by Laura Parker
Philadelphia felt her world slip sideways. He had spoken the same accusation that Tyrone had used to condemn her father, that he had hired murderers. Why would they both say this … unless it was true? “How can you expect me to believe you?” she whispered.
MacCloud looked surprised. “You want to know more? Seven years ago, we learned that the bandits we had hired had been tracked down and murdered, but not before they had been tortured into revealing the names of the Blue Madonna’s buyers. Of course, we thought we were safe in the U.S. Seven years had passed since the incident. I’d even changed my name after the war. But then last year Lancaster received a series of threatening letters. When his bank collapsed, he died of a seizure on the spot, so we thought no more about it. But then your father cabled me the day before his bank collapsed, and we knew they had found us. The letter you showed me confirms it.”
Philadelphia recoiled but MacCloud pressed her with his words. “Tyrone is the man who destroyed your father. He’s after me and maybe he’ll be after you, too, when he learns who you are.”
“He knows,” she said dully.
“God in heaven! Then tell me where to find him before he murders us both.”
She was no longer listening. She had gotten the information she had come for, but the answer was bitter, so very bitter. Her father had caused needless deaths and desecrated a holy shrine out of greed. And when he was found out, he had killed himself out of shame and guilt, leaving her to face the world utterly alone. Eduardo had warned her against seeking the truth, had told her she might not want to learn the reason for her father’s suicide. Why hadn’t she listened to him? Dear God! Why hadn’t she listened?
She turned and walked out through the door, heedless of MacCloud’s shouts and threats. He held a gun. Would he shoot her, here in his offices, over the exchange? And if he did, would it matter? She couldn’t think of a single reason to be alive at the moment.
Yet, she did pass through MacCloud’s door. She descended the stairs without being accosted by him, and then walked out into the brilliant sunshine of the Louisiana day.
Tyrone strode through the courtyard of his house and climbed the back stairs with his riding crop still in hand. For hours he had been combing the city looking for Philadelphia only to learn from Poulette upon his return that she was up in her room quietly and calmly packing. He struck his boot top with the whip to relieve a little of his frustration, and then tossed it over the railing. In his present mood, it would take blessed little in the way of provocation for him to use it on her.
He had awakened with a headful of plans for leaving New Orleans immediately, and taking Philadelphia with him. They would go up the Mississippi, to Memphis, or St. Louis. Start over. He had money, plenty of it. He would buy her a house, hell!—a mansion. And then he had discovered she was gone.
He paused on the landing and took a deep breath. Perhaps he had been more angry in his life, certainly with better cause, but he could not remember ever being so moved by his anger. She was more trouble than she was worth. Yet, her disappearance had only made him want her more. If this irrational desire for her was not love, it was as close as he had ever come to it.
He was shocked by the admission. After enduring the torture of listening to Eduardo making love to her, he had lain awake the entire night, aching with desire for her but holding that wanting in check. He was still amazed he had not killed them both.
Somehow she had gotten under his skin. Maybe the turning point had been that moment last night after he had called her father a coward. Appalled disbelief had drained her face of its beauty. She had never been more vulnerable, and he had never been more moved by tenderness toward another.
She was turning his world upside down, forcing unwanted feelings from him, and that made her more dangerous than any bullet. He was beginning to think of a future he had never before desired. For a man who wanted to live was likely to become cautious, to hesitate, and in his experience more likely to die. He had to get rid of this fever, and there was only one way to do it.
He kicked open the shutters to her room without knocking, and they snapped back against the wall with a loud crash. She hardly moved, only looked up without surprise.
The fact that she was not frightened annoyed him. “Where the hell have you been?”
She looked at him a moment in silence as she folded the petticoat she held. “I know about the Blue Madonna.”
Her answer surprised him but he did not show it. He did not care who the messenger was. Whoever it was, even Eduardo himself, the news had not prevented her from returning to him, and that was all that was important at the moment. “What do you know?”
Her voice sounded tired, strained, weak. “I know that my father hired men to steal the blue topaz and that they killed innocent people and desecrated a holy place to obtain it.”
“And Tavares? What did you learn about him?”
Philadelphia shook her head. “Nothing.”
Tyrone frowned. “Did your informant not tell you that Tavares’s parents were the people the bandits killed?” At her stricken look, he cursed under his breath. What woman could resist pathos? So then, he would give it all to her. Perhaps the complete truth would rout her remaining feelings for Tavares.
“You should ask him about his scars the next time you see him. Your father’s responsible for them.” His voice was a sneer. “The bandits raped and killed his mother, then tortured him to make his father produce the Blue Madonna. When his father finally broke and gave it to them, they slit his throat. So there you have it, the story he might have told you, if he dared.”
“Dear Lord!” Philadelphia closed her eyes against this new blow.
“You didn’t know him at all, did you?”
“I don’t think I know anyone, not even myself.” She looked at him without really seeing him. “I went to see MacCloud.”
“Dios mio!” He caught her by the shoulders. “What did you tell him?”
