Juliette grabbed another praline from the table and left the kitchen. She dropped on the cypress step and stretched her legs out, bare feet crossed at the ankles, and indulged in the warm confection so sweet it made her teeth ache.

She saw him then, Chantz, walking up the path, Andrew at his side. Both men were hot and mud covered from their toils with the levee, sleeves rolled up above their elbows. The workday finished at noon on Saturday. Slaves were given the rest of the day and Sunday to rest and take care of their own gardens.

As the confection melted in her mouth, Juliette took a deep breath and forced herself to relax back on the steps, elbows propped, legs stretched, the hem of her thin cotton dress hiked halfway up her shins. Hazel's eyes at breakfast had virtually popped when seeing her not just corsetless but petticoatless as well. With her hair bound up under one of Rosie's tignons, her skin running with sweat, the image she portrayed was hardly that of refinement. Lord help her, but she was starting to enjoy it.

As Chantz and Andrew walked to a water trough near the tall cistern located next to the milk house, Little Clara burst from the kitchen with toweling in one hand, her other full of pralines. Her skinny legs carried her at a run down the path, scattering the big gray guineas scratching the dirt for bugs.

As Chantz removed his shirt, Andrew looked around, smiling broadly at Little Clara. He made a grab for her; she skirted by him, howling in laughter, and flung herself on Chantz.

Juliette couldn't hear what was being said. Didn't matter. She'd learned soon enough that a person could know exactly what was going on in Chantz's head by the look on his face. His fierceness melted like the warm praline in her mouth the minute a child smiled up into his eyes.

She'd heard once that a man's hidden character could be judged by the way he was accepted by a child or an animal. If that was the case, then buried deep beneath Boudreaux's hard, occasionally intimidating facade must have resided a saint.

Little Clara shoved a praline into Chantz's mouth, then stuffed one into Andrew's. Then she pointed at Juliette. Both men turned and looked at her.

While Chantz plunged his head and torso into the trough to bathe, Andrew sauntered toward her, thumbs hooked in his waist band, mouth smiling. "Well, well, Miss Julie, I didn't recognize you."

"I can well imagine," she replied.

He glanced at her naked feet and raised one eyebrow. "Nice pralines. You know what they say: The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

She looked past him to Chantz, toweling the water from his head and shoulders.

Andrew dropped onto the step beside her. His expression became serious, and he lowered his voice. "I understand that you're aware of my relationship with Liza."

"Yes." She nodded and forced herself to look away from Chantz and Little Clara. She lowered her voice. "I have to speak with you. Privately. As soon as possible."

Sitting forward, elbows on his knees, Andrew watched Little Clara and Chantz do a tug of war with the towel. "Is this about Liza? Because if it is, I'm well aware of the risks-"

"You should know that your parents are aware of your feelings for Liza. They've demanded that Max remove her from the house and send her to the fields."

His head slowly turned and his brown eyes locked with hers.

Her gaze swung back to Chantz as he tossed the towel over his broad shoulder and started toward her. "I'm coming to realize," she said in a thin voice, "that too often our better judgment is overridden by something far more powerful."

"That is...?"

"Urges that have nothing whatsoever to do with intellect."

Andrew focused on Chantz. "Well, there are certainly a great many of those urges running amok in Louisiana these days."

Chantz wore sinfully low-slung pants that exposed his navel that was surrounded by downy black hair that formed an arrow into his pants. His scuffed boots were knee high. His nipples were like copper coins and his stomach flat and rippled as a washboard. And his hair, dark and damp, full of long, wild waves, coiled over his brow and around his ears.

His mouth curled as he regarded her, lazed upon the steps, her bare feet and shins exposed, nibbling on her praline. Saying nothing to her, he mounted the steps and entered the kitchen.

Juliette shifted her gaze to Andrew, who grinned as if he knew exactly what was going on in her mind and body. Of course, he would, she reminded herself. His own sister had fallen under Boudreaux's spell. If a woman like Phyllis Buley found herself incapable of resisting him, what was a woman such as herself supposed to do?

"Git outta them prawlins!" Rosie shouted. "No prawlins till after you eats some decent food. Take this ham and corn bread and git out. I can't be havin' no foolin' in my kitchen today. Fred Buley gots a hunger on for turtle soup and this damn turtle is tough as bo' hide. Lawd, that man is gonna fuss. I declare he 'bout turnin' my old head white. Git!"

Chantz exited the kitchen at a half run, laughing, his hand full of pralines.

Rosie followed, dumped a cloth-wrapped bundle of ham and steaming corn bread into Andrew's and Juliette's laps, then slung one at Chantz.

