They heard applause from inside the ballroom.
“I want the next dance. But I’ll be back. Don’t say a word without me.” She decamped so fast, Nessa and Georgia grinned.
Then Nessa sobered and confided, “He’s good with a kiss, Georgia, but there’s something about him that makes me uneasy. He’s intense and scary, and I think he’s dangerous.”
“Good. You’ve spent too many hours dating safe guys and leaving them because they bore you to death—or not dating at all.”
“That’s not true.” At a look from Georgia, Nessa reminded her, “I’ve also dated my fair share of madmen.”
“You do attract them, don’t you?” Georgia chuckled.
“And why are you picking on me? You’re here alone, too.”
An officer of the NOPD with a rugged, lived-in face and sad, hound-dog eyes walked past the door of the library and stopped. Antoine Valteau. He and Georgia exchanged a long look.
Then he strolled on, and Georgia flinched. “Coon-ass,” she muttered.
Nessa watched, and ached for her friend. “He’s a good man.”
“In case it’s escaped your notice, he’s Cajun. I’m black. That doesn’t work. Not ever.”
“I tell you, Georgia, he’s not a boy who’s afraid of a little controversy. He knows what he’s getting into when he gets you. He wants you.”
Georgia took a good, long drink from an almost empty glass. “Did that look he gave me give you the impression he still wants me?”
“No, he looks like he’s mad at you. How many times have you rejected him?”
Significantly, Georgia dodged the question. “My parents would kill me.”
“They’d come around.” Nessa jostled Georgia. “Besides, it would just be a date.”
“It would just be a heartache. I can’t date a guy I work with.” Georgia looked right at Nessa. “Isn’t that one of the reasons you’ve got lined up to tell me why you shouldn’t sleep with Jeremiah?”
“It’s a good one!”
“I agree.” But Georgia stared into the foyer where Antoine had disappeared.
“Other than this investigation, I don’t think I ought to have anything else to do with him,” Nessa said.
Georgia turned to her friend and smiled, a slow, pleased curl of the lips. “I don’t know, dear Nessa—he doesn’t look to me like the kind of man who’ll leave that decision in your hands.”
Twelve
The music ended.
Mac stepped away from Calista and bowed. “Ma’am, you’re light on your feet.”
“You are, too, young man. Dancing with someone so capable is a pleasure I’ve not enjoyed for many a long year.” Calista glowed with delight. “Look, here comes Hestia. I know her. She wants her turn.”
Calista was a delightful woman: tall, well upholstered, and funny. She made him think of family, the kind of family that cheered for each other in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Yeah, right. Like he believed in those kinds of fairy tales.
But he could be pleasant, at least to older women, so he said, “I’ve just met the woman I’ve been waiting for all my life, and now she wants me to dance with her sister.”
Calista beamed and let Hestia cut in, then caught her sister’s arm. “When you’re done with him, I get him back.”
“Shouldn’t we let Nessa have a turn?” Hestia asked.
“Nessa who?” Calista sashayed off the dance floor like a woman whose every dream had come true.
“I haven’t tangoed in thirty years.” Hestia looked up at Mac. “Do you tango?”
“Of course.” He looked into her faded blue eyes, the eyes so much like Nessa’s. “But there is a price.”
“A price? Ten cents a dance?” She dimpled.
“Something like that. You have to tell me all about Nessa.”
“No, dear.” She patted his cheek. “The cost is too high.” She turned away.
Damn. These aunts were like lionesses protecting their cub.
He caught her arm. “Come on. Dance.” He walked to the band, spoke to the band leader, and purposefully strode back to Hestia.
“You’re direct.”
“It gets me what I want.”
She allowed him to clasp her in his arms, and she fit well: tall, so thin she was bony…and graceful.
The compelling beat took the ballroom, and he took control of the dance, with precision and close attention, leading Hestia through the moves with a power that echoed his training (from the other women) and his respect for any female who wouldn’t gossip about her niece just for the pleasure of sharing a treat that came all too rarely.
