Each Time We Love (11 page)

"Oh!" Adam exclaimed, feeling rather let-down. He hadn't
realized until this moment how much he had looked forward to seeing his
sister and her pack of rascally brats.

"You could come to New Orleans with me," Jason proposed as
they walked up the stairs and entered the coolness of the wide gallery.

Adam grimaced. "It was to escape the, er, amusements of the
city that I came here. New Orleans has much the same to offer as
Natchez—just more exotic versions of it!"

Jason smiled, but the expression in his emerald eyes was
thoughtful. He made no comment, though, and entering the wide hallway,
he led the way into his study.

It was only after Adam was comfortably sprawled across from
him in a large russet leather chair, a tall, cool glass of whiskey and
mint in his hand, that Jason spoke. Looking affectionately at the
younger brother he had come to love deeply, Jason said, "I really do
have to leave tomorrow, as your sister will be expecting me in New
Orleans. You know that you can stay here as long as you like-—in fact,
I insist that you remain here while I go to fetch the family home.
Catherine would never forgive me if she learned that you had come to
visit and I had not done everything within my power to keep you here."

"You're certain you won't mind?" Adam asked politely, although
he already knew the answer. He was as much at home at Terre du Coeur as
he was at Belle Vista, and while it was not what he had planned, he
found the notion of some solitary exploration suddenly very appealing.

Jason shook his dark head. "Don't be ridiculous! Enjoy
yourself while I am gone and by the time I return with Catherine and
the children you will be sick enough of your own company to view our
arrival with joy."

Derisively Adam drawled, "I already am sick of my own
company—it is why I came to visit you! But I will accept your
invitation to stay and I'll look forward to your return with the
family."

Jason shot him a keen look. "Have the pleasures of Natchez
palled so soon? I would have thought that after your escapades with the
British last year at the capital you would have welcomed a period of
time of tranquility."

Adam took a long pull of his drink. "Tranquility," he said
scathingly, "can be so bloody boring—you know that."

"Ah, but you forget," Jason replied lightly. "Since the advent
of your sister into my life, I cannot say that I have known a tranquil
moment! If she is not happily wreaking havoc in my heart and home, then
it seems that our children somehow manage to fill the void when she is
in a sweetly submissive mood. Something, I can tell you that does not
happen often! Perhaps if you would…"

"Find a wife?" Adam asked in a dangerously dulcet tone.

Unperturbed to be caught at such blatant matchmaking, Jason
smiled angelically. "Not just
any
wife, you
understand,
mon ami,
but a wife who will add a
tempestuous element to your life, a wife who will turn your
well-ordered world upside down and keep you ecstatically employed in
her bed. A wife who will present you with a quiverful of impudent
little scamps similar to my own, and one who will enchant, enrage and
utterly beguile you.
That's
what you need, and
then perhaps you will not be so intent upon seeking adventure and
risking your life on whatever dangerous scheme may next occur to you!"

"A wife like yours is what you mean, isn't it?"

"Well, that would be a fair assumption, but since there is
only one Catherine and since she very definitely is
my
wife and your sister, I would suggest that you look a little farther
afield!" Jason answered with a grin, although his eyes remained serious.

How well did Jason know the devils that drove Adam! They came
from having too much—too much freedom to do as he willed, too much
money, too much power with no one to gainsay him, too much pride and
temper and far too much attractiveness to the ladies. Nothing
challenged Adam. Everything was simply too easy, whether it was women
or money or position or even friends. Whatever Adam, wanted… Adam got!
Jason easily recognized the reasons behind Adam's constant search for
excitement and adventures. Once he had been the same, and when he was
twenty-nine and his father, Guy, had suggested he marry, he had been
outraged. Looking back over the past twelve years, Jason would now
readily admit that Guy had been right. But again, although he believed
marriage would do much to alleviate Adam's reckless need for new
horizons, Jason was very aware that it would take an exceptional woman
to tame his half brother. Marriage to a properly raised, demure young
thing was not the answer—such a marriage would be disastrous for
Adam—and yet Jason would not like to see him caught in the clutches of
a sophisticated, worldly woman either! What Adam needed, Jason conceded
slowly, was a woman like Catherine—unconventional, strong-willed, able
to hold her own against Adam's forceful personality, hot-tempered,
fiercely loyal, yet possessing a heart full of warmth and love.

