Stand-in Bride Read online

  Elaine had stopped in to say goodnight some time ago, and surely Adrian must have left by now. Finally, there seemed nothing left to do except go to bed, even though she was much too keyed up to sleep, too filled with a nerve-racking expectancy.

  She turned out all the lights except the reading light on her bedside table, propped herself up on a mountain of pillows, and opened up a paperback novel, determined to try again.

  The stairs and upstairs landing were carpeted, muffling sound. She did not hear the footsteps pause outside her door just prior to a brisk tap. Her heart gave a great leap as the door swung open and the broad-shouldered outline of Louis's tall frame loomed against the dim light from the hall.

  She couldn't see his face clearly as he stood there surveying her. Her shining dark hair steamed across the pillows and her eyes were gigantic pools of uncertain emotion.

  "Don't worry," he said tersely as she made an abrupt movement from sheer nervousness. "I haven't come to force myself on you. Quite the opposite."

  She half raised from the bed, her mouth opening to form the words she had been rehearsing for so long. He didn't have to force himself on her. She wanted him even if he didn't love her!

  He stilled her with a brusque motion of his hand. "Actually my only reason for coming back was to set your mind at ease." He paced restlessly at the foot of her bed, stopping to grip the brass frame. "I'm sorry I bullied you into this senseless sham of a marriage."

  He gave a harsh laugh that rasped across her heightened nerves. "I'm afraid annulment is pretty much out of the question, since I didn't have enough control to keep my promise. I had hoped—" He shrugged and began pacing again.

  "All I can do to make things up to you is promise you'll never have to worry about me again, even though right now that means I have to stay away. As far as I am concerned, this is your home, and I hope for Elaine's sake you see fit to stay."

  There was a formal, rehearsed quality about the whole speech and a tense control about the tall body. "One last thing." A note of bitterness crept into his voice. "I made it clear to Dessommes tonight after you left—his job is secure." He turned and left the room without a backward glance.

  The next day he was gone.

  Elaine protested only briefly at the news, her thoughts completely absorbed now in the upcoming tournament. Adrian said nothing about the short visit, but his eyes held a note of puzzlement at times when Nicole caught him looking at her.

  An expensive tape-recording device couldn't have captured that terse speech delivered in her room any more clearly than her mind had, and she played it repeatedly in the days that followed. She stopped the recording to examine the inflection of a certain word, to puzzle over every pause.

  It just didn't make any sense at all that he didn't want a divorce and hoped she would stay at Mimosa House but for some reason couldn't keep his promise to honor her marriage condition unless he stayed away. And then there was that puzzling remark about Adrian's job being secure. Why shouldn't it be secure? She had never heard any complaints about the way he carried out his responsibilities.

  She kept coming back to the sense of guilt he had revealed over having "bullied"—that was his word— her into the marriage. He seemed to have forgotten completely her willingness to do anything to provide Andrew with some measure of security after the death of her father.

  She certainly had no complaints about her end of things. Who would object to living in a gracious old house like this one and wanting for nothing that money could buy? At times she was scandalized at how easily she had adapted herself to affluence.

  The night Louis had assaulted her with that strange speech, her strongest emotion had been a sense of rejection so overpowering that she huddled in her bed, sobbing in utter hopelessness. He obviously didn't want her for a wife in the fullest sense of the word.

  The next morning when she dragged herself out of bed, she knew he would be gone. Not the type to take to her bed and waste away, Nicole continued her life as best she could with the distraction of that inexorable recording playing endlessly in her mind. There were times she despaired of her sanity.

  Fortunately, Elaine was too self-absorbed to notice Nicole's abstraction. The morning before they were scheduled to drive to New Orleans, Elaine could hardly eat her breakfast for excitement. "Could you do me a big favor today?" she begged. "My racquets are over at the club being restrung. Could you pick them up?"

  Nicole nodded agreement. She hadn't been back to the club since the day Louis had taken her to lunch there. Why not, though? She had nothing to fear from these people. She could thank Louis for that realization. She remembered how he had mocked her smilingly for assuming patrons of the country club were any different from her.

