by Anne Stuart
The door closed, blotting out the light, and it took a moment for his eyes to readjust. When they did, he realized she’d come in, and was sitting as far as possible from him on the sectional, her body stiff with tension.
The darkness hid his grin. “Relax, Margaret. Listen to the music. Lean back and let go. Just for a moment.”
“Just for a moment,” she agreed, closing her eyes and leaning back. He watched her as her breathing slowed and deepened, as the tension left her body, dispersing into the night air, watched, dreamlike as she slid into the music, consumed by it, aroused by it, everything else falling away, even her sensible fear of him. Watched her as sleep overcame her.
He shook his head, not moving. She pushed herself too hard. She was much too skinny, and those mauve shadows beneath her big green eyes clashed with her red hair.
He edged closer, watching her still, sleeping face. He’d like to see that red hair flowing free, spread out on a pillow beneath her. He’d like to see that sleeping face in his bed, the first thing that met his eyes when he woke up in the morning. Not the grillwork on his window.
She stirred slightly, then settled into a deeper sleep, as the Mozart flowed around her, cocooning her in a velvet blanket. He edged closer still, slowly, carefully, determined not to wake her.
What had made her ignore her good sense and come up there late at night? There was always the possibility that she had the same morals, or lack thereof, as Lisette, and was looking to fuck a murderer. He’d learned the hard way that women could be treacherous, and he should be hoping things were just that earthy and simple.
He didn’t. Even if it got him laid, and he really, really wanted to fuck Margaret Jaffrey, he didn’t want to believe the worst of her. There was too much pain in her shadowed green eyes.
And while he liked the notion that she was drawn to him, he had to admit that might be wishful thinking on his part. Unrequited passion had never been his thing, and he didn’t feel like indulging in it now. Maybe he just wanted her so much he imagined she wanted him, too.
No, the logical explanation was that she was afraid of him, and being the fierce mother tigress that she was, she’d come up to face her fears.
And had fallen asleep in front of them. He moved closer, close enough to touch her, and still she slept on. “Margaret,” he said softly, hoping he wouldn’t waken her, knowing he had to try. She didn’t move; her breathing was deep and even. Her red hair had come loose from its strict knot, surrounding her face like a halo of fire. She had freckles across her cheeks. Did a mother tigress have freckles?
Oh, God, her mouth, pale, still and vulnerable now, with lips faintly parted. He couldn’t resist, knowing he was courting danger. Leaning over, he gently feathered her lips with his.
She didn’t waken, didn’t move. She sighed, a sweet, longing sigh, and it was all he could do to keep his hands off her.
He moved back, just out of temptation’s reach. She needed to know she was safe somewhere at Maison Delacroix. If that haven was in the lair of a madman, so be it. Leaning back, he prepared to watch her sleep, as the rain beat down outside and the Mozart swirled around them.
Chapter Six
THREE DAYS LATER Margaret wasn’t feeling much better about being marooned at Maison Delacroix. To be sure, the past few days had been noticeably better than the first. Carrie had settled in to school with surprising appreciation, and she seemed to love the secluded mansion and its odd inhabitants. It had taken Margaret a while, but she’d finally felt able to relax her guard. There was no one there who wished her daughter anything but good things, and her legion of supporters and protectors included Mrs. McKinley, Uncle Remy, Gertrude and Peter.
Peter. Not exactly the most reassuring person to think about, Margaret decided, curling up on the love seat in the deserted library. If she had any sense at all she wouldn’t be lulled into this absurdly trusting state. But it wasn’t the first time in her life that she wasn’t showing any sense, and all her self-flagellation wouldn’t make her smarten up.
It might have to do with that odd night when she’d gone up to his rooms and fallen asleep listening to Mozart. She’d had the strangest dreams, floating and drifting through the music, and when she’d awoken dawn was streaking across the southern sky with fat stripes of apricot and lavender. She’d never seen a sky quite that color, and she’d lain on the couch, unmoving, watching the sky, feeling the silence around her. A silence broken only by the quiet hum of the stereo, which had long ago played its last aria, and the even sound of a man’s breathing.
