by Laura Parker
“Cotton. American and Italian. Now shut your beautiful mouth and listen to me. You are to be yourself, Philadelphia Hunt, orphan and my new ward.”
“Ward? I’m too old to be your ward.”
He leaned forward and grabbed her bodice at the nadir of her low decolletage. “Then I will introduce you as my new mistress. Does that suit you better?”
“It would suit me best if you didn’t attach my name to yours in any manner,” she answered and lifted her chin. “Why must we play games?”
“I thought you liked games.” He ran a finger lightly down between the cleft of her breasts and smiled as she struggled against the touch. “Eduardo does. MacCloud does. For more than a year he’s been right under my nose and until you came along, I thought he was dead.” He released her and sat back. “It’s not often that one gets to kill a man twice.”
Philadelphia refused to let him know how frightened she was of him. “Why didn’t you recognize him?”
Tyrone looked at her. “I’ve never seen his face. Tonight will be a first.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You said that before. You’re beginning to bore me. No wonder Eduardo kept you on your back.”
She breathed a sigh of relief as their carriage rolled to a halt before the house. A black doorman in tails and white gloves opened the carriage door and helped her down. She felt Tyrone’s hand on her elbow. “Don’t forget who I am or you’ll regret it!” she heard him mutter under his breath.
“Oh, I know you,” she murmured back. “You’re the reason children say their prayers at night.”
He squeezed her elbow. “You’re closer to the truth than you know. Now let’s go find our prey.”
16
The Garden District house was filled to capacity. The sweltering heat did not keep the guests from wearing their finest. As she entered the residence on Tyrone’s arm, Philadelphia noticed that everywhere she looked she saw dresses of satin and silk and lace fashioned into the latest Parisian styles. The ladies were gorgeous but plied their fans with uncommon vigor. Her own dress felt like a hair shirt next to her skin. She remembered her boarding school etiquette that said a lady never perspired. If pressed, she glowed. At the moment, she thought, she must be as shiny as an electric bulb. All the doors leading to the front and rear galleries of the house had been thrown open to give entry to whatever breeze drifted in off the river but it did little good. New Orleans in August was not amenable to style or fashion.
“Come here,” Tyrone said as they entered the first drawing room. He pulled her none-too-gently with him toward the marble fireplace that dominated one wall. With fleeting interest, Philadelphia saw that the hearth screen had been removed and the interior filled with pots of flowering geraniums. In fact, the entire room was filled with bowers of flowers and miniature fruit trees fresh from the hothouse.
When Tyrone stopped before a middle-age couple she was surprised to see him bow slightly but gracefully as he addressed the man. “Good evening, Colonel de Carlos.”
“Telfour! Didn’t know you were back,” the colonel greeted. With a broad smile on his face which was permanently reddened by the sun, he shook Tyrone’s hand.
“Just returned,” Tyrone answered smoothly and turned to the colonel’s wife, a petite woman with flawless skin and heavy dark hair piled becomingly on her head in a style more than a decade old. “Mrs. de Carlos.” He reached for the woman’s hand and brought it briefly to his lips in salute. “You are charming, as ever.”
The woman’s dark eyes shone brightly as they moved from Tyrone’s lean face to Philadelphia. “And you, I see, have been as busy as ever. Won’t you introduce us?”
Tyrone nodded. “But, of course.” He reached back to pull Philadelphia forward. “I would like to present to you Miss Philadelphia Hunt, lately of Chicago. My new ward.”
The de Carlos’s faces registered amazement. The first to recover, Mrs. de Carlos said incredulously, “You have been awarded guardianship of a young lady?”
“Felise!” the colonel said under his breath with a dampening look at his wife. He smiled paternally at Philadelphia. “What my wife means is we’re surprised that Monsieur Telfour has taken on an additional responsibility. He’s a most busy man, seldom in the city for more than a few weeks at a time.” He glanced up uncertainly at Tyrone. “I suppose things will change now, with a ward to be looked after. A niece, is she?”
