by Nora Roberts
She put the cigarette between her lips, flicked the flame on a slim silver lighter. As she had with the first bite of pasta, she sighed over that first deep drag. “Pleasure, cher. There are twenty cigarettes in a pack, thirty or thirty-one days to a month. ’Cept for February. I dearly love the month of February. Now, I can smoke up the whole pack in a day, and just about lose my mind for the rest of the month. Or I can dole them out, slow and careful, and make them last. Because there’s no buying another pack before the first of the month.”
“How many do you bum from other people during the month?”
Her eyes glittered through the haze of smoke. “That would be cheating. I don’t cheat. Pleasure’s nothing, sugar, unless you got the willpower to hold off until you really appreciate it.”
She trailed a fingertip over the back of his hand, and for the hell of it, rubbed the side of her foot against his leg under the table. “How are you on willpower?” she asked.
“We’re going to find out.”
It was dusk when he got back to the house. The back of his four-wheel was loaded with treasures he’d hunted up in antique shops. But the best was the kitchen cabinet he’d found, and had begged and bribed to have delivered the next day.
He carried what he could on the first trip and, when he stepped inside, set everything down in the foyer. He closed the door behind him, then stood very still.
“Abigail.” He said the name, listened to it echo through the house. And waited.
But he felt no rush of cold air, no sudden shift in the silence.
And standing at the base of the grand staircase, he couldn’t explain how he knew he wasn’t alone.
8
He woke to a crashing thunderstorm, but at least he woke in his own bed. Lightning slashed outside the windows and burst a nova of light through the room.
A glance at the bedside clock showed him a minute to midnight. But that had to be wrong, Declan thought. He hadn’t gone to bed until after one. Wondering if the storm had knocked out his power, he turned the switch on the bedside lamp.
Light speared out, half blinding him.
“Damn it.” He rubbed his shocked eyes, then grabbed the bottle of water he’d set on the table next to the bed. And rising, went out on the gallery to watch the show.
It was worth the price of a ticket, he decided. Lashing rain, pitchfork lightning, and a wind that was whipping through the trees in moans and howls. He could hear the excited clanging of the spirit bottles and the fierce jungle war of thunder.
And the baby crying.
The water bottle slid out of his fingers, bounced at his feet and soaked them.
He wasn’t dreaming, he told himself, and reached out to grip the wet baluster. He wasn’t sleepwalking. He was awake, fully aware of his surroundings. And he heard the baby crying.
He had to order himself to move, but he walked back into the bedroom, dragged on sweats, checked his flashlight. Barefoot, shirtless, he left the security of his room and started toward the third floor.
He waited for the panic to come—that clutching in the belly, the sudden shortness of breath, the pounding of his heart.
But it didn’t come this time. The steps were just steps now, the door just a door with a brass knob that needed polishing.
And the baby wasn’t crying any longer.
“Come this far,” he grumbled.
His palms were sweaty, but it was nerves instead of fear. He reached out, turned the knob. The door opened with a whine of hinges.
There was a low fire in the hearth. Its light, and the light of candles, danced in pretty patterns over walls of pale, pale peach. At the windows were deep blue drapes with lacy under-curtains. The floor was polished like a mirror with two area rugs in a pattern of peaches and blues.
There was a crib with turned rails, a small iron cot made up with white linen.
She sat in a rocking chair, a baby at her breast. He could see the baby’s hand on it, white against gold. Her hair was down, spilling over her shoulders, over the arms of the rocker.
Her lips moved, in song or story he didn’t know. He couldn’t hear. But she stared down at the child as she nursed, and her face was lit with love.
“You never left her,” Declan said quietly. “You couldn’t have.”
She looked up, toward the doorway where he stood so that for one heart-stopping second, he thought she’d heard him. Would speak to him. When she smiled, when she held out a hand, he took a step toward her.
Then his knees went loose as he saw the man cross the room—pass through him like air—and walk to her.
His hair was golden blond. He was tall and slim of build. He wore some sort of robe in a deep burgundy. When he knelt by the rocker, he stroked a fingertip over the baby’s cheek, then over the tiny fingers that kneaded at the woman’s breast.
The woman, Abigail, lifted her hand, pressed it over his. And there, surrounded by that soft light, the three of them linked while the baby’s milky mouth suckled and the woman gently rocked.
“No. You never left them. I’ll find out what they did to you. To all of you.”
As he spoke, the door slammed shut behind him. He jolted, spun and found himself plunged back into the dark, with only the lightning blasts and the beam of his flashlight. The weight fell into his chest like a rock, cutting off his air. The room was empty, freezing, and the panic leaped at his throat.
He dragged at the doorknob, his sweat-slicked hands sliding off the icy brass. He could feel his choked gasps wanting to rise into shouts and screams, pleas and prayers. Dizziness drove him down to his knees, where he fumbled frantically with the knob, wrenched and tugged at the door.
When he managed to pull it open, he crawled out on his hands and knees, then lay facedown on the floor with his heart thundering in his chest as the storm thundered over the house.
“Okay, I’m okay. I’m okay, goddamn it, and I’m getting up off the floor and going back to bed.”
