Creole Fires (43 page)

“If you’re not feeling better by tonight,” he said, “I want Ram to go for the doctor.”

“I’m fine,” she said softly. “Really I am.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow night to see for myself. Sooner, if you need me.”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

Alex kissed her tenderly. “I love you,
ma chère.
Trust me. Everything is going to be all right.”

Trust you.
How many times had she done just that? “I trust you, Alex. You would never do anything to hurt me.”

He looked at her oddly, seemed as though he wanted to say something more, but didn’t.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes.” He kissed her one last time, and Nicki found herself clutching his shirtfront, kissing him back with all the love she felt but now must deny. “Take care of yourself, Alexandre,” she called to him at the door.

“Tomorrow,” he repeated. And then he was gone.

“Now do you believe me?” Nicki asked Ram, who joined her and Danielle in the study later that day.

“It is as you’ve said. The wedding is to take place as planned, though the note to Fortier has been paid in full.”

Nicki sank down on the leather sofa in front of the fireplace. “Then you’ll do as I’ve asked? You’ll help me to leave?”

“You will not confront him—try to make him see reason?”

“I’ve done that before.”

Ram nodded, realizing the truth of her words. “I will help you.”

Nicki handed him the morning edition of the
Daily Picayune.
“Turn to page three.” Ram did as she asked. “About halfway down the page. The article on the Republic of Texas.”

Ram folded the paper in half and scanned the article. “You cannot be serious.” He glanced up at her with astonishment.

“I’m perfectly serious.”

“You want to travel to Texas? Marry a man you have never even seen?”

“Texas is a land of opportunity. They need families to settle there. I’d be traveling with a man who wants me for his wife. My past wouldn’t matter, and the republic is so vast I wouldn’t have to worry about being discovered.”

“Alexandre wouldn’t let you go before. Why should he do so now?”

“Because you will tell him I know of his ‘inheritance.’ That I know he could have paid Fortier and married me if he had wanted. I could never forgive his deception and Alex will know it. This time he won’t come after me.”

Danielle sniffed back tears. “I still cannot believe it. I was so certain that he loved you.”

“Love and money,” Nicki said softly, “desire and power. Each is a far different thing.”

“You must hurry,” Ram said, “if you are to be gone before his return.”

“My bags are packed. If Frederick will load them into the carriage, I can be off. There’s a steamboat leaving for Texas at one o’clock. It arrives in Galveston sometime next week—just before the Peters colony
is planning to depart. After I’m … married … my husband and I will travel inland by steamboat and wagon. According to the article, the group is planning to settle somewhere along the Brazos.”

“I’m going with you,” Ram said, “at least as far as Galveston.”

“No, Ram. You’ve given me your money, that’s more than enough.”

“I go or you stay. Make your choice.”

There was no arguing. The set of Ram’s beefy shoulders, the uncompromising look in his slitted black eyes told her that much.

“What about Alex? You need to be here. You need to make him understand so he won’t follow.”

“Leave him a note. Tell him the truth. If he follows, I will stop him.”

Nicki’s head snapped up. “You mustn’t go against him, Ram. No matter what happens. You and Alex have been friends for years.”

“The Alexandre du Villier who was my friend is no longer. He would never have behaved as he has.”

Nicki hesitated only a moment. “I’ll get my things.” She would write a note Alex could not ignore. She would tell him that she knew the truth about Fortier and his marriage to Clarissa, then appeal to his sense of honor—however faint it might be—and beg him to let her live in peace.

In her heart of hearts, she believed this time he would.

“Nicki!” Alex tossed his hat to Frederick and headed into the salon. He had been planning this moment for days, now he found he was as nervous as a schoolboy. It was insane and he knew it—Nicki loved him and he loved her.

Then again, Nicole St. Claire was a woman with a mind and will of her own. He was never completely sure of her, which only made him love her more.

“Ram!” he called out, wondering why the house seemed so cold and empty. When no one answered, he tried the dining room, then his study, but neither yielded the object of his search.

“You might save me all this trouble and tell me where she is,” he said to Frederick in a tone he hoped rang with authority but was sure sounded joyous instead.

Frederick merely shrugged his shoulders. Normally, Alex might have noticed the stiff set to the tall black butler’s spine, the way his mouth clamped together in a disapproving line. Instead, Alex took the stairs up to Nicki’s room two at a time and found it, too, was empty.

“Danielle!” he called toward the servants’ quarters in the rear, but the plump little French girl didn’t come running, merely poked her head out the door, then sauntered down the hall in his direction. “Where has your mistress gone?”

“She has left with Ram.”

“With Ram? But she knew I was coming. Where did they go?”

Danielle glanced away. “She left this for you.” She handed him a plain white envelope with his name on it, written in Nicki’s delicate hand and very carefully sealed with wax.

Alex broke open the seal and began to read the finely scripted words:

Alex’s hand began to shake, and the chill in the hall seemed suddenly colder. In the body of the letter Nicki told him she knew of the money he had inherited, knew that the debt he owed Fortier had been paid, but that he still intended marriage to Clarissa. She didn’t fault him. Instead, she told him she understood how much Belle Chêne meant to him, understood the advantages of uniting his family with that of the Endicotts.

No, Nicki didn’t fault him, just ended the letter with a plea that he grant her that same understanding:

It was signed simply,
Love, Nicole.

Alex leaned against the fine mahogany banister, his hand shaking so badly the stiff paper crackled with a harshness that seemed to echo in the silence of the hall.

