Masquerade

by Janet Dailey

  With a crack of the whip, the carriage lurched forward. Inside, Adrienne pushed back the hood of her cloak and finally met Brodie's gaze. She briefly wondered why she felt no awkwardness, no anxiety, no guilt—only this calm, smooth certainty. Brodie said nothing, waiting for her to speak first.

  "Grand-père remains adamant in his decision. He will not tolerate even the mention of your name."

  "That doesn't change the way I feel," he said, leaving unspoken the question of whether she wanted to reconsider her position.

  "Nor the way I feel," she assured him, firmly.

  A small smile touched his mouth. "In that case we're left with the Yankee thing to do—run away together and elope."

  "Non" She had already considered that option and rejected it. "Flight carries with it the inference of wrongdoing, of guilt, of shame. I feel none of those things with you."

  "I can't disagree with you. But neither am I going to allow your grandfather to keep us apart. You'd better understand that, Adrienne."

  "I do."

  In the last six days she'd had a great deal of time alone to think—about them, about herself, about life and what she wanted from it. She'd seen the loneliness of her aunt's spinster existence, the isolation of a single woman, her dependence upon the charity of a relative. And she'd seen the un-happiness of a loveless manage de convenance, the tension, the bitterness, the resentment of young brides as they tried to pretend they didn't know about the concubines their husbands kept in those little cottages on Rampart Street. Ever since she'd been old enough to be aware of these things, she'd been determined to marry for love. She had never doubted that she could. She was a Jardin, and the Jardins had risen above the need to further their power base through marriage.

  She had never guessed she would choose a Yankee to love. And she'd never guessed that her grandfather's dislike of them was so deeply ingrained.

  Twice this past week she had tried to reason with her grandfather, and both attempts had ended in arguments. She hadn't tried again, recognizing that more quarrels would only harden him. And tears and pleading wouldn't work with her grandfather; he disliked weakness, even in women.

  While Dominique sympathized with her plight, he wouldn't side with her against their grandfather and suggested instead that she accept that their grandfather was a better judge than she of what was best for her. As for Tante ZeeZee—she was a woman. Her grandfather would no more listen to her than to Adrienne.

  Her acceptance of his demands was out of the question. She would never submit to that.

  Open defiance of her grandfather was unthinkable—scandalous.

  All of which left only one option: she had to arrange for her grandfather to realize that the best thing would be for her to marry Brodie Donovan.

  "We will see each other, Brodie, as often as we can." She twisted sideways in the seat to face him and reached up to trace the high arc of his cheekbone. "For now, we will have to meet like this."

  Irritation flickered through his expression. "Why? You can't believe he's going to change his mind."

  "In time he will, yes." She smiled confidently.

  He looked at her, then slowly shook his head, his mouth reluctantly curving in a smile. "Why am I agreeing to this? What kind of spell have you cast over me?"

  "Brodie. Do you think you are the only one who feels this enchantment?" she asked, feeling slightly wiser than he.

  "I'd better not be." He drew her hand from his cheek and carried it to his mouth, pressing an evocative kiss in the center of its palm, his eyes never leaving her face. "How long before I have to take you back to your home?"

  "Not long," she said regretfully, glancing up at the upholstered ceiling of the carriage, listening to the tattoo of the rain on its roof. "Already the rain is letting up. When it stops, the streets will be crowded." She left it unsaid that that would greatly increase her risk of being seen leaving his carriage.

  "You don't know how tempted I am to tell the driver to keep going—how tempted I am to kidnap you and never take you back. I want to spend more than a few minutes with you, Adrienne."

  "You will. I have begun to spend my evenings alone in my room, retiring immediately after supper, refusing to attend any of the parties or the opera. Grand-père thinks I am sulking, and I have not attempted to disprove him." She paused for an instant, marveling at her own daring yet never questioning her decision. "At night there is little traffic on the street, few people to notice a carriage going by—or stopping very briefly. We would have time to be together then—perhaps two, even three hours."

