Bayou Moon Page 6
TAFFY WAS A WELSHMAN
THE FOLLOWING EVENING, MIGNON was escorted into the front parlor by none other than a man she knew as Judge Gabriel Laurier. She was dressed in an iridescent black sheath that exemplified the natural grace and shape of her sculptured figure. It was one of her favorite dresses because it was simple, smart, elegant, and she could wear it anywhere, from a formal dinner to a regatta. Matching black, high-heeled shoes enhanced her well-shaped legs, and only a simple strand of black pearls was worn for effect. A black designer purse was her only accouterment.
The judge, also dressed formally, wore a dark, distinguished suit. The lines were strong and just as graceful as her own sheath. He was a polished man from the cut of his white hair to the shine of his shoes. As a valet took the keys to her rental car, the judge greeted her with an official tone in his voice, waiting for her at the stairs that led up to the veranda and the front door of the St. Michel mansion. He had been standing there waiting for her as surely as if he had known the exact time she had left her bed and breakfast and would drive through the elaborately embellished, wrought-iron gate.
Mignon noticed on her way into the house that there were several other cars. Clearly she wasn’t the only guest, and she forced a smile on her face when the tall, striking judge offered his arm to her in much the same way that the sheriff had the day before.
“My dear Miss Thibeaux,” he drawled. His pale blue eyes were agleam in the waning light of day’s end. Like many Louisianians, his voice was full of character and appeal, that wonderful accent as charming as any Mignon had heard in her many travels. It was plainly an asset that the judge took advantage of on a daily basis. “You look delicious. If you don’t mind an old man saying such a thing to a young woman.”
Mignon smiled at the man who was a full forty years older than she was. In her mind she was thinking of the time when they last faced each other, remembering it as vividly as any incident in her life. She suspected that the judge remembered it just as well as she did. He might be seventy years old but his mind was a steel trap of memory, catching everything and releasing nothing. Her voice was rich and throaty as she replied, “Of course not. What woman dislikes hearing a compliment like that?”
“I am Gabriel Laurier, Miss Thibeaux, a retired judge around these parts.” He patted her hand as she took his arm. “Perhaps you recollect our meeting when you were just a small child?”
“Have we met?” Mignon pretended to be surprised as she turned her head to gaze fully at his face, studying it carefully, not daring to tear her eyes away, as if she were searching for something to jog her memory. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t remember much about living here as a child. There are only a few pictures in my mind. Woods, humidity, playing out behind our house, and the like.” She paused and offered another innocent smile, silently congratulating herself on an acting ability that she hadn’t known she possessed. “I would like to think I would remember a man like yourself.”
Gabriel chuckled. He patted her arm again and was seemingly satisfied. “Well, you have the opportunity now, Miss Thibeaux.”
“Call me Mignon,” she invited as they went into the front parlor.
There stood several other people. It seemed an odd group to Mignon. The judge, of course, was an old and valued friend to the St. Michels and his presence was not surprising. Sheriff John Henry Roque was present once again, and Mignon found that unexpected, although having the local law in one’s pocket probably had proved valuable to the St. Michels time and time again.
Gabriel presented her to the group standing around a fireplace, drinking amber colored liquor from crystal glasses. “This, my friends, is Miss Mignon Thibeaux, who was flirting with me shamelessly on the way in, and I’ve decided that she shall become my fourth wife, if I can persuade her.” His hand tickled the top of hers, and Mignon almost jumped out of her skin. His voice denoted a playful joke on his part, but perhaps there was a bit of truth in his statement. He found her an attractive young woman and wouldn’t mind in the least if she decided to have a go at the much older man for his money.
The problem was that Mignon did mind, and she had to suppress the urge to brush off his hand and wash the place where it had touched hers. She smiled brightly at him. “Oh, Gabriel,” she gushed. “I bet you already have a few ladies stashed away.”
