by JoAnn Ross
Bliss was one of the most enticing women he’d ever met and Shayne had every intention of taking her to bed before his time in New Orleans was over. And then, once he’d satisfied his lust, he’d turn her over to the authorities and move on to the next case. And the next woman.
The plan, and his cover, was perfect, he decided as he strode purposefully back to his hotel. Unfortunately, there was one fly in the ointment. And that was his brother.
Shayne wondered if Mike was romantically involved with his luscious landlady. And then wondered why the idea of the two of them having any sort of emotional relationship bothered him.
As he entered the elegant lobby of the Whitfield Palace Hotel, the winsome clerk behind the desk called out to him.
“You have a message, Mr. Broussard,” she said with a flash of white teeth that, along with her artfully tousled cloud of black hair, reminded him of a beauty queen. She handed over the discreet ivory envelope, allowing her fingers to brush his in an unmistakable invitation.
Any other time, he might have been interested. She was, after all, a gorgeous specimen of the female sex. And from the moment he’d checked in earlier that afternoon, she’d let him know that she was definitely available.
Unfortunately, when he compared her to Bliss Fortune, she seemed too artificial. And decidedly too easy. Irritated that he was even bothering to compare this undoubtedly honest, friendly individual with a common jewel thief, Shayne turned his attention to the envelope.
He recognized the precise handwriting immediately. Obviously Cunningham didn’t trust him to pull off this job by himself. That idea definitely rankled. As he thanked the desk clerk and took off toward the Blue Bayou Lounge, he failed to see the gray-suited man sitting in a brocade chair behind a gold-veined marble pillar, ostensibly reading today’s Times-Picayune while surreptitiously observing Shayne’s every movement.
4
BONE TIRED, BUT unwillingly intrigued by Shayne Broussard’s unexpected arrival in the city, Bliss unlocked the door of the small white carriage house.
“Bliss, darling?” a voice from the parlor called out. ”Is that you?”
“If it isn’t, you could be in deep trouble,” she chided her grandmother. “You shouldn’t call out to just anyone who opens the door in the middle of the night, Zelda.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks, I’ve lived nearly eighty years of my life in this town and never worried about things like that.”
“Times change.” Bliss walked into the room, bent down and kissed her grandmother’s cheek. The skin was remarkably unlined, smooth as satin and smelled like Ponds face cream.
“Besides, I knew it was you.” Zelda’s still-bright blue eyes swept over her only grandchild. “How did things go in Lafayette?”
“Don’t ask.” Bliss kicked off her shoes and slumped into a wicker chair. “I swear, Churchill seems determined to drive me out of business.”
“His granddaddy was meaner than an old alligator. Seems the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in this case.”
Bliss was accustomed to her grandmother’s tendency to mix metaphors. In this case, she decided, both fit “It appears not.” She sighed. “I didn’t know you knew Nigel’s grandfather.”
“He was sweet on me for a time,” Zelda revealed.
“I can’t imagine any boy in the parish not being sweet on you,” Bliss said truthfully. Even now her grandmother was a beautiful woman. The faded sepia photographs from Zelda’s younger days showed her to have been stunning.
“I did have my share of beaus.” Zelda’s eyes softened with long-ago memories. “But I forgot every other man I’d ever flirted with the day I met your granddaddy Dupree.”
“At your wedding rehearsal dinner,” Bliss prompted. Although she was exhausted, and had heard the story countless times since childhood, she knew she’d never tire of the scandalous tale of her grandparents’ passionate meeting.
“Dupree arrived the night before the wedding. He was going to be Nelson’s best man and for weeks all I’d been hearing about was his Annapolis roommate, the great and famous Dupree. Dupree did this, Dupree did that, Dupree thought this, said this. Lord, you’d think we were talking about the second coming.
“And then he arrived at the hotel, dressed in his summer whites without a smudge of a wrinkle, looking like some kind of Greek god and I realized that for all his talk, Nelson hadn’t been exaggerating. Dupree Lejeune stole my heart the moment I set eyes on him.”
