Arms of a Stranger (12 page)

And curious. Her mind reeled with the sensual possibilities of exploration. Her trembling hands moved from his upper arms, around to his hard back, and up to the nape of his neck. Thick fringes of his ebony hair lapped over the edge of his collar, and she wove her fingers through it. It felt like silk.

Delacroix’s hands had, till then, been flat and unmoving against the small of her back. Now they moved, too, clasping her waist, pulling her closer. Oh, so close. She could hear the drums from Congo Square in the distance, their primitive beat seeming to vibrate through every nerve in her body. Anne felt deliciously wicked, wanton, abandoned to all sense of propriety. She was oblivious to time, to place, to everything but the man who held her, kissed her…

“
Cher?
Shall I wait for you in the carriage, or will you be … brief?”

Spoken with a tinge of amused sarcasm, the low-pitched, mellifluous, wholly feminine voice coming from where the alley opened onto the street shattered the spell that held Anne in thrall. Simultaneously Delacroix and Anne pulled apart, their arms dropping hastily to their sides, as if they were two guilty children caught wrestling in their Sunday best and endeavoring to look innocent.

He looked at her; she looked at him. Delacroix appeared totally out of character—blissfully mauled, bemused, as if he’d been startled from a trance. She had the disturbing suspicion that she looked just as strange, just as disheveled and compromised. Then they both looked at the person who had interrupted them. It was Delacroix’s mistress.

A few beats of silence fell. Anne stared at the beautiful quadroon, dressed in a stunning gown of bright pink, a white, lacy tignon on her head. She held herself with regal grace, as if she were somehow above the scene she’d just stumbled onto. She stared back at Anne, a cool curiosity in her expression, a faint smile on her lips.

Under this condescending scrutiny, Anne felt more and more foolish by the instant. And all the rushing, swelling, fitful throes of passion shrunk and expired. Now Anne felt shame. She dropped her gaze to the ground. She did not dare look at Delacroix. But perhaps he was embarrassed, too…

“You, of all people, Micaela, know I can never be ‘brief.’ So much pleasure is lost in haste,
n’est-ce pas?”

Anne’s head reared up at the sound of Delacroix’s mocking drawl. She couldn’t believe it! He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed. He was completely himself again, his eyelids drooping in his usual expression of haughty boredom. His mouth—the mouth that had so cleverly enticed her to forget any sense of propriety to which she had previously aspired—curved into a self-satisfied smirk. Anne was mortified, angry, and, for once, speechless.

“What a shame,
cher
,” he said to her, “that such a pleasant interlude was cut short, eh? Life is unpredictable. Who knows when we might be able to take up where we left off?”

Anne was speechless, but she had full command of her hands. She slapped his face.

Delacroix barely flinched from the blow, though she’d put all her strength behind the swing and knew she’d hurt him. He rubbed his jaw and looked ruefully at her. “I suppose I deserved that.”

“I suppose you did.” She barely recognized her own voice. It was hoarse, faint, trembling.

Anne’s conscience told her that she was just as much to blame for the intimacies between them as he was. She hadn’t pulled away, and she’d participated with as much ardor as he had. Maybe more. But with Delacroix’s mistress standing by, Anne’s embarrassment overrode all sense of fairness. As a lady, she had a duty to put the decadent dandy in his place.

“Come, mademoiselle, I will escort you home.” He reached for her arm, but she moved quickly away.

“Nonsense, Mr. Delacroix,” she said haughtily. “You have someone waiting for you. I wouldn’t dream of wrenching you away from her scintillating company yet again. Besides, I daresay there shan’t be room in the carriage for all three of us. I shall walk home alone, just as I meant to do from the beginning.” She turned and took a step toward the street

He detained her by swiftly catching hold of her arm. “Even a simpleton would have concluded by now that it is dangerous for a female of your type to walk alone.”

“Are you speaking of the danger from you, Mr. Delacroix, or from that fellow lying facedown in the dirt? Because, as I recall, I was in just as much danger of being compromised by you as I was by—”

“You are safe with me,” he said wryly. “I promise you.”

