Night of the Candles (3 page)

Sophia answered for her. “He was here only a moment ago. I can’t imagine where he has disappeared to.”

“Or that he would dare to do it without telling you?” her brother murmured in a tone meant for his sister’s ears alone. Sophia moved away with an angry swish of skirts. Taking up a poker, she prodded the logs in the fireplace, making them blaze up.

There was a smell in the air of dust and old wallpaper, of smoke, burning oak logs, and the sulphurous taint of the storm. Moving out of the way of the other woman, Amanda took a seat on the slippery hardness of the green-striped silk settee.

Somewhere in the house a door slammed. The draft stirred the window hangings and caused the flames in the lamps to shiver. His footfalls loud in the stillness, Theo stepped to a chair opposite the settee and lowered himself into it. The change of position placed Amanda in the full glow of the lamp on the table beside her. Theo made a small sound in his throat that turned into a difficult cough. Glancing at him with a smile of ready sympathy, Amanda found him staring at her above the clenched fist he held to his lips. He looked away at once, but the freckles stood out on his face like blotches and for an instant his eyes had been dark with what had every appearance of shock.

Sophia, her attention also drawn to her brother’s face, laughed. “You didn’t expect that, did you? Isn’t it just what you needed, what we all needed, to have the lovely face of dear dead Amelia return to haunt us?”

“Sophia,” her brother said, a warning in his voice.

It was not needed. Sophia swung away, her lips tightly folded, as Jason strolled into the room.

As a concession to his guest he had donned a brown cord jacket. His dark hair was damp and newly brushed, and his trousers had been pulled down over boots wiped free of dust and dirt from the field. His eyes scanned the company, missing nothing, neither Theo’s uncomfortable silence nor Sophia’s sulky chagrin. His green gaze locked with Amanda’s for the length of time it took her to recognize his iron self-control, and then he looked away.

“I believe. Miss Trent, that you were promised some refreshment. On a night like this I think something with strength in it is in order.”

Jason walked to the sideboard just inside the dining room, which led from the parlor. Through the wide entrance that normally closed with tan double doors, she watched as he used water, already heating over a spirit lamp, to mix two glasses of negus. When he brought a glass to Sophia and herself, she thanked him without demur though she would have preferred plain water.

Returning to the sideboard he poured drinks from one of the bottles with silver tags, drinks with a much stronger color, for Theo and himself.

There was the distant rumble of thunder. Amanda looked up in time to see, a brilliant streak of lightning crackle before a deafening roll of thunder exploded just above the house. She could not repress a start or the frown that drew her brows together.

“There, did you see that?” Theo asked leaning forward in his chair to send her a smile. “The rain will break any minute. You can’t mean to try for town. You must stay.”

There was a warmth about Sophia’s brother that inspired liking. His bright blue eyes held genuine concern for her safety and well-being. Waiting for her answer, he seemed completely oblivious of the fact that the hospitality he was pressing upon her was not his to offer. “I couldn’t impose,” Amanda said, flicking a glance on her host.

Theo caught the implication of that flutter of the lashes. “No imposition. Isn’t that so, Jason?”

“By all means, stay,” Jason answered, looking briefly from his glass with an expression devoid of either concern or welcome.

As his eyes slid over her, Amanda felt that he was deliberately keeping his face blank, as if he was enduring her presence as best he might until the time he could be released from the memories the sight of her inevitably brought back to him. The grieving widower. Was it a pose? She wondered, and then flushed as Jason looked up to catch her watching him, the speculation plain upon her expressive face.

“I would really rather go back into town,” she said dropping her gaze to the glass in her hands.

“Nonsense. Think of the danger,” Theo insisted with a seriousness hidden by a gallant air.

Sophia intervened. “Perhaps if Amanda insists on going back, one of you could act as her escort.”

“An excellent idea, Sophia,” her brother exclaimed, “I volunteer.”

“Really, there is no need,” Amanda protested.

“None of us here at Monteigne would be able to forgive ourselves if anything happened to you. If you must go, I go with you.” He glanced at Jason as though for support. Their host was in the process of pouring himself a fresh drink. The look he sent Theo was quite unreadable to Amanda, still it had the effect of sending the hot blood rushing to Theo’s hairline.

