In his ragged whisper, she heard echoes of goodbye.
Chapter Six
No doubt about it: Amon needed more coffee. Maybe there was some in the kitchen.
And maybe, after Josephine was safely married and in Galveston, he’d be able to sleep again.
Across the bedchamber, Ben stared into the mirror and retied his cravat. “So who is he?”
Amon propped a shoulder against the doorframe and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve told you all I know. Claims to be a relative of your bride.”
“And you took his word for it?”
“I did not.” Suppressing a yawn, he stepped into the room, holding out the letters. “He brought these.”
Ben snatched the notes and scanned the one on top. “‘Your adoring cousin, Josephine.’” Distaste crimped his expression. He flipped to the second sheet. “Who’s Madame Espallier?”
“She’s the woman Pa contacted in New Orleans. Introduces young ladies—”
Ben pinned him with a scowl. “I thought I made myself clear—family only.”
Amon shrugged. “He appears to be family.”
His brother inspected the letters again. “Has she mentioned any relatives?”
“Not to me. Maybe Jenny.”
“Well, that doesn’t help much.”
“Not the way you’ve acted lately.” Amon arched a brow.
Ben shot him a glare and reached for the waistcoat slung across the back of a chair. “Where is this Lucien Bouchard?”
“In the study, with Pa and Reverend Millson.”
After buttoning the vest, Ben adjusted his cufflinks. “I’d be a poor host if I didn’t introduce myself, now wouldn’t I?”
“Can’t have that. I’ll go with you.”
“I can handle this.” Ben eyed the denim trousers and cotton shirt that still held hints of honeysuckle. “You need to dress.”
“I’ve got thirty minutes.”
As Ben brushed by him in the doorway, he clasped Amon’s shoulder. When their gazes met, Ben’s lacked the usual self-confidence. “You will be there, right?”
“I’ll be there.” No matter how much he’d rather be somewhere—anywhere—else.
****
Jenny patted the duvet, beckoning Jo to the bed. “Come sit.”
Jo drifted across the carpet, the ivory silk of her skirt whispering with each step. Another whisper still warmed her neck. With numb fingertips, she traced the shadow of a tickle as she settled beside Jenny.
Napoleon bounced at her feet until the household manager lifted the tiny dog onto the mattress. Snuggling between them, he laid his head in Jo’s lap. She stroked the fawn-colored coat.
Elegant fingers took possession of Jo’s hands, and a gentle Creole voice broke the silence. “The gown is stunning.”
“Thank you. It was Maman’s favorite. The pearls were hers, too.”
“She would be proud you chose to wear them…but she would want to see you happy, as well.”
Jo forced a thin smile. “I am happy. Just a bit nervous, I suppose.”
The Creole’s caramel eyes bathed her with a warm, earnest gaze. “Bennett is a good man. He will be a good husband. Be patient with him.”
Jo had nothing but patience left to give. The pieces of her heart had been chipped away until no more remained. She’d buried chunks with her mother, her sister. Now, Jenny’s courage, her graceful navigation of two worlds that refused to accept her, had claimed another piece. The last sharp, painful shard disappeared with the blue-eyed Texan who’d left her standing hollow at the kitchen door last night. “I wish you could be at the ceremony.”
A wistful smile claimed Jenny’s café au lait features. “I will be, ma chère. In spirit. And le petit caporal will be with me.” Jenny scratched the top of Napoleon’s head.
The tiny dog stiffened. A soft rumble rolled from his throat.
“Napoleon.” Jo raised his muzzle and frowned into narrowed eyes. “That is no way to behave.”
He growled again and leapt from the bed. Jo’s gallant knight was only halfway across the bedchamber when the door flew inward and slammed against the wall.
****
Amon cocked his head and listened. Barking, fierce and not inclined to stop. Napoleon? What had wound the little critter so tight?
He set down the cold coffee and left the kitchen at a run.
Not even the steep rear staircase slowed Amon’s headlong dash. A pained yelp and a woman’s scream greeted him at the second-floor. Josephine.
Judgment Day could not have kept him from her room, but the tableau inside froze his heart.
Jenny lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. Napoleon snapped and snarled about the ankles of Josephine’s cousin, weaving in and out to avoid haphazard kicks.
White-knuckled fists clutching the duvet on either side of her voluminous skirt, Josephine faced the French fop from the bed. The defiance she wore like a shield would do her no good against the derringer in the man’s hand.
Bouchard’s soulless gaze never left Josephine’s face. “Stay where you are, monsieur, unless you wish to see the little tramp’s blood.”
