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of wine.
    “Is this any way to greet your intended?”
    Cord spread his arms wide, the contents of the bottle perilously close to sloshing out and over the whitewashed balcony floor. “This
is
the way I plan to greet my intended. If and when she decides to show up.”
    Cord didn’t like the way Stephen’s hazel eyes darkened as he stared at him thoughtfully. “Marriage might be the best thing for you, Cousin.”
    Cord’s hand tightened on the neck of the wine bottle. “Turning traitor?”
    Stephen shook his head. “No. But at the rate you’re going, you’ll kill yourself before too long.”
    “And you think a
wife
will be able to stop me?”
    “Perhaps. If she is the right woman.”
    “Then you still hold women in far greater esteem than I do. No doubt it’s because—”
    “Of my American upbringing,” Stephen finished for him. The twins had been reared in the East by their father’s kin and had only recently returned to New Orleans. Moving in Creole society, they had embraced the casual elegance, the endless pursuit of happiness and the comforts of wealth that they had inherited from their mother.
    Henre’s own wealth and influence had opened every door for the two young Caldwell men until Cord’s last and most grievous fall from grace had temporarily closed them. Cord reckoned it was for their own good more than his that the Caldwells wanted to see him quickly settled and gone.
    The realization hurt. Cord took another swallow and continued to lean half in and half out of the room.
    “She might be beautiful,” Stephen mused.
    “If I could, I would relinquish her to you.”
    “Her father parted with a small fortune in dowry money to see her wed the heir of one of the oldest, most established families in New Orleans. You do realize, of course, that you are the Moreau heir now.”
    “A fact I would just as soon forget.”
    Cord closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and felt a surge of satisfaction when the room began to swim. Thankfully, he would soon be incoherent, which was how he preferred to spend his days and nights lately. It was so much easier than facing the truth. He slowly opened his eyes again. Stephen still perched on the footboard like an overgrown cherub, his light eyes and hair the exact opposite of Cord’s dark features.
    “O’Hurley thought his daughter was going to marry the most upstanding member of the family, not the black sheep. Perhaps she’s heard Alex is dead and has changed her mind,” Cord told him.
    At the mention of Alex’s name, and the fact of his death, Stephen’s expression immediately sobered. They were all still hurting, Cord reminded himself. All of them.
    Cord pushed away from the wall and strode back out onto the balcony. A ladder-back chair stood near the wall. He sat down, tipped back and balanced the chair on two legs. Resting his head against the wall, Cord upended the bottle and drained it dry.
    A slight noise drew his attention to the door. Stephen had followed him outside.
    “I don’t need a watchdog,” Cord said, refusing to mask the bitterness in his tone. He let go of the bottle. It dropped to the floor with a hollow sound and rolled a foot away. “Why don’t you go downstairs and play with Tony? Help keep Father Perez in beignets and claret?”
    “Are you planning to drink yourself to death?”
    Cord didn’t know which he hated more, the genuine concern in Stephen’s eyes or the undisguised pity in his tone. Ignoring both, he held his silence, and Stephen soon retreated along the
galerie
to his own room.
    The rain was coming down harder now, falling in sheets of liquid color that reflected arcing prisms cast by lamplight. In the distance, fewer torches were visible.
    Are you planning to drink yourself to death?
    His cousin’s parting thrust haunted him.
    “I wish it were that simple,” Cord said in a whisper that was lost to the rain-swept night.
    He was too much a coward to drink himself to death when there was no guarantee that his