Beneath the Black Moon (Root Sisters) (2 page)

“Helen
is too naïve,” Cam said, “She’s too sincere. She couldn’t manipulate a man if
he fell into her lap.”
Where are you? S
he thought, still feeling the
hidden gaze on her face.

Her
aunt made a shocked sound, and Cam wasn’t sure whether Aunt Beth was responding
to the idea of manipulating a man or the improper notion of a man falling into
Helen’s lap. “Well, it’s true,” Cam continued, “Diana used to have the local
boys falling over their own feet. She had them so they didn’t know which way
was up.” Her eyes narrowed on the last word.
Got you
, she thought as she
caught sight of a man standing beneath a dogwood tree.

And
look who it is . . .

Brent
Anderson, of all people. What a surprise. Cam scowled but then quickly composed
herself before her aunt could remind her that furrowing her brow would give her
premature wrinkles. Aunt Beth lived in terror of premature wrinkles.

“Camilla,
you shouldn’t say such things about Diana,” Aunt Beth was saying, and Cam
turned to her aunt with a sigh.

“Why
not? I love my sister, and it’s the truth, so why not
?” I’m not the one
talking about “Diana in her day,” as if she’s old or dead,
Cam longed to
add, but she didn’t. She was tired of people treating Diana as though she had
lost a limb or been hideously disfigured. People outside of the family shunned
her, and their father and Aunt Beth alternately pitied and blamed her, all
while making sure that she stayed at home and away from prying eyes so that she
couldn’t bring any more shame on the family. It was infuriating.

While
Aunt Beth shook her head sadly, Cam watched Mr. Anderson.

Brent
was conspicuous somehow as he stood among the other guests. Cam was surprised
that more people didn’t take notice of him. She would have thought that any
fool could read the danger, the potential for violence in the lines of his body
as he moved. But perhaps what made him most fascinating was how effectively he
could hide his true nature from the people around him.

Whether
other people could see it or not, Cam had immediately recognized him as a man
who got what he wanted. He was maybe eight or nine years older than her, determined,
ruthless, and very charming. Perhaps he would have been a little less effective
if he looked somehow distasteful. He didn’t. He was several inches taller than
six feet and possessed a body that was proportionate and muscled to perfection.
He had a mane of blonde hair that barely brushed his shoulders, a large,
chiseled face and expressive, mocking lips. His eyes were the worst, so vividly
green that they almost didn’t look real.

He
was shameless, too. A more refined man would have looked away by now, but he
was still staring at her in his own, lazy way, head tilted, strands hair
falling into his eyes. The woman who sat at his side touched his sleeve
delicately to get his attention, and Cam noticed her for the first time. Ugh.
It was Marianne Taversly, and she had to be very fond of Mr. Anderson because
she had sent all of her other beaux away.

Cam
supposed that someone needed to fill the void that Diana had left when she had
ceased to be the belle of the county, but did it have to be
Marianne
Taversly
? Did the county boys have no sense whatsoever?  Marianne had been
the nastiest, most gossipy, pigtail-pulling little beast in the entire county
when they were children, and, besides the fact that she no longer yanked on
anyone’s hair, she had improved very little as she aged. Now she had her eyes
on Brent Anderson. Well, they deserved each other.

“Camilla,
what are you looking at?” Her Aunt Beth’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Ah,
Mr. Anderson. He is uncommonly handsome, isn’t he?”

“Oh,”
Cam said casually, as though she had hardly noticed. “I suppose so. I was just
looking to see who Marianne has her claws into now.”

“Hm,”
her Aunt Beth responded, her eyebrows quirking as though she didn't believe a
word of it.

She
searched her niece's face thoroughly, hoping for a giggle, a girlish blush,
anything to prove that Cam was indeed as susceptible to the charms of a wealthy
and handsome man as any other girl her age, but there was nothing. Cam stared
back at her with the wide, long-lashed, near-black eyes that all three of
Solange's daughters had inherited, and as usual, Beth felt as if she was
staring at a pretty-faced cypher. She often wished that she'd known her
brother's wife better, because perhaps it would have aided her in understanding
the woman's daughters. There was something distant about Diana, Camilla and
Helen, something ambiguous and remote. Perhaps it was the strain of losing
their mother so young.

