Midnight Bayou

by Nora Roberts

  but she brooked no nonsense. They would say I ran off with another man. They would let the gossip spread that my baby was a bastard, fawned off on you as your own. She told Julian how it would be as they put the bricks over me, as they tied the cloak around me with rope, as they pushed me into the bayou.”

  He looked back at her. “You believed them.”

  “No.” Lena was weeping now. For him, for Abigail, for herself, for Lucian. “No.”

  “Not at first. You feared for me. You searched for me. You wept for me. I tried to reach you, but you wouldn’t let me in. You wouldn’t let me in because some part of you already believed their lies. I loved you. With all my heart, my soul, my body. I died for you.”

  “I couldn’t stop what happened to you. I wasn’t here to stop it.”

  “No, you weren’t here that night. And you were never really here again. Not for me, and not for our child. You broke your promise to me, the solemn vow you made to me in that bed the night she was born. More than death, that is what doomed us.”

  “How did I break my promise?”

  “You promised to love our child, to care for her always. I was always true to you, Lucian. You have to know.”

  “I do know.” She closed her hand over the watch in her pocket and felt the weight, the grief, the sorrow.

  “How could you leave her alone? How could you turn from her? You were all she had. You swore to me.”

  “I don’t know. I was weak. I wasn’t as brave or as true as you. Maybe . . . I think maybe you were the making of me, and when you were gone, I had nothing to hold me straight.”

  “You had Marie Rose.”

  “Perhaps I loved you too much, and her not enough. Forgive me. Forgive me for what I did, for what I didn’t do. I can’t go back and change it.” She drew out the watch, held it face up in her palm. “No matter how often time stops, it’s too late. If I could, I would never leave you. I’d take you and the baby away. I’d do anything to stop what happened to you.”

  “I loved you. And my heart ached every minute since they took me from you. Ached with grief, then with hope, and then with sorrow. You chose death, Lucian, rather than life. Still you choose loneliness rather than love. How can I forgive, when you can’t? Until you do, they’ve won, and the house that should’ve been ours still holds them. None of us will ever be free, until you choose.”

  He turned, opened the gallery doors and walked outside.

  The door slamming at her back made her jolt. It was, Lena thought, like a rude laugh aimed at someone else’s misery. Ignoring it, she stepped outside, took a deep breath.

  “Declan.”

  He was leaning on the baluster, staring out at the first hints of dawn. “Yeah. I’m trying to figure out if I need an exorcist, a psychiatrist, or if I should cash in and see about starring in a remake of The Three Faces of Eve.”

  He rolled his shoulders, as if trying to shrug off an irritating weight. “I think I’ll settle for a Bloody Mary.”

  Cautious, she stepped up behind him. “I’ll make us both one,” she began, and started to lay her hand on his back. He sidestepped, evading her touch, and left her standing there with her hand suspended.

  “I don’t need to be petted and stroked. Still a little raw here. Comes from getting raped and murdered, I guess.” Jamming his hands in his pockets, he strode down the steps.

  She waited a moment, struggling for balance, then walked down to join him in the kitchen. “Let me make them. I’m the professional.”

  “I can make my own goddamn drink.”

  It stung when he snatched the bottle of vodka out of her hand. Stung like a slap. “All right then, make your own goddamn drink. While you’re at it, you oughta think about living your own goddamn life.”

  She spun away, and when he grabbed her arm, she lashed out with her own slap. When her hand cracked across his cheek, the clock began to strike again, and the doors to slam.

  Cold settled gleefully into the bone.

  “You ever been raped?”

  She yanked her arm free. “No.”

  “Probably haven’t been strangled to death, either?” Forgoing the niceties, he took a long drink straight from the bottle. “Let me give you a clue. It tends to put you in a really foul mood.”

  Temper drained out of her. “Don’t drink like that, cher. You’ll only get sick.”

  “I’m already sick. I need a shower.”

  “Go on and take one. You’ll feel better for it. I’m going to make some tea. Just let me do this,” she snapped out before he could argue. “Maybe it’ll settle us both down some.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” He stomped up the stairs.

  She sat for a moment, just sat because her legs were still shaking. Then she took the watch out of her pocket, studied the face. The second hand ticked around and around. But the time never went beyond midnight.

  Putting it away again, she rose to brew the tea.

  She carried it up, along with the tidy triangles of toast. The sickbed meal her grandmother had made for her in childhood. He was sitting on the side of the bed, wearing a tattered pair of sweatpants. His hair was still wet. His skin was reddened from vicious scrubbing. She set the tray beside him.

