The Setup

by Marie Ferrarella

  “You do remember fun, don’t you, Sylvie?”

  Sylvie made her way over to the first crate. These paintings weren’t going to take themselves out. “Vaguely.”

  Renee followed her, shaking her head, her point driven home. “See, Sylvie, you’re becoming stodgy.”

  Sylvie pretended to roll her eyes and placed the back of her hand to her forehead. “God forbid I turn into Charlotte.”

  “And just what’s wrong with turning into me?”

  Sylvie and Renee glanced around to see their older sister walking into the gallery through the hotel entrance. Anyone looking at the petite, slender woman with her exotic almond eyes and dark auburn hair would have guessed her to be closer to thirty than forty. All the Marchand women took after their mother and grandmother, both of whom looked to be ten to fifteen years younger than they were.

  “I don’t think I could be that much of a workaholic,” Sylvie replied cheerfully, not missing a beat.

  “It’s an acquired taste,” Charlotte replied dryly. “Besides, that’s what this is all about.” She tapped the piece of paper that was still in Renee’s hand. “To keep you from becoming another me.”

  Charlotte had her own story. And her own heartbreak. In love with one man, she’d married another on the rebound. She’d tried her best to make a go of a less-than-perfect union, but the marriage was doomed from the start. Charlotte’s husband turned out to have a penchant for romancing anything with a shapely pair of hips and evidently had no intention of giving up his hobby after marriage. Once they were divorced, Charlotte had thrown herself headlong into the family business, and hadn’t come up for air since.

  “If you ask me, you’re the one who should be going out with—” Sylvie paused to read the name at the top of the application. “Mr. Jefferson Lambert.” The line beneath it listed the applicant’s occupation. “Look, he’s a lawyer. That’s perfect for you.”

  But Charlotte shook her head. “Not my type, Sylvie. Says right here he likes performance art, modern painters and hard rock music, which, to me, sounds like a male cat being neutered without benefit of anesthetic.”

  Sylvie crossed her arms before her, amused at the description. Charlotte might look young, but she had the tastes of someone from the previous generation. “You should learn to be more eclectic.”

  “I’ll work on it in my spare time.” This wasn’t about her, Charlotte thought, it was about Sylvie. She really cared about Sylvie. They all did. And Sylvie had practically been a nun since she’d moved back home, which was completely unnatural for her. According to Renee, she’d been pretty much like that ever since Daisy Rose was born. “So, are you game?”

  A twinkle came into Sylvie’s eye. “I’m always game, Charlotte.”

  Charlotte gave her a penetrating look. “Yes, that’s how you got Daisy Rose. We all know that. I mean for this date.”

  Sylvie knew her sister was teasing—mostly. She’d been nothing but responsible ever since Daisy Rose had been a mere hint in her life. Still, maybe going out with this bought-and-paid-for match might be fun. Besides, it was only for one evening. What could it hurt?

  “Maddy’s giving one of her famous dinner parties,” Renee interjected. “We thought that might be the perfect place for a first date.”

  “Or an ‘only’ one,” Sylvie pointed out with a whimsical grin. “Maddy, huh?”

  This had definite possibilities. Maddy O’Neill was as avant-garde as Sylvie had once been. The woman’s newest performance events involved inviting a group of strangers to an informal dinner setting and letting them mingle. It made for some interesting conversations. So far, the events had been fairly successful and fun. Maddy’s only requirement was that the groups be diverse, so she’d invited tourists and local citizens, highbrow and low.

  Sylvie made up her mind. “Okay—why not? I’ll just brush the cinders out of my hair and leave the broom in the corner. What do I have to lose?” That put to rest, temporarily, she turned her attention to the crates that had been shipped to the gallery. “Okay, which of you lovely ladies is going to help me with these paintings?”

  Renee raised her hands before her and backed away. “Sorry, just had my nails done.”

  Sylvie turned to her other sister. “Charlotte?” She pointed to an abstract on the wall. “I need to take that one down to make room for this new grouping.”

