Midnight Flame Read online

  “That Miss Lavinia with her flamin’ hair can’t hide her looks if she wanted to, but I always did think my baby was the prettiest. Don’t you think so, Mr. Duvalier?”

  Tony barely heard Gincie’s question, his mind was still registering the fact that the woman he had sequestered in the bayou wasn’t Lavinia Delaney at all. He glanced up to see a perplexed Gincie.

  “Don’t you think my baby is the prettiest lady you ever did see?” Gincie asked again to be certain Tony had heard her.

  “Yes,” he answered in a rush. “She is the most beautiful woman in the world.” And he meant it.

  Pleased, Gincie grinned.

  “I told Miss Laurel you were the man for her.”

  Standing up abruptly, Tony scraped his chair against the floor. He appeared disoriented, as if his mind were a thousand miles away. Lillie appeared and inquired if something was wrong.

  “Tell Gaston to take good care of Gincie,” he muttered, then turned his attention to the woman on the bed and absently patted her head. “I have a feeling you’ll see your Laurel very soon.” Then he was gone and viciously spurred his stallion down the road in the direction of the bayou before either woman could say another word.

  Sweat poured from Tony’s brow and down his face, but he felt cold, dreadfully cold. His fingers felt so chilled he could barely hold the reins. The pounding of the stallion’s hoofs upon the road beat a wild cadence in Tony’s brain—Laurel Delaney, Laurel Delaney, Laurel Delaney.

  He had kidnapped the wrong woman!

  By the time he entered the forest and could see the cabin through the trees, he had cursed himself a hundredfold. He should have made inquiries into Lavinia Delaney’s appearance, should have asked the investigator, Henri Maurice, the color of Lavinia’s hair. Then again, if, as Maurice had told him, the woman was always veiled during her trysts with his uncle, the man wouldn’t have been aware of such a fact. Gincie had said Lavinia had flaming hair, and his prisoner was a brunette, a most enchanting and beautiful brunette, who caused his blood to stir with her innocent kisses.

  “Damn!” His curse hung upon the air like the Spanish moss on the nearby trees. The woman in the cabin was an innocent. He was worldly enough to have sensed this, and he had, but he had been so caught up in his stupid plan for revenge that he had purposely blinded himself to her inexperience, thinking it only a ruse to ease his conscience.

  He had much to make amends -to Laurel Delaney. Just before reaching the cabin, he halted. He couldn’t simply rush in and drag her from the cabin, though he ached to do so, and ensconce her at Petit Coteau. She would know immediately that he was her kidnapper, and her scorn and hatred would be more than he could bear.

  Why this was so, he couldn’t fathom. He had never felt protective toward a woman before and had never cared what a woman thought about his callous behavior once their affair was over. But Laurel was different, he reminded himself. She was a lady and a woman of impeccable character, though she did have the reputation of being an ice queen. Tony knew better, but right now he couldn’t dwell on Laurel’s passion. He must release her from her prison. But again—how? He didn’t want her to discover he was the one who had locked her in and thereby lose his chance of making it up to her.

  The stallion pawed at the soft earth, eager to move onward. Instead, Tony turned the horse away from the cabin and headed out of the forest. A plan was forming in his mind, and if everything fell into place, he would have his chance to make up to Laurel for his transgression against her. And maybe, just maybe, she would fall in love with him in the process. This thought startled him and pleased him at the same time. He would like nothing better than to have Laurel Delaney’s love. In fact, if he were a different type of man and not so jaded in affairs of the heart, he could love her, too.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Shafts of late afternoon sunlight wove gold and orange highlights resembling a brilliant tapestry into the silver ripples of the shallow bayou. A slight cool breeze soughed through the upper reaches of the cypress trees and gently ruffled the Spanish moss that hung from the branches like an old man’s beard. From where Tony stood on the opposite shoreline from the cabin, he noticed a streak of black slithering across the watery expanse. A moccasin and a potentially dangerous snake. For the first time in a long time, Tony offered up a small prayer that no harm would befall Laurel when she crossed the bayou. If anything happened to her, it would be his fault, and he would be unable to live with himself.

