Linna : Historical Romance (The Brocade Collection, Book 5) (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Eleven
. Linna counted again just to be certain. It was still eleven. Eleven steps she had to climb to reach the beautiful bedroom Rhea had given her. It felt like charity to receive it but she had nowhere else to go. Papa was threatening to disown her for her antics with Luthor, there wasn’t anyone he trusted at the plantation to keep an eye on her with the way she was acting, and Rhea needed her sister near since her confinement was weeks away. Weeks? Of this? Ryan Daniels was a brute. He hadn’t even sent her with a maid!

Linna sighed and turned to the parlor sofa
. She’d rather be thought a wayward soul, too exhausted from her nefarious activities to climb to the only floor that held bedrooms than have the truth known. There was a reason her bedroom at the plantation had been on the ground floor...right next to the study; where she could hear everything that had happened and still couldn’t stop it.

Linna put her hands on her ears to halt the memory, scrunching her eyes shut at the same time as she blinked away the stab of tears
. And it worked. Again. That had her looking at the hard sofa with harder eyes. Papa had found out that Mother was meeting another man - something as unbelievable as it was disgusting. Papa had gone into his study to drink himself into a rage. Then he’d loaded his gun and left to hunt his wife down.

And he’d killed his daughter’s future at the same time
.

It was probably a good thing he’d sent Linna away, although this was little better
. Ensconced on a hard parlor sofa, stuffed with horsehair until it was in danger of bursting, while she had to watch as the man she’d once mooned over gave her sister child after child. If this was what love did to one, she wanted no part of it. Lust was better. It had to be. Lust wouldn’t have a woman acting like Rhea did. Nor would it get anyone gunned down. No. Lust it was to be. Now...if only she had someone to lust after. But first came freedom. She wanted that most of all. Everyone involved with Ryan Daniels sooner or later wanted freedom. Vince had done it first. He’d run off. Linna had adored her brother. No one cared about her emotion. That was when she learned how to curb it. Shove it down. Ignore it. And move on. Then Rhea had managed to escape the plantation. She’d gotten herself a husband. Linna had attended the wedding with dry eyes and her head high. Exactly as she’d attended their mother’s closed casket funeral. Nobody got to see her mother’s body and what Ryan had done. Nobody.

Linna
slapped at the sofa cushion, making a satisfactory smack. Her palm stung as if the leather slapped back.

She wasn’t going to recall it
. She wasn’t going to cry. She was going to shove emotion down, harden her heart, and follow Rhea’s example. It couldn’t be that hard to get a husband. Linna rolled onto her side and pillowed her head on her arm. It didn’t help much. The sofa was hard. And since they kept a lamp lit in every room down here, it wasn’t dark enough to be conducive to sleeping, either. But it was her own fault. She was the one terrified of heights.

She really didn’t have to worry
. She had Luthor. Wedding with her might get him disowned. He’d be penniless. They’d both be that way. He’d told her he didn’t care. Well! She did. Freedom came with a husband that had money. It shouldn’t be a problem. The Evans family had lots of it. They had almost as much as Ryan Daniels did. Their land marched right alongside Plantation Daniels. They had plenty of money, and they only had one son.

If he was disowned, it
wouldn’t be for long.

She shuddered
. She’d rather gird the staircase than do anything with Luthor. Especially anything that begat babes. Linna rolled again, her nose collided with the curved wood arm of the sofa. That smarted. Not enough to bring tears, but enough. She wasn’t ever crying again. Ever. Tears were for the weak at heart. They were for Rhea...maybe. They weren’t for Linna.

Which brought her
right back to the problem: a husband. And how to get one. She wanted one that was nice to look at: not too strong...not too weak. And definitely not argumentative. She was going to be in charge. She had the beauty for it. She had the lineage, although here in New Orleans she was being treated as an outcast- she still had family antecedents that went back to the beginnings of this territory. Her family had money. They had social position. Now they had a bit of scandal. Well - what of it? It wasn’t her fault!

Linna rolled again
. The leather creaked with the movement but nothing else made a sound. Fine. The Daniels name was synonymous with scandal now. There was nothing she could do about it. Linna winced at the back of the sofa since it was nearest her nose. Then she traced the button that held the leather against the wood frame and kept all the stuffing where it was supposed to be.

She was from a family with a stain
. Who wasn’t? There was simply no reason why Miss Annabelle Brant had turned her aside at her front steps the first morning after she’d arrived. Nor was there any reason why none of her friends returned her morning call. They didn’t even send word that they’d received her calling card, since she’d found them all unavailable when she’d tried visiting. She knew what they were doing: ostracizing her. Well! They had to try harder than that. She was a Daniels. She came from the most stubborn stock around, and she was innocent! Besides, she knew the true reason: jealousy.

Linna rolled again onto her back, and started tracing the plastered
fleur de lis
pattern in the ceiling with her eyes. They really should find a better way to keep this house safe than to have lanterns on the ground floor. That way, she wouldn’t be able to follow each and every line the plasterer had molded into their parlor ceiling since it was too bright to sleep.

Then again, she shouldn’t be so afraid of heights that
it was a struggle to climb to her second-story bedroom. Linna blinked with dry eyes, keeping the self-pity buried. She could reach it. She’d proved that the first night. She just had trouble getting back down the stairs.

Linnette Daniels had been heralded as the most beautiful debutante of the year
. Everyone had said so. Everyone had sighed over her. Available gentlemen had fawned over her hand, asking her over and over for any dance. Linna blinked again, although the movement failed to soothe her dry, hard stare. She should have selected a husband then. It would have been so easy. Then maybe she’d not be faced with accepting charity by living under the same roof as her sister and Drake...and their two sons.

