Tony shifted on his boot-encased legs, brushing against a tree stump. The gold buttons on his ebony-colored shirt reflected the dying sunlight, and he breathed a sigh of relief to see that Zelie had already brought in the basket and was now being helped into the pirogue by Emmanuel. Soon the pirogue nudged the shoreline, only ten feet away from Tony’s hiding place. Emmanuel caught his eye and nodded, and Zelie attempted to say something, but Emmanuel pushed her ahead of him, toward the right of Tony. Within minutes Tony heard the soft gallop of the horses drifting away on the sweet evening air.
All had gone well so far. He gave a sigh of relief and waited. Soon Laurel would rush from the cabin. Soon she would kiss him in gratitude for rescuing her. But the sun set, and a heavy fog began to settle over the bayou until all was enveloped in a gray haze. If she didn’t come out of the cabin soon, she would not be able to find her way across the murky water when the dark of night enfolded the area like a black cloak.
“What the hell is wrong?” he muttered out loud, growing more impatient by the second.
When fifteen minutes had passed and still Laurel hadn’t made her desperate bid for freedom, Tony had had enough. He must discover what had gone wrong with his plan. As he got into the pirogue and paddled across the creature-filled bayou, he didn’t stop to think what would happen once he entered the cabin. He only knew that a heavy sense of foreboding had filled him and that something was very wrong.
When he reached the cabin, he noticed that the door gently swayed on its hinges in the evening breeze. Pushing back the door to allow entrance of his broad frame, Tony peered into the shadowy room. He vaguely made out the shapes of the chair and table before his gaze centered upon the cot against the barred window. He blinked, not able to find Laurel at first, until he realized that her slight form rested on the cot, covered by a blanket.
“Laurel,” Tony whispered and moved into the depths of the room until he stood above her, looking down at her. In the semidarkness her eyes rested on his face, and a shock went through him that now she would know he was the one. But when he bent down, again murmuring her name, he heard no response except a low agonized moan.
Her head turned away from him, her long, raven tresses spilling over the edge of the cot to fall onto the floor. The profile of her was barely visible, and he reached out a hand to stroke her cheek, expecting her to thrash out at him, to berate him for what he had done to her. Instead his fingers felt singed by her flesh, and he drew back as the knowledge flooded over him. Laurel was sick, very sick. Turning her head toward him, she issued another moan, and he realized that her emerald gaze was filled with fire, not from anger, but from a high fever. In fact, she didn’t seem to see him at all or to respond to the caress of his cool hand upon her face when his fingers grazed her skin again.
“Laurel, you’re very ill,” he said, still not quite able to believe her condition. She shivered under the blanket, totally unaware of him. Then when she mumbled for her mother, for Gincie, he knew she was delirious.
“Damn!” he swore under his breath and stood up. Nothing had gone right. He had thought the plan so simple that his allowing her to escape would pose no problem. Instead he now had a worse problem than before. Laurel needed medical help, something he couldn’t provide. More importantly, he couldn’t bring her to Petit Coteau but must leave her here until she was well. Or until she died.
His heart almost stopped its steady thump. He knew he must get a physician, but he was unable to walk through the forest at night, the distance was too great and perilous without a torch. And he didn’t have the heart to leave her alone. If only he had brought his stallion, then he could ride for help. What a perplexing dilemma he had gotten himself into. Everything was his fault, and if Laurel Delaney died, that would be his fault, also.
But he wouldn’t allow Laurel to die. From the mists of time he recalled Zelie rambling off about a certain grass that grew in the bayou, that when the grass was mixed with water and strained, then administered to the sick person, the fever would break. Tony had always discounted Zelie’s cures, believing them to be mostly superstition, but now he had no choice. He would have to be the one to save Laurel Delaney’s life.
~ ~ ~
“Drink this down,
chérie
. It will make you well.”
That voice was there again. Laurel shut her eyes tighter, shivering beneath the blanket, not wanting to be disturbed. All she wanted was to go back to sleep and dream lovely, sweet dreams. But that voice wouldn’t let her. The voice constantly invaded the warm fog that shrouded her mind. Was that her mother’s voice whispering to her, or her father’s? Why wouldn’t the voice allow her to slip away to that peaceful realm she had glimpsed, a place of beauty and lush flowers. But it harped at her until she muttered “Go away!”
