Carnal in Cannes (28 page)

Fuck.

“Damn it, Martine, you were going to give yourself to him while we were together?” The concept couldn"t begin to resonate through his brain. He grabbed the edge of the desk because the urge to shake her silly raged within him.

“Harry, how could you think such a thing?” She shoved at his chest. “Non, I am the way he can bend Casmir to his will.”

“This is getting fricking insane,” he growled. “What possible way could he use… You and Casmir?”

“Not what you"re thinking,” she retorted. “Casmir is my friend. He rescued me from the boat I stowed away on. I would"ve died on that boat if he hadn"t stolen me and taken care of me.”

Two and two added into ten. “You were whipped in Haiti? By this Jean, your master.”

Throwing her hands up in the air, she yelled, “Fine, the flogging it is.” She snorted. “His wife, the mambo, she had me whipped because my blue eye hexed Jean-Claude, her common-law husband.”

“Harry,” Geoff bellowed and banged on the door. “Are you two going to be done anytime soon?”

“It"s fricking open,” Harry roared and wished to God he had something to pound. He had an about-to-kill-someone grip on the mahogany wood. “Not fricking likely.”

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Geoff opened the door and poked his head through. “The witches are getting restless. I"m expecting hissing and clawing any minute.”

“Let "em go,” Harry barked. “One conniving woman in my life is more than enough.”

Geoff"s eyes widened. “Ah, your first marital discord.” The door snapped shut.

Harry heard Geoff snicker.

Jamming his hip half onto the desk, he pointed at the leather sofa. “Sit. Start from the beginning.”

“The cargo ship sold boys and girls, rum and spices. Casmir bought the sick children, and they told him about me, that I was in the hold hiding but too sick to walk.”

“Begin with what happened in Haiti.”

She stared at her boots, and her lips pinched tight before she took a deep breath and rushed out, “Jean-Claude Fournier is one of the many assistants to the chief of police for Port-au-Prince. The police in Haiti, you understand, control everything. Whether you have water or electricity, such that there is.” She sniffed.

“Only now do I know water and electricity are supposed to be on all the time.”

“Stay on topic,” he ordered.

“The police control who can sell in the market, who can get a government job.

The shop owners pay the police to stay open.”

“I get the picture, Martine. Stop stalling.”

“I do not like you like this,” she said.

“Tough.”

When the quiet in the room made their breathing sound like waves crashing in a storm, she muttered something in French Harry didn"t catch, pouted like a two-year-old, and shot him a narrow-eyed scowl. “I took Jean-Claude his lunch when he met with the chief in Port-au-Prince once a week. Many times I had to wait in the office for a long time because he and the chief had gone out. The other policemen knew what the mambo had said about my blue eye. They didn"t want me to look at them, so they would lock me in the closet next to the chief"s office until Jean-Claude came back. Sometimes they forgot to let me out. I could hear everything the chief and he said. I—”

Her mouth pinched, and she stopped speaking.

Harry studied the way Martine twisted her fingers together. Then she squared her shoulders and stared into his eyes. “Harry, you must promise me you won"t do what you said before. The chief and Jean-Claude, they have eyes everywhere. If you try to kill the mambo”—she fisted a hand to her mouth, and a tear leaked from her blue eye—“they will kill you. They will hunt you down and kill you. Life is cheap in Solino. Not even worth four American dollars.”

The tear washed away his anger at her, but he was too into interrogator zone to stop.

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Harry eased off the desk and settled beside her on the couch, locking their gazes together. Carefully he gathered her onto his lap and brushed away the drops streaming from both eyes. “Who has your back, Martine?”

A tremulous weedy smile failed to lift her lips. “You do,” she whispered. “But I have your back too, Harry.”

“Trust me on this one, wife,” he whispered back. “Tell me the rest.”

“I heard something I shouldn"t have.” She licked the corner of her mouth.

“That many of the orphanages run by foreigners in Haiti sold boys and girls to men and women all over the world. Jean-Claude recorded the meetings with the foreigners for the chief on a camera. I heard him say where he kept it.”

