Midnight Bayou (27 page)

Because she heard the temper in his voice, she shrugged. Then smiled and traced a finger down his cheek. “Now don’t get all riled up,
cher.
We got us a party here. You and me, we can fight anytime.”

“Okay, we’ll schedule it in for a little later.” He caught her chin in his hand. “I can’t figure out who you’re selling
short, Lena. Me, my family or yourself. Let me know when you’ve got the answer.”

He bent, brushed his lips over hers. “See you later.”

T
he reception moved into the ballroom, and still managed to spill onto the galleries, onto the lawn. For the first time in decades, the house filled with music and laughter. Racing children, crying babies, flirting couples and gossiping friends filled the great room, relaxed in the shade of white umbrellas at tables around the gardens or plopped down on the gallery.

Declan liked to imagine the house absorbing all that positive energy, even into the dark corners of the rooms he’d kept locked.

“Declan.” Effie laid a hand on his arm. “May I have this dance?”

“Did somebody kill Remy?” He led her out on the floor. “I figure that’s the only way he’d let you more than a foot away from him.” He kissed her hand before taking her into his arms. “Can’t blame him. When you’ve got the most beautiful woman in the room, you keep her close.”

“Oh, Declan.” She laid her cheek on his. “If I wasn’t madly in love with my husband, I’d make such a play for you.”

“If you ever get tired of him, let me know.”

“I want to thank you for everything you did to give me this perfect day. I know my mama, my sister and I drove you a little crazy the last couple weeks.”

“Has it only been a couple weeks?” He laughed. “It was worth every hour I hid in closets so none of you could find me.”

“I’m so happy. I’m so happy, and I love you. I love everybody today,” she said with a laugh. “Everyone in the world, but today, next to Remy, I love you best of all so I want you to be happy.”

“I am.”

“Not enough.” She turned her lips to his ear. “Declan, there’s something in this house that’s just not finished. I didn’t think I believed in that sort of thing, but . . . I feel it. Whenever I’m here, I feel it. I feel it even today.”

He could feel the tremor move through her, rubbed his hand over her back to soothe it away. “You shouldn’t think about it today. You shouldn’t worry today.”

“I’m worried for you. Something . . . it isn’t finished. Part of it, somehow part of it’s my fault.”

“Yours?” He eased her back now so he could see her face, then circled her toward one of the corners. “What do you mean?”

“I wish I knew what I meant. I only know what I feel. Something I did, or didn’t do for you. It doesn’t make a bit of sense, but it’s such a strong feeling. The feeling that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most. I guess I’m a little afraid something bad’s going to happen again if it’s not all made right. So, well, as silly as this sounds, I just want to tell you I’m sorry, so awfully sorry for letting you down however I did.”

“It’s all right.” He touched his lips to her forehead. “You couldn’t know. Whatever it was, if it was, you couldn’t know. And sweetheart, this isn’t a day for looking back. It’s all about tomorrow now.”

“You’re right. Just . . . just be careful,” she said as Remy walked up and gave Declan a mock punch.

“That’s my wife you’re holding,
cher.
You go get your own girl.”

“Good idea.”

He hunted up Lena, found her in a clutch of people. The red of her dress was like a sleek tongue of flame over her dusky skin. He imagined his reaction to it, to her, transmitted clearly enough as he saw that knowing and essentially female look come into her eyes as he stepped toward her.

He turned slightly and held out a hand to her grandmother. “Miss Odette, would you dance with me?”

“Day hasn’t come when I’ll turn down a dance with a handsome man.”

“You look wonderful,” he told her when they took the floor.

“Weddings make me feel young. I had a nice talk with your mama.”

“Did you?”

“You’re wondering,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ll tell you we got on just fine. And she seemed pleased when I told her I saw how you’d been raised up right the first time I met you. She paid me back the compliment by saying the same about my Lena. Then we chatted about things women often chat about at weddings, which would likely bore you—except to say we agreed what a handsome young man you are. And handsome young men should find more reasons to wear tuxedos.”

“I could become a maître d’. But they get better tips when they have a snooty accent, and I’m not sure I could pull that part off.”

“Then I’ll just have to wait until your own wedding to see you all slicked up again.”

“Yeah.” He looked over her head, but Lena had moved on. “This one’s working out pretty well anyway. I was a little panicked that the storm last night would screw things up.”