Hands on her wide hips, her sweating face a scowl, she declared, "I gonna put the lot of you to work on soap if'n you don't git. Don't be lookin' at me that way, Chantz Boudreaux. I whupped your butt for less when you was a young'un. You might be bigger than me now but I kin swing a mean skillet. I be whuppin' you upside your head before you kin sneeze scat."

Juliette sat up and looked back at Rosie. "You whupped him, did you, Rosie?"

"I did. Least two time a day. Boy a mess. Filchin' my prawlins. Filchin' my pone. Agitatin'. Always agitatin'. And sass-mouthed. Least once a week I has to wash his mouth out with lye soap. Wonda he even gots a tongue left."

She shook her head and pursed her lips. "You still a mess, Chantz Boudreaux. Still agitatin'. Still sassin'. Still filchin' prawlins."

"But you love me anyway, don't you, Rosie?" He winked at her.

Rosie puffed her cheeks and looked away. "I reckon I ain't gots no choice in the matter. I's stuck with you whether I likes it or not."

With that she reentered the kitchen and began to sing at the top of her voice: "Well I mighta gone afishin' but I gots to thankin' it over, and the road to the river is a mighty long ways."

Chantz walked toward the big live oak dripping moss in the distance. Andrew caught Juliette's arm and helped her to stand. They followed Chantz down the path, sun beating down on their shoulders, the heat and steam of the corn bread turning the cloth wrap dark and damp. Juliette noted Andrew looking toward the big house. A cloud passed over his face.

As they settled on the ground in the shade and proceeded to eat Rosie's ham and corn bread, Juliette announced, "Andrew has agreed to drive me to Belle Jarod tomorrow afternoon."

She looked up to find both men staring at her with their cheeks bulging with corn bread.

She shrugged. "We'll be safe enough. Maxwell and the Buleys are calling on neighbors in the morning and will be gone all day. Maxwell need know nothing about it."

His face going darker, Chantz turned his blue eyes on Andrew, who swallowed hard and appeared to mentally stumble as he considered his response.

Putting aside her food, Juliette said, "I understand you feel that it could be disturbing for me, Chantz. And I appreciate your concern. But it's time I put my life in order. I should know what sort of task is ahead of me-"

"Task doesn't come close to describing what's ahead of you," he declared with an undercurrent of anger, "if you intend to rebuild Belle Jarod. Such an undertaking borders on absurd. It's an impossibility, Juliette. At least for an unmarried woman with no money. As I recall your father spent somewhere around three hundred thousand dollars on Belle Jarod-"

"But that was the initial costs," she argued. "The purchasing of the land, the building of the house, the mills, the equipment, the slaves. As I understand it, my mother had extravagant tastes when it came to furnishings. I don't care about those things, Chantz. As long as the house is livable-"

"The house burned. Or most of it. The mills are falling in and grown over. And as far as crops: It would take every one of Max's hundred slaves and then some to turn that much ground over before it's time to plant ratoons come January."

He looked at the corn bread in his lap. "Get you a wealthy husband. Belle Jarod will be the Jewel of the Mississippi again in no time." Flashing a hot look toward Andrew, he said, "Or maybe that's exactly what you're doing."

"I'd rather plow that ground with my own bare hands before I marry a man just for his money," she declared, tossing her food aside.

Stretching her legs out and leaning back on her hands, Juliette gazed up through the heavy oak branches, at the streams of frilly moss and the spatters of pale blue sky between the leaves. The grass, crushed under her palms, gave off a sharp scent like mint.

"As a very young woman I would lie in my bed at the convent and imagine what my future home would look like. I suppose there must have been memories of Belle Jarod buried in my mind. There were towering Doric columns and wide shaded galleries. Parterres with colorful flowers. Honeysuckle and jasmine dripping in golden clouds from the trees. Silver doorknobs and spiral staircases, ceiling frescoes and murals depicting the French countryside. I could see out my big windows to a lake where swans swam. Twelve of them, gliding like boats in a breeze, the sunlight reflecting from the water ripples as if from thousands of tiny mirrors.

"There were times when I walked the convent grounds on crisp, breezy mornings that the touch of wind on my face and through the trees would stop me in my tracks, as if the feel and sound of the wind were somehow awakening dormant memories."

Reluctantly, she forced herself to look at Chantz. Food forgotten in his lap, relaxed against the gnarled tree trunk, his face moving with tree shadows, he regarded her with an intensity that stole her breath, that brought all the hunger he had ignited in her the previous night into a flame that made the heated air unbearable against her skin.

