“We have traditions to uphold, we Louisiana ladies. The reason I moved here—what I want from life—is to recreate a way of living that’s in danger of disappearing. I know both of you understand what I mean. Louisiana ladies, and houses like this, are about grace and holding out against progress.” Susan turned up her nose and turned down her mouth. “It’s up to us to keep certain standards alive. With something like a hotel, you could get
any
sort of person wandering about and most of them just wouldn’t fit in.”
Charlotte sat beside Susan and rested her hand on the back of the woman’s right forearm. “Now you calm yourself and trust our good judgment. We intend to make sure our business doesn’t endanger anyone who lives around here.” The devil had gone to work on her.
“Why, we”ve already started looking for a reliable firm of uniformed guards to patrol the grounds—especially when we hold outdoor concerts that will draw lots of young folk.”
“Concerts on the grounds?” Susan said weakly.
“Oh, yes,” Vivian said, her expression angelic. “We’ve already reserved dates with some of the best known zydeco bands around—and some swamp pop, of course. And we’re in negotiation with one or two popular groups—hip-hop will really bring in the crowds.”
Susan was no fool. She narrowed her eyes and cast suspicious glances at each of them. “I think you have very strange senses of humor.”
Vivian didn’t argue. She did look at her watch, then at her mother. They were running short of time if they were going to prepare dinner. Boa nuzzled her neck but repeatedly arched her little back to cast a suspicious glare at Susan.
The phone rang and Vivian went into the hall to answer.
“Vivian,” the voice at the other end said. “It’s Madge at the rectory. Father Cyrus asked me to give you a call.” Madge was Cyrus’s assistant.
“Is something wrong?”
“No! Why would there be? He said you were having a meeting with a New Orleans lawyer earlier this afternoon and you said you’d call and let him know if the news was good. He wanted me to check in with you.”
Vivian yanked on the bottom of her too-short T-shirt. “Now I feel guilty. I should have gotten back with him. We waited all afternoon but Louis didn’t show. Guess we’ll call his office in the morning. Maybe there was a muddle up over the date. Tell Cyrus we’ll talk to him tomorrow, would you?”
Madge agreed and hung up.
And the doorbell gave a rusty buzz.
Charlotte got to her feet at once. “Louis. He must have gotten lost, poor man.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, my, it’s almost six.”
“I’m going to the door,” Vivian said, frowning. “This is turning into a messy evening.”
Charlotte waited for Vivian to add that it was her mother’s fault but she didn’t, although the look in her green, almond-shaped eyes said it all.
“I suppose I should leave,” Susan said, her attention on the hall and curiosity oozing from her pores. “I’ll slip along now. Don’t forget how convenient that path between the two estates is. Come over anytime, anytime at all. You’ll fall in love with Morgan—and Olympia’s a charmer—” She didn’t as much as blink when Charlotte put a hand beneath her elbow and eased her to her feet. “Olympia is a beauty. She’s considering the Miss Southern Belle Pageant. I’ve tried to dissuade her but you can’t stand in children’s way, can you?” Her long sigh wasn’t convincing.
Vivian opened the front door.
Rather than Louis Martin, Deputy Sheriff Spike Devol stood there, a broad-brimmed black Stetson covering his hair, his eyes very blue in a tanned face, and with a bunch of flowers in each hand. Rather than say, “Hi,” or “Good evening,” or even, “Here’s looking at you,” he studied the flowers as if he’d never seen them before and raised and lowered them as if figuring out how to get rid of them.
Behind Spike, bands of purple streaked the setting sun, shading his face but backlighting him with gold. The deputy was in his thirties, with the mature, muscular body of a man who knew all about being physical. His shoulders and arms and his chest filled a crisp, dark gray shirt to capacity, but his hips were slim. His legs weren’t so slim. Once again long, well-developed muscles strained at his clothes, in the best possible way. Vivian felt a definitely sexual thrill.
“Hi there, Spike,” she said, making sure she sounded pleasant but detached. “Mama said you were coming for dinner.” She felt Susan Hurst arrive at her side and knew she’d heard what Vivian had said.
