Deaths Secrets, Life’s Betrayal
By: Evolutionstripes
SUMMARY --
When Anna Darkholme is caught indiscreetly kissing a man in a park, her
brother Kurt -- the protective patriarch of the Darkholme family- sends her off
to a country manor to stay until the scandal in town subsides.
Soon after Anna’s banishment begins, she is shocked to learn that her
neighbor Remy LeBeau, the devilish Viscount, has been killed in his bed. But
she is even more stunned to discover the dangerously handsome ‘victim’ taking
refuge in her lingerie closet one night. By some miracle Remy has survived the
attack -- and wishes the world to believe him dead. Can the alluring lady Anna
Darkholme keep his secret? Remy uses his masculine charm to persuade her as
they work together to unmask his enemy. Of course, being caught sheltering a
seductive scoundrel could further mar Anna’s already tarnished reputation. But,
really, what’s a little scandal to a lady in love?
CHAPTER ONE - 10/16 /2005
Viscount LeBeau, was returning to life in a sew of women’s underwear. From
ear to ankle he fought a sensual undertow of lacy shifts and white silk
stocking, his muscular arms tangled in the ties and tapes of lavender-scented
buckram stays, his heavy thighs wrapped in a pair of dainty French percale
pantalettes. Like a wounded beast of the night, he had eluded capture and taken
refuge in the last place his pursuer would think to look.
Summoning a primitive instinct for survival, he had climbed the study oak
tree outside the manor house and hauled his bruised and bleeding six-foot two-inch
frame over the windowsill. Hopeful he had outwitted the man who chased him, he
had then collapsed -- into an open trunk stuffed with personal female attire
and frivolous accessories.
He was not too exhausted to appreciate the irony of the situation.
For now at least he had managed to esc ape the man who was hunting him. Yet
moment by moment his life’s blood was saturating an unknown woman’s muslin
petticoats and lush-pink stockings. Pain seared his upper body. Gritting his
teeth, he unraveled from his elbow and flimsy lawn chemise embroidered with
blue silk forget-me-nots. His gaze unfocused and brimming with devil-try, he
examined it in the moonlight.
If he was going to die, for the second time in a month, he might as well go
out on a rousing sexual fantasy. “Well” he murmured, “whut sort o’ femme are y’
anyway? Fast or merely fashionable? D’ Remy have a choice? Then give Remy
fast!”
Unfortunately the maidenly garment failed to inspire a potent sexual image
in his mind. The owner did appear to possess a decent pair of breasts, although
Remy was admittedly not capable of objective appraisal in his current
condition.
God help them both -- Poor woman would suffer a heart seizure when she
found his carcass buried in her drawers. It seemed to him that his family had
once owned this creaky old manor house, at some time in the murky past, and he
tried to remember who had bought it from Jean Luc? To his frustration his brain
refused to focus, images flitting elusively behind his eyes like moths in the
shadows.
A retired sea captain, Wasn’t it? Sir Scott, Scott Something, his wife
and daughter.
Their names escaped Remy at the moment, Bleeding to death, he hoped he
would be forgiven the lapse in manners
“But who th’ devil was ‘is wife?” if he was wallowing in the women’s
underclothes, he ought at least to know her name.
Many would remark that Remy being found dead in a trunk of petticoats was
not surprising for a former French scoundrel who had thumbed his nose at
society. His closest friends might even have chosen to bury him in a shroud of
female underclothing as a loving tribute to his past sins.
Except that Remy had been officially “buried” a month ago, mourned by a few,
cursed by many. Aside from the persistent rumors of his ghost popping up in the
oddest places and doing the naughtiest things, no one really expected to see
him again.
Not his servants or scattered acquaintances.
He trusted only one person. The man who had helped him arrange his own
funeral
the late-evening silence of the country estate was marred by thumping
footsteps, a bucket being kicked over, and an irate male voice coming from the
front of the house.
“Somebody opens the freaking gate!” the gardener shouted from the driveway
below. “The carriage is coming over the bridge!”
“The freaking gate has been opened for an hour!” the groom shouted back.
“Company,” Remy said with a mordant sigh, tossing the embroidered chemise
over his shoulder. “I suppose Remy ought t’ tidy ‘imself up-- if Remy be
expected t’ entertain”
He looked like a nightmare cast up from hell, and he knew it. His lanky
frame had lost flesh. The hollow below his cheekbones gave his masculine face a
dangerous gauntness. The lugubrious pattern of surgeon’s stitches that
crisscrossed his chest and left shoulder had been torn during his tree-climbing
escapade. Taking a deep breath that burrowed into his lungs like talons, he
felt with his uninjured arm for the windowsill and hoisted himself upright for
a few moments of enlightening agony.
His red on black eyes widened in approval as he took stocks of his
surroundings.
“Well, isn’t dis convenient?” he said, clenching his teeth against a wave
of pain. “A room wit’ a view”
His own state lay across the swathe of moonlit road on a wooded rise. Warm
beams of candlelight glowed from the bedroom window where he had been brutally
stabbed “to death” three weeks ago. His uncle, Colonel Sir Belize Marceaux, had
already taken possession of the house, and if Remy had access to a spyglass, he
could have identified the shadowy figure standing behind the curtains.
The taunting silhouette belonged to a woman, he thought in cynical
detachment. Of that he had no doubt. But whether she was the same lady who had
shared his bed while he was callously being stabbed, he could not say. Nor did
it matter now. That love affair belonged to a past life and had died along with
his previous identity. His feelings for his former mistress were as dead as she
believed him to be.
The clip-clop of approaching horses, the of approaching horses, the
churning of carriage wheels on the road, interrupted his troubled reflections.
Pray God whoever owned this trunk would not decide to explore her dressing
closet tonight. For if he was any judge of women’s underwear, and it so
happened that he was, then the delicately proportioned owner of these garments
would quite indelicately scream her head off when she discovered a ghost in her
intimate garments.
From the stuffy depths of the lumbering carriage, Lady Anna Xavier could
discern one of her undergarments dangling like a banner of indecency from her
bedroom window. She leaned forward, her body frozen in disbelief, her face
turning pale. The bulk of her personal belongings had arrived from
She attempted to close the carriage curtains in a casual manner, hoping the
other passengers would not notice this disconcerting sight. Not that anyone
would be surprised by such a faux pas from Anna at this point.
She had brought the inglorious label of troublemaker with her from
Caldecott and was almost expected to continue her worrying ways. Far be it from
her to disappoint her growing critics.
The errant undergarment-- heavens above, it rather looked like her favorite
chemise--could only mean that her scapegrace brother Robert had come an gone
while she had been carted off to a country ball in a cavernous cobwebby hall.
And what had the rascal pilfered from her room this time? She wondered in
alarm. He had already pawned off a good deal of her jewelry to pay off his
debts. But surely he had no stooped to stealing her under things…
A more amusing thought jolted her upright. Could Robert be walking about
the countryside disguised as a woman? Or had he found a female companion to
give him shelter? He was supposed to be lying low with an elderly relative in
the next village. Anna realized her brother, a nobleman who had overnight
become a sort of heroic outlaw due to a stupid prank, felt a little desperate.
Being a Xavier, she was a very liberal person herself, but even so, there were
limits to decent behavior. Robert seemed to be dangerously testing those limits
beyond what a wicked Xavier would usually dare.
