LOVE’S DARKNESS by Cheryl Biggs
(Short Story from Anthology My Spellbound Heart)

Randi Baines accompanies her fiancé, Lane DuCroix, home to his Louisiana plantation—only to discover that their arrival has awakened dark forces in the shadowy bayou. Now, Randi must fight the century-old spirit of a beautiful woman named Liliandra for the man she loves...

Zebra Books, Kensington Publishing
Copyright 1994

LOVE'S DARKNESS 
by Cheryl Biggs		009	

CHAPTER ONE
Bayou Noir Plantation 
New Orleans, Louisiana 
Allhallows Eve, 1790
He had betrayed her. Caroline Mercer's finger tightened slightly around the trigger of the dueling pistol held in her right hand, half-obscured by the voluminous folds of her green gown.
Here and there soft rays of light from the late afternoon sun wove their way through the thick growth of the bayou's close-growing Cypress trees, penetrating the dense shadows. It touched the draping curtains of Spanish moss that clung to the trees' branches and dripped nearly to the damp, moss-covered earth. It shimmered gold off of the rubberlike leaves of a nearby banana plant and gently kissed the black streams of water that testified to the bayou's primitive beauty.
And its primeval dangers.
Caroline ignored the pristine splendor that surrounded her and tiptoed closer to where Lane stood with Liliandra. She took care not to cause the slightest of sounds and to stay well-hidden behind the thick fronds of shrubbery that encompassed the small clearing in which her fiancé and his mistress stood talking.
Rage filled her breast as she watched Lane pull Liliandra into his embrace, saw his hands splay upon her back and
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draw her to him, her breasts crushed to his chest. Jealousy, hot and burning, fired Caroline's resolve as Liliandra's arms encircled Lane's shoulders.
Lane's lips captured Liliandra's, and the hate Caroline felt for the woman swelled, cementing her decision and deepening her determination to do what she knew she had to do to keep Lane DeCroix by her side. She moved closer, careful not to step into the lacy streams of light that illuminated the clearing. The deep green satin of her gown blended her svelte form with that of the lush growing plants around her to further conceal her presence.
"Liliandra," Lane said softly. His arms tightened around her, and his lips pressed kisses along the curve of her neck. "I do love you."
"I know, chère," Liliandra said. Her long lustrous black hair cascaded down her back like shivering threads of silk. "And I love you. We belong together. That is why you cannot leave me."
Caroline stepped from the shadows, her arm outstretched, her hand holding the gun, her index finger steady and secure on the trigger. "So you shall be the one to leave," she said to Liliandra. Caroline's cold, hard tone belied the hurt that stabbed at her heart and ripped at her every emotion.
Startled, Lane swung around to face the woman he had promised to take as his wife. "Caroline," he said, her name little more than a whisper of surprise on his lips.
Liliandra placed her hands upon her hips and thrust her chin out defiantly. She looked at Caroline and smiled, a haughty, defiant curving of her sensuously full red lips. She pulled away from Lane's arm, which was still wrapped about her waist, and took a step toward Caroline. The voluminous folds of her lavender skirt rustled softly about her long lithe legs as she moved. "You cannot deny what Lane and I feel for one another, Caroline," Liliandra said. Her dark eyes met

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Caroline's almost challengingly. "You cannot forbid it." She laughed. "And you cannot destroy it."
"But I can destroy you," Caroline said, and pulled the trigger.
The gun seemed to explode in Caroline's hand, sending her stumbling backward as its thunderous roar shattered the primal silence of the bayou. A flock of birds burst from a nearby tree and took flight into the sky; a gator roared somewhere in the distance, followed by the screeching, startled cry of a wildcat.
"No!" Lane screamed, lunging for Liliandra.
She staggered from the impact of the bullet. Blood appeared instantly upon her breast, staining the lavender silk bodice and turning the ivory lace trim of the gown's plunging decolletage to a dripping ruche of crimson.
Lane caught her and drew Liliandra into his arms as she started to fall backward.
"Liliandra," he whispered, a pleading note to his tone. "Liliandra."
The long dark lashes that had closed fluttered open again. She looked up at him, but the love that had filled them only moments before was gone.
Lane started at the chilling coldness he saw within the dark violet depths.
Caroline smiled.
With a deep groan escaping her lips, Liliandra pushed herself away from Lane's arms and stumbled to her feet. Blood streamed from her wound, glistening rivulets that dropped from the subtle curve of one breast onto her skirts like tiny scarlet teardrops. She looked first at Lane. "You should have loved me more, Lane DeCroix."
Before he could respond, she whirled about and turned her attention to Caroline. "I curse you, Caroline Mercer." she said hatefully, pointing an accusatory finger at Caroline "For

