Stand-in Bride Read online

  To her left sprawled the gigantic plant of Avondale Shipyard, its docks extending as far as the eye could see, crowded with mammoth ships in different stages of construction or repair. To the right the mighty river was lined with vast warehouses dwarfed by the bulk of ships from all parts of the world. The human beings visible on the decks looked like insignificant insects in comparison to the gigantic cranes lifting crates of merchandise from the docks to the ship or vice versa.

  "Pretty impressive," Louis said in a low voice. "I always feel I have my hand on a mighty pulsebeat when I drive over this bridge."

  Minutes later they were on the expressway, caught up in the frantic rush of city traffic. How could one ever get used to driving in a large city? She was definitely a small-town person when it came to the brazen maneuvering from crowded lane to crowded lane as though every second were crucial. She took advantage of Louis's preoccupation to study him surreptitiously as he directed the car through traffic with ease. His lean brown hands on the wheel fascinated her with their capacity for cruel strength as well as gentleness.

  They left the expressway and proceeded down St. Charles Avenue into the historic old Garden District. With a deft twist of the wheel, he entered Felicity Street and halted in front of a narrow three-story house of pristine gray with intricate white ironwork on its triple balconies. The merest excuse of a front lawn was separated from the uneven brick of the street by a tall iron fence, also painted white.

  "I'll leave you in Carol's capable hands," he explained as he hurried her up the steps carved into the steep slope of the tiny lawn. "I'll meet you downtown later this afternoon. After a drink with Carol and Ed, we'll change at the apartment and meet them later at Antoine's." He punched the illuminated button beside the door, setting off a faint melodic bell in the interior of the house.

  A chic woman with short auburn hair greeted Louis with arms outstretched, pulling his head down for a kiss on his smiling lips. "It's about time you brought your new wife to visit your city friends," she scolded, giving Nicole an appraising look. "Run along, now, and we'll meet you later." Louis didn't seem to mind her bossiness in the least.

  After he had left, Carol ushered Nicole to the powder room in the hallway with the assurance that she would be ready to venture out on their shopping trip as soon as she collected her handbag and gave some last-minute instructions to the maid. With a pang of despair, Nicole noted that the older woman's grooming was absolute perfection. Could she ever look like that?

  Her brief glimpse of the house revealed high ceilings with old-fashioned light fixtures suspended on chains, dark, polished wood floors with jewel-tone Oriental rugs, and graceful antique furnishings. It was all very elegant and yet inviting at the same time, showing the touch of an expert at decorating. If Carol was responsible for the charming atmosphere of this house, no wonder Louis wanted her to assist his wife in choosing a wardrobe.

  "Your house is lovely," she complimented as Carol rejoined her in the narrow entrance hallway. She was especially enchanted by the graceful spiral staircase with its slender railing of gleaming polished wood.

  "We love it!" Carol beamed. "Actually, it was probably more fun restoring it to its original beauty than it is living in it. Come over for lunch tomorrow, and I'll bore you with the thousands of details."

  They drove downtown in Carol's dark blue Cadillac Seville, which they left in a parking lot right off Canal Street. Nicole found herself in the company of an experienced shopper who was recognized instantly in each of the exclusive women's departments, none of which Nicole had ever so much as entered. She was quickly initiated into a whole new world of shopping for clothes.

  Instead of bumping shoulders with other bargain hunters searching through racks of garments, she sank up to her ankles in deep-piled carpets and allowed herself to be seated in brocade luxury while evening gowns and dresses and slacks suits were offered for her inspection and set aside if she expressed an interest. In some instances, the garment was an original model not for sale. The store's own dressmakers would make up a replica according to her own measurements.

  It was undeniably a heady experience for a fisherman's daughter from the bayou country, but one she was enjoying in spite of the awareness that she had neither money nor credit cards to purchase these fashions. She had been too rushed that morning to withdraw money from her savings account, and Louis hadn't offered her a loan. After some moments of apprehension, she decided to just sit back and enjoy the ride, so to speak.

