A Handful of Heaven

She only prayed that someday he'd feel comfortable enough with her to actually say the words.

"Dev?"

"Yes?"

"What were you wondering about?" He squeezed her playfully. "Some aspect of my stunning technique, perhaps?"

"No i . . It was nothing. Really."

He stopped smiling. "Prison?"

"I-I know it's none of my business, but I can't help wondering about it."

"I was in for murdering a woman." At Devon's sharp intake of breath, he grimaced. "A whore, actually."

"Why did you take the blame for something you didn't do?"

"I never said I didn't do it."

Her gaze was steady on his face. "I know you, Cornelius, whether you like it or not. And I know you aren't a murderer."

Her simple faith in him was stupefying. No one had ever believed in him. All his li

fe he'd been a pariah, an outcast, shut away from society's light by something he hadn't done. And now after all these lonely years here was someone holding up a light, beckoning him in.

If he'd been standing his knees would have buckled. Sweet Christ, but the light looked good. ...

He was tired of living like an animal, all alone. Once, just once, he wanted to know what it felt like to be at peace. He wanted simply to be.

With her he could be whatever he wanted to be.

It was a heady thought; one he'd never had before, and it opened all sorts of doors. Suddenly he felt like a kid again. Young and trusting and free.

Craziest of all, when he looked into the huge, trusting pools of her eyes, he felt as if he'd finally found a home. One that wouldn't vanish in a puff of smoke the moment he admitted he wanted it.

He released his breath slowly. For her he would take the risk he'd never been willing to take for himself. For her he would venture from the darkness. "Cornelius? Are you all right?" "Are you sure you want to hear it all?" "Yes-if you want to tell me."

He tightened his hold on her body, taking strength from the soft, warm feel of her in his arms. A dozen long-suppressed images flashed through his mind. He winced at the memories.

217

"You don't have to tell me. ..."

"Yes, I do." He took a deep breath. "Her name was Mi-belle-the woman I was supposed to have murdered. She worked for my mother." He remembered Mibelle's flashing black eyes and pouty, dark-red lips, and said, "I fell in love with her the first time I saw her. I was only seventeen, but that didn't matter; not to her anyway and certainly not to me.

"It . . . amused her to become my lover. I was so-" Humiliation wrenched in his gut. "So desperate for attention, I followed her around like an overeager puppy, doing whatever she asked of me.

"I even asked her to marry me and not just once. Every time I asked she laughed and said, 'Ask again next week.' And like a fool I did."

The ache in his voice brought tears to Devon's eyes. She wiped them away quickly, knowing he wouldn't want to see them. Not that he was looking at her. He wasn't. He was staring into space, and she could tell by the haunted, hollow look in his eyes that he was seeing the past.

He saw Mibelle as clear as day. She was standing in front of him, her garish red-velvet gown revealing all but the most expensive parts of her body. He was on his knees. He could hear himself begging, whining for some bit of her favor.

He clenched his fists. God, he'd been so stupid. . . .

Slowly he came back to the present. And felt stupid all over again. Devon was lying in his arms, waiting silently for him to continue.

He owed her the truth. Squeezing his eyes shut against the images, he went on in an expressionless voice. "One night Mother had a huge party in The Painted Lady, sort of a thank-you for all of her prestigious customers. Everyone who was anyone in New Orleans was there-the men, at least- and the whores were strutting their stuff. Mother had me all dressed up like a penguin, serving drinks. She knew it would kill me every time Mibelle 'worked,' and it did. Every time Mibelle took a man upstairs, my heart wrenched out of my body."