Bayou Nights (12 page)

“It’s true,” Christine insisted, her eyelashes now fluttering like demented butterflies. “Mr. Drake was trying to reason with my abductor and a man walked up to us and told him”—she pointed to the lying dead on the banquette—“to let me go. When he didn’t, the Samaritan shot him.”

“Then walked away?”

“Exactly.” Christine smiled at Dufrene as if he’d uttered something of particular depth and insight.

“I think you both better come down to the station.”

Christine closed her eyes and swayed on her feet.

Drake leapt forward and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Miss Lambert has been through a trauma. Surely a trip to the station can wait until tomorrow.”

“I need a description of the Samaritan.”

Drake’s mind went blank. Christine shuddered dramatically against his arm then said, “He was tall with dark hair and a handlebar mustache. He had a wound on his cheek. His clothes were”—she crinkled her nose—“rough.”

The woman was brilliant. She’d just given the police a description of her attacker at the Absinthe Room. Then she opened her handbag and withdrew a card printed on heavy stock. Even on the street, Drake caught a whiff of flowers. She scented her calling cards?

“You can find me at my shop, Officer Dufrene. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to lie down. Mr. Drake, will you hail us a hack?”

Drake waved at a passing driver then bundled Christine into the carriage before the dazzled policeman realized he was letting two material witnesses to a murder leave the scene of the crime.

They drove to the restaurant in blessed silence. Drake needed that silence, needed a few moments to rein in his galloping emotions, needed to stuff the terrified little boy he had been back into a locked room in a forgotten corridor of his mind. What was it about Christine that brought up every emotion he’d rather forget?

All too soon they arrived and Drake escorted Christine into Antoine’s.

The Good Samaritan sat at a table in the center of the room—calm, relaxed, wearing a new shirt and suitcoat. No one looking at him would ever guess he’d shot a man through the heart less than an hour ago.

“I don’t trust him.” Had Christine whispered those words or was Drake imagining things?

She glanced up at him. “Not at all.”

Good. Drake wasn’t losing his mind. At least not entirely. “I don’t either.”

Together, they approached the table.

The man, dapper as ever, stood and bent over Christine’s hand. “Thank you, my friends, for joining me.” The words were accented. Not the Southern accent that after spending a few days in New Orleans Drake hardly noticed. Not the odd accent that some of the locals favored—southern by way of Brooklyn. No, the man at the table was a foreigner. A foreigner who pulled out a chair for Christine, waited until she sat, then extended a hand to Drake.

They shook, squeezing hard enough to cause the other discomfort. Neither flinched. A few seconds ticked by then the man loosed Drake’s hand and nodded. “A pleasure.”

They took chairs on either side of Christine, the better to stare each other down.

The man lifted a water goblet to his lips. “Thank you for coming so promptly. I am Hector Duarte.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Señor Duarte.” Christine sounded sincere but the skin near her left eye twitched. Drake was willing to bet she was still thinking about the dead man on the banquette.

“We are going to be great friends, Senorita Lambert. You must call me Hector.”

A second twitch. “You know my name?”

“Tales of your beauty precede you.”

Christine smiled. Drake recognized that smile. It was the one she wore when she wanted people—men—to underestimate her. “You’re too kind, Hector. I was so worried you’d been grievously wounded.” Her gaze lit on the unblemished whiteness of his shirt and the tailored perfection of his coat.

“A mere scratch.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t hurt.” She added another tablespoon of honey to her smile. “Thank you for coming to my rescue.”

Duarte glanced at Drake then smiled back at her. “Any man would have done the same.”

“Most men would have died from a knife wound in the gut.” Even to his own ears, Drake’s voice sounded clipped and hard.

Hector stared across the table. “Mr. Drake, the pragmatic Yankee. Are we to talk business so soon?”

Drake tried one of Christine’s perfidious smiles. “You can’t blame us for wondering.”

Duarte glanced at Christine. She still wore a smile, a polite one, but her eyes were vacant. Then, as if she could feel Duarte’s gaze upon her, her lashes fluttered. “Mr. Drake is wondering. I’m just grateful.”

Duarte sat a bit straighter in his chair and preened. “You have heard of Ponce de Leon.”

“Fountain of Youth,” replied Drake.

“He had a search party with him.” Duarte smoothed his lapels.

“I remember the story.” Christine cocked her head to the side and lifted her fingers to her lips as if the act of remembering was taxing. “They found a fountain but it proved to be a disappointment. I’ve heard tell there was a man who nearly died. He drank the water and lived.”

Duarte looked suitably impressed. How was he to know they’d heard the story only that morning?

The Spaniard took another sip from this goblet. “I am that man.”

