The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

  “I couldn’t risk it, couldn’t bear it. My baby, Pilar. My little boy with the loose shoelaces. When I went home, I got the gun out of the safe. It’s been there for years, I don’t know why I thought of it. Don’t know why I took it. It was like a veil over my mind. He had music on in the apartment, and a good bottle of wine. He sat and told me his financial troubles. Charmingly, as if we were old, dear friends. I don’t remember everything he said; I’m not even sure I heard him. He needed what he liked to call a loan. A quarter of a million this time. He’d be willing, of course, to take half by the end of the week, and give me another month for the rest. It wasn’t too much to ask, after all. He’d given me such a fine son.

  “I didn’t know the gun was in my hand. I didn’t know I’d used it until I saw the red against his white tuxedo shirt. He looked at me, so surprised, just a little annoyed. I could almost imagine him saying, ‘Damn, Helen, you’ve ruined my shirt.’ But he didn’t, of course. He didn’t say anything. I went home and tried to convince myself it had never happened. Never happened at all. I’ve carried the gun around with me ever since. Everywhere.”

  “You could have thrown it away,” Pilar said quietly.

  “How could I? What if one of you were arrested? I’d need it then to prove I’d done it myself. I couldn’t let him hurt my baby, or James. I thought it could be over. And now . . . I need to tell James and Linc first. I need to tell them before I talk to the police.”

  Cycles, Sophia thought. Sometimes, they needed to be stopped. “If you hadn’t used that gun to save my life tonight, you wouldn’t have to tell them anything.”

  “I love you,” Helen said simply.

  “I know it. And this is what happened here tonight. Just exactly what happened.” She took Helen by the shoulders. “Pay attention to me. You came back, saw Jerry holding me at gunpoint. He’d brought both guns with him—he’d intended to plant them in my room to implicate me. We’d struggled, and the other gun, the one that killed my father, was on the floor near the doorway. You picked it up, and you shot him before he shot me.”

  “Sophia.”

  “That’s what happened.” She took Helen’s hand, squeezed it. Took her mother’s. “Isn’t it, Mama?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what happened. You saved my child. Do you think I wouldn’t save yours?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You want to make it up to me?” Pilar demanded. “Then you’ll do this. I don’t care about what happened one night almost thirty years ago, but I care about what happened tonight. I care about what you’ve been to me most of my life. I’m not going to let someone I love be destroyed. Over what? Over money, over pride, over image? If you love me, if you want to make up for that mistake so long ago, you’ll do exactly what Sophie’s asking you to do. Tony was her father. Who has more right to decide than she?”

  “Jerry’s dead,” Sophia said. “He killed, threatened, destroyed, all because of one selfish act by my father. And it ends here. I’m going to go call the police. Someone should take a look at Rene.” She leaned forward, brushed her lips over Helen’s cheek. “Thank you. For the rest of my life.”

  Late, late into the night, Sophia sat in the kitchen sipping tea laced with brandy. She’d given her statement, had sat, her hand holding Helen’s, as Helen had given hers.

  Justice, she thought, didn’t always come as you expected. Helen had said that once. And here it was. Unexpected justice. It hadn’t hurt that Rene had been hysterical, had babbled to everyone, including Claremont and Maguire when they’d arrived, that Jerry was a madman, a murderer, and had forced her at gunpoint to come with him.

  Some snakes slithered through, Sophia supposed. Because life was a messy business.

  Now at last, the police were gone, the house was quiet. She looked up as her mother and grandmother came in. “Aunt Helen?”

  “She’s finally sleeping.” Pilar went to the cupboard, got two more cups. “We’ve talked. She’ll be all right. She’s going to resign her judgeship. I suppose she needs to.” Pilar set the cups on the table. “I’ve told Mama everything, Sophia. I felt she had a right to know.”

  “Nonna.” Sophia reached for her hand. “Did I do the right thing?”

  “You did the loving thing. That often matters more. It was brave of you, Sophia. Brave of both of you. It makes me proud.” She sat down, sighed. “Helen took a life, and gave one back. That closes the circle. We won’t speak of it again. Tomorrow my daughter’s getting married, and we’ll have joy in this house again. Soon, the harvest—the bounty. And another season ends. The next is yours,” she said to Sophia. “Yours and Tyler’s. Your life, your legacies. Eli and I are retiring the first of the year.”

  “Nonna.”

  “Torches are meant to be passed. Take what I give you.”

  The faint irritation in her grandmother’s voice made her smile. “I will. Thank you, Nonna.”

  “Now, it’s late. The bride needs her sleep, and so do I.” She got to her feet, leaving her tea untouched. “Your young man went back to the winery. You don’t need so much sleep.”

  True enough, Sophia thought as she raced across the grounds toward the winery. She had so much energy, so much life inside her, she didn’t think she’d ever need to sleep again.