Gabriel beamed down at Mignon, his hair as pale as salt in the dim light of the parlor. Mignon glanced away and saw John Henry’s handsome face regarding her with an expression of distinct mistrust, and perhaps a hint of disgust at the way she was portraying herself. But in an instant that expression melted away, leaving only a neutral mask instead. He said, “I met Miss Thibeaux yesterday. Hope that knee is all right.” And his eyes flowed down her body in a similar manner to the judge’s. She didn’t care for it from the magistrate and she didn’t like it any better coming from the sheriff.
The sheath covered her knee, which was black and blue, and Mignon shrugged lightly. “When I went to see the old family house, I got a little too enthusiastic and tripped,” she explained to several sets of curious eyes. She turned to another member of the group she did not know, and stated pleasantly, “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
That man was a compact individual with brown eyes, gray hair, and an almost nut-brown complexion that indicated he liked to be outside when he could. Mignon silently guessed that he was a golfer, perhaps a man who wheeled and dealed on the putting green. She listed a few more things in her mind: another distinguished man, a man who was accustomed to power, a man who was interested in her because of the way he was looking at her, and the man who had been staring at her open-mouthed from inside the pharmacy yesterday. He was someone who had known Garlande and clearly recognized Mignon for who she was. He’s dangerous, like the sheriff is, like the judge is, and perhaps like Eleanor St. Michel is, she thought.
“My name is Jourdain Gastineau.” He held out a hand.
Mignon took it steadily and studied him with her pale green eyes. “A pleasure,” she said. She knew about him already, of course. Jourdain Gastineau, the St. Michels’ old family lawyer and future Louisiana Supreme Court Justice, if the newspapers were correct in their suppositions.
“This”—he indicated the woman beside him—“is my wife, Alexandrine.”
She was a similar size, with gray-shot black hair and gray-shot blue eyes. Her tan was interchangeable with her husband’s, and her slim figure appeared as though it regularly enjoyed an eighteen-hole romp across a golf course at the local country club. She didn’t seem to know Mignon, or her past, or that of her mother and her mother’s lover.
Alexandrine offered her hand to Mignon with a pleasant smile. “I’ve seen some of your work, Mignon, if you don’t mind me calling you that. Some wonderful works. I particularly like your series of watercolors of Paris at night. A dark series, but at the same time, it shows the hint of light, like hope shining in the night, where there might not otherwise be.”
“You’re very astute,” she responded honestly, always savoring praise of the work she favored herself. “That series seems to touch various people in unique ways. I’m glad you enjoy them.”
The conversation followed along the lines of the art world for some minutes, with Eleanor St. Michel entering a while later, kissing cheeks and making polite conversation. She was dressed in a severely cut blue cocktail dress that worked well with Eleanor’s own strong lines. She bussed Mignon lightly on the cheek as if she were her oldest friend in the world, and said, “How glad I am that you came. Dinner will be served shortly. Oh, and don’t you look delightfully dark with that sheath so dramatically juxtaposed against your pale skin?” She gave Mignon a frosty smile before disappearing into the main hallway, presumably to check on the progress of the dinner.
Mignon sipped some Drambuie and eventually found herself standing next to John Henry, a few steps away from everyone else. “Well,” she said cheerfully, but taking care to modulate her voice. “If it isn’t the sheriff of St. Germaine Parish.”
Mignon’s lips twitched with suppressed amusement. It was interesting to recognize that she had gotten under his skin, just as he had under hers. “I didn’t show up and invite myself.”
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed a bit, examining every detail of her features.
She took the time to study him. He cleaned up very nicely. The suit wasn’t designer, but it wasn’t off the rack either. It was dark blue, worn with a white silk shirt and a crisp, blue tie a shade lighter than the suit. She said, “You look nice. Not at all like a lawman who probably doesn’t even have a bachelor’s degree from a public school.”
“Oh, Miss Thibeaux, that was a low blow, coming from someone like you,” he answered, and she could have sworn there was amusement in his voice. “You’re not exactly someone who was bred to be the Queen of France herself.”
