Patricia Rice (49 page)

"It is not good, I fear. I understand the yard was small, and Nicholas is a large target. Even Raphael could not miss. And even crippled by the bullet, Nicholas managed to kill Raphael, my father reports. The physicians are amazed that he managed to do so. I cannot name the extent of my shame. I come only because Clyde asked it of me. I will go now and not darken your door again."

Eavin heard his pain. She still couldn't believe what they were telling her. Nicholas was dying, could already be dead. It just didn't seem possible. Nicholas was a life force of his own. He couldn't die, or her world would die with him.

"Please, take me with you. I must see him. Maybe it is not as serious as you think." She spoke faster as her own words gave her encouragement. Eavin started to rise, but Michael pushed her back down, and she gave him a scathing look that he answered before she could speak.

"You're not going anywhere. Nicholas has a wife and mother to see to his care. You belong here with Jeannette and Belle."

Everyone turned to look at the hysterical Gabriella, who had fallen to the sofa with the news of Raphael's demise. Crying and screaming brokenly, she was beyond caring for anyone but herself.
 
Hélène met Eavin's eyes.

"I will go," she murmured, rising from her place. "They have brought him to the house, I assume?" she asked of Alphonso, ignoring Clyde.

"Yes, but he knows no one, my father says," the Spaniard warned. "Already the fever has taken his senses."

"My God, don't tell Belle." Eavin clutched Michael's arm, forcing him to see her fear. "She could have saved him. I know she could have. Perhaps there's some way..." She looked at him pleadingly.

"I will tell her it is one of the men. She hasn't forgotten how to use her herbs and potions. There may be something she can do." Michael looked up to Madame Saint-Just, who was preparing to leave the room, calmly ordering one of the maids to begin packing her bag. "I will go with you."

 
Hélène looked at him blankly, then nodded. She glanced over her shoulder at Gabriella. "We had best take her with us. Appearances are still important."

Isabel Dupré clenched and unclenched her fingers, then spoke hesitantly. "If you think I should, I will stay with Eavin and my granddaughter. I do not want to be in the way, but I think someone should stay here."

That this proud woman, who had nearly ignored her since she had arrived, now condescended to come to her aid left Eavin mildly astonished, but she had little room for any other emotion but fear. It mattered little to her where Isabel went. Her soul was already on its way to join Nicholas. Tears pooled in her eyes as she rose, still holding Michael's arm.

"Please, if you can, bring him back here. This is where he wants to be. I know it, Michael. Belle and I can make him better. It will work. Tell me you'll try."

Hugging her to him, he kissed the top of her head. "I'll be doin' just that, colleen. Now lie down and rest. I'll tell Belle I'm taking the ladies back to town. You'll have to be brave until I get back."

Brave. Eavin felt the entire foundation of her existence crumbling to the ground. How could one be brave at such a time? But she had to be. Nicholas would be depending on her. That thought made her stronger, and Eavin closed her eyes and steadied herself before releasing Michael's arm. Then she turned and offered the vague shadow of a smile to her mother-in-law. "It would relieve my mind if you would stay, Isabel. Jeannette will need us."

As Eavin started for the door, she halted before Clyde and Alphonso, touching Alphonso's arm in a gesture of reassurance. "I know you are not responsible for what has happened. Perhaps you will explain it to me later. I just don't think—"

Her voice broke and she hurried away, leaving the two men to stare after her with twin expressions of concern and sorrow.

Isabel removed a sobbing Gabriella, leaving the men alone to stare at one another with varying degrees of suspicion and animosity.

"I'll be hearin' the full story now, gentlemen, before I leave. I'm after thinkin' it's a mite odd for a condemned prisoner to escape in the middle of the night."

It was Clyde who spoke first, and before he was done, Michael was punching his fist into the palm of his other hand and cursing vividly.

