Midnight Bayou

by Nora Roberts

  but with what I’m paying them, I’d as soon they stick with the counters.”

  “Pinching pennies now? And you with all those big tubs of money.”

  “You don’t keep big tubs of money if you let yourself get hosed. Besides, this way I’d get to keep you here and look at you a little while longer.”

  “That’s clever.” And the fact was, she wanted to stay, wanted to be with him. “All right, I’ll help you with your rug before I go. Where is it?”

  “Next parlor.” He gestured to the connecting doors. “I’ve got most of what I’ve bought so far stuffed in here. I’m working in the library next, so I can clean out what goes in the front parlor and in there before I start on this one.”

  Lena moved to the pocket doors he opened, then just goggled. Aladdin’s cave, she thought, outfitted by a very rich madman with very eclectic taste. Tables, sofas, carpets, lamps, and what her grandmother would call doodads were spread everywhere.

  “God Almighty, Declan, when did you get all this?”

  “A little here, a little there. I tell myself no, but I don’t listen. Anyway”—he began to pick his way through the narrow aisles his purchases formed—“it’s a big house. It needs lots of . . . stuff. I thought about sticking with the era when the house was originally built. Then I decided I’d get bored. I like to mix things up.”

  She spotted a brass hippo on what she tagged as a Hepplewhite side table. “Mission accomplished.”

  “Look at this lamp.” He ran his fingers over the shade of a Tiffany that exploded with gem colors. “I’ve got a weakness for lamps.”

  “Cher, looking ’round here, I’d say you’ve got a weakness for every damn thing.”

  “I sure have one for you. Here’s the rug.” He patted the long, rolled carpet leaning against the wall. “I think we can drag it, snake it through. I should’ve put it closer to the door, but I wasn’t sure where I was going to use it when I bought it. Now I am.”

  Between them, they managed to slide it to the floor, then with Declan walking bent over and backward, they wove it around the islands of furniture. He had to stop once to move a sofa, again to shove a table aside.

  “You know,” Lena said as they both went down on their knees, panting a little, in the parlor, “in a couple months you’re going to be rolling this up again. Nobody leaves rugs down through the summer around here. Too damn hot.”

  “I’ll worry about that in June.”

  She sat back on her heels, patted his cheek. “Cher, you’re going to start thinking summer before April’s over. Okay.” She pushed up her sleeves, put her palms on the roll. “Ready?”

  On their hands and knees, they bumped along, pushing the carpet, revealing the pattern. She could catch only glimpses of the colors and texture, but it was enough to see why he wanted it here.

  The greens of leaves were soft, like the walls, and blended with faded pink cabbage roses against a deeper green background. Once it was unrolled, she got to her feet to study the effect while he fussed with squaring it up.

  “You bought yourself a rose garden, Declan. I can almost smell them.”

  “Great, huh? Really works in here. I’m going to use the two American Empire sofas, and I think the Biedermeier table. Start with those, then see.” He looked up at the ceiling medallion. “I saw this great chandelier—blown glass, very Dale Chihuly. I should’ve bought it.”

  “Why don’t we see how your sofas do first?”

  “Hmm? Oh, they’re heavy, I’ll get Remy to give me a hand with them later. He’s supposed to come by.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  She merely shot him a look and started back into his makeshift storeroom.

  They’d just set the second one in place, she’d only stepped back to ponder the arrangement, when she heard the baby crying.

  She glanced over at Declan, but he seemed lost in thought.

  “Did one of your counter men bring a baby with him?” she asked, and Declan closed his eyes, sank down on the sofa.

  “You hear it? Nobody else hears it. The doors slamming, yeah. And water running when there’s nobody in the room to turn on the taps. But nobody hears the baby.”

  A chill whipped up her back, had her glancing uneasily toward the hallway. “Where is it?”

  “The nursery, mostly. Sometimes in the bedroom on the second floor. Abigail’s room. But usually the nursery. It stops when I get to the door. Remy’s been here twice when it started. He didn’t hear it. But you do.”

  “I have to see. I can’t stand hearing a baby crying that way.” She walked into the foyer, started up the stairs. And it stopped.

  For an instant, it seemed the whole house hushed. Then she heard the clamor from the kitchen, the stream of music from a radio, the hum of men’s voices as they worked.

  “That’s so strange.” She stood on the staircase, one hand on the banister. And her heart thumping. “I was thinking, I wanted to pick up the baby. People say you need to let babies cry, but I don’t know why they should. I was thinking that, and she stopped crying.”

  “It’s weird, isn’t it, that you were thinking about picking up your great-great-grandmother? It’s Marie Rose,” he said when Lena turned on the stairs to look down at him. “I’m sure of it. Maybe you can hear her because you’re blood. I guess I can because I own the house. I have a call in to the previous owners. I wanted to ask them, but they haven’t gotten back to me.”