“Which caused a problem, since you were supposed to marry his best friend the next morning.”
“That was a bit of a dilemma,” Zelda conceded. “Especially since although your grandfather was every bit as smitten as me, he did the honorable thing and insisted I marry Nelson as planned.”
It was Zelda’s turn to sigh. “I was honestly fond of Nelson and do believe we could have had a good marriage, if he hadn’t died in that fire on that troop carrier in the Pacific. After all, he was a sweet boy. And I did love him, in a fashion.”
“But not like you loved Grandpa.”
“No.” Zelda’s lips curved into a secret smile that hinted at passions Bliss was a bit uncomfortable thinking about her grandmother experiencing. “Every fiber in my body tingled whenever I even thought of Dupree. Which was why I traveled to San Francisco the minute the war in the Pacific ended. Although we’d corresponded after poor Nelson’s demise, your grandfather certainly hadn’t expected me to be waiting on the dock when his ship came into port.”
The smile widened. “I’d already booked a room at the Mark Hopkins Hotel and, taking full advantage of his surprise, I managed to lure the poor man into bed. Afterward, of course, he had no choice but to propose. We were married the following day in Reno.”
“I suspect he would have proposed even if you hadn’t gone to bed with him.”
“Well, of course. But there was no way I was going to allow that magnificent specimen of a man to run around loose with every predatory female in the country out to land herself a husband. The war years had made a lot of women man hungry. And any female with blood flowing in her veins could tell that Dupree Lejeune was offering up a virtual smorgasbord of sensual delights.”
Despite the fact that she was a grown woman, and had even been married herself, Bliss felt herself blushing at the idea of her grandmother tangling hotel sheets during a passionate, illicit afternoon with a returning war hero. Even one who resembled a Greek god.
“You were lucky,” she murmured. “Finding a man who’d love you to distraction for fifty years.”
“Posh. Luck had nothing to do with it darlin’. I did have the good fortune to meet my soul mate. But believe me, if I’d left things up to Dupree, I would have stayed a grieving war widow. I wanted him, Bliss. As dearly as I wanted to breathe. And I would have moved heaven and earth, if necessary, to land him.”
“Mama always said polite Southern women didn’t chase after men.”
“Your mama was a fool. Which was why she ended up pregnant without a husband. And you were an even bigger fool for marrying your scoundrel. Which left you with even more problems than your mama had, and no precious baby to show for it.”
“I think it was better I didn’t get pregnant when I was married to Alan.”
“You may have a point,” Zelda conceded. “I hate to think what we would have done if you’d had a little tyke that looked like that low-down, lying skunk.” She shook her head, which was still the color of a new penny, thanks to Lady Clairol. “Can you imagine disliking your own child every time you looked at it?”
“I couldn’t.”
“That’s what you say. And knowing your big heart, it could be true. But believe me, baby, I’ve seen it happen before and it’s a pitiful shame for mother and child.”
She stood up and walked over to a crystal decanter and poured them both a glass of sherry.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Bliss asked, accepting the glass even though her grandmother’s favorite wine was too sweet for her own personal tastes.
>
“When you’re my age, darling, you’ll discover that you don’t like to waste whatever precious time you have left sleeping.” Zelda took a long sip of the wine, sighed her satisfaction and topped off her glass before returning to the sofa. “I think it’s time we had a little talk.”
“Oh?” Bliss’s blood turned to ice. Her fingers tightened on the glass. “Is everything all right? I mean, you’re not ill or anything?”
“Of course not. I’m fit as a fiddle.”
“I seem to recall Dr. Vandergrift’s mentioning something about your blood pressure.”
“My blood pressure’s just fine, thank you. Except when I think about your rat of a former husband, which was what I was doing the last time I had an appointment for my annual physical. Besides, the man’s nearly as old as I am. He has no business still practicing medicine,” Zelda scoffed.