  From his vantage point behind a clump of underbrush, he watched as Zelie was paddled across the swamp by Emmanuel. In her lap she held a basket filled with freshly fried chicken and homemade grits—something he had decided that a hungry Laurel would be unable to resist. From Zelie’s tightly drawn mouth, he reasoned that Zelie’s disapproval of the whole affair came from the fact that she thought he should be the one to enter the cabin and free Laurel Delaney, not use the ruse of delivering a hot meal and forgetting to lock the cabin door.

  Tony felt as much of a coward at that moment as Zelie must have thought him. But he couldn’t risk Laurel’s discovery that he had been the one to kidnap her. If she learned the truth, the hard-headed miss wouldn’t deign to glance in his direction except with icy scorn in her eyes, and he wanted her gaze to be filled with desire and love for him. No, this was the only way to free her, he decided, and to achieve her love.

  The plan seemed simple, too simple, a part of him thought, but he had no alternative. Just moments before he had ordered Zelie not to speak to Laurel, to leave the basket on the table, and to conveniently forget to sheath the latch on the door. Knowing Laurel had tried to escape earlier in the day, Tony had no doubt that she would try the door again and escape after Zelie and Emmanuel had paddled away. Then once she had waded across the water to the opposite shoreline and had trekked through the wilderness for a short time, he would suddenly appear and rescue her. Of course, she would probably ask questions, but he had all the answers. He would simply tell her that his driver had arrived at Petit Coteau, relating the details of the kidnapping. Because of the delicacy of the situation, Tony, himself, had started a private search. After all, her reputation was at stake.

  A smile slanted his mouth, and his dark eyes danced, their amber flecks lighting up like beacons to think of how grateful Laurel would be. To imagine the sweet kiss she would bestow upon him, a kiss that would erupt into hot ecstasy, promising a night of smoldering passion, caused a burning ache in his loins. God, he wanted her with a fierceness he had never experienced for any woman. Was it her innocence? he wondered. Or the fact that he now realized she would never experience desire for any man but himself? Whatever the reason, he would enjoy tutoring her in the art of lovemaking.

  Now if only things worked out as he had planned.

  A distance away he heard the two horses that he had brought with him whinny lowly. As soon as Zelie and Emmanuel had paddled across the swamp, they would find the horses and ride to Petit Coteau where the buggy waited to take them into Vermillionville. Tony couldn’t afford to let Laurel discover the two servants at the plantation, so he had ordered them to go to the town house, something for which Zelie didn’t care but which Emmanuel took in his stride.

  Tony shifted on his boot-encased legs, brushing against a tree stump. The gold buttons on his ebony-colored shirt reflected the dying sunlight, and he breathed a sigh of relief to see that Zelie had already brought in the basket and was now being helped into the pirogue by Emmanuel. Soon the pirogue nudged the shoreline, only ten feet away from Tony’s hiding place. Emmanuel caught his eye and nodded, and Zelie attempted to say something, but Emmanuel pushed her ahead of him, toward the right of Tony. Within minutes Tony heard the soft gallop of the horses drifting away on the sweet evening air.

  All had gone well so far. He gave a sigh of relief and waited. Soon Laurel would rush from the cabin. Soon she would kiss him in gratitude for rescuing her. But the sun set, and a heavy fog began to settle over the bayou until all was enveloped in a gray haze. If
she didn’t come out of the cabin soon, she would not be able to find her way across the murky water when the dark of night enfolded the area like a black cloak.

  “What the hell is wrong?” he muttered out loud, growing more impatient by the second.

  When fifteen minutes had passed and still Laurel hadn’t made her desperate bid for freedom, Tony had had enough. He must discover what had gone wrong with his plan. As he got into the pirogue and paddled across the creature-filled bayou, he didn’t stop to think what would happen once he entered the cabin. He only knew that a heavy sense of foreboding had filled him and that something was very wrong.

  When he reached the cabin, he noticed that the door gently swayed on its hinges in the evening breeze. Pushing back the door to allow entrance of his broad frame, Tony peered into the shadowy room. He vaguely made out the shapes of the chair and table before his gaze centered upon the cot against the barred window. He blinked, not able to find Laurel at first, until he realized that her slight form rested on the cot, covered by a blanket.

