Bayou Nights (6 page)

She clasped her hands and covered her heart. “Major”—she tittered—“I’m so overwhelmed by a man in uniform I can’t rightly remember your name.”

“Quig Haywood, dear lady. Won’t you sit down?”

Then, incredibly, the ghost pulled out a chair for her.

“You’re too kind.” She sat and crossed her hands in her lap. Her lower lip quivered. “Daddy is missing.”

Drake stood in the corner, forgotten. That was probably for the best. If the ghost could pull out chairs, Lord only knew what else he could do.

“Missing?” Major Haywood’s voice softened. He gave Christine an awkward, ghostly pat on the shoulder then joined her at the table. “Let’s put our heads together and see if we can’t figure out where your daddy might be.”

She smiled at him as if he was an epic hero. Her lashes danced against the satin of her cheek.

The ghost looked like a starving man who’d been seated at a banquet. That or a lonely man who’d just met the girl of his dreams. Poor fellow. He didn’t stand a chance against the dual assault of Christine’s dazzling smile and her amber eyes.

Her smile broadened, as if meeting a cantankerous ghost was the best thing that had happened to her all day. Perhaps it was. “Major, where do you think Daddy might go?”

She’d claimed her father had been kidnapped. What was she up to? Drake crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall.

“A boat headed up river?”

The tips of her fingers touched her cheek and her mouth parted as if she’d been struck dumb by his brilliance.

“Or,” the major continued, “could be he’s down by the river casting a line.”

“Do you think?” Her voice was slightly breathless.

Major Haywood smiled at her and nodded.

“The last time you saw Daddy, you were playing cards?”

“That’s right, sugar.”

Sugar? If Drake called Christine
sugar
, he suspected she’d stake him with the broken zebra wood cane. She beamed at the Confederate officer. “He won that night?”

“It was the darnedest thing. I thought sure Youx had him beat, then your daddy laid down his cards and he’d won.”

Was it his imagination or did her smile look forced?

“He’d won,” she repeated faintly.

“You sound surprised, sugar.”

Her shoulders lifted in a delicate shrug. “Daddy never wins.”

“Ain’t that the truth? But he did that night.”

What was she getting at? Had Youx fixed the card game so that Lambert won? Why would he purposefully lose such a valuable secret?

Because he needed a human to fetch the coin? Or, was there another reason?

“Do you like it here, Major Haywood?” Christine glanced around the cluttered room and a small furrow appeared between her brows.

“I reckon.”

“It’s just that…a man of obvious refinement like yourself in this place.” Her shoulders lifted again—this shrug more delicate than the last.

“Ahh, sugar.” The ghost leaned his chair back on two legs and crossed his arms. “The girls are pretty.” His eyes twinkled. “Not as pretty as you, mind, but pretty. I like being around life.”

“Is that why you linger?” she asked. “On this side, I mean?”

Haywood righted his chair with a thump. Then he cast Drake a beady scowl as if he, and not Christine, had asked the offending question. The temperature in the cluttered room plummeted.

“Don’t you worry your pretty head about why I linger.”

Mattias snuck his hand into his coat and closed his fingers around his knife. If the ghost tried to hurt Christine his desire to linger wouldn’t matter. A quick flick of the knife and the old soldier would cross.

Christine glanced at him. Her eyes begged him to be patient and forgiving.

He’d had a trying day. Forgiveness wasn’t a priority.

She mouthed, “Please?” Then she turned to the ghost. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Major.” Flutter, flutter went her lashes. “I do apologize.”

The major’s scowl softened. The temperature warmed.

Mattias loosened his grip on the knife.

“I’ve taken enough of your time.” Christine stood and sighed softly. “I did so hope you could help me.”

The ghost stood as well. “You go on down to the river and look for your daddy. When you find him, you send him on over. I need a chance to win some of my own back.”

“He beat you, too?” A simple question but Christine’s tone made it sound as if her father had completed a Herculean task.

“I reckon the moon was blue that night.”

“I’ll send him, Major Haywood. Thank you for chatting with me. It’s such a treat to meet a real war hero.”

Now that she stroked his ego instead of questioning his decision to haunt the mortal coil, the ghost smiled at her. “Sugar, the pleasure was all mine.”

Mattias opened the door to the hallway and Christine limped out of the room.