She turned away from the window as the ancient carriage labored between the
rusty iron gates of the modest estate, making enough noise to raise the dead. A
furtive glance at the endearingly blank faces of her aunt and uncle, also
ancient in her eyes, reassured her they had not noticed the wayward article in
the window of their wayward niece’s bedroom.
“As I was saying” uncle Summers continued to his wife, “the cat was only
being a cat, Jean. He did not drag the dead mouse to the parson’s chair
deliberately to embarrass you. It was an offering of the hunt.”
Aunt Jean gave a delicate shudder, her bosom lifting and falling like a
wave. “I was mortified beyond words. It happened right when the poor parson was
recounting the latest antics of the LeBeau Ghost.”
“Not that deuced ghost again, Jean. Not in front of Anna.”
Anna was only half listening anyway, more intent on her own impending doom
than a dead man’s imaginary exploits. She released a sigh of relief as the
carriage rounded the drive and came to a jolting stop. No one would believe
that she had hung her chemise from the window to dry-- her improper conduct was
a source of both prurient interest and kindly concern in this dull back water
parish. Even worse than being shunned, Anna’s relatives had engaged the entire
village to reform her. She was surrounded by moral zealots on every side,
well-intentioned people who knew of her past sin.
Caught kissing a young baron in a park, she had been promptly banished from
Caldecott by her brother, to the home of her retired uncle Sir Scott Summers.
It was the worst punishment imaginable for a young woman. Anna might have
already considered the rest of the year doomed had she not met the most
charming man in
Practically bouncing out of the carriage, she ignored her aunt’s tsk of
annoyance and made a beeline for the house. She slipped off her high-heeled
tapestry dancing pumps at the lichen-coated front steps. It wasn’t a proper
manor house at all, more of a glorified stone farmhouse with a pond of noisy
ducks beneath her window.
“Anna” Her elegant aunt came bearing down upon her like Attila the Hun, her
horsehair petticoats bristling against the door. “I noticed that your bedroom
window was open before we left tonight” she said, holding her blue-veined hand
to her heart as she caught her breath.
Anna turned, catching the eye of the curly red-haired young woman standing
inside the hall. It was her cousin Rachel, who had missed the ball due to a
sprained ankle and who was making strange, undecipherable hand signals behind
Aunt Jean’s back.
“It wasn’t the bedroom window” Anna said slowly. She was struggling to
interpret Rachel’s gesticulations. “it was the dressing closet, and-”
“I opened it to give the closet a good airing,” Rachel inserted, motioning
for Anna to be quiet. “The smell of powder and perfume was a bit powerful”
Aunt Jean was too busy unbundling her tall frame from a fox trimmed pelisse
to take much notice of this secret pantomime. “Well, make sure it is securely
closed before we retire. Everyone at the ball tonight was discussing the latest
antics of the LeBeau Ghost”
Rachel’s eyes grew round, her attempt to help Anna apparently forgotten.
“Ooh, and what has our wicked ghostie done now?”
Aunt Jean paused for effect, one hand pressed to the onyx buttons at her
throat. There was not a woman in the parish, with the possible exception of
newcomer Anna, who had not avidly followed the life and death of the terribly
exciting, terribly wicked Viscount LeBeau.
From his was heroics to his brutal murder in bed almost a month ago, there
was little the viscount had done that did not titillate the villagers. His
killer had not been caught, but bets were still being laid in the local pub
that an irate husband had taken revenge.
Naturally, a woman had been at is side at the time of his death. In fact,
according to rumor, she had not only been at his side but had lain naked
beneath him as he was stabbed. And it was her hysterical recounting of the
crime, committed by a masked intruder, that had rocked this sleepy village to
its soul.
Aunt Jean lowered he voice to a rather lurid tone was her husband entered
the house. “The handsome devil seduced Miss Rahne Sinclair as she knelt at her
evening prayers last night.”
Uncle Summers came to a full stop in the crowded hallway, his blue eyes
twinkling in amusement at Anna. “I did nothing of the sort. I was here in this
house all night playing cards with my dear niece. Isn’t that right, Anna? Will
you provide my alibi?”
Anna peeled off her lightweight rose wool mantle, she wondered absently
when she would see the handsome Pietro Maximoff again. As they had parted, he’d
vowed he couldn’t live without her. Anna had laughed at his romantic nonsense.
“Ah can vouch foh ya, Uncle Summers” she said stoutly, sharing a grin with him
over her shoulder. “Ya did not seduce a single person that ah noticed.”
She caught her reflection in the hall-stand looking glass and tried to see
herself as Pietro would have done tonight. True, he
had danced with her twice, but she couldn’t help feeling that his attention
might have strayed to another young woman whose hair was lighter than Anna’s,
whose voice was a little sweeter, whose manner was more demure.
She frowned at herself. Could that be her fatal flaw? Her
inability to be… demure like other young ladies?
Sadly enough this seemed to be a family trait, and Anna wasn’t sure she
would change it even if she could. She supposed she ought to pretend to be
demure to seem more appealing, her sister Emma had always advised this, but
deep in her heart she really wished to be loved at her absolute worst.
“And her screams summoned her poor father, who broke a toe trying to rescue
her” Aunt Jean finished, pausing to take a breath from her recitation. “Rahne fainted seven times before she could admit what the
ghost had done to her.”
Anna spun from the mirror, her attention captured. “How do ya know the
woman wasn’t dreaming? And did her father actually see the ghost?”
Aunt Jean stared at her with gentle scorn, “her lips were tingling, Anna,
from the phantasmal kisses. And no, of course Rahne’s
father didn’t see the ghost. I imagine he was in too much pain from his tow to
care if he had.”
“Well, what did the ghost do tah her?”
“A decent woman could not repeat his wickedness, Anna”
Anna smiled as she handed her scented gloves to the maid. “that’s the trouble with this village. Ya lives are so
lacking in true drama that you make up ghosts seducing women in their sleep. If
any of ya had any courage, the tiniest bit of daring in ya at all, ya would
have a genuine affair, and--”
“That will be quite enough of that, Anna” her aunt said, her kindly face
gone quite pink “I believe it was your daring nature that got you into trouble
in the first place and is why your understandably beleaguered brothers have
sent you here to--”
“Perish of boredom, all mah mental faculties
shriveled up from lack of stimulation,” Anna said with a good natured sigh.
“Well, it appears tah be working. Yesterday ah caught
mahself talking tah the
ducks in the pond. Mah only hope foh
salvation is tah be found dead in bed mahself, ravished, if ah have any luck, by the LeBeau
Ghost.”
Her aunt gave a loud groan of chagrin, which prompted Uncle Summers to
absentmindedly pat her hand while pretending to frown in disapproval at Anna.
The truth, as he uncle had admitted in private to Anna, was that he adore her outspoken views and had not enjoyed anyone’s
company so much in ages. He claimed that Anna had done wonders to draw his
daughter Rachel out of her lonely shell. He appreciated, or o he said, the
unpredictability Anna had brought to their home. And Anna actually laughed at
his jokes, Lord bless her. Her dear uncle was a staunch ally.
“Perhaps you ought to go to bed, Anna” Aunt Jean said in a tremulous voice.
“Delia can bring up a pot of chocolate if you wish.”
