by Anne Stuart
“Don’t worry about Mardi Gras,” he added.
“I’m not.”
“Because we’ll be wearing costumes. I’ll have one of our Delacroix cousins see about one for you. You can trust them better than my sister.”
“I can trust anyone better than I can trust your sister. But I’m not going, Wendell.”
“Of course you are,” he said, his voice soothing. “We can’t have a newcomer to Louisiana miss her first Mardi Gras.”
“Do I smell cigarette smoke?” A new voice spoke from the doorway, the voice Margaret dreaded.
Lisette’s response was a definitely unladylike curse as she stubbed out her cigarette. “Go away, Peter,” she snapped. “They should have chained you in the attic.”
He stepped into the room. He’d dressed for dinner that night, after a fashion, in a wrinkled white linen suit, a silk shirt and no tie. His dark brown hair was rumpled, and his eyes were weary. Until they focused on Margaret and Carrie.
“Good Lord,” he said. “What in hell are you two wearing?”
Carrie hopped up from her seat beside Gertrude and did a sassy little pirouette. “Don’t you like it, Uncle Peter?”
“No, I don’t. Whoever’s responsible for getting you in that monstrosity should be shot.” His eyes met Margaret’s for a brief moment, then slid down her long, atrociously dressed length. “You look awful.”
Margaret had to resist the urge to do her own little pirouette. “Oh, it’s not so bad,” she said, batting her eyes. “It’s very feminine.”
“Don’t worry about it, Peter,” Gertrude said wryly. “The guilty party has been punished.”
Peter’s eyes slid immediately to Lisette, who had the grace to flush. “I didn’t realize you were coming down tonight.”
“I didn’t, either, until I realized I’d lost my dinner partner. Carrie, chère, your mama should tell you that you don’t stand up a dinner date without warning.”
“Uncle Peter, cher,” she replied, “I do what my mama tells me. And she told me I had to come down here.”
“Cruel, Margaret,” he murmured. “Maybe you deserve that atrocious dress.”
“Are you feeling better now, Uncle Peter?” Carrie inquired innocently.
Oh, no, Margaret thought with sudden dread. Please let the floor open and swallow me up before she says it.
“I’m fine. What made you think I was sick?” he replied.
“My mother,” Carrie said.
“And what did your mother tell you?” he asked, his voice silky.
“I think I hear Mrs. McKinley with the dinner,” Margaret said desperately, heading for the door.
Peter stopped her with the simple expedient of putting his hand on her arm. His hold wasn’t tight or threatening, though she had no guarantee it wouldn’t become so if she tried to escape. The entire family was watching in fascination, and belatedly she remembered their love of melodrama. She stayed put, wishing Peter would release her arm. He didn’t.
“What did your mother tell you, chère?” he prompted again.
“She said you were very sick. You didn’t look sick to me, but I guess you can’t always tell. If you need some of my tummy medicine I’m sure Ma will let you have it.” She peered up at him anxiously. “I don’t want you to get sick and die, Uncle Peter.”
They were all watching him watching them, with expressions of anticipation and dread, Margaret realized. They were waiting for him to explode, and she was the target, her arm still caught in his hand.
“I’m not going to die, chère,” he said evenly. “And thank you for the offer of the medicine, but it’s a different kind of sickness. One I don’t like to talk about.”
“I know about that one,” Carrie said wisely. “But I thought that only happened to women.”
Peter made a choking noise, and for a brief, wild moment Margaret wondered whether he was about to have a fit. Until she realized he was laughing.
“I guess you could say I have an advanced case of PMS,” he drawled, releasing Margaret and moving toward the bar. “Pour me a drink, Remy. I need one.”
“Certainly, dear boy.”
Wendell broke the uncomfortable silence that had fallen. “We’ll miss you at Mardi Gras next week, Peter.”
“That wasn’t the most tactful way to defuse an uncomfortable situation, Cousin,” Peter said as he sat down next to Carrie on the love seat. “Maybe I’ll escape from my prison and join you.”