“But—Christine’s eyes grew wide—“that happened hundreds of years ago.”

Hector nodded. “This I know far too well. I cannot die.”

“Ever?” she breathed.

“Never.”

“So the fountain…” Her voice trailed to nothing.

“Eternal life.” Duarte sounded almost sad. He looked from Drake’s face to Christine’s and back again then wagged a finger. “I see you think of this as a gift. I assure you, my friends, it is a curse.”

A waiter arrived and put menus in their hands.

Christine didn’t bother looking. “Oysters Rockefeller, the pompano, and a salad—the one with the orange marmalade vinaigrette.”

“The same.” Drake handed the menu back to the waiter then stared across the table at the man who claimed to be immortal. Given that he’d walked away from a knife in the gut, Drake was inclined to believe him.

Duarte ordered and the waiter disappeared.

Christine shifted in her chair. “You were telling us about the fountain.”

Duarte smiled at her, an oily, knowing smile. “Indeed I—” He stood and stared at someone peering through the window.

The air around them stilled, charged, sparked. Then the man with his nose pressed to glass jerked away as if he’d been shocked. A split second later Duarte resumed his seat and the air cleared.

“It gave you more than immortality.” Christine took a sip from her water goblet.

“Beautiful
and
clever. You should be careful, Mr. Drake. Someone will steal this lovely lady away from you.” When Duarte stared across the table this time, all semblance of affability was gone. Drake felt the challenge in his words.

“What did you do?” Christine cleared her throat, politely, as if she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted Duarte’s notice. “What was that?”

Duarte flicked his fingers. “Just a small talent.”

Her eyes grew wide. If Drake hadn’t spent the past twenty-four hours watching her turn situations to her advantage, he might have believed she was impressed or frightened. He knew better.

Duarte did not.

The man beamed.

“Why did you help me, Hector?”

“I saw a lady in distress. You needed a white knight.”

“I imagine at any given moment there are lots of ladies in distress. Why me?”

“Let us just say I was in the right place at the right time.”

Duarte stumbling upon them was about as coincidental as the thugs appearing at the Absinthe Room. Someone was pulling strings. Was it Duarte?

Drake snorted.

Duarte’s brows rose.

“Hector…” Christine somehow managed to purr the name. “What is it you want?”

“We share an enemy.” Duarte pitched his voice low. Drake had to lean forward to hear him.

Christine tilted her chin like a curious robin but said nothing.

“You carry a coin.” The words were a mere whisper.

She answered with the slightest of nods.

“You know where it can lead?”

Again, Christine answered with a tiny nod.

“There are people who must not find that treasure.”

“And you should?” Drake’s voice sounded too loud. He lowered it. “What do you want with the water?”

Duarte leaned against the back of his chair and glared. “To pour it out.”

The waiter appeared and set their first courses in front of them. Oysters covered with what appeared to be spinach and bread crumbs.

The Spaniard held up a finger. “A moment.” He ate an oyster and sighed. “The chef is an artist.”

“Why pour out the water?” asked Christine.

“To save anyone else from this curse.”

Christine shifted her gaze to the oysters on the plate in front of her.

“That’s very altruistic of you,” said Drake.

Duarte shrugged and ate a second oyster. Apparently he didn’t understand sarcasm.

“What about the man you shot?” asked Drake “That doesn’t seem altruistic.”

“I did that man a kindness. He’ll never know what Desdemona did to his wife and child.”

Christine sat straighter in her chair. “She still has them?”

Duarte flipped his wrist as if he was shooing a fly. “They too are gone.”

“What is it you want from us, Hector?”

“As I said, we share an enemy.”

The man wasn’t telling the whole truth. Not even close. He probably wanted the coin. Everyone wanted the damned coin.

“You can help rescue my father?” Christine asked.

“Your father is dead.” Duarte reached across the table and patted her hand. “Would it be so terrible if he crossed over?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Excuse me a moment.” She stood and hurried toward a hallway that presumably led to a ladies’ room.

…

She needed to wash her hands. Immediately. That…that murderer had touched her. How fortunate that he’d given her an excuse to leave the table. Sitting with him for even one more minute…well, while the vision of the dead man still burned her eyelids, sitting with Hector Duarte was nearly intolerable. Smiling at him, flirting with him, how could she keep it up?

A ghost looked over Christine’s shoulder and into the mirror above the sink. She wore a hoop skirt so wide it was a wonder she’d ever made it through the narrow doorway and a bonnet instead of a proper hat. “That’s a fine man you’re dining with.”

Christine met her eyes in the mirror.