He got his reward. When they finished to a nice round of applause, he caught Nessa’s approving gaze on him. Her friend, a lovely black woman, was poking her in the ribs and grinning. And Nessa was blushing.
Yes, the dance had done its job. Nessa’s aunts liked him, and Nessa liked him even more.
He would have worked his way toward Nessa, but Hestia caught his hand and led him off the dance floor, past Calista, who joined their little cavalcade, and up the grand curving stairs in the foyer. Here they were above the main action of the party, out of the way, out of earshot, yet not out of sight.
Calista seated herself on the top step, looked up at him, and said, “I remember when Ionessa first came to live with us. She was five.”
He released a pent-up breath. They were giving him a glimpse of Nessa’s past, one he had not requested, but one that they thought was important.
“Barely. She had just turned five.” Hestia leaned her elbow against the banister.
“Her parents were killed on her birthday.” Calista gestured down the stairs. “In a plane crash.”
“Good God.” So Ionessa Dahl wasn’t quite the privileged daughter of society she appeared to be. In her way, she’d suffered. And sadly, that made him like her better.
“We were her only relations, and we hadn’t seen Nessa since she was a baby. But as soon as we heard the news, we went for her.” Hestia’s mobile face grew quiet with anguish. “Pitiful little thing, that first night, she was so quiet.”
“She was in shock,” he said.
“And in pain. I’ll never forget those sad, lonely eyes.” Calista sighed.
Yes, he’d seen something similar in Nessa’s eyes, too.
“The next morning, Calista brought her downstairs,” Hestia said. “As Nessa descended those stairs, she burst into the most awful wails of childish anguish.”
The two women were silent as they recalled that long-ago morning.
“I just sat down on the steps, put my arm around that poor, skinny child, and pointed to that mirror.” Calista gestured at the gold-framed mirror on the wall. “I asked, ‘Do you see yourself there, Ionessa?’ and Nessa stopped in midwail and looked at herself. Her complexion was blotchy red, and she shut her mouth as if to spare us her honest distress.”
Hestia sniffled, and Mac handed her his handkerchief. She dabbed at her nose, took a breath, and closed her eyes in remembrance. “So I asked her, ‘Who would you like to be today?’”
“She said, ‘I want my mommy. I want my daddy. I want to go home.’” Calista’s eyes filled, too. “She was ready to burst into tears again, so I told her, ‘I think you’re a princess going to a ball.’”
“I held out my hands”—lost in her reminisces, Hestia followed the script—“and said, ‘I think you’re Princess Ionessa of Greece. We should dance.’”
“Remember, sister?” Calista smiled a wobbly smile at Hestia. “She came down the stairs so cautiously, put her hands in yours, and you danced across the foyer.”
“While you belted out ‘Ramblin’ Rose.’” Hestia smiled back. “Afterward, she looked at us as if we were crazy. Five years old, and already she thought we were crazy.”
The two old women laughed and shook their heads.
“When she was older, she told us she liked us, but she didn’t know what to think.” Calista wrapped her arms around her knees. “So many pe
ople don’t know what to think of us, either, but we have our reasons for what we do, Mr. Mac. We remember what we were taught as girls, about honor and kindness and what’s required of people who have had privileged lives such as ours.”
Remembering Nessa’s litany of what was wrong with the house, he glanced around.
Hestia correctly interpreted his gesture. “We know. We’re barely scraping by, but we have always had a home. We had a loving family. We had a good education. We know who we are and what our place is in life. So many people do not. Displaced people, homeless people, people without family or roots.”
Was she talking about him? Did she know…? “I don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Calista caught sight of Nessa, working her way through the crowd in the foyer toward them, and waved. “Having that child in the house to care for gave us so much warmth and affection.”
Nessa waved back, then got stopped by a lady of enormous girth. They hugged and exclaimed, and the lady carted Nessa off to be surrounded by her family.
“She kept us young,” Hestia added.
