“I don’t know where your hero is,” he managed to say. “The last time I saw him, the asshat was running away from a scary-looking woman wearing”—his eyes drifted from the swell of her breasts to her legs and back again—“um…skin-tight gold breeches.”
Penny twirled. “Are you saying you love what I’m wearing?”
“No, just the opposite.” His eyes returned to his view of nipples he couldn’t quite see.
“Oh, but O’Grady, look at me.”
Hell, babe, I am.
She held her arms out at her sides. “Where else could I be so outrageous? If you want to know what absolute freedom is”—she twirled again—“this is it. And Jean adores it.”
I bet he does. He probably helped you tie that goddamn corset.
Rick’s fingers moved over the piano keys, imagining each one caressing her golden flesh.
“Where’s Rhona?” she asked.
“Here I am.” Rhona walked into the room, leaning on a cane, and immediately put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my goodness! You look fantastic.”
No, she doesn’t. She looks outrageously sexy and provocative, and I can’t think of anything but driving balls-deep inside her.
Rick tried to regain his composure as he continued playing “Over the Rainbow,” deciding he preferred the smelly Penny, not this sex kitten. Kitten? Hell. She was a damn lioness, and lusting over her was insane. It was the boobs. Had to be the boobs. Large, enhanced ones were great, but soft, well-formed breasts peeking at him were the substance of his…
He forced himself to switch tracks and smile at Rhona, who opened one side of Penny’s green and gold coat and rubbed the fabric between her fingers and thumb.
“How are you feeling today?” Penny asked.
“Remy keeps giving me B-12 shots, and I feel stronger, but look at this jacket,” Rhona said, changing the subject. “Marguerite is digging through the bottom of her fabric barrel. I made this a couple of years ago, and no one liked it either. It looks divine on you. And this length is perfect. Turn around.”
Penny twirled again, and Rhona smiled. “The jacket is a brilliant creation. The gold threads make the fabric look alive. It sparkles on you and picks up the blue in your hair.” She looped her arm around Penny’s elbow. “Come on. Philippe is tending bar while Rick entertains us with some jazz. What can he get you?”
“Whisky.” Penny glanced at Lafitte. “Jean, what would you like?”
“Whisky, but what is jazz?”
She nodded at Rick. “It’s what he’s playing right now,” she said.
“I’ll relieve you of those wine bottles, Mr. Lafitte.” Philippe looked at the labels. “Spanish and Italian wines. Excellent. We’ll open them for dinner.”
“I’ll have another double,” Rick said to Philippe, and then answered Lafitte’s question about the music. “Jazz, my friend…”
Rick quit playing and stood to shake hands with Lafitte because sitting there in tight breeches with a hard-on was getting excruciatingly painful. He couldn’t ever remember being this hard when there wasn’t a woman either under him or…
He shook himself and continued. “…started here in New Orleans, and is the universal language of tolerance and freedom, inspired by passion, sometimes intimate, often boisterous, and always layered with experience.”
Lafitte gave him a one-eyed look, and Rick laughed. “I read that description years ago and memorized it. It probably doesn’t make much sense to you.”
“It sounds like African, French, Creole, and Spanish music were all thrown in a pot and stirred.” Lafitte glanced at Penny, who’d returned with his and Rick’s drinks. “Do you like this jazz?”
“I love jazz. It’s soul music. Play something else, O’Grady.”
Rick sat back down and took a long swig and then another, almost emptying his third glass. He was on his way to a good buzz. “This is one of Duke Ellington’s classics, called ‘Satin Doll.’ It’s usually played at a relaxed tempo.” Rick focused on the music, and slowly his big boy calmed down and trudged back into its cage. Thank God. If his hard-on hadn’t gone away, he’d have to do something drastic, like math computations. “The bass and drums just filter in as the players feel the music.”
Lafitte tapped his fingers on the top of the piano. Penny returned with her drink and slowly swayed to the music, her breasts lifting in her corset with her shoulder gyrations. Rick could continue to stare, hoping for a nipple peek, or he could pay attention to the music.
“What are you doing?” Lafitte asked.
“Dancing.”