Anna headed for the stairs, bearing herself like a heroine in a Greek
tragedy. “Ah don’t suppose ah could have a pot of sherry instead?”
Rachel hobbled after her, speaking in a excited
whisper. “I’m dying to have another peek inside the two trunks that came for
you today. I’ve never seen so much silk and lace in all my life.”
“Oh” Anna paused to glance the stairwell. “not
that Ah’m liable to need them in heah,
but Ah’m glad that mah
undergarments bring ya some measure of enjoyment. Between mah
drawers and ya ghost, this should be a year of scandals in ya village.”
They continued up the creaking oak stairs in companionable silence until
Rachel, apparently inspired to wickedness by her cousin’s influence said, “plenty of women are praying for that ghost, I reckon.
Praying that they’re the one he visits tonight and has his otherworldly way
with.”
“His otherworldly way?” Anna burst into a deep laughter at that and veered
down the narrow hall to her room. “Heavens, what a thought”
For Anna’s part she did not believe in ghosts. At least she hadn’t until
last week when, from her bedroom window she had spotted a lone masculine figure
standing on the outskirts of the empty LeBeau mansion in the dead of the night.
Was it LeBeau’s restless spirit or his human male
cousin who had inherited the state? Strangely the apparition had made her feel
more sad than frightened. He had a melancholy air, this spirit, if that’s what
he was. The Viscount had been dead just over a fortnight. Anna’s only
experience with the man, unsettling enough, had been during her first days here
is this unknown land.
She had gotten caught in a downpour on her way back from the apothecary’s
on an errand for her aunt. The footman who’d accompanied her had run home to
fetch an umbrella.
LeBeau had come thundering across the field on his stallion like Sir
Galahad going to battle. Reared in a family of males who excelled in athletics,
and a competent horsewoman herself, Anna had been nonetheless so impressed by
the sight that she had stepped up to her ankles in a mud puddle to get a better
look at this masculine vision. Unfortunately she did not seem to make a similar
impression on him.
Before she could even shake out her cloak, he wheeled his horse to circle
her in patent disapproval, after looking at his eyes Anna found herself at an
uncharacteristic loss for words. They resembled the eyes of a demon two red ruby’s flowing in an infinite pool of darkness.
The steady patter of rain formed a veil between them, creating an illusion
of a man who was not entirely part of this world.
All the interesting angles and planes of his strong face had arranged into
an amused smirk as he surveyed her sodden state. He was just so perfectly
handsome and compelling. Probably the most unforgettable face Anna had ever seen,
with a cleft chin and those dark slashing eyebrows drawn into an unfriendly
scowl.
“Well, chere whut y’ be waitin’ fo’. Get on!” He’s
extended his leather-gloved hand, not asking, ordering. He was not exactly rude
but no one’s knight in shining armor either. Anna had the impression she’d
interrupted him in the middle of some important mission, and that he didn’t
appreciate the interference.
She glanced down at her mucky half boots in distaste.
“Hurry up,” he added, wiping his hand across his wet cheek.
“But ah don’t know--”
“Get on, chere, before we are both soaked t’ th’
skin. Dis be the country not
the court.”
Anna bristled, but the half smile lurking in his eyes took some of the
sting out of his command. Having been raised with five roguish brothers had
obliterated her most tender sensibilities. Frogs, spit, and
unsavory jokes. Anna and her older sister, Emma, had been inoculated
against easy insult at an early age.
Still, one should maintain certain decorum, rain or not, even if one
happened to be a young marquess’s daughter who was
tottering on the thin like of social disgrace. Besides, this Sir Galahad was so
full of himself, he could use a little reminder of what constituted good
manners.
“At lease introduce easel sir,” she said, the rain cooling the inexplicable
heat that rose to her cheeks.
He leaned across the pommel, his lips tightening in a smile. “I be th’ owner o’ th’ property int’ which y’ be sinkin’.
Trespassin’
in a thunderstorm. In a pretty silk dress. Now dat dat’s out o’ th’ way, are y’ gettin’ on or
not?”
“Well, how can ah refuse?” she muttered.
That said, she still hesitated, taking a closer look at his face through
the curtain of cold raindrops. Preoccupied, self-possessed, with longer than
usual auburn hair that slicked back on his scalp and intriguing eyes regarding
her with a detached mockery that appeared to be degenerating into impatience.
She glanced toward the stone hedge that enclosed the field. Her footman was
nowhere in sight.
With one hand he pulled her up behind him, onto his well-trained mount.
Anna’s senses registered the scent of Galahad’s wet
woolen greatcoat, an appealing whiff of woodsy cologne, the intrusive warmth of
his elbow joint beneath her breast. She also noticed the way his body stiffened
then leaned back into her with a casual arrogance that made her heart pound.
All put together her was a rather overpowering example of masculinity. She had
to restrain the urge to huddle against his hard, muscular body.
She stared at the back of his head in a rather hopeful trepidation. Had she
made another of her countless mistakes? Her impulsive tendencies were what had
gotten her exiled to this unknown social oasis in the first place. But Galahad
was a neighbor. A noble one if she recalled her aunt’s passing mention of the
man.
Or had it been a warning? Anna had heard his name even before she had been
sent to
Instead, they had been killed by Gurkha rebels on
a scouting mission in
In any event Anna was not at all concerned that her rescuer would do
anything so outrageous as to ravish her on his horse,
or to abduct her into slavery -- until he took off at a gallop in the opposite
direction of the familiar bridle path.
“Ah say…” she began to protest before the breath whooshed out of her lungs.
The woods sped past her vision in a gray-brown blur. The horse kicked dup
tufts of wet turf and sent them flying into the rain. Over a soggy meadow and
down a dark humid tunnel of wet honeysuckle that slapped them as they thundered
by. She could make neither beads nor tails of their surroundings, but this
route did not look anything like the walk home.
She wrapped her arms around Galahad’s waist and
raised her voice to a shout, her body jostled against his,
She felt the muscles in his torso tighten. Did she imagine that he liked her
clinging to him for dear life? “Excuseh
meh? Ah do believe ya are headed the wrong
way!”
He grunted, or made some such dismissive gutteral
sound that indicated she was a feather-brained female for daring to question
his sense of direction. Anna’s head began to swim with visions of being
abducted by this dark, brooding stranger. Of being dragged down into the bowels
of some hidden castle and kept a prisoner of his perverse demands.
Would he keep her naked on his bed, covering her with tender cruelty at
night after he had left her fainting from his ravishment? Would he entice her
back to consciousness with pears and sweetmeats and potent brandy? Or judging
by his hell-bent speed on horseback, would they both
be thrown to their deaths before any perversity could be undertaken?
Anna was contemplating the latter unpleasant possibly when, after flying
through a tangled hazel grove, they emerged vivaciously onto a clear field.
She stared across the dreary landscape, her heart thumping in her throat. “Mah house” she said in surprise.
“Imagine dat!” he drawled, and turned his head
slightly to look down at her in a way that let her know he wasn’t so
preoccupied with his own affairs as to be unaware of how tightly she was
clinging to him.
The brown and white half-timbered farmhouse, withstood the steady rain as
it had for two centuries. Anna imagined she could see her aunt peering
through the lace curtains, wondering what had happened to her restless
niece. She would probably be soundly scolded for accepting a ride from a
neighbor rather than traipsing up to her knees in mud. The poor footman would
be dealt a boxed ear.
