Whatever was said of Gerard, he pulled his weight at the mill. His hand-kissing manners and his thick, rich accent brought as much business as Nicole’s low prices. An extraordinary number of young women came with their fathers to have their grain ground. Gerard treated them all like French aristocrats, young or old, fat or thin, ugly or pretty. The women simpered and giggled as he took their arms and led them around the mill. He never took them out of sight of their fathers.
Only once did Nicole have a glimpse of Gerard’s thoughts. A particularly plain young woman was rolling her eyes in delight as Gerard kissed her palm and murmured in French over it. By a trick of the wind, Nicole happened to hear what he said. Although he was smiling, he was calling the woman a piece of pig’s offal. Nicole shuddered and walked away; she didn’t want to hear any more.
She straightened her back and looked across the river. She hadn’t seen Clay since he’d told her Bianca was pregnant. In a way, it seemed ages ago, yet at the same time it seemed like minutes. There wasn’t a night she didn’t think of him, long for him. Her body betrayed her often, and many times she wanted to ask him to meet her in the clearing. She didn’t care about her pride or her higher ideals. She only wanted him, strong and hot against her skin.
She shook her head to clear her vision. It was better not to dwell on the past or to remind herself of what was not. She had a good life now, with people she loved around her. She had no right to be lonely or thankless.
She stared at the Armstrong plantation. Even from this distance, she could see that it wasn’t being cared for. Last year’s crops had been allowed to die in the fields. It had hurt her to see it, but there was nothing she could do. Isaac had kept her informed of what was happening. Most of the paid servants had left long ago. The indentures of some servants had been sold, along with nearly all of the slaves. Only a handful of people remained.
This spring, some of the bottomland had been planted, but that was all. The upper fields lay bare, with only rotting stems in them. Isaac said Clay didn’t care and Bianca was selling anything she could find to pay for her clothes and the constant redecorating of the house. Isaac said the only person on the plantation who had any work to do was the cook.
“Not much to look at, is it?”
She whirled to see Isaac standing beside her. He was looking across the river. In the months since the kidnapping, Isaac and she had become very close. There was a bond between them forged by shared tragedy. The people who worked for her she had always felt belonged to Clay, even Janie to an extent. It was only Isaac with whom she felt this special bond. And Isaac often looked at Nicole as if he’d die for her.
“He could make it if these crops are good, and so far the weather has been perfect,” she said.
“I can’t see Clay getting up the strength even to harvest the tobacco, much less take it to market.”
“That’s absurd. No one is a harder worker than Clayton Armstrong.”
“Was,” Isaac said. “I know he used to be, but now all he works at is lifting a bottle to his mouth. And what if he did work? That wife of his has spent more than four plantations could afford. Every time I take the twins over there, there’s a bill collector hounding Clay. If he lets this crop rot in the fields, he’ll lose everything. The law will put the place up for auction.”
Nicole turned away. She didn’t want to hear any more. “I think there’s some paperwork I need to do. Did the Morrisons bring that extra barley you asked for?”
“This morning,” he said, following her. He took a deep breath and wished again, for the thousandth time, that she’d relax a little, if not for her own sake, then for his. He wished Wesley would visit, but Travis had gone to England and Wes had his own plantation to run. No one else could get Nicole to stop working even for minutes.
Gerard leaned against a tree and watched Isaac follow Nicole back to the mill. He often wondered what went on between those two. They spent many hours together. In the last year, Gerard had met hundreds of people, and most of them had been willing to tell him anything he wanted to know. He knew Nicole was a passionate woman. He’d heard from a hundred people how she’d acted at the Backes’s party. She’d acted like that, like a common street woman, in front of all those people, yet she’d slapped him when he touched her.
There wasn’t a day when he didn’t remember the way she’d slapped him, the way she’d looked at him as if he were something from under a rock. He knew why she’d refused him. She thought she was better than him. After all, she was one of the Courtalains, whose history was intertwined with French kings and queens. And who was he? A cobbler’s son. He thought she’d accept him when she found out he was related to her, but she hadn’t. To her, he was a cobbler’s son, and no matter what he did, he’d never change in her eyes.
