Mardi Gras Masquerade (23 page)

“People might talk.”

“You’re not married to Tienne yet.”

“Is that all this means to you?” Maria asked and a frown creased her brow.
 
“Are you doing this to amuse yourself until your brother gets home?”

“I see no reason to stop then.”

“Steve DuPont!” Maria exclaimed in sudden anger.
 
“What a wicked thing to suggest!”

“Maybe I was only
jokin
’.”

“Were you?”

“You’ll just have to wait until Tuesday to find out.”

“Why?
 
What do you plan to do?” the woman asked anxiously.

Steve reached around to push a lock of hair off her forehead.

“Would you like it if I fought him for you?” he asked sensuously.

Maria’s eyes opened wide.

“Would you do that?” she asked.

“It depends.
 
How would you reward me if I won?”

Now, Maria was really feeling worried.

“I don’t want you to fight with your brother because of me,” she stated firmly.

“Why not?”

“Because his intentions are honorable and yours are dubious.”

“Isn’t that awful,
cherie
?”

“Well, you’ve never mentioned your intentions to me.”

“I think you have a pretty good idea about one of them.”

Maria blushed furiously and tried unsuccessfully to unwind herself from his arms.

“You’re a bad man,” she said, “and I don’t know why I ever let you hug me in the first place.”

Steve let out a low laugh and replied, “Here, let me show you.”

Before she had a chance to react, he captured her head so that she could not pull away and kissed her soundly on the lips.
 
She resisted him at first, but after a few seconds, she could no longer deny her urge to respond.
 
The hands that beat futilely at his chest slowly stole around his shoulders.

As soon as Steve felt her surrender, he pulled back his head to look down into her face.
 
Slowly, Maria opened her eyes.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to fight my brother for you?” the man asked.

“That wouldn’t be right.
 
You have to talk with him after I do.”

“What do you plan to say to him, Maria?”

“I can’t tell you that now.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a private matter.”

“And I don’t come into it at all?”

“Please, Steve!
 
I don’t want to talk about this right now.
 
You can ask me anything you like after I speak with your brother.”

“Well, maybe I don’t like it that you’re
givin
’ Tienne so much preference over me.
 
Maybe you still have your heart set on him as a better catch since he offered you marriage.”

The man’s expression became grim.

“What are you offering me, Steve?”

“Myself, here and now.
 
I don’t want to make you promises so you can feel it’s all right to trust me.
 
I want you to take me on faith, and go along with whatever happens without any qualifications.
 
Take me for myself, Maria, or don’t take me at all.”

“There’s something you just don’t understand,” Maria tried to explain.

“Then, tell me.”

The woman looked down and said in a small voice, “I can’t tell you now.”

Steve drew his arms away from her to move back behind the wheel.
 
He started up the engine without saying a word and drove on.

The French Quarter was a clamorous splash of color and excitement, but Maria’s private masquerade had taken away all of her fun.

CHAPTER 10

Later that evening, Maria walked along the balcony, lost in despondent thoughts.
 
Should she have told Steve the truth while she had the chance?
 
It would have been such a relief to get the charade over with, even if he had been furious with her.

Steve had a right to know, but there was that promise she had made to Marla.
 
Her roommate had made her swear that she would give her explanation only to Tienne DuPont.
 
It was important that her refusal to marry him should be delivered in just the correct way.

If he was only half as formidable as Steve, Maria could understand the necessity for this action.
 
The last thing that Marla wanted was for her ex-fiancé to fly up to
Illinois
to confront her.
 
That was why she had taken such pains in telling Mara exactly what she should say.
 
The tie had to be broken irrevocably.
 
There was no room for misunderstanding.

Marla could never have foreseen that her friend would fall in love with Tienne’ s brother or imagined the consequences that would ensue.
 
An alternate plan had never ever been considered.
 
If only Tienne DuPont had not left for
Japan
before she had gotten a chance to tell him!

Maria slid her fingers along the top of the balcony railing as she walked back toward her room, letting the cool dampness repress the hot emotions that warred within her.
 
She stopped in front of the lighted doors to look out at the starlit river.
 