  At the first store, she fell in love with a sleekly sophisticated black dinner dress, but hesitated to voice her admiration until Carol noted her expression with perceptive eyes and exclaimed, "That would look stunning on you with your classical hairstyle and cameo features." She also urged an oyster-white suit, a severely tailored camel-tan trouser suit in herringbone tweed, and a long skirt with matching jacket in gold velvet.

  They all looked so becoming that Nicole flushed at the extravagant compliments from both Carol and the bosomy saleswoman who managed the department. "I like all of them" Nicole admitted wistfully, hoping Carol would make her decision easier.

  Carol shrugged. "In that case, why don't you just take all of them?"

  At that fortuitous moment a young clerk came to the door of the large fitting room to announce apologetically that there was an important telephone call for Mrs. Carson. As soon as the department manager had made her extremely unwilling departure, Nicole gathered her courage and asked Carol timidly, "Aren't these clothes terribly expensive?" So far, not a single price had been indicated.

  Carol smiled with sudden understanding. "Now I understand your very atypical reluctance. My dear, your husband is a millionaire many times over. What we spend today is the merest drop in the bucket, to use a vulgar but apt cliché."

  Nicole felt dizzy at the frank revelation. Of course, she'd realized Louis was a wealthy man, but she'd never once thought of him as being fabulously rich, which he obviously was. What a strange idea that she, Nicole, was married to a millionaire. Somehow the knowledge made him even more unattainable for her, farther out of her sphere than she had realized.

  At least she understood now his impatience with her failure to use the generous allowance he gave her each month to dress in the style he expected of the women in his close acquaintance. The balance in her savings account grew each month as she deposited the money, somewhere in the back of her mind lurking the shadowy certainty that her stay at Mimosa House would end and she would need a nest egg to live.

  With a mental shrug of inevitability, she submitted herself to Carol's direction and went obediently from store to store trying on expensive clothes and relying on her companion's subtly offered opinions in making her choices. She soon lost track of the number of gowns, dresses, suits, and slacks outfits. No money was needed once she was identified as Mrs. Louis Chauvin, and she reflected wryly that she could easily have walked out with a whole store, including furniture and clerks.

  "When do we select the glass slippers?" she finally asked breathlessly, beginning to tire more from the emotional stimulation than for physical reasons. By now they had spent thousands of dollars on everything from nightgowns to lingerie to expensive shoes and matching handbags, all of which would be delivered either to the French Quarter apartment or to Mimosa House.

  "I think we've accomplished our goal." Carol sighed with satisfaction, glancing at her tiny gold watch. "Jewelry takes a little more thought and time, but I'm forgetting you already have Mrs. Chauvin's lovely collection. By the time we get to the Pontchartrain House, the fellas should be waiting for us."

  A short time later in the dimly lit cocktail lounge at the opulent Pontchartrain House, Nicole resisted the impulse to pinch herself. If she weren't careful, she might begin to believe the role she assumed in the friendly eyes of Carol and Ed Larrison, who appeared to accept her wholeheartedly as Louis's wife.

  Ed was a soft-spoken man with a powerful, burly physique that reminded Nicole of a wrestler. It was soon obvious that
he and Louis were very good friends, the conversation inevitably touching upon people and events outside Nicole's acquaintance. Somehow, though, she was made to feel included, with none of that uncomfortable sensation of being an outsider that had prompted her to flee the company of Angela and her friends at the club the day she had lunched there with Louis.

  He appeared pleased with Carol's vivacious report of the afternoon's shopping, and his demeanor did nothing to correct the faulty impression that Nicole was his wife in every sense of the word. Surely good friends like the Larrisons knew the truth behind their marriage?

  The feeling of unreality continued as Carol and Ed left them after confirming the time they would all meet later for dinner at Antoine's, one of the more famous of the old gourmet restaurants in the Vieux Carre or French Quarter. "That's part of the charm of living in old uptown New Orleans," Carol exclaimed. "You're close enough to take advantage of what the city offers. The suburbs are for the birds!"

