Silver-Tongued Devil (Louisiana Plantation Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  Renold had thought to force a meeting on the field of honor during which Edmund Carew would learn exactly why his life was being taken from him. That was before he had run the gambler to earth in Natchez, before he discovered that Carew had a faulty heart that could stop at any given moment. It seemed pointless to kill a man already under a sentence of death.

  There had to be a way to hurt Carew. Renold had found it when he heard of Carew’s daughter. At the same time, he had discovered the perfect means of regaining Bonheur.

  Angelica Carew was the one thing the gambler valued, the only thing he cherished, the single avenue through which he could be reached. The man would hate it if his neat arrangement for his daughter’s future security was twisted into a new form. He would cringe if he knew she was to be bedded and forced into a different and hellish marriage for the sake of the dowry he had bestowed on her. He would know the tortures of the damned if he was made to understand that she must pay the price for her father’s greed and trickery every day — and night — for the rest of her life.

  As he met the lady’s gaze, Renold reached for his wine glass, lifting it to her in a small salute. There was no gallantry, no flirtation in the gesture, however. It was, rather, one of stark anticipation.

  Angelica lowered her gaze quickly to her plate. At the same time, she caught her breath as a shiver rippled over her, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

  Beside her, her fiancé gave a loud laugh. “What is it? A goose walk on your grave?”

  “Something like that,” she murmured.

  “Never mind,” Laurence said, his light brown eyes bright with the many glasses of wine he had drunk during the meal. “Before long, I’ll have the right to kill the thing for you.”

  Disquiet was strong within Angelica as she looked away. She preferred not to think of Laurence Eddington’s rights as a husband, no matter what form they might take. The wet, devouring kisses he had pressed upon her after she had accepted his proposal made her shudder to think of them.

  She was a little confused by such shrinking; she had her dreams of love and marriage and a family. More, long years of listening to her aunt’s friends gossip about the misdemeanors of Natchez society and her elderly cook’s salty discussions of the goings-on in the quarters behind the big houses had given her a fair idea of what was involved.

  It was not as if she did not know the man she was to marry. Laurence was the son of her Aunt Harriet’s best friend, someone Angelica had played with as a child, stood up with at balls, teased for his pride in being an Eddington of Dogwood Hill, one of the town’s most prestigious estates. Still, she had thought of him more in the guise of a cousin or a brother than a husband. That he had transformed himself into a suitor the instant he learned she was to have Bonheur, the vast plantation above New Orleans, as her dowry was a source of distress. She felt she had lost a friend without gaining a lover.

  Angelica glanced at him, at the way he reclined with exaggerated ease in his chair. His sandy blond hair was sliding into his face, his smile was loose. Her husband-to-be. Her husband in less than six weeks, since her father was looking toward a late spring wedding.

  She waited for the rise of some pleasure, even some expectation. There was nothing except the uncomfortable heaviness of duty.

  The problem, it seemed, was in herself. Perhaps her nature was not passionate, or she had been too long under the influence of her aunt who felt that men were creatures with nasty habits and appetites, particularly in the bedchamber. It was a dilemma she must face. Soon.

  The last thing she needed was a distracting awareness of a strange man. She would not look at him again. No. She would not.

  By the time the meal ended, the starched white tablecloths were limp with river dampness and scattered with stains. Both the tables and the Persian rugs on the floor were littered with the singed bodies of moths and flies drawn to dance in the hot light of the chandeliers. Insects and spilled crumbs were crushed underfoot as the diners left the room so that it might be cleared by the waiters.

  Angelica, with her father and Laurence, took a digestive ramble about the boiler deck. The two men talked in a desultory fashion, Laurence complaining about the smallness of his stateroom and the insolence of the steward, her father explaining the wedding purchases he had made in Natchez before the boat sailed and how they would be shipped on after them. Neither seemed to need or want any comment from Angelica. She let the voices of the men wash over her while she wondered if this was the way it would always be.

