Deceive Not My Heart Page 12

  Leonie stood up and shook out her faded blue gown. She took one last look around and then with an odd little wave of her hand, whispered, "Adieu, all of you who sleep here... perhaps one day I shall return."

  Without a backwards glance she left the graveyard and walked quickly down the oak-lined dirt road that led to the Chateau Saint-Andre. The oaks ended and the Chateau, like a once beautiful woman who has fallen upon hard times, rose up before her, the graceful lines still very apparent, yet also the signs of age and added wear. But Leonie would not see them today; today she wanted only to see the house as it must have looked when she was born, the pale blue paint glowing softly in the sun, the railings and slender colonnades glistening white against the blue background of the house, the lawns in front a neatly scythed green velvet, and the carriageway smooth and unrutted. She closed her eyes tightly, blocking out everything except the picture in her mind... and for one long minute she let that picture form and possess her. Then with a little shake, she opened her eyes and faced reality. Ah, bah! I am a sentimental fool to mourn an old, decrepit house! she scolded herself briskly and hurried on her way.

  She had barely reached the house when a small tornado came racing around the corner of the house, crying excitedly, "Maman, maman, come quickly, the cat had her bebes! Four of them, and I found them!"

  At the sight of Justin, the last vestige of her unhappy thoughts vanished, and an impish grin breaking across the bewitching features, she replied, "Bon! We will take them with us when we leave, oui?"

  Justin was a handsome little boy, even at five years of age showing signs that one day he would be a tall man. His unruly mop of hair was black as midnight, and already the sweet boy's face revealed the beginnings of a firm jawline and an alarmingly masculine nose and chin. It was, even now in childhood, a strong face, and Leonie often stared at it, wondering what his father had looked like. Had he been a handsome man? A tall man? She rather thought so—the Saint-Andre's had never been noted for their height, and while the Saint-Andres had been passably good-looking, none of them had ever had quite the handsomeness this child possessed. The chin and jawline, she decided reflectively, must have come from his father, for they did not resemble any of the Saint-Andre physical traits.

  Leonie never thought of Justin's conception. And yet occasionally, in spite of herself, she found herself wondering about the man who had fathered her child. What sort of man had he been? A kind man or a cruel one? As unscrupulous as Morgan Slade was? Or perhaps one who was gentle and concerned like old Monsieur Entienne de la Fontaine had been? She liked to think it would have been the latter, but she rather gloomily suspected the former. But if they had met under different circumstances and if he hadn't been an absolute monster, would she had been drawn to him? Perhaps he would have been attracted to her? She sighed wistfully. If only she hadn't gone to the governor's residence that fateful evening... mayhap they would have met socially and who knows—they might have fallen in love with each other, and then Justin would have a real father not one that existed only on a legal document.

  Suddenly aware of Justin staring up at her, she pushed aside her silly thoughts and smiled down at him. And staring into his much-loved features, she couldn't honestly say that she regretted any longer that night at the governor's residence. But she didn't like to think of it. She had buried that night so deeply in her mind that it was almost as if she had created Justin all by herself. He was her son and hers alone!

  Justin's impatient tug of her hand caused her smile to widen. How like her he was—always impatient, forever in motion! Laughing at him, hand in hand they both ran off towards the dilapidated stables to view mother cat and her newborn kittens.

  Seeing the two of them running together, Leonie's bare legs flashing in the sunlight, one might be forgiven for thinking them brother and sister; Leonie's tawny hair was streaming down her back in wild curls, and with her slender body and bare feet, she hardly looked her twenty-two years of age—she certainly didn't look like the mother of the sturdy little boy at her side. It was only upon closer viewing that one noticed that there was indeed a great deal of difference between this Leonie in 1805 and the Leonie of 1799.

  Five, almost six years ago Leonie had been a child, but she was a child no longer. It was true her body was still slim, but there were changes—the firm breasts were fuller and thrusted against the gown she wore; the hips were still slender but more rounded and womanly; it was unconscious, but there was a decidedly provocative sway to her walk; her face had changed the most, the sultry promise of sixteen fulfilled at twenty-two—all signs that this was no child. This was a woman.

