solemn. The sparkle had left her eyes.

"I 'spect the rumors I've heard are true if the look on your face is any hint of what is stirrin' inside your pants. I'm startin' to feel frightened, Chantz. I heard stories about her mama-"

"Her mama is dead," he said, cutting her off.

"And you're gonna be too if you fool with her."

She was right and he knew it. Something unsettled and unsettling had begun to coil around inside him

since he'd pulled Juliette out of the river.

After Tylor had dragged her kicking and screaming out of that shanty, Chantz had lain on that damp dirt floor, hurting and wanting to rip Tylor apart with his hands; the thought of Tylor with Juliette had filled him with a hot, gnashing hatred that even now made him consider murder.

"I've been summoned to the house again," Liza told him. "You have somethin' you want me to pass on to her?"

His eyes narrowing, Chantz finished his whiskey, watched as Juliette reentered the house, gliding as gracefully as a willow frond on water.

"When I've got something to say," he said in a low, rough voice, "I'll tell her myself."

Juliette paced as the pendulum of the squatty little clock on the escritoire ticked back and forth as impatiently as her heartbeat. Again it whirred, struck- once, twice- hummed and clicked and again struck up its monotonous tick tick tick that made her want to scream. Finally, she grabbed the satin lace-edged pillow from the bed and tucked it around the clock to smother the sound, only to frown as the muffled tick tick tick shot through the silence like a gun.

With a sigh, she tiptoed to the French door that stood open, allowing in the croaking of rain frogs and the stagnant decay of swamp water. The air felt moist and hot against her face and her jaws ached with the restless clenching of her teeth the last hours as she recalled Chantz's collapsing to his knees and Maxwell's apparent indifference.

Surely by now Maxwell and Tylor had turned in to bed.

She struck off down the gallery, her bare feet silent upon the worn wood planks, carefully descended the curving staircase to the floor of water that oozed, warm and thick, up her shins as she held her breath and waded through the dark, her gaze fixed on the distant glow of yellow light from Chantz's window.

If you want to help Chantz, Juliette, stay away from him.

Dear God, what was she doing?

She had to know... must assure herself that he was all right- that Tylor's unconscionable brutality had not done him terrible harm. Rosie and Liza had been little help after dinner- as if both had taken a pledge to avoid the topic of Chantz Boudreaux whether she chose to or not.

She must assure herself that the emotions swimming around in her chest were simply not justified- that she had become swept up in some idiotic fairy-tale ideal where dizzy-headed young women fell in love with handsome strangers- Poppycock! All of it. She didn't believe in fairy tales. And she certainly wasn't the dizzy-headed type of young lady who could be easily swept away by the flash of a man's intensely blue eyes... or the touch of his hand... or his kiss. Or the fact that he had risked his own life to save her from the flood.

She stubbed her toe against a rock, then something brushed against her ankle that made her jump and high step as fast as she could down the path, splashing, causing the hounds in the pen to bark frantically from atop their houses. After what felt like eternity, she reached Chantz's porch steps, breathing hard and fast in the heavy air, her body, what wasn't drenched from her splashing through the floodwater, moist with sweat that crawled over her scalp and dripped down the back of her neck.

At last, drawing in a less than steady breath, she eased up the steps to the porch, where the long finger of yellow light spilled through the open doorway, peeked around the doorpost into the small room- at the empty bed where the sight of twisted sheets made her stomach feel strange- where was Chantz?- then around the small room. Papers and envelopes littered an ancient desk bracing the far wall. Its pigeonhole compartments overflowed with papers as well. Against the other walls tired, rickety shelves sagged under the burden of wornout books with leather spines.

But where was Chantz?

"Looking for someone?" came his voice.

Startled, she turned to find him leaning against the house, shirtless but for the bandages around his chest, his pants slung low around his hips. A thin cigar drooped from the corner of his lips.

She opened and closed her mouth, took another deep breath that made her chest ache. Suddenly she felt ridiculously silly- and dumb. Whatever had possessed her to come traipsing down here in the middle of the night, especially with Maxwell's warning ringing loudly as bells in her ears?

"I must have been wrong about you, Miss Julie." The words were slightly slurred and hardly friendly. She eased toward the steps again. "Lying in my bed last night, my face throbbing like hell, I imagined that you had more than a lick of common sense in your pretty head. Now I have to question my normally good judgment, because any woman who would venture out at night to see a man who is likely to have imbibed the better portion of a bottle of bourbon isn't thinking straight."

