Masquerade (26 page)

" 'Killed.'" Pepe Llulla laughed easily, lightly. "You Americans and your notion that every duel must mean the death of one. Honor is satisfied with the mere drawing of blood; a scratch on the cheek or the hand is enough. I myself have been in numerous duels, and regardless of the stories you may have heard to the contrary, the occasions when I have inflicted a fatal wound were few. Most are still walking around, sporting the scars from their encounter with me." He came over to Brodie and clamped a friendly hand on his shoulder, smiling broadly. "Accept Monsieur Jardin's challenge. Meet him on the field of honor. Shoot to wound and pray to Le Bon Seigneur that his bullet does not strike a vital organ. Then allow the beautiful mademoiselle to nurse you back to health, let her be angry with you for dueling, let her fuss at you and love you all the more."

Brodie hesitated, then slowly smiled. "I knew there was a way."

"It is not without risk,
mon ami,"
Pepe reminded him.

"But it's a risk worth taking."

"Have you chosen your second?"

"My brother Sean, I guess. I would ask you, Pepe, but I'd rather not draw you into the middle of this."

"Perhaps that is wise," he conceded indifferently. "Have you considered the time, the place, the weapons, the distance?"

Brodie gave him a dry look. "Pepe, I've been spending the last hour trying to figure how to get out of this duel, not how to carry it out."

"May I suggest you arrange to meet him late this afternoon—at four or five o'clock? It is never wise to allow yourself too much time to think about what is to come."

"If you say so." The haste suited him. But his own thought was that he wanted this duel over with before Adrienne could find out about it. It was her nerves he wished to spare, more than his own.

"The oak grove on the Allard plantation is the common choice of sites. Everyone knows it. You may as well meet him
sous les chênes "
The Spanish master began slowly to pace the room, thinking, planning, deciding on details. "As for weapons, I have a fine pair of Navy revolvers. Have you handled one before?"

"Yes." Brodie nodded, remembering his river days. Only a fool traveled the Mississippi on a flatboat unarmed.

"You may have the use of mine, then. I suggest you set the distance at thirty paces." He allowed a brief smile to show. "After all, it is not your desire to kill your opponent,
oui?"

 

 

 

 

18

 

 

The afternoon's warmth lingered over the courtyard, ignoring the long shadows of twilight that stretched across it. Adrienne betrayed none of her inner agitation as she wandered along the bricked walk. Pausing, she pretended to admire the perfection of a red rose while mentally she screened out the musical fall of the fountain's water and listened intently to the muted sounds coming from the street beyond the thick walls that enclosed the courtyard.

Where was Dominique? Already lights gleamed inside the house. If he didn't return soon, she would have no opportunity to speak to him privately before it was time to dress for the evening meal. Then what would she do? Postpone it until tomorrow? She doubted her nerves could stand it; already they felt brittle from the strain.

Again she resumed her apparently idle stroll along the parterre. Then came the groan of the tall wooden carriage gates swinging open, and the noise from the street grew louder. Adrienne turned to face the courtyard's scrolled gates, tense, expectant. She heard the clop and clatter of a horse and carriage in the flagstoned
porte cochère
and almost turned away, realizing that it couldn't be Dominique returning; he'd left on horseback, not in the family carriage. But who would be coming to call so late in the day?

A black groom hurried from the stables to hold the horse's head when the open carriage stopped before the flight of stairs. Drawn forward, Adrienne saw a short, slightly pudgy man alight from the carriage. She recognized Victor Dumonte, a contemporary of Dominique's and one of his closest friends. How oddly disheveled he looked, she thought, his cravat all askew, the front of his shirt stained. As he turned back to the carriage, he saw her and froze.

"Victor." She went to greet him and welcome him to the house, manners permitting her no other choice. Leaving the private patio, she passed through its wrought-iron gates and approached the carriage. "It is good to see you. But if you have come to speak with Dominique, he is not here. He left early this morning and has yet to return."