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “No.” When she poured a mug of tea, he took it, tried to warm his hands. Despite the blasting heat of the shower, he still felt chilled.

  “I didn’t just see it, or remember it. I felt it. The fear, the pain, the violation. The humiliation. And more—like that isn’t bad enough—part of me was still me. That part, the big, tough guy part, was helpless, just helpless watching a terrified woman be raped and strangled. I can’t explain it.”

  “You don’t have to. I felt some of it. Not as strong, not as clear as you, but . . . When you looked at me, when she was looking at me out of your eyes, I felt such grief, such regret. Such guilt. Drink your tea now, sweetheart.”

  He lifted the mug obediently. “It’s good. Pretty sweet.”

  “Sweet tea and toast. It’s good for you.” She crawled onto the bed behind him, knelt and began to knead at his shoulders. “She was stronger than he was. It’s not his fault so much. He was raised weak. But he loved her, Declan. I know that without a doubt. Even without knowing the terrible thing that happened to her, he blamed himself. For not being with her, not giving her enough of himself.”

  “He deserted the child.”

  There was such finality in his voice. “He did. Yes, he did,” Lena replied. “And though it was wrong of him, wrong to take his own life and leave their baby an orphan, she had a better life because of it. She was surrounded by people who loved her, who valued the memory of her mother. She would never have had that life here, in the Hall.”

  “She was entitled to it. He should have seen to it.”

  She laid her cheek on the top of his head. “You can’t forgive him.”

  “I can’t understand him.”

  “No, a man like you wouldn’t understand a man like him. Maybe I do, maybe I understand a man who’d run off with a woman rather than stand up to his parents. One who’d bring her back into a house full of resentment and shadows instead of making them a home. One who’d fall apart enough to drown himself rather than live with the hurt and raise his own child with the love and compassion that had been denied him. He wanted to be more than he was. With her, he would have been.

  “You shouldn’t despise him, Declan. You should pity him.”

  “Maybe. It’s hard. I’ve still got a lot of her despair inside me.” Abigail’s, he thought, and a good portion of his own.

  “Can you rest?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why don’t you try? I need to go change.” She slid off the bed, then lifted the tray and set it aside. “Try to sleep awhile. I won’t be long.”

  He didn’t try to stop her. It was probably best to be alone. He lay back, stared at the ceiling as the first birds began to sing.

  Abigail had been broken, he thought. B
ody and heart.

  He was feeling pretty much the same himself.

  He must have dozed, for when he opened his eyes the sun was up. Still early, he decided, but the General and her troop of whirlwinds would be coming along shortly to storm through his house with mops and brooms and God knew.

  Maybe the place needed to be cleaned up, shaken out. It was still his. He wasn’t giving it up. Whatever had happened, whatever shared it with him, he wasn’t giving it up.

  And by Christ, he wasn’t giving Lena up, either.

  He sat up, scowling, and saw her sitting in the chair across the room. She wore jeans, a plain white T-shirt. There were three small bouquets lying in her lap.

  “You up for a little drive?” she asked him.

  “I guess.”

  “Put a shirt on, and some shoes.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  She drove, and he kept the flowers in his lap now.

  “I want to take flowers to her. To Marie Rose.” As her ancestor, Lena thought, as her father. “I thought you might like to visit there, too.”

  He said nothing.

  “Grandmama told me,” Lena continued, “how Marie Rose used to go to the cemetery once a year on her birthday. She’d bring him flowers. This morning, when I went over to change my clothes, she told me where we’d find his crypt, and we picked these from the marsh. I want to take flowers to Lucian, too.”

  He picked one clutch up. “Your symbol of pity?”

  “If that’s the best we can do.”

  “And the others?”

  “Marie Rose took them to her mother, once a year as well. A part of her must’ve known. She went to the river, every year on her birthday, and dropped flowers in the water. Grandmama told me where.”

  She drove smoothly, a little fast, then slowed to turn into the cemetery. “I know you’re still angry with him, and with me. If you don’t want to do this, you can wait in the car. I won’t blame you.”

  “Why are you doing it?”

  “He’s part of me. Through blood, and more. If I can find a way to accept who birthed me, if I can live with that, then I can find a way to accept this. To live with it.”

  She stopped the car, took two of the bouquets. “It’s a little walk from here. It shouldn’t take me long.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  He got out, but didn’t—as she’d grown used to—reach for her hand. They wound their way over the paths between the tombs, the ornate grilles, the marble angels and through shadows thrown by crosses.

  She stopped at one of the raised tombs. There were many, simple and unadorned. Her grandfather rested here, and others who were parts and pieces of her. But today she had come only for one.