Peter had been sound asleep on the sofa beside her. She hadn’t moved, frightened at first, but gradually the fear left her as the sky grew brighter, filling the attic space with light. The fancy ironwork on the windows left shadows on the opposite wall, and as Margaret watched, those shadows moved—bars crossing the thick gray carpet, moving closer and closer. Until they covered the man sleeping next to her with a cobweb of grillwork shadows, holding him prisoner, and then the sun rose higher still, and the shadows disappeared as the room was flooded with light.
Peter didn’t look younger, boyish when he was asleep. With his guard down, his animation vanished; he looked every one of his thirty-some years. He needed a shave; he needed a haircut; he needed more reputable clothes, not jeans that were faded, frayed and too loose, not a khaki shirt that had come unbuttoned, exposing a tanned, smoothly muscled chest.
He stirred, murmuring a word in his sleep, and Margaret moved, quickly, silently. He didn’t awaken, merely stretched out on the couch, saying that word again. And it wasn’t until Margaret had safely locked the door behind her and started down the stairs that she realized what he’d said. “Rosanne.” His murdered wife.
Thank heavens no one had seen her tiptoeing from Peter’s floor at six-something in the morning. In the few times she’d seen Peter since he’d never mentioned the night she’d spent with him, never even alluded to it with his wicked eyes. He must have fallen asleep as quickly as she had, and slept as soundly. He probably never knew that his cousin’s skittish widow had been fool enough to fall asleep on that sinfully comfortable sofa.
She’d made sure there’d been no repeat of that visit. She hadn’t faked a twisted ankle since she was seventeen years old and desperate to avoid gym class, but some things you never forgot. She’d been hobbling around the house for the past three days now, smugly grateful she didn’t have to court temptation. Peter hadn’t joined them for dinner, but every now and then she’d look out the window and see him in the gardens, digging.
If he continued to keep his distance she and Carrie might be able to stay for a while, maybe till the end of the school year. That would give her four months or so to build up a little nest egg; maybe, if she was very careful, it would be enough money to get them down to Florida and into a small apartment near her mother. Enough to support them until she could find a full-time job, make a full-time life for them.
She leaned back against the paneled wall and shut her eyes. Four months of sharing the same roof with someone as complex and disturbing as Peter Delacroix was not her idea of fun. But she could do it for Carrie’s sake. She could do a great many things for Carrie’s sake, including lying down and dying. She’d just keep her distance from the madman in the attic.
Three days to carnival time in New Orleans, three days to Mardi Gras. She wasn’t going to go, but no one seemed to believe her. There was no way she was going to leave her daughter alone in a house with two old women and a convicted killer, no matter how safe her instincts told her it was. She couldn’t afford to risk her daughter’s life on her instincts. Her head told her it was dangerous, even if her heart insisted it wasn’t.
But Wendell, for such a mild-mannered charmer, was surprisingly stubborn, continuing to make plans for the festival in New Orleans. She’d had her first day at work that day, and while the mess of his office appalled her, his bashful apolog
ies disarmed her. With a decent job and her daughter content, she simply had to put her own fears behind her, at least for now.
“Whatcha doing, Ma?” Carrie wandered in the library door, covered, as usual, with a fine film of Louisiana dirt. One red braid had become unfastened, and her silky hair had a twig stuck in it.
“Thinking about Florida,” Margaret said. She patted the padded bench seat. “Come and tell me about your day, baby.”
Carrie came willingly enough, climbing into her mother’s lap like an oversized puppy, even as she put up her ritual protest. “Don’t call me ‘baby,’ Ma.”
“Yes, sir.”
Carrie giggled. “Not ‘sir,’ either.”
“Okay, kid. Anything you say. What did you do at school?”
“Not much. I learned about the War Between the States. I had a fight with Jesse Lee Robbins and I won. Or I would have, if the teacher hadn’t stopped me.”
“What did you fight about with Jesse Lee Robbins?” She smoothed some of Carrie’s tangled mane away from her stubborn, beautiful face. Her daughter had always fought, and all Margaret’s suggest alternatives went nowhere. At least Carrie had learned to stand up for herself.
