The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

  All he could see was the blue ball gown with the flounces and rosettes she’d been so proud of.

  “The maid is mistaken.” But his voice shook.

  “You’re mistaken. What of her jewelry?” Josephine pulled the leather box from the shelf, tossed the lid up. “Where are the pearls you gave her for Christmas? The diamond bracelet you bought her when she had the child?”

  “Someone stole them.”

  On a sound of disgust, Josephine upended the jewelry on the bed. “She took whatever sparkled the most. A girl of her type knows nothing but glitter. She bewitched you, caused you to embarrass your family, your name, now she has disgraced us all.”

  “No.” He squeezed his eyes shut as his heart ripped to pieces. “She wouldn’t leave me. She would never leave Marie Rose.”

  “However much affection she might have had for the child, I doubt either she or her lover wanted to be saddled with a baby. How do you know, Lucian, that the child is yours?”

  The red rage of fury stained his cheeks. “How can you ask such a question? How could you have lived in the same house with her for a year, and say such a thing about her?”

  The doubt, Josephine thought coldly, had been planted. She would help it bloom. “Because I did live in the same house with her, but I wasn’t blinded by lust or bewitched by whatever spell she put on you. This is your fault as much as hers. If you had satisfied your appetites as other men, paid her, given her a few trinkets, we would not have this new scandal on our hands.”

  “Paid her. Like a whore. Like Julian pays his women.” Lucian stepped forward, so angry his hands trembled. “My wife is not a whore.”

  “She used you,” Josephine said in a vicious whisper. “She took your dignity, and smeared ours. She came into this house a servant, and left it with the spoils of her deception. Like a thief in the night, with her child crying behind her.”

  She gripped his arms and shook. “You tried to change what cannot be changed. You expected too much of her. She could never have been mistress of Manet Hall.” I am. “At least she had the sense to know it. Now, she’s gone. We will hold our heads up until the gossip dies down. We are Manets, and we will survive this.”

  She turned away, walked to the door. “I expect you to make yourself presentable and join the family for dinner. Our lives have been disrupted long enough.”

  Alone, Lucian sat on the bed and, with the watch pin in his hand, fell to weeping.

  “I gotta hand it to you, boy.” With his hands on his hips, Remy turned a circle in the kitchen. “You made a hell of a mess here.”

  “Come back in a couple weeks,” Declan called out from the adjacent dining room, where he’d set up what he thought of as his carpentry shop.

  Effie lifted a corner of the drop cloth. “The floor’s going to be beautiful. It’s a blank canvas,” she said as she looked around the gutted kitchen. “He had to wipe it clean so he could paint the right picture.”

  “Effie, ditch that moron and come live here with me.”

  “You stop trying to make time with my girl.” Remy walked to the doorway. Declan stood at a power saw, a tool belt slung at his hips and a carpenter’s pencil behind his ear. It looked to Remy as if his friend hadn’t used a razor in a good three days.

  And damned if the scruffy, handyman look didn’t suit him.

  “You got something you want me to do around here, or should we just stand around admiring how manly you look?”

  “I could sure use one or two laborers.” He ran the saw through wood with a satisfying buzz and a shower of sawdust, switched it off before he glanced over. “You really up for it?”

  “Sure.” Remy slung an arm around Effie’s shoulder. “We’ll work for beer.”

  Four hours later, they sat on the gallery outside the freshly painted kitchen. Effie, dwarfed in the old denim shirt Declan had given her for a smock, had freckles of paint on her nose. The beer was cold and crisp, and on Declan’s countertop stereo, Foghat was taking a slow ride.

  As he worked his latest splinter out of his thumb, Declan decided it didn’t get much better.

  “What’s that bush blooming out there?” He gestured toward the wreck of gardens.

  “Camellia,” Effie told him. “These gardens are a sin, Dec.”

  “I know. I’ve got to get to them.”

  “You can’t get to everything. You ought to get someone out here to clean it up.”

  “Big Frank and Little Frankie.” Remy took a long swallow of beer. “They’d do the job for you. Do good work.”

  “Family business?” He always trusted family businesses. “Father and son?”