  Her hands gripped tight on the flowers. Marie Rose, she read. Blood of my blood, heart of my heart.

  “Grandmama, she told me Marie Rose was a happy woman, she had a good life. She was content with it. That might not be enough to make up for what was done, but if it had been done different . . . Well, I don’t see how I’d be standing here with you this morning.”

  She started to lay the flowers, and Declan closed his hand over hers on the stems. They placed them on the grave—the baby, the girl, the old woman, together.

  “He’s a ways from here,” Lena managed. Her voice was thick, her vision blurry as she turned away.

  They walked through the sunlight, through the shadows of the tombs, in silence.

  The Manet crypt was a towering square, its porticoes carved, its doors thick and studded. Topping it was a fierce angel, holding a harp as a soldier might a shield.

  “Cheerful,” Declan commented. “I’d say none of them went gently into that good night.” He glanced around, saw the plain concrete box on a raised slab. The plaque read: LUCIAN EDUARD MANET. 1877–1900.

  “He’s out here?”

  “He wasn’t to be forgiven,” Lena explained. “Not for his marriage, his child, his embarrassing death. They called it accidental drowning, though everyone knew it was suicide. But though Josephine wouldn’t have him in the family crypt, she wanted him buried on consecrated ground. Otherwise, there would have been yet another scandal.”

  Declan looked back at the crypt. “Bitch.”

  “He had no grandparents, as I did, to love him. To soften the blows. He had a twin brother who loathed him simply because he existed. He had money and position, education and privilege. But no love. Until Abigail. Then they took her from him.”

  She laid the flowers for him. “He did the best he could. It just wasn’t enough.”

  “You’re stronger than he ever was. Smarter, more resilient.”

  “I hope so. And I hope he rests soon. The flowers won’t last long in this sun, but . . . Well, you do what you can.”

  She walked away without another word. Declan lingered a moment more, staring at the plaque, then the flowers. Then he went with his impulse, took a single flower out of the bouquet, and laid it on top of the tomb.

  Lena put her sunglasses on because her eyes were tearing. “That was kind.”

  “Well, you do what you can.” This time, he took her hand.

  They didn’t speak on the drive back. Nor did Rufus or Odette come out of the house when Lena parked in front of it. He remained silent as she led the way through the marsh. Silent, as he remembered the way in the night, with the chill in the air, the flitting moonlight, the call of an owl. And the panting breaths of a killer and his accomplice.

  “Do you want to go back? You’re awfully pale.”

  “No.” Sweat ran down his back despite the cold under his skin. “I need to do this.”

  “It’s not much farther.”

  There were marsh flowers springing up along the edges of the narrow, beaten path. He concentrated on them, on the color, the small beauty. But when she stopped on the bank, he was out of breath and dizzy.

  “It was here. Right here.”

  “I know. Marie Rose came here, to this spot. Her heart knew.” This time she handed him the bouquet and drew a single flower out.

  Declan let the flowers fall into the river, watched the color, the small beauty, float on the brown water. “Not everybody can put flowers on his own grave.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.” She knelt, tossed the flower where it would drift alone. She groped for Declan’s hand. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

  “Don’t.” He drew her to her feet, into his arms. “It’s all right.”

  “He didn’t trust enough. I didn’t. Too much grief and not enough faith. Then, now.”

  “There’s been enough grieving. Then, now.” He tipped up her face. And said what he’d realized was inside him—inside Abigail—at the moment they’d taken flowers to Marie Rose. “I forgive you.”

  “You’re more forgiving than she was.”

  “Maybe. Maybe that’s why we keep going around. Gives us a chance to fix things we screwed up.”

  “Or make the same mistakes again. I’ve got something else to give you. But not here. Back at the Hall. It’s the right place to give it to you.”

  “Okay.” He kissed her hand. “We’re okay.”

  “I think we’re getting there. I’d like to walk back, get my bearings.”

  “Good idea.”

  “There’s something I’d like to ask you to do,” she said as they took the path again. “I’d like to put up three markers, maybe near the pond. One for Lucian, one for Abby and one for Marie Rose. I think it’s time they were together.”

  “I think they are together now.” Or nearly, he thought. Very nearly, because there was a lightness in his heart he hadn’t expected to feel again. “But the markers would be a nice memory. We’ll pick out a spot, put them in. Then we’ll plant something there, together.”

  She nodded. “A willow maybe.”

  “Like the one she liked so much.” He nodded. “Sometimes you put things back the way they were, sometimes you change them. W
e’ll do both. Then when our kids come along, we can have picnics near