Tyrone’s manner was bland. “The daughter of a recently deceased associate. Of course, I don’t take every charity case.” He smiled suddenly with the unholy amusement of one who has made a joke which no one understands but himself. Philadelphia felt it and a glance at the de Carlos confirmed her suspicion that they felt it, too. He was toying with them and none of them knew why.
Feeling sorry for the bewildered young woman, Felise de Carlos reached out and laid a small soft hand on Philadelphia’s arm. “Would you like to come with me? If you are to reside in the city you may as well begin by being formally introduced.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Tyrone said peremptorily. “Miss Hunt and I are only beginning to be acquainted ourselves. Later, perhaps, she will want to form other associations. You will excuse us?” With a rudeness that brooked no obstacle, he pushed Philadelphia firmly ahead of him as he moved away.
“Well! What do you make of that?”
Colonel de Carlos glanced at his wife. “I’d say that’s putting the fox in the henhouse, all right. Unless Telfour is on the road to reforming, that young woman may soon wish she were in an orphanage. Pretty thing, isn’t she? I don’t think I’ve seen hair that bright in twenty years.”
Felise de Carlos’s eyes narrowed. “Neither have I. You don’t suppose … ?”
The colonel looked askance at his wife. “Telfour’s a devil and rogue but he wouldn’t bring that sort of woman into a respectable home.” Still, the skeptical look on his wife’s face made him turn to look toward the couple who had reached the entrance to the second parlor where the refreshment tables had been set up. No, he thought. The girl was perfectly poised and obviously well-bred. The trouble would begin later.
Echoing his thoughts his wife said, “With Telfour’s reputation with women, he’d better hire a chaperon immediately or soon the girl won’t be received anywhere.”
Not unaware of the slant of the conversation he had left in his wake but completely unconcerned about it, Tyrone steered Philadelphia toward the first table. “What will you have? You look flushed and I’ll be damned if you faint at my feet.”
“That’s a lovely speech to buck up one’s spirit,” she answered, resentment of his manhandling overcoming her wariness of him. The ebb and flow of her fear was determined solely by circumstance. “I suppose they assume I am your new mistress. Ward, indeed! You might have done better to tell them the truth.”
His gaze struck her but through the filter of amusement. “Choose a drink, querida, before I change my mind about how to steady your nerve.”
She glanced at the contents of the first table, behind which stood a formally dressed young black waiter. The refreshments were geared toward comfort for the ladies with a rich variety of cool tropical syrups, orangeades, lemonades, orgeats, and barley-waters served from crystal pitchers. For the gentlemen there were several wines, fine West Indian rums and, for the American palate, silver cups of mint julep with shaved ice.
“Lemonade,” she ordered. The memory came so swiftly she had no chance to buttress herself against it. It was of Eduardo’s handsome face bright with laughter as he helped her with the daily applications of lemon juice they had used to keep her hair bright while in Saratoga. Eduardo! Just the thought of him made her ache deep inside. Where was he? How would she find him again? Did he want to be found?
“Here you are.”
She stared stupidly at the frosted glass Tyrone offered her, then looked up. “I don’t want it.”
For an instant, gazing up into his inscrutable expres
sion, she thought he might pour it down the front of her bodice. Instead, he switched hands, offering her a silver tumbler. “You need this more than I. But drink it slowly.”
“What is it?”
“It’s whiskey, damn you,” he muttered in a low voice. “Drink!”
She raised the tumbler to her lips and took a small sip. The zest of mint leaves mingled with the sweetness of sugar made a favorable impression on her tongue. It was only after she swallowed that the full strength of the liquor bit into the back of her throat, making her gasp.
Tyrone held the tumbler to her lips. “Drink again! Better,” he said brusquely when she had obeyed. “That color in your cheeks is what will attract MacCloud.”
The color drained out of her face at once. “He’s here?”
Tyrone grunted. “He is or soon will be. Make yourself useful by looking for him. Circulate, but don’t talk to the de Carloses. You don’t lie well enough.” He didn’t look down at her or suggest where she might go or what she might do, just left her standing alone.