“Storm?
Cher
, we didn’t have a storm last night.”

“Sure we did. A mean one. Don’t tell me you slept through it.”

“I was up till midnight.” She watched his face now. “Finishing the hem on this dress. Then I was up again ’round four when Rufus decided he needed to go outside. I saw lights on over here then. Wondered what you were doing up at that hour. Night was clear as a bell, Declan.”

“I . . . I must’ve dreamed about a storm. Pre-wedding
stress.” But he hadn’t been up at four. Hadn’t been up at all, as far as he knew, after midnight—when he’d walked through the house to turn off all the lights before going to bed.

Dreams, he thought. Wind and rain, the flash of lightning. The yellow flames of the fire in the grate. Pain, sweat, thirst. Blood.

Women’s hands, women’s voices—Effie’s?—giving comfort, giving encouragement.

He remembered it now, clearly, and stopped dead in the middle of the dance.

He’d had a baby. He’d gone through childbirth.

Good God.

“
Cher?
Declan? You come on outside.” Gently, Odette guided him off the floor. “You need some air.”

“Yeah. Southern ladies are big on swooning, right?”

“What’s that?”

“Never mind.” He was mortified, he was awed, at what had happened to him inside his own dream. Inside, he supposed, his own memories.

“Go on back in,” he told her. “I’m just going to take a walk, clear my head.”

“What did you remember?”

“A miracle,” he murmured. “Remind me to buy my mother a really great present. I don’t know how the hell you women get through it once. She did it four times. Amazing,” he mumbled, and headed down the steps. “Fucking amazing.”

He walked all the way around the house, then slipped back in for a tall glass of icy water. He used it to wash down three extra-strength aspirin in hopes of cutting back on the vicious headache that had come on the moment he’d remembered the dream.

He could hear the music spilling down the steps from the ballroom. He could feel the vibrations on the ceiling from where dozens of feet danced.

He had to get back up, perform his duties as best man and host. All he wanted to do was fall facedown on the bed, close his eyes, and slide into oblivion.

“Declan.” Lena came in through the gallery doors, then shut them behind her. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Just a headache.”

“You’ve been gone nearly an hour. People are asking about you.”

“I’m coming up.” But he sat on the side of the bed. “In a minute.”

She crossed to him. “Is it bad?”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Why don’t you just lie down a few minutes?”

“I’m not crawling into bed on my best friend’s wedding day—unless you want to keep me company.”

“It’s tempting. Seeing a man in a tux always makes me want to peel him out of it.”

“Maître d’s must just love you.”

“There now, you made a stupid joke, so you must be feeling better.”

“Considering I gave birth less than twenty-four hours ago, I’d say I’m doing great.”

Lena pursed her lips. “
Cher
, just how much have you had to drink this evening?”

“Not nearly as much as I plan on having. You know how you had this theory that I was Abigail Manet? Well, I’m starting to think you’re onto something seeing as I dreamed I was in that room down the hall, in the bed I’ve seen in there—that one that isn’t there. I wasn’t seeing Abigail on that bed, in the last stages of labor. I experienced it, and let me tell you, it ain’t no walk on the beach. Any woman who doesn’t go for the serious drugs is a lunatic. It beats anything they dreamed up for that entertaining era known as the Spanish Inquisition.”

“You dreamed you were Abigail, and you—”

“It wasn’t like a dream, Lena, and I think I must’ve
been in that room when I had the—flash or hallucination, or whatever we call it. I can remember the storm—the sound of it, and how scared I was, how focused I was on bringing that baby out.”

He paused, replayed his own words. “Boy, that sounded weird.”

“Yes. Yes, it did.” She sat beside him.

“I heard the voices. Other women helping me. I can see their faces—especially the young one. The one close to my age—Abigail’s age. I can feel the sweat running down my face, and the unbelievable fatigue. Then that sensation, that peak of it all when it was like coming to the point of being ripped open. Bearing down, then the relief, the numbness, the fucking
wonder
of pushing life into the world. Then the flood of pride and love when they put that miracle in my arms.”

He looked down at his hands while Lena stared at him. “I can see the baby, Lena, clear as life, I can see her. All red and wrinkled and pissed off. Dark blue eyes, dark hair. A rosebud mouth. Tiny, slender fingers, and I thought: There are ten, and she is perfect. My perfect Rose.”

