Christie (42 page)

"I fear you've branded me, my little wildcat."

She looked up to find Garrett looking at her with an amused smile on his face.

"Did—did I really do that?" she stammered.

"That, and a host of other things." He grinned. "Some of them resulting in the visible, like this, and some of them quite, quite audible," he added, kissing her love-bruised lips. "I wonder that you didn't rouse the babe as you cried your pleasure, love."

"Ohhh," groaned Christie, blushing furiously as she buried her face in his chest. "Was I that loud?"

"No one but me seems to have heard you, my little
wanton," chuckled Garrett, "and I found the sounds gave me unspeakable pleasure and untold delight."

"Oh, Garrett! You—you made me feel so—so—I didn't
know
myself!"

At her husband's soft laughter, she rose on one elbow and moved until she was stretched, full length, atop his hard, muscular frame. As his arms went about her, she raised herself up slightly on her forearms, until she could look into his face easily.

"We—you showed me things this night which the mere thinking on now brings a ready blush to my cheeks," she whispered, eyes turquoise, bright, and wide.

Garrett looked at her through lazy, half-closed eyes, as he moved his hands down to stroke her delicious little buttocks; he was fully conscious of the touch of her breasts' twin peaks which seemed to burn his chest while he lay there. "And—?" he questioned, with an indolent grin.

"And," returned Christie, grinning back impishly, "I find I want to taste, them all over again!" With a quick movement, she brought her mouth down and pulled at his lower lip, playfully with her teeth. Then she saw Garrett's grin vanish, to be replaced by a look of more serious intent. In a single movement he rolled and had her beneath him and his eyes searched her face with a hungry intensity before he brought his mouth down greedily to her lips; like a volcano, the bed, the chamber, the very air around them seemed to explode with this instant renewal of their passions' hungers. And this time, the dawn provided light before either noticed the candles had burned completely down.

In the morning, as preparations were made for their visit to Charleston, Garrett found it necessary to force himself to concentrate on the routine tasks this involved. Every time he found himself looking at Christie, he felt the air between them become charged with electricity as their mutual looks and glances reminded them of the previous night. At one point he thought, chuckling to himself, "Who would have guessed that, at this stage in my life I'd find myself so smitten over my own wife as to be mooning over her like some lovesick schoolboy?" Then, savoring the notion and finding it warmly satisfying, he willed himself, not without an extreme effort, to continue seeing to the loading of the trunks on the carriage that would carry them to the city.

Christie's mood matched her husband's. Finding herself free of any remnant of doubt concerning the security of her relationship with Garrett, she spent the day alternating between the impulse to find some excuse to delay the trip and find renewed privacy with her husband in their chambers, and an eagerness to be on their way toward the social engagement in which she might, as she was seen in public with him, by her looks and behavior toward her husband, silently shout her love to the world, proudly proclaiming what they had found together.

By midafternoon, the carriage having been loaded, with Lula, Christie, and Adam comfortably seated inside, they were ready to be under way. Garrett would be riding Jet, joined in his escort by three of the men from the stables, each of whom carried a pistol and long rifle and knew how to use them; for at the back of everyone's mind was still the disquieting memory of the recent threats of gunfire.

"I find myself doubly anxious to make this journey," Garrett had explained to Christie as she had seen him readying his weapons after the noon meal. "First, because of the information a talk with your uncle might bring forth, and then because it will serve to remove you and the babe to a place of safety from this other nefarious business. When we are in Charleston, I intend to make contact with the authorities on the matter. In the meantime, I've been thinking you ought not to return to Riverlea until the matter is settled and the danger clearly past. What say you, love, to the idea of a visit to Virginia and an extended stay at Windreach after the trip to Charleston?"

Christie had greeted the suggestion with mixed feelings, saying, "Oh, I'd love seeing Father and Windreach again, but, Garrett, wouldn't it be like running away? And what if this mysterious attacker is not found in the interim? We cannot hide in Virginia forever. Much as I love Windreach, darling, I've come to regard Riverlea as home."

Smiling at this, Garrett had answered with a tight arm about her waist, "It's not to my liking to be running either, Christie, but your safety, and the child's, override all other considerations. While you're secure in Virginia, Jesse and I might be able to—"

"Jesse and you!" she had exclaimed. "Garrett Randall, do you mean to tell me I'd be traveling to Windreach without you? Do you think me mad? How can you even
suggest
we separate!"

"It's not an easy notion to set in my mind, either, love," Garrett had retorted. "But how can I scurry safely off to Virginia and leave my brother here alone

to face the matter?"

