Leonie (47 page)

“Of course, madame.”

The carriage door closed smoothly behind him and Léonie closed her eyes. Tomorrow she’d be home.

Gilles strode across to the waiting train, already billowing steam and groaning as though with eagerness to be off. He still enjoyed traveling in the wagons-lits, it made him feel like a child enjoying an adventure—going off to mysterious places in the middle of the night.

The steward escorted him to his compartment, making sure he was comfortable. “Will you be having supper, sir?” he inquired.

“Supper?” Now that he thought about it, he was rather hungry, but he couldn’t face a crowded dining car. “Is the train full?”

“Oh, no, sir, we’re very quiet tonight.”

“Then yes, I will be taking supper.”

Gilles settled back against the cushions and poured a shot of whiskey from his silver flask. Why in God’s name hadn’t Léonie answered his note? He had
humbled
himself. He’d
begged
her to see him. Every time he saw her on stage, it was torture. He had gotten through these past years in the belief that one day she would come back to him. Now he must go to her at the inn, and speak with her. He would beg her to come back—it was the only way.

The hot tea arrived and Léonie sipped it, enjoying the lemony fragrance as the warmth soothed her tired body. She wished she’d asked for a sandwich to go with the tea, she really felt quite hungry now. Perhaps she’d ask the steward to bring her something, but no, it was probably quicker just to get it herself.

The dining car was empty—just a solitary person at the other end of the softly lit carriage—she could just see the top of his head
over the high banquette. “A table for how many, madame?” the attendant asked, smiling graciously.

“I’m alone,” replied Léonie.

Gilles de Courmont froze. His hand still holding the wineglass trembled as he watched the attendant go through the door toward the kitchen. He was alone with Léonie.

The length of the carriage seemed infinite as he walked toward her. “Léonie.”

Her startled golden eyes collided with his penetrating look. The adrenaline of shock rushed up her spine, forcing the blood through her veins, burning her cheeks with heat. Her eyes widened with panic: what was he doing here, was he chasing her?

“I didn’t mean to startle you; I didn’t know you were here.” His voice was gentle. “It’s as much of a surprise to me as it is to you.”

It must be true, she thought. How could he have known that she would be in the dining car—she hadn’t known herself until a few minutes ago. But what was he doing on the train? She stared at him. There were lines around his eyes, spiraling from the corners, and his thick hair was graying, brushed back from the temples in smooth silver streaks. She shivered, unable to take her eyes from his face.

“May I sit down, Léonie?” He asked the question but she knew he wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had no choice. Except, of course, to get up and leave. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

Monsieur leaned across the small table toward her, taking her hand in his. It lay small and unresisting between his palms, and he closed his eyes, so that she wouldn’t see the emotion in them—even now he must hide what he truly felt. It was just the way it had always been; holding her hand in his, he could smell her perfume, hear her breathing—feel her hand trembling. He turned it palm up and kissed it, smoothing the skin of the wrist with his finger.

Léonie let her hand lie in his, feeling the shock of his flesh on hers, watching in fascination the long square-tipped fingers, the immaculate, slightly ridged nails, and the tiny dark hairs on the back of his hands, as though she were looking at them under a microscope.

She lifted her eyes with an effort. It seemed as though time was passing very slowly, unfolding second by lethargic second, and she was without strength to move. His eyes were still so dark, such a deep blue. She was a different woman before those eyes, a shocking,
daring, demanding woman who wanted him as much as he wanted her—whenever and wherever he wanted her—and now she felt as powerless against him as she had in Monte Carlo when she was seventeen. He was still such a sexual lure for her that his touch burned the memory of response. With an effort she forced herself to her feet.

“Please speak to me, Léonie. I beg you.”

The train gathered speed, thundering through the night, hooting its presence into the silence, isolating them in its rose-shaded luxury. “Please let go of my hand.” Her voice sounded small and weak.

He gripped her hand tighter. “Stay with me for a few moments, Léonie … let’s be civilized … you must speak to me, I beg you.”

The waiter appeared in the doorway, staring at them curiously. “Shall I serve your meal now, sir?”