“Where is she?” he asked, forcing his words past the ache that closed his throat.

“I do not know, m’sieur.”

“You know,” Alex said, his dark eyes pleading. “And I beg you in the name of God to tell me.”

“There is nothing,
M’sieur le duc
, you can do or say that will make me tell you.”

Alex blinked against the moisture that suddenly blurred his vision. “I think there is, Danielle. If only you will listen.”

It took six days to reach the port of Galveston. Six of the hardest days of Nicki’s life.

Because the days she had spent with Alex, giving herself to him freely, had increased her love for him a hundred times over. She missed him more than she would have dreamed possible. No matter how she tried to occupy her mind, she thought about him, wondered where he was and if he might be missing her too.

She told herself it didn’t matter. Alexandre had proven beyond a doubt that Belle Chêne was all important. Belle Chêne and the du Villier fortune.

What happened between them was past—one more moment in a life fraught with hardship.

Even the voyage had been rough, the seas wind-tossed and heavy. For the first few days, Nicki had battled severe rounds of nausea, unable to hold anything on her stomach and confined to the narrow berth in her small cabin.

It seemed God had been benevolent in sending Ram along after all. A sailor himself, Ram suffered none of the malaise of the passengers. Instead, he helped care for those of them who fell ill, and even pitched in to help the crew.

Nicki was always his chief concern, and with his constant attention, by the fourth day she felt better. They arrived at Galveston Island under a cloudy sky that forecast rain, and a chilling wind that matched Nicki’s desolate mood.

Aside from her fears of marriage to a man she had never met, of a country that was sparsely settled and overrun with tribes of wild Indians, her menses had started the day she’d left home.

She should have felt grateful she didn’t carry Alex’s child. That the baby wouldn’t be a burden to the man she would marry—but she wasn’t. She had come to think of the babe as a small part of Alex that would stay with her always. Alex’s son or daughter would have been the fruit of her love for him. A flesh-and-blood memory that would keep him alive for her wherever she went.

Most of the passengers had departed by the time Nicole and Ram left the boat, Nicki grateful for the feel of something solid beneath her feet. Around them, the wharf bustled with activity, mostly centered on the cotton trade, but the harbor was nor
where near as chaotic as the docks in New Orleans. Making their way among sailors and settlers, pigs, dogs, chickens, and cows, they walked toward the dusty street that faced the water. Nicki stared in wonder at a place so different from the cosmopolitan city she had left behind.

“It is not nearly so pretty as the
Vieux Carré,”
Ram said, parroting her thoughts.

“It’s not nearly so congested, either,” she answered with a determined tilt to her chin. Ignoring his rumble of laughter, she pulled the article she had clipped from the
Daily Picayune
out of her reticule and reread the words, though she knew them almost by heart.

“We’re to contact a Captain Mercer, the head of the expedition, at the Galveston Hotel near the square. I wonder which way it is?”

As Ram glanced toward the wood-frame buildings and small wooden houses, his satchel in one hand, her steamer trunk propped on one wide shoulder, Nicki strode toward a tall man in military dress just a few feet away.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me the way to the square?”

The tall man smiled, his teeth gleaming white in a face tanned dark by the sun. The stiff breeze ruffled his thick brown hair. “Lieutenant Brendan Trask, Republic of Texas Marines, at your service, ma’am.”

Trask.
The name had a familiar ring. Glancing at his well-defined, masculine features, an image of the equally tall sea captain, Morgan Trask, who commanded the vessel,
Sea Gypsy
, that
Grand-mère
had sailed aboard to France, came to mind. Except for the color of their hair and eyes, the two men looked a
great deal alike. She wondered if they could be brothers, but didn’t ask. The fewer people who knew of her past the better.

“Hello, Lieutenant,” she replied instead. “As I said before, I’m looking for the square.”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s right up Main Street. Just keep on goin’ till you come to the church. Galveston Hotel’s there. Such as it is.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.” He tipped his uniform hat.

As Nicki walked away, Ram flashed the lieutenant a warning glance. The tall, lean soldier only grinned and kept on watching. She could feel his light-blue eyes on her back—more probably a little lower—and smiled in spite of herself.

They reached the square, only a few blocks away, at a little after two o’clock. Though Galveston was a tiny town with none of the elegance of the city she had left behind, it was obvious the people planned to celebrate the Christmas holidays, which were less than two weeks away. Wreaths hung on store windows, decorated with berries and popcorn, and paper ornaments draped across door frames.

Nicki tried not to notice them. For the past three years her Christmases had all been dismal. Why should this one be any different?

Picking up their pace, they eventually located the hotel, a two-story wood-frame structure with only the most meager amenities, and checked in.

“Cap’n Mercer’ll sure be glad to see you, ma’am,” the desk clerk said. “He’s got hisse’f a batch a randy … er … pardon me, ma’am, a group a homesteaders just itchin’ to find theirselves a bride.”

Nicki forced a smile. “Where will I find him?”

“He’ll be back about suppertime. Meanwhile, why don’t you git yerself some rest, or maybe take a look-see ‘round town?”

“Thank you. I could use a little rest.” What she really needed was some time alone. “Why don’t you go on, Ram? I’m sure you’d enjoy seeing the city.” Such as it was.

“I’ll just put this trunk in your room first.”

Nicki nodded and followed him up the stairs.

Sometime later, she returned to the lobby and eventually located the man she had been seeking.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” Raymond Mercer, a middle-aged man with thick mutton-chop whiskers, sized her up with a single sweeping glance.