"I've probably already told you everything you'll ever need to know."

"Shall I tell you what I've learned?"

He sat back and folded his arms, turning so that they were even closer. "I'd enjoy that."

She didn't move away, although she imagined he had expected it. "You're brash, and p.r.o.ne to shortcuts. You can be ruthless and charming at the same time, which probably explains why you've come so far in New Orleans, despite being from nowhere. For some reason I can't fathom, you've decided I'm worth cultivating. But I'll tell you right now that Gulf Coast Shipping isn't for sale."

His smile was wide and appreciative. There was something possessive about his gaze, something that sharpened all her senses. "And neither am I," she added.

"Shall I tell you what I've learned about you?"

"I live in a man's world these days. I suppose I have to take the consequences."

"Your eyes turn a darker blue when you're angry, and anything that threatens Gulf Coast angers you. You're every bit as loyal to the men you employ as they are to you, even to the detriment of the company you love. You have nothing else in your life, but you've discovered you can't feed on the past without endangering the future. And you want and need a future."

She stared at him. "You don't look like a voodoo priest."

"You're a very complex woman, but underneath, don't all women want the same thing?"

"And men?"

"Men want power. Women want love."

"Then perhaps women and men should stay with their own kind."

"On the contrary. There's room for power and love in a marriage."

"And if that's true, why haven't you married?" she asked boldly. The entire conversation was so far outside polite boundaries that nothing seemed too shocking to ask.

"Until now, I hadn't found the woman who could give me the power I crave."

"May I ask who this paragon could be?"

"You, my dear."

It was much too late to rebuke him. Instead, she gave a throaty chuckle. "You make me laugh, Mr. Gerritsen. I wasn't certain I still could."

"We both know I'm perfectly serious."

"But this is the first conversation we've ever had."

"I know everything about you."

For a moment, she was p.r.i.c.ked by fear. Then reason a.s.serted itself. He couldn't know everything. She and Tim had gone to the greatest lengths to be sure that her past stayed hidden. "Noticing that my eyes turn a darker blue and my loyalties can be foolish is hardly everything."

"You want what I want, Rory."

She frowned at both the nickname and the sentiment.

"No, I don't see the Creole belle when I look at you," he said. "Oh, Aurore Le Danois has her attractions. A name, a home in New Orleans society, a history to guarantee my daughters a place in the best carnival courts and my sons access to the best families, despite the temporary blemishes. But it's Rory who attracts me. A woman thought to be unfeminine by the men in her social circle because she works like a man every day. A woman thought to be headstrong and difficult, perhaps just a touch wild. A woman with a past that doesn't bear close scrutiny-"

"I think you've said enough."

"You disappeared for seven months, Rory, after your father's death. Do you know what they say about you?"

She turned back to the window. Now the landscape was cypress trees and ribbons of swamp. The fact that a train track had ever been laid through this watery wilderness seemed a miracle. "What do they say?"

"That you went a little mad. Like your mother."

She closed her eyes in grat.i.tude. "Would any sane man want to marry a madwoman?"

"Would a woman of your breeding want to marry a man whose great-grandfather came downriver from Kentucky on a flatboat and met his wife in a floating wh.o.r.ehouse?"

She didn't answer.

"Haven't you learned that in business it's best to have leverage?" he asked. "Most workable contracts are negotiated by two parties with completely different strengths...and weaknesses."

"And to you, marriage is a contract to negotiate?"

"Has it ever been otherwise?"

She watched the flight of a heron, its wings spread wide as it sailed to the shade of a large tree. Then she turned back to him. "You've told me what you might gain. You neglected to say what I might."

"A merger with Gerritsen Barge Lines." He held up a hand to stop the words rising to her lips. "To be called Gulf Coast Shipping. I can see the advantage of an old, trusted name. Perhaps if you hadn't been so determined to pay off your father's debts, that might not be true. But you gained respect for Gulf Coast by playing fair."

"Only that? A larger company? More problems?"

He smiled. She noted that his eyes remained the same clear green, whatever his expression. "Fewer problems, because I would manage the company and leave you to manage our home."

"No."

"No?"

"Gulf Coast is mine."

"Gulf Coast would be ours. That wouldn't be negotiable. Your place in it might be."

"My place in it would not be negotiable. I'd share in all decisions. All of them. That would be enforced by a legal doc.u.ment signed before marriage."

"Very good. You've learned a few things about business, haven't you?"

"What else would you offer?"