Suddenly, an object came hurtling up at her to land on the floor by her feet.

Maria looked down to see what it was.
 
There on the floor beside her was a long-stemmed white rose.
 
She stooped down to pick it up.
 
Dewdrops still glistened on its petals.

She wondered who had thrown it there.
 
Holding the flower in front of her, Maria leaned over the railing to look down into the garden.
 
The dim accent lights revealed the dark form of a man.

“Who’s there?” she called out.

“It’s not Romeo,” came back an all-too-familiar voice.

“Steve!
 
What are you doing there?”

“I was walking in the garden and I saw you silhouetted against the windows.”

His voice was soft and mild, very different from the impersonal tones he had taken with her after their confrontation in the car.

“It’s a nice evening,” Maria called back.

“The gods of Mardi Gras have provided fair weather for the celebration.”

“I thought it was a Christian festival created to celebrate the days before Lent.”

“Yes, but you have to admit it’s rather primitive, like some pagan orgy.”

“Well, I did see some girls pulling up their blouses just to get beads.”

“Don’t forget the drunken revelry.
 
It’s not the most respectable party in the world, but it’s ours and we look forward to it.”

“And on Tuesday, it will all end,” Maria replied sadly, knowing that this was a double entendre.

“Fat Tuesday will be a momentous day for all of us.
 
By the way, I got tickets to take you to a formal costume ball in the Quarter tomorrow night.
 
That should give you a more refined impression of what Mardi Gras is all about.”

“Won’t your brother be back by then?”

“I’m not sure.
 
My parents will be
flyin
’ back from
France
some time tomorrow.”

“You should stop them, Steve,” Maria said with a rush of emotion.
 
“You should stop all of the plans before it’s too late.”

“It’s already too late.
 
The wheels are in motion.”

Maria strained to see Steve’s face through the darkness, but it was useless.

“This can’t go on,” she said.
 
“From the way your brother has chosen not to communicate with me at all, you must see that he’s not interested in marrying anyone right now.”

“That isn’t what he told me when I spoke with him before.”

“He called?”

“It doesn’t matter who called whom.
 
The important thing is that Tienne DuPont plans to marry you as arranged on Tuesday.
 
If you had any second thoughts about the arrangement, you should have shared them with me when we spoke about it earlier.”

“I couldn’t,” Maria sadly replied.

“
You wouldn’t
would be more like it.
 
I offered you a choice, and you chose my brother, and that’s the way it’s going to be, Maria.
 
There will be no more discussion about it.”

“But, you don’t understand!”

“Not another word and I mean it!
 
We’ve said all that we have to about this.”

Maria felt a coldness pervade her heart.
 
All of her chances to rectify the situation with Steve were gone.
 
Now, he refused to hear her.

“Why does life have to be so complicated?” she mused in a sorrowful voice.

“That’s just the way it is, darlin’,
and sometimes, we help it along ourselves by not being straightforward.”

“I wish I could start all over again from the time I first met you on the levee.”

“I did make a rather
dashin
’ entrance; didn’t I?” Steve said with a soft chuckle.
 
“Why don’t you come down here and join me.
 
We can talk better without all this air between us.”

“Would you rather come up here?”

“I think it might prove to be dangerous,
bein
’ so close to you and your bedroom at the same time.”

Maria could only nod to this.
 
After she went inside, she placed the rose on her pillow.
 
Then, she put on her jacket before she went down to the ground floor.
 
The garden looked dark after the brilliance of the front hall.
 
She looked around, but she did not see Steve.

“Over here!” he called from behind a vine-covered arbor.

Maria made her way along the path until she spotted his dim outline, sitting on a marble bench beneath the arbor.
 
She sat down beside him, careful to leave enough distance between them so that there would be no physical contact.
 
It was necessary that she should not give him the impression that she was there for anything more than conversation.

There was a short period during which neither of them spoke, and then, Steve said, “what was your life like, back in
Illinois
?”

“Not very exciting,” Maria replied, choosing her words with care.
 
“I spent a lot of time in the library.”

“You must like to read.”