  “Brother and sister.”

  “A brother and sister, both named Frank?”

  “Yeah. Frank X.—that’s for Xavier—he’s got him some ego. Named both his kids after him. I’ll give you the number. You tell them Remy told you to call.”

  “I’m going to go clean up.” Effie looked down at her paint-speckled hands. “Is it all right if I wander around the house some?”

  “Sweetheart.” Declan took her hand, kissed it. “You can do anything you want.”

  “Good thing I saw her first,” Remy commented as Effie went inside.

  “Damn right.”

  “Seems to me you got your mind on another woman, the way you keep looking toward the bayou.”

  “I can’t have Effie unless I kill you, so I’m courting Miss Odette as a testament to our friendship.”

  “Yeah, you are.” With a laugh, Remy leaned back on his elbows. “That Lena, she tends to stir a man up, get him thinking all kinds of interesting things.”

  “You got a girl.”

  “Don’t mean my brain stopped working. Don’t you worry, though, Effie’s all I want.” He let out a long sigh of a contented man. “Besides, Lena and me, we did our round some time back.”

  “What do you mean?” Declan set his beer back down and stared at his friend. “You and Lena. You . . . and Lena?”

  Remy winked. “One hot, sweaty summer. Must’ve been close to fifteen years ago. Ouch.” He leaned up to rub his heart. “That hurts. I was about . . . yeah, I was seventeen, just graduated high school. That’d make her fifteen, seems to me. We spent some memorable evenings in the backseat of my old Chevy Camaro.”

  He noted Declan’s brooding look. “Hey, I saw her first, too. I was in a hot trance over that girl, a good six months. Thought I’d die if I didn’t have her. You know how it is at seventeen.”

  “Yeah. I know how it is at thirty-one, too.”

  Remy chuckled. “Well, I mooned over her, danced around her, sniffed at her heels. Took her to the movies, for long drives. To my senior prom. God, what a picture she was. Then one moonstruck June night, I finally got her clothes off in the back of that Camaro. It was her first time.” He shot Declan a look. “You know, they say a woman never forgets her first. You got your work cut out for you, cher.”

  “I think I can do better than a randy teenager.” Despite, he admitted, the fact that she made him feel like one. “What happened between you?”

  “Drifted is all. I went up North to school, she stayed here. Fever burned itself out, and we slid into being friends. We are friends, Dec. She’s one of my favorite people.”

  “I know a warning when I hear one. You want all the girls, Remy?”

  “Just thinking to myself that I’d hate to see two of my friends hurt each other. The two of you, boy, you come with a lot of baggage.”

  “I know how to store mine.”

  “Maybe. God knows she’s worked hard to keep hers locked in the attic. Her mother—” He broke off when Effie screamed.

  Beer spewed over the floor when Remy kicked the bottle over as he leaped up. He was through the kitchen door one stride ahead of Declan and shouting Effie’s name.

  “Upstairs.” Declan veered left and charged up the kitchen stairway. “She’s upstairs.”

  “Remy! Remy, come quick!”

  She sat on the floor, hugging her arms, and threw he
rself into Remy’s the instant he crouched beside her. “Baby, what happened? Are you hurt?”

  “No. No. I saw . . .” She turned her face into his shoulder. “In there. On the bed in there.”

  Declan looked at the open door. The only bed in there was the one he’d imagined. Slowly, he pushed the door open the rest of the way. He could see the layer of dust on the floor, where it had been disturbed when Effie had started to go in. The sun beamed through the windows onto nothing but wood and faded wallpaper.

  “What did you see, Effie?” Declan asked.

  “On the bed. A woman—her face. She was dead.”

  “Baby.” Staring into the room, Remy stroked her hair. “There’s nothing in there. Look now. There’s nothing there.”

  “But I saw . . .”

  “Tell me what you saw.” Declan knelt down beside her. “What did you see in there?”

  “I saw . . .” She shuddered, then pressed her lips into a firm line. “Help me up, Remy.”

  Though her face was stark white, she got to her feet and stepped to the doorway.

  “Effie darling, you’re shaking. Let’s get you downstairs.”

