Fever.

Katherine Sutcliffe.

?Acknowledgments.

My sincerest thanks to my editor, Caroline Tolley, for her wonderful enthusiasm for my work- and for being so very, very nice. Not to mention patient. Caroline, you're a dream editor come true!

A very special thank-you to Paolo Pepe who so beautifully captured the heart and passion of Fever in this wonderful cover. Thank you, Paolo, so very much! After fifteen long years of covers, I finally succeeded in getting one that actually depicts my story. Bravo!

And to two wonderful friends and talented writers who held my hand through the writing of Fever, who encouraged me every step of the way: Linda Campbell and Melanie George. Ladies, friends, I couldn't have done it without you.

?Prologue.

A CONVENT IN FRANCE, 1853.

On normal, sun-kissed days she found in this isolated place a sense of peace and contentment. From this lofty summit, placed at one angle of the more bleak walls, the brooding figure of the Mother of Sorrows looked down with eroded eyes. Here, the profound silence would be broken only by the cries of the rooks swooping in black flocks or the screeching calls of gulls as they hovered over water.

Today, however, she sat like a Turk, legs crossed within the folds of her skirt, the tips of her naked toes peeking from beneath the tattered hem as she leaned against the gray sculptured stone at her back- a grim gargoyle with big teeth and extended wings.

The escalating wind whipped her hair so it lifted like red flames around her head. It stung her cheeks with cold and watered her eyes. Below the bell tower where she perched atop the creaky cupola that trembled with each blast of driving wind, France spread in vast undulations of deep green and desolate cliffs that plunged toward a whitecapped sea. More closely lay the graveyard, girdled within the ancient and crumbling dry-stone walls: dark tombs and weathered headstones whereupon sea fowl took shelter from the advancing storm.

Ah, but she despised the cold. Never in the last nine years of enduring this cloistered existence had she grown accustomed to the chill that made her stone cell feel like a tomb even on the brightest, warmest days. But she thrilled to the thunder and lightning that would frequently roll in from the sea like a goliath serpent spitting fire bolts and roaring with fury.

Turning her face toward the dark heavens, Juliette watched the play of flashing lights behind the clouds, felt the first rush of her heartbeat as the rumble rolled through her body. The tower trembled. The rafters, burdened by the weight of the old bell, a gift from the pope himself, groaned like a body dying.

Cautiously, she stood and braced her feet apart. The wind slammed her. She caught her breath and raised her hand to shield the force of the first driving spears of rain from her eyes. She inhaled the musty smell of wet earth and awaited the tingle of electricity in her body.

There! It vibrated up her spine and crawled over her scalp, shot along her arms and down her legs as the tongue of fire streaked through the clouds and lapped at the horizon with a spray of blinding white sparks and flames.

Dear God, how she loved the force of it. The smell of it. The taste of the rain on her tongue, salty as the sea spray. As always, with the tumult came the images in her mind: flashes of color, of faces, laughter and screams. Fire and rain. They made her tremble. Breathless. Her heart beat thick within her breast and the blood in her head rushed with the violence of the driving, crashing waves against the coast.

Spreading her arms out to her sides, facing the wind, she closed her eyes. For that brief moment she imagined herself lifted by the current, risen high, higher, tossed upon the draft like down, carried beyond the crags, beyond the white-tipped waves to a place that shimmered pure and golden amid riotous gardens.

"Juliette! Come down from there this moment! Juliette! Someone help us! Quickly before she is incinerated to an ash. Dreadful, ill-tempered termagant. Bane of my existence."

She heard them scramble over the ledges, grunt as they slid upon the rain-slick stones- the village idiots- the deaf-and-dumb eunuchs the Reverend Mother employed to manage the grounds. Juliette knew damn well that had they the slightest stirring of manhood in their pants, the dour, mule-faced Reverend Mother would castrate them with their trowels- if she hadn't already.

Two of them gaped at her as they clambered onto the tower, their hair and clothes dripping, their jaws slack and eyes dull of intelligence. The Reverend Mother, framed by the windowsill, rosary clasped in her hand as if to fight off the devil himself, glowered up at her with the determination of one prepared to exorcise whatever demon possessed Juliette.