  “Laurel,” Tony whispered and moved into the depths of the room until he stood above her, looking down at her. In the semidarkness her eyes rested on his face, and a shock went through him that now she would know he was the one. But when he bent down, again murmuring her name, he heard no response except a low agonized moan.

  Her head turned away from him, her long, raven tresses spilling over the edge of the cot to fall onto the floor. The profile of her was barely visible, and he reached out a hand to stroke her cheek, expecting her to thrash out at him, to berate him for what he had done to her. Instead his fingers felt singed by her flesh, and he drew back as the knowledge flooded over him. Laurel was sick, very sick. Turning her head toward him, she issued another moan, and he realized that her emerald gaze was filled with fire, not from anger, but from a high fever. In fact, she didn’t seem to see him at all or to respond to the caress of his cool hand upon her face when his fingers grazed her skin again.

  “Laurel, you’re very ill,” he said, still not quite able to believe her condition. She shivered under the blanket, totally unaware of him. Then when she mumbled for her mother, for Gincie, he knew she was delirious.

  “Damn!” he swore under his breath and stood up. Nothing had gone right. He had thought the plan so simple that his allowing her to escape would pose no problem. Instead he now had a worse problem than before. Laurel needed medical help, something he couldn’t provide. More importantly, he couldn’t bring her to Petit Coteau but must leave her here until she was well. Or until she died.

  His heart almost stopped its steady thump. He knew he must get a physician, but he was unable to walk through the forest at night, the distance was too great and perilous without a torch. And he didn’t have the heart to leave her alone. If only he had brought his stallion, then he could ride for help. What a perplexing dilemma he had gotten himself into. Everything was his fault, and if Laurel Delaney died, that would be his fault, also.

  But he wouldn’t allow Laurel to die. From the mists of time he recalled Zelie rambling off about a certain grass that grew in the bayou, that when the grass was mixed with water and strained, then administered to the sick person, the fever would break. Tony had always discounted Zelie’s cures, believing them to be mostly superstition, but now he had no choice. He would have to be the one to save Laurel Delaney’s life.

  ~

  “Drink this down, chérie. It will make you well.”

  That voice was there again. Laurel shut her eyes tighter, shivering beneath the blanket, not wanting to be disturbed. All she wanted was to go back to sleep and dream lovely, sweet dreams. But that voice wouldn’t let her. The voice constantly invaded the warm fog that shrouded her mind. Was that her mother’s voice whispering to her, or her father’s? Why wouldn’t the voice allow her to slip away to that peaceful realm she had glimpsed, a place of beauty and lush flowers. But it harped at her until she muttered “Go away!”

  But the voice didn’t stop. Once again it demanded that she drink, and she felt herself being lifted and forced to swallow a vile-tasting brew. She made a face, and the voice said, “Bien, Laurel. Rest now.” Then a hand stroked her forehead, followed by a cool cloth in its stead.

  Whose voice was that? she vaguely wondered. Was it Gincie? She managed to open her eyes a crack. A deep, dark velvet blackness met her. Though she couldn’t see anyone, she sensed a person nearby. In her mind she felt as though she were a child again and very sick from the fever. Of course, she decided, she was ill with yellow fever, and Gincie was taking care of her. That was why she felt so awful, why she shivered so. She was so tired, so very sleepy, but once again the voice intruded on her when she began to fall asleep, and someone pulled off her clothes, and she felt a coolness settling across her body. That Gincie! Why wouldn’t she leave her alone? She wasn’t going to die from anything. She would survive the fever. Didn’t Gincie remember that?

  “Leave me alone Gincie,” Laurel mumbled and swatted weakly at the hand that stroked her brow. “Bronze John isn’t going to get me. You know that.”

  Was that a laugh she heard? Well, when she was better again, she would tell her mother how Gincie had laughed at her and wouldn’t leave her alone when she felt so sick. But where was her mother? she wondered and began to sob. Where was she?

