"I would rather my Belle rot completely to the ground before I allow her to fall into the hands of a man who so unconscionably whips human beings and cheats on his fiancee."

He didn't so much as blink, just lifted his chin slightly and looked at her down his sharp nose. "How very sanctimonious coming from one who so recently was discovered compromising herself with the likes of Chantz Boudreaux."

Replacing his hat on his head, he glanced up and down the street before adding conversationally, "Take care in your activities. 'Twould be a shame if something untoward happened to you and the Belle became a disposition of the courts. No telling what sort of scoundrel would get his hands on her then. Until we meet again, adieu, Mademoiselle."

She glared at his back as he moved down the banquette, the snake eyes on his cane glittering back at her. There were people watching, men and women. Baxter peered out through his dusty storefront window, his expression somber.

Raising her voice for all to hear, she called, "The next time you proposition potential mistresses and threaten women's lives, Mr. Carrington, consider a less public venue."

There came a blink of a hesitation in his step, but he did not look back.

"Bahd mahn," Jasper said close to her ear. His voice quavered, and as she looked around into his eyes she witnessed a tumult of emotion there that made her blood run cold. "Don't wants to make enemy of Carrin'ton, Maitresse. He a bahd, bahd mahn."

India muttered something under her breath then spat in the dirt, in his footsteps, murmured something again, and backed away. Fixing her eyes on Carrington's back, she whispered through her teeth: "Pousse alle! Pousse alle, Commere!" She removed the string with the nutmeg and amulet from her neck and slipped it over Juliette's head.

"Arret!" India declared, and placed her big hand upon the amulet that rested between Juliette's breasts. "Arret, Maitresse. C'est bien bon. Bien bon."

The cloud of anger on India's dark face was again replaced by her beaming smile that, even in that moment with Juliette's anger boiling more hotly than the sun, with the dust slightly suffocating her lungs, uplifted her spirits.

Placing her hand upon the amulet, she smiled and looked again toward the busy wharf, and repeated softly, "Oui, Mamaloi. It is very good."

Chantz had watched Juliette that day from the deck of the Sassafras, watched her ride into town on Snapper, Jasper and Gaius at her side and India behind her. He'd felt the stares of the other men on him as he watched her ride among the staring crowds, her head held high as if she were as royal as a princess. He'd been forced to go below and remain there in the hot box of burning coal and steam or surely he would have allowed his emotions to get the better of him.

What emotions?

Standing there watching the sun turn her hair to a flame and kiss her face- the very face that he could still imagine when he closed his eyes at night, the very face that he focused his thoughts on as Tylor whipped him- he had been forced to fully acknowledge what he had tried so hard to deny.

He was in love with Juliette Broussard, her spirit, her soul, her mouth and laughter and eyes...

Damn those eyes that had stared up into his with a soul-rending passion. He could almost imagine that he could see, even from the deck of the Sassafras, their passion and fire. He had never felt so full up with a hunger to conquer since he'd last stood in a barren field and imagined turning it over with his bare hands.

He rode the horse hard through the dark, through the splashes of white moonlight on the road, through the shadows scattered here and there making the lathered animal quiver with the fear that those shadows were bottomless pits straight to Hell. He dug his heels into the gelding's flanks, driving him on as he sank into the saddle in case the horse veered at the last minute. The river stretched out beside him, smooth as bottle glass and as reflective. Starlit mist hovered over the water like ghosts so humanlike occasionally his heart gave a leap. The same fear stabbed at him over and over...

What if he was too late? The possibility sent hot, fresh panic through him.

Word had arrived only minutes before the Sassafras was to have set off for New Orleans. The quarantine had been established. No boats would be allowed into New Orleans, nor would they be allowed out because of what appeared to be an escalating outbreak of fever. For once in his life he thanked God for such fate or he would have been miles down the river when the Negro child had come scrambling down the dock looking for Chantz, running up the stageplank yelling at the top of his voice: "Missive fo' Boss Chantz!"

The note had read simply: "There will be trouble tonight at Belle Jarod."

What kind of trouble?

Didn't matter.

Didn't matter who sent it, though he had his suspicions. He'd received enough of Phyllis Buley's letters over the last months to recognize her handwriting, signed or not. He'd suspected for a long while that Horace Carrington was involved with Boris Wilcox and his group of troublemaking paddy rollers, and that's what frightened Chantz most: Horace's love of pain, and inflicting it.

Since he'd watched Juliette dismount that cantankerous old mule, watched her stand there in the street with the hot sun beating on her while she searched the docks for him, he'd needed one tenuous thread of reason to walk away from the Sassafras.