“My dear, dancing requires a partner.” Lafitte put their drinks aside and took Penny in his arms. “Please play, Mr. O’Grady, so I can dance with my cousin.”
Shit. You just want to feel her breasts pressed against you. You’re not fooling me. I’ve been there, got screwed without being kissed, and didn’t bother to go back for seconds.
Rick played while they spun around the room, laughing, her eyes shining brightly in the yellow light. He felt like a moth flying into a flame. Another knock on the door ended their dance. Penny opened it, and Pete, Sophia, and Remy bounded in.
“Oh, Penny. I adore your outfit. I have to paint you.”
Please don’t.
“Really?” Penny asked. “Okay.”
Go ahead, Sophia. But the painting will be mine! As will the woman.
Rick gulped. Where in the hell did that thought come from? He was more than buzzed. Counting the drink he had in his room before he came here, he was working on his fourth double. He’d better quit drinking, or there was no telling where his mind would go next.
“Oh, good. Rick’s playing,” Sophia said. “Don’t stop.”
Remy whipped out his drumsticks. “Man, I’ve been waitin’ to jam.” Ba-dum-CHING! He moved to the piano and fanned out books, a silver coaster, and a brass container, and started playing drums along with Rick while Sophia and Pete and Penny and Lafitte spun around the room.
“I’m going to switch this up.” Rick started playing and singing Cher’s “Believe” in his three-octave range tenor voice.
Do you believe in life after love? / I can feel something inside me say…
He kept everything in contained, dynamic range, turning Cher’s version into one of his own. The words were easy to hear without an electronic track behind his voice, and he stripped everything down instrumentally, making the song more intimate and personal.
As he sang, everyone gathered around the piano, and by the time the last note sounded, Penny had tears in her eyes, and Pete had Sophia in a dance dip pose, kissing her.
Remy gave him a fist bump. “I knew you were working on that song. Glad I got to hear the stripped-down version first. Man, that was awesome.”
Lafitte was speechless for a moment and then found his voice. “Can you teach me to sing like that?”
“You have the voice and the range, Jean,” Penny said. “All you need are the words and music. I’m sure Rick can teach you the tune.”
“I’d be glad to,” Rick added.
Rhona’s housekeeper announced dinner was ready.
Lafitte took Penny’s elbow. “I don’t like your jazz music as much as Mr. O’Grady’s song. It was magnifique!”
“I agree.”
Remy pulled Rick aside. “How much have you had to drink?”
“A couple.”
“A couple of doubles. You can’t even walk straight. Are you mixing pain pills and alcohol?”
“Nah, I wouldn’t do that.” Not today. I don’t think. And then he remembered popping one shortly before he walked across town for dinner.
“I think I’ll stay over at your apartment tonight. And no wine at dinner.”
Rick held up his glass. “When I finish this, I want one more. Then I’ll go home.”
Remy slipped the glass out of Rick’s hand and guided him to the table, where he sat on one side of Penny, Lafitte on the other. Sophia sat between Pete and Remy across the table, and Philippe and Rhona sa
t at each end.
Rick’s stomach growled, and he wondered when he ate last. Probably breakfast. He’d spent the rest of the day planning strategy with the general and his staff, which included Penny, but she didn’t look like she did now.
“We’re serving ourselves tonight,” Rhona said. “Please take your plates to the sideboard.”
Rick stumbled when he got up, but quickly righted himself, picked up his plate, and followed Penny to the buffet. There were dishes with deep-fried sea bass and speckled trout, sautéed wild duck, gumbo, spicy boudin, boiled shrimp, red beans and rice, warm French bread, baguettes, croissants, chilled slices of apple and oranges and sugared bananas, pralines, éclairs, and beignets sprinkled with powdered sugar.
There was one dish he couldn’t identify. He pointed to it. “What’s that?”
“Slices of cochon de lai,” Lafitte said.
Rick shrugged.
Lafitte laughed. “Acadiana’s most famous and most delectable dish—marinated, pit-roasted pork.”
Rick speared several pieces and put them on his plate, along with a sampling of everything else. After their plates were loaded and wine poured, the conversation shifted from the war to Jackson to Lafitte’s travels.
