by Laura Parker
He took her by the arm and drew her in so close that she felt his breath upon her face. “Don’t push me, querida. You may flirt until there’s not a limp man on the premises but you go home with me. Understood?”
“If that is your idea of lovemaking, Monsieur Telfour, then I suggest you try another tactic. I am completely unmoved.”
His grip tightened but she set her teeth against the moan that came to her lips. “When I make love to you, querida, there won’t be any doubt in your mind about my ability to move you.”
She thought he might kiss her and she recoiled, not in fear but out of an unwillingness to have his lips replace Eduardo’s kiss. “Don’t,” she said softly.
Her defiance annoyed Tyrone. After the kiss they shared, she had expressed only frigid dislike for him. Oh, she was careful not to tread too often on his temper but it was clear that nothing short of brute force would again bring her into his arms. He had never raped a woman in his life. He did not need to. But he was not accustomed to being denied.
His kiss was hard and punishing and, to Philadelphia’s mind, mercifully brief before he shoved her away. “Now go inside, stand by the doorway, trip every man who crosses your path if you must to get a look at his face. Do your part, damn you, before I decide to use you for other sport this night.”
She understood his threat and hurried across the lawn with a confused sense of elation and dread. Eduardo was nearby. The knowledge made her feel safer. She would do nothing else to provoke Tyrone, but neither would she help him.
She was surprised by how calm she felt as she made her decision. If she recognized MacCloud among the guests this night, she would tell no one, not Tyrone or even Eduardo, until she had had a chance to talk with MacCloud in private. She did not wish to mark another for death, and she believed Tyrone when he said he would kill MacCloud. Perhaps she would tell Eduardo, if first he told her why he, too, sought the man.
She reentered the house by climbing the stairs near the patio, but she did not look down at where the musicians were reassembling themselves after a short break. It was enough to know Eduardo was nearby. He had said that they would talk again, and she believed that he would find her.
Nearly an hour passed before she gave up trying to keep track of the many guests entering and leaving the de Carlos’s home and retired to a corner to sit. Her head ached from the heat and her dress clung to her wherever it touched, making her skin itch from perspiration. She sank down on a stool and hoped that Tyrone would soon be ready to leave.
From the corner of her eye she saw a passing gentleman pause when he spied her behind the curtain of palm fronds, but she was too tired to even smile at him. Instead, she pretended not to see him. But he wasn’t deterred by the snub. He came straight over to her and lifted back a fern leaf, the better to see her.
“My dear young lady, you shouldn’t be hiding your beauty behind a fern.”
Philadelphia looked up at the man who addressed her and froze. Looking at him was like staring down a long corridor into the past. He had the same red hair, though it was now hoary in places from age. She recognized the red cheeks that had made her think of Santa Claus that wintery night so long ago. The same spider-veined nose centered his face, broken so often it looked more like a knob than anything else. She had wondered until this moment if she would recognize him. Now she knew she could not have failed to do so.
“Did I startle you?” he asked as the pretty girl continued to stare mutely at him. “I apologize, I assure you. My name’s Angus MacHugh, a resident of this fair city. And who might you be?”
“Philadelphia Hunt,” she answered, unable to say more.
He cocked his head to one side and thumbed his ear. “Hunt? You wouldn’t be one of the Charleston Hunts, by any chance?”
“I’m a Chicago Hunt.”
“That so?” he said mildly. “Don’t know as I know any Chicago Hunts.”
“My father was a banker.”
His pale eyes remained blankly polite as he said, “Well, by all means, I should become acquainted with a Chicago banker. In my business, one can never know too many bankers.”
“What is your business, sir?”
“Futures, trading, the stock market, and such. If it rains or it doesn’t, if it floods or if there’s drought, it’s my job to profit from it.”
“I see.” Philadelphia rose from the stool, wanting nothing so much as to run away, but she did not. It was the moment to confess that she knew who he really was, to make him acknowledge her, and to insist upon learning his part in her father’s misfortune, yet she held back, inexplicably afraid. “It’s been most entertaining to talk with you, Mr. MacHugh. Perhaps we’ll meet again.”
