The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

  Alone with the baby, Abby tickled and cooed. She powdered and smoothed, then tidily fastened the fresh diaper. When Marie Rose was tucked into a fresh gown and swaddled, Abby settled in the rocker, bared her breast for that tiny, hungry mouth. Those first greedy tugs, the answering pull in her womb, made her sigh. Yes, she’d fallen into the luck. Because Lucian Manet, the heir of Manet Hall, the shining knight of every fairy tale, had looked at her. And loved.

  She bent her head to watch the baby nurse. Marie Rose’s eyes were wide open, fixed on her mother’s face. A tiny crease of concentration formed between her eyebrows.

  Oh, she had such hope those eyes would stay blue, like Lucian’s. The baby’s hair was dark like her own. Dark and curling, but her skin was milk white—again like her papa’s rather than the deeper tone, the dusky gold of her Cajun mama’s.

  She would have the best of both of them, Abby thought. She would have the best of everything.

  It wasn’t only the money, the grand house, the social position, though she wanted that for her children now that she had tasted it herself. It was the acceptance, the learning, the knowing you belonged in such a place. Her daughter, and all the children who came after, would read and write, would speak proper English, proper French, in fine voices.

  No one would ever look down on them.

  “You’ll be a lady,” Abigail murmured, stroking the baby’s cheek as Marie Rose’s hand kneaded her breast as if to hurry the milk along. “An educated lady with your papa’s sweet heart and your mama’s good sense. Papa’ll be home tomorrow. It’s the very last day of a whole century, and you have your whole life to live in it.”

  Her voice was quiet, a singsong rhythm to lull both of them.

  “It’s so exciting, Rosie, my Rosie. We’re going to have a grand ball tomorrow night. I have a new gown. It’s blue, like your eyes. Like your papa’s eyes. Did I tell you I fell in love with his eyes first? So beautiful. So kind. When he came back to Manet Hall from the university, he looked like a prince coming home to his castle. Oh, my heart just pounded so.”

  She leaned back, rocking in the fluttering light of the candles.

  She thought of the New Year’s celebration the next evening, and how she would dance with Lucian, how her gown would sweep and swirl as they waltzed.

  How she would make him proud.

  And she remembered the first time they had waltzed.

  In the spring, with the air heavy with perfume from the flowers, and the house alight like a palace. She’d sneaked into the garden, away from her duties, because she’d wanted to see it so much. The way the gleaming white hall with its balusters like black lace stood against the starry sky, the way the windows flamed. Music had spilled out of those windows, out of the gallery doors where guests had stepped out for air.

  She’d imagined herself inside the ballroom, whirling, whirling, to the music. And so had whirled in the shadows of the garden. And, whirling, had seen Lucian watching her on the path.

  Her own fairy tale, Abby thought. The prince taking Cinderella’s hand and drawing her into a dance moments before midnight struck. She’d had no glass slipper, no pumpkin coach, but the night had turned into magic.

  She could still hear the way the music had floated out through the balcony doors, over the air, into the garden.

  “After the ball is over, after the break of morn . . .”

  She sang the refrain quietly, shifting the baby to her other breast.

  “After the dancers leaving, after the stars are gone . . .”

  They had danced to that lovely, sad song in the moonlit garden with the house a regal white and gold shadow behind them. Her in her simple cotton dress, and Lucian in his handsome evening clothes. And as such things were possible in fairy tales, they fell in love during that lovely, sad song.

  Oh, she knew it had started before that night. For her it had begun with her first glimpse of him, astride the chestnut mare he’d ridden from New Orleans to the plantation. The way the sun had beamed through the leaves and the moss on the live oaks along the allée, surrounding him like angel wings. His twin had ridden beside him—Julian—but she’d seen only Lucian.

  She’d been in the house only a few weeks then, taken on as an undermaid and doing her best to please Monsieur and Madame Manet so she might keep her position and the wages earned.

  He’d spoken to her—kindly, correctly—if they passed each other in the house. But she’d sensed him watching her. Not the way Julian watched, not with hot eyes and a smirk twisting his lips. But, she liked to think now, with a kind of longing.