Harry ran his palm up and down her spine but never looked away, and he knew she didn"t know her tears had dampened her cheeks, neck, and the shirtdress.

“The next week one of the boys in the village told me when I was on the way to take Jean-Claude his lunch I was going to be whipped the following night in front of all of Solino. I thought if I stole the camera, I could make Jean-Claude make his wife, the mambo, stop the whipping.”

She flashed him a sad smile. “Idiot Martine. Why did I believe the boy who shaved my head and threw stones at me would tell the truth? I stole the camera that very afternoon. But my whipping wasn"t the following night. They grabbed me on the way home. I do not remember past the first five blows, but, Harry, I shed not one tear before I passed out.”

She lifted her chin, and that pride and courage and determination he"d seen that first time in Grasse glinted in her odd-colored eyes. And in that single instant, Harry knew he not only loved Martine Bellamy Ford, he needed her like he needed oxygen, like he needed water, like he needed food. He needed her, for only Martine Bellamy Ford nourished his soul.

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Chapter Fourteen

The vivid images in Martine"s mind crumbled when Harry"s blurred image became sharp. Her ears no longer heard the crack of the whip but his voice crooning, “That"s it, sugar, cry. Get it all out.”

She blinked and found she had to swallow three times before she could speak.

“I never cry.” But the “never” came out wobbly, and a sob muffled the word “cry.”

“Of course not.” He wiped her cheeks with a tissue, held another to her nose, and ordered, “Blow.”

Sending him a squinted glare, she blew.

“Here,” he said, “drink,” and brought a glass of water to her mouth.

I am thirsty.

Very parched, as she drank the whole glass and half of another. “I"m better.”

“Do you have any idea how long you were out?”

There went the hope he wouldn"t force the rest of the tale from her. She sighed, leaned over to snatch another tissue from the box on the coffee table, and dabbed at the damp splotches on her cheeks.

“Someone took me to the nuns. They fixed me up as best they could and sent someone to find Grand-mère. She arranged for one of her friends to get me to the cargo ship. We were two days in port. Grand-mère nursed me. I made her send for the camera.” Martine smiled. “I learned well from Jean-Claude. Hide in plain sight.

No one would ever have found it.”

Harry circled a finger over her ear, and his brown eyes held a golden glint. He smiled his one-sided grin and said, “I"d lay lottery odds on that one. Where?”

“There is a tree next to the Port-au-Prince police station that bears brown fruits.” She cupped both hands. “This size. I had brown sacking. I made a fruit, put the camera in two plastic bags, then into the sack, and hung it from the seventh branch. Twice my height from the ground.”

“Clever wife,” he said. “Clever, beautiful, and brave.”

A hot blush ripped from toes to scalp. “I was not boasting.”

“You should be. You scammed an entire police force.” Harry"s expression grew somber, his grin flattening. He closed his eyes and blew out a long breath that fluttered the lapels on her dress. “That"s what you had in the suitcase.” When he looked at her again, his mouth had that slant fast becoming familiar. He"d worn it 142

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the entire time he showed her how to use the iPhone. “And just where is this camera?”

Martine"s mouth yanked down so hard her neck went taut and she dropped her gaze. “I ruined one…no, two of your books.”

“Two?” he snapped and groaned loudly. “What"s in the other book?”

“My birth paper.” She twisted her hands together.

Harry tipped her chin up with a finger. “You have a birth certificate?”

“Why is it so surprising?” She squared her shoulders. “My maman was the daughter of one of the most famous mistresses of her time, my grand-mère. My grand-père was a rich, important man, and he had Maman christened. By the time I was born, my grand-père was sickly, but he made sure the birth was recorded.”

Harry shook his head and muttered, “Just when I think the onion"s peeled, you add another layer.” He sighed again. “Okay. You and your mother are illegitimate.

But your grandfather took care of his children and grandchildren.”

“Oui, he was of the old school.” She shook her head. “But his sons were not.

