Midnight Bayou (25 page)

“Maybe Rufus will teach them their manners. You’re wearing my earrings,” he said as he slipped his arms around her and glided into a dance.

“They’re my earrings now.”

“You think of me when you put them on.”

“Maybe. Then I think how nice they look on me, and I forget all about you.”

“Well, then I’ll have to find other ways to remind you.”

“A necklace.” She skimmed her fingers up the nape of his neck, into his hair. “Couple of nice glittery bracelets.”

“I was thinking of a toe ring.”

She laughed, eased in closer so that she could rest her cheek on his. They were waltzing, and a tune was playing in her head. One she’d heard him hum or whistle countless times. She could smell his workday on him—the sweat, the dust—and under it the faint, faint drift of soap from his morning shower. His cheek was a little rough against hers as he’d neglected to shave.

If life were a fairy tale, she thought, they could stay just like this. Waltzing around and around on the satiny floor, while the sun slid down, the flowers rioted, and the lights from hundreds of tiny crystal prisms showered over them.

“I’ve got such feelings for you. More than I ever had for anyone, or wanted to. I don’t know what to do with them.”

“Give them to me,” he pleaded, turning his lips into her hair. “I’ll take good care of them.”

She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. Hadn’t meant to. Now, when she would have drawn back, he pulled her closer. So close, so tight, she couldn’t get her breath.

Her head spun, and the music inside it soared. The strong scent of lilies rose up and almost smothered her.

“Do you hear it?” His hands trembled as he gripped her arms. “Violins.”

“I can’t . . .” His voice sounded far off, and as she fought to focus on his face, another seemed to float over it. “I’m dizzy.”

“Let’s sit down.” He kept his hands on her arms,
lowered them both to the floor. “You heard it, too. The music. You felt it, too.”

“Just hold on a minute.” She had to regain her bearings. The room was empty but for the two of them. There was no music, no crystal light, no pots heaped with fragrant white lilies. Yet she had heard, seen, smelled. “I didn’t know hallucinations were catching.”

“It’s not hallucination. It’s memory. Somehow, it’s memory. They’d have danced here, Lucian and Abigail, like we were. Loved each other, like we do.” When she shook her head, he swore. “All right, damn it, he loved her, the way I love you. And there’s something still alive between them. Maybe something that needs to be finished, or just acknowledged. We’re here, Lena.”

“Yes, we’re here. And I’m not living someone else’s life.”

“It’s not like that.”

“It
felt
like that. And living someone else’s life might just mean dying someone else’s death. He drowned himself in that pond outside there, and she—”

“She died in this house.”

Lena took a calming breath. “Depending on whose story you believe.”

“I know she did. Upstairs, in the nursery. Something happened to her up there. And he never knew. He grieved himself to death not knowing. I need to find out for him. And for myself. I need you to help me.”

“What can I do?”

“Come to the nursery with me. We’re closer now. Maybe you’ll remember this time.”

“Declan.” She took his face in her hands. “There’s nothing for me to remember.”

“You hang witch bottles out in my tree, but sit here denying any possibility of reincarnation, which you brought into the mix in the first place.”

“That’s not what I’m doing. There’s nothing for me to remember because I’m not Abigail. You are.”

She might as well have slipped on a pair of brass knuckles and plowed her fist into his stomach. The shock of her words had him reeling.

“Get out. That’s not possible.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . .” Flustered, oddly embarrassed, he pushed to his feet. “You’re trying to say I was a
girl
?”

“I don’t know why that’s such a shock to your system. A lot of us get along just fine female.”

“I don’t. I’m not. I wasn’t.”

“It makes the most sense, if any of this makes sense.”

“No sense. None. No way.”

“You’re the one who keeps hearing the baby cry.” She’d never seen him quite so flustered. “Mothers do, before anyone else. And you’re drawn to that room upstairs, the way a mother would be to her baby. Even though the room scares you, you’re pulled back. You said how you wandered through the servants’ wing, how easy it was to find your way. She’d have known it, but why would Lucian?”