His hand reached for the loose tignon on her head- his rough fingers brushed her cheek, tugged on the blue scarf until it drifted toward the ground, freeing her heavy hair that flowed like dark red water around her face and over her shoulders. In a breath his blue eyes turned deep as indigo.

She felt lost in that moment- lost in those intense blue depths and the upsurge of warmth that surrounded her heart, making it ache with a fierceness that brought sudden tears to her eyes.

I love you, she thought, the acknowledgment snapping some final gossamer of denial inside her.

Jumping to her feet, spilling her food over the ground, she fled down the path toward shanty row.

She sat cross-legged in the dirt between two tall green walls of sugarcane, her elbows on her knees and her face buried in her hands that were muddied by dust and tears. Cicada calls vibrated the air, pulsing in rhythm with the shimmering waves of heat reflecting from the cane leaves. The drone somehow exaggerated her overwhelming sense of despondency.

How foolish she felt. And desperate. She could flee the length of the Mississippi, she could swim the ocean back to France, but she couldn't escape the fact that she had fallen in love with Chantz Boudreaux.

A shadow fell over her face, and she looked around, felt her heart skip with excitement and fear. Somehow she had known- at least prayed- that he might follow her here. "Oh." She swallowed and averted her gaze from Chantz's.

"What are you doing here?"

He moved around her, his broad shoulders momentarily blocking the sun. How tall he seemed, even amid the towering cane. As usual his very presence stole the air from her lungs that felt, suddenly, as dry as the silt beneath her.

Chantz eased down on one knee and closely regarded her face. "You've been crying. Why?"

She forced a smile. "I don't dare tell you, Mr. Boudreaux. You would think me quite scandalous, I fear."

"I already think you're scandalous." His mouth curled- again with that charming lopsided smile that made him look boyish. He sat down close, swiped the dirt from his hands, then plucked a sliver of grass from the base of a cane stalk. He looked at her through a strand of hair that fell over his eye. "Everything about you is scandalous, darlin'. Your pretty face. Your pretty hair. Your body. The fact that you run around this place in bare feet, wearing no petticoats-"

"It's too hot to wear petticoats." She sniffed and wrist-wiped her running nose.

"The fact that you come to my house at midnight-"

"I explained that-"

"You lied." He tipped his head to one side to better look into her face. "The fact that you would come here and play in the dirt like a child." He pointed to the scribbles in the sand. "You don't strike me as the sort of young woman who cries easily."

"I despise tears." She sniffed again and looked away, tears rising and dripping, streaking her hot cheeks. Her brain was beginning to burn with her pent-up emotions. She wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear- like the doodlebugs burrowing in the sand near her feet. "Tears give away secrets."

Catching a tear on the end of his finger, Chantz regarded it intensely. "No secrets here that I can see."

She frowned. "Don't treat me like a child, Chantz. I couldn't bear it."

"Seeing you sitting here with your cheeks tear kissed and your toes sandy I'm reminded just how childlike you are, darlin'. You're just too damn naive to know what the sight of you can do to a man."

Raising her gaze to his, she said, "What, exactly, do I do to you?"

His face darkened and his blue eyes bored into hers with an intensity that made her tremble. Yet, he did not respond. The set of his shoulders remained still and his hand, resting upon his knee, tightened into a white knuckled fist. Suddenly her heart pumped wildly, and she lifted her gritty hand and placed it over his.

"Would you like to touch me?" she asked softly, without blinking. "I wish you would. Touch my face. My hair." She lifted his big, heavy hand in her own and placed it against her cheek. Her eyes drifted closed. "You smell like sunshine," she whispered. "And feel like..." She nuzzled- felt his fingers quiver upon her cheek. "So hard. So very hard. And so gentle. It's what I recall about you at night, how gently you touched me. And your lips? So hot and wet and tasting like spirits. My heart races... like now. I hold my pillow to my breast and pretend that it's you. I kiss it sometimes- pretending that it's you, that if you kissed me again I would know better what to do." Opening her eyes, looking into his, she admitted, "I had never been kissed before, you see."

Shifting onto her knees, her gaze holding his, Juliette took his face in her hands, searched his eyes that reflected some emotion- a turbulence that reminded her of storms. "I think I should die soon if you don't kiss me again, Chantz."

Nothing. No movement. Only the beating of heat on their shoulders and the singsong cadence of the cicadas. "Do you want to kiss me again, Chantz?" she finally asked.

"I want..." he began in a rough voice, then stopped, swallowed, looked, for a moment, as if he might jump to his feet and stalk away. "You," he finally whispered- the sound like a surrender.