* * *

Nicholas's body ached and humiliation washed over him again. He shouldn't let his father do that to him. He shouldn't. He should stand up and kill the old man, wrap the stick around his neck. He was almost big enough to do it. He could. He could grab the stick and smash it against the old man's head, beat him into a bloody pulp. He was big now, not some terrified child. He had to do something. He had to stop him before he killed someone.

He groaned as pain lanced through him. His mother's voice whispered somewhere near his ear. His mother.

What in hell was she doing here? Those Barbary pirates were a scurrilous lot. She shouldn't be here. He had to get her out. Had she been captured? Of course not. His head hurt. He raged with the heat and he couldn't think straight, couldn't remember. He'd taken this wound in battle, hadn't he? That blackamoor with the knife between his teeth...

The familiar voice murmured again, a little closer now. A cooling cloth wet his head, and he was thrown backward in time again, back to the humiliated child. He struggled upward, wanting to wrap his hands around someone's neck, feeling the violence building in him, waiting for release.

"Madame, you cannot stay here. He is not well. Please wait until we call you." The voice was intrusive, not part of his dream, and Nicholas fought to locate it.

"He is my son and I will stay as long as I like. Now stand aside, sir."

Nicholas laughed. He was dreaming again. He was dreaming a new mother, one who would come to his defense. It was incredibly funny, and he laughed until he felt the tearing feeling in his chest, and then he coughed and grew silent again.

 
Hélène looked down at the pale figure of her son lying against the sheets. The color had drained from his weathered face, and his golden hair lay limp and lifeless against his brow. With his mouth relaxed in sleep, he looked years younger. She touched his cheek and he stirred and tears formed in her eyes. She had never allowed herself to care, but she couldn't hold back the tears. They trickled down her face as she applied the cooling cloth to his fevered forehead.

"Eavin." His eyes opened suddenly, but it was obvious Nicholas wasn't seeing her. A rakish hint of a smile formed along the comer of his lips. "Don't,
ma chérie
, or we'll both regret it."

His beautiful eyes closed, but the smile lingered on his lips.
 
Hélène thought it was the first time she had ever really seen him smile. Nicholas was very good at smiling without meaning it. Sometimes when he smiled, it cut her to the quick with the cruelty in it. That day when he had finally turned on his father and broken the cane over his head had been one of those days. He had looked up at her coolly over his father's fallen body, smiled that terrible smile, and bade her farewell. She hadn't thought she would ever see him again. He had been only fifteen, but he had become a man overnight, one with the same penchant for violence as his father.

But she couldn't help remembering the loving child, the golden head bent over fairy stories, the laughing eyes watching the dancers in the streets, the small boy who had wept when Labelle or her brother was beaten. That boy was still in there, she had seen it in his eyes when he played with Jeannette, as he had pulled Eavin into his arms when he thought his mother wasn't looking. She saw it in his smile now.

She hadn't been able to save the boy when he was young. Perhaps she could save him now, when he was strong enough to step out of the bonds of violence.

Clenching her jaw with uncharacteristic determination, she began speaking to the man sleeping feverishly beneath her fingers.

* * *

"That accursed Spaniard was here again, wasn't he?" Belle flung her pillow to the floor when it wouldn't move to suit her.

Eavin stayed out of striking range. Belle's irritability grew as her health returned. Confined to the bed by her broken leg, she could merely rant and rave to vent her frustration. It gave Eavin something to do besides worry about Nicholas. It had been over a week, and she had heard nothing.

"Alphonso is merely being neighborly. At least you cannot accuse him of courting Gabriella."

Belle had learned of
 
Hélène's and Gabriella's departure, but no one had yet had the nerve to tell her of her brother's illness. She merely cursed the women for taking Michael away and fretted at the time it was taking him to return.

"Bah, the young rascal is not so foolish. He is courting you. When will you tell him you carry another man's babe in your belly?"

Eavin flushed at this bluntness. It helped no one to speak of the child. Everyone thought she was being sensible and respectable by staying here instead of rushing off to be at Nicholas's side, but all she was really doing was protecting his heritage. She couldn't tell anyone that, but Belle continued to throw the subject in her face.