But the voice didn’t stop. Once again it demanded that she drink, and she felt herself being lifted and forced to swallow a vile-tasting brew. She made a face, and the voice said, “Bien, Laurel. Rest now.” Then a hand stroked her forehead, followed by a cool cloth in its stead.
Whose voice was that? she vaguely wondered. Was it Gincie? She managed to open her eyes a crack. A deep, dark velvet blackness met her. Though she couldn’t see anyone, she sensed a person nearby. In her mind she felt as though she were a child again and very sick from the fever. Of course, she decided, she was ill with yellow fever, and Gincie was taking care of her. That was why she felt so awful, why she shivered so. She was so tired, so very sleepy, but once again the voice intruded on her when she began to fall asleep, and someone pulled off her clothes, and she felt a coolness settling across her body. That Gincie! Why wouldn’t she leave her alone? She wasn’t going to die from anything. She would survive the fever. Didn’t Gincie remember that?
“Leave me alone Gincie,” Laurel mumbled and swatted weakly at the hand that stroked her brow. “Bronze John isn’t going to get me. You know that.”
Was that a laugh she heard? Well, when she was better again, she would tell her mother how Gincie had laughed at her and wouldn’t leave her alone when she felt so sick. But where was her mother? she wondered and began to sob. Where was she?
Sometimes, when she opened her eyes, there was light, but such a harsh light that she closed them again. At one point when she focused her eyes; she saw a man bending over her, a handsome man with dark, probing eyes. Who was he? But, of course, he must be her father, though he looked nothing like him. She wanted to smile at him, but her face hurt. Everything hurt, and she shook so horribly.
All she could manage to say was a very low, “Papa” before slipping away to a place that no longer held visions of bright flowers and rainbows but of distorted memories from her childhood, of a strange man who forced her to drink something that made her gag.
Sometimes loving hands stroked her face and body, bringing a welcome coolness to her. At other times she was cold, so terribly cold that her teeth clicked against each other like dice. She cried for her mother, for Gincie, for her father, feeling alone and frightened in a strange place, and no one came for her. No one but him, the stranger, who held her against him in a warm and comforting embrace.
~ ~ ~
Laurel’s long lashes fluttered open uncertainly, and once more her eyes beheld darkness, not a strong ebony darkness where one saw nothing, but more like a soft, velvet black cloud where shapes were outlined and the night held no terror. Was she dead? She wasn’t certain, still unable to grasp where she was and that she had survived the fever that had racked her through the long day and into the night. Now she felt warm and safe, protected.
A contented sigh escaped from between her lips, and Laurel snuggled deeper into the enveloping warmth that seemed to seep into her very bones, infusing her fever-racked body with renewed life. She still felt sleepy but was no longer weak and welcomed the enveloping warmth of the blanket and the strong arms that held her closely against a broad, fur-planed chest.
She startled at realizing she wasn’t alone, discovering that someone held her, lazily stroking the silky flesh over her spinal column. She felt strong but gentle fingers drifting from her neck to the base of her spine, then stopping as if to consider exploring the fullness of her buttocks, only to retrace the same path. Her breasts, Laurel realized, were pressed against the man’s chest. Sprigs of chest hair cushioned her rose-tipped nipples against his powerful pectoral muscles. Even in the dark she felt the muscles flex and strain against her as if he wanted to draw her very body into his own. His shirt was open, though the collar scratched her cheek, and she felt his breath ruffle the strands of her hair. An intimate gesture, but not as intimate as the fact that her naked legs were entwined around his pant-clad ones. In the darkness Laurel colored, thinking she should draw away from this man’s embrace but not wanting to be left alone in the void she felt certain his leaving would herald.
Her mind was only beginning to clear. She recalled she had been sick, probably delirious, and though she didn’t actually remember seeing the man’s face, she felt he had been with her and nursed her through her delirium. And then the events of the night of the Mardi Gras dance washed over her, and she stifled a tiny gasp to realize that the man who held her now, the man who had saved her life, was the same person who had kidnapped her. A silent laugh bubbled up to her throat to think of the irony of the situation. Her kidnapper had become her savior.