"My knowledge and experience, and enough funds to set Gulf Coast firmly back on its feet. A house of your own design in the Garden District-I already own a choice lot on Prytania. Respectability, because even if I'm not of your cla.s.s, marriage to me will stop the rumors about you." His eyes focused on her lips, then trailed to the lace at her neck and below. "Children. You want children, don't you, Rory? And a man to warm your bed?"

The steam whistle shrieked a final blast that made it impossible for her to answer. They were reaching the end of the line. She knew Sylvain would be waiting for them in his newest toy, a pearl gray Stanley Steamer. She wondered if Henry had discussed her with Sylvain before issuing his unorthodox proposal.

She could feel heat rising to her cheeks as Henry continued his frank perusal. "What does Sylvain say about this?" she asked.

"That you'll continue to lose ground without me. That I can't hope to do better than you."

"We're so much merchandise to be sorted and priced according to quality."

"I think I'll enjoy marriage with you. I think I can make it tolerable for you."

She could feel his gaze roaming her body, a physical, visceral sensation. The heat rising to her cheeks was more than embarra.s.sment. She could imagine his hands caressing the same places, Henry's hands, a man's hands, marking her forever, the way Rafe's hands had marked her.

Through the years she hadn't allowed herself to think of the moments of euphoria that she had experienced in Rafe's arms. With those memories came the bitterness of betrayal. She had hoped never to think of them again. Now, she could think of nothing else.

"You're a woman who needs a man in her bed," Henry said. "And I'll fulfill that part of our contract with the greatest pleasure."

She turned away, but she could still feel his gaze. Outside her window she could glimpse the blue of the lake. She felt his hand on hers, felt his fingers glide along the skin above her glove.

She did not pull away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

By society standards, the wedding wasn't large, but the guests were important. At first Aurore hadn't realized the extent of Henry's contacts in the city. Now, five months after their ride out to Milneburg, she knew she was about to wed a man who had spun a web of influence that drew together a variety of political and business interests.

Mayor Behrman was present, along with other officials of the city government. Men who daily feuded over power and how it should be distributed stood shoulder to shoulder as she started up the aisle of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. With her head held high, she walked slowly toward the imposing golden altar, savoring the moment. She was wearing her mother's wedding dress, carefully preserved with vetiver and fragrant herbs.

She was superst.i.tious enough to wish she could have worn a new dress. She was not marrying for love, yet she had hopes for this marriage that didn't include the experiences of her mother. But Henry had paid for the wedding; she couldn't allow him to buy her dress, too. Instead, she and Cleo had lowered the modest neckline and added rows and rows of tiny satin and pearl blossoms salvaged from the dress in which she had made her debut. Her hair and face were covered by a gossamer lace veil that trailed the floor behind her, and she carried a long spray of gardenias, orange blossoms and tiny cream-colored roses that Henry had sent to her house that morning.

The mixture of heady scents was as brash, as individual, as the man who had sent them. He stood at the altar now, under a dome as high as heaven, watching every step she took. Sylvain walked beside her, visibly giving his blessing to this union, but Henry's eyes were on her alone.

His eyes remained on her during the reception at Sylvain's Garden District home. Men and women who had given her only the barest nods of recognition since Lucien's death now beamed with smiles. An Italian Renaissance table by the parlor window groaned under the weight of gifts, and the newest crop of debutantes hoped out loud that their own weddings would be as stirring.

Aurore saw the young women gazing at her new husband, wondering, perhaps, about the wedding night to come. But Henry only had eyes for her. He stayed close by her side, taking her arm whenever appropriate, touching her waist, her hand. Once, when no one seemed to be watching, he kissed her; it was a hard, possessive kiss that plucked a nerve inside her until she vibrated with apprehension.

She knew what was to come. All too well she remembered the stolen moments in Rafe's arms, the intimacies, the emotions. She had thought of Rafe during the ceremony, not the man who had destroyed her world, but the one who had offered her love, the man who had touched her, warmed her, taught her the mysteries and pleasures of her body and his. It had been the first time she had thought of him without hatred since the night of the fire. Perhaps, while the priest droned the familiar litany of the ma.s.s, hatred hadn't dared to intrude.

Whatever the reason, she had been shaken. As the priest bound her irrevocably to Henry, another man had filled her mind. She didn't believe in omens, but what good could come from disloyalty? Henry offered her everything that Rafe had taken, yet as she gazed at him through the delicate clouds of her veil, she saw him more clearly than at anytime in the months he had courted her. He offered her everything she craved, but she was suddenly afraid he would give her nothing she really needed.

