Linna : Historical Romance (The Brocade Collection, Book 5)

CHAPTER ONE

1811

Louisiana Territory

She probably didn’t deserve what he was going to do to her.

Lukewarm wetness dripped onto Cord’s face, caressed his lips, and slid over his features. None of which meant a thing. Cord licked at the rain, tasted the nothingness and let it sit on his tongue. There wasn’t enough to swallow. It wasn’t raining although it had been all morn. The day was sending leftover drops down each clump of Spanish moss he was standing under. He heard the rustle of his companions as they chafed with the discomfort. His upper lip curled slightly. They were stupid. And lazy. Impatient. Incompetent. They were still all he had. All they had to do was watch and wait. Both were beyond them.

The faint sound of giggling reached him, lifted from the ground by the steam encasing his ankles, wrapping around exposed tree-roots
, and shadowing the pools of swamp. Cord narrowed his eyes, caught at the breath...and held it.

His heart still stopped
. She was as lovely as the cameo hanging against his upper belly. Lovelier. Something in him twinged, making him lose a bit of inhaled breath for a fraction of time. She was dancing between trees and then she was gone. He blinked. Then she was back in view and closer, crouching forward with her back to where they stood, defining a lush back-view.  

“
Mai oui!
Just look. She is dressed all wrong. She shouldn’t wear that color of red. It clashes with her hair. I swear—”

Cord had a hand raised to stop the whisper but it was wasted
. The voice halted the moment he’d tensed to make it. The speaker was mistaken. There was nothing wrong with her clothing. It was perfect:  lacy about her throat and tight against her waist, defining a hand-pleasing frame. Cord opened his lips a fraction, licked at another droplet, and got the same reaction. Nothing. There was no taste, no succor, no quenching. There was only one thing that would bring him satisfaction. And it wasn’t her.  

“She is the one,
non
?”

Cord silenced him with a glance before returning to where the girl was now in silhouette, taut and straight as she tried to blend into one with a tree
. She was beautiful. She was clothed expensively. She had a wealth of reddish-brown hair that fell well past what had looked to be very well-rounded, feminine hips. It could be none other.

“Well?” 

Cord nodded, once. And then everything stilled as she started unbuttoning her high-necked, lace-bedecked blouse.    

~ ~ ~

Swamp-mist was coating each button, making it difficult to pry it through the hole. Linna grimaced as she unfastened exactly ten of them. Ten. Any more of them and she’d have trouble with her story. It was hot. She’d felt strangled in the high-necked, broadcloth, lace-encrusted blouse she was constrained to wear. She couldn’t catch her breath. She felt faint. The heat was stifling her and the heavy damp in the air made it hard to breathe.

That much at least, was true
. It was stifling. And it was hard to breathe. Opening her blouse wasn’t going to fix it, however. Nothing was. Nothing worked. And nothing changed. The heat and heaviness kept growing, pulsing through her until it owned her, and then it became anger. She was being stifled. She was being watched. She was being treated like a prisoner! Worse...like a child! Well! She’d show them. She was no child.

It was past noon, but not so much anyone should worry
. She knew they would, though. There wasn’t anything she did anymore that they didn’t worry over – and it wasn’t even her fault!

Frustration made her movements clumsy and slow as she peeled the lace placket apart, smoothing hot, moist fingertips against heated, sweat-soaked skin
. She shouldn’t have dared Luthor to play hide-and-seek. It was too hot and it was too damp...and he hadn’t the wits to win. Linna blew the sigh out, puffing her cheeks with the motion and moving tendrils of hair that felt glued into place on her face. Then she raised a hand to her eyes. The object of her torment, Luthor Evans, should have been right behind her. She squinted her eyes, trying to spot the beau she’d so easily out-run.

If anyone had told her that this
summer she’d only have one beau attending her and an ungainly one at that...well! She’d have laughed aloud!

Linna set her jaw, pushing it outward with the thrust of her lower teeth
. Just this January, she’d had to make room on her calendar to fit in all the men that were courting Ryan Daniels’ youngest daughter. But that had been before Mama had disgraced them all; Papa, Rhea, Vincent...all of them.

Linna didn’t blame Papa for his rage, nor the bullet he’d used to end Mama’s life
. It was his right to punish adultery in such a fashion. There wasn’t a court that would convict him. There wasn’t even one that would press charges...but blast it! He could have done it with less publicity! He didn’t have to ruin everyone’s life as he gained his justice, did he? He didn’t have to turn his daughter into such a social pariah she was left with only Luthor for her lone suitor! That really pushed what Papa had done into the unforgivable range.

Her lips set in a tight, thin line as she looked around the tree for him
.
Luthor Evans
? She shuddered at the thought and it was with the same sense of distaste. Luthor Evans made a mockery of everything she’d once hoped, dreamt, and imagined for herself. Why, Luthor was so far behind what she’d envisioned, it was embarrassing. She couldn’t imagine a less manly spectacle than he was. She spread the gap at her throat wider, opening it just enough that the very top of her chemise peeked out. She knew why she did it. She was trying to see what would happen when he saw that. She set her lips. Then she turned so her back was against the tree and bowed into an arch, making certain Luthor couldn’t mistake the pose for anything other than what it was:  man-pleasing.

