by Anne Stuart
But she could continue to control herself and her emotions. She could still keep him at arm’s length, keep on arguing about the Civil War and Peter’s affection for the romantic idiocy of plantation society even as he abhorred and despised slavery. She could work and fight and talk and dream. She just couldn’t touch, and she didn’t dare forget that fact. She could be safe knowing that he would abide by her decision. He had so far. The question was, could she?
The weekend stretched out in front of her, long and unending without Carrie. She wouldn’t even have the respite of working with Peter. Gertrude had declared that weekends were for household work, and Wendell had taken to watching her like a hawk anytime she made an excuse to visit the third floor.
Maybe she needed to find some new way to entertain herself. The Delacroix, apart from Peter, weren’t great readers, and all she’d found in the way of escapist literature was a few tattered Agatha Christies that she’d already read and still remembered whodunit.
Maybe she could take long walks around the grounds, except that she didn’t like walking past the burned-out ruins of the guest house. She didn’t like thinking of the woman who’d died there, or the man who’d said he killed her.
Maybe she’d try some more cooking. Since she’d started work with Peter she hadn’t been allowed near the kitchen. Mrs. McKinley held on to her domain with an iron fist, and she wasn’t about to welcome intruders unless absolutely necessary. She could start crocheting—her own grandmother had taught her when she was Carries age and she still remembered how. She could see Nana’s old hands moving steadily, spearing into the yarn, and the sense of peace and safety that had surrounded those times. Eustacia always had some long, ravelly thing with her . . . maybe she’d have extra yarn. She might even be able to get the old lady to say more than two words at a time.
Or she could take up drinking like Uncle Remy. Then maybe she’d stop thinking about Peter’s hands and the way they’d felt on her breasts.
The house was deserted when she stepped back inside, the hallway still and dark and silent. The inhabitants of the house all took naps, Eustacia and Gertrude because they tired easily, Lisette in honor or her carefully nurtured beauty and Remy from the effects of his noontime libations. It was Margaret’s favorite time in the house. Apart from the distant chink of noise in the kitchen, signaling Mrs. McKinley’s dinner preparations, she had the house to herself.
She wanted to go racing up the two long flights of stairs to the third-floor attic, but like a dieter faced with a strawberry shortcake, she held fast, turning away from temptation, from the stairs, heading into the deserted drawing room instead. It had grown overcast outside with an approaching storm, and the room was dark and shadowed. She reached for a light switch, then drew her hand back. The darkness matched her thoughts, her feelings, her smoky confusion.
She poured herself a very small sherry, feeling defiantly wicked, and wandered over toward the old, seldom-used stereo system. There was a pile of CD’s, including Peter’s sanctioned Mozart, some insipid soft rock. And a CD of the Neville Brothers’ Greatest Hits.
If it had been anything else she could have resisted, but she couldn’t forget that night on the streets of New Orleans, dancing with a phantom’s arms around her, dancing to the Neville Brothers. Logically she knew it couldn’t have been Peter. He’d been locked in some private sanitarium, undergoing all sorts of hellish treatments, she imagined. He hadn’t been out masquerading in the French Quarter, dancing with his cousin’s besotted widow.
But her senses, her emotions told her otherwise.
She put the CD in and punched a button. Moments later Aaron Neville’s voice came on, exhorting the listener to tell it like it is. With a dreamy sigh Margaret closed her eyes, remembering what it felt like to dance in a stranger’s arms, to give in to a fantasy, if only for one brief moment.
The soft thud of the door closing, the silent tread of footsteps on the old flooring, were her only warning. She opened her eyes and turned, in time to see Peter advancing on her.
The shadows had deepened inside, and a sudden bolt of lightning sizzled outside, spearing into the room. For one brief moment she allowed herself the fantasy that Peter was coming to dance with her once more, as he had on the crowded streets of Mardi Gras, and then her better judgment took hold. He was almost touching her, his arms reaching for her, when she panicked, shrinking back from him in sudden terror.