  Waiting in the formal lobby with its awesome glitter of crystal chandeliers while Louis claimed the car from the hotel parking lot, she realized fully that for the first time she was alone with him for the night. After dinner with Carol and Ed, she would have to return with him to the apartment with none of the protection afforded at Mimosa House by the presence of other people. The thought was frightening.

  If he perceived her nervousness, he gave no sign during the short drive to the apartment through narrow old streets with lacy grillwork and tall, slender shuttered windows giving off an aura of secrecy. As a tourist walking along the streets on previous occasions, she had felt a curiosity about the real world going on behind those ancient brick walls and solid cypress doors scarred by generations of tenants.

  The apartment was on the second floor of one of the narrow old buildings so typical of the French Quarter. Louis led the way up a steep wooden staircase and unlocked the door, leaving her to enter on her own as he returned to the car to get their luggage.

  With an exclamation of pleasure she wandered through the high-ceilinged rooms with the original plaster on the walls painted soft neutral tones. The living room was furnished in cheerful chintz-covered sofas and chairs. The kitchen had an old-fashioned porcelain sink with a ridged drain on either side and tall wooden cabinets painted a soft blue-gray.

  A quick tour revealed four bedrooms furnished with antique beds with high carved headboards and massive armoires to substitute for the closets of modern houses. Altogether, it was a charming apartment furnished appropriately for the age and character of the old building.

  She opened narrow French doors leading from one of the bedrooms to a small balcony with the typical wrought-iron railing. "Is this your choice?" She started with surprise as Louis dropped the suitcases he was carrying inside the door and walked lithely across the room to stand close beside her on the balcony. "Do you like the apartment?" he asked lightly.

  "I love it. It's perfect," she replied, trying to relax and forget her apprehension at being alone with him tonight.

  "We just have time for a quick drink before we get dressed for dinner. What would you like?"

  "Is there any wine?" she asked hesitantly. "I'm not really used to drinking." She already felt a little dizzy from the two gin and tonics she'd had earlier.

  "Whatever Madame desires," he said in a teasing voice, assuming the manner of a dignified maitre d'hotel and bowing stiffly from the waist. With a giggle of delight, she. raised her head high and led the way to the living room with the exaggerated elegance of a highborn lady, some little corner of her mind noting the presence of his expensive leather suitcase beside her own shabby green bag just inside the door where he had left them.

  "Some of your parcels have been delivered," he said as he handed her a glass of wine. She held up the fragile crystal glass appreciatively before sipping the cool, light Chablis.

  "How do you like Carol and Ed?" he asked, sprawling beside her on the deep cushions of a rust-and-blue sofa.

  "I like them very much," she answered impulsively. "I wondered, though—do they know?"

  "Do they know what?" he asked noncommittally, his dark blue gaze moving over her in a way that made her very conscious of his masculine hardness so near her on the sofa.

  "You know," she said impatiently. "That we're not really—" Her voice trailed off with the awkwardness of trying to express their unconventional relationship in words.

  "They know you're my wife," he answered in a low, husky voice, leaning over to place his drink on the low table before taking her glass and putting it beside his. "I guess we should dress for dinner," he said regretfully as he slowly lowered his head and placed his lips against hers in a lingering kiss that produced wild havoc in her veins. Throwing all caution to the winds, she slid her hands over his broad shoulders and linked them behind his head.

  "Yes, we really should," she murmured, thinking she really should not have drunk the wine.

  Finally, he put her firmly away from him. She dazedly shook off the spell induced by the contact of his mouth and hands and hard body. "Where are the parcels you mentioned?" In her mind she visualized herself in the black dress Carol had insisted she buy. It was far more daring than anything she had ever before worn.

  To be alone with Louis in an elegant apartment in the old French Quarter of New Orleans getting ready for a dinner at Antoine's was intoxicatingly unreal! Nicole whirled in front of the mirror over the old-fashioned vanity, incredulous that the alluring woman in the low-cut black dress was actually herself. Sometime while she was in the antiquated bathroom with its huge claw-footed tub, Louis's luggage had disappeared from her bedroom. Her relief was inexplicably mixed with disappointment.