Gerard thought of what he’d had to do in the last year. She’d made him prostitute himself for those crude American women. They were coarse things, uneducated, and could speak only the flat American language. He loved to watch their eyes as he said hideous things to them in French. They were too stupid to know what he said.
Then, at night, Nicole teased him, played with him until he was past endurance. Only a curtain separated his room from hers. He’d lie in bed in the darkness, Adele snoring beside him, and listen to her undress. He knew the different sound of each garment. He knew when she stood nude, in that instant before she slipped her nightgown over her head. He imagined her golden body, imagined opening his arms and her sliding into them. Then he’d show her! He’d make her regret ever having slapped him.
He moved away from the tree. Someday he’d make her regret thinking she was better than him. He imagined everything he’d do to her. He’d make her crawl and beg. Yes! She was a passionate woman, but he’d never touch her unless she came to him on her knees. He’d show her that a cobbler’s son was as good as any of her snobbish French relatives.
He moved through the trees and away from the mill. The place made him sick. All of them together, laughing and talking—about him, no doubt. Once he’d overheard two men talking about “the little Frenchy.” He’d grabbed a rock then but had thought better of it. There were other ways to repay them, ways that wouldn’t hurt either of them. Later that fall, both men had lost tobacco barns full of their crops. One of the men had gone bankrupt.
Gerard smiled in remembrance. As he walked along the ridge, a movement across the river caught his eye. It was someone, a large woman on horseback. He stopped and stared for a moment. Over the last year, he’d seen less and less activity over there. He’d never been particularly curious about Nicole’s relationship with Armstrong. He knew she’d once been married to him and had acted like his whore at the Backes’s party. So many times, Gerard had imagined Nicole acting that way with him. When she’d gotten the annulment so soon after he arrived, Gerard had been pleased. He knew she was telling him who she wanted. It had thrilled him, thinking she’d gotten the annulment so she could marry Gerard. He’d waited a while, then let her know that she’d be welcome in his bed.
He clamped his teeth together in memory. She was a tease, making promises one moment, then acting as if he’d insulted her the next.
As he watched, the woman across the river raised her whip and slapped the horse smartly on the rump. The horse jumped, then lowered its head and gave a violent shudder. The woman went flying through the air and landed on her backside in a storm of dust and pebbles.
Gerard hesitated for a second, then began to run toward the wharf. He had no idea of his intentions, but he knew he must get to the woman.
“Are you hurt?” he asked when he reached her.
Bianca sat quietly on the ground, her whole body aching from the fall and from being on that cursed horse. She took a piece of dirt from her mouth and looked at it in disgust. She gave a jump of surprise when she saw Gerard. It had been so long since she’d seen a gentleman, and she recognized the French fashions immediately. He wore a green cloth coat with velvet collar and cuffs. His shirt was of white silk, the
cravat tied to hide the point of his chin. His slim legs were encased in tan breeches, with six pearl buttons at the knee. His silk stockings were green and yellow striped.
She sighed heavily. It was so good to see a man in something besides buckskin and leather. It was also good to see a slim, gentlemanly form instead of the build of a field hand.
“May I help you?” Gerard repeated when the woman did not answer. He understood her look. He’d seen it often in America. The women were hungry for culture and refinement.
He stared down at her as he held out his hand for her. She was a large woman, a very large woman. Her low-cut red satin dress revealed an enormous, heaving bosom. Her arms were large, stretching the sleeves of her dress. Her face had the look of something that had once been pretty but was now bloated and distorted out of shape. In spite of the dated style of the dress and the inappropriate fabric, he knew it was expensive.
“Please allow me to help you,” he said in his lush accent. “I fear that you will ruin that exquisite complexion if you stay here in the sun.”
Bianca blushed a rosy pink, then took the hand he offered.
Gerard braced himself as he helped pull her up. She was even larger when she was standing beside him. She was two inches taller than he and outweighed him by at least sixty pounds.
