Triumph in Arms (17 page)

Marguerite’s
loup-garou.
It was not a werewolf or spirit of any kind, definitely not a figment of childish imagination.

It was a man.

The urge to shout, scream, to raise the alarm, was a sharp ache in her throat. She couldn’t make a sound. Her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth, her heart thundered in her chest.

She was too terrified of just who the
loup-garou
might turn out to be.

Reine returned to Marguerite and sat with her until she slept again. Leaving the door open between the nursery and her bedchamber, she returned to her bed, but not to sleep. Over and over in her mind, she saw the figure of the man as he faded away from the house. She asked herself time and again what kind of fiend would visit a child’s nursery in the night, careless of the terror he caused. She sought for reasons, and could find only one. She asked herself what she was going to do about it, but could not settle on an answer.

Morning came, and she was still undecided. As the sun rose, however, the problem was wiped from her mind.

The steamboat
J. T. Danson,
bound for Natchez, pulled into the landing to deliver three hogsheads of rum. It also dropped off a body that its deckhands had pulled from the river a mile or two downstream.

It was Kingsley. The overseer had a slit in his chest, one that exited his back in the manner of a wound caused by a sword thrust. Caught in the same eddy that had rendered up Theodore’s body instead of carrying it downstream, he had been in the water for some time, perhaps even several days.

Reine, watching in sick dismay from the upper gallery as the body was loaded in a wagon and driven toward the cool shelter of the barn, knew one of her unsettling questions from the night before had been answered. The overseer was most definitely not Marguerite’s
loup-garou.

The sheriff arrived before noon. Reine’s father received him on the lower gallery with coffee, wine and cakes. All cordiality, he did not wait for the lawman to question him, but explained with regret that Monsieur Kingsley had been released from his position at the plantation some two week before, perhaps a little more. Man to man, and with some reluctance, the reason for his discharge was given. Perhaps he had been despondent over the loss of his position, yes? Or, given the overseer’s temper, he had annoyed the wrong person?

But of course, the sheriff must make the investigation. He should feel quite free to question whomever he liked. Yes, naturally his daughter’s prospective groom, Monsieur Lenoir, would make himself available. The famous sword master and new owner of River’s Edge had sent the man packing, true. One could see, most easily, how Kingsley might have a grudge against Lenoir for it, but what earthly reason could Lenoir have for injuring the dead man?

Ah, so he had died of a sword wound, but what of that? Half the men in the parish owned such weapons. More, the Kaintucks who plied their keelboats up and down the river favored knives easily long enough to make such a wound. It was ridiculous on the face of it, this suspicion. Monsieur Christien Lenoir’s word that he had no involvement must be accepted with the same courtesy as his own. Yes, or that of his son, Paul, for that matter. As for the unfortunate man’s corpse being found close by, well, River’s Edge had been his home. The late Monsieur Kingsley could be put off the place, but no one had the power to remove him from the neighborhood.

There was more in that vein, but it all came to the same thing in the end. The sheriff questioned Christien and Paul, spoke to Alonzo and the other house servants and nosed around the cabins behind the big house. He did not, quite naturally, trouble the ladies of the house as they could have nothing to add to the mystery. After a fruitless few hours, he prepared to depart, though he did not appear completely satisfied with his investigation.

Reine, in her guise as hostess, moved down the steps to the garden gate to bid him farewell. Smiling with every show of ease, she invited the official and his wife to the wedding. He appeared gratified by the offer of hospitality, though uncertain his missus would feel up to the frolic. He would leave Kingsley’s body with them to be buried at their discretion, he said as he stepped into his gig, being that the man belonged on the place, as you might say. Finally, he wheeled away down the drive in a cloud of dust.

Watching him go, Reine feel a shiver run down her spine. Who had killed Kingsley? Her father’s suggestions were plausible. She would like to believe he was right, and the overseer had met his end at knifepoint after the quarrel. That was better than wondering if Christien had resumed his midnight rides as the Nighthawk.

Regardless of how he had died, they would bury Kingsley in the family graveyard with his mother and father. Any man’s death deserved that much respect.

A burial so soon before the wedding. It was not a good omen for marital bliss.

T
he great day arrived in a blaze of summer sunlight. By midmorning, it was stiflingly hot. No sign of a breeze stirred the air. The leaves drooped on the trees. Cicadas sang from their hiding places in the topmost branches, but few birds called. The smells of wood smoke and cooking pork from the fire pits behind the outdoor kitchen hung heavy in the still air, mingling with the scents of baking cakes, caramelizing sugar, chicken and onions frying and coffee roasting. Subdued voices could be heard from the cabins as the field hands had been given a holiday. A sulfurous, waiting quiet enveloped the place, one that made it seem too much trouble to move, almost too much effort to breathe.