“It was his house.” But he remembered how he’d imagined looking out the window, imagined seeing the two men riding toward the house. Why would he imagine seeing Lucian riding home if he’d
been
Lucian?

“A couple other things,” Lena continued. “One telling one. That day when I came along and saw you walking toward the pond. Trancelike. You walked oddly. I couldn’t figure out what it was about the way you walked that struck me. But now I know. You were walking the way a very pregnant woman walks. Waddling a bit,” she said as he turned and gaped at her with something like horror. “A hand pressed to the small of your back. Small, careful steps.”

“Now you’re saying I wasn’t just a girl, but a pregnant girl?”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,
cher
, some people believe you can come back as a poodle. What’s so bad about a pregnant woman?”

“Because pregnant women go into labor at a certain point, then have to push several pounds of baby out of a very limited space.”

The horror on his face was comical, and enough to have her relaxing into the theory. “I don’t think you’ll have to repeat that performance in this life. Have you considered that if you look at this puzzle from this new angle, you might find the answers you want?”

He found himself wanting to rub at his crotch just to make sure everything was where it should be. Maybe work up a good, manly belch. “I like it better the other way.”

“Keep an open mind,
cher.
I’ve got to get to work.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.” He dashed after her. “You’re just going to drop this bombshell on me, then leave?”

“I’ve got to work for a living.”

“Come back after closing. Stay.”

“I need to stay at Grandmama’s for a night or two, till she’s feeling steadier.”

“Okay. Okay.” He let out a breath when they reached the main floor. “Let me try this.” He spun her around, crushed his mouth to hers. Then took the kiss deep and dreamy.

“You didn’t get any lesbian-type vibe from that, did you?” he asked when he drew back.

“Hmm.” She touched her tongue to her top lip, pretended to consider. “No. I can attest that you’re all man this time around. Now, shoo. You’ve got plenty to do the next few days to keep your mind occupied. This whole
thing’s waited a hundred years, it can wait till after Remy’s wedding.”

“Come back and stay when Miss Odette’s feeling better.”

“All right.”

“I love you, Lena.”

“I’m afraid you do,” she whispered, and walked away.

L
ena left the bar as early as she could manage, but it was still after one in the morning when she pulled up to the bayou house. The porch light was burning, and the moths seduced to death by it. She sat for a moment, listening to the music of the frogs and night birds, and the teasing whisper of a faint breeze.

This was the place of her girlhood. Perhaps the place of her heart. Though she’d made her life in the city, it was here she came when she was most happy, or most troubled. Here she came to think her deepest thoughts or dream her most secret dreams.

She’d let herself dream once—those innate female dreams of romance and a handsome man to love her, of home and children and Sunday mornings.

When had she stopped?

That sticky summer afternoon, she admitted. That hot, hazy day when she’d seen the boy she’d loved with all her wild heart and foolish youth coupling like an animal with her mother on a ragged blanket in the marsh.

The marsh that was hers, the boy that was hers. The mother that was hers.

It had sliced her life in two, she thought now. The time before, when there was still hope and innocent dreams and faith. And the time after, where there was only ambition, determination and a steely vow never, never to believe again.

The boy didn’t matter now, she knew. She could barely see his face in her mind. Her mother didn’t matter, not at the core of it. But the
moment
mattered.

Without it, who knew what direction her life would have taken? Oh, she and the boy would have parted ways soon enough. But it might’ve been with some sweetness, it might have left her with some soft memory of first loves.

But that stark vision of sex and betrayal had forged her. She’d understood then what it might have taken her years to learn otherwise. That a woman was smarter, safer, to drive the train herself. Men came, men went, and enjoying them was fine.

Loving them was suicide.

Suicide? she shook her head as she climbed out of the car. That was overly dramatic, wasn’t it? Heartbreak wasn’t death.

He’d died from it.

She all but heard the voice in her head. It hadn’t been the knife wound, it hadn’t been the pond that had killed Lucian Manet.

