Then she and Jeremy could remain friends without the pain of embarrassment between them.
 

Addressing the topic of Nicholas was akin to talking about the weather. All the talk would have no control over the outcome. Nicholas was a force unto himself.

As Eavin had expected, the seamstress arrived the next day to take her measurements whether she wished it or not. The woman made no inquiries as to Eavin's preferences, showed her no pattern books, merely took notes and departed. Eavin sighed in exasperation and prepared for another confrontation with Nicholas.

When he arrived, it was in the company of a gangly stranger with red hair and an awkward accent who purportedly wanted the views of an easterner on the escalating war with England.
 

Michael was called upon to offer his viewpoints while Eavin watched suspiciously from a corner. The man's questions were leading to an extreme, and she glared at Nicholas, who sat smugly behind his desk listening to the interrogation. She had gathered enough from the talk at parties to know that Nicholas's politics were diametrically opposed to the society around him, but that was to be expected from his contrary nature. He didn't have to draw her brother in after him.

When the man suddenly turned a question to her, Eavin was unprepared. She merely stared at him until he repeated himself.

"I didn't mean to startle you, ma'am. But women always have a different outlook than we menfolk. What is your opinion on this war with England?"

"My opinion is that men aren't happy unless they're fighting," she snapped. "But if they're going to fight, they ought to do it with the intention of winning. Sitting back and asking to be whipped is the work of fools."

To her surprise, the red-haired man grinned and threw a triumphant look at Nicholas. "You're right, Saint-Just, she's smarter than you are. Pity I can't take her back with me."

Nicholas responded with cool control. "That's enough, Daniel. One dangerous hothead in this town is sufficient. Setting Mrs. Dupré loose on the populace would be unfair in the extreme. You will keep names out of this story, you understand."

"Story?" Both Michael and Eavin responded in unison, but it was too late. Nicholas was already ushering the other man out of the study with vague reassurances, ignoring the questioning looks behind him.

Eavin knew better than Michael what was happening here, and she shot dagger looks at Nicholas when he reentered the room. "You're feeding information to that radical newspaper, aren't you?" she demanded as soon as the door closed.

"Daniel always likes to interview newcomers to the city," he replied smoothly. "There will be an article on the charming widow of Dominic Dupré visiting our fair city which will intrigue all the ladies and send them into debating whether or not they ought to call. Had you been French, they would have been at your door immediately. As it is, the Americans will pursue all their dubious connections to see if they can arrange a meeting, and the French will debate into eternity whether or not to recognize you. It will be your duty to open both segments of society for Jeannette's sake."

He was good. He was too good. Eavin wished she wore the taffeta and starch of Madame Saint-Just so she could rustle indignantly when she stood up. As it was, she could only send him a look that ought to let him know she saw through his charade.
 

"And you will tell me there will be no story about a 'distinguished gentleman from the East who disparages our country's inability to produce either army or navy to defend our populace in these desperate times' ? And where will I fit into this story if you wish to protect Jeannette's chaperone from public outcry? Shall I be the 'gentleman's lady'? Will I be 'weeping over the deaths of our poor boys'? You are a low-down, conniving, good-for-nothing spalpeen of the worst sort, Nicholas Saint-Just!"

With that, she swept out of the room, leaving the two men to stare at each other. Michael's lips twitched first as Nicholas struggled to restrain his temper. "She's used to saying what she thinks. Saint-Just. Don't be expectin' to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."

"With flattery like that, it's a wonder the Irish marry at all," Nicholas replied sourly, rising belatedly from his chair.