"I..." She swallowed and backed toward the stairs. "I was concerned. I feel dreadful over what happened-"

"This?" He removed the cigar from his mouth and pointed it at his temple. "I'm certain Tylor is pleased at the idea that he very nearly bashed in my brains. I, on the other hand, have experienced far worse."

"I'm sorry." She bit her lip and narrowed her eyes to better see him in the dark.

"Sorry?" His smile flashed, then he moved toward her. "If you really gave a damn about my welfare, Miss Julie, you wouldn't be here right now. Maxwell is a man of low tolerance. Much like myself. Our patience can be tried only so far before we snap." He snapped his fingers, making her jump. "Are you aware of what the punishment is for a man like myself to be caught with a young lady like you? Aside from losing my job, Max would have every right to strap me to a post and whip me to within an inch of my life. But then, you strike me as the kind of woman who enjoys flirting with the forbidden. Am I right, sweetheart?"

"Yes," she heard herself say, her cheeks warmed by the confession.

Leaning one broad shoulder against the porch post, his weight shifted to his right hip, Chantz smoked the cigar and looked down at her where she tarried on the step just above the water. "I'll bet you gave those nuns hell, didn't you, darlin'? Woman with your body and eyes and mouth... Christ, they probably spent half their lives on their knees praying for your soul... or theirs."

"Are you insulting me, Mr. Boudreaux?" she demanded with a lift of her chin.

"I'm giving you fair warning, Miss Julie. You're much too young and naive to toy with a man like me. I don't take lovemaking lightly, but I'm not stupid, either. You're gonna be trouble for somebody and I'd just as soon that that somebody not be me."

Drawing back her shoulders, her face in full burn, she declared, "I came here to ascertain whether you were suffering-"

"Oh, I'm suffering all right."

His voice came out low and husky. He moved down the steps. She backed again, down into the water before bracing her feet and refusing to budge further. His body heat rushed over her- and his scent- bourbon and tobacco and sweat. Still, it was his eyes that made something roll over inside her. Something exhilarating. Something dizzying. The feelings confused and excited her, and though her mind shouted for her to run as hard as she could back to the big house away from Chantz Boudreaux, her heart simply wouldn't allow it.

"I'm suffering all right," he repeated, his mouth curling at one end as he flicked ashes into the water. "Every time I think of you with Tylor Hollinsworth I hate him with new vigor. I want to kill him even more than I want to make love again to your mouth. I want to shake my fist in God's face and demand to know why a man as lazy and worthless as Tylor should be gifted with a plantation like this... and a woman like you while the rest of us work our fingers to the bone every day and are forced to make do with... scraps."

"I'll never belong to Tylor Hollinsworth," she assured him as she searched his shadowed face.

Stepping into the water, catching her chin in his fingers, Chantz looked deeply into her eyes, his body tense and wary, as if he could sense something hectic and unabandoned in her behind the calm of her voice.

"Never say never, darlin'. Life is hard and sometimes we have to compromise whether we like it or not. What seems important to us now might look different in the light of day. The choices we made yesterday, we might eventually come to regret... that doesn't mean they weren't right at the time."

"Are you regretting having saved my life?" she demanded, holding her breath.

A gentleness passed over his face and suddenly his eyes looked immeasurably sad and weary. His hand dropped to his side and he looked away. "Yes," he replied thoughtfully. "I regret every act of fate that took me to that river-bank at that exact moment. Another three minutes and you would have been... gone. I wouldn't be standing here right now feeling like a condemned man. I'd be contemplating the upcoming harvest, maybe imagining asking a young lady at church to a picnic down by the river. I'd think about rebuilding that levee or frog gigging with Louis. I wouldn't be pacing the grounds tonight, my body burning with bourbon and the ache to take you in my arms again."

A smile touched her mouth. Slowly, she climbed the step until she stood eye-to-eye with him, lifted her arms and wound them around his neck, her breasts brushing against his bare chest- heard his indrawn breath and felt his body brace against his instinctive response to reach for her. She pressed her lips to his bruised temple, breathed upon it warmly, then softly, so softly kissed the corner of his lips.

?Five.