If he had only known it, Jason had rather aptly
described Savanna O'Rourke, but since Adam was at Terre du Coeur in
northern Louisiana and Savanna was currently attempting to adjust to
living with her mother at Campo de Verde, some miles south of New
Orleans, the likelihood of Adam and Savanna crossing paths seemed
highly improbable. And as far as Savanna was concerned, the
last
thing she needed at present was a husband—Bodene was proving to be
every bit as obnoxiously restrictive and domineering as
any
husband could have hoped to be!

It wasn't, she admitted fairly, as she lay comfortably beneath
a weeping willow tree near one of the small bayous that crisscrossed
the property, that he meant to be so overbearing, it was simply that
Bodene was used to arranging events to suit himself and she was used to
doing precisely that same thing! And when they each wanted the opposite…

Savanna had known that Bodene would be elated at her
apparently easy capitulation to return with him, and since there was no
use squabbling over minor things, she had let him arrange their journey
to Campo de Verde without much argument. Their trip downriver had been
uneventful and she and Bodene had managed to spend the time together
quite pleasurably—-no serious disagreements. Until they had reached New
Orleans…

He had craftily, he thought, suggested that they remain a
night or two in New Orleans and then, when she had not objected, had
mentioned that she might like to visit the dressmaker who enjoyed her
mother's patronage. He'd be very happy, Bodene had continued with
suspect indifference, to help her refurbish her wardrobe. After all,
she couldn't go around in that same plain brown gown forever, could
she? Having seen where he was maneuvering her, she had taxed him with
it and they had ended up in one unholy row—Bodene furious that she
would not let him deck her out in stylish fashion, Savanna equally
furious that he thought she was going to let him start treating her as
a poor dependent. They had been skirmishing daily since then, about
everything from the way she insisted upon helping with the household
chores, despite the adequate staff employed by Bodene, to the fact that
she preferred to go barefoot most of the time.

Savanna sighed and, arms behind her head, continued to stare
blankly up through the gentle green canopy formed by the branches of
the willow tree. The sky was a clear, brilliant blue, but she took no
notice of it, her mind on the situation.

She hadn't realized how much she had missed her mother until
she had arrived at Campo de Verde and Elizabeth had fairly tumbled down
the steps in the excitement of Savanna's arrival. There was little
resemblance between the two women as they had stood there in the hot
sunlight, embracing each other. Savanna towered inches above
Elizabeth's smaller height, and though intermingled in the blond
strands of Elizabeth's hair could be seen several glints of red, her
hair did not have the flame-red glory of her daughter's. It was only in
the brilliant clarity of the aquamarine eyes, which they shared, that
their resemblance was obvious, that and perhaps in the full lushness of
their shapes, despite the difference ta their height.

At thirty-nine, Elizabeth O'Rourke was still a fine figure of
a woman, although the signs of her hard life were obvious in the lines
and creases that marred her once incredibly lovely features. That she
had been born and bred a lady was apparent not only in her speech and
manner, but in a certain elegant air about her that she had never lost
despite the adversities she had suffered. She possessed a careworn
beauty and looked to be the mature woman that she was, a woman who had
lived through many difficult years, but had triumphed in the end.

That first evening at Campo de Verde, the two women had sat up
until nearly dawn talking about whatever came to their minds, and it
had been heartwarmingly wonderful—for the first time it seemed that
they met as equals, not just as mother and daughter, and whatever
differences they might have had in the past seemed to have disappeared.
But there were still delicate areas between them and Savanna had
inadvertently touched on one of them when she asked unthinkingly, "Do
you ever wonder why he left me his estate when he never publicly
acknowledged me as his daughter?"

