Reckless Seduction Read online

  Genevieve Latour clearly recovered rapidly from both setbacks. Dominic decided that he would relish the opportunity for a private confrontation when his responses would not need to be constrained by an audience. However, for the moment he chose to ignore her remark and turned his full attention to Elise. “I should be honored to accept your invitation. Until this evening, Mademoiselle Latour, Nicolas.” He touched his hat. “I expect you will be in bed, Mademoiselle Genevieve, but I am sure we will meet again.” Turning on his heel, he walked away from them. It had been a small enough victory, but he derived some satisfaction from the indignant tiger’s eyes riveted on his back.

  “So, you think Hélène will be pleased to welcome such a one as Dominic Delacroix to her drawing room?” Genevieve mused, looking after the tall, broad-shouldered figure moving away with a long, easy stride that seemed to eat up the yards.

  “Of course she will,” Elise insisted with a degree too much vehemence. “What can you possibly know of such things? You are still only a baby.”

  “Maybe,” her young sister murmured, having no need to rise to the provocation. “But I do know that Monsieur Delacroix is not at all respectable, and I do not think that Lorenzo will look with equanimity on his betrothed’s extending such a doe-eyed, effusive welcome to one of that reputation. He may tolerate your ordinary flirtations, but not this.”

  Elise, for all her porcelain beauty and softly rounded figure, had inherited her fair share of the Latour temper, and an exceedingly unpleasant scene threatened. Nicolas stepped in hastily. “You do not know what you are talking about, Genevieve. The Delacroix are one of the oldest Creole families in the Quarter. They are received everywhere.”

  “But Dominic Delacroix is not willingly received,” his young cousin persisted with her customary obstinacy and accuracy. “Not by ladies … or, at least …” Imps of mischief danced in the tawny eyes, she added, “Perhaps by the ladies of Rampart Street, but not by Hélène and her friends.”

  “That is enough!” Nicolas declared firmly as they turned onto Royal Street. “Dominic Delacroix is a friend of mine and that fact should be enough for you.”

  “Dear me, Nicolas.” The irrepressible Genevieve shook her head in mock reproof. “Numbering privateers amongst your friends! Whatever will Papa say?”

  “Your father will have little enough to say to me, once Mr. King regales him with the tale of your little adventure this afternoon,” Nicolas retorted.

  That statement was undeniably true and succeeded in diverting Genevieve’s attention for the moment. “Mr. King must have had some ulterior motive for attempting to sell Amelie and the baby. I must discover what it is if I am to ensure that he cannot do such a thing again. I do not think Papa will take Mr. King’s side publicly against mine, however, whatever he might say in private. He would not consider it correct to do so, do you not agree, Elise?”

  Elise shrugged, unwilling to offer reassurance. Unlike her sister, she had difficulty switching moods and was inclined to bear grudges. “It is a matter of supreme indifference to me,” she declared loftily. “I cannot imagine why you should concern yourself with such affairs. It is most undignified.”

  “Is it indeed?” Genevieve’s eyes snapped. “No more undignified than clandestine meetings, artfully arranged, with a privateer. And you need not deny that that meeting was arranged. It was as plain as day to anyone with half an eye. I should like to know why Nicolas is sufficiently intimate with a privateer to risk Hélène’s discomfort by inviting such a disreputable figure to her drawing room.” With that, Mademoiselle Genevieve flounced up the curving steps to the portico of a graceful, double-fronted house occupying a large proportion of Royal Street. The central door swung open as her hand reached for the knocker. She inclined her head in acknowledgement to the impassive butler and went into the large hall that ran the length of the house and was flanked on either side by a square salle de compagnie.

  Her cousin and stepsister followed, both rendered silent by the butler’s presence, and both, for separate reasons, distinctly uncomfortable at the embarrassing insight of their far-seeing relative. As they knew from painful experience, Genevieve, once she got her teeth into something, rarely let go until she had worried the matter to death.