  He’d set up lights, and the old building hulked under them. She could see the sparkle of broken glass from the windows, the smears from smoke, the chars from flame. But still, it stood.

  It withstood.

  Perhaps he sensed her. She liked to think so. He stepped out of the broken doorway as she ran up. And he caught her, held her close and tight and inches off the ground.

  “There you are, Sophia. I figured you needed a little time with your mother, then I was coming to get you.”

  “I got you first. Hold on, okay? Just keep holding on.”

  “You can count on it.” Even as he did, the ice skimmed through his belly again. He pressed his face to her hair. “God. God. When I think—”

  “Don’t think. Don’t,” she said and turned her mouth to his.

  “I’m not going to be able to let you out of my sight for the next, oh, ten or fifteen years.”

  “Right now that suits me fine. You all alone here?”

  “Yeah. David needed to get the kids home, and I sent Granddad back before he keeled over. He was exhausted. James was still pretty shaken, so Linc took him back to my place since your mom’s with Helen.”

  “Good. Everything’s as it should be.” She rested her head on his shoulder, looked toward the winery. “It could have been worse.”

  He eased her back, touched his lips gently to the bruise on her cheek. “It could have been a hell of a lot worse.”

  “You should’ve seen the other guy.”

  He managed a strangled laugh as he held her tight again. “That’s a little sick.”

  “Maybe, but it’s the way I feel. He died with my mark on his face, and I’m glad of it. I’m glad I caused him some pain. And now I can put it away. All of it. Lock it away and everything starts now. Everything, Ty,” she said. “We’ll rebuild the winery, rebuild our lives. And make them ours. Giambelli-MacMillan is going to come back, bigger and better than ever. That’s what I want.”

  “That’s handy, because that’s what I want, too. Let’s go home, Sophie.”

  She tucked her hand in his and walked away from the damage and the scars. The first hints of dawn lightened the sky in the east. When the sun broke through, she thought, it was going to be a beautiful beginning.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Midnight Bayou

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2001 by Nora Roberts

  This book may not be reproduce
d in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ISBN: 1-101-14654-0

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books first published by The Jove Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: MARCH, 2004

  For Leslie Gelbman,

  a woman who understands

  the value of time

  God stands winding His lonely horn,

  And time and the world are ever in flight;

  And love is less kind than the gray twilight,

  And hope is less dear than the dew of the morn.

  William Butler Yeats

  Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  Prologue

  Death, with all its cruel beauty, lived in the bayou. Its shadows ran deep. Cloaked by them, a whisper in the marsh grass or rushes, in the tangled trap of the kudzu, meant life, or fresh death. Its breath was thick and green, and its eyes gleamed yellow in the dark.

  Silent as a snake, its river swam a sinuous line—black water under a fat white moon where the cypress knees broke the surface like bones piercing skin.

  Through the dark, moon-dappled water, the long, knobby length of an alligator carved with barely a ripple. Like a secret, its threat was silent. When it struck, its tail whipping a triumphant slice through the water, when it clamped the unwary muskrat in its killing jaws, the bayou echoed with a single short scream.

  And the gator sank deep to the muddy bottom with its prey.

  Others had known the cruel, silent depths of that river. Knew, even in the vicious summer heat, it was cold, cold.

  Vast with secrets, the bayou was never quite still. In the night, under a high hunter’s moon, death was busy. Mosquitoes, voracious vampires of the swamp, whined in a jubilant cloud of greed. Players of the marsh music, they blended with the buzzes, hums and drips that were punctuated by the shocked squeals of the hunted.

  In the high limbs of a live oak, shadowed by moss and leaves, an owl hooted its two mournful notes. Alerted, a marsh rabbit ran for his life.

  A breeze stirred the air, then was gone, like the single sigh of a ghost.

  The owl swooped from its perch with a swift spread of wings.

  Near the river, while the owl dived and the rabbit died, an old gray house with a swaying dock slept in shadows. Beyond, rising over a long, lush spread of grass, a great white manor stood watchful in the moonlight.

  Between them, teeming with life, vigorous with death, the bayou laid its line.

  1

  Manet Hall, Louisiana

  December 30, 1899

  The baby was crying. Abigail heard it in dreams, the soft, unsettled whimper, the stirring of tiny limbs under soft blankets. She felt the first pangs of hunger, a yearning in the belly, almost as if the child were still inside her. Her milk came down before she was fully awake.

  She rose quickly and without fuss. It gave her such pleasure—that overfull sensation in her breasts, the tenderness of them. The purpose of them. Her baby needed and she would provide.

  She crossed to the recamier, lifted the white robe draped over its back. She drew in the scent of the hothouse lilies—her favorite—spearing out of a crystal vase that had been a wedding present.

  Before Lucian, she’d been content to tuck wildflowers into bottles.

  If Lucian had been home, he would have woken as well. Though she would have smiled, have stroked a hand over his silky blond hair as she told him to stay, to sleep, he would have wandered up to the nursery before she’d finished Marie Rose’s midnight feeding.

