by Meg Hennessy
Simmering beneath the dark waters, lies love, secrets, and deception…
A love kindled behind two masks…
A wealthy woman of mixed blood, Aurélie Fentonot has few options for marriage, but she also carries a burden: she must break a curse placed on the land of her ancestors. She sells herself to an American planter to reclaim the land he stole, though he stirs a deep, burning passion that could too easily distract her. But her American has dark secrets that threaten her plans…and could shatter her heart.
A curse that demands their unmasking…
Jordan Kincaid must marry the Creole beauty or face arrest as a pirate before he completes his dire mission. Though he’ll risk everything for revenge, Aurèlie’s soothing and seductive ways remind him there’s more to life than vengeance. But he’s not as he pretends and when danger closes in on them, Jordan soon learns…neither is she.
Dark Secrets,
Deep Bayous
a Secrets of the Bayous novel
Meg Hennessy
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Stay up all night with the latest Entangled Select books… Rules of Protection
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Look for more tantalizing books from Entangled Select... A Shot of Red
Temporal Shift
One Night in Buenos Aires
A Lesson in Temptation
Mustang Sassy
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Meg Hennessy. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Select is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Erin Molta
Cover design by Heidi Stryker & Kerri-Leigh Grady
ISBN 978-1-62266-261-6
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition August 2014
As always, to my family, John, Tressa, Ryan, and Julian.
Thank you.
A special dedication to my father, Julius Netto, the “Old Salt” of the Gulf Waters. His history and sense of adventure while growing up on the Gulf Coast has oftentimes inspired my writing. I never sailed in my life, but my father, at the age of ninety-two, taught me enough to help Jordan and Aurèlie sail the open waters on a majestic tall ship.
To the Wisconsin Romance Writers and especially the Wednesday Night Brainstormers, who meet every week with laptops and coffee in hand, to support and encourage each other. Meeting with these dedicated writers, kept me on track. It was with their support and great ideas, I wrote, The Secrets of the Bayou.
Prologue
Louisiana Bayou, 1804
Boom…
Aurèlie gasped and sat up in bed the moment she heard the first strike of the drum. Her muslin gown stuck to the sweat of her body. She drew a raspy breath of courage and listened.
Boom…
“Stop,” she whispered as the sound penetrated her body. The night had become so suffocating she could not inhale. She stumbled from her bed, dragging in a deep breath of salt-laced air as the sound of drums continued from the shadows of the night.
Boom…boom…boom.
For nearly a week, every night at the stroke of midnight, she’d heard the hollow beats. They’d float atop the evening breeze from the dark bayous just beyond her home.
She opened the casement window and knelt down on the banquette, watching the shadows thicken around her house. All her life, she’d lived on the bayous and had heard every sound of the stirring swamp life at night…until the drums.
She pushed off the banquette, covering her ears, not wanting to hear them anymore.
“Stop,” she pleaded, “arrêt, s’il vous plaît.”
She braced herself, waiting for the images to invade her mind, pictures of something unknown, as they had every night since the start of the mysterious drums.
First she’d see a ship.
Aurèlie closed her eyes, straining to hear the voices of the sailors, knowing they’d always find a man floating in the water and pull him aboard. He was dressed in black breeches, a black but soaked overcoat, and waterlogged boots. His cravat had been stained with blood, and around his neck he wore a silver medallion.
“Oh my God,” the captain would always say, “do you know who this is?”
And that was it. The vision would end.
Slowly, Aurèlie rose to her feet, tucked her hair under her capote, pulled a cloak over her muslin frock, and then laced up her leather half boots. She pulled her crucifix off her bedside table and draped it around her neck.
Moonshine hung over the bayou, entangled within the heavy moss woven between the black willows and cypress trees covering the backyard. Aurèlie stepped outside and walked toward the shimmering waters and…the drums.
The bayous were at least two hundred feet from the house. From the side yard, a small, narrow chenier extended through the swamp, connecting to the land on the other side. The drums were in there…somewhere…buried within the gloom of the night.
Strangely drawn to the sound, she walked through tall marsh grass thickened around gum trees and thirsty cottonwoods until the ground felt boggy beneath her feet. She had stopped too close to the bayou’s edge, water seeped through the soles of her half boots and crept over her ankles, anchoring her feet to the swamp’s gooey floor.
She drew a sharp breath as the sleeping waters stirred to life. The drums came closer and closer. Their rhythm matching that of her pounding heart and the agitated water. She screamed, struggling to reach shore. The more she struggled, the more she sank deeper beneath the surface of the water.
BOOM…BOOM…BOOM.
Her muscles grew tired and tears filled her eyes. “Père! Mère! Help me!”