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what you have done, you shall live long, very long, but you shall never be happy."
"Lili . . ." Lane started, reaching out for her.
She jerked away from him, her once golden and beautiful face now ashen and drawn as death quickly approached. "And you, my love," she said, her tone acid and hard—an ugly laugh bubbled from her pallid lips, "you will never forget me."
Lane shook his head. "No, I won't." Agony dulled his blue eyes. "I love you."
"Lane DeCroix will always be mine," Liliandra screamed.  Her cry echoed through the endless stretches of the bayou.  She raised her hands toward the dark sky and threw her head back. "For all eternity, Lane DeCroix will belong to Liliandra Marshonay."
When the echoing timbre of her cry had finally faded, Liliandra looked back at Caroline. Her eyes gleamed with hatred. "Remember that, Caroline Mercer. Remember well what you have done this night."
Lane reached for her again, and again Liliandra struggled away from him. "Non," she spat. "Non." Turning, Liliandra stepped from the marshy slope of ground and into the black water.
"Liliandra, no!" Lane screamed.
But his screams were useless.
She was gone.
CHAPTER TWO
Bayou Noir Plantation 
New Orleans, Louisiana 
Allhallow's Eve, I860
Randi felt a titter of nervousness sweep through her as the carriage in which she rode neared Bayou Noir. She gripped the window post and peered out at the landscape.
"There's nothing to be frightened of," Neena said, in an effort to reassure her.
Randi glanced at the silver-haired old woman who had been her nanny and was now her maid. "Maybe not, but what if they don't like me, Neena? What if they refuse to accept me? After all, I am a Northerner."
"You're a lady," Neena said. "North, South . . ." she shrugged. "What does it matter where a person is from when two people are in love and want to marry?"
Randi sighed and turned her gaze back to the passing landscape. The carriage turned off the main road and moved between two tall brick posts. Upon one was a small sign that read Bayou Noir Plantation.
"Well, we are almost there," Neena said.
The plantation house came into view as the carriage moved around a curve in the long entry drive. It sat in the midst of a wide clearing, though obviously the profuse growth of the bayou was kept at bay only with great effort and hard

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work. Six tall, white Corinthian columns lined the front gallery of the brick mansion, supporting a huge white portico overhead and framing wrought-iron fenced galleries on both the first and second stories. Eight tall windows graced each floor and were framed with louvered shutters painted dark green. Shallow fan-shaped steps gave entry to the first-floor gallery and the massive double-entry doors.
"Pretty," Neena said.
"Yes," Randi agreed. "It is."
"Though ostentatious."
Randi's gaze moved to the half-dozen majestic oaks that stood on either side of the house like giant sentries, their ancient, gnarled, and sprawling branches heavy with dripping curtains of Spanish moss.
The carriage stopped before the entry path of the house. A driver stepped down from his seat to assist Randi and Neena from the coach.
Randi had just taken the carriage driver's hand and stepped down when the front door of the house flew open.
"Randi!" Lane shouted. He hurried across the gallery toward her and fairly flew down the stairs and path.
Randi smiled as her blue eyes met Lane's even bluer ones. Everything was going to be all right, she told herself. It had to be.
She watched him approach. The soft glow of the setting sun glistened off of the black strands of his hair, creating tiny pinpoints of light within its waves that resembled a sprinkling of precious stones amid the dark curls. His face was momentarily cast in a conflict of light and shadow, the high curve of his cheekbones, the near aquiline slope of his nose, and the strong, granitelike cut of his jaw reflecting a golden bronze. Winged black brows curved above eyes of indigo that slanted slightly upward at the corners as he smiled at her.

