Midnight Flame (30 page)

“So you weren’t alone.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He grabbed her arm, hurting her. “Who were you with, Laurel? Who did you run off to meet? Was it Seth?”

“No. Why would you think such an absurd thing? Anyway, if I were meeting him, do you think I’d take off in the middle of the night? He happens to sleep only down the hall,” she reminded him and attempted to shrug off his hold, but his hand clamped down tighter.

“If I ever get wind that you’ve been seeing another man, I’ll kill him.”

“Big, brave bully.” Laurel trembled not from fear but from her own traitorous thoughts at realizing that Tony’s lips were inches away. “Your bullying tactics leave me cold.”

Even in the darkness she saw the flame kindle in his eyes. “Do they? Let’s see how you take to this then.”

Without any warning, his mouth captured hers and devoured her lips in a hungry, punishing kiss. She pushed clenched fists against his granite-hard chest, refusing to allow herself to feel anything for Tony. However, her body wasn’t of the same mind. Without meaning to, her fists unfurled and her fingers, fiery and satin smooth, splayed across the downy surface of taut pectoral muscles.

This response didn’t go unnoticed by Tony. “I know you want me, Laurel. You can’t live up to our agreement in the same way that I can’t. I want you now and will have you.”

The passion that had built within her dissolved at his words. She wanted him, and she knew he wanted her, but he had to learn that he couldn’t manipulate people because he deemed it so. Especially not her.

With a strength of will she pulled back. “You won’t bend me to your will! As far as I’m concerned, our agreement stands.” Twisting around, she rushed into her room and slammed the door behind her.

Outside she heard Tony’s loud curse, then his own door hitting the doorframe so hard the house seemed to shake.

~ ~ ~

“The object of your affection isn’t sharing a bed with his wife.” Seth leaned back on his elbows and watched in fascination as Simone sat up from the blanket spread on the grass. He had never known a woman more unself-conscious of her nudity than this one. Even the whores he had frequented in the last fifteen years of his thirty-one years didn’t possess her nymph-like beauty or stroll as unabashedly before him with only her long blond hair for cover. She pirouetted like a graceful ballerina and shot him a most engaging smile. If he wasn’t careful, he could fall in love with such a creature. However, Simone lacked the necessary requirement to win his heart. Money.

“Are you quite certain of this? If this is true, then Tony is as good as mine right now. I can feel that gold wedding band on my finger at this very moment.” Simone giggled as Seth pulled her down into his muscular arms.

“Do you always have to mention Tony Duvalier? I get tired hearing his name. It’s bad enough that I have to live in his house, but I hate hearing about him when I’m with you.”

Golden sunlight bathed Simone’s ivory body, which lay atop Seth’s tanned one. She ran her fingernails along his muscular thigh. “Do you know that when you make love to me, Seth, that I imagine you’re Tony?”

“Bitch!” He grabbed a handful of hair and pushed her onto her back until she lay half on and off the blanket. “I’ve got enough to worry about trying to win that cold-hearted wife of his away from him, but I thought you’d at least do me the courtesy of not thinking about him when I’m inside of you. God, Simone, I can’t stand it!”

Her eyes glowed with a feral light. Seth’s dark anger, the way he could break her in two with his powerful arms, the wonderful sensations he aroused within her when he made love to her, set Simone’s pulses to pounding. Seth Renquist wasn’t Tony, but he had the ability to drive her over the edge of ecstasy. She had lied to him. When she was in Seth’s arms, Tony’s image disappeared from her mind.

“Don’t you think of Laurel when you make love to me? I can’t believe you don’t wonder what it will be like when she’s your wife and all that wonderful money is yours at last. Tell me you don’t think such a thing even a little bit?”

Simone was right. He did dwell on bedding Laurel, but more importantly he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her fortune. Soon, he convinced himself, he would take her away from Tony and marry her. Then everything he had ever wanted would be his. The problem was how to handle the situation. An unborn child stood in his way, and though he wasn’t certain, he felt this was the reason Laurel stayed at Petit Coteau. Tony, he realized, had done something unforgivable as far as Laurel was concerned, and this prevented her from going to Tony’s bed.