“I wasn’t safe from you a moment ago—”

“Nor I from you,” he returned.

Anne stiffened. “Sir, you are
no
gentleman!”

“The truth stings your pride,
n’est-ce pas?
” He rubbed his jaw again where she’d slapped him. “For today at least, I can vouch for my own good conduct. Can you?”

Anne lifted her chin. “I can vouch for mine.” She indicated the mistress—who still watched with an amused expression—with a sideways nod of her head. “Is
she
the safekeeper of your conduct, Mr. Delacroix? Are we to have a chaperone?”

“No.” He turned and spoke gently to the woman. “Micaela, go and wait in the carriage,
s’il vous plaît
. I will walk the lady home. I dare not leave her to her own devices.”

Anne stamped her foot. “I don’t need your assistance!”

Micaela arched her fine brows. “Of course,
cher
, I will wait for you in the carriage if that is what you wish. Certainly you must see the lady home. Take good care of her, but don’t take too long.
Au revoir, cher. Au revoir
, mademoiselle.” She turned with a swish of skirts and was gone.

“I hope you’re happy,” snapped Anne, “mortifying me in front of that woman! Now if you
don’t
mind—” She tugged at her arm, which he still held in a firm grip.

“I meant what I said. You’re not walking home alone. Now come along.” He ruthlessly pulled her arm against his side, their elbows locked, in the usual manner of promenading couples. “And unless you wish to make a scene, don’t struggle and try to dash off. I’ll run right after you, creating a diversion for Sunday strollers which will make both of us prime fodder for the gossip mill for weeks. The choice is yours, but I hope you’re not so pigheaded that you can’t acquiesce—for once!—to reason and common sense.”

“Very well,” said Anne, angrily jerking her veil over her face again. “Walk me home if you’re so determined to be ridiculous. But don’t expect conversation.”

He guided her toward the street. “Believe me,
cher
, I neither expect nor desire conversation. But I advise you, unless you wish to be thought quite unnatural, erase that scowl from your face and try to look more pleasant. I’m never seen with unhappy females. Show your teeth.”

“Pompous toad!” she mumbled as they emerged into the sunlight.

“Insufferable brat,” he retorted in an undertone.

And thus did they return to Prytania Street, strolling along at Delacroix’s usual elegant pace, with smiles on their lips, pleasant greetings to acquaintances they chanced upon, and a steady stream of whispered insults exchanged with enthusiasm between them.

He left her at the gate. “Don’t bother to invite me in, mademoiselle,” he said mockingly. “Though I’m sure you wish to thank me properly for my invaluable assistance—”

“Humph!”

“—since we were so sadly interrupted during your last attempt at thanking me—”

“Scoundrel!”

“—but I am persuaded to think that you’d rather enter the house the way you left it—on tiptoes.”

Anne did not deign to reply. She rudely turned her back on Delacroix and marched with stiff dignity through the gate and down the flower-bordered walkway to the front door of the house. She had her hand on the doorknob, ready to turn it, when a perverse notion made her glance back over her shoulder to see if Delacroix watched from the gate.

He was still there, but he seemed to have only been waiting for her to notice him, the cad! He smiled sardonically and tipped his hat, then turned his back on
her!

Anne entered the house and slammed the door behind her. She stomped halfway down the hall, past a startled, sleepy-eyed footman, when Reggie suddenly appeared, saying, “And just where have you been, young lady?”

A
nne swept past Reggie and headed for the stairs. “Please, Uncle, don’t make me explain now.”

He hurried after her, his heels clicking on the parquet floor. “Why not? Why can’t you explain? What’s the matter with you?” A note of concern crept into his voice. “Did something happen—?”

“No, nothing happened.” Anne picked up her skirts and began ascending the stairs.

“Then why can’t you tell me where you’ve been? I noticed you weren’t in the house or anywhere on the grounds an hour ago. I was just about to send for the police.” There was a pause while Reggie waited for a reply. But she couldn’t reply without feeling foolish, because she’d suddenly discovered she was about to cry. “Anne! Stop this minute and explain where you’ve been or else I’ll lock you in your room till … till your thirtieth birthday!”