It had been a broken heart.

She let herself into the house and immediately saw the spill of light from Odette’s room. Even as she approached, Lena heard the quick thump-thump of Rufus’s tail on the floor.

She stepped to the doorway, cocked her head. Odette was sitting up in bed, a book open on her lap, the faithful dog curled on the floor.

“What are you doing up so late?”

“Waiting for my baby. I didn’t think you’d be back for another hour or more.”

“Business was light enough to spare me.”

Odette patted the side of the bed in invitation. “You took off early because you were worried about me. You shouldn’t.”

“You used to tell me worrying was your job.” Lena lay down on top of the sheets, her head in the curve of her grandmother’s arm. “Now it’s mine, too. I’m sorry she hurt you.”

“Oh, baby, I think that must be her job. God knows she’s good at it.” Odette stroked Lena’s hair. “I got you, though. I got my Lena.”

“I was thinking what it was like for you and Grandpapa to raise a baby after you’d already raised your own.”

“You were nothing but pure pleasure to both of us.”

“It made me think about how the Manets brought your grandmama back here when she was a baby. You remember her pretty well, don’t you?”

“I remember her very well. You’ve the look of her. You’ve seen the old pictures, so you know that.”

“Did she ever say how the Hall should’ve been hers?”

“Never heard her say anything like. She was a happy woman, Lena. Maybe happier here than she would’ve been in the Hall, had things been different. She had a fine hand with baking, and that she passed to me. She told good stories, too. Sometimes when I’d come spend time with her, she’d make them up just like they were real. I think she could’ve been a writer if she’d wanted that for herself.”

“She must’ve thought of her parents, and the Manets. No matter how happy she was here, she must’ve thought of them.”

“I expect so. She used to take flowers to her papa’s grave. Took them every year on her birthday.”

“Did she? You never told me that.”

“Said she owed him life—hers, her children, her grandchildren. She even laid flowers on the graves of Josephine and Henri Manet. Though she never stopped there to say a prayer. And she did one more thing on her birthday, every year until she died. She took flowers and tossed them into the river. And there she said a prayer.”

“For her mother, you think?”

“She never said, but that’s what I think.”

“And do you think that’s where Abigail is? In the river?”

“Some say.”

Lena raised her head. “I’m not asking some. I’m asking you.”

“I know sometimes I walk along the bank, and I feel an awful sadness. And I think, sometimes, old souls search for new life. And keep searching until it comes out right. What’re you searching for?”

Lena laid her head down again, closed her eyes. “I thought I’d found it. Now I’m not so sure. He loves me, Grandmama.”

“I know he does.”

“If I love him back, everything changes.”

Odette smiled, leaned over to shut off the light. “It surely does,” she murmured and continued to stroke Lena’s hair. “It surely does.”

A
s host of Remy’s bachelor party, Declan felt socially obligated to stay till the bitter end. The bitter end was some dingy, backstreet dive in the Quarter where the liquor burned holes in what was left of a man’s stomach lining and the strippers were woefully past their prime.

Nobody seemed to care.

In the spirit of good fellowship, Declan tucked a final dollar in the frayed garter on a flabby white thigh, then hauled a glassy-eyed Remy to his feet.

“Let’s go, pal of mine.”

“Huh? What? Is it morning?”

“Close enough.”

As they stumbled out, arm in arm as much for necessity as friendship, Remy looked around. His head bopped like a puppet’s on a jerked string. “Wherez everybody?”

“Passed out, in jail, dead in an alley.”

“Oh. Wimps.” Remy grinned his rubber grin. “You ’n me, Dec, we still got it.”

“I’m starting a course of antibiotics in the morning to
get rid of it.” He tripped and had to wrap both arms around Remy to keep from falling on his face. “Too much gravity. There’s entirely too much gravity out here.”

“Let’s go find us another naked woman.”

“I think we found all of them already. Time to go home, old buddy, old pal.”

