Midnight Flame

by Lynette Vinet

  “I am not! I’m going to Texas. You already knew that I would leave Petit Coteau sooner or later. I don’t know why you’re acting so upset. My problems have nothing to do with you, and I told you that.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were having a baby.”

  So he had found out, and Gincie had to have been the one to tell Jean, who had wasted little time in informing Tony. Everyone thought the child was his, but he knew better than that. Still Tony had come after her. A warmth spread through her for no logical explanation at this realization.

  “The child is my own business.”

  “Do you intend to have it?”

  “Certainly. How can you suggest such a thing?”

  “How will you take care of it alone?”

  “Tony, I’m far from alone. I have Gincie, and I am quite wealthy. My baby shall never want for anything.”

  “Except a father.”

  The sting of his retort caused her to falter, and Laurel found support by reaching out a hand to steady herself against a towering oak. Lifting wide, troubled eyes to him she spoke more confidently than she felt.

  “I’ll give my baby enough love to take the place of two parents.”

  Tony raked his hand through his thick glossy hair. His face possessed a haunting quality that Laurel had never before seen, and his eyes were filled with quiet desperation. He started to reach out for her but stopped himself.

  “I want to be your baby’s father,” he said so lowly that Laurel at first wasn’t sure he had spoken at all. But he repeated himself, and something stirred within her like a butterfly’s wings in the pit of her stomach.

  His offer touched her. Tears formed in her eyes, and she shook her head when he stroked her cheek.

  “Don’t touch me, Tony. I don’t deserve your kindness, and I can’t accept your offer. I … can’t … forget.”

  Tony’s sigh fanned her face. He knew she meant that night in the cabin, and he cursed himself anew for what he had done. They were both enslaved by a memory, only she didn’t know that. Determination steeled him for her refusal, but he wouldn’t allow her to leave for Texas, not with his child growing within her.

  “None of that matters to me, Laurel. If I can forget, so can you. We can begin over again. Your baby deserves a father. I don’t think you realize what problems await you and the child in the future. I won’t allow you to have a child alone and without a husband to protect you. If you don’t care for me, think of the baby. I can give this child as much love as you. And with both of us loving him, he’ll be one happy baby boy.”

  “Or girl,” Laurel said, the tears finally slipping down her cheeks. Once again, it seemed as if Tony Duvalier was rescuing her. He had saved her from falling over the side of the riverboat and had found her in the bayou. Now, he wanted to save her reputation and to give her baby a name. No other person, save her parents, Gincie, and her schoolfriend, had ever been so kind to her. Tony was offering her himself, and his unselfishness caused her to nod numbly.

  “I don’t know if I can be a true wife to you right now,” she said. “But if you still want me as your wife, I accept your proposal.”

  A soft, cool breeze wafted over them. Tony reached out and gently touched a wispy curl that rested at her temple. Pure joy filled him, and in that moment he had never been happier. He was going to marry Laurel and raise their child. She was his, his alone.

  “You won’t be sorry, Laurel. I promise you I’ll be a good husband and father.”

  Taking her hand, he kissed her fingertips, then led her to the waiting stagecoach. The driver and the other passengers were aggravated when Laurel’s trunks were hauled down from the top of the stage, but Gincie was smiling.

  Soon Jean arrived and situated Gincie in the buggy beside him while Tony pulled Laurel up beside him on the horse. They returned to Petit Coteau to plan their future together, but in Tony’s happiness to finally have the woman he loved, he had forgotten her words to him under the tree. The thought never entered his head that once they were married, she would be unable to be his wife in the truest sense of the word.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Any word from our ‘dear’ cousin?”

  Lavinia looked up at her stepbrother’s entrance into the parlor. Then her gaze flew back to the telegram in her hand, which she had received from Laurel that morning. Upon first reading it, she hadn’t believed the words. She had been stunned and sat in one spot for a long time, waiting for and dreading this moment. But apparently Laurel had married none other than Tony Duvalier. If she hadn’t been in such a state of shock, she would have laughed in amusement at Seth’s hopeful expression. He wanted Laurel’s money as much as she did. Probably more. However, she wouldn’t allow Seth to know he unnerved her with those cold and calculating eyes of his.

