Midnight Bayou

headlong dive into it.
    Oh yeah, she thought, it would be quite a thrill before the crash.
    “Just a reminder,” he told her.
    A warning, more like, she thought. He wasn’t nearly astame as he pretended to be. “I won’t forget. See you later, cher .”
    “Lena. We didn’t talk about what happened upstairs.”
    “We will,” she called back, and kept going.
    She didn’t breathe easy until she was out of the house. He wasn’t going to be as simple to handle as she’d assumed. The good manners weren’t a veneer, they went straight through him. But so did the heat, and the determination.
    It was a package she admired, and respected.
    Not that she couldn’t handle him, she told herself as she got into her car. Handling men was one of her best skills.
    But this man was a great deal more complicated than he seemed on the surface. And a great deal more intriguing than any she’d met before.
    She knew what men saw when they looked at her. And she didn’t mind it because there was more to her than what they saw. Or wanted to see.
    She had a good brain, a strong back and a willingness to use both to get what she wanted. She ran her life the same way she ran her bar. With an appreciation for color and a foundation of order beneath the chaos.
    She glanced in her rearview mirror at Manet Hall as she drove away. It worried her that Declan Fitzgerald could shake that foundation the way no one had before.
    It worried her that she might not find it so easy to shore up the cracks when he walked away.
    They always walked away. Unless you walked first.
    H e fell asleep thinking of Lena, and drifted into dreams of her. Strong, full-bodied dreams where she lay beneath him, moved under him with hard, quick jerks of her hips. Damp skin, like liquid gold. Dark chocolate eyes, and red, wet lips.
    He could hear the sound of her breath, the catch and release, little gulps of pleasure. He smelled her, that siren’s dance of jasmine that made him think of harems and forbidden shadows.
    He dropped deeper into sleep, aching for her.
    And saw her hurrying along a corridor, her arms full of linens. Her hair, all that gorgeous hair, was ruthlessly pinned back, and that tempting body covered from neck to ankle in a baggy dress covered with tiny, faded flowers.
    Her lips were unpainted and pressed tightly together. And in the dream, he could hear her thoughts as if they were his own.
    She had to hurry, to get the linens put away. Madame Manet was already up and about, and she didn’t care to see any of the undermaids scurrying in the hallways. If she wasn’t quick, she could be noticed.
    She didn’t want Madame to notice her. Servants stayed employed longer when they were invisible. That’s what Mademoiselle LaRue, the housekeeper, said, and she was never wrong.
    She needed the work. Her family needed the money she could bring in, and oh, but she loved working in the Hall. It was the most beautiful house she’d ever seen. She was so happy and proud to have some part of tending to it.
    How many times had she stared at it from the shadows of the bayou? Admiring it, longing for a chance to peek in the windows at all the beauty inside.
    And now she was inside, responsible in some small way for the tending of that beauty.
    She loved to polish the wood, to sweep the floors. To see the way the glass sparkled after she’d scrubbed it.
    In his dream, she came out of the corridor through one of the hidden doors on the second level. Her eyes tracked everywhere as she hurried along—the wallpaper, therugs, the wood and glass. She slipped into a dressing room, put the linens away in a cupboard.
    But as she turned back toward the door, something caught her attention, and she tiptoed to the window.
    He saw, as she saw, the riders approaching through the grand oaks of the allée. He felt, as she felt, a stumble of heart as her gaze locked on the man who rode a glossy chestnut. His hair was gold, and streamed as he galloped. Straight as a soldier in the saddle, with a gray coat over his broad shoulders and his black boots shining.
    Her hand went to her throat, and she thought, quite clearly, Here is the prince come home to his castle .
    She sighed, as girls sigh when they fall foolishly in love. He smiled, as if smiling at her, but she knew it was the house that caused that joy to fill his handsome face.
    With her heart pounding, she hurried out of the room, back to the servants’ door and into the maze.
    The young master was home, she thought.