by Nora Roberts
“Then where is she?” The rage that lived under the numbness of his grief leaped out. He gripped Claudine’s arms, hauled her to her toes. Part of him, some dark, secret part, wanted to pound his fists into her face. Erase it for its connection to Abigail, and his own drowning despair. “Where is she?”
“Dead!” She shouted it, and her voice rang in the warm, sticky air. “They killed her. Death is the only way she would leave you and Rosie.”
He shoved her aside, staggered away to lean against the trunk of a live oak. “That’s just another madness.”
“I tell you I know it. I feel it. I’ve had dreams.”
“So did I.” Tears stung his eyes, turned the light watery. “So did I have dreams.”
“Lucian, you must listen. I was there that night. She came to the nursery to tend the baby. I’ve known Abby since we were babies ourselves. There was nothing in her but love for you and Marie Rose. I should never have left the Hall that night.” Claudine crossed her hands over her breast, as if to hold together the two halves of her broken heart. “The rest of my life I’ll beg her forgiveness for not being there.”
“She took clothes, jewelry. My mother is right.” He firmed his lips on what he believed was an act of strength, but was only his weakened faith. “I have to accept.”
“Your mama hated Abby. She kicked me out the next day. She’s afraid to keep me in the house, afraid I might find out—”
He whirled around, his face so contorted with fury, Claudine stepped away. “You want me to believe my mother somehow killed my wife, then disguised the crime, the sin, the horror, by making it appear Abby ran away?”
“I don’t know what happened. But I know Abby didn’t leave. Mama Rouse, she went to Evangeline.”
Lucian waved a hand, turned away again. “Voodoo nonsense.”
“Evangeline’s got power. She said there was blood, and pain, and fear. And a dark, dark sin. Death, she said, and a watery grave. She said you got two halves, and one is black as a cave in hell.”
“I killed her then? I came home in the night and murdered my wife?”
“Two halves, Lucian, that shared one womb. Look to your brother.”
The chill stabbed through him, bringing a raw sickness to the belly, a vile roaring in his head. “I won’t listen to any more of this. Go home, Claudine. Keep away from the Hall.”
He dug into his pocket, took out the watch pin, pressed it into Claudine’s hand. “Take this, keep it for the child.” He could no longer call her by name. “She should have something that was her mother’s.”
He stared down, grieving, at the symbol in her hand. Time had stopped for Abigail.
“You kill her again by not believing in her.”
“Stay away from me.” He staggered away, toward Manet Hall, toward his chosen hell. “Stay away.”
“You know!” Claudine shouted after him. “You know she was true.”
Clutching the watch to her breast, Claudine vowed to pass it, and the truth, along to Abigail’s daughter.
Manet Hall
February 2002
From his gallery, Declan watched the day come to life. Dawn was a rosy blush on the eastern sky, with hints of mauve, like sleepy bruises, just beneath. The air was warming. He could feel the rise of it almost every day. It wasn’t yet March, but winter was bowing out.
The gardens that a month before had been a sorrowful wreck showed hints of their former grandeur. Strangling vines, invasive weeds, deadwood and broken bricks had been hauled away, revealing foot by foot the wandering paths, the shrubs, even the bulbs and plants that had been too stubborn to die away.
An old iron arbor was wild with what the Franks told him was wisteria, and there was an island of massive azaleas that showed the beginning of hopeful buds.
He had magnolia, crape myrtle, camellia, jasmine. He’d written down everything he could remember the Franks reeled off in their lazy voices. When he’d described the vine he imagined on the corner columns, they’d told him what he wanted was morning glory.
He liked the sound of it. Mornings here were full of glory.
He thought his body was adjusting to the five or six hours of disturbed sleep a night he was able to snatch. Or maybe it was just nervous energy that was fueling him.
Something was pushing him, driving him step by step through the transformation of the house that was his. Yet somehow, not only his.