  “Oh, there you all are.” Hélène Latour appeared from the parlor on the left of the hall. Her brown eyes were more than usually anxious this afternoon, and she patted her dark hair nervously, frowning at her stepdaughters who were not that much younger than herself but over whom she was supposed to exercise some form of authority. “There is such an uproar in the slave quarters. It is something to do with Amelie, but no one will tell me anything, and if your father comes home to find everything so unsettled … Oh, dear …” Her voice, never much more than a whisper, faded in defeat.

  “You had best prepare yourself for an explosion, Hélène,” Genevieve said with a briskness not undiluted by compassion. Her stepmother paled and her hands quivered.

  “Oh, dear,” she said again, tremulously. “Why? What has happened?”

  “Genevieve saw fit to enter Maspero’s Exchange in the middle of a public auction and forbid Mr. King to sell Amelie and the baby,” Elise announced with a brutal lack of frills. “It will be the scandal of the season. We shall never live it down.”

  Hélène leaned against one of the Ionic pilasters framing the doorway of the parlor. “How could you, Genevieve?” she faltered. “Victor …”

  “Will not be best pleased,” Genevieve finished for her in rueful understatement. “I am sorry, Hélène, but I could not do otherwise. You know it has never been Latour practice to separate families. I do not know what lay behind it on this occasion, but I intend to find out before Papa returns. I will need all the defense I can muster.”

  “But I am receiving this evening,” Hélène whimpered. “If Victor is enraged, it will affect the entire household, and I shall have the headache, I know I shall.”

  “Please, Hélène.” Genevieve took her arm, turning her back into the salle de compagnie. “You must not work yourself up in this way. You know it is bad for you. Why do you not lie down for a little while?”

  “Perhaps it would be best,” her stepmother agreed. She added in pathetic revelation, “Victor will not disturb me if he believes I am not feeling quite the thing. Elise, would you see to the arrangements for this evening? I was going to do the flowers in the ballroom, but you have such a delicate touch …” She offered a pleading little smile to which not even Elise was impervious.

  “Of course,” Elise reassured. “You must lie down and gather your strength. I will see to everything, and you must not concern yourself about this other matter.” A dismissive hand banished the troublesome business of Genevieve’s indecorous involvement in the affair of Amelie, the baby, and the overseer into outer darkness. “When Papa comes in, we shall all keep out of his way … except Genevieve,” she added, shooting her sister a malicious glance. “It is her responsibility, after all, to draw the fire.”

  “And when have I shirked the responsibility?” Genevieve asked with a hint of a smile. “The blame is mine, and I acknowledge it freely. However, you must excuse me while I attempt to gather a defense.”

  She left the two women and Nicolas, knowing that the three of them would enjoy a discussion of her heinous behavior even while Hélène fluttered and trembled at the prospect of the forthcoming uproar. Elise and Nicolas were probably hoping that the inevitable scene and turmoil would effectively mask their introduction of Dominic Delacroix into the respectable drawing room of Hélène Latour. But why had the invitation been issued in the first place? If Elise had decided to pursue a flirtation with the privateer, then she was being more than ordinarily foolish. The rigidly correct Don Lorenzo Byaz would not stand for it, and if anything occurred to upset that match, Victor Latour’s rage would know no bounds. And why, knowing that as he must, was Nicolas colluding—aiding and abetting, in fact? It was most definitely not in his interests to fall foul of his relative who might deci
de to look elsewhere for an heir.

  It was most puzzling. Genevieve shook her head, then dismissed the puzzle for the moment as the matter of her own self-preservation loomed large. She hurried down the hall and out onto the long porticoed gallery running the width of the house at the back. The gallery, where the family took their meals in warm weather and pursued those leisure activities conducive to idleness, overlooked a large walled courtyard that provided absolute seclusion from the hustle and bustle of the Quarter. Indeed, it was hard to imagine that this fragrant, cobbled square of mellow stone, where a fountain plashed melodiously and banana trees offered wide-leafed shade, was actually situated in the midst of a city.

