Midnight Bayou

against him.
    The taste of him, like something half remembered, began to seep into her blood.
    Someone opened the door of the bar. Music jumped out, then shut off again. A car gunned by on the street behind her, another blast of music through the open windows.
    Heat shimmered over her skin, under it, so that the hands she rested on his shoulders trailed around, linked behind his neck.
    “Very good at it,” she repeated, and turned her head so her cheek rubbed his. Once, then twice. “But you’re not coming up tonight. I have to think about you.”
    “Okay. I’ll keep coming back.”
    “They always come back for Lena.” For a while , she thought as she eased away. “Go on home now, Declan.”
    “I’ll just wait until you get inside.”
    Her brows lifted. “Aren’t you the one.” Because it was sweet, she kissed his cheek before she walked to the steps and headed up.
    When she unlocked her door and glanced back, he was still there. “You have sweet dreams now, cher. ”
    “That’d be a nice change,” he muttered when she closed the door behind her.

5
    Manet Hall
    January 2, 1900
    I t was lies. It had to be lies, of the cruelest, coldest nature. He would not believe, never believe that his sweet Abby had run away from him. Had left him, left their child.
    Lucian sat on the corner of the bed, trapped in the daze that had gripped him since he’d returned home two days before. Returned home to find the Hall in an uproar, and his wife missing.
    Another man. That’s what they were saying. An old love she’d met in secret whenever Lucian had gone into New Orleans on business.
    Lies.
    He had been the only man. He had taken an angel to wife, a virgin to their wedding bed.
    Something had happened to her. He opened and closed his hand over the watch pin he’d given her when he’d asked her to marry him. Something terrible.
    But what? What could have pushed her to leave the house in the night?
    A sick relation, he thought as he rose to pace and pace and pace.
    But he knew that wasn’t the case. Hadn’t he ridden like a wild man into the marsh, to ask, to demand, to beg her family, her friends, if they knew what had become of her?
    Even now people were searching for her, on the road, in the swamp, in the fields.
    But the rumors, the gossip, were already rushing along the river.
    Lucian Manet’s young wife had run off with another man.
    And he could hear the whispers behind the whispers. What did he expect? Cajun trash. Likely that girl-child got started in the bayou and she passed it off as his.
    Horrible, vicious lies.
    The door opened. Josephine hadn’t bothered with even a cursory knock. Manet Hall was hers, now and always. She entered any room at her whim.
    “Lucian.”
    He spun around. “They’ve found her?” He’d yet to change the clothes soiled from his last search, and hope shone through the dirt on his face.
    “They have not.” She closed the door at her back with a testy snap. “Nor will they. She is gone, and is probably at this moment laughing at you with her lover.”
    She could almost believe it. Soon, she thought, it would be the truth.
    “She did not run away.”
    “You’re a fool. You were a fool to marry her, and you remain a fool.” She strode to the armoire, threw it open. “Can’t you see some of her clothes are missing? Hasn’t her maid reported as much?”
    All he could see was the blue ball gown with the flounces and rosettes she’d been so proud of.
    “The maid is mistaken.” But his voice shook.
    “You’re mistaken. What of her jewelry?” Josephine pulled the leather box from the shelf, tossed the lid up. “Where are the pearls you gave her for Christmas? The diamond bracelet you bought her when she had the child?”
    “Someone stole them.”
    On a sound of disgust, Josephine upended the jewelry on the bed. “She took whatever sparkled the most. A girl of her type knows nothing but glitter. She bewitched you, caused you to embarrass your family, your name, now she has disgraced us all.”
    “No.” He squeezed his eyes shut as his heart ripped to pieces. “She wouldn’t leave me. She would never leave Marie Rose.”
    “However much affection she might have had for the child, I doubt either she or her lover wanted to be saddled with a baby. How do you know, Lucian, that the child is yours?”
    The red rage of fury stained his cheeks. “How can you ask such a question? How could you have lived in the same house with her for a year, and say such a