Chantz, of course, had been right about that, if nothing else.

Still, she stubbornly refused to give in. She would rather die of starvation or snakebite than return to Holly Plantation.

"Hello, Miss Julie."

Startled from her morose thoughts, Juliette looked around to find Andrew Buley standing near the tree edge, his Panama in hand and his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. Sweat beaded his brow as he forced a tight smile, no doubt appalled by her appearance. His gaze slowly moved down over her bare legs, lingered, smile growing thinner, his eyes as dark as the rich earth under his boots.

Juliette reached for her machete, stood, and without so much as looking toward him again, dove into the copse of blackberries and young cottonwoods.

"I don't blame you for being angry with me," he said as he followed. "I haven't done right by Liza. But I'm here today to rectify that."

Whack. The blade bit deeply into the brittle cottonwood trunk.

Andrew cleared his throat. "You've done one hell of a job here, Juliette." He swatted at the cloud of gnats and mosquitoes swirling around his head.

Whack.

"I heard you found some Negroes-"

"They found me. And before you go getting on your high horse, they are free blacks. That means they are free to live and work wherever they so desire, Mr. Buley."

Straightening, the knife clutched in her hand, Juliette squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye.

"My mother freed them. I suppose that's another trait I share with her- I don't abide slavery. Nor am I a hypocrite. Now, tell me why you're here. As you can see, I don't have time for idle chitchat."

He followed her deeper into the brush, ducked back as she swung the blade high over her head and

down, severing a sapling in two.

"I'm concerned about Liza," he said in a raised voice as he fanned away the insects with his hat.

"Do tell."

"Have you seen her?"

"Occasionally."

"And the baby?"

Turning on him, she placed the tip of her blade on his shoulder, causing new sweat to rise on his brow.

"There is still a baby, if that's what you mean."

"I've given the situation a great deal of consideration." He swallowed and released a breath, relieved as Juliette turned again on the brush and began chopping. "I intend to tell my parents about the child." "I'm sure they won't be bothered about the child, Andrew. Liza herself is evidence that plantation owners care little whether they repopulate their flesh trove of slaves with half-caste children."

"I can't marry her. She's a slave. It's against the law. Besides, I have my folks to consider."

"You have your inheritance to consider, you mean."

"What the hell am I supposed to do, Julie? Without that inheritance I've got nothing. I was taught to grow

cane, for God's sake."

"You can't grow cane and love Liza too?"

"I can't grow Buley cane."

"From my understanding, Buley cane isn't exactly special."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means your father grows inferior cane."

His face flushed dark as the berries at her feet. "We can't all be Chantz Boudreaux."

She momentarily froze at the sound of Chantz's name, feeling the heat of Andrew's stare on the back of her neck. Reluctantly, she looked over her shoulder, into Andrew's dark eyes.

"How is he?" she asked, hating the quiver she heard in the words. She'd told herself a thousand times over the last days and nights that Chantz could go to hell. "Not that I truly care," she lied with another whack of her blade against a tree branch.

Andrew bent and plucked several berries. They stained his fingers before he popped them into his mouth and looked away. There was something about her expression, perhaps, that discomposed him.

"He's working the river. The pay is sorry but it feeds him and Emmaline... for the time being. In case you haven't heard, there is talk about quarantining New Orleans. There appears to be an outbreak of yellow fever, mostly in the shanty town along the river. Authorities have managed to keep it confined but the last week several people in the quarter have gone sick. If New Orleans is quarantined there won't be any river traffic."

Whack.

"The river. The idea is absurd. Chantz should be growing cane, Andrew. It's in his blood. He loves it. And he's good at it."

"It's not for lack of offers." Andrew grinned. "My own father offered him a job. I do believe Maxwell and Tylor underestimated his esteem in this parish. He could go to work for any of a dozen planters along this river in a heartbeat."

"Then why doesn't he?"

"I don't know. I don't think he does either."

Juliette flung the machete down so hard it knifed deeply into the dirt. Shouldering her way through a tangle of brush, she upset a covey of quail that exploded into the air with a popping of frantic wing beats. They disturbed a drove of water turkeys near the pond edge. Their enormous bodies rose up in a dark cloud, their thin black necks outstretched as they soared toward the low marshes.

By the time Andrew followed her into the house, Juliette paced down the long middle corridor that divided the destruction of Belle Jarod from the complete rooms she had called home the last weeks. India stood at one end, hands on her hips and her mouth a bend of disapproval as she fixed Andrew with her small black eyes.

"I don't understand," Juliette declared, words ringing in the open rafters high overhead. "I offer him marriage. I offer him Belle Jarod to marry me. I would think that he might not give a damn about me, and wouldn't blame him after the harm I've caused, but that he would give a damn about this." Flinging open her arms, she turned round and round, becoming dizzy.

"Chantz is a proud man, Julie. Too damn proud for his own good, mostly. He's worked for everything he's ever owned. He's not about to sell his dignity for a lot of sugarcane. And if you offered it because of some sense of obligation you feel over what happened, or God forbid pity-"

"Pity?" Hands curled into fists, Juliette moved toward Andrew. "He accused me of manipulation, Andrew. He accused me of using him to exact revenge on Maxwell for destroying my father. After what

took place between us..." She shook her head and willed back her escalating anger. "How dare he believe I would prostitute myself-"

"You've got Emmaline to blame for that. Not Chantz. She's a tired, bitter woman, Juliette, and she's

afraid of losing him. I'm sorry to say she can't get over the fact that you're Maureen's daughter. She'll

suspect everything you do."

She entered the salon and continued to pace, her frustration and irritation mounting.

Andrew followed, looking around the room. He walked to a glass jar India had filled with roses and honeysuckle that scented the air so there was little hint of the old decay. Then he glanced toward the stack of books on the marble-top table and picked one up, turned it over, before focusing on her again.

His eyes no longer looked pleasant. "When will you see Liza again?" he asked.

"Soon. Tonight possibly."

"Does she come here?"

"When she can. Whenever she can get away without that idiot Boris finding out. Fortunately, he's often

away in the evenings."

"I know. He and his paddy roller friends came by our place last night."

"Oh?" She flashed him an askance look. "Are you harboring runaway slaves?"

"They're not after runaway slaves. There is a rumor running amok that someone is teaching our slaves

how to read."

"Imagine that." She sniffed and crossed her arms.

"I don't care to think about what will happen to such a tutor if she... he is discovered."

She raised one eyebrow. "Then don't think about it."

Juliette moved again into the foyer and dragged the tignon from her head. Her hair fell in a mass around

her shoulders.

"India!" she called. "I'll need my good dress. The one Liza brought me last week. And I'll want a bath.

Will you have Jasper heat me water?"

"Yassum." India smiled, radiating her pleasure at doing the menial chore.

"And have Gaius cool down the mule. I'll be riding Snapper into town."

?Eighteen.

India perched behind Juliette on the broad rump of the old mule while Jasper and Gaius walked beside

her, one on each side. Jasper carried a cottonwood switch with a tuft of leaves on the end. When Snapper stalled, refusing to budge a hoof further, Jasper popped him on the haunches with the switch until the mule bared his long yellow teeth in displeasure, brayed, and returned to his ambling gait.