Tears of Gold (63 page)

Jamie was putting the finishing touches on Mara’s hair when Nicholas burst into the room. Mara stared at him in incredulous silence for a second as her eyes went over his muddied boots and breeches.

“Get your cloak on, and anything else you need. We’re leaving Beaumarais right now,” he ordered abruptly as he walked on through to the gallery. “I’ll get Paddy. A couple of stableboys will be up to get your trunks, but we haven’t much time, the levee’s gone.”

“I warned ye,” Jamie grumbled as she grabbed Mara’s cape. “A foolish old woman am I? Why, ye’d be without a stitch to wear if I hadn’t already packed up all your clothes.”

Nicholas returned a minute later with Paddy holding his hand. “Ready?” he called into their room as he entered. Taking Mara by the elbow, he guided her out and down the stairs. They were near the foot of the staircase when Etienne entered the front of the house, a small leather bag gripped in one hand, a pile of books tucked beneath his arm. He glanced up as he heard them on the stairs and pointed to the study. “I just remembered some other books I want.”

Nicholas watched impatiently as Etienne’s dapper figure disappeared into the study. “Damn! We haven’t time for searching through the library,” Nicholas swore.

They waited for a minute, stepping aside as their trunks were carried down the stairs and to the waiting wagons. But when Etienne didn’t reappear and they heard voices coming from the study, Nicholas followed, Mara and Paddy still with him.

“Etienne, hurry up, we haven’t time for—” Nicholas began. He stopped as he saw Etienne standing rigid in the center of the room, two books held forgotten in his hand. The old man stared at the occupant of the big, leather chair beside the fire.

“Alain, what the devil?” Nicholas demanded. The fire had only recently been lit. Alain held a glass of brandy negligently in his hand. There was a gun placed within easy reach on the table beside his elbow.

“I’m not leaving Beaumarais,” Alain spoke quietly, his hazel eyes staring boldly for once and without any show of deference.

“My God, Alain,” Nicholas said incredulously, “the river’s going to flood this floor under at least five feet of water.”

A smile flickered briefly and humorlessly across Alain’s handsome face before he took a sip of brandy. “How like the old man you look and sound,” Alain spoke softly. “He was so damned arrogant. He feared nothing. Yet here you are, his son, fleeing Beaumarais with your tail between your legs. The great Nicholas de Montaigne-Chantale a coward. But then, only a coward would have shot his brother. Eh, Nicholas?”

“Alain, my son,” Etienne began, “you don’t know what you are saying.”

Alain looked at Etienne contemptuously. “
Son?
” he asked.

Etienne blanched, the books he’d tucked beneath his arm falling to the floor with a thud. “W-what do you mean?”

“I think it’s time for a revelation of truths, eh, Papa?” Alain spoke maliciously. “After all, shouldn’t
mon frère
, Nicholas, know why he is going to lose Beaumarais?”

At Alain’s words Nicholas’s eyes widened in momentary surprise.

“Yes,” Alain said with obvious enjoyment, “you are my brother—half-brother, actually. I am Alain de Montaigne-Chantale, not Ferrare, as they would have everyone believe. Ask him,” Alain told Nicholas, nodding at Etienne, “if it is not the truth.”

Nicholas shook his head as he looked at Alain. “You’re crazed.”

“Am I? Look at him!” Alain yelled, pointing a finger now at Etienne.

Nicholas slowly turned his head and stared at his uncle, seeing the truth in the painful sadness of Etienne Ferrare’s eyes.

“Well?” Nicholas demanded.

Etienne nodded his head just barely. “He is Philippe’s son.”

“There! At last! After so many years of lies,” Alain laughed triumphantly.

Nicholas continued to stare at Etienne for a moment before looking back at Alain, seeing for the first time certain similarities between Alain and himself. “So you are my half-brother? What does that prove?”

“So cool, so arrogantly spoken, mon frère, like the de Montaigne-Chantale that you are. Well I am not just a de Montaigne-Chantale. I am the eldest.
I
am heir to Beaumarais, not you, Nicholas. Never you,” Alain spat.

He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the document he had found in the secret windowsill. “A will, written by my father, Philippe, naming me heir to Beaumarais. I am master here,” he stated, his eyes daring anyone to refute the claim.

Nicholas’s narrowed gaze met Alain’s. “Why now? Why not a year ago when my father died?” he demanded.