She detested Rhea
. She detested Papa. She really detested Drake Taggett, anymore, with his bold blazing blue eyes that had held such secrets for her when she’d first met him. He should have been her husband! She would’ve controlled his lusts better. She needed a husband. Badly. She just didn’t know how she was supposed to find one.

~ ~ ~

“Sit down, Cord.”

Anger lined every angle of the man he faced
. Cord wasn’t about to sit. He needed his arms free. Not one flicker of his unease showed in the depths of his eyes before he answered, his left hand lazily stroking his jaw, while the right rested on his guns as if it were the natural order of things.

“I’ll stand, thank you.” 

The words were politely spoken, but quiet. He watched Fletcher’s jaw harden as the man clenched his teeth together.

“Fine
. I’ll sit.”

Rex Fletcher was a tall, lean
man, whose thin frame disguised his strength. Although four-plus inches shorter than Cord and easily 80 pounds lighter, he was still a tough man to best at games of strength. He was impossible to beat at games of chance. Fletcher always stacked the odds in his favor before he made any challenge. And then he cheated.  

Cord watched as Fletch situated himself behind the massive wooden desk that was probably carved for some Spaniard, since it had been stolen from a vessel bound for
Spain. The piece was overpowering where it sat, just as it was intended to be. Out of the corner of his eye Cord saw the movement of the room’s other occupants. He only sensed the continual vigil of Simons and where he stood. It wasn’t important. The small Frenchman wasn’t the type to fight and never had been. If it hadn’t been for the man’s ability to procure almost anything, he’d have been eliminated years ago. Besides, he was Cord’s man.

Cord rubbed a pistol butt absently.

“I asked you to do one small thing...and I paid you. One thing! It should have been easy, but did you do what I required? No. What am I to do with you now?” 

“I won’t kill for you,” Cord answered in little more than a whisper.

Fletch sighed loudly. “Pirates always kill.”

“Who says anything about piracy?” Cord replied after a moment.

“Once a pirate always a pirate, lad.”

Cord’s eyes narrowed
. “I still won’t kill for you.”

“You’ll rape, pillage and plunder, won’t you?”

“I never raped.”

Fletcher’s lips twitched. “Most likely true
. You didn’t have to. The women flung themselves at you. Always.”

Cord swallowed, using the motion to still his tongue.

“It isn’t because you’re so pretty, lad. You’re just the best option when faced with men like us.”  Fletcher opened his arms wide to encompass the room.

Cord spoke through his teeth
. It made his voice hard. “You gave me eight weeks.”

“Don’t remind me.”  Fletcher’s mouth curved into a smile
. “Find the whiskey, Blight. Make yourself useful.”  The loud words made the man at Fletcher’s back jump, before he moved as he’d been bidden.

Cord could feel his shoulders relaxing
. He eased the strap back over the pistol butt as Fletcher took out a wicked-looking knife.

“You know....”  The man spoke more to his knife blade than anyone else, “it’s been six weeks already
. I thirst for revenge...it grows stronger each day...and you delay it!”  He impaled the desk top at the end of his statement. Cord glanced down at the swaying of the knife before returning to Fletcher’s face. “You do know how that feels...no?”

“That isn’t why I took the gold,” Cord replied.

Fletcher barked out a mirthless laugh. “I know why you took the gold. It wasn’t because I offered double. I saw your face when I brought out the little locket...remember?”

Cord’s hand moved of its own accord to caress where the locket hung. “You still gave me eight weeks,” he replied as if this phrase was the only one he knew how to speak
. He willed the flush from existence. He guessed he hadn’t been successful when Fletcher snorted and sat back.

“You’ll have them, too
. Then we’ll see. You fail me and I wouldn’t sleep too deeply if I were you.”

“I never fail,” Cord
said.

“By God, I believe you
. Blight!”  Fletcher bellowed it, surprising the other man at Cord’s back. “Where’s my whiskey? I should have hired a Spaniard. They’re more malleable than the French. What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t know
.”

“You keep a Frenchman and you wouldn’t know?”

“That depends on what you mean by the word...
keep.
”

Fletcher snorted again
. “You got a woman?”

“I got lots of women
. Dangling from every rooftop.”

Fletcher was going to be smiling yet with the way his lips kept twitching
. “I mean a special one. The kind that’ll have a man crossing hell just for a taste of her lips and a glance from her eyes. That kind of woman.”

“There’s no such thing
,” Cord told him.

“Good lad
. Keep it that way.”

“You trying to tell me this Daniels wench is special?” Cord asked.

“No. I’m trying to warn you.”

“About what
? Women?”  Cord rolled the sigh of disgust over his lips. “I’ll take my chances.” 

“About getting a special one
. And then trying to keep her. Near kills a man.”  Rex Fletcher closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he was looking at his knife still planted in the desktop.

“Does it now?” Cord asked.

“A special woman like that has power. The power to take a man’s guts and twist them ’til he bleeds. Then she’ll betray him. That’s what she’ll do.”

“Sounds serious
.”

“You get a woman like that - you do one thing, you hear?”

“And what would that be?”

“Keep her close
. Don’t let her wander. Ever. Make sure there’s no man put in her shadow. And then kill every bit of emotion you ever thought of having for her when she betrays you. Every bit of it! If that don’t work, start planning your revenge. That’s what you do. Every hour. Every day. Always.”

“We talking about a particular special woman here?” Cord asked.

Rex’s eyes moved from the knife to Cord’s face, and he lost that far-away look. “No. We’re talking about one woman. And your failure to do what I paid you to do with her. That’s what we’re talking of. That’s all we’re talking of.”

“Right
. And I still have two weeks.”