But Missy wished he would. Despite her glittering jewels and dainty, white ball dress, the men weren’t precisely lining up at the doors for James Benson’s precious daughter.
The spurt of envy surprised Gwen, and she instantly denied it. What was there to be jealous of? Missy had less looks than a fence post and even if her daddy adored her, what good did it do? For all of his money, Mr. Benson had been unable to buy her a husband.
To her relief, Lance appeared with Herb Punch, and Missy abandon the topic in favor of flirting with him. It’s was the prospect of being trapped by that chatterbox, Gwen told herself, that had Lance quickly muttering his excuses and insisting that he promised the next dance to Edith.
Extricating herself from Misty, Gwen refused to watch the dancing couple. She had no wish to act like some silly, jealous schoolgirl, yet she had even less desire to dance and was in no mood to talk. She felt tired and hot, and the area under her stays were now itching terribly.
More she tried not to think about her wretched corset, the more it continued to bother her. A younger, more hoydenish Gwen would have reached in under her right breast and scratched it, but the adult was ever mindful of mother’s admonitions. A true lady, she knew, must simply grin and bear it.
But she couldn’t-it was driving her mad. She couldn’t go back to the room set aside for freshening up, where the girls had I heard dress and giggled behind their fans. Fanning herself viciously, she eyed the open windows to her right, finding it dark enough outside scratch in private. Assuming a nonchalant air, she sauntered across the room and slipped through the opening.
Outside, a cool breeze stirred the night air, and Gwen lifted the hair off her neck to enjoy it. Crossing the brick-paved veranda to the balustrade, she inhaled deeply, grateful to be out of the sent-laden air of the ballroom. A soft moon, nearly full, poked through the oaks overhead, but aside from music inside and the muffled voices around the corner, Gwen could be in her own separate world. Glancing over her shoulder to make certain no one inside could see, Gwen reached down front of her dress.
“Need help?” A voice asked from the shadows.
She froze, recognizing the distinctive voice. Wasn’t it inevitable that the handsome stranger would catch her at this most embarrassing moment? “What are you doing here?” She lashed out, yanking her hand behind her back as she spun to face him.
Vaulting the balustrade, he stood beside her. “Enjoying the night air.”
He is one handsome devil when he smiles, Gwen couldn’t help thinking. “Really? Looks to me you were hiding in the bushes.”
His gaze went hard, his voice even more so. “Not me. It’s my quarry who’s hiding, using the privileges of his position to stall me. He’d be wiser to face the problem and be done with it, since he’ll never find me a relentless hunter. I don’t give up until I have what is owed me.”
Despite the quiet tone, the words rang with chilling conviction. Gwen wondered who the poor victim could be. It would be no enviable position, being tracked down and cornered by this man.
Too vividly, she could picture herself as his quarry. Shivering for more than the breeze, she imagine that him seizing her, spinning her around to crusher against his chest. He’d be smiling, this time in victory, as he brought his head down close to her own.
She shook herself firmly, dismayed to learn the prospect was not nearly as repugnant as it should be.
“But you?” He said suddenly, moving closer to stand at her side. “What brings the proud queen Gwyneth out to hide in the bushes?”
“I am not hiding. I was scratching, as you well know. If you were a true gentlemen, sir, you’d have the good grace not to mention it.”
“Ah, but you’ve already decided I’m no gentleman. Isn’t it liberating to know you can’t offend me? Feel free to scratch to your hearts content.”
“I think you are teasing me, sir. We both know a lady would never behave so. I am bound by the laws of convention.”
“More’s the pity.” He turned to her, pinning her with his gaze. “Cut free from your constraints, you might find you like yourself better.”
For a dazzling moment as he stared deeply into her eyes, Gwen lost track of what he was saying. He has such beautiful eyes, she thought, mesmerized. So dark, and deep, and compelling.
Slowly, she realized his melting stare merely masked another insult. “I am perfectly happy with who I am,” she snapped, her pose going as rigid as her tone.
