Oxford Whispers Part 15

"Well done, girl. Next time, you'll fall for a married man. You know what Mamie and I told you about married men."

"*What goes around, comes around.' Mother he is not married, and I'm not in love with him." Yet.

"That's what you think. Soon, you'll be pregnant by a guy who'll say au revoir as soon as he hears the news."

Bernadette reverted to cleaning the table and silence fell. Madison didn't dare move a muscle.

"Mom, please. Don't be angry. I'll be very careful. History doesn't always repeat itself. I won't let him hurt me."

Her mother ignored Madison's rea.s.surances and concentrated on getting the place ready for closing. Once she had brushed and scrubbed every surface in the joint, even those Madison thought she herself had cleaned, she strutted back toward the bar and drank one last shot of Southern Comfort. After playing with the liquid in her mouth, she swallowed it and opened up.

"I'd like you to meet a great guy, fall in love and so on. But I can't help being protective of you. I swear I'll kill anyone who hurts my baby."

Reaching for her mother's hand, Madison fought the constricting feeling in her throat.

Her mother continued in a broken voice. "You're so far away, and I can't do anything to make sure you're fine. It was already hard enough when you moved to Connecticut, but now Europe ..."

"I can fend for myself these days. And if I get hurt, there'll always be Pierre Part and the crazy LeBon women." She smiled and winked.

"You're stuck with us, for better and for worse." Her mother smiled too, but tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Madison walked around the bar and hugged her mamma.

The hug brought comfort.

A clock chimed, and a disturbing thought knocked at Madison's mental door. Rupert hadn't called.

"TEN, NINE ..."

The crowd around Rupert counted down the last few seconds of the year. Tonight's party in Monty's Chelsea townhouse was the mother of all parties. Live music, c.o.c.ktails, pretty girls. Alcohol had taken the edge off everyone, except for Rupert. His New Year's resolutions had started early. After the bottle shared with Madison at the Turf, he'd remained sober.

He'd tried to stop thinking about her, but had failed. Harriet's skiing in the Swiss Alps hadn't caused him any grief. Madison back in Louisiana had dug a pit the size of the Atlantic.

"... eight, seven ..."

He wanted to return to the status quo of his life, to the safe lie he had lived since his mum died. He would lose Madison. She'd see through him, and leave him, heartbroken and hungry for more, for more of her.

"... six, five ..."

An Italian student had glued herself to him for most of the night. She stood next to him now, waiting with two gla.s.ses of champagne in her hands.

"... four, three ..."

Her eyes had a familiar walnut tone, so did her toffee-colored skin. He accepted the champagne but didn't drink. She stepped closer to him, brushed his cheek with her fingers. Her touch on his skin disgusted him.

"... two, one ..."

A round of applause resonated through the room. Rupert turned his back on the crowd, on the Italian girl, and grabbed his mobile to call Madison. She was the only one he wanted to welcome the New Year with.

Chapter 23.

VAN MORRISON ECHOED in the New Year's night. His *Bayou Girl' had been Bernadette's all-time favorite. Madison's mother would play it tonight, again and again, ad nauseam.

Madison longed for some peace and quiet, so she snuck out of the party at Le Perroquet and ventured onto the banks of the swamp. She followed the narrow path leading to the Indian burial mound and the Cajun cemetery next to it.

The whitewashed headstones glinted in the moonlight. As a child, she used to escape here all the time. In those days, she hadn't been scared of the dead. She even enjoyed talking to them: the young Confederate soldier, Pierre Lachamplain, and his fiancee, who'd died of fever and a broken heart.

They had been her friends. But she'd grown out of her taste for the afterlife when she understood that she saw what others couldn't. Later, she'd become strong enough to block those visions. Until Oxford.

In seconds, a cloud half-covered the moon. The darkness gripped her by the heart. She felt spooked. The bayou was a wild world in the daytime, but even more so at night. During the winter months, the gators hibernated. But the bayous were warmer than the river basins, and the reptiles found a cozier refuge around Pierre Part.

When Madison heard water splashing in the distance, she froze. Surely the sound meant a pelican or a heron had forked a fish for dinner and not a gator creeping out for food.

The m.u.f.fled clearing of a throat told her she wasn't alone anymore. Panic rose in her chest.

"Who's there?" she called, trying to keep her voice from cracking.

Maybe the solo trip in this deserted place hadn't been her smartest move.

She turned around, scanning the shadows of the dangling cypresses. Nothing moved. Not a single branch, not a single leaf. She relaxed and breathed.

"Hey, jolie."

A jolt of electricity burnt through her skin. She performed a quick turn to face the raspy voice. The sight of Tarquin Vionnet slowed down her heartbeat.

Good ol' Tarquin. Totally wasted Tarquin, just like the night before Christmas Eve, when her mom had kicked him out of Le Perroquet.

With her hand still on her chest, she said, "You scared me, idiot."

She could have addressed the insult to herself. Really, alone, in the swamp, by night? Tarquin stepped forward, his alcohol-driven feet knitting each other on his way to her.

"Ma chere, missed you so much. Went to live with these Yanks and forgot all about us." Attempting a hug, he grabbed her neck. She escaped his hold and retreated a few feet.

His stocky body moved restlessly toward her. "Tarquin, you're so drunk you wouldn't know your a.s.s from a hole in the ground."