  She missed him—another ache in the belly. But as she slipped into her night wrapper, she remembered he would be back the next day. She would start watching for him in the morning, waiting to see him come galloping down the allée of oaks.

  No matter what anyone thought or said, she would run out to meet him. Her heart would leap, oh, it always leaped, when he sprang down from his horse and lifted her off her feet into his arms.

  And at the New Year’s ball, they would dance.

  She hummed to herself as she lit a candle, shielding it with her hand as she moved to the bedroom door, out into the corridor of the great house where she had once been servant and was now, well, if not daughter of the house at least the wife of its son.

  The nursery was on the third floor of the family wing. That was a battle she’d fought with Lucian’s mother, and lost. Josephine Manet had definite rules about behavior, domestic arrangements, traditions. Madame Josephine, Abigail thought as she moved quickly and quietly past the other bedroom doors, had definite ideas on everything. Certainly that a three-month-old baby belonged in the nursery, under the care of a nursemaid, and not in a cradle tucked into the corner of her parents’ bedroom.

  Candlelight flickered and flew against the walls as Abigail climbed the narrowing stairs. At least she’d managed to keep Marie Rose with her for six weeks. And had used the cradle that was part of her own family’s traditions. It had been carved by her grand-père. Her own mother had slept in it, then had tucked Abigail in it seventeen years later.

  Marie Rose had spent her first nights in that old cradle, a tiny angel with her doting and nervous parents close at hand.

  Her daughter would respect her father’s family and their ways. But Abigail was determined that her child would also respect her mother’s family, and learn their ways.

  Josephine had complained about the baby, about the homemade cradle, so constantly that she and Lucian had given in. It was, Lucian said, the way water wears at rock. It never ceases, so the rock gives way or wears down.

  The baby spent her nights in the nursery now, in the crib made in France, where Manet babies had slept for a century.

  It was a proper if not cozy arrangement, Abby comforted herself. Her petite Rose was a Manet. She would be a lady.

  And as Madame Josephine had pointed out, again and again, other members of the household were not to have their sleep disturbed by fretful cries. However such matters were done in the bayou, here in Manet Hall, children were tended in the nursery.

  How her lips curled when she said it. Bayou—as if it were a word to be spoken only in brothels and bars.

  It didn’t matter that Madame Josephine hated her, that Monsieur Henri ignored her. It didn’t matter that Julian looked at her the way no man should look at his brother’s wife.

  Lucian loved her.

  Nor did it matter that Marie Rose slept in the nursery. Whether they were separated by a floor or a continent, she felt Marie Rose’s needs as she felt her own. The bond was so strong, so true, it could never be broken.

  Madame Josephine may win battles, but Abigail knew she herself had won the war. She had Lucian and Marie Rose.

  There were candles glowing in the nursery. Claudine, the nursemaid, didn’t trust the gaslight. She already held Marie Rose and was trying to quiet her with a sugar tit, but the baby’s fists were shaking, little balls of rage.

  “Such a temper she has.” Abigail set the candle down and was laughing as she crossed the room, her arms already
outstretched.

  “Knows what she wants, and when she wants it.” Claudine, a pretty Cajun with sleepy dark eyes, gave the baby a quick cuddle, then passed her off. “She hardly made a fuss yet. Don’t know how you hear her way off downstairs.”

  “I hear her in my heart. There now, bébé. Maman’s here.”

  “Diaper’s wet.”

  “I’ll change her.” Abigail rubbed her cheek on the baby’s and smiled. Claudine was a friend—a battle won. Having her established in the nursery, in the household, gave Abigail comfort and the companionship none of Lucian’s family would offer her.

  “Go on back to bed. Once she’s nursed, she’ll sleep till morning.”

  “Good as gold, she is.” Claudine brushed fingertips over Marie Rose’s curly hair. “If you don’t need me, maybe I’ll take a walk down to the river. Jasper, he’s gonna be there.” Her dark eyes lit. “I told him maybe, if I can get away, I come down around midnight.”

  “You oughta make that boy marry you, chère.”

  “Oh, I’m gonna. Maybe I run down for an hour or two, if you don’t mind, Abby.”

  “I don’t mind, but you be careful you don’t catch nothing more than some crawfish. Anything more,” she corrected as she prepared to change Marie Rose’s soiled linen.

  “Don’t you worry. I’ll be back before two.” She started out through the connecting door and glanced back. “Abby? You ever think, when we were kids, that you’d be mistress of this house one day?”

  “I’m not mistress here.” She tickled the baby’s toes and had Marie Rose gurgling. “And the one who is’ll probably live to a hundred and ten off of spite just to make sure I never am.”

  “If anybody could, it’d be that one. But you will be, one day. You fell into the luck, Abby, and it looks real fine on you.”