  At one point, Laurence put his arm around her waist to steady her as the boat wallowed in a windblown wave, but also drawing her close against him. It was instinct rather than design that made Angelica pull away. She thought from the petulant scowl that crossed her fiancé’s face that he was not pleased.

  The moon promised by the ladies’ attendant had not yet put in an appearance; the river lay dark and wide around them except for the moving glow of the steamboat’s lights reflecting on the water. As they paused at the rail, Angelica grasped the polished wood with her gloved hands, gripping tight, wishing she could hold back the boat’s progress. She felt suddenly as if she were being rushed toward a precipice, that soon the boat would steam over the edge and it would be too late.

  Ridiculous, of course. Yet, at this time just a week ago, she would have said it was ridiculous that she would be betrothed overnight, ridiculous that she would be traveling to take possession of a plantation, ridiculous that her dear Papa could be revealed as a professional gambler.

  It embarrassed her now to think of how ignorant she had been of the life her father led, the peculiar talents by which he earned his daily bread. He and her aunt had kept it from her, of course, allowing her to think that he was a man so grieved by the long-ago death of his wife, her mother, that he could only find peace in travel and the scholarly pursuit of knowledge in other climes.

  Angelica had known that he drifted from one city and watering place to another, both in Europe and the United States; sometimes he mentioned Strasbourg or White Sulphur Springs, Boston or Baden-Baden. Who would have guessed that he depended for his livelihood on luck and flimsy pieces of colored paper? How could she have imagined that he would gamble for stakes high enough to gain and lose fortunes? By what means could she have suspected that he would present his greatest prize, the plantation he had won from its owner, to her? A prize hedged around with such pleas and promises and hints about his failing health that she could not refuse it or the husband he thought she needed to take care of both the estate and herself.

  The wind, so fresh and pleasant at first, after the accumulated heat and smells of the main cabin, seemed to have a cooler edge. It chilled her, penetrating the India shawl she had thrown around her shoulders. When it could be seen that the main cabin was free of the debris of dinner, they moved back inside.

  The whale oil lamps had begun to smoke their globes, lending the atmosphere an air of gray gloom. Elderly women in widow’s weeds in various shades of lavender and purple had established one of several islands of lugubrious conversation. In the corners of the main cabin, young matrons discussed the ills of childhood and the problems of instructing servants, while middle-aged ladies kept an eye on teenage daughters who danced sedately to the music that still played or else giggled and eyed the unattached males gathered at the cabin’s stern end. From the open door of the gentlemen’s salon located nearby, there drifted a blue haze of cigar smoke and the slap of cards on baize-covered tables. Angelica, glancing into that salon as they passed it, caught a glimpse of the gentleman who had saluted her. He was sitting at the faro table, absorbed in play. She looked away quickly before he could take notice of her.

  “Yoo hoo!”

  The hail, loud and not at all discreet, rang across the cabin. It was directed at Angelica’s father by a woman of enormous girth whose embonpoint was covered with brown lace set off by a parure of yellow diamonds as large as lemon drops.

  Angelica thought for an instant that Edmund Carew wou
ld refuse to acknowledge the greeting. Then, as the woman waved to them in imperious summons and a blinding flash of diamonds, the older man sighed, took Angelica’s arm, and walked forward to respond.

  The lady was a Madame Parnell, a widow of middle age with a jovial manner and a trace of Irish accent. She spoke in a voice husky from either constant use or the medicinal brandy she kept in a small flask in a knitting bag. The widow allowed the necessary introductions to Angelica and Laurence, then immediately dominated the conversation with a running commentary on everything from her accident with a deviled egg at dinner to the plays and entertainments she expected to attend in New Orleans.

  It became obvious fairly soon that the late Mr. Parnell had also been a gambler and a crony of Edmund Carew’s. The woman reminisced with relish about various journeys the three of them had made to the northeast and to Europe, of amusing incidents and hairsbreadth escapes they had made from irate losers at cards and ladies expecting matrimony from Angelica’s father. Laurence, standing beside Angelica’s chair, shifted restlessly from one foot to the other. Angelica sat forward, enthralled.