“Lots of things. I just wish Mrs. Travers hadn’t stopped me. First off, he was throwing rocks at a cat. And then he said I was nothing but a damned Yankee and he didn’t want me around.”
“Lovely,” Margaret murmured. “You still shouldn’t have hit him,” she added dutifully, believing no such thing.
“And then he said I lived with a crazy man. He said Uncle Peter’s a loony. That’s when I hit him. Uncle Peter is my very good friend,” she said with great dignity. “We should stand up for our very good friends, shouldn’t we?”
“Yes,” Margaret said, hoping the next question wouldn’t come.
But of course it did. “Is Uncle Peter crazy, Ma?”
“Your Uncle Peter is sick, darling. He has an illness, that’s all. There’s nothing shameful about it.”
Carrie leaned her head back against Margaret’s shoulder, sighing. “I wish I could have blacked Jesse Lee’s eye. He deserved it.”
“Maybe next time, honey,” Margaret said, hugging her tightly.
“Grandmère says I have to come down to dinner tonight,” Carrie said after a moment. “She made Aunt Lisette buy some dresses for me, and she says I have to wear one to dinner. I don’t want to. I want to have dinner with Mizmac and Uncle Peter.”
“Mizmac?”
“Mrs. McKinley,” Carrie elaborated. “That’s what Peter calls her, and she says I can, too. Peter doesn’t like it downstairs, and neither do I.”
“Let me get this straight. You’ve been having dinner up in the attics with Peter and Mrs. McKinley?”
“Sure. I helped her carry the tray.”
So much for twisted ankles, Margaret thought grimly. In her efforts to avoid Peter she’d been sending her daughter in her stead. “I thought you liked Grandmère,” she said, stalling.
“I do. Even though she tries to tell me what to do. And I like Uncle Remy and Aunt Eustacia. And even Uncle Wendell is okay, I guess. I just like Peter best.”
Damn. “It was very nice of Lisette to buy you some dresses. The least you can do is wear them.”
“All right,” Carrie said with little grace. “But she didn’t just buy me some dresses. Grandmère said she was sick of looking at your black rag, and she told Lisette to buy you a couple of dresses. She put them in your room.”
For Carrie’s sake Margaret summoned up some enthusiasm, much as she hated the idea of Lisette choosing clothes for her, invading her room. “Well, then, we’ll look very fancy tonight, won’t we?”
“Very fancy,” Carrie said glumly. “Wait till you see the dresses.”
Margaret knew even before she opened her closet door that the dresses Lisette had bought her would be pink. But even with that foreknowledge, she was hard put to suppress a heartfelt gasp of horror when she actually saw them. There were two of them, both too short, with an abundance of ruffles and buttons and lace. She wasn’t a ruffles-and-lace sort of woman, and never had been. Lisette’s genius had known no bounds. That particular shade, a pinky-coral, was, without question, the most nauseating color Margaret could ever wear. It made her hair look garish, her complexion pasty, her eyes rabid. She almost grabbed the dresses and stuffed them down the toilet.
She would have if it wasn’t for Carrie. She couldn’t very well tell her daughter she had to wear her new dresses, then refuse to do the same.
The finished product was truly horrifying, Margaret thought a few minutes later, looking in the mirror. While the dress was a perfect size eight, it must have been bought in the petite department. The tight skirt topped her knees, exposing too much of her long legs. The bosom of the dress was cut low, exposing too much of Margaret’s less than voluptuous chest, and the ruffles were absurd. There was nothing she could do about it. If dressing like Boob-less Dolly Parton was the worst thing she had to do for the sake of her child then she would be getting off easy.
With a resigned sigh Margaret slipped on her black heels and walked out the door. This hideous outfit might have one good effect. Wendell would doubtless stop trying to persuade her to come to Mardi Gras with him. He’d want to keep her locked away as carefully as they kept Peter. Maybe more so.
Carrie’s door opened and her daughter stepped out into the hallway. For a moment the two of them looked at each other in the deserted, twilight-lit hallway. Margaret bit down hard on her lip as she surveyed her tomboy.