He looked at Lena now. “Marie Rose, your great-great-grandmother. Marie Rose,” he repeated, “our daughter.”

T
heir daughter.
She couldn’t dismiss it, and something deep inside her grieved. But she couldn’t speak of it, wouldn’t speak of it, not when her head and heart were so heavy.

Lena threw herself back into the crowds, the music, the laughter. This was
now
, she thought. Now was what counted.

She was alive, with the warm evening air on her skin, under the pure, white moonlight with the fragrance of the flowers and gardens rioting around her.

Roses and verbena, heliotrope, jasmine.

Lilies. Her favorite had been the lily. She kept them, always, in her room. First in the servants’ quarters, then in their bedroom. Clipped in secret from the garden or the hothouse.

And for the nursery, there were roses. Tiny pink buds for their precious Marie Rose.

Frightened, she pushed those thoughts, those images, aside. Grabbing a partner, she flirted him into a dance.

She didn’t want the past. It was dead and done. She didn’t want the future. It was capricious and often cruel. It was the moment that was to be lived, enjoyed. Even controlled.

So when Declan’s father took her hand, she smiled at him, brilliantly.

“This one here’s a Cajun two-step. Can you handle it?”

“Let’s find out.”

They swung among the circling couples with quick, stylish moves that had her laughing up at him. “Why, Patrick, you’re a natural. You sure you’re a Yankee?”

“Blood and bone. Then again, you have to factor in the Irish. My mother was a hell of a step-dancer, and can still pull it off after a couple of pints.”

“How old’s your mama?”

“Eighty-six.” He twirled her out and back. “Fitzgeralds tend to be long-lived and vigorous. Something’s upset you.”

She kept her cheerful expression in place. “Now what could upset me at such a lovely time and place?”

“That’s the puzzle. Why don’t we get a glass of champagne, and you can tell me?”

He didn’t give her a chance to refuse. Like father, like son, she thought as he kept her hand firmly in his. He drew her to the bar, ordered two flutes, then led her outside.

“A perfect night,” she said, and breathed it in. “Look at those gardens. It’s hard to believe what they were like just a few months back. Did Declan tell you about the Franks?”

“About the Franks, Tibald. About Effie and Miss Odette. About the ghosts, about you.”

“He bit off a lot here.” She sipped champagne, wandered to the baluster. Below, people were still dancing on the lawn. A group of women sat at one of the white tables
under a white moon, some with babies sleeping on their shoulders, some with children drooping in their laps.

“He was bored in Boston.”

Intrigued, Lena looked away from the people, the charm of the fairy lights, and looked at Patrick. “Bored?”

“Unhappy, restless, but in a large part bored. With his work, his fiancée, his life. The only thing that put any excitement in his face was the old house he was redoing. I worried he’d go along, end up married to the wrong woman, working in a field he disliked, living a life that only half satisfied him. I shouldn’t have worried.”

He leaned back on the baluster and looked through the open doors into the ballroom. “His mind, his heart, was never set on the path we—his mother and I—cleared for him. We didn’t want to see that, so for a long time, we didn’t.”

“You only wanted the best for him. People tend to think what’s best for them is best for the people they love.”

“Yes, and Declan’s nature is to do whatever he can to make those he loves happy. He loves you.”

When she said nothing, Patrick turned to her. “You said he was stubborn. It’s more than that. Once Declan sets his mind on a goal, on a vision, he’s got a head like granite. He won’t be turned away by obstacles or excuses or lukewarm protests. If you don’t love him, Lena, if you don’t want a life with him, hurt him. Hurt him quick and make it deep. Then walk away.”

“I don’t want to hurt him. That’s the whole point and problem.”

“He didn’t think he was capable of loving anyone. He told me that after he broke it off with Jessica. He said he didn’t have that kind of love inside him. Now he knows he does, and he’s better for it. You’ve already made a difference in his life, an important one. Now you have to
love him back, or leave him. To do anything in between would be cruel, and you’re not cruel.”

She reached up, closed her fingers around the key on its chain, then dropped them—nervous now—to the wings on her breast. “He’s not what I planned for. He’s not what I was looking for.”

He smiled then, kindly, and patted her hand. “Life’s full of surprises, isn’t it? Some of them are a real kick in the ass.” Then he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you again,” he said, and left her alone.