  “Good Lord, Edmund,” the outspoken lady said, breaking off in the middle of a tale involving a hay wagon, an hourglass, and some dismal female’s lost nightcap, “you look fagged to death. Why don’t you go to bed and leave your charming Angelica to me? I’ll see no harm comes to her.”

  “Yes, Papa, do,” Angelica said in concern. “I won’t be long behind you.”

  “No doubt Madame Parnell wishes to blacken my character while I am not here to defend myself,” Edmund Carew said.

  The older woman gave an asthmatic laugh. “Only enough to make you interesting.”

  Edmund Carew smiled. Taking Angelica’s hand, he carried it to his lips for a brief salute. “I’ll say good night, then, my love. Be pleased to remember, however, that I have a certain dignity, and I am still your father.” With a whimsical bow which included all three, he left them.

  “Now there, my dear young friends, is a man,” Madame Parnell said on a gusting sigh as she watched Edmund Carew walk away. “Oh, he has his weaknesses; he is quick to anger, and quicker to take advantage of a man who doesn’t know his own limits or has no skill at cards. He has no head for money — why, I once saw him wager his last groat on which of two draggle-tailed roosters at a Spanish inn would crow first! But he is always the gentleman and has never forgotten the one woman he ever loved — your mother, Angelica, my dear.”

  “I’m afraid I never knew a great deal about how he spent his days,” Angelica said with care.

  “No doubt he meant it to be that way. Or else that sour-faced woman, your aunt, decreed it. I met her once, and a more joyless creature I never saw, tighter in her tail than alum can possibly—”

  Beside them, Laurence made a strangled sound in his throat and shifted uncomfortably.

  Madame Parnell broke off. Rearing her considerable bulk back in the seat so she could look up at him, she said, “Do you have a fish bone stuck in your throat, my boy, or would you be trying to tell me to mind my tongue? If you don’t care for my language, you can jolly well take yourself off where you can’t hear it. Maybe you’d like the card room, where you can watch the men play?”

  Laurence, his face flaming at the slur on his manhood, looked to Angelica in chagrin and appeal. Angelica, however, was reluctant to abandon this opportunity to learn more of her father. She was also less than anxious to be alone with her fiancé. “I’ll be perfectly fine,” she said. “You need not stay.”

  Annoyance thinned his lips; still he inclined his head in a stiff-necked bow to Madame Parnell. “Your servant, ma’am. Angelica, I will return later to collect you.”

  “Like a parcel,” the irrepressible older woman said under her breath as she watched him stalk away. Then she turned to Angelica with a beatific smile. “Well, now that we have rid ourselves of the likes of him, we can talk comfortably. What would you care to know about your scandalous father?”

  “Everything!” Angelica said with a laugh. Then she sobered as her gaze traveled beyond Laurence to the gentlemen’s salon toward which he was heading. “But first, is it possible that you may know that man over there?”

  “Where?” Madame Parnell peered in the general direction Angelica indicated.

  “I would rather not point him out, but he’s there, at the table just inside. The dark-haired gentleman.”

  The older woman’s eyebrows climbed her forehead. “Lord, child, but you don’t mean Renold Harden? You do have an eye for a rogue, I must say.”

  “He isn’t respectable?”

  “There are those who wouldn’t allow him in their houses if it weren’t for his family connections, but I can’t imagine being so high-toned, myself. Lives in New Orleans, has a fine townhouse on Royal Street in the Vieux Carré.”

  “You know him well?” There was a peculiar note in the woman’s voice that aroused Angelica’s curiosity.

  “We’ve met. Now what else can I tell you? No pedigree, something people set great store by in New Orleans, but he’s as rich as he can stare. Got his start gambling, though he sold his gaming house just recently. They say he’s the devil to cross in business — or with a sword, if it comes to that. And one lady who attracted his interest tried to do away with herself when their affair came to an end.”