“Léonie, will you at least have a drink with me … just let me talk for a few moments.” His gaze held her transfixed. She sank back into her seat and he called an order to the waiter, taking the seat opposite and at last releasing her hand. She rubbed it surreptitiously under the cloth, grasping Chocolat for comfort. What was she doing here, what was happening to her?

“Léonie, I was on my way to Cap Ferrat to ask you to see me … you know why, don’t you? Why do I think of you every day, dream of you at night? Why can’t I forget you and live in peace without you? Why do I send you jasmine, remembering the scent of your skin when I kissed you? And why do you never throw the jasmine away? Is it because you remember, too? It is, isn’t it, Léonie.” His voice was a low, soothing murmur, insinuating itself into the corners of her mind. “You haven’t forgotten those nights, those long wonderful naked nights … how warm your body was under mine, how smooth and honeyed with juice and how much you cared.…”

The waiter coughed discreetly, placing the wine cooler by the table, and Léonie leaned back against the seat, her cheeks flaming.

Gilles poured the champagne himself. “You see,” he murmured, watching as she sipped the familiar wine obediently, “I forget nothing.”

Léonie held the glass tightly, staring at the night flying by in the darkness beyond the window and at their reflection—a handsome couple sipping champagne in a rosy, comfortable world. She
wanted to touch him again. Oh, she knew she shouldn’t, but she wanted to.…

He leaned closer, still talking in that hypnotic soft voice, telling her things: how he’d missed her, what he had missed—exciting her.

Chocolat jumped on her knee suddenly, tipping the glass of champagne over her skirt, startling her back to reality. The cat sat proudly on her knee and tentatively licked the drops of champagne.

Léonie pulled the cat to her and struggled to her feet. Monsieur stood in front of her, tall and commanding. “Don’t go.”

Léonie hesitated. She was torn with a longing she knew she shouldn’t feel: she was vulnerable, shorn of all her defenses, here alone with him on a speeding train. This wasn’t reality, it was a dream. She pushed past him, running down the car, wrenching at the door. He held it closed as the waiter turned his back and pretended to busy himself at the table. “Léonie,” he said urgently, “let me speak to you—at least hear me out.”

“Open the door,” she whispered, “or do I have to call the waiter?”

Their eyes locked as he hesitated and then he moved slowly from the door, holding it open for her. She passed through it quickly, breaking into a run as it slammed shut behind him. He trapped her at the next door, holding her with his body against the paneled walls of the corridor, an arm on either side of her head. She turned her head away as his mouth approached hers, holding the startled cat in front of her as a barrier. Chocolat struck out with frightened claws at his face, raking them down his cheek, and he drew back with a cry, dabbing at the bloody wounds.

“I know what you want to say,” she said, brought back to reality by the violence, “and the answer will never change. It is impossible, Monsieur—you have made it impossible.”

“But I know you want me. You do, don’t you … you feel the same as you always did. I saw it in your eyes.”

“You were wrong,” she replied coldly. “It’s all in your imagination, Monsieur. And surely it’s time you faced reality.”

“Let’s leave what happened in the past where it belongs, let’s begin again.” His voice was harsher now, it had lost that commanding murmur, that insinuating, soothing lure. His dark eyes glittered so that she could see her face reflected minutely in the enlarged pupils. “You can have Amélie, we’ll all live together—
the three of us. I’ll make you happy, Léonie, you can have anything you want, anything, I promise you.”

Amélie—how dare he even mention her name, how dare he! She’d missed Amélie’s childhood because of him. Her hate flowed back, twisting in her like a blunt knife. “We said good-bye years ago, Gilles de Courmont. Your life is your own, and it will never include me—or my child.” She pushed past him, walking quickly along the corridor and through the door and then, as panic hit her, running down the train until she reached her compartment. She slammed the door behind her, thrusting the bolts closed with trembling hands. Chocolat meowed nervously by her side as she waited for the trembling to stop.

He was insane. She must have been crazy even to listen to him, to let him even try to seduce her with his words—he’d always been able to do it. He knew what she was like. Oh, God, and she had wanted him: for a few moments she had actually wanted him more than anything else in the world. She stared at herself in the mirror, twisting the lamp so that she might see herself better. She wanted to see what kind of woman she was that she could forget murder and danger, betrayed by memories and longings of her own body.

