Tides of Love (Seaswept Seduction Series) (7 page)

He felt an odd tightness in his chest, although her pledge was exactly what he wanted to hear. "Good. We understand each other." He lifted his hand, staying her impatient jiggling of the door handle. "I'll do this, on one condition."

"Condition?" Her brow scrunched as her canvas boot tapped a tune on the planked floor.

"No more 'Professor' nonsense. Never again from those lovely lips of yours."

Elle raised her hand to her mouth, smoothed her finger over her top lip. "Of course."

Puzzled by what he'd just uttered, Noah dropped to his haunches and flipped through a pile of books. He motioned her behind the door as he approached, a burgundy volume in his hand. "Wait until I have your father's full attention, where you can see our backs are turned. Then run. Don't think, run." He stepped outside, then leaned back in. "Let me amend that. Think.
Please.
Don't trip crossing the yard or tumble down the staircase and break your leg. Only one doctor in town, I'll wager, and he's someone we want to avoid just now."

Elle glared and kicked the door shut, propelling him onto the small landing. "Fine show of gratitude," he muttered and yanked his cuffs.

Closing in on Henri Beaumont, Noah reminded himself that Pilot Isle differed greatly from Chicago. He had to get used to being part of a community, tipping his hat and making eye contact, engaging the fishermen he had come to soothe in discussions about the weather or the latest catch. Inane, completely harmless conversation.

Hell, he might as well practice his rusty skills on Henri Beaumont.

Chapter 3

"We must console ourselves with the

comparatively few things which come up entire."

C. Wyville Thomson

The Depths of the Sea

You cannot force me
, Elle thought to herself, her father's voice dissolving in her ears like mist in the sunlight. Her weekly dinners with her father were quickly becoming comparable to torture.

"Marielle-Claire, are you listening?"

Reaching for her wineglass, Elle drained it in one swallow. Her father kept a bottle of Bordeaux in the storeroom of Christabel's restaurant and insisted on drinking from his own crystal.

"Daughter, are you
listening?"

"You cannot force me," she said, a kaleidoscope of color glittering across the tablecloth as she lowered the beveled glass.

"Force you?
Grands Dieux!
If I could force you, I would have. Long ago."

She drew a calming breath of air filled with the scent of smoke, fish, and Macassar oil. Strong enough to make her think every male head in the room was heavily slicked.

"You let Dr. Leland slip through your fingers, Marielle-Claire. Absurd, especially for a man, but I believe he wanted your love. Would not have
you
unless he had
it,
which, of course, he did not." Henri's lips parted on a sigh, a puff of smoke drifting forth. "Let there be only honesty between family. Your love is not available, now is it?"

She blinked and coughed, her eyes stinging. "Available? I've never loved a man enough to get married, if that's what you mean."

He flicked his hand, ashes from his cigar drifting to the floor. "Why do you insist upon believing in an antiquated ideal? Forget about a marriage based on love. I didn't love your mother. And she did not love me. We had a sensible relationship, a solid partnership. Love would have thrown a kink in a well-oiled piece of machinery," he said, candlelight revealing flaring nostrils and plump cheeks. Except for a hint of plumpness in her own cheeks, she and her father shared little. "If your mother had not been dead all these years, I would curse her for putting such nonsense in your head."

Elle dug her heels into the pine planks beneath her feet and prayed to God she could hold her tongue. She counted to ten, then whispered,
"Grandmere
Dupre filled my head with nonsense, if you must know."

"Ah... cela n'a rien d'etonnant."
Henri stabbed his cigar in the clump of creamed spinach on his plate, lips curling back from his teeth. "Not a surprise, to translate for you since your French is much like a child's. This news makes me regret, not for the first time, sending Marie our address after we moved to America. Is this what she wrote about in those cumbersome letters she sent every month? Cautioned you to marry for love? As she did, but, alas, as her beloved daughter did not? Imbecilic drivel from an old woman."

Elle swallowed her ire, wishing for another glass of wine to soften her father's cruel counsel. "Marie Dupre bore seven children with a man she cherished more than life. She believed in the power of love and urged me to hold on to love if I found it, no matter the cost." Of course, years ago, not long before Marie's death, Elle had made the mistake of writing to her about Noah. Every
cumbersome
letter from then on had mentioned his name, asking if he had returned to Pilot Isle. As if she somehow knew he would. As if it mattered.

"Don't look at me with blatant hostility on your face. You are my only child, a beautiful woman, and I love you. However, you tend to dream far too much, Marielle-Claire. Life is for those who grasp it in both hands." He made a fist. "Who
do,
not who dream. Sad but true, but you need a man to grasp life for you. You cannot do it alone. It's impossible. I made a mistake allowing you unlimited freedom. University, the disruptive group of women who encouraged you to attend those ridiculous rallies. The trouble you got into was easy enough to rectify. After I assured them you were going home, the officers released you without complaint. But the ideas, they remain a wall around you.
Grands Dieux!
Ideas of independence and feminine freedom, as if there were such a thing." He rolled the rim of his glass along his bottom lip, took a measuring sip. "Caleb would have put up with your nonsense. After all, he continues to."

"He's in love with Christabel. A tad late, I'm afraid." Elle smothered a yawn; she had heard these complaints many times.

"Well, well. Gossip travels."

Elle's shoulders lifted beneath her faded dress. She felt calm, overly calm. She wondered if her father's Bordeaux were to blame.

"Christabel Connery is nothing for you to worry about. I will talk to Caleb, if you wish. If you changed your mind, I could be persuaded to change his."

