by Anne Stuart
She rose, moving away from him, wandering over toward the L-shaped work space with its laptop and assorted papers. “I thought I came up here to work, not to discuss my love life.”
“Your love life’s more interesting than work. Unless you’re interested in history?”
“Civil War history?” She picked up a heavy volume and glanced at it.
“No, chère. The War Between the States,” he corrected blandly.
She grinned at him. “I always found the Civil War fascinating. Though I’ve also heard it called the War of Southern Insurrection.”
“We’re going to have an interesting time together, Marguerite,” he said, rising from his indolent position on the couch and following her. “Starting with the correct terms. I’ll get us some coffee while you turn on the radio. Just be careful not to touch the tuning dial.”
She didn’t move. The stereo was within reach, but she simply stared at it.
“Don’t worry,” Peter said cheerfully. “It’s tuned in to classical music. They have a Mostly Mozart program every morning. As long as we don’t hear any country music my sanity will be preserved.”
“What about other kinds of music?” she asked, her voice tinged with curiosity.
“Like what?” He knew what she was going to ask, but he wanted to hear her say it.
“Oh, you know. Like Cajun music. Or the Neville Brothers?”
He remembered dancing with her to the Neville Brothers, the cobbled streets of the French Quarter beneath their feet, her body pressed up against his in the cool night air. “Makes me crazy,” he said flatly. “Mozart.”
She pushed the Power button, closing her eyes in sudden panic, but a moment later the strains of a piano concerto filled the room. “I guess I’m safe,” she said, picking up a pile of notes and glancing through it.
“Don’t you believe it,” he murmured beneath his breath, beneath the swell of the music. “Not with me around.”
She looked up sharply. “What did you say?”
He gave her his most winning smile. “Not a thing, darling. Not a blessed thing.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I STILL DON’T SEE how you can call Quantrill a good guy and John Brown a bad guy,” Margaret said, curling her legs under her as she faced him. They’d been working together for more than a week now, and it was too easy to forget why he was locked in this arrack, shut away from anything that might trigger him. He was dangerous—she knew it, but that danger felt far more personal. He threatened her hard-won calm and her plans, he threatened her stony heart and her determination. He threatened her celibacy, damn him. And the fact that Carrie adored him didn’t help matters.
“I’m not passing moral judgments on either of them,” he said lazily. “I’m merely reporting the facts.”
“The hell you are. You’re writing an article comparing two fanatics, and you spend most of your time justifying Quantrill and condemning Brown. They were both maniacs, and I don’t see how you can manage to make the Southern one sound so noble and the Northern one sound like a lunatic.”
“I agree they were both nuts. That’s why I chose the subject. I thought that given my particular expertise in that area it would make a great article.”
“You aren’t serious!” she said, outraged. “Do you mean to tell me you’re using your horrible situation to sell articles?”
“You bet. And a juicy little advance they gave me,” he said.
Margaret wanted to snarl. She wanted to take his shoulders and shake some sense into him, but she knew better than to touch him. Besides, he was a lot stronger than she was. She doubted she could move him more than a few centimeters, even if she was fully enraged. “And what good is the money going to do you?” she countered, shifting position. Once again they were getting distracted—every time she came up to ostensibly help him the conversation strayed, turning into a game of wits that she refused to admit had anything to do with flirting. She tried to focus. “You don’t have much chance to spend your ill-gotten gains up here.”
He smiled sweetly, stretching like a large, sleek jungle cat. “It’ll pay your salary. Though as far as I can see you don’t have much more of a chance to spend it than I do.”
“I can buy a new car.”
“I’m not paying you that much,” he said in mock horror. “The scholarly equivalent of yellow journalism isn’t that lucrative.”
“I don’t have to have a Jaguar,” she said loftily, ignoring her own covetous pang.
“I’d almost forgotten about my Jaguar,” he said with a sigh. “I would have thought Wendell would have driven it into the ground long ago. He never could drive worth a hang. Dexter and I both tried to show him how to handle a stick shift, but he never could pick it up. He must have finally mastered it if he can drive the Jag.”
“Not really,” Margaret said. “He grinds the gears.”
Peter looked pained. “That’s almost harder to bear than my incarceration. You’re better off without a Jaguar, Marguerite. Owning a great car is almost like being married. You’re tied to it through thick and thin.”
“Are you still tied to Rosanne?” She shocked herself with the stark question. That was the problem with spending too much time with such a mesmerizing, beautiful man. She lost her common sense.
Peter gestured around him. “What do you think?” he said wryly.
“I won’t make the mistake of getting married again,” she said after a long moment. “And I can make do with an old junker and leave the Jaguars and Mercedes to people like Wendell. Anything with a motor that runs and brakes that stop will do me fine. Just something to get me and Carrie out of here.” She slid down on the sofa, rubbing the back of her neck. She’d had a tension headache all day, ever since Wendell had accosted her over breakfast and insisted he needed her to put in an extra day at the office. She’d known as well as he had that there was absolutely nothing to do there, and she’d refused to give in.