  In the weeks that went by she would come upon him often. He’d sought her out. She knew that now, prized that now, as he’d confessed it to her on their wedding night.

  But it had really begun the evening of the ball. After the song had ended, he’d held her, just a moment longer. Then he bowed, as a gentleman bows to a lady. He kissed her hand.

  Then, just as she thought it was over, that the magic would dim, he tucked the hand he’d kissed into the crook of his arm. Began to walk with her, to talk with her. The weather, the flowers, the gossip of the household.

  As if they were friends, Abby thought now with a smile. As if it were the most natural thing in the world for Lucian Manet to take a turn in the garden with Abigail Rouse.

  They’d walked in the garden many nights after that. Inside the house, where others could see, they remained master and servant. But all through that heady spring they walked the garden paths as young lovers, telling each other of hopes, of dreams, of sorrows and joys.

  On her seventeenth birthday he brought her a gift, wrapped in silver paper with a bright blue bow. The enameled watch was a pretty circle dangling from the golden wings of a brooch. Time flew, he told her as he pinned the watch to the faded cotton of her dress, when they were together. And he would rather have his life wing by than spend it apart from her.

  He’d gotten down on one knee and asked her to be his wife.

  It could never be. Oh, she’d tried to tell him through the tears. He was beyond her reach, and he could have anyone.

  She remembered now how he’d laughed, how the joy had burst over his beautiful face. How could he be beyond her reach when she had his hand in hers even now? And if he could have anyone, then he would have her.

  “So now we have each other, and you,” Abby whispered and shifted the drowsing baby to her shoulder. “And if his family hates me for it, what does it matter? I make him happy.”

  She turned her face into the soft curve of the baby’s neck. “I’m learning to speak as they speak, to dress as they dress. I will never think as they think, but for Lucian, I behave as they behave, at least when it shows.”

  Content, she rubbed the baby’s back and continued to rock. But when she heard the heavy footsteps on the stairs, the stumbling climb, she rose quickly. Her arms tightened in a circle of protection around the baby as she turned toward the crib.

  She heard Julian come through the door and knew without seeing he would be drunk. He was nearly always drunk or on his way to becoming so.

  Abby didn’t speak. She lay the baby in the crib, and when Marie Rose whimpered restlessly, stroked her quiet again.

  “Where’s the nursemaid?” he demanded.

  Still, Abby didn’t turn. “I don’t want you in here when you’ve been drinking.”

  “Giving orders now?” His voice was slurred, his balance impaired. But he was thinking clearly enough. Liquor, he’d always believed, helped clarify the mind.

  And his was clarified when it came to his brother’s wife. If Lucian had a thing—and what was a woman but a thing?—Julian wanted it.

  She was small, almost delicate of build. But she had good strong legs. He could see the shape of them where the firelight in the nursery grate shimmered through her thin nightclothes. Those legs would wrap around him as easily as they did his brother.

  Her breasts were high and full, fuller now since she’d had the whelp. He’d gotten his hands on them once,
and she’d slapped him for it. As if she had a say in who touched her.

  He closed the door at his back. The whore he’d bought that night had only whetted his appetite. It was time to sate it.

  “Where’s the other bayou slut?”

  Abby’s hand fisted at her side. She turned now, guarding the crib with her body. He looked so like Lucian, but there was a hardness in him Lucian lacked. A darkness.

  She wondered if it was true, what her grand-mère said. That with twins, sometimes traits get divvied up in the womb. One gets the good, the other the bad.

  She didn’t know if Julian had come into the world already spoiled. But she knew he was dangerous when drunk. It was time he learned she was dangerous as well.

  “Claudine is my friend, and you have no right to speak of her that way. Get out. You have no right to come in here and insult me. This time Lucian will hear of it.”

  She saw his gaze slide down from her face, watched lust come into his eyes. Quickly, she tugged her wrapper over the breast still partially exposed from nursing. “You’re disgusting. Cochon! To come in a child’s room with your wicked thoughts for your brother’s wife.”