“He was listed in Town and Country magazine as one of the nation’s best internists.”
“Hah. He probably bought his way onto that list with all the money his ancestors got sacking burned mansions during the war.”
Zelda and Dr. Elliot Vandergrift had been arguing for as long as Bliss had been alive. Undoubtedly even longer than that. Personally, she’d always suspected that the physician’s interest in her grandmother went beyond the medical.
“If it’s not your health, it must be finances,” she said glumly, taking a longer sip of her own sherry.
“No. Actually, I’ve been wondering when you were going to tell me about your trip to Paris.”
“I already told you, I found some wonderful things.”
“You did tell me that. And since I know how much The Treasure Trove means to you, darling, I’m very pleased for you. But I’ve been waiting for you to tell me about the man you met there.”
“What?” Bliss nearly dropped her glass in surprise. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“The nuns were right when they wrote on your report cards that it was always obvious when you weren’t telling the truth, Bliss. You truly are one pitiful liar. I’m referring to whatever man it is who’s had you wandering around with your head in the clouds these past ten days.”
“I haven’t—”
“Of course you have. And personally, I think it’s wonderful. And a delightful change from all the gloom and doom that’s been hovering over you like a summer thunderhead the past few months. But since these days I’m forced to live vicariously through the romantic escapades of others, I’ve been getting a little impatient for you to spill the beans.”
Bliss shook her head with dual feelings of frustration and admiration. “Doesn’t anything get by you?”
“Not if I can help it. As I said, darlin’, I have a lot of time on my hands. That lets me watch people. And think about why they’re acting the way they do. You definitely came home from France with something on your mind. And from the faraway look in your eyes, I’ve suspected you weren’t lusting after some fancy painting you saw in the Louvre.”
“I met a man,” Bliss admitted. “But we didn’t spend that much time together.”
“Falling in love doesn’t necessarily take time.”
“It wasn’t like you and grandpa. Not really. It was mostly just chemistry.”
“Never discount chemistry. It can set a pretty solid foundation for a marriage. Why, despite how much we loved each other, there were more than a few bad patches when chemistry helped keep Dupree’s and my marriage going.”
“It was just that one night,” Bliss continued to argue. “But we didn’t do anything,” she added quickly as she viewed the knowing look in her grandmother’s eye.
“Did I say anything?” Zelda asked innocently.
“No. But you were thinking it.”
Zelda didn’t deny it. “So, how did you leave things?”
“I told him I wasn’t ever going to see him again.”
“May I ask why not?”
“Because he’s rich.”
“Now that’s one of the most stupid reasons I’ve ever heard.”
“Alan was rich.”
“Alan was pretending to be rich,” Zelda reminded her.
“That makes it even worse.”
“You may have a point there,” Zelda conceded. “However, rich or poor, in truth, the boy was trash.”
Since Bliss couldn’t argue with that, she didn’t say anything.
“What did this man say when you told him you weren’t ever going to see him again?”
“I thought, at the time, that he took it quite well.”
An auburn-penciled brow lifted. “I do believe I hear a ‘but’ in that statement”
“All right.” Bliss exhaled a long sigh, polished off her too sweet sherry and wished it was something stronger. “I stopped by the shop on the way home and found him waiting there.”
“Inside? Lord, child, don’t tell me you’ve gotten yourself mixed up with a cat burglar this time?”
“No. It turns out Michael let him in.”
“Aw, the bold Black Irish knight, Michael O’Malley. You know,” Zelda said slyly, “a woman could do a lot worse than to marry that man.”
It was not the first time her grandmother had suggested such a thing, and Bliss said what she always did. “I like Michael a great deal, as a friend.”
“Friends can turn into lovers.”
“It’d be too weird. Ever since he leased the office over the shop, he’s become like my big brother.”
“So you keep saying.” Zelda sighed, seeming to give up on a match between her granddaughter and her favorite private detective. “Tell me about this other man. The one who followed you all the way from Paris.”