“You’re not in prison, Uncle Peter,” Carrie said.
He smiled down at her. “Aren’t I? There are all sorts of prisons, ma petite.”
“You can’t be serious,” Wendell gasped.
“No, I’m not serious. Why should I want to celebrate carnival in New Orleans when all the good women will be out here?”
“Not that I don’t admire your taste, Peter,” said Gertrude with some asperity, “but the only women who’ll be here are Mrs. McKinley, Carrie and myself. Even Eustacia is going to visit friends.”
Margaret could feel his eyes sweeping over her, and she felt even more conspicuous in her ridiculous clothing. “You mean Cousin Margaret is going to have her first taste of New Orleans Mardi Gras?” he murmured. “Maybe I’ll escape, after all.”
HE HADN’T MEANT it, of course, Peter thought later. He’d just wanted to see how Margaret would react to the idea of his escaping to go to Mardi Gras. Whether her pale, soft skin would turn red, clashing even more with that hideous dress. Lisette should have been beaten for that nasty trick, but it had backfired on her. She never could stand any competition, and she’d wanted Margaret to appear as unattractive as possible.
But that hideous dress had only exposed Margaret’s sensational legs, and her staunch dignity was all the more endearing. He’d simply looked at the horrible dress and wanted to strip it off her, probably not the reaction Lisette had been hoping for.
Not that she had any reason to care. She didn’t want Peter for any particular reason other than the fact that he’d turned her down. She shouldn’t care if her brother fell in love with the beautiful widow. But she couldn’t stand not being the center of attention. Whenever Margaret was around, Lisette seemed somehow tawdry and diminished, and Lisette was smart enough to know that.
Of course, he could go and enjoy his first Mardi Gras in two years. There were ways, and people to help. But the last thing he needed was proximity to Margaret O’Rourke Jaffrey, with her fiery hair and her fiery temper.
No, he’d stay put in his gilded cage, working on his book and ignoring temptation. Maybe Margaret would fall in love with one of the many Delacroix cousins and elope, taking Carrie with her. If he was any kind of gentleman he would hope that happened, and wish her well. But, damn it, she’d better pick someone a little better than Cousin Dexter this time, for Carrie’s sake, as well as her own, or he’d have no choice but to . . .
To what? He was a prisoner, with no future, no present. He could do absolutely nothing.
Leaning back against his chair, he sighed. If only life were simpler. If only things worked as they should. He would have married Margaret, and Dexter could have ended up with the insatiable Rosanne, and Carrie could have been his own feisty, irresistible red-headed daughter.
But it was a waste of time thinking about what might have been if life were a little more logical. Rosanne had hated children, so they’d never had any in their ten years of marriage. Dexter hadn’t appreciated what he’d had, either in a wife or a child. Yet life went on, and Margaret had a lot of potential left for a happy, fulfilled life.
Unlike one Peter Andrew Delacroix, who at this rate might spend the rest of his life locked in his grandmother’s attic, paying for a crime he didn’t commit.
Chapter Seven
“LET’S FINISH UP.” Wendell was rumpled, hot and tired as he came out from his office in the small br
ick building in the middle of the tiny town of Delacroix Landing.
Margaret looked up from the battered electric typewriter and rubbed the back of her neck. She’d been typing for four hours straight, trying to catch up on some of the backlog of Wendell’s work. “It’s only four,” she said. “I thought we were going to work till five.”
“I don’t feel like it. Besides, with you here I’ve accomplished more in two days than I have in the past month and a half. I don’t know what I did without you.”
Not much, Margaret thought, flicking off the typewriter and looking in vain for a cover. Wendell was in no imminent danger of becoming a workaholic. He took two-hour lunches and seemed more inclined to gossip and flirt with her than actually accomplish anything. She told herself she didn’t mind—this was her second day on the job, and her salary, meager though it was, would go toward purchasing a replacement for her defunct Escort. If Wendell wanted to pay her for gossiping, she might as well accept it.