She didn’t know why Wendell was trying to keep her from Peter. He hadn’t tried to kiss her since that awkward one on Ash Wednesday, so it probably wasn’t any form of jealousy. It might be a misplaced concern about her safety, but she’d truly believed Peter wasn’t about to hurt her, wasn’t about to hurt anyone.
Peter was watching her with an unreadable expression on his face. “You’re planning on leaving?” His voice was cool and unemotional.
“As soon as I can.”
“I don’t imagine Grandmère knows. People don’t leave Maison Delacroix. Once they’re wrapped into the family fold they don’t usually get away.”
“You did.”
He shook his head. “Not for long. I ended up back here, chained as tightly as Wendell and Lisette, as Remy and Eustacia.”
“And even you seem to get away more often than the others do,” Margaret pointed out, surreptitiously lacing her fingers into her coiled hair. Maybe she’d pinned it too tightly; maybe if she just let it flow free the bands of pain might stop.
“I wouldn’t call my sojourns at Shady Oaks Sanitarium a vacation,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him as he watched her. “What does Carrie think about leaving?”
“You’ve spent a fair amount of time with her out in the gardens,” Margaret pointed out. “What do you think?”
“I don’t think she wants to leave. She loves this old place, she’s made some good friends at school and she’s very fond of Grandmère and Remy. She even has a certain affection for me,”
“She adores you,” Margaret said flatly, “and you know it. She won’t want to leave, but she’ll accept it. She’s certainly moved enough in her lifetime.”
“Then why not let her put down roots? Why drag her away from a place that’s beginning to feel like home?”
“Because this is no home for a child. It’s closer to Shady Oaks Sanitarium, and I
’m not talking about you. Lisette’s a witch, Eustacia’s a ghost, Remy, God bless him, is a sot and Gertrude, tough old bird that she is, isn’t particularly cozy. Wendell’s the only normal one around here.”
“So marry Wendell and live happily ever after,” he snapped.
“I haven’t been asked.” Hinted at, she thought, but not asked.
“That surprises me. But you’d accept if you were? Remember the man has a thriving law practice and a Jaguar.”
“His law practice isn’t thriving, and he can’t drive the Jaguar.”
“A good point. And you’d still be stuck at Maison Delacroix.”
She smiled wryly. “That’s where you’re wrong. Wendell’s negotiating to buy the most beautiful house in the world.”
“Is he?” Peter’s voice was unencouraging, but Margaret didn’t notice.
“It’s a rambling sort of cottage, down by a slow-running stream, and it’s run-down, and old-fashioned, and completely wonderful. It has fireplaces and bookcases in every room, and little flights of stairs here and there, and it’s off in the middle of nowhere and completely impractical.” She sighed.
“I wouldn’t marry him for that house if I were you,” he said, focusing on the barred windows. “He might not get it.”
“Probably not. The owner doesn’t want to sell,” she said gloomily. “I can’t imagine anyone with the taste to own such a place, then never go there.”
“Can’t you? Maybe he spends his time locked in an attic somewhere.”
She froze, staring at him in astonishment. “That can’t be your house!”?”
“Nobody else’s.” He smiled, but there was no amusement in his face. “Sorry I’m not the soulless cretin you thought I was, but I’ve owned Belle Pays for more than a decade. My late wife never cared for it, but I used to come and work on the place when I needed to get away from things.”
Get away from his wife, she thought silently, but for once didn’t say it out loud “I’m sorry,” she said instead, hating what a useless phrase it was.
His smile grew more cynical. “Not your fault, chère, unless you were one of her affairs. As a matter of fact, I was down here for the weekend, working on fixing up the place, when Rosanne was killed. The police came there to tell me. And to arrest me.”
“But if you were here then you couldn’t have done it,” she said, hating the sudden hope that filled her. It had nothing to do with her, she reminded herself.
“Oh, yes, I could,” he corrected her lightly. “In fact the timing was impeccable. Half an hour either way and I’d be a free man.”
She stared at him. He’d confessed in exchange for the insanity plea. Was he saying he’d been framed. “Did you kill her?” She asked bluntly.
His amusement now was quite real as he moved toward her. “Why, Marguerite, my pet, we’re you hoping I was innocent? How deliciously sweet of you. Are you beginning to fall for my eccentric charms?”
She made a perfectly convincing sound of derision. “You wish. But I don’t see why you hold onto the house if it has such bad memories. You must hate the place.”
“Not at all. If I did I’d let Wendell get his greedy hands on it. But somehow I can’t stand the thought of Wendell doing to that house what he’s done to my Jaguar.”
“So it’s just going to sit there and fall apart?” she demanded, outraged.
“I have someone keep tabs on it. I spend just enough money to keep it from deteriorating further.”
“But it needs people,” she insisted. “It needs life and love.”
“It wouldn’t have gotten that with Rosanne and me,” he said. “You’re just lucky I didn’t choose to strangle her there.”
“Where did she die? No, I don’t want to know.”