“Ya might have told meh ya were taking a detour,”
she said under her breath as she unwrapped her arms
from the strong male body she had been blatantly using as an umbrella.
He did not turn his head again. She sensed the mockery of his smile as he
said, “I see no reason t’ explain th’ obvious chere”
“Of course not” she muttered. An explanation would have involved polite
conversation. What a crabby man. She was embarrassed that the possibility of
abduction had ever entered her mind. He probably didn’t have a castle anyway.
Perhaps he lived in a cave. He was more dragon than knight. She supposed it was
too much to hope he would escort her all the way home, although on second
thought, her appearing on the doorstep with Galahad in tow would probably send
her aunt into a swoon.
“Well” she said, covering her irritation with a polite smile, “It was very
decent of you to take time from your”-- from his what? She wondered. From
thundering about like an ancient seigneur in search of straight maidens?--”from
your duties tah rescue meh”
He dismounted in silence and helped her down from the horse, lifting her
with no apparent effort. The brush against his broad-shouldered body brought
another sensation of warmth to Anna’s rain-chilled skin. He had a strong
physique, and his touch was surprisingly gentle despite the impatience she
sensed in him.
Clearly, although his mind was a hundred miles away, he was still male
enough to acknowledge the differences in their sex. He dealt her an
infuriatingly dismissive look. “In future, I would advise y’ not t’ wonder onto
mon property.’
“Ah hardly did so on purpose,” Anna retorted “Ya see, ah’ve
just arrived from Mississippi--”
“So I’ve heard.”
She stepped away as he turned his lean figure back to the horse. “About meh?” she asked in astonishment. Under ordinary
circumstances Anna might have been a little flattered that a man she had never
met had taken pains to investigate her.
He turned slowly, looking her up and down as if he had been resisting the
urge to do so all along. His face was lean, the masculine features overshadowed
by a tension that Anna could almost feel. In fact, she caught her breath at the
suppressed intensity, the male interest that he had not allowed to show before.
Had she wondered whether he’d noticed her as a woman? Well, she would wonder no
more. Never in her life had a man’s gaze left her feeling more seduced and
desirable than his brief heated glance. Only when his unique demon like eyes
met hers did the faintest flicker of humor appear.
“Oui” he said. “I’ve heard quite a few t’ings ‘bout y’ chere,”
“Why should ah be of interest tah ya?” She asked
in an undertone.
He hesitated. They were standing in the shadows of the white willow trees
that bordered the manor house. Anna could hear the rain pattering on the
silvery leaves, dripping, enclosing them in humid darkness. She sensed he was
on the verge of telling her something, a secret, perhaps even the reason why he
seemed so preoccupied and impolite. Those soulful deep red eyes of his quite
softened her heart. Was he sad, stricken perhaps with a terminal illness?
She edged a little closer, hoping to inspire confidence. She had always
been drawn to lost animals, to lost people. But there was something else
drawing her to him now, a dangerous curiosity, a
magnetic heat. If he had been cool toward her before, he seemed to be a
veritable hotbed of dark emotion now.
“Why?” she asked again.
She should have been surprised when he drew her into his arms and kissed
her. What surprised her more was that she did not melt into the rain, her body
suddenly boneless, drugged with the heady sweetness of brandy on his breath.
There was power and arrogance and almost desperation in the way his lips took
possession of hers. A decade from now she would remember the thrill of
that kiss. She struggled for breath. He allowed her but the merest gasp before
his tongue drove more deeply into the soft recesses of her mouth.
“Why?” he whispered, holding her as if she were a lifeline, a link to
sanity.
And Anna’s own sanity was suddenly in question as his hands drifted down
her back, caressing the arch of her spine through her cloak, the contours of her
bottom. In her past flirtations she had always felt in control, mistress of her
fate. Now her control went up in flames. The dangerous hardness of his body
supported and weakened her at once.
She heard him groan into the hollow of her throat. She had not been kissed
like this before. She had not been touched like this. Even through her clothing
his hands knew where to linger, how to arouse. A raindrop fell on her cheek and
slid down against her neck. He licked it, the curl of his tongue sending a deep
shiver through her body.
“Y’ shouldn’ go out alone ,
Chere” He said and kissed her again his mouth wet, his big arms tightening
around her.
The sensual rasp of his voice almost brought her to her knees. Her heart
was pounding in her throat, her ears. “Why not?” she
whispered, taunting him back, not wanting to show how she struggled with
herself to stop this from going any further.
He drew away from her with a smile. “Dis be a very small village, petite” his voice was detached. She
might have imagined the heat between them. Before she could even move, he had
remounted and wheeled his horse in the opposite direction. “Yet dere be dangers t’ avoid even ‘ere fo’ a belle femme wit’ a nose fo’
trouble. Stay off mon property in future”
A nose for trouble? Dangers to avoid? Meaning
what? She wondered. Anna, the daughter of a deceased marquess,
the sister of the current marquess who wielded
considerable influence, had been to flabbergasted by
his blunt dismissal to ask. She had stood in the rain, drenched and offended,
to watch him gallop off as if he were part of the angry storm. She had stood in
disbelief, still burning from that kiss, from his enigmatic advice.
How did he know about her? And what was she to make of his melodramatic
warning? The only menace Anna had encountered in this dreary village until
today was a parson who loved to spread gossip and worrisome aunt. Good heavens,
was she made of glass?
Without a doubt Remy LeBeau, was the rudest and most attractive man she had
ever met. Obviously he didn’t give tuppence for what
she thought. He did not seem to care that she might report his behavior to her
brothers, who would probably only defend him anyway, assuming Anna had been at
fault.
Anna lingered in the rain until he disappeared from sight, no longer feeling the chill. Feeling
an extraordinary heat and annoyance, if anything. She had stayed there,
and suddenly she realized that she had never dreamed a man like Lord LeBeau
even existed, and wished she had never made the discovery.
In fact, she was so put out that she decided the only antidote was to
completely forget her arrogant savior, which proved to be exactly the same
advice her distraught aunt dispensed a few minutes later.
“I could not believe my eyes, Anna Xavier! I could not believe I saw you on
a horse with Lord LeBeau. Holding him around the middle!”
Anna darted to the window to peer outside. “Ah wandered onto his property
by mistake. He brought meh home.”
“Well, that was a miracle itself. The man is said to seduce every woman he
meets.”
“Did he seduce ya aunt Jean?”
“Do not be impertinent, LeBeau is a neighbor and a nobleman, and as such I
respect him. But that doesn’t mean I approve of his keeping a mistress on his
estate.”
“Have ya met her?” Anna asked curiously, turning from the window in
disappointment that he had not returned.
“Of course I haven’t Anna”
Aunt Jean pulled the curtains back into place, looking indignant at the
question. “Parson Grimbsy has seen her on several
occasions. In the viscount window, Anna”
Anna bit her lip in amusement. “Perhaps the viscount has a sister or an
aunt staying with him”
Aunt Jean’s face had colored beneath the rice powder. “I
hardly think he would have been behaving with a female relative in the manner
the parson described.”
“Does he hold bacchanalian orgies in the middle of the night?” Anna
could not resist asking, to tease her.
