Wendi thought the cat had figured out on its own that Sybilla was scared to death of it, and took advantage of the situation to torment her. The game continued with Alphie, although the cat would rub itself on Wendi’s ankles should they both be in the yard without anyone else around.
She wished her aunt had stayed up a little longer, but then she glanced at the mantel clock and realized how late it was. After nine, and they always rose before dawn, a good time to spend a peaceful period meditating and preparing for the new day. Dark had fallen outside now, but Wendi was afraid she would toss and turn again if she went to bed at her normal time.
She hadn’t told Sybilla, but she’d been restless for a month or more--about the same length of time she’d discussed with Sybilla a few moments ago--the beginning of the period when Nick had decided to return to New Orleans. A couple times, she’d even risen from her bed and taken a long, vigorous walk in the dead of the night. And she definitely wouldn’t tell her aunt where those walks took her.
Getting up from the settee, she strolled over to the window and peered at her face in the reflective pane. Yes, she was well aware her restlessness had started about the time Nick Bardou--a continent away--decided to come home to the city of his birth. But by the Goddess, she would not admit a man could have anything to do with her feelings!
Madame Burneau might need a man, even at her advanced age and after having buried one husband, but Wendi Chastain would never again have anything to do with letting a man into her life
--human or supernatural.
She’d tried one of each. Colin O’Grady had been a warlock her own age, with whom she’d practically grown up. They’d married more in friendship and loneliness than love, ending their marriage shortly after Cassandra arrived in town.
Madame Burneau’s nephew, Charles, was a different story. She gritted her teeth. If she saw Charles lying in a ditch on fire, she’d have to think long and hard before she decided whether it was worth the effort to conjure up a rain shower to put out the flames. Maybe then he would think there was a reason for her magic other than to make her a freak--a freak he wasn’t above using to try to make his own fortune without having to overcome his inbred laziness.
Charles didn’t invade her dreams, though. He was blond, as was Colin. A dark man lived in the shadows her mind couldn’t penetrate during the deep, quiet nights. A tall man. She’d thought for many years it was just the normal yearnings of a young woman for a tall, dark and handsome stranger. Now she knew the dreams were unclear visions, a result of her psychic powers foretelling things to come. Foretelling, yet not telling, as they sometimes did.
That dream figure had climbed down the ship’s gangplank the other day. Had sat across from her at the parlor reading table later that same day. Had kept her awake the last two nights, with the reality of his presence in the city instead of his former shadowiness in her dreams.
Had made her attempts to delve into his mind rebound on her own senses, scrambling them until she could barely think.
Nick. His name was Nick, and the sharp bite of the name curled through her stomach. Filtered into the nether regions of her mind--and body. The regions where she’d buried the longing for a life partner--someone to hold her as much as kiss her. Someone to laugh with--someone to share life’s sorrows. And joys. The regions she thought had died into hard coals instead of tantalizing flames when Charles Burneau tried to rape her, then laughed at her and called her a freak of nature.
Why, then, did both her mind and body reach out to Nick Bardou? He obviously had a concept of her witchcraft as much at-odds with the truth as Charles had. Why did it bother her to even think of the two men in the same breath of thought?
Charles didn’t truly believe, but he assumed others did and he could profit from it. Nick didn’t believe at all--or so he said. It was very possible that, given his disgust over the relationship between his father and her mother, he thought Sabine had snared Dominic with magic rather than love. It was far from the truth, but it wouldn’t be the first time a human had misinterpreted magic.
She should be worried about the failure of her magic instead of how a ten-year-old scandal was still affecting her world today--and she was. But as hard as she tried to concentrate on pondering the reason the magic was failing to develop as it should, as the magic of every witch in her genealogical line before her had developed, that worry faded at night without her realizing it until she thought back the next morning.
Her nighttime thoughts veered down different paths until she was caught in the remembrance of every nuance she’d studied on Nick’s face since she first saw him. The way he looked when he tried to pretend the brandy she could smell on his breath protected him from the pain in his leg. The way his blue eyes darkened when his memories crowded his consciousness, threatening to break through the protective barriers he’d erected. The way the pain caused him to howl in anguish but no one could hear except her.
Could this indeed be why her abilities had stalled? Could his presence now be part of a starcrossed path hindering her future? A path filled with pitfalls and obstacles to overcome? A path with Nick Bardou blocking her footsteps from reaching the distances where she’d find true happiness? Blocking the development of her magic until she put the present right--or more probably the past?
Tomorrow night would be Bealtane Eve. She should wait until after then and hope the May Eve celebration would make the spirits more receptive to her questions. More receptive to answering them.
But she already knew she wouldn’t wait.
She didn’t bother with a wrap, since the evenings this near full summertime were already muggy. She’d walked the path between the small house Dominic Bardou had built for her mother and the Bardou mansion on St. Charles Avenue many times before. She wasn’t exactly sure why it fascinated her. She’d been twelve when her mother died--was murdered--barely starting into the formative years of her magic. Just starting her climb into womanhood and needing her mother dearly.
