With One Look (2 page)

tradition too, seemed at once archaic and disgraceful, a practice he had no doubt would end with the Americanization of this city....

Madame Marguerite Chappell noticed Victor's fleeting attention and she sighed, reaching a gloved hand to his thigh. He turned to his lady, smiling as if caught by surprise. He took hold of her hand and absently, distractedly, he gently massaged her fingers as his gaze returned below.

Maggie accepted his caress, but saw that she had lost his attention. That was the problem. In the semidarkness of the theater, the handsome features of Victor's face took on an ominous air, like the ghostly lover of her imagination. He stood half a foot taller than most men, and a lifetime spent working the docks, the lumber mills and ships had made him that much stronger as well. She reached her free hand to caress a lick of Victor's copper-colored hair curling about his ear. His profile appeared striking and handsome; his face was long, his skin sunwashed. He had a prominent nose, one speaking of strength and character—two things he had in abundance—while his formidable intelligence showed in his widely spaced, dark blue eyes. He possessed an air of authority and confidence, a bold, undaunted straightforward character, qualities that attracted legions of women. Add to that his wealth—he owned the largest shipbuilding company south of Boston. The only things more plentiful than the ships his company built were the privateers buying them. The result was, as Doc Murray said, "The women practically line up outside his bedroom door."

With a sad and wistful look in her eyes, Maggie turned away, trying to concentrate on the performance, but soon gave up the pretense. Despite Victor's explicit warnings to the contrary, she had so hoped that following him down here from Philadelphia would result in a marriage proposal. She knew now it would not.

She would be leaving at week's end to return to her fair city. A good life waited for her: she had her late husband's fortune to spend, after all; her beauty still; and an established place in the upper echelon of society, a place that she loved and enjoyed. She didn't regret a moment of her liaison with Victor; her only worry was that all future lovers would compare unfavorably.

A new usher moved swiftly down the aisle. He approached the standing usher. Words were exchanged. A finger pointed to the very young lady Victor had been staring at. The usher hurried to her side. Leaning over her gentleman friend, he imparted an apparently urgent message.

Alarm lifted on the pretty features of her face. She passed quick words with the man at her side, apparently urging him to remain seated. The usher took her elbow as she rose and escorted her

down the aisle. A friend's hand reached out from one of the boxes as she passed. There came a brief exchange before she and the usher continued out the door.

Victor abruptly decided he could use some fresh air as well—what little one could find of this precious commodity in New Orleans due to the damnable lack of modern sewers. Disengaging Maggie's hand, he rose, and leaned over to whisper to his friend Sebastian that he would be back shortly.

Sebastian hardly stirred, enthralled as he was by the performance. His fine blue eyes, framed by locks of thick blond curls, danced merrily as he watched the stage below. The handsome Austrian-born lord spoke French as easily as he did English and German, and was devoted to opera. Victor sighed as he left, wondering how Sebastian could be one of the best and most vicious swordsmen on the continent and yet have a passion for the soft sentiments of a small city's opera and the latest foppish clothes....

A gentle breeze blew from the river and the air felt mercifully cooler as Victor opened the doors and stepped outside. Only to confront the amusing scene. Speaking in rapid French, the young usher pointed to a place several safe yards away where two dogs were copulating.

Suppressing the sound of his amusement, Victor stood, feet apart, hands on hips, watching the young lady's distress increase as the young man explained it would be dangerous, if not impossible, to separate the creatures now.

Hands flew to her cheeks in dismay. "Ham! Oh, Hamlet! Oh, please!" Her pleas received no attention from the dog, and with dejection and a string of impressive French curses, the young lady sank down on the garden settee in a perfect circle of crumpling white muslin.

Victor withdrew a half dollar and handed it to the usher, his request obvious. The young man looked at the shiny coin, then at Monsieur Nolte. He, like many New Orleans residents, had been made familiar with many of the rumors surrounding the new American.