Anger flashed across his face and then it was gone, leaving his expression carefully, eerily blank once more. “Still frightened of me, Marguerite?” he asked softly, his voice slightly hoarse, making him sound even more like Andrew Delacroix and less like himself.
“No,” she said, knowing she should move away from him. She couldn’t.
“Liar,” he said softly. “Or fool. Maybe both.” He reached out, but those beautiful, terrible hands of his didn’t touch her, even though she flinched.
Instead he calmly picked up the small armchair beside her and heaved it through the glass-paned French door.
The crash of breaking glass and wood was deafening. The rain came sweeping into the room from the broken window, and Margaret stood there, mesmerized, unable to move.
“Frightened yet, Marguerite?” he taunted. “What about this?” He took a table and heaved it after the chair, and the sound of splintering wood meshed with the next rumble of thunder. In the background the Neville Brothers were still singing, and Margaret listened, half in a daze. This was what they’d warned her about. This sudden streak of dangerous madness, brought on by something as harmless as a voice singing.
So why was she having a hard time believing it? In front of her eyes, he was systematically trashing the room. Chances were he’d put those hands on her and toss her through the broken glass, and maybe then she’d be convinced. She was carrying wishful thinking too far. If she’d known enough to shrink from him when he’d first entered the room, she should know enough to try to run now.
He picked up the stereo, ripping it from the wall, and Aaron Neville’s soulful voice was abruptly stilled. She didn’t even bother to watch as it sailed out onto the rain-soaked veranda with the smashed furniture. She was too busy watching Peter, watching as he turned and began to stalk her, his green eyes alight with something that logic told her must be madness. Something that her heart told her was anger, disappointment and a glittery kind of excitement that perversely she shared.
She considered asking him not to hurt her when his strong hands caught her arms, but she didn’t. He wasn’t going to hurt her; he wasn’t going to throw her through the window, he wasn’t going to strangle her. He was going to kiss her. And she was going to kiss him back.
Neither of them heard the pounding on the locked door behind them. He was looking wild, determined, and his breath was coming in short, labored gasps. She was breathing deeply, too, looking up at him, and she felt as if she’d been running. Deliberately he pulled her toward him, his hands rough on her arms, not allowing her any escape.
She had no intention of escaping. She slid her arms around his waist, moving against him, and her mouth reached up for his.
He stumbled against her, pushing her up against the wall, his body covering hers, pressing against every square inch of her, and his hands cupped her face, holding her still for his devouring mouth. He kissed her lips, her eyelids, her cheeks, her nose, then returned to her mouth, slanting across her soft, giving lips and drinking deep. She gave a little cry deep in the back of throat, one of desire and acceptance. She didn’t care. She didn’t care if he was crazy; she didn’t care if he was a murderer; she didn’t care if he’d escaped from a mental hospital to spend Mardi Gras with her or if Andrew Delacroix really had been a phantom. For the moment she didn’t even have a thought to spare even for her daughter. All that mattered was his mouth, demanding, desiring, drawing her away into a swirling world of rain and lightning and darkness. She could feel
the hardness of his erection against her stomach; she could feel the moist heat of her own need; and her hands were trembling as she pushed at him, wanting to slide them up between their bodies, wanting to push away his chambray shirt and feel his smooth, hot skin.
With shocking force they ripped apart, and Margaret fell back, tripped and landed on her knees on the hard floors. It took her a dazed moment to realize what was happening. Two men were caught in a frenzied battle, a dirty, rage-filled fight that paid no attention to proper rules, and the sudden violence shocked her. The room was dark by now, lit only by the fitful sizzle of lightning, and she watched with sickening horror as one man collapsed, felled by a sucker punch to the stomach and a vicious blow to the back of the neck.
The victor stood over the body, breathing heavily, then moved to one of the few lamps still standing after the short bloody brawl. The light flooded the room in a small pool, illuminating Peter’s pale face as he lay on the floor, illuminating Wendell’s look of almost vindictive triumph as he loomed over him. He drew back his foot, and as Margaret watched in silent horror, he kicked the Peter hard in the ribs.