  Sometimes, when she opened her eyes, there was light, but such a harsh light that she closed them again. At one point when she focused her eyes; she saw a man bending over her, a handsome man with dark, probing eyes. Who was he? But, of course, he must be her father, though he looked nothing like him. She wanted to smile at him, but her face hurt. Everything hurt, and she shook so horribly.

  All she could manage to say was a very low, “Papa” before slipping away to a place that no longer held visions of bright flowers and rainbows but of distorted memories from her childhood, of a strange man who forced her to drink something that made her gag.

  Sometimes loving hands stroked her face and body, bringing a welcome coolness to her. At other times she was cold, so terribly cold that her teeth clicked against each other like dice. She cried for her mother, for Gincie, for her father, feeling alone and frightened in a strange place, and no one came for her. No one but him, the stranger, who held her against him in a warm and comforting embrace.

  ~

  Laurel’s long lashes fluttered open uncertainly, and once more her eyes beheld darkness, not a strong ebony darkness where one saw nothing, but more like a soft, velvet black cloud where shapes were outlined and the night held no terror. Was she dead? She wasn’t certain, still unable to grasp where she was and that she had survived the fever that had racked her through the long day and into the night. Now she felt warm and safe, protected.

  A contented sigh escaped from between her lips, and Laurel snuggled deeper into the enveloping warmth that seemed to seep into her very bones, infusing her fever-racked body with renewed life. She still felt sleepy but was no longer weak and welcomed the enveloping warmth of the blanket and the strong arms that held her closely against a broad, fur-planed chest.

  She startled at realizing she wasn’t alone, discovering that someone held her, lazily stroking the silky flesh over her spinal column. She felt strong but gentle fingers drifting from her neck to the base of her spine, then stopping as if to consider exploring the fullness of her buttocks, only to retrace the same path. Her breasts, Laurel realized, were pressed against the man’s chest. Sprigs of chest hair cushioned her rose-tipped nipples against his powerful pectoral muscles. Even in the dark she felt the muscles flex and strain against her as if he wanted to draw her very body into his own. His shirt was open, though the collar scratched her cheek, and she felt his breath ruffle the strands of her hair. An intimate gesture, but not as intimate as the fact that her naked legs were entwined around his pant-clad ones. In the darkness Laurel colored, thinking she should draw away from this man’s embrace but not wanting to be left alone in the void she felt certain his leaving would herald.

>   Her mind was only beginning to clear. She recalled she had been sick, probably delirious, and though she didn’t actually remember seeing the man’s face, she felt he had been with her and nursed her through her delirium. And then the events of the night of the Mardi Gras dance washed over her, and she stifled a tiny gasp to realize that the man who held her now, the man who had saved her life, was the same person who had kidnapped her. A silent laugh bubbled up to her throat to think of the irony of the situation. Her kidnapper had become her savior.

  A strange calm possessed her. His intimate presence didn’t frighten her. She lay in his arms, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the tensing of his muscles when his arms pulled her protectively toward him. A sweet melting sensation flowed through her, only to be trapped in a tight coil in the center of her abdomen, seeming to build and claw at her, begging for some sort of a release she could scarcely imagine. Somehow she knew that this man wouldn’t hurt her, wouldn’t take unfair advantage of an ill woman. Perhaps she had been mistaken about him from the beginning. The man wasn’t an ogre, intent upon raping her. He was the man who had saved her life, and a bond had been forged between them. Nothing in her prim and proper past had prepared her for the rush of emotion that now threatened to consume her. She could feign sleep in his arms until he left her, or she could make him aware she was awake, but somehow she sensed he already knew this.

  In years to come Laurel would never quite know why she lifted her head to look into eyes that she felt watched her in the darkness. She only knew that if she didn’t, her life would take a different course. Her lips were even with his because she felt his breath upon her mouth when she murmured, “Thank you for saving my life.”

  When he didn’t reply, she wondered if he had heard her, but his answer, whatever it would have been, no longer mattered, for his lips descended upon hers to taste the warm honey of her mouth. The kiss was tentative, exploratory at first, then grew bolder, filled with the promise of his desire. Laurel moaned low in her throat as a spark ignited and slowly melted the coil within her abdomen until hot liquid coursed through her body, only to wind its way back to the lush, warm center of her womanhood.