Anne stopped, half-laughing, half-crying. “Oh, Uncle Reggie, how can you be so
gothic!
” A tear brimmed over, dripped off a lower lash, and slid down her face. She turned around and looked at her uncle, standing in his burgundy brocade dressing gown at the bottom of the stairs, his spectacles perched on the end of his prominent nose, his brow furrowed with worry. “I’m a grown-up woman, you know. You can’t lock me away from the world forever.”

His expression softened. “But, my dear, you’re crying. Whatever’s the matter?”

“Oh, I’ve made a fool of myself, I’m afraid.” She wiped away the tear, turned around, and slowly descended the stairs, her chin on her chest, her eyes downcast When she reached the bottom step, Reggie handed her a snowy-fresh handkerchief—which item he always seemed to have in bountiful supply for just such emergencies—and, with an arm thrown around her shoulders, led her into the library and sat her down in a massive wing chair by the empty fireplace.

While he poured them both a glass of sherry from a crystal decanter set out on a nearby table, Anne put her uncle’s handkerchief to good use. She wept a little, scolded herself soundly for being such a watering pot, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. Reggie waited patiently, hovering over her with a glass in each hand. Finally she looked up and smiled, received her drink with a mumbled thank-you, then took a long sip.

Like a nurse administering a dose of cod-liver oil, Reggie watched till Anne had swallowed the wine. Satisfied, he sat down in a chair opposite her, crossed his legs, took a medicinal swallow himself, and said, “There, my girl. I hope you’re feeling a little more the thing now. Will you talk to me?”

“Yes, of course I will.” Anne looked chagrined. “But I must start with a confession.”

Anne proceeded to tell Reggie everything, from sneaking out of the house, going to Congo Square, and deciding to walk home alone when she couldn’t find a cab. He occasionally interrupted with a question or two and an exclamation of alarm.

When she got to the part of the story about the drunk pressing unwanted attentions on her, Reggie stood up and stared down at her, his eyes bulging. “Where
is
the fiend? I’ll call him out! I’ll … I’ll—’”

Anne tugged on Reggie’s wrists, making him sit down again. “No, you won’t. There’s no need. He didn’t get very far. He didn’t even kiss me. Mr. Delacroix came along just in the nick of time and saved me.”

Reggie visibly relaxed. “Delacroix, eh?” Then he looked perplexed. “But I don’t understand. How was he able to save you? Did he have a gun?”

“Delacroix didn’t shoot him.”

“Just threatened to, eh?”

“No. He knocked him out.”

Reggie’s mouth dropped open. “I say,” he continued after a period of slack-jawed astonishment, “I had no notion the fellow was willing to muss up his clothes in an alley brawl. It was deuced good of him. I’m prodigiously grateful, and shall have to thank him in some way. He brought you home, I suppose? But I daresay he was embarrassed to be seen and went immediately back to his lodgings to bathe and change.” Reggie appeared to be trying not to smile. “Was he a sight, Anne? Were there watch fobs and rings strewn around on the ground?”

“No, Uncle. Mr. Delacroix rendered the fellow unconscious with a single hit to the jaw.” She grinned ruefully. “Not even a ruffle was stirred.”

The smile spread unreservedly over Reggie’s face. “Bless my soul! I always did like the fellow and never knew why.
Now
I know why. He’s got gumption, and he rendered you an invaluable service.” Suddenly Reggie sobered. He slumped in his chair, looking thoroughly drained.

“What, Uncle?”

“You might have been hurt, Anne. Merciful heavens, you might have been…”

“Raped. Yes, I know.”

Reggie shook his head. “I don’t know how we shall
ever
be able to thank Delacroix enough.”

Somewhere in the middle of these raptures, Anne decided that she would not tell Reggie about Delacroix’s own amorous advances in the alley. She had considered telling him at first, while her hurt pride still rankled, but her conscience clearly told her that she was as much to blame for the intimacies as Delacroix.