  “They may not tell you.”

  “Well, they can’t tell me if I don’t ask. Does it scare you?”

  She looked up the stairs again and asked herself the same question. “I guess it should, but no, it doesn’t. It’s fascinating. I think—” She broke off as a door slammed upstairs. “Well, no baby did that.” So saying, she ran upstairs.

  “Lena.” But she was already rounding the curve to the landing and gave him no choice but to bolt after her.

  Marching down the hall, she flung doors open. As she reached Abigail’s room, the cold swept in. The shock of it had her breath huffing out. Mesmerized by the vapor it caused, she wrapped her arms tightly over her chest.

  “This isn’t like the baby,” she whispered.

  “No. It’s angry.” When he laid his hands on her shoulders to warm her, to draw her away, the door slammed in their faces.

  She jumped—she couldn’t help it. And heard the nerves in her own strangled laugh. “Not very hospitable, this ghost of yours.”

  “That’s the first time I’ve seen it.” There was a hard lump at the base of his throat. His heart, Declan thought as he took two steadying breaths. “Whoever it is—was—is seriously pissed off.”

  “It’s Abigail’s room. We Cajuns can have fierce tempers if we’re riled.”

  “It just doesn’t feel like a girl’s anger. Not that pretty young thing in the photograph downstairs.”

  “A lot you know about girls then, cher.”

  “Excuse me, I have a sister, and she can be mean as a scalded cat. I meant it feels more . . . full-blown. More vicious.”

  “Somebody killed me and buried my body in some unmarked grave, I’d be feeling pretty vicious.” Lena made herself reach out, grip the icy knob. “It won’t turn.”

  Declan laid his hand over hers. The cold swept out again; the knob turned easily. And when they opened the door, there was only an empty room, full of sunlight and shadows.

  “It’s a little scary, isn’t it?” But she stepped over the threshold.

  “Yeah, a little bit.”

  “You know what I think, cher?”

  “What?”

  “I think that anybody who stays in the house alone, night after night, who goes out and buys rugs and tables and lamps for it . . .” She turned around and slid her arms around his waist. “I think a man who does that has big steel balls.”

  “Yeah?” Reading invitation, he lowered his head and kissed her. “I could probably carve out another twenty minutes for that sex
now.”

  She laughed and gave him a hard hug. “Sorry, sugar. I’ve got to get on back. Saturday night’s coming on. But if you happened to be in the neighborhood, say, at three, four in the morning, I think I could stay awake long enough to . . .” She cupped her hand between his legs and stroked over denim. “Stay awake long enough to give those big, steel balls a workout.”

  He managed not to whimper, but it was a close call. “Wednesday,” he told her. “When you’re clear.”

  She still had her hand between his legs, could feel the hard line of him. “Wednesday?”

  “When you’re clear.” But he did crush his mouth to hers to give her some taste of what he was feeling. “Come out here. We’ll have dinner. And stay.” He backed her against the wall. Used his teeth on her. “Stay the night. I want you in my bed. Wednesday. Tell me you’ll come out and be with me.”

  “All right.” She wiggled free. Another few minutes of that, she thought, they wouldn’t wait till Wednesday and she’d have him right here on the floor. “I have to get back. I shouldn’t have stayed so long.”

  She looked up and down the hall as she stepped out of the room. “I don’t believe I’ve ever spent the night in a haunted house. What time should I come by?”

  “Early.”

  “I might do that, too. You don’t need to see me to the door, cher.” She sent him a wicked grin. “Walking’s got to be a little bit of a problem for you, shape you’re in just now. You come on into the bar if you change your mind.”

  She laid a fingertip on her lips, kissed it, then pointed it at him like a gun before she walked away.

  It was an apt gesture, Declan thought. There were times a look from her was as lethal as a bullet.

  All he had to do was hold out until Wednesday, then he could get shot again.

  12

  Rain moved in Saturday night and camped out like a squatter through the rest of the weekend. It kept Declan inside, and kept him alone. With Blind Lemon Jackson playing on his stereo, he started preliminary work on the library.

  He built a fire as much for cheer as warmth, then found himself sitting on the hearth, running a finger over the chipped tile. Maybe he’d leave it as it was. Not everything should be perfect. Accidents should be accepted, and the character of them absorbed.

  He wanted to bring the house to life again, but did he want to put it back exactly the way it had been? He’d already changed things, and the changes made it his.

  If he had the tile replaced, was he honoring the history of the Hall, or re-creating it?

  It hadn’t been a happy home.