Lisette had truly outdone herself. Carrie’s dress was in the same shade of pink, but while Margaret’s dress was overburdened with ruffles, Carrie’s exploded with them. The full taffeta skirt stood out over at least two stiff crinolines, the puffy sleeves made Carrie’s freckled arms look impossibly skinny and the lace bedecking every square inch of the dress was a revolting shade of orange. Combined with Carrie’s mutinous expression and curly red hair, the effect was nothing short of ghastly.
“Darling,” Margaret said, her voice rough with suppressed laughter. “You look . . .”
“You look as bad as me,” Carrie said flatly, surveying her mother with a glum expression. “Do we really have to do this?”
For a moment Margaret was tempted to say no, but then Lisette would triumph, and Margaret wasn’t in the mood to see that happen. “We really have to. Look on the bright side. At least Jesse Lee Robbins won’t see you in it.”
Carrie nodded, falling into step with her mother. “Then I really would have to black his eye, wouldn’t I?”
“Probably,” Margaret agreed.
The others were already assembled in the formal drawing room when Carrie and Margaret made their entrance, and entrance it was. All conversation stopped, and every Jaffrey and Delacroix assembled stared at the mother and daughter duo with mingled disbelief and horror.
Uncle Remy was the first to move, heading directly for the bar at something close to a run. Lisette smothered a giggle as she lit another cigarette, and Wendell tugged at his collar.
“Well,” said Gertrude gamely. “You both look very . . . nice. This is quite an improvement. Did you . . . er . . . pick these out yourself?”
“No, Grandmère,” Carrie announced with precocious malice. “We can thank Aunt Lisette for these.”
“I told you to call me ‘Lisette,’” Lisette said. “I’m your cousin, not your aunt. And ‘Aunt Lisette’ makes me feel old.”
“You are old,” Carrie said with devastating frankness. “Not as old as Grandmère and Aunt Eustacia, of course, but you’re older than my mother. Maybe if you didn’t wear so much makeup . . .”
“That’s enough, Carrie,” Margaret said, accepting the drink from Remy with more than her usual gratitude. “Thank Aunt Lisette for your dress.”
“Thank you, Aun
t Lisette,” Carrie mumbled.
“Another happy evening at Maison Delacroix,” Wendell said.
“Margaret.”
Aunt Eustacia’s quiet little voice entered the fray, and everyone turned to listen, so unaccustomed were they to Aunt Eustacia saying a word.
“Yes, Aunt Eustacia?” Margaret took a generous sip of her drink, controlling her instinctive choke. The day she got used to Uncle Remy’s drinks would be the day she had to start worrying.
“That color doesn’t really suit you, dear,” Eustacia said sweetly.
“She knows, Mother,” Lisette said irritably.
“And it’s a little too short.”
“Leave it, Eustacia,” Gertrude snapped, glaring at the unrepentant Lisette. “We’ll have to see about getting them something a little more appropriate. And Lisette?”
“Yes, Grandmère,” said Lisette, suddenly chastened.
“I think Margaret’s dress is better suited to someone of your proportions and coloring. I want you to wear it tomorrow night.”
“I’m not going to be here for dinner tomorrow night, Grandmère. I’m heading into the city with the Franklin boys.”
“Exactly,” Gertrude said.
“You can’t expect me to be seen in that thing in public.”
“You will, Lisette,” said Gertrude. “Or you will not come back after Mardi Gras.”
There was a long silence, a battle of wills. The outcome was never in doubt. “Yes, Grandmère,” Lisette said, her expression both mutinous and resigned.
“Now,” said Gertrude, “come sit beside me, Carrie, and tell me about your day.”
Margaret held her breath, long enough to realize that Carrie had enough sense to give Gertrude an expurgated version of a nine-year-old’s day, omitting her run-in with Jesse Lee Robbins.
“My sister is a witch,” Wendell murmured in Margaret’s ear.
“That’s not exactly the word I would have used,” Margaret said, “but I agree with the sentiment.”