With a measure of disquietude and relief, he'd crumpled the note in his hand and walked away from the sweating, glaring, cursing Sassafras's captain and didn't look back.

Please, God, please, whatever the trouble, don't let him be too late.

He'd known that eventually Maxwell or Tylor would be forced to make a move. They had expected Juliette to crumble when faced with the hardship of surviving with no money. They had boasted among the townsfolk that she would come crawling on her knees and be grateful for any crumb of food or pittance of money they might provide her if they would only take her back. She would eventually come to her senses when she realized just what sort of goliath task she faced in rebuilding Belle Jarod- with no money or manpower.

But days had passed. And rumors had surfaced that free blacks had moved into Belle to help her.

Then the other whispers had surfaced. Someone was tutoring the slaves at night. Not just Holly slaves, but others: Buley slaves and Carrington slaves. The secret had been breached when one of Carrington's slave children had picked up a chore list and commented on it. The boy had refused to tell Horace where he had learned to read, though Chantz suspected the child had suffered greatly for his silence.

Chantz knew, of course. That certainty and fear expanded as vastly as the night sky overhead as he drove the horse like a bat out of hell toward Belle Jarod. The pounding of his horse's hooves and the whippoorwills' calls were the only sounds in the dark.

At last, he came to the gates- not long since lost amid the tangle of wild growth- now standing like gray sentinels in the moonlight. Atop each perched bleached horse skulls- India's work, of course: island magic against evil.

There was still no riding up the drive. The horse wouldn't have it even if the thick copses had been entirely cleared away. As if sensing something amiss the big sweating bay danced on his back feet, slung his head with froth-covered bit, and threatened to unsettle Chantz from his back.

At last, Chantz managed to dismount, and the horse heaved himself backward, yanking the reins from Chantz's hand, spun on his haunches, and, giving a side kick toward Chantz, sprang off into the dark like all the hounds of hell were snapping at his hocks.

As the thunder of retreating hoofbeats was swallowed by the whirring of crickets and the continuing calls of the whippoorwills, Chantz moved beyond the ghostly brick entries into the lair of heavy trees and brambles, footsteps silenced by the carpet of dead leaves and moss. The smell of honeysuckle and jasmine perfumed the air. Occasionally the ranker odor of morass near the river's edge intruded.

At last, he broke through the tangle and stood looking at the house lit by moon and stars. For a moment, just a moment, he was swept back in years to when the Belle had stood like a glowing palace above the cypriere. When, as a boy, he had looked upon her massive columns and graceful arches and imagined that some day he would own something as grand as Belle Jarod. For a moment, however brief, he was that boy again, left breathless by her majesty. She looked... reborn.

Then as the clouds eased over the moon and the light dimmed, the bones returned- empty black eyes

and exposed rafters. Nothing had changed except there was no longer the flesh of wild growth to shield her scars.

He heard it then, the weeping. A cold dread centered in his belly and he forced his resistant legs to move.

Sweat formed on his brow like beads of hot ice as he moved up the steps, over the gallery, through the open door, and into the foyer. Every sense attuned to the silence, to the dark.

"Juliette?"

The word came out sounding little more than a dry rattle of fear.

"Juliette?"

The sound again. The soft weeping. Then a man's voice.

Chantz moved down the foyer toward the back room where the faintest light of a candle interrupted the dark. The only sound he could hear in that moment was the explosive pounding of his heart in his ears.

India lay on her back, arms and legs splayed, her mouth open and her eyes wide, fixed on the ceiling. A scrawny chicken perched on her big belly, clucking softly while Jasper, Custis, and Gaius knelt beside her, shoulder to shoulder and hands clutched to their chests as if praying.

Andrew, on his knees as well, clutched Juliette to his chest. Her arms lay motionless in her lap.

A frigid pain seized his bones; he couldn't move; he couldn't breathe. His gaze inched up her body, to the pale skin showing under her torn bodice, fear pressing outward from his chest so he thought he might be

dying. There was a smear of blood on the side of her face that was turned into Andrew's white-shirted shoulder which shook as he wept.

As if sensing Chantz there, Andrew slowly turned his head and looked into Chantz's eyes.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, Chantz."

Juliette's head turned and her eyes speared him.

Chantz sank against the doorpost and closed his eyes briefly. Hot relief flashed through him and the

sudden need to vomit turned his flesh cold as ice. He covered his face with his hands.

"There were five of them," came Andrew's words, "wearing hoods to cover their faces. They had clubs and knives. I was upstairs... with Liza when I heard the racket. By the time I got down here..."

