“Yes, yes, of course,” she murmured as she looked down, fanned lashes veiling her eyes.
So it is true…. He had wondered if the rumors about her leaving New Orleans with Delery over a year ago when he’d been shot were valid; now he knew they were. Ah, tempestuous Ginny, as passionate and untamed as her mother had been cool and contained. He envied Morgan almost as much as he pitied him at times.
“Sonya,” Ginny said after a few minutes of desultory conversation, “I must visit the convenience. Would you care to go with me?”
Senator Brandon managed to rise courteously from his chair, and watched them leave with an indulgent smile, idly wondering why it was that females always felt the need to travel in pairs on such occasions.
But as he took his seat again, Morgan remained erect. He bowed slightly from the waist, and said tersely, “I see an old acquaintance I must greet, Senator. If you will excuse me for a moment?”
Frowning as his son-in-law walked away without waiting for a reply, Brandon shifted uncomfortably in the chair and sipped French brandy brought by an attentive waiter. Amber liqueur left legs on the concave glass, slipping lazily down the sides as he slowly twisted the snifter.
For all his surface refinement, Morgan was still just an uncouth gunslinger beneath that veneer, a killer and an outlaw. It amazed him that Virginia—reared to be a lady despite all that had happened to her once she’d come to America—still loved him. But then, Morgan never seemed to have trouble attracting women.
In the years since he’d first met him, Brandon had become well aware of the effect Steve Morgan had on women. He had noticed how female eyes tracked Morgan, observant, even hungry at times, widening as they watched him cross a room. It was the unknown, the savage in him; women sensed it.
For a long time, the senator had found it vaguely amusing to watch women throw themselves at his son-in-law. It usually had the same ending—Steve bored easily, had no patience with light flirtations or even secret assignations with restless wives. Nor did he allow women to divert him from his purpose, though there had been a few who had managed to interrupt his life—and his marriage.
But lately, there was an undercurrent to Morgan that made Brandon uneasy, made him regard the man with even more wariness than ever before. The first wild recklessness that had characterized Steve’s actions a few years back had tempered now, melded into a sense of purpose that made him far more dangerous than he had been then.
Eyes narrowed when he saw Steve Morgan pause by a table in the far corner; two men sat in the shadows provided by a folded screen and potted plant, hidden from his view. It sharpened his misgivings. Morgan was an unknown quantity, a man he could neither predict nor avert from his purpose. There was far too much riding on the future in Mexico, and he was damned if he’d allow Steve Morgan to interfere.
His hand tightened on his glass, and he lifted it to his mouth in a swift, angry motion. Brandy coated his tongue and throat, liquid heat, redolent and welcome.
Not this time, by God!
Sonya had changed. Her china doll prettiness was still as delicate as always, but sadness lurked in her blue eyes and in the discontented droop of her mouth. She was garbed with exquisite care. Her elegant gown of dark cream-colored faille and overdress of cream-and-white-striped India silk was trimmed with bows of cardinal red and cream-colored lace. Her creamy chip hat bore a cluster of red roses on the turned-up brim, with lush feathers drooping elegantly forward to brush against blond ringlets on her forehead.
“You look lovely tonight,” Ginny remarked as they made their way back to the dining room. The silence between them was oddly tense. Why had she invited Sonya to come with her? Perhaps she’d just been flustered by the reminder of Andre Delery, another ghost from her past, and wanted only to escape. Yet this was nearly as bad, for her stepmother looked as if she were about to burst into tears or hysteria at any moment. The tension marking her pretty features was eased only slightly when Ginny added, “That gown suits you.”
“I wish I could wear that color,” Sonya said suddenly, and gestured at Ginny’s gown, “but it makes me look washed out.”
“You would look quite pert with more color, I think.” Ginny paused to allow a waiter to pass, biting back the words that trembled on the tip of her tongue. The last time she had seen her stepmother, Sonya had been wailing in her bed with remorse. Guilt, long repressed, had boiled over when her husband was shot and lay in serious condition, and Sonya had blamed herself for it, certain her dalliance with Steve Morgan so long before had invited such a tragedy. It had been a shocking discovery, and had sent Ginny bolting from the house and New Orleans. She had fled with Andre Delery, intent upon going to her children but ending up in Gibara instead, where an earthquake had left her temporarily blind and defenseless—if not for Richard Avery.
The muted clink of silverware and crystal provided a soft hum as they lingered in the bricked passageway between dining rooms. Fluted iron columns braced the low ceiling. So much had happened, so many old wounds that nothing could ever truly heal. She saw in Sonya’s eyes that she suffered still.
Smoothing a hand over the myrtle-green silk skirt of her gown, Ginny managed a smile that was almost genuine. “I remember you wearing a lovely shade of rose that was so deep it was almost red. It was very flattering on you.”
“Yes. Yes, well…it seems rather brash now, and draws too much attention.”
So that is it…she’s trying to hide.
“It is a centennial year,” she said lightly, “and there have