Alain’s harsh laugh rang through the room. “Because that wily old fox hid it, that’s why. I’ve been searching for this damned will since the day he died. How many sleepless nights did I spend searching this room for any sign of it. Never until now could I announce my rights to Beaumarais. And whom do I have to thank but a small boy who, while innocently playing, finds the secret panel that I’d searched for for so long,” Alain said with mixed amusement and anger.

Nicholas and Mara both looked down at Paddy who was gaping at the overseer, his eyes round. “Me?”

“I was in here the other night when you came sneaking in to retrieve your toy soldier. You can imagine my surprise when you marched right over to the windowsill, slid back the panel, oh so casually, then left without even knowing I was here.”

Nicholas moved slowly toward the windowsill. At Paddy’s nod, he felt along the sill until, finding the latch, he slid it open to reveal the chamber inside. Reaching down he withdrew the diary and quickly thumbed through it as he moved back to stand in front of Alain. Nicholas’s lips thinned grimly as he ran his thumb along the rough edges where pages had been torn from the diary.

“Oh, yes, he wrote it all down,” Alain told Nicholas with a pitying smile, “and I enjoyed reading it before I burned it. You can prove nothing, Nicholas, nothing at all. As master of Beaumarais I shall be one of the most powerful men in Louisiana.”

Mara was developing a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she stared at his glazed eyes and smiling lips.

“And what can’t I prove against you, Alain? What have you to hide?” Nicholas asked softly.

“I have nothing to hide,” Alain denied, his eyes sliding between the two men suspiciously. “I am master of Beaumarais and that is all that need concern you.”

Etienne shook his head sadly. “Oh, Alain, you are master of nothing.”

“If you and my father could have had your way, then I would have nothing,” he charged. “My name and birthright were stolen from me by the two of you. I don’t know why you agreed to pretend to be my father, but I do know that you aren’t. All these years I’ve kept silent, just waiting, knowing that one day I would inherit Beaumarais. Who else could? I was his only son.”

“But what of François and Nicholas?” Etienne asked quietly, a look of growing dread in his eyes. “They were his sons too.”

“But François died, and Nicholas was dishonored,” Alain said with a slight smile.

“And did you plan that, Alain?” Etienne suddenly demanded, his voice startling Nicholas. Never had he heard Etienne’s voice raised in anger. If evil could come to life, then Alain was its personification as he sat staring at them, gloating. Mara stepped away from him, shivering with revulsion.

“All these years you have known the truth? You have waited patiently for the right time to make your identity known. When did you find out? How? Philippe and I never spoke of it.”

“Once, you did,” Alain told Etienne with a knowing look. “You and my father were discussing, no, arguing about my education, and whether or not I should stay in Paris any longer or return to New Orleans. Philippe wanted to make me manager of one of his other plantations, and eventually owner of it. Remember the argument, Papa?” Alain sneered. “Philippe said, ‘After all, he is my son, a de Montaigne-Chantale. He should own land. It’s in the blood, Etienne.’ Mon Dieu, can you imagine how I felt? To know that I was
his
son, that I could have been master here except for François and Nicholas?”

“I remember that conversation very well,” Etienne spoke, his voice thick with tears. He turned accusing eyes on Alain. “It was just a few days before Nicholas was accused of shooting François in the duel.”

Nicholas took a step forward, stopping when he saw Alain’s hand move to the butt of the gun. “You? You shot François, didn’t you? My God, I never thought of you. Never.”

“No, you wouldn’t, for I was beneath the notice of the great de Montaigne-Chantales, wasn’t I? Especially François. He was the worst. Never a word to me, always riding with his nose in the air, his blond curls gleaming with the sunlight. But he was a fool, a hothead. Both of you played into my hands so easily, so gullibly that I still laugh to think of it. I saw you that day when you played your silly game. I stood behind the big oak and waited, and when you aimed your pistol, I aimed mine. When you pulled the trigger, so did I. Only I didn’t aim to the side of François, I aimed for his heart.”

Nicholas’s lips thinned and whitened.

“I had everything then, for François was dead, you were ruined and sent away, and who was there but me for him to turn to? Everything went so well at first and we became very close…at least we were until that bitch gave birth to le petit Jean-Louis,” Alain spat out the name on a wave of violent hate. “A son! A son after so many barren years. I could not believe it. I had dreaded the other two births, but they were girls. Then, suddenly, she gives him a son with the name de Montaigne-Chantale.

