Deceive Not My Heart

by Shirlee Busbee

  There was no way of knowing what was going to happen when he finally faced Ashley, but he knew that they had gone beyond those differences that could be settled rationally. He was too aware of the fury and hatred that now coiled and clawed up through his body, needing, demanding release, to act logically. He knew also that Ashley had passed over the threshold of civilized behavior and that when they met there would be bloodshed.

  Not looking at Leonie, he said evenly, "I want you to wait here for Robert and Dominic."

  "Non!" Leonie spat, her eyes gleaming yellow-green like a cat's. "He has my son, Morgan!"

  Seeing the determination in her face, he swore under his breath. "Listen to me, Leonie! Ashley is going to be dangerous and, and—" He couldn't tell her that her son might already be dead—or that he might die before their eyes. Even thinking it made his body tremble with denial, but the horror of his nightmare wouldn't go away; this time there was no thankful awakening.

  Leonie sensed what he was thinking, and moving her horse up beside his, she reached out and touched his arm gently. Her own fear was evident and her voice shook as she said, "I know what you are trying to spare me. But wouldn't it be better if we faced it together?" Tears shining in her eyes, she murmured, "You once said we could overcome anything together. Please, let us confront whatever may lie at the end of this trail together... whatever it may be."

  Chapter 32

  They found Ashley's wind-broken, lamed horse not twenty minutes later. And just a few hundred yards beyond his abandoned mount they found Ashley and Justin standing uncertainly on a narrow spit of land formed by the merging of two bayous.

  Ashley had been lost from the moment his horse raced away from the Chateau Saint-Andre. Unfamiliar with the terrain, used to the open, gentle landscape of England and France, he had been positive as time passed and his horse had continued to plunge ahead, that at any moment they would break free of the endless jungle. But they hadn't, and as minutes went by and nothing but more and more tangled undergrowth met his gaze, he grew frustrated and uneasy.

  Justin hadn't helped his state of mind either. His incessant wiggling, the small fists flying out indiscriminately, and his wild kicking had made him nearly impossible to control. He was also very vocal. "You put me down! You're a bad man! I hate you! Put me down!"

  Ashley's temper exacerbated by such antics, he had considered slitting the brat's throat. But as finding their way out of this wretched wilderness was his first priority, he had contented himself with giving Justin a shaking and a vicious blow across his small face. "Shut up!" he had snarled. "Open your mouth again, and I'll beat you until you're half-dead."

  That silenced Justin for a while, but soon enough, he was back at it, muttering dire threats under his breath and squirming in Ashley's grip. Ashley shook him again and again during their twisting course through the woods, but it didn't do much good.

  Lost, saddled with an imp of Satan, Ashley was growing desperate, and when the horse went lame, he cursed long and venomously. Justin regarded him cheerfully, saying with relish, "My papa will find us now! You'll see, he won't let you keep me."

  Smothering the urge to strangle him, Ashley started off on foot, jerking Justin along behind him. "We'll just see about that, you little demon!"

  They didn't walk long before they came to the spot where Morgan and Leonie found them. Ashley had been staring with mingled fury and bafflement at the swampy expanse before him, when Justin cried joyfully, "Maman, Papa! I told him you would come for me!"

  Stiffening, his handsome face contorted by rage, Ashley spun around to face them as they rode slowly out of the forest.

  It was an eerie place where Ashley had finally come to bay. Half swamp, half marshland spread out behind him, and before him the thick, tangled wilderness loomed up menacingly. In the watery distance, bald cypress and water locust grew rampant, their limbs draped with gray-green, ghostlike moss, the gnarled, knobby knees of the cypress jutting mysteriously into the dark, murky waters. Reeds pressed close to the banks of the sluggish moving bayous and the air was dank and heavy.

  Very little light permeated the tattered curtains of moss, but on a half-submerged log, a snapping turtle dozed in an errant shaft of sunlight. Nearby, at the far edge of the bayou, looking much like a log, lay a large alligator. Easily twenty feet long, his cold eyes were fixed on the two figures across the water from him.

