Нора Робертс - Midnight Bayou

"I'm a classy guy." He handed the water back to Remy and opened the French doors of the dining room.

"You got romancing her in mind, that's a good start.”

"I've got more than that in mind," Declan said as Remy tipped back the bottle. "I'm going to marry her.”

Water spewed out as Remy choked.

"Pretty good spit take," Declan commented. "Keep the bottle.”

"Jesus, Dec. Jesus Christ, you and Lena are getting married?”

"I'd like to have the wedding here, in the fall. September maybe." He scanned his gallery, his gardens. He wondered what kind of bird it was that was currently singing its lungs out. "The place won't be finished, but that'd be part of the charm. Of course, if it takes me longer to pin her down, we could do it next spring.”

"That's some fast work.”

"Not really. It's just a matter of keeping at it." He smiled now as he studied Remy's baffled face. "Oh, you don't mean the house. Lena. I haven't asked her yet. She'd just say no. Look out there, bulbs coming up. Daffodils, tulips, calla lilies, the Franks tell me. Buried under all those weeds and vines, maybe blooming under it for years. That's something.”

"Dec, I think you need something stronger than Tylenol.”

"I'm not crazy. I'm in love with her. I'm starting to think I was in love with her before I even met her. That's why there was never anyone else who really mattered. Not like this. Because she was here, and I just hadn't found her yet.”

"Maybe I need something stronger.”

"Bourbon's in the kitchen. Ice is in the cooler. New frig is due to come in tomorrow.”

"I'm fixing us both a drink.”

"Make mine short and weak," Dec told him absently. "I've got work to do yet today.”

Remy brought back two glasses and took a long sip of his as he studied Declan's face. "Declan, I love you like a brother.”

"I know you do.”

"So, I'm going to talk to you like I would a brother-if I had one instead of being plagued with sisters.”

"You think I've lost my mind.”

"No. In some situations, hell, in most situations, a man thinks with his dick. By the time that thought process works all the way to his head, he usually sees that situation more clearly.”

"I appreciate you explaining that to me, Dad.”

Remy only shook his head and paced up and down the gallery. "Lena's a very sexy woman.”

"No argument there.”

"She just sort of exudes those pheromones or whatever the hell they are the way other women do the perfume they splash on to get a man stirred up. She stirs you up just by breathing." "You're trying to tell me I'm infatuated, or in the heavy wave of first lust.”

"Exactly." Remy laid a supportive hand on Declan's shoulder. "Not a man alive would blame you for it. Add to that, son, you've had a rough few months on the relationship train, and knowing the way you cart guilt around like it was your personal treasure chest, I don't imagine you've been clearing your pipes regular since you broke it off with Jennifer.”

"Jessica, you asshole." Amused, touched, Declan leaned back on the baluster. "It's not infatuation. I thought it was, with a good dose of that lust tossed in. But that's not it. It's not a matter of clogged pipes, and I'm not thinking with my dick. It's my heart.”

"Oh, brother." Remy took another good gulp of whiskey. "Dec, you haven't been down here a full month yet.”

"People are always saying something like that, as if time is a factor." And because the critical part of his brain had said the same thing, he was irritated to hear the sentiment from his closest friend. "What, is there a law somewhere that states you can't fall in love until a reasonable, rational period of time has passed during which the parties will socialize, communicate and, if possible, engage in sexual intercourse in order to assure compatibility? If there is, and it worked, explain the divorce rate.”

"A couple of lawyers stand here debating the subject, we'll be here till next Tuesday.”

"Then let me say this. I've never felt like this before, never in my life. I didn't think I could. I figured something inside me just didn't work the way it was supposed to.”

"Well, for Christ's sake, Dec.”

"I couldn't love Jessica." The guilt slid back into his voice. "I just couldn't, and I tried to. I damn near settled for affection, respect and mutual backgrounds because I thought it was all I'd get, or be able to give. But it's not. I've never felt like this, Remy," he said again. "And I like it.”

"If you want Lena, then I want her for you. The thing is, Dec, no matter how you feel, it doesn't guarantee she's going to feel the same.”