He might be losing sleep, Declan thought as he got shakily to his feet, but he’d learned a couple of things.
If what he’d seen inside the nursery was truth and not some self-generated fantasy, Abigail Rouse Manet hadn’t left Manet Hall of her own free will.
And he had more than one ghost on his hands.
She was probably making a mistake, Lena thought as she slicked a little black dress down her body. She’d already made several small mistakes where Declan Fitzgerald was concerned. It irritated her, as she rarely made mistakes when it came to men.
If there was one thing she’d learned from her mother, it was how to handle the male species. It was a reverse tutelage. She made a habit of doing exactly the opposite of what Lilibeth did and had done when it came to relationships.
The process had kept Lena heart-whole for nearly thirty years. She had no desire, and no intention, of putting herself into a man’s hands. Metaphorically speaking, she thought with a smirk as she painted her lips.
She liked being in the right man’s hands well enough, when she was in the mood to be handled.
A woman who didn’t enjoy sex, in her opinion, just didn’t know how to pick her partners cannily enough. A smart woman culled out men who were willing and able to be shown how that woman wanted to be pleasured. And a woman pleasured tended to give a man a good, strong ride.
Everybody ended up winning.
The problem was, Declan had the talent for putting her in the mood for sex all the damn time. She was not in the habit of being guided by her hormones.
The wisest, safest thing for a woman to do about sex was to be in control of it. To decide the when, the where, the who and how. Men, well, they were just randy by nature. She couldn’t blame them for it.
And women who claimed not to try to stir men up were either cold-blooded or liars.
If she’d believed she and Declan were headed toward a simple affair that began and ended with a mutual buzz, she wouldn’t have been concerned. But there was more to him than that. Too many layers to him,
she thought, and she couldn’t seem to get through them all and figure him out.
More, and much more worrying, there was another layer to her reaction to him besides simple lust. That, too, was complicated and mysterious.
She liked the look of him, and the Yankee bedrock sound of his voice. And then he’d gone and hit her soft spot with his obvious affection for her grandmama.
Got her blood heated up, too, she admitted. The man had a very skilled pair of lips.
And when he wasn’t paying attention, a wounded look in his eyes. She was a sucker for hurting hearts.
Best to take it slow. She arched her neck and ran the crystal wand of her perfume bottle over her skin. Slow and easy. No point in getting to the end of the road unless you’d enjoyed the journey.
She trailed the wand over the tops of her breasts and imagined his fingers there. His mouth.
It had been a long time since she’d wanted a man quite this . . . clearly, she realized. And since it was too late for a quick, anonymous roll in the sheets, it would be wise to get to know him a little better before she let him think he’d talked her into bed.
“Right on time, aren’t you, cher?” she commented aloud at the knock on her door. She gave her reflection a last check, blew herself a kiss, and walked to the front door.
He looked good in a suit. Very classy and GQ, she decided. She reached out, ran the stone-gray lapel between her thumb and fingers. “Mmm. Don’t you clean up nice, cher.”
“Sorry, all the blood just drained out of my head so the best I can come up with is, wow.”
She sent him that sassy, under-the-lashes look and turned a slow circle on stiletto heels. “This work okay for you, then?”
The dress clung, dipped and shimmied. His glands were doing a joyful jig. “Oh yeah. It’s working just fine.”
She crooked her finger. “Come here a minute.”
She stepped back, then slid a hand through his arm and turned toward an old silver-framed mirror. “Don’t we look fine?” she said, and her reflection laughed at his. “Where you taking me, cher?”
“Let’s find out.” He picked up a wide, red silk scarf, draped it over her shoulders. “Are you going to be warm enough?”
“If I’m not, then this dress isn’t working after all.” With this she strode out on her little gallery. She started to hold out a hand for his, then just stared down at the white stretch limo at the curb.
She was rarely speechless, but it took her a good ten seconds to find her voice, and her wits. “You buy yourself a new car, darling?”
“It’s a rental. This way, I figure we can both have all the champagne we want.”
As first dates went, she thought as he led her down, this one had potential. It only got better when the uniformed driver opened the door and bowed her inside.
There were two silver buckets. One held a bottle of champagne and the other a forest of purple tulips.
“Roses are obvious,” he said and pulled a single flower out to offer her. “And you’re not.”
She twirled the tulip under her nose. “Is this how you charm the girls in Boston?”
He poured a flute of champagne, held it out to her. “There are no other girls.”
Off balance, she took a sip. “You’re dazzling me, Declan.”
“That’s the plan.” He tapped his glass to hers. “I’m really good at seeing a plan through.”
She leaned back, crossed her legs in a slow, deliberate motion she knew would draw his gaze down to them. “You’re a dangerous man. You know what makes you really dangerous? It doesn’t show unless you take a good look under all the polish.”
“I won’t hurt you, Lena.”
“Oh, hell you won’t.” But she let out a low, delightful laugh. “That’s just part of the trip, sugar. Just part of the trip. And so far, I’m enjoying it.”
He went for elegant, Old-World French where the waiters wore black tie, the lighting was muted, and the corner table was designed for intimacy.
