Day Dreamer Read Online Free PDF Page A

Caribs.”
    “I don’t doubt it. But then, I don’t really care what you do after you marry the O’Hurley girl. What I do care about is my good name, and Alex’s.” The only indication of the depth of his loss came when Henre’s voice broke on Alex’s name. It was a moment before he could add, “I will not have our honor besmirched.”
    Cord remembered closing his eyes as he stood before his grandfather recalling Alex’s laugh, a joyous sound that could fill a room and lighten every heart in it.
Honor?
Cord had never once in his life done anything honorable. Not for himself, and certainly not for this man who had made his life miserable since he was eight years old.
    But could he do the honorable thing, even for Alex?
    “Well?” Henre waited. Eyes as fathomless as midnight stared at Cord. The old man, so adept at showing no emotion had leashed his temper, stowed his grief.
    Cord let out a deep sigh. “For Alex. I will marry the girl—because Alex would have done so. Then I will sail to St. Stephen, with or without her. The choice will be hers.”
    As memories of the past now faded into the mist of what was supposed to have been his rainy wedding night, Cord wondered what the O’Hurley girl would say when she learned that he intended to sail on the noon tide? That is, if she ever arrived.
    All was quiet downstairs where he had left the only invited wedding guests, his two distant cousins Stephen and Anton Caldwell and Father Perez, the Jesuit priest. Cord knew the twins were no doubt fortifying themselves with wine and that Father Perez was stuffing himself with beignets. The priest had been a permanent resident for over two weeks now, summoned first to preside over Alex’s funeral, then bribed with Henre’s full pantry and a cook at his disposal to stay on until he saw Cord well and truly wed.
    Cord was thankful they had all seen fit to leave him to his liquor. He hoped by the time his bride arrived he would be in enough of a stupor to greatly repulse her, not to mention further infuriate his grandfather.
    He would uphold his cousin’s promise and claim the rich American merchant’s daughter and her dowry. Her father had paid for a Moreau heir, and so she would have one, but little else. By midday tomorrow, his bride would learn that
this
Moreau heir intended to walk away from the inheritance and sail home to the West Indies.
    If she wanted to remain his wife, she would have to sail with him.
    He turned away from the railing, nearly stumbled, and righted himself. He grabbed the wine bottle by the neck and hoisted it to his lips, then felt the warm wine rush down too quickly. Before he could contain it, the burgundy liquid spattered like blood over his shirtfront. When he tried to survey the damage, the stains wavered and blurred.
    The door to his bedroom suite opened. From where he stood on the balcony, Cord could look through the room and watch as one of the twins walked in without knocking, glanced quickly around and then looked toward the open jalousies. Stephen walked into the room and closed the door behind him when he saw Cord. Cord moved up as far as the open double doors and stopped there, edging his shoulder into the door frame for support.
    Stephen Caldwell was barely eighteen, but he and his identical twin, Anton, could have easily passed for twenty. Six feet tall and still growing, the broad-shouldered, golden haired Adonis was one of a pair, the products of Henre’s only cousin, Mariette, and her husband, a brash American naval officer who had died in battle at sea, following his wife in death shortly after she gave birth to the twins late in life.
    Cord focused on Stephen, who was casually seated on the footboard of the massive tester bed, eyeing him thoughtfully.
    “I see you’re still standing,” Stephen said, looking down long enough to straighten the fine linen cuff that extended exactly the right length beyond the sleeve of his coat.
    “Not for long, I hope.” Cord took another swig