A more considerate man would apologize, but he stayed deliberately silent, letting the uncomfortable moment stretch. Fuming, she tried to fashion some cutting Barb, a way to put him in his place, but never in her life had she been so aware of another’s physical presence. His tall imposing frame, the under lying sent of horse and tobacco, the sound of his soft, seductive drawl-the man overwhelmed the senses.
“I am curious,” he said suddenly,” why the handkerchief?”
The question caught her off guard, and she struggled to form an answer. She doubted he’d be happy with the truth; he didn’t seem the sort to enjoy being the subject of a wager. Flustered, she opened her cousin’s fan and waved it before her face, trying to think of an explanation that would help her get the handkerchief back. She could only imagine Lance’s reaction should this man waved it about, boasting about where, and how, and from whom he had gotten it.
“Just what is your game this time?” The probe, his gaze not leaving her face. “That nonsense about granting your favor, was it just a ploy to make Lance jealous?”
“Don’t be absurd” the fan moved faster. “I’ve no need to resort to such tactics to draw his attention.”
“No?” He turned to her with his probing gaze. “Watching you both in there, I thought him amazingly lax. Were you mine, I’d never leave you alone to wander about unescorted.”
Were you mine, the words caused a flush of pleasure, but then he spoiled it by adding, “You’re too prone to flirting with strangers, I think.”
She went red with embarrassment. “Are you implying that I’ve just put myself in danger, sir?”
He stared at her lips. “Perhaps. After all, who can tell what my kind might do?”
She stuck out her chin, determined not to let him see how his words frightened-and yet thrilled-her. “Lance feels no need to hope her about me, because he knows perfectly well I can take care of myself.”
“Can you?” His gaze lowered, focusing on the low neckline of her dress. “You can hold your own with the boys and dandified fops, but what do you know about a real man’s needs or secret desires?”
Secret desires. The words struck deep in her gut, warming her from the inside out. Part of her new she should run for her life, yet an equal parts wanted to raise her lips to his. “A real man?” She said, hoping to discuss how he flustered her. “I hope you don’t count yourself one.”
He did not exactly flinch, yet his gaze certainly narrowed. “No danger of that, my lady. You’ve made it painfully clear that I am slightly less than human in your eyes.”
“I never-“
Placed calloused fingers on her lips. “Don’t deny it. Lie to me, but be honest with yourself. Or some might say you deserve a life with Lance.”
“I could wish for nothing more,” she told him defiantly.
“Indeed?” His gaze softened suddenly; his hand reached up to tilt her chin. “With all the wishes in the world, surely there’s another worth to strive for.”
His eyes probed into her, drawing out her own secret needs and desires, and it was all she could do not to reach out and cling to him. It was as if he knew, just by looking at her, that all she truly wanted was to be cherished, to have someone love her always.
“I love Lance,” she said woodenly, unable to tear her gaze away.
“Do you? Tell me, when you’re with him, do you feel the magic?”
“Magic?” Her voice was the merest squeak.
Holding her gently, he dipped down to brush her for head with his lips, then the spot between her eyes
, the tip of her nose, until at long last, he reached her lips. Kissing them, he took possession of her mouth with a tenderness that made her throb. A tiny moan escaped, as if they sheer, aching pleasure of it could not be contained.
“Magic,” he repeated hoarsely. “Does Lance leave you moaning like that?”
Shaken to the core, she reached up and slapped his face.
He stepped back, rubbing his jaw. “It was only a kiss, my lady. No need to be drawing pistols at dawn.”
With horror, she realized he’d done it again, caught her so off-balance that she was saying things she never say, doing things…Dear heavens, and she actually stood here and let this stranger kiss her?
Breathing heavily, she stared at his teasing grin wanting nothing more than to slap him again.
Glancing at her clenched hand, he shook his head. “Sorry, but if fighting’s your intent, I’ll have to refuse you like I did Lance.”
“You have no right to even mention Lance’s name,” she lashed out. “Why, you’re not even fit to lick his boots.”