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He was dressed in a black velvet coat that stretched tautly across his broad shoulders and was cut to both highlight the width of his shoulders and narrowness of waist, and match the trousers that held snug to his long lean legs. A white silk shirt, its collar high and surrounded by a pale blue cravat, contrasted with both the dark clothes and golden hue of his skin, intensifying both.
His arms slipped about her waist, and he pulled her to him, swinging her up off her feet and around in a circle. "I missed you," he said. "Was your trip down here all right? No problems on the road?"
"Lane," Randi said in mocking admonishment, but she couldn't help the laugh of happiness that bubbled from her lips. "Please."
He set her down, glanced quickly over his shoulder toward the open entry door, and pressed his lips lightly to hers. Only then did he release her. "I missed you, chère," he said again, his voice filled with emotion.
Randi brushed at the cocoa-colored skirt of her traveling suit and raised a hand to pat a curl of her dark brown hair back into place. She smiled, secretly delighted by his greeting. Her fears and nervousness were forgotten for the moment. "We've only been apart a few hours."
"Yes." He kissed her lightly again. "And this business about traveling to the house separately from New Orleans was ridiculous."
"It was proper," Randi said, correcting him.
He threw her a mock frown. "And since when have you, Little Miss Troublemaker of Washington Society, been so concerned with propriety?"
She stiffened and presented him a mock glower. "Since I've come to meet your mother and be approved as the next Mrs. Lane DeCroix," Randi said. "That's when."

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"The only Mrs. Lane DeCroix," he corrected, and kissed her again.
Randi smiled. "Yes, but if you keep this up," she said, the teasing lilt to her tone belying the hard glare of her eyes, "your mother will think I'm a wanton hussy and never approve of our marriage." As if to emphasize her words, she snapped his arm with her folded fan.
"My mother will love you," Lane countered. "Just as I do." He took her hand and placed it within the crook of his arm. "But if you hit me again with that thing, I won't be held responsible for dragging you into my arms and ravishing those beautiful lips."
Randi laughed happily.
"Now come on, I want you to meet them right away." Lane looked back at Neena. "Leave the bags, Neena, I'll have someone bring them into the house in a few minutes. Logan's in the foyer. He'll show you to your room."
"Lane," Randi whispered, "how did your mother take it?"
They stepped into the foyer, a massive room elegantly appointed with several cherrywood-trimmed chairs, a huge grandfather clock, and a massive crystal chandelier hanging overhead. A gracefully curving staircase hugged one wall. Randi removed her cape and handed it to Neena.
"I haven't had a chance to tell them that yet, only that you were coming," Lane said. "My carriage lost a wheel on the way here and I was late. I've only been here a few minutes myself. Come on." His hand on her arm steered her toward an open doorway.
Randi stepped into the parlor and was immediately met by the scrutinizing gazes of Lane's family. Her heart fluttered madly, and she had to clench her fingers around the thin silk rope of her reticule in order to control the tremors that ran through them. She forced a smile to her lips.
Lane urged her into the room. "Mother, everyone," he said,
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"I'd like you all to meet the woman I intend to marry, Miranda Baines."
"Hello," Randi said nervously, "I'm pleased to meet you all." She realized instantly by their raised eyebrows that she should have waited to speak until his mother had responded to the introduction.
Suddenly, from beyond the French doors that stood open to the night, beyond the manicured gardens that surrounded the house, and deep within the shadow-filled dankness of the swamp, a soft scream pierced the air.
Elena DeCroix turned an angry gaze to her eldest son. "Roland, close the doors before those infernal birds come right into the house with their awful racket."
Roland hurried to comply, whipping a lace-trimmed handkerchief from his breast pocket and patting it at his fleshy jowls as he did. Lane's sixty-nine-year-old mother turned cold dark blue eyes back to him. "I thought you were betrothed to Millie St. Clair, Lane."
He walked to stand before his mother and bent to take her hand in his. "No, Mother. You wanted me to be betrothed to Millie St. Clair, but I wasn't, and you know that I never intended to be."
Elena sniffed. "But . . ." She looked past him at Randi with an expression of obvious disdain. "She's a Northerner."
"Randi is the woman I love, Mother." Lane turned back to Randi and held out his hand. "She’s from Maryland, a beautiful state really, with lots of rolling hills and open pastures."
She moved to stand beside Lane and accepted his hand thankfully.
"Randi, this is my family," Lane said.
She smiled her way through the introductions. Lane had informed her previously that Adam and Roland were quite a bit older than he, but Randi still found herself surprised at the vast difference in ages. Lane was twenty-nine. Adam and

