Be My Baby (6 page)

Celeste had been involuntarily impressed with Juliet’s pedigree, but this behavior just went to show that when it came to Yankees, breeding did
not
necessarily tell.

She straightened her spine, aligned her ankles, and attended with chilly civility to the upstart typist as they concluded their arrangements. Then she snapped her appointment book closed and rose with dignity to her feet. “I’ll send Lily to clear,” she said coolly and sailed from the room.

As if it weren’t demeaning enough that her beautiful home was being turned into a hotel, that all her and Edward’s personal servants except for Lily were now employees of the Crown Corporation—the high and mighty Miss Astor Lowell had to waltz out of their meeting on the arm of a thug, too, and leave her in the company of a mere secretary? Celeste fumed as she made her way up to the set of rooms to which she and Edward were now consigned.

She should have had Lilly put a
dozen
cockroaches in the ungrateful little trollop’s bed.

W
ell, that sure as hell hadn’t gone the way he’d expected. Beau glanced over at Juliet as he wheeled the GTO out of the hotel drive and onto the street. What was it with her? Every time he thought he had his moves solidly down and his fingers poised to punch all her buttons, she reacted in a totally unforeseen way. Jesus Joe, she was contradictory.

As if sensing his glance, she crossed her bare ankles and tilted her knees toward the console as she swiveled in his direction. “May I?” She reached for the volume dial on the radio and lowered it several decibels without awaiting his permission.

“Hey, don’t mind me, angel face,” he groused. “Just make yourself at home.”

He felt her studying him and cheered up. Ah,
now
he was going to get the speech about manners and the behavior she expected from a professional when dealing with a highborn Yank like herself. Hell, he should have known she wouldn’t dress him down in front of Roxanne and the grande
dame; she was much too mannerly, and a public rebuke simply wasn’t her style. She’d most likely been practicing a lecture in her head all this time—being the polite and cautious, methodical type.

From the corner of his eye he saw her fingers tracing the edge of her seat. Several heartbeats went by, and then she asked, “Who’s Clyde Lydet?”

“Huh?”

“I was wondering who—”

He waved that aside. “I heard what you said, Rosebud. It’s just a hundred and eighty degrees from what I was expecting.” He shot her a glance before returning his attention to the road. “Clyde Lydet is a receiver of stolen arms. Not just any ol’ guns, though, y’understand; he’s a specialist who trades in antique firearms.” He shrugged. “Only in N’Awlins, dawlin’.”

“Why are you looking for him?”

“Because I think he’s got a connection with the Panty Snatcher case, which you must have heard me wrangling over with the Pissant yesterday.”

“The
who
?”

“Pfeffer, the clueless acting captain.” He could almost swear he caught a glimpse of her full lips curling up in sly amusement, but if so, she’d reined herself in by the time he was able to take his attention from the road and look at her directly, for she met his gaze with perfect solemnity. There was something that burned in the gray depths of her eyes, however, something he’d just as soon not examine too closely, and he gave himself a sharp mental shake. “Word is Lydet’s known down in
the Quarter, and trying to find him beats the hell out of cooling my heels outside your office.”

“What has this Panty Snatcher person done?”

“Broke into a number of women’s houses and forced ’em to strip at gunpoint.”

“How awful.” A shiver of empathy raised a light dusting of goose bumps on her arms. “Can’t someone identify him?”

“He doesn’t just waltz in with his face hanging out,” Beau said impatiently. “He’s got an assortment of Mardi Gras masks he uses to disguise himself.”

“Oh, my God.” She regarded him with sudden horror. “Edward Haynes has a large collection of Mardi Gras masks.”

“Everyone and his brother has at least one mask tossed in a closet somewhere,” he told her. “The kind I’m talking about are a dime a dozen in this town.”

“Oh, of course they are; I should have realized.” Then her eyebrows puckered. “But what does Lydet’s receiving stolen antique guns have to do with a man who forces women to disrobe?”

“Think about it, sweet cheeks. My sister Josie Lee was his latest victim, and—”

“Oh, Beau,” Juliet interrupted. “I am so sorry. That must have been horribly traumatic for her.”

He stole a look at her face, saw the sincere sympathy written there, and whipped his attention back on the road. Shit. He didn’t want her to be sweet about this. He rolled his shoulders impatiently to shrug off her concern. “Yeah, well, according to her, it was more traumatic for me.
Anyhow,” he rushed on, not wanting to hear her observation of that comment, “the gun the Panty Snatcher used was an antique. Josie Lee’s description of it was very detailed, and I’m almost positive I’ve come across the same description before. Something about it rings a bell from a long time ago, and I think it may stem from the time I arrested Lydet back in my rookie days.”

