How To Host a Seduction, page 17
“Let’s give some thought to how they might have known each other. The Lafevers obviously didn’t swing with the same social set as the rest of upper-crust New Orleans, if we’ve interpreted our clue correctly.”
“Which leaves what else? Church, proximity—”
“School.” Ellen finally lifted her gaze to his, clearly willing to let the mystery sweep them from the turbulent emotional place they’d been. “The waiter said Brigitte attended a fancy school in New Orleans. Given the education system of the time, that would mean a finishing school for young women.”
“The school’s owners probably wouldn’t snub a student whose wealthy brother was willing to pay the tuition. Even if the rest of New Orleans’s high society did.”
Ellen’s eyes sparkled, a stunning display of snapping gold fire and jewel-green lights.
“I’ll bet Brigitte and Felicity went to school together,” she said. “If we could just find the diary, we’d most likely be able to confirm that.”
“Julian had to pay tuition.”
“His study?”
“Right.” Retrieving the treasure map from where he’d left it on the love seat beside her purse, Christopher scanned the floor plan. “It’s in the east wing. Let’s go.”
Gathering up their belongings, he led her out the door, purposely ignoring the fact lunch would be served downstairs in a few minutes. His appetite had gone the way of the morning’s good mood since he’d answered her phone. Right now, he had a chance to get her caught back up in the chase. He was going for it.
As much as the parlor was a place where guests of both sexes could be entertained in comfort, the study was clearly the captain’s retreat. Mahogany paneling covered the walls and the black walnut furnishings comprised freestanding bookshelves, comfortable chairs and a massive desk that could hold all sorts of clues to Félicie Allée’s master.
A man who was apparently a collector…although Christopher couldn’t imagine of what practical use that information could be. Nautical navigation equipment of the period had been housed behind glass-fronted shelves, while specimen coins, trophies, maps and even a variety of hunting equipment were displayed in cabinets and huge chests.
He recognized the master’s private domain in the tobacco jars, decanters of port and brandy, and business papers scattered around the room. A place to discuss business. And pay bills.
“I’ll go through the desk,” he said.
“I’ll look around and get a feel for our captain. This was his place. It’ll reveal a lot about who he was.”
Christopher couldn’t quite rally a smile at how single-mindedly she pursued her character study of their murderer. Instead, he turned his attention to the drawers and files, seizing the chance to consider how best to bump up his timetable to accommodate this change in plans.
The desk proved jam-packed, and as Christopher waded through stacks of bills and receipts for stone, lumber and glass, he decided the only way to proceed with Ellen was to lower his expectations. He’d meant to go for the gold during this event, but he’d settle for getting her to agree to see him again. He just needed a chance to continue his seduction in New York and convince her he could fit into her life.
Preoccupied with his thoughts, Christopher almost flipped past a bill he might not have noticed but for the red ink marking it in arrears. He slid the bill from the pile to consider it more closely.
“Look at this,” he said.
Ellen had been kneeling in front of a sideboard where a globe and a variety of scientific gadgets were displayed. She glanced up at him. “What is it?”
“A bill for a huge lumber purchase that’s in arrears.”
“Really?” Shoving soft bangs back from her eyes, she frowned. “I thought the captain was fabulously wealthy.”
“That’s the impression I had, too.” Christopher set the bill back inside the folder. “Maybe revenge isn’t the only motive. Maybe money factors.”
Ellen didn’t reply—just sat there with her checked skirts spread around her, looking entirely kissable with a pouty frown.
Then she inhaled sharply. “Christopher, remember what Miss Q said in the garden?”
“What?”
“That the British approached the captain and Jean Lafitte about using their ships to attack New Orleans. Remember what she said—the captain convinced Lafitte to pass this information along to the U.S. government for a price.”
“You think he needed the money?”
She nodded. “Assuming he did sell the information, who would pay the bill?”
Christopher sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “A public official would be my guess. The governor or the mayor.”
“Both of whom were guests at Félicie Allée the weekend Felicity was murdered.”
“What if they thought the presidential pardon should have been enough payment?”
She frowned. “That’s a big what if.”
“What ifs are all we’ve got right now.”
And Ellen’s game was all Christopher had to breach the distance her father’s phone call had created.
“Well, it’s a possibility.” She relaxed, a visible release of tension that had her sitting back on the carpet, tucking her knees beneath her and looking up at him. “The captain wasn’t the only one to leave the bayou. Jean Lafitte had a falling-out shortly after the war that made him relocate to Texas. Following your logic, he might have left because the government issued the pardon but then stiffed him the money.”
“How do you know about Jean Lafitte? Did you come across something in the newspapers?”
“No, it’s fact. Susanna has a knack for getting history into her stories without making them read like textbooks.”
“Clever, love.” He smiled, hoping to bridge the distance even more. “Then the governor must have been the one holding out. The mayor had a son who was also here at Félicie Allée.”
“That’s right. Noah.”
“If revenge over money was the motive, it makes sense the captain would kill the governor’s daughter and not bother with the mayor’s son.”
