by Sharon Wray
That was the last night he’d spent with both of his parents.
She traced his ear with her finger. “Do you hear that?”
It came in slowly. A Zydeco waltz wafted through the woods. The vegetation thickened until Rafe turned onto a bush road and, fifty yards down, parked near the river. “Everything changes. Except for Boudreaux’s.”
She reached for her door handle.
“Wait.” He came around to open her door. The heat slammed into him, and the spicy scent of Cajun food made his stomach growl.
“You can take off your coat,” she said softly. “It’s too hot.”
“Are you sure?”
At her nod, he chucked it in the back seat, took her hand, and led her to the cooking shack with shutters painted blue to keep away the local haints, a.k.a. the Isle’s restless spirits. He gently pushed her against the siding, his hands landing on either side of her bare shoulders. He needed to breathe in her scent. “It’s my turn to apologize.”
She held his face in her hands. “What for?”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “For everything.”
“Rafe?” She swallowed. “Are you asking for forgiveness?”
“Forgiveness is a gift I don’t deserve.” Their eyelashes caught. “I need you to know…” He tickled her jawline with his lips. “There are so many things I can’t tell, so many things I regret, but there’s never been a moment when I haven’t loved you.”
“Rafe.” Her voice came out scattered, like it had been drawn through a sieve. “Please.”
Her rapid breath pushed her breasts up and down, each time rising higher. His hands moved to her rib cage, his thumbs cupping her breasts. “I love you. If we lived a thousand years in a thousand lives, I would find you and love you and make you mine.”
She stared up at him, and for the first time there was no anger, bitterness, or wariness in her eyes. Just raw, anguished pain. But beneath the pain, there was something else—a smoldering he remembered. An awakened desire.
His thumbs made small circles along the fuller curves. She leaned into him. His lips slanted over hers. His world exploded with images of her straddling him, beneath him, in the shower. Every memory he had of her left him blind, deaf, and breathless. Her lips softened, and he held her head at the perfect angle. He pressed his hard body against her smaller curves, making sure she knew how she affected him.
But since he was trying to change from the monster he’d once been back into the honorable man he’d always wanted to be, he broke the kiss. “Let’s find Sarah and Nate.”
Rafe had been surprised to learn Nate was coming with Sarah but relieved when Nate explained he was keeping the curious historian off Capel land.
Juliet touched her swollen lips and took Rafe’s outstretched hand. His body ached, and sweat beaded his brow. He focused on his environment.
People sat at picnic tables lined with brown paper, and a band played near the wooden dance floor beneath overhanging oak trees. Lights were draped from tree to tree. He was drowning in memories. Holding her against his chest. His hand on her lower back. His breath in her ear, whispering things husbands asked of wives.
Before Rafe lost his mind, Tommy came out of the shack. Juliet stiffened, and Rafe’s hand settled on her shoulder. Tommy wore a white apron over jeans and a white T. Only on the Isle would the head cook of an outdoor gumbo hut also work as the deputy sheriff.
“What are you two doing here?” Tommy met them, wiping his hands on the apron. The bruises on his jaw and around his eye were purple and swollen. They were lucky Tommy didn’t throw Rafe out on his ass.
“Meeting friends,” Rafe said, “not from the Isle.”
“Hopefully they won’t get lost.” Tommy scanned the surrounding tables, and Rafe noticed what Tommy noticed. Three Toban brothers and their sons were at a table near the largest oak tree. All ex-Navy. Next table over sat six distant cousins on his mother’s side—the Marigny men his father despised—all ex-Army. The table on the left side of the dance floor held Grady Mercer and four of his nephews. All ex-Marines.
An AWOL ex-Green Beret imprisoned for desertion and treason might not be welcome. “How about that table near the tree line?” It was away from the men and heavily shaded.
“Great,” Tommy said. “There’s soda and beer in the coolers and sweet tea in the dispensers.” Coolers lined the dance floor, and a nearby table held a sports dispenser and red Solo cups. “Grab some drinks, and I’ll send over a bucket of boiled shrimp.”
The band was on break, and murmurs swept through the area.