“The tall one, I mean. The Yankee…although he is a Yankee. Still, there’s something about him.” She sighed softly. “You want to watch out for the other one, the Spaniard. I’ve heard stories…”

Christine leaned against the edge of the sink. “What kind of stories?”

The ghostly woman shuddered. “Stories.”

What was the ghost up to?

Christine didn’t trust a strange ghost any more than she trusted Hector Duarte. When had a healthy dose of skepticism become suspicion? Probably around the time independence became loneliness. If this continued, she’d end up as isolated and bitter as her mother and grandmother before her. “What stories?”

“He’s a killer.”

That Christine already knew. “And?”

“He can’t die.”

She knew that, too. “What else?”

“Years ago, long before the war, he got into some sort of feud with Delphine LaLaurie. I’ve heard”—the ghost lowered her voice—“that he’s the one who set her house on fire. Not the cook.”

Now
that
was interesting. “Go on.”

“There’s some sort of curse.” The ghost pinched her cheeks as if she could make color appear on her dead skin. “I can’t remember all the details but it’s a good thing you have that Yankee to look out for you.”

Christine closed her eyes. In the course of a single day she’d gone from worrying about her father to tracking a pirate’s treasure to defending herself from a voodoo witch. Now a curse? A hysterical giggle rose in her throat. Maybe she did need Mattias Drake to look out for her.

The ghost tapped her on the shoulder and Christine opened her eyes.

“I reckon he’s the man to save you.”

“I don’t need saving.” Somehow Christine’s voice lacked conviction. Maybe because Drake had saved her multiple times already. She repeated the words with more force. “I don’t need saving.”

The ghost lowered her chin, tilted her head, and regarded Christine with frank disbelief. She opened her mouth as if to say more then paused and tilted her head as if listening to a conversation Christine couldn’t hear. “You ought to go back to the table. Now.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

The ghost answered with an impatient shake of her head. “Trust me. The Yankee needs you.” Then she faded from view.

Christine hurried back to the dining room.

Usually attentive waiters stood frozen holding trays of cooling food. The maître d’ inched toward the door. And a stranger pointed a gun at Duarte’s head. That didn’t faze her. It was the stranger holding a gun to Mattias Drake’s head that made her blood run cold.

Chapter Ten

As a rule, Drake made it through whole days, weeks even, without encountering life-threatening situations. Was it New Orleans, the promise of eternal life, or Christine Lambert that attracted men with guns?

Metal grazed Drake’s temple.

He ought to focus on that. Instead, his gaze shifted to the corridor where she’d disappeared moments ago.

She stood there now, brows drawn, lips parted, and her hand in the pocket where she carried her derringer. Thank God she wasn’t at the table with a gun pointed at her head. If only she’d stay where she was, away from men with Colt pistols, away from danger.

A hush fell over the nearby tables as diners, who’d been happily slurping oysters only seconds before, spotted the guns. A woman screamed and a mad rush to the front door followed. One lady wearing an elaborate hat (probably purchased from Christine) fainted. Across the table, Hector looked amused. Of course he did. The man couldn’t die. A bullet in his brain meant an inconvenience, not a trip to the grave.

A bullet in Drake’s brain—or Christine’s—meant the end. Please God, let her stay where she was.

“Give it to me.” The man holding the gun tapped the muzzle against Drake’s skin. The man had too many teeth. Large. White. Predatory. In a fair fight, Drake could probably knock a few of those teeth out. This wasn’t a fair fight.

“We don’t have it,” said Hector.

The man holding a gun to Hector’s head snorted through an enormous mustache. “Liar.”

Drake dared another glance at Christine. She still stood in the doorway, probably deciding the most reckless, brave course of action she could conceive. A ghost in antebellum skirts appeared behind her shoulder and whispered something.

Christine stepped into the dining room, shifted left so her back was against a wall, then mouthed
thank you
to the woman in the hoop skirts. She lifted her cane to her shoulder as if she was a baseball player and the slender length of wood was a bat.

Seconds later a man with a gun exited the corridor.

Christine swung the cane, hitting her would-be assailant across the nose.

He bent, dropping his gun, clutching his face.

With a second swing of her cane, she hit him across the back of his neck. He crumpled to the floor and didn’t move.

Christine kicked the gun away from the prone man, pulled the little derringer out of her pocket, and pointed it at the table.

Mustache shifted his aim from Hector to Christine.

Drake’s blood turned to ice. His vision had no room for anything or anyone but Christine and the potential killer. He had to keep her safe. His hand reached for his gun.

The man with too many teeth tsked. “Reach any further and you’re dead.” He cocked his pistol.

“Who sent you?” Hector’s tone was conversational, polite even.

