tattle on our sins with an extra hour of sleep in the morning. Subsequently no one trusted anyone. I'd very

much like us to be friends, Liza. Do you think we could?"

Liza gave a short laugh and scratched her head. "In case you ain't taken a good look at me, Miss Julie, our skin ain't exactly the same color."

"Is that supposed to make a difference?"

"Lord, girl, you are naive." Liza placed her dark rough hand over Julie's pale soft one.

Juliette grinned. "Does that mean yes?"

"That mean we both gonna take a while to think about it."

Liza pulled away and walked toward the door.

"It's dreadfully sad and frightening to be a prisoner, isn't it, Liza?"

Stopping, her back to Juliette, Liza didn't turn for a moment. Finally, she looked around and her eyes

were dark hollows of emotion. "I be a slave, Miss Julie. You're not."

"But we're both women, and at this point in my life I'm as imprisoned as you."

A smile of understanding touched Liza's mouth.

"They can't force me to marry Tylor, Liza. I won't. I'll throw myself in the river, this time on purpose."

"Careful, now. There might be no Chantz Boudreaux there to fish you out again."

As Liza quit the room, Juliette rolled to her back and focused on the netting overhead. She tried to fix her mind on her sorry situation- but couldn't get Chantz out of her head. Not just the image of him, wounded and bleeding on the dirt floor of the old shanty, but those other sensations as well. His hands had been hard and powerful, both cruel and gentle on her body. He had kissed her and she had felt... overwhelmed by emotion.

How would she ever face him again?

Jeremiah, a barefoot Negro boy no more than eight years old, wearing a sleeveless bleached muslin shirt and pants, cinched at the waist with a rope, sat in a chair in the corner of the high-ceilinged room and pulled a rope attached to a punka overhead. The big fan did little but stir the hot, wet air and cause the flies to buzz angrily. And the mosquitoes. The drone of their humming had been constant as Juliette lay tossing, turning, and sweating in her bed.

The miserable humidity made her drowsy and incapable of concentrating on Max Hollinsworth, whose annoyance at her running off into the storm was thinly veiled by his attempts to pacify her own anger. The man pacing, wearing a rumpled, sweat-stained shirt and smelling of sour spirits, could hardly be compared to the soft-spoken charming godfather who had occupied her during their journey from France with vivid descriptions of Louisiana that likened it to the Garden of Eden. Max Hollinsworth had filled her with such grand dreams for her future- thrilled her with images of gay soirees and lazy picnics under sprawling oaks overlooking the Mississippi River. He'd encouraged her fantasies of rebuilding Belle Jarod to its former glory. He'd inspired her with such hope...

Yet, the ugly reality stretched as far as she could see- muddy water and snakes and humidity so thick she felt as if she were breathing through a damp linen. According to Tylor, Belle Jarod had burned nearly to the ground thanks to the fire that had erupted during the confrontation between her father and her mother's lover- the fire that had killed Maureen Jarod and destroyed everything her father had worked for.

Max drank from a tall glass of bourbon. His blue eyes, however, never left Juliette, with her mass of hair anchored to the top of her head by the seed pearl combs that she despised to use but had little choice. While her voluminous hair might have been welcome in the cool convent to help keep her warm, here it felt as miserably heavy around her shoulders as wet wool.

Then, of course, there was the cursed garment that she had been instructed to wear that had belonged to his second wife, Mabel or Myrtle or some such, a long-sleeved green silk with lace and ribbons that drooped from her shoulders, pitifully too big. The scalloped decolletage plunged far too daringly over her breasts, forcing her to clutch it closed with one fist. Never would she have imagined that she would long for the drab gray frock she was forced to wear at the convent. And, oh, for the chill of those dreary shadows and walls. The Reverend Mother's severity in that moment would have been a welcome respite from the biting insects and suffocating air that made her lungs feel like sodden cotton.

Max moved to his desk and sat on the edge, drank the bourbon, watching her over the lip of the glass. Sweat trickled down his jaw. Although his mouth formed a semblance of a smile, the emotions crawling in his dark blue eyes appeared to be anything but friendly.