“I’m Susan Hurst. I live next door at Serenity House,” Susan said with a new, husky sound in her voice. “I’m just going to pop along the path and go home. So convenient.”
“That’s nice.” Spike had a deep voice, deep and soft and impossible to read. There was something a little different about him than Vivian had noticed on the previous occasions she’d run into him, but she wasn’t sure what—other than his being out of uniform.
Finally he grasped both bunches of flowers in one hand and took off the Stetson. “Evenin’, Vivian,” he said.
Susan Hurst still hovered.
“Take care,” Vivian told her. “Best make it home while there’s still enough light. It looks like it could rain, too.”
Susan didn’t look happy, but she gave a stiff smile and trotted off, her very nice behind swaying in tailored white slacks.
“C’mon in,” Charlotte said from behind Vivian. “You’re never going to believe this but Susan Hurst’s visit was a surprise. We haven’t gotten far with dinner yet, but it won’t take too long.”
“I’m early,” Spike said in that still voice of his. “I’m useful in the kitchen. I’ll give a hand.”
Vivian stood aside for him to enter and her heart—or the vicinity of her heart—squeezed. As he passed her he looked sideways and down into her face. The faintest of smiles pushed dimples into the creases beside his mouth. His sun-streaked hair, she noticed, had a way of standing up on end in front.
Down girl, down.
“We wouldn’t hear of it,” she said when she found her
voice. “What do you like to drink? Make yourself comfortable and we’ll show you how quickly we can get things done.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, inclining his head and broadening his smile enough to deepen those dimples and show very good teeth. He actually made Vivian feel small and feminine and she’d never thought of herself as either.
The phone rang again and Charlotte hurried away, apparently to answer it in the kitchens although she could have done so in the hall. Mama was still in matchmaker mode, but then, she’d been trying to marry Vivian off for years.
“If it won’t upset you,” Spike said, “I’d like to help. I’m not good at sitting still and doing nothing.”
“Neither am I,” she told him emphatically. “I guess it’s because my parents were always busy.”
He only nodded and suddenly thrust both bunches of flowers into her arms. Boa had disappeared at the sound of the doorbell—guarding wasn’t one of her duties—but she chose this moment to skitter into the hall and make a dash for Vivian, screeching to a halt with all four feet braced in the forward position.
“Nice dog,” Spike said, with a look that suggested he wasn’t sure Boa was a dog at all.
“Thank you,” Vivian said, and smiled at him. “Nice flowers. I don’t remember the last time someone gave me any.”
His smile dropped away. “You should be given flowers every day.” Immediately he colored under the tan and the result was disarming. “I thought you could share them with your mother. How is she doin’?”
For an instant she didn’t understand. Then any last reserve against this man melted. He wasn’t just a tall, good-looking piece of manhood, he was thoughtful. And that was a killer combination. Almost no one here
mentioned their loss. “Mama’s strong, but she and my dad just about grew up together. It’s hard and it’s going to be hard for a long time. Especially because of the way he died.”
Spike slid the brim of his Stetson through his fingers. “There’s nothing anyone can say to whitewash that. I’m real sorry. Not that it helps.”
David Patin had burned to death in the fire that destroyed Chez Charlotte. “Kindness always helps,” Vivian said feeling the too familiar desire to be alone again.
“Vivian!” Charlotte came from the kitchens and her face was too pale. “I don’t know what to make of it. That was Cyrus. He says when he was walking toward the road, to his car, he saw Louis Martin—driving a brand-new powder-blue Jag.”
Vivian’s mind became blank.
“Y’hear me?” Charlotte said, her voice rising. “That wretch Louis drove all the way here—Cyrus spoke with him—and then he must have decided he couldn’t be bothered and left again.”
C
harlotte marched back to the kitchens while Vivian and Spike shared an uncomfortable silence.
“Louis Martin is our lawyer,” Vivian said. “He was due here this afternoon but he never showed up. We decided he’d forgotten the appointment. Now I don’t know what to think.”
