Sweet Piracy (9 page)

A more inventive, less careful man would have found a way to achieve his aim, Caroline thought, but Fletcher was circumspect, careful, formidably well-mannered. Caroline could not feature him demanding a forfeit under any circumstances.

Might that not be to the good, however? There was nothing dashing about sandy hair, blue eyes, and well-muscled shoulders, but wasn’t dependability a more valuable commodity?

Disgusting to be weighing a man’s value like a barrel of flour or so many blocks of sugar. Such cold-blooded commerce was no basis for deciding to marry.

“May one intrude?” M’sieur Philippe did not wait for an answer but stepped behind Caroline’s chair to take the one beside her. He crossed one knee over the other, then clasped his hands together across his not so flat stomach. For a long moment he said nothing, scanning the pale oval of her face in the fast-dimming light. At last he opened the conversation he had obviously sought.

“What think you of our noble friend?”

“You mean the Marquis de Rochefort?”

“But of course,” he said, his clipped tone betraying his irritation.

“I find him gracious and kind.”

“Do you indeed? Are you quite sure you don’t mean condescending?”

Caroline looked at the tutor. “Does he seem so to you? I hadn’t noticed it.”

“How could you not? The man goes about making pronouncements with the aplomb of royalty. My ears ring with hearing from Theo: ‘The Marquis says this, Rochefort says that.’ It is not to be borne! And now Anatole, the boy I have raised with the kindness of a father, tells me that for gentleman lace is
passé
, M’sieur le Marquis says so!”

Caroline sternly repressed a smile. “Do you intend to continue to wear it?”

“
Naturellement
,” the tutor replied, though for an instant he appeared torn as he smoothed the lace over his hands.

“That certainly shows great strength of character,” Caroline said in an encouraging tone.

The tutor allowed himself a smile of gratification before his brows drew together once more. “Not every young woman has your powers of discernment. I fear for the gentle daughters of the house.”

“Fear? What do you mean?”

Delighted to have drawn a more decided reaction than before, M’sieur Philippe elaborated. “I speak of the unfortunate effect on Mam’zelle Amélie and Estelle of being daily in the company of such a man of the world as Rochefort. They are guileless innocents, unable to realize that half of what he says to them is the merest gallantry devoid of sincerity. He has no intention of the sort of serious involvement which leads to wedded bliss — would, in fact, reject with horror any such suggestion.”

“How can you be sure?” Caroline asked. She did not for a moment credit what he said as the truth, but was interested in his reasoning.

The tutor shrugged. “It is the way of men and women who belong to that station in life.”

“The Marquis belongs here, now that he has made his home at Felicity.”

“A nobleman’s whim,” he said with a dismissing gesture. “It does not change the attitude of one of his kind.”

“I see,” Caroline murmured.

“I tell you this to put you on your guard, and so that you may arm the ladies also against losing their hearts to such a one.”

“You make him sound a monster.”

“Not at all! I protest, that was not my intention. I do not say the Marquis realizes the damage he can inflict.”

Caroline lifted a brow. “Stupid as well as uncaring?”

“Upon my sacred honor, I did not say so. I meant only that it is easy for the unwary to be taken in by what is merely a surface charm.”

“Shallow, stupid, and uncaring.”

“You willfully misunderstand me,” he expostulated.

“I think not,” Caroline said, rising to her feet.

M’sieur Philippe stood at once. “Ah, well. Perhaps I have been too hasty in my judgment.”

“And unwise in your choice of a confidante.”

“Never that,” he assured her, reaching out to catch her hand, holding it close between his own. “I am aware that you would never betray me.”

“Betray you? There is no question—”

“I was sure of it,” he broke across her words. “Let me hasten to spare your blushes by assuring you that I return your admiration.”

Caroline stared. Her first thought was that the man had taken leave of his senses. Return her admiration indeed! As if she could admire such a popinjay.

Before she could put her objections into words, Theo swung around the end of the steps and came bounding up them two at a time. To continue the discussion in front of an audience was impossible.

Sensing an atmosphere, Theo stopped his tuneless whistling, looking from his tutor to Caroline with interest. When neither seemed disposed to satisfy his curiosity, he bethought himself of the message entrusted to him.

“Cook would appreciate a word with you in the kitchen, Mam’zelle.”

Perforce Caroline had to turn in the direction of that outdoor structure, though it was galling beyond endurance to leave M’sieur Philippe in possession of his peculiar misapprehension.

In the next few days they saw nothing of Rochefort and his cousin. The tedium of fittings for the modiste, Madame Hébert, was done with, and that indefatigable lady packed her leftover bits of lace and muslin, rendered her account, and returned to New Orleans. Time hung heavy on their hands. With lowering spirits, the young ladies returned to their mending and lessons and embroidery.

“Depend upon it,” Madame Delacroix said comfortably. “The Marquis is being besieged by callers. Everyone with any pretension to gentility will feel he must be welcomed. I congratulate myself that Beau Repos was the first home to extend the hand of a neighbor, but I cannot think we were the only ones.”

“No, and I expect the Marquis’s chef has recovered, too,” Estelle said mournfully.

“Perhaps we shall see them Sunday after Mass,” Amélie suggested, coloring a little under her mother’s sharp glance.

Madame nodded in slow agreement. “Sunday after Mass.”

The chapel that the Delacroix family attended, the only chapel within thirty miles, was a small, white, lath and brick affair. The interior was beautifully paneled, however, and boasted a marble font, hand-carved Stations of the Cross from European craftsmen, and a rose window which had been salvaged from a demolished cathedral in Normandy.

On that particular Sunday, it did not boast the attraction of the owner of Felicity and his secretary-cousin. The new gowns and bonnets the ladies wore were wasted.