  The sound of Justin's voice was pure heaven to Leonie and the sight of his small, sturdy body standing next to Ashley was the dearest thing in the world to her at the moment. Her face radiant, she would have spurred her horse forward if Morgan hadn't put out a restraining hand.

  "Wait," he said quietly. "Ashley may be armed."

  "How clever of you to guess!" Ashley retorted, for the first time revealing a small pistol, much like the one Morgan carried. Holding the weapon to Justin's head, a smug curve to his full mouth, he said, "I believe this time the advantage is mine, cuz. Now if you and your slut will carefully dismount and just as carefully hand me your reins, I'll be on my way."

  Morgan remained motionless, considering and discarding various options. The fact that Justin was still alive and apparently unharmed had left him almost weak with relief, but he knew that the most dangerous moments lay just ahead. Once Ashley was no longer afoot, once they had acceded to his demands, all the cards would be in his hand. Taking Justin with him, he could abandon them here in the swamps and make his escape. Or, Morgan thought calmly, Ashley could kill him and take both Leonie and Justin as his captives. No matter what happened, whether he lived or died, Justin was lost to them—unless... unless I can get that pistol away from him, he decided cooly.

  "Didn't you hear me?" Ashley demanded, when Morgan made no move to obey his orders. "I said dismount and give me your reins! Do it quickly, or I'll shoot the boy!"

  The nightmares of the past and present fused into one grotesque, horrifying vision, and Morgan was aware of an icy perspiration trickling down his spine, of a shriek of anguish rising uncontrollably from his deepest, innermost being. He had lost his own son to murder; he could not bear to lose Justin the same way, and his hands tightened on Tempete's reins, causing the stallion to paw the ground and toss his head.

  Leonie was already sliding from her horse, her eyes fastened painfully on Justin, and Morgan knew he had to act within seconds. There was only one choice, he realized bleakly, and that choice involved a most horrifying gamble with Justin's life. Forcing down the fear and terror that howled and stabbed in his brain, reminding himself savagely that Justin was as good as dead if Ashley managed to escape with him, Morgan's heels suddenly, viciously jabbed into Tempete's sides. The stallion gave a furious scream of rage, and rearing up, his hooves raking the air before him, he lunged forward.

  Caught totally by surprise, confronted by two thousand pounds of hooved death bearing down on him, Ashley released the child and oblivious to Justin's swift dart away from him, he swung the pistol in Tempete's direction and fired—just as Morgan had prayed he would. The shot missed the stallion, but the bullet tore a long, deep gash across Morgan's temple. It didn't stop or slow him down though; the blue eyes blazing with fury, he dove off Tempete, his hands outstretched for Ashley's throat.

  The two men fell together onto the damp ground, their bodies locked in a deadly embrace. Having no chance to reload, the pistol was useless to Ashley and with a grunt he flung it away from him and concentrated on breaking the stranglehold Morgan had on his throat.

  The blood from his wound nearly blinded Morgan, but he was too intent upon wreaking vengeance against this man who had dared to play with Justin's life to be deterred. He was losing blood, though, at an alarming rate, and as he and Ashley fought on the muddy ground, he could feel himself weakening.

  Ashley knew it too, and he managed to work his arms between their bodies, finally positioning the palms of his hands up under Morgan's chin. With a powerful shove, he broke Morgan's grasp from around his throat. Gulping in sweet air to his lungs, his fist conne
cted with Morgan's cheek, violently snapping Morgan's head back from the force of the blow.

  A short distance away, her hand clasped around a stout branch she had picked up, Justin's face buried in her skirts, Leonie watched the ugly battle with angry helplessness. The two men were moving too fast, the struggle too furious for her to be able to get a clear strike at Ashley. Her hand tightened around the branch, but if the moment came...

  It was a vicious fight; they were literally beating one another to death. Ashley had the advantage of being unwounded when they started, but Morgan had the knowledge that if he lost, Leonie and Justin would be left to Ashley's tender mercies. That brutal knowledge alone kept him striking out, kept him pounding away when he might have faltered.

  Rolling and twisting, their breathing ugly and labored in the muggy air, they fought across the ground to the edge of the bayou, and gathering up his failing strength, Morgan struck Ashley a mighty blow that knocked him out into the dark, murky waters. Unnoticed by any of them, roused by their splashing, the large alligator lazily drifted nearer.

