Witch Angel

by Trana Mae Simmons

“No. No, you said you were exhausted. Go on to bed. I’ll be all right.”

  Instead of complying, Shain settled more comfortably on the mattress.

  “Do you always do exactly what you want, instead of what you’re asked to do?” Alaynia murmured.

  “Then you admit that you’re aware of me wanting to stay here with you?”

  “Aware of you?” she replied. “Oh, yes, I’m very aware of you, Mr. St. Clair.”

  “Shain,” he corrected.

  “Shain,” she agreed, closing her eyes as he stroked her hair.

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, Alaynia woke fully alert and aware, yet she deliberately kept her eyes shut, testing her senses. Sometime during the night, she had thrown the comforter back, and she could feel the humidity in the room even through the sheet. Strain though she might, she couldn’t hear the muted purr of an air-conditioning fan in her hotel room. Instead, bird twitters sounded faintly, then a raucous rooster’s crow.

  Sighing and clamping her eyelids tighter, she shook her head against the pillow. It hadn’t been a dream—there sure as heck weren’t any roosters outside the hotel in Baton Rouge.

  Suddenly she heard another sound. Her eyes flew open and she twisted her head. Shain lay beside her, lips slightly parted and his breath feathering against her bare shoulder. In the murky, pre-dawn light, she could make out the dark shadow of his beard already growing again on his face and the long lashes surrounding his deep brown eyes. Her movement evidently disturbed him, and the lashes twitched against his cheeks.

  Stilling herself in order not to wake him fully, Alaynia studied his face. The sun wrinkles around his eyes weren’t quite as deep this morning, and jet-black curls tousled over his forehead. She caught a glimpse of his even, white teeth between his lips—full lips that pouted just a little in his relaxed state.

  He must have removed his dressing gown before he lay down, since only the nightshirt covered his broad shoulders, and tight whorls of hair showed in the open vee down the front. Her finger twitched, beckoned to twine fingernails in the kinky curls. He lay outside the comforter, his nightshirt twisted high on his legs, baring brawny, muscled thighs.

  She was right—he was a magnificent specimen to wake up next to in the morning.

  Not that she had any other experience to which to compare this morning. In college, there had been Ted, the bedroom-eyed hunk to whom she had finally relinquished her virginity. Despite his powerful physique, lovemaking with Ted had been soft and carefree, just like Ted wanted his life to be. They’d drifted through their relationship without promises, each aware of their separate goals. They’d parted at graduation without tears or recriminations, Ted to see what was over the next mountain and Alaynia to strive for the sense of accomplishment her orphaned childhood had never given her.

  Alaynia allowed her thoughts to touch on John Franklin, her one other intimate relationship, grimacing in distaste at her remembered naiveté. She’d read all the warnings in the women’s magazines: Be suspicious if he never wants you to call him at work or home—never takes you to meet his friends—dines with you in out-of-the-way places.

  John had had it down pat. How tenderly he had explained that he cherished their time together so much he couldn’t bear to share her with anyone else. His real estate business flourished on weekends, when families had time to look at prospective houses, and her weekends were sometimes jam-packed as she searched estate sales and antique shops for furniture. Tuesdays and Thursdays were their nights, though he always left long before morning.

  The mind games he had played with her about their sex life were what had almost destroyed her confidence in herself as a woman. A sigh and a pat on her hip after his passion was spent, which seemed to her to indicate his disappointment in their lovemaking. A quick rising from the bed, while she lay there, holding back tears and promising herself that the next time she would be more of a woman for him.

  Young—she’d been so damned young, believing his murmured false attempts at comfort.

  Alaynia hadn’t made the connection at first, when she attended yet another estate sale. While she studied an ornate fireplace set that would be perfect in her current project, she’d heard one of the children next door call out a greeting to Mrs. Franklin, the stylishly-dressed woman making change from a wooden cash box. The child’s mother walked over to chat with Mrs. Franklin for a moment, and Alaynia had unconsciously listened to the murmured conversation, until the words penetrated.