Perhaps not quite wasted. The afternoon brought an extraordinary influx of male visitors to the gallery of Beau Repos. Hippolyte Gravier brought with him a half dozen of the young bloods of the area to cluster around Estelle. Amélie was not without her court also, though they tended to be older and more staid. And of course Fletcher Masterson, looking like a sober blond giant among the dark and laughing Creoles, came to sit beside Caroline for a proper half hour.

He and Caroline talked of the same things they had talked of for the better part of two months. Caroline asked after his mother, a widow and semi-invalid who seldom stirred beyond the walls of her home. He told her of the progress of his crop; he had only that year switched from cane to cotton and was anxious about the success of the venture. He mentioned having met his near neighbor at Felicity one day on the road, and spoke with wonder verging on contempt of his stated aim to refrain from making a crop until the following year. When he picked up his hat and cane and finally took himself off, Caroline realized that beyond a perfunctory inquiry about her health, he had expressed no interest whatsoever in her or her activities.

The most diverting thing about the entire day was the manner in which M’sieur Philippe hovered nearby while Fletcher was in attendance, directing malevolent looks at the American’s broad back while his target was oblivious of the tutor’s presence. It ceased to be amusing when M’sieur Philippe, with great adroitness, slipped in front of two young gentlemen to take Fletcher’s vacated chair. He did not leave her side for the remainder of the evening. Even when she got up to see about replenishing the refreshments, he went with her. When Colossus could not be found at once, the tutor insisted on being allowed to pull the tasseled rope to summon the butler, for all the world as though she lacked the strength for such a task.

In the back sitting room that evening the ladies held a postmortem over the afternoon.

“I think, in fact I am certain, that Hippolyte Gravier is enamored of me,” Estelle announced with simple pride.

Her mother smiled. “But of course.”

“I have decided to forgive him for pulling my hair when we were children.”

“Very magnanimous,” Caroline observed.

“You are laughing at me, yes? But I do not regard it. I am a woman now with many, many suitors. I have learned the value of being mistress of my terrible temper.”

Caroline listened to this speech with an inclination to allow her mouth to drop open. “Commendable,” she said when she had recovered.

“Astonishing,” her mother, a deal more taken aback, dubbed it. “And where did you chance upon such wisdom?”

“Mam’zelle Caroline has been telling me forever, but it was the Marquis who warned me that nothing gives suitors a disgust of a lady so much as an unbridled display of temperament. Only very great actresses are forgiven such lapses.”

“
Mon Dieu
,” Madame said faintly, looking around with a
distrait
expression for her vinaigrette.

“You told him you wished to become an actress?” Amélie asked in a tone compounded half of horror, half fascination.

“
Certainement
. He was most understanding. He is acquainted with a number of actresses, you see.”

Madame fell back, grasping the small bottle Caroline thrust into her hand. “Oh, never, never in my life did I ever think to hear a daughter of mine admit to speaking of such things to a gentleman.”

“M’sieur le Marquis explained to me how it is. He warned me I must be circumspect—”

“Oh, oh, oh,” Madame moaned.

“And he was kind enough to explain the hard work, the long hours, the uncomfortable lodgings, and the lack of respect, which are the lot of th-thes — ah, bah, I cannot say this word.”

“Thespians, I believe, is the word you are searching for,” Caroline supplied.

“Yes, I was most interested to hear these things. Everyone else had told me only that to become an actress was not done.
Hein
! Of course it is done! There are hundreds, are there not? Knowing the consequences, I am now armed to make my life’s decision.”

Amélie frowned, drawing winged brows together. “I don’t believe the Marquis can have meant you to take his warning in that light.”

“Then you do not know him as well as I,” Estelle asserted.

“Perhaps not,” Amélie agreed unhappily.

Madame gave another heartrending wail.

In a rare daylight appearance, Tante Zizi had honored the gallery that afternoon with her presence. After the failure of Rochefort to call, balking the elderly woman of her prey, all expected her to withdraw once again to the sanctuary of her room. She did not. Not only did she take the evening meal in company, she commanded Colossus to arm her into the sitting room where she sat enthroned on the only Louis XIV chair of which Beau Repos was possessed.

Now she slapped her fan in the palm of one white, clawlike hand. “My faith, Marie, do not make such a to-do about nothing. When I was Estelle’s age, men were expected to be knowledgeable about actresses and the like. Experience in the male was thought to be the greatest guarantee for happiness in a marriage.”

“When you were young many things were different.” Madame, stung, sat up straight. In her agitation, she took too hearty a sniff at her smelling salts, then coughed, her eyes watering.

“Very true,” Tante Zizi agreed, “and I do not judge the change for the better.”

“I wish only that which is right for my daughters,” Madame proclaimed, ruining the effect by speaking through a handkerchief applied to her nose.

“Let us be truthful,” Tante Zizi corrected dryly. “You wish to ally your daughters with the nobility.”

Madame’s mouth took on the spiteful twist of the weak enemy outmaneuvered but not quite disarmed. “I wish, at all events, to ally them respectably!”

This was a telling blow indeed. In her youth Tante Zizi had visited Paris during the last golden days of France, the reign of Louis XV. A girl of great beauty, on her presentation at Court she had attracted the attention of many of the nobility and of the young King. For a short time she had been blissfully happy, living in the elegant rabbit warren of Versailles. And then one day she had climbed into a carriage and had ridden away without looking back. Returning home to New Orleans, she had gone about for a few years steadfastly refusing all offers of marriage. After a time she went out less and less. On the death of King Louis XV of France she donned mourning and ceased to go out at all. Her parents died, and then the brother who was head of the family. The title of family head, plus the responsibility for Tante Zizi, fell to his son, Bernard Delacroix.