“Take my hand, child,” a man whispered from above her.
She looked up—startled. The drumming had stopped. The night fell silent and the water calmed. She focused on the silhouette standing on the edge of the marsh. He stretched his hand toward her.
“Pa…Papitte?” she whispered.
Her grandfather smiled. “You come
, child, take my hand.”
Aurèlie reached out and placed her small hand within the long strong fingers of her grandfather. With one yank, he had her on shore. Water streamed from her boots and nightdress, bringing on another shiver, but he seemed not to notice.
The drumming started again.
Aurèlie kept her hand well within her grandfather’s strong grip, frightened by the loneliness of the night. She walked alongside him, winding through the large oaks that grew atop the chenier, until they had crossed through the bayou to the neighboring land that had once been called Yellow Sun. Her grandfather had owned much land on that side of the bayou, but now it belonged to the American family, Kincaid, and had been renamed Liberty Oak. They stepped into a clearing surrounded by sugarcane. A small fire burned in the center.
“Papitte?” She glanced around them. “You are out here at night, why?”
“Because you are, little one. You hear the drums.” His dark face, tired and aged like sun-baked leather, reflected the light of his teeth when he smiled. Reaching down, he filled his hand with soil then turned her palm upward to catch the moist dirt as he sifted it through his fingers. “This land, Itcitem Tcaa, belongs to my people, the Chitimacha, your people. Upon the ninth night the land, and all who live here, will be cursed. But you, my child, will break the curse.”
“I cannot. I am of many people, Papitte, my blood, much mixed, n’est pas? I have Chitimacha blood, but I too have French, Haitian—”
“That’s why you have magic.”
He picked her up and carried her back along the chenier.
“And the man, who is the man, Papitte? I see a man pulled from the water and into a ship when the drums start. I save him, non?”
“I cannot say about the man in the water.” When her grandfather reached the edge of her yard, he lowered her to the ground. “Remember the land of your ancestors that you must save.”
His voice faded as he seemed to disappear into the night and she found herself standing alone in the darkness. “Papitte?”
Lights appeared near the house. The commotion caught her attention.
“Aurèlie!” her father called to her, his voice most urgent. “Where are you, ti fi?”
“I am here, Père, I am here!” She ran toward his voice until she was swooped up into her father’s strong arms, just where she had so longed to be when the sleeping waters had stirred to life.
“Ah…mon petit l’un, you are not to be outside at night, eh? Your clothes are all wet, what has happened to you?”
“I heard the drums beating, Père, but now I know why, oui?”
He drew a deep breath. “The drums again. Why…tell me…why do you hear them when no one else does?”
“It is the heartbeat of the land that belongs to our people. Your père’s people.” She uncoiled her fingers and showed her father the soil in her hand. “Papitte told me the message of the drums. He give me the land to take care of, because I hear them. The soul of the soil. It feels alive in my hand.”
“That is not possible.” Her father stopped and set her back on her feet before leaning down to match her height. “Aurèlie, you were dreaming, non? There are no drums…and there was no Papitte.”
“But he showed me—”
“Non, ti fi, you remember, Papitte died last year.”
Chapter One
New Orleans, 1815
Warm milk to a kitten, that was the plan, or so her parents had said, but one hour to go and still no…cat. Where was Jordan Kincaid?
Aurèlie Fentonot looked away from the clock above the door of the Théâtre de St-Philippe. The ball was close to an end and her cat in disguise, Jordan Kincaid, had not yet arrived. Perhaps the man—who claimed not to want a wife—had cleverly slipped through her parents well-set marriage trap.
She drew a deep breath, gently fanning her face, desperate for a cool breeze. In spite of the fall night, the air had been stifling hot. Her lungs felt tight and stiff, refusing to reach out to an uncertain future. Though it had been nearly eleven years since the night she had heard the drums, her destiny was still to reclaim Yellow Sun.
After two years of being educated in Paris, her recent return to Louisiana had been timed to coincide with the Bal De Cordon Bleu, an elegant dance held in New Orleans, where wealthy Creole families introduced their daughters to white male society.
Unlawful to marry a woman of mixed blood, the arrangements were referred to as a plaçage, but more distinctly, it was an expensive contract for services as a mistress. The financial advantages of merging Liberty Oak with her father’s plantation, Les Richesses du Bayou through a common heir were understood. Her family would gain politically as well, for Jordan Kincaid was a powerful man, a white man.
To Aurèlie, a plaçage with Jordan Kincaid provided the only way to reclaim what had been stolen—Yellow Sun. If her experience as a child had been nothing more than an old man whispering tales, she might have forgotten about it as she grew older. But she had heard the drums, had felt the heartbeat in her hand, and had often wondered about the curse. How did it affect the Kincaid family?