“You’re very kind,” she said demurely. “I’m perfectly willing to work for another hour.”
“No. I want to show you something.”
“I really should be getting home to Carrie.”
“It’s on the way. Sort of. I want to show you the house I’m buying. You’ll like it—I know you will.”
He was almost pathetically eager for her approval, and she felt that too familiar dismay wash over her. She didn’t want another man, and she most particularly didn’t want one who reminded her so forcefully of her late husband. One Dexter Jaffrey in a lifetime was more than enough.
“If it’s on the way,” she agreed, standing up and stretching her tired muscles.
She wasn’t quite sure what to expect when she climbed into Wendell’s car. Wendell was full of contradictions—his car for one thing. She would have expected him to drive a sedate, large American vehicle. Instead he had a vintage Jaguar with a lot more zip than Margaret would have expected of the slightly staid Wendell. She’d always had a sneaking longing for such a gorgeous old car, and the ride to and from work two days a week was one of the best parts of the job. Even though Wendell didn’t know how to drive the thing and constantly ground the gears.
Her first day at work he’d wasted an hour giving her a tour of the town, complete with an ugly statue dedicated to Dexter Delacroix, the founder of the misbegotten little village. The statue was covered with green algae and pigeon droppings and looked like a leprous swamp monster, but Margaret made sure she appeared suitably impressed. He was probably going to show her a Civil War battlefield if she didn’t stop him. Except there hadn’t been any fighting in Louisiana, had there? Her knowledge of American history was woefully deficient at times. She should ask Peter—No. She wasn’t going to ask Peter anything, she told herself, staunchly putting temptation out of her mind.
They approached a tacky, modern version of an antebellum mansion, complete with cement columns, but to Margaret’s relief Wendell drove right past. She would have been hard put to come up with a little enthusiasm for such a monstrosity, and enthusiasm was necessary if she didn’t want him to turn into a wounded puppy. They kept driving, past ranch houses, suburban mansions, ostentatious townhouses, until the road grew narrower and the houses farther apart. Until he turned onto a narrow twisting road, and eventually came to a stop.
“What do you think?”
For a moment Margaret was speechless. All her life she’d dreamed of such a house. It wasn’t large. It wasn’t new. It wasn’t impressive. It was a sprawling, untidy sort of cottage, with windows of all different sizes and shapes. A soft, misty gray color, it had a big porch and an air of welcome. It took a man of discernment to love a house like this, and her opinion of Wendell went up several notches.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, tamping down the covetousness that rose in her. “Can we go inside?”
“Certainly. I brought the keys in case you wanted to.” He seemed both smug and proud, like a new father showing off his son the baseball player. Margaret didn’t mind. If she owned a house like this she would have been proud and smug, too.
It was in a little better condition inside than out. Someone had been remodeling it—the previous owner, no doubt. The floors had been stripped to reveal beautiful oak, and the pine walls were whitewashed. Light poured in through the windows, and the huge masonry fireplace looked vast and comforting.
Ignoring Wendell, she went exploring, up three little steps to the dining room, down five to the kitchen. There were five bedrooms upstairs, tiny, oddly shaped little rooms that were cozy and inviting. But her favorite room of all was the library.
The bookshelves lining the walls were newly built and empty. If it had been her house she would have filled those shelves as fast as she could. All her books had been left behind in the apartment in Tucson, in the possession of a mean-spirited landlord who probably never read anything more demanding than the Enquirer. She missed those books more than anything, far more than she missed Dexter.
Wendell appeared in the doorway, his apprehensive expression dissolving in the face of her obvious delight.
“Wendell, it’s wonderful,” she breathed. “It’s an absolute treasure. You’re so lucky!”
“It’s sort of falling apart,” he demurred.
“But someone’s already done some work on it. They must have run out of money before they could really fix it up, but clearly they loved the house as much as you must.”
“It is a nice house,” Wendell said, looking around him a little uncertainly.
“When are you moving in?”