“There’s really not much to tell.”
As she’d thought back over it the past days, Bliss had belatedly realized that she’d done most of the talking that enchanted night. Which meant that Shayne knew almost everything about her. While she knew next to nothing about him.
“What’s his name?”
“Shayne. Shayne Broussard.”
“Is he French?”
“American.”
“What does he do to make all this money you seem determined to reject?”
“I’m not sure. He seemed like a playboy.”
“Oh.” Zelda’s enthusiasm seemed to wane reluctantly. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, darling.”
Even as Bliss agreed, she couldn’t quite overlook the problem that when it came to Shayne Broussard, her heart and her head were not even the slightest bit in agreement.
SOMEONE HAD BROKEN into his room. Shayne sensed the intrusion the moment he entered. He pulled out his pistol.
“There’s no need for violence,” the familiar voice said.
“Dammit, Cunningham,” Shayne ground out as he flicked the light switch. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The older man appeared unperturbed by Shayne’s barely restrained temper. “As it happens, I heard a bit of news that I thought you might be interested in.”
“You’ve never heard of the telephone?”
“Phones can be tapped. Even so-called secured lines.”
“What makes you think this room isn’t bugged?”
“I swept it, of course. As you would have when you first checked in.”
Since it was the truth, Shayne didn’t bother to argue the point. “So, what’s this earth-shattering news that had to be delivered personally?”
Cunningham sipped from the brandy he’d taken from the minibar. Shayne immediately reminded himself to include the overpriced miniature bottle on his expense account reimbursement report. No way was he going to spring for the outrageous cost.
“There are rumors of a contract.”
Every atom in Shayne’s body leapt to instant alert but practice allowed him to maintain his expressionless stare. “Contracts aren’t unusual in our business.”
“True.” Obviously enjoying drawing out the moment, Cunningham took another drink. “Even ones between husbands
and wives. Or, should I say former husbands and ex-wives.”
“Alan Fortune took a contract out on his wife?”
That didn’t make sense, Shayne thought. From what he’d been able to tell, the guy had gotten out of that marriage like the bandit he’d turned out to be.
“That’s one scenario making the rounds.” Steel gray eyes looked at him over the rim of the cut crystal glass that was standard in the hotel whose worldwide motto was When Deluxe Will No Longer Do. Since the New Orleans Whitfield Palace was the flagship hotel in the international chain, it was even more luxurious than most. “Another possibility is that Bliss Fortune took the contract out on her husband.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Shayne crossed the room, pulled a beer from the minibar refrigerator and popped the cap.
“Murder for hire is usually about money. The woman is in debt right up to her pretty green eyeballs.”
“She wouldn’t have it in her to kill anyone.”
A pewter brow arched. “You’ve determined that from a few hours of conversation and a stroll in the moonlight?”
“No. I’ve determined that from a few hours of conversation, a natural gift for being able to read people, and weeks spent poring over every bit of information about both Fortunes I could uncover. She’s the quintessential do-gooder. I doubt if she could step on a cockroach.”
“Which is exactly how some people might view Alan Fortune,” Cunningham murmured. “Very few con men are murderers. They don’t have to kill for profit since they get what they want with charm and guile.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Shayne insisted. “Because unless she’s got an insurance policy stashed away somewhere on the guy that no one’s uncovered, killing him would probably only result in her having to pay funeral expenses.”
“The guy does appear to be a bit dependent on the generosity of women,” Cunningham agreed.
“More than a bit. He’s already dumped the model for a newly divorced princess who’s paying for his gambling vacation in Monaco.”
After watching the embrace between husband and wife at the party, Shayne had made it a point to keep track of Fortune’s whereabouts. Not because of any personal interest in Bliss, he’d told himself, knowing that was yet another lie. It was bad enough to lie for a living; he figured when a guy began lying to himself, he was on the verge of real trouble.