  The kitchen that served the house was a long, low building at the left of the courtyard, and it was there that Genevieve now made her way. When she returned to the main house a half hour later, she was in full possession of the sordid facts of an all-too-common tale. Its recounting would do little to turn aside Victor Latour’s wrath, but it would ensure that it fell also on the head of the overseer, and would safeguard Amelie and her child from sale by Mr. King in the future. And for more than that, Genevieve knew from bitter experience, it would be foolish to hope.

  “So, what have you discovered in your missionary zeal?” Elise inquired, looking up from her embroidery as Genevieve came up the steps to the gallery. Her tone was as sharp as the question. Quite clearly, Genevieve had not been forgiven for her afternoon’s work or for her uncomfortably pointed remarks.

  Genevieve did not immediately answer the question. “Where is Nicolas?” She poured tea from the silver pot resting on a low table and sat down in a deep rocking chair, sipping appreciatively at the steaming liquid in the delicate fluted cup.

  “In his apartments, I imagine.” Elise gestured vaguely toward the garçonnière at the rear of the courtyard, then took a chocolate tipped langue de chat from the plate, beside the teapot, popping it whole between her lips before helping herself to another one with eager fingers.

  “You’ll get fat,” Genevieve observed with the regrettable want of diplomacy frequently to be found in younger siblings. “But I don’t imagine Don Lorenzo will mind. He is developing something of an embonpoint himself. Then, of course, one can’t have too much of a good thing, can one?” She smiled with deceptive innocence over her teacup. “Unless, of course, Lorenzo has ceased to be a good thing? Usurped, perhaps, by one Dominic Delacroix?”

  The crash of the great front door shivered the glass in the windows of the cabinets opening onto the gallery. The two girls froze, the mischief of one and the indignation of the other subsumed under an immediate watchful tension, the familial pinpricks of irritation vanished under their shared trepidation. Genevieve placed her teacup on the table and gave her sister a rueful grimace. The door to the gallery flew open, and Victor Latour filled the opening, his normally rubicund face crimson hued, eyes blazing, barrel chest swelling with apoplectic fury. Elise shrank back against the cushions of her sofa and watched with reluctant admiration as her stepsister rose to her feet slowly, squaring her shoulders. How was it that Genevieve could face the full blast of that fearsome rage without appearing to flinch? She had always been able to do it—the only person on God’s earth, in Elise’s opinion, who refused to show fear before Victor Latour. Not that that refusal benefitted her in any way—if anything, it increased his fury, but, somehow, Genevieve always seemed to emerge from the torrents of rage unmarked, her spirit intact.

  “You dare to drag the name of Latour across the floor of a public auction room?” Victor Latour bellowed, standing to one side of the wide-flung door, an imperative forefinger pointing back into the house. “You dare to meddle in the business of my overseer!”

  “There were reasons,” Genevieve said, forcing herself to follow the direction of that forefinger, walking through the door, past the rigid figure without flinching, although her flesh crept in expectation of the blow that might or might not be delivered. On this occasion, Victor stayed his hand, but his daughter took little comfort from the restraint. She had a rocky road to travel before his anger would be played out and the matter drawn to an end.

  Chapter Two

  “But Dominic, you promised!” Angelique pouted prettily, twining herself around the lean sinewy body beside her. The evening sun sent a golden bar of light across the bed, touching the two naked figures with the day’s last finger of warmth.

  “That was before this imperative matter arose,” Dominic explained, patiently still although it was Angelique’s second attempt in the last hour to persuade him to change his mind. He stroked lazily down the long, creamy gold back as she pressed herself against him.

  “But why cannot you deal with it some other time? You have not taken me to the theater for months.” Even as she spoke, Angelique realized that she had pushed too far. The turquoise eyes beside her glazed beneath a thin sheen of ice as he sat up in one neat movement, swinging himself off the bed.

  “That is enough. Have you not learned that I cannot abide whining? I do not come here to be badgered and hagridden, and if I do not satisfy your wants, my dear, you had best look around you for another provider.”

  Angelique shivered at the cold, expressionless tone, at the words she knew he meant. Dominic Delacroix would have no compunction about drawing their arrangement to a close.