He didn’t release her hand but gently pulled her with him to the shade of a tree. With a sweeping motion, he removed his coat and spread it on the grass for her. “Please,” he said with a bow. “You must rest after such a fall. A delicate young lady such as yourself should be careful.” He turned toward the river.
Bianca awkwardly eased herself onto the coat, then looked at Gerard as he walked away. “You aren’t leaving me, are you?”
He looked at her over his shoulder, leaving her no doubt that he would not, could not, leave her now that he’d found her.
Gerard stopped at the river and withdrew his handkerchief. It was Adele’s, the only one she owned, pure silk, trimmed in Brussels lace and monogrammed AC. Gerard had carefully removed the A and left the C since he was now a Courtalain.
He wet the handkerchief and took it back to Bianca. He knelt beside her. “There is a smudge on your cheek,” he said quietly. When she didn’t move, he said, “Allow me,” took her chin in his hand, and carefully began to wipe away the dirt.
Bianca thought it was odd that she felt no revulsion at Gerard’s touch. After all, he was a man. “You’ll…get your handkerchief dirty,” she stuttered.
He gave her a smile of great tolerance. “What is silk next to a beautiful woman’s skin?”
“Beautiful?” She opened her eyes very wide. Their blueness was almost obscured by her fat cheeks. The dimple in her left cheek was no longer visible but lost in the doughy plumpness. “No one has called me beautiful in a long time.”
“Strange,” Gerard said. “I would think your husband—surely a lady of your beauty is married—would tell you that every day.”
“My husband hates me,” Bianca said flatly.
Gerard considered this for a moment. He could feel the woman’s need for a friend, a need to talk. He shrugged. He had nothing else to do today, and besides, sometimes the things lonely women told him became useful. “And who is your husband?”
“Clayton Armstrong.”
Gerard lifted one eyebrow. “The owner of this place?”
“All of it,” Bianca sighed. “At least what is left of it. He refuses to work it just because he hates me. He says he refuses to kill himself just so I can buy a few trinkets.”
“Trinkets?” he encouraged.
“I am certainly frugal enough. I buy nothing I don’t need—a few simple clothes, a carriage, a few furnishings for the house, nothing a lady of my station doesn’t need.”
“It is a shame you have such a selfish husband.”
Bianca stared across the river. “It’s all her fault. If she hadn’t thrown herself at my husband, none of this would have happened.”
“But I thought Nicole was once married to Mr. Armstrong.” Gerard made no pretense of not knowing whom she meant.
“She was, but I fixed her. She thought she could take away what was mine, what I worked so hard for, but she couldn’t.”
Gerard looked about him, to the tobacco fields to his left. “What exactly does Armstrong own?”
Bianca’s eyes came alive. “He’s rich, or could be if he’d only do some work. There’s a very nice house, except it’s too small.”
“And Nicole gave all this up?” he asked, half to himself.
Bianca’s anger made her cheeks flush. “She didn’t give it up. We played a game, and I won. That’s all.”
She had Gerard’s interest now. “I wish you’d tell me about this game. I’d certainly like to hear about it.”
He sat and listened with rapt attention to Bianca’s story. He was amazed at her cleverness. Here was someone he could understand. He laughed when she told how she bribed Abe to kidnap Nicole. He was almost in awe of her when she spoke of planting herself in Clay’s bed.
Bianca had never had anyone in America listen to her before, and certainly no one who showed any interest. She’d always thought her manipulation of Clay and Nicole was extraordinarily clever, but no one else had shown any interest. When Gerard seemed so eager, she went on to tell him about paying Oliver Hawthorne to impregnate her. She shuddered at the memory, told how she had to drug herself to be able to stand the man’s touch.
Gerard burst out laughing. “It wasn’t even Armstrong’s child! How marvelous! Nicole must have been insane when she found out her dear husband was sleeping with someone else, had even made a baby.” On impulse, he grabbed Bianca’s fat hand and kissed the taut skin. “It’s too bad you lost the child. It would have served Armstrong right if the child looked like a neighbor instead of him.”