With Christine out of the room, the beady-eyed scowl settled back onto the major’s face. “You keep a weather eye on that girl, hear?”

Mattias nodded.

From the hallway, Christine screamed.

Both he and the ghost dashed into the hall. Along its length doors opened and curious women stuck their heads out.

Just outside their door, a florid man in a plaid suit had Christine pushed against a wall. He leaned his forearm against her chest, pinning her. His free hand explored the rip in her skirts.

Tears stood in her golden eyes.

Mattias hands fisted. “Let her go.”

The man looked over his shoulder and grinned. “Wait your turn. There’s plenty to go round.”

The temperature in the hall dropped to freezing.

Drake ripped the man away from Christine and swung, his fist connecting with jaw in a satisfying crunch. The man stumbled away from Christine then crumpled.

A ghostly hand patted Drake’s shoulder. “Good man. Wish I’d done that.”

Christine slid down the wall to the floor.

Mattias knelt next to her. “Are you all right?”

She didn’t respond.

He took her hand. His thumb found the delicate skin on her wrist and he counted her racing pulse. “Miss Lambert,” he crooned. “Christine. Talk to me.”

Her gaze remained fixed on her attacker.

The man who’d pinned her pulled himself up, using the bannister for support.

Good. If the man stood, Drake would get to hit him again. This time harder.

“You didn’t knock him out, son.” Major Haywood shook his head then straightened his cuffs. “The God damned bastard.” Then the ghost raised his hands—slowly, with effort—as if lifting a heavy weight. The man rose off the floor, hovering over the landing.

Down the hallway screams erupted from the women watching. A few drew their heads back into their rooms and slammed their doors. Others stepped into the hall, their eyes big as oyster shells.

The man in the plaid suit scrabbled for purchase in the air. His florid face turned a deep shade of puce and his eyes—well, they made the watching women’s eyes look small.

The major waved his hands toward the stairway and Christine’s attacker floated over empty space, a twenty foot drop to the floor below.

The man waved his arms as if he could swim through the air. “Help!”

One of the girls tittered—a nervous laugh that bordered on the hysterical.

The major glared at the man hanging in space. “Ain’t no way to treat a lady.” He brushed his hands against each other and the man dropped like a stone. Then the ghost looked down at Christine. “Is she all right? He didn’t hurt her?”

“I’m fine.” Christine’s voice was pure vinegar. Apparently she didn’t appreciate being discussed in the third person. That or seeing someone thrown off a landing disagreed with her.

Drake stood and joined a passel of girls looking over the landing at the body below. The man’s leg lay at a funny angle and his groans were pathetic. He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at the ghost. “Wish I could have done that.”

If the major recognized his northern accent, he gave no indication. Instead he grinned back. “Hell. I was trying to kill him but I ain’t that lucky.”

“He deserved it,” said Drake. The bounder had attacked Christine. Even in her torn skirts it was easy to tell she didn’t work at Josie Arlington’s. She possessed an air of refinement the other women lacked. Besides, her body was covered. The girls peering into the foyer were nearly naked.

The ghost eyed one of the girls who wore nothing but a silk kimono tied far too loosely for decency. “I reckon you better get Miss Lambert on outta here, this ain’t no place for a lady.”

Drake gathered Christine into his arms and carried her down the back stairs to the kitchen.

Marigold stood stirring a pot on the stove. “What happened?”

“Someone attacked her.”

Her eyes grew wide. “The ghost?”

“Just a man,” said Christine. “Mr. Drake, you may put me down now.”

Drake ignored her request.

“Is that the ruckus I heard out front?” asked Marigold.

“The ghost pushed the man down the stairs,” explained Christine. Another lie. The ghost had lifted a grown man off the floor, kept him hanging in the air until his eyes bugged with fear, then dropped him twenty feet. All as easily as if he was tossing a pebble.

Marigold crossed herself. “He ain’t never hurt no one before.”

“I doubt he will again,” Drake assured her. “He was protecting Chris—Miss Lambert.”

Josie Arlington burst into the kitchen, took one furious look at him, and said, “What. Did. You. Do?”

Christine wriggled as is if she wanted him to release her. Not likely. He tightened his hold. “A man accosted Miss Lambert.”

Josie waved away such a trifle with the tips of her fingers. “So you threw him down the stairs.”

