Tears of Gold (50 page)

“He seems like a lot of horse for such little hands,” Nicholas commented, unimpressed.

“You think I’m just a braggart, do you?” she said with a challenging glint in her eye. “Well, I’ll show you, m’sieu, just who is full of hot air and who isn’t.”

With a superior look at Nicholas she turned her horse around and galloped back up the road, veering off as she headed toward a high gate in a fence that surrounded the grounds.

Mara glanced at Nicholas as he stood watching the little figure, her auburn braids flying out behind her as she urged the big bay over the high railing. His hooves easily cleared the gate. Nicholas’s green eyes were narrowed in what Mara knew from past experience was simmering anger, and she hoped for the sake of the small equestrian that she turned out to be no close relation. She would be in constant trouble if she fell under Nicholas’s discipline.

The flying hooves appeared once again over the gate, not clearing it by such a margin this time. The girl returned to the group of strangers, expecting praise.

“You might as well enjoy him now, for you will not be riding on his back for much longer,” Nicholas promised coldly. “An irresponsible little fool like you should only be allowed on the back of a pony.”

The little fool in question stared down at this stranger, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. No one had ever dared to speak to her in such a tone before. Two bright spots of color appeared on her pale cheeks as wrathful indignation began to rise. “Get off my property right now. You don’t have any right to be here, whoever you are,” she spat.

“And just who are
you?
” Nicholas inquired with deceptive softness.

“I am Damaris de Montaigne-Chantale. Who are you?” she asked insolently.

Nicholas smiled. “I’m Nicholas de Montaigne-Chantale.” The young girl’s hands clenched on the reins and her horse neighed nervously as he felt the tension in his mistress’s muscles.

Mara watched as different emotions flickered across the elfin face. She was too young to be able to hide what she was feeling, and so the surprise, disbelief, dismay, and finally the wary curiosity were vividly displayed for all to see as she stared down with huge gray green eyes at this half-brother she had never met but had heard about in whispered stories.

“Well,
ma petite demi-soeur
,” Nicholas said almost gently as he realized her confusion, “am I to be welcomed back to Beaumarais?”

A fleeting smile curved Damaris’s lips, then was gone. “Maybe by some,” she said enigmatically, and suddenly seemed very adult.

“And by you?”

Damaris shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet. Who’s she, your wife? Is the boy your son?” she demanded inquisitively as she stared down at Mara and Paddy from her perch high atop the big bay’s back.

“You ask a lot of personal questions,” Nicholas said disapprovingly.

“If you don’t, you won’t get any answers,” Damaris returned with childish logic.

“You still may not get any answers, Damaris,” Nicholas warned.

“You want me to ride back up to the house and send a carriage?” Damaris asked, deftly changing the subject.

“No. If I remember correctly, it isn’t too much farther. Do you mind continuing?” he asked Mara, who’d been watching and listening to the exchange between brother and sister with growing amusement. “No, not at all,” she told him truthfully. “In fact, I’m rather enjoying myself,” she added with a look that left him in little doubt about what she was enjoying.

“Where are you from?” Damaris asked Mara. “You sound different even from the Americans in New Orleans.” She rode along beside them as they resumed walking up the road.

“I’m from Ireland,” Mara told her.

“Is that where you’ve been all these years?” she questioned Nicholas.

“I’ve been all over the world,” Nicholas answered.

“We just came from California,” Paddy informed her importantly, “and Uncle Nicholas is rich. Richer than you I bet,” he added for good measure as he jealously sidled closer to Nicholas, trying to match him stride for stride.

Damaris’s eyes flashed angrily as she glared down at Paddy’s sailor-capped head. “We’ve got a lot of money and a big house. Do you? Why did you call him uncle? You’re not my cousin, are you?” she demanded. “Is he?”

“No, but he has my permission to call me uncle.”

Damaris thoughtfully considered his answer for a moment, not understanding the relationship between these strangers. She gazed at Mara in open admiration and without any sign of embarrassment for staring so rudely. Then her eyes slid over to Nicholas, and she subjected him to the same critical appraisal until finally seeming to come to a conclusion.

“She’s too pretty to be your wife,” Damaris uttered simply. “Is she your mistress?”