T
he party rolled on a good two hours after the bride and groom were seen off in a shower of confetti—which Declan imagined he’d be finding in his lawn, his clothes, perhaps even his food for the next six months.

The music stayed hot, and the guests stayed happy. In the early hours of the morning, some walked to their cars. Others were carried, and not all of them were children.

Declan stood on the curve of his front steps and watched the last of them drive away. The sky in the east was paling, just a gentle lessening of the dark. Even as he stood, he saw a star go out.

Morning was waking.

“You must be tired,” Lena said from the gallery above him.

“No.” He continued to look at the sky. “I should be, but I’m not.”

“It’s going to take you a week to clean this place up.”

“Nope. The General and her troops are coming over tomorrow to deal with it. I’m ordered to keep out of the way, and that’s one command I won’t have any trouble obeying. I didn’t think you’d stay.”

“Neither did I.”

He turned now, looked up at her. A kind of Romeo and Juliet pose, he thought, and hoped for a better ending. “Why did you?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know what to do about you, Declan. I swear to God, I just don’t know. Men’ve never been any trouble for me. Maybe I’ve been trouble for them,” she said with a faint smile. “But you’re the first who’s given me any.”

He started up to her. “None of them loved you.”

“No, none of them loved me. Wanted me. Desired me, but that’s the easy part. You can be careless with wants. And I’ll tell you the truth. Sometimes, most times, I enjoyed that carelessness. Not just the sex, but the dance. The game. Whatever you want to call that courtship that’s no courtship at all. When the music stops, or the game’s over, there might be some bumps and bruises, but nobody’s really hurt.”

“But this isn’t a game between the two of us.”

“I’ve already hurt you.”

“Bumps and bruises so far, Lena.” He stopped, face-to-face with her. “Bumps and bruises.”

“When you look at me, what are you seeing? Someone, something else from before. You can’t run the living on the dead.”

“I see you clear enough. But I see something else in both of us that shouldn’t be ignored or forgotten. Maybe something that needs to be put right before we can move on.”

He reached in his pocket, pulled out Lucian’s watch. “I gave this to you once before, about a hundred years ago. It’s time you had it back.”

Her fingers chilled at the idea of holding it. “If this is true, don’t you see it all ended in grief and death and tragedy? We can’t change what was. Why risk bringing it on again?”

“Because we have to. Because we’re stronger this time.” He opened her hand, put the watch into her palm, closed her fingers over it. “Because if we don’t set it right, it never really ends.”

“All right.” She slipped the watch into the pocket of the short jacket she’d put on. Then she unpinned the watch on her dress. “I gave this to you once before. Take it back.”

When he took it, held it, the clock that had once stood inside the Hall began to bong.

“Midnight,” he said with perfect calm. “It’ll strike twelve times.” And he looked down at the face of the enameled watch he held. “Midnight,” he repeated, showing it to her. “Look at yours.”

Her fingers weren’t so steady when she pulled it out. “Jesus,” she breathed when she saw both hands straight up. “Why?”

“We’re going to find out. I have to go inside.” He looked up, toward the third floor. “I have to go up to the nursery. The baby . . .”

Even as he spoke, they heard the fretful cries.

“Let’s just go. Declan, let’s just get in the car and drive away from here.”

But he was already moving inside. “The baby’s crying. She’s hungry. She needs me. Lucian’s parents are sleeping. I always go upstairs early when he’s not home. I hate sitting with them in the parlor after dinner. I can feel the way she dislikes me.”

His voice had changed, Lena realized as she followed him. There was a Cajun cadence to it. “Declan.”

“Claudine will walk her, or change her, but my pretty Rosie needs her mama. I don’t like having her up on the third floor,” he said as he hurried down the corridor. “But Madame Josephine always gets her way. Not always,” he corrected, and there was a smile in his voice now. “If she always did, I’d be alligator bait ’stead of married to Lucian. He’ll be home tomorrow. I miss him so.”

As he started up the stairs, his gait slowed, and Lena heard the rapid pace of his breath. “I have to go up.” It was his own voice now, with fear at the edges. “I have to go in. I have to see.”

Gathering all her courage, Lena took his hand. “We’ll go in together.”

His hand shook. The cold that permeated the air speared into the bone. Nausea rolled through his belly, rose up his throat. Clamping down against it, he shoved the door open.

He stumbled, and even as Lena tried to catch him, fell to his knees.