“I think your mother’s right. He drove here then changed his mind. Maybe he got a message and had to turn around.”
“Without taking the trouble to tell us?”
Spike looked at Vivian again and was uncomfortably aware that each time he did so was more disturbing than the last. He liked looking at her but she made him heat up. Ah, what the hell, he’d accepted her mother’s invitation because he wanted an opportunity to be with Vivian long enough to see if there was really a spark between them.
There was a spark.
“Should we check on your mother?” he said.
Vivian nodded and walked ahead of him. Her straight
black hair slid around her shoulders. She was one of those women with a tiny waist but plenty of curves north and south. But it was her face he’d kept right on seeing from the first time they’d been introduced, at Bigeaux’s hardware store in Toussaint. Her eyes were unforgettable and he’d spent serious time considering her full mouth. Exotic might be a fair classification, not that he thought she’d fit too easily inside any boundaries.
His father’s sour reaction to this visit wouldn’t leave him. Homer Devol didn’t have much use for women and he didn’t think Spike had any reason to think of them kindly, either. Homer’s parting words this evening had been “Don’t listen to me, then. Go on and make a damn fool of yourself, you. They’re old money and anythin’ between you will look like you’re tryin’ to get above yourself.”
Spike had come anyway, even with Homer’s “Don’t you go bringin’ another woman around if she ain’t gonna stay. Wendy don’t need that.”
He wouldn’t do anything to hurt five-year-old Wendy, no way. But he was a man with a man’s needs and he’d been alone too long.
Charlotte Patin had heaped fresh vegetables onto an enormous and worn cutting block in the center of the kitchen. The room was big and at the apex of the high ceiling was an old-fashioned window that could be opened with a chain on metal cogs and pulleys when the heat got too much. What looked like the original spits were still in a fireplace that had to be more than six feet wide.
“Okay,” Charlotte said. “If you want to help, Spike, chop those.”
He started rolling up his sleeves. “No problem. I’m an expert.”
“Spike brought us flowers, Mama,” Vivian said, not liking the harassed expression on her mother’s face.
Charlotte gave him a sweet smile. “Thank you. They’re lovely. We need something bright and cheerful around here.” She returned to pulling food out of the refrigerator.
Foreboding slipped over Vivian like a cold shroud. What would make Louis turn away when he’d already gotten here? “Will you excuse me for a few minutes, please,” she said, avoiding Spike’s serious glance. “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried from the kitchens with Boa at her heels. Where she thought she was going, she didn’t know, but she had to get somewhere and breathe outdoor air while she thought.
On the other side of the main hall from the receiving room was a small, even more shabby sitting room with disappearing corners that made it seem rounded. Uncle Guy hadn’t been well for some years and he’d let Rose-bank go, but she and Charlotte would make it beautiful again. Vivian raised her chin. She couldn’t give up now. They’d find the money to carry on the renovations. This place was their only chance to make up for what they’d lost.
In the sitting room she picked up the phone beside a gilt chair with an unraveling cane seat. She called directory enquiries for New Orleans and gave the name of Louis’s firm—never expecting to get a response at this time of day.
“Legrain here.”
She almost hung up. “This is Vivian Patin. My mother and I are clients of Louis Martin.”
“Well yes, Ms. Patin. I know your name. I’m Louis’s associate, Gary Legrain. I believe we’ve met.”
She didn’t remember. “Did Louis set out to visit us today?”
A short silence. “Why, yes. He left this mornin’.”
“He didn’t get here.”
More silence. “That’s not possible. If something had happened, a car accident or whatever, we’d have heard.”
“I was hoping he’d gone back to his offices,” Vivian said, the cold feeling intensifying. She hadn’t considered Louis getting in a car wreck after he turned back.
Gary was quiet for too long before he said, “He didn’t come back,” and sounded funny.
“Could he have gone home? Felt ill perhaps and decided to call it a day? Maybe Mrs. Martin—”
“There isn’t a Mrs. Martin anymore. He has grown children but he lives alone—except for staff. Let me call them and get back to you.”