If it was Abigail hovering, she was a damn fickle female. There were times he felt utterly comfortable, totally at peace. And others when cold fear prickled the back of his neck. Times when he felt in his gut he was being watched.
Stalked.
Well, that was a woman for you, he thought as he sipped his morning coffee. All smiles one minute, and slaps the next.
Even as he thought it, he saw Lena and the big black dog step out of the trees.
He didn’t think twice, but set his coffee aside and started for the gallery steps.
She’d seen him long before he’d seen her. From the shelter of the trees and morning mists, she’d stood, idly rubbing Rufus’s head, and had studied the house. Studied him.
What was it about the place and the man that pulled at her so? she wondered. There were any number of great old houses here, along the River Road, on toward Baton Rouge.
God knew there were any number of good-looking men, if a woman was in the market for one.
But it was this house that had always snagged her interest and imagination. Now it seemed it was this man, jogging down the thick stone stairs in a ratty shirt, rattier jeans, his face rough with the night’s beard, who had managed to do the same.
She didn’t like to want. It got in the way of things. And when that want involved a man, well, it was just bound to mess up your life.
She’d built her life brick by goddamn brick. And she liked it, just as it was. A man, no matter how amiable he was, would, at best, alter the design. At worst, he’d send those bricks tumbling down to ruin.
She’d kept away from him since the night she’d taken him into her bed. Just to prove she could.
But she had a smile ready for him now, a slow, cat-at-the-mouse-hole smile, and stood her ground as the dog raced over, tearing through the ground fog, to meet him.
Rufus leaped, slopped his tongue over Declan’s face, then collapsed, belly up, for a rub.
It was, Lena knew, Rufus’s way of showing unconditional love.
Charms dogs, too, she thought as Declan crouched down to rub and wrestle. The man had entirely too much appeal for anybody’s good. Especially hers.
“Rufus!” she called out, bringing the dog to his feet in a flurry of muscle and limbs that nearly put Declan on his ass. And laughing, she tossed the ball she carried high in the air, nipped it handily on its fall. Rufus charged her, a blur of black fur and enthusiasm. She hurled the ball over the pond. Rufus sailed up, over the water, and nabbed the ball with his teeth seconds before his massive splash.
“The Bo Sox could use you two.” As the dog paddled his way to shore, Declan strode up, cupped his hands under Lena’s elbows, and lifted her off her feet. He had an instant to see her blink in surprise before he covered her mouth with his, and took her under.
She gripped his shirt, not for balance, though her feet were dangling several inches off the ground. But because he was under it, all that muscle and heat and man.
She heard the dog bark, three deep throaty rumbles, then the water he shook off himself drenched her. She wouldn’t have been surprised if it had steamed off her skin.
“Morning,” Declan said and dropped her back on her feet. “Where y’at?”
“Woo.” She had to give him credit for both greetings, and pushed a hand through her hair. “Where y’at?” she responded, then reached up and rubbed a hand over his rough cheek. “Need a shave, cher.”
“If I’d known you’d come walking my way this morning, I’d have taken care of that.”
“I wasn’t walking your way.” She picked up the ball Rufus had d
ropped at her feet and sent it, and the dog, flying again. “Just playing with my grandmama’s dog.”
“Is she all right? You said you stayed over with her when she wasn’t feeling well.”
“She gets the blues sometimes, is all.” And damn it, damn it, his instant and genuine concern touched her. “Missing her Pete. She was seventeen when they got married, and fifty-eight when he died. More’n forty years is a long time to mesh lives.”
“Would she like it if I went by later?”
“She likes your company.” Because Rufus was thumping his tail impatiently, she winged the ball again.
“You said she has a sister. Any other family?”
“Two sisters, a brother, all still living.”
“Children?”
Her face shut down. “I’m all she’s got there. You been into town for any of the partying?”
Off limits, he decided. He let it go, for the moment. “Not yet. I figured I’d go in tonight. Are you working?”
“Nothing but work till Ash Wednesday. People do like to drink before Lent comes.”