Juliet regarded him with something that looked suspiciously close to admiration. “Your job must be terribly exciting.”

“When I’m doing real police work instead of babysitting, maybe,” he said caustically.

She absorbed the snub without comment and turned to face the front, where she was silent for several moments. Then she twisted around to face him again. “I’m trying to picture you with a sister, but I can’t quite visualize it.”

He expelled a sharp exhalation of laughter. “No? Well, picture this: I’ve got three of ’em.” He kept his eyes on the traffic but was aware of her gaze roaming his features.

“God, how wonderful,” he heard her murmur in a voice so soft she had to be talking to herself. Then she shifted slightly and said, “I was an only child.”

He felt a funny little clutch in his stomach at her wistful tone and jerked himself erect. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. She wasn’t suckin’ him in that way. He was
waaay
too savvy to fall for the sympathy bid. And where the hell had this sudden chatty streak come from, anyway? He turned his head and gave her a quick, insolent once-over. “Poor lit
tle rich girl. I’m sure daddy bought you a truckload of toys to fill the void.”

He refused to feel guilty when she stared at him with stunned shock, as if he’d just backhanded her upside one of those elegant cheekbones. He nevertheless expelled the breath he’d been holding when her expression turned cool and remote.

“Actually, Father wasn’t around much,” she said with quiet dignity and turned her back on him to look out the side window.

Ah, fuck. Well, tough, he didn’t care. He—did—not—care.

Juliet stared blindly at the scenery streaking past while she repudiated the hurt, shoving it down, enclosing it within the bleak little closet that she’d built years ago, deep in the recesses of her mind, to store the slights and disappointments of a father who rarely had time for her.

It was probably no more than she deserved, anyway, for giving in to the seductive craving for a little excitement in her life. She had too much to do in too little time as it was, and she
knew
Beau Dupree was trouble—but she’d allowed him to drag her out of the middle of a meeting anyway, without a single protest and with no more excuse than an itch of recklessness and the weak justification that Celeste Haynes had been late for their meeting and therefore deserved to have it cut short. Sucking in her ill-conceived burst of friendly curiosity, she took refuge behind a more familiar wall of reserve.

The interior of the car was like an oven. The wind, moisture-laden and heavy with scents, blew through the open window, tugging at her hair,
pressing against her lungs, and the sun-faded tropical colors of crazed and peeling paint flashed exotic impressions as the car roared past the ancient buildings that sported them.

She didn’t
feel
reserved—that was the problem. A kernel of resentful rebelliousness had lodged itself deep inside of her and the very lushness of the environment seemed to feed it, the way it fed and encouraged ferns to grow in the unlikeliest cracks in the sidewalks and stairs of this town. That same lushness provoked a sensuality and lassitude that made merely keeping her posture erect a burden, never mind clinging to all her stiff mores and manners. They seemed to require much more effort down here, perhaps more than they were worth.

Then she and Beau were once again back in the Quarter, with its music and noise and blatantly sexual overtones. Only this time there were crowds of people thronging the sidewalks and horse-drawn carriages slowing their passage up traffic-choked streets.

Beau found a place to park and, as usual, without so much as a by-your-leave, hauled her bodily from the car and immediately set off with her trailing an arm’s length behind. Like last time, there were more things to look at than one person could absorb in a single trip, but she discreetly tried to take in as much as possible.

She was so busy looking at exotic, erotic window displays and trying to catch glimpses of the activities reflected in the full-length mirrors just inside the open doorways of strip joints and sex clubs, that when Beau stopped suddenly, she bounced off
his back. His free hand whipped back to steady her, and his long fingers wrapped around the back of her thigh and burned straight through the thin material of her dress to the skin beneath. Then his hand jerked away, and he turned to face her, his features expressionless.

“I’m hungry. You eaten anything today?”

She blinked, refusing to acknowledge a lingering impression of heat at the top of her thigh. “I had a watercress sandwich with Celeste.”

He made a rude noise. “I’m talkin’ about real food, Rosebud.”

She couldn’t help it; her smile was strictly spontaneous as she remembered the less-than-bite-sized serving that was all she’d consumed. “I could eat…if you’re talking someplace air-conditioned.”

“We ain’t talkin’ the Ritz, sugar, but I know a place with a fountain. Nice shady spot where we can get us a po’ boy, dressed.”

