Tempestuous/Restless Heart (24 page)

Danielle sighed at the feel of him settling against her. He caught the sigh with his mouth the instant before his lips touched hers. It was a gentle kiss, almost tentative at first. He rubbed his lips over hers, softly, giving her the chance to deny him. When she didn’t, he took it a step further, tracing the line of her mouth with the tip of his tongue.

Danielle trembled at the effort to resist temptation, but she lost the battle. It had been too long. She had secretly yearned for this while trying to tell herself she didn’t need it, could live without it. She had denied herself before, but she couldn’t deny herself now. She couldn’t deny Remy. Her mouth opened beneath his like a flower opening to the heat of the sun.

He groaned his satisfaction as he wrapped his arms around her and slid his tongue inside her mouth in a languid caress that sapped the strength from her knees. She sagged against him, an electric current of pleasure zipping along her nerves from the spot where his burgeoning arousal nudged her belly.

It felt so good to be wanted, to be touched. She’d lived the last year in a cocoon of solitude. Now her senses were awakening with a sharpness that nearly took her breath away. When Remy broke the kiss and put an inch of space between them, she nearly cried out.

Remy watched her face as Danielle’s sanity returned by degrees. Her look of frustration gave way to surprise then to horror then to forced anger. She scowled at him, her dark eyebrows pulling together in annoyance, her wide mouth turning down at the corners.

“You followed me up here ’cause you were afraid I might actually hurt the little demolition expert, no?” he said, taking the offensive before she could tell him he shouldn’t have kissed her. He damn well should have kissed her and he intended to go on kissing her. There was no point in arguing about it. “I think you like these kids more than you let on. I think you like ’em a lot.”

He spoke the words like a challenge. Her scowl darkened. She didn’t want him to think she cared all that much about the little monsters her sister had saddled her with, but he could sense she did. He had seen it in her eyes as she’d held little Eudora. He’d seen it as he’d hauled Tinks out of the kitchen. It was there even now behind the ferocious glare she was directing at his keen insight.

“Bite your tongue,” she said, pretending offense.

Remy waggled his eyebrows at her and backed toward the steps with a devilish grin. “I’d rather bite yours.”

“I ought to fire you,” Danielle threatened, trying her best to ignore the blast of heat that shot through her at his audacious suggestion. “You’re insubordinate.”

“Yeah, but I’m a helluva kisser, eh,
chère
?”

On that note of truth he turned and trotted down the grand staircase, whistling.

six

DANIELLE AWOKE WITH A START, JACKKNIFING
upright in bed and gasping for air. Her nightgown was soaked through with sweat. Shaking violently, she wrapped her arms around herself and held on. The room around her was cast in silvery light as a big New Orleans moon shone through the open drapes at the tall windows. Everything was still. Everything was quiet.

It took a moment for her to realize where she was and why she was there. The nightmare had seemed so real. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in London, in the flat she’d rented in Kensington, facing the bitter accusations of a woman who had been her best friend. It was her punishment that that night should remain so vivid in her mind. Over a year had passed and still she could feel the chill of the night, the knife-edge of the words. She could still smell the scent of the darkroom chemicals that had hung in the air that night, and for an instant everything in the room took on the red haze of the safelight. She could feel the intensity that enveloped her when she worked, pulling around her like a blackout shade, cutting out all distractions that didn’t pertain to her art. And the awful stillness that had later pierced through her like a lance plunged into her heart once more.

She jerked around toward the nightstand, automatically reaching for the monitor she had carried with her since arriving at the Beauvais house. It was gone.

Without trying to bring some measure of sanity into the muddle in her mind, Danielle threw back the covers and launched herself from the bed. She didn’t stop to put on her robe or her slippers. The panic drove her directly out into the hall.

The house was quiet. It was past two o’clock in the morning. Everyone was asleep. Even the fiendish Jeremy was snug in his bed, dreaming his diabolical dreams. Danielle hurried down the hall, her heart pounding in her breast, her bare feet scuffing along the soft blue runner that covered the hallway. At the door to the nursery she paused and stood there shaking with dread for a fraction of a moment. Then she reached for the crystal knob with a violently trembling hand and let herself into the room.

On the same side of the house as her own room, the nursery was flooded with moonlight. The white furniture glowed with it. In the crib, Eudora lay on her tummy, her cheek pressed to the sheet, eyes closed peacefully, her little mouth a perfect O. Danielle dropped to her knees and stared at the baby, her fingers grasping the bars of the crib like a prisoner clutching at the cell door. She held her breath tight in her lungs as she stared at the baby. Her eyes burned as she held them open, watching for Eudora’s back to rise and fall.