As the hours had passed, their conversation had touched
briefly on Davalos, something it rarely did, and the words had popped
out of her mouth before Savanna had considered her mother's feelings.
The sad expression that touched Elizabeth's face twisted Savanna's
heart, and dropping to her knees beside her mother's chair, she
muttered, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up a painful subject."

Elizabeth smiled wryly. "It's not exactly the subject that I
find painful as much as it is your continued bitterness and resentment
of him."

Savanna grimaced. "I can't help it. I barely knew the man and
I resent what he did to you."

Elizabeth gently clasped Savanna's chin and tilted her head
up, then replied deliberately, "Davalos could not have seduced me if I
had not been a willing participant—never forget that. I know you and
Bodene have never understood, but I
loved
your
father. And in the beginning he was everything a young girl dreams
of—handsome, witty and charming—and I was swept off my feet. I took one
look at him across the Governor's ballroom, saw those dark, gleaming
eyes and those arrogant Spanish features and fell madly in love… and
though I wanted to stop loving him when I discovered precisely what
sort of man I had given my heart to, it was far too late. I loved
him—even with all his faults." She glanced away, her thoughts deep in
the past.

"I know that he was not a good man," she finally said in a low
tone. "I know that he treated us disgracefully, shamefully, but while
he hurt me dreadfully, I never seemed to be able to stop loving him."
She looked unhappily at Savanna. "I know. I should have been stronger.
I should have had more pride. I should have hated him for what he did
and continued to do, but the
habit
of loving is
very hard to break…"

Savanna rested her cheek on her mother's knee. "But didn't you
resent what he had done?"

Elizabeth's mouth curved ruefully. "Oh, yes. I resented it
bitterly and I can't deny that there were times that I actually felt I
hated him. But then he would come to me and woo me and convince me that
soon, someday very soon, he would indeed marry me and introduce me to
my rightful place at his side… and like a fool, I would believe him."
She shook her head as if amazed that she had ever been so utterly
besotted. "Sometimes," she continued slowly, "you can know that
something or someone is bad for you and yet you
cannot
seem to break free of the spell they weave around you—so it was with me
and your father." She looked down at Savanna. "I've never pretended
that he was a good man, or even an honorable man. I suspect that he may
have been a wicked man, but I have to believe that in his
own
fashion he did love us and that perhaps if he had not been killed, he
might have one day married me and acknowledged you as his daughter."

She lifted Savanna's head from her lap and smiled. "And in a
way, he did acknowledge you, didn't he? In his will he stated clearly
that you were his daughter and his heir."

Savanna made a face and attempted to change the subject, even
slightly. "What do you think he was doing out there in Spanish Texas
when he was killed?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "I have no idea, unless it had to do with
some wild scheme of his to find a fortune."

At Savanna's look of curiosity, Elizabeth added reluctantly,
"That last time he came to see us he was full of some nonsense about a
golden fortune. He kept insisting that this man, I believe his name was
Jason, Jason Savage, was his deadliest enemy and that Jason would kill
him rather than let him find the fortune first."

"Didn't you believe him? Isn't that what probably happened?
That this Jason Savage killed him?"

Elizabeth shook her head vehemently.
"I
didn't know it at the time, but Jason Savage is very well thought of
here in Louisiana. He is, and always has been, very wealthy and moves
in the highest circles of society—he would have had no reason to kill
your father."

Savanna wasn't as easily convinced as her mother and a faint
frown crept between her eyes as she said, "But if there were a fortune
involved…"

Elizabeth laughed softly, shaking her head again. "No, dear.
There was no fortune. It was just a wild-goose chase that your father
was running after. He
always
had those sorts of
schemes and every time he left me, it was with the promise that it
would be the last time, that
this
time he really
would have found his fortune."