Mac didn’t know what to say. The old women seemed so…well, almost kind. They’d taken in a child they barely knew, arranged their whole lives around her.
Hell, even his mother had broken under the pressure of having Nathan Manly’s son, and she was his mother. How did mere great-aunts manage so difficult a task as taking in a small, anguished child?
A woman’s scream cut the music and babble.
Mac straightened, focused.
The aunts stiffened and peered down.
Everyone below in the entry turned toward the library. Four guests burst through the door and scattered in different directions.
Six policemen, uniformed and not, armed with service pistols, appeared and stalked forward.
Nessa’s friend was one of them.
Nessa walked at her side.
A well-endowed young woman in a sequined gown bounced out of the library, eyes wide and frantic. “It’s a mouse!” Her high shriek almost broke glass.
The policemen and their revolvers disappeared.
Nessa covered her eyes with her hands.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Hestia said in disgust, and started down the stairs.
“It’s that silly twit Angelina.” Calista offered Mac her hand, and he pulled her to her feet. “Afraid of a little mouse.”
As Calista started after her sister, Mac said, “Miss Calista, if there’s a problem, I can pay for the exterminator.”
Calista whirled around. “We’re taking care of it!” She seemed to collect herself. She gentled her voice. “I mean…it’s not a problem. We’re taking care of it.”
He watched her descend. These women—tall, dignified—were Southern to the core, steeped in pride, the kind of women who cured the sick, fed the hungry, took matters in their own hands.
Hestia and Calista were the women who had raised Nessa. He would do well to remember that.
The great-aunts disappeared into the library, then reappeared.
Calista held a small cage covered in a napkin. “Lagniappe for our party,” she called with a laugh.
Most of the guests laughed with her.
Angelina shuddered, her fist pressed to her lips. “It’s a mouse. It’s disgusting.”
With the situation defused, the aunts hurried toward the back of the house. Toward Maddy, who stood, her hands on her skinny hips, and glared up at them. “I warned you girls about those mice. Didn’t I warn you girls about those mice?”
“Yes, Miss Maddy,” they said in unison, and, cage in hand, Calista disappeared behind a closed door.
The chatter was muted as the guests returned to their conversations, but Mac clearly heard a petite forty-year-old say, “I board here, you know, and at night I hear them squeaking up in the attic. When the first one of the little monsters runs across my pillow—”
The swelling music and the rising tide of conversation cut her off.
Maddy caught a glimpse of him and hollered, “Mr. Mac, you need to eat something before you start satisfying the ladies.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Satisfying the ladies?”
“They all want to dance with you. Best get on with it.” Maddy glanced toward one of the servers as he walked past with a tray of hors d’oeuvres, made a growling noise, and whisked after him.
Mac descended the stairs.
Hestia stood waiting for him. “Calista tells me you offered to pay for an exterminator. I want to thank you for your offer, but we couldn’t use your friendship so shabbily.”
“Men were put on this earth for women to use.” His gaze found Nessa. “And use them they do.”
“Well, bless your heart.”
He heard a note in Hestia’s voice that told him somehow he’d put a foot wrong. But he didn’t know how. He’d said no more than the truth. Yet women had a way of getting offended over nothing, and most women kept their mouths shut about it because of what he could give them.
Hestia didn’t know who he was, and even if she did, he suspected she would say what she wanted and spit on what he could give them.
“If only you carried on a conversation as well as you danced.” Her faded blue eyes watched him shrewdly.
“Which would you rather I do?”
“Lots of men have the skill of conversation.”
“That’s what I figure.”
“Yet I wonder where you learned one skill so well and the other so ill.”
“It’s one of my unsavory secrets.” He offered his arm.
She took it, and they walked into the throng. “Yes, you have the look of a man with secrets.” She glanced toward a glorious, shapely creature as she made her way through the crowd toward them.
