When Strangers Marry (Vallerands #1)(75)

“These here is pumps,” one of the sailors explained. “When the mate bawls, ‘all hands reef top-sails,’ there ain’t time fer lace-up shoes.”

Intrigued, Lysette asked a few more questions, and then they began to compete for her attention, singing ribald sea chanteys, showing her a set of brass knuckles, making her laugh by claiming she was a mermaid who had stowed away during their journey.

Coming up from the ship’s hold, Max stopped at the sight of his wife smiling at the sailors’ antics. A breeze molded the yellow fabric of her gown against the slim shape of her body, while her hair was flame-colored against the deep blue of the sky. He was suddenly overwhelmed with possessive pride.

“Well, now,” said Captain Tierney, stopping beside him to admire the picture. “Forgive me, Mr. Vallerand, but I don’t envy a man with a wife so comely. If she were mine, I’d keep her locked away out of sight.”

“It’s a tempting idea,” Max said, and laughed. “But I prefer having her with me.”

“I can understand why,” Tierney said fervently.

When Max discovered Lysette’s enjoyment of the theater, he began taking her to the St. Pierre, where the prominent members of the community gathered on Tuesdays and Saturdays to enjoy music, drama, and opera. Between acts, people moved around the theater to socialize and gossip.

Gradually it became the habit of many couples to stop by the Vallerands’ box and chat idly, for it was noticed that since his marriage, Maximilien had undergone a marked change in character. Although he still possessed a certain reserve, he was far more amiable and relaxed, reminding many of the charming boy he had been in the years before he had married Corinne Quérand. The old rumors lost some of their power as Creoles and Americans alike saw that Maximilien’s new wife regarded him with an obvious lack of fear. Perhaps, it was whispered, he wasn’t a devil after all. No man who doted on his wife so openly could be entirely bad.

———

“Maman,” Lysette said lightly, laying her hand on Irénée’s shoulder as the older woman bent over needlework in the parlor, “I have something to ask you.”

“Oui?”

“Would you have any objections if I went through some of the things in the attic?”

Irénée’s head remained bent. Her fingers stopped moving. It was clear she was startled. “Why would you want to do that?”

Lysette shrugged diffidently. “No particular reason. Justin mentioned that there are some interesting things stored away up there— portraits and clothes, old toys. One of these days, perhaps there will be a need to refurbish the nursery, and—”

“Nursery?” Irénée repeated alertly. “Do you suspect you might be with child, Lysette?”

“No.”

“Incomprehensible,” Irénée murmured under her breath. At first she had been mildly amused by her son’s voracious appetite for his new bride. Now she was beginning to find it vaguely appalling. Noeline had smugly attributed it to the voodoo charms she had hidden under Lysette’s pillow the first few weeks of the marriage.

Lysette smiled idly. “Now that I’ve spoken to you about it, I’ll put on an apron and see what I can find up there.”

“Wait,” Irénée said with an edge in her voice that Lysette had never heard before. “You are going up there to search through her things, are you not?”

“Yes,” Lysette admitted, her blue eyes unblinking.

“What do you hope to find?”

“I don’t know. I’m certain that it won’t harm anyone if I look through a few old trunks and boxes.”

“Does Max know?”

“Not yet. I will tell him tonight, when he returns home.”

Irénée held back her advice to wait and ask Max first. She hoped Max would be furious when Lysette told him what she had done. Perhaps then he would set the girl back on her heels, and Lysette would no longer be given free rein. Max needed to see that he was allowing the girl too much freedom. “Very well,” Irénée said evenly. “Ask Noeline for the keys to the trunks.”

———

Lysette and Justin had climbed up into the attic and cleared a place among piles of oddities. There was a set of bronze lamps and an old bayonet in the corner. Behind the trunks were a disassembled tester bed, a rocking cradle, and a wooden tub.

Lysette sneezed repeatedly, waving at a cloud of dust as she struggled with the massive lid of a trunk. As she opened it, its rusted hinges squealed. There was a protesting noise from Justin, who was rattling a key in the lock of another trunk nearby. “Sang de Dieu, don’t do that again,” he exclaimed. “I hate that sound. Worse than fingernails on a slate!”

“I had no idea your nerves were so fragile, Justin.” Lysette laughed as she pulled out a folded quilt, a sumptuous trapunto design of delicate rococo swirls, vines, and flowers. Thousands of tiny stitches and much painstaking work had contributed to its exquisite texture. “What did Philippe say when you told him what we were doing?” she asked.

“He is glad that I am with you. Someone needs to protect you if Maman’s ghost jumps out of one of these trunks.”

Lysette frowned. “Justin, don’t!”

He grinned. “Are you scared?”