Creole Hearts (19 page)

He wiped his eyes, knowing he had done what was best for the boys. There was no way to educate them in New Orleans and, besides, here in France their color wouldn't matter. If they chose to stay as adults they'd be accepted as equals, he knew. In Louisiana they'd always be black.

Why hadn't Francois stayed in France? He could have made a name for himself as a fencing master in Paris. Fencing masters were highly respected—what had driven him back to New Orleans and the humility of being an unrecognized La Branche? Guy shook his head. He'd never know.

Once Guy placed Madelaine with the Sisters of the Blessed Miracle, he felt somewhat at a loss. Madeline's time was several months away, but he couldn't bear to have her travel with him any longer, her silence accusing him. He certainly didn't want to sit around idly in the country, waiting for her to deliver the child.

It wasn't as though she'd miss him if he didn't stay, for she seemed content with the nuns and barely acknowledged his daily visits. He felt out of place when he went to see her in the convent, a man in the midst of a community of women. In the end he left Estelle with Madelaine and departed for Paris.

"I plan to visit the
marquis
de Lafayette," he told Madelaine, "and invite him to come to Louisiana. Ah, how honored we'd be." She nodded vaguely.

"I'll come back in a month. The Sisters will take good care of you, and you'll have Estelle." It occurred to him his assurances to his sister were much the same as those he'd given the boys.

"All right," she said.

He took her hands. "Madelaine, look at me." She focused her eyes on his face, but he had the feeling she wasn't really seeing him.

As the baby grew within her it seemed to Guy that her face became thinner. With her pale skin, dark hair and air of otherworldliness, she resembled Italian paintings of the Madonna. He felt a pang, a threat of loss.

Some women died giving birth.

He caught her to him, embracing her. She submitted, not returning his kiss but not resisting. The child inside her, though, twisted so violently that he felt its kick.

Guy remembered Paris from his student days. Wonderful, glittering Paris. He decided to journey there first and then plan his visit to the
marquis.
Andre Lafreniere had a cousin who lived in. the city, and had exhorted Guy to call on him. "He's married, has a family. I haven't seen him in years—ten years, anyway. Tell him to come to New Orleans, to bring them all. I've not the stomach for the ocean, never did have."

The Georges Lafrenieres insisted that Guy stay with them in their elegant mansion on one of the islands in the Seine, the Ile St. Louis, in the center of Paris. He was just in time, they told him, to attend the masked ball scheduled for the following night.

With little time to plan his costume, Guy decided to dress as a Baratarian privateer, with a red sash about his waist and a black patch over one eye such as Pierre Lafitte wore. Since no one knew him but his host and hostess, the patch would be mask enough.

The Creole women were lovely, but the flair of the Parisiennes was not to be found in all of Louisiana. With an effort Guy kept himself from staring at the glittering costumes, the lavish display of jewelry, the elegant women. He wasn't an ignorant
Kaintock
, after all.

Madame Lafreniere introduced him to no one, for the object of a masquerade was anonymity. Guy singled out a ravishing white robed angel, her wings and mask gleaming with brilliants, but before he'd crossed the floor to ask her to dance, a woman dressed as a French peasant girl caught his eye.

She wore a square necked blouse cut so low that her breasts all but tumbled from the embroidered muslin. He found himself remembering Roxanne St. Luz, for never until this moment had he seen breasts to surpass hers.

He swaggered up to her, imitating a seaman's rolling walk. "
Mademoiselle
," he said. "I have captured you and you're my prize. Shall we dance?"

She eyed him from behind her white velvet mask. He thought her eyes were green but he couldn't be certain. Her lips were painted, and she wore a black beauty mark on her cheek.

"Ah,
capitaine
, dare I trust myself to a wicked pirate?" Her voice mocked him.

"I fear you have no choice," he said.

"A woman always has a choice, even peasant maids. I refuse to dance. You may take me onto the balcony while I decide whether or not I shall ever dance with you."

Excitement raced through Guy. Not mere desire but the thrill of the hunt. This was no quadroon to be bought by a display of wealth. Here was a woman who challenged him to conquer her.

Chapter
19

On the way to the balcony, Guy, the pirate, and the beautiful peasant maiden found their path blocked by a Roman soldier, a centurion complete with shield and spear. Without a word he reached for Guy's companion who twisted smoothly away, flashed a mocking smile and slipped in among the crowd, eluding both men.

"Ah, that Fabrienne," the centurion said. "Always a tease." He plunged into the dancers after her.

Guy, seeing the angel he'd admired earlier on the arm of a harlequin, shrugged and went on to the balcony. He opened the glass door and stepped out. The night breeze carried a chill promise of the winter to come. He was the only masquerader to brave the November night.

The balcony, on the second floor of the Lafreniere Ile St. Louis townhouse, overlooked the Seine, and Guy could see the towers of the Conciergerie grim against the sky. Once a king's palace, the massive building was now the house of justice and had been the prison where Queen Marie Antoinette languished with other aristocrats until the guillotine ended their suffering. He grimaced.