An incredulous laugh escaped her. “I would have pegged you as more the rich-woman, naked, type.”

She was immediately appalled, unable to believe she had said that. She’d trained herself years ago to keep her errant thoughts to herself, and had truly believed it to be second nature by now.

So how on earth had she allowed
that
thought to leap from mind to tongue?

Before she could gather breath to extricate herself with as much grace as possible, he’d whirled her around and sandwiched her between a display window of Mardi Gras masks and his own lean
body. She blinked at his shadowed jaw, so close to her lips.

“You’re the only rich girl I know, Juliet Rose,” he said in a low, raspy voice, and reluctantly she raised her gaze to his heavy-lidded dark eyes. “You volunteerin’ to get naked with me?”

He wasn’t actually touching her, just penning her in with a hand on either side of her shoulders. But his forearms were pressed flat against the window at her back, his breath was on her lips and his scent all around her, and he was deep into the space she always kept inviolate. She wedged her hands into the minuscule gap that separated them and, flattening her fingers against the hard wall of his chest, gave him a shove. He didn’t budge and the damp heat beneath her palms added to her agitation.

Her only consolation was that she sounded commendably composed when she replied, “No, Beauregard, I am not.” Then, knowing it was unpardonably rude but simply not caring for once, she snapped, “You really ought to try reining in those hormones of yours. It’s a radical concept for you, I’m sure, but just as a change of pace.”

He licked his lower lip. “Why, Miz Juliet, I do believe I’m insulted. A woman makes a sexually loaded statement, naturally a man wants to know if it’s an invitation. You’d understand what I’m talkin’ about if you were a guy.”

“And if you had ovaries, you probably wouldn’t be such an idiot.”
Oh, God, Juliet, shut up, shut up, shut up
.

“If I had
any
of your pretty pink equipment, sweet thing, I wouldn’t be asking if you wanted to
get naked with me in the first place.” Then a crooked grin tugged up the corners of his mouth and he straight-armed himself away from the case. “So, you wanna grab a sandwich, or what?”

She ducked under his arm and straightened her dress. “I suppose,” she said, and winced at the sulkiness in her tone.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” And once again, he manacled her wrist in his lean fingers and started off down the block.

They entered a brightly lighted establishment about the size of a closet, ripe with the rich scents of cooking, and not air-conditioned. Beau’s promised fountain was nowhere in sight.

“Hey, Lou,” Beau greeted the elderly black man behind the counter.

“Where y’at, Sergeant Dupree. What can I get you and your lady today?”

Beau turned to Juliet. “You need a minute to study the board?”

“Please.” She stared at the selections written in neon colors on the black dry-erase board mounted on the wall above the counterman’s head. A second later she said, “I’ll have half a muffulatta. The number four.” She reached for her wallet.

“Put your money away,” Beau said tersely. “I can afford a damn sandwich.” He stepped up to the counter. “We’ll take a half order number four and a fried oyster po’ boy, Lou.”

“Oh, brother, that’s just what your libido needs,” Juliet muttered under her breath. “Oysters.”

“You want that po’ boy dressed, Sergeant?”

The smile Beau turned on Juliet was all teeth. “Yeah.”

They selected beverages from a tiny free-standing cooler and took their orders outside. Juliet raised her sandwich to her mouth, but the heat and the humidity made her feel queasy, and with a grimace she lowered it untasted.

Beau watched her struggle with her fading appetite for a moment and then growled, “Come on.” He led the way down a narrow passageway that ran alongside the building to a small courtyard. It was shaded by a spreading pecan tree, and the back gate opened toward the river, which intermittently offered up a breeze. A birdbath-sized fountain burbled in one corner.

“Oh,” Juliet breathed. Setting her meal on a small table, she crossed over to the fountain and submerged her wrists. A throaty sound that was half sigh, half groan escaped her. “I wish I could climb right in.”

“Be my guest, dawlin’.” Beau gave her a heavy-lidded stare. “I’ll hold your clothes for you.”

“My God, Dupree, you ought to be neutered.” Blotting the excess water from the insides of her wrists against her temples, she came back to the table, took a seat, and picked up her sandwich. She eyed him across the table. “Aren’t you a little long in the tooth to be so libidinous all the time?”

He looked horrified. “There’s an age cutoff?”

“I give up,” she said and shook her head. She took a bite of the muffulatta. “Oh.” Her eyes fluttered closed and she was sure her expression was downright beatific. “Oh, my. This is wonderful.”