  Brodie frowned in amazement, hearing her words and seeing the cleverness, the intelligence in her plan—and observing her seemingly unshakable calm. Rebellion against family dictum was so rare as to be almost nonexistent in aristocratic Creole families. That she was even in this carriage with him in the daytime, unchaperoned, showed stunning boldness. But to suggest meeting him at night—alone—for several hours. ... It humbled him a little to think of it, especially when he considered how strict her upbringing had been. And he wondered if she wasn't putting too much trust in a gentleman's honor—his honor. Didn't she realize that if he were really a gentleman, he'd never see her again?

  "Is there a place we can go when we meet? I know of none," she confessed, calmly looking to him.

  "I do." He knew the requirements without asking—somewhere private where they wouldn't be seen or recognized. "My home. About three miles from here."

  There was one small flicker of hesitation, and then she smiled. "I would like to see your home."

  "When?"

  "In a day or two. I will send a message to you."

  16

  A waxing moon, a shimmering crescent in the night sky, joined the dusting of glittering stars to look down on the collection of elaborate homes with expansive front lawns that had sprung up in the partially wooded outskirts of the city, built by prosperous Americans on the former site of the old Livaudais plantation. Stately processions of towering columns, Corinthian and Doric in design, faced the streets, the wide galleries borrowing the lacework ornamentation of iron railings from the Creoles, and the interiors adapting to the subtropical climate of New Orleans with rooms sixteen and eighteen feet high, wide doorways, tall windows, and folding shutters that could be thrown open to admit the flow of air.

  Brodie Donovan stood at a parlor window in one of those homes—his home, finished only a few short months before, its grandeur befitting the residence of a successful shipowner. Yet, looking into the mirror-black night, he had only to close his eyes and remember the unbelievable green of his native Ireland, the two-room mud house that had been his home, the meager meals that had been served on its crude table, the patched and worn clothes that had covered his back, the hunger that had been in his belly, and the smell of peat burning in the hearth. He had only to close his eyes and remember the sensation of the swamp's mire tugging at his legs, drying on his clothes and skin—the suffocating heat, the zzzizzing buzz of attacking mosquitoes, the trembling and aching of exhausted muscles, and the stench, always the rank, malodorous smell of the miasmal swamp.

  It didn't matter that he'd left it all behind; it hadn't left him.

  If Adrienne had seen him then, she would have given him a look of cool disdain and drawn her skirts aside to avoid contact with him. In all the times they'd met and talked, he'd never told her about any of it. Oh, he'd told her of Ireland, described the green of its countryside, the rocky promontories of its sea cliffs, the sparkling waters of its springs and lochs, and told her of the grand wakes—the keening and weeping in one room and the toasting and tale-swapping in another. And he'd recounted the story of how he'd started his company and built it, as well as his plans for the future.

  There was a truth to all of it, but not the whole truth, not the parts that might change the way she looked at him. Did he think she wouldn't love him if she knew? Did he think he wasn't really good enough for her? Was that why he went along with meeting her in secret—because he di
dn't feel he had a right to be seen with her in public?

  But this was America. There was no rigid separation of the classes here; a man was not forever bound to one station. He could rise—as Brodie had done. Look at his clothes, look at this house —they were as fine as anything Adrienne's family possessed.

  The darkened windowpane reflected his scowling look. Brodie turned from it, irritated by the blackness of his mood. But he knew the cause of it: she was late. He glanced at the clock on the black marble mantel. The carriage had left to pick her up more than an hour ago. Had something gone wrong? Why wasn't she here? Had there been trouble? He cursed himself for not going with it and for waiting for her here instead.

  He glared at the emptiness of the richly furnished parlor, the many crystal pendants of the Waterford chandelier increasing the spray of candlelight that filled it. Once he'd enjoyed this room, taken pride in its beauty. Now, when he looked at the sofa where they always sat, part of the walnut parlor set he'd bought for the room from Prudent Mallard, he always imagined her there. Sometimes, when he was alone, he'd run his hand over the curved armrest where her hand so lightly rested. And sometimes he swore the rich red velvet held traces of her fragrance.