Besides, Reggie would be livid. And her uncle certainly wouldn’t understand about her own part in the passionate proceedings. She wasn’t sure she understood it herself.

“I’m very tired, Uncle. I think I’ll go lie down for a while.”

Reggie jumped up, immediately solicitous. “I should think so! If I’d known you’d endured such an ordeal, Anne, I’d have sent you to bed right away.” He caught her elbow and moved with her toward the library door.

“Oh, posh!” she scoffed with good humor. “There’s nothing wrong with me that a half-hour nap and a hot bath won’t fix.”

“You’ve have a nerve-shattering experience. You’ll have dinner in bed and then stay upstairs till morning—”

“No, I most certainly will not. Jeffrey’s coming over after dinner, and I mean to receive him. I don’t suppose you’d allow him in my bedchamber, would you?”

“Good God, I don’t even like him sitting with you in the parlor. Anne, don’t be stubborn. Just for once do as I ask.”

“I frequently do as you ask, but not tonight. I’m a grown woman, remember? I have to be able to trust my own judgment, even if it means making a mistake. You might advise me, but you cannot dictate.”

Reggie sniffed. “I won’t. Not anymore. Not now that I’ve seen the shenanigans you resort to when you’re determined on some course of action I disapprove of. It is all right if I escort you to your room, isn’t it? You
will
indulge your old uncle just a little bit, won’t you?”

Anne smiled up at Reggie. “If it eases your mind, Uncle, you might
carry
me up the stairs if you’re able.”

Reggie gave a bark of laughter. “Hah! Not I! But maybe Delacroix could. I’m beginning to think the man’s capable of much more than we ever allowed.”

Inwardly Anne agreed.

Later, in her dressing room, steeped in a porcelain tub full of hot, scented water, she tried to reason out her attraction to Delacroix. She concluded, as before, that it had to be purely and simply a physical attraction. She didn’t like his high-handed ways, his lazy self-indulgence, his cavalier attitude about women and flirting and kissing … She didn’t like his ethics, his morals, or his political beliefs. Anne disliked and disagreed with him on all these essentials.

Of course, now and then he
did
show signs of being almost human; he had rescued her that afternoon, he had spoken feelingly and affectionately of his family that day in the cemetery, he even had good taste in his mistress and seemed to treat the lady well. But he always ruined these few favorable impressions by immediately afterward saying or doing something despicable or shallow.

Anne sighed, squeezing a spongeful of water onto an upraised knee. The demoralizing truth of the matter was that, despite his infuriating, arrogant ways, Delacroix had the face and figure of an extremely well-favored man—a well-favored man who knew how to kiss rather splendidly. And Anne’s “primitive” side would like nothing better than to kiss him right back, no matter how despicably he behaved.

Appalled at her own self-acknowledged lust, Anne sank down into the suds till she was completely immersed except for her eyes and nose. She had enjoyed Renard’s kisses, too. In fact, both men kissed rather splendidly. Very much alike. But she could understand her ardent response to Renard.
He
was worthy of being lusted after. Why had she responded with equal fervor to a scoundrel like Delacroix?

Good heavens
, she thought despairingly,
is sultry Louisiana turning me into a fast woman?

“Is she the one?”

Lucien turned his head on the pillow and peered across the dimly lit chamber at Micaela. He lay fully clothed on the bed. She stood at the door in a filmy white nightdress, holding a tray of coffee and pastries.

“What do you mean? Who are you talking about, Micaela?”

“The blond lady in the alley.”

Lucien tensed, the pleasant drowsiness replaced by bunched muscles and edgy weariness. But he tried to appear unaffected by her words as Micaela moved toward the bed, setting the tray on a table just next to it. She hiked a shapely thigh onto the mattress—stripped of covers—and leaned forward, resting her hand lightly on his chest “Is she the one you almost told me about weeks ago, when I suggested that you had found someone?”

Lucien’s jaw set. He hated Micaela’s perceptiveness. He didn’t want to admit to himself, much less to her, that Anne had become so important to him that she’d made it impossible for him to make love to any other woman. It was a frightening thought.