“But Felicity was a young girl and the captain had a sister. I just don’t see it.”
What she did see, though, was something on the floor that had her scrambling on her knees to pull up the edge of the rug. “Christopher, come help me. I think I’ve found something.”
Kneeling beside her, he lifted the corner of the heavy wool rug she struggled with, to reveal a small trapdoor in the floor.
“Beautiful and brilliant.”
She shot him a sidelong glance, eyes glinting, excitement heightening the color in her cheeks. Then she slipped a fingertip into a metal ring in the wood and lifted the door.
A centuries-old safe.
“I wonder what the captain was stashing in his floor-boards?” She opened the top to the rectangular metal box and withdrew several official-looking documents and a stack of envelopes tied together with a silk ribbon.
“Another trick you picked up from Susanna’s books?”
“Lennon’s, actually,” she replied while scooting backward so he could drop the rug into place. “She used a similar device in Milord Spy, the book she just won the RAVE Award for.”
Christopher crossed the room, locking the door before anyone stumbled upon them and their discovery. As he turned the key in the lock, the irony of the action didn’t escape him. He went to sit beside Ellen, remembering his earlier thought about wanting to lock her inside this room.
Be careful what you wish for….
“So, what have you got?” He sat down and accepted the papers she handed him.
“Looks like the deed to Félicie Allée and some other documents about the property.”
“What about those?”
She untied the silk ribbon binding the stack of envelopes. “They look like love letters.”
Content with his business documents, Christopher perused the information, found that in addition to the deed, he held the land surveys, which showed the bordering property.
“The mayor is the neighbor Josh and Lennon were talking about, the one who wasn’t happy about the Lafevers moving in,” Christopher said. “Which might just tie into our money-revenge motive. Maybe the mayor told the governor to withhold payment to force the captain into losing the plantation. If the captain couldn’t pay his bills…”
He trailed off because Ellen clearly wasn’t listening to a word he said. She was scanning a letter with an expression of growing amazement.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’re not going to believe this.”
“Then, don’t make me guess.”
Her gaze pierced the distance, sparkling with excitement, and in that instant, Christopher knew he’d never loved this woman more than when she was breathless and animated—a mood he would help her explore if only she’d give him the chance.
She held out the letter. “The captain and Felicity were in love.”
THERE WERE FOUR LETTERS proving that Felicity Clayton was a young woman head-over-heels for the socially unacceptable privateer. Ellen insisted they read them all before Christopher unlocked the study door and risked anyone happening upon them. And luckily she did because someone tried to get into the room.
“Shh.” Ellen signaled Christopher to silence with a finger on his lips.
It had been an unconscious gesture, but one that introduced an intimacy to the moment she hadn’t planned on. Before she even realized what he was about, his lips parted, drawing her finger inside, a suggestive motion that made her gasp.
Those too-blue eyes glittered.
Ellen sat back, tugged her finger away, a withdrawal from his warm velvet mouth and the thousand soft sensations swirling inside, melting the distance between them.
Christopher wouldn’t let her.
Nipping her fingertip with his teeth, he halted her retreat, sucked her finger back inside his mouth with a slow pull so suggestive of lovemaking that those soft swirling sensations began to crash in on each other like waves.
Knocking echoed through the room, followed by “Whoever’s in there, are you going to be much longer?”
Susanna. One of the last two people on this plantation that Ellen wanted to have find her sequestered behind a locked door with Christopher. She’d probably already been to the summer bedroom and encountered Josh and Lennon.
Christopher held on defiantly, several interminable moments ticking by before he relinquished his grip.
“What was that all about?” she whispered.
“You tasted good.” Without another word of explanation, he unfolded the next letter and began to read.
That was it. Christopher wanted and he took. Such a simple explanation to account for this riot of emotion inside her. But an explanation that was quintessential Christopher Sinclair. Though he wasn’t guided by impulse as she’d once believed, he’d chosen to take what he wanted from life. Pleasure, fun and excitement were all aims he considered worthy pursuits.
She had to admire a man who took what he wanted. That sort of focus suggested strength of character…
Which Christopher had in spades.…and a love for life’s pleasures that seemed positively liberating to a woman who spent so much time talking herself out of what she wanted because of potential consequences.
Which she did in spades.
An undeniable and sobering little truth. One that was too much to tackle while she sat so close to this man, with their knees bumping, their fingers brushing when he returned the letter, and her insides a jumble of awareness that made his every breath whisper through her like a warm breeze.
Ellen forced herself to focus on her own letter, a letter that gushed with the longing of a young girl for a man more than a decade older. A very noble man, apparently, who wouldn’t denigrate their love or risk her reputation.
“This wasn’t a crush. It was a love affair that explains so much,” she said, grateful—yet again—for the mystery that provided a distraction from the turmoil of self-analysis.
“Explains what?” Christopher glanced up, only this time Ellen was ready to take on those eyes. “I haven’t found a clue about why the captain might murder her.”