When the conversation paused, Rhona asked, “Where did you land, Penny, when you came out of the fog?”
Rick bit off a chunk of boudin, letting the spicy juices flow over his tongue, but it didn’t keep him from slurring his words when he said, “Yeah, inquiring minds want to know.”
“In the swamp, and I was scared shitless.” Penny put her hand to her mouth. “Sorry. I’ll try to keep the profanity to a minimum.”
“That must have been horrible to go from a hotel room in downtown New Orleans in the twenty-first century to a chilly day in the swamp in 1814,” Sophia said.
“I just knew it was cooler. I didn’t know for days that I was in a different century.”
“So how’d you find Mr. Lafitte?” Rhona asked.
Penny folded her arms across her middle, providing a shelf for her breasts. “I was hiding in the tall grass when some of Jean’s men rowed their canoes to a small dock. They pulled the boats out of the water and took off, so I followed them. When I came out of the forest, I saw this small community, and a gorgeous three-master, square-rigged ship, and thought I was on the set of a new Jack Sparrow movie. While I was standing there gawking, three men came up behind me, grabbed me, carried me off to the big house, and dropped me on the floor at Jean’s feet.”
Rick forked a bite of the speckled trout. “I hope you kicked him in the ’gnads.”
Lafitte set his fork aside and picked up his napkin. “There was a price on my head and rumors that Governor Claiborne was sending ships to blast me out of Barataria. I thought mon Capitaine was a spy. If she’d been a man, I would have hanged her.”
“So, what’d you do?” Sophia asked.
Lafitte heaved a deep breath. “I sent her to the brothel.”
Rick jumped to his feet, staggered, and yelled, “You what?”
Lafitte threw down his napkin and stood, reaching for his pistol. “I’m not in the habit of having my orders questioned, Mr. O’Grady.”
Penny didn’t jump, but she slammed her palms on the table. “Sit. Down. Both of you! Just so we’re clear. We are from the twenty-first century. Jean was born in the eighteenth, and he doesn’t deal with problems the same way we do. Sit down!”
Lafitte and Rick growled at each other before taking their seats.
“I knocked the shit out of the first guy who showed up at the brothel, escaped out the back window, and returned to the big house to get my purse and find a phone. Jean was sitting there waiting for me. He had gone through my purse, read the flyer Morgan gave me about the tour of the Chalmette Battlefield, and also found my California driver’s license.” She smiled at Lafitte.
“After that, we had a delightful dinner, and then Dominique took me to a gorgeous bedroom and promised that they would talk about taking me to New Orleans in the morning. I thought I had landed in a colony of crazy reenactors. I couldn’t figure it out.”
“What happened next?” Pete asked, glaring at Rick.
Lafitte took Penny’s hand and kissed the back of her fingers. “The man she beat up snuck into the house and attacked her. I heard noises, went into the room, and shot him.”
“Did you kill him?” Sophia asked on a catch of breath.
“Of course,” Lafitte said. “He attacked something that belonged to me.”
“Whaaaat?” Rick asked, slurring the word. “Belong to you? How the fuck do you figure that?”
“Mr. O’Grady,” Rhona said. “Please…”
Ricks cheeks heated. She sounded like his late mother.
“Go on, Penny. What happened next?” Rhona asked, firing Rick a warning glance.
“The man rolled onto the floor and died. I had his blood all over me, and I lost it.” Penny looked at Lafitte. “I wasn’t screaming, though, was I?”
“No.” He kissed her hand again. “You just wanted his blood off you.” He looked up at the rest of the guests. “Dominique and I got her settled in another bedroom.”
“Inquiring minds also want to know. So how’d you get the blood off,” Rick mumbled, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Penny looked at Lafitte again. “I told you to remove my gown, right?”
Rick shot to his feet again, steadied himself with a good grip on the chair back, and rasped, “And you stripped her?”
Remy stood and anchored his palms on the table, glaring at Rick. “You’re drunk. If you can’t control yourself, I’ll take you home. Your outbursts are disgusting. You’re acting like you did that night in the rental house.”