“Don’t call,” Vivian said. “My mother’s a bit anxious. I’ll call you in five minutes.”
They hung up and she waited, praying Mama wouldn’t come looking for her. Fortunately, when Mama cooked, she tended to forget everything else.
Vivian called Gary Legrain again.
“He isn’t there,” the man said and although he was obviously trying to sound unconcerned, she’d unsettled him. “Look, this isn’t too comfortable to talk about and the last person I should say anything to is a client but I don’t know what else to do.”
Vivian waited.
“Ms. Patin, recently I’ve been happy to know that Louis has a new companion in his life. Well, this is…hmm, apparently they don’t like to be parted. If I had to guess—”
“You’d say Louis got to our front door and was overcome by a mad need to bang his girlfriend? Yes, I understand. When you see him, Mr. Legrain, please let him know I’d like to hear from him.”
“Ms. Patin, I’m sure it wasn’t quite like that.”
“Are you? Thank you for your help.” She hung up, disconcerted by her own bluntness and embarrassed at her sharp treatment of Gary Legrain who had been doing his best to smooth things over.
She and Charlotte didn’t want to take on more loans, not without being certain Guy hadn’t planned this whole thing. He’d been principled, but a joker. It would be like him to let them have a taste of really wanting the place and not being able to afford it before help showed up in some form. When Louis had set up today’s meeting, he’d alluded to a considerable infusion of funds from Guy’s estate, “In a strange way.”
Each time Vivian confronted the mess that was her life she thought about her father. He must have been frantic to put his business to rights. Family, his wife and daughter, came first for David Patin.
She heard laughter, actual laughter from the kitchens and felt a rush of unfounded jealousy. Hearing her mother laugh should make her happy. Hearing Spike laugh did give her a lot of feelings, feelings she had no time for.
Snatching the flashlight they kept at the bottom of the staircase in the hall, Vivian slipped quickly and quietly through a maze of corridors lined with closed doors until she found the one that led into an overgrown formal garden at the back of the house, behind the south wing.
Warmth still clung to the evening and the sweet, sultry scents of honeysuckle and clematis blossoms sweetened the air. Crickets and frogs had taken over the soggy grass and sang out their raucous chant.
She walked around the perimeter of the south wing, continued to the end of the west wing and finally reached the front of the house. Rosebank was shaped like an “H” set out at an angle, and with what would be the cross stroke of the letter joining the north and west wings to the east and south wings. Outbuildings nestled into the central courtyards on either side. The original stables, their wide gates flanked with columns to match those at the front of the house, were used as the garage.
Susan Hurst had been right when she said the place was huge. But that would be useful if the renovations could start again and move ahead steadily. Just ten guest rooms were all she felt they had to deal with to get started. Ten rooms and the restaurant they planned for a detached, wonderfully preserved, conservatory.
Damn, damn. If only they’d get some breaks. Even little ones would lift their spirits. Vivian left the shadow of the house and headed down the tree-lined driveway on the left-hand verge. She could have made her way nicely without the flashlight but liked using it. One of the things she loved about being here, had loved since she used to visit Uncle Guy when she was a kid, was how safe it felt. Year to year nothing changed.
There was a softness out here that took some of the pressure off her chest.
What did she expect to find at the end of the drive? Louis Martin with some excuse about a flat tire?
She ought to go back.
Rustling overhead made her pick up Boa who continued to try to keep up with her mistress. Crows, Vivian’s least favorite birds, flew, black blotches against a leaden purple sky where the already set sun still threw up a faint patina from behind a hill.
Just to the gates and back. She needed a walk. Louis was with his lady friend, darn him. She tried to imagine him in the throes, so to speak, and shuddered, then felt nasty.
Only the crickets, the frogs, and a host of gentle evening sounds reached her through the first spatter of raindrops on leaves, but she didn’t linger. Once she’d looked up and down the road, and felt foolish for doing so, she walked back, swinging her flashlight from side to side.
The crows puzzled her. They tended to settle by now rather than go on the wing with such determination.
Boa grew stiff in her arms. The dog moaned, then set up a thin whine.