Suddenly reminded they hadn't seen Jesse since the evening before, Christie had asked, "Speaking of your brother, where is Jesse, anyway?"

A slow grin had stolen across Garrett's face at this. "As you become better acquainted with him, Christie, you'll discover Brother Jesse frequently goes out for the evening and remains away for a longer length of time. He's a Randall, you know, and not a monk!"

"Ohhh," Christie had replied, flushing uncomfortably. Then, making a swift recovery by returning to their previous subject, she had stated, "Garrett, I simply will not agree to being sent so far away from you! At least let me stay out of harm's reach by remaining in Charleston. There, at least, you might travel easily enough to warm my bed at night!" This she had said with only the barest blush. "Even a prolonged stay with Aunt Margaret would be preferable to separating from you, darling,
please!"

And seeing the tears begin to threaten her eyes, Garrett had held her close and promised not to send her further than Charleston. God knew, he hadn't been fond of the idea either!"

During the ride to the city, Christie and Lula conversed easily, discussing topics which ranged from the wedding which was to take place in less than week's time—another reason not to be away from the area, thought Christie—to a discussion of a recently acquired volume of poetry by a little known Scottish poet named Robert Burns. Both women had read it, stumbling together over the words of Scottish dialect, but each had found herself in agreement with most of the strange, new egalitarian sentiments of the man, who was rumored to be a self-taught Scottish
peasant, another factor which pleased and intrigued them.

From time to time, Garrett stopped the carriage and stuck his head inside to assure them all was well; and during these moments, when Lula noticed his and Christie's eyes meeting, she smiled and let the previous night's farewells lace her memory.

Lucille Baker's thin, tall mulatto, Andrew, carefully observed his mistress as she emerged from the front doors of The Eastern Banking House's Dock Street offices in Charleston. He sighed. From the look on her face, she had not received the loan, and Andrew quickly replaced the sigh with a worried frown as he contemplated the hell there would be to pay at the Setting Sun for the next few days as madame took out her resulting ill temper on everyone who worked there. Sighing again, he forced himself to lean back into the plush upholstery of the barouche's rich interior, for madame had ordered him to wait here for her, and if Andrew knew anything, it was never to disobey Madame Lucille.

Andrew knew why Lucille required the money, and he smiled wryly to himself as he remembered the hot, muggy morning, several weeks ago, when Annette's letter had arrived. Annette . . . Lucille's younger sister, ten years her junior, and the only person in the world, madame had once told him, she had ever truly loved. Ah, but Lucille had been in a fit of temper that day! He could still hear her oaths as she cursed the wealthy protector of her beloved sibling for dying so suddenly and leaving poor Annette without a sou! Not that it had been Annette's

penniless state alone which had enraged his mistress, but the suggestion that her little sister would now have to resort to working in a New Orleans brothel to support herself—that had been the true source of Lucille's rage.

"I didn't work my way up through the whorehouses of New Orleans myself," Lucille had screamed, "didn't force myself to do anything for money—
anything,
do you hear, Andrew?—except to spare Annette from having to endure the same kind of filthy existence! She's my baby sister, and I didn't come all this long, hard way, just to see her end up the kind of broken-down, overpainted whore I almost became, and would have, if I hadn't stumbled on that rich old fool who furnished me with enough money to buy this place."

Andrew smiled to himself again. He had been with Lucille since the "rich old fool" had set her up on that balmy Louisiana evening so many years ago. He had sat up with her, evening after evening, carefully plotting ways in which to ply cash from the old man before he died, something they had expected to happen daily, and which, in less than two years time, had happened. But by then Lucille had hoarded enough of the old fool's gold to set herself up handsomely, as well as, or so she had thought, to procure a comfortable "arrangement" for little Annette.

But now Annette's wealthy protector had died, and heartlessly left everything to his wife and family, and not a thing to his mistress of ten years beyond the clothes on her back. Lucille would have been beyond living with, so furious had she been at the thought of
her sister's having to enter the profession she herself had so narrowly escaped, had it not been for Andrew's idea for an alternate plan—a loan from the bank to finance—

"Andrew, help me up!" Lucille's sharp voice cut across the mulatto's thoughts as she neared the carriage.

"Of course, madame."

With Lucille quickly settled in the seat opposite, her skirts carefully arranged, Andrew gave the driver his cue and turned to regard his mistress' face. The cold smile he observed on its beautiful features surprised him.

"Madame was successful?" he offered tentatively, for he had been prepared to offer her comfort for her disappointments—comfort her face now told him might not be necessary.

"Yes, Andrew," Lucille intoned stonily. "Madame was . . . successful. Annette will have her own house."