  After dropping Elaine off at school, she drove to the Peltier mansion for a last-minute conference with Mrs. Peltier concerning the Tour of Homes at Thanksgiving. In spite of Angela's insistence to the contrary, her mother seemed unconcerned that neither Nicole nor Louis would be present during the tour. That had all been a ploy in Angela's bag of tricks.

  "Come in, my dear," Mary Peltier invited graciously. "Surely you're ready for another cup of coffee at this hour." Nicole smiled her agreement and followed the faultlessly groomed woman into a small sitting room that doubled as her office, judging from the businesslike arrangement of papers on the antique secretary over against one wall.

  The next quarter hour was taken up with the serving of coffee and the confirmation of the schedule for the tour of Mimosa House. Only certain rooms would be open to public inspection, and informed guides would be on duty at each area of interest.

  "I'm sorry neither Louis nor I will be present," Nicole apologized. She intended to make her departure as soon as possible.

  "That's quite all right. It's not at all unusual for the owners to be unavailable. We appreciate your cooperation." There followed a slight pause, as though the other woman were searching for the right words to open an entirely different line of conversation.

  "How is Angela?" Nicole asked gently and knew instantly from the expression on Mary Peltier's face that Angela was the subject she had longed to introduce.

  The blue eyes flooded with tears. "Oh, Nicole, I'm so worried about her. She's been staying with a cousin in New York. She has this horrible obsession that she tried"—her voice faltered and lowered to a whisper— "to kill you!"

  The goosebumps broke out on Nicole's flesh as she responded automatically, "How foolish! It was all an accident. I remember every detail. Angela lost her balance and stumbled." Who would ever know the truth of that afternoon? At least the older woman's gray coloring was disappearing, her cheeks flushed with obvious relief.

  After leaving Mrs. Peltier's, Nicole decided to go by the club on her way home to Mimosa House. It was still early and she was unlikely to encounter a lot of curious members.

  The young man who walked from behind the counter at the pro shop responded with alacrity to her explanation of her errand. The Chauvin name sure works miracles, Nicole reflected wryly, noting the lightning change in his manner from bored to solicitous.

  She was examining some pullover sweaters as she waited when a masculine voice drawled, "Well, well, where have you been lately, Mrs. Louis Chauvin?"

  She turned and looked into the quizzical eyes of Larry Dupuis. In a flash of remembrance she recalled the last time she had seen him: that night in the French Quarter apartment when she had insisted on going home.

  She countered his question with an indifferent shrug, the light in his eyes acknowledging a point in her favor.

  "How about a cup of coffee?" At her grimace he amended, "Better yet, a Bloody Mary?"

  "Why not?" She surprised herself at her own acceptance. Bloody Marys at the country club were not a part of her usual morning schedule!

  He escorted her to a table and smiled disarmingly into her eyes, cutting through layers of politeness and decorum with a directness that took her breath.

  "You were positively magnificent that nig
ht you walked out on all of us. I applauded your sheer guts."

  "At the moment there seemed no alternative," she admitted thoughtfully, remembering suddenly the firm touch of Louis's hands on her waist as he stood behind her. Now she wished she had been able to see the expression on his face. Maybe she should have stood her ground instead of retreating. Would things have worked out differently? Maybe better?

  "Well, you killed the party, for sure," he declared with a bland smile. "I've never seen dear Angela at such a loss."

  Their drinks were served. Nicole sipped the spicy tomato-juice concoction, grateful for the lull in conversation. She instinctively liked Larry, but there was definitely something disconcerting about his directness.

  He offered a cigarette, frowning in mock disgust as she refused. "Surely you have some vice?" He lighted one and blew a cloud of smoke. "Louis is making himself scarce these days," he observed.

  She hesitated for only an instant before explaining that Louis was out of town on business most of the time lately. Then she changed the subject to the Dryades tournament. She was totally unaware of the effect of her low, musical voice on the young man as he listened carefully to its intriguing cadences.