“He comes in. He’s drunk. I don’t want him coming up here, but he won’t go away. Everyone says, they say how he looks just like Lucian, but they don’t see his eyes. I have to make him go away, away from my baby. I wish Claudine hadn’t gone off to meet Jasper. I don’t like being alone up here with Julian. He scares me, but I don’t want him to see it.”

His eyes were glazed, glassy smoke in a face that had gone pale as death. “Declan, oh God, Declan, come back.” She squeezed his hand until she felt bone rub against bone.

“When he grabs at me, I get away.” His voice was breathless now. He still knelt, a rangy man with sun-streaked hair, wearing a tuxedo with the tie dangling loose. A man with a woman’s memories, a woman’s terror storming inside him.

“But I can’t leave my baby. I get the poker from the fireplace. I’ll kill him if I have to. I’ll kill him if he touches me or my baby. Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

As her knees seemed to melt away, Lena sank to the floor beside him, tried to wrap her arms around him.

“He’s stronger than me. I scream and I scream, but nobody comes to help me. He’s drunk and he’s crazy. He’s crazy and he’s drunk. He knocks me down, and he rips at my clothes. I can’t get away. My baby’s crying, but I can’t get to her. I can’t stop him.”

“Oh.” Shaking, Lena tried to hold him, rock him. “No. No, no, no.”

“He rapes me.” Fire burned in the center of him. Pain, the pain, and the fear. Oh God, the fear. “I call for help. I call for you, but you’re not here.”

His voice tore with tears. “You don’t come. I need you.”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t.” It was all she could say as she clung to him.

“He hurts me, but I fight him. I try to stop him, but he won’t stop. I’m so scared, I’m so scared, but even then I know he’s not doing this because he wants me. It’s because he hates you.”

He turned his head, those storm-gray eyes drenched. “He hates you. And because I’m yours, he has to break me. The way he broke your toys when you were children. I beg him to stop, but he won’t. He tries to make me stop screaming, but I can’t stop. I can’t. His hands are around my throat.”

It doubled him over, that hideous pressure, that shocking loss of air. “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. My baby’s crying for me, and I can’t breathe. He kills me. While my baby’s crying in her crib. Our baby. While he’s still inside me. He breaks me like a toy that belongs to his brother.”

He lifted his head, looked at her now. And when he spoke, his voice was so full of grief she wondered they both didn’t die of it. “You didn’t come. I called, but you didn’t come.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“She came.” Declan got rockily to his feet. “She came, and she saw what he had done to me. She looked down at me like I was a mess that had to be cleaned up before the neighbors came to call.”

His eyes were dry now, and narrowed at the slamming of doors on the second floor. “Her house, her sons, and I was the bayou slut who’d trespassed. I watched her look down on me. It was like a dream, that watching. I saw her
tell him to carry me out, down to the bedroom, while she cleaned up the blood, and the candle wax, and the broken crockery. He took my body out the gallery, but I watched her, watched her go over to my sweet baby, and I heard her mind wonder if it would be best just to smother the child. She considered it, and I believe if she’d tried, there was enough of me left that I could have struck her down like a lightning bolt.”

He walked back to the door. “She thought I was weak, but she was
wrong.
They could kill me, but they couldn’t end me.”

“Declan, that’s enough.”

“No, not yet.” He walked down the steps, down the hall, opened the door to Abigail’s bedroom. “He laid me on the bed in here. And he wept. Not for me, but for himself. What would happen to him? His hand had defiled me, and killed me, but he thought only of himself. And does still. For he’s in this house, he and Josephine. Walking and waiting in their little hell.”

He crossed over to the wall where the armoire had been, opened the door of it in his mind. “They took some of my clothes. I had the gown in here for the ball. I was so proud of it. I wanted to be beautiful for you. Make you proud of me. She dropped my watch, but didn’t notice. She had Julian wrap me up, and they carried me out, with the suitcase full of my things. They got old bricks to weigh me down, and they carried me away.

“It was hard. Even though there was moonlight, even though it was cool, it was a hard walk carting all of that. Julian got sick, but she brooked no nonsense. They would say I ran off with another man. They would let the gossip spread that my baby was a bastard, fawned off on you as your own. She told Julian how it would be as they put the bricks over me, as they tied the cloak around me with rope, as they pushed me into the bayou.”