Sweet Piracy by Jennifer Blake

wasted.
    Perhaps not quite wasted. The afternoon brought an extraordinary influx of male visitors to the gallery of Beau Repos. Hippolyte Gravier brought with him a half dozen of the young bloods of the area to cluster around Estelle. Amélie was not without her court also, though they tended to be older and more staid. And of course Fletcher Masterson, looking like a sober blond giant among the dark and laughing Creoles, came to sit beside Caroline for a proper half hour.
    He and Caroline talked of the same things they had talked of for the better part of two months. Caroline asked after his mother, a widow and semi-invalid who seldom stirred beyond the walls of her home. He told her of the progress of his crop; he had only that year switched from cane to cotton and was anxious about the success of the venture. He mentioned having met his near neighbor at Felicity one day on the road, and spoke with wonder verging on contempt of his stated aim to refrain from making a crop until the following year. When he picked up his hat and cane and finally took himself off, Caroline realized that beyond a perfunctory inquiry about her health, he had expressed no interest whatsoever in her or her activities.
    The most diverting thing about the entire day was the manner in which M’sieur Philippe hovered nearby while Fletcher was in attendance, directing malevolent looks at the American’s broad back while his target was oblivious of the tutor’s presence. It ceased to be amusing when M’sieur Philippe, with great adroitness, slipped in front of two young gentlemen to take Fletcher’s vacated chair. He did not leave her side for the remainder of the evening. Even when she got up to see about replenishing the refreshments, he went with her. When Colossus could not be found at once, the tutor insisted on being allowed to pull the tasseled rope to summon the butler, for all the world as though she lacked the strength for such a task.
    In the back sitting room that evening the ladies held a postmortem over the afternoon.
    “I think, in fact I am certain, that Hippolyte Gravier is enamored of me,” Estelle announced with simple pride.
    Her mother smiled. “But of course.”
    “I have decided to forgive him for pulling my hair when we were children.”
    “Very magnanimous,” Caroline observed.
    “You are laughing at me, yes? But I do not regard it. I am a woman now with many, many suitors. I have learned the value of being mistress of my terrible temper.”
    Caroline listened to this speech with an inclination to allow her mouth to drop open. “Commendable,” she said when she had recovered.
    “Astonishing,” her mother, a deal more taken aback, dubbed it. “And where did you chance upon such wisdom?”
    “Mam’zelle Caroline has been telling me forever, but it was the Marquis who warned me that nothing gives suitors a disgust of a lady so much as an unbridled display of temperament. Only very great actresses are forgiven such lapses.”
    “ Mon Dieu ,” Madame said faintly, looking around with a distrait expression for her vinaigrette.
    “You told him you wished to become an actress?” Amélie asked in a tone compounded half of horror, half fascination.
    “ Certainement . He was most understanding. He is acquainted with a number of actresses, you see.”
    Madame fell back, grasping the small bottle Caroline thrust into her hand. “Oh, never, never in my life did I ever think to hear a daughter of mine admit to speaking of such things to a gentleman.”
    “M’sieur le Marquis explained to me how it is. He warned me I must be circumspect—”
    “Oh, oh, oh,” Madame moaned.
    “And he was kind enough to explain the hard work, the long hours, the uncomfortable lodgings, and the lack of respect, which are the lot of th-thes — ah, bah, I cannot say this word.”
    “Thespians, I believe, is the word you are searching for,” Caroline supplied.
    “Yes, I was most interested to hear these things. Everyone else had told