Each Time We Love (50 page)

There was a strangled croak from Charles, and Adam turned to
smile at him, that same tiger's smile that Betsey had seen last night.
"I'm sure," he added dulcetly, "that she will be most eager to see you."

As Adam walked away he felt regretful for the pain and
disillusionment that Pierre would suffer, but also confident that when
Betsey's disgrace was known, as it surely would be, she and Charles
would never again be able to show their faces in decent society, and
consequently, another young man like Pierre would not fall into their
unscrupulous hands. Socially, the Ashers were ruined; they would be
viewed as pariahs. And thinking again of his wife's brush with death
and his dead child, Adam was not really bothered very much at all by
the fate awaiting the Ashers…

ADAM'S
LETTER CHRONICLING THE RECENT TUMULTUOUS events in his
life reached Jason Savage at Terre du Coeur near the end of September.
The fact that Adam had married Savanna O'Rourke came as no very great
surprise to Jason, nor did the pregnancy, but the news that Savanna had
lost the child greatly disturbed him. Too well did he remember the pain
he and Catherine had suffered when she lost their second child just
after she had escaped from Davalos.

Meditatively, Jason stared at Adam's letter as he sat in his
study, late afternoon sunlight filtering through the long windows of
the house. So. Adam was married, was he? A rueful smile curved Jason's
full mouth. And like the scamp he was, Adam had left
him
with the delicate task of informing Catherine of the news!

Catherine did not take it well. Her amethyst eyes burned with
indignation after she had read Adam's letter, and since the object of
her wrath was safely situated at Campo de Verde, she glared impotently
at Jason.
"Married!"
she exclaimed fumingly. "How
could
he! And to that, that
creature's
daughter!"

She took an agitated turn around Jason's study and he eyed her
slender form appreciatively. Despite more than twelve years of marriage
and five children, Catherine Savage was still the most bewitching woman
he had ever laid eyes on, and when she was in a temper, as she was now,
her cheeks becomingly flushed, her eyes flashing with purple lights,
the heavy black silk hair tumbling in ringlets over her shoulders, she
reminded him vividly of the little gypsy wench with whom he had first
fallen in love all the years before.

Smiling imperturbably, Jason drawled, "Kitten, he didn't do it
to hurt you or to make you angry. He simply fell in love and couldn't
help himself. You aren't going to hold that against him, are you?"

Catherine stopped her angry perambulations and those beautiful
eyes of hers suddenly filled with tears. "Oh, Jason! You know I don't
begrudge him any happiness—it is just that Mama and I have so looked
forward to the day he would be respectably married to some
decent
young woman, and what does he do but leg-shackle himself in some
hole-in-the-corner affair to
Davalos's daughter!"

Getting up from his position behind the massive oak desk,
Jason strolled around to the front of it, and resting one hip on the
corner, he pulled a rigid Catherine into his arms. Amusement flickering
in his emerald eyes, he stared down into her unhappy face. "It isn't,"
he began deliberately, "the marriage that either one of us would have
wished for him, but unless you want to be estranged from him, I think
you had better prepare yourself to be, if not enthusiastic about his
choice, at least cordial when you meet her. He loves her, kitten! And
knowing Adam—he'll not take kindly to any slight shown his bride."

Catherine snorted and Jason said coaxingly, "Sweetheart, I
know it will be hard for you, but Savanna is nothing like her father.
She bears no resemblance to him in face or form and she has inherited
none of his ugliness of spirit."

When Catherine looked skeptical, Jason gave her a little
shake, saying persuasively, "Blood Drinker approves of her. On our way
back to Terre du Coeur, he said that she was precisely what Adam
needed, a beautiful, spirited woman who could match him for
stubbornness and temper!" A reminiscent grin split his mouth. "And if
you could have seen them together, the news of their marriage would not
come as any great shock. It was inevitable!"

Catherine remained unconvinced, but she did pick up the letter
again and reread it, this time her eyes filling with tears when she
came to the part about the child. "They must be shattered," she said in
a soft voice. A look of determination crossed her face. "We shall go to
them! Perhaps, because of the loss of our own child, we can help them
deal with this tragedy."

Jason relaxed, a warm light in his eyes as he gazed at his
wife. He had known that Catherine would take the news of Adam's
marriage to Davalos's daughter hard, but it said much of her character
that she was willing to put aside her own feelings and want to help
Adam's wife.

Dropping a kiss on her nose, he got up from his perch and
murmured, "I shall leave the packing to you."

The Savages were not the only ones planning on traveling to
the New Orleans area. At the same time that Catherine began her
packing, Micajah Yates was also considering a sojourn in that fair city.

Micajah and Jeremy had lurked about Natchez for a while,
hoping to get word of the mysterious stranger who had originally wanted
Adam St. Clair killed. Their efforts, as well as those of Jem, came to
naught, but they did pick up an interesting tidbit: it appeared that
Adam St. Clair himself was currently in the New Orleans area.