  “No. No, wait.” Her eyes were wide, and her heart continued to beat wildly as she scanned the room. “I couldn’t have seen anything. It’s an empty room. Just an empty room. I must’ve imagined . . .”

  “A tester bed? Blue drapes? A chest of drawers and mirrored bureau. A woman’s vanity and a blue chaise. Gaslight sconces, candles on the mantel and a framed picture.”

  “How do you know what I saw?”

  “Because I saw it, too. The first day I was here. I smelled lilies.”

  “White lilies in a tall vase,” Effie continued, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “I thought it was odd, and sort of sweet, that you’d have flowers in there. Then I thought, for just a minute, well, how did he fix this room up so beautifully, why didn’t he mention it? And I stepped in and saw her on the bed. I’m sorry. I really need some air.”

  Without a word, Remy scooped her off her feet.

  “My hero,” she murmured as he carried her toward the stairs.

  “You gave me a hell of a fright, chère. Declan, you get my girl some water.”

  For a long moment, Declan stared into the room. Then he followed them down.

  He fetched a glass of water, took it out to the gallery where Remy sat with Effie cradled in his lap.

  “How do you feel about ghosts now?”

  She took the water, sipped while she studied Declan over the rim. “I imagined it.”

  “A white robe over the chaise. A silver brush set, some sort of gold and enamel pin.”

  “Watch pin,” she said quietly. She let out a shuddering breath. “I can’t explain it.”

  “Can you tell me about the woman?”

  “Her face was all bruised and bloody. Oh, Remy.”

  “Ssh now.” He stroked her hair, gathered her closer. “You don’t have to think about it. Let her be, Declan.”

  “No, it’s all right.” Taking slow breaths, Effie laid her head on Remy’s shoulder. Her eyes met Declan’s and held. “It’s just so strange, so awful and strange. I think she was young, but it was hard to tell. Dark hair, a lot of dark, curling hair. Her clothes—nightgown—it was torn. There were terrible bruises on her neck—like . . . God, like she’d been strangled. I knew she was dead. I screamed and stumbled back. My legs just gave out from under me.”

  “I need to find out who she was,” Declan declared. “There’s got to be a way to find out who she was. Family member, servant, guest. If a young woman died violently in there, there’s a record somewhere.”

  “I can do some research.” Effie lowered the water and managed a smile. “That’s my job, after all.”

  “If there was a murder, it seems we’d have heard stories over the years.” Remy shook his head. “I never have. Honey, I’m going to take you home.”

  “I’m going to let you.” Effie reached out, touched Declan’s arm. “Come on with us. I don’t know if you should be staying here.”

  “I’ve got to stay. I want to stay.”

  Needed to stay, he thought when he was alone and the whooshing sound of his nail gun echoed through the dining room. He wasn’t just restoring the house, he was making it his own. If a murdered girl was part of it, then she was his, too.

  He wanted to know her name, to know her story. Where had she come from? Why had she died? Maybe he’d been meant to come here, to find those things out.

  If those images, those feelings, had driven others away, they were only locking him in.

  He could live with ghosts, Declan thought as he ran his hand over the side of his first completed cabinet. But he wouldn’t rest until he knew them.

  But when he finally called it a day and went to bed, he left the lights on.

  For the next few days, he was too busy to think about ghosts or sleepwalking, or even those nights out he’d promised himself. The electrician and plumber he’d hired were hard at work with their crews. The house was too full of noise and people for ghosts.

  Frank and Frankie, who were as alike as their names, with beefy shoulders and mud-colored hair, trudged around his gardens, made mouth noises that may have been approval or disgust. Little Frankie seemed to be the brains of the operation, and after an hour’s survey gave Declan a bid for clearing out underbrush and weeds. Though he wondered if they intended to retire on the profit from the job, Declan trusted Remy and hired them.

  They came armed with shovels, pickaxes and mile-long clippers. From the dining room where he worked on cabinets, Declan could hear the lazy rise and fall of their voices, the occasional thump and tumble.

  When he glanced out, he noticed that the tangle was disappearing.