“I punched him in the jaw. Major Haywood threw him down the stairs.” Off the stairs was more accurate, but now wasn’t the time to split hairs.

“And who, pray tell, is Major Haywood?”

“Your ghost.”

Josie’s ruddy cheeks blanched. “Get out!” She lifted her hand and pointed to the door leading to the alley. “Now.”

“Miss Arlington…Josie—”

Josie cut off whatever Christine intended to say with a shake of her finger. “That ghost ain’t never made any real trouble. Not until tonight. You two are here for fifteen minutes and all hell breaks loose. Get out.”

Christine struggled against his hold. “Put me down.”

He set her on her feet and ignored the empty feeling in his arms.

Together they walked out the back door into the stinking alley. The door slammed behind them.

“I think you just lost a customer.”

“She never bought that much anyway. I’d like to go home.”

“No.”

“No?” Her brows rose.

“No. You’ve been attacked there once already.”

She squared her shoulder and scowled up at him. “Then where are we going?”

We? Drake scowled back. Damn it, that plural pronoun made his lips long to curl into a smile. “I have no idea.”

He walked—slowly—toward the street.

She followed him. What choice did she have?

Chapter Five

Drake held out his arm as if he expected her to take it. Not likely. The man had been behaving like a…like a man.

Christine ignored the proffered arm and limped toward the lights of Canal Street.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

She hadn’t the slightest idea, but the alley smelled disgusting and Josie might yet appear with a shotgun. She kept walking.

He caught up within seconds and somehow managed to insert his arm beneath hers. “Until we figure out who or what is attacking you, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

She’d asked for help locating her father, not a bodyguard. Christine slit her eyes. “And if I don’t want you around?”

“Learn to live with it.” His voice sounded deadly serious.

Christine sighed her frustration. A sigh was more dignified than stomping her feet like a fractious toddler. Besides, she doubted she could effectively stomp with her ankle throbbing the way it was. If only she had something to throw at his pompous, over-bearing, interfering, disapproving head.

They exited the alley and Christine drew a deep breath of air into her lungs. “I want to go home.”

“I already told you no.”

“I heard you, Mr. Drake, but you don’t decide what I do.”

He glanced at her. “Zombie.”

She didn’t need reminding. The zombie had been rather frightening but she’d managed.

“The possessed mob,” he added.

That too had been frightening, but she’d escaped with only a twisted ankle. “I want—”

“No. We’ll get you a room at my hotel.”

She stopped on the banquette and stared up at him. Was he mad? Her dress was in tatters, her hat askew, her hair a disaster, and all that running had made her glow. As a result she suspected she smelled less than lovely. She couldn’t be seen like this. “Absolutely not.”

“Then I’m spending the night at your house.”

He was mad, crazy as a loon. Now she was sure of it. “Why?”

“We just went over that. Zombie. Possessed mob. God knows what will be next.”

“I mean, why do you care? This”—her free hand rose to the chain around her neck—“entails far more than tracking my father.”

He stared down at her. “You need someone to help you.”

That was either sweet or patronizing. Tired, in pain, and a mess, she was inclined to go with patronizing. Her shoulders tensed.

“I’m not leaving you alone.” His face looked like hewn stone.

“Are you helping me because of the treasure?”

“No!” His voice was too loud. It rose above the sounds of carriages rumbling over cobbles, over the drunken humming of three men—
Congo Love Song
? Perhaps. They were so drunk it was hard to tell. “No,” he repeated at a lower pitch.

Mr. Mattias I-cannot-tell-a-lie Drake was a liar after all. He might not care about acquiring the wealth but the search for it—the puzzle—fascinated him.

She primmed her lips and lifted a disbelieving brow.

“I’m not leaving you alone.” He looked down at her ankle, which throbbed its displeasure with her perambulation, then hailed a hack and loaded her into it.

Sitting next to her, he seemed too close, claimed too much space. It was like sitting next to a boulder, a warm boulder that smelled of bay rum cologne. She scooched away. “We need a plan.” She scooched even farther. “For tomorrow.”

“A plan?”

She nodded. “You heard Major Haywood. He was surprised Daddy won. Dominique Youx lost that card game on purpose.”

“There’s no way to be certain of that.”

She suppressed a bitter-as-chicory laugh. “Oh, I’m certain. Daddy never wins.”