When Amon took a step forward, Bouchard raised the pistol in a steady hand. Amon froze. With extreme effort, he smoothed a growl from his voice. “Put down the gun, Bouchard. You’re outnumbered.” He took another step.
A predatory grin snaked across the Frenchman’s face. “There is but one of you…and I have the only weapon.”
Bootsteps thundered down the hallway. Amon flung a hand above his shoulder to halt the reinforcements.
His brother’s disbelief hurtled into the chamber. “What the devil?”
“Easy, Ben.” Amon tamped down the fear gnawing his gut. “Meet Monsieur Bouchard.”
A hard-edged laugh erupted from some cold, dark hole inside the Frenchman. The madman’s gaze raked Amon and his brother, but the pistol didn’t waver. “Okay, now there are two of you—and I still have the only weapon.” His eyes narrowed. “Move away from the door, mes amis. I’ll not be denied what I paid to possess.”
Paid. The word rifled through Amon’s head. Napoleon snapped at Bouchard’s ankle. A vicious kick sent the tiny terror rolling under the bed with a single, high-pitched yelp. He did not reemerge.
Josephine bolted from the mattress. “Coward.”
“Josephine.” The stormy Gulf gaze that collided with Amon’s shredded the warning he meant to speak. He swallowed the fragments and put the plea on his face.
Returning his entreaty with one of her own, Josephine folded onto the duvet.
“I see we all understand one another. Move away from the door.” Bouchard’s thinned lips peeled back from his teeth. “Now.”
Amon cast an over-the-shoulder glance at his brother. His face betraying nothing, Ben sidled into the room. Hoping his expression didn’t reflect the sick churning inside him, Amon followed.
Bouchard yanked Josephine to her feet. Her cry spurred Amon forward.
His brother’s fingers dug into his elbow. “You’re not leaving here with my bride.”
“Your bride.” Another feral laugh burst from the Frenchman. “Not even on this pathetic frontier do men marry high-yellow trash like this.”
The spear that impaled Amon pierced his brother as well. Ben clutched Amon’s arm with bone-crushing force.
Josephine lowered her head and shrank into herself.
His eyes glittering with triumph, the weasel ushered her toward the door. “Ma chérie, shall we go?”
A click in the doorway drew the Frenchman’s attention. Pa’s level baritone stopped him cold in mid-step.
“Monsieur Bouchard, I believe I have you outgunned.”
In the heartbeat before Bouchard could react, Amon launched himself at the Frenchman. They tumbled to the floor together. The derringer fired. Glass shattered.
The rage in Amon’s fist broke the monster’s glass jaw. Bouchard went limp.
Chapter Seven
One of these days, Dumont’s closets woul
d explode. The skeletons just kept stacking up. Some still had flesh on their bones.
Amon locked the small storage room and flung the key down the hall. When Bouchard came around, he wouldn’t be able to do more than scratch his nose in a hole that size, and the sturdy door would keep him out of trouble long enough for Amon to untangle the mess in Jo’s bedchamber.
I’ll not be denied what I paid to possess. The words scraped the brand on Amon’s soul. If Bouchard told the truth, Ben must be boiling.
His brother barreled into him in the hallway, sidestepped, and shoved past. “Out of my way.”
“Ben?” Amon’s call stopped his brother at the top of the stairs.
Bennett’s rigid shoulders slumped. Exhaustion riddled his tone. “Thanks to the accident of your birth, I’ve spent my whole life trying to hold my head up in public. I’ve built a name, a reputation, a position.” The gaze that collided with Amon’s hung halfway between fury and defeat. “And with the stroke of a pen, your father nearly ruined me.”
A knot formed in Amon’s gut. “He’s your father, too.”
Ben’s teeth flashed. “Not anymore.” He shook his head on a long release of breath. “I’ll maintain the façade in public. If you have any decency, you will, too. But I’ll never set foot on this cursed land again.”
His boots pounded down the steps.
Amon waited for the echo to subside before sucking what composure he could from the air and joining what remained of his family.
Josephine stood by the window on the far side of the room, clutching the heavy drapes and staring into the distance through the glass. A fawn-colored tail beat a slow tattoo against her stiff back.
He ached to take her in his arms, make her tell him the truth, and then make her forget.
But he went to Pa and Jenny instead. Wrapped in an embrace, they propped one another up on the bed. A trickle of blood flowed from Jenny’s lip, and one elegant eye had swollen shut.
Amon cupped her café au lait cheek, wiping a smear of crimson from her chin with his thumb. “Are you all right?”