  There was now cynical knowledge in those great sea-green eyes with the golden flecks, knowledge and mockery that danced in their depths, taunting and luring a man. The fine bones of the triangular-shaped face had matured, the jawline both firm and enchanting, the pointed little chin showing clearly the determination and stubbornness of which she was capable. The attractive hollows under the high cheekbones made the face more striking, the slanting green eyes seemed even more mysterious between their gold-tipped lashes, and the sweet curve of the lush coral lips were a blatant challenge that a man might find irresistible. Leonie would never be truly lovely, but hers was a face and a form that, once seen, a man did not easily forget. It was the face of a bewitching, untamed dryad, and to anyone looking into those mocking eyes, Maurice de la Fontaine's offer wouldn't be in the least surprising.

  At twenty-two she was a curious mixture of innocence and cynicism. She had known a man's passion once, she had borne a child, and yet, she had almost lived the life of a nun. Her dealings with men had not been pleasant—her grandfather had been a wastrel, she had been raped by an unknown man who had treated her like a whore, and her husband, forced upon her by her grandfather, had been certainly less than honorable. It was no wonder that when it came to men she was cynical and suspicious; even old Entienne de la Fontaine's kindness had been canceled out by his son's insulting proposition. And yet Leonie knew little of men. She had been raised away from men and their haunts and habits, and for all she had suffered at the hands of men, she might as well have lived behind the walls of a convent.

  Since Claude's death, Chateau Saint-Andre had been a household of women, the only men being the black ex-slaves Saul and Abraham; Justin, Abraham, and Mammy's child, Samuel were mere babies yet and didn't count as men. And through necessity, Leonie had been forced to be the leader of the family. She had to be the strong one, the wise one, the one who made the decisions. It was to her that Saul and Abraham came for their orders; it had been she who made all the hard choices that affected their lives, and she who ultimately had to provide a way of life for all of them.

  Leonie had freed the slaves when Claude had died and had steeled herself to watch them go, leaving her and Yvette to face the future by themselves. But while they had eagerly enough taken the papers that freed them, no one had seemed inclined to leave the Chateau Saint-Andre and life had gone on as it always had. As Mammy had said crisply, "What good it do us to go somewheres else? This is home!"

  Leonie had found the argument both heart-wrenching and irrefutable, and as she had been desperate for their help, she had not fought as strongly as she might have to persuade them differently. Even now, when they must leave Chateau Saint-Andre, Mammy and the rest were just as determined to go with her—they all belonged together. "It ain't fitting for you to go traipsing off by yourself," Mammy had informed Leonie indignantly, the big black eyes flashing with outrage. "Your grand-pere, he would skin us alive if he knew we was to let you do this foolish thing. We is family and family stays together!"

  And that, Leonie had thought with a tight throat full of tears, is that!

  Consequently, some three weeks later on a sunny day in May of 1805, Leonie, Justine, Yvette, Mammy, and the rest set out for Natchez, Mississippi in two old wagons pulled by four tired-looking brown mules. The cat and her kittens rested safely in a big basket of straw in the back of the wagon in which Justin
rode, and his absorption in them lessened the pang he might have felt at leaving his home and birthplace. Leonie did not look back; her face was set towards the north. Silently she vowed that Monsieur Morgan Slade was going to pay back her dowry as promised, or she was going to make his life so miserable that he would wish he had never laid eyes on her!

  * * *

  At that particular moment, on that particular morning, Morgan Slade was idly sipping coffee on the east veranda of Bonheur, wondering why he had come back. It never changes, he thought vaguely to himself... the fields grow and the crops ripen, papa grows a little grayer, maman a little plumper... and life goes on as it always has.