Juliet poured two teas. “Are they talking about me or you?”
“Probably me.” Rafe took a sip, and the sweetness hurt his teeth. He’d forgotten how sweet sweet could be. “Although I hear whispers about dead bodies and ghosts.”
She sat at their table, and he followed. “I can’t wait to sell my land.”
Tommy appeared with a stack of napkins, and the Cajun band geared up with “Iko Iko.”
Rafe pointed to the security cameras in the trees. “Having trouble?”
“Teenage stuff.” Tommy wiped his hands again. “It’s been dicey since my daddy died.”
“Juliet told me. I’m sorry.”
“Times are changin’. The younger ones don’t want to come to the woods to drink and dance where there’s no Wi-Fi.” Tommy nodded to a couple near the cooking shack clutching a copy of Off the Beaten Path. “Whatta ya know. Tourists. Excuse me.”
The band started a creole waltz, and Rafe dragged her up. “Let’s give the locals a reason to chatter.”
* * *
Rafe swung Juliet around before bringing her close. And she let him. Although he didn’t flaunt his arousal, he didn’t hide it either. After each swing, her dress flowed, and her hips brushed his.
It’d been so long since they’d danced. She’d forgotten how he’d take the lead so she could close her eyes and float through the muggy air tinged with Cajun spices. The waltz felt weightless and sensual, every third beat her rubbing against his body. Since his return, her emotions had been blowing around like dandelion seeds. Fears about trusting him, loving him, losing him fought intense desire and yearning. She was sixteen again with no idea what to do with it all.
He whispered against her hair, “This was our wedding waltz.”
She remembered. They’d come here after the church ceremony and danced until they left for their one-night honeymoon in Charleston. He spun her again, but on this return, he wrapped an arm around her waist and kept her close. The dance became a sway, and a flush rose up until her cheeks felt hot.
“The day you graduated high school I told your daddy I was going to marry you.”
She checked out his wide, laughter-free eyes. “You did not.” Did he?
He nodded. “I decided the night of your senior prom.”
“I didn’t go to my prom.” She couldn’t afford a dress and didn’t have a date.
He frowned, as if hurt. “We danced to the whippoorwills under the full moon.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “You climbed my balcony and convinced me to come with you.”
“You wore a white dress.”
A worn sundress, threadbare and thin. “You stole a canoe.”
He’d paddled her to the back meadow. With a blanket and a basket of food, they sat on the dock eating PB&J sandwiches, lemonade, and his momma’s brownies.
He kissed her head. “We danced in the grass until the full moon turned in.”
She moaned. “That was the night I fell in love with you.”
His body stiffened, and then shifted back into the weightless movement she was still getting used to. “Nate and Sarah are here.”
Juliet pulled away and wiped her damp hands on her skirt. Sarah and Nate poured themselves iced teas before they headed over, every man in the p
lace watching.
Juliet went to the table, and Rafe’s hand rested on her lower back. Like he’d always done. Like he couldn’t help himself.
Sarah held out her hand and introduced herself. “I’m Dr. Sarah Munro.”
Juliet shook Sarah’s hand and smiled back. The pretty historian had long brown hair in a high ponytail and wore a long blue chiffon skirt, white camisole, and white Keds sneakers. She placed her straw bag on the table and blew a stray hair out of her face. Sarah wasn’t at all how Juliet had pictured her. Sarah seemed more like a kindergarten school teacher than a PhD historian with the Smithsonian.
But the most interesting thing about Sarah? Nate hadn’t taken his gaze off her since arriving.
“I’m glad you two found the place,” Juliet said.
Sarah grinned. “I’ve always wanted to come to Boudreaux’s. And I’m glad Nate offered to bring me. I never would’ve found it on my own.”
Nate glanced at Juliet. “Thanks for sending me detailed directions. This place defines the middle of nowhere.”
Juliet smiled. “Yes, it does.”
Rafe laughed. “And the people of the Isle like it that way.”
Once they sat, Sarah started. “I spoke with the Habersham sisters yesterday. They mentioned you wanted to talk about your lily?”