Despite what her father had become the latter part of his life, Juliette couldn't imagine his entrusting her well-being to one as ruthless and mendacious as Max Hollinsworth. Then she acknowledged with a despairing, infuriating sense of growing helplessness that she hadn't known her father at all.

"I understand you spent time with my overseer," Max said in a falsely neutral tone that sent caution up her spine. His eyebrows lowered and his voice dropped an octave as he added, "Chantz Boudreaux."

Fresh anger rushed through her, adding to the cloying heat of the clothes scratching at her skin. The memory of Chantz lying in a heap on the floor and Tylor Hollinsworth standing over him made her empty stomach turn over. For all they knew, or cared, he might have died- or could be dying that very moment. The possibility made her throat close and her heartbeat quicken with a desperation that made her feel frantic to see him again.

"He saved my life," she declared with shaking voice. "He didn't deserve the viciousness that was inflicted on him by your son and his companions."

Max shrugged. "How could you blame them? They enter the hovel and discover you in his arms, barely dressed. Chantz has a... reputation, shall we say. Besides, such behavior between a man of his social status and a young lady such as yourself is highly frowned upon."

"That's ridiculous." She shook her head. "I'm virtually destitute, as you've pointed out. I'm hardly in a position to look down my nose at Chantz Boudreaux or anyone else."

"Need I remind you that your father was once highly regarded. The most successful planter in Louisiana. Some considered him the royalty of sugarcane. Belle Jarod was the finest home in the South, Juliette. She sat like a glistening jewel on the cypriere above the river. From her wide galleries you could look down on fifteen thousand acres of the tallest, greenest, sweetest cane outside of the West Indies.

"Most speculated that Jack had a special talent for growing cane. Perhaps. But I suspect he could contribute most of his success to his dirt... and the fact that he never flooded. Not like the rest of us. Belle Jarod sat just high enough to stay mostly dry when the river rose. While we waded through water up to our knees and watched our crops wash away or rot, Jack sat up there like a king and tallied his profits. Profits, I might add, that mounted every time we had a flood. Less cane meant higher prices. While we grew poorer, Jack grew richer. He was lucky that way. Seems everything he touched turned to gold."

"Obviously not," she pointed out with a lift of one eyebrow, "or I wouldn't be standing here now, would I?

"Touche." Max finished his bourbon and put down the glass. His cheeks looked flushed. Whether from anger or the liquor, she couldn't determine.

Setting her shoulders and lifting her chin, Juliette said, "You want Belle Jarod. And the only way you'll get her is through me. I'm well aware of the law. When I marry all my property, including Belle Jarod, will revert to my husband."

His dark eyes regarded her intently, first her face, then down, over her body. A weary yearning settled over his features; he ran one hand over his brow, and sighed.

"I can hardly vow that I wouldn't give my soul to own Belle Jarod. My heart is broken each time I ride by her barren fields and her crumbled walls. A wealth of dreams and prosperity died in the fire, Juliette. Her beauty, her magnificence haunts me even now..."

He stood and swept up his empty glass, refilled it with bourbon from a bottle on a table near a window.

His back to her, he looked out over his submersed property, scattered with piles of driftwood and debris. The neatly trimmed boxwood hedges and brick-lined paths were buried under a foot of silt.

"I loved your father. Never doubt that for a moment. He was a good friend to me. Carried me through troubled times. Laughed with me. Wept with me."

He laughed dryly. "Never once did he ask for anything in return. Not even the money he loaned me. I once told him he was a candidate for sainthood. I'm afraid it wasn't a compliment. His tolerance and philanthropy, not to mention his damnable trust, infuriated me. It seemed everything I did or succeeded at could never measure up to his most simple act of humaneness."

He turned and looked at her. His face appeared as gray as cold ash. "When Solicitor Roswell contacted me about his death, I suffered, Juliette. Now I see you standing there and I'm reminded of how I failed him. I'm reminded of it each time I look in your... extraordinary eyes."

A sad smile turned up his lips as he walked to her. "Let's begin again, Juliette. I trust, once you've grown to know us better you'll be more inclined to act reasonably. I'll spare nothing to ensure your comfort and happiness."

