Strangers in Paradise - Heather Graham Page 0,1
again, and he kissed her with a fascinated hunger, as if he had never known the taste of her lips before. He entwined his limbs with hers and held her, as if he could not bear to part.
“My love, my love,” she whispered to him. She adored him in turn; sensed his needs, and she gave in to them, all. Stars lit the heavens again and again for her, and when he whispered apologies, thinking himself too rough, she hushed him and whispered in turn that he was the only lover she could ever want.
Dinner was very late. Pierre dandled his son on his knee while Mary served, and Mary and Eugenia did their best to speak lightly, to laugh, to entertain their soldier home from the war. Dinner was wonderful—broiled grouper in Mary’s old Louisiana creole sauce, but Pierre had noted that fish was the diet because the domestic fowl were gone, and when Mary took their little boy up to bed, Eugenia was forced to admit that, yes, the Yankees had come again, and they had taken the chickens and the pigs and even old Gretchen, the mule. Pierre swore in fury, and then he stared at Eugenia with panic and accusation. She went to him, swearing that the Yanks had been gentlemen plunderers—none had shown her anything but respect.
She hesitated. “They’ll not come here again. Even as they waltz in and out of Jacksonville. They won’t come because—”
“Because of your father,” Pierre supplied bitterly, referring to Eugenia’s father, General George Drew of Baltimore. His home was being spared by the Yanks because his wife was one.
“Dammit,” Pierre said simply. He sank back into his chair. With a cry of distress, Eugenia came to him, knelt at his feet and gripped his hands.
“I love you, Pierre. I love you so much!”
“You should go back to him.”
“I will never leave you.”
He lifted her onto his lap and cradled her there, holding her tight against the pulse of his heart. “I have to leave,” he said softly. “The Old Man—General Lee—is determined to make a thrust northward. I have to be back in Richmond in forty-eight hours.”
“Pierre, no! You’ve just—”
“I have to go back.”
“You sound so…strange, Pierre.” She tightened her arms around him.
“I’m frightened, my Genie, and I can’t even describe why,” he told her. “Not frightened of battle anymore, for I’ve been there too many times. I’m frightened…for the future.”
“We shall win!”
He smiled, for his Northern-born belle had one loyalty: to his cause, whatever it should be.
An ocean breeze swept by him, drawing goose pimples to his flesh, and he knew. They would not win.
He buried his face against his wife’s slender throat, inhaling her scent, feeling already the pain of parting. He held her fiercely. “You need not fear, Eugenia. I will provide for you—always. I’ve been careful. The money is in the house.”
He whispered to her, though they were alone.
“Yes, yes, I will be fine—but I will not need anything. When this is over, we will be together, love.”
“Yes, together, my love.”
Eugenia loved him too well to tell him that she knew the South was dead. She did not tell him that the money he had hidden in the house, his Confederate currency, was as useless as the paper it had been printed on. He was her man, her provider. She would not tell him that he had provided her with ashes.
And he did not tell her that he felt a cold breeze, a cold, icy wind that whistled plaintively, like a ghost moaning and crying. Warning, foreboding. Whispering that death was ever near.
He took her in his arms and carried her up the stairs once again. Their eyes met.
They smiled, so tenderly, so lovingly.
“We’re having another baby, Pierre.”
“What?”
His arms tightened. She smiled sweetly, happy, pleased, smug.
“A baby, Pierre.”
“My love!”
He kissed her reverently.
All through the night, he loved her reverently.
Pierre woke before Eugenia. Restless, he wrapped a sheet around himself and checked his hiding place, pulling the brick from the wall in silence.
A beautiful glitter greeted him. He inhaled and exhaled.
He had to go back to the war. He wanted to take his pregnant wife and his young son and disappear forever. But he was a soldier; he could not forsake his duty. He could assure himself, though, that whatever came, Eugenia would not want for anything.
He replaced the brick.
No, Eugenia would not want for anything.
CHAPTER 1
The fear she felt was terrible. It tore into her heart and her mind, and even into her soul.