"Alphonso will know soon enough. And he is undoubtedly foolish enough not to care. He is my friend, Belle. I need the few friends I have. Don't deny me my small pleasures."

Belle sent her a wooden look. "And what of Nicholas? What will you tell him when he returns? Has the man written nothing? They are saying the war is over, that we have won. Why does he not return?"

This was the hardest part, hiding the truth from clever Belle. She was starting to recover, she was speaking again, sitting up in bed and worrying about Michael, making some attempt to return to normal. The news that she had sent Nicholas into a death trap could set her back irreparably. But sooner or later, Belle would have to be told.

"There are other complications." Eavin hesitated, then attempted a small lie. "I did not know how to tell you. Someone reported Raphael's activities to the authorities. He was sentenced to hang."

A dark light briefly illumined Belle's eyes, then shuttered closed. "So? Why is Alphonso not holding his hand? What has that to do with Nicholas? I only wish I could be well again to watch the
canaille
die."

"It is too late. He's dead. I do not understand the complications. I believe Señor Reyes has become a trifle unhinged by having his son declared a traitor. He refuses to allow Alphonso to come to him. Men do not explain these things very well."

Belle's eyes narrowed with suspicion, but she said nothing. Her leg might be lame, but her mind was not. Michael's request for her fever potion had meant little at the time, but piece by piece she was acquiring bits of this puzzle. She watched as Eavin paced restlessly, straightening draperies she had already straightened a dozen times, dusting shelves that were spotless, listening to noises that only she could hear.
 

Eavin handled pregnancy well. There had been no bouts of morning sickness, only that one spell of dizziness, and no complaints of weariness. Belle doubted that anyone could tell if Eavin's figure was fuller. She hadn't seen a morsel of food pass Eavin's lips in days, and the circles beneath her eyes were assuming a ghastly color. Belle was quite certain pregnancy played no part in that behavior.

Eavin turned and, seeing Belle's eyes closed, she thought her asleep. It was all she could do to keep up a cheerful demeanor for a few minutes at a time. Her fears for Nicholas ate at her insides. She didn't have time to worry about herself, but someday she must. Her fingers strayed to her midsection. A child needed a father, even one who was not married to his mother. Please, Lord, let Nicholas come home.

When Eavin appeared in the salon, Isabel watched her former daughter-in-law pace and ignored her uneasiness. Isabel was French by marriage, not by nature, and her upbringing balked at the insouciance with which
 
Hélène
 
accepted that Nicholas would have his mistresses. Gabriella was her niece by birth, blood of her own blood. Eavin's presence was a constant threat to the marriage that would make Gabriella a wife or widow of wealth. With Raphael dead and Nicholas on the edge of death, Gabriella would not be so foolish as to continue with her plans for annulment. Gabriella would take Francine's place, not this common Irish woman.

Still, Isabel held no grudge against Eavin other than that. Eavin had been Dominic's wife, she had taken care of Gabriella to the best of her ability, moved out of the house when Nicholas married. She was a good girl, if only a little misguided, and she deserved whatever chance could be provided for her. Isabel hadn't moved in the best of New Orleans society without learning a thing or two. She hid the letter that had arrived while Eavin was in the
garçonnière
. She would read it later and see if it suited her plans.

"Why don't you go up and see to Jeannette,
querida
. You will make yourself ill with this pacing about. Perhaps you should visit the Howells and get out of the house for a little while."

"I do not understand why I do not hear from them." Eavin walked the floor, wishing she could wring her hands and wail hysterically but too practical to fall into such dramatics. "Michael promised he would write. Do you think I should send someone to see what is happening?"

"I think your brother is like all men and forgets the passing of time. You must be content to know that all is well as long as there is no other message to the contrary. You really must begin making plans for your own life. The young Reyes boy will be a wealthy man some day, and he is much smitten with you if I am not mistaken. I speak from experience when I say that it is much better to be loved than to love."