were a low rumble, meant only for Jericho. “A brave woman, but deeply hurt by life, and sad.”
“Her name is Rivers, Cullen. Maria Elena Rivers. We were married eighteen years ago.” Jericho should have been surprised that he’d said the words. He wasn’t. But the last sin that could be laid at Cullen’s door was gossip. The man held his confidences as determinedly as a clam.
The islander’s smile gleamed brighter, with no trace of surprise. “Then, now that you’re here, perhaps Mrs. Rivers’s sadness will ease. As it did for Miss Eden when Adams came home to her.”
Cullen took his hand away. The door began to close. “Have a good night, sir. Rest assured I won’t be far away.”
Jericho had no chance to acknowledge the islander’s assurance, but he knew Cullen well enough to know he didn’t expect a response. Instead he closed the door, set the supper tray on the nearest table, and went in search of Maria.
The suite was typically Eden. Large rooms, minimally but elegantly appointed. And, of course, there were flowers. In every alcove there was whatever arrangement the space and design could accommodate. Yet even in that, Eden’s taste and preference erred on the side of pleasing rather than overwhelming. But that there were flowers was the important factor.
Maria Elena loved flowers. Jericho liked to think their little girl would have loved them as well.
The bedroom was darkened by closed shutters. The massive bed, lying in disarray, was empty. His seeking gaze followed a muted beam of light to Maria.
She stood before a narrow door, its shutter half open, letting the light of the setting sun spill through it. Maria wore a gown and a robe of silk that gleamed in the little light like a pale emerald. Her arms were crossed beneath her breasts, the tousled mass of her hair tumbled against her cheek as she stared down on the gardens of River Walk.
“Have you considered how ironic it is, after all these years, and all that’s happened, that I’m here, Jericho?”
Jericho had paused where he was. He had no idea how she knew she wasn’t alone, or even who waited in the doorway. Perhaps the cadence of his quiet step? A familiar scent? The sixth sense of lovers with its knowing recognition?
“Do you mean here in Belle Terre? Here at River Walk? Or on Fancy Row?” he asked softly, though he was sure he knew.
“Fancy Row—that says it all, doesn’t it?” She turned to him then, and he saw that if she’d slept, it hadn’t been restful. “Fancy for the sort of women who lived here. The mistresses of wealthy planters who kept them in luxury and dressed them like queens, yet wouldn’t recognize either the women or the children they bore them. Row, because even these homes among the finest in the city didn’t deserve the respect of having a street.”
“What you say was true, but no more,” he countered as she paced toward him, the gown skimming her knees, the robe swaying over her unbound breasts. “Times change, Maria Elena. So do people.”
“Do they?” In a familiar gesture, she threaded her fingers through her hair, combing it back from her face. Before her hand had moved completely away, the dark strands were falling again in a veil over her cheek. “There are those who will think it’s fitting that I’m staying here. The child of a Delacroix, living on the street where the Delacroix courtesans plied their sinful trade.”
“Legend has it the Delacroix were the most beautiful, most accomplished women in the low country. A prize for one man to claim. Even to duel for, Maria Elena. Yet you paint them as whores, little better than streetwalkers going from man to man.”
“Not from man to man,” Maria corrected bitterly. “To the highest bidder.”
“To one man, to whom each was faithful,” he reminded.
“For whom they bore illegitimate children. Always to be known as Delacroix, never by their father’s name.”
“Keeping a mistress, being a mistress, was an accepted practice of the time, my love. But nothing to do with you.” He would have reached out to take her in his arms, but he knew that in this mood, she would reject him.
“You’re wrong, Jericho. It has everything to do with me. I’m a Delacroix, a reminder of an accepted but unsavory custom. In Belle Terre, nothing is ever forgotten. Why else did I lose our child?”
“They were just boys, Maria Elena. Certainly misguided, certainly cruel. But still boys. Foolish, thoughtless boys.”
“And bigots,” Maria snapped. With her arms clutched ever more tightly about her, she turned her back on him. “Like all the good citizens of Belle Terre.”
Jericho hadn’t bothered to change out of his uniform, but his broad-brimmed hat had been left downstairs. Now, in frustration, he scrubbed a hand over his eyes and his forehead, dislodging a dark lock that drifted over his temple. Letting his hand fall away in a loosely curled fist, he asked softly, “Does that sweeping opinion include me? Or Eden? How about Adams and his brothers? Or Lady Mary? Have you forgotten she was kind to you?”
Her back was still turned to him. When her tirade began, her shoulders had been stiffly erect. Now they curled as if she flinched from the acrimony of her bitter judgment.
“Does it, Maria Elena? Are we all intolerant snobs, simply because we aren’t all descendants of the Delacroix beauties? Have you forgotten that your lost summer girl was my little girl and my loss, as well?”
“I…no.” Keeping her back to him, she shook her head slowly, then fell silent to stand mutely in sunset.
In the broken denial, Jericho heard the threat of tears. He had to go to her then. Nothing on earth could have stopped him from holding her. Not even fear of rejection. Nor rejection itself.
Yet when he gathered her in his embrace, she turned to him, her arms hard about him, her mouth lifting greedily to his.
With Maria the initiator and the leader, their kiss was long and wild and deep. Her teeth nipped at his lips, but only for her tongue to soothe the hurt. Her hands slipped between the crush of their bodies to slide over his chest, his throat. Circling to his nape, her fingers tangled in the dark hair brushing his collar, but only to drag him fiercely down to her. She couldn’t get him close enough. The teasing caress of probing, twining tongues wasn’t deep enough, hard enough.
“More,” she muttered as she released the clutch of his hair, and turned her attention to the buttons of his shirt. “I want to feel you. I want the touch of your skin on mine. I want your hands on me. I want you. Only and forever, you.”
“No, my love. No.” He caught her hands, pinning them between the unyielding musculature of his chest and the enticing softness of her breasts. “I’m sooty. I stink of smoke and grease.”
“You’re Jericho. That’s all that matters.” As she whispered the last, she leaned to kiss their joined hands. Then, slowly, her head lifted and she rose on tiptoe to touch her lips to the pulse that fluttered like a captured bird at the hollow of his throat. The touch of her tongue sent the heat of an inferno racing from his throat to pool hot and heavy in his groin.
Then, she lifted her head to let her gaze reach into his. In the half light of twilight in an ever-darkening room, he saw that her eyes of shimmering silver were filled with fear. Not fear of dying, but of never having truly lived.
She
