She gave him a scathing glance. “I'd think you would want to see someone help him, then. What happened to Christian kindness?”
Alarming color rose into the older man's fleshy face. “Don't try to tell me my job, Camilla. Sayers is past earthly help. They say he has electronic equipment, guns of all kinds, hand grenades, a regular arsenal. There's no telling when he may decide to use it.”
“That's ridiculous,” Cammie snapped. Even as she spoke, she remembered her own impression of Reid as a man who could be dangerous. At the moment she was too angry with her uncle to care.
“You'll think different about it when he turns on you one day. You may remember then that I tried to warn you.” He drank the rest of his coffee in a single swallow and set the cup down with a bang.
“I doubt it will be necessary,” she said. “Now, I have to finish packing, if you don't mind. Tell Aunt Sara not to worry, I'll be fine.”
Cammie surged to her feet, forcing him, with his punctilious manners, to stand also. Swinging from the kitchen, she turned toward the back door at the end of the hall.
He stepped past her where she held the door open, pushing the screen door wide. Pausing, he turned back with a heavy frown. “I realize that you aren't a young girl anymore, Camilla. But I also know you've had a nice, simple life up to now. You're too trusting, you don't know a thing about men like Sayers. I just want you to be careful.”
She frowned as she realized it was possible that at least a part of his concern was real. It was also possible he couldn't help his habit of sermonizing, any more than he could control his self-important attitude. He and her aunt had no children, which was, Cammie had often thought, a pity. If they had managed to have a half dozen or so, her uncle might have had less time for her.
“Yes, well,” she said, “I'll try to keep it in mind.”
“Do that. And I wish you would give Keith a chance. He's made mistakes, but most of us have.” Seeing the stiffness returning to her face, he hurried on. “I would be happy if you would let me guide you in this trying time, if you would come and worship with me.”
Cammie smiled without answering, other than to repeat her message to her aunt. It was a source of embarrassment to her uncle, she knew, that she and her parents had never attended his church. The Greenley family had been active for generations in the small church just down the road on what had once been Greenley land. She saw no reason to change now.
She watched her uncle's portly figure as he took himself away down the steps, walking quickly to his car. It was only after he had driven off that she looked toward the garage.
Her Cadillac sat inside. On it were four perfect tires with thick new treads and pure white sidewalk.
Reid. How had he managed to get it done? It was just now time for the service department of the local tire store to open. He was an amazing man. In a lot of ways.
I only need tonight.
The echo in her mind made her wince in sudden mental pain.
He had taken her at her word, and why shouldn't he? She had meant it at the time. Or so she thought.
It had been, after all, a dumb thing to say.
Heat climbed into her face as she thought of other things she had said to him in the night, other things she had done with him.
What had gotten into her? What must he think of her?
He had been so very different from Keith. It wasn't just the hard perfection of his body, or even his experienced skill, though these things had been a part of it. Rather, it was the concentration he brought to what he was doing. It was as if nothing existed except the two of them and the moment. Nothing mattered other than the pleasure he took from her body, and that he gave in return. She had felt so many things, wondrous, unimagined things, but most of all she had felt… cherished.
She needed more of that. Like some dangerous drug, she could easily become addicted to his touch, his presence beside her in the dark.
Persephone appeared from the direction of the laundry with a stack of freshly folded dishcloths in her hand. Her eyes shrewd in her brown face, she said, “You didn't offer the preacher any of my peach cobbler?”
“I didn't think about it,” Cammie said.
“Right,” came the dry answer. It was quickly followed by another probe. “He sure was in a hurry.”
Cammie smiled with a weary shake of her head. “He has a lot of other people's business to mind.”
“Don't you know it,” Persephone said with a chuckle. Her dark eyes were bright as she went on, “Mr. Reid, he sure was up late last night.”
Cammie looked at her housekeeper with resignation. “How do you know?”
“Lizbeth, who does for him, she's a cousin of mine.”
“I never knew that.” It seemed a failing, somehow, that she had not. The two women, now that she thought of it, shared the same bright-colored skin, the same long hair. Persephone was more slightly built, however, with a wiry strength in her short frame. Her hair was streaked with gray and tightly drawn back in a knot on top of her head.
The housekeeper lifted a shoulder as she replied, “I've got near as many cousins as you, maybe more. Anyway, Lizbeth said he was out till all hours, then after he come in, he went right back in the woods again. He had more clothes wrinkled up and wet than she had seen him use up since he was a boy. He's mostly as neat a man as a body ever come across.”
Reid had few secrets from Lizbeth, that much was clear. Cammie thought in resignation that she probably had no more from Persephone. She was reluctant to end the conversation, anyway. It gave her an odd pleasure to hear some of the intimate details of Reid's life.
She said, “But he made it home without any problem?”
“Oh, yes indeed. He was looking kind of low, though. And Lizbeth said he started making phone calls as soon as it got daylight. Seems like he may be going on a trip.”
“Oh?”
There was a shadow of sympathy in Persephone's dark eyes. “He didn't say where he was heading, but he was hell-bent on making sure he got there.”