Chantz lowered his hands and turned his gaze back to Juliette's.

"What have they done to you, Julie?" he demanded through his teeth, his relief and fear replaced by a

mounting storm of fury. Every tender tendril of hate he had carefully contained the last years began to fray in that instant. Murder tasted sweet as syrup on his tongue and he hungered for it more than he wanted to breathe.

"What the hell have they done?" he repeated in a choked voice.

"She's fine, Chantz." Andrew stroked her hair that lay as dark red beneath her as a spreading pool of blood. "India stopped them. Had it not been for her..." He briefly closed his eyes and shook his head. "One minute she was roaring at them like a bull, her body planted between theirs and Juliette's, the next she was clutching her heart and dropping. I suspect she was dead before she hit the floor."

Jasper shook his head and wiped his nose with his shirtsleeve. Custis looked away and Gaius stood, tottered, plucked Jesu off India's belly, and walked off into the dark.

Chantz glanced around the room. "Where is Liza?"

"Gone." Andrew's voice thickened with anger. "They took her. I suppose back to Holly. Hell, Boris Wilcox could wear ten hoods but I'd know those damn eyes anywhere. I tried to stop them. I honestly did. I imagine they would have killed me if..."

He squeezed his eyes closed and turned his face away. Tears ran down his cheeks and dripped on Juliette's breast.

"One of them was my daddy, Chantz. I suspect he was as shocked to see me come thundering through that door as I was to look into his eyes and recognize my own father.

"They took Liza. Boris went up after her, dragged her kicking and screaming down the stairs. It was so damn awful and I was so goddamn impotent to do anything but stand there and stare into my daddy's eyes. My God, Chantz, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands."

Chantz moved across the room, refusing to look into India's dull eyes. Closer into the light he could detect pages of books ripped from their leather bindings and scattered over the floor. He eased to one knee beside Juliette who continued to watch him with her odd eyes, her body limp in Andrew's arms.

"Darlin'," he said softly, and reached for her hand. It felt cold and limp and so damn small in his a new ache started in his chest. He had never truly noticed how small she was, how fragile she felt, like a delicate marsh sparrow. Perhaps because she had never realized it herself. Perhaps because he had been so damn swept up in his lust and fear of her that he could think of nothing beyond losing himself- his priorities, his identity... his heart.

Gently, he took her in his arms and stood. Her face nestled against his throat as he carried her out of the room, down the corridor, and up the winding flight of stairs to the room that had once been her nursery, to the room he had fought through flames to reach, where she had bravely stood in the middle of her bed with her little arms outstretched for him.

He carried her through the shell of charred lumber and fallen rafters, to the window where moonlight spilled in a vaporish white pool on the floor. There he sat on a fallen cypress beam, Juliette in his lap, her breath falling softly upon his cheek.

Silently, they looked out at the pond that appeared as smooth and silvered as a mirror, sparkling with the reflective blooms of the water hyacinths. The night odors coiled around them: the musty decaying vegetation from the swamps, the sweet night-blooming jasmine and the wild magnolias.

His arms closing more tightly around her, Chantz rested his cheek upon her forehead, watched a night heron lift off the lightning-struck stump of the old live oak near the water's edge, recalled the night of storms and fear and how the bolt had streaked out of the sky striking the earth the moment the woman in

his arms had taken her first breath of life.

"Some day," he said softly, "I'll buy you a dozen pretty swans. Big ones so you can sit on their backs and ride right off into the clouds if you want."

Her head moved slightly and he felt her look up at him, felt the first shiver of her body as she clawed her way out of her shock.

"What are you trying to say to me, Chantz?" she asked with a catch in her voice.

Chantz swallowed, took a breath, curled his fingers into her torn robin's-egg blue skirt that she had worn so proudly into town just a few hours ago.

If he hadn't been so proud and stubborn he would have marched down that damn stageplank, right down the middle of the goddamn street and gone on his knees and thanked her in front of God and all mankind for the opportunity she had offered him.

What did it matter that he was simply a means to an end?

It's all he had ever been, anyway.

"Darlin'," he heard himself say, "I'm asking you to marry me."

Silence. An eternity's worth. It beat like heat upon his face. Surely every human and animal ear within

shouting distance could hear his heart slamming against his ribs.

At last, her trembling hand lifted and cupped his cheek, drew his face around. Her wonderful mouth curved, just slightly, despite the sparkle of moon-kissed tears in her eyes.

"I should have known a man like you would need to do the asking," she said.