  “Sorry, Syl, I’m all thumbs. Call someone from Maintenance.”

  Sylvie sighed. “As if someone from maintenance would have any reverence for a Matthew Baldwin original.” Baldwin was one of several local artists that Sylvie had agreed to promote.

  Charlotte glanced over at the wall where the Baldwin was hanging. “They might have just the right perspective for a Matthew Baldwin original. It looks like what the kitchen tosses out at the end of the night.”

  “Peasant,” Sylvie declared.

  “I might be a peasant, but I know what I like,” Charlotte replied cheerfully as she left the gallery.

  JEFFERSON LOOKED AROUND the lobby of the Hotel Marchand as he walked toward the front desk. When he’d flown out of Boston this morning, the city was in the grip of the worst cold snap in fifty years. It had snowed for two days, stopping only yesterday morning.

  New Orleans might as well have been a different world. Coming into the hotel, with its Southern Plantation decor, had transported him back in time, slipping him into a life he’d known more than two decades ago.

  Not that he had ever specifically been here, at this hotel, but there had been other hotels, other clubs in the French Quarter. The ambiance, both outside the hotel walls and within them, brought back to him a part of his own past, a time when responsibilities did not sit so heavily on his shoulders and life offered much more freedom.

  Although he’d always had a plan, a focus to his life, going to school in New Orleans had managed to pleasantly blunt the edges and make everything more relaxed. Even studying for exams. Life in New Orleans did not streak by on a lightning bolt the way it did back in Boston. Here people walked, they didn’t run. They savored, rather than devoured. They lived life in the present, not the future, enjoying the moment.

  He stopped to take a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. It was like being in a time warp. Even inside the hotel he could smell the sweet scent of honeysuckle and gardenias.

  It seemed to go with the territory. The spacious lobby had warm gold-colored walls, hardwood floors and patterned burgundy, black and gold carpets. The sofas and chairs were a mix of neutral creams and reds, with just enough colorful tapestry pillows here and there to wake up the senses. The lobby was also filled with lush greenery and floral arrangements.

  There was grace here, he thought. Grace, beauty and a sense of heritage that inspired awe and could only be admired and respected. Though he knew no one in the hotel, Jefferson felt a sense of homecoming. It pervaded everything. He was twenty-two again and the world was before him, full of promise and love.

  He silently blessed Emily for being such a pushy kid and not giving up on him.

  “Welcome to the Hotel Marchand,” the man behind the front desk said the moment Jefferson drew close.

  It was a phrase that the young clerk must repeat several hundred times each month, Jefferson thought, yet somehow he managed to make it sound fresh, warm. Personal. All part of the New Orleans charm, he mused. He was glad he’d come, glad he’d given in to Emily and Blake, who was meeting him later for a drink. Jefferson had resisted at the last moment, just before boarding the plane. There were contracts on his desk to go over and he wasn’t thrilled about leaving Emily behind, even if it was in the capable hands of Sophie Beaulieu, his late wife’s mother.

  He supposed, if he thought about it, that there were a hundred reasons for him not to come, and only one real reason for him to be here. Because he needed to be.

  Even though he would have hated to admit it out loud, Blake and Emily were right. He needed a break from being Jefferson Lambert, full-time corporate lawyer, full-time dad and no-t
ime man. Somehow, he’d lost himself in the shuffle. There had to be more to him than just work and fatherhood.

  There had been, once. Being here was a chance to reconnect with the man Donna had fallen in love with.

  “Your name, please?” the desk clerk asked brightly.

  “Jefferson Lambert.”

  Keys began to click quickly as the young man typed in his name. “Is this business or pleasure?” he inquired with a wide smile as he hunted through the reservations for the name he’d been given.

  “Pleasure.” Jefferson had almost said “business” because business was the only thing that ever took him out of town, away from Emily. The last time he’d been away from home for reasons other than business had been on his honeymoon. A long time ago, he reflected.

  The desk clerk frowned as he looked up from the computer screen. “I can’t seem to find a reservation. Would it be under any other name?”