However, he would have to say farewell to Simone when he did win Laurel’s love, and leaving this blond-haired and lusty woman might prove harder than he expected. He couldn’t help smiling in triumph when she arched her body and her lips found his, tracing delicious patterns with her tongue. This was a woman who matched his passion and desires in all ways. The day would come when he would leave her and they would both win their dreams, but for now she belonged to him.

“You’re a heartless vixen,” he mumbled as his lips found the throbbing peak of a nipple.

“Oui, chéri,
but you adore me.” She made purring sounds like a cat and wrapped her slender legs around his waist, eager for Seth’s first strong thrust. Seth didn’t disappoint her.

~ ~ ~

Essie ran into the parlor, her eyes as big as two ebony saucers and interrupted Laurel’s tea. Denise and Jean were there, and Tony was drinking brandy and stood by the mantel.

“Monsieur, madame,” Essie began, out of breath. “That dirty Denis Jeanfreau and his brother are very angry. They’ve just been to the Dauzets, lookin’ for Hippolyte, and now they’re comin’ here.”

Laurel jumped up, immediately knowing the reason why. Denise and Jean made sounds of surprise and disapproval, but Tony only glanced in a laconic fashion. “Is that all, Essie?” he asked.

“Oui,
monsieur, but they’re comin’ with guns—”

Tony broke in. “Thank you. You may go.”

Essie fairly scudded from the room to take refuge at the back of the house.

Jean stood up and went to the cabinet in the corner of the room that contained Tony’s pistols. “Perhaps you should open it,” he suggested to Tony.

“Why? I’m not afraid of Jeanfreau and that slimy brother of his.”

“Maybe you should be,” Denise said, backing up her brother. “Those Jeanfreaus are a nasty twosome.”

Tony laughed and placed his brandy glass on the mantelpiece. “The day hasn’t come yet when I’ll allow riffraff to enter Petit Coteau and intimidate me.”

Laurel stood uncertainly by, twisting her fingers together.

“You haven’t expressed your opinion,” he said to her. “What do you think I should do?”

She lifted her head. “I believe you’re formidable enough to scare even the Jeanfreaus away if you wish without benefit of firearms. Your black mood lately is frightening to behold.”

“You know exactly why I’m in a black mood, as you so eloquently put it. But you’re not scared of me, are you, Laurel?”

“No, Tony, I’m not,” she said and meant it. “However, I’m not usually drunk like the Jeanfreaus. Their wits may not be about them today, and I wouldn’t put it past them to use a gun. Jean might be right about arming yourself.”

“I think we’re missing something here,” Denise told Jean, who instantly nodded his head.

As Tony was unlocking the cabinet, loud cursing could be heard on the front gallery. The knocker on the door clanged harshly and reverberated through the house. Instead of rushing to the sound, Tony calmly loaded the pistol, and when he was ready, he waved away the butler and opened the door himself.

Laurel watched from the foyer as the Jeanfreaus attempted to push their way into the house, each brandishing a pistol. Tony, in turn, pointed his own pistol, the ominous click stopping their further entrance. “What do you want here?” Tony growled like a panther.

Both of the men appeared to have been drinking. Stale wine stained their shirts, and they also smelled of cheap whiskey. A startled look crept across their faces when they noticed the large, gleaming silver pistol pointed at them. For a moment the bravado that liquor gave Denis Jeanfreau deserted him, and he faltered under Tony’s hard and unflinching gaze. He knew that if provoked, Tony wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. Jacques, noticing his older brother’s hesitation and not about to be intimidated by the high and mighty Tony Duvalier, attempted to push past Tony.

“Come one step closer, and I’ll shoot you where you stand, Jeanfreau.”

This time Jacques understood Tony meant what he said and slowly lowered his gun to his side. He knew he could kill Tony Duvalier just as easily, but he would still lose. The law would hunt him down and shoot him like a dog. Not a pretty death, by any means. He had only meant to scare Duvalier with the gun, but now it appeared that he was the one to be frightened. And if he did try to kill Duvalier, he couldn’t rely on Denis to back him up. His brother was still half drunk.