  The two women were obviously friends, and the sympathy Alaynia heard in the neighbor’s voice had seemed entirely appropriate toward someone who had just lost a family member. But the bitter tones in the other woman’s voice had finally caught Alaynia’s attention.

  No, her husband, John, hadn’t been much help in getting the estate sale organized. She’d thought that maybe he’d be a little contrite about not being with her when she needed him so badly—when her father had a stroke and died within hours. She thanked the neighbor again for coming, and no, she’d never found out where John had been that Thursday night.

  Not at the real estate sales office, that’s for sure. And he hadn’t been showing a house, because the other salesperson checked the sign-out sheet they always kept. John must think her blind to not realize that his late nights always fell on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She’d even thought about hiring a detective, but with her father’s death, she didn’t have the energy right now to confront John with his deception.

  Alaynia had had the energy. She didn’t ever remember being so furious. She had stormed into the real estate office a half-hour later and slammed John’s office door behind her. She got every hateful, venomous word out of her system, grateful to see him almost shrink inside his suit while she spat at him. Then, sick at heart at being so easily deceived, she’d left, swearing off men for all eternity.

  Until now.

  “Bull crap,” Alaynia answered that thought aloud. If ever there were a man for her to keep her distance from, it was the one lying a scant six inches away. More than just the difference in their backgrounds separated her from him—over a hundred years in time was a gap that could never be bridged.

  The wrinkles at the corner of Shain’s eyes deepened into a frown and he muttered in a voice raspy with sleep, “I like that. I haven’t even been out to the barn yet this morning. How can I smell like manure?”

  Giggling, Alaynia sat up and pulled the sheet around her neck. “What are you doing in my bed? I don’t recall inviting you to sleep with me.”

  Shain yawned hugely and reached up to tousle his hair even more wildly. “You didn’t. But you were restless, and I thought I’d just lie down for a minute, until you were more sound asleep. You don’t act too embarrassed at finding me here.” He squinted an eye at her. “Are you used to waking up with a man in your bed?”

  “This is the first time it’s ever happened,” Alaynia said in honest denial. “And, though I appreciate your concern for me, don’t you think your servants are going to gossip when they find your bed still made up?”

  “Probably,” Shain admitted. “But there’s time yet. It’s early, and my household knows I don’t like breakfast served until later—after I’ve been awake for a while.” He sat up and studied her. “How are you this morning? Still scared?”

  “To death. I need you to tell me how to get over to Jake’s today. Maybe if I talk to him, I can figure out ...”

  Shain abruptly rose from the bed. “I don’t have time to take you today. I’m behind around here after yesterday, and you’re not to go wandering around without an escort. You—”

  “Now you just wait a minute,” Alaynia interrupted. “I’m not about to idle around here until you find time to escort me somewhere! I’m used to taking care of myself. All you have to do is lend me a horse and tell me how to get to Jake’s house. If you think I need a keeper, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “A keeper? Hell, you need a guardian. How we act in private is our own business, but remember that you’r
e a guest in my house. You can’t flaunt convention and ride all over the country alone. It’s not a proper influence on Jeannie, and my neighbors’ tongues would start wagging. I don’t need a scandal.”

  Alaynia threw the sheet aside and scrambled out of bed to face him. “A scandal?” Pointing a finger at his chest, she said, “You rode after me, when I would have been perfectly happy going on into St. Francisville and trying to find out from there what had happened to me. I didn’t ask to be brought here and treated like an embarrassment. If you think I’m going to sit around here and do ... needlepoint, or whatever your Southern women do to fill their days, you’re sadly mistaken, buster. I’ve got a life to get back to, and come hell or high water, I’m going to find out how to get back to it!”

  Shain leaned over her, forcing Alaynia against the bed. “Until you do,” he gritted, “you’ll behave like a proper Southern lady and obey me. There are reasons why we don’t allow our women to travel without an escort. Even Jeannie’s got sense enough to take her maid and one of the grooms with her, when she calls on someone.”