Elle gazed through flickering candlelight—across an incongruous setting of chipped porcelain and gleaming crystal—into a stranger's eyes. At times like these, her mother's comforting smile returned, and Elle experienced grief greater than any she could imagine. If only
... oh, damn and blast with if only.
"Papa, I don't care about Caleb and Christabel. I don't care about Magnus and Anna Plowman. If I married a man, shouldn't I care if he loves another woman?"

Henri reared, his thumbs snaking beneath the braided edge of his waistcoat. "I imagine you would care if the situation involved young Noah. He asked me to translate a science text this afternoon. Mentioned he's living in the widow's vacant dwelling. How opportune."

She slid her glass in a slow circle. Would she care if Noah loved another woman? Kissed another woman? The naive young girl would have cared plenty, and gone after them, claws sharpened. Elle rubbed her hand across her stomach, the sudden ache warning her the young girl still resided inside her.

No.
A woman did not experience the unconditional love of a child. And, her love for Noah had been unconditional from the first moment. She could still see him shoving Daniel Connery from her path and turning to escort her inside the schoolhouse. Her mind had not understood every word spoken that day, but her heart had.

Her father's fist cracked down, upsetting a tin saltshaker and her wineglass. "Marielle-Claire, you must get him out of your mind. I would be happy to hand you over to him, believe me. But be reasonable. He does not want you. He never has."

Elle righted her glass and reached for the bottle. "Our relationship does not include sharing my mind, Papa. What's there is mine and mine alone." Commending herself for pouring with a steady hand, she took a long sip before she looked into eyes that scaled and stored.

Exposed, she buried her anguish deep.

Henri leaned forward, wadding stained cloth beneath each elbow. "Forget him, daughter. Right now, right this
minute.
You made a perfect ninny of yourself, but you were a child, and people will excuse a child's impropriety. They will not excuse a woman's."

Anger bloomed hot and fast in her cheeks.

"I can see by your intractable expression that I will have to unveil harsh truths to make you understand your position. A scented letter was waiting for young Noah at the post office this morning. From a Mrs. Bartram. Caroline, I believe. Return address Chicago. Unfortunately, Garrett retrieved the missive before I had a chance to intercept. Written proof would work wonders in convincing you."

"That's despicable."

His shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. "Dear girl, I no longer presume where you're concerned. I learned that lesson long ago."

"I no longer presume where you're concerned either, Papa. Those lessons blistered."

He vaulted to his feet, his chair skidding back. "You set yourself on a perilous course." He stuffed his crystal wineglasses in his coat pocket. "A dire one."

Knowing it would fuel his ire as mere words could not, Elle flicked her fingers in a dismissive gesture. It worked, she thought, watching him storm from the restaurant, cursing the tables crowding his path, cursing his daughter, cursing the small town he ran his shipping empire from.

"Whew, that was a good one."

Elle propped her chin in her palm, watched Christabel Connery sweep her maroon skirt to the side and plant her ample bottom in the chair her father had vacated.

"A quick-tempered male, I tell you."

"At least he didn't break any crystal this time," Elle said.

Christabel pulled a dented cup from her apron pocket and emptied the rest of the wine in it. "Oh, he's just getting sick of ordering those fancy glasses every month. Sees it's cheaper to flounce outta here spitting curses rather than throwing things. For the love of Pete, at least that's free." She swished wine from cheek to cheek and swallowed. "Have a fit if he saw me drinking this from a tin cup, wouldn't he?"

Elle laughed, or tried to, and dipped her head low. Her father's tantrum hadn't left the sick feeling in her stomach. Oh, no, Noah's love letter had done that.

"Oh, honey."

Startled, she glanced up, taking note of the compassion in her friend's dark brown eyes. Not able to stand anyone's sympathy just then, Elle dropped her gaze to the tangle of blond hair trailing past Christa's shoulder. Her father called Christabel a floozy; Elle called her a friend. "He's never going to sign my money over to me, Christa. Never. He has no right to do this. My mother planned to give it to me for my education. She and Papa discussed the funds before she died. He promised her, promised me. And now, it's been so long. I'm too old to return to university."

"It seems he has every right, fair or no. Didn't your momma leave anything in writing? Anything at all? I don't know much about legal matters, but I do know you have to get it in writing."

Elle shook her head. Her mother's death had been sudden, three weeks after the headaches and dizziness started. There had not been time to sign papers and legalize things her mother had never dreamed would need to be legalized.

"Maybe you should marry—"

Elle's hand shot on, coming close to knocking the bottle to the floor. "Please, don't say it, Christa. Please, anyone but you."

"Honey, what are you going to do? Your school isn't a money-making business. Not enough, anyway. And what if Widow Wynne, bless her heart, passes on? You could open a shop, a millinery or something, like Carol Hudley. Except you can't sew worth a lick. And your cooking isn't good enough for even
me
to hire you." Christabel raised the cup to her lips, her words a hollow echo against tin. "You could still go back to Magnus."

Elle slammed her elbows to the table. "You must be joking."

Christabel lowered the cup, revealing flushed cheeks and a half grimace.

"Mercy above, you're embarrassed to even suggest it. How could you think...?" The words turned to a growl low in her throat.

"He still loves you, Ellie. Anna Plowman is a blind fool, I guess, not to see. Tell him you love him and didn't realize it before. He'd jump like you lit a firecracker under his tail end."

"I won't do it. Something deep inside tells me not to."

A dreamy smile rounded Christabel's lips as she took a lazy sip.

Elle leaned in and whispered, "Get that look off your face. It's not going to happen." She glanced over her shoulder, but no one appeared to be listening.

"Like your granny always said."

"Yes, yes, Noah's returned. Fat lot of good that will do me. My father just told me a woman is writing him from Chicago. Scented letters, of all things."