"I know." He took a quick step toward her and stopped again. Adrienne was struck by how unusually pale he looked, with no pink-cheeked glow to his face. He took her hands and she felt the clamminess of his skin, the sensation eliminating any further doubt that he was ill. Even his eyes had a sick look to them. "I—" Victor started to say something more, then stopped and looked back at a second man now stepping down from the carriage.

"Dr. Charron." Adrienne glanced at the gray-goated man in surprise. His tall beaver hat sat firmly on his head, and a pair of spectacles rode the high break of his nose. He carried a walking cane but not his black medical bag. Adrienne saw it sitting on the carriage seat. "This is unexpected. I—"

The doctor wasted not a breath on a greeting, his expression stern, his manner grim. "Where is your grand-pére?"

"He is inside," she began, then frowned in bewilderment when he brushed past her without a word and hurried up the stairs. She turned back to her brother's friend, feeling the first glimmer of apprehension. "What is it? What is wrong, Victor?"

He looked down at her hands, his grip tightening on them. "There was a duel, Adrienne," he said in a low, choked voice.

She stared at the sickly pallor of his face, suddenly remembering how many times Dominique had called on Victor to act as his second—and how frequently Dr. Charron had served as the attending physician. "Dominique?"

When he lifted his head, there were tears in his eyes. "He was shot, Adrienne."

She made a small sound of protest, her eyes racing to the carriage as the driver and the family's Negro groom gently carried her brother's motionless form from it. For an instant she stared at Dominique's face, noticing how very white it looked against the black of his hair—the moment filled with a strange unreality.

She shook it off. "We must get him inside at once. The doctor will need his bag—"

"Non."
He checked her attempt to pull away. "Adrienne, he is dead."

"Non,
it is not true!" She glared at him, furious that he had dared to make such a claim.
 

"I swear it is."

Ignoring his earnest plea, she twisted free of his hands. "I do not believe you. It cannot be." She moved immediately to her brother's side, his still body cradled in the arms of the liveried black driver and the old groom. She saw no wound of any kind—the front of his linen shirt showed not a trace of blood. But when she laid a hand against his smooth cheek, she was shaken by the coolness of his skin. "It is a mistake. It must be!" She leaned over him, sliding her hand around his middle—and stopping abruptly when she felt something damp and sticky.

A pair of hands gripped the points of her shoulders. She didn't resist them when they pulled her back, away from Dominique. She looked at her own hand, seeing the dull red stickiness on her fingers and palm. It was blood, but it wasn't warm, it wasn't bright—it wasn't . . . life.

From somewhere behind her came a moan of pain that sounded more animal than human. Turning, Adrienne saw her grandfather on the stairs, leaning heavily on the wooden rail. He seemed to become an old man before her eyes, his proud shoulders bowing, his stiff back hunching, his face turning as ashen as his gray hair as he stared at the body of his grandson.

Slowly, as if each step required all the strength he possessed, he came the rest of the way down the stairs and halted in front of the body. With eyes as dead as the man before him, he looked at the doctor.

"Who did this?"

“A
Yanqui.”

Adrienne stiffened.

"Who?" her grandfather persisted.

"Brodie Donovan."

"Non"
she whispered in protest.

Her grandfather lifted his head at the name. "He lives?"

The doctor nodded. "A shoulder wound. Nothing more."

Adrienne tried to be glad, but she was too numb. Over and over again she kept remembering the statement Dominique had made the night before in her room: "And you have left me no choice." She should have known what he meant by that. She should have remembered his inflexible code of honor. But never once had she considered what her brother's reaction might be to her activities. No, her whole attention had been concentrated on placing her grandfather in a position where he would be forced to accept Brodie.

"Dominique." A rasping sob broke from her grandfather as he said the name. Bending, he kissed a colorless cheek and murmured softly, brokenly, "Blood of my blood. My life."

She saw his shoulders shake with sobs more wretched for their silence. The first of her own rose in her throat.
Nom de Dieu,
what had she done?

"I don't understand," Remy said in confusion, pushing herself off the bed to pace the room. "If Brodie intended only to wound him, what went wrong? Was his own aim thrown off when he was shot?"