When she was certain the baby was breathing properly, she let out a ragged sigh, the worst of the tension draining from her with the expelled air. The shakes returned full force then as she dragged the rocking chair into position beside the crib and crawled into it. They rattled through her like the aftershocks of an earthquake, each one taking a little more of her strength with it. She pulled her feet up onto the seat of the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees unconsciously trying to hold herself together.

Eudora was fine. Everything was all right. Nothing had happened in the time since Danielle had finally succumbed to the need for sleep. She had broken the vigil, but nothing had happened. This wasn’t Kensington. This wasn’t Ann Fielding’s baby.

Gradually the trembling subsided and a blessed numbness drifted through her. Motionless, she sat and watched her niece sleep.

Remy watched from the doorway, his shoulder braced against the jamb. The light that fell upon her face illuminated a kind of pain he’d never known, had never seen. It was so stark, so bleak it took his breath away. She was curled in the chair in a posture designed to shut the world out, but her expression told him she hadn’t been successful. He had the feeling that what was hurting her was coming from within and her defenses couldn’t guard her against it.

“Danielle,” he said softly.

Danielle pulled herself out of her private hell long enough to glance toward the door. She stared at Remy as if he were a trick of the moonlight. He leaned against the door frame with a masculine grace that was both casual and arrogant. His white oxford shirt hung open, revealing a pelt of dark hair swirling over the sculpted muscle of his chest. He was barefoot. His jeans were zipped but not buttoned. The waistband gaped in a little vee where the line of dark hair that bisected his belly disappeared from view. He was a prime example of the male of the species—handsome, virile, strong, but tender. Too bad he was beyond her reach.

“Danielle,” he said again when she turned away from him. He padded across the carpet to kneel down by her chair. “What are you doin’ here?”

“Watching the baby,” she whispered, never taking her eyes off Eudora.

“She’s asleep.”

“Hmmm.”

“You oughta be too.”

“I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

“It’s my job. I thought I’d better take a peek to make sure she was resting. I never figured I should be checkin’ on you too.”

“I’m fine,” she said again, but still she didn’t look at him.

Remy sighed and combed a hand back through his disheveled hair. It would have been apparent to the densest of people that Danielle was not fine. She looked like she was hanging on by a thread. As exhausted as she had appeared to be, she should have been sleeping like a corpse, but here she sat, staring at Eudora Beauvais almost as if she were afraid to look away from the sleeping infant.

Her ash-blond hair was mussed around her head and shoulders in wild disarray. She made no move to smooth it. There were lines of strain around her mouth and one digging a crevice between her eyebrows. None of that did anything to diminish the fact that she was pretty. As she sat there looking cool and aloof in her lavender silk nightgown, Remy wanted to reach up and touch her. He wanted to pull her down onto the floor with him and make love to her on the plush carpet, but he throttled his desires. There was something wrong here and he was going to have to find out what it was before he could begin to help.

Rising to his feet, he held out a hand to Danielle. She glanced at it, but turned her attention back to the baby.

“I’d rather just stay here, thank you. Feel free to go back to bed.”

“‘I’d rather just stay here, thank you,’” he said, parroting her prim tone. He didn’t withdraw his proffered hand, but nodded toward the cushioned window seat. “Come sit with me,
chère.
Come tell ol’ Remy what you’re doin’ here in the middle of the night when all good boss ladies should be sleepin’.”

Danielle considered her predicament. Enough reason had returned that she knew he would think her very strange for insisting on remaining in the chair. Not enough had returned to allow her to leave the room. She had no intention of telling him why she had come in here, but it would only pique his curiosity if she refused to talk at all.

Finally she pushed herself out of the rocker. Taking an anxious look at Eudora, she moved toward the window seat and situated herself on the edge of the rose velvet cushion, her back straight, her gaze on the crib. Remy sat opposite her, his back against the wall, left foot planted on the cushion, right one on the floor. Danielle could feel him watching her, waiting for her to say something.

“I had a bad dream,” she admitted, not looking at him because it was far from the whole truth.

“About Eudora?”

“I thought I would feel better if I came in here and sat with her.”

Silence reigned for a few minutes. Danielle continued watching the baby. She wondered what Remy was thinking. She wondered if he would accept her explanation at face value or if he would try to dig deeper. And she struggled with the conflict within herself. A part of her wanted to tell him the truth. He seemed like such a caring person, an understanding person. But who would ever be able to understand what had happened that night in London? And who would ever be able to forgive her when she couldn’t forgive herself? The risk of condemnation wasn’t worth the momentary relief she would receive by unburdening herself.

