Captivated

It was time to end the farce.

She couldn't stand him, his touch, his kisses, the feel of his body pressing against her.

His rage made him strong, his passion drove him. He grasped the collar of her dress and ripped it away from her neck and down to her breasts. 'You bitch, you bitch'

He reached for her throat. 'Jesus shit… what's this?'

'I have to wear it, every day, everywhere,' she whispered. 'He made me, but now… now I revel in it. He owns me…'

He howledit was the only word for it, and he wrenched the material of her dress all the way down to the hem…

And a shot rang out.

He froze. 'I could kill you…'

'Don't move…'

A new voiceherfather's voice.

'Pull up your dress, you little tart.'

Drue hurriedly gathered the folds of material to her breast as her father appeared at the opposite end of the arbor.

'How cozy,' he said. 'You and Lenoir forever, eh, Drue.'

'No,' she protested. 'No.'

'Looks like it to me. Court's home, by the way. Got done with businessreal early.'

Drue's heart dropped to her stomach. 'What areyou doing here?'

'I want to get rid of a pestilence that could ruin my garden.'

'Go to hell,' Gerard growled.

'I think you're there already,' Victor said. 'You got your money. Get the hell out of town. Drue…'

That registered. 'What do you mean, he got his money?' she asked, turning toward Victor.

'Let me have the pleasure of telling her, Victor. Seeing as how we're airing all our dirty secrets tonight,' Gerard said nastily. 'Or do you still not want her to know?'

Oh, God… no… what? She waited. But her father didn't seem discommoded. Whatever Gerard was talking about, it couldn't hurt Victor anymore.

Or her.

'Tell her,' Victor said.

'I was the one to whom your father owed all that money,' Gerard said maliciously. 'Me.Not Summerville.'

'WHAT!!!????' Her whole world tilted. Everything went crazy, spun upside down.

' Not Court,' Victor amplified.'This piece of dung, who planned the whole scheme: get me in enough debt and I would turn you and Oak Bluffs over to him.'

'No! No…' She shook her head as she backed awayfrom her father and his perfidious lies, from Gerard and his heinous plans.

'Summerville saved your ass,' Gerard said.

'And kicked yours all to hell,' Victor interpolated smugly. 'Killed your plans. Destroyed everything you worked for. Got the girl and the plantation, too. Couldn't have asked for a happier ending.'

'Until you get your hands on the cards again,' Gerard spat. 'Until the idea of fast money lures you out of hiding and Lady Luck seduces you all over again. And she will, because you, my friend, are a goddamned sucker.'

Omigod, omigod, omigod… Gerard her father's debtor. Not Court. Not Court. Court didn't buy her. Court saved her. Saved her father, saved Oak Bluffs…

Omigod…

She backed out of the arbor blindly.Omigod…

And what if Court had been listeninghad been watching…?

Omigod…

She couldn't get away fast enough. And she couldn't get out of earshot, either.

Her father was determined to enrage him; crazy, when Gerard had lost everything. Gerard would kill him.

She didn't care. She didn't care. Her father had just lost her, too.

'No,' Victor taunted. 'You're the dupe, believing I would let you come within inches of Drue, would let you step one foot on Oak Bluffs. You gull. You butt. You goat.'

'You son of a bitch!' Gerard roared.

'You bastard' Victor goaded, his voice taut, controlled.

She heard a scuffling, a thump, as if Gerard catapulted himself at her father. And then a shot into the echoing silence that reverberated all over Wildwood.

All inside her.

Father Tears streamed down her face. She didn't care, she didn't. The betrayals were too crippling.

She didn't want to see. She didn't want to know.

She hoped they'd killed each other.

Father…

Pulling the shreds of her dress around her, she turned and ran.

chapter 9

Court had removed himself from her completely. She hadn't seen him for days after the incident in the arbor and she was feeling very irritable.

At first, she hadn't wanted to see him, not after that night. Not after her father had wounded Gerard so seriously. He lay recuperating even now in the surgery of a Dr. Boulois of St. Faubonne, and according to her father, he and Court had exacted a promise from Gerard that he would leave St. Faubonne Parish and relinquish any idea of contactingher again.

'Oh, he will run his little businesses in New Orleans,' her father told her a week later, coming to visit when he was certain her anger had died and that she would forgive him. 'And he will find eventually another wealthy dupe, another innocent girl, you can be sure of that.'

She wasn't quite in the mood to forgive. She felt ill-used, as if she had been nothing more than a puppet, caught between her father's cupidity and Court's avarice.

Nor did she like her father's assessment that reduced her feelings for Gerard to those of a raw, simple-minded, green girl.

'Youknew how much I cared for him…' she said testily.

'Exactly,' Victor said. 'I owed him so much money; I was sure you would marry him just to cancel the debt, but I couldnot have that upstartparvenu in possession of property that has been in my family for generations.'

'So you sold me to Court,' Drue interpolated, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. 'He's probably the only one in the whole of St. Faubonne who could afford youandme.'

'It's an excellent match, my dear. I knew what I was doing,' Victor said breezily.

'I wish you had told me,' Drue grumbled, but in point of fact he had:She'd be taken care of, he'd said of one of the advantages of her marriage to Court, and he had been so right. He had no idea how right.

'You were in love with that bastard,' Victor went on. 'You would have defended him to the deathandmarried him to spite me.'

She clenched her fists. She probably would have. She probably wouldn't have seen the vast, eager scheme behind Gerard's sensual seduction of her. She certainly wouldn't have believed her father's interpretation of it.