“Late hours for you. You look a little tired.”
“I don’t much care for being up this early, but Grandmama, she’s an early bird. She’s up, everybody’s up.” She lifted her arms high, stretched. “You’re an early bird yourself, aren’t you, cher?”
“These days. Why don’t you come back to the house with me, have some coffee, see what I’ve been doing with my time since I haven’t been able to spend any with you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“So you said.”
Her brows knit, forming a long, shallow line of annoyance between them. “I say what I mean.”
“I didn’t say different. But I’m making you edgy. I don’t mind that, Lena.” He reached out to tug on her hair, amused and delighted to see temper darken her face. “But I would mind if you think I’d settle for one night with you.”
“I sleep with you if I want, when I want.”
“And I’d mind,” he continued mildly, though the hand that gripped her arm before she could spin away was very firm. “I’d mind a great deal if you think all I want is to get you in the sheets.”
“Men don’t touch me unless I tell them they can touch me.” She shoved at his hand.
“You’ve never dealt with me before, have you?” There was steel in his fingers, in his tone. “Just simmer down. Picking a fight isn’t going to shake me loose, either. You wanted to keep your distance this week, okay. I’m a patient man, Lena, but I’m not a doormat. Don’t think you’re going to walk over me on your way out the door.”
Anger, she realized, wasn’t the way to handle him. She had no doubt she could scrape away at that control and stir him up into a good shouting match of a fight. It would be interesting, even entertaining. But she had a fifty-fifty chance of losing it.
She didn’t care for the odds.
Instead, she stroked a hand over his cheek. “Aw now, cher.” Her voice was liquid silk. “What you getting so het up about? You got me irritable, that’s all. I’m not at my best so early in the day, and here you being all tough and surly. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek.
“What do you mean to do, Angelina?”
There was something about the way he used her whole name that put her back up. A kind of warning. “Now, Declan honey, I like you. I truly do. And the other night, why, you just about swept me off my feet. We had ourselves a real good time, too, didn’t we? But you don’t want to be making more out of it than it was.”
“What was it?”
She lifted her shoulders. “A very satisfying interlude, for both of us. Why don’t we leave it at that and be friends again?”
“We could. Or, we could try it this way.”
He yanked her to him, dragged her up to her toes. And plundered her mouth. No patience this time, no reason, no dreamy mating of lips. It was a branding, and they both knew it.
Rufus gave a warning growl as she struggled. Even when the growl turned to a snarl, Declan ignored it. He fisted a hand in her hair, pulled her head back, and took them both deeper. Temper, hurt and hunger all stormed inside him and flavored the kiss.
She couldn’t resist it. Not when the punch of emotions slammed into her system, liberating needs she’d hoped to lock down. On a muffled oath, she wrapped her arms around his neck and met the ferocity of the kiss.
With a whine, Rufus settled down to chew at the ball.
“We’re not done with each other.” Declan ran proprietary hands down her arms.
“Maybe not.”
“I’ll come in tonight, take you home after you close. Wednesday, after things quiet down, I’d like you to come out here. We’ll have dinner.”
She managed to smile. “You cooking?”
He grinned, touched his lips to her brow. “I’ll surprise you.”
“You usually do,” she retorted when he walked away.
She was irritated with herself. Not just for losing a battle, but for cowardice. It was cowardice that had pushed her to start the fight in the first place.
She trudged through the marsh while Rufus raced into the trees, through the thick green undergrowth in hopes of scaring up a rabbit or a squirrel.
She stopped at the curve of what had been known as far back as memory stretched as Bayou Rouse. This mysterious place with its slow-moving, shadowy water, its cypress bones and thick scents, was as much her world as the crooked streets and lively pace of the Quarter.
She’d run in this world as a child, learned the difference between a wren and a sparrow, how to avoid a copperhead nest by its cucumber whiff, how to drop a line and pull up a catfish for supper.