Christien’s guests began arriving before midday. None had been in New Orleans, it seemed, but had been sojourning at various plantation houses here and there or along the more salubrious coastal areas. Being early on the scene would allow them time to rest from their travels, then bathe and change their clothing before the wedding. It also gave them an opportunity to visit with the groom and one another.

Reine was on hand to greet these swordsmen and their wives. What a lot of them there were; she was amazed, having gained the impression that Christien had only a handful of acquaintances. Glancing at him as he stood beside her on the steps, introducing his friends as they alighted from their various equipages, she wondered what other surprises he might have in store for her.

The first to arrive was Gavin Blackford, an Englishman judging from his accent. He was blond, quick-spoken and devilish in his humor. He was married to a most soignée lady with the unusual name of Ariadne. Their offspring toddled ahead of them up the front steps, a pair of blond imps, Arthur and David, one boy barely a year old, so still in skirts though definitely male, and another perhaps a year older. Both had the unselfconscious beauty and bounding energy of golden-fleeced lambs.

Hardly had they disappeared upstairs than a cavalcade of three carriages and a wagon appeared. In the first vehicle were Monsieur and Madame Pasquale, carrying small twin girls who were like mirror images of each other, and preceded by a boy with the features of an angel by Michelangelo who appeared near Marguerite’s age. The second carriage held a half dozen boys in their early teens, no two of whom seemed to share looks, parentage or nationality, and had a young gentleman of serious mien cantering alongside as an outrider. A ladies’ maid, nursemaid and tutor occupied the third equipage, while baggage for the large family filled the rear wagon. Monsieur Pasquale, or Nicholas,
was as handsome as his son in an Italianate style, and Madame Pasquale, calm and nunlike in a soft gray ensemble, was introduced as Juliette. Their eldest son on horseback, or rather foster son, was Nathaniel, if Reine had it correctly, though his foster siblings all called him Squirrel. The twin babes were Claire and Chloe; the younger boy was Edouard; the tutor, Gaston; the maid, Marie-Therese; and the nursemaid was called ZaZa.

Reine’s head was spinning with names by this time, yet there were still more to come. Monsieur Caid O’Neill appeared in short order, a stalwart, brown-haired gentleman who had emigrated from Eire, so it seemed, though his vivacious wife Lisette was French Creole to her fingertips. Their older children, a boy and a girl, were Sean and Celeste Amalie, and the babe Lisette cradled in her arms was Marie Rose.

The first arrivals trooped back down the stairs to greet the rest as if it had been years since they had last met instead of the few weeks since the end of the season. They jostled one another on the portico, embracing, talking, laughing and exchanging stories as if they meant never to disperse. They were still there when a pair of glorious carriages were sighted, both lacquered in burgundy and black, with a liveried coachman on the seat and a coat of arms on the door. From these alighted the Conde and Condessa de Lérida, Rio and Lina, a pair dazzling in their warmhearted sophistication. Behind them came their five children in stair-step ages from about eight to a babe in arms, each with an attendant.

Marguerite, who had joined Reine and Christien on the steps to welcome their guests, was beside herself with excitement over having so many playmates. Long before the advent of the conde and condessa, she was involved in a wild game of chase that seemed to have no beginning, no end and no rules, but involved at least a hundred players, possibly more. The de Lérida children, piling out of the carriages, ran screaming to join the mob while their parents looked on with what seemed relief and resignation. The conde, gathering tutors and nursemaids with no more than a glance from dark, commanding eyes, directed them here and there to keep watch.

“I fear my daughter is the cause of the melee,” Reine said. “Being an only child, she isn’t used to so much excitement.”

“It will do them no harm, I’m sure,” the condessa said with a smile.

“Especially after being cooped up in the carriage for so many miles,” the conde added as if finishing his wife’s thoughts were the most natural thing in the world. “And the respite may do their parents a world of good. We love them devotedly, you understand, but…”

“Yes,
but,”
Reine agreed with the kind of rueful laugh only another parent could share. She had thought perhaps these illustrious guests might be too high in the instep for River’s Edge. Instead, they seemed perfectly at home there.

In fact, the sword masters with their wives and children had every aspect of a large family, each of
them intimately familiar with the other and concerned with their problems and joys of the moment. She had seen real families that were less comfortable together. And every one of them greeted Christien like a brother or dear uncle, kissing him on both cheeks in friendly salute or slapping him on the back, hugging his knees or clamoring to be picked up, asking after his injury and listening to his response as if they truly cared whether he lived or died.

He was a part of that great, warm circle. Reine, on the other hand, was outside it.

It didn’t matter, of course; she could not expect to be accepted as one of them on so short an acquaintance. Why she should wish to be was hard to tell. She had her own family, after all.

Regardless, there was something about that close group, some shared experience or circumstance, that turned them into a powerful, almost invulnerable force. They existed beyond the ordinary rank of New Orleans society, were somehow above it.