  There was no more contentment in this house for him, no more satisfaction. He remembered how proudly he'd shown it off to her the first time she'd come. Now every room was marked with the memory of her reaction—the sound of soft, indrawn breaths of admiration, the sight of a hand trailing in approval over a mantel, even the occasional carefully worded criticism offered under the guise of a suggestion.

  Dammit, where was she? Brodie spun back to the window and searched the darkness beyond for a glimpse of the carriage. Would she come? Would she notice the magnolias the gardener had planted in the front lawn, or the newly laid flagstoned walk in the rear, the beginnings of the courtyard she'd thought would be attractive there?

  The bright light pouring from the parlor beckoned to her. Adrienne quietly closed the rear entrance door to the wide hall and let the light guide her to the parlor, then paused just inside to face Brodie with clear-shining eyes as he pivoted from the window toward her.

  "Adrienne!" Disbelief flickered across his face. He took a step toward her and then stopped, as if expecting her to disappear. "I didn't hear the carriage."

  "When you were not at the door to meet me, I thought you might have given up on me." She quickly unfastened her cloak and swung it off her shoulders. "Grand-père brought guests home to dinner unexpectedly. I had to wait until they had left and Tante ZeeZee had retired to her room."

  "You're here. That's all that matters now." A smile came to his mouth.

  The sight of it was all Adrienne needed as she crossed the room with no memory of her feet touching the floor. He swept her into his arms and wrapped her tightly around him, covering her lips with a fiercely tender kiss.

  Almost before it had begun, he was breaking it off, raking his mouth across her cheek, murmuring a husky and rough "I've missed you."

  She closed her eyes, thrilling to the emotion vibrating so thickly through his voice. "And I have missed you, Brodie," she declared just as thickly.

  "It's been hell these last two days—wanting to see you, wanting to hold you, wanting to be with you."

  "It has been the same for me." Adrienne rubbed her cheek against his, feeling its smoothness, its chiseled bone structure, its heat.

  With an effort, he lifted his head and framed her face in his hands, looking at her with heavy-lidded need, a smolder and a sparkle in his eyes. "I was standing at the window, wondering where you were, wishing you were here with me. And when you came through that door, I thought you were a dream I was having. It's a dream you are, Adrienne—a dream most men carry in their minds but never see."

  "I am no dream."

  "No," he said, none too certainly, his mouth slanting in a near smile. "But I've been thinking, Adrienne—what is a man? There's stars he wants to reach, but it's the earth that stains him. Man was meant for the earth, but he can look at the stars. When you appeared tonight, it was like I was seeing a star suddenly blaze and fall to fill the sky—to fill my night. . . and my life." He paused and deliberately lapsed into a lilting brogue, trying to lighten the seriousness of his feelings. " 'Tis loving you I am, Adrienne Jardin."

  She drew a small, quick breath, conscious of the sudden soaring of her heart, and smiled. "And 'tis loving you I am, Brodie Donovan." She used his phrasing, moved by the simple sincerity of it.

  Humor, warm and glinting, mixed with the desire for her in his eyes. "It's bold you are again, mocking me with my own words."

  "It is no mockery." Smiling, she ran a caressing hand over the angled line of his jaw. He caught it and pressed the tips of her fingers to his lips. "I love you. You are the man I want for my husband. It is your children I want to have, your home I want to keep, your bed I want to lie in."

  For an instant he gripped her fingers so tightly that she thought he would break them. Then he was murmuring her name in a groan as he smothered her lips with a kiss that was warm, hard, and demanding. Adrienne was stirred anew by the flood of sensation washing through her. She had no doubt that this was what she wanted—the heat, the need, the near desperation.

  His mouth shifted, pressing rough kisses over her cheek and eye. "I want that too," came the thick words against her skin. "I want you."