"And in return-"

"The mistress of a plantation like Holly House... or Belle Jarod, has tremendous responsibilities. Aside from overseeing the house slaves-"

"There will be no slaves on Belle Jarod, Monsieur. I find the practice barbaric. And I'm far more interested in learning the process of growing cane than I am in the waxing of tables and the polishing of custors."

"A woman has her place, Juliette. That place is in the house. And as long as you're living under my roof, you'll do as I say. You'll find I'm an easy man to get along with as long as you remember who is in control."

He drank again and his eyes narrowed. "A woman like you must be kept on a tight rein. Give you a little slack and you'll bolt like a hot-blooded filly with the bit in her teeth. You won't respect a man who allows you to dominate him. I told your daddy as much, but he wouldn't listen. Thought he could tame Maureen with flowers and sweet talk. Maureen hungered for power more than she craved his money and all the sparkling baubles it could buy her."

He put the glass down and moved toward her.

Juliette turned her face away, so her gaze fixed on Jeremiah. He stared at her with big eyes, their whites slightly jaundiced.

"The dress suits you," Maxwell said as he circled her. "We'll have Emmaline fit it, of course. She'll be along directly. You'll need some pretty things, what with our guests arriving. We can't have Phyllis Buley showing you up, now can we? Fred thinks there isn't another young lady in Louisiana who can challenge his daughter for looks and charm, and maybe there wasn't. But now you've come home and there won't be a man, eligible or not, who won't believe you to be the prettiest female in this state."

He caught her chin and tipped her head so she was forced to look in his eyes. She wanted to slap his hand away, but something in the pressure of his fingers warned her that to push him in that moment would not be wise.

"You've a great many lessons to learn, my dear. The first is to always look at me when I speak to you. The second is to obey me. Should I tell you that you're to wear your hair up, you'll wear your hair up. Should I require you to wear a certain dress, you will wear it. When I behest you to keep away from Chantz Boudreaux, I fully mean that you are to keep away from him. Now, I'm willing to overlook this last unfortunate occurrence with my overseer- a certain amount of tolerance should be rewarded him because he saved your life. But should there be any further fraternizing between you beyond the normal requirements of his duties as my employee, then I will surely be forced to administer swift retribution."

He smiled into her eyes. "Do you understand me, my dear?"

Juliette swallowed. Some internal heat brought a rise of sweat to her face.

"Massa Max!" came a child's excited voice, followed by a banging on the closed door. "Massa Max, you best come quick. Boss Chantz be back, and he be hurt somethin' bad!"

Without so much as a thought for her actions or the directive her godfather had just given her, Juliette grabbed up her overly long skirt and exited the room with no backward glance.

Max looked around as Tylor entered the office through the gallery doors. His son's face, shapeless and fair and without character- so much like Max's dead wife's- looked petulant and flushed by the heat and the liquor he'd been drinking. His clothes were soiled and wrinkled and sticking to his body by large patches of sweat. He looked as if he'd been sleeping off his drunk in a barn.

"Tylor, you disgust me," Max declared in a weary voice.

"I'm not in the mood to be belittled, Daddy. You gonna let her just fly out of here like that on her way to flutter all over Chantz barely a minute after you told her to keep away?"

"I might remind you that if it wasn't for Chantz, Juliette would be dead right now, thanks to you. I might remind you that if you hadn't acted the imbecile, she wouldn't have run out of this house and wound up in Chantz's arms. When are you going to grow a brain, Tylor? When are you going to show a little responsibility, not to mention maturity?"

"When you get over being in love with a whore." Tylor grunted a laugh, and added, "Maybe you didn't haul Juliette out of that convent for me to marry. Maybe you got designs on her yourself."

Max backhanded Tylor hard enough across his cheek to send him careening over a table, crashing it to the floor along with the lamp that shattered and spilled oil in a thick yellow pool on the floor. His hands sliding in the slick, mephitic fuel, Tylor scrambled back to his feet, his mouth bleeding, his face white. His brown hair spilled in Macassared coils over his eyes.