“I’m getting married in three days.” Remy held up four fingers to demonstrate. “No more carousing for Remy.” He looked around. The streets were nearly deserted and oily with the light drizzle. “Do we have to bail anybody out?”

“Screw ’em.”

“Damn right. Where’s my girl? Effie!” He shouted it, and the name echoed back, making Declan snort drunkenly.

“Stella!” Cracked up by his own wit, he sat down hard in a puddle. “Fuck it, Remy. Let’s just sleep here.”

“Gotta go find my girl, gonna make sweet, sweet love to my Effie.”

“You couldn’t get it up right now with a hydraulic pump.”

“Bet?” Remy fumbled for his zipper, and Declan had just enough brain cells left to stagger up and stop him.

“Put that thing away before you hurt yourself. Get us arrested for decent exposure.”

“ ’S okay. We’re lawyers.”

“Speak for yourself. Find cabs. We must find cabs.”

“Cab to Effie. Where’s my blushin’ bride?”

“Home in bed, like every other good woman is at . . .” He lifted Remy’s wrist, tried to focus on the watch. “Whatever o’clock in the morning. Lena, she’s in bed. She thinks I’m a woman.”

“You must not be fucking her right then.”

“No, you ass. And remind me to punch you for that later. She thinks I’m Abigail.”

“You haven’t been trying on her underwear or anything weird like that, have you, son?”

“I like the little black lace panties with the roses best. They slim down my hips.”

“Pretty sure you’re joking. Wait.” He stopped, leaned over the curb, hands braced on his knees. Then slowly straightened again. “False alarm. Not gonna puke.”

“There’s good news. Cab!” Declan waved desperately when he saw one cruising. “In the name of God. You first,” he said and all but shoved Remy inside before diving in after.

“Where do I live?” Remy demanded. “I used to know, but I forgot. Can I call Effie and ask her?”

Fortunately Declan remembered, and as Remy snoozed on his shoulder, he concentrated on remaining conscious until he fulfilled the last of his duties and got his friend home alive.

At the curb, he elbowed Remy and brought him up like an arrow from a bow. “What? Where? Sum bitch, I’m home. How ’bout that?”

“Can you make it from here?” Declan asked him.

“I can hold my liquor. All six gallons of it.” Shifting, Remy caught Declan’s face in his hand and kissed him hard on the mouth. “I love you,
cher.
But if you’d been Abigail, I’d’ve slipped you some tongue.”

“Ugh,” was the best Declan could manage as Remy climbed out.

“You’re the goddamnedest best friend I ever had, and that was the goddamnedest best bachelor’s party in the history of bachelor’s parties. I’m gonna go up, puke, and pass out now.”

“You do that. Wait till he gets in the door,” Declan told the driver, and watched Remy waver, split in two. Both of them stumbled inside the building.

“Okay, the rest is his business. You know where the old Manet Hall is?”

The driver eyed him in the rearview mirror. “I guess I do.”

“I live there. Take me home, okay?”

“That’s a long way out.” The driver shifted, turned, eyed Declan up and down. “You got enough for the fare?”

“I got money. I got lotsa money.” Declan pawed through his pockets, came up with bills, littered the cab with them. “I’m loaded.”

“You’re telling me.” With a shake of his head, the driver pulled away from the curb. “Must’ve been some party, buddy.”

“Tell me,” Declan muttered, then slid face first on the backseat.

T
he next thing he knew, clearly, a Dixieland band was blasting in his head. He was still facedown, but the beach of Waikiki had ended up in his mouth and his tongue had grown a fine fur coat.

Some sadist was hammering spikes into his shoulder.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.”

“No point falling back on that now. Just roll over nice and slow,
cher.
Don’t open your eyes yet.”

“I’m dying here. Call a priest.”

“Here now, Lena’s got you.” Gently and with great amusement, she eased him over, supported his head. “Just swallow this.”

He glugged, choked, felt something vile wash over the fur, through the sand and down his throat. In defense, he tried to push the glass away from his lips, and opened his eyes.