Juliet sipped her tea. “You heard about Miss Beatrice?”
“I did.” Sarah clasped her iced tea. “I’m so sorry. I hope they find who did it.”
“I hope so too.” After filling Sarah in on some of the details of their search, Juliet ended with, “Rafe and I need to know more about the lily and Anne Capel.”
A waitress dropped off two baskets each of fried shrimp and fried oysters.
“First of all,” Sarah said, and peeked at Nate, “my specialty is early colonial American history. What I know about the lily and Anne Capel I’ve learned from diaries and journals from that time period. Primary sources, but without public records it’s still hearsay.”
“It’s more than we have now.” Rafe handed Sarah the phone photos. “We saw these windows at Capel Manor.”
Sarah wiped her hands on a napkin and scrolled. “Wow. These are…disturbing.”
“Very,” Juliet said. “Any idea what they mean?”
“This first one?” Sarah pointed to the image of the woman handing a lily to a man. “The man is Alexander Capel. The woman is his wife, Countess Violetta Priuli. It’s 1583 in Verona, Italy, and the flower she’s holding isn’t a real lily. It’s a hybrid Glorious Lily and White Hellebore.”
Juliet coughed on her tea. “It would be extremely poisonous.”
“It was.” Sarah ate a shrimp and wiped her hands on a napkin. “Sixteenth-century Italy was known for STDs and poisons. The Priuli family created your ‘lily’ to treat syphilis, but it quickly became known as a tasteless and odorless poison that could be mixed with water or food.
“Unfortunately, the poison was easier to make than the cure, and the Doge stepped in. Anyone caught growing the flower, making the poison, or using it was executed. When the Priuli family was charged with cultivating the lily, the family fled Italy.”
Rafe squinted at the photo. “How did this lily end up on the Isle of Grace?”
“Alexander Capel was an Englishman who owned property in Charleston. By 1633, he and his wife’s family were ensconced there. Since Alexander was a noble, the Capels were included in the highest social circles. The Priuli family, still carrying the stigma from the Veronese scandal, changed their name to Prideaux. But it wasn’t enough to hide what the family had done in Verona. While the Capels rose, the Prideauxs, unable to overcome their family’s past, became pirates.
“By 1637, both the Capel and Prideaux families were settled on the Isle of Grace and the Isle of Hope. Then Countess Violetta made a trip home to Verona and, unbeknownst to her husband, returned with lily bulbs.”
“Why?” Juliet asked.
“This story comes from second- and thirdhand sources, but from what I can piece together, Violetta was upset over her birth family’s inability to rise up Charleston’s social ladder. Her family was descended from Italian royalty, yet in the New World, the Prideauxs were reduced to common thieves. She wanted her Prideaux family to succeed in their new career as pirates and take down the very society who’d refused them.” Sarah paused to sip her iced tea and steal another look at Nate.
And Nate looked back. “Violetta wanted revenge?”
“Yes.” Sarah wiped her lips with a napkin. “Alexander owned land from Charleston down to Savannah. After a few false tries, Violetta—a renowned herbalist—discovered that the poisonous lily loved the high level of phosphates in the soil on the Isle of Grace. She encouraged Alexander to settle down here and, being a man who’d always preferred adventure to civilized life, he agreed to move to the wilderness.”
“Why bring the lily back to life?” Rafe downed his tea and started popping shrimp. “Weren’t there easier ways to seek revenge?”
Juliet took a few shrimp, but her stomach revolted.
Sarah glanced at Nate for the millionth time, and Juliet hid her smile behind her cup. “Because,” Sarah said softly, “Juliet’s lily could be weaponized.”
When Rafe and Nate exchanged a holy shit look, Juliet took Rafe’s hand. He returned her squeeze.
“It’s a matter of leverage,” Sarah said. “The Prideaux pirates would poison someone and demand ransom. If the family paid, they were given the antidote. If not, the victim died.”
“That’s awful.” Juliet flinched. “No wonder the Prideaux pirates became so rich and powerful.”