  It was a cynical thought, but then, Morgan had grown a great deal more derisive and jaded in the past years. He was a restless man, never content to stay long in any one place, and always his gaze was on the next horizon, wondering what excitement and danger might lie over the next ridge, the next mountain. And yet he couldn't deny that his birthplace called to him, and no matter where he had been, he found himself always returning, only to become bored and restless within an appallingly short period of time. And also as always, there was maman telling him tartly that if he had a wife and would settle down and start another family, he wouldn't find life quite so full of ennui. Thinking of her comments last night on that same subject, a sardonic grin slashed across the rakish features. Perhaps if maman didn't push quite so determinedly, I might find myself agreeing with her, he thought. Or perhaps I should simply go away and stay away....

  The first time that he had left on one of his restless searches for something even he couldn't name, there had been a furious argument with his parents—an argument all the more serious because until then, despite his iron will and certain wild traits his parents preferred to ignore, Morgan had been an exemplary son. It was true he lived his life as he saw fit, not taking kindly to their well-meaning interference, but he had never done anything that had truly dismayed or distressed them... until he had left to follow Philip Nolan into Spanish Texas.

  Reflectively Morgan stared at the contents of his cup, thinking of the changes that had occurred in the world since that day. The Louisiana Territory had passed in quick succession from Spanish hands to French and then to American. President Jefferson was in his second term of office and just last summer, the Vice-President of the United States, Aaron Burr, had shot and killed the leading Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, in a duel. In Europe, this past December, Napoleon had been crowned Emperor of France and presently, war was raging on all fronts with the French winning on the land and the British holding the seas.

  For just a minute Morgan's thoughts stopped, and he briefly considered the possibility of going back to England and going ahead with his original plan to purchase a commission in the British Army. Fighting a war as a soldier instead of a spy might still this reckless disregard of life and constant search for adventure. But then he shrugged; at thirty-three he had matured and in view of his narrow escape from Europe earlier this year, he dismissed the idea for the dangerous whim it had been.

  But had it been any more dangerous than the whim that had taken him with Nolan in the winter of 1800? Morgan rather thought not, and he smiled at himself. Nolan had returned safely in November of 1799 from his trip to Spanish Texas, and for a time had seemed ready to settle down. He had married Fannie Lintot that December and the wedding had been a notable event in Natchez, for the Lintots were wealthy and well-known. But marriage, a new bride, and even the expectation of a child couldn't hold Nolan, and though denied permission to enter Spanish Texas, he had gone ahead and gathered a party of men and secretly crossed the Sabine River into Texas.

  Morgan had accompanied Nolan, and it was only Morgan's restless nature that had saved him from losing his life or finding himself imprisoned deep in Spanish territory. Nolan and his little band of men had passed into the open country beyond the Trinity and the Brazos, where Nolan had elected to camp and begin capturing wild horses. They had fared well in the beginning, and if Morgan wondered how long the Spanish would let them stay unmolested in their territory and without permission, he kept it to himself. He also quickly grew bored with catching wild horses, and when a band of Comanches came to trade horses for goods that Nolan had brought with him, Morgan went with them when they left.

  Morgan had lived almost two years with the Comanches, spending the time hunting buffalo, existing like a savage, fighting and raiding Comanche enemies. If he had been a hard man to begin with, he came back from the Comanches harder and tougher. It was in that Spring of 1803, at Natchez, that he learned of Nolan's death at the hands of the Spanish in 1801, and a chill had snaked down his spine. If he had stayed with Nolan....

  He found that Natchez held little interest for him, and taking advantage of the Peace of Amiens that existed then between England and France, he had boarded a ship for England. He arrived in England in May, and within days of his arrival, England had once again declared war on France.

  Unwilling to remain idle on the sidelines and finding himself even more bored and restless amongst the dandies and simpering, marriage-minded young ladies he had, after a discussion with his uncle, the Baron of Trevelyan, called upon the Duke of Roxbury, Jason Savage's uncle.