"Ah, but madame, that is
magnifique!"
The mulatto smiled. "But why, after refusing you the first time—"

"Nothing has changed where the very proper Eastern Banking House is concerned, Andrew. Those self-righteous bastards still regard me and my kind of business as too dirty to soil their pristine little coffers with. They turned me down again."

Andrew sighed. Then he had been right in his earlier assessment of the success—or lack of it—of her efforts. "I am sorry, madame."

"Oh, but you needn't be, Andrew." Again, the cold smile painted itself across her countenance.

"But, then I do not understand, madame. If they
have denied you again—"

"I said
they
turned me down, Andrew," said Lucille, carefully taking out her reticule from its place of concealment amid the folds of her skirt. "But it seems I have found a friend there among that crowd of holier-than-thou jackals
who was
willing to help us."

She watched Andrew's astonished face as she opened the reticule and dumped its contents into her lap. There, amid the silky folds of her skirt lay a pile of gold large enough to amount to the ten thousand she had been looking for!

"But—but, Madame—I do not understand. Who would—"

"As I said, Andrew—a . . . friend. I cannot reveal any more, even to you. Suffice it to say, however, that by this time next month, Annette will have her own lavish brothel on one of New Orleans' finest streets^"

Andrew regarded her closely. He was more familiar with those features he had so often scrutinized than he was with his own. Something was wrong. Carefully, he ventured his comment.

"Er—madame is less then happy with the arrangement—
oui?"

The cold smile reappeared.
"Oui,
Andrew. Madame is less than happy." She bent forward toward him slightly. "You see, Andrew, in order to secure her loan, madame had to put up a costly bit of. . . let us call it collateral."

"Collateral, madame?"

"In a manner of speaking," replied Lucille. "In order to save my sister from a life of whoring, Andrew, I just had to sell out the only man I ever
could have grown to care for.','

Having heard these words, Andrew watched Lucille turn her face away and look out toward the street the barouche was traversing, and he knew their conversation was closed. Sighing, he settled himself back in his seat.

The loan was secure. At least, this time there would be no fits of temper to have to deal with. And he knew, whatever bouts of conscience Lucille would now be dealing with would soon be overcome. Lucille Baker, he knew, had very little conscience left at this stage of her life!

But Lucille Baker's thoughts had not closed on the matter. Rather, as she gazed, unseeing, out at the buildings along Dock Street, she allowed her mind to find itself occupied with the final death throes of the losing battle, a battle her conscience had been waging with her darker side ever since she had left that private office.

What did she owe Garrett Randall? Nothing! She told herself for the dozenth time. Nothing beyond ten long years of carefully keeping herself out of a bedchamber with him after that first and only devastating night she had spent in his arms, so long ago. She shut her eyes quickly as if, by doing so, she might once again blot out the taste of heaven the memory brought her. Fool! she told herself. Wasn't your very reason for avoiding his charms all these subsequent years a good one? Didn't you do it with the realization that if you didn't avoid the man's bed, you would succumb to him completely and lose your heart to pain? And now, by virtue of his marriage to that angelic-looking little bitch, haven't you received your proof that you were right?

Her thoughts turned darkly from Garrett to the woman he had married, and a cold smile once more froze Lucille's features. Christie, she had learned her name was. Even the name suggested a kind of purity! Oh, Lucille knew her type well! Raised in the lap of luxury with all possible advantages, doted on by indulgent parents, virginity carefully protected until the proper wealthy husband could be found—and then adored and pampered all over again by the doting husband. But somehow she had never expected Garrett Randall to take such a wife . . . not Garrett. Jesse Randall, yes, with him she could see it, but Garrett. . . But he
had
taken such a bride, and from all Lucille could deduce from the way he had behaved during his long stay with her, he not only had wed the bitch—he was desperately in love with her! In love with a wide-eyed, weak-kneed, simpering little bitch just like the one Annette's protector had married! Just like the wife of Armand, beautiful, cruel Armand, who had taken Lucille's own virginity that one summer, so many years ago, and then laughed in her face when she had spoken of marriage—laughed at her, as he coldly explained he would be marrying at summer's end, at which time his and Lucille's relationship would be terminated! How she had wept then, pleading with Armand to marry her instead . . . the tears . . . Abruptly Lucille shut off the thoughts which threatened to break down her carefully schooled reserve of all these years. No, she told herself. You can never again allow yourself the luxury of thinking of Armand—or Garrett Randall, either. Force yourself to dwell on more pleasant thoughts, she said to herself. Think of Christie Randall's comeuppance. Ah, now
there