  The dunk in the bayou revived Ashley slightly, and standing in chest-deep water, he eyed Morgan, who stood swaying unsteadily, the water gently rippling around his knees. His cousin, as far as he could tell, didn't have much strength left. If he could lure him further into the bayou it should be an easy enough task to drown him. Shaking a strand of wet, black hair from his forehead, Ashley taunted, "You'll never beat me standing there, cuz! Delay too long and you're going to pass out from loss of blood, so come and get me!"

  Exhausted, the blood loss from his wound draining his strength second by second, his body aching from the savage battle, Morgan stumbled a few steps further into the bayou. Ashley was right, he told himself numbly, he had to finish the fight now. His fingers were bruised and bloody but painfully, he clenched his hands into fists, and blearily he sought out Ashley's position in the bayou.

  Ashley had moved a little deeper into the water, the dark, opaque waters nearly reaching his shoulders now, and he jeered, "Come on, don't let it be said you were a coward, cuz!"

  Morgan stared at him with fury and it was then, out of the corner of his eye that he saw the wide snout, the deadly, sinuous shape barely two feet behind Ashley. Before even a word of warning could be offered, the reptile lunged. With a sudden, lethal burst of speed the huge alligator was upon Ashley, the powerful jaws snapping shut around his upper arm, near his shoulder. Morgan had one look at Ashley's disbelieving, terrified face, heard his fearful shriek, and then in that peculiar twisting, churning motion of the species, the creature flipped him over and over again, violently, viciously, before carrying him down beneath the unfathomable waters of the bayou. It all happened in an instant,—one second the waters of the bayou were violently agitated and the next just the faintest ripple marred their smooth surface; there wasn't even a trace of blood to mark the passage of prey and hunter.

  Shuddering, his gaze fixed with stunned horror at the spot where his cousin had disappeared, Morgan stumbled backward to the shore. Not even Ashley would I have condemned to such a fate, he thought dully, just before he sank unconscious to the ground near Leonie's feet.

  When Robert and Dominic arrived an hour and a half later he was still unconscious and to everyone's growing anxiety, he remained so all during the slow journey back to the plantation. But by the time he had been bathed gently, his wounds seen to, and laid comfortably in his own bed, his eyelids flickered and then a moment later his eyes flew wide open, a terrified glitter in their blue depths.

  He looked wildly around until he saw Leonie sitting quietly on the edge of the bed, and then he gave a great sigh, his big body relaxing. Softly he muttered, "I was afraid... afraid you wouldn't be here... afraid that perhaps I'd dreamed myself a happy ending."

  Love shining out of her eyes, she slowly shook her head. "I'm no dream, Morgan, and we will have a happy ending."

  Of Ashley's death they did not speak. It had been frightful and while Morgan could regret the manner of it, he found it hard to mourn his cousin's passing. He would have preferred to free Leonie from her fraudulent marriage through less violent channels, but with Ashley's death every barrier to their own marriage was removed.

  They were married less than ten days later, on what should have been their sixth wedding anniversary. It was a very quiet wedding and to the curious, they gave out the news that they merely wished to repledge their troth.

  Lying in bed that night, her body sated from Morgan's lovemaking, Leonie asked curiously, "I wonder what would have happened if grand-pere had made his offer to you instead of Ashley."

  His lips quirking into a smile, Morgan pulled her closer to him and murmured, "Why, exactly what did happen... except we would have had six years together instead of less than two months."

  Leonie frowned in the darkness, her hand gently tracing the contours of his muscled chest. "Are you saying that if he had suggested a marriage you would have agreed?"

  Shifting her slightly, he dropped a kiss on her forehead. "That's exactly what I'm saying. I might have come to New Orleans with marriage the last thing on my mind, but I know myself well enough to be aware that if he had made the offer, curiosity alone would have driven me at least to meet you. And once I'd seen you..." His voice thickened, and pushing her down into the pillows of the bed, he leaned over her, his eyes caressing her features. "Once I'd seen you, I would have agreed to anything to make you mine. I'd have married you, with or without that damned dowry, and it wouldn't have mattered a hell of a lot to me that you weren't interested in marriage. I would have been!"