“Perhaps,” he said with a nod and smile. “Will you be long in our fair city?”
“That depends on my host,” she answered evasively.
“Really, and who is your host? It may be that I know him.”
“Ty—Telfour, Monsieur Telfour. He deals in cotton.”
“Do tell? Then I should know him, shouldn’t I? Evening, ma’am. Delighted. Purely delighted to make your acquaintance.”
Philadelphia watched him move away, too stunned to do or say anything more. When Tyrone suddenly appeared at her side, she was relieved.
Tyrone had noticed her distracted look from across the room and had come over to determine the cause. “What the devil’s wrong with you now?”
“I feel sick,” she said in a husky voice. “Take me home, at once.”
“It’s the heat,” he said in exasperation. “It takes some that way. You’ll get used to it.”
“No.” Philadelphia shook her head as he steered her toward the door. “I don’t intend to be here long enough for that.”
Tyrone glanced down at her but did not say anything for she was clutching his arm so tightly he was afraid she would swoon if he did not get her out of the house immediately.
“I don’t suppose you recognized MacCloud?” he said when he had handed her up into his carriage.
She turned a blank gaze on him. “Who?”
Tyrone sat back with a muttered curse. She looked close to hysteria. No point in pushing her. “We’ll try again. There are always parties in New Orleans. We’ll find him.”
Philadelphia stared out into the darkness as the carriage rolled away. She didn’t need to look for MacCloud. She had found him.
She heard the clock chime three A.M. She had lain awake to hear it chime one and then two. Her mind was made up. Tomorrow she would pack her bags and leave Tyrone’s house. She had just enough money for a ticket back up the Mississippi to St. Louis, where her cousins lived. But first, she would go to see Angus MacHugh—MacCloud. Tyrone could not stop her. He could not force her to be a prisoner in his home. She would wait until he went out, leave her things behind if forced to. She was afraid of him, but she was more afraid of missing the opportunity to speak with MacCloud.
She heard footsteps on the balcony and held her breath. Tyrone had paced the balcony until after one. Each time he paused before her closed shutters, she held her breath and prayed. But she thought he was asleep now. She had listened in quiet fear as he moved about in his room next to hers, and then she had heard his bed-springs creak a little after two A.M. and knew he had gone to bed. But now he must have awakened.
Footsteps traversed the balcony, no more than whispers, sounds she would not have heard had she been asleep. But she was wide awake, her heart thumping, and her hands clenched into fists. A shadow leaped up on the shutters, and she knew he stood just outside her room. She swallowed a cry of fright, hoping that he would move away if he believed that she slept.
The opening shutter was nearly silent, and then she saw him, through the mosquito netting, silhouetted against the moonlight. This time there was no betraying desire in her for his kiss, or his embrace. Terror choked her while her mind conjured up nearly unbearable images of what the next moments might bring.
He came forwa
rd slowly, feeling his way through the darkness. She heard him curse as he stubbed his toe and then he reached out for the netting surrounding her bed. The anxiety was too much. She bolted upright. “Don’t touch me, Tyrone! I have a gun!”
She heard his low laughter in wretched surprise. He did not believe her!
“Don’t shoot, menina,” he said quietly. “I should have trusted you.”
Philadelphia leaped forward to tear open the netting. “Eduardo!”
He put a finger to his lips and whispered, “We mustn’t wake the master of the house. Move over, menina, so that I may join you.”
Incredibly she felt him slide into bed beside her and then embrace her. A dozen questions sprang to mind but he answered them all with his kiss. As she wrapped her arms about him, she felt him pushing up her gown and knew that the words could wait. It seemed far longer than two weeks since they had last made love, and she was as eager as he to make up the loss. Their hands were everywhere at once, working buttons, unclasping a belt, pulling arms and legs free of fabric until they both lay naked in one another’s arms.
