When Strangers Marry (Vallerands #1)(27)

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Lysette walked down the stairs after a sleepless night. The house was still, the hour too early for the twins to have awakened. There was a heavy feeling in her heart, and she could not pretend it was anything other than concern for Max. Just why she should care so much about what happened to him was impossible to explain.

Going to the morning room, she peered through the window and saw that dawn had arrived. Perhaps at this moment Sagesse and Max were dueling, rapiers scissoring and flashing in the pale light.

“By now it is over,” she heard Irénée say behind her. The older woman sat at the empty breakfast table. “It seems I have been through a hundred mornings such as this,” Irénée continued, looking haggard. “This is hardly the first duel Maximilien has fought. And he is not the only son of mine to have taken up swords. No one understands the grief a woman bears when the life of her child is threatened.”

“I do not think he will fail, madame.”

“And if he doesn’t? How much more will his heart be blackened when he tries to live with Etienne’s death on his conscience? Perhaps it would be better for him to… to lose this duel than to become so embittered.”

“No,” Lysette said softly.

The minutes seemed to drag at a fraction of their usual pace. Surely if Max were all right he would have returned by now. Lysette tried to make conversation, but after a while she fell silent and stared blankly at the cooling liquid in her cup.

“Madame!” she heard Noeline exclaim. Irénée and Lysette both turned with a start. The housekeeper stood in the doorway, her wiry arms bracketing either side of the doorframe. “Retta’s boy just ran up to say that Monsieur is coming down the road!”

“He is all right?” Irénée asked unsteadily.

“Just fine!”

Irénée jumped to her feet with surprising alacrity and hurried to the entrance hall. Lysette followed, her heart pounding with some inexplicable emotion.

Abruptly the tension was severed as Max burst through the house, his expression harsh with frustration. He slammed the massive door, scowled at the two women in front of him, and strode to the library. Irénée followed at his heels, while Lysette stood frozen in the hall.

“Max?” she heard Irénée’s muffled plea. “Maximilien? What happened?”

There was no reply.

“You won the duel?” Irénée pressed. “Etienne Sagesse is dead?”

“No. Sagesse isn’t dead.”

“But I don’t understand.”

Lysette stood in the doorway as Max went to a bookcase and stared at the colored spines of the leather-bound volumes. “Soon after the duel began, I had Sagesse at my mercy,” he said. “His reflexes have gone soft. He couldn’t best anyone but the rankest novice.”

Max looked down at his right hand as if he still held the rapier. “Child’s play,” he continued with a curl of his lip. “I gave him a scratch, barely enough to draw blood. Then the seconds conferred and inquired if honor had been satisfied. Sagesse said no, that honor required us to fight to the death. I was about to agree, but then…”

Max groaned and swiveled around, clutching his head in his hands. “My God, I don’t know what made me do it. I wanted to kill him so badly. It would have been so easy, so damned easy.”

“You let it end there,” Irénée said in disbelief. “You did not kill him.”

Max nodded, his face twisting in baffled selfhatred.

“I am pleased,” Irénée told him fervently. “You did the right thing, Max.”

He made a sound of disgust. “I need a drink.” As his gaze moved to the silver tray of decanters, he caught sight of Lysette as she stood in the doorway.

They stared at each other in the highly charged silence. Lysette was at a loss for words. Clearly nothing could be said to soothe him. He was filled with masculine hostility that had been allowed no outlet. Clearly he was furious that he hadn’t been able to make himself kill his hated enemy. No doubt he considered that a sign of weakness.

Lysette, on the other hand, recognized the turn of events as evidence that she had been right— Vallerand was not a killer, no matter what the rest of New Orleans chose to believe. “Well,” she murmured, “what next, monsieur? Will you be sensible and let the matter rest now? Probably not… you’ll do your best to find another excuse to duel with Sagesse, and perhaps next time you’ll find it in yourself to kill him. Though I doubt it. In any event, I won’t be here to see it, thank God.”

She gave Irénée an expectant glance. “If you wouldn’t mind, madame, I would like to go to the Ursuline convent now. I doubt it will be half so interesting as a stay with the Vallerands… but I daresay I wouldn’t mind a few days of peace and quiet.”

Vallerand pinned her with a surly stare that made her nerves jangle with warning. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“You have an alternate plan in mind?” she asked crisply.

“You’re ruined,” he pointed out. “No one in the entire territory would have you now. Everyone believes you to be soiled goods.”

“Yes, thanks to you, marriage is no longer a choice for me. But the sisters will have me. So, if you will excuse me, I am going upstairs to pack my few things, and then I expect a carriage to—”