But reasoning was not effective anymore. He took her shoulders in his giant paws and pulled her into a rum-flavored kiss. An acrid taste rose from the pit of her stomach where disgust mingled with fear.

She pushed him. She slapped him. That didn't slow him down at all.

Anger spread across his face. He shoved her on the ground. Landing on her side, she hit the hard surface of a stone with her forehead.

The shock blurred her vision, and the iron taste of blood invaded her mouth. She didn't have time to get to her feet before Tarquin launched himself on her.

He covered and smothered her, his hands groping at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She managed to scratch his arm.

She felt his weight-until she didn't.

A second later, without any further effort on her part, her attacker lay on the ground, unconscious. She struggled to sit up but managed to support herself on her elbow. She sucked in a big gulp of air.

Squinting, she scanned her surroundings lit up by the moonlight.

Her respite was short lived.

A few feet away from her, Peter stood triumphant. The wind caused his vest to billow, making him look like a comic-book superhero.

Madison held back a scream. She shook her head and scrambled to take in the impossible. Peter's ghost saving her from being raped.

How freaking ironic.

She controlled her chattering teeth, got back on her feet, and walked up to face him. She was no damsel in distress, no wimp. p.i.s.s and vinegar ran through her Cajun veins.

"I thought you wanted me six feet under," she choked out and struggled to find her footing. Without the ridiculous hat, he was handsome. His brown eyes had lost their judgmental scowl.

They radiated ... love.

"No one else must touch you." He extended his hand, and his cold fingers trembled as he caressed her cheek. He wasn't alive. He was dead; his touch was in her imagination.

She should have pushed him away, she should have ... but she was frozen. She felt a sense of guilt at having betrayed him all those centuries ago. She was crazy.

To get back in control of herself, Madison closed her eyes. "You don't own me."

Her eyes opened again. A heartless smile didn't bring any light to his face. "I know."

His momentary defeat made her lift her chin. Her triumph didn't last.

"If I do not look after you, n.o.body will. The n.o.bleman is too involved in his own reality to care for you. I will be the one choosing the time and the manner of your death."

His words smashed into Madison. But she'd go to h.e.l.l rather than let her ghost stalker see that.

"I don't need anyone to take care of me. And, if you want to kill me, go for it now."

Madison stepped back, opened her arms wide to offer her chest as a target for his lethal blow.

Peter laughed, a short bark. Her bravado hadn't convinced him.

"There are so many things you do not understand. You have always been so naive. He will never love you, not the way I do."

"You don't know squat about me. Maybe that's how Sarah was, but I'm not her." She held her fist clenched with a need to hurt him as he had hurt her.

"He will leave you again. Why can't you see that?"

His words tore further into the widening wound. Had the Cavalier abandoned Sarah? Was Rupert destined to do the same?

Anger rushed over her self-doubts. Her fate wasn't to be left behind like all the women in her family. She could keep a man; she could be loved.

Taking two further slow steps backward, she opened her fist and released the fire her anger and her pride had fed into existence. The swirling blaze flashed against Peter's upper torso.

The fireball made him vanish.

Madison didn't linger to see what would happen next. Whether Peter came back and harmed Tarquin or not didn't matter to her. The guy-white trash, whatever her mother said-had tried to rape her.

Through the darkness of the night, she rushed along the path back to the party. Twice, she stumbled on a protruding root and fell on her bare knees.

Could Peter be telling the truth? Robert never loved Sarah, not the way she loved him.

And Rupert will never love me.

The belief tore her confidence and her secret dreams apart.

He had called her... like he had said he would. He had wanted to spend the first minutes of the New Year with her.

But what if her mother was right? Men chatted, they sugarcoated you, and then they vanished into thin air.

That's how her own father had behaved, anyway, and what Rupert might have in store for her. Out of breath, she reached Le Perroquet to hear the same d.a.m.ned song still playing.

ON JANUARY 1, AT eleven a.m., Rupert found his way around Monty's house.

His head pounded, although he hadn't drunk a drop of alcohol. Monty's place reminded Rupert of his own London home. Both were foreign to him now. Here, however, he wouldn't come across his father.

Stepping into the kitchen, he noted its perfect order. The black granite and stainless appliances shone in the morning sun. The staff must have worked hard until the early hours.

Monty sat at the end of a rectangular table covered with the breakfast buffet. He had combed back his hair, and the curly mane emphasized his drawn, puffy features. A flat screen television captured his attention.

Rupert chose a seat on the side of the table, midway between the TV and his friend. Biting into a croissant, he jumped when Monty asked out of the blue, "Is the Italian girl still in bed?"

After swallowing the b.u.t.tery pastry, Rupert answered, "Happy New Year to you too."

Monty shrugged. "I swear, mate, Harriet will kill you. You're lucky she's skiing in Switzerland."

"Thank you for worrying about my wellbeing, but you have no reason for concern. Anyway, given how hammered you were last night, again, I'm surprised you remember anything."

Monty's brows took on a quizzical arch. "You didn't screw the Italian."

"Nope. I didn't even kiss her."

"Weird. She looked like she really wanted to. It's not like you to let go of an opportunity."

"But I did. I'm not interested."

Monty seized the remote control, switched off the television and stared at his friend. "You've fallen for your girlfriend?"