Ashton had guessed from the outset of his courtship that the more difficult task lay in telling Robert Somerton that, while he was away planning the wedding of one daughter, the other had fallen in love with a total stranger and married him. The trip to Natchez, however, had ended in tragedy, and subsequently the meeting between Ashton and Lierin’s father never materialized. Word of her death had reached New Orleans before Ashton had recovered enough from his wound to make the voyage. By the time he could journey to the port city, the judge was ailing and on his deathbed. Ashton was informed that the Somertons, estranging themselves from the grandfather, had set sail for England without delay, not even bothering to inquire whether the husband had survived the pirate attack or not.

A cool breeze stirred in the night, drawing Ashton’s mind back to the present. He turned his face into the fitful breeze and could feel the tingle of misty droplets on his face. A frigid puff of air billowed his robe and touched his naked body. The freshness of it brought back the memory of a similar night on the river, when the last moment of happiness in his life, up until now, had turned into one of pain. Though his own boat and many others had scoured the river for miles upstream and down, more than a week had passed before he finally conceded the inevitable. The moldering bodies of several pirates had been found, but there was no trace of Lierin, not even a shred of cloth or a muddied rag. He had finally had to face the tragic fact that the river had taken another victim to its bosom as it had so many times before and swept his love from the face of the earth while it continued to meander along in its lazy, unfeeling arrogance. The loss of his wife had haunted him for three long years. Now there was hope. Come the morrow, life would begin anew. Lierin was home.

Chapter Two

SHE became conscious of herself as one slowly stirring to life from a total void, knowing of no previous existence beyond the present indeterminate moment. Reason and memory played no part in the timeless vacuum. She was an embryo floating in darkness, living and breathing but somehow set apart from the world by a distant hazy film that existed beyond the sphere of her being. There, an aura of light glowed, tempting her to draw near. With a natural buoyancy her mind rose slowly upward to the surface of awareness, but as she neared the indistinct border where the first weak rays of reality penetrated, twin talons of pain began to pierce her temples. She recoiled from the harrowing torment and hovered just below the elusive level, not willing to break her bonds to an uncaring, painless oblivion and accept in its stead the sharp pangs of full consciousness.

A voice drifted to her as if through a long tunnel, reaching her with words that were blurred and muted, entreating her to make an effort to respond. “Can you hear me?” The murmured inquiry increased in volume as it was repeated. “Madam, can you hear me?”

Her distress mounted as she was drawn upward against her will into the realm of acute discomfort, and she moaned softly in feeble protest. A rack of torture might have produced a comparable agony, for her whole body ached as if it had been cruelly pummeled and abused. A great weariness weighed down her limbs, and when she tried to move, she had to fight against an almost unsurmountable rigidity. She opened her eyes, but quickly cried out and shaded them with a hand as she turned away from the windows where the rays of the dawning sun streamed in.

“Someone close the drapes.” The request came from the man who sat at her bedside. “The light hurts her eyes.”

The painful shards of brightness were shut off, and the room was comfortably shaded. Sinking back into the pillows, she dragged a shaking hand across her brow, but winced as her fingers touched a tender spot on her forehead. The bruise was perplexing, for she could not remember what had caused it. She blinked her eyes until the indistinct shadow that hovered near gradually resolved into the form of an older man with a grizzled beard. The winged whiskers were heavily frosted with white and his face was wrinkled with age. The passage of years, however, had not dulled the lively sparkle in his gray eyes. They twinkled at her through wire-rimmed spectacles.

“I was beginning to think you disliked our company, young lady. If you have any misgivings about me, I’m Dr. Page. I was summoned here to attend you.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but a hoarse croak was all that issued forth. She ran a dry tongue over parched lips, and the doctor, recognizing her need, reached behind him to receive a glass of water from the black woman. He slipped an arm beneath his patient’s shoulders and, lifting her up, pressed the rim of the glass to her lips. When her thirst had been quenched, he lowered her to the pillow again and placed a cool, wet cloth across her brow. The pulsing waves of pain ebbed slightly, and she managed to hold her eyes open without squinting.

