Elegant and erudite, Smythe described himself as a semiretired dealer of objets d’art. Having joined him on several visits to the antique shops of the French Quarter’s Royal Street, Peachy knew he had a connoisseur’s eye and expertise. But there was something about him…
“Mr. Smythe, hmm?” A hint of amusement flickered across Luc’s angular face.
“The MayWinnies say he reminds them of Cary Grant in that movie where he played a cat burglar,” Peachy commented, wondering at his expression. “The one with Grace Kelly?”
“To Catch a Thief.”
“That’s it.”
“The Misses Barnes are worried about being robbed in their beds?”
The question caught Peachy off guard. “To tell the truth, I think they might enjoy that.”
The rather slanderous implications of this comment sank in a split second later and she began to blush. Luc’s reaction was an arched brow and a genuine laugh.
“Assuming it was Mr. Smythe doing the larcenous deed, of course,” he amended.
Peachy eyed him uneasily. “You won’t tell them what I said, will you?”
“The MayWinnies, you mean?”
“Or Mr. Smythe, either, for that matter.”
“I’m nothing if not discreet, cher.”
The response was silken in tone. It was also punctuated by a smile that started out seeming extremely straightforward then turned extraordinarily complex. The combination sent a quicksilver frisson arrowing up Peachy’s spine.
Her pulse scrambled.
So did her thoughts.
It was not until a moment after their waiter reappeared to take their dessert order that she realized Luc hadn’t actually given her the assurance she’d sought. By then it was too late to pursue the matter.
“Mademoiselle?” the server inquired politely.
Peachy blinked several times, trying to recall which dessert she’d settled on. “The, uh, sorbets with fruit, please,” she finally managed to request.
“Coffee?”
“Um, no.” She shook her head, conscious of the shifting of her long, curly hair. “No, thank you.”
The waiter angled his gaze toward Luc. “And for you, Monsieur Devereaux?”
“Cafe brûlot, s’il vous plait.”
“Très bien. Merci.”
Maybe now’s the time to take another crack at that “regaining control” effort you mentioned earlier? the little voice in the back of Peachy’s skull queried, reasserting itself with sardonic force after nearly an hour of silence as the waiter moved away.
Leave me alone, Peachy snapped silently.
It was only a suggestion, Pamela Gayle.
Yes, well, when I want a suggestion, I’ll give it to—
The realization that Luc had said something to her put an abrupt period to this mental slinging match.
“Ex-excuse rn-me?” she stammered.
“I asked about the wedding you went to last weekend,” came the smooth reply.
“Oh…well…” Peachy took a moment to put her thoughts in order. “The groom was Matthew Powell. His brother, Rick, is married to my older sister, Eden. They—Eden and Rick—came to visit me not too long after I moved in on Prytania Street.” She paused, thinking back. “I’m pretty sure you met them.”
Luc frowned. “Was this during Terry’s Eleanor Roosevelt phase by any chance?”
“Terry’s Eleanor—” Peachy started, then broke off as the floodgates of memory opened. A bubble of laughter escaped her. “Oh, Lord. I’d completely forgotten about that! Yes. It was. I introduced them to him. Eden was a little taken aback by his appearance even though she didn’t have the faintest idea who Terry Bellehurst was. And Rick—well, he’s a huge sports fan and he nearly choked. Still, Terry was so…so Terry that he put them at ease within a couple of minutes. At which point Remy showed up with a plate of profiteroles.”
“A nice, neighborly gesture.”
“He was wearing one of his spangled Elvis does Las Vegas jumpsuits, Luc.”
“Ah.”
“Then the MayWinnies dropped by to do their patented sweetlittle-old-ladies routine.”
“In stereo.”
“Except when they were finishing each other’s sentences.”
“No Laila?”
Peachy smiled ruefully. Laila Martigny would have lent a muchneeded touch of sanity to the proceedings.
“Unfortunately, no,” she replied. “She was out of town. But someone mentioned her—and her alleged psychic powers and her supposed connection to Marie Laveau.”
“You know, you’re right,” Luc declared, nodding. “I did meet your sister and brother-in-law. And I distinctly remember them seeming a bit uncertain about your choice of residence.”
“Uncertain?” Peachy rolled her eyes. “They were begging me to move back to Atlanta before we ran into you. Luckily, you managed to reassure them that everything wasn’t quite as laissezfaire as it appeared.”
“Me?” Luc lifted his brows and flashed an ironic smile. “I think not, cher.”
“Think what you want,” Peachy retorted, the nearly two-yearold memory of a brief hallway encounter between her sister, brother-in-law and the man she would one day ask to do her the most intimate of favors very clear in her mind. “I know what you did.”
Their waiter returned. He presented Peachy’s dessert with a flourish, then deftly performed the ritualized flaming of a brandysoaked sugar cube for Luc’s café brûlot.
“Merci,” Luc said when he’d been served.
“De rien,” the other man responded, surveying the table. After a moment or two he gave a satisfied nod, then pivoted and walked away.
Luc took a long sip of his liquor-laced coffee. Peachy sampled what turned out to be a scoop of mango sorbet. The taste was subtly sweet and exotically refreshing.
“And what about the bride?” her dinner partner eventually asked, setting down his gold-rimmed china coffee cup. “The one who married your sister’s husband’s brother.”
Peachy paused in the act of spooning up a chunk of fresh pineapple, oddly annoyed by Luc’s decision to allow her to have the final word in their previous exchange. She knew he wasn’t doing so because he’d accepted her assessment of what had happened when he’d met Eden and Rick. Quite the contrary.
Why, she asked herself, was he so stubbornly resistant to the idea that he might have a positive impact on someone? That Lucien Devereaux was not a candidate for canonization was beyond dispute. But it was a long fall from less-than-saintly to unredeemable sinner. Yet it was her increasingly strong impression that it was the latter category to which he considered himself inalterably consigned.
Конец