He’d go to his grave denying the sound that had come out of his mouth had in any way resembled a girlish scream.

Lena clucked her tongue. “I told you not to open your eyes.”

“What eyes? What eyes? They’ve been burned to cinders.”

“Drink the rest.”

“Go away, go very far away, and take your poison with you.”

“That’s no way to talk to someone who’s come to tend you on your deathbed.”

He slid back down, dragged a pillow over his face. “How’d you know I was dying?”

“Effie called.”

“When’s Remy’s funeral?”

“Fortunately, he’s marrying a woman with a great deal of tolerance, understanding and humor. How many titty bars did y’all hit last night?”

“All of them. All the titty bars in all the land.”

“I suppose that explains why you have a pasty on your cheek.”

“I do not.” But when he groped under the pillow, he felt the tassel. “Oh God. Have some mercy and just kill me.”

“Well, all right, honey.” She applied just enough pressure to the pillow to have him flapping his hands and shoving up.

His face was flushed, his bloodshot eyes just a little wild. “That wasn’t funny.”

“You had to see it from this side.” And she laughed. He still wore his clothes, the wrinkled, liquor-spotted shirt half in, half out of his jeans. Another pasty peeked out of the shirt pocket. This one was pink and silver. His eyes were narrowed to a pained squint.

“You’re going to feel better in a bit—not good but better. You get a shower and some food, on top of that potion I poured into you, you’ll get the feeling back in your extremities in two, maybe three hours.”

Someone had shaved the fur off his tongue, he
discovered. He wasn’t sure it was an improvement. “What was in that stuff you gave me?”

“You don’t want to know, but I laced it with four aspirin, so don’t take any more for a while. I’m going to fix you a nice light omelette and some toast.”

“Why?”

“Because you look so pitiful.” She started to kiss him, then jerked back, waving a hand between them. “Christ Jesus, do something about that breath,
cher
, before you kill someone with it.”

“Who asked you?”

“And make that a long shower. You smell like the barroom floor.” She pushed to her feet. “How come nobody’s around here today?”

“In anticipation of a hangover, I let it be known that anyone who came around this house before three in the afternoon would be executed without trial.”

She checked her watch. “Looks like you got a few hours yet.”

“If I have to get out of this bed, I’m getting a gun. I’ll feel bad about killing you, but I’ll do it.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen.” She cocked a brow. “Bring your gun,
cher
, and we’ll see if you remember how to use it.”

“Is that a euphemism?” he called after her, then immediately regretted raising his voice. Holding his head to keep it in place, he eased creakily out of bed.

She chuckled all the way downstairs. Laughed harder when she heard a door slam. Bet he’s sorry he did that, she thought, then stopped, looked back when she heard another two slams.

Ah well . . . she supposed he couldn’t threaten ghosts with a gun.

“Make all the racket you want,” she said as she headed back toward the kitchen. “You don’t worry me any.”

The library doors shook as she passed them. She ignored them. If a surly, smelly man didn’t chase her off, a mean-tempered ghost wouldn’t.

He’d looked so damn cute, she thought as she hunted up the coffee beans. All pale and male and cross. And with that silly pasty plastered on his cheek.

Men just lost half their IQ when they had a look at a naked woman. Put a pack of them together with women willing to strip to music, and they had the common sense of a clump of broccoli.

She ground the beans, set coffee to brew. She was mixing eggs in a bowl when it occurred to her that it was the first time in her life she’d made breakfast for a man she hadn’t slept with the night before.

Wasn’t that an odd thing?

Odder still that she was humming in the kitchen of an annoyed, smelly, hungover man who’d snapped at her.

Out of character, Lena. Just what’s going on here?

She’d been so intrigued by Effie’s cheerful amusement over Remy’s condition. And here she was, feeling the same thing over Declan’s.

She peered out the window at the garden that had been wild and abandoned only months before. It bloomed now, beautifully, with new sprigs, fresh green spearing out.