"No. It was one of those freak things nobody could have expected," Nattie replied. "Brodie's shot struck Dominique in the arm, but the bullet hit a bone and glanced off, entering his body and going right through his heart, killing him instantly."

"Then it was an accident, a horrible accident."
 

"It was that, all right."
 

"Surely Adrienne knew."
 

"Brodie told her."

"Then he saw her again." For some reason, Remy'd had the feeling that Dominique's death had meant the end of their affair.

"Briefly—at the St. Louis Cemetery, when her brother was laid to rest in the family tomb. . . ."

 

The sky was blue and cloudless, the sun warm and bright, its rays spilling between the leafy branches of the oaks and magnolias to cast their light on the whitewashed stucco of the cemetery's many "mansions" of the dead, built close together in a precise pattern that reminded Brodie of the houses standing shoulder to shoulder along the narrow streets of the Vieux Carré. Here too—in death as in life—many generations slept under the same roof.

Absently he adjusted the black sling that held his left shoulder immobile, his eyes never leaving Adrienne's veiled face. The filmy black net shaded her features but didn't hide them. From this distance they appeared to have been carved out of white marble, so cool and blank did they look, not a tear falling to glisten on her cheek.

Not so her aunt. Her weeping hadn't slackened since they'd arrived at the cemetery. Now that it was time to leave, it grew worse. Brodie watched as both Adrienne and her grandfather helped the grieving spinster to her feet. Emil Jardin himself bore little resemblance to the autocratic patriarch Brodie had faced a little more than a month ago; his eyes were dull and haunted, his firm stride reduced to a shuffling gait.

He stared at the three of them for a moment, huddled together in their black mourning dress yet unable to draw comfort from each other. Then Emil Jardin signaled to Adrienne that her assistance was no longer necessary. She stepped back, letting him lead her aunt away from the mausoleum. She started to follow, then hesitated and looked back, tilting her head to gaze at the family name, JARDIN, carved above the temple's bronze door, ornamented with laurel leaves and seraphim. She was frozen there for a timeless second. With an effort, it seemed, she dragged her glance away and trailed after her grandfather and aunt, staying a few paces behind and letting her grandfather deal with the mourners who had lingered to offer their condolences in person.

It was the chance Brodie'd been waiting for. He'd come hoping he'd be able to speak to her, even though he knew there was nothing he could say that would enable her to forget what he'd done. But he needed to talk to her—he needed to tell her how much he regretted it, he needed to say the words for his own sake.

He glanced at her grandfather's gray and tear-wet face as he passed by, then stepped out from between two temple-shaped tombs to intercept Adrienne when she approached. She faltered for an instant, then stopped.

"I had to come," he said. "I swear it wasn't deliberate on my part." In his mind's eye he saw again the grove of old oak trees dripping with gray moss, that moment when he'd brought the barrel of his revolver to bear on Dominique's long, lean shape thirty yards away, sighting on his arm and squeezing the trigger, that instant of relief he'd felt when he'd seen Dominique's arm jerk even as a bullet slammed into his own shoulder, the force half turning him so he never even saw Dominique crumple to the ground, the glimpse of everyone running to the limp form lying on the spring-green grass, the shock of hearing someone cry out, "He's dead!" and his own disbelieving protests insisting that his shot had been true, that Dominique had been wounded in the arm, without knowing the bullet had ricocheted off a bone and into his heart. "I'm sorry," he finished tightly.

"We each have our cause of deep regret." Just for an instant she let her own intense pain show. "My brother is dead. My family is dead. Everything is dead."

As she walked away, Brodie knew exactly what she meant. He felt dead inside knowing he'd never see her again. The steady beat of his heart was a lie.

 

"Of course, Adrienne didn't know how wrong she was," Nattie declared from her perch on the arm of the bedroom's overstuffed chair. "Not then."

" 'Wrong?' What do you mean?"

"I mean she was pregnant, but she didn't realize it until a couple weeks after the funeral."

Remy sat down on the loveseat, all the pieces starting to fit together. "And even though she was pregnant with Brodie Donovan's child, her grandfather refused to let her marry the man who had killed her brother. And that child is the reason Cole said our name should be Donovan instead of Jardin."