One of his sons was my papa. He raped my maman. She had me very young, fourteen. Then my grand-père died, and his wife threw all of us out of the house we lived in. My maman had a taste for the rum.” She stared ahead unseeing. “Grandmère told me the story often so I would know I came from quality. Grand-mère taught me my manners, made me balance a jug on my head so I would walk like a lady.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“No one has seen her for many years. She had many children after me, but none of them has birth papers. And I"ve only seen three of them once. But so long ago I don"t remember their faces.” She had never said any of this aloud, and the force of the words made her stop breathing for a second. Biting down hard on the inside of one cheek, she forced herself to stop talking.

Tell him only what he wants to know.

“We left Haiti and were at sea forever, or so it seemed. Sometimes storms would make the boat pitch until I thought we would go under. Grand-mère had left me food, but my wounds burned, and I ate little. I didn"t know there were children on board until one was sent down to the hold to get bottles of rum. Then I became sick, and I remember little until I was on Casmir"s boat. I stayed with him for some weeks before he thought me able to travel. Some of my cuts were not healing well, so he took me to a Gypsy healer in Grasse.”

“Where we first met,” he stated. “How long were you in Grasse?”

“Six weeks. Then I went back to Marseille, and Casmir found me work in the bistro.” Martine examined his face, relieved when she found him not frowning or his lips banded into a tight line. “The bistro closes for two weeks at the end of the season, so Casmir found me the work with caterers in Grasse.”

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“Round about then was when Geoff suggested Madame Christen to me.” Harry leaned back on the sofa. “If it hadn"t been for Carol-Ann chasing me, we might never have met.”

“Carol-Ann?” Martine"s hackles rose, and she imitated the Texas accent that had played in her mind for weeks. “„Come out, come out wherever you are. Harrison Indiana Ford, you can"t escape me forever."” Jabbing her hands onto her hips, she asked, “Another lover?”

“I"ve never lived with anyone for six weeks on a boat,” he retorted, the color high on his cheekbones. “Like I said before, you can technically be a virgin but still have done everything else.”

“Casmir is my friend. Was Carol-Ann
your
friend?” Through sheer force of will, she"d blocked all images of a naked Harry with a naked Delora, but the thought of this Carol-Ann was too much to bear.

“Martine, the past is the past.” Harry scrubbed his face. “Let"s stay on track.

Why would you go to the Bandoleer? Why not get the forged papers from Casmir?”

“I owe him too much, Harry.” That he could even ask the question shocked her.

“It made sense. You pay me, I pay the Bandoleer, and then I find a way to pay back Cas for what he has done. A way to make him happy. He"s not a happy man.”

“Cas?” Harry asked.

“His people call him that.” She waved both hands. “And that is the story.”

“Not quite, missy,” Harry drawled. “How did you know you would be the only virgin?”

“Oh that. Not so hard.” She shrugged and rushed out. “I
am
shocked about Yvonne. That"s why Austen left the room, non? Poor man.”

“Martine,” he growled, sounding just like the bears she"d seen on the television.

Why did he want to know about all her lies? Her lips pinched tight as she searched for a way to tell yet not tell.

“The Bandoleer"s wife knows Madame Christen—they grew up in the same village. She suggested me to her. Then she wrote many responses to the advertisement. Madame interviewed the girls on the telephone.” She waited for him to understand. “A woman from Germany. One from Geneva. From everywhere.”

When the lines on Harry"s forehead grew deeper, she did her imitation of Marlene Dietrich as Shanghai Lily in the
Shanghai Express.

His mouth slanted the familiar exasperation of earlier. “You did all the interviews using different accents and voices.”

“Oui.” She grinned. “Madame never suspected.”

“Why would the Bandoleer"s wife deceive her friend?”

“Madame has scruples, or so the Bandoleer"s wife said,” Martine replied. “The list came down to twenty-five. We sent Gypsy girls to the doctors knowing all nine were virgins. On the last day we substituted nine girls we knew were not virgins.”

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“I"ve been played by pros,” Harry muttered. “I never thought you capable of such scheming.”