Sweet Piracy (13 page)

There were only a few dances more before supper. Caroline chided him with hiding behind her skirts for protection from the matchmaking
mamans
. Regardless, he still circled the floor with her twice more, relinquishing her only to Victor and Anatole respectively before taking her in to supper.

She might have guessed that such a state of affairs would not escape Madame Delacroix’s notice. That lady came bearing down upon where Caroline and Rochefort sat with Amélie and Victor. There was a militant look in her eye and her bosom heaved with indignation at the sight of her noble guest of honor seated beside her daughter’s English governess.

Caroline did not fear the woman’s wrath, knowing it to be mostly bombast, but she had a great dislike of public scenes.

At her sudden stillness, Rochefort looked up, following her gaze. A frown drew his brows together for an instant, then with smiling aplomb, he rose.

“Madame Delacroix,” he said, “I was just about to go in search of you. You are to be congratulated on the magnificence of your entertainment. Truly you are an
entrepreneuse par excellence
. I have been cudgeling my brains trying to decide whom I might ask to serve as my hostess for the ball I mean to give to christen Felicity. I believe in you I have found that lady!”

His hostess was stopped in midstride. Speechless pleasure held her silent while her spleen dissolved as if it had never been. Finding tongue, she gushed, “Oh, my lord, you are too kind.”

5

FOLLOWING THE soirée at Beau Repos the social pace of the surrounding community picked up considerably. There were morning calls without number. The visiting cards accumulated in piles in the entrance hall. There were routs, levées, and breakfasts
al fresco
given by the hopeful
mamans
of young beauties. A constant stream of grooms bearing baskets of invitations flowed back and forth along the levee road. They always stopped at Beau Repos. It was a lamentable but recognized fact that the best way for a hostess to insure the presence of the Marquis and his cousin at her entertainment was to secure first the acceptance of the party from Beau Repos.

Frivolity and amusement became the order of the day. The ladies of the Delacroix household took to sleeping later each morning, keeping what amounted to town hours as their days took on much the same tempo as the winter season. Madame, her pregnancy confirmed, redoubled the time she spent on her chaise. It prepared her, she said, for the fatigue of escorting her daughters to their amusements. Occasionally she allowed Caroline to chaperone the girls alone, but she never allowed her condition to prevent her from attending the most elaborate of the evening parties held in the vicinity. Soon enough she would have to retire from sight of all except family and close friends. She did not intend to hasten that seclusion.

Fletcher Masterson, riding up to the front door of the house ten days after the soirée, found only Caroline awake enough to be dressed and out upon the gallery. He was not displeased. Tossing the reins of his gelding to a waiting stableboy with instructions to walk the animal, he mounted the steps. Colossus waited at the top to relieve him of his hat and riding crop. Refusing refreshments, Fletcher turned to Caroline with his slow smile.

“I hope I don’t come too early?”

“Not at all,” Caroline said, giving him her hand. “If you see little stirring about the place, it is because we are recovering from the latest pass of our current round of gay dissipation. Do you intend to be at Cypress Grove long enough to join us?”

A grave look crossed his face as he took the place she indicated beside her. “Rumors of what you are pleased to call your dissipation have penetrated even to New Orleans. I fear my temperament is ill-suited to such. However, I hope to give myself the pleasure of standing up with you at the ball of our near neighbor.”

“You heard of Rochefort’s ball in town also, I apprehend?”

He nodded. “Orders of the size and variety as this fellow has placed with the suppliers make quite a stir.”

“I suppose they do.”

“A commission house like mine must of course be grateful for such gestures of hospitality. Still, there is an aspect of the affair I cannot like.”

“Oh?” Caroline said helpfully as he came to pause, indecision written large on his face.

“While in town I chanced to speak to a lady who enjoys a correspondence with Madame Delacroix. She let fall that Madame is to act in the place of Rochefort’s hostess for the occasion.”

“That is correct.”

“Meaning no disrespect to the lady, I think I have her measure. I foresee a great deal of extra labor for you in the undertaking; labor which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to come under the duties of a governess.”

Caroline did not attempt to deny it. “I shall not mind.”

“There is another aspect,” he went on doggedly, looking away from her smile. “You cannot have considered the appearances. You must of necessity be in close contact with the Marquis. I know you think your age and station will protect you from the consequences of flouting the conventions, but it will not do to be seen overmuch in private conversation with him, or to be seen at Felicity without proper chaperonage.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Caroline began in cool tones only to be stopped by an upheld hand.

“I realize only too well that you have given me no right to consider myself the arbiter of your conduct. Nevertheless, I feel it is my duty to prevent you from inadvertently placing yourself in a position you will find distasteful. You will perhaps take my meaning if I tell you that while in town the Marquis was known for his association with female members of the cast of the Théâtre d’Orléans.”

In a moment of insight, two things were made plain to Caroline. The first was the puritanical outlook of the man at her side. The second was the reason for his extraordinary visit on a day that was not the Sabbath and at a time before noon to boot. He was jealous. Despite the reasons he gave, he was fearful of her association with the Marquis.

Raising her head, she said, “I fail to see how that concerns me.”

Fletcher Masterson actually flushed. “You must see—”

“I see you consider any attentions paid to me by Rochefort cannot, must not, be honorable because as a governess I am beneath such consideration. I thank you, Mr. Masterson!”

“No, upon my honor I meant no such thing. I meant only to warn you to have a care of your reputation.”

“Your concern is unnecessary. May we not talk of something else?”

