Silver-Tongued Devil (Louisiana Plantation Collection) (39 page)

Putting her hands to her waist, Madame Delaup unfastened the silver chatelaine draped there. She held it a moment, her gaze not quite clear, before she placed it carefully on the table, keys rattling, and pushed it toward Renold. Her smile singularly sweet, she said, “None. You may do as you will, my son, to ensure the happiness of yourself — and my future grandchildren.”

Renold smiled, then, in a slow tilting of his mouth that also lighted the green of his eyes with emerald fire and wiped away much of his weariness. Pushing erect, he moved to stand behind Angelica, though he spoke, still, to his mother.

“I have been thinking,” he said as he settled his hands on the back of her chair, “about the recompense due to a man who willfully throws away the final opportunity to own large property and fortune, abandoning them without qualm for the sake of honor. There is one among us who did that this evening. It has come to me that only a single reward will do.” He turned his head to look at Angelica’s father. “I propose that Edmund Carew make his home at Bonheur from now on, enjoying its bounty and the care of its people. And that, if it pleases him, he must consider himself its master.”

“He will naturally be very welcome,” said Madame Delaup while she held her son’s eyes in calm approval.

What was Renold doing? That he had a purpose, Angelica did not doubt. Down the table, she thought Michel suspected it also, for he glanced at Deborah with amazement and satisfaction springing into his face.

Angelica could feel nothing but pain. It wasn’t funny. It was, in fact, the most cruel of jests.

Her father turned slowly in his seat to look at her. There was such grave concern in his face that she wanted to cry. When, a moment later, he raised his eyes to the man behind her, she swallowed hard to stop herself from interrupting, from answering for him. She must allow him his pride.

“Your offer is kindly meant, I know,” Edmund Carew said to Renold, “and I cannot adequately express my gratitude for it. However, I am not the only person who must be pleased in this matter. I could not think of remaining here without the care and support of my loving daughter, and she has determined to go. If you wish for my presence, then you must persuade her that the peace and happiness we all need so badly can be found here. Together.”

“Papa, it wouldn’t work,” she said, leaning toward him to speak in low tones. “You know they will never forgive, will always remember—”

“No,” Renold said. “Dredging up the past is a fine way to destroy the future, for one is built on the other. What has gone before, then, must and will be decently buried and planted over with the sweet flowers of atonement.”

“An atonement I would make by producing a child?”

“Yes,” Renold answered, his voice deep, “if that is your pleasure. But it isn’t necessary. The gesture made by your father, in the only way he knew how, is more than enough — his crime and atonement, if such they can be called, balance each other. For the rest, let it go. What he did once for your sake was an act of love. His only failure was in how he counted the cost of it. I know now, as I did not in the beginning, how easily such a mistake
is made.”

Angelica rose to her feet and brushed past him, evading the hand he put out to stop her. She took only a few steps, however, before stopping at the French doors that were closed to keep out the moths and mosquitoes that might be drawn to the candles.

Over her shoulder, she said, “So because one man died and another lived, I am supposed to forget everything that has been said and done? I am expected to calmly take my place as a loving wife — oh, yes, and doting mother.”

“No.” The word was calm.

“No?” She laughed, she couldn’t help it. “Then in what capacity would I live here?”

“In any you choose,” Renold said as he skirted the table and came to stand behind her. “Daughter, nurse, housekeeper, maîtress, keeper of the keys, mistress of my heart. Choose which of these things you desire, or none, if only you will stay.”

“Since you never wanted a wife?”

Outrage flared in his face. She saw it reflected in the glass of the French doors with the night behind it, and waited for the storm of it to break over her head.

But just as she could see his face, he could also see hers in that makeshift mirror, see the silver streaks of the tears that she was helpless to stop as they poured over her cheekbones and down the planes of her face. He caught her arms and swung her to face him, then gathered her close against him.

“God, Angelica, I thought you knew,” he said in harsh anguish. “What else could those words have been except a desperate attempt to prevent Eddington from punishing me through you, because I saw plainly that he would rather have you dead than leave me in possession of you and Bonheur. They were a lie told in sheer terror and so shaded to be believed. But not by you, my dearest love, not by you.”