He was about to do it again when he heard her gasp. He looked up, and the savage fury in his face, more frightening than anything she’d ever seen in Peter’s eyes, vanished, leaving sorrow and concern as he crossed the room and helped her to her feet with suddenly tender hands.
“Are you all right, Margaret?” he demanded, brushing at her clothes, her tumbled hair with gentle hands. “Did he hurt you? Frighten you?”
She shook her head. She had to have imagined that sudden, vicious kick, the crazed fury in his face. Wendell was the calm, easy one. The perfect Southern gentleman at all times. “I’m fine. Is he . . . all right?”
“You’re so kind, Margaret, to care about scum like Peter. He’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
Peter still hadn’t moved. Pushing past Wendell, she knelt at Peter’s side, oblivious to the broken glass beneath her, and softly touched his face. His blazing green eyes were closed, and there was an oozing cut on his forehead. “Shouldn’t we call a doctor?” she murmured, trying to still the panic that swept through her, a panic far greater than anything she’d felt when Peter had stalked her with determination in his glittering eyes.
“Doc Pitcher’s on his way with an ambulance.”
Wendell walked past her and unlocked the hall door, and Margaret was vaguely aware of people crowding into the room. She looked up for a moment, realizing that Wendell must have come through the French doors on the veranda, intent on saving her. Damn him.
“He’s not that bad, is he?” she asked as Wendell pulled her away. The guard, Georges, took her place, checking Peter with a professional air. They’d been more sporadic in their duties—she would go days without seeing them, but clearly they were closer than she’d thought.
“He’ll live,” Georges announced, his hands surprisingly tender as they pulled Peter’s torn shirt around him. “The ambulance isn’t for his physical wounds, ma’am. He’ll have to go back to Shady Oaks. Tonight.”
“Peter’s up to his old tricks again, is he?” Gertrude demanded from the doorway, her face creased with disapproval and something not far removed from worry. “What set him off this time?”
“I . . . I was playing the stereo,” Margaret admitted. Wendell’s hand on her arm was like a manacle. She wanted to pull away, to run back to Peter’s side, but she knew she wouldn’t be welcome. By anyone there.
“Foolish child,” Gertrude said, her voice unemotional. “Don’t torment yourself, my dear. Something was bound to set him off sooner or later. If it wasn’t this, it would have been something else. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Peter . . .,” she started to explain, but Georges’s voice interrupted.
“He’s coming around. Why don’t you leave us? I’ll keep him here until Doc arrives.”
“I can hear the ambulance,” Gertrude said. “We’ll wait in the library.”
Wendell was finally ready to release her. “I think Georges might need my help to make certain he goes along quietly.”
“I think you’ve done quite enough for tonight,” Gertrude snapped. “Georges is capable of keeping Peter in line.”
Georges ignored them all as Peter began to move his head, muttering something.
“Come along, Margaret, Wendell,” Gertrude said, grandly oblivious to Peter’s muffled cursing. “We all need a drink, and if I know Remy, he’ll be more than ready to pour for us.”
Margaret had no choice but to let Wendell drag her away from the room. At the last minute she halted in the doorway, just as Doc Pitcher and a burly, white-coated technician stormed in the front door. She looked at Peter, her eyes filled with tears, willing him to meet her gaze.
But he didn’t. He’d managed to stand, swaying slightly as Georges put handcuffs on his beautiful wrists, and he kept his face averted. He knew she was there, but he wouldn’t look at her.
Wendell’s tug on her arm was forceful, and she turned and followed him.
“Don’t break your heart over him, Margaret,” Wendell advised. “He’s not worth it.”