  Alaynia thrust her face toward his. “I’m not a teenaged girl—and I’m not going to let some man order me around. You can stick your obey word where the sun doesn’t shine. That redneck viewpoint went out of fashion when Archie Bunker disappeared from television!”

  * * * *

  Struggling to keep his eyes from her bare shoulders, where the two tiny straps of her gown had slid off to rest on her upper arms, Shain took a step back. Big mistake, because now he had an unobstructed view of her breasts beneath the thin, silken material of her gown. The darker pebbles of her nipples pointed at him provocatively, and the ice-blue material exactly matched the fury spitting from her eyes. The gown barely reached the top of her thighs, and an expanse of tanned legs tapered endlessly toward the floor.

  He started to ask her who the hell Archie Bunker was, but his usual morning erection returned full force. He swung his back to her. “Get some goddamn clothes on!”

  “Where’s my robe?” Alaynia said at the same instant.

  Behind him, Shain heard her scurry to the foot of the bed, where she’d left her robe left lying across the footrest. He reached down and grabbed his own dressing robe from the floor, wadding it in his hand and striding over to jerk the door between their rooms open. When she half-turned to face him, hurriedly cinching the ties and opening her mouth to continue their argument, he glowered her into silence.

  “You may not be used to obeying a man,” he growled, “but you’ll learn real fast that I give the orders here at Chenaie. If I want to, I can have you taken to one of the attic rooms and locked up until I have time to deal with you.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Alaynia gasped.

  “Try me,” he snarled as he closed the door.

  But once the tumblers clicked into place, effectively separating him from the other room, Shain leaned against the door and shook his head. Hell, if she had any sense, Alaynia would know that he couldn’t follow through on his threat. Word would spread like wildfire across the parish that he had Jake’s supposed niece locked up in his attic. Probably everyone within fifty miles already knew about her presence at Chenaie.

  Today the story he had cooked up, with Jake’s agreement, appeared full of holes. Every family in West Feliciana knew the background of every other family. Somehow, even the backgrounds of the new Yankee arrivals quickly became common knowledge. As Jeannie had pointed out yesterday, Jake had never mentioned a niece, and even though his shack and barn weren’t a place that invited visitors, Jake knew practically everyone in the parish. Word was that Jake was a bachelor, with no family ties. A niece popping up out of nowhere was no doubt going to cause gossip and conjecture.

  Damn, he’d have to find some time to ride over there today and see if Jake himself had thought of any other problems with their story. And he supposed there wasn’t any reason Alaynia shouldn’t go with him—if only so Jake could question her and try to confirm whether her time travel story held water.

  The other possibility—that she was making up this wild story to cover up her connections to Fitzroy—didn’t really appear feasible today. But if he ever did find any proof of that, he’d send her fanny packing without worrying about what happened to her.

  Shain jerked the door open again. Alaynia sat on the window seat, still dressed in her robe. She didn’t turn toward him, but her shoulders stiffened.

  “Do you have a riding habit?” he said gruffly. “I don’t think any of Jeannie’s are big enough for you.”

  “I have one. Patti made that for me, too.” Still gazing out the window, she continued, “Does that mean I can leave my room today?”

  “Look—” Shain cut off his words when a knock sounded on Alaynia’s door.

  “Miss Mirabeau,” someone called. “Are you awake?”

  “Jeannie,” Shain warned in a low voice. “Don’t let her see what you’re wearing under that robe.”

  Alaynia shot him a combative look and called sweetly, “Come on in, Jeannie. I’m up.”

  Shain barely managed to close his door before Jeannie burst into the room.

  Chapter 10

  “I always have chocolate and buns when I first get up,” Jeannie said in the open doorway. “I thought if you were awake, you might want to join me. We never have breakfast until later, and by then I’m usually starved.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Alaynia admitted with a smile. “Only I’d prefer coffee, if it’s available.”