“Saint Lancelot?”
The grin faded, became a frown. “He knew about my vow not fight again, my lady. That’s the sole reason he made the challenge.”
“You are lying”
“I never lie.” He folded his arms militantly at his chest. “One of the few things I have left is my word, and you won’t find a soul in Louisiana to say I’ve ever failed to keep it. When I say Lance knew I’d never take him up on his challenge, you can believe me. Ask anyone, he’d be dead in the morning, if I had.”
“No one can best Lance. He’s the champion of Parish.”
“Is he indeed? Maybe you should ask him yourself, if there is one who has beaten him.” He nodded toward the house.
Following his gaze, Gwen watched Lance move across the dance floor, his gaze searching the crowd. “He’s looking for me,” she said in a flood of relief. Truly, this man was to…To unsettling. “You’d better leave now,” she told him curtly. “I’m going to call him.”
“Of course, you are,” the man said quietly. “But a word of advice, my lady. Lance might seem the perfect knight, but a wiser woman would hold out for the magic.”
He leaped over the balustrade to be swallowed by the dark. Damn the man, Gwen thought angrily, wiping her lips. Even now, she could still feel his imprint, as if one brief, gentle kiss could brand her.
Nonsense, she insisted to herself; I love Lance and always will.
Yet, as she stared at him, coming ever closer across the dance floor, she felt a vague building sense of unrest.
Marriage wasn’t about magic. A good relationship was based on trust and understanding, and who knew or understood Gwen better than Lance? Gliding up to him, she told herself he was a gentleman, as charming and considerate as any girl could wish for.
So why? By all that made sense, did she still feel this sweet tingling magic on her lips?
***
Jervis McCloud eased his way down the grand stairway of his brother’s townhouse, feeling sorry for himself. Life had come to quite a pass when a man of must sneak like a thief past his family to get a drink. Pray God’s his daughter was asleep, for he’d no wish to face her disappointment. He’d sworn to give up the drinking and gambling and help her run the Willows, but what Edith didn’t know-and he saw no reason to tell her-was that his promises were as empty as his bank account.
And what if? He thought resentfully. The girl was to like her mother, always watching and judging, her expectations nigh on impossible to fulfill. She was just a girl-who was she to tell her daddy what he should or should not do? As long as he provided a roof over her head and food on the table, it was none of his daughters business what he did with his time. As his own father had proclaimed, a man must be master of his house, answerable to none but God, and perhaps self.
Straightening, Jervis marched into the front parlor, carefully avoiding the site of his brother’s portrait above the mantle. If he wanted a drink, damn it, he’d have a drink, and the devil could pay for it.
As he helped himself to John’s bourbon, Jervis was dismayed to discover how little remained in the bottle. Had he gone through it already? A good thing he’d been leaving in the morning for the Willows.
Good, in more ways than one.
With a chill, he considered what a close call tonight had been. What had made Michael choose this, of all times, to calm after him, why wasn’t he’d buried out in his swamp, where he belonged? Service could well imagine the trouble the man could have caused, had Lance not had the presence of mine to boot him out the door.
He had plans, Jervis did, plans he would not risk his niece learning about prematurely. Timing would be everything; Gwen must be led slowly, as unsuspectingly as the Lamb to the slaughter, or all his careful plotting would become a failure.
Raising his glass to the portrait, he smiled at his brother’s image. “Damn you, John,” he whispered, downing the bourbon in one gulp. “This time, I intend to win.
Chapter 4
Gwen stood alone at the front of the steamboat, studying the stately plantation homes that lined the river. Some were all and familiar, yet so many had sprung up since she’d been gone. More changes. She didn’t like remembering that the Allentons had lost their home and moved away, that even the Sumners were struggling at River’s Edge.
Life was like this river, she decided. A person could move along in its steady flow, lulled into a sense of security, and not realize he’d taken a wrong turn, until he was deep in a bayou of uncharted territory.
