Louis stood on the deck of the steamboat next to Marian, waving goodbye to his mother, a distant figure on the balcony of the house.
“I like your family,” Marian said. “Your mother especially.”
“Mere is the glue that holds us all together,” he said quietly. “I should apologize for my father and brother’s behavior at the dinner table today.”
She turned to face him, her head tilted, her eyes questioning. “Do they often try to encourage you to return home?”
“Every trip. It’s one of the reasons I don’t come home very often. My father tries to convince me I should be home working the plantation like my brother.”
She leaned against the railing of the boat, glancing down at the muddy waters of the Mississippi.
“Yet, you seem to love them very much.”
“They’re my family. Just because we don’t agree on my choice of work doesn’t mean I don’t love them,” he said wondering about her own family.
The wind teased wisps of hair around her face and he wanted to put his arm around her waist and pull her against him, shielding her from the breeze. But he resisted; her children stood close by, but more than anything he didn’t know how she’d react. The boat hit a whitecap on the water and bounced. She gripped the railing tighter, but didn’t flinch as she returned her gaze to him.
“I can see that. My own family experience was different and Jean was never close to any of his people. It’s odd to me that though you have conflict with your father, you appear to care about him.”
“We’re dissimilar, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him.” Louis shrugged and turned back to face the water. Nothing about his life had turned out like he’d planned. And his father’s disappointment ate like a cancer at him.
“You yourself told my father that children don’t always follow the dreams parents have for them. What if Philip wants to be an architect instead of running a shipping company or what if Renee decides to become a teacher?” he said pushing away the thoughts of how selling the business would hurt Marian.
She frowned. “I know. As the words came from my lips they awoke me to my own prejudices as a parent.”
He gazed out at the flowing river and wondered how he would be as a father. He still would like to have children someday, he thought and glanced at the woman beside him. If he were going to marry her for the business, he needed to get back to courting her, but somehow the day spent together had changed things between them. Their friendship and working relationship seemed more intimate, more personal than just the act of trying to convince her to marry him for profit.
“So what path are you following, Louis? One moment you want to buy my part of the shipping company and then the next you want to sell the business? What are you trying to do?”
Her words yanked him from his thoughts, spiraling alarm, taking him by surprise as he gazed at the woman standing at his side. She was the only other woman besides his wife that he had taken to meet his family. What prompted him to take Marian and her children to see his father in such an intimate setting? He’d let her see a side of him that very few people ever saw and now because he’d let her into this part of his life, he’d given her the ammunition to question his motives. Questions he felt he owed an answer to, yet feared answering.
“If I were free to do what I wanted, I would own my own business. But it would be something that I could do to help my brother and father. That way I would still be involved with the family business, but I would be in control of my own destiny.”
“Can’t you do that with the shipping business? Aren’t we hauling their refined sugar to market for them?”
“Yes.” He gazed deep into her green eyes. “But this is Cuvier Shipping, not Fournet Shipping. Not even Cuvier/Fournet Shipping. Jean got into financial trouble and that’s the only reason I own part of the business now.”
Marian’s eyes widened at this knowledge. “Jean told me you were an investor who bought into the business.”
“I did, when he was about to go bankrupt.”
Marian turned and faced the front of the boat, the wind blowing tendrils of her hair. “Sometimes I think I would be better off selling Cuvier Shipping, just to get rid of the bad memories of Jean that seem to come with this business.”
Louis jumped at the opening.
“You know I’ll buy you out right now. You could have a fresh start in life with the money.”
Marian considered his comment for a moment, her face thoughtful, her eyes squinting in the sunlight. She tilted her head sideways and gazed up at him. “But how would I support my family? Are you going to pay me enough for us to live on the rest of our lives? Enough for me to put Philip through school and give Renee a season? Or will I be forced to remarry just to keep my children and myself from starving in several years?”
Louis frowned, unable to respond. A month ago he would have leaped at the chance to convince her that everything would be all right, but now suddenly he couldn’t lie to Marian and tell her that her fears were ungrounded. Her concerns were realistic.
“You’re not answering me, Louis.”
He turned to face her, his eyes taking in her interested expression. Very little slipped past Marian and certainly she’d noticed his sudden lack of response.
“No one can promise anything, Marian. I don’t know if I could pay you enough money to make certain that you could live the rest of your life on the proceeds from the sale. Maybe you could buy into another business. Whatever you decide, I would suggest that you consider your options very carefully.”
Just call him the biggest idiot in New Orleans. He’d just forfeited an excellent opportunity to persuade Marian to sell the business. He wondered if he’d told her too much.
She smiled at him and touched his arm. “Thank you.”
“For what?” he asked, feeling the soft warmth of her hand on his flesh. She thought he was being considerate.
She didn’t know the business was in the final stages of being sold. That any day now, he was going to have to sit down, tell her the truth, and ask for her signature.
The thought depressed him and left a bad taste in his mouth. He didn’t like what he was becoming.
“For being honest with your response. I appreciate it.”
The sudden urge to kiss her almost overwhelmed him. He wanted to pull her into his arms and feel her body against his own. He wanted to hold her and reassure her that he didn’t want to hurt her, yet his pride refused to let him give up the idea of getting the business of his dreams. And owning a mill and working for the family business again would certainly make his family happy.
How could he force her into the situation she feared? But how could he continue doing a job he despised each day? And how could he give up doing a job that would make him look good in his father’s eyes?
But most of all, how could he live with himself knowing how he had hurt Marian?