Monsieur Nolte was said to be a war hero. Those stories were surely exaggerated, though his fighting ability was heralded from Kentucky down to the mouth of the Mississippi. Rumor claimed Nolte had lost only two of his cargo boats to the river pirates, but that was enough. It was said that Nolte and a group of well-chosen men—including the unlikely personage of an Austrian lord, a man reputed to be the best swordsman on the continent—had cleared a two-hundred-mile area of troublesome water thieves, so that now word had it that all saboteurs gave free passage not just to Nolte's own ships but to any ship built by his company. This naturally brought considerable

business his way, while winning the appreciation and favor of everyone from the governor to the merchants and longshoremen.

Someone had told him Monsieur Nolte was the blood son of Father Nolte, the American priest. They had said that Father Nolte had been married, a theologian at the College of William and Mary, and that after his wife died Father Nolte had taken the vows of priesthood. True, the two men looked very similar, he saw ...

Victor's brow rose as he noticed the young man's scrutiny. The boy abruptly straightened, and thinking Mademoiselle Devon could not be safer with a constable, he nodded and left.

"So which is yours, the bitch or the male?" The question was asked as one booted foot lifted onto the bench and he leaned over.

With surprise, Jade Terese turned to the voice above her. In the moment he met her eyes, a tingling alarm raced down his spine. They were quite simply the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen: finely shaped, large and translucent, thickly fringed with coal-black lashes and colored the most extraordinary dark green. Perhaps he only imagined the mysterious depth there, for it disappeared as she turned back to the dogs and gestured. "I am afraid 'tis the male, Monsieur.

Hamlet." She sighed prettily. "I suppose you can grasp my sorry predicament." With a sympathetic smile, Victor confessed, "I have seen worse, Madame."

"Mademoiselle Devon," she supplied, utterly unselfconsciously. "Of course you are right. Though I have been through this before. A mating takes so long," she informed him in the event he was ignorant of the actual mechanics. "I shall be missing my creature's companionship for at least an hour."

Amusement sparkled in his eyes as he listened to the musical lilt of her voice, the clear French and English inflections, and so perfectly fitting, as beautiful as she was. The elegance and pronunciation of her speech came as a surprise, for she was obviously well educated. The suggestive hint of her words seemed incongruent with the innocence of her manner. As he stared, he caught the faintest trace of her perfume. Lilac water.

"The worst of it," she told him, her tone going cross, "is that new policy Mayor Etienne de Bore has recently adopted to rid the streets of stray dogs and cats. Have you heard of this hateful practice?"

"I can't say that I have."

"The constable's men set poison out for the helpless animals. Poison! Once every two months. So if puppies result from Hamlet's reproductive, ah, enthusiasm, I'm afraid they will live only to face the most pitiful end."

She recalled just this very morning as she and Maydrian, her servant, had been shopping at the market, she had chanced to meet Monsieur de Bore's beautiful wife, Lucretia Josset, the grand and sensational director of New Orleans's most prominent Creole social circle and a woman reputed to have tremendous influence in shaping her husband's career and policies. Like so many of New Orleans's residents who knew about the Devon family tragedy and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the young woman's life, Madame had always condescended to show an interest in Jade Terese. After they had exchanged initial greetings, Jade had politely asked if Madame might attempt to reverse her husband's heartless decision. Lucretia assured Jade that she had shared the very same sympathies and that she had already attempted to do so. Sadly, the mayor appeared quite resolute on the matter. Stray dogs were a growing menace....

Jade shook her head again. "Just last month Maydrian, my servant, and I managed to catch four of the poor creatures before the night of the poisoning. It cost me three dollars in bribes to convince a raucous group of flatbed men to take the dogs upstream to safety! Three dollars!"

He chuckled. "An outrageous sum!"

Jade Terese quite agreed. She still could not get over the iniquity. "Of course,"—her eyes narrowed contemptuously—"I told them it would be wrong to spend such a sum on creatures when so many people suffered wants. I even offered to donate the money to the Negro infirmary in their names—"

His voice was rich with suppressed laughter as he said, "I wager that received a quick response."