He hedged. “Micaela, you’re a beautiful, desirable woman. I haven’t made love to anyone else since I moved you in here.”

Micaela shrugged, tracing slow circles on his hard chest with her fingertips. She was like that, very sensual and always touching. Why would any sane man find her undesirable? “Lately you are very tense,
cher
. You brood like a man with a heavy heart You might not make love to anyone else, but you haven’t made love to me, either. Not for many weeks.”

Lucien forced a smile. “You used to complain that I was insatiable.”

Her gaze trailed up and down his supine body, her long thick hair falling forward as she bent closer. “You know I enjoyed our lovemaking very much.” She looked up at his face and into his eyes. “But you will marry someday, Lucien. Is this English woman the one who will be your wife?”

He laughed uneasily. “Lord, the man who marries that little termagant will rue the day.”

But Micaela didn’t laugh. “I’m very serious,
cher.”

Lucien sobered, too. He caught her hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing the palm tenderly. “Are you worried about your future? You know I’ve arranged to leave you the house and plenty of money to start off married life comfortably … and with someone worthy of you, I hope. Perhaps that young smithy I see ogling you at the market whenever we go there.”

Micaela’s cheeks took on a delicate tawny color. A tiny smile curved her lips, then disappeared. “It’s not me I’m worried about, Lucien. It’s you. What if this English girl is the love you’ve been waiting for? What will you do about … about the other part of your life?”

Lucien had never told Micaela about his alter ego, Renard. Their association had been caring and physically satisfying, but not intimate in the same way that two people in love shared thoughts and secrets. Neither of them had any romantic illusions about their relationship, but it was more than business. They were friends. And Micaela had an uncanny way of reading him. Was it possible that she knew he was Renard?

He kept his face perfectly expressionless when he asked her, “What do you mean, ‘the other part of my life’?”

Micaela’s gaze was steady. And sincere. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. And since you won’t confirm my suspicions, that’s all I’ll say. But someday,
cher
, you’ll have to make a choice. I’ve never seen you so taken by a woman as you are by this one. There have always been flirtations, of course, but I suspect that in this girl, you’ve met your match.”

Lucien did not reply. Micaela hadn’t said anything he hadn’t already thought a million times. The conflict between his necessary masquerade and his consuming passion for Anne Weston was tearing him apart. Today in the alley he’d had another taste of heaven. But this heaven was fraught with hellish pitfalls for her and for him. The most tormenting yet satisfying result of their embrace was the conviction that for some odd reason Anne had responded to him. She had responded to Dandy Delacroix…

But Anne was the last thing he should be thinking about today. Tonight he and Armande had another slave escape planned. It would accomplish the freedom of at least three more slaves living under intolerable conditions right there in the city. Their master viciously beat them. Lucien had been setting the groundwork for this escape for several weeks.

He had been thinking, his gaze unfocused. The clock on the mantel struck the hour: six o’clock. Now his eyes sought Micaela’s. She’d been waiting, her expression solemn, expectant, caring. “Micaela, I would never tell you anything that might endanger you. Who I am and what I want are complicated questions right now. I won’t say Miss Weston isn’t important to me, but I don’t know yet whether she can be a part of my life.” He sighed heavily.

“All I want is for you to be safe and happy, Lucien.”

“I want the same for you,
cher,”
he told her, smiling affectionately. “But now I must get up and go home before I fall asleep.”

Micaela sighed and stood up, smiling at him rather wistfully. “Sometimes, Lucien,” she said, “I wish you weren’t such an honorable man.”

He gently grazed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’m usually not nearly as honorable as I should be,” he said ruefully.

She walked him to the door. “Will I see you soon?”

Their gazes locked. They both knew that the next time he visited would most likely be the last. “Yes, Micaela, I’ll see you soon.”

After dinner that evening, Anne and Katherine left Reggie and walked into the parlor to wait for Jeffrey Wycliff. Anne was especially glad to leave Reggie to his English habit of lingering over port because she wanted to talk to her aunt alone before Jeffrey showed up.