That was how when felt now, as if she were drifting down a narrow, overgrown river into a swamp of unwelcome surprises. She wanted things the way they had been, yet there was an uncle Jervis, carrying around a hip flask and tottering at ten in the morning. And there was Edith, batting her lashes at Lance- even worse, he encouraged it.
More and more, Gwen longed to be safe and song at the Willows.
“Here you are,” Lance said suddenly behind her, strolling up to join her at the rail. Half-baked in her green wool, Gwen resented him for looking so cool and poised. From his starched white shirt and crisp linen suit, the polished boots, to the straw hat in his hands, he was every inch the well-groomed man. Even his hair had the good taste to stay in place, proving itself above gentle, stirring wind.
“Gwen darling, why the heavy sighs?”
She tried to smile, but she was feeling mightily sorry for herself. “Oh lance, don’t you ever feel frightened about the future?”
He frowned. “Truly, Gwen, if you must persist in being glum, perhaps I should go back to talking with your cousin.”
She tried not to Bristle. “I’m not being glum. I was just looking at all the new homes, and realizing how much has changed in my absence.”
“Sorry, darling, but that’s the risk you take when you run away.”
“I did no such thing.” She protested, stung. “My parents insisted I go to Boston. And then when mama-“she swallowed, hard. “Well, you know I had no choice.”
Lance mearly shrugged. “All I know is we were to be married, yet here I’ve waited, alone and distraught, going on five long years.”
Gwen should be thrilled, for these were words she wanted to hear, but for some reason, Lance merely annoyed her. “You never told me you were waiting. I thought you had given up on our marriage.”
“You wound me.” He turned to stare out over the rail. “Did you think I could ever forget our oath that we’d never be parted?”
Staring at his stiff profile, remembering that valve, she recalled a few other things as well. “You left New Orleans right after daddy said we couldn’t marry. I was the one waiting alone, with the definite impression that marriage was the last thing you want to for me.”
He turned to her then. “Darling’, you miss understood.”
“All our friends said you could ill afford to marry a pauper.”
“If money mattered to me, why did I wait for you? I could have found an heiress, but I
sat tight, waiting on my Gwen, praying for the day she’d come home to us. To me.”
“I am home now, Lance.”
She found all the longing she could ask for in his gaze. Throw caution to the winds, she pleaded silently; take me in your arms and kiss away my doubts and worries.
But he merely sigh as he took her hands. “And now that you’re here, I shall find some way to gain your father’s approval. If we stay patients, he will come around, and then we can be together always.”
Though she stared at Lance, it was another face saw and her mind, his features intense and compelling as he kissed her. The man from the docks might be a rude and uncivilized lout, but he knew what he wanted, and how to take it. If he decided to marry her, he’d do so at once, and there’d be nothing her daddy could do to stop them.
But that was absurd, for the man clearly did not want her. He cannot have made it any planer that he thought her a silly fool.
“You may find your daddy has changed, too,” Lance said he sighed her, startling her out of her thoughts. “Indeed, time has forced him to change his mind about a good many things.”
It was an odd thing to say, but before Gwen could question him, Edith glided over to join them, twirling a frilly parasol over her shoulder. Her cousin looked so cool and fresh in her ice-blue linen, Gwen felt more a frump than ever. Wait until we get to the Willows, she thought; daddy will make certain I never again suffer for the loss of those trunks.
“We will be stopping soon at Belle Oaks.” Edith laid a hand on lance’s arm. “I hope your mama will appreciate how lucky she is to have you back home. We certainly shall be missing your company.”
Lance turned to her with a broad smile. “I do hope you mean that, for I won’t be getting off at Bella Oaks. Your father has invited me to dine at the Willows, and how could I refuse? It’s not every day a man has the honor of escorting such lovely ladies.”
Though he beamed at them both, Edith soon monopolized his attention. Gwen found it positively sickening, the way her cousin simpered up at him, and any other time, and she’d have taken it as a challenge. Today, she felt to warm and worn and irritable to flirt with anyone.
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