  Clearing her throat, she gave a nervous laugh and handed the telegram to Seth. His blond eyebrows bunched together as the import of Laurel’s news hit home.

  “The idiot! The stupid fool! How could she have done this to us?” he asked, clearly distraught.

  Lavinia smothered another laugh, silently congratulating Laurel on upsetting Seth. Sometimes he seemed so self-assured, so cocky. He believed that because Arthur Delaney had married his mother, most of Arthur’s money would pass to him. Well, Seth was wrong. If Arthur died, both she and Seth might very well become paupers. So far, Arthur had been able to make good on only a few of Seth’s outstanding debts. She, however, didn’t care a hoot if Seth’s creditors ever received a penny. She was more concerned about the Little L’s financial condition and what would happen to the ranch if her father should die. He hadn’t looked well the last weeks. Laurel had been her last hope to save the ranch, and now all was lost because Laurel had married the handsome and very rich Tony Duvalier.

  “You mean how could she do that to you? Well, I guess Cupid shot his arrow into her fourteen-carat gold heart, dear brother.” Lavinia practically sneered as she stood up and brushed the wrinkles from her navy-blue taffeta gown. “I doubt very much if Laurel will visit now.”

  Seth stuck the telegram into the pocket of his Levis, the scarlet color of his shirt rivaling the high splotches of color on his cheeks. He stomped a boot-clad foot on the hardwood floor. “Damn!” he intoned, and sent his cold blue gaze, which now brimmed over with hot anger, in Lavinia’s direction. “It’s all your fault Laurel didn’t come. You should have waited for her and not been so hot to get back here. Not once have you mentioned what the hurry was. Didn’t you tell her that your father was desperately ill?”

  “I did,” Lavinia said, immediately on the defensive with Seth. She hated it when he became angry. His temper could take such an ugly turn, as it had the day he informed her father that she was in love with a “dirty half-breed Mex,” his way of referring to Jim Castille. Even eight years later she didn’t know what difference her love affair with Jim could have made to Seth. But apparently he had been correct when he told Arthur that Jim wasn’t to be trusted. That same day Arthur had discovered Jim had stolen a few gold pieces, and had run him off the ranch. Part of her would never forgive Seth for destroying her happiness, just as another part of her would never stop loving Jim Castille.

  “Laurel is a grown woman and had the right to marry the man she loves.”

  Seth cocked an eyebrow, a sprig of blond hair falling over his forehead. “How protective you are of her suddenly. Before you left for New Orleans a few months ago, you were ready to milk her dry. You’re not softening up, are you, Lavinia? I mean you’re such a romantic.”

  “Go to hell!” she snapped and crossed in front of him to leave the room. Seth stopped her with a large hand on her arm and pushed her onto a leather sofa.

  He towered over her, a purplish color rising into his face. “You failed in our plan. I sent you to New Orleans to bring Miss Moneybags to San Antonio, and even that you couldn’t achieve.” He gestured with his other hand to the practical but comfortably furnished parlor in which they now found themselves, and his breath, fann
ing her cheek, seemed filled with fire. “What will you do because of this failure, my dear? You like comfort, and though I admit the Little L must go a long way to rival the Delaney mansion, I’m certain you don’t want to go begging on the streets. I don’t even think you’d make an adequate whore.”

  Lavinia winced. She did love comfort and pretty things, and Seth knew this. He also knew she would never sell herself on the streets. Being a man’s mistress was one thing, but a prostitute another. She couldn’t even find a suitable wealthy man in San Antonio who would have her. The scandal with Jim Castille was still remembered and whispered about. No decent man would want her as his wife. Mistress, perhaps, but never a wife. That was why Auguste St. Julian had appealed to her. He had known nothing of her past, her disgrace.

  Her large, blue eyes implored Seth to loosen his unrelenting hold on her arm. She wondered how her late stepmother, Anna Renquist, who had been a kind and affable woman, could have produced such a cold, unfeeling man?

  “What do you want me to do, Seth?”

  “Nothing!” he spat back, causing her to jump. “It’s up to me now. All of it falls onto my shoulders because you’re so inept at things which require use of your brain rather than your body.”