“I do not have any idea” her aunt sputtered in indignation. “Nor do I wish
to know,” She added “and neither should you. The fact that I sense something is
amiss at LeBeau hall should be warning enough, Anna. Matters are not right with
that man. Mark my words.”
And perhaps Anna should have listened instead of laughing. Three weeks
later the viscount had been stabbed to death in his bed.
XXXXXXXxxxxxxxx
CHAPTER TWO
XXXXXXXXXXXXxxxx
The news rocked the tiny village, to its roots. Anna had caught a nasty
chest cold and could not attend the funeral. The truth was that even before he
died, Remy had become a ghost to her, haunting he thoughts at all hours. She
had dreamed of that kiss in the rain. She’d sworn to snub him the next time
they met. She’d imagined kissing him again. She had even vowed that one day she
and her brothers would hunt down his murderer.
She had cried in bed for two full days after the funeral, privately
mourning her rude but attractive rescuer for reasons she could not explain. Her
older brothers— Logan, Henry and Kurt – had made a brief journey to pay their
respects. No one appeared to have any idea who had killed LeBeau. His uncle
But the parson had let it slip that LeBeau might have done a little spying
during his war days, an old enemy could have resurfaced to murder him. And then
his alleged attraction to a few married women had not exactly won him friends.
He was a man who had lived as he pleased and apparently lived to please no one
but himself. Little wonder he was not widely mourned.
He was dead, and Anna had no choice but to forget him. She would not have
been wise to encourage his attention anyway. He was a man who had lived on a
darker side of life. For all she knew, he would have been her downfall. And
yet, for many reasons, she hoped his killer would be caught.
Rachel’s high-pitched voice drew her back to the less interesting present.
“He came here right after you left,” She whispered as they entered Anna’s
bedchamber.
“Who came heah?” Anna asked blankly, resenting the return to reality.
“Your brother, of course.”
For a few irrational seconds Anna had thought that Rachel meant the LeBeau
Ghost. As matters stood, however, she did not have the luxury of worrying about
the dead. It was the living who were tormenting her. Specially, the living in
the form of her brother Robert, who had become a wanted outlaw as the result of
a prank he’d played last month.
On the way home from a gaming hall, Robert and two of his cocksure friends
had held up a carriage that they believed was transporting a young courtesan
who had been encouraging their attentions as well as denuding their pockets all
evening.
The carriage, however, had belonged to an elderly banker. Shots had been
fired, a footman wounded, and Robert had gone into hiding while his brother the
marques pulled strings to smooth down the mess his reckless sibling had made.
Anna unbuttoned her green muslin gown and sank down onto the bed with an
involuntary shiver staring at one of the bulging leather trunks that had
arrived during the day. The other had been dragged into the dressing closet for
lack of space. Her sister Emma had sent a costume to cover every occasion, not
guessing how empty Anna’s life had become.
“Ah suppose Robert wanted more money,” she said, staring around the room.
Was it her imagination, all the talk of ghosts that made her feel edgy and
alert? Or was she worried because it seemed that her family was on the verge of
falling apart? Except for
“Your brother came in through that window again when I was sorting out your
clothes,” Rachel said in an undertone. “The handsome devil has absolutely no
sense of propriety?” Anna”
“Propriety?” Anna gasped, one hand lifting to her mouth. “ah absolutely
forgot about the chemise Robert left in the window!’
Rachel looked puzzled. “What chemise?” I did not notice Robert with a
chemise.’
“The one Ah saw from the carriage. Ah suppose it doesn’t matter now. Ah
suppose mah brother thinks he’s very funny.” She said crossly “Remind meh ta
remove it before ah go ta bed. Ah shall have ta push this trunk inta the closet
anyway.”
“Aren’t you even going to look through it?” Rachel asked in disappointment.
“No to—,”Anna rose slowly from the bed, her gaze moving to the closet door.
Her gown slid down to her waist, and she shivered. She wondered if she might be
coming down with another cold. The strangest prickles had just run down her
spine. “What was that noise?”
Rachel glanced over her shoulder. “What noise?”
“It sounded lahke a man moaning,” Anna said quietly.
“A—oh, that. It’s probably the creaky old gate in the drive. Ever since
Lord LeBeau was killed, mama has it locked for the night, though I’m not sure
whether it’s to keep out his ghost or his murderer. A ghost wouldn’t use a
gate, would he? Oh look at this”
Rachel had dropped to her knees, sifting happily through a trunk full of
scented fans, shoes and fringed shawls. Her eyes brightened as she removed a
French buckram corset of ivory silk with whalebone supports designed to slim a
woman’s waist while enhancing the size of her breasts.
Anna couldn’t help laughing at her cousin’s expression of shocked delight.
Sometimes it did her heart good to see things from Rachel’s perspective.
“It came all the way from Paris.”
“No wonder they had a revolution”
“Why don’cha try it on?” Anna suggested teasingly. “It’s not as if ah’ll
have much use foh it in the near future.”
“Me?” Rachel rose before the oak-framed cheval glass, holding the corset to
the modest curves beneath her plain calico bodice. “Can you imagine?”
Anna slipped out her gown and stretched across the bed in her own chemise,
Short corset, and stockings.
“Perhaps if Ah’d be wearing that tonight, Lord Maximoff would have offered
foh meh on the spot.” The thought of which should had made her feel happier
than it did.
“Ravish you is more likely,” Rachel said somberly. “I suppose you ought to
consider yourself honored. Pietro seems to think himself a bit above the young
ladies of New Orleans.”
“Why don’t you wear that corset under your Sunday dress?” Anna propped
herself up on her elbow, deciding she must be desperate indeed if luring her
cousin into fashion decadence was her only source of excitement.
“Heavens, Rachel, Ah think ya need ta position it a little lower. Ya aren’t
meat to enhance the size of ya chin.”
“Lower? But how do you get your, er, bosoms, into position?”
“It looks complicated, but the design really does flattering things ta
one’s figure.” Anna sat up slowly, shivering again for no reason. Just her luck
to be coming down with another cold when Pietro had mentioned a possible
boating party at the end of the week.
“The first tahme ah put it on, mah maid laced meh halfway in and halfway
out on the top. Ah looked lahke one of those Amazon women who lopped off one of
their breasts so they could take better aim with their bows.”
Rachel blushed pink to the roots of her Red hair. “I have no idea what
you’re talking about, Anna Xavier, and I suspect you’re making fun of
“Ah’m not honestly.”
Both young women paused, sighing as Aunt Jean began to shout for Rachel
from the bottom of the stairs.
“Well,” Rachel said, “That’s the end of me for the night.” She tossed the
corset at Anna. “And I’ve never heard of Amazon women, but if they aim their
breasts at their beaux, I’m probably better off not knowing.”
She swept from the room in such a fit of giggles that the beeswax candles
on the chest of drawers blew out. The flames died in a flutter of ghostly
vapors.
Anna slipped off the bed and stared around the smoky shadows of the
darkened room. She felt chilly and very aware of being abandoned. She breathed
in the scent of melted wax. She was certain she had caught some dreadful
ailment.
Then another of those moaning sounds arose in the silence, and this time
there was no mistake: the disturbance came from somewhere within her own
closet.
Anna was sure that the wounded utterance that had just arisen from behind
the door of her dressing closet was not anything a rusty gate had made.