"Maybe she'll break my heart, but feeling too much is a hell of a lot better than feeling nothing." He'd been telling himself that, repeatedly, since he'd realized he was in love with her. "One way or the other, I've got to try.”

He swirled the whiskey he'd yet to drink. "She doesn't know what to make of me," Declan murmured. "It's going to be fun letting her find out.”

That night, he heard weeping. A man's raw and broken sobs. Declan tossed in sleep, weighed down with the grief, unable to stop it, unable to give or seek comfort.

Even when silence came, the sorrow stayed.

He didn't know why he came here, to stare at the water while thick green shadows spread around him, as night gathered to eat away at the day.

But he came, time and again, to wander through the marsh as if he would somehow come upon her, strolling along the curve of the river where the swamp flowers blossomed.

She would smile at him, hold out her hand.

And everything would be right again.

Nothing would ever be right again.

He was afraid he was going mad, that grief was darkening his mind as night darkened the day. How else could he explain how he could hear her whispering to him in the night? What could he do but shut off the sound of her, the pain of her?

He watched a blue heron rise from the reeds like a ghost, beautiful, pure, perfect, to skim over the tea-colored water and glide into the trees. Away from him. Always away from him.

She was gone. His Abby had winged away from him, like the ghost bird. Everyone said it. His family, his friends. He'd heard the servants whispering about it. How Abigail Rouse had run off with some no-account and left her husband and bastard baby daughter behind.

Though he continued to look in New Orleans, in Baton Rouge, in Lafayette, though he continued to haunt the bayou like a ghost himself, in the loneliest hours of the night, he believed it.

She'd left him and the child.

Now he was leaving, in all but body. He walked through each day like a man in a trance. And God help him, he could not be a father to the child, that image of Abigail he secretly, shamefully doubted carried his blood. Just looking at her brought him unspeakable sorrow.

He no longer went up to the nursery. He hated himself for it, but even the act of climbing the stairs to the third floor was like drowning in a sea of despair.

They said the child wasn't his.

No. In the dimming light of dusk, with the night coming alive around him, Lucian covered his face with his hands. No, he could not, would not believe that of her. They had made the child together, in love, in trust, in desire.

If even that was a lie …

He lowered his hands, stepped toward the water. It would be warm, as her smile had been warm. Soft, as her skin had been soft. Even now the color was deepening and was almost the color of her eyes.

"Lucian!”

He froze, on the slippery edge.

Abby. She was rushing toward him, pushing through the fronds of a willow, with her hair spilling over her shoulders in midnight curls. His heart, deadened with grief, woke in one wild leap.

Then the last shimmer of sunlight fell over her face, and he died again.

Claudine gripped his hands. Fear made her fingers cold. She'd seen what had been in his eyes, and it had been his death.

"She would never want this. She would never want you to damn your soul by taking your life.”

"She left me.”

"No. No, that isn't true. They lie to you. They lie, Lucian. She loved you. She loved you and Marie Rose above all things.”

"Then where is she?" The rage that lived under the numbness of his grief leaped out. He gripped Claudine's arms, hauled her to her toes. Part of him, some dark, secret part, wanted to pound his fists into her face. Erase it for its connection to Abigail, and his own drowning despair. "Where is she?”

"Dead!" She shouted it, and her voice rang in the warm, sticky air. "They killed her. Death is the only way she would leave you and Rosie."

He shoved her aside, staggered away to lean against the trunk of a live oak. "That's just another madness.”

"I tell you I know it. I feel it. I've had dreams.”

"So did I." Tears stung his eyes, turned the light watery. "So did I have dreams.”

"Lucian, you must listen. I was there that night. She came to the nursery to tend the baby. I've known Abby since we were babies ourselves. There was nothing in her but love for you and Marie Rose. I should never have left the Hall that night." Claudine crossed her hands over her breast, as if to hold together the two halves of her broken heart. "The rest of my life I'll beg her forgiveness for not being there.”

"She took clothes, jewelry. My mother is right." He firmed his lips on what he believed was an act of strength, but was only his weakened faith. "I have to accept.”