She mustered a wan smile and a nod.
He knelt before his father. “You?”
The vitality had left the old man’s eyes, leaving the blue muddy and dim. “Bennett’s gone, isn’t he?”
Amon gripped Pa’s gnarled hand and swallowed what he feared was the truth. “He’ll be back.”
The old man bowed his head on a nod. “Yes. He will be.” No certainty resided in his tone.
As he rose, Amon sucked another lungful of fortitude. Before he could change his mind, he strode across the room.
Though he stopped close enough for her back to burn his chest through all the layers of clothing between them, Josephine did not acknowledge his presence. He laid a gentle grip around her upper arm. She flinched.
“Mademoiselle, tell me Bouchard didn’t lie.”
The words turned her in a slow pirouette. When her tear-stained face rose to his, hope wrapped a pain behind his heart.
“Why would you wish that?”
Napoleon whined. Josephine gathered the tiny dog against her bosom.
Afraid to let any part of him near the expanse of fresh-cream skin the low bodice of her gown exposed, Amon touched a fingertip to Napoleon’s nose. “You are not injured, mon ami?”
A miniature tongue bathed his hand.
“He is well.”
Her tentative whisper drew his gaze. “You did not answer my question, mademoiselle.” She tried to turn away. He stopped her. “Josephine, look at me.”
She spoke to his shirt instead. “Plaçage is an old and honorable tradition among the Creole. Most of the gentlemen are honorable, as well. Some are not.”
Plaçage. Wealthy planters took free women of color as mistresses, paying their families a sort of bride price. Not quite what Pa had done with Jenny, but close. “You were a placée?”
“My mother and sister. They never wanted that life for me.”
The effort required to raise her chin nearly undid him. “So you…decided to pass.”
The Gulf spilled from gray-green eyes and flowed down her cheeks. “I had to leave New Orleans quickly. After Lucien killed my sister, Céline, he demanded I take her place.”
Amon’s control disintegrated. He set Napoleon on the window seat and gathered Josephine into his arms. Honeysuckle. No other flower would ever smell as sweet.
She sobbed against his chest. Each tear burned his skin. “I am so sorry. My deception has cost your brother.”
“He’ll survive. Even Ben has secrets. Everyone does.” He drew one more gulp of courage and raised his voice. “Isn’t that right, Maman?”
“Amon…” Jenny’s strangled moan clenched his eyes shut and knotted his jaw.
His father’s whisper sent a hard swallow down his throat. “Hush, my love. He’s a grown man.”
When Amon could find his voice, the words emerged ragged around the edges. “I’ll do whatever I must to protect Ben.” When he opened his eyes, the clear, cool, gray-green water of a cloudless summer day begged him to dive beneath the waves.
He lowered his head and kissed the last of the stains from her fresh-cream cheeks. The berry-tinted lips sought his.
Weeks ago, he’d been wrong. She tasted much, much sweeter than she looked. He could feast at her banquet forever. God willing, he would.
“I’m tired of living a lie in my own home. I want you, mon coeur. I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you on the dock.”
****
Jo’s pulse raced with such energy, she feared her veins might burst. What had she done to deserve such a man? “Bennett will never forgive us.”
A bittersweet smile tipped Amon’s lips. “Yes, he will. Eventually.” He brushed her lips with his. “And if he doesn’t, that will be his skeleton to claim, not ours.”
He drew back and set her at arm’s length. Right away, she missed the nearness of his body, his heart, his spirit. The blue gaze draped her with a caress. A wink put a smile on her face.
His lips turned up at the corners, reaching for the sparkle in his eyes. “You make a lovely bride. The minister’s still downstairs. It would be a shame—”
He never finished the sentence. Jo flew into his arms and swallowed the words. Keeping their secret to protect the Collier legacy might present challenges.
But loving this man for the rest of her life would be easy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR—KATHLEEN RICE ADAMS
Descended from a long line of Texas ranchers, preachers, and teachers on one side and Kentucky horse thieves and moonshiners on the other, Kathleen Rice Adams had no choice but to become an outlaw. For the past thirty years, she's stayed two steps ahead of a lynch mob as an award-winning news writer, editor, and columnist. Her debut short story, “Peaches,” appeared in the Prairie Rose Publications anthology Wishing for a Cowboy. When Kathleen’s not wrestling outlaws into submission, she wrestles the men in her life: a significant other of 25 years and three tiny canine tyrants. Find her on the web at www.KathleenRiceAdams.com.
PRAIRIE ROSE PUBLICATIONS
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Lassoing A Mail-Order Bride Page 16