“That you were looking for him.”
He shook her brutally. “Who is he! Tell me or I’ll beat it out of you!”
She looked up into his merciless crystalline eyes. “I believe you, but I won’t tell you. So kill me.”
He released her, afraid once more of his temper. “I hate martyrs! I don’t want your miserable life.” His eyes turned suddenly strangely dark. “But I do want you.”
She did not even struggle against him when he swept her up in a brutal embrace. She did not feel anything as his mouth engulfed hers. Dimly she was aware of her bodice being ripped open, of hard hands seeking her body. There was no fight left in her as he half-dragged, half-carried her to the bed and fell upon it with her under him. She tasted blood on her lips and then his hot mouth was on the skin of her throat, moving lower as he cupped a breast through the thin fabric of her chemise. From far away she heard an urgent voice telling her to fight him, to deny him this easy victory but she was too tired, too weak and sick at heart to heed it. She did not even realize when his heavy body suddenly stilled on hers. She knew nothing until the moment when he gripped her face in his broad hand and shook it.
She opened her eyes to meet his forbidding stare. “Fight me, damn you!” he growled. “Kick and scream, but don’t retreat from me!”
“Why?” she whispered wearily. “So you can hurt me more and feel justified?”
He recoiled from her like she had suddenly grown fangs. It was true. He did want to punish her for her love of Tavares. He sat up, facing away from her, and pushed both hands through his hair, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, all the time swearing methodically and viciously in a mixture of Creole French and Spanish.
With face averted, Philadelphia lay listening to her pounding heart, aware that any movement, any distraction at all might provoke him into finishing the rape he had begun.
“Who is MacCloud?”
She heard the chill in his voice and wondered if he had mastered his lust. “Why?”
“Eduardo wanted to ruin the men responsible for his parents’ death. You, too, want to kill MacCloud. Why?”
“If you’re expecting me to confide in you a story similar to Eduardo’s you’re going to be disappointed!”
“Are you a hired gun?”
He smirked and rose off the bed. “What if I am?”
“You kill for money?”
His was the coldest smile she had ever seen. “Sometimes I kill for the pure pleasure of it!”
He saw the horror in her eyes and was glad for it. Her response to his lie made it easier to move away from her, to pull his gaze away from the lovely breasts he had exposed, to leave her as he must. Yet he could not resist asking the question whose answer he was certain he did not want to hear. “You still love him, don’t you?”
Philadelphia did not pretend to misunderstand. She looked up into his savage yet strangely compelling face. “I do. Not that it matters now. Eduardo won’t be back.”
Tyrone felt a burning sting cross his cheeks and wondered at its origin. What was this? Rage? Chagrin? No, no, as alien as it was to his nature, he recognized it. Guilt. Her answer had been no more than he expected. Yet it contained an accusation, a suggestion that he was at fault. He had known Tavares’s feelings from the first moment he had seen them together. Tavares was ready to walk away from their blood oath because of her. He had been furious and jealous; hard admissions for a man of his pride. So he had driven them apart, once in Saratoga and again here in New Orleans. What he had not counted on was falling in love with her himself. If he had left them alone, they might have found a way to overcome the impossible. Though, from his experience, he doubted it.
But she was not meant for him. He suspected love seldom made its bed permanently in the hearts of men like himself. This anguished pain he felt would pass, like a gallstone. Soon he would not remember it at all. At least, he hoped to hell not! Until then, he would cauterize it with the one emotion he had always counted on to keep him alive; hate.
He stared down at her, making his own expression as pitiless as humanly possible. “I’m not going to ask you again, and I don’t particularly want to hurt you, but I’m not leaving this room until you tell me MacCloud’s new name.”
He did not have to reach for her. Philadelphia knew this time that he meant it. “MacHugh.”
As he turned to leave she sat up abruptly, trying to gather the pieces of her bodice together. “What are you going to do?”
He turned at the door. “You know, If I were you, I’d misplace that conscience of mine for the time being. It’ll make things so much easier for you.” He turned and walked out.
The sun was bloodred as it slid below the horizon. Was the color an omen, Philadelphia wondered. She sat by her door, listening as Tyrone moved about his room. She had expected him to go after MacCloud immediately. When he did not, she finally realized why he waited. Murder, even cold-blooded murder, was a deed best accomplished under the shade of night. Moments before she had heard him give an order for his horse to be saddled. He would soon be leaving and, when he did, she would leave, too.
When he stepped out onto the balcony she saw that he had strapped a gun belt low on his hips. His face was expressionless, cold, void of human warmth or frailty. She shivered and hugged her arms though her room was stiflingly hot, drawing back as he moved past her doorway. But he did not enter or even say a word. He simply moved on to the stairs and descended.
She heard him whistle for his horse. Moments later, the sounds of horseshoes rang sharply on the flagstones as he rode out through the porte cochere.