The Aztec gold was still uppermost in Micajah's mind, but at
the moment, he had been brought to a standstill. Without his having
either the knowledge which Jason Savage possessed or the information
Savanna claimed
not
to possess, his only link to
the gold was Jeremy, and Micajah still wasn't precisely enamored of the
idea of putting all his trust in Jeremy's abilities. It might come to
that, but not before he'd given it considerably more thought—or figured
out a way to once again be in a position to torture the knowledge he
wanted out of Jason Savage. In the meantime, there was the matter of
St. Clair…

Determined for pride's sake alone to dispatch the elusive Mr.
St. Clair, Micajah and Jeremy left immediately for New Orleans. Micajah
had another reason for wanting to go to New Orleans as well—he figured
that if anyone knew anything about Savanna's fate, it would be Bodene
Sullivan. Once they had reached New Orleans, deliberately leaving
Jeremy to his own devices, Micajah wasted little time in making his way
to Bodene's gaming establishment.

Micajah found The Golden Lady with ease, but having reached
his destination, he did not enter the handsome building. Instead he
prowled around in the darkness, familiarizing himself with the place.
There were only two ways into The Golden Lady, a front exit and a rear
one, and Micajah immediately dismissed them as ways of access for
himself. As far as he knew, there hadn't been any
recent
warrants sworn out against him, and since few of his victims ever lived
to tell of his atrocities, he wasn't very concerned about being
recognized as a notorious killer, but the idea of boldly confronting
Bodene made him distinctly uneasy. Bodene was likely to be mighty angry
about Savanna's kidnapping, and now that the moment was upon him,
Micajah was more than a little worried about facing Bodene's probable
wrath.

He scouted out the building again, this time looking
specifically for a way to break in undetected. There were few windows
on the bottom floor and most seemed to be occupied by gamblers intent
upon private games, from what he could hear with his ear pressed
against the heavily draped glass. Becoming slightly dejected, he
approached the last window at the back of the building and, placing his
ear once more to the warm glass, nearly jumped out of his skin when
Bodene's voice said silkily from behind him, "You know, one of my men
thought it was you lurking about out here. What were you hoping to
do—hear something interesting, my friend—like where Savanna is?"

"Goddammit,
Bodene! Don't go sneaking up
on a man that way!" Micajah yelped, jerking away from the window.
Chagrined and uneasy, he waited for Bodene's next move, becoming even
more uneasy when he became aware of the pistol that was poking him in
the spine.

"Well, if you wouldn't go sneaking around my place, I wouldn't
have
to go, er, sneaking up on you. And since that
little bit of business has been settled, why don't you join me in my
office, where we can have a nice, quiet,
private
conversation, hmm?" Bodene murmured.

The pistol barrel left his spine and Micajah breathed a trifle
easier until Bodene said softly, "I have the pistol on you—make one
move that I don't like and I'll be happy to put a hole through the
middle of your back. Right in front of a dozen witnesses, if need be.
Understand?"

Micajah swallowed painfully and nodded vigorously.

"Very well, then," Bodene went on quietly. "We will now walk
into The Golden Lady. Don't stop to talk to anyone and walk directly to
my office, which is the second door from the left as we enter. Try
anything at all, and it will be my pleasure, my very great pleasure, I
might add, to end your villainous days. Have I made myself clear?"

Micajah nodded unhappily, wondering miserably why with Bodene
he always seemed to end up in this invidious position. Once they were
in Bodene's office, however, some of his bravado came back and he
attempted a bluff. Turning to look at his captor, he blustered, "What
the hell's going on? Can't a man have a drink of whiskey without you
breathing down his neck?"

Bodene smiled coldly. "Considering what you did to Savanna,
you're damned lucky that I don't kill you! And the
only
thing that is stopping me from doing just that is the fact that I don't
want to dirty my hands with you—and that Savanna is safely at Campo de
Verde."

Micajah felt a wave of elation surge through him at Bodene's
words. It would appear that Savanna had survived her kidnapping by
Jason Savage and had somehow managed to come back home again. Uneasily
aware that Bodene was still looking at him with daggers in his eyes,
Micajah whined, "Now, don't take on that way! I didn't mean her no
harm! You know that I've always had an eye for Savanna, and I swear to
you that I would have married her in the end, after I'd, um, softened
her up some."

"You mean raped and beaten her into submission, don't you?"
Bodene snarled softly, and the expression on his face made Micajah step
backward, his shoulders bumping into the wall.

Micajah swallowed. "Well, if she wouldn't listen to reason,
what else could I do?" he asked with paralyzing candor.

Bodene's fine lips curled scornfully, but the urge to throttle
Micajah had left him. From days of old, he knew that there was no
reasoning with a man of Micajah's caliber and he was disgustedly aware
that no amount of argument could ever make Micajah see that there was
anything wrong in what he had done.