  “Brother’s whore.” He thought he could smell her anger and her fear now. A heady perfume. “You’d have spread your legs for me if I’d been born fifteen minutes sooner. But you wouldn’t have stolen my name the way you stole his.”

  Her chin came up. “I don’t even see you. No one does. You’re nothing beside him. A shadow, and one that stinks of whiskey and the brothel.”

  She wanted to run. He frightened her, had always frightened her on a deep, primal level. But she wouldn’t risk leaving him with the baby. “When I tell Lucian of this, he’ll send you away.”

  “He has no power here, and we all know it.” He came closer, easing his way like a hunter through the woods. “My mother holds the power in this house. I’m her favorite. Timing at birth doesn’t change that.”

  “He will send you away.” Tears stung the back of her throat because she knew Julian was right. It was Josephine who reigned in Manet Hall.

  “Lucian did me a favor marrying you.” His voice was a lazy drawl now, almost conversational. He knew she had nowhere to run. “She’s already cut him out of her will. Oh, he’ll get the house, she can’t change that, but I’ll get her money. And it’s her money that runs this place.”

  “Take the money, take the house.” She flung out her hands, dismissing them, and him. “Take it all. And go to hell with it.”

  “He’s weak. My sainted brother. Saints always are, under all the piety.”

  “He’s a man, so much more a man than you.”

  She’d hoped to make him angry, angry enough to strike her and storm out. Instead he laughed, low and quiet, and edged closer.

  When she saw the intent in his eyes, she opened her mouth to scream. His hand whipped out, gripped a hank of the dark hair that curled to her waist. And yanking had her scream gurgling into a gasp. His free hand circled her throat, squeezed.

  “I always take what’s Lucian’s. Even his whores.”

  She beat at him, slapped, bit. And when she could draw in air, screamed. He tore at her wrapper, pawed at her breasts. In the crib, the baby began to wail.

  Fueled by the sound of her child’s distress, Abby clawed her way free. She spun, stumbled over the torn hem of her nightgown. Her hand closed over the fireplace poker. She swung wildly, ramming it hard against Julian’s shoulder.

  Howling in pain, he fell back against the hearth, and she flew toward the crib.

  She had to get the baby. To get the baby and run.

  He caught her sleeve, and she screamed again as the material ripped. Even as she reached down to snatch her daughter from the crib, he dragged her back. He struck her, slicing the back of his hand over her cheek and knocking her back into a table. A candle fell to the floor and guttered out in its own wax.

  “Bitch! Whore!”

  He was mad. She could see it now in the feral gleam in his eyes, the drunken flush on his cheeks. In that instant fear turned to terror.

  “He’ll kill you for this. My Lucian will kill you.” She tried to gain her feet, but he hit her again, using his fist this time so the pain radiated from her face, through her body. Dazed, she began to crawl toward the crib. There was blood in her mouth, sweet and warm.

  My baby. Sweet God, don’t let him hurt my baby.

  His weight was on her—and the stench of him. She bucked, called for help. The sound of the baby’s furious screams merged with hers.

  “Don’t! Don’t! You damn yourself.”

  But as he yanked up the skirt of her nightgown, she knew no amount of pleading, no amount of struggle, would stop him. He would debase her, soil her, because of who she was. Because she was Lucian’s.

  “This is what you want.” He drove himself into her, and the thrill of power spurted through him like black wine. Her face was white with fear and shock, and raw from the blows of his hands. Helpless, he thought, as he pounded out his raging envy. “This is what all of you want. Cajun whores.”

  Thrust after violent thrust, he raped her. The thrill of forcing himself into her spumed through him until his breathing turned to short bursts grunted between clenched teeth.

  She was weeping now, huge choking sobs. But screaming, too. Somehow screaming as he hammered his fury, his jealousy, his disgust into her.

  As the great clock began to chime midnight, he closed his hands around her throat. “Shut up. Damn you.” He rammed her head against the floor, squeezed harder. And still the screaming pierced his brain.