She knew there was no disguising the unshed tears in her eyes, but she was damned if she was going to keep her eyes modestly downcast. “Any human being is worth it, Wendell,” she said sharply, yanking her arm out of his grasp and preceding him into the library. She sat down beside Gertrude, accepted a dark glass of whiskey from Remy’s slightly trembling hand, and made polite conversation about the weather, ignoring the sounds outside the tightly closed door, the murmur of voices, the noise of the ambulance as it drove off. She even ignored Gertrude’s sudden look of pain as the old woman listened to her grandson being carted away.
Margaret sat through dinner, pushing at her food. She sat through coffee and brandy, touching nothing, smiling faintly at Lisette’s barbed comments. She made it all the way until bedtime, accompanying Gertrude, suddenly frail, up the winding flights of stairs.
Until they reached Margaret’s door, and Gertrude dropped her stern demeanor, her face old and filled with grief as she surveyed her grandson’s widow.
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” she said, absolutely out of the blue.
Margaret stood still, her hand on her doorknob. She considered a dozen responses, ranging from “You’re as crazy as he is” to a simple “Who?” She opened her mouth to try one of them, but no sound came out. Instead her face crumpled, and she burst into huge, wracking sobs.
It was Gertrude who helped her to bed, uttering soothing phrases Margaret hadn’t heard for years. It was Gertrude who bathed her face with a cool washcloth, Gertrude who assured her that everything was going to be all right. And it was Gertrude who offered her the means to run away.
Chapter Sixteen
“YOU REALLY OUTDID yourself this time,” Doc said, poking at his rib with an almost fiendish delight. “What set you off on this particular occasion?”
Peter gave Doc his most serene smile. “Margaret was playing a tape of the Neville Brothers. You remember how that sort of thing triggers one of my fits.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Peter. I’m your doctor. I know as well as you do that you’re not crazy. Or at least, I didn’t think so until the past month.” He poked at Peter’s face with an ungentle hand. “Right up until the time Margaret Jaffrey arrived on the scene, as a matter of fact. I don’t suppose there’s any connection.”
“You’re supposed to be a healer, not make things worse,” Peter grumbled. “Watch it with that stuff. It stings.”
“You should be glad I’m not giving you the caning your daddy would have given you for this sort of behavior. Are you going to answer me?”
Peter pulled away from Doc’s rough ministrations. “Why, sure I’ll answer you, Doc. I’m perfectly sane except when it comes to women. I went out of my
mind and murdered Rosanne, and then I’ve been normal until exposed to the fair sex once more. I fell in love with Margaret and lost my mind again. It’s a very simple equation.”
“You’re a historian, not a mathematician,” Doc told him, dropping the swab on the examining table beside him. “So you’re in love with the girl. That’s a tough business.”
“I was being sarcastic, Doc,” Peter growled.
“Sure you were. And I’m Albert Schweitzer. Want me to tape that rib?”
“Is it broken?”
“Doubt it. I don’t think it’s cracked. You’re not having any trouble breathing, are you?”
“Only when I think about Wendell kicking me,” Peter growled, reaching for his ripped shirt and pulling it on with a wince. “Can I go?”
“No, you can’t. Where the hell were you thinking of going, anyway? Not back to the bosom of your family, I trust. They don’t want you.”
“I have every intention of giving them a few days to calm down. I want to go back on Tuesday.”
“They may not be ready to have you back. Hell, boy, they’ve at least got to get the windows fixed.”
“You can tell them I had a round of shock treatments and I’m completely passive. I don’t give a damn what you tell them. I’m not staying away for that long this time.”
“You didn’t stay away for that long the other time, either. Hell, I think you do need shock treatments,” Doc fumed. “You’re staying put tonight. You can sleep in my infirmary. I want to keep an eye on that head injury.”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t teach me doctoring, you young whelp! When someone gets knocked unconscious for several minutes there’s always a chance of concussion.”
“I wasn’t unconscious,” he said flatly. “I was winded for a moment, and I decided it might be the better part of valor to stay put.”
“Why?”
“For one thing, if I’d gotten up I would have killed Wendell. For another, Margaret was huddled in the corner with a horrified expression on her face. I figured I’d spare her and even things up with Wendell later.”