Their
grandmother was definitely crazy, though. Speaking of which, “where is your
grandmother?” She asked Cam, dreading the inevitable answer.

“In
the kitchen.”

“Oh
really
,” Beth sighed. “When was the last time we had a ball? I know she
prefers to retire early, but she could at least make an appearance at the
barbecue. It wouldn't kill her. What does she do it that kitchen, anyway?” Beth
queried. It was hardly the first time that she had asked, but she repeated the
question from time to time, as if hoping that someday Cam would surprise her
with an answer.

“Why
don't you ask
her
?” Cam suggested.

“If
only it were that simple,” Beth answered, and Cam knew what she meant. Aunt
Beth had always been skilled with words. She was smooth in awkward situations
and good at implying something without actually saying it, but Grandma could
run circles around her without even trying. If Grandma wasn't inclined to tell
you something, then she wouldn't tell you. And you could ask her every day for eighty
years, and every day in the exact same tone, without any sign of ever wavering,
she would tell you
no
.

Cam
wasn’t sure what to say to her Aunt, but Beth’s gaze was already fixed on an
altercation on the other side of the lawn. “Oh dear,” she said softly. “Lester
Grouse and old Mr. Rushworth are arguing again. Someone must have gotten them
started talking about President Pierce.” Aunt Beth sighed. She wasn’t one for
politics and couldn’t understand why other people allowed political opinions to
spoil perfectly pleasant gatherings. “Enjoy the barbecue, Camilla,” her aunt
told her, pausing to smooth her own hair before waving her niece away.

From
across the yard Brent Anderson repositioned himself so that he could watch the
middle Johnson daughter without it being obvious to the redhead who kept
chattering away at him. She was talking nonstop and batting her eyelashes in a
manner that had obviously won her many admirers, judging from the number of men
glaring at him. Brent himself found her flirting very distracting, and not in a
pleasant way. Fortunately she didn’t require much encouragement from him to
keep prattling on and on, so she didn’t appear to notice that he had been ignoring
her for the better part of half an hour.

Meanwhile,
he could watch the Johnson girl. He had met her two siblings within a week of
moving to Gaynor, but it had been a month before the lovely middle sister had
finally surfaced at a county party. She was at once strikingly like her sisters
and remarkably different. Her eyes were unmistakable. They were large, slanted,
almond shaped eyes, so dark that they were almost black. All three of the
Johnson sisters had the same eyes, high cheekbones and pointed chins. Beyond
that, they differed. Helen was blonde, and she and Diana had both maintained
the fair skin so prized by Southern women. Brent hadn't realized how much
pampering that must have taken until he saw the third sister, who clearly
hadn't bothered. There was a warm golden glow to her skin that darkened into
sweeping shadows beneath her eyes. Her dress was white and very simple. On
another girl it would have been plain, but given her natural curves and pretty
face there was very little need for excessive ornamentation.

He'd
heard quite a bit about the Johnson family lately. There had been a scandal
involving the eldest sister, who was still the talk of the county. And there
was something strange about their mother's death— he hadn't been able to get anyone
to tell him the full story. There were also whispers about their grandmother. The
old woman was apparently crazy as a loon and hadn't been seen in public in
several years.

Then
again, the gossips had explained, it was to be expected, given that she was
French. Apparently their grandmother had been born in the French colony of
Haiti to aristocratic parents, but she and her family had fled to Louisiana
when she was just a little girl after the revolution broke out in 1791. There
were all kinds of rumors about that aspect of the Johnson girls’ history.
People muttered about strange religions, about odd habits picked up in the
steamy wilderness of a foreign country. They whispered bout love affairs with
natives and the violence of passion that afflicted all three Johnson girls, as
it had their mother and grandmother before them.