He'd been in France during the revolution. Although he and the other Creole boys from Louisiana hadn't been threatened, some of the French born students at his school were taken away by armed citoyens. To their deaths? The abbe had sent the Creoles home to Louisiana as soon as he could get them aboard a ship, and Guy had never found out what had happened to those French classmates.

His melancolie, momentarily banished by the glittering masquerade, returned. The lights of Paris glimmered from the right bank of the Seine, and the lights of the buildings on He St. Louis reflected in the dark water of the river, but nothing lightened his spirit.

True, Louis XVIII once again ruled France jointly with the Chamber of Deputies, but the fate of Napoleon, exiled to St. Helena, made a man wish the great emperor had died a hero's death in battle.

"I thought pirates performed daring deeds," a woman's voice behind him said. "I thought they were ruthless and demanding."

Guy whirled. The woman in peasant costume, Fabrienne, stood on the balcony.

He wanted her. Guy saw the intricate dance of courtship stretch out before him—the pretended withdrawals, the coy advances, all the artifices of coquettery—and realized he didn't care to tread those measures.

Reaching for Fabrienne, he swept her into a close embrace and kissed her with all the pent up passion and loneliness he'd kept stored these last four months.

She met his passion, but drew back before he was ready to let her go.

"Are you married?" he demanded before she could speak.

She blinked at him. "I'm a widow," she said.

"Then you're free to marry me."

Fabrienne's amazement dissolved into laughter. "
Monsieur Boucanior
, I don't even know your name."

"It doesn't matter. I've chosen you. Will you marry me?"

"Your speech is so strange—are you perhaps the American guest?"

"I'm a Creole," he said impatiently. "Tanguy La Branche from New Orleans. Now you know my name, but you still haven't answered my question."

"Ah, you chose the proper costume after all. You're indeed impetuous. How can I give you an answer so quick—
pouf
!" She tilted her head and looked at him. "Cannot we see one another a few times before you force me to make a choice?" She smiled and he saw a dimple in her cheek below the mask. "I might not want to marry a man with one eye. Or do you, perchance, have two?"

Guy lifted the eye patch. "I assure you everything is intact," he said.

He put out a hand to her mask and her smile faded as she stepped beyond his reach.

"No. You've already accepted me, mask, and all. Or have you?"

"Yes."

Fabrienne sighed and turned as if to go inside. He caught her hand.

"Your last name so I may call on you tomorrow."

"Madame Cordeaux," she said. "I'm visiting friends, the Vinaches." She gazed at him, the darkness and her mask making it impossible for him to guess her thoughts. "Be careful, American, for I may agree to your impulsive offer and you may regret making it." She took her hand from his, stepped to the door and slipped inside.

The next day, Guy found the Vinache townhouse. He caught his breath when Fabrienne Cordeaux came into the parlor where he awaited her. He'd thought it was possible that last night's mask concealed some slight blemish, but her beautiful face was unmarked. Her grey-green eyes gazed assessingly at him.

"Will you go with me to Notre Dame Cathedral?" he asked. "I recall the cathedral from my days here as a schoolboy, and I wanted to see if the rose windows in the ceilings are as magnificent as I remember."

"They awe me," Fabrienne told him. "I'd enjoy visiting Notre Dame with you, and seeing the rose windows again."

When they stood in the cathedral beneath the intricately cut stained glass—arranged like the petals of a flower, with the center showing the Virgin holding her Holy Babe—Guy agreed with Fabrienne's word.

Awe, mixed with pride that humans could fashion such a tribute to God. Fiery light blazed down from the flower windows as though God showered the nave with His special holiness.

But the rose windows also reminded him of Madelaine, and, as they left the church, he couldn't stop thinking of her, waiting at the convent to deliver her child. What would become of his poor sister?

"Have you come to Paris for a visit or do you intend to remain?" Fabrienne asked.

"I came to France to put my sons in school."

"Ah, then you're a widower."

He nodded. After they were married he'd explain New Orleans customs so she'd understand about Denis and Anton. As for Madelaine—she'd be explained later, too. He needed every moment to woo this fascinating woman.

Guy found Fabrienne as desirable in more conventional clothes as she'd been in peasant costume. He thought her eyes were almost the color of a Louisiana cypress.

"What is New Orleans like? Is it much like Paris?" she asked.

"Nothing is like Paris. But I prefer New Orleans, my heart is there. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else—not even in
la belle
France." He smiled at her. "You'd be surprised how sophisticated we Louisianans are, though we seem backwoods
cousines
to a Parisienne"

"I, myself, am from the country," she said.

In the days that followed, he saw Fabrienne as often as she'd consent to be with him. He told her of New Orleans, of the ruined La Belle, and of the mansion he was building on Lake Ponchartrain.

"All will be new, you'll help me choose the furnishings, it will be your home in truth," he said as they stood in the parlor of the Venache townhouse.

She raised up on her toes and kissed him, a quick delicate brush of her lips as soft as the touch of a moth's wing.

"You tempt me very much,
mon ami
," she said. "But you don't ask me what my life has been."

"It makes little difference."