“We make do, don’t we, Sheriff?”
“Call me John Henry,” he invited, his voice a little rough. His lips curved ever so slightly upward.
“I thought that was only for people who are your friends,” she said, too quickly to bite it back. “And I know I’m not your friend.”
He smiled at her, a masculine smile full of challenge. “I think I’ll make an exception for you, Miss Thibeaux.”
“I thought you didn’t work for the St. Michels.” Mignon spoke softly, just loud enough for John Henry to hear. “Funny how you’ve gotten invited to one of their … shindigs.”
“Shindig?” he said. “I’ve come upon occasion. I wouldn’t have called it a shindig, though.”
“I thought it fit,” said Mignon. “‘Politics’,” she quoted, “‘makes strange bedfellows.’”
“I see you’ve met our most eligible bachelor,” interrupted a voice. They both turned to see a woman dressed in red silk standing in the doorway of the parlor, looking as though she had stepped off a Paris catwalk. She was every inch the European sophisticate. Her hair was cleverly coifed into a coil at the nape of her neck. Her makeup was applied to make her eyes seem luminous and larger than normal. Her lips were the exact, alluring crimson shade of her dress and her fingernails. Finally, her dress hugged her figure, but also had the devious appearance of being something she had simply thrown on.
“I’m Eugenie St. Michel,” she said to Mignon.
Mignon nodded politely. There was a feeling of uneasiness about the other woman that Mignon couldn’t shake. Something about Eugenie was decidedly wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Eugenie analyzed her, rapt with interest. “You have the most phenomenal resemblance to your mother. I would have known you anywhere.”
Mignon nodded and said, “I’ve been told that many times in the past two days.” Her chin went up as she looked at the other woman. There was a fey quality about her, as if the world didn’t quite reach her. Mignon knew that she liked to spend time abroad and that this was the first time she’d been back in La Valle for years. The tabloids said that her mother and her brother, Geraud, were tired of funding her permanent vacation. Some of the gossip columnists proclaimed that stress from her numerous divorces had sent her running back to her ancestral home.
She placed a hand on Mignon’s arm and steered her away from John Henry with a regretful smile. “My brother had some very interesting things to say about you. I believe he was unhappy about Maman’s order that he bring you forth to the mansion and swiftly, upon wings of shining silver. He must have treated you shabbily because he was like a bear with a sore head last night.” She leaned down to whisper into Mignon’s ear, “He worries entirely too much about his business. How things look in the papers and such.”
Mignon shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” Geraud had spoken a dearth of words to her even while he did his mother’s bidding, and she had followed in the rental car, aware that he sat stiffly in the back of the Mercedes while the chauffeur expertly negotiated the roads back to La Valle.
Outside the parlor, Geraud was chatting with his mother and his wife. Eugenie interrupted, saying, “Geraud, here is Mignon, Mother’s special guest. Do apologize for being so nasty to her last night.”
Geraud’s eyes betrayed him for just the shortest of instants. He was irritated with his sister, and irritated with his mother for inviting Mignon. He smiled at his sister and then turned to Mignon with his hand held out. She took it and he squeezed gently, looking into her eyes. “I apologize, Miss Thibeaux, if I was too unceremonious.”
Does everyone here cater to Eleanor St. Michel’s wishes like good little toadies? Mignon knew that Eleanor held most of the purse strings as Luc St. Michel’s proxy of choice. Even Geraud only possessed his own meager holdings and did not command the majority of the wealth. She smiled at Geraud and thought her jaws were going to hurt with all of the fake smiling she was doing this evening. “It doesn’t matter,” she reassured him, and prayed that it came out as sincere.
“This,” he said, still holding her hand, while Eleanor looked on approvingly, “is my wife, Leya.” He indicated the woman next to him with the briefest of nods.
