Triumph in Arms Read Free Page B

injury to Reine and Marguerite outside the theater. With that out of theway, he fell uncharacteristically silent, glancing from her to his visitor with a worried frown between faded blue eyes. He shifted his gaze out over the gallery railing to the moving patches of sunlight under the oaks. He looked at the caller again, cleared his throat and pursed his lips.
    Her father was growing older, Reine noticed with a small clutch at her heart. Liver spots marked the backs of his hands, his features were grooved with lines and his dark hair streaked with silver. A bon vivant as a young man, he had married rather late in life so had been almost forty when she was born. Events these past few years had taken their toll, stealing the spring from his step and the sprightliness and laughter from his smile. For much of that she was to blame, as she knew far too well.
    “Yes, Papa?” she asked after a moment. “You have something you wish to tell me?”
    “Indeed. There is a matter…That is, I must relate…Oh, it’s a damnable thing, and I’m more sorry than I can say. It concerns you more than any other, and it seemed best that I let you know first so you can…Ah, chère! ”
    Reine’s apprehension, already strong, turned to alarm. She sat forward. “What is it? Has something happened? Tell me at once!”
    Her father opened his mouth and closed it again with a shake of his head. Reine, feeling the gaze of the sword master upon her face, swung toward him in hope of clarification.
    Thankfully, he did not disappoint her.
    “What your father is trying to tell you, Madame Pingre,” he said, his voice as steady as his black gaze, “is that he has lost title to this property. The house, its furnishings, workers and acreage has passed from him over the gaming table. His loss is my gain. I am the new owner of River’s Edge.”
    The words he spoke were clear enough, but her mind refused to accept their meaning. This was worse, so much worse, than she had feared. “What? What did you say?”
    “It’s true,” her father said in mournful concurrence as she turned back to him. “Everything is gone. The town house in the Vieux Carré, as well.”
    “I am sorry,” Lenoir said.
    Reine closed her eyes, unable to bear what was surely the spurious regret in his voice or the implacability in his features. “Gaming,” she said, the damning word no more than a whisper in her own ears.
    “Euchre.” Her father’s voice regained strength now that the news was out. “My luck was abominable. Truly, I never saw it so bad. I was sure it would turn as the night went on, but alas, it never happened.” He gave a fatalistic shrug.
    “How could you?” she demanded in shaken tones as her lashes swept up again. “Had you no concern for me or for Marguerite? As for Maman, I cannot imagine how you are to tell her.”
    Uneasiness passed over her father’s face. “Things are not so bad as they appear.”
    “How could they be worse? We will have to leave here, and where are we to go? We may be able to putup for a few days in a hotel, but if you have lost so much—” Reine stopped, closing her lips in a tight line to prevent herself from saying more. It went against the grain to expose the full extent of the disaster to their guest. On lave son linge sale en famille, the old wives said, wash your linen within the family circle only.
    Her father rubbed the back of his neck, a harassed look tightening his features. “Nothing so drastic should be required. Monsieur Lenoir and I have come to an agreement that seems workable.”
    “For more time to arrange your affairs, you mean? I’m sure that’s very accommodating of him, but hardly improves matters.” She sent the sword master a fulminating glance. The more she considered it, the more unlikely it seemed that her father had wagered everything, particularly in a game with this man. It was too coincidental, unless, of course, they had fallen into play because of the incident outside the Théâtre