Jamie drew in her breath abruptly and choked, drawing Paddy’s attention from Damaris’s startling comment. Mara felt a warm blush spreading across her face. The casually spoken words of a child had the power to hurt her. Nicholas’s lips had thinned ominously.

“Apologize to the lady, Damaris,” Nicholas ordered in a cold voice. For the first time in her life Damaris was fearful of someone.

As she looked over at the flushed face of the beautiful woman, she mumbled contritely, “I’m sorry, mademoiselle. I truly meant no harm.”

Mara managed a smile as she looked up at the little girl who had only spoken the truth. “I know you didn’t, it’s just that people sometimes don’t care to hear the truth about themselves. Some things are best left unsaid, Damaris,” Mara advised her. Damaris nodded. “I suppose so, but I don’t always understand why, mademoiselle,” she said with a frown before urging her horse on ahead. Galloping to the tree-lined entrance of Beaumarais, she pulled up on the big bay’s head and sat silently waiting for them.

Nicholas’s stride seemed to quicken as they neared the drive leading up to the house. Paddy and Jamie, their short legs working double-time, hurried to keep up with the fast-moving figure. Mara lengthened her own stride as she began to feel some of Nicholas’s excitement.

Nicholas came to an abrupt halt at the foot of the long, stately drive. Outstretched oak boughs formed a natural, living arch above the roadway leading up to the house. It was as Nicholas had described it, only there was a strange sadness in its rose-stuccoed walls that could not be described, only felt. Gleaming white shutters framed the long French windows, which were set back in the deep shadows of the wide galleries running across the front and around the sides of the two-story structure. Six massive white pillars marched across the front and supported the high cornice that rose in proud magnificence above the treetops.

“Beaumarais,” Nicholas murmured softly as he stood staring at his birthplace.

“You’ve been away a long time,” Damaris’s childish voice interrupted the silence that had fallen over the small group. “I wasn’t even born when you left,” she said in awed tones.

Nicholas didn’t seem to hear her. He continued to stare at Beaumarais. “Shall we go,” he said at last as he started up the long walk.

Through the moss-draped trees Mara could catch glimpses of the plantation grounds, of colorful gardens thick with flowers and patches of green lawn spreading down toward the river. In fact, they were far closer to the muddy waters of the river than she had realized, for the road they had traveled to the house had curved gradually through the trees and back again to the river.

Suddenly Mara heard Paddy giggling as his dark eyes filled up with the wonder of his surroundings. “They’re like old men with long gray beards, Mara!” he laughingly exclaimed as he ran over to the base of one of the gnarled oaks and grabbed a handful of the spidery moss that covered it.

When they were halfway up the drive, Damaris, having dismounted, gave Sorcier a slight nudge and sent him on ahead. She ran beside him to the entrance. Then her hurrying figure disappeared up the wide, low steps set between two tall columns.

The white paneled door opened and several people came out to wait for them. The arrival of guests at Beaumarais seemed to be a rare occasion, for a group of black workers had gathered around the bottom of the steps, their chores apparently forgotten as they whispered among themselves and up to the group of house servants in the gallery behind.

Mara saw Damaris standing slightly apart from two women who stood squarely in the center of the wide steps. They silently watched the arrival of the unexpected guests. One of the women was just a young girl, not more than sixteen, with black hair and magnolia skin. There was a petulant droop to the sulky mouth that hinted at what her true character might be. A pale blue satin slipper was tapping impatiently beneath the hem of her flounced skirt, while the ends of a matching pale blue ribbon tied around her small waist flickered slightly in the breeze.

The older of the two women was dressed in mourning, but the rich auburn of her hair mocked the somberness of her gown and thoughts, and marked her as the mother of Damaris. She was pale and thin, but at one time she must have been a great beauty. Her face still bore faint traces of it, but ill-health and grief had done their best to erase any sign of happiness from her expressive gray eyes. Her thin hands moved constantly and a fretful look had settled on her brow. She stared down at Nicholas with disbelief and anger, recognition coming with a flash of apparent pain.

“Nicholas,” she spoke her stepson’s name in a raspy whisper as her gray eyes seemed to swallow up his figure. Then she gave a feeble cry from deep within, as if she’d seen an apparition.

“Mama!” the dark-haired girl suddenly screamed.

Nicholas vaulted up the steps in time to catch his stepmother as she slumped forward in a faint, her slender neck arching back across his arm as he swung her up against his chest. Clearing a way through the servants crowding close, he walked boldly through the opened door of Beaumarais.