“Then why does he play?”

“He can’t help himself. It’s like a sickness.” A sickness that had broken her mother’s heart, ruined their family, and cost Warwick his life. “Believe me, he never wins.” She stared at her hands that held the remnants of her skirts together. “You’d think dying would make it better, but no.”

“How did he die?”

“He was shot over a gambling debt.” The tone of her voice forbade further questions.

“What happened?” Of course he’d ignore the warning signs in her voice.

“He used collateral he didn’t own.”

“Oh?”

“I inherited it from my mother’s mother.” The words came too fast, like water rushing over a spillway. Why was she telling him so much? She never talked about this.

“He lost something that belonged to you?”

She didn’t trust her voice. She nodded then turned her head toward the window, hiding the tears that filled her eyes.

“Obviously you didn’t give it to him.”

How could she? She shook her head.

“And then he was murdered?”

“Shot.”

“And you feel guilty.”

Of course she did. Anyone would. But losing the house on Royal would have left her homeless.

The granite of his expression softened to limestone. “If your father hadn’t lost everything, you wouldn’t be a milliner.”

Probably not.

“You’d be married to someone with a last name like Gautreaux or Durand or Dubois.”

She didn’t argue.

“You wouldn’t be you.”

“
Fifolet
down there.” The driver’s panicked voice carried through the open window. The hack rolled to a halt. “It’s right in front of your stop.”

Christine leaned back against the seat and sighed deeply. “We can’t go to my house.”

Drake leaned his head out the open window. “What is a
fifolet
?”

Why had Zeke sent a man with no knowledge of New Orleans to help her? What he didn’t know could get him killed.

“Legend has it when a pirate buried his treasure, he murdered a member of his crew and threw the body into the ground with the treasure chest. It bound the dead man’s spirit to the treasure. The spirit becomes a
fifolet
.”

“So it knows where the treasure is?” His hand closed on the door handle.

“You don’t talk to a
fifolet
.”

His fingers lingered on the handle. “Why not?”

“Because as soon as you open your mouth it will invade your lungs and suffocate you.”

Drake loosed the handle. “Good reason.”

“I think so.” Why then did she have an odd feeling that this
fifolet
didn’t mean them harm? She couldn’t risk their lives on an odd feeling.

“Where do you want to go?” the driver called. “I ain’t driving through that.”

“The Commercial Hotel,” said Drake.

The driver backed the hack then turned around. Christine looked out the window at the blue light. It twinkled at her, beckoning. That’s what
fifolet
did. They tricked people into following them then led them to their doom. Christine sat back against the seat and closed her eyes.

A few moments later, the driver rolled to a stop in front of the hotel. Drake leapt out then lifted her down.

She straightened her hat, reminded herself of a heritage that stretched back two centuries, lifted her chin, and walked into the thankfully empty lobby.

Antonio Monteleone himself stood behind the registration desk. Christine breathed a sigh of relief. The man was discreet, a veritable vault. No one need ever know she’d appeared at the front desk looking like a hoyden, or that a man had brought her.

They walked—well, Drake walked, she limped—to the registration desk.

“Mrs. Drake will need a room tonight,” said Drake.

For the love of Pete! Mrs. Drake?

The hotelier looked at her and his brows rose—just a tiny bit—if she hadn’t been looking at him when it happened she might have imagined that rare manifestation of surprise at one of his guest’s requests.

“What Mr. Drake means to say, Mr. Monteleone, is that someone attempted to rob my shop today and I don’t feel comfortable staying there alone.”

“Of course, Mademoiselle Lambert. We have a lovely suite available.”

“The same floor as my room?” asked Drake.

This time the hotelier’s jaw slackened. Just a smidge, but she saw it.

“What Mr. Drake means to say is that the robber attacked me and he wants to be nearby should I need him.”

“I do hope you weren’t hurt and that nothing valuable was stolen.”

Christine offered up a small smile. “You’re kind to ask. Is that suite on Mr. Drake’s floor?”

“It is.”

“Perfect.” She wanted a bath more than she wanted to breathe.

“Bags?” he asked.