  Morgan had met the Duke of Roxbury on more than one occasion in his youth, but he was always wary of him—Jason's firm opinion that the Duke's sleepy gray eyes were not quite so sleepy, echoed his own. And in this instance both young men were proven correct. Morgan had come to the duke about the possibility of a commission in the army, but before the evening ended, he found himself agreeing to carry messages to spies in France and to turn his hand at a little spying himself. As Roxbury explained it, it seemed perfectly sensible—he spoke French like a native, thanks to a Creole mother, and also thanks to her, there were probably relatives in France who could and would provide him with information. Besides, Roxbury had added with a sly gleam in those gray eyes, it would be much more exciting than the army. Indeed it had been, Morgan thought with a grim smile. More than once in the past eighteen months he had thought it was perhaps a bit too exciting. His risky occupation in France had been ended rather abruptly by the unwelcome discovery that his cousin, Ashley, was working for the French in England! The instant a French officer had accosted him on a street in Paris, calling him by Ashley's name and wanting to know what new secrets he had brought to the Emperor, Morgan had known, that not only was he in a dangerous predicament, but also that the resemblance between himself and his cousin had made his continued usefulness to Roxbury impossible. Back in his rooms, he had sent a cipher message to Roxbury that he would try to get out of France before someone realized that he wasn't Ashley Slade. There was no doubt he would be killed if the truth were discovered, and as it was, he barely escaped out of the country. A company of dragroons had been on his very heels when he had boarded the American privateer that had brought him home.

  But the brush with death in France had lessened some of his reckless urges, and today, even though he disliked the idea intensely, he seriously considered his mother's solution to his aimless wanderings. Perhaps I should marry again, he thought reluctantly. But then the memory of Fannie Lintot came to him, and cynically he admitted that marriage and child hadn't stopped Nolan from seeking his fate.

  That evening, as happened several times since he had returned to the United States two months earlier, the Marshall family came to dinner, and Morgan, seated across from their only child, a lovely blue-eyed creature by the name of Melinda, was in no doubt why they were found so often at Bonheur. Melinda's name was the one mentioned the most frequently whenever his mother brought up the subject of marriage. Since the Marshall estates adjoined Bonheur and Melinda was considered quite an heiress in the district, there was no doubt, Morgan mused, that it would be thought a good match.

  Idly Morgan let his gaze roam over the girl across from him. She was a pretty thing, he admitted, with those big blue eyes and soft golden curls. But she didn't have a brain in her lovely head, h
e told himself wryly. Conversation with Melinda consisted of wide-eyed admiration and open-mouthed astonishment. All very prettily done and he supposed some men might find it quite enchanting; unfortunately, it bored him. And yet in a wife, did a man truly need brains? One of the things he had admired about Stephanie had been her quick wit and intelligent conversation—and look where that had gotten him!

  Melinda gave him a shy smile and sardonically Morgan returned it. He happened to glance around a moment later and noticed the pleased expressions on his parents' faces. Ah, but they do have marriage on their minds, don't they?

  His eyes swung back to Melinda, noting the soft mouth and the alabaster shoulders above her demure pink gown. Well, why the hell not? he suddenly decided, the sapphire blue eyes suddenly very bright and filled with mockery. Why the hell not?

  Chapter 9

  If Morgan could have seen Melinda three hours later, he would not have been quite so complacent, and he certainly wouldn't have been considering marriage with her. Locked in the fervent embrace of Gaylord Easton, Melinda was vaguely aware of her effect on that young man—her thoughts pleasantly lingering on the evening.

  It was only when a somewhat breathless Gaylord, his soft brown hair disheveled from Melinda's absently caressing fingers, lifted his head and shook her slightly that she came back to the present. "Will nothing deter you from this foolish path?" he cried, "Doesn't the fact that I love you mean anything to you?"

  Gaylord Easton was a handsome young man, in a wild, dark way. He had a pair of fine, flashing brown eyes that had caused havoc among the young ladies of the neighborhood since he had been sixteen, and at twenty-four their brilliant darkness was even more potent. Gaylord was the youngest son of a wealthy planter in the Natchez district, and while he had grown up with his every whim granted, his father had recently made it clear that it was time Gaylord thought about his future. The elder Mr. Easton had stated firmly that while he did not object to paying Gaylord an allowance, and would never see his youngest child in want, Gaylord must stop playing the dilettante and start earning his keep.