  “How could I know Laurel was going to marry?”

  “Your feeble excuses are too late.” He dropped her arm and looked around the large parlor. A mahogany staircase led to an open balcony on the second floor where all the bedrooms were situated. He would hate losing such a nice home. As a child, in Germany with his mother and real father, he had lived in a tiny room over a fish market where his father worked. He remembered their sturdy and serviceable clothes, the smell of pine from the constant cleaning of the floors by his mother, and how she would get down on her hands and knees to scrub. What a life! The best thing that had ever happened to him had been when his father died and he and his mother came to live with his Uncle Johann in San Antonio and worked in his bakery. As luck would have it, Arthur Delaney’s eyes had fallen upon his still pretty and young mother. With the ensuing marriage had come prosperity, and Arthur had treated him as his own son. Had Lavinia not already claimed Arthur’s heart, Seth knew he could have entirely won over the old man, but she was his daughter from Arthur’s first wife. And just a daughter who could be easily disposed of in marriage … that was if anyone would ever want the harlot.

  Seth had considered marrying her himself once. Of course, she was his stepsister, but that wouldn’t have deterred Seth. He would have found a way to marry Lavinia Delaney, heiress to the Little L, but Lavinia had done the unforgivable in Seth’s mind by giving herself to a half-breed Mexican. Seth had dealt with that by planting evidence that Castille had stolen from the Little L. He had been quite pleased by Arthur’s ready action. In his mind he could still see the seventeen-year-old Jim Castille running like a frightened coyote from Arthur’s shotgun, which had been pointed in the center of his back. If the choice had been up to Seth, Seth would have shot him. He had wondered later if Arthur regretted not shooting the boy when Lavinia turned up pregnant. That had been when Seth decided Lavinia wasn’t suited to be his wife. The day Arthur left for New Orleans with his wayward daughter to confine her on Sylvester Delaney’s plantation had been greeted with rejoicing by Seth. He had thought Lavinia was out of the way. He had been wrong.

  A few years later she returned home, after spending much time in Europe and wasting precious Little L money, money that Seth felt was his by right. He had taken care of ranch business and ingratiated himself with Arthur to such an extent that he knew that when the old man died, he would receive the lion’s share of the ranch. He had run up gambling debts, clothing debts, and creditors had hounded him until Arthur was forced to pay some of them off. Things had been going smoothly until Lavinia returned home, and they had both discovered that the Little L was headed for financial trouble.

  Things had looked bleak, but then Lavinia had mentioned her rich cousin Laurel, having received a letter from her upon her graduation from some prissy, Northern finishing school. And so he had easily convinced Lavinia to bring home Laurel Delaney. Such a rich young woman would have made a wonderful wife. He had thought she would probably be homely and skinny as hell, but he had wanted Laurel Delaney as his bride.

  His eyes slid now to Lavinia, taking in her wide, frightened blue orbs, the exquisitely made taffeta gown, which he guessed had cost a pretty penny. Where the money had come for that extravagance and the other gowns she had worn since returning home, he hadn’t a clue. She had never wanted to speak about her New Orleans sojourn or indicated why she had rushed home without her cousin. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter now. He must take matters into his own hands if he wanted to breathe easy at night and not worry over creditors or ending up in some tiny room above a fish market again.

  “I’m going to Louisiana,” he stated emphatically.

  Lavinia’s mouth dropped open. “You’re going to ask my cousin for the money? I doubt her husband will allow it.”

  Seth shook his head at Lavinia’s stupidity. “I’m not going there to beg money from the bitch or get on my knees to that Cajun husband of hers. I do have more finesse than that, Lavinia.”

  Finesse. Lavinia nearly laughed. If Seth possessed finesse, she had never seen evidence of any. “Then I don’t understand, Seth.”

  “Of course you don’t because you’re a dolt, my dear. But I tell you this: as quickly as marriages are made, they can be undone. Understand my meaning?”