Wendi closed the door of the little house behind her. Aunt Sybilla had filled in as best she could, but Wendi admitted a simmering anger at her mother’s lack of contact after her death. Any other self-respecting witch would have let her daughter know she hadn’t completely abandoned her.
Sybilla believed her sister had never been inside the Bardou mansion, but since Wendi hadn’t found the courage to visit Belle Chene, the Bardou plantation outside New Orleans, she’d settled for the mansion. At least there she could stay in the dark recesses beneath the live oaks and imagine how different her life could have been. Imagine what would have been, had her father not died. Imagine what would have been, had Nick’s father not loved his wife.
She made the trip between the two worlds of Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue in the normal amount of time--half an hour. Stopping beneath the live oak across the street, she gazed at the Bardou mansion. The house she stood in front of on this side of the street was set almost too far back to see it and surrounded by a high, ivy-covered wall. But from this vantage point, she could see inside the Bardou mansion, since there was no wall around the front, as there was in the back of the house.
Silence reigned here at night, unlike the nightly carousing in her end of the city, where brothels and bars teemed with activity until dawn. Here the carousers’ mothers, wives and daughters lived, and heaven forbid their delicate sensibilities be offended by a man’s baser actions, sending them into a swoon.
Pleasant scents reigned here, too, unlike the smells of nearby wharves and warehouses, dead fish and muggy salt air very much a part of her own neighborhood’s atmosphere. Night-blooming jasmine, one of her favorites, filtered on the breeze. And roses. She did love roses.
“The other side of the street is my property.”
Wendi stiffened, but for some reasons Nick’s voice coming out of the darkness didn’t totally surprise her.
“I don’t imagine I could make a charge of trespassing stick, with you on this side of the street,” he continued, his
voice low but clear. “But if I ever find even one toeprint from your slipper on my property, I’m calling the police.”
“No, you won’t.” Wendi turned, smiling wryly, her night vision able to see him in the hanging tendrils of Spanish Moss. “You wouldn’t want the entire town of New Orleans hearing about another confrontation between the Chastains and Bardous, Monsieur. Or might I call you Nick, since it seems our paths are destined to cross?”
Instead of a blast of anger at her audacity, she received a droll chuckle. Had she been able to see his face, she sensed she might find a spark of admiration for her conclusion. It hadn’t taken much to make her well-founded defense and deduction, however. After all, she’d also lived through the ashes of the lives left after the scandal. Being on the fringes of scandal was nearly as bad as being one of the central, controversial characters.
He limped past her and started across the street. “Southern hospitality demands I offer you refreshment,” he said over his shoulder. “But I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to partake of Bardou refreshments.”
“There you’d be wrong.” She went after him. “As wrong as you are about some other things. I’d love to have something to quench my thirst. It’s a long walk from Canal Street. From one world to another.”
“Look.” He stopped at the foot of the mansion’s steps and gazed down at her, a troubled look on his face. “I know damned well how far it is--both in physical distance and in lifestyles. I’ll call the carriage driver and have him take you home. You shouldn’t be out this time of night alone.”
Did she dare ask what had been on her mind for the past two days? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“Since I’m here, could I please look at my mother’s portrait? I’ve never seen it.”
He flinched. Hard and fast. “You can have the damned thing! I’ll have it crated up and delivered to you tomorrow.”
His stance told her she wasn’t going to get any farther than the walkway, no matter how much she wanted a chance to see inside. She had absolutely no recall of her birth place, and she’d always wanted to see what she’d lost before clear memory--the way she might have lived. Although, granted, Bardou mansion wasn’t where she was born, it was a home such as she might have had, had Fate picked a different path for her.
But Nick obviously didn’t want her to soil the memory of his mother’s house.
She started back down the walkway. “Never mind the driver. I made it here alone, and I can get home the same way.”
“Wait--”
The door behind him opened, and Nick groaned under his breath.
“Monsieur, what on earth has come over you?” a sprightly voice said. “Entertaining here on the porch. Why, the neighbors will think California destroyed all your manners.”
Miz Thibedeau. Wendi lifted a hand to wave at the cheerful, unassuming woman, who peered through the darkness where the light spilling from the doorway ended.
“Why, stars above, if it’s not Wendi Chastain!” Miz Thibedeau said with a gasp. “Come in, my dear. Come in. I just finished some pralines. My sister’s recipe, you know. Remember the pralines I used to bring you when I came to see Sybilla?”
Wendi glanced at Nick, lifting an eyebrow and waiting for permission to enter. He glowered at her, but then looked at Miz Thibedeau and shrugged his shoulders. Wendi bit back a laugh at his definite change of attitude toward someone who had to be only his servant. She’d venture there was a story behind that somewhere, and maybe some day she would find out what it was.
She started back up the steps, and Miz Thibedeau shooed her inside. Nick came in after them, shutting the door with a sigh filled with resignation.
“Now, you take her into the parlor, Monsieur,” Miz Thibedeau said to Nick. “And I’ll be right there with refreshments.”
She scurried down the hallway, and Nick turned abruptly into the first room on their left. When she followed, she found him standing just inside the doorway, and he nodded at her, then stepped back into the hallway.