In the morning she was the first off the train, striding alongside the burly steward in charge of her bags, running through the barrier. She caught a glimpse of him hurrying toward her as she stepped into the taxi and the steward slammed the door. He was too late. She was safe.

The inn had never looked more welcoming, nor its square whitewashed walls more solid and secure, and the simple sanity of the Frenards brought her back to comforting reality, making the events on the train seem like a nightmare.

–
• 46 •

Edouard had just seen Wil off on the train to Miami en route for New York. The Oro Velho was sold and he was a richer man than he had ever dreamed possible.

Thank goodness, his days as a rubber baron were over. He rubbed his hand over the aching scar on his forehead—even though a year had passed, it still gave him trouble. Remembering the look in Verronet’s eyes as his hand had slipped from Edouard’s broken grasp, he counted himself a very lucky man.

The ferry from Key West to Havana jostled its way fussily out into the bay as he strolled its decks. Life was in a lull, decisions had been made, changes accepted, and the future lay ahead with a big question mark.

Xara Rosalia O’Neill de Esteban rode her horse slowly across to the ridge that divided the two estates, the westerly one belonging to her brother, Tomas, and the one to the east that of her dead husband, Don José. From this height she could see the road that curved like a dusty white ribbon around the perimeter and the royal palms that stood as seventy-foot-high markers to the Flor de Sevilla estate. Its tobacco fields lay neatly furrowed in front of her, dotted here and there with patches of white, where the tender young plants were covered by cloths to protect them from the burning rays of the sun. Immediately below, in the lee of the hill, the evening sun glinted off the red tiles of the spreading roofs of the hacienda and the magnificent avenue of mango trees bordering the drive that led, straight as an arrow, to the boundary road—one of the few straight roads in Cuba, where all the original old estates had been circular.

José de Esteban’s
vega
lay exactly as it had been left by the bandits two years before: endless naked fields that were only now
beginning to show a sparse covering of rough grass, and the ruin of a great house, a vivid black scar amid the burgeoning purple-pink and scarlet bougainvillaea that sought to hide its wounds.

Tethering Florita beneath a tree to crop the lush grass, Xara wandered along the top of the pleasant little hill, looking contemplatively at her old home, the scene of her married life. “José,” she said guiltily, “it’s not that I don’t love you, I always will, but there must be something more for me than this.” Her eyes embraced the scene, the secluded narrow world of the
vega
. “Maybe if I had children, it would all be different, but twenty-six is still young.” She turned back from the dead shell of her old home regretfully; she wanted so much to find life again—and romance and love.

The pearly dawn exploded into morning as the Port Authority cannon boomed across the harbor, signaling that ships could now enter, waking Havana into bustling, chattering, vigorous life. The city’s narrow streets, strung with awnings for precious shade, teemed with people. Storekeepers arranged their wares in open-fronted shops: colored pastel pink, lilac, and lemon with stacked bolts of organdies and lawn, black and scarlet from spreading lace fans, or eggplant and orange, green and yellow from the shiny heaps of fruits and vegetables. Housewives and servants filled their baskets with bananas and mangoes, papaws, pineapples, and passion fruit, bargaining busily over cages of small game birds and scrawny chickens. Chinese and Creole beggars loitered in the shade of the terraced cafés in the Paseo Tacon, where the white-suited businessmen drank thick black coffee and talked over games of checkers and dominoes. Guitars throbbed an accompaniment to the clattering wheels of the country carriages on the cobblestones, and an aroma of spices and coffee and flowering mignonette mingled with the heavy scent of the powdered women, gossiping outside the Café Dominica.

Edouard breathed it all in, letting it flow like wine through his blood; gay and extrovert or smoldering and secretive, whatever you wanted it to be, Havana beckoned with promise.

The Boutique Oberon on Calle Fundador specialized in the very latest fashions from Paris and Xara headed toward it purposefully. It’s now or never, she told herself firmly as she pushed open the door, I’m going to change my life and I’m starting right here.