Brent
had been curious to meet the Johnson girls; he had half expected them to howl
at the moon. It had been amusing to meet their father, who was so very
respectable and English it was very odd to think of him as the father to
daughters who were so, well,
unusual
was the only word that everyone
seemed to agree on.

But
Brent was looking for anything unusual. He had to solve a mystery by connecting
the dots, and the first dot was the death of Solange Johnson. The second was
the murder of Katherine Varennes. And the third… well, the third was a little
closer to home.

Those
were the only clues that he had so far, but given the number of truly dedicated
gossips in Gaynor County, he hoped to learn more soon.

Next
to him, Marianne appeared to have finally noticed that he wasn’t giving her his
full attention, or any attention for that matter, and she tapped his wrist in
what she apparently thought was a thoroughly charming manner. He was rather
disappointed by the selection of women in Gaynor County. Most of them seemed to
be like Marianne: silly, self-absorbed, and sugary-sweet to the point of nausea. 
Then again, there was nothing sugary about the look on Cam Johnson’s face as
she and her aunt went their separate ways. Two elderly men were arguing on the
far side of the lawn, and Elizabeth hurried off to smooth their ruffled
feathers. Cam paused for a glass of lemonade in the shade of one of the
magnificent magnolia trees that beautified the lawn. Her expression was an
almost exact replica of the calm, composed expression that perpetually graced
the face of her Aunt Elizabeth. But if you looked closely her jaw was set and
her eyes were slitted, as if she were steeling herself against some unpleasant
task.

Speaking
of unpleasant tasks, he still hadn’t asked Marianne about Katherine Varennes,
and that was the main reason why he had come to the barbecue. It was difficult
to bring up the murder tastefully and without sounding like a scandal monger,
but fortunately Marianne didn’t seem to care. She took the bait eagerly, her
pretty face morphing into an expression of mock sadness that was almost absurd.

“Oh,
that was terrible,” she exclaimed, her words not quite matching the excitement
in her voice or the gleam in her eye as she seized the topic with relish.
“Everyone was so shocked. I was just a little girl at the time of course,” she
took the opportunity to flutter her eyelashes again, “scarcely more than a
baby,” more fluttering, “but everyone was just so horrified. It was entirely...
It was so... gruesome,” she said, her tone suddenly dropping to a whisper, as
if that was a word that a lady wasn't supposed to say. “And so tragic. And we'd
already had one tragedy that year. Why Cam, didn't that happen just days after
your own poor mother died?”

Cam
Johnson had drifted closer to them while they spoke, and now she froze with an
empty glass in one hand. Her hand tightened suddenly around the side of the
glass and for a moment Brent thought that she was going to break it. Then her
grip relaxed, and she turned to face them calmly.

“Marianne,
how are you today?” Cam’s smile was forced and some of the sweet southern
accent that was becoming increasingly familiar to Brent slipped into her voice.

“Well,
I’m just fine. And this is Mr. Brent Anderson. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you
darling? He and his brother John and John’s poor dear wife have moved into the
Wickers Plantation. Brent, this is Gaynor’s very own Miss Camilla Jean Johnson,
Diana Johnson’s younger sister.” Most people had stopped referring to Cam as
Diana’s sister after Diana had been disgraced. Marianne, on the other hand,
seemed to take perverse pleasure in making the connection between Cam and her
ruined sister.

“We’ve
met,” Cam said to Marianne and then nodded coolly to Brent. He was tall and so
it took her gaze a minute to travel up the broad expanse of his chest, to the
curve of his neck, where the sunlight gleamed off of the dark gold hair that
brushed his shoulders. She met his eyes, which were leaf green and assessing
her candidly and then quickly looked away. No wonder Marianne had sent her
other suitors away.  None of them could compare to Brent.

What
a shame that he had taken an interest in matters better left undisturbed. Now
she was obliged to dislike him, because of her grandmother and because he was
forcing her to remember things that she would rather forget.