Deceive Not My Heart (31 page)

Leonie had never once envied Yvette her exquisite beauty, but in that moment, seeing Morgan's obvious bedazzlement, she felt a stab of something that came perilously near to envy... and jealousy. She did not like it at all that her husband found Yvette quite so attractive. Angry at the foreign emotions that had pierced her, she said coldly, "She is my companion, Yvette Fournier."

"Ah, yes, the companion," Morgan murmured with an odd note in his voice. What he had expected he didn't know, but somehow, while Leonie had so cleverly projected the image of a damsel in distress, he hadn't been prepared for the companion to also show the unmistakable stamp of breeding. It was disturbing, and Morgan began to see how his father and Dominic could have come to believe Leonie's lying tale.
She doesn't make one wrong step, does she?
he thought viciously.

Justin, still held carelessly in his arms, felt the change in him, and anxiously tugged at Morgan's collar and asked, "You do not like
Tante
Yvette? She is very nice... and I love her best next to maman!"

Morgan recovered himself instantly, and grinning into Justin's puzzled features, he said easily, "I don't see how I could not, especially since you seem so fond of her."

Justin giggled and wiggled out of Morgan's hold. Scampering across the room to grasp Yvette's hand, he pulled her towards Morgan. "Come,
Tante
Yvette and meet my papa! He is to give me a pony!"

Shyly, Yvette approached him, just a little apprehensive at finally meeting Leonie's mysterious husband. "How do you do, monsieur," she murmured softly, the dreamy brown eyes like huge velvet pansies.

Morgan returned a polite greeting, and having recovered from the first shock of Yvette's startling beauty, he decided that while she was beautiful beyond belief, he rather preferred a lion-maned little cat with golden-green eyes. Glancing over his shoulder at Leonie's rigid form, his gaze slipped mockingly down the length of her and he drawled, "It seems that I am to play host to
two
lovely ladies. I am certain that after all my lonely bachelor years I shall find it a most pleasant experience."

He watched with amusement the angry clenching of Leonie's fist, and then swinging back to Yvette, he said, "I must bid you all good day for the present, but I look forward to seeing you in just a short time at Le Petit. Until then..."

He bowed politely, sent Leonie an infuriatingly mocking little smile and sauntered out of the room. Morgan had barely passed through the doorway when Justin flung himself on Leonie's bed and begged, "Oh, do hurry, maman! I want to see our new house... and to make certain that papa gets my pony!"

Leonie gave him a strained smile and made some placating reply. She could not, it appeared, avoid moving into the new house with her husband any more than she could have avoided coming to Bonheur last night. Her emotions and thoughts in a jumble, she pulled off the cotton shift and then began to dress in the gown she had worn yesterday.

Yvette, like Justin, seemed to be taken with Morgan, and as Leonie did her brief toilet at the marble washstand and furiously dragged a brush through the unruly mane, she had to endure listening to the two of them speak in rapturous tones about her beastly husband. It was galling, all the more so because she could not and would not disillusion either of them about him or his unscrupulous manners.

And yet she was intensely grateful for the way he had treated Justin; too easily he could have made some disparaging remark or have been cruel to the boy. That he had not surprised her and made her just a little uneasy. This Morgan Slade was
not
acting as she had assumed he would.

But what was worse than that was her own traitorous reaction to him. Too well could she remember the leap of her heart at the sight of him standing in her doorway, and even worse, the memory of the warm wave of shocking pleasure that had coursed through her body when he had kissed her. It should have disgusted her, filled her with repulsion, but it had not; and she found it impossible to believe that her own body and senses had betrayed her so treacherously.
Mon Dieu, I am going mad, I think!

With a sort of helpless fury, she watched as Mercy, whom Morgan had sent over to Bonheur to help Leonie pack, moved busily about the room, deftly putting into Leonie's small, worn valise the few things that had been taken out last night. Mercy was full of Morgan—how handsome he was; how kind he was; how tidy the little houses were that he had assigned to them; how charming was Le Petite, and most of all, how lucky was the little madame to have a husband such as he. Leonie gritted her teeth and bit back the furious retorts that tangled in her throat. It was all she could do to keep from screaming with rage that she did
not
want to be Morgan Slade's wife!

But for all her thwarted anger, Leonie was deeply puzzled and appalled that now, after all these years, and after even going so far as to deny her existence last night, this morning he appeared resigned, almost eager to claim her as his real wife. The Morgan Slade that she had met in New Orleans had made it very clear that a wife was the
last
thing he wanted, and after their aborted wedding night, she had been certain that she would be the
last
woman he would want as his wife. Perhaps
he
was mad? Or, the thought occurred chillingly, could it be that he was going to avenge himself on her?

Morgan was quite, quite sane, but it can't be denied that he was harboring thoughts of revenge... and enjoying himself far more than he had in years. But if Leonie was puzzled and angry so was Morgan. He had found the child, Justin, an irresistible little scamp, but he wondered disgustedly what sort of unscrupulous bitch would make her own child a party to such a nasty, sordid scheme as she was undertaking. And yet, she had not looked like an unscrupulous bitch as she had played so enticingly with Justin, nor did Yvette appear to be the sort of hard-faced, calculating creature one associated with this type of ruse. The servants too all seemed authentic, and still trying to find a chink in her tale, Morgan spent the next several minutes talking with Abraham as the lanky black man moved about in the stables, happy after so long a time, to be, working once again amongst the spirited, clean-limbed animals that occupied the various stalls.