  The diamond necklace and earrings she had worn to the Martins' party would have been perfect with the dress, she thought regretfully as she fastened the heavy gold hoops in her ears. With a last look at her appearance, she picked up the small jet-beaded handbag and turned toward the door, intending to wait for Louis in the living room.

  The door swung open magically and Louis stood there surveying her with disconcerting eyes that lingered on the exposed cleavage before sliding down to the tiny waist and slim hips. "Well?" she prompted with defiance born out of sheer nervousness.

  "We'd better be going," he said tersely, offering her his arm. Somehow she was disappointed at his lack of reaction or comment. What had she been expecting— or hoping for?

  The evening had all the enchantment of a fairy tale with lovely ladies and handsome princes. Carol glowed in a dress of emerald green that offset her titian hair. Ed was quietly impressive in his well-fitting suit. But Nicole hardly dared look at Louis, dark and lean and powerful in dinner clothes tailored perfectly to his athlete's body.

  Her apprehensions faded under the influence of the congenial company and relaxed atmosphere. Food had never tasted better as she worked her way through oyster soup, spinach salad with hearts of artichoke and fresh mushrooms, and trout amandine. The wines Ed and Louis chose to accompany each course were excellent, and she lost all trace of the reticence she usually felt in the presence of Louis and his friends, laughing and talking as freely as she did with Elaine and Adrian. Once or twice she caught Louis looking at her as if he couldn't quite reconcile this glowing young woman with the very reserved person he had come to expect.

  Dinner at Antoine's was a leisurely affair, each dish not so much served as presented by the white-coated waiters. "I feel positively guilty in this place if I don't savor every mouthful," Carol announced in a theatrical whisper that brought laughs of sympathetic agreement. The waiter had just completed an elaborate tableside ritual of preparing Cherries Jubilee, serving them with a solemnity befitting a church service.

  Carol's comment expressed Nicole's own feelings perfectly. What she didn't realize was how much her own spontaneous enjoyment of the food and surroundings had contributed to the success of the evening.

  It was after eleven o'clock by the time they'd finished dessert and consumed several cups of strong b
lack coffee with afterdinner liqueurs. Ed refused the invitation to drop by the apartment for a nightcap, explaining he had an important day in court tomorrow and still had a little last-minute work to do before retiring to bed.

  "Besides," moaned Carol, "after this three-hour ritual of food and drink, I can't even manage a glass of water!" She seemed genuinely disappointed to learn that Louis planned to drive back to Iberville the next day and urged Nicole to stay at her house and visit for several days. Nicole blushed when Louis firmly refused the invitation without even giving her a chance to speak.

  "Well, pardon me!" Carol laughed, exchanging a knowing look with Ed. "Well, you two will have to come into the city more often. Just let me know ahead of time, and I'll throw a big party so Nicole can meet everybody," she promised, looking delighted at the prospect, as if she were already making up the guest list.

  On the short drive from Antoine's to the apartment, Nicole's shyness crept back, dulling her mind as she searched for something to say to dispel the silence. What caused that sharp frown of irritation as he parked the car in front of a big brown Lincoln Continental which hadn't been there earlier?

  The French doors on the second floor opened and light flowed across the balcony and out onto the street. From the sounds of laughter and music, someone was having quite a party up there, she thought idly—and then came a jolt of realization. That was Louis's apartment! Had he invited guests without telling her?

  The expression on his face was so thunderous she didn't venture a question as they mounted the steep, narrow stairs. He pushed upon the door and waited for her to precede him into the tiny foyer. Her dazed senses struggled to assimilate the scene in the living room. Angela was standing in the open doorway leading to the balcony, a smug smile on her face. Her ice-blue glance flickered across Nicole's stunned face and rested on Louis, who stood close behind Nicole with his hands curved supportively around her waist.