“Exactly.” Sarah took some oysters and ate them one by one. “After Alexander and Violetta died, their son, Theodore Capel, married Eliza Prideaux. Eliza died giving birth to Anne Capel. Theodore raised Anne, and together they grew the lily and supplied the Prideaux pirates with the poison and antidote.
“It wasn’t uncommon for the people of the Isles to put a black flag with a white lily in their window to tell the raiding pirates they were loyal to the Prideaux family. But after Anne and other families on the Isle became Puritans, things changed. She convinced her father that what they were doing was evil. Before Theodore died, he applied for King’s Grants for his land on the Isle of Grace and requested a stipulation that a woman could own the land. He wanted the land grants to protect his daughter. King Charles agreed but added another stipulation that the lily never be cultivated on the Isle.”
Rafe handed Juliet a napkin filled with oysters. “So that’s one of the Grants stipulations?”
“I haven’t seen them,” Sarah said, “but I believe so.”
Nate took more napkins from the passing waitress and handed them out. “I bet the Prideaux family wasn’t happy about it.”
“They weren’t. But by then they were so feared that the threat of the poison was enough. The real problem was Anne. In the seventeenth century, scattered Puritans, Native Americans of the Guale tribe, and wild animals occupied the Isles of Grace and Hope. There was little community, and settlers made their own peace with the natives.
“After Theodore’s death, Anne—now a devout Puritan ashamed of her part in providing poison to the pirates—retreated from society and learned natural healing arts from the Guale women. She never married, but in 1677 she had an affair with Isaiah Montfort and got pregnant. It was a huge scandal, and Isaiah’s brother, Josiah, was jealous.
“Then an epidemic arrived. Anne searched for a cure, but when children died, she suspected her lily was the cause and parsed the stipulation of the King’s Grants. Since cultivation means to ‘grow or raise under controlled circumstances,’ she decided that didn’t include wild lilies. And the lily reappeared on Capel land.”
“Why?” Nate touched Sarah’s hand. “Anne knew it was poisonous.”
Sarah withdrew her hand to take another sip of tea. Juliet
couldn’t help but notice Sarah’s hand shook and that she watched Nate from beneath her long lashes.
“The lily was both the poison and the antidote,” Sarah said. “Anne believed someone was using the lily to cause the malady afflicting the children. Therefore, she could cure it with the antidote derived from the same flower. But the children died and were buried in the Cemetery of Lost Children. Then the settlers turned against Anne.
“After Josiah burned her house and killed Isaiah, Anne disappeared into Capel land, only seeing those brave enough to find her. Capel land has always been the backdrop for violence.”
Juliet smiled at Rafe. “Another reason to sell.”
Rafe ignored her and swiped the manor’s photos again. “What about these other windows?”
“I’m not sure. Although…” Sarah scrolled to the last one. “See this inscription? I’ve seen that before, in a diary I was translating.”
Worked into the bottom of the stained glass were the words: Sinn ag loighe ar in lucht romhainn, lucht oile orainn san úaigh.
“It’s Old Irish,” Sarah said.
“We rest on those who came before us and others will rest on us in the grave,” Rafe said in a hushed voice with a hint of reverence.
Nate stared hard at Rafe while Sarah said, “You’re right. It’s an obscure text used by a cult of ancient Celtic warriors known as the Fianna.”
Nate stood. “I’ll be right back.”
Once Nate left for the restroom, Rafe snagged Juliet’s hand and put it on his upper thigh. She felt the vibrations of his foot tapping beneath the table.
“Sarah, in your research,” Rafe asked, “did you find references to a vial Anne owned?”
“Not directly.” Sarah held up the photo of Anne with the two men. “After those children died, Anne never allowed the lily to be grown on her property. She went to great lengths to eradicate any wild plants. And there’s one story I can’t corroborate, but it’s about a deal Anne made with someone to help prevent the lily from ever being used again for nefarious purposes.”
“She’s handing them two vials,” Juliet said.
“Before Anne eradicated the lily, she made one last dose of the poison and the antidote and hid them for safekeeping. Since you never know if or when a disease will pop up again, you keep the chemical compounds to make more antidotes.”