A species of indignation stirred in Amanda’s breast. Theo was, so far, the only one who had tried to be kind to her. It was the outside of enough to see him belittled for his efforts.

“If you are certain you won’t mind the drive, then I confess I would be glad of the company,” she said. It was true enough. An escort, a man at the reins, would be a comfort on these unknown roads after dark. She had lost her way once this afternoon, there was nothing to keep her from doing so again. Too, although she had seen no sign of unusual activity earlier, she was not blind to the possibility of being molested if her assailants discovered she was a woman alone.

“I will not mind,” Theo answered so simply no one could doubt the truth of his statement.

Thunder vibrated through the room. Hard on the sound Sophia spoke. “Even with an escort, it really is foolish of you to think of leaving now, you will be soaked to the skin, or worse, blown off the road. What would it hurt to stay a little longer, until the rain stops? And as long as you are waiting, you may as well take dinner with us. Theo, I’m certain, will want to fortify himself for the long drive into town and back.”

It would not be fair to expect Theo to wait until his return for his meal. Reluctantly Amanda agreed.

“Good. That’s settled,” Theo said, setting down his glass and rubbing his hands together before holding them out to the fire. “Getting cooler, be Halloween in little more than a week.”

“Will it? Yes, I suppose so,” Amanda said, mentally counting up the days.

“All Hallow’s Eve. We shall have to lay in a stock of candles.”

“Candles?”

“For the Night of the Candles.”

“I don’t … oh, you mean for the cemetery. Do you keep that custom?”

“We, Sophia and I, have French Catholic ancestors like so many in this area. If you have never seen the cemetery glimmering with candlelight to keep away the demons on All Hallow’s Eve, you should make the effort. As a custom it has a certain macabre charm.”

“Don’t let my brother persuade you. Miss Trent,” Sophia said in her husky voice. “The occasion has a religious significance, it’s true, but it is also an excuse for the most diabolical and disgusting tricks ever to be invented by a childish mind. I have no liking for cemeteries at the best of times, but I keep a wary eye out on The Night of the Candles.”

“I resent the implication!” Theo said, then sobered with a quick, slanting glance at Jason. “I don’t imagine any of us will be in a frolicsome mood this particular year.”

He referred, of course, to the still fresh bereavement, the new grave with Amelia’s name on the stone. The thought cast a pall on the company that Theo tried to break by taming brisk and matter of fact.

“Well, when do we eat?”

His sister lifted her feathery blond lashes in a languid sweep. “Dinner will be ready when Proserpine is ready and not one second sooner, you know that. This evening she was late starting dinner because her second granddaughter has a cold, and she had to carry her some pepper sauce for her cough.”

Amanda sipped her hot, watered wine with sugar and spices. She was not very hungry. She had taken a lunch hamper from the hotel this morning and eaten it along the way. How long ago that seemed. Then she had thought to find Amelia alive. She had expected that they would have a comfortable gossip and she might visit a day or two. Her bags were in the gig. She had missed Amelia, her sprightly ways and infectious laugh, missed having someone to talk nonsense to now and then. Amelia had been such a happy person and so young to die. But she must not go on thinking in this vein or she would be crying, here in front of these strangers. She took a deep, resolute breath.

“You must be alone in the world now, Amanda, if what you say about your grandparents is true. What are you going to do with yourself?” Sophia’s voice was polite but a new curiosity gleamed in her brown eyes.

“I won’t be alone for long. I am engaged to be married, probably in the spring.”

“Your fiance allowed you to come here alone?” Jason asked.

“I can see you don’t approve. Women have had to become independent here in the South since the war, Mr. Monteigne. There are not enough men to escort all the women left alone.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“No, perhaps not. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t tell Nathaniel I was coming. He was away on business in New Orleans. He is a lawyer, you see, and interested in politics. I had the opportunity to travel as far as Natchitoches with friends who were going on to Shreveport, and I could not allow the chance to pass. It isn’t as if it were a journey around the world, you know. It’s only a matter of some sixty or sixty-five miles from my grandfather’s plantation.”

