Free Tainted Lilies by Becky Lee Weyrich Page A

to marry her, Boss?” Xavier asked suddenly.
    Jean Laffite looked down into the inky face and opened his mouth to give an immediate “yes,” but it froze on his lips. He frowned.
    “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said instead. “I can’t! We’ve got every type of man on this island, from ships’ masters to boy whores, but not one priest in the lot. Not even a back-country parson to say the words over us!”
    Xavier grinned, his large teeth shaping a crescent in his dark moon-face. “I got a right handsome broomstick, Boss. Ain’t never been jumped before, neither. Reckon it might not be as fancy as the sort of wedding her papa’d give her in New Orleans, but it’ll tie a right smart knot all the same. My ma and pa didn’t have no preacherman, but here I is, big as life—almost—and all thanks to a ole broomstick!”
    Laffite’s frown deepened. The thought of Nicolette Vernet jumping a broomstick like a slave wench rather than having a priest preside over her marriage bothered him. She deserved better. Did he even dare ask her to do such a thing?
    He’d had one of his captains read the ceremony when he married Bianca, but she’d been beyond protesting by then. She would have allowed him to have his way with her, if he’d demanded it under the circumstances, without benefit of any knot-tying. That service had been for Gambi, not for Bianca and himself. But he could not marry Nicolette in that manner. Despite his formal education, island superstitions were deeply ingrained in him. To repeat that type of ceremony might well set the fates in motion to repeat the tragic ending.
    “Get me that broomstick, Xavier!” Laffite ordered at last.
    Still, vague fears gnawed at him. Would Nicolette Vernet consent to marry him under these or any other conditions? He could make her stay on Grande Terre, but he couldn’t make her love him.
    Jean Laffite, the fearless corsair, had sailed the seven seas, fought as a privateer for the government of Cartegena, faced rapiers, pistols, and knives in more duels than he could remember. He had pitted his strength against swamp panthers, hurricanes, yellow fever, and his own mutinous men. But now he found his hands clammy, his throat dry as sun-bleached bones, and his heartbeat as erratic as slack sails in a nor’easter. He was terrified at the thought of asking Nicolette Vernet to become his wife.
    Nicolette, waiting down the hall in the pink-and-gold sitting room, was in no less of a dither. She anticipated his knock at any moment, the edges of her frayed nerves at the point of unraveling. He had yet to declare himself. Would he tonight?
    Following the afternoon fracas on the beach with Gambi and his men, Laffite had escorted her back to the mansion and left her in her aunt’s care, telling them both to rest and be ready for the exciting activities that evening.
    He had kissed her, yes. But he hadn’t asked her to marry him. Maybe he didn’t love her the way she loved him.
    The longer Nicolette waited, the more dismal her thoughts became. They clicked through her mind like a nun’s beads at vespers—sharp, grating, inevitable in their sameness and lack of warmth.
    She sat, straight of spine, on a rose brocade slipper chair, and laced her nervous fingers in her lap. Part of her prayed for him to hurry, while another part hoped he would give her more time to compose herself. She didn’t want to rush impulsively into his arms the minute she saw him—begging him to have her, promising to love him always. No! That would never do!
    What if he arrives with all intentions of asking me to be his bride, but then changes his mind at the last instant? Because… Because of what? her mind groped.
    Because I’m so young and inexperienced… because I’m as silly as a child at times… because Papa wouldn’t approve… because he knows I’m betrothed to another man…
    “Because he doesn’t love me!” she wailed aloud.
    The knock at the door startled Nicolette so that she almost