Page 5 of Frankly, My Dear

“Murdered, supposedly. The slimy Creole man who set her up as his placée got tired of her eventually and wanted to rid himself of an unnecessary expense. Killed her and the unborn baby she was carrying. Although, oddly, Fleur’s name and that of an infant son appear out West about the same time.”

“Well, you know how inaccurate some genealogy records are. Did the man—her protector—ever get punished for murdering Fleur…or trying to?”

“I doubt it. After all, Fleur was only a colored.”

Selene put an arm around her friend’s shoulder in comfort. “I’m beginning to think this shoot was a mistake for both of us.” Selene shivered apprehensively.

Hours later, Selene was almost done with her portion of the shoot. She put her left hand on the shoulder of Mark Hiatt, a model she’d worked with many times before, and her right hand in his upraised left one. At the call to “action,” the band began to play. They waltzed around the ballroom, the only dancers on the floor. Around and around they danced, dipping and swaying gracefully, as cameras flashed brilliantly and candles flickered in the slight breeze from the open doorway.

Exhausted from her hours under the lights and the back-straining poses, Selene grew dizzy. A tingling sensation at the base of her neck caused her to look over Mark’s shoulder. She saw Lilith standing in the shadows of an alcove, holding the voodoo doll in her hands. Smiling evilly, Lilith pulled out a long hat pin. With deliberate care, Lilith pressed the sharp point against the head of the wax figure dressed in a white gown identical to Selene’s. Then, with a sly grin, she pushed the pin in completely. At the same time, Mark began to spin her on the dance floor.

A sharp, excruciating pain pierced Selene’s skull. Like a spinning top, she felt herself twirling, round and round and round. Pain and dizziness enveloped her. At first she tried to fight it off. But then she surrendered to the agony.

Whirling, whirling, whirling. Selene marveled at her partner’s expertise in maneuvering the endless dance step. The photos would be fabulous…if she didn’t pass out and ruin the shoot. Or worse.

Groggily, Selene awakened to a dull ache in her head and the intoxicating scent of flowers. She was sitting on a window seat, leaning back against a bay wall in an alcove just off the ballroom floor. Dazed, she watched the beautifully gowned dancers in front of her smile up at the dark, foreign looking men who moved them through the intricate steps of a quadrille.

Foreign men? Quadrille?

Selene blinked and sat up straighter.

The ballroom setting remained the same. The music was the same. Even the heat and cloying odor of flowers were the same.

But the contingent of male models for Phillipe’s shoot had changed. They were all dark-complected men with a foreign look to them, maybe French or Spanish. No, Selene realized immediately. They looked like the portraits in the hotel lobby of famous antebellum Creoles, descendants of the early French and Spanish settlers in Louisiana.

Where had Phillipe come up with these models on such brief notice?

Although quite short, the men made up for their lack of stature with an arrogant hauteur and magnificent clothing—perfectly tailored dark suits with tapered trousers, waistcoats of brocaded satin, silk shirts with ruffled lace, highly polished leather boots, impeccable haircuts, shaves and manicures, even white gloves on some of them.

Geez!

Then Selene noticed something even more alarming. Phillipe’s statuesque models weren’t towering over these short men. In fact, all of the top-of-the-line female models had disappeared. The beautiful women who wore his delectable gowns now were light-skinned black women of a very young age, no more than seventeen—every color from café au lait to almost white.

A shiver of apprehension ran through Selene, and she stood abruptly. Feeling a sudden chill from the open windows, she looked down.

“Holy cow!” she muttered aloud, noticing that her low-cut gown had slipped even lower. She put her hands to her breasts and pushed the lacy fabric as high as it would go…which wasn’t far enough.

“Why bother?” a deep voice asked behind her. She turned to see a tall man smoking a thin cheroot. He leaned against an open French door leading out to the balcony. He scrutinized her through narrowed eyes, which showed only a modicum of interest—not the usual reaction her beauty garnered from men.

“What did you say?”

He shrugged in a bored fashion. “Why bother to adjust your bodice, chérie? Once you select one of these fine dandies for a protector, he will want to examine the merchandise before he buys it.” His voice rang with contempt before he added, more kindly, “Alors, as far as I can see, your bosom is your best asset. At your age, you’d best capitalize on what you can.”

“Age? Age?” Selene seethed with anger. She was tired of being told she was over the hill, and she certainly wasn’t going to put up with a slam from a stand-in model for a photo shoot.

Then the rest of his words sunk in. He’d referred to selling herself. He was probably one of those extremists who considered the modeling industry an immoral form of flesh peddling.

And bosom? What an old-fashioned word to use. And offensive! “Why, you arrogant bastard,” she snapped finally. Undaunted by the light of anger that ignited in his pale blue eyes, she returned his insult by boldly scrutinizing his body, just as he had hers. From his jet black hair to the bitter lines bracketing his eyes and mouth, down his lean body, all the way to his worn leather boots, her eyes raked him. Then, hands on hips, she curled her lip with disgust as if to say, “Who are you to talk?”

He held her gaze with silent amusement.

Suddenly it occurred to her that this was probably just a new pickup line, and she shook her head ruefully at the poor guy’s lack of finesse. “Get lost, buster. If you’re looking for a quick lay, you’ve chosen the wrong place and the wrong woman. I’m not interested. Besides, since you’re so free with advice, let me give you a little, darlin’,” she offered in an exaggerated Southern drawl. “Drop the brooding look and the biting sarcasm. Dark and dangerous went out with the eighties.”

Surprise flashed briefly across his face, quickly masked by the return of his previous demeanor of jaded indifference. Then he flicked his cheroot out the open doorway to the courtyard below.

Looking closer, Selene had to admit that, if it weren’t for his somber face, the guy was pretty good-looking. A cross between Daniel Day-Lewis and Armand Assante, he wore the same type suit as the other Creoles, but with more casual, less perfect attention to detail. With his hands in the pockets of his slim trousers, the jacket was pulled back over the blue brocade vest, displaying a well-developed chest and powerful thighs. Probably lifted weights or something. And he had a nerve remarking on her age. With those lines crinkling his eyes and lips, he had to be close to thirty-five.

Suddenly one of the stranger’s words struck a discordant nerve in Selene.