Leya St. Michel was in every way Geraud’s opposite. She was dark while he was fair. Her skin was olive while his was the aged color of a lightly pink ivory. Her eyes were black and his were that curious midnight blue. When Geraud finally released Mignon’s hand, Leya took it, and her face arced into a smile. “You’re a very sensitive woman, aren’t you?”
Geraud snickered. “Don’t try any of your crap with her, Leya.” Then, to Mignon, he said, “She fancies herself a psychic, Mignon. Don’t pay any attention to her. Between her and my mother, it’s a wonder we don’t have every prognosticator and soothsayer on the Gulf Coast staying here.”
“But she is sensitive,” insisted Leya, still holding onto Mignon’s hand in a grip she almost found painful, staring into Mignon’s eyes earnestly. “She knows about things that happen to other people. Sometimes she has dreams about things that have happened. Isn’t that true, Mignon?”
Mignon looked into the depths of Leya St. Michel’s eyes and said, “I do … dream.”
“The future or the past?” Leya asked.
“The past,” she answered softly. There was a weighty pause as these words were digested.
Geraud laughed again, but it wasn’t quite as hard as before. “My mother, my wife, and now you, Mignon. This should prove to be a most interesting evening.”
As they stood there, the conversation turned to less controversial subjects. Mignon was unaware that Eleanor and Jourdain were watching her as she participated in the dynamics of the little group of people.
“It might very well provide the impetus that we needed,” Eleanor said.
Jourdain didn’t look at Eleanor but kept his eyes on the stunning red-haired woman. “What do you mean?”
“What better way to please a ghost than to bring someone back to the place where they belong?”
Jourdain looked at her then. “Have you lost your mind, Eleanor? How could you possibly …”
“Shush,” said Eleanor, studying Mignon with all the cunning and perception she possessed. “Perhaps this is what we so desperately needed here in this place.”
“God, Eleanor, first those obstinate reporters and their silly stories of ghosts drag me back from the capital, and now this woman. Who knows what she’s up to …”
As IT TURNED out, ten had been invited to dinner. One man was obviously Eugenie’s date, but Mignon never got past his first name, David. David looked pretty, didn’t speak much, and wore a suit as if it were a straightjacket. He didn’t seem like much of a date, and Mignon had to wonder if he was something more than just that.
John Henry offered his arm to Mignon before the judge could manage it, and Eleanor smiled at the judge as if she thought him indeed the silliest o
f old fools. Mignon glanced up at John Henry and said, “I suspect by the way you answered before that maybe you do have a college education, perhaps somewhere Ivy League after all.”
John Henry’s lips twitched knowingly. Mignon smiled to herself. She knew about him, as well. John Henry Roque had been educated via the Army method. He had attended West Point and graduated second in his class. He had served six years in the Army as part of the military police, and left to join the New Orleans Police Department. He had married and divorced while he worked in New Orleans, and left there to take a position in the St. Germaine Sheriff’s Department some ten years before. Consequently, he had run for parish sheriff two years before and won it, with a remarkable career bolstering him.
Mignon suspected that John Henry would run a records check on her, as well, but all he would find would be the misdeeds of youth, an article in the New York Times that had made many national papers, and nothing more. No husbands, no children, no looming secrets to be discovered by looking at computer records. She would have liked to be able to see his face when he came up with the fact that she didn’t even have a speeding ticket on her record for the last seven years. It would have been worth it.
“Ivy League?” he repeated. “Not this old country boy.” Then he put her into her seat and found his own across from her. Geraud was on her left, and Jourdain was on her right. John Henry sat between Leya and Alexandrine.
Dinner was served in courses, but Mignon paid little attention to exactly what was served. It could have been roasted monkey brains, for all she knew. She took a few bites of everything, and tried to pay attention to several conversations going on at once, all while conducting her own. Both Geraud and Jourdain treated her as though she were a thinly disguised spy and spoke a dearth of words to her.
Her saving grace was Eleanor, who engaged her in conversation until some of the ice had melted and the dinner conversation flowed smoothly. After dinner the group retired to one of the three living rooms for cocktails.