Vivian’s spine prickled. Yelping, taking her by surprise, Boa shot from her grasp and took off between two trees and into the undergrowth.
“Boa? Sweetie? C’mon back.” Shoot, Boa never got it that any animal she decided to chase off was likely to be bigger than she was, and mean. She followed the dog and shone the flashlight where Boa seemed to have disappeared. The tangle of overgrown shrubs formed an impenetrable barrier, unless you happened to be a five-pound dog.
A side road toward the north turned off a few yards ahead. It was designed for a grounds crew to access some of the more remote areas. Vivian ran toward it. She might be able to head Boa off from there.
Where was it? Oh, c’mon, where was it? She began to sweat, and feel sick. It was small, not much more than a track that allowed for a single vehicle, but where was it? Ranging back and forth, she searched but couldn’t find where the track veered off.
Boa’s eerie wailing continued to reach her and she took some comfort in that. Then Vivian stood still and gauged where the track should be, and was, of course. She was too upset to be sensible.
“Boa,” she called, but without any energy.
She found it, the place where she could see the track pass through the verge. And it was exactly where she’d thought it was, only there was no break between shrubs anymore. Her stomach clenched and she looked toward the house, considered going for company if not for help. And she’d look stupid and everyone would think she was overreacting. She shone the flashlight carefully along the area. Three big laurel bushes in tubs stood, closely side-by-side, and hid the little road completely.
Gil must be experimenting with some different looks.
Vivian squeezed between two tubs. Layers of pewter-colored clouds darkened the purple sky and no hint of the dead sun remained. She swung her flashlight. Critters skittered away from the light. She saw the sleek, white body of a nutria, its long rat tail fat as it slithered out of sight. She hated this. In many ways she was a city girl, not a country girl. If an alligator showed up she really would lose it.
Boa’s complaints had grown quieter but they were still steady, and not too far away, Vivian decided. She would not leave her dog alone out here. “Boa? Come here, girl.” The dog didn’t rush to her and there was no choice but to go on. What could be so scary about walking through grounds she was growing to know well?
A glint. A flicker of light passed over a smooth surface, and Vivian aimed her light in that direction.
She stopped walking and peered ahead. The top of a car, pale and glossy and only yards away.
Boa, bursting from the bushes, barking wildly and rushing at her, raised Vivian’s spirits. She’d grab the dog and run for it.
Before she could reach Boa, the dog dashed away again, her barks changing to a wail.
“Is there anyone there?” Vivian called tentatively. “Hello, who’s there?”
Large raindrops beat hard on the top of her head and her face. Clouds extinguished a struggling moon and a breeze picked up.
She didn’t take foolish risks, but how could she be in danger here? For all she knew, there’d been an abandoned car here all along. She certainly hadn’t been all through the tangled grounds.
Sometimes snakes infested old cars.
That stopped her. She couldn’t stand snakes.
Snakes could kill Boa so easily.
Vivian discovered all that stood between her and the
vehicle were two more tubs of laurel, one of which had fallen against the other. Boa ran out and away again as if she were trying to lead Vivian. She hesitated. The laurels were intended to hide something—the car.
“Okay, I’m coming, Boa.” Rain became steady and harder. She’d likely be soaked in a few minutes. “Boa!”
No one lay in wait. If they did, she’d feel their presence and she didn’t.
The car, a new Jaguar in a pale shade, stood with its nose into the scrub on one side of the track. Not a sound came from it. Why would it? But why would someone abandon a new Jaguar in…Hadn’t Cyrus said Louis was driving a new blue Jaguar?
Vivian backed away. She patted the waistband of her jeans, only to discover she didn’t have her cell phone.
Rustling made her skin crawl and she looked up to see crows, undaunted by the rain, lining the branches above. More birds perched on the rim of the driver’s door which stood open. These sentinels took it in turns, crying out and complaining, to hop down into the car. Each one then flew to the branches with something pale in its beak.
Vivian held her breath. The birds creeped her out. She could go to pieces, or she could keep calm and see what this was all about.