They did so, but it availed them little. Hardly had Fletcher embarked on an explanation of the business that had taken him into town when the subject of their previous conversation was seen tooling his phaeton along the road and up the drive of Beau Repos.

Rochefort tossed a coin and a smile to the eager boy who leaped for his reins. There was no need for instructions. The boy began at once to care for the Marquis’s horses while their owner trod up the steps. The manner in which Rochefort flipped his curly brimmed beaver and his stick to Colossus, accepting the offer of a glass of Madeira, spoke aloud of familiarity. Caroline could feel the disapproval of the American, and his antagonism.

“I trust I see you well,” Rochefort said, bowing over her hand, then giving a curt nod to the man beside her. “Masterson.”

“Rochefort.”

Caroline returned a civil answer to the Marquis’s inquiry. There was a small silence.

Fletcher cleared his throat before initiating a pleasantry about the weather. It was Caroline who answered. Once more conversation lagged.

His expression earnest, the large American swung suddenly to Caroline. “I must not forget. I don’t mean to push my nose into what does not concern me or to suggest any sort of negligence, but are you aware of young Théophile’s activities? As I was driving along the levee, I saw him with another person disappearing into the woods in what I can only describe as a suspicious fashion.”

“A suspicious fashion?” Caroline queried, a frown drawing her brows together.

“They clearly did not wish to be seen.”

“The actions of a boy Theo’s age cannot be controlled like, those of a nursery tot,” Caroline pointed out. “In any case I take leave to doubt that Theo is involved in anything underhanded.” It was all very well for her to wonder at Theo’s absence; her loyalty rose up in protest when anyone else cast a doubt upon the purpose of his activities away from Beau Repos.

Fletcher, in affront at her acerbic tone, inclined his head. “I must hope you have the right of it.”

“Perhaps I can shed a ray of light on this mystery.” The Marquis, crossing one booted foot over the other, entered the conversation. “To the best of my knowledge, Theo, with the aid of Jack, the son of my overseer, is engaged in building a raft.”

“I might have known,” Caroline said, relief lending the smile she sent Rochefort an extra degree of warmth. “He has ever been mad for anything to do with water.”

“A raft? To be used on the river?” Fletcher asked doubtfully.

“Theo is a levelheaded boy. I’m sure he would do nothing really dangerous.”

Fletcher gave her a fond smile. “Boys are not renowned for recognizing danger when they see it.”

Undismayed, Caroline informed him, “The river holds little menace for Theo; he swims with the ease of a fish.”

Fletcher subsided though he did not appear convinced.

“How does Jim the groom go on?” Rochefort asked, claiming Caroline’s attention.

The man had been sent home from Felicity only a few days before. Agreeably surprised that Rochefort should concern himself any further, Caroline answered. “He’s mending nicely, hobbling about with the aid of a stick. He’s quite the envy of the stables for his sojourn with you.”

“I suspect his fame rests on his attempt to rescue the ladies of Beau Repos,” Rochefort replied. “Honor enough, surely, for any man.”

Caroline responded to such a flagrant piece of gallantry with aplomb, and the conversation moved into easier channels. The Marquis made no effort to introduce the purpose of his call, nor did he inquire the whereabouts of either M’sieur Delacroix or the young ladies.

Caroline might have brought matters to a head. An odd reluctance, fueled by the frequent puzzled glances Fletcher cast in Rochefort’s direction, prevented her.

Under any other circumstances, the visit would have been an excellent opportunity to discuss the arrangements for the ball, but in the face of Fletcher’s disapproval, Caroline felt a sense of constraint. It was ridiculous to let his preachings on propriety trouble her, she told herself; still she could not find a way of bringing the talk around to the preparations without giving a totally erroneous impression of the footing on which she stood with the Marquis. Heretofore their discussions had been held with Madame present, ostensibly giving her assistance in the proceedings. The most formal circumstances had prevailed. Though Rochefort was cordial, at no time was his manner in the least encroaching; far from it. At times, Caroline, taking down the list of his requirements, felt that for all his awareness of her she might have been in his employ rather than that of Madame Delacroix.

Perhaps because Fletcher was present, perhaps because Madame was not, on this occasion the Marquis did not see fit to mention the ball. When his Madeira arrived, he idled over it for the length of a discussion of crop rotation and the latest advances in agricultural pursuits with Fletcher. Setting down his empty glass, he got to his feet.

By all rights, Fletcher, with the prescribed length of time for his call at an end, should have been first to take his leave. Rochefort, his adieus made to Caroline, surveyed the stolid figure of his neighbor firmly seated in the chair beside her. Humor flashed in his green eyes as he inclined his head.

“Do you go my way, Masterson?” he asked. “Perhaps you will bear me company. There is a drainage problem in the west field. I would appreciate your advice.”

Nothing could have been better calculated to arouse Fletcher’s interest. Caroline watched the struggle that animated his features with something like sympathy. It was not in his nature to be deliberately rude or to decline a call upon his knowledge of the subject dearest to his heart — after commission profits.

The Marquis’s motives in presenting him with that challenge were harder to understand. It might have been no more than pique at Fletcher’s obvious distrust. It might have been a reluctance to leave another man in gloating possession of the field. Caroline was under no illusion of his need for advice. From hints he had let drop, she knew Rochefort had every confidence in his overseer and was engaged with him in an intensive program of soil replenishment and reclamation in preparation for planting the following spring. The question occupied her mind long after the dust from the departure of the two men together had settled upon the drive.