Remy came back to consciousness with a protesting groan of pain. The
feminine voice had reached into the depths of his delirium, soft and alluring,
reminding him of a time when he had enjoyed basic pleasures. When he had
trusted a woman’s touch. He wondered where he had heard the voice before, and
he wondered briefly where the hell he was before he remembered; Lord help him,
he was layered between what he’d dimly identified as female underwear.
He struggled to pull himself upright from the bottom of the trunk. The
undignified position reminded him of how he had posed in a coffin and pretended
to be dead only a few short weeks ago. The only thing obvious at the moment,
however, what that he was feverish and irrational. There was no other plausible
explanation for the words that echoed in his brain.
“The first tahme ah put it on, mah maid laced meh halfway in and halfway
out on the top. Ah looked lahke one of those Amazon women who lopped off one of
their breasts so they could take better aim with their bows.”
He frowned fighting the appeal of that voice, then surged to his feet in a
shroud of scented petticoats. For a spell he stood disoriented and shaking,
staring blankly at the door. With grim irony he realized that the mortal wounds
inflicted by his murderer a month ago might indeed prove his death.
He remembered now. He had been chased earlier in the evening by the man
employed as his gamekeeper. The loyal servant had only been ensuring the
privacy of his new employer, not realizing it was his true master he threatened
to shoot. Yes, Remy admitted it had been foolhardy to venture so close to home,
for he did not wish to be recognized yet. The world believed him dead. He had
no desire to correct that mistake.
He had summoned the strength to climb a tree into this room to hide. Which
did not appear to have been a wise move either. It was obvious he was in
no condition for any sort of physical confrontation. That day would come soon
enough. When he regained his strength he would take his revenge on the man who
had schemed to destroy him.
For now he needed to heal, to plan, and to deal with the woman whose
strange remark had awakened him. Her voice stirred up an enjoyable but elusive
chord of memory. The fragrance of expensive soap, a soft female shape, and…He
was puzzled. How did he know the feel and scent of her?
She had been talking to another person. He had no idea how large an
audience he would be forced to entertain. In the event his ghostly presence
failed to provide a sufficient distraction, he was reluctantly prepared to rely
upon the physical.
Checking the ebony-inlaid pistol in his waistband, he stepped toward the
door and braced himself for a dramatic scene.
It never failed to amuse him how hysterically people tended to react when
confronted with a dead man.
Anna heard suffering in that subdued groan, a plea for help she could not
ignore. She pictured a man in pain, possibly dying from a mortal injury. A man
confused and wounded who had taken refuge in her room. It did not occur to her
for an instant that to help him would be to endanger herself. Her heroic spirit
rose to the summons.
She pulled on her Chinese dressing robe and flew to the closet without
hesitation… Believing with all her heart that the moan in the dark had come
from her own reckless brother, Robert.
The door opened before Remy could twist the tarnished knob. It took him
several moments to assess the woman’s face, heart-shaped, pretty, the refined
features reflecting total disbelief. The odd thing was that she had been
speaking in a low, worried vice. She had been whispering a man’s name as she
opened the door. The concern in her emerald green eyes had rapidly darkened to
horror.
Had she been expecting to find her lover, instead of the LeBeau Ghost, on
the other side? The butterflies embroidered on her silk robe burred before his
eyes.
It was impossible to tell which one of them had suffered the strongest
shock, the woman or himself.
He knew her, didn’t he? He felt a prickle of recognition before
self-preservation took over. Now that she realized he was not the man she
expected, she was reacting as would any normal female in her place.
She turned in panic to escape.
H4e would lay odds she’d start to scream before she reached the outer door.
It felt like torture to force his abused body into action. It even hurt to
breathe. But he could have been dead a hundred times over and still have been
able to overpower a woman of her built.
He caught her by the waist and was surprised by the strength of her
resistance. She swung her body back at him in reaction. Hi shoulder burned like
hell, aggravated by the movement, but he hadn’t held a woman in a month, and
his natural instincts ran to inflicting pleasure not pain. As a general rule,
when Remy wrestled a woman to the floor, she was in for the experience of her
life.
Not that such a pleasurable activity was even as remote possibility.
She was about 4 inches shorter than him, but more than his match in
determination. His fingers tangled in her shoulder length auburn hair as
he brought his hand up to cover her mouth. It didn’t help either of them that
she had been caught half undressed, her bottom pressed to his groin. Her soft
flesh beckoned him to forget what he must do. He knew what she must be
thinking, what he wanted. He felt a fleeting stab of desire as her robe fell
off.
She lifted her gaze to him and suddenly he knew who she was, those platinum
color bangs. The green-eyed woman in the rain. He remembered the day he’d met
her, how angry he had been that he had interfered with his plans. It was the
same day he had discovered that someone wanted to kill him. The day he had been
shot at while walking in the woods. He had been hunting the would-be assassin
when this woman intruded, tempting him for a few moments to ignore how ugly his
life had become.
He’d suspected he had been stalked for weeks. Why? Perhaps because he’d
been about to reveal that the deaths of Kevin Xavier and Henri LeBeau last yeah
had not been the result of an ambush by Gurkha warriors at all.
Perhaps because he had been gathering evidence that the murder of the two
young soldiers had been arranged by their own commanding officer. Remy had been
on the verge of a discovery. He’d sensed it. So had the man who had murdered
Kevin and Henri.
Would a young woman as frivolous and beautiful as Anna Xavier have wanted
to kiss him in the rain if she knew is life was being threatened? No. Not for a
minute. And he would not have wanted her to either. As desirable as he found
her, he dared not endanger her. Even his mistress had hinted that she intended
to leave him at the end of the month to seek a new protector.
The best he’d been able to do at the time, all he could offer, was to
rescue her from a puddle, steal a kiss.
He almost laughed aloud at the irony of it. He had been more than rude and
distracted, not giving the exiled daughter of marques the attention to which
she was accustomed. At any other time he might have flirted at length with her,
formally escorted her home. Perhaps turned his charms on her to see if that
electrifying kiss he’d stolen developed into something even more interesting.
Well, he was certainly going to make up for that lack of attention now. In
fact, he thought as he half carried her struggling form toward the bed, he was
going to spend more time her than any woman he had ever met.
Anna caught a horrifying glimpse of their shadowy figures in the cheval
glass across the room. She was almost grateful for the darkness; it blurred the
details of what was happening to her. She’d been so prepared to find her brother
hiding in the closet that she hadn’t known how to react. Now there was no
choice. She was at the mercy of the intruder. She had to rely on instinct to
save herself.
A grip like a steel belt squeezed the breath from her body. She stared down
at the muscular forearm that held her in a cruel vise. His other hand covered
her entire mouth, muffling her angry cries.
She was terrified by his strength, submerged in shock, determined to make
subduing her a struggle. But even so, she realized that he was holding back
from hurting her. He could have effortlessly snapped her in half. She had
wrestled her brothers enough during their childhood to know how easily a man
could overpower a woman. She had no idea what he wanted with her, but none of
the possibilities that ran through her mind were pleasant.
The pistol in his waistband felt cold and ominous against her lower back.
She began to battle in panic again as he moved her toward the bed.
“Stop it,” He growled in her ear. “Y’ hurtin’ me.”