She leaned into him, pressed her mouth upon his, nothing wet, nothing parted, nothing hot, just a light brush of her lips upon his that felt surprisingly soft. Again, lingering, lips against lips, his breath a quick rush of air upon her cheek as he exhaled. A sound in his throat. A tensing of his mouth. Now a parting of his lips and pressure- sweet pressure as he kissed her back. Her lips opened and his tongue slid inside her- slightly salty and sweet, hot and wet- oh oh but it felt good- just like she remembered- a flurry of feelings winged up within her- she drew him in, closer, arms slung over his shoulders as their bodies moved together, as his hands slid around her ribs and up her back- opening wide, fingers curling slightly into her body to grip her with barely constrained desire.

At last, he turned his head away, eyes closed, every nuance of his face etched in a sort of pain she was only beginning to understand. She felt it too, in her heart, and lower, a colliding of emotion and hunger- something primitive, something moving, thickening, a force as powerful and demanding acknowledgment as the love wing-beating in her heart.

"Touch me," she heard herself murmur, her head falling back, face turned up toward the hot sphere of sun overhead.

His hands cupped her breasts, and the pressure shimmied like heat waves through her body. He lifted her. He lowered his head, buried it in the swell of her bosom, breathed in sharp, short pants that felt warm and moist through her blouse.

Twisting her hand in the dark, thick waves of his hair, she pulled back his head and looked into his eyes that were blue as flames. "I like your hands on me," she confessed breathlessly. "And your mouth. And your body. Does that make me wicked, Chantz?" She didn't allow him to answer, but kissed him again, forcing his head back further. With a quick tug of her blouse from her skirt, his hands slid beneath the frail top, shoved the shirt up to expose her breasts barely concealed behind the barrier of her ecru, lace-edged shift.

Gently, so gently, he eased his mouth over one.

She gasped.

Breathed upon it.

She groaned.

Tugged the shift down with his rough-tipped fingers, down over her aching peak, freeing it so he could slide his moist lips over it and draw it deeply against his tongue that caressed it like a finger.

"Oh." She sighed, feeling the hot sun beat upon her closed eyelids, the same heat pulse in her heart, and her body, low and deep, making her breathless. "Oh yes."

Then his hand lifted her skirt, brushed upon her thigh, danced, flirtingly, over the slit in her short drawers before sliding inside the clothing, inside her body that felt, in an instant, in sublime pain. White heat and electricity. Lightning at his fingertips.

"Sweet God, Juliette," Chantz murmured, stroking her, licking her, nuzzling, his teeth ever so slightly into her sensitive flesh and suckling like a child, igniting her every raw nerve.

"I love you," she heard herself confess, knowing the instant that she said it that she had erred. His body tensed. His hands stilled. Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, one hand tunneling through his hair, she held his face hard against her breast, felt the sharp stubble of his unshaven cheek burn into her flesh.

"I love you," she repeated as her gaze lifted to the towering tops of the cane that glistened in the sunlight. "I know it's wrong. That I shouldn't. And perhaps you'll tell me I'm too young to know what love is. That I shouldn't love you, of all people. And you're right, of course. I don't want to hurt you. I just think you should know." She looked down, on his head, his hair a rich dark brown tumble of lazy waves upon her pale skin, and a swell of pain filled her at his silence. "I just thought you should know," she repeated, and closed her eyes.

?Eleven.

Anticipation of the hunt hung in the air heavy as the humidity, as did the smell of burning cypress bonfires that, by now, would be turning the hot summer night into something infernal. He should be mentally preparing himself for the hunt. Instead, Chantz focused on the big house where lights burned in the dusk and tried not to think about what nearly happened that afternoon. Tried not to recall how sweet Juliette had tasted... or how her confession of loving him had shaken him. Even now, with rum pulsing behind his eyes like drums, her words had the sobering effect of a fist punch in his gut.

"I'm afraid, Chantz," Emma said as she moved up beside him and followed his gaze to the big house. "Here you are set to hunt a man-eater and you're half drunk. Don't do it, Chantz honey. Don't go out there tonight in this frame of mind."

He thought of telling her that some damn bull gator with a hunger for human flesh was the least of his disquietude- that he'd been seduced by Juliette Broussard's body- not just her body, but her heart and soul, and he was beginning to feel...

What, exactly, was he beginning to feel?

Desperate. To hold her again. Desperate. To taste her mouth again. To smell the sun on her skin and the flower scent of her hair. To look into her sparkling eyes, and float on the odd, seductive innocence of her smile. Desperate to close his eyes at night and dream of sugarcane instead of her flood of dark red hair sliding like a silken breath over his body.