  Seth strode up the stairs, a delighted smirk on his face, and called to Rosita, one of the house servants, to help him pack. He had a stagecoach to catch.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Ain’t right, Miss Laurel. Just ain’t right for you to be sleepin’ alone. I don’t know what’s ailin’ you, child, but if you ain’t careful, you gonna lose Mr. Tony. Any other man would have found himself a lady friend by now. Mark my words, you gonna lose him if you don’t act like a wife to him.”

  Gincie’s warning sent a shiver up Laurel’s spine. The soft calico gown that Gincie pulled over Laurel’s head to fall into green waves at Laurel’s feet didn’t dispel the chill. Granted, the morning was warm and a bit muggy, but she felt unprepared for the cold feeling that clutched at her stomach as the import of Gincie’s words hit her. She might very well lose Tony.

  “I know you mean well,” Laurel said, opening her bedroom door, “but my relationship with my husband is my own business.

  Gincie appeared hurt, and Laurel’s tone softened. “Don’t worry about me so much.”

  When Laurel entered the dining room seconds later, she expected to see Tony seated at the head of the table. Each morning for the last six weeks, since the day after their wedding, they had breakfasted together. This morning he was absent.

  Essie, a servant girl, appeared and set a plate of eggs and bacon before Laurel. Her stomach growled in hunger as she picked up her fork.

  “Has my husband gone out already?” Laurel inquired of the dark-eyed girl.

  “Oh, no, ma’am. Mr. Tony’s still asleep. He done got home at five o’clock this mornin’. I expect he won’t be up till noon today.”

  Essie sent Laurel a perplexed look as she left the room, almost as if she didn’t understand why the mistress wouldn’t know the master was still asleep. And Laurel felt as foolish as she probably looked to learn that Tony had evidently left the house last night after she had retired. Why hadn’t he told her he was leaving? Where had he gone?

  Gincie’s warning filled her mind again. Had Tony taken a mistress? Perhaps he and Simone had been together. Laurel’s appetite faded, and she laid down her fork on the table beside the uneaten breakfast. She really couldn’t blame him if he had found sexual satisfaction elsewhere. Since the day they had married, they had shared separate rooms. Though Tony had been thoughtful to her and considerate of her pregnancy, she realized now that he must have always wanted a normal marriage. She had been so caught up in what she wanted that she hadn’t really ackn
owledged his needs.

  Her mind drifted back to their wedding. The ceremony had taken place in the parlor with Jean as Tony’s best man and Jean’s sister, Denise Abadie, a widow from Vermillionville, as her matron of honor. After the priest had pronounced her Tony’s wife, Tony’s warm, amber gaze had settled on her face as he toasted her with a glass of champagne. His smile had contained hope, she recalled, and his kiss had been tender. Even now she could still feel his hand in hers as he led up the stairs to her room that night, after Jean and Denise had left.

  Standing in the hallway before the door to her room, golden light from a flickering sconce had illuminated his sensual mouth, the amber flecks that danced in his eyes. And once again she had seen something like hope in his expression.

  “I’ll never be able to show my gratitude to you, Tony. It seems you’re always there when I need you,” she had told him.

  He had leaned forward and brushed her cheek with a light, butterfly kiss, “I love you, Laurel.”

  Words that should have caused her joy had only given her pain. She hadn’t been able to say she loved him, not when she carried another man’s child, not when she didn’t know if she would ever see that man again. Where was he? Who was he? Tony had tried to discover the truth for her, but to no avail. For a fleeting moment she wondered if the man in the bayou really mattered.

  Instead of a wedding night learning the pleasure of love, the wedding night of which she had always dreamed, she had told Tony to give her time. Perhaps one day…

  Then she had closed the door, leaving him standing outside. She still remembered the way her heart had thumped in her chest, wilder than a stallion’s hoofs. She had almost wrenched open the door to throw herself into his arms, but she had resisted. Seconds later, she had heard him walk to his room, then the click of his door.

  Their wedding night had been spent apart.

  It was only now, as Laurel began to think about the last few weeks, that she realized how much Tony had actually given to her when he made her his wife. Not only the material things, but the chance to start over again, to decide when she was ready to become his wife in all ways. The memory of her kidnapper was fading, and if it weren’t for the child she carried, she would have believed he had been part of a dream. But he had existed, and she wondered if he would return for her.