  Wrapping her arms tightly around him, pressing her slim body ardently next to his, she said fiercely, "Ah, mon coeur, how I wish it had been you he saw! We have lost so many years of loving!"

  Passion flaming in the dark blue eyes, his mouth came down hungrily on hers and they were swept up once again in the sweet fire of love.

  Life was being very good to him, Morgan thought some days later. Leonie was his wife; Justin was as fine a son as any man could wish for and everything seemed at the moment to be taking shape just as he wanted.

  There was still a great deal of work to be done on the plantation, but all in all, Morgan wasn't displeased with the progress. He was presently reviewing some plans for the construction of two long wings at either side of the house, and glancing at his watch he saw that it was nearing lunch time. The small golden crucifix that dangled from its chain caught his eye and for a second he stared at it, a rueful smile tugging at the corners of the mobile mouth. What an insolent swine I was in those days! he mused derisively. And how very blessed I am now that Leonie and Justin are part of my life... are my life! Knowing he no longer wanted any reminders of the cold cynicism that had been his for so long, he gently unfastened the crucifix from his watch chain, and dropped it carelessly into his vest pocket. Perhaps one of the servants would like it, he thought to himself. And whistling under his breath, overwhelmingly happy with his life, he went in search of Leonie.

  He found her downstairs in the storage rooms, sorting through the various articles that had been amassed over the years. She had a smudge on her nose, the tawny curls were tumbling untidily about her slim shoulders, and there were dust stains around the hem of the rose linen gown, but Morgan thought she had never looked lovelier.

  Kissing her lightly on the mouth, he asked, "Is there very much that you want to save?"

  She gave a sigh. "No. There isn't even that much worth saving. The damp has gotten to the few things that might have been salvageable. Unfortunately, after grand-pere died, there wasn't anything left that had any value. I sold everything I could to pay off the debts."

  Morgan's lips thinned. Damn Ashley! Without his interference, none of this would have been necessary. Turning away abruptly to hide the rage he could still feel against Ashley, he wandered over to where several chairs were piled haphazardly in the corner. Glancing at the tangle they made, he noticed what looked like a few portrait canvases stacked precariou
sly on the top of the heap. Reaching up to pull one of the canvases down, he asked over his shoulder, "What are these?" A teasing glint in the blue eyes, he murmured, "The illustrious ancestors?"

  Leonie wrinkled her nose at him, and coming to stand at his side, she said delightedly, "Oh, it is! That's my maman!"

  Curious about the woman who had given birth to his wife, Morgan glanced at the portrait, and recognizing the tawny hair and mysterious sea-green eyes that stared so serenely back from the oil painting, he knew where Leonie had gotten her coloring. An indulgent grin on his lips, he asked, "Shall I have them all refurbished and reframed? We can hang them in one of the new wings."

  A sad little smile curving her mouth, she gently touched the canvas. "I would like that very much. I never knew her, but I would like some memento of hers near me." Almost reverently, her hand slid to the small, intricate crucifix that lay on her mother's breast. "My father had it especially commissioned for her to commemorate my birth. It was the only thing of hers that I had."

  Idly Morgan's gaze dropped to the object in question, and feeling as if he had suddenly been hit viciously in the stomach by a barge pole, he stared incredulously at the delicate cross depicted in the painting. It was very familiar to him—he had looked at it not ten minutes ago. In a strangled voice he asked, "Had? What happened to it? Did you lose it?"

  Her eyes clouded and turning away from the portrait, she said somberly, "Yes, as a matter of fact I did. But I don't brood over it anymore. It was lost a long time ago."

  Morgan's hand closed with a viselike grip on her arm, spinning her around. With painful intentness, his gaze traveled over her features, trying desperately to remember a night over six years ago, a night a virgin whore had come to his rooms at the governor's mansion.

  Leonie stared up at him in astonishment. "What is it, mon coeur?" she asked with concern.

  Morgan swallowed with difficulty, the most inconceivable certainty taking hold in his mind. "When and where did you lose it?" he demanded.