“How do you feel?” he asked kindly.

A frown served as a reply before her gaze moved searchingly about the room. She lay in a large tester bed with a wealth of pillows at her back. Above her head a pleated sunburst of pale pink silk radiated from an oval tapestry of stitched roses, filling the dimensions of the canopy frame. The walls of the room were covered in a fresh floral pattern that combined the colors of pink, pale yellow, and fresh green with light wisps of brown. The overdrapes were of pale pink silk, trimmed with tassels and braided cords of pink and green. Several chairs had been placed about the huge room and were covered in complementary shades of the various colors.

It was a fresh and beautifully furnished room, but a growing sense of disorientation began to undermine her brief comfort as she found herself in a totally foreign world. Nothing she saw was familiar to her. No piece of furniture. No tiniest bit of glassware. No frame or painting. Not even the warm flannel nightgown that she wore or the people who stood watching her from different parts of the room. Two elderly women had moved to a place in front of the richly draped windows, while a large black woman in starched white apron and neatly tied head kerchief waited just behind the doctor’s chair. Beyond them, another man stood facing the fireplace. Unless she chanced a movement that might strain her painfully stiff muscles, he remained recognizable only by the back of his dark head, the white silk shirt, and muted-gray-striped trousers that he wore. A mild curiosity grew in her about this one who, in the face of the others’ curiosity, kept his back to her, as if he wished to hold himself detached from her and her audience.

A young black girl entered the room carrying a tray laden with a cup of broth and a china tea service. Receiving the soup, Dr. Page offered it to his patient. “Drink this if you can,” he cajoled. “It will give you strength.”

The pillows were fluffed around her until they braced her in a half sitting position, and as she sipped the hot brew, her gaze lifted above the edge of the cup to peruse the room again. “Why am I here?”

“There was an accident with the carriage,” Dr. Page replied, “and you were brought here after you were knocked from your horse.”

“My horse?”

Again the doctor supplied the information, but taking care as he watched her face: “I’m sorry, madam. He had to be destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” She searched her mind for some recollection of the event, but the probing inquiry only abetted the throbbing in her head until it became impossible to think. She pressed trembling fingers to her aching temples. “I can’t seem to remember.”

“You had a nasty fall, young lady. Just relax and rest. It will come to you.”

Her gaze flew about the room again in a desperate pursuit of something familiar. “Where am I?”

“This is Belle Chêne….” Dr. Page studied her closely as he continued. “Ashton Wingate’s plantation home.”

“Ashton Wingate?” She stared at him, her eyes wide and searching. She sensed the alert attention given her by those in the room, as if they were awaiting her reaction.

The man in the gray trousers slid the fireplace poker into the stand, gaining her full attention. Inexplicably, a sharp pang of anxiety ran through her even before she saw his face. Disconcerted, she pressed back against the pillows and eyed him warily as he crossed the room. Though she probed her memory, she could not fathom the cause of this sudden dismay. The crisp, handsome profile should have stirred feelings of warmth and admiration in her woman’s breast. Yet there was something about the moment that made her heart lurch and grow cold within her chest. When he halted at the foot of the bed, the strength of his gaze held hers immobile, and staring into those smoky eyes, she put aside the broth as one dazed.

A strange smile played upon his lips. “I don’t quite understand the miracle that has brought you back to me, my love, but I am extremely grateful.”

She stared at him in a panic, wondering which one of them was mad. She rejected the idea of placing the blame on strong drink, for he seemed sober enough and his appearance was not that of a slovenly sot. Indeed, he carried himself with a proud, erect bearing that hinted of a man well in control of his faculties. So why was he speaking to her as if he knew her?

If the tiniest doubt had nibbled at the edges of Ashton’s mind, the uncertainty dissipated abruptly when he looked into the dark green eyes. He knew those eyes, and they belonged to his wife. “I suffered quite a shock when I saw you last night. I thought you were dead, and now, after three long years, you have suddenly appeared, and I find to my joy that I’m not a widower after all.”