“None of your damned business,” said Mustache.

Hector shook his head as if saddened by the lack of civil discourse.

“The lady is an excellent shot.” Hector held out his hand and studied his cuticles. “One of you will die. Maybe both.” Did Hector know something he didn’t? Was she an excellent shot or was the Spaniard stalling?

Teeth glanced at Christine then yanked Drake to his feet, using Drake’s body as a shield and adjusting the gun’s muzzle from temple to ribs. A mistake, that.

“Drop the gun, give us the coin, and we’ll let them go.” Mustache gave up on the target halfway across the room and returned his aim to Hector’s head.

Christine tilted her chin as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard. “And if I don’t?” She sounded curious.

“They’re dead.”

Hector chuckled softly. Did he have a plan? Drake hoped so.

Christine yawned. “I haven’t known either of them long enough to care.”

Teeth’s gun dug deeper into Drake’s ribs.

Across the table, Mustache pressed his gun, a Colt, against Hector’s jaw. “I’ll kill him.”

“Good luck with that.” Christine aimed the derringer at Mustache’s head.

Hector actually laughed.

The two men with guns glanced at each other. They’d expected fear, maybe even panic. But Christine looked as unruffled as the linens covering the tables and Hector was laughing. Teeth shifted. A tiny movement of weight, a second of wandering attention. Drake twisted in his grasp. Swung. Knuckles met bone.

Crack!

Drake’s heart relocated to his throat. Was she still standing? He turned and looked.

Thank God, she still stood, the derringer in her hand. It was Mustache who’d fallen to the floor.

“Now you die.” Teeth pointed his gun at Drake’s heart.

Bang!

Crimson blossomed on the right side of Teeth’s chest. His left hand rose, covered the hole. His right hand pulled the trigger even as he staggered to the floor.

Bang!

Drake turned again. Was she all right? Had she been hit? He’d kill the bastard with his bare hands if he’d hurt Christine.

She hurried toward him, unharmed, lovely, and perfect but for a furrowed brow.

He took air deep into his lungs, held it there, exhaled slowly, then repeated the exercise. Maybe if he concentrated on each breath, his heart rate would slow or—better yet—he’d calm himself enough not to bellow at her. She ought to be told that eventually the monstrous danger she regularly ignored might one day catch her and eat her whole. Hell. She ought to be told now. “Christine—”

“Sit,” she ordered.

“What?”

“Sit.” She pocketed her gun, spread her fingers, and rested her hands against Drake’s chest. “Sit.” She forced him into a chair then kicked Teeth’s gun hard enough to send it skittering across the floor.

Hector grinned at her then bent and picked up Mustache’s gun. “You do not shoot to kill.”

“Life is precious.” She bent and peered at Drake’s arm. “How badly are you hit?”

“I’m not hit.”

She raised a brow.

“It’s the adrenaline,” said Hector. “He doesn’t yet feel the pain.”

Magic words that unleashed a thousand hot coals burning into Drake’s skin. He glanced at his arm. The sleeve of his jacket was already soaked in blood. “It’s just a scratch.” The words squeezed through clenched teeth.

Christine rolled her eyes. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“It is a shame to ruin such a wonderful meal but I must leave you now. The police will come soon. I make a point of avoiding police.” Hector held his hands together as if in prayer. “I would appreciate it if you would omit me from your tale.” He picked up a napkin from the table, daubed at the corner of his mouth, and strolled toward the front door.

“What about tonight?” Christine called.

He didn’t pause, didn’t turn. “Perhaps.”

Christine planted her hands on her hips and scowled after him. “Of all the nerve…”

Hector’s departure was the least of their problems. “You shot someone. Two people. I didn’t know you’d actually aim at people.”

“You mean the mob from last night?” She returned her attention to him. “I don’t aim at people who are possessed.”

She poked gently at his arm and he flinched. Damn.

“You didn’t shoot to kill.” She’d shot Teeth on the right side of his chest, high, near his shoulder. The man lay unmoving. Drake looked at Mustache. There was a neat hole near his right shoulder as well. In a gunfight, she should shoot to kill. He ought to tell her. “Christine—”

She snatched a clean napkin from an adjacent table and held it out to him. “You seem to be bleeding a lot.”

Blood loss. That explained the lightheaded feeling. It couldn’t be the way she stood too close or the relief and fury that took turns flooding his veins. “Make sure they’re out.”

Neither man was moving.

Drake looked up at her. “If you’re in enough danger to shoot, aim for the heart.”

Her mouth tightened. “I think you need a doctor.”

With his uninjured arm, he reached out and circled her wrist. “I mean it. I’d hate to see you hurt because you’re too soft-hearted to take a kill shot.”