  The thought ran through him like a chill, though his back was to the snapping fire.

  A cold, cold house, full of secrets and anger and envy.

  Death.

  She wanted a book. Reading was a delight to her—a slow and brilliant delight. The sight of the library, with row after row after row of books, made her think of the room as reverently as she did church.

  Now, with Lucian closeted with his father in the study going over the business of land and crops, and the rain drumming against the windows, she could indulge herself in a quiet afternoon of reading.

  She wasn’t quite accustomed to the time to do as she pleased and so slipped into the room as if it were a guilty pleasure. She no longer had linens to fold, tables to dust, dishes to carry.

  She was no longer a servant in this place, but a wife.

  Wife. She hugged the word to her. It was still so new, so shiny. As the life growing inside her was new. So new, she had yet to tell Lucian.

  Her curse was late, and it was never late. She’d awakened ill three days running. But she would wait, another week. To speak of it too soon might make it untrue.

  And oh, she wanted a child. How she wanted to give Lucian a child. She laid a hand on her belly as she wandered along the shelves and imagined the beautiful son or daughter she would bring into the world.

  And perhaps, just perhaps, a child would soften Lucian’s mother. Perhaps a child would bring joy into the house as the hope for one brought joy to her heart.

  She selected Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The title, she thought, spoke to her. Manet Hall had so much of both. She bit her lip as she flipped through the pages. She was a slow, painstaking reader, but Lucian said that only meant she savored the words.

  Stumbled over them, she thought, but she was getting better. Pleased with herself, she turned and saw Julian slouched in one of the wine-colored chairs, a snifter in his hand, a bottle by his elbow.

  Watching her.

  He frightened her. Repulsed her. But she reminded herself she was no longer a servant. She was his brother’s wife, and should try to be friends.

  “Hello, Julian. I didn’t see you.”

  He lifted the bottle, poured more brandy into his glass. “That book,” he said, then drank deep, “has words of more than one syllable.”

  “I can read.” Her spine went arrow-straight. “I like to read.”

  “What else do you like, chère?”

  Her fingers tightened on the book when he rose, then relaxed again when he strolled to the fireplace, rested a boot on the hearth, an elbow on the mantel.

  “I’m learning to ride. Lucian’s teaching me. I’m not very good yet, but I like it.” Oh, she wanted to be friends with him. The house deserved warmth and laughter, and love.

  He laughed, and she heard the brandy in it. “I bet you ride. I bet you ride a man into a sweat. You may work those innocent eyes on my brother—he’s always been a fool. But I know what you are, and what you’re after.”

  “I’m your brother’s wife.” There had to be a way to take the first step beyond this hate. For Lucian, for the child growing inside her, she took it, and walked toward Julian. “I only want him to be happy. I make him happy. You’re his blood, Julian. His twin. It isn’t right that we should be at odds this way. I want to try to be your sister. Your friend.”

  He knocked back the rest of the brandy. “Want to be my friend, do you?”

  “Yes, for Lucian’s sake, we should—”

  “How friendly are you?” He lunged toward her, grabbed her breasts painfully.

  The shock of it froze her. The insult flashed through the shock with a burning heat. Her hand cracked across his cheek with enough force to send him staggering back.

  “Bastard! Animal! Put your hands on me again, I’ll kill you. I’m Lucian’s. I’m your brother’s wife.”

  “My brother’s whore!” he shouted as she ran for the door. “Cajun slut, I’ll see you dead before you take what’s mine by rights.”

  Raging, he shoved away from the mantel. The heavy silver candlestick tumbled off, smashed against the edge of the tile, snapped off the corner.

  Declan hadn’t moved. When he came back to himself he was still sitting on the hearth, his back to the snapping fire. The rain was still beating on the ground, streaming down the windows.

  As it had been, he thought, during the . . . vision? Fugue? Hallucination?

  He pressed the heel of his hand between his eyes, where the headache speared like a spike into his skull.

  Maybe he didn’t have ghosts, he thought. Maybe he had a goddamn fucking brain tumor. It would make more sense. Anything would make more sense.

  Slamming doors, cold spots, even sleepwalking were by-products of the house he could live with. But he’d seen those people, inside his head. Heard them there—the words, the tone. More, much more disturbing, he’d felt them.

  His legs were weak, nearly gave way under him as he got to his feet. He had to grip the mantel, his fingers vising on so that he wondered the marble didn’t snap.

  If something was wrong with him, physically, mentally, he had to deal with it. Fitzgeralds didn’t bury their heads in the sand when things got tough.

  Figuring he was as steady as he was going to get, he went into the kitchen to hunt up aspirin. Which, he decided as he shook out four, was going to be like trying to piss out a forest fire. But he