A man stood at her side. Tall and imposing- distinguished, she thought, as a tremble of thunder passed through her. Dark hair streaked by gray. Mouth curled in sardonic pleasure- appreciation? Amusement, certainly. But something else. She felt it as certainly as the rain beat upon her face. As certainly as his gaze penetrated the gray haze and locked upon her own.

Her lips curving, she returned his smile.

Her mother, Maureen Jarod, had been a whore. Not just a whore. A demimonde. A prostitute. A very expensive prostitute, according to her father's solicitor, Lester Roswell, a diminutive man with a thatch of yellow hair and spectacles thick as bottle glass. A prostitute who won the heart of a handsome young planter, Jack Broussard, who thought by lavishing his wife with love and wealth he could change her lascivious ways.

Alas, once a whore always a whore.

According to solicitor Roswell, Maureen's healthy appetite for lavishness had financially destroyed her husband. Her appetite for men had broken his heart.

And, according to the solicitor who had peered at Juliette with the look of a man who had come face-to-face with a ghost, Juliette was a mirror image of her dead mother.

Which explained a great deal- acknowledgment of which, though helping to somewhat alleviate her pain and confusion over her father's odd behavior toward her, had planted a hard core of germinating resentment in Juliette that grew more bitter each time she thought of her father's pitifully broken heart.

Oh, yes, it explained a great deal.

Why her father had buried Juliette in a convent the moment she developed breasts.

Why Jack's face had gone white as milk and his entire body had shaken as if with ague the last time he'd visited her. What tenderness he might have shown toward his daughter was fast replaced by unbridled fury and hatred the instant Juliette had glided into the room, radiant with the prospect of flinging herself into her papa's arms, certain she could convince him to remove her from this depressing and constrictive environment if she was enchanting enough.

She had been certain she could make him love her, eventually.

That had been three years ago. Now her papa, Jack Broussard, was dead eight months- blew his own brains out with a pistol, according to the Reverend Mother, who had a penchant for dramatic details- especially when it meant that her father's soul would forever burn in Hell because of his suicide- leaving Juliette orphaned. And penniless, but for, according to the solicitor, her father's gold wedding ring and a decaying property buried in the Louisiana swamps that she would inherit when she turned twenty-one- unless she married first.

Considering she was barely nineteen, reptile-infested swampland was hardly going to help her now.

And marriage? That wasn't likely as long as she was sequestered in a convent, the only civilization within a hundred miles being a village full of inbred imbeciles whose greatest thrill in life was training cocks to kill one another.

Such straits would have distressed most young women, she supposed. But Juliette, thanks to her mother's scandalous reputation and her father's eventual abandonment, was not like most young women- much to the consternation of the Reverend Mother, who stood in the distant shadows, quaking in her white woolen gown and winged cap, her thin lips moving in silent prayer for Juliette's damned-to-hellfire soul. One would have believed the devout old woman to be staring straight into Lucifer's eyes the way she shook.

Obviously this was serious business. One was not escorted to the Mother's apartments unless something was afoot- bad news, corporal punishment. The chamber felt as cold and hollow as a crypt and skirted the cloister and song school where the other young ladies, mostly younger, were collected in that moment heralding God's miracles like a chorus of harping magpies.

Juliette, doing her best to ignore the bone-aching cold made all the worse by the draft of wind whipping around the cavernous room, raised one eyebrow at the Mother and curled her stiff lips, tipped her chin and drew her shoulders back, which lifted her generous breasts in a way that made the man circling her stop in his tracks and suck in his breath.

Max Hollinsworth- her godfather- caught her chin between his fingers and regarded her features with something just short of amazement glittering in his dark blue eyes. Handsome. Monied. Distinguished.

And his breath smelled heavily of spirits.

"By God," he said breathlessly. "You're... exceptional, Juliette. Even more beautiful than your mother, and I thought her to be incomparable."

"She's willful and spiteful and profane," declared the Reverend Mother, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial level. "I vow she's possessed. You've seen it for yourself, Monsieur. Her soul craves hell's fire and tumult. Is she not the vision of sinful temptation?"

Her eyes narrowing, Juliette shot her a look that caused the Mother to step back and clutch her rosary.

Hollinsworth raised one black eyebrow as his gaze drifted from Juliette's face, down to her breasts that were normally bound as flat as possible by lengths of coarse linen under her dress. Today, however, they filled out her bodice to the straining point, thanks mostly to the sodden material of her blouse.