18
She waited nearly ten minutes after Tyrone rode out before acting. She put on the hat she had laid out on her bed, tied the ribbons under her chin, then reached for her portmanteau. She had packed only what she could carry and even that seemed too much at the moment. She was exhausted and feeling ill. She had sent one man off to kill another.
“No! I mustn’t think that way,” she whispered to herself as she lifted her case and walked to the doorway. Escape must be the thing uppermost in her mind.
The courtyard was curiously deserted, and for that she was thankful as she reached the patio level. It had occurred to her that Tyrone might station one of his servants to keep guard over her, but then, why should he? He had gotten what he wanted from her, MacCloud’s new identity. She was free to go because he no longer needed her.
She crossed to the narrow door in the gate and opened it. The bell atop it suddenly hopped to life with a merry tinkle. Appalled, she shoved herself through the opening and then ran down the narrow dark alley.
She heard footsteps behind her almost at once but she did not turn to see who might be following her. She ran past dark gateways and past a private carriage coming up the alley. She would be safe, she told herself, as soon as she reached the main street and the protection of other people. But just as she stepped up on the wooden banquette that provided a raised walkway over the muddy street, she was caught from behind and hauled back into the alley.
She screamed once before a hand was clapped over her mouth, and she was pulled back against the hard wall of a man’s chest.
“Deus! But you can run, menina.” Eduardo removed his hand from her mouth, laughing as he did so. “I’ve been waiting all afternoon for you to—”
Philadelphia heard the sickening blow that cut short Eduardo’s speech, and then darkness descended as she was enveloped from behind in a thick brown cloth that dampened her cries. She fought the arms that gripped her but she was lifted off her feet, her ankles caught and quickly bound by a second pair of hands, and then she was being carried between the pair. They traveled only a few steps before she heard the snort of a horse and then she was lifted up. Her elbow caught against the corner of a hard surface as she began to struggle again, and the pain was like an electric shock.
“Git her in quick!” she heard a man say close by her ear, and remembered the carriage she had run past in the alley. A moment later she was dumped onto a hard surface.
“To the river!” she heard the same voice say and then she felt the jolt as the vehicle was set in motion.
She was being kidnapped. And what of Eduardo? The blow she had heard seemed to reverberate in her mind with ten times its original impact. She tried to sit up as hysteria shot new strength into her bound limbs. Dear Lord! Had he been brought along also, or was he lying in the alley bleeding to death?
A booted foot found the small of her back and pressed down hard.
“Lie still,” a gruff voice said. “Won’t nobody hurt you.”
Too frightened to think properly, she tried to scream but the cloth was thick and the air inside it in short supply. Was this Tyrone’s revenge against her? He had threatened to dispose of her if she did not cooperate with him. Now that she had provided the information he needed, only she would be able to name MacCloud’s murderer. Perhaps he had left her behind because he had arranged for her death. Gasping for breath, she remembered hearing tales of people who had been bound in sacks and tossed in the river to drown.
Reason pitched over into mindless terror as she released scream after scream. Very soon she felt a dizzying darkness and then nothing.
“She’s all but smothered to death, you stupid fool! What good will a dead hostage be to me?”
Philadelphia tried to swallow but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and every breath she took moved painfully in and out of her lungs. She struggled to open her eyes but her lashes were matted and seemed glued together. She jerked instinctively away from the hand that touched her but when she realized that it held a cool cloth, she held tensely still as it was gently applied to her face. Finally, her lashes parted over eyes that seemed to b
e filled with sand.
“Good evening, Miss—ah, Hunt? I regret the inconvenience of your journey but I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
Philadelphia found herself gazing up into the face of MacCloud. He held out a glass to her. “You’ll want a drink. I apologize for the rough handling. Reliable help is hard come by since the war. I trust there are no serious injuries.”
Only then did she realize that she had been untied and was free to move. She had been placed on a bed in a tiny dark-paneled room and covered by a light blanket. She sat up slowly, not looking directly at him. Her head felt like an explosion had been set off inside it but she fought the disorienting pain. “Where am I?” she asked, gasping against the ache in her throat.
MacCloud thrust the glass at her. “Drink first. You need it.”
They shook so badly, it took both of her hands and the additional help of one of his to steady the glass enough for her to take a swallow of water. When she found that it would go down, despite the rawness of her throat, she drank a little more and then more until she had emptied the glass. Only then did she look directly at him. “Why am I here?”
“You’re a guest aboard my steamboat, little lady.”
Philadelphia realized the truth of his words in the fact that the bed beneath her trembled ever so slightly with the vibrations from the engine room. Hard on that first understanding came the awareness that MacCloud, not Tyrone, was her captor. The thought made her no more safe but it heartened her all the same. Tyrone did not hate her enough to have her murdered. She turned on MacCloud a look of disdain. “You’ve abducted me.”
He smiled and shrugged, setting the glass aside. “I regret the necessity, but you gave me little choice. Your visit to my office this morning came as quite a shock. I couldn’t risk Tyrone finding me before I’d taken out some insurance.”