She—hurting him? She wondered in indignation, and then gave his shoulder
another good thump with the back of her head. It was a mistake. His hold of her
midsection tightened until she had no choice but to go utterly limp, allowing
him to lower her onto her won bed. When he leaned over her, his features
unmerciful and intense, she lowered her eyes and prepared herself for the
worst. Then slowly, as several uneventful moments passed, she found the courage
to look up at him.
Their gazes connected in mutual recognition, His unique red irises
glittering with irony and something that might even been pain, her own green
eyes wide with astonishment.
The LeBeau Ghost, she realized with a mixture of relief and anxiety. The
terror of the village. The delight of the lonely ladies. The man whose kiss had
haunted heated her private dreams. He whom she and half the ladies of
He was no more a dead man than she, his body was flushed and hot against
hers, his breathing shallow and irregular. The plain fact was that the arrogant
man who held the village in thrall looked ghastly – yes, ghostly, too – almost
a stone thinner than the day she seen him. His skin had taken on an unhealthy
ashen tint. A thin stubble of beard gave his angular features a lean, dangerous
look.
His expression was hard and unforgiving. Even though she knew his identity,
knew he was a nobleman and a neighbor, she wasn’t reassured. This incarnation
of Remy LeBeau looked like a man driven to the brink of desperation. A man
capable of anything.
“D’ Y’ remember Remy, Chere?” he asked in a gruff whisper.
She nodded, realized she was still shaking. His voice wasn’t the least bit
reassuring either, gravely and raw.
“Ya – Ya rescued meh from the rain. Yes, ah remembah.”
“Remy rescued y’. From th’ rain.”
He paused a heartbeat. His ruby like eyes narrowing, he glanced around the
room as if to take stock of his surroundings, Anna was no aware of him, of his
heavy male body, that she felt as though her breathing were synchronized with
his, and when he spoke to her again, she was so startled that she almost missed
the ironic amusement in his voice.
“It seems t’ be yo’ turn now, non?”
She bit the inner flesh of her lip. “Mah turn?”
“T’ rescue Remy, chere.”
“To—,” Before she could finish, he lost consciousness, dropping onto her
tense body with the impact of an oaken beam, his dark face pressed to hers like
a lover in the night. Anna lay beneath him in a paralysis of horror, wondering
in detached anxiety what would happen to her tarnished reputation if she were
caught in bed with the LeBeau Ghost.
For the longest time she lay immobilized in that peculiar position, half
hoping, half terrified that she was trapped under a dead man. When her
nerves finally settled down enough for her to function again in a rational
manner, she realized he was still alive. At least she could hear the rasp of
his breath in her hair. She made an attempt to slide her hand out from under
his hip bone. He gave a low warning growl in his throat.
The weak pulse of his heart beat against her crushed breasts, a
counterpoint to the blood rushing through her vein. His fingers were still
tangled in her hair. Her body was pressed into the bed. Even if he was half
dead, she could feel the latent strength in the muscular torso and thighs that
imprisoned her.
“Please get off meh.” She whispered, swallowing over the knot that swelled
in her throat.
She gave his shoulder a tentative push only to prod him into rising up with
a restrained roar of pain. Observing his reaction, she felt a temporary
swell of pity overcome her own fear. He reared back and rolled onto his side,
cradling his left arm in a protective gesture.
She stared disbelievingly at her hand, up at his wrinkled linen shirt, back
down again at the shiny smear of dark crimson blood on the bed where he had
collapsed.
“Oh dear Gawd,” she said, so appalled at the sight that she forgot the
danger to herself. “Ya hurt. Ah’ll fetch help…”Yes, help. An excuse to escape,
to think how to handle this. Helping him perhaps to save herself. With any luck
he’d jump out the window before she returned.
“Don’ y’ dare”
He caught the sleeve of her robe and hauled her back roughly between his
legs, growling, “Don’ breathe a word t’ anyone dat Remy be ‘ere. Or dat y’ve
even seen me.”
She felt a little sick, shuddering at the menace in his voice, aware of his
breath burning against her neck, the hard unyielding body that imprisoned her.
Was this the same man who had kissed her in the rain? Who had teased and gently
tormented her, leaving her aching to meet him again? “But—why must mah seeing
ya be a secret?”
“Because Remy be dead, ma Cherie, And have no desire t’ rejoin th’ livin’
yet.”
She drew a breath. He sounded chillingly calm, deliberate, rational even,
although his behavior was not. “Well, ah have no desire ta be heah, dead or
not” she burst out. “What are ya doin’ in mah room?”
He hesitated, his beep voice stark in the darkness. “Remy was chased ‘ere.
Chased t’rough th’ woods.”
“Chased?” It didn’t make sense to her. He was supposed to be dead. He’d
hinted that no one knew he had survived the vicious attack. It dawned on her
suddenly that there was far more to his murder than anyone in this village had
realized. And now she was caught in his deadly mystery.
Remy stared back at her, reading bewilderment on her face. What the hell
had he gotten into? Why her, of all people?
He nudges her back against the carved rosewood headboard, his eyes pensive.
God, what a coil. Now that she knew he was alive, he would be forced to trust
her, a complication that could ruin his plans. If she were a man, he could take
care of her without a qualm, and in not a very nice way either.
But Lady Anna Xavier,
But more to the point was whether he could trust Logan’s sister. Could the
nicely built young lady keep a secret? Could she possibly become his ally? He
studies her in silence, suddenly noticing the provocative French corset that
sat between them on the bed.
A devious contraption designed to emphasize a lush body that his hasty
appraisal appeared to need little enhancement. An ill-timed distraction if ever
Remy had seen or needed one. Why the devil had such a decent young lady worn
it? He wondered in fascination, welcoming the diversion from the dark turn of
his previous thought.
“Dis yours chere?” He asked quietly.
She hesitated, a thick platinum curl falling forward against her face. He
wondered if she was blushing. His own body felt feverish enough without
imagining how she would look in this provocative costume.
“Remy asked y’ if dis was yours chere”
“What—oh, oh well, it was sent tam eh”
“And y’ve worn it?”
“Ah think maybe once, or maybe not”
He raised his gaze, searching her face for something he had not expected.
What had he overheard from the closet? Was
His own tempestuous affairs and conquests seemed to belong to another life.
Revenge alone had fed him recently. He had thought little about romance and
sexual pleasure in the past few weeks.
The reminder of suck sweet pursuits came back to him a rush. Oh, yes, he
was indeed alive, perhaps glad for now to be free of the perils and poignancy
of a love affair. Under different circumstances, in fact, he might have even
enjoyed bringing this young lady to his bed.
But not now. She was as white as chalk, probably terrified of what he
intended to do to her, understandably so. There was nothing he could say to
reassure her, in the past few weeks Remy had realized her was capable of acts
that previously would have disgusted him. He hoped to God he would not end up
hurting her. It was certain that his involvement in her life would not be an
enhancement. Not since the gentleman he had once been was gone.
He had no idea himself what he was going to do. He was a man the world
believed safely buried in a grave. Perhaps his “Murder” had been the death of
his conscience, too.
“Where were y’ tonig’t?” he asked quietly, curiosity getting the better of
him. Warmth and feminine wiled had always intrigued him. “Or is dat a secret
too.” He inquired dryly.
Anna blinked, convinced she was at the whimsical mercy of a certified
lunatic. Blast her cousin anyway for dragging that corset and putting all kinds
of sordid notions in this man’s mind.