It was the home of her blood, as the Quarter had become the home of her ambition. She didn’t come back to it only when her grandmother was feeling blue, but when she herself was.
She caught a glimpse of the knobby snout of an alligator sliding by. It was, she thought, what was under the surface that could take you down, one quick, ugly snap, if you weren’t alert and didn’t keep your wits about you.
There was a great deal under the surface of Declan Fitzgerald. She’d have preferred if he’d been some spoiled, rich trust-fund baby out on a lark. She could’ve enjoyed him, and dismissed him when they were both bored.
It was a great deal more difficult to dismiss what you respected. She admired his strength, his purpose, his humor. As a friend, he would give her a great deal of pleasure.
As a lover, he worried the hell out of her.
He wanted too much. She could already feel him sucking her in. And it scared her, scared her that she didn’t seem able to stop the process.
Toying with the key around her neck, she started back toward the bayou house. It would run its course, she told herself. Things always did.
She pasted on a smile as she neared the house and saw her grandmother, shaded by an old straw hat, fussing in her kitchen garden.
“I smell bread baking,” Lena called out.
“Brown bread. Got a loaf in there you can take home with you.”
Odette straightened, pressed a hand lightly to the small of her back. “Got an extra you could take on by the Hall for that boy. He doesn’t eat right.”
“He’s healthy enough.”
“Healthy enough to want a bite outta you.” She bent back to her work, her sturdy work boots planted firm. “He try to take one this morning? You’ve got that look about you.”
Lena walked over, dropped down on the step beside the garden patch. “What look is that?”
“The look a woman gets when a man’s had his hands on her and didn’t finish the job.”
“I know how to finish the job myself, if that’s the only problem.”
With a snorting laugh, Odette broke off a sprig of rosemary. She pinched at its needle leaves, waved it under her nose for the simple pleasure of its scent. “Why scratch an itch if someone’ll scratch it for you? I may be close to lo
oking seventy in the eye, but I know when I see a man who’s willing and able.”
“Sex doesn’t run my life, Grandmama.”
“No, but it sure would make it more enjoyable.” She straightened again. “You’re not Lilibeth, ’t poulette.”
The use of the childhood endearment—little chicken—made Lena smile. “I know it.”
“Not being her doesn’t mean you have to be alone if you find somebody who lights the right spark in you.”
She took the rosemary Odette offered, brushed it against her cheek. “I don’t think he’s looking for a spark. I think he’s looking for a whole damn bonfire.” She leaned back on her elbows, shook back her hair. “I’ve lived this long without getting burned, and I’m going to keep right on.”
“It always was right or left for you. Couldn’t drive you to middle ground with a whip. You’re my baby, even if you are a grown woman, so I’ll say this: Nothing wrong with a woman walking alone, as long as it’s for the right reasons. Being afraid she might trip, that’s a wrong one.”
“What happens if I let myself fall for him?” Lena demanded. “Then he has enough of swamp water and trots on back to Boston? Or he just has his fill of dancing with me and finds himself another partner?”
Odette pushed her hat back on the crown of her head, and her face was alive with exasperation. “What happens if it rains a flood and washes us into the Mississippi? Pity sakes, Lena, you can’t think that way. It’ll dry you up.”
“I was doing fine before he came along, and I’ll do fine after he goes.” Feeling sulky, she reached down to pet Rufus when he butted his head against her knee. “That house over there, Grandmama, that house he’s so set on bringing back, it’s a symbol of what happens when two people don’t belong in the same place. I’m her blood, and I know.”
“You don’t know.” Odette tipped back Lena’s chin. “If they hadn’t loved, if Abby Rouse and Lucian Manet hadn’t loved and made a child together, you and I wouldn’t be here.”
“If they’d been meant, she wouldn’t have died the way she did. She wouldn’t be a ghost in that house.”
“Oh chère.” Both the exasperation and all the affection colored Odette’s voice. “It isn’t Abby Rouse who haunts that place.”