  Jeannie turned to give her breakfast order to someone in the hallway, and Alaynia noticed the young girl was already dressed. She wore a light-pink gown, floor-length, of course, with capped sleeves on her slender upper arms. When she turned back into the room, Alaynia could see the same demure neckline above her young breasts, this one with a scalloped edging. Jeannie crossed the room toward the window seat, her golden curls bouncing on her back with the vibrancy of her movements.

  “Oh!” Jeannie stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry. You’re not dressed yet. I guess I shouldn’t have bothered you. But ... I thought I heard Shain’s voice in here a minute ago.”

  “He was just checking on how I’d spent the night,” Alaynia half-lied. “And please don’t think you’re bothering me. In fact, since you seem so full of energy this morning, how about that tour after a bit?”

  “I always wake up full of energy,” Jeannie said with a laugh. “Shain, now, he’s the reason we wait a couple hours for breakfast. You can’t even talk to him when he first wakes up.”

  Alaynia silently agreed with Jeannie on that point. At least, not talk rationally to the man, she qualified.

  “And we’ll have plenty of time for me to show you the house before our regular breakfast,” Jeannie continued, bouncing on over to where Alaynia sat. “Do you want me to help you get dressed? I’m really sorry that we don’t have a servant available so you can have your own maid, but ... well, most everyone is short of help these days. Shain says it’s because not enough people want to work for a living, but I know it’s because we can’t really afford anyone else. We just have Sara, our cook, and Tessa, our housekeeper. Tessa’s daughter, Netta—she’s the one who brought up your bathwater last night—she helps Tessa out now and then on the heavy cleaning days.

  “Oh!” Jeannie clapped a palm over her mouth, her blue eyes dancing mischievously above her fingers. Slowing dropping her hand, she said, “Shain says I babble too much, and that’s one reason he has to have breakfast later—so he’s awake enough to listen to my chatter.”

  Still, adoration for her brother shone from Jeannie’s eyes. Indeed, Shain’s name punctuated everything she said. Never having had any siblings of her own, Alaynia could only imagine the relationship between this so very different brother and sister. The orphanage didn’t exactly foster close relationships, since children came and went with frequency, and for some reason she had never formed a close friendship with another woman after she left to be on her own.

  “I think yo
ur chatter is very refreshing in the morning,” she said. “And to tell the truth, I’m not used to having anyone assist me in dressing and bathing.”

  “Didn’t you have very many servants, either?” Jeannie asked.

  “No, no I didn’t,” Alaynia replied, aware that she didn’t dare explain anything further to Jeannie. “And I better get dressed, or our drinks will be cold by the time I get down to the dining room.”

  “We won’t eat downstairs until Shain’s ready,” Jeannie explained. “Just come on over to my room.” She turned and started for the door. “It’s on the other side of the stairwell and two doors down on the right.”

  She closed the door behind her with an energetic thud, and Alaynia slid from the window seat, shaking her head. The room was awfully silent without Jeannie’s presence, and—she glanced at the bed, where the extra pillow still held the indentation of Shain’s head—she already missed him, too, despite the fact that their talk had deteriorated into another test of wills.

  Suddenly recalling the scene in the graveyard the previous night, Alaynia turned and stared back out the window. Early morning mist hovered above the ground, foretelling another humid, Southern day. Yet there was no definition to the mist this morning—only a layer of rising moisture, which dissipated the farther it got above the ground.

  She could see the hazy outlines of the headstones, and suddenly a shaft of sunlight broke through the trees, outlining the one, towering tombstone. Frowning in concentration, she knelt on the window seat cushion and steadied herself on the windowsill as she studied the array of headstones. She’d passed several churches on her journey from Baton Rouge the previous morning, noting their sites so she could return and explore at some later date. Even in those church graveyards, she had noticed a few of the above-ground tombs she’d heard about in the Southernmost part of Louisiana. It had surprised her that some families followed that custom this far north of New Orleans.

  Her research indicated that above-ground tombs were a necessity in the below-sea-level town of New Orleans. She’d also planned to visit that historical city during her restoration of Chenaie, to get a proper feel for the background of the state and the early lifestyles of its people.