"Indeed," he murmured, amused. "Perhaps, Juliette, you share more with your mother than just her pretty face, oui?"

"She has the heart and soul of a harlot," the Reverend Mother announced. "Thrice she's strayed to the village at night. We found her at cockfights, wagering with coins she obtained from heaven knows where from doing heaven knows what."

"True?" Hollinsworth smiled into Juliette's eyes.

"Yes," Juliette replied with a curve of her lips.

"Where did you get the coins?"

"I stole them, Monsieur." Cutting her gaze to the Reverend Mother, she added, "From the chapel coffer. I was owed it. Having spent the last years on my hands and knees scrubbing floors, sweating in that wretchedly hot kitchen under the supervision of dour women who pleasure in wielding strops in the name of God, I felt I was due compensation- as meager as it was. Then again, all the coins in their coffers couldn't compensate for the misery I've been forced to endure the last years in this place."

"Ah, yes, you have your mother's dauntlessness. Her obstinacy. Her... fire. It was what your father loved about her."

Shifting her gaze up to his, Juliette laughed- a husky sound deep in her throat that brought hot color to Hollinsworth's face. A swelling began in her chest that replaced the shivering of her body with a flash of emotion as vibrant as the lightning dancing beyond the stained glass. The antipathy she experienced in that moment for the mother she no longer remembered robbed her of breath and caused her eyes to burn with a heat that made her doubt her own sanity.

"Monsieur Hollinsworth," she replied through her teeth, "I'm well aware of what my father loved about my mother. I assure you, it wasn't her dauntlessness and obstinacy."

For a long moment he remained speechless, unblinking, unmoving; the color drained from his high cheeks, leaving his flesh pale and tainted with spider veins. His eyes held hers in a strange, discomposing way, as if he were staring at her again through the curtain of rain that beat continuously on the stained-glass window.

"Do you know," he spoke suddenly, shattering the quiet as he looked over his shoulder at the Reverend Mother, "that Juliette was born during a storm much like the one raging now? The child born of thunder and lightning be born of high spirit, fierce temper, and a splendid passion for... life."

"Child born of the tempest is born of evil," the Mother declared righteously. She pointed one crooked finger at Juliette. "Her own father recognized it- turned cold and pale as a corpse when he saw her. She has her mother's wickedness, I vow, and the sooner she is gone from this holy place the better."

Thunder crashed in that moment and lightning illuminated the colored windowglass of a crucified savior that towered over the Reverend Mother's stooped figure. Juliette stared at her, forgetting the storm and the man who stood so close the smell of his breath triggered images of the drunken farmers on their knees yowling at blood-spattered cocks. Even now the strop marks across her back throbbed with heat- punishment for failing to show the proper respect during vespers.

She has her mother's wickedness, I vow...

Wicked? Yes, too often she felt wicked to the marrow of her bones. Wicked with the hatred for the martyred shrunken woman before her, wicked with resentment she felt over her father's abandonment- wicked with hatred for a mother who destroyed everyone who loved her.

Yet, it wasn't the shame of that wickedness that made her face burn and her knees shake, but the acknowledgment that buried at the heart and soul of her was an ember of dreaded wickedness begging to be fanned.

Prurience too often heated her blood.

She swallowed, but did not look up into Maxwell's eyes- as if by doing so she would reveal the weakness of her character. "Tell me why you're here, Monsieur. My father never mentioned you."

"I'm not surprised. We were the closest of friends, like brothers, until your mother's death. After that... your father retreated into himself. He returned to France. We lost touch. Perhaps he simply wished to put his old life, and memories, behind him."

"Obviously."

She did her best to ignore the humiliation heating her face. God forbid that she would allow the Reverend Mother to see her suffer. 'Twould give the old woman too much satisfaction.

Max took her chin in the crook of his finger, tipped back her head until she was forced to look in his blue eyes that assessed her closely.

"Tell me, Juliette. What, if anything, do you remember of your childhood- before your father moved to the Continent?"

"Nothing."

His eyebrows lifted. "Nothing at all?"

There were memories- few, of course. Snatches of sound and images that were as difficult to grasp as vapor. They frightened her. Through the last many years, she had awakened in the night, shaking violently, body sweating, her flesh feeling as if it were on fire- Reverend Mother's purgatory, no doubt.