The disquieting thoughts continued throughout the afternoon. She told herself they were to be expected. She broached her fears with Ti' Boo as her friend helped her prepare for the trip out to Milneburg, where she and Henry would stay in the Winslows' cottage for a week. Ti' Boo, growing round with her third child, said only what was expected. Aurore had married Henry in the eyes of G.o.d and the church, and in the even more judgmental eyes of New Orleans society. She must give him her loyalty and trust, and work, from that day forward, to be the wife he deserved.

Ti' Boo said this without emotion. "What do you really think?" Aurore asked, gripping Ti' Boo's lace-trimmed sleeve until she stopped bustling around the room. "Don't just say what you're supposed to say, Ti' Boo."

Ti' Boo fell to the bed beside her. "Why do you ask me now, when for months I hoped to tell you my thoughts?"

Aurore considered her friend's question. She hadn't asked because she hadn't wanted to hear any criticism of Henry. She had seen him as her last opportunity to set her life back on its intended path, a chance to have children to replace Nicolette, a chance to infuse Gulf Coast with cash, a chance to take her place in the community again. Marriage to Henry had offered all these things, and that had been enough.

She stood and straightened the skirt of her dress. "He'll have my loyalty until the day he doesn't deserve it, but he'll never have my trust. I'll never trust a man again."

Ti' Boo didn't try to change her mind. She rose and took Aurore's cape and draped it around her friend's shoulders. Aurore and Henry would make the trip out to the lake in Henry's new Packard, and there was a chill wind blowing from the north. "I wish you the greatest happiness," Ti' Boo said wistfully. "The happiness I've had with Jules."

Aurore suspected that same kind of warm acceptance wasn't within her reach, but she didn't spoil the moment. She hugged Ti' Boo, and the two women stood together for a long time. Then she pulled away and went to begin her life as Mrs. Henry Gerritsen.

When the Winslows went out to Milneburg, they took remnants of their household staff, but Aurore and Henry had decided to spend their time here alone. A local woman would come in to clean for them each morning and leave them something for dinner, but no one else would disturb them. February was not the fashionable season to enjoy the peaceful vistas of the lake; the city was firmly in the grip of carnival.

The woman, Doris, was waiting to unpack their trunks when they arrived. Aurore went outside on the gallery jutting over the water while Doris worked. The gallery was nearly as wide as a steamboat's deck, and the view as spectacular as the most colorful river bend. The sun was setting, and purple faded into a thousand subtler shades.

She leaned against the railing, entranced. Geese flew across the sky in a perfect wedge. She had never seen the lake so calm. No sailboats broke the gla.s.sy surface of the water; no fish leaped into the air.

"After the wind we had this afternoon, I'm surprised it's so still now."

She hadn't realized Henry had come to stand beside her. It disconcerted her that he could move so quietly. "It's a beautiful sunset, isn't it?"

"It's cold, and far too quiet."

She turned to him and smiled. "It's beautiful, Henry. Enjoy it."

"I wonder, will you spend the rest of your days trying to convince me to think as you do?"

For the first time, she felt the cold, too. "I hope I'll spend them more productively than that."

He was watching her, not the spectacle of the sun's disappearance. "Your eyes are the color of the lake this time of year, just as cool and still. I can almost believe what I see. No pa.s.sions, no secrets. Nothing to stir the surface."

She had never told him anything about the events that had scarred her, and she didn't now. "I'm no different than anyone. I have pa.s.sions and secrets, but none grand enough to worry you."

"No?"

She turned her back to the rail and faced him. "No. But you must know that. You're not a man who'd marry a woman he didn't understand."

"I understand you."

"Well, not completely, I hope. There should be a little mystery, don't you think?"

"None." He fingered a strand of her hair that had come loose from the fashionable high knot that Ti' Boo had arranged. "Tell me exactly why you married me, Rory."

She sensed he would settle for nothing but the truth. "Because you can give me everything I want. And I think I can do the same for you."

"What do I want?"

"Beyond what you told me that first day we talked?" She considered. "You don't want peace, you're not a peaceful man. I don't think the pleasures of hearth and home appeal to you." She considered again. "I think you want a challenge. And I can promise you that."

"A challenge?"

"You would never be happy with a woman who tried to make your life comfortable or simple. You don't want an equal partner, but you don't want a servant."