She shook her head. "One should know such things. Do you understand I'm very poor? You say you need money, but you are very wealthy compared to me. I'll bring no dot, no marriage portion, to you."

"How many times must I tell you that it makes no difference? I've chosen you, as you are, for my wife."

She glanced quickly about, then up at him through her lashes. "My friends are in the country," she said softly. "The servants will know, of course, one can keep nothing from them, but it doesn't matter."

He stared at her, not quite certain of what she meant Only when she took his hand to lead him from the room toward the staircase did his pulses leap in delighted anticipation.

Fabrienne's lovemaking was unashamed without being bold. She guided him without seeming to, heightened his pleasure with her hands, with her mouth, satisfying him completely while making him eager for more. What a wonderful wife she'd make.

"You're a marvelous lover," she told him as they lay side by side on her bed afterwards.

He smiled lovingly at her. "Is that what you had to find out before you agreed to marry me?"

Instead of answering she took his hand and held it to her cheek.

"Is it yes?" he demanded. 'Tell me, my beautiful, my love."

"First, tell me about your sons. How old are they?”"I have a confession to make." He rose on one elbow, easing his hand from hers. "Denis and Anton are what we in New Orleans call Creoles of color."

"I don't understand."

"Their mothers were quadroons. Although I'm a widower, I have no legitimate heirs. Even though both boys bear my name, they can't inherit my property.”

"Your wife—were you married to ... ?"

"My wife was Spanish. No Creole marries a quadroon."

"Then you—you'd want children. Sons."

"Sons, daughters, yes, as many as possible." He saw her face change as he spoke, tighten. Her eyes shifted from his.

"No," she said.

"What do you mean?" A chill foreboding touched his heart.

"I can't marry you. I can never give you children. Not ever."

"But that's incredible." He sat up. "You're young, strong, healthy--"

"I had a child by my first husband." She gazed at the ceiling as she spoke. "Something went wrong while the baby grew, and he was so badly deformed that neither the midwife nor the doctor she called could get the baby out. He—the doctor—realized the child was dead and so

he . . ."

Her voice broke but she swallowed and went on, "He cut the baby in pieces and pulled him out a piece at a time. In doing so he damaged the place inside me where another child might grow. I almost died. Perhaps I should have."

She turned, her head and stared at Guy. "I appear strong and healthy but inside, where it doesn't show, I'm deformed. The doctor told me no baby would ever be able to grow within me again. My husband wasn't a young man and I fear the shock of all this helped to kill him."

Guy wanted to tell her it didn't matter, that he loved her, but the words stayed locked inside him. After a moment she turned her back to him. He got up, hating himself, dressed and left her bedroom, left the house. A late November wind swept icy rain along the city streets but, unheeding, he walked the two miles back to the Ile St. Louis.

The next day Guy thanked the Lafrenieres, inviting them to visit him in New Orleans, and left the city. He traveled to the
marquis
de Lafayette's estate, La Grange, some thirty miles northeast of Paris.

The
marquis
limped badly, Guy saw, and looked old, though he couldn't be quite sixty. He greeted Guy with enthusiasm.

"American visitors are always welcome at La Grange," Lafayette told him.

"I came to invite you to visit the country you helped create," Guy said. "We Creoles of New Orleans would be honored to have you as our guest."

"Journey to America?" The
marquis
sighed. "Ah, that would be a pleasure—but my pleasure must wait until France is herself again. The King, the Chambers—everyone is nervous these days. As long as Napoleon lives I fear there'll be endless schemes to free him from St. Helena.

"If I can—yes, I'll come, and I promise to visit Louisiana. New Orleans. But tell me, Guy, can you not stay at my chateau for a few days more? Your talk of the United States has stimulated me, made me feel young again.”

"If only I could," Guy said with regret. "It's a great honor to have seen you,
marquis
, but I must be going."

He left the chateau and rode hard for Paris. It wasn't too late, why had he been such a fool? All his life he'd wanted a woman like Fabrienne, and he'd let her pitiful story dissuade him. Wasn't Madelaine about to bear a child? Her son would be the heir. He would arrange to adopt him, and could claim that the boy was a French
cousine
.

He wanted Fabrienne, he needed her. With her at his side, the great plantation he was building on the lake would take on meaning, truly become a home. Their home, his and Fabrienne's.

When he arrived at the Venache townhouse he was taken aback to find her gone. But didn't Fabrienne tell you?" Auguste Venache asked. "She was visiting us to take time to decide whether she should agree to a marriage with a man who was a friend of her first husband's—one of the wine Fronchots, I believe. An excellent match for Fabrienne, though he's twice her age."

"Where is she now?"

"The wedding was yesterday, and she has left for the country with her husband."

"It won't be much longer, Madelaine," Sister Nativite said, "if you do as I tell you. Push down. Now—as hard as you can."

Madelaine gasped with effort, the pain so intense she thought she would surely die.

"Push," Sister said.

Madelaine screamed as the most violent pain of all took hold of her, lasting and lasting, making her feel she was being wrenched apart. She pushed, not because she was told to, but because she could do nothing else.