Remy watched her quietly, thoughtfully. He pulled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and planted it loosely between his lips, inhaling the faint fragrance of the unlit tobacco. The woman before him was a puzzle. She was wealthy, but with none of the airs he associated with breeding and money. She was independent, but he sensed a longing in her, a loneliness. She was confident, but insecure about what he considered to be the most mundane things—cooking and raising kids. She talked as if she would rather have taken a trip to the dentist than take care of her nieces and nephews, yet here she was keeping watch over Eudora in the dead of night like a guardian angel.

Rolling his cigarette between his fingertips, he said, “How come you don’t have any babies of your own?”

Danielle started at the sound of his low, rough voice. Or perhaps it was his question that made her flinch. She ordinarily met that sexist query with a sharp “none of your business,” but she supposed it was a valid question considering the circumstances.

“I guess I’m just one of those old-fashioned girls who believes in marriage first.”

“And how come you’ve never married?”

Her smile was wistful. “The men who asked were never right and the right man never asked.”

Remy pocketed his cigarette again and frowned. “Who is this right man?” he asked a bit gruffly, all his territorial instincts bristling like the ruff on a guard dog. “He got a name?”

“No,” Danielle said, amusement distracting her from her watch. She turned a little and settled herself more comfortably on the bench. “I’m a Hamilton, remember? Mr. Right wouldn’t be liable to last any longer than the time it would take to get all my monogrammed towels changed.”

“You really believe in that curse business, don’t you?”

“Oh, it’s not the curse,” she admitted. “I’m not an easy person to live with. I suppose I take after my father that way. I don’t have a very good track record with men. I imagine it’s because I’m an artist,” she said, glancing back at the sleeping baby, her wry smile fading. “An artist is always married to her work first. It’s an obsession. I haven’t run across many men willing to play second fiddle to my muse.”

Remy leaned forward slowly, a predatory light in his black eyes. His right hand came up to comb Danielle’s hair back from her cheek. Anchoring his fingers in the silvery mass, he tilted her head back so she had to look up at him. “Mebbe you just haven’t found one man enough to knock your muse for a loop,” he drawled in a voice like liquid smoke.

His threat was implicit. He was man enough. Excitement sizzled through Danielle. It swirled around like a whirlpool low in her belly and burned in her breasts. A latent sense of recklessness awakened within her and urged her to lean into him, to press herself against the broad male chest that was covered with curling black hair. She could feel his body heat; it lured her closer, just as the sensuous curve of his lower lip lured her closer.

Crazy, she thought, fighting the primitive urgings of her body. Somewhere she managed to find a cocky smile as she said, “Men have tried and men have died.”

“Oh, yeah?” Remy chuckled. His smile flashed in the dark like the blade of a pirate’s knife. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”

“Sorry, you don’t meet the age requirement.”

He made a face as he released her and sat back. “You’re like a terrier with a rat on that age thing, aren’t you? Must be a birthday loomin’ on the horizon.”

“The big four-oh, if you must know,” she said, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. “There, I’ve said it. Now you can slink off and feel properly foolish for coming on to a woman old enough to be your—”

“Lover.” The word was a caress coming from his mouth. He said it with all the heated passion the term implied. He said it with the kind of excitement that brought to mind images of rumpled sheets and sweat-slicked skin. Danielle’s breath whistled out of her lungs. “So you got a coupla years on me,
chère.
What difference does it make? What’s between us has got nothin’ to do with age.”

“You can say that now, but what will you say when you see my steel-belted foundation garments?” she quipped, swallowing hard as her head swam.

“Kinky.” He grinned when she rolled her eyes at him. “You’re really that bent outa shape about turnin’ forty? What’s the big deal? It’s only a number. You’re a long way from joinin’ the prune juice set.”

He was right about that. Any other year she would have said the same thing. Age had never mattered to her. It was just that forty was a more significant peak. She was going to be forty and what did she have to show for it? She had a successful career, but she hadn’t pursued her career in search of success; she was an artist for the sake of art, not fame. She was wealthy, but she had been born that way; it was no achievement.

Maybe what was bothering her was the fact that in a matter of days she was technically going to be over the hill and she had nothing of significance to show for the climb. As she looked at Eudora she wondered if maybe she had begun to think that children were a way of gauging a life and she had none; she would never have any. She had her art, but her art would not lament her when she was gone.