Rick aped Remy’s posture. “You have no authority here.”
Remy dug a sheet of paper out of his pocket, opened it, and spread it out in front of Rick. “Read it.”
Rick’s pulse beat quickly in the artery beneath his ear, and he shivered as he recognized Elliott’s handwriting. He picked up the note written on MacKlenna letterhead.
“If the need arises, Remy has the absolute authority to overrule Rick on any issue and assume control of the mission.”
“I’m taking over,” Remy said. “Now sit down and shut the fuck up.”
Rick let the paper drift to the table when what he wanted to do was throw it in the fireplace and let the flames destroy it. Without matching Remy’s fuck with one of his own, Rick left the house without a hi, bye, or kiss my ass. He stumbled down the steps to the courtyard, popping another pain pill.
You didn’t trust me, did you, Elliott? You assumed I’d fail.
Rick didn’t miss the fact that Elliott wrote the note on letterhead. He could only have done that before he arrived at the rental house in New Orleans.
Bastard. You never trusted me.
Rick made it out to the street, tripped, and fell in the mud. “Goddamn it!” He grabbed the wheel of a wagon parked in the street and pulled himself to his feet. Everything was blurry in the fog, and he shivered from the cold. Which way should he go? Right? Left?
What the hell? Just walk, asshole. He’d find Jackson Square sooner or later.
He stumbled again and plowed into the side of a building, skinning his hands. “Damn.” He wiped his fingers on his jacket.
Why did Elliott give Remy the power and not Pete? What the hell was that about?
Elliott shouldn’t trust someone with no time travel experience, but Elliott hadn’t asked Rick’s opinion. Nope. He didn’t. Elliott had given Remy the authority to take away Rick’s job if he screwed up.
Hell, everybody gets drunk sometimes. What I’d do wrong?
Rick staggered down a side street and bumped into two men going in the opposite direction.
“Watch where ya’re goin’.’”
“Get out of my way.” Rick put up his fists. “You wanna fight, I’ll fight.”
One of the men took a swing at Rick and flattened him. “Ya still want to fight
?”
“Sure, just help me up,” Rick said.
“What? Help ya up so I can knock you down again?”
“You won’t be the first.”
They helped Rick stand, and one of the men asked, “Aren’t ya on the general’s staff?”
“Not right now. Ready to fight,” Rick mumbled, putting up his fists.
“If ya want a fight, wait for the British. Ya need to go home. The general will need ya tomorrow. Where ya stayin’?”
Rick shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“Let’s take him to headquarters,” one of the men said.
“No, no. Not there.” Rick pointed ahead. “Dress shop. Go there.”
Rick stumbled several more times, but the men got him to the dress shop. “Side gate.” The men took him there, and Rick fumbled with the key while he tried to unlock it.
“Here, move aside.” One of the men took the key and unlocked the gate, then the two men all but carried him to the back door and set him in a chair.
“Go inside and get some rest. The general needs every man who can hold a gun.” The man put the gate key in Rick’s hand. “You’re covered with mud, so ya better not go inside Mademoiselle Marguerite’s shop until ya clean up.”
“Don’t wanna kill anyone else.”
“Yeah, ya do, or they’ll kill us.” The men left through the gate, and Rick slumped over in the chair.
Why didn’t you trust me, Elliott?
That wasn’t Rick’s biggest problem, but right now, he didn’t know what the hell was bigger. He clenched his fist and thumped his forehead with it, again and again.
You think you’re so smart, Elliott. You’re just an old man with a wee bit of insight. So tell me right now. What the hell’s my biggest problem?
Rick almost fell out of the chair when he heard Elliott answer, clear as a bell.
Ye lost yer edge, lad, when that Humvee blew up. It’s time ye got it back.
45
New Orleans (1815)—Rick
Rick woke up with morning twilight inching toward a cloudy sunrise.
He was hungover and cold after overindulging and passing out in the chair in Marguerite’s courtyard. What a dumbass. He’d never mixed alcohol and pain meds before because he knew better. So why last night? He must have been on a search and destroy mission—search out the demon residing in his soul and destroy everything in its path.
The Topaz Brooch Page 51