  It would be done with grace and a degree of generosity, so long as she had not forfeited any rights to the latter, but he would not think twice about it. There was no shortage of quadroons, as beautiful and delicate as Angelique, who would count Dominic Delacroix as the summit of their ambition.

  She sprang from the bed, cajoling words of apology on her lips, as she caressed his length with knowing hands, filled the basin from the ewer of warm water and began to sponge him, performing the service as he stood, seemingly indifferent, his face a mask. She fluttered around him, helping him with his shirt, his pantaloons, kneeling to draw on his stockings and maneuver his feet into his boots. Then he walked over to the mirror above the dresser where he very deliberately arranged his cravat, inserting a diamond-head pin in the folds, before shrugging into the coat of blue superfine that he had been wearing earlier when he had met the Latour sisters and their cousin outside Maspero’s Exchange.

  Angelique waited anxiously for the smile that would tell her her lapse had been forgiven, for a word, at least, but Dominic’s face remained impassive as he shook out the lace ruffles at his wrists. It was impossible to tell whether he was still angry with her, or whether, as so often happened, his mind was elsewhere, had abruptly switched from the sensuous pleasures available to him in this enchanting little house on Rampart Street to the formulation of some plan, to the unraveling of some knotty problem plaguing his life outside these silken walls. Angelique was always excluded from that other life and, indeed, would not have wanted to be included. She had her own friends, a pleasantly idle existence, no shortage of luxuries, clothes, servants; her only obligation, to be willingly available whenever her provider required her, and she must never discommode him in any way, or cause him the least annoyance. She had transgressed those last rules with her pestering this afternoon, and knew from painful experience that withdrawal would probably follow and she would not see Dominic for several weeks as he demonstrated how easily he could do without her. During those weeks, she would live on a knife edge of anxiety, wondering if he would ever return, or if she would simply receive the formal notification breaking their contract with a generous payment that would not begin to compensate for the greater losses.

  He walked to the bedroom door, and she ran to open it for him, standing on tiptoe to brush her lips across his mouth, pressing her bare breasts against his chest, feeling the lace and lawn of his shirt, cool and smooth against her skin. She did not dare ask when he would return, but her lip trembled slightly, and the brown eyes swam as she stood aside to let him pass. Dominic paused on the landing outside, then, almost absently, touched the tip of her nose with a long forefinger. “Take a friend to the
St. Charles with you, Angel. You may use my box as I have no need of it this evening.”

  Angelique’s face lit up. “I will come to the door with you, Dominic.”

  He shook his head brusquely. “No, I do not have the time to wait for you to fetch a robe.” He moved unhurriedly down the stairs—unhurriedly, yet he was out on Rampart Street before Angelique had pushed her arms into the silk peignoir.

  The sun was setting as Dominic strode down the street in the direction of the square and his own house on Chartres Street. That visit to Angelique had been unscheduled, but his only half-successful encounter with Elise Latour and her relatives had unsettled him, and he did not care to be unsettled; it clouded the mind which, in Dominic’s business, was a dangerous condition. Angelique had done her work well, but he had gained clarity of thought at the expense of time, and if he was to make a seemly appearance at the Latour residence, he would have to hurry with his dressing and dinner. Dominic Delacroix did not like to be hurried any more than he liked to be unsettled, and for much the same reasons.

  Silas was waiting for him in the cool, lofty chamber opening onto the rear second-floor gallery overlooking the courtyard. “Knee britches, monsieur?” he asked, running a clothes brush lovingly over a silver-gray velvet coat.

  “Yes, I think so.” That sardonic smile touched Dominic’s lips. “One mustn’t appear lacking in respect to Madame Latour, for all that she will be hard pressed to extend a gracious welcome to such an uninvited guest.”

  Silas, who was not party to the details of his master’s plans, contented himself with a grunt and began to sharpen the razor on the leather strop. He was a burly man with a sailor’s pigtail, hands rough and calloused from years before the mast, but he shaved Dominic with incongruous delicacy and the utmost care. In the same manner, he assisted him into the fine lace and velvet of his evening clothes, brushing and smoothing until satisfied that Dominic’s appearance was appropriately immaculate.