His fists shook as he sneered. "Nothing more pitiful than watching an old man make a fool of himself over a young woman, Daddy. She'll make you into a laughing stock. And you can mark my words, Chantz is gonna be trouble where she's concerned. The problems I might have caused ain't gonna hold a candle to what he's gonna stir up.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he ain't already had her, not the way they were clutching at each other when I found them. Since when did you ever know Chantz not to crawl between a woman's legs when it was offered- especially one who looks like her?"

With a snide grin, he added, "You think she would have run out that door like she did if either of us had come crawling out of the woods on our bellies?"

"Get the hell out of my sight, Tylor, before I lose my temper."

"I hate to be the one to break it to you, Daddy, but that ain't Maureen who just ran out that door much as you would like her to be. You can drape her in fancy satins and silks and dress up her hair with Maureen's combs and bathe her in Midnight Magnolia, but she ain't ever gonna willingly walk into your arms... or your bed.

"You're an old man, Daddy. And she's already known Chantz's touch. We both know neither of us can compete with him. Especially me. Remember? Tylor, why can't you shoot as straight as Chantz? Tylor, why can't you ride a horse as well as Chantz? Grow cane as well as Chantz? Hell, the only thing different between Chantz Boudreaux and God is Chantz can't walk on water."

Tylor drew himself up and wrist-wiped the blood from his lip. He motioned toward the empty glass on the desk. "Pull your head out of your bourbon bottle long enough so you can think clearly for a change. She's on to us, Daddy. No way in hell are you ever gonna get your hands on Belle Jarod, assuming that's what you want to get your hands on, of course."

Tylor held Max's gaze for a long tense moment, then left through the gallery door, crunching the shattered glass under his boots.

Max closed his eyes, anger and whiskey making his body shake. He heard the bell ringing then.

He made his way out the front door, stopped on the gallery, his sight sweeping the brown water terrain that covered his land so he couldn't tell where the earth ended and the river began. He might as well have been standing on the deck of a goddamn boat.

His Negroes came from every direction, slogging as fast as they could through the high water. All converged onChantz where he had collapsed to his knees beside his horse. The respect and loyalty the blacks showed Chantz set Max's teeth on edge.

Now there was Juliette, stumbling toward Chantz as well. The hem of her green skirts floated on the water surface. Her hair, full of fire and wild silken waves, fell from the combs and cascaded over her shoulders, and for a moment he thought...

"Juliette!" he barked, and watched her freeze.

Chantz lifted his head. His blue eyes focused first on Max, then shifted to Juliette, who slowly turned back to Max at the sound of her name.

Max stepped from the porch into the water. He watched a spark of hot anger ignite in her eyes as he approached.

"If you want to help Chantz," he told her in a flat tone as he caught her chin in his fingers and stared hard into her eyes, "get back in the house and forget him. Do you understand me, Juliette? Forget him."

?Four.

With the sun beating down on him and the pain in his chest making breathing next to impossible, Chantz watched Juliette struggle back to the house, dragging her wet skirts. Then he shifted his gaze to Max who plowed through the water toward him like a maddened buffalo, teeth bared and eyes glazed by bourbon.

Gritting his teeth, Chantz attempted to stand. Too damn weak. The heat and pain in his chest pressed him down.

"Boss," came the gentle voice, and Chantz looked around, up into his gang driver, Louis's, face. Louis stood seven feet tall with skin as blue-black as a raven's wing. The man had the patience of Job and the strength of ten men. He smiled kindly down at Chantz and said, "I be helpin' you if that's awright. Give me your arm, Boss. Right here 'round my waist. Gonna lift you right up now. Careful. You ain't lookin'so good, Boss."

"I've been better." Chantz groaned and caught his breath as Louis eased him to his feet. He ran his hand over his face, swiping at the sweat and humidity streaming into his eyes.

Max shoved his way through the workers. "Where the hell have you been, Chantz? My goddamn plantation is sinking into the river and you're off carousing with women and getting yourself half beat to death."

Chantz shifted his gaze from Max's irate face to Juliette. She stood on the gallery, watching, hands buried in the folds of her water-stained skirts. Then Tylor exited the house and joined her. He leaned against one of the six fluted columns stretching across the front gallery, smoked a cigar, and grinned.