“Too bad, darling. You asked. My dear, faithless wife was strangled in the garconnierre that was part of this estate. You’ve probably seen that empty cellar hole just off the road on your romantic drives with Wendell. It used to be a little guest house. It was built during plantation times to house the young men of the family. It was felt they couldn’t be trusted in the house with the young ladies. I don’t know what that says about family morality back then, but such was the custom. We kept ours going as a guest house and bachelor quarters. I moved there when I was nineteen and my parents died.” He slid down on the couch, watching her reaction covertly.
“What happened to it?” she was fool enough to ask.
“Fate,” he said. “Or something else. Someone strangled Rosanne and then set a fire to cover the crime. Unfortunately our local firefighters are very efficient. They weren’t able to save the historic building, but enough of Rosanne was left to paint a very ugly picture.”
“Someone did?”
He laughed. “Sorry, slip of the tongue. I mean I strangled her and then set the place of fire.”
“And raced back to the old house . . . Bel Pays, did you call it?” She didn’t bother to keep the skepticism out of her voice. “You must have moved fast.”
“Needs must when the devil drives.” His smile was positively angelic. Sitting up, he stretched lazily, and for a moment Margaret fastened her gaze on his hands. Beautiful hands, with long, strong fingers. Wrapped around a fragile throat?
The band of pain tightened, and Margaret dropped the sheaf of papers on the table in front of her. “You should sell the house. If not to Wendell, then to some young family.”
“I’ll tell you what, Marguerite. Maybe it’ll turn out that I’m not really crazy at all, and maybe they might decide to execute me, after all. If it comes to that, I’ll will the house to you.”
“Stop it!” She gave up pretending and rubbed her throbbing temples. “You have an absolutely sick sense of humor.”
“I know I do, darling,” he said, rising swiftly and moving around the sofa. “But if I can’t make jokes about it, what else can I do? This situation isn’t really in the best of taste.” He came up behind her and pushed her hands away. “You’ve got a miserable headache, don’t you?”
“I should go downstairs and get some aspirin. Maybe lie down for a while,” she said.
“It’s tension.”
His sensitive fingers touched her temples, rubbing lightly.
“I’m very good at getting rid of tension headaches,” he said.
“Peter . . .”
“Relax, Margaret. Loosen up. If you didn’t spend all your time trying to take care of everybody else you wouldn’t get these headaches. I never get headaches. Of course, I spend my life in a drugged stupor.”
She turned to look up at him in surprise, but his expression was enigmatic. “Do you?”
“Doc Pitcher prescribes bottles and bottles of pills that I’m supposed to take, and you know what a docile creature I am. The soul of compliance.”
His hands were moving on her skin, tracing smooth, concentric circles on her temples. With a weary, contented sigh she shut her eyes, absorbing the feel of his hands on her, absorbing the ebb and flow of the Mozart as the music danced around them.
“Did you mean it?” she murmured.
“Mean what, chère?” he asked, his voice low, as he loosened the tight knot of hair at the back of her neck, letting her flame-colored hair fan out over her tense shoulders.
“Would they kill you? Could they?”
He slid his thumbs up the tense column of her neck, rubbing along the delicate vertebrae. “I’m not sure. I was convicted, then acquitted during the appeal by reason of insanity.”
“If you were acquitted on appeal then they shouldn’t have any right to you. There’s such a thing as double jeopardy. They can’t try someone for the same crime twice.”
“That’s United States law, darlin’. We have our own law in Louisiana, going back to the Napoleonic Code. I wouldn’t count on anything around here.”
“But . . .”
“Hush now.” His voice was soothing over the strains of the music. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m as nutty as a fruitcake, and the state of Louisiana has washed its hands of me. You just lean back and relax, and I’ll take care of this mean old headache for you.”
“But . . .”
“Let go, Marguerite. For once in your life, just let go.” Even if she’d wanted to she could no longer fight the seduction in his hands, the seduction in his voice. His deft fingers had slid down to her shoulders, kneading with just the right amount of force, working the tightness out of them. She dropped her head forward, feeling the curtain of hair around her face, and let out a deep, longing sigh. For a few moments this wasn’t her responsibility. It wasn’t happening, not to her. It was a dream, a lovely, sensual dream, and in just a few minutes she’d come to her senses and stop it. Before it went too far.
His hands slid inside the loose collar of her soft cotton sweater, moving down her backbone with delicious skill. She felt him encounter and unfasten the thin silver chain, dropping it and the ring into her lap.
“So that’s what happened to the ring,” he murmured, his hands never stopping their slow, sensual strokes. “I wondered what you did with it. Do you always wear it?”
Her response was no more than a muffled “Umm” of pleasure, as his hands slid back up, over her shoulders, his fingers splayed across her collarbone beneath the sweater. If she’d been more alert she would have wondered how he’d known about the ring. In her current, dreamy state, she didn’t have to ask. Instinct told her he was the one who’d tossed it to her, even as her mind told her that was impossible.
His hands pressed against her, gently, and she leaned back, leaned against him as he stood behind her, behind the low-backed sofa. She could feel his heart beating, somewhere beneath her ear. She could feel his belt buckle, cool metal against her shoulder. And she could feel his cock, hard and strong and wanting her, against her back.