  She felt the faint tremors that shook him, the struggle for control. But there was no place for control in this moment of giving—this release of feelings too long held back. She knew that, as a woman knows it.

  "I want you, Brodie." She drew back to look at him, taking his hand and drawing it inside the lace collar of her jasper silk walking dress, laying it against the bare skin of her breastbone, the heel of his hand resting on the top swell of her breast. "Do you feel the pounding of my heart? Do you feel the trembling within? It is for you."

  He was still, so still he could have been made of stone. Only his eyes were alive to her—so very alive to her. "You don't know what you're saying, Adrienne."

  A smile touched her mouth, at once warm and amused. "You likened me to a star, but I am not something to be regarded and admired from afar. I am a woman to be loved by a man—by you. The stars are outside, Brodie. We are here."

  "Aye," he breathed the word, his hand slipping lower, finding the roundness of her breast beneath her gown's corsage. At his touch, an indistinct murmur of pleasure broke from her. "We are here."

  His head bent. His lips brushed hers, then came back to plunder and invade. As she tasted the hardness of his tongue, Adrienne knew that this was what she wanted—his hands on her, his mouth on her, his muscled body pressed tightly to her. It was what she had always wanted.

  He swept her into his arms and carried her from the parlor, up the curved staircase to the master bedroom on the second floor. The soft glow from a lamp on the bedside table illuminated the full tester bed, with the lace baire rolled up and the bed linen turned down, the massive rosewood armoire along one wall and the pale-blue carpet on the floor. He lowered her feet onto the carpet and continued to kiss her. She felt his fingers at the fastenings of her dress, and then it was swinging loose.

  Soon her clothes were in a pile at her feet. Brodie drew back to look at her standing before him, proud, bold . . . beautiful. The back-glow of the lamplight made the thin material of her chemise appear transparent. His mouth went dry. She looked small and delicate, with a narrow rib cage and a waist so small he could span it with his hands, and slender hips that were yet wide enough to cradle a man. He wondered how a form so fragile could hold so much strength—and how a pair of eyes could look at him with a desire so deep it rivaled his own.

  "You are beautiful." His voice was husky as he let his gaze stray to her hair, swept back in its smooth knot. She reached up and pulled the securing pins from it, combing it loose with her fingers and drawing its length forward over one shoulder. "This is the first time I've seen it down," he said, and he ran his hand under the
silken length of it, a knuckle grazing the peak of her breast, further sensitizing it. Then the ends of his fingers were along her throat, his thumbs under the point of her chin, tilting it up. "You have such full and giving lips."

  He lowered his head and she closed her eyes, anticipating the hard demand of his kiss. She was startled—wondrously so—when he caught her bottom lip between his teeth, the light nibbling sensation arousing a whole new shimmering ache within her. A sigh whispered from her as he brushed his mouth over her parted lips, saying against them, "It's sweet they are too—like wild honey."

  He tasted them, his tongue tracing their outline, then stroking their inner softness. She swayed against him, her hands clutching at his middle as the world spun behind her closed eyes at this excitingly evocative kiss that was not really a kiss at all. An instant later she discovered that his fingers were no longer at her throat. Instead, they were at the front of her chemise, undoing its fastenings with a deftness that surprised her.

  Only a moment later, when she stood naked before him, her chemise joining the rest of her clothes on the floor near her feet, Adrienne felt no self-consciousness, no awkwardness. She knew by the soft hiss of his indrawn breath that the sight of her more than pleased him, and the look in his eyes confirmed it.

  Needing no invitation, Adrienne moved against him, the fine texture of his linen shirt brushing against her bare skin as she curved her hands behind his neck and drew his head down, urging his mouth to take its fill of her lips. When he did, her tongue began a slow and silent seduction. His hands glided down her spine, the faintly rough feel of them somehow stimulating to her as they pressed her hips against him, then roamed free over her waist, her ribs, her breasts, in even more stimulating play.