“He had made me his heir before that little bastard was born. I’d found it in his desk, my rights to Beaumarais.” Alain spoke with the eagerness that he must have felt when he’d first found the will.

“But then he sent for his lawyer one day, and I knew he was going to change the will in favor of his new son. I confronted him with it. I told him that he couldn’t write me out of it, that I was his son too. Hadn’t I sweated over this land more than any of his other sons? He was shocked that I would demand my rights. I saw everything I had worked for slipping away. I think he suspected then that I had killed François, and he asked me so suddenly that I couldn’t deny it. The look on his face…mon Dieu, but I shall never forget it. That look,” Alain mumbled, his eyes glazing over in memory. “He struck me across the face, then ordered me from his presence. The next day, down at the levee, he told me to get off his land, that if I didn’t he would shoot me down like the dog I was.”

Nicholas and Etienne exchanged glances, neither having missed the pulse beating rapidly in Alain’s throat, the cords standing out painfully as he struggled, against all the years of silence, to tell his story at last.

“I—I couldn’t believe it! I hated him then, hated him for everything he’d stolen from me. I told him that I should be master of Beaumarais and that he couldn’t drive me away like he did Nicholas. At the mention of your name he seemed to go crazy. He charged me, hitting me with his whip again and again, as if I were some field slave to grovel at his feet. He was so strong. I couldn’t believe he would have such overwhelming strength, and so I hit him,” Alain confessed, blinking. “I hit him hard across the face and he staggered backward, hitting his head on the oak tree. Then he rolled into the river. He floated for an instant, then he disappeared beneath the surface. That was the last I saw of him—until a few days later.”

Nicholas’s eyes never left Alain’s face. He took a step forward.

“Don’t!” Alain warned as he grabbed the pistol and aimed it at Nicholas’s chest. “I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. You can’t prove anything against me, there is no proof, and I have the will. Everyone still believes you guilty of François’s murder. You are the stranger here now, I’m not,” he taunted him, an anticipatory gleam in his eye as Nicholas came closer. “Stop, Nicholas, I’m warning you, I don’t want to have to kill you. I actually am grateful to you for returning in time to keep Celeste from selling Beaumarais to Amaryllis. I never thought I’d be glad to see you, but I was, especially when you turned out to be wealthy. I was worried at first that perhaps you knew something, but when you said nothing, and then started searching, well, I knew Philippe had told you nothing. I would prefer not having to put a bullet in you, mon frère,” Alain repeated as Nicholas continued to tower over him.

“Damn you to hell,” Nicholas whispered as he took another step, oblivious to the danger.

But Mara was aware of it. She pushed herself in front of him before he could take another step, and at the same instant, Alain pulled the trigger.

The loud report reverberated through the room and mingled with Paddy’s scream of terror as he saw the blood spurting from Mara’s arm.

Nicholas felt Mara recoil against him and caught her in his arms. He glanced down at her face, his heart stopping. She managed a shaky smile, leaning against him.

“Mon Dieu, Alain,” Etienne cried, his tears of shame and despair falling freely.

“The next bullet will go through you. I’m sorry, Mademoiselle O’Flynn, I didn’t mean to shoot you. But I will shoot Nicholas,” Alain promised.

“Master Nicholas! Master Nicholas!” the butler called frantically as he came rushing to the study door. “The river’s comin’, and comin’ fast, sir!”

Nicholas glanced from the butler’s black face, his fears clearly written across it, to Mara’s pale one, then to the red of her blood dripping onto the rug.

Alain was watching, the gun still pointed directly at them.

“It’s not over, Alain. And you’re a fool if you think it is. Or that I’ll let you live after what you’ve done,” Nicholas promised.

He scooped Mara up into his arms, Looking at Etienne, he hesitated for one more moment. “Are you coming, Etienne?”

Nodding in confusion, Etienne turned around, stumbling slightly. With a nod from Nicholas the butler came forward, his eyes widening as they caught the flash of the gun. He gently took hold of Etienne’s arm and guided him from the room.

Paddy clung to Nicholas’s coattails as Nicholas walked from the room, leaving a triumphant Alain in sole possession of Beaumarais.