Occasionally, there were others- a glimpse of masculine features that, if she hung on long enough to the dream, would quench the fire and replace her terror with an equanimity that eased her racing heart. It was those indistinct features her mind reached for when desperation and unhappiness consumed her.

She shook her head. "Nothing, Monsieur. I was only four at the time of my mother's death."

"You have her eyes as well," he said softly, as if drifting in thought. A shadow of something flickered through his expression. His look became distant, briefly, before he appeared to fight his way back to the present. When he touched his hand to a tendril of hair near her cheek, his fingers trembled.

"Your hair... like rich fire. When your mother rode over Belle Jarod it was as if sunlight drenched her in flames. She refused to wear a bonnet, of course. She liked her hair down. The wind would lift it like banners behind her. Your father would sit for hours and brush it, until it shone like new copper. She would rest her head on his knee and grow languid with pleasure."

Juliette frowned. "How very romantic. Surprisingly so, considering that apparently my mother's favorite pastime was adultery."

With a lift of her chin, she added, "Monsieur, perhaps your memories of my mother are fond, if not fanciful. However, for me, she's the cause of my father's despair and the reason he'll forever writhe in hell- according to yonder lady of compassion whose judgment of fallen souls is as sanctimonious as Maureen Jarod was promiscuous."

The Reverend Mother gasped and pressed her rosary to her bosom.

Juliette narrowed her eyes and smiled.

Hollinsworth allowed her a short bow and laughed. "Whether you wish it or not, you have your mother's tact as well as her beauty. Very well. We'll dispense with the reminiscing and get down to business. I've come to take you home, Juliette."

She stared up into his smiling face, refusing to acknowledge the stumble of her heartbeat. In that moment, it seemed that her entire soul expanded with exultation and caused her legs to grow weak. Surely she had misunderstood him. Were the Mother not looking on like a fierce old crow she might have pinched herself to determine if she were caught up again in one of her confused dreams.

"Pardon, Monsieur? I don't understand-"

"As your godfather, it's my responsibility to provide for you now that your father is gone. Holly House, my home in Baton Rouge, is in dire need of a woman's laughter since my wife died, so I can hardly deny that this mission is solely altruistic. My son Tylor is grown. My days are long and often lonely. I hunger for laughter. For youth...

"You'll want for nothing, my dear. We'll buy you pretty dresses and combs for your hair. Lavish bonnets. Soft slippers. Ribbons that match the green of your eyes. You'll be the most beautiful woman in Louisiana. And the most pampered. We'll throw soirees in your honor and young men from across the state will flock to Holly House to woo you."

He turned away, paced to the window, gazed out through the rain-speckled panes to the churning green ocean beyond. "My home is comfortable. Your room has a view of the river. There are servants to feed you, to dress you- no more scrubbing floors on your hands and knees. God forbid."

Disbelief thrummed between her ears like the wine she tippled during her secretive late-night jaunts to the village cockfights. Dare she believe him? To show even a whit of the hope rapping at her chest would be too brazen, surely.

"I couldn't possibly," she heard herself say breathlessly, aware her hands had clutched her damp skirts as if preparing herself for a fall. "You're a total stranger to me, Monsieur Hollinsworth."

"What choice do you have?" His mouth smiled. His eyes did not. "Alas, your father left you destitute, I'm afraid. You think the drab, cold walls of this convent are dreary. There are far greater horrors than these, ma petite."

"Whoring like my mother, I assume." She gave him a dry smile. Her throat felt tight and her eyes burned. The old desperation squirmed inside her- the sensation of being lost, adrift with no harbor within a thousand miles. "I need time, of course. To reason on this sudden twist of fate."

"Of course." His voice was kind, his smile patient. The reality occurred to her then that there simply would be no thinking about it.

Thanks to the stroke of a pen and a sprinkle of holy water nineteen years ago, she had become, upon her father's death, the ward of a total stranger.

?One.

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA.

Boris Wilcox, glaring through the strands of his limp snow-white hair, teeth bared and blood streaming from his broken nose, slammed his fist against Chantz's jaw a third time. His frustration mounted as the gathered crowd, bathed in beer and sweat and obviously in Chantz's corner, whooped like maddened savages and roared their encouragement. They punched the air with their fists, slapped their hats against their thighs. The ear-splitting racket caused the horses in the livery stalls to spook and roll their eyes.