“We want Hippolyte Dauzet. Where is he?”

“I haven’t seen Hippolyte all day,” Tony answered. “Now get off my property.”

“Not until we find that thief and discover what he did with Roselle and the rest of her family.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tony said smoothly.

At this point Denis’s courage seemed to return, and he lunged forward, only to be halted again by the pistol aimed straight at his heart. “I want my wife. Hippolyte has taken her away, and I’d bet anything he brought her and that scrawny mother of hers and those brats here and hidden them somewhere.”

“On Petit Coteau? You’re mad, man! Now get off my land, the two of you, before I shoot you through for trespassing.”

“I want my wife!”

“Jeanfreau, if the girl has run away from you, I wish her all the luck in the world.”

Tony’s statement caused the man to scowl. “You think you’re such a big man, Duvalier, but I got you where it hurts. In the moneybag, monsieur, where all you rich men hurt. None of you bleed like regular men and have no feelings except for gold. You think you can look down your nose at me and mine, but you can’t. I’ve taken something of yours and—”

“Denis, come with me!” Jacques grabbed his brother by the arm and yanked him from the porch toward his horse.

Denis attempted to rush past Jacques, but Jacques was stronger and whispered something to him that immediately caused Denis to mount the nag. Before he and Jacques rode away, he cried, “I’ve had my revenge on you and your kind, Duvalier! And keep that meddlesome wife of yours away from my property. I don’t want her bringing me and mine old clothes like we were trash!”

They rode away. When the two riders had disappeared, Tony closed the door and saw Laurel standing nearby, a red splotch on each cheek.

“So, you’ve been ministering to the needy, I see, even after I told you not to bother with those people.”

“Yes.” Defiance shone in her eyes, which he couldn’t miss.

“Have you done anything else I should be aware of?”

“If I have, Tony, you would be the last person I’d tell.”

She turned around and entered the parlor, the gentle swishing sound of her green-and-white- striped skirts echoing in the foyer. Tony stared after her, feeling as if she had punched him in the gut.

~ ~ ~

The next morning after Tony was long gone from the house, Seth insisted that Laurel accompany him on a buggy ride around the plantation. Laurel readily agreed since she was bored with staying in the house.

Denise and Jean had stayed the night; and just as Laurel and Seth were leaving the house, Denise called to Laurel from the top of the stairway.

“Where are you going?” Denise asked.

Laurel tied her bonnet around her chin. “We’re going for a ride around Petit Coteau.”

“How nice. May I go with you? I’ll only be a moment while I fetch my shawl. I freckle in the sun.”

“Of course.”

Denise shot them a beguiling smile and headed for her room.

Laurel followed Seth onto the veranda where he impatiently pulled a cheroot from his vest pocket. Until now, he had been affable and his usually cold eyes had been lit by an inner fire. Now he gazed at her in stony silence. She wondered if this transformation had something to do with Denise accompanying them on their ride, and she voiced this thought.

“I hope you don’t mind Denise inviting herself, Seth, but she is my dearest friend.”

He lit the thin cheroot and held it between his fingers. “I had hoped to be alone with you.”

She didn’t care for the sound of that. His voice was a low growl, almost as if he were more than upset, almost desperate even.

“Why, Seth? Have you had word from Uncle Arthur? Is he worse?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know, Laurel. I don’t know if I’m coming or going when I’m around you.” He grabbed her hand. “I’ve grown quite fond of you, and I think you’re unhappy—”

The sound of Denise’s bubbling laughter broke into Seth’s words, and Laurel noticed him scowl. But when Denise appeared, he smiled pleasantly and took both women’s arms to help them into the buggy. Laurel wondered what was the matter with Seth. She hoped he hadn’t been about to tell her that Arthur Delaney was worse, but no matter what her uncle’s condition was, she couldn’t leave Petit Coteau now. She had promised Tony she would have their baby here, that she would remain his wife. Perhaps after the baby’s birth, she would go to San Antonio, but not now. She promised herself she would ask Seth later what he had been about to say before Denise interrupted them.