The rich remorse and love shading his voice was a certainty she could grasp and hold. She believed him, finally.

The great, bursting gladness of relief poured through her. She was warmed by its glory, buoyed by its power. At the same time, she knew an aching grief of her own.

“Oh, Renold, I am so sorry, so desperately sorry. I never meant to betray you out there just now.”

He shook his head, pressed his chin against the softness of her hair. “You didn’t, you couldn’t.”

“But I did. I told Laurence about your shoulder. If I had not, he might have chosen pistols and you would never have come so close to dying.”

Renold was shaken by a low laugh. “I was never close, my deluded sweetling. I could have finished Eddington twice over if I had not been so afraid of the contempt for the killing that I might see in your eyes. Everything else was a pretense to force him to show his true colors. I was pleased when you objected to the fight, saying so piteously that I might be injured, because I thought you saw what I was doing, that you were helping me.”

“I didn’t,” she said against his throat. “I couldn’t think because I was so afraid.”

“If that’s so, if you thought I might have been too injured to make it a fair fight, then that means—”

“It means she loves you to desperation, you prattling idiot,” Michel broke in with disgust. “Will you please kiss her and take her to bed so we can all get some sleep?”

Renold’s smile was beatific.

“Yes,” he said simply. And complied.

About the Author

Since publishing her first book at age twenty-seven,
New York Times
bestselling and award-winning author Jennifer Blake has gone on to write over sixty-five historical and contemporary novels in multiple genres. She brings the story-telling power and seductive passion of the South to her stories, reflecting her eighth-generation Louisiana heritage. Jennifer lives with her husband in northern Louisiana.

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To find out more about Jennifer’s books and to purchase direct from your favorite outlet, see the Steel Magnolia Press website at
www.steelmagnoliapress.com
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Jennifer would love to hear from you! Other places to connect with her:

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If you enjoyed this work, please leave a review to help other readers decide if it’s a story they too would like to read! A couple of sentences are all you need to write. Thank you!

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Much of Jennifer’s backlist is still available in print and/or digital format. In the latter half of 2012, thirty-six novels will be re-released in new-edition ebooks.

Out Now
—
3 More eBooks In

THE LOUISIANA PLANTATION COLLECTION

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Arrow to the Heart

In steamy nineteenth century Louisiana, a Southern version of the medieval court of love flourishes. It’s Katrine’s creation, her refuge from an arranged marriage that has left her untouched in heart and body. But her husband is using it to gain the child he can never sire.

Rowan de Blanc seeks out Katrine to unmask a heartless siren, but discovers instead a gallant and beleaguered lady. Caught up in the tournament arranged by her husband, he becomes the champion – and wins Katrine as his prize.

Katrine and Rowan refuse to couple at her husband’s command, and yet love and desire are strong beyond imagining, and time is running out…

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Midnight Waltz

He came to her in the dark of the moon…

Arranged marriages are common among Louisiana’s aristocratic Creoles, but Amalie’s new husband shows little interest in his bride. That is, until his handsome cousin Robert arrives at Bonheur Plantation. How can the man she married remain so cool and aloof during the day, while approaching her with such tender passion at midnight?

Robert declines the outrageous favor asked of him – yet some sins are impossible to resist…

As mystery, deception and murderous danger stalk the sultry land, Amalie and Robert must choose between love and duty, between desire’s sweet rhapsody and the painful truth.

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Tender Betrayal

She married him for revenge alone…

It was Melanie’s mistake and Roland’s drunken ardor that brought them together in illicit passion. If she hated him before for causing her beloved grandfather’s death, Melanie had even more reason after Roland seduces her and drives away the man she was to wed. She accepts his duty proposal, swearing to use it to destroy him.

The passionate intimacy of the bedchamber is no place for vengeance, however, and pride and anger melt in desire’s white-hot heat. A final act of treachery will surely end it. Yet betraying Roland may well break her hungry heart…

(Note: contains scenes of forced seduction)