  The plasterer Miss Odette sent him was a rail-thin black man whose name was Tibald, and his great-grandpappy, so Declan was told, once worked as a field hand for the Manets.

  They toured the house with Tibald scribbling in a tiny, dog-eared notepad. When they reached the ballroom, Tibald looked up at the ceiling with a dreamy expression.

  “I always think I’ve put a picture in my head that isn’t there,” he said. “Don’t think I’d ever get used to seeing this kind of work.”

  “You’ve been in here before.”

  “Have. The Rudickers took a bid for me on plasterwork. They’d be the people you bought the Hall from. They had big, fine ideas, the Rudickers. But they never did much about them. Anyhow, they were going to hire someone from Savannah. So I heard.”

  “Why?”

  Tibald just kept smiling at the ceiling. “They had those big, fine ideas, and didn’t see how locals could put a polish on them. Seems to me they figured the more money they spent, the higher the gloss. If you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I get it. The way I look at it, you hire local, you’re liable to get people who’re more invested in the job. Can you repair and duplicate this kind of work?”

  “I did the plasterwork in the Harvest House down on the River Road. I got pictures out in my truck, like a reference. You maybe want to take a look at them, maybe go on down to Harvest House and take a study. They give public tours and hold fancy events there now. Do some work in New Orleans, in Baton Rouge and Metairie. Can give you names.”

  “Let’s take a look at the pictures.”

  One look at the before and after shots of various cornices, walls, medallions, showed Declan his man was an artist. For form, he asked for a bid, and after promising to have one written up by the end of the week, Tibald offered his hand.

  “I admit, I’d love to get my hands on that ballroom.” Tibald glanced back over at the house. “You doing any work on the third floor?”

  “Eventually.”

  “Maybe you want to talk to my sister, Lucy. She cleans houses.”

  “I’m a long way from needing a housekeeper.”

  Tibald laughed, took out a pack of Big Red chewing gum. “No, sir, I don’t mean that kind of clean.” He offered Declan
a stick before taking one himself, folding it in half, and sliding it into his mouth. “Spirit clean. You got some strong spirits in that place.” He chewed contemplatively. “ ’Specially on the third floor.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Feel it breathing on my neck. Can’t you? When the Rudickers were working on the place, they lost two laborers. Those men just hightailed it out and kept on going. Never went back. Could be one of the reasons they looked farther afield for workers here.”

  Tibald shrugged, chewed his Big Red. “Could be the reason they never finished up those big, fine ideas.”

  “Do you know what happened on the third floor?”

  “Nope. Don’t know of anyone who does. Just know a few who wouldn’t go up there, no matter what you paid them. Any plasterwork needs doing on the third floor, you give my sister, Lucy, a call first.”

  They both turned at the sound of a car coming down the drive. “That’s Miss Lena’s car, and Miss Odette with her.” Tibald’s grin spread as the ancient MG stopped beside his truck.

  “Afternoon, ladies.” Tibald walked to the passenger’s side to open the door for Odette. “Where y’at?”

  “Oh, fine and well, Tibald. How’s that family of yours?”

  “Nothing to complain about.”

  Lena climbed out as Declan opened the door. Her jeans were intriguingly snug, worn with a shirt the color of polished turquoise. “My grandmama thought it was time to pay a call.” She scanned the drive, noted the number of pickups. “What did you do, cher? Hire yourself an army?”

  “Just a battalion.” She smelled of jasmine, he thought. She smelled of night. He had to concentrate on basic manners or swallow his gum. “Can I give you a tour?”

  “Mmm. We’ll get to it. Tibald, you say hey to Mazie for me, won’t you?”

  “I will. Gotta be on my way. I’ll get that bid to you, Mr. Fitzgerald.”

  “Declan. I’ll be looking for it. Miss Odette.” Declan took her hand as Tibald climbed into his truck. She wore a cotton dress the color of ripe squash, and a dark green sweater against the mid-winter chill. Today’s socks matched it.

  She smelled of lavender and jingled with her chains and bracelets. Everything about her relaxed him. “Welcome to Manet Hall. Such as it is.”