Insulted yet relieved to have him out of her way for a few minutes, she picked up the lemonade that had been poured for her and strolled toward the veranda where she heard music playing. Once she reached the railing she looked out onto the enormous gardens of the de Carlos home. Unlike the Vieux Carre where the inner courtyards of Creole homes were designed in exquisite miniature, she saw that the yards of the Garden District were aptly named. Wide and deep, the verdant grounds contained ancient oaks and bright borders of flowers surrounding walkways and rose arbors. Just below her was the patio where the musicians played. Farther out a huge striped awning had been set up on the lawn, and the steady stream of servants carrying silver-covered dishes toward it indicated that this was where the meal would be served. Paper lanterns had been hung in the limbs of the trees to shed their colorful light on the couples who were dancing on the flagstone walks.
She set her glass aside and leaned her elbows on the railing to listen as the Spanish tune played on. The lively tempo was made for dancing and laughter drifted up to her from the dancing couples trying to keep pace. As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she saw shimmering shadows reflected by silk skirts among the deeper shades of the foliage at the edge of the garden and knew that some couples had sought seclusion in the privacy provided by the veiling Spanish moss trailing from the tree limbs. Envy thrust its fangs into her. In Eduardo’s arms she had known moments like those being shared just outside her view.
The lively music came to an end followed by a scattering of applause and then the tempo changed as a solo guitarist plucked the first chords of a plaintive melody. The notes came softly at first, then deepened with passionate intensity. As she listened, longing swept through Philadelphia as her love for Eduardo, now an indescribable sadness, was lured forth by the fingers caressing the strings. She felt sorrow tug strongly at her as the guitarist strummed it to life with his music, stroking the pain and sorrow into revealing itself. She felt a tear slip down her cheek but she did not brush it away. She was alone at her end of the veranda, alone in the whole world but for the guitarist’s splendid and terrible melody of love and loss and isolation.
It came all at once, the revelation so clear and absolute that she didn’t even question it. She stood up, turning her head frantically from side to side as she looked for a pathway to the patio below. When she spied the stairwell at one end she moved toward it, oblivious to all else. She lifted her skirts, flying down the wooden steps as quickly as humanly possible.
When she reached the ground floor, her breath came in hard swift gulps but not from exertion. She saw six young men sitting under the overhang of the gallery, their faces shrouded in shadow. Two held violins in their laps, another had a cello, the fourth was seated at a small upright piano, and the fifth embraced a banjo. But it was the sixth man’s face she sought as he sat behind the others. But the shadows were deepest there and his was only a vague silhouette of a man in a white shirt. Yet she knew the melody he played, had heard it played before in just such a cadence, and were she to hear it a thousand times, she knew no other man would ever play it in just this way.
She waited until he finished, her heart pounding so hard that she pressed her hands over it to ease the ache. She didn’t join in the applause, didn’t move from the shadow of the stairwell for fear that she was wrong. Yet she knew she wasn’t. He didn’t say a word but she heard the other musicians praise him as they twisted about in their chairs to shake his hand.
Finally, the men rose from their chairs to take a break and moved into the lantern light. Disappointment sharp as a blade plunged into her. They were men of color! From rich caramel to the palest shade of honey. She vaguely recalled Poulette clucking with positive excitement as she helped her dress, saying that she would hear the best mulatto orchestra in New Orleans at the soiree. She caught only a glimpse of the guitarist’s face with its black patch slanted across a ruined eye before she turned, blinded suddenly by tears, and hurried away.
She walked past the dancers, grateful that she was a stranger and so did not draw their attention. She walked toward the striped awning as if she meant to enter it, only to swerve around past it at the last moment. The garden on the back side of the awning was darker and quieter, the sheeting having eclipsed the lights from the house. She walked more quickly past smooth-leafed banana trees and a tangle of wild roses until the gray-green lace of drifting moss brushed her face, and she entered the azure shadows of a giant oak. Exhausted, despairing, she braced her hands against the rough bark of the tree and rested her face on them to weep.