  Jefferson shook his head. “No. Just mine.”

  Trying again, the clerk came up with the same results. He looked truly upset. “I am sorry, Mr. Lambert, but you don’t seem to be listed here.”

  “Are you sure?” Jefferson curbed the urge to turn the computer around and do the searching himself. “The reservation was made over a week ago. My friend, Blake Randall, called it in for me.”

  “Blake Randall,” the desk clerk repeated. More clicking as his fingers flew over the keyboard. “Maybe there was a misunderstanding and the reservation was placed under his name.”

  Without losing an iota of the wide, genial smile on his lips, the clerk flipped from one screen to another. After a few minutes, the smile began to fade.

  “I’m sorry. It doesn’t appear to be under Blake Randall, either.”

  There was no point in insisting that the reservation had to be there. Jefferson knew when to roll with the punches. “All right, maybe there was a mix-up. Just give me any room, then.”

  The desk clerk sighed. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  Jefferson stared at the man, puzzled. It seemed a reasonable enough request. “Why?”

  The contrite expression on the clerk’s face made his apologies for him, even though none of this was his fault. “Because this is the beginning of Mardi Gras season, sir. Everyone wants to be here this time of year. All of our rooms are booked.”

  Of course, Jefferson thought. But he was flexible. “Do you know where I can get a room?”

  “Perhaps with a friend?” the clerk suggested tactfully, offering a weak smile.

  Jefferson refused to believe that he’d come all this way, only to wind up standing in a lobby, albeit a beautiful one, with nowhere to go. He wasn’t about to impose on Blake—that wasn’t his style. Besides, he liked his privacy and Blake didn’t know the meaning of the word.

  “Do you mean to tell me there’s no other room to be had in the city?”

  The clerk tried again, quickly checking with the various hotels in the area. Because of Katrina, there weren’t as many as there once had been. He frowned. “I’m afraid not, Mr. Lambert. The city is bursting at the seams. We’re all celebrating our first full season since the hurricane almost did us in.”

  “Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all,” Jefferson said, more to himself than to the man behind the desk. He’d never been one for omens, but this one was hard to ignore. The powers that be obviously thought it was a bad idea for him to resume dating, however briefly and inconsequentially, at his advanced age.

  He had to face it. At forty-seven, he should be focused on funding his pension plan and making sure there was enough money to send Emily to the college of her dreams. And graduate school after that if she so desired. He had no business reentering the world of dating—a world he had never much cared for in the first place. Dating left you vulnerable. It stripped you down to your underwear and paraded you that way before the world at large. He’d survived it once and had had the incredible fortune of finding a beautiful woman to love him. That was more than enough for him.

  “No, Mr. Lambert, it’s never a bad idea to come to New Orleans,” the desk clerk told him quickly. “Let me try to make some calls—”

  “Give him the Jackson Suite.”

  Jefferson turned toward the melodious voice behind him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE VOICE SOUNDED as if it belonged to a soft, genteel southern lady. One who might be given to spending long, languid afternoons in a lush, vine-covered garden, sipping something cool and refreshing beneath the shade of a gazebo while watching a willow weep in the gentle spring breeze.

  That was not the woman he found himself looking at.

  The woman who had suggested that the desk clerk place him in the Jackson Suite, whatever that was, looked very much like a model who had just stepped off the runway in Paris. And she was taking no prisoners.

  Only conquests.

  Her hair was an enthralling shade of red and fell in curls and waves about her oval face and shoulders like a storm churning at sea. The eyes that looked at him were almond shaped, green and extremely lively, yet not nearly as lively as her mouth, which had quirked into a smile that Jefferson was fairly certain could send strong men to their knees if she felt so inclined.

  For reasons that Jefferson couldn’t begin to fathom, she was looking at him as if she were studying him, trying to decide something. What, he didn’t have a clue. But he knew that women who looked the way this one did, which was nothing short of drop-dead gorgeous, did not study men like him. Not with a mysterious gleam in their eye.