“I’d prefer you limit your visit to this room, then leave. Feel free to have Miz Thibedeau call our carriage driver to take you home when you and she are done talking. I hope you have a good visit with her. Good night.”
When he turned away and limped off, Wendi’s mouth dropped open. Without even thinking, she chased after him.
Chapter 6
“Uh--” was all Wendi could think of to say when she grabbed Nick’s arm and he glared down at her fingers on his white shirt sleeve. Leaning on his walking cane, he reached for her hand, hesitating as though reluctant to touch her before pushing it from him.
Disappointment filled her, lessening and bending towards a sly satisfaction when he rubbed his index finger over the spot where her hand had rested. Something told her it was an unconscious movement, an awareness on his part of the same tingles she’d felt herself when they touched.
Despite her unalterable decision to never let a man manipulate her life again, there was something fascinating about Nick Bardou. Could it be because they shared a past, which now appeared to be on a convergent path into the future? That had to be the only reason she felt drawn to him. Didn’t it?
“I was wondering if you minded Miz Thibedeau showing me the portrait,” she said when length of the silence threatened to turn into embarrassment. “Since I’m here.”
He glanced on down the hallway to the next doorway, then shrugged and flicked his head in that direction. “It’s in there.”
“Thank you.”
Taking his manner as an indication she didn’t have to wait for Miz Thibedeau, she passed him and headed for the other door. Eagerly, she opened it, then halted, stunned.
The portrait hung over the fireplace, and the realism and beauty of it took her breath away. The room was a library--dark, masculine and lined with full book shelves--and somehow the portrait wouldn’t have looked as striking in a more feminine room.
Wendi marveled at it. The artist had captured her mother so authentically and with such a pallet of distinctive colors that she appeared alive, eyes sparkling, lips quirked in a hint of a smile. A person could race across the room and fling herself into the long-lost, long-dead arms.
“Oh, lord,” she murmured. “She’s so beautiful.”
Behind her, Nick grunted a sound of disgust, and once again she wasn’t surprised at his presence. His not tossing her out on her fanny gave her pause and made her wary, ready to confront whatever threat he had in mind when he decided to use it. But it seemed right for him to be there in the library with her just then. Of course, his attitude could stand a major shift, but at least he’d allowed her this far.
She turned to look into his eyes. They were fixed on the portrait with an angry intensity that would have melted the oils into messy, indistinct pools had he been a warlock focusing his magical power of destruction.
“Why do you let it hang there if you hate it so much?” she asked logically.
He didn’t answer, and the danger she faced if she forced conversation along those lines lingered palpably in the air. Shrugging, she walked closer to the portrait and gazed up.
“It’s too beautiful to be hung in our little house.”
Nick spoke in a reluctant tone, as though the words were forcing themselves past his throat. “The damage disappeared, but you’ll never make me believe there was anything unexplainable about it.”
“What damage?” Wendi asked. “It looks absolutely perfect to me.”
He slowly lowered himself into one of the chairs in front of the desk, evidently familiar enough with the room to know it was there for him, since his eyes never left the portrait.
“I threw a crystal decanter of brandy at it,” he said in a reluctant tone. “I didn’t stay around to see what I’d done, but I heard the bottle shatter as I left the room. Yet when I came back from your house that day, there wasn’t a sign of anything different about the damned thing. Not one tear. Not one ounce of brandy splattered on it.”
He clenched his finge
rs on the cane between his legs. “Miz Thibedeau said she swept up a pile of glass in the corner, beneath the sideboard over there. She assumed one of the decanters had fallen off the shelf because I hadn’t replaced it properly. But it didn’t. I threw it at that damned thing, not at the side of the room. I have no doubt of that.”
His eyes slid to her, then back to the portrait. “You could be her twin, you know, instead of her daughter.”
“I’ve been told that more than once.”
He continued, “I don’t even know why I told you what I tried to do to the portrait. But I will tell you this.” He tilted his head, indicating the chair beside him. “Sit down, damn it. It’s bad enough to look at one of you, let alone two.”
“Since you ask so nicely,” Wendi gibed, nevertheless moving over to the chair.
She’d give anything for a private moment or two right now. The shock of seeing her mother looking so lovely in the portrait reeled her senses, although she’d lie down and die before she let Nick Bardou see how it bothered her. More importantly, she wanted some privacy to get her jumbled thoughts in order and try to figure out what was going on--why Nick didn’t just throw her out of the house and be done with her. He must have some underlying purpose she should be wary of.
But she couldn’t think. It was just the portrait, she assured herself while she studied it once more and waited for him to speak. It wasn’t being in the room with a man who drew her, yet angered her. More than once while she matured, Sybilla had warned her about her easily-lost temper. Warned her to control and contain her anger if she wanted to maintain dominance over her magic. After her failed reading for Nick in their parlor, Sybilla had explained that the vibrations between her and Nick had caused the sparks to fly and wind to blow at their little house. Warned her not to lose control again, less she further disrupt the karma.
“What did you mean the other day when you said I thought I’d killed your mother?” Nick asked at last.
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