~ ~ ~

Her pose worked. It yanked Cord’s eyes from the continual scan of swamp for the slightest bit of time. It was a costly error, for when he had it under control, the shadow of a tall, gangly youth was staining the air beyond her as he approached, walking slowly and uncertainly as he searched.

“Someone comes,
ami
!”  Simons, the small man at his elbow whispered.

“He’s right
. Now you’ve lost the chance.”

Another of his companions shifted, the movement sliding moss against buckskins the color of mahogany, as he slid into the space beside the other two
. Cord’s eyes narrowed at the girl. He tipped his head up but didn’t move his gaze. He could have sworn in that one moment of frozen time that she’d looked straight at him, her arresting face turned to him...and him only.

Cord blinked
. His eyes were deceiving him. He’d been staring and it had looked like her eyes had widened as she locked gazes with him. But that was stupid. She was getting ready for an illicit assignation with her beau and Cord Larket was standing, hidden amongst dripping Spanish Moss...wasting time they didn’t have. He felt his shoulders tense, and the cameo against his upper belly felt like it scorched in place.

“Daniels would have his throat if he knew how lax that young man is, eh?”

The words came from near his elbow again. Cord started to form a reply before he was caught up by the girl again. The youth had reached her, seen what she offered, but then he’d immediately swiveled around, shielding his eyes from it. She didn’t look pleased. Cord wished he was close enough to hear her words. He very nearly smiled. The spot where the cameo rested cooled.

~ ~ ~

“Luthor Evans! You’ve taken a year’s worth of time and I won’t stand for it! I’ll not wait forever. What do you take me for?”  Linna stomped her foot for emphasis and moved from her pose, smiling slyly at the crestfallen look on his face when he finally turned back to her. He was red clear to his ears. But he wasn’t disinterested. Far from it. His eyes were stuck to where her blouse was open, and they might as was well be bulging.

“Now, look
. There’s no time to talk, or rest, or play...or whatever else might arise.”  She slid her fingertips along the skin from her chemise top to the edge of her blouse and watched him gulp. She had to swallow around the bitter taste in her mouth and was in luck that he wasn’t looking anywhere near her face. She’d never felt quite as filthy. She slid a button back into its hole with one hand and waited until he moved his gaze to hers. “Just look at what you’ve done. You know my papa will be worried if I’m out any later. And yet you tarried. Making me wait. Making my papa...wait.”

The intent wasn’t lost on him
. Linna watched as he visibly whitened at the mention of Ryan Daniels’ displeasure.

“I
—I’m truly...sorry, M-M-Miss Linnette. I am. We’d best make...haste back. I’ll try not to s-s-slow you further.”

Toad
!
Linna thought it and only hoped she wasn’t showing it. Luthor even stammered when he was flustered! He had no backbone, no strength, he was gangly...and he was plain-looking, besides. Her eyes narrowed. She’d already guessed he was spineless. It still made her lips sneer. She hadn’t expected anything different, but she’d thought maybe out here where her papa couldn’t reach, some sort of manly trait might come to the surface. She’d be content with a glimmer of it!

She finished re-fastening her blouse, detesting the urge that had made her want to test him
. Then she lifted her skirts. “Come along then, Luthor. Follow me. Stay closer this time so you don’t get lost. I’d ask your assistance but you’re too busy turning tail.”  The mere mention of Ryan Daniels turned men into spineless jellyfish. She was heartily sick of it and there was no one to take it out on. No one.

~ ~ ~

Cord watched her move away, the slight stomp she was attempting, doing little more than raising more wetness to coat the bottom of her skirt. That would make the material thick and heavy. It would also make it stay exactly where he put it, when he lifted it and went diving into the woman she’d been offering. He shifted, making the worn leather of his pants give room.

“Oh look
. There she goes...right out of your hands. We won’t get paid now,
mon ami
. You’ve wasted the chance...and it was golden! Golden! It’s the only thing that will be, though. There is none to blame save –”

The speech was cut off by a sun-bronzed hand on his windpipe
. Cord followed it up by pulling the man within inches of his face by the pressure of his fingers about a neck. “I don’t take gold for killing children. Or boys. It’s for her. The girl. Only her.”  He whispered it, muting everything. It was his usual tone. He watched the other man’s eyes dispassionately as he choked once before nodding.

Cord opened his hand, releasing the man
, and he ignored the sputtering sounds to watch the couple until they could no longer be seen. Then he moved, parting the moss with a hand to slant his head from beneath it. “Come, my friends. There will be another time. Another place.”

“
Oui
. But not one so easy. Nor one with less trouble to it.”  The smaller fellow’s disappointment was clear even though he stayed out of Cord’s range.

“Enough words
. Come. We’ll miss the tide.” 

Their grunts of dissent gradually ended, more due to the exertion of keeping up with him than anything else
. Perhaps the girl did deserve what he was being paid to do, but somehow, he doubted it.