“Hopefully we won’t have that problem.” She adjusted the angle of her hat. “What shall we tell the police?”

He gazed into her eyes. “I mean it. Kill shot. Promise me.”

Her pupils grew wide, leaving only a tiny sliver of gold. She tugged gently against his hold then dropped her gaze to his fingers. “Let me go.” Her tone was velvet. Velvet that hid steel. Just yesterday he’d thought her frilly and silly and vacuous. Now he knew different. The prattling shopkeeper interested only in hats was a mask for a clever, brave—foolishly brave—woman.

“Promise me.”

She shook her head, the slightest of movements. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely he would have missed the way her shoulders stiffened and her jaw tightened. “I can’t.”

“What’s going on here?”

Christine yanked her wrist free. Her lips rounded into an “O” and she brought one hand to her cheek, the other to her forehead. She was the very picture of a damsel in distress and Drake didn’t need to turn and look to know the police officer who’d just entered had puffed his chest and donned a reassuring smile.

“Thank heavens you’re here.” She batted her lashes. “These awful men tried to rob us and they shot Mr. Drake.”

The police officer walked into view. A man of middling height with a mustache that drooped like the branches of a weeping willow, he eyed Drake with suspicion. “Mattias Drake?”

“Yes.”

“By way of Washington?”

“Yes.”

The police officer grunted. “Kenton said there would be trouble.”

He had, had he? Kenton was a prescient young man. “You are?”

“Peake. I need a statement.”

Christine fluttered her lashes and shifted one of her hands to just below her throat. The other she rested on Peake’s sleeve. “I’m sure we’d love to give you one but poor Mr. Drake has been shot and needs a doctor. Perhaps we could come to the station later?”

Poor Mr. Drake?

Peake stared at the elegant hand on his arm. His mouth opened and closed but no words came out.

Flutter, flutter paired with a grateful smile. Peake didn’t stand a chance.

“I could tell you were a kind man the moment I laid eyes on you. Thank you.” She breathed the last words rather than spoke them.

Peake’s cheeks flushed. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
Poor Detective Peake
. He’d been assaulted by the full measure of Christine’s wiles. “I’ll have one of the men call you a hack.”

Somehow she bustled Drake out of the restaurant and into the carriage without answering a single question.

She leaned against the seat and her face relaxed—less charming, less flirtatious, more captivating, more real. “There’s a doctor’s office a few blocks away.”

“No.”

“No?” She tilted her head to the side.

“No. I’ve been shot before. I know how it feels. The bullet just grazed my arm.”

“You’re sure?” Was it concern for him that drew her brows together?

“Positive. Driver, the Hotel Monteleone.” Drake closed his eyes but still saw her. His heart constricted. How had this happened? Damn it. He refused—refused—to entertain feelings for her.

…

When that odious man shot Drake, Christine’s heart had stopped. Now, a full twenty minutes later, it still wasn’t working properly.

She crossed her arms, sat ramrod straight and stared ahead. It was so, so tempting to scold, to inform him how much he’d worried her. Instead, she pressed her lips together and scowled at the back of the driver’s head.

“I promise, a clean bandage and I’ll be good as new.”

He might be, but what about her? How was she supposed to handle the emotions winding through her like unspooled ribbon? “Humph.”

She cut a sideways glance his direction. His eyes were closed and the harsh planes of his cheeks looked more unforgiving than ever. His mouth—no, she wouldn’t look at his mouth. It was too easy to remember it on hers.

Thank heavens he hadn’t been seriously hurt. If he’d been seriously injured…well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

The whole world had stopped spinning when she saw blood welling from Drake’s arm. The world. Her heart. Her heart…that foolish muscle with its sugar-frosted dreams of happiness had become too active of late—jumping, and leaping, and pitter-patting. The women in her family had been cursed. There could be no other explanation for how, generation after generation, they fell in love with men destined to betray them.

She’d rather be alone than alone and betrayed.

Christine shifted her gaze from the driver to the banquette. Couples strolled, a newsboy hawked, and a pralinière sold her wares.

The woman’s call,
Pralines,
followed them down the street.

Her favorite candy since she was old enough to toddle, pralines meant temptation.

But sugar and butter, cream and pecans had nothing on Mattias Drake. He tempted her to forget everything she knew of betrayal. He tempted her to trade independence for the safety of strong arms. He tempted her to feel. Damn him.

The carriage rolled to a stop. They descended and entered the hotel.

“Let me just ask for a few things at the front desk.” Christine nodded toward the elevator.

Drake, his hand covering the rip in his coat sleeve, didn’t argue.