“There’s a slight problem with the deed. The previous owner isn’t convinced he wants to sell, but I’m working on it. I expect to close in about a month. I wondered if you might be willing to help. I don’t know much about setting up my own house, and I’ve never decorated anything. Maybe you could help me pick out the furniture, the rugs and stuff.”
Margaret looked at him for a moment. Maybe two Dexters in one lifetime wasn’t so bad, especially if one came with a decent profession and this house. She wanted this house. She wanted the big bedroom up under the eaves with the tiny little bathroom off it and the built-in bookcases; she wanted Carrie to have the cozy little bedroom with the dormer windows and the window seats. She wanted this house.
Quickly she reined in her enthusiasm. This was Wendell’s house, not hers. She wasn’t about to sell herself for a house in the bayou, was she? Even if it came equipped with a Jaguar, and a handsome man. For the first time she could understand why someone would marry for money, though it wasn’t money she was interested in. It was security, safety for her and her daughter. And this beautiful house.
Actually, it wasn’t being offered. Wendell, for all his flattering looks, was probably engaged or at least interested in some nice, Southern belle. Otherwise why would he be buying a house?
“I’d be glad to help you,” she said carefully. “But isn’t there someone else . . .?”
“No one,” he said promptly. “Except my sister, and I’d hate to end up with a bedroom looking like that dress you wore last night.”
Margaret laughed. “No, that wouldn’t do at all. It’s a beautiful house, Wendell. I’d be honored to help you.”
He looked pleased. “We can go furniture shopping when we get back from Mardi Gras. I’ll need to arrange for painters, too. I thought I’d have the carpenters tear out the bookshelves in the bedrooms. I don’t really need them . . .”
“Don’t!” she pleaded. “They’re one of the nicest things in the house.”
“Do you think so?” he asked doubtfully. “I can’t imagine ever filling them. Especially with all that space in the library.”
“But maybe your wife will love books. When you get married, I mean.” She was desperate to convince him. If he had those bookcases ripped out it would feel like part of her skin being torn off.
“Maybe,” he agreed thoughtfully. “Do you like books?”
“I love them. A house can never have too many bookcases.”
He nodded. “Then I’ll leave them. Maybe we can go to bookstores when we go to Mardi Gras.”
“Wendell, I’m not going to Mardi Gras. I’m not leaving Carrie alone at Maison Delacroix.”
“She won’t be alone. Grandmère and Mizmac will be there.”
“And Peter.”
The name hung between them like a dark cloud.
Wendell nodded. “And Peter. I promise you, he won’t hurt Carrie. He loves kids, always has. That’s why he was such a good teacher. Even college kids would hang on his every word.”
“I’m not going, Wendell.”
“We’ll see,” he said stubbornly, leading her out of the house.
It wasn’t until they were driving up the long, winding driveway of Maison Delacroix, with its canopy of live oaks, that he spoke again. “I thought you liked Peter.”
She turned to look at Wendell in surprise. In the dusky twilight it was difficult to read his expression, but it couldn’t have been more than mildly curious. “What makes you say that?”
“Don’t you?”
She thought about it for a moment. She thought about the man locked in the attics, the man with the compelling green eyes, the beautiful hands, the devilish expression. She thought about Mozart, and murder, and erotic dreams that she banished in the morning. “I like him all right,” she said slowly. “I don’t like living with what he did.”
“I don’t blame you.” Wendell sighed. “He’s a sick man, Margaret.”
“You said he was harmless!”
“He is, he is. That doesn’t mean he’s not very disturbed. I represented him, and I should know. He had me completely fooled. I wouldn’t want you to think he . . . that is . . .” He was floundering, and Margaret wondered whether he was similarly lost for words in the courtroom. If that was one reason Peter had been convicted.
No, Peter had confessed. He was convicted of a crime he had admitted to. She had to stop thinking of it in terms of a Perry Mason mystery and more like a psychology textbook. There was a sick man in the attic who deserved her compassion. Not her gullibility.