There was a wrinkle. She had nothing. She drummed her fingers against the counter for a moment then said, “I’m afraid not. If you have some paper…”

He slid a piece of hotel stationery across the counter. She took up a pen and wrote a quick note to Molly then jotted the girl’s address on the envelope he provided. “If you’d see that this is delivered first thing in the morning, I’d be most grateful.”

“My pleasure, Miss Lambert.” He pushed a key across the registration desk. “I believe the kitchen might still be open. May I send something up?”

Drake’s stomach rumbled.

“Please. Would you send an extra cellar of salt?”

Monteleone didn’t blink. Extra salt was apparently not something that surprised him.

They took the lift to the third floor and Drake escorted her to her door. “Thank you, Mr. Drake.” She inserted the key in the lock.

The damn man reached around her, opened the door, and stepped inside.

Christine turned on the light. “I’d like to take a bath.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

“Perhaps you didn’t understand, Mr. Drake. I’d like to take a bath without a man in my room.

“No.” He settled onto the chaise. He even put his feet up as if he meant to stay for a long time. “Leave the door cracked.” Then he folded his arms behind his head and reclined.

If he heard her teeth grinding, he gave no indication.

“I’ve known you less than twelve hours.”

“Give or take,” he agreed.

“Have you any idea how inappropriate this is?”

He raised a brow.

If only she didn’t want a bath so desperately. Amidst the elegant furnishings of the suite, she felt more bedraggled than ever.

“I won’t peek.”

Now she raised a brow.

“Zeke would have my head,” he said.

“So the only thing keeping you away from my bath is your loyalty to Zeke Barnes?”

The man who’d carried her through a whorehouse answered with a smile—a slow one, as seductive as sin.

Christine’s body tingled and her mouth went dry.

“Of course, you could always ask me in.”

There was the cocksure attitude she’d come to expect over the past several hours. The tingling disappeared, replaced by a desire to pick up a lamp and smash him over the head. Instead she walked into the bathroom and turned on the tap. She contorted her arms over head to unbutton the back of her dress then contorted them low to unbutton the bottom. The middle was a problem.

She could ask Mattias Drake to help her. Hell would freeze over first. She yanked. A few buttons clattered against the tile floor. She slipped off the ruined garment then shed the rest of her clothes. The hotel had a bottle of bubble bath next to the tub. She poured a healthy dose into the water and the room filled with the scent of magnolias. She breathed deep then lowered herself into the fragrant water.

Heaven.

“Everything all right in there?” called Drake.

Not heaven. “Fine,” she snapped. “Let me enjoy my bath.”

Was he chuckling?

Damned Yankee.

“Where should we look for Youx?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead she slipped beneath the surface of the water.

She stayed there for a second, submerged in the relaxing warmth. Then her lungs demanded air and she rose above the surface.

Mattias Drake’s head and shoulders had entered the bathroom. The rest of him didn’t look too far behind.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked. “Get out!”

“You didn’t answer.” His cheeks flushed. Perhaps from the heat and dampness of the bathroom. Perhaps from seeing her. He shifted his gaze to the bathroom ceiling.

“I. Am. Taking. A. Bath.”

His head and shoulders withdrew and he mumbled, “Sorry.”

Sorry? He’d seen her naked! Or he would have were it not for the prodigious number of magnolia-scented bubbles that surrounded her.

Really, Zeke should have sent someone old and portly and unattractive, a man who’d never dream of disturbing a lady in her bath.

In the twelve hours she’d known him, Mattias Drake had treated her like a helpless dimwit for approximately eleven hours and fifty minutes. It was those other ten minutes that bothered her. When he’d laughed with her on the bench. When he’d tested her ankle in Josie’s kitchen. When he’d stroked her cheek after that horrible man had accosted her. When he’d smiled at her just now. That smile—just thinking about it made her tingle.

Christine picked up the sea sponge at the side of the tub, squeezed some of the divine magnolia concoction on it, and scrubbed. Hard. As if washing the day’s trials off her body could wash Mattias Drake right out of her life.

…

Mattias collapsed on the chaise. There was no way the sight of a naked woman should affect him like this. He wasn’t some fresh-behind-the-ears pup. His head sank to his hands.

Christine Lambert was nothing but trouble wrapped in an exquisite package and tied with a satin bow. She attracted disaster like nectar attracted hummingbirds. Dire trouble flitted around her constantly. He need only look at the past few hours for proof. One day trouble would catch her.