  Oh, they might easily bring their financial woes to him, or ask for some kind of legal advice. But when any kind of active interest entered their gaze, their eyes were guaranteed to be focused in another direction and on someone else. Someone more ruggedly handsome. The only time he had attracted anyone remotely near this woman’s league had been during his time as a tutor. Donna and he had attended Tulane together. She’d been in one of Blake’s classes, which was how Jefferson came to meet her. His friend had suggested Donna seek him out because she had needed help in every subject but art, which was her passion.

  And so, he’d become her tutor. At first for a fee, because that was how he’d earned money on the side back then. But it wasn’t long before he was giving her help freely. As freely as he’d given, in secret, his heart.

  Later, after they married and when he asked her how someone like him had gotten so lucky to win someone like her, Donna told him that luck had nothing to do with it. He had won her over with his gentle ways. It had taken a little over three years for him to go from tutor to boyfriend to husband. But even Donna had to admit that she hadn’t thought of him “in that way” when she first met him. Or even within the first few months of their association.

  So why was this woman looking at him as if she was trying to decide something about him, something very personal? Looking at him as if she could almost see everything about him clear down to the bone.

  Careful, Jefferson, you’re letting old memories get to you. Maybe it was the result of being back in New Orleans and its association with voodoo. In an uncharacteristic flight of imagination, he could easily picture this woman as a high priestess. Who was she, anyway?

  That question was answered as the desk clerk cleared his throat and looked at the woman a bit subserviently.

  “The Jackson Suite, Miss Sylvie? You sure? Miss Charlotte likes to keep that suite in reserve for unexpected guests.” The reminder was tactful and the clerk seemed to be holding his breath, obviously hoping that he hadn’t given offense.

  ‘Miss’ Sylvie’s expression indicated that none was taken. If anything, she looked amused. “Well, I’d say that this guest appears to be quite ‘unexpected.’”

  She turned her vivid green eyes back to him. Jefferson found them unsettling—and completely fascinating. Very much, he realized, like the woman.

  “Except that he himself expected to stay here and have a room waiting for him when he arrived.” Her smile widened.

 
; Jefferson felt something tighten in his stomach, like he was bracing himself before going down a steep incline in the first car of a roller coaster.

  “Isn’t that right, Mr. Lambert?”

  Jefferson blinked, momentarily taken aback. He was about to ask her how she knew his name, then realized that she had overheard his exchange with the desk clerk.

  “Yes,” he murmured just as he became aware of something else. Pieces began to drift into place. Sort of. “He just called you Miss Sylvie.”

  “Yes. It’s one of David’s more charming habits,” she said as she turned and smiled at the man behind the desk. David began to turn a shade of pink that, until this very moment, Jefferson hadn’t thought was humanly possible. “‘Miss’ sounds ever so much nicer than being addressed as ‘ma’am.’ It gives the illusion of perpetual youth.”

  As if she needed an illusion, Jefferson thought.

  “You wouldn’t be Sylvie Marchand, would you?” he asked hesitantly.

  Sylvie cocked her head, sending soft red hair cascading down her shoulder. “And why wouldn’t I be?”

  It had been a long time since Jefferson had felt youthful. Walking into the hotel had done it for a moment, but in reality, he and youth had parted company a long time ago. Looking at Sylvie Marchand, he suddenly felt older than ever. Granted, the woman wasn’t exactly Emily’s age, but she had to be around twenty years younger than he was.

  Which meant, he suddenly realized, that he could have been Sylvie’s father if he’d gotten started a great deal earlier in the procreation department than he actually had. Still, he held on to a little hope. After all, there could be more than one woman with that name. Maybe the young woman he was speaking to was his date’s niece.

  “You can’t be Sylvie Marchand, because I am supposed to meet a Sylvie Marchand for a dinner engagement tomorrow evening.”

  A dinner engagement, Sylvie mused. How very formal sounding. She smiled at the man in front of the desk because it was second nature for her to put people at ease. A smile, she’d also learned, could effectively mask unsettling thoughts that might simultaneously be going on inside her head at the time. Like now. Thoughts that were coupled with questions.