  "No wonder Louis fell for you," he said later as they were parting after she had collected Elaine's racquets and walked with him to her car.

  "What a line to waste on a married woman!" she retorted with good-natured scorn to veil her self-consciousness.

  "Seriously," he declared, "I never thought I'd see the day Angela Peltier was as desperate as she was that night Louis left her to drive you home. She thought she still had him wound around her little finger. Never in a hundred years did anybody expect her to lose him to her meek little school friend." He shook his head in humorous wonder.

  She pondered his words as she drove home. The tiny nucleus of a plan had flickered into life during the morning, born not so much out of the actual conversations with Angela's mother and her longtime friend, but with their attitude toward Nicole. They regarded her as Louis's wife, not as a self-serving impostor.

  At noon she pulled on a vivid yellow windbreaker for protection from the chill of the damp November wind and crunched her way along the shell-covered lane to Adrian's cottage. The daring of her plan was like a stimulant in her veins, increasing her heartbeat and causing a strange lightheadedness similar to the feeling she'd had in high school when Angela would talk her into taking medication in order to stay awake all night to study.

  "Adrian, it's me," she called, knocking at the side door that led into the kitchen of the cottage. The plantation vehicle he drove was parked under the trees, indicating he had returned home for lunch. She was glad, because any delay in carrying out her plan might weaken her resolve.

  The door opened and the hazel eyes changed swiftly from irritated questioning to welcome. Curiosity mingled with hope in their tawny depths.

  "This is too good to be true, to find you on my doorstep," he said lightly, reminding Nicole how she had managed lately not to be alone with him. He held the door open wide.

  He gestured to a chair at the table set for one and walked over to stir the contents of a saucepan on the stove.

  "Could I tempt you with some delightful canned soup?" he asked and leaned against the counter with arms loosely folded as she shook her head vigorously. "No? Now, what's so urgent it couldn't be transmitted by telephone?"

  "Have you been in touch with Louis lately?" That was certainly a roundabout approach, but at the last moment her courage failed her before that questioning light in his hazel eyes.

  "Certainly. When he's away, we usually talk on the phone once or twice a week at least. Why?"

  "Do you have a telephone number where he can be reached now?"

  Incredulity flashed across his face at her words. "You don't mean—sure, I'll get it for you right now."

  He left the room, giving her a chance to quell the embarrassment of having to admit indirectly that Louis did not communicate with her. She might have gotten the number from the Holdens, but she could bear Adrian's curiosity more easily than theirs.

  "I hope nothing's wrong. Is everything still on for the tournament?" His voice preceded him as he entered the kitchen and handed her a slip of paper.

  "Everything's fine. We're driving into New Orleans tomorrow. Carol Larrison has invited us to stay with her and Ed." She stood up, folding the paper neatly into halves and then into halves again. "I hope you still plan to come in and stay at the apartment. Elaine would be terribly disappointed if you didn't see her play."

  "I wouldn't miss it. Call me tomorrow evening and let me know her schedule."

  The slight restraint in his manner told Nicole he was probably hurt that she and Nicole wouldn't be under his masculine protection at the French Quarter apartment, since they would be staying at the Larrisons'.

  "Thanks for everything, Adrian," she said warmly, grateful he had spared her the questions that her request must have aroused. He held the door open for her as she left, a somber expression on his open features.

  Now that she had the telephone number, her confidence eroded as she plodded back to the main house, rehearsing what she would say. She placed the call from the library, sitting at the big walnut desk. Closing her eyes and breathing deeply to calm her erratic heartbeat, she listened to the faint ringing.

  A bored, nasal voice answered, "Marriott Hotel. May I help you?"

  "Mr. Louis Chauvin, please."

  "One moment, please. I'll see if Mr. Chauvin is available."

  What if he wasn't there? That possibility hadn't even occurred to her before. Oh, God, she hoped he wasn't there! What would she say? What if he were cold and unfriendly the way he had been that last time home? Her carefully mustered courage dissolved rapidly into panic.