She’d gone and done it after all. Gone and let him sneak into her, right through the locks and bolts.

She was in love with him. And oh God, she didn’t want to be—as much for his sake as for her own.

He’d blown the dust off those young dreams she’d so rigidly put away. The ones colored with love and hope and trust. They were so shiny now that they were staring her in the face. So shiny they blinded her.

And terrified her.

Marriage. The man wanted marriage, and she didn’t
believe in making promises unless you’d shed blood to keep them.

Would she? Could she?

“I think I’d want to,” she said quietly. “I think I’d want to, for him.”

As she spoke, a cupboard door flew open. A thick blue mug shot out and smashed at her feet.

She leaped back, heart hammering as shards rained over her ankles. Grimly, she stared down at the blood seeping out of tiny nicks.

“Seems I already have. You don’t want that, do you?” Bowl still clutched in her hand, she spun a circle. “You want anything but our being together. We’ll see who wins in the end, won’t we? We’ll just see.”

Deliberately she reached down for one of the shards, then ran it over her thumb. As the blood welled, she held her hand up, let it drip. “I’m not weak, as he was. If I take love, if I promise love, I’ll keep it.”

The sound of chimes had her bolting straight up. It was Declan’s tune. The first ringing notes of it. Fear and wonder closed her throat, had her bobbling the bowl.

“Goddamn it, answer the door, will you?” His voice blasted downstairs, full of bitter annoyance. “Then murder whoever rang that idiot doorbell.”

Doorbell? She pushed her free hand through her hair. He’d installed a doorbell that played “After the Ball.” Wasn’t that just like him?

“You keep shouting at me,” she called as she marched down the hall, “you’re going to have worse than a hangover to deal with.”

“If you’d go away and let me die in peace, I wouldn’t have to shout.”

“In about two shakes, I’m coming up there and wringing your neck. And after I wring your neck, I’m going to kick your ass.”

She wrenched open the door on the final threat, and found herself glaring at a very handsome couple. It took only one blink to clear the temper for her to see Declan’s eyes looking curiously back at her out of the woman’s face.

“I’m Colleen Fitzgerald.” The woman, tidy, blond and lovely, held out an elegant hand. “And who are you? If that’s my son’s ass you’re intending to kick, I’d like to know your name.”

“Mom?” Dripping from the shower, wearing nothing but ripped sweatpants, Declan rushed to the top of the stairs. “Hey! Mom, Dad.” Despite the ravages of the hangover, he bolted down, threw one arm around each of them and squeezed. “I thought you were flying down tomorrow.”

“Change of plans. Are you just getting up?” Colleen demanded. “It’s after one in the afternoon.”

“Bachelor party last night. Hard liquor, loose women.”

“Really?” Colleen said and eyed Lena.

“Oh, not this one. She came over to play Florence Nightingale. Colleen and Patrick Fitzgerald, Angelina Simone.”

“Good to meet you.” Patrick, long, lanky, with his dark hair gorgeously silvered at the temples, sent Lena a generous smile. His blue eyes were bright and bold as he held out a hand.

Then they narrowed in concern as he saw her thumb. “You’ve hurt yourself.”

“It’s nothing.”

“What’d you do? You’re bleeding. Jesus, Lena.” Panicked, Declan grabbed her wrist, all but plucked her off her feet and rushed her toward the kitchen.

“It’s just a scratch. Stop it, Declan. Your parents. You’re embarrassing me,” she hissed.

“Shut up. Let me see how deep it is.”

Still in the doorway, Patrick turned to his wife. “She’s the one?”

“He certainly thinks so.” Colleen pursed her lips, stepped into the house. “Let’s just see about all this.”

“Hell of a looker.”

“I’ve got eyes, Patrick.” And she used them to take in the house as they followed Declan’s hurried path.

It was more, a great deal more than she’d expected. Not that she doubted her son’s taste. But she’d been led to believe the house was in serious, perhaps fatal, disrepair. And what she saw now were gracious rooms, charming details, glinting glass and wood.