Reine’s father, on hand to welcome all to River’s Edge as nominal host, was able to make himself heard above the noise after a time. With superb aplomb and Christien’s gracious permission, he drew the gentlemen to a shaded gallery where they would partake of planter’s punch liberally spiked with rum and cooled by some of the precious wedding ice. Reine was able to ascend the stairs with the ladies to make certain they were comfortable in their bedchambers.

River’s Edge boasted six such accommodations, five
of which were already in use. For the advent of these guests, then, some rearrangements had been made. Reine had vacated her room, for she would dress for her wedding in her mother’s bedchamber as was the tradition. Later, she would share Christien’s bedchamber, of course, a prospect which made her tremble inside every time she thought of it. Paul had been ousted from his bed, as well, and would sleep on the back gallery for the duration. Marguerite had been moved to a trundle in her grandparents’ bedchamber, though Reine was by no means certain she would remain there. The arriving couples would each have a bedchamber for their use, then, while the great upstairs hallway would become a dormitory lined with cots and pallets to accommodate the various offspring who would not be sleeping in a trundle or cot in their parents’ bedchamber. Those boys who wished it could join Paul on cots under mosquito
baires
on the back gallery. Reine suspected that Nathaniel, being no great number of years older than Paul, might avail himself of the opportunity, and perhaps one or two of the others, as well. Dressing rooms and the servant quarters in the attic would naturally expand to hold the extra attendants.

Poor Chalmette would be relegated to the front portico once more. That was, if he didn’t sneak back in as some child went in or out.

In truth, where people or animals would sleep was not a matter of great moment, Reine thought. The festivities would last far into the night, possibly even until dawn. People could, and no doubt would, snatch
a few winks wherever exhaustion overcame them and a quiet corner could be found.

The wives of the sword masters talked and laughed among themselves with the greatest of ease. They teased one another, questioned without restraint, spoke of problems with husbands and children with unusual freedom and little self-consciousness. They were interested in everything, particularly how Reine and Christien had met and how he had proposed, how the two of them would go on after the wedding and what she meant to wear for the ceremony. Somehow, without Reine quite knowing how it happened, they all crowded into the bedchamber where she would dress to have a look at her wedding gown.

The ensemble was pronounced lovely, just the thing, particularly the heirloom lace veil. Much was made of Christien as a bridegroom, with great attention to his physical attributes and smiles over his manners and birthright as a descendent of the Great Sun; he could not have been more honored for that connection if his heritage had stemmed from some glittering title of the ancien régime. There were a number of roguish and sidelong glances as they spoke of his great height and impressive physique. Reine was forced to smile and laugh but could not be quite as easy with such frankness.

“You must insist that he give up the Brotherhood,” Caid O’Neill’s Lisette said. “He will cling to it as an oath of honor, but you will have no peace otherwise. To watch and worry while he goes out at night to fight duels in the dark—no, no, it’s not to be borne.”

“Have I the right to ask that of him?” Reine inquired with a small frown between her brows. “It’s his life, after all.”

“But not his alone any longer. The life the two of you will make together is more important. A husband’s allegiance must change when he takes a wife. His responsibility to her and to their children should take precedence over the Brotherhood and its purposes. Christien would be the first to agree that nothing matters quite so much.”

Would he indeed? Reine was not so sure. “Is it usual for these sword masters to give up the Brotherhood when they marry?”

“But of course. Others will carry it forward, you may be sure, those who have no families or responsibilities. They must become the vanguard.”

“I wish I knew exactly where Christien goes and what he does,” she said, almost to herself.

“We have all felt that urge, I think,” Lisette said.

“Indeed,” soft-spoken Juliette agreed. “And I expect he will tell you in time if you truly care, truly want to know.”

“You seem so sure, while I’m not sure at all.”

“Oh,
chère.
When Nicholas and I first met and agreed to marry, we were strangers as surely as you and Christien,” Juliette said with a smile. “I thought the Holy Mother had sent him in answer to my prayer to save my family, and who is to say she did not? But there were secrets between us. He thought me the most innocent of novices since I had been promised to the church. I was certain he was Casanova personified for
that was his reputation. Once, at Tivoli Garden, I almost gave myself to him while in disguise, thinking he did not know who I was. But he knew all along, as he confessed afterward, a misunderstanding that gave me many unhappy hours. I thought he was attracted to some loose woman, you see, when he was never in doubt about who he held in his arms. The point I would make is that you must trust each other and speak what is in your heart. Don’t let secrets come between you.”

It seemed good advice. The trouble was finding the courage to implement it.

Yes, and the time, as well.

The day that had seemed so long suddenly picked up speed, rushing toward evening. Before Reine knew it, her mother appeared at her side, saying it was time for her to bathe and dress.

The wedding was finally at hand.