She had forgotten so much in that short time. She had forgotten just how much pleasure there was to be found in his kiss. It made her smile inside to think that she had been afraid of Tyrone’s lust-inspired passion. It was nothing compared to this all-consuming joy, this soul-searing passion that made her body arch in need and her heart beat in perfect time to Eduardo’s. He did not say a word to her, nor did he need to. She was with him, as eager as he, needed no coaxing to meet his desire with a fervor equal to his own. Then he finally entered her and she gasped out, “Oh yes! Yes!”
And then the world was encompassed within the space of their embrace. She forgot every thing other than his body surging high and hard on hers, and the perfect pleasure of it.
Long after he spilled his seed into her, Philadelphia held him tight, refusing to give up his weight or the part of him still within her. Nothing could ever hurt her again, she thought, nothing would ever again make her afraid. Eduardo had come for her. She would go away with him, leaving every other consideration behind.
The sudden flare of light in the room surprised both of them but Eduardo recovered first, shifting his body to conceal Philadelphia’s as he turned to the intruder.
“I assume my timing’s correct,” Tyrone said from where he stood by the lamp. He held a pistol negligently in his right hand but that did not make it seem any less menacing. “My door’s always been open to you, Eduardo, but you’ve exceeded my hospitality tonight.” He glanced at Philadelphia, his pale eyes like bits of shattered glass reflecting his icy wrath. “I thought you preferred to sleep alone.”
“Her sleeping arrangements are no longer any concern of yours,” Eduardo answered levelly. “She’s leaving with me.’
“I don’t think so.”
Tyrone nodded as he saw Philadelphia’s gaze dart from his face to his gun and back. “I might have killed you sooner but I was curious to see if the Brazilian could truly melt your ice.” The corners of his mouth lifted without mirth. “Your love cries are most charming, querida.”
Tyrone glanced at Eduardo, the thin leash of his anger slipping. Jealousy was a new emotion for him and it stung like a scorpion. For more than two hours after their return, he had lain awake on his bed wrestling with lust for Philadelphia. Then he had heard the footfalls. The audacity of them making love beneath his roof! Only pride had kept him from breaking in to stop them. “You think because she spread herself for you that it proves she loves you? I can prove different.”
He shifted his attention to Philadelphia and the chilling amusement in his gaze made her shrink back into the bedding. “You say you love him? You don’t even know him. Ask him who ruined your father.”
“Tyrone!” Eduardo lunged up from the bed but Tyrone brought his gun up, forcing him to a standstill.
“Don’t make me kill you, Tavares. She’s not worth it.” He glanced back at Philadelphia. “Ask your lover why we’ve been looking for MacCloud. Ask him who ruined Lancaster. Ask him who wrote that third letter to your father. Ask him if he was your father’s enemy.”
Philadelphia smiled at Eduardo. “I won’t listen to him. I know he’d say anything to hurt us.”
Tyrone’s voice was a sneer. “Ask him, damn you! He won’t lie.”
When she looked back at Eduardo, her courage faltered. He was watching her but his gaze was guarded. She looked wildly from one to the other. It must not be possible. Yet the clues were falling into place. Little by little her confidence began to shred. The mention of Brazil, the connection in two letters that she refused to credit because she had fallen in love, came back to haunt her. Her mouth was dry. Her heart felt like a stone in her chest. “Was it you?”
Eduardo flinched as though she had struck him. “Menina, you ask the wrong question. You do not ask me why.”
She felt numb, embedded in an iciness to match Tyrone’s stare. “The reasons don’t matter.” She heard her voice as if from afar. Could it be possible that Eduardo was one of her father’s enemies? “Tell me the truth. Did you ruin my father?”
A sad smile eased into Eduardo’s expression. “How fragile are dreams, menina. I tried to warn you, told you to give up the search, that it would only wound you.”
“Hurt you, you mean!” she cried, her anger breaking free of its moorings of love. “You lied to me! You let me believe that you were good and honorable, and it was all a lie!”