"Indeed!" The girl's brows went cross again. "The man laughed at the idea! He said, 'Miz, you might be an eyeball of delight, but even you ain't pretty 'nough to make me pass coins on to a passel of dyin' colored folks. Ah'm afeared my charity begins and ends in this here pocket.' "

Victor laughed out loud at this imitation of a Kentuckian's speech, watching as she reached a hand up, delicately brushing back a loose strand of hair, a gesture somehow so feminine as to make him want to do it for her.

Wondering at his response, he looked past the small grove of trees and spotted the two men watching them from across the road. No doubt someone's drivers waiting for the theater patrons to

appear after the opera. A howl drew his attention. He glanced at the dogs behind the three sprawling oaks and commented wryly, "I'm afraid, Mademoiselle, it appears as if you are in for a long wait now."

She looked for a moment confused, then she seemed to make a study of her hands and

reticule.

"Perhaps you should return to the theater to enjoy the play while your creature is so

engaged?"

Jade considered the measure, but she shook her head. "This is the third time I've seen the opera this week—" She laughed. "I believe I could sing it myself!" She tilted her head; her gaze swept the surrounding area. "The breeze feels wonderful here."

"Shall I send the usher to fetch your gentlemen?"

"No, please. I'd rather sit alone. Besides, Monsieur Deubler has not yet seen this opera." She paused, abruptly realizing she might be keeping the gentleman. "Please, Monsieur, do not let me keep you from the theater—"

"Quite the contrary." He smiled. "You have provided me with the perfect excuse to escape that place."

"Oh? You did not like it?"

“I'm afraid my French is inadequate to the task." She turned to him again. "You are an American?"

He stared openly. Those eyes, those beautiful eyes. There was something about them, some inexplicable depth or enigma there. "Yes," he answered in the moment. "Now don't tell me you hold that unfounded prejudice against Americans?"

Jade Terese laughed at this. "Oh, no," she assured him. "I rather admire you Americans, all your industriousness and smart business methods. Why, I have expected to wake one morning and find proper sewers, lanterns, street signs, new ferries and faster postings." She did not see his smile at this prediction of the American character's effect on her French city. "Did you take one of the land grants?"

"Yes." He nodded. "Though that was three years ago. I've been away and have only recently returned."

"The war?"

"Yes."

The audience's applause sounded in the distance, stopping for a moment the pleasant hum of crickets. The deep rich timbre of his voice sounded so gentle and kind and somehow wise. She felt a heightened interest and curious self-consciousness. "So?" she pursued casually, fanning her face. "Shall you now build a plantation on your property and make your fortune?"

"I think not," he said with a wry grin, the idea amusing, for he was not the kind of man who could leave his fate, or his wealth, in the capricious hands of nature. "I'm afraid I would make a very poor farmer."

The truth was, his presence in New Orleans owed itself to the persistence of Governor Claighborne and his very own father. Since Louisiana had just been brought into the union of states, his father, an American priest, had been appointed vicar general of New Orleans in an effort to assure the Catholic populace of Louisiana, and New Orleans in particular, that one of the most sacred tenets of the United States Constitution was freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Catholics would not be prosecuted, nor their religious practices in any way hindered by the predominantly Protestant government.

The next step in their ambitious program involved implementing American law and order in the city. This meant eliminating the well-entrenched thievery of so-called freebooters or pirates. Pirates like Jean and Pierre Laffite and Don Bernardo had a hand in every piece of merchandise sold in New Orleans. Three years ago, Claighborne, working with his father, held the lucrative land grant out to him as a lure, soon convincing him he would not be affected by the labor shortage in this region, that there would be enough white working men or free men of color to fill his requirements without forcing him to resort to slave labor. They had lied, of course, labor problems had become the bane of his existence, but they had done so in desperation. And desperate they were. They needed all the help they could get to rid New Orleans of its savage criminal element.

Victor hoped tonight would be a success....

She was waiting for him to say more. She felt his gaze upon her, his scrutiny intense. Her intuition was keen, her sensitivity more so; she could always decipher the complex language of people's feelings—this one's hurt and anger, that one's anxiety—the silent meaning that underlined verbal exchanges. Yet his interest and her response confused her. She felt a shiver of both danger and excitement.