  Abby heard it, too. Dimly. The baby’s frantic cries pealed through her head along with the slow, formal bongs of the midnight hour. She slapped, weak protests against the hands that cut off her air, tried to shut her body off from the unspeakable invasion.

  Help me. Mother of Jesus. Help me. Help my baby.

  Her vision dimmed. Her heels drummed wildly on the floor as she convulsed.

  The last thing she heard was her crying daughter. The last thing she thought was, Lucian.

  The door of the nursery burst open. Josephine Manet stood just inside the nursery. She summed up the scene quickly. Coldly.

  “Julian.”

  His hands still vised around Abby’s throat, he looked up. If his mother saw madness in his eyes, she chose to ignore it. With her gilt hair neatly braided for the night, her robe sternly buttoned to the neck, she stepped over, stared down.

  Abby’s eyes were wide and staring. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth, and bruises blooming along her cheeks.

  Dispassionately, she leaned down, laid her fingers against Abby’s throat.

  “She’s dead,” Josephine announced and moved quickly to the connecting door. She opened it, glanced into the maid’s room. Then closed it, locked it.

  She stood for a moment, her back against it, her hand at her own throat as she thought of what could come. Disgrace, ruin, scandal.

  “It was . . . an accident.” His hands began to shake as they slid away from Abby’s throat. The whiskey was whirling in his head now, clouding it. It churned in his belly, sickening it.

  He could see the marks on her skin, dark and deep and damning. “She . . . tried to seduce me, then, she attacked . . .”

  She crossed the room again, her slippers clicking on wood. Crouching down, Josephine slapped him, one hard crack of flesh on flesh. “Quiet. Be quiet and do exactly as I say. I won’t lose another son to this creature. Take her down to her bedroom. Go out through the gallery and stay there until I come.”

  “It was her fault.”

  “Yes. Now she’s paid for it. Take her down, Julian. And be quick.”

  “They’ll . . .” A single tear gathered in the corner of his eye and spilled over. “They’ll hang me. I have to get away.”

  “No. No, they won’t hang you.” She brought his head to her shoulder, stroking his hair over the body of her daughter-in-law. “No, my sweet, they won’t hang you. Do wh
at Mama says now. Carry her to the bedroom and wait for me. Everything’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be as it should be. I promise.”

  “I don’t want to touch her.”

  “Julian!” The crooning tone snapped into icy command. “Do as I say. Immediately.”

  She rose, walked over to the crib, where the baby’s wails had turned to miserable whimpers. In the heat of the moment, she considered simply laying her hand over the child’s mouth and nose. Hardly different than drowning a bag of kittens.

  And yet . . .

  The child had her son’s blood in her, and therefore her own. She could despise it, but she couldn’t destroy it. “Go to sleep,” she said. “We’ll decide what to do about you later.”

  As her son carried the girl he’d raped and murdered from the room, Josephine began to set the nursery to rights again. She picked up the candle, scrubbed at the cooling wax until she could see no trace.

  She replaced the fireplace poker and, using the ruin of Abby’s robe, wiped up the splatters of blood. She did it all efficiently, turning her mind away from what had caused the damage to the room, keeping it firmly fixed on what needed to be done to save her son.

  When she was certain all was as it should be, she unlocked the door again, left her now-sleeping grandchild alone.

  In the morning, she would fire the nursemaid for dereliction of duty. She would have her out of Manet Hall before Lucian returned to find his wife missing.

  The girl had brought it on herself, Josephine thought. No good ever came from trying to rise above your station in life. There was an order to things, and a reason for that order. If the girl hadn’t bewitched Lucian—for surely there was some local witchery involved—she would still be alive.

  The family had suffered enough scandal. The elopement. Oh, the embarrassment of it! Of having to hold your head high when your firstborn son ran off with a penniless, barefoot female who’d grown up in a shack in the swamp.

  Then the sour taste of the pretense that followed. It was essential to save face, even after such a blow. And hadn’t she done all that could be done to see that creature was dressed as befitted the family Manet?