  "Yes?" came the familiar deep voice, polite but tinged with impatience.

  "Hello, Louis, It's me, Nicole." She was horrified at the tremor in her voice.

  "Nicole? Is anything wrong?" She could visualize the concern on the lean features.

  "No, no, nothing's wrong. Everything's fine!"

  Silence. This was worse than anything she'd expected. In every imagined version of the conversation, he had supplied questions to help her along.

  "I called to remind you the Dryades tournament begins Monday. Elaine and I are driving to New Orleans tomorrow. We're staying with Carol and Ed." Her voice faltered. Why didn't he say something? Anything to give a hint of what he was thinking.

  "Isn't Adrian going with you?"

  "He's going, but he isn't going with us. He'll drive in to watch her play. He'll stay at the apartment."

  Again that baffling silence at the other end.

  "The reason I called—it would mean an awful lot to Elaine if you were there, especially if she makes it to the finals."

  "Did she ask you to call?"

  "No," What a horrible mistake this was turning out to be! "Of course, I realize you are probably too busy—I just thought…"

  "I'll see what I can do," he said noncommittally. "Thanks for calling to remind me."

  Afterward she crumpled into a disconsolate heap in the big leather-upholstered chair. Oh, God, how humiliating! She might have been speaking to a stranger for all the warmth and response he displayed. How could she ever have fooled herself into thinking he might care for her? …

  So certain was she of the failure of the telephone call that, next morning, she didn't even mention to Elaine the possibility of Louis's being present at the tournament. The girl didn't seem to give her older brother a thought.

  They drove to City Park as soon as they arrived in New Orleans the next day and checked the tournament draw. Elaine would play Susan Carradine from Shreveport at one o'clock the next afternoon.

  "At least she's not seeded," Elaine said excitedly. "Could we come back this afternoon? I'd like to hit for an hour or so."

  "Of course, dear. I'll be happy to hit with you if nobody better is around."

  Nicole enjoyed the company o
f Carol and Ed that evening, even though renewing their acquaintance brought back poignant memories. There was little mention of Louis, his friends seeming to accept without question the necessity of his being away on business. The only uncomfortable moment was when Elaine complained unexpectedly, "Louis is never home."

  The next morning Nicole had her hands full. Elaine was up at dawn, pacing the floor with a case of nerves. Somehow, with Carol's help, they managed to get through the hours before the match, but Nicole was exhausted by the time Elaine was warming up against her opponent. She welcomed the sight of Adrian's familiar face just as Elaine won the spin of the racquet and elected to serve first.

  She won the match in two easy sets, 6-4, 6-2. Afterward Carol invited Adrian to join them for cocktails and dinner, and much of the conversation centered on the tournament.

  Nicole settled back with a sigh of relieved pride as Elaine proceeded to defeat each of her early-round opponents with relative ease. The semifinals, though, would be tough. She was playing a girl who was seeded second in the tournament. The match was scheduled for ten o'clock on Wednesday.

  Adrian sat beside Nicole watching the two girls warm up prior to the match. "What do you think?" she asked anxiously, aware of a flutter of nerves in her midriff. This tournament was taking a heavier toll on her than on Elaine.

  "I think our precocious child has her hands full," he replied reflectively.

  His prediction was unerring. Elaine's opponent won the toss and elected to serve. Every point was a battle as each girl held serve, finally having to resort to a tie breaker at six games all. Elaine lost by two points.

  By the end of the second set, which went to Elaine by another tie breaker, Nicole's nerves were hopelessly shredded.

  "I can't stand it!" she exclaimed, standing up to stretch nervously as the two girls took a break to towel off and drink from their thermoses at courtside.

  "The rules allow her to talk with her coach during the break following split sets," Adrian said tersely, leaving her.

  They had been watching the match from the open porch on the second story of the unadorned brick building that housed dressing rooms, the pro shop, and the park director's office in addition to a sparsely furnished lounge on each of the two floors.