Another bottle of champagne arrived seconds after they were seated, telling her he’d prearranged it. And possibly a great deal more.
“I’m told the food is memorable here. The house is early twentieth century,” he continued. “Georgian Colonial Revival, and belonged to an artist. A private home until about thirty years ago.”
“Do you always research your restaurant’s history?”
“Ambience matters. Especially in New Orleans. So does cuisine. They tell me the caneton a l’Orange is a house specialty.”
“Then one of us should have it.” Intrigued, she set her menu aside. He wasn’t just fun, she thought. He wasn’t just sexy and smart. He was interesting. “You choose. This time.”
He ordered straight through from appetizers to chocolate soufflé with the ease of a man accustomed to fine dining in exclusive restaurants.
“You have good French, at least for ordering food. Do you speak it otherwise?”
“Yes, but Cajun French can still throw me.”
“Have you been to Paris?”
“Yes.”
She leaned forward in that way she had, her arms folded on the edge of the table, her gaze fastened to his. “Is it wonderful?”
“It is.”
“One day I’d like to go. To Paris and Florence, to Barcelona and Athens.” They were hot, colorful dreams of hers, and the anticipation of them as exciting as the wish. “You’ve been to those places.”
“Not Athens. Yet. My mother liked to travel, so we went to Europe every year when I was growing up. Every other to Ireland. We still have family there.”
“And what’s your favorite?” She rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her laced fingers. “Of all the places you’ve been.”
“Hard to say. The west coast of Ireland, the hills in Tuscany, a sidewalk café in Paris. But at the moment, right here is my favorite place.”
“There’s that silky tongue again. All right then, tell me about Boston.”
“It’s a New England harbor city of great historical importance.” When she laughed, he sat back and soaked it in. “Oh, that’s not what you meant.”
“Tell me about your family. You have brothers, sisters?”
“Two brothers, one sister.”
“Big family.”
“Are you kidding? My parents were pikers in the go-forth-and-multiply area. Mom has six brothers and sisters, my father comes from a family of eight. None of their siblings had less than five kids. We are legion.”
“You miss them.”
“I do? Okay, I do,” he admitted reluctantly. “From this nice, safe distance, I’ve realized I actually like my family.”
“They’ll come visit you?”
“Eventually. Everyone will wait for my mother to start actually speaking to me again. In our house if it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.”
She sampled the appetizer he’d ordered for her. She wore no rings, and he wondered why. She had lovely hands, slim, elegant, delicate. The silver key rested against that smooth, dusky skin, and there was a glint of silver at her ears. But her fingers, her wrists were bare. Beautifully bare, he realized, and wondered if the lack of ornamentation was some sort of female ploy to make a man notice every line, every curve, every sweep of her.
It was sure as hell working that way on him.
“You think she’s mad at you? Your mama?”
He had to blink himself back to the threads of conversation. “Not mad. Irritated, annoyed, baffled. If she was really angry, she’d be down here in my face, chipping away until I crumbled to her terrifying will.”
“Does she want you to be happy?”
“Yes. We love each other like idiots. She’d just be more satisfied if my happiness aligned with her point of view.”
Her head angled, and again he caught that wink of silver through the thick, dark curls of her hair. “Why don’t you let her know she hurts your feelings?”
“What?”
“If you don’t let her know she hurts th
em, how is she going to stop?”
“I let them down.”
“Oh, you did not,” she replied, with a kind of impatient sympathy. “You think your family wants you to be miserable and unfulfilled? Married to a woman you don’t love, working at a career that you don’t want?”
“Yes. No,” he answered. “I don’t honestly know.”
“Then it seems to me you ought to ask them.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“No. And tonight we’re going to talk about you. We’ll save me for another time. Did you find what you wanted at your antique shops?”
“And then some.” More comfortable talking about acquisitions than family, he gave her a blow-by-blow that took them into the main course.
“How do you know what you want before you have the room done?”
“I just do.” He moved his shoulders. “I can’t explain it. I’ve got this great davenport on hold for the upriver parlor. That’s where I’m starting next, and it’s not nearly as big a job as the kitchen. Walls and floors mostly. I want to get a good start on the interiors so I can concentrate on the galleries, the double stairs, have the place painted starting in April, if I’m lucky. That way, we should be able to shift back inside before the summer heat.”
“Why are you pushing so hard? The house isn’t going anywhere.”
“Remember the single-minded, competitive nature I told you about?”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t relax a bit. How many hours are you putting in in a week?”
“I don’t know. Ten, twelve a day generally.” Then he grinned and reached for her hand. “You worried about me? I’ll take more time off if you’ll spend it with me.”
“I’m not that worried about you.” But she left her hand in his, let it be held against that hard, calloused palm. “Still, Mardi Gras’s coming. If you don’t take some time to enjoy that, you might as well be in Boston.” She looked at the double soufflé their waiter set in the middle of the table. “Oh my. My, my.” She leaned forward, closed her eyes, and sniffed. And was laughing when she opened them again. “Where’s yours?”
He took her dancing. He’d found a club that played the slow fox-trots and jazzy swings of the thirties, and surprised her by whirling her around the floor until her legs were weak.