Juliette tried to disregard the unsettling emotions brought on by the mention of Chantz's name. More disquieting was that Liza had become so astute at reading those emotions the last days. Then again, she mused with a sense of ever-increasing frustration, she was not, nor had she ever been, adept at hiding her thoughts and feelings, much to the Reverend Mother's dismay. In the case of Chantz Boudreaux, however, the increasingly disingenuous denial wasn't simply an effort not to flinch when Maxwell or Tylor mentioned his name, but to ignore the ever-increasing tumult in her heart when she thought about him.

"Why must you insist on bringing Chantz's name up to me at every opportunity?" she declared between her teeth as Liza propped her knee against Juliette's rump and heaved back with the corset laces. The air in Juliette's lungs expelled in a rush that made her chest hurt. As Liza yanked again, nearly unsettling her from her feet, Juliette frowned and looked over her shoulder. "The last week you've found every excuse to drag him into our conversation."

"'Cause I think you likes to talk about Chantz."

"Poppycock."

Her face grew warm as she mentally acknowledged the truth of Liza's words. The fact that a woman who hardly knew her could so easily read her thoughts- even more discomposing, her emotions- made her feel... naked.

She walked to the cheval mirror where she regarded her trussed figure. The corset thrust her breasts high and forced her shoulders back so she stood as straight as Rosie's broom handle. She made a face and propped her hands on her hips, her gaze wandering to Liza's in the mirror. Those dark eyes regarded her with a steadiness that annoyed her.

"Poppycock," she repeated more forcefully. "The man rarely crosses my thoughts, Liza. I don't recall that I ever bring up his name."

"Don't gots to. I seen you hangin' on every word Maxwell say when he talk about Chantz. Don't think that Maxwell don't see it, too. Ever'body see it, Miss Julie. You go flush as a strawberry."

"You're imagining things. Besides, I wouldn't waste my time dithering over a man who surely doesn't give me a thought."

She frowned at her reflection, at the high color in her cheeks. A niggling sense of disappointment battered her heart as she acknowledged that she was, indeed, wasting her time dithering over a man who obviously didn't give her a thought. Since the night she had braved snakes in order to see him, he hadn't so much as looked her way when passing. No doubt he thought her an irresponsible ninny. Worse... a child.

Liza smiled and mopped her damp brow with a rag. "Chantz got a levee to build. I 'spect he ain't thinkin' of too much aside from keepin' these grounds from floodin' agin. Best you fix your thoughts on keepin' Maxwell and Tylor happy."

"Maxwell appears happy enough. I've done everything the last days to pacify him besides lick his boots."

"And I'm askin' myself why."

Turning on her heels so suddenly her hair flew around her bare shoulders, Juliette said, "Because he's right. Because I need to know everything there is to know about running a plantation. I want to know how to manage this house and the storehouses and the kitchen and stables. I want to know how a sow farrows and chickens roost and how Louis hammers out a horseshoe from a piece of hot iron. I want to know how to dip wicks and cook and skim soap. And when I'm done with budgeting cornmeal and pork to the families, I want to know how to plant cane and make it grow and harvest it and mill it and boil it and haul it down that damn river to New Orleans."

Liza sat on a tasseled, velveteen ottoman, her hands folded in her lap. "Lord have mercy, girl. I be worn out just listenin' to you. Come to think about it, you gots a twinkle in your eye today. I 'spect you're gonna need it what with the Buleys arrivin' tomorra," she added under her breath.

"I've been thinking, Liza."

"Oh, Lord." Liza tucked a coil of hair behind her ear and shook her head. "We in for trouble. I seen you think enough the last days to know somethin' gonna git stirred up."

Juliette dropped to her knees before Liza, took her brown hands in her own, and smiled up into her eyes. "We're going to Belle Jarod, Liza. I'm going to rebuild her and plant cane and-"

"You gonna do this all by yourself?" Liza smiled.

"Where there's a will there's a way. I'm going to learn everything there is about running a plantation-"

"Can't do it by yourself, Miss Julie. You seen how many slaves Maxwell got workin' here. Over a hundred in the fields-"

"I don't want to hear all the reasons I can't do it. I want to hear all the reasons I can."

Her lips turning under, Liza shook her head. "You just dreamin', Miss Julie. You got no money. No slaves. You not more than a splinter of a girl. You don't know nothin' 'bout nothin'. You ever harnessed a mule to a plow? Cut cane until your hands bleed and your shoulders ache so bad feels like hosses be pullin' you apart?"