“Who are these people? What is happening? Oh, mon Dieu, she is dead! I cannot bear this,” Nicole cried out, her black curls bouncing around her face as she glanced around wildly.

“Oh, Nicole, she is not,” Damaris said, even as her eyes worriedly followed Nicholas’s figure. “She’s just fainted. But
you’d
better not because
I’m
not going to catch you,” she added warningly, well used to Nicole’s dramatics.

Nicole turned on her young sister, indignant anger mirrored on her flowerlike face. “You horrible little beast. You know nothing about these matters, or anything else,” she berated Damaris. Reaching out quickly, she slapped her sister’s face. “All you know about is that old horse of yours. Mama ought to sell him.”

Damaris’s lips trembled slightly and the imprint of Nicole’s punishing hand showed red against her pale cheek, but she stood her ground, proudly facing up to Nicole’s wrath as she defended Sorcier. “He isn’t old, and nobody’s ever going to sell him.”

“What shall I do if Mama becomes indisposed? She must not fall ill again,” Nicole fretted. “We were just beginning to discuss designs for my wedding gown. Oh, it is impossible,” she cried, stamping her foot in angry frustration.

Mara gazed between the two sisters amazed that they could be related.

“If we might go inside,” Mara began tentatively yet firmly, with polite rebuke for having been kept standing on the front steps. “We are rather fatigued after our walk from the river, and I believe I did hear somewhere about a certain Beaumarais hospitality? It wasn’t just a rumor, was it?” Mara smilingly asked the dark-eyed young girl who was staring at her as if seeing her for the first time.

“Since your mama is not feeling up to it, you shall have to act as our hostess,” Mara said, her eyes telling the upset Nicole that she understood perfectly what that young woman must be suffering at this moment. “It will be good practice for when you have a home of your own. I did hear you mention your upcoming marriage?” Mara continued on a practical note, her voice soothing the frayed nerves of the girl as she found herself being charmed out of her bad mood by this strange woman. “I do know something about the latest fashions. And, my dear, I have just come from New Orleans. There I saw some of the most divine gowns. Do let us discuss them over a cup of tea. I can see already what colors would suit you,” Mara spoke dreamily, then pretended to run a thoughtful eye over Nicole’s figure. “Ummm, yes, of course, cerise will most definitely be your color.”

Nicole brightened under Mara’s expert handling as she basked in the attention. “Oh, mademoiselle, I should be so delighted to talk with you of such things,” she beamed, her good spirits rapidly returning. “And of course Beaumarais welcomes you with open arms. I shall see about rooms for you and your party.” She paused uncertainly. “You are staying here?
Bien
,” she continued as Mara nodded. “Now, I shall order some tea immediately. Then we must talk, please, mademoiselle,” she said with a smile she knew was her prettiest.

Mara caught Damaris’s eye, the girl’s smirk letting her know that at least she had not been deceived, even if Nicole had. “I’ll have a wagon sent for your trunks, mademoiselle, but first I must go and see how Mama is.”

“Finest bit of actin’ ye’ve done in many a year,” Jamie muttered as she walked beside Mara through the door of Beaumarais.

Mara stepped inside the mosaic-tiled entrance hall and, pausing briefly, admired the painted landscape that papered the walls and the crystal chandelier that gleamed high overhead. A grand staircase of rich mahogany climbed to the second floor while a pier table with a vase of deep red roses was reflected in the ornate, gold-leaf mirror hanging above it.

“Please, mademoiselle, in here,” Nicole invited Mara as she led the way into a spacious parlor carpeted with a pale gold Aubusson carpet, gold-brocaded curtains draping the row of long French windows opening out onto the gallery. It was only as Mara stepped onto the carpet that she noticed the worn spots, and the frayed hems of the drapes. Nicole gestured to the pale blue sofa before sitting down gracefully in one of the matching satin-upholstered chairs.

But Mara’s eye had been captured by the portrait that hung above the molded mantel. Mara walked over to stand just below it as she stared up in fascination. The man with the hawkish face bore the same sensuous lips and boldly staring green eyes as Nicholas. Only the expression was softer than the one his son wore. This was Philippe de Montaigne-Chantale, the proud master of Beaumarais who’d banished his son from his sight.