For the first hour of the five-hour drive to New Orleans, Cammie worried the information she had discovered about Reid like a cat with a toy mouse. He had said nothing to her about going out of town. There had not been a lot of opportunity, of course, but it seemed he might have mentioned it in passing when he heard she was going to be gone for the weekend.
Was there some reason he hadn't told her? Was he seeing another woman? Did he have business with some group of right-wing crazies who wanted to take over the country using his arsenal? Had he been recalled by the CIA for some dangerous mission in Eastern Europe or China?
She was being as ridiculous as her uncle, the reverend, she told herself. Reid had a perfect right to go anywhere he wanted, stay as long as he pleased. She had no claim on his time, nor did she want any. He owed her nothing, especially not a detailed itinerary of his days. Or his nights.
She was going to the Crescent City, and she was going to have a good time. She was going to forget Keith and his unwanted attentions, forget Greenley, forget Reid and the gossips and everything else. She was going to eat good food, drink a little wine, maybe dance a little. Or a lot. She needed to get away, to try to relax. If she couldn't do it in the City that Care Forgot, it couldn't be done.
She felt better by the time she reached Alexandria and shot from narrow, two-laned 167 onto Interstate 49. She began to smile as she sailed over the great Mississippi River bridge at Baton Rouge and knew she was on the east bank. By the time she crossed the Bonne Carré spillway on Interstate 10 and looked out over the vast brown expanse of Lake Pontchartrain, she was exuberant.
New Orleans was, and always would be, special to her. The air was softer there, the rhythm slower, the music hotter, the atmosphere looser. The sweet olive bloomed sooner in New Orleans, perfuming the streets with its old-fashioned sweetness. The rich miasma of cooking seafood shook the taste buds and urged them to wake up. The wild cross-mix of colors and races, classes and types, was a constant and fas
cinating puzzle. The old buildings like Beauregard House and the Cabildo gave her a sense of wondrous permanence, as did the river that wound like a giant snake around the town. New Orleans was both a challenge and a rest cure. She was more herself, less a Greenley of Greenley there. She loved it.
The hotel where the CODOFIL conference was being held was that most French of New Orleans hotels, the Royal Orleans. Built on the site of the famous old St. Louis Hotel favored in pre-Civil War days by the aristocratic Creoles of the Vieux Carré, it was located in the heart of the French Quarter at Royal and St. Louis streets. Cammie would not be staying there herself, but would be within easy walking distance. She had been offered the use of an apartment owned by a family friend, an attorney from Baton Rouge who kept it as a pied-à-terre for business or pleasure trips to the city.
The caretakers for the apartment, an elderly man and his wife, who had been with the attorney for years, let Cammie in. Pressing a drink into her hand, they sent her out to the courtyard to rest from her drive while they unpacked her bag.
The sun had set and evening shadows were beginning to gather between the ancient brick walls. Cammie sat sipping her chilled white wine and enjoying the soft, warm air and the stir of a gentle breeze from the river. The noise of the traffic in the streets beyond the thick walls was no more than a distant murmur. By slow degrees she felt some of her tension begin to slip away, banished by the drifting fragrance of Confederate jasmine from the vine that climbed one wall, by the soft clatter of banana leaves and the musical spatter of the corner fountain, which was surrounded by impatiens in shades of red and coral-pink.
If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel Reid beside her. If he were there, the two of them might sit in just this kind of restful silence. Or perhaps they would talk quietly of little things while the knowledge of the long night that lay ahead of them, a night of loving, flowed between them. He might take her hand and fit it to his until the spaces between every finger was filled with him. Perhaps he would raise it to his lips and press a kiss into the palm, flicking it with his tongue….
Daydreams.
She thought she had outgrown them, that she was too old to need them. Apparently, she had been wrong. And what harm was there in them, so long as she knew where they ended and reality began?
It was a wrenching effort to drag herself from her chair and go inside. There was no help for it, however. She had to get ready for the cocktail party that was to open the conference.
Cammie's mother had been distantly related to the Barrows of southern Louisiana, who were in turn descended from the Barrows of Virginia. Her mother never made much of the connection, but she still had inherited certain immovable ideas along with the bloodlines. It had been a maxim with her that Old Money did not follow fashion's trends. Quality, according to her mother, was the only important criteria, whether it was in cars, in furniture, in clothes, or in something so mundane as garden clippers.
She did not believe in designer labels. For clothing, there were a few classic styles, a few soft, natural fabrics that were suitable for everything from evening wear to raincoats. Anything else was trendy nonsense suitable only for the new rich who felt it necessary to show off their wealth, or else teenagers with a need to be different.
Cammie tended to follow her mother's reasoning because it was simple and easy. Her dress for the cocktail party was a classic black sheath in silk crepe that fastened on her left shoulder and had a flowing pleat down the side.
Her jewelry had also come from her mother. It consisted of a gold-and-diamond pin in a fleur-de-lis design, a pair of classic diamond earrings, and a set of combs set with pave diamonds that she used to hold her hair in a shining cascade down the back of her head. The long pleat of her dress opened to several inches above the knee for a provocative glimpse of slender leg as she walked, but the look achieved was basically one of elegant simplicity.