The tall woman commanded the room. Her makeup was far too dramatic for Mac’s taste, with black-rimmed eyes and skin that looked untouchable. She wore elbow-length fingerless black gloves, and her sleek, sequined, flesh-colored gown hugged her curvaceous figure. Each feather on the chocolate brown boa around her neck had been dipped in sequins.
Many of the guests stopped her, spoke to her, smiling intimately or with amusement. She spoke graciously to each one, but her process toward them was steady.
“A man without secrets is like gumbo without Tabasco. Dull. Flavorless.” Hestia hugged the lady who stood taller than Hestia’s imposing height. “Daniel, that outfit is marvelous.”
Mac did a double take.
“Daring, aren’t I?” Daniel spread his arms and spun in a slow circle.
“It’s what we expect of you.” Hestia’s eyes danced as she made the introduction. “Mr. Mac, this is Daniel Friendly, one of our longtime boarders.”
The cross-dresser.
Hestia placed her hand on Mac’s arm and in a confidential tone said, “Mr. Mac is Nessa’s date.”
“Really?” Daniel cocked his head.
“This afternoon, he was shot rescuing her from a mugger.”
“Really?” Daniel repeated, and examined Mac from head to toe.
Hestia concluded, “He is also the man investigating the Beaded Bandits.”
“Really?” This time, Daniel drew out the question.
Had Mac found one of his bank robbers? Up close, Daniel wasn’t as young as he first appeared. But he had no stubble on his chin, his hands were beautifully manicured, and his glorious fall of blond hair was clearly real.
Yes. This could be one of the guys.
“An investigator. How fascinating!” Daniel pressed a long red nail into the weave of Mac’s linen shirt. “Whatever made you become an investigator?”
“I’m nosy,” Mac said bluntly.
“I can attest to that.” Hestia laughed. “Gentlemen, I’ll leave you to get acquainted.”
Daniel slid his arm through Mac’s. “Don’t worry about us, darling. We’re going to do just fine.”
With a wave, Hestia went off.
“You intrigue me,” Daniel said. “I look at you and I wonder h
ow you managed to catch our little Ionessa’s attention. You’re not her usual kind of man.”
“No?” At the mention of Nessa and other men, Mac discovered his ire slowly rising. “What kind of man does she usually date?”
“Nobody important. Just guys like…Alan Arsenault. Look, there he is.”
Mac turned to see Nessa throw her arms around the celebrated crooner, as famous for his talent as he was infamous for his affairs.
Alan bent Nessa backward in a kiss, and when he stood her on her feet, she was flushed and laughing.
“What’s he doing here?” Mac asked, hostility rising.
“He’s an old friend of the family,” Daniel said.
“Why is he kissing her? He’s got to be twice her age.”
“But look at him. He’s gorgeous. He’s got it for her, too, but she doesn’t want him. Maybe tonight she’ll get smart and grab him.” Daniel smirked. “It wouldn’t be the first time a Dahl has married for money.”
“What kind of man would marry a woman who only wanted him for his money?”
Daniel gave him a disbelieving look. “The kind of man who wants Ionessa Dahl badly enough to take her for any reason.”
Mac snorted and went to lean against the wall.
Daniel joined him. “When a woman like that wants you, you dance to her tune and pay the band, too.”
He spoke right to the heart of Mac’s suspicion. Was Daniel dancing to Nessa’s tune?
She was in for a shock if she thought she could sucker Mac the same way she suckered these other guys.
Daniel continued, “She thinks she’s so smart about people, but underneath, she’s as soft as butter.”
Or hard as diamonds. Mac craned his neck as Alan swept Nessa into the ballroom and out of view.
It was better that way. Mac could bend all his attention on Daniel. “You like Nessa.”
“I do. I like her a lot. But don’t we all?” Daniel watched him, challenging him with his attitude and his mockery. “Miss Hestia and Miss Calista are my real sweethearts. They’ve done more for me than any other human beings, so I do my best to watch out for them and for Nessa.”
“You’re indebted to them?” Had Daniel helped Nessa out of gratitude? Remembering Nessa’s instructions, Mac tried a smile.