“Was it? Even my love for you?”
“Don’t!” She raised her hands as if to shield her face. “Don’t—you dare speak that word to me! You betrayed me! And you let me betray everything that matters to me!”
“I will excuse myself,” Tyrone said in a voice as dry as sand.
“No!” Philadelphia came to her knees on the bed, uncaring that the action bared her to both men’s gazes. “Senhor Tavares is leaving, and never coming back. Never!”
Eduardo did not protest. He bent and picked up his clothes to begin dressing. When he was done he turned to her, and was glad to see that she had gathered the covers about herself once more. “You’ve worse ahead of you if you don’t give up this nonsense. I never meant to hurt you. But I realize now what I should have known all along. I can’t save you from yourself. I’ve tried. Até logo, menina.”
When he was gone, Philadelphia turned a dull gaze on Tyrone, wondering what he would do but no longer afraid of him.
Tyrone just looked at her. “You’re more of a fool than I thought,” he said finally. “Tavares was right. You didn’t ask the right question. He ruined your father, and I helped him do it. Yet you don’t ask why. He’s too proud to say it but I will. Your father was a greedy man, and that greed got people killed. He deserved what he got. And, being the sorry yellow coward he was, he killed himself rather than face disaster. Hasn’t it occurred to you that if he really loved you, he would’ve stayed alive to protect you?”
Every word was a slingshot of stone against the fragile shell of silence into which she had retreated. She began to moan, rocking herself in time to the sounds as she clasped her arms tightly about her body.
Tyrone cursed under his breath and walked out of the room. She would be of little use to him if she drove herself mad. As for Tavares, now that he had pushed him into facing the truth, he would have to be on guard.
He lifted his pistol and stared at it a moment as he stood on the balcony in the moonlight. Tavares was the closest thing to a friend he had ever had. It would be a waste if he were forced to kill him, and he hated waste.
He should be satisfied. He had severed Philadelphia’s relationship with Tavares for good. But he felt no elation in the victory. In winning he had violated his own peculiar code of honor. He had stabbed a friend in the back.
He holstered his weapon and leaned upon his elbows on the balustrade. For the first time in a long, long while, the gut-sickening suspicion gnawed at him that he just might be every bit the lowlife, so
n-of-a-bitch people believed he was.
17
Philadelphia slipped into the last pew of the dim interior of St. Louis Cathedral just as the six thirty A.M. services began. Because she was not Catholic and did not know what else to do, she knelt and bowed her head as the voices of the choir, singing in Latin, filled the vaulted ceiling.
She had run away from Tyrone’s house, waiting only until it was light enough for her to make her way along the unfamiliar streets of the city. She had no clear hiding place in mind but the tall spire of the cathedral had caught her eye, and she had used it as a landmark as she had walked through the narrow streets of the Vieux Carre toward it. It seemed fitting to seek shelter from the devil in a church. And Tyrone was a devil.
She clasped her hands together and shut her eyes. If she lived to be a hundred, she would never forget the ruthless, inhuman delight he had taken in shattering her trust in Eduardo. He had known the full truth all along and yet waited to use it against her when it suited his purpose. She hated him, despised him, and most of all feared him. A tremor shook her, and she clenched her teeth against it. After a moment, she took a deep breath to quiet the residual trembling but it had moved down deep inside her and would not be stilled.
Every moment of the past four months was a lie. From the moment Eduardo Tavares entered her life until now, his reasons for being with her had all been lies, all deception, every moment a masquerade of false emotion and calculated mummery designed to keep her from learning the truth.
Truth. The word tolled in her head. What was the truth? She no longer knew which of her feelings and thoughts to trust. How much of what Tyrone had told her could be believed? He was a cold hard man, capable of any deception. He had called her father a greedy man—no, more—the man responsible for the deaths of others. That was absurd. Her father had no violence in him. He was a kind quiet man whose only absorbing interest was the beautiful things he brought home to share with her. The fact that he could afford to amass a great fortune in beauty did not make him avaricious.