She was just spraying the sides of her hair to hold the escape of wisps to a minimum when the doorbell rang. It startled her; there were one or two people from the conference who knew where she was staying, but she had made no arrangements to meet with any of them before the party. Rising from the dressing table and smoothing her dress into place, she moved through the antique-crowded bedroom into the living room.
The caretaker, standing erect and formal, had opened the door to the new arrival. He bowed the gentleman into the room, then made a discreet departure.
The man turned with casual ease toward where Cammie stood. He brushed aside the black satin lapel of the jacket of his perfectly cut evening suit and pushed one hand into his pocket. The movement brought into prominence the soft white of his shirt front, with its gold studs, and the black cummerbund that wrapped his flat waist. There was appreciation in the dark blue of his eyes as they rested on her, and also the stillness of waiting.
All men looked good in evening dress; attractive men were often stunning in it. Few, however, wore it with real ease. This one did.
As he inclined his head in the briefest of greetings, the light of the chandelier overhead caught in his dark blond hair with the sheen of old gold. A slow smile curved his mouth as he saw the disbelief that rose in her face. “I came,” he said quietly, “to see if you were in need of an escort. Only for tonight.”
It was Reid.
5
IN KEEPING WITH THE FRENCH THEME of the conference, arrangements had been made to hold the cocktail party at an old French Quarter mansion located just off Jackson Square. Decorations were primarily in French blue and included the tricolor of France paired with the Louisiana state flag, with its nesting pelican on a blue ground.
The French ambassador was there with his charming wife, both looking bored but consistently gracious. The governor moved here and there in quick succession, flashing his charismatic smile and spilling bon mots with a Cajun flavor around him like largesse. A number of senators and representatives where shaking hands and whispering in the corners. The Neville Brothers were circulating, enjoying themselves hugely. Harry Connick, Jr., was holding court near the windows and not far from the door, in case of the need for a quick getaway. The familiar faces of local television luminaries were scattered here and there. Anne Rice was rumored to be coming, and a somewhat inebriated society matron was taking bets on whether she would or would not be wearing black. The CODOFIL people, most of them state officials and schoolteachers, or else city people with ties to the old French émigrés, were conspicuous by their inconspicuousness.
Being New Orleans, the food was a major attraction. It consisted of the usual enormous and beautifully piled fruit trays, the silver dishes of crudités with accompanying dips, and the chefs in tall, fluted hats slicing bits of meat from huge haunches of roast beef and stuffing them into minute rolls. There were also boiled new potatoes cut in half and spread with sour cream dotted with caviar, oysters on the half shell, bacon-wrapped broiled oysters, spicy boiled shrimp, bite-size crab rolls, plus a dozen other such substantial delicacies.
Wine and spirits were dispensed with flare and dispatch by white-coated waiters. A jazz band played a combination of mellow and up-tempo pieces outside in the courtyard, while inside a string quartet scraped out Verdi and Mozart.
There was little to distinguish it from a hundred other parties Cammie had attended in New Orleans. The most astonishing development was the way Reid adapted to the occasion. He moved about the room with her without self-consciousness or any apparent inclination toward fading against the nearest wall and holding it up, that habit of most southern men faced with an uncomfortable situation. Smiling and at ease with whatever person or group he happened to find himself with, he initiated conversations and expressed his views with assurance. The bits and pieces of French that were tossed around as an inevitable part of the evening were not only comprehensible to him, but on several occasions he was able to add to them.
The change was unsettling. Cammie kept turning to look at him again and again, comparing him in her mind to the man in the woods.
She had been so certain he was a total red-neck, not precisely ignorant or socially inept, but certainly without the most remote interest in or acquaintance with the language of diplomacy.
Reid, catching her sidelong glance as they stood alone for a change near a set of French doors that were open to the night air, returned it with startled inquiry for a second. Then a slow grin curved his mouth.
“Embassy parties,” he said with a shrug, as if reading her mind was nothing at all. “I was in and out of Washington for several years. And a good friend of mine is a Frenchman from Tel Aviv, now in New York.”
“You worked with him during the intifada?” she said.
His grin faded. Stillness gathered in his face while his eyes took on the blue-gray sheen of polished steel. When he spoke, his voice rasped like a weapon being unsheathed.
“Where did you get that?”
“The rumor mill,” she said at once. “Is it wrong?”
His gaze slid away from hers. “No,” he answered after an instant, the words toneless. “No, it's just that I sometimes forget its accuracy.”
There was something in his voice that stirred her curiosity. She tilted her head to one side as she said, “Were you in Israel long?”
“Long enough.”
It was as if there were shields going up in his mind, clanging into place one after the other, closing off access. To probe further would be useless; he was going to tell her not one single thing more than he wanted her to know.
In some peculiar fashion, those internal barriers, that hard inner core where she was forbidden to enter, evoked respect. If she also felt the urge to test them, she at least still had the good manners to refrain.
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