Hooper, Kay - [Hagen 09] Read Free Page B

"If we
could just prove he cheated in that card game. I know he did, I know it. But none of the others saw him cheat. And Daddy signed over the
plantation. What else could he do?"
    "A duel," Francesca declared. "My Rufus
should have challenged him to a duel." Then, obviously deciding
she was being overly critical of her adored late husband, she
added magnanimously, "But he was ill, my poor darling."
    He had been dying, in fact, though neither Jennifer nor
her mother had known that four years ago. Losing his family's
plantation, Belle Retour, had been more than his overstrained heart
could bear. He had died two months later.
    And Garrett Kelly had taken possession of the house
immediately after the funeral.
    The small house Jennifer and her mother now occupied
was, in a sense, a part of Belle Retour. Like most huge old estates,
the plantation had suffered runs of bad luck in the past, requiring
that parcels of land be sold off from time to time. This small house
had been built twenty years before on a ten-acre parcel that had been
sold to a cousin. When the cousin had died and willed the house and
land back to Rufus Chantry, Jennifer's father had deeded the
place to her.
    She had used it during her teen years as a studio, where
she had worked on her dream of becoming a great artist. In the years
between high school and college, Jennifer had faced reality. She
was a good artist, but not a great one. Reluctantly giving up her
dream, she settled for being a commercial artist.
    Now she and her mother lived in the house, and Jennifer
more or less supported them both with her work. Her father had been
Insured, though little of that money was left now. Jennifer and her
mother lived comfortably. But neither had ever been reconciled to
Kelly s possession of Belle Retour, and neither had given up the
determination to get their plantation back.
    "I should not have taken the bracelet."
Francesca said suddenly.
    Jennifer looked at her warily. Such statements from her
mother rarely indicated a sense of guilt. "You shouldn't have?"
she inquired in a careful tone.
    "No. I should have taken one of your father's guns
from the cabinet in the study," Francesca decided. Her black
eyes snapped. "Yes! Then I could shoot that bastard."
    Jennifer winced, but more because she remembered what
had been going on in the study tonight than out of any real dismay at
her mother's words. Long experience with Francesca's way of
reasoning made her appeal to her mother's maternal feelings
rather than her good sense. "You'd be arrested for murder, and
I'd be all alone. Do you really want that?"
    "My baby!" Francesca sat on the arm of her
daughter's chair and hugged her tempestuously. "Of course, I
would never abandon my baby – even to shoot that man in the
heart. But we must get our Belle back, Jennifer. We must!"
    "We will," Jennifer assured her. "I've
promised you that. Mother."
    "Vendetta."
    "Well, the American version, anyway."
    Francesca looked at her suspiciously. "You sound
like your father, my baby. How can you wish for less than that
despicable man's blood? He killed your father and stole our
home!"
    Jennifer didn't deny the accusations, even though she
could have pointed out that no one had forced Rufus Chantry at
gunpoint to play poker, much less to put up the deed of Belle Retour
when he had lost practically everything else. She had loved her
father, but gambling had been his weakness and she knew it too well.
    "We'll get even with Kelly, Mother. And we'll get
Belle away from him. I promise. Just please promise me that you won't
do anything yourself. I have to come up with a plan, and if you try
to steal, I mean take anything else out of the house. It'll
just make it more complicated for me."
    Francesca looked doubtful. "If you say so, but I
cannot wait much longer for revenge."
    Much later, as she lay in her small bedroom and stared
at the dark celling, Jennifer accepted the fact that she was now on a
deadline. Her mother's patience these last years