A strange calm possessed her. His intimate presence didn’t frighten her. She lay in his arms, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the tensing of his muscles when his arms pulled her protectively toward him. A sweet melting sensation flowed through her, only to be trapped in a tight coil in the center of her abdomen, seeming to build and claw at her, begging for some sort of a release she could scarcely imagine. Somehow she knew that this man wouldn’t hurt her, wouldn’t take unfair advantage of an ill woman. Perhaps she had been mistaken about him from the beginning. The man wasn’t an ogre, intent upon raping her. He was the man who had saved her life, and a bond had been forged between them. Nothing in her prim and proper past had prepared her for the rush of emotion that now threatened to consume her. She could feign sleep in his arms until he left her, or she could make him aware she was awake, but somehow she sensed he already knew this.
In years to come Laurel would never quite know why she lifted her head to look into eyes that she felt watched her in the darkness. She only knew that if she didn’t, her life would take a different course. Her lips were even with his because she felt his breath upon her mouth when she murmured, “Thank you for saving my life.”
When he didn’t reply, she wondered if he had heard her, but his answer, whatever it would have been, no longer mattered, for his lips descended upon hers to taste the warm honey of her mouth. The kiss was tentative, exploratory at first, then grew bolder, filled with the promise of his desire. Laurel moaned low in her throat as a spark ignited and slowly melted the coil within her abdomen until hot liquid coursed through her body, only to wind its way back to the lush, warm center of her womanhood.
The practical part of her nature demanded she stop at once. The man had undressed her and had had the nerve to lie next to her in an intimate embrace. But the blossoming woman within her refused to heed. For the first time in her life, she didn’t care about the consequences of her actions, only about the man next to her, who did wonderful, wanton things to her flesh.
Lowly he whispered her name, and it seemed to hang on the air like a morning mist. Laurel shivered from excitement and desire, meeting his kisses with her own, arching her body toward his … aching for him but not knowing what it was she wanted. All reason and logical thought stopped for her. This man was now her world. For one night she would belong to someone and give herself up to the ecstasy of loving a stranger. But he wasn’t a stranger, not when her body responded so to his touch. With each feathery stroke of his hands across her body, the hot kisses he rained across her breasts, Laurel recognized him as the part of herself that had been missing. Only in this man’s arms did she feel complete and alive.
By agonizing and tantalizing degrees, his hands moved from her hips to the moist and warm core of her womanhood. A moan of pleasure caught and died in her throat. Sharp pinpoints of pleasure shot through her when his fingers gently stroked her, readying her. Laurel ran her hands up his hard chest, burying her fingers in the mat of chest hair, then skirting to his broad shoulders. She wanted to feel all of him in the same way his hands explored her. Suddenly the once ladylike Laurel pulled at the confining shirt, ripping it from his massive shoulders and running her fingertips over the rippling muscles of his back before he began to tug at his pants.
The cot grew instantly lighter, and she gave a fearful cry that he had left her. Then she heard his pants dropping to the floor, and quickly he was beside her again, naked and hard. His tongue plundered the deep recess of her mouth, swirling in the dark cavity until her tongue joined his in a frenzied assault upon her senses. Threading her arms around his neck, she pulled him closer to her and reveled in the feel of his hot skin against her own. Molten kisses left their mark upon her as his mouth drifted from her swanlike throat to the taunting rose-hued nipples that ached for his lips.
He spoke in a low voice, mumbling words in French, which Laurel barely understood but instinctively knew how much he wanted her. Words weren’t needed between them. Laurel felt as if she were being guided by a primitive force as old as time itself and was helpless to stop it —didn’t want to stop it. The blanket that had covered her earlier now lay sprawled on the floor along with his pants and shirt. Nothing covered her from his hot gaze, which even in the darkness seemed to scorch her and brand her as his. The tide of desire washed over them, threatening to consume them. And when she felt his burgeoning manhood pressed intimately against her lower body, she was ready for his entry and wrapped her legs around his hips when he thrust into her. The moments of pleasure vanished, and she cried out with the pain of his joining, bringing her back to reality. “Stop, please no more,” she whispered with tears in her voice.