At first there was nothing but the metallic chirp of cicadas, the distant hum of life, and her own sobs. But then she heard footsteps, muffled by the grass but coming toward her. She did not move, hoping that she was shielded from passersby by the drapery of moss. The snap of a twig made her jump and she pressed herself against the tree trunk, struck with dread by the thought that Tyrone had followed her. She had been impetuous and foolhardy in coming to New Orleans but he had traded on her needs and weaknesses to lure her here. For two days he had seemed only a gesture away from rape. Yet, after the first scorching kiss, he had not touched her. He simply threatened and watched with satisfaction when she cowered. Suddenly, she hated him. If not for him, she would not be crying because some stranger played as beautifully the violent passionate music Eduardo had once played for her.
The footsteps came closer, paused, then resumed as the soft swish of leaf on leaf sounded at her back. The hand that grasped her arm was strong and insistent, and she turned to face the intruder into her sorrow with tight-faced anger.
“Menina?”
She could not see him clearly but she did not need to. She knew that voice! “Eduardo!” She flung her arms about his neck, her tears dampening his shirtfront. She felt his arms embrace her and something burst inside her. The pain flowed out, becoming less than nothing as joy rushed in to fill the void.
“It was you!” she whispered. “I knew … and didn’t know!”
Eduardo reached up to touch her face, to feel what he couldn’t clearly see. He had not quite believed his eyes when he looked up and saw a blond young lady watching him with forbidden intensity. It was the look on her face that made him recognize her, the look of passion only he had ever aroused. And then she’d turned and fled.
Philadelphia lifted her head to look up at his face, but his features were lost in the darkness. “Why are you here?”
“I might ask the same, menina. How did you come to be at the de Carloses tonight?”
“Tyrone brought me.” The moment the name was said, she felt a stiffening in him but then she felt him shrug.
“I should have guessed as much. He didn’t recognize me, too, did he?”
“No. I don’t think he’s been on the patio.”
He touched her hair. “We must talk, but not here. Where are you staying?”
Philadelphia hesitated, knowing before she said it tha
t his reaction would be very different from his resignation over the fact that Tyrone had brought her to New Orleans. “I—we have only been in the city two days.”
“You’re staying with Tyrone.” His voice had lost all it’s animation. His hands moved down to encircle her waist. “This is a new gown, menina. Does he give you gifts as well?”
The insinuation was clear. She drew back a little, and he did not stop her. “If you had agreed to bring me to New Orleans we wouldn’t need to discuss this.”
His hands dropped, freeing her. “Are there things we should discuss? I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
She threw up her hands in defense against his anger. “Don’t! Don’t make this moment ugly. Please!”
“Very well.”
His voice was so cool she shivered as conflicting emotions assailed her. There was joy in seeing him again. There was the need to apologize for having ever doubted him. Yet, there was also a backwater of anger and humiliation that he had walked out on her in Saratoga. The last impulse became the sustaining emotion. “You walked out on me, if you recall. Why should I need to explain to you what the last week and a half have been for me?”
“You’ve said more than enough. Unlike you, I know Tyrone.”
“You—You—bastard!”
She did not see him move but suddenly she was in his arms. His kiss was cool, voluptuous, and brief but devastatingly effective. When he released her just as abruptly, she staggered back against the tree. She heard the soft but cutting edge of his laughter and then the gentle shift of shrubbery as he left her. She took two steps after him, calling his name softly but he did not break his stride.
When Tyrone saw her coming across the grounds a few minutes later, he scanned the shrubbery behind her for any sign of a mysterious escort. Seeing nothing, he came forward to meet her. “Where have you been?”
She looked at his furious expression and took a certain satisfaction in possessing a secret, however bitter, which she would not share with him. “Why, I’ve been flirting outrageously with everything in trousers. It’s no more than what you’d expect, is it?”