Aurèlie chewed on her lower lip, allowing her interest to migrate back to the lively ballroom, wondering about the absence of the American landowner. The smell of salty ocean waters weaved through the steamy night. Wall sconces and the overhead chandelier reflected off the highly polished floors and sprinkled a thin halo of light over the dancers.
A heavy scent of perfume wallowed in the damp air as prospective white protectors wooed the ladies of mixed blood. Draped in silks, jewels, and plumes, many of the women sipped wine and cordials while awaiting an invitation to dance, always under the watchful eye of their chaperone parents.
The men all wore masks for tonight’s October masquerade dance, but the women, wanting to be coy, carried theirs daintily on sticks and seductively secreted their eyes. Aurèlie’s mask was of black, trimmed in sparkling gemstones with golden bobbles hanging from both sides.
Her dress clung to her damp skin as she adjusted the capped sleeve of her emerald satin-wool gown. Her long black hair, drawn around her head and plaited with silk ribbons, had been decorated with pearls. On her bosom hung a dainty locket, a special locket, filled not with the hair of a loved one or a painting of one’s likeness, but with the speck of the soil entrusted to her care the night she had heard the drums.
“May I have this dance?” asked a thin American with reddish hair, cropped short and combed forward, in the latest fashion for men. Though his mask hid the remainder of his face, she recognized the American standing before her. He was a dreadful bore.
Aurèlie scanned the room to catch her mother’s eye for intervention but she was nowhere in sight. Neither was her father, who had been playing vingt-et-un most of the evening.
Her breath eased through her already strained lungs. With no other choice, Aurèlie nodded and gave her hand to the waiting gentleman. As she did, she caught sight of another man who stood across the room. He was a tall man in a black mask, who casually leaned against the wall. When he gave her a slight nod of acknowledgment, she sensed he had been watching her for a while.
He was dressed in a black tailcoat that accentuated the broad width of his shoulders and his well-fitted tawny breeches made him appear tall and slender. Light falling from the chandeliers reflected off his polished Hessian boots and highlighted his shoulder-length, honey-colored hair. His mask hid most of his face but his dark eyes settled on her with a light feathery touch. Her mouth parted slightly as she moistened her lips and breathed slowly through them.
Could he be…Jordan Kincaid?
She acknowledged the man’s obvious interest with a polite nod of her head before shifting her attention to her gentleman partner. The redhead took her hand as he paraded her to the floor to join the other quadrille dancers.
The music began.
She bowed to her partner, but her gaze migrated beyond his shoulder to the man who leaned against the wall watching her. He again nodded and though he wor
e a black mask, she felt his gaze.
In spite of knowing the steps by memory, she stumbled once and fell offbeat. Her partner reached out to steady her, but her gaze still hovered on the mysterious man in black.
Aurèlie’s partner swung her to his right, promenading to the eighth step. They dipped in unison and glided across the floor. Over the heads of the dancers, the man watched from the shadows of his dark mask. She became emboldened. Raising her fan to her lips, she tapped lightly. He gave her a nearly invisible nod, having caught the message that even shocked herself. You may kiss me.
Aurèlie closed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t been so forward and not able to explain why she had. Her flirtation had not gone unnoticed by her American partner. The moment the music ended, he snapped his heels, bowed, and vacated the floor, leaving her alone.
She turned and watched as the mysterious man in black pushed away from the wall and walked toward her until his dark eyes met hers beneath the dim light. Her breath hung to the back of her throat making her fingers tingle. The beat of her heart nearly vanished as she stood…waiting. Was he Jordan Kincaid?
“Mademoiselle.” He bowed low before her, placing a warm touch to her wrist. “Perhaps this time, you honor me with a dance, oui?”
He spoke perfect French, a rarity at this ball. Soft little sensations fluttered along her spine with the sound of his rich, accented voice. He could not be Jordan Kincaid. Her prospective husband was an American.
As a woman with French blood and education, she liked the idea of marrying a Frenchmen; it would be a more perfect match than an American planter. Though she had been prepared as the daughter of one of the richest Creole families in Louisiana to be the woman for whom she had been bred and educated, she couldn’t help the soft yearning of her heart to freely choose her own love.
The music again started with the orchestra playing an elegant dance, “Valse à Deux Temps.” The stranger’s warm touch melted around her arm. She nodded slightly to accept his invitation. “Oui, monsieur.”
Once on the dance floor, he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. A tight gasp caught in her throat but he ignored it. The moist heat of his skin melted into her gloved palm, igniting a hot spark that soaked deeper inside of her until her entire body felt flushed. Soft sounds of music floated around her like a magical spell.