  “Suicide?” Angelica said in a shocked whisper.

  “That’s how the story went. Frankly, I wonder if it wasn’t a ploy to rekindle his interest. If so, it failed miserably. On the night she dared show herself in public again, at a performance of The Barber of Seville, Harden showed up escorting the actress who was the toast of the town.”

  “Oh, dear,” Angelica murmured, since some response seemed required, but her gaze flickered again in the direction of the man of whom they were speaking.

  Renold Harden caught that glance, saw its dubious shading. His luck at faro suffered for the moment of inattention. It had not been consistent in any case; he had been playing with something less than total concentration. Winning or losing was by no means as important as the fact that the faro table commanded an excellent view of the main cabin. He had been aware of Angelica Carew from the instant she had come back inside, was well aware that her father and her fiancé had left her unguarded.

  He approved the subtle way the soft apricot of her gown enhanced her skin tones, had particular appreciation for the low décolletage. He found the tight row of covered buttons he had noticed at the back of her bodice of consuming interest; he could almost feel them under his fingers.

  To watch Laurence Eddington enter the gentlemen’s salon gave him virulent satisfaction. He had discovered in himself, in the last few minutes, a surprising dislike for having that young buck hanging over the lady, standing where he could look down the front of her bodice.

  Angelica Carew was a lady, in spite of the man who had fathered her. The instincts were there, and the breeding. The soft oval of her face, the high cheekbones and perfectly shaped mouth gave her a look of classical purity, an impression of essential goodness. Still, there was something in her direct gaze and the humor edging her smile that intrigued him. She was not, he thought, all sweetness and light.

  Idiocy, of course. As though his impressions and feelings mattered, as if her looks and personality had any bearing on his purpose. There was no question of becoming enamored. None at all.

  He had, for most of his adult life, avoided permanent entanglements; he was not a good candidate for them. He realized it was only a small step from approving a female’s manifold charms to falling victim to them. The risk, duly noted, could and would be taken into account.

  Renold glanced toward Laurence Eddington as the fiancé made his way deeper into the room. Elaborately casual, the younger man wandered from table to table, taking note of the various card games. After a time he asked permission to sit in on a few hands of poker. Renold abandoned the faro table and moved to stand against a wall where he had a good view of the play.

  For a
brief moment, he contemplated joining the game. There were men at the table who knew him, however, and who might easily bring up subjects best left alone. He and Eddington had never crossed paths, but Angelica Carew’s fiancé could be expected to perk up his ears at any mention of a connection to Bonheur.

  Edmund Carew was a different case, of course. Renold had been at pains to avoid the gambler. Angelica’s father was a familiar figure in New Orleans; the two of them had frequented the same restaurants, the same row of boxes at the opera, the same gambling dens. Carew might well know of the family connection between Renold Harden and the man from whom he had stolen a plantation.

  Watching Laurence Eddington, however, proved sufficiently instructive even without engaging the younger man in play. He was a reckless gambler, one who trusted luck rather than the odds. Flamboyant in the way he placed his bets and flipped his cards onto the table, he was cocky when he won, sulky when the cards ran against him.

  These conclusions, added to what he had observed earlier, gave him a fair estimation of Laurence Eddington’s place in the scheme of things. The fiancé was hardly a cipher, but he stood in need of a few lessons in self-control. He lacked the courtesy that would allow him to at least pretend to prefer a woman’s company over a card table, and was without the graces that might endear him to a woman’s heart. His defenses would not be insurmountable or his loss to his bride irreparable.

  The younger man was, in short, no obstacle. With a decisive gesture, Renold pushed away from the wall and left the card room.

  He thought of walking up to where Madame Parnell sat with Angelica Carew and forcing an introduction. It was a great temptation to exchange a few words with Carew’s daughter, to initiate a conversation without tears or high emotion, perhaps to let her see him as a man instead of a monster.

  No, let it go. That was mere indulgence. It could change nothing and might well make it more difficult to maintain the will to accomplish his purpose.