“Oh, your grandfather had a plantation? What will become of it now?” Sophia probed, ignoring her brother’s frown of disapproval.

“It will have to be sold. It is too far from town to be practical for Nathaniel and me to live there, as much as I hate the idea of leaving the old house. It was nothing very grand, since it was built before the cotton boom, but I love it.” Amanda had the feeling that she was being drawn, but it could not matter, and it was necessary to pass the time somehow.

“You have moved then?”

“I’m just on the verge of doing so. Most of my things are packed away. But I wanted to clear away all my obligations first. Nathaniel and I are going to build a new house on the edge of town.”

“An edifice suitable for a rising young lawyer-politician, of course,” Sophia commented. “I’m sure your grandfather’s money will come in handy.”

Amanda was silent a moment, long enough to quell the impulse to answer such cynicism as it deserved, before she replied. “That is not the case at all.”

“No? Tell me, Amanda. With whom are you going to live until the wedding?”

“Why, with Nathaniel’s parents. They have quite a nice home themselves. Nathaniel is hardly a pauper.”

“That may be, but politics is notoriously expensive, and it appears to me that your young man is being very sure of you. So sure that you felt you had to escape him the moment his back was turned.”

“That isn’t true!” Amanda exclaimed, staring at Sophia with real horror.

“Pay no attention to my sister,” Theo said with a dismissing wave of his hand. “She enjoys the pose of the worldly wise cynic. Don’t let her infect you with the disease.”

“I’m sure there’s no danger of that,” Jason drawled. “Amanda hasn’t the look of the easily disenchanted.”

“Are … are you suggesting that I am gullible?” Anger boiled up suddenly. Why should they bother when she would go out of their lives in an hour or so, never to see them again? Why should they attack her with their verbal barbs? Although uninvited she was still a guest, and this was the height of discourtesy.

Thunder rumbled again and then, in the midst of the sound, came the ringing of a handbell.

“At last!” Theo got to his feet and gave his hand to Amanda as she rose, then tucked her hand into his elbow, and led her toward the dining room, leaving his sister to follow with Jason. The nurse, Marta, met them at the foot of the stairs. The woman, her face almost purple from the exertion of hurrying, fell in behind them.

Jason took his place at the head of the table. The cook, Proserpine, standing behind his chair, ran her eyes over the company, and then, a carefully blank look hiding her displeasure, went away to bring another place setting for Amanda. Amanda glanced at Sophia, but if the woman had been made to feel she had been derelict in her duties, she gave no sign. Sophia took her place, automatically on Jason’s right and watched with an amused expression as her brother held the chair on the left for Amanda, then sat down beside her.

It was a simple meal. Vegetable soup was followed by crisp golden chicken stuffed with herbs, fluffy biscuits the size of a silver dollar, gravy, rice, smoked ham with sweet potatoes, and some of the eggplants of the season mealed and fried. Dessert was a pie made with fresh pecans and cane syrup, still warm from the oven.

The courses were accompanied by wine, and Amanda noticed that Jason refilled his glass often from the decanter at his elbow.

Halfway through the meal the rain began, falling thick and heavy on the roof, while the lightning flickered continuously beyond the muslin curtains over the windows.

There was not much conversation. The storm seemed to have a depressing effect on the group around the board, except for Marta who ate with a stolid unconcern for the other diners, pushing the food into her mouth by the forkful. Theo and Sophia spoke now and then, employing the short swift comments of those long used to each other’s thoughts and opinions. Jason sat morose, staring at his wine glass, now and then raising his eyes to let his gaze slide over Amanda as if he would like to stare but would not allow himself to do so. A scowl drew his brows together, and she wondered if his anger was directed at himself or at her.

As Proserpine, a big woman with a round face on which ill nature had stamped strong lines, brought the last dessert plate, she stopped beside Jason.

“Yes, what is it?” he asked without looking up.

“That tramp, the crazy Carl. He’s done come in out of the rain. He’s eatin’ in my kitchen right now.”

“And?”

“And this time he’s got a lizard with him, feeding’ it off his plate!”