The conversation with Abraham gained him little, as did the one with Mammy, busy in her new kitchen, or the one he had with Saul, as Saul had explored the spacious grounds of the house which would be his province from now on. Growing more frustrated by the hour, Morgan sought relief in the small office he had spied earlier that morning.

Already his father had sent over a few things to make it even more comfortable, and opening the door, Morgan discovered that the room, like Le Petit itself, lacked nothing. A pair of tall windows looked towards the woods, while another set faced the boxwood gardens. A long leather sofa was against one wall, and a huge oak desk with a chair stood near a pair of French doors that opened onto a small, secluded courtyard, where presumably the master of the house could take in a breath of fresh air when the demands of the estate became too much for him. The courtyard had also been furnished; a white iron table with four matching chairs had been placed in the center. Morgan stood in the middle of the French doors, gazing out at the pleasant scene.

Turning back towards the inside of the office, he noted the fireplace near the sofa and the two tall-backed chairs, covered in a pleasing shade of gold, that sat nearby. A pair of mahogany bookcases were behind the desk, and a writing table and a chair of oak rested under one of the sets of windows. The floor was covered with a carpet in a soft russet as were the curtains that lined the windows, and taking another long glance around the room, Morgan decided that under other circumstances he would have found the room more than adequate for his needs.

Seating himself behind the desk, idly his fingers played with the quill and inkwell that rested on its polished surface as he mulled over all that he had learned this morning—which was damned little, he decided with frustrated anger. Everyone backed up Leonie's story. By God, but she had planned this cleverly and primed them all well in their parts, he conceded with reluctant admiration.

But more than that, all of them
looked
the part, right down to their clothes and possessions. As he had talked with the various blacks, he had made a mental note of the bedraggled mules and the condition of the two wagons, as well the cherished, well-worn copper pots that Mammy had insisted upon using in the new kitchen. Their clothes were clean and presentable, but it was obvious that they were old and threadbare. Even during the brief time he had spent in Leonie's room, he had unconsciously gathered certain impressions—Leonie's night shift, for one thing, was certainly not what one would expect a conniving adventuress to wear. Nor were Justin's clothes much better than those of the blacks, as they too had show signs of being well-worn and, even more tellingly, of not having been of the first quality when they had been new. Even Yvette's gown, while charming, showed that it had never been expensive or particularly stylish, and Morgan was well versed in the cut and cost of women's wearing apparel; he had paid the dressmaker's bill for too many gowns for the various women in his life not to be.

So, what did that tell him? he wondered sardonically. That his little wife had planned well? That she had left nothing to chance? That every word that came out of that sweet mouth could be reinforced by her cohorts? Morgan snorted. It did rather look that way.

Which left him where?
With a lying, conniving wife I don't want!
he thought explosively.
And a son, too,
he reminded himself. A son he knew was
not
his!

Oh, he could see where his parents might think that Justin resembled him, but then, that black hair and decided chin could have come from any number of other men—an aggressive jawline and a jutting, masculine chin were not the sole property of the Slade family!

For the moment, he would have to play the game as the cards were dealt to him. He would let Madame Leonie run her length, and when the noose tightened, he'd be there to see her brought down.

In the meantime, it would behoove him, he decided, to send someone to New Orleans to double-check her background and the story she told. Maybe he would get lucky and there would be some tiny mistake that she had made, thereby giving him the leverage to explode her clever little tale for the pack of lies it was.
And for the present—
Morgan smiled—
for the present, I shall enjoy
all
the rights and pleasures to which a husband is entitled!

Chapter 15

Five days passed. Five days of tranquility and peacefulness on the surface, but underneath a seething cauldron of suspicion, and wariness. Fortunately, only Leonie and Morgan were the guardians of those emotions; everyone else, from Morgan's parents on down to Justin, were aware only of the pleasant veneer that the other two showed the world.

Justin was most ecstatic. Within two days of their moving into Le Petit, a pony, "black as thunder," arrived, and from that moment on Justin was Morgan's adoring slave. Everything that papa did met with his full approval, and Morgan could hardly take a step without finding Justin tagging along behind him.

For Leonie, the sight of Justin happily scampering behind Morgan's tall form as he went about his not-very-arduous duties was a knife thrust in her heart, and her mistrust and suspicion of Morgan Slade grew. Only he and she knew the truth of their abortive wedding night, and Leonie wondered uneasily more than once why he had so casually and effortlessly acknowledged the child. He
had
to know that Justin was not his, and yet he actually appeared to
like
the child. Certainly he did not discourage Justin's blatant desire for his company; of late, too often had Leonie seen Justin dart after Morgan crying, "Papa! Papa! Wait for me!" Morgan, his lean features lightened with a warm smile, would stop and catch Justin up in his arms, and with Justin happily perched upon his shoulders the two of them would wander off to the stables, or to the office or on secret little rides of their own, Morgan atop the snorting, cavorting Tempete, and Justin merrily astride the newly named Thunder.

The others, Yvette and the blacks from Saint-Andre, were all happily settling in at Le Petit as if they planned to live there forever. With every passing day, Leonie felt they were slipping away from her, as if they had somehow mysteriously become aligned with the despicable Morgan Slade. No one, it seemed, gave a thought anymore to the possibility of their returning to Chateau Saint-Andre, and as time passed and she was still no nearer to reclaiming her dowry, Leonie had to admit that it seemed the Chateau was to be lost to her forever.