“Yes,” Bianca said dreamily. “I would have liked for him to look like a fool, like he’s made me appear.”
“You could never look like a fool. It’s the people who do not appreciate you who are fools.”
“Yes, oh yes,” she whispered. “You do understand.”
The two of them sat quietly for a moment. Bianca felt as if she’d found her first friend, someone who was interested in her. Everyone else seemed to be on Clay’s or Nicole’s side.
As for Gerard, he wasn’t sure what to do with Bianca’s revelations, but he knew that, somehow, they’d be useful. “Let me introduce myself. I am Gerard Gautier, of the Courtalain family.”
“Courtalain!” Bianca gasped. “But that’s Nicole’s last name.”
“We are…related, yes.”
Bianca’s eyes instantly filled with tears. “You’ve used me,” she whispered desperately. “You listened to me, yet you’re on her side!” She started to rise, but her bulk made her awkward, clumsy.
Gerard took her shoulders in his hands and forcefully pushed her back down. “Because I am related to her certainly does not make me on her side. Far from it. I am a guest in her house, and there is not a moment when she does not let me forget that I am her charity.”
Bianca blinked rapidly to clear away the tears. “Then, you know she is not the pure little angel everyone seems to believe she is! She married my fiancé. She tried to take Arundel Hall and the plantation away from me. Yet everyone seems to think I am the one in the wrong. I only took what was mine.”
“Yes,” Gerard agreed. “But by everyone, I assume you mean the Americans. But, then, what can you expect from so crude a group of people?”
Bianca smiled. “They’re an ignorant lot. No one could see the way Nicole was carrying on with that horrid Wesley Stanford.”
“Or Isaac Simmons!” Gerard said in disgust. “She spends many, many hours a day with that piece of trash.”
A bell sounded in the distance behind them. It called the plantation workers who were left to dinner.
“I must go,” Bianca said. “Could we…meet again?”
Gerard used his frail strength to help her up, then put his ja
cket on. It was not an easy task. “You could not prevent me from seeing you again. May I say that, for the first time since I’ve been in America, I feel as if I’ve found a friend.”
“Yes,” Bianca said quietly. “I feel the same way.”
He took her hand and kissed it caressingly. “Tomorrow, then?”
“At lunch, here. I’ll bring a picnic.”
He nodded quickly, then left her.
Chapter 20
BIANCA STARED AFTER GERARD FOR A MOMENT. HE was really a fine figure of a man—his ways were delicate, refined, so far removed from the hideous Americans. She turned toward the house and sighed at the long way she had to walk. The distance was Clayton’s fault. She’d wanted someone to drive her about the plantation in a carriage, but Clay laughed at the idea and said he wasn’t about to put in roads because she was too lazy to walk.
During the long, hot walk to the house, she thought of Gerard. Why couldn’t she have married someone like him? Why had she gotten a mean, crude man like Clayton? She could have been happy with a man like Gerard. She repeated the name several times. Yes, life with him would be sweet. He’d never sneer at her or say mean, hurtful things.
Once inside the house, her euphoria vanished. The house was filthy beyond belief. It had not had a thorough cleaning in more than a year. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Clothes, papers, and dead flowers littered the table tops. The floors were scuffed and dirty. The rugs were so full of dust that just walking on them raised little clouds.
Bianca had tried to keep a staff, but Clay had always interfered with her discipline. He always backed the servants against her. After a few months, he’d refused to hire anyone to work in the house. He said Bianca’s temper was too vile to force anyone to endure it. Bianca’d argued with him, told him he had no idea how servants should be treated, but he’d ignored her as he always did.
“Here’s my dear—dare I say little?—wife now,” Clay said. He lounged against the stairwell, just in front of the dining room doorway. His shirt had once been white, but now it was dirty and torn. It was open to the waist, only halfheartedly tucked into the wide leather belt at his waist. His tall boots were caked with mud. In his hand was a glass of bourbon, just as there always was nowadays.