Creole Fires by Kat Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

in hand and led her to a tiny attic room on the third floor of the house.
    “We can always use a good worker,” Mrs. Leander said pointedly.
    “I’ll do my best,” Nicki promised.
    That night she slept fitfully, tossing and turning in her unfamiliar surroundings. She shivered, though the room felt warm, and dreamed of Armand Laurent. Dark, disturbing dreams of lashing fists that battered her body, and broken bones that tore through her tender flesh. Of blood that turned her world red and oozing, and tears that would not end.
    Then the haunting laughter of the guards rose up, the anguished cries of the women.
    Nicki bolted upright. Her nightshirt, damp with sweat, clung wetly to her body, and her heartbeat hammered in her ears. It took a moment for her to realize there was no threat of danger, but eventuallythe warmth in the room seeped into her awareness, dissolving the cobwebs of fear; and the cheery quilt that covered her comfortable bed eased her mind.
    Pulling the gay little pink squares beneath her chin, touching it almost reverently, she finally drifted to sleep.
    That had been nearly two weeks ago. She’d seen Alex only a few times since, but she
had
made some discoveries. She found out his household was well run and her work schedule not too strenuous. Her duties, mostly working in the kitchen outside the main house, ended right after supper, often before it got dark. She had Saturday afternoons and Sundays off, just as the sugarcane workers did.
    A simple parish church, constructed for the workers, held Catholic services every week. Nicki attended, though she still kept much to herself. For the most part, she was allowed the run of the plantation, more freedom than she had known in the last three years.
    About Alex himself, according to Mrs. Leander and some of the other women on the staff, he could probably part the Red Sea. They fussed over him endlessly, worried that he worked too hard, worried that he didn’t eat properly, worried that he worried too much. Nicki found herself more and more intrigued.
    “Why does his wife live in the city, while he spends most of his time out here?” she asked, careful to keep her interest nonchalant.
    “M’sieur Alex is not married,” Danielle Le Goff, the upstairs maid replied, tittering behind her hand. She was a short, plump, giggly girl with wistful gray eyes. Pretty, in a robust sort of way, with thick darkbrownhair that glistened in the sunlight slanting in through the open window. “But he is not lonely. He has his lady friends.”
    “You mean he has a … mistress?”
    “Oh, yes. Mademoiselle Lisette has been … entertaining him of late, but—”
    Mrs. Leander’s heavy footfalls stopped Danielle in mid-sentence.
    “She’s too young to be knowing about such things,” the housekeeper said. “Once she’s grown and married, she’ll find out for herself.” She thrust the broom Danielle had laid aside in the dark-haired girl’s direction. “Get on back to work.”
    She turned a kinder eye on Nicki. “As for you, young lady, if you’ve finished with the floors, there’s a trunkload of silver needs polishin’.”
    Nicki followed her into the dining room, thinking how much she liked the kind-hearted older woman. But her mind was not on the silver caddies that awaited.
    It was on Alex and his mistress.
Lisette.
The woman who lived in his town house on Toulouse Street. She had known such women existed, of course, but she’d never really seen one. It was said that Richard Pax-ton, the man who had last owned her contract, was having an affair with a married woman, but that wasn’t quite the same. A mistress was supposed to be beautiful, witty, and exciting. She was certain Alexandre’s mistress would be all those things and more—and for reasons she wouldn’t examine, the thought put a damper on the balance of her day.
    Nicki had just finished her second week at Belle Chêne when François du Villier arrived—and with him the first hint of