He claimed he had been chased here. Here? Into her bedroom, of all places.
Did he expect her to believe him? He was wounded, but still fast and strong.
Stronger than she was, Could she make it to the door and down the stairs before
him? If she bolted up, threw a pillow in his face, kicked that trunk into his
path, well, perhaps, it had worked once when Logan was chasing her after she
had stolen one of his coded messages to pay him back for teasing her.
Except that the door to the hall, warped at the hinges, always took at
least three good tugs to work free. Remy would catch her before she could
escape, and she would have angered him, not a good risk to take. His voice
jolted her back to reality. “Remy asked y’ a question, Petite.”
“What?” she whispered, stalling for time, hoping that someone in the house
would sense her danger, her separation, ‘Please let Rachel Sneak back up ta
help meh unpack’- she thought.
“I asked where y’ went tonig’t.”
A fresh wave of fear washed over her. Why did he care about her personal
life? She suspected he was unbalanced, definitely dangerous. “It was –,”
What did he want her to say? The wrong answer could set him off into a
rage. Should she admit she attended a local dance? Dull enough in reality, but
it might sound a little frivolous and was likely to make him think of romance.
Heaven forbid that she put any ideas of that nature into his mind. Let him
think her shy and boring, not the wild hellion who worried her family to death.
“Ah attended a musicale with mah aunt and uncle” There, a half truth might
satisfy him. He needn’t know she’d been flirting her heart out with Lord
Maximoff.
He snorted in derision. She noticed that he had a beautifully molded mouth,
despite his insulting expression as he drawled, “How utterly trillin’. A
musicale. And y’ lived t’rough it.” To her mortification, he picked up the
corset and dangled it between them. “What may Remy inquire, was th’ point in
wearin’ dis?”
She drew back, refusing to follow his thoughts. “Ya said ya were chased
heah?”
“Dat be exactly what Remy said.”
He was examining the undergarment in thoughtful amusement, almost as if he
were picturing her in it.
She moistened her lower lip. Was he going to insist she put the corset on
for him?” Do the people who chased ya know ya’re hiding in mah room?”
“No” he glanced up, gazing into her apprehensive green eyes as he added,
softly, “and y’ Chere… Well, y’ aren’t’ gon’ tell anyone. Are yo’?”
The tension strained her nerves, if he asked her to perform some lurid act;
she decided she would rather jump out the window herself. Dealing with five
boisterous brothers hadn’t exactly left her defenseless. “Why would Ah tell
anyone?” Her voice rose in tart indignation, it wasn’t in Anna’s nature to
submit to anything without a fuss, another family trait that frequently got her
into trouble. “Why should ah mind having a man break inta mah room and bully
meh about with brute force?”
His thick eyebrows lifted at her outburst. He cleared his throat. “Would y’
mind keepin’ yo’ voice down? I’ve only done what was necessary. Be forewarned—
As Remy will continue t’ d’ so.”
“But… What do ya want from meh?”
“Mon family used t’ own dis house, dis land,” he mused. “Yo’ uncle bought
it from Mon Pere. Are y’ aware o’ dat, Chere?”
“Ah suppose he told meh. AH don’t remember.”
“Y’ don’ know who I am?” he asked her, more a statement than a question.
Anna watched him remove his pistol from his waistband and place it beside
him on the bed. “The LeBeau Ghost.” She said without thinking. She glanced up
into his dark sardonic face. “Lord LeBeau, Ah mean.”
“Ah” His Red eyes glittered with irony. “Th’ legend grows. Tell me—gossip
reaches Remy slowly at the grave—am I still up to mon nocturnal mischief?”
Anna actually blushed, remembering the carnal sins her aunt and practically
every person in the parish had accused him of committing as a ghost, she had
half wished only an hour ago that he would commit those sins upon her
romance-starved self. “Shall ah just say that ya are believed ta enjoy and
active afterlife?”
He gave her a mordant smile. “If only it were true.”
There was silence. Anna dared another glance at the pistol that sat between
them. Sounds drifted from below, the gate creaking open, a horse whickering.
Then a man’s voice drifted from the driveway, a hard knock at the door.
He’d heard it too. His gaze shot back up to Anna’s, openly hostile,
suspicious. “Rather late fo’ a caller non?”
She could only nod, preying for rescue. Yes, it was late, but if LeBeau had
been spotted climbing into her room by an alert servant, then at any moment her
uncle would come crashing through the door and she would be— “ruined,” she
thought out loud. “Oh ya stupid man. Don’t ya know what will happen ta mah name
if ya’re found in heah? Do ya realize what mah brothers will do ta both of us?
Ah’m supposed ta be behaving mahself in New Orleans.”
He grabbed his gun and slid off the bed, flinching in pain, “At th’ moment
yo’ reputation is th’ least o’ mon concerns.”
“Well thank ya so very –“
She gasped as he swayed against her, and lifted her arms automatically to
steady him. The instinct came before she could suppress it. She might have done
better to let him collapse. The physical contact, the shock of his hard body
against hers again filled her with more confusion than she could handle. What
in the name of heaven was she to do with him?
“Ya need a physician, Lord LeBeau”
His muscular weight unbalanced her, forcing them back in a clumsy embrace
against the bedpost. He muttered, “Considerin’ th’ circumstances chere, I t’ink
y’ should call me Remy.”
“Ah should call ya the Devil, sir”
He glanced at the door, his eyes darkening. Survival was obviously
sharpened his animal instincts. “Someone’s comin’ hide me.”
“Ah will not!”
The pistol pressed into the tender flesh of her shoulder. “I will not enjoy
havin’ t’ shoot th’ person unfortunate enough t’ interrupt our “friendship”
chere.”
“You couldn’t” she whispered in dread.
“Believe me” he said, his eyes cold. “I could. If Remy’s not dead in actual
fact, the civilized part o’ me most certainly is.”
She wrenched her arms away from him, her mouth as dry as dust. He could
believe him. The lean, unshaven face that stared back at her bore no traces of
the elegant nobleman whom she had imagined to be Sir Galahad. An edge of
elemental danger had replaced the aloof sophistication that had defined Remy
LeBeau, and the transformation made her wonder.
Had he know on the day they met that his life was threatened? Had she
walked into more than a mud puddle on that afternoon? Remembering his rudeness,
his strange remarks, it began to make sense.
Someone had made a brutal attempt to kill him she could not blame him for
seeking revenge. But not here, not using her as vessel for his vengeance. And
the worst part was that her brothers would never believe she hadn’t brought
this on herself.
The knock at her bedroom door ended her reverie. She did not know whether
to feel relieved of frightened by the hesitant grumble of her uncle’s voice.
She would not wish the gentle man harmed for anything she did not deem it wise
to test Remy’s assertion that he could be driven to desperate acts.
“Mah uncle” she said in a terse undertone.
He clenched his jaw. “Get rid o’ ‘im.”
“How?”
“Remy don’ care.”
“Go back inta the closet” she said reluctantly. “He won’t come inta mah
room.”
He looked around, appraising, clearly not trusting her. “Remy’ll be
listenin’ and watchin’ yo’”
“Ah’m aware of that” she bit back.
He tossed her corset onto the bed. “Remy’ll stop at nottin’ t’ finish dis.”
She met his gaze, his cold determination sending a shard of ice down her
back. A man with nothing to lose