“Not why he would murder her, but why he wouldn’t. The captain and Felicity were an item, so I think we can safely rule out revenge.”
“One of Miss Q’s red herrings, do you think?”
Ellen shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Lovers’ quarrel? Passion killing? An accident?”
“We need to know more about their relationship, because I don’t see how these two could have gotten together. Think about it, Christopher. Felicity was the governor’s daughter. Society didn’t accept the Lafevers, which meant they wouldn’t have run into each other at events like the Mardi Gras ball. Unless…” A light bulb went off in her head. “Society wouldn’t accept the Lafevers, but what if that didn’t stop two young girls from becoming friends?”
Christopher smiled. More of a grin, actually, but enough of one that his dimples flashed and told her he was very pleased.
Ellen wasn’t going to overanalyze the crazy fluttering response that began low in her belly or why those dimples mattered so much.
“This does explain why the miniature was in the parlor,” he pointed out. “Felicity was important to the captain. Brigitte could have been their cover—”
“Doesn’t wash. The governor wasn’t going to let his daughter visit Félicie Allée on weekends off with her school chum even if the president was issuing a pardon. We’re missing a piece here. A big one.”
“Perhaps the money clue isn’t a red herring.”
“What if Felicity was in love with the captain and the governor was holding on to the money to…oh, I don’t know, convince the captain to discourage his daughter’s affections?”
“Blackmail makes more sense. We need to find Brigitte’s diary. If her best friend and brother were an item, she would have written about that in her diary, don’t you think, love?”
Love. The endearment slipped from his lips in a rich burst of sound that spiked those tingles inside her to a new pitch and drove home her earlier realization that she liked being this man’s love, no matter how much she told herself that her feelings were about sex and cravings.
Whoa.
Ellen inhaled deeply to dispel the suddenly chilling sensation that wiped away all her yummy feeling of well-being. She was not going to tackle this right now. Absolutely not.
“We need to find Mac and Harley.”
“Do you think they’re just going to tell us where the diary is if we ask?”
“No. But I’m hoping they’ll be so busy bickering that we can get the drop on them and overhear something important.”
Christopher only nodded, apparently seeing the logic even if he couldn’t understand her sudden need for a distraction. But she couldn’t tackle another cold hard truth about how much she felt for this man, not right now. She needed to think, and she couldn’t do that under the influence of those eyes.
He lifted the rug so she could return the letters to their hideaway, before leading her from the study.
As it turned out, Ellen found all the distraction she needed without having to search for Harley and Mac at all.
The sound of voices brought her and Christopher to a stop in the foyer off the hall, and just as Ellen slowed to hear who was speaking, a hand lashed out, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her inside a…coat closet?
Grabbing on to Christopher to steady herself, she wound up dragging him backward, too, where he stumbled, stomped on her foot with his size twelves and came up hard against her.
“Ouch—”
“Shh!” Harley and Mac hissed at the same time.
Ellen caught her breath, disbelieving that for the second time in as many days, she’d wound up a party of adults sandwiched in a room no bigger than a shower stall. Only this time, instead of four women in voluminous skirts, she now had to contend with two strapping men well over six feet tall. At least there was no towel rack digging into her ribs.
By comparison, Christopher appeared delighted at the arrangement, taking advantage of the close quarters to snuggle up against her until he molded to her backside like a spoon. She could feel his sex—behaving itself, fortunately—pressed against the small of her back, his body heat penetrating even her gown. She tried vainly not to bestow damaged toes to Harley, who was making an equally valiant effort to keep at least a little breathing space between them.
Mac frowned, but didn’t have to issue another reminder to keep quiet, because the sound of laughter filtered through the foyer and they all quieted to listen.
“The training isn’t over until Sunday night,” Tracy was saying. “That’s two whole days.”
“I can think of any number of ways to put that time to use, gorgeous, but I don’t think Ms. McDarby will look kindly on me fraternizing with her guests. I need this job.”
The man’s voice wasn’t familiar, and Ellen didn’t think he was the actor-waiter who had dropped clues at dinner last night.
More laughter, and then Tracy said, “Who says we have to let her know?”
Ellen couldn’t say she was surprised. Though her relationship with Tracy was largely professional, she did know Tracy blew through men like Ellen blew through felt-tip markers when revising a manuscript.
Even so, it took another five minutes for Tracy to convince the guy to meet her later that night, which, considering the guy’s worries for his job, Ellen thought, was an impressively short time.
Their voices finally faded away and Christopher led the campaign to evacuate the closet. Ellen gulped fresh air, almost stumbling as Christopher swept her aside to make room for Harley, who burst from the closet like she’d been shot from a gun.
“What a waste of time!” she said. “We’ve been suffocating in that broom closet—”
“Coat closet.” Mac emerged behind her, straightening his cravat. “It was worth a try. After dinner last night, who knew what we might overhear.”
Made sense to Ellen. Tracy had given away the farm last night, but apparently Harley was of another opinion.