"I'll learn, Liza, just like my mother learned."

"She learn from walkin' at your father's side for how many years?"

Liza smiled kindly and laid her hand on Juliette's head, stroked her hair as if she were a pet tabby. "Best you can do is find yourself a wealthy husband-"

"Then I'd be no better than my mother, marrying a man for his money-"

"It's what women do."

"Not this woman. When I marry, Liza, it'll be to a man I love. It'll have to be, because Belle Jarod will then become his. Everything my father worked for, fought for. All his hopes and dreams, his sweat and blood. He built that house out of love, from the ground up. Do you know that every brick that he made to construct the walls of that house had my mother's initials engraved on it? He would roll over in his grave if I simply handed Belle Jarod over to just anyone."

Juliette walked to the French door. Dusk settled like a gray mist over the trees and buildings. The air smelled musky and sweet at once. Not so much as a breath stirred.

Odd how the heat no longer bothered her. Or the humidity. The smells that had once filled her with confusing and disturbing sensations now invigorated her with a yearning that made her chest ache.

She leaned back against the doorposts. Her fingers toyed with the strands of corset ribbon as she closed her eyes and imagined Belle Jarod as Maxwell had described it. The snatches of images, gleaming and colorful, that haunted her dreams were taking shape- a child's memories that thrilled and frightened her.

"Papa told me once," she said softly, "that they would throw a fete champetre every spring, just as the dogwoods bloomed. They would roast pigs and calves on spits and the gentlemen would escort their ladies along the parterres lush with pink azaleas and daffodils and jonquils. Mama would weave flowers in my hair and fit me into a dress identical to hers."

As Juliette released a weary sigh, she looked back at Liza. "Papa had every right to despise her, didn't he? She destroyed it all- their marriage, Belle Jarod- for the sake of a sordid affair."

"Love make us do foolish things, Miss Julie. Hard to think right when your heart is flyin' wild in your chest. Somethin' come over you that kick good sense right out your head. Now come here and sit. We gonna do somethin' special with your hair tonight."

Juliette dropped onto the stool and, with pale shoulders sinking, stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her complexion glowed with heat and her skin shimmered with moisture. Her eyes looked too large for her face. Her mouth too red. She had lost weight. Her cheeks looked slightly sunken, accentuating the high curve of her cheekbones.

"I don't think it's a good idea to dress me up, Liza. The last thing I need do is to encourage Tylor or Max. The more unattractive and discreet I am, the less likely Tylor will be to bother me."

"Miss Julie, you could never be unattractive and discreet, even if you plastered mud on your face and shaved your head."

Liza lifted a handful of hair and admired it. "You gots such pretty hair, Miss Julie. Like garnet." Bending over Juliette's shoulder, Liza held the long, coiling tendrils of Julie's hair up next to her own face and smiled into her reflected eyes. "What you think, Miss Julie? Would I make a right fetchin'redhead?"

Juliette smiled as she admired Liza's face. Liza's skin looked as golden as topaz. Her shoulder-length mass of dark brown hair framed her sculpted facial features in curls. The niggling thought that Max Hollinsworth most likely was Liza's father invited another cold stone of resentment for him to settle in her chest. That a man would treat his own daughter barely better than a beast of burden filled her with disgust.

"Liza," Juliette said earnestly, "you're one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. My red hair isn't going to improve upon that. Not in the least."

Liza's eyes widened. A hint of color touched her cheeks. "You're very kind, Miss Julie."

"Kindness has nothing whatsoever to do with it. You're exceptional, Liza."

As Liza began brushing Juliette's hair, Juliette watched her in the mirror. Liza's eyes were without their normal sparkle. Her expression gave her a drawn appearance that caused Juliette to frown.

"I didn't mean to upset you," she said.

Liza gave her a watery smile. "I'm touched is all. I never expected you to be so nice. Most mistresses aren't, you know."

"I'm not your mistress, Liza. And for your information, I find the bondage of human beings an abomination of the highest degree."

"I wouldn't be lettin' Max or Tylor or anyone else hear you talk like that. You liable to find yourself tossed into the river next time.

"Holly House slaves are lucky to have a man like Chantz overseein' this plantation. We got it much better than most. Chantz don't tolerate much in the way of meanness from Max and Tylor. More than a few of us owe him our lives."