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Roland looked to be in their forties, and neither had the aristocratic handsomeness of their younger sibling. Adam was balding rapidly and wore spectacles. Roland, it was quite evident, loved to eat, that fact attested to by the generous paunch around his waist and a very fleshy double chin. Barbara and Mary were their wives, respectively. Both women now graced Randi with a mirror image of Elena's disapproving gaze. Three young boys also stood in the room. The eldest, Todd, was Adam and Barbara's nine-year-old son. Roland's seven-year-old sons, Kairn and Nedrick, were twins, though far from identical. All of the children were dark-haired and blue-eyed, as all the DeCroixes were, and already showed promise of being more handsome than their fathers.
Everyone maintained a polite though cool air, but Randi could feel their disapproval bristling in the air and see it within the shadows that had fallen over each set of eyes at their introduction.
"Tell me one thing, Miss Baines," Elena asked coolly when Lane left the room for a moment with one of his brothers. "Why do you want to marry my son rather than someone from your own part of the country?"
Randi tried to smile and remain calm, her trembling fingers entwined tightly in her lap. She had expected questions, but that had not been one of them. "Because I love him, Mrs. DeCroix," she answered simply, hoping the truth would be enough for the old woman. "Where he comes from doesn't matter."
"But won't you be uncomfortable moving to the South? I mean," Elena smiled, though Randi felt the gesture more cunning than friendly, "we do things so differently down here than you Yank . . . than you people do up North."
"Yes, I know," Randi said. "My cousin married a year ago and now lives in South Carolina. I've visited her quite often

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since she moved there and, truthfully, have fallen in love with many of your customs."
"Mother," Lane interrupted, suddenly reappearing at Randi's side, "would you please excuse us? I'd like to show Randi the gardens."
"Now?" Elena said, and frowned. "Why, it's nearly dark, Lane. And I thought we would . . ." She hesitated and then, with a furtive glance toward Randi, continued, "The gators have been especially brazen this summer, Lane. It's not really safe out at night. One came right onto the lawn last week."
"We'll stay on the gallery, Mother, I promise." He took Randi's arm and urged her to a pair of glass French doors that led to the rear gallery.
"Alligators?" Randi said, the moment they were outside. She stared, horrified, at the darkening landscape. "They come up to the house?"
Lane laughed. "No. At least I've never seen one come out of the swamp. I think Mother's just trying to scare you a little."
"She doesn't like me. None of them do."
Lane drew her into the circle of his arms. "They don't know you yet, Randi. Give it a little time."
Randi looked out into the dusky glow of twilight that settled about the house and garden, and sighed. "It really is beautiful here."
Suddenly a soft lilting echo of laughter drifted out from the inky shadows of the swamp that bordered the manicured gardens of Bayou Noir. The sound, at once sorrowful and taunting, wove through the trees, rolled over the landscape, and hung on the still air.
Randi shivered at the sound and turned toward Lane.
“It's probably just a bird," he said.
She looked back into the darkness that had fallen over the bayou and felt an eerie sense of foreboding sweep over her.

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"It sounded so haunting, as if whatever emitted it were full of pain ... yet laughing at us."
"Come on," Lane said. "I know you're tired from your trip. I'll see you up to your room."
Randi nodded and walked beside him toward the wide staircase.
******************
"Mother," Lane said, the moment he strode back into the parlor. His tone was one of both exasperation and anger. "I thought you were going to put an end to all of this voodoo nonsense of Sabrina's. We don't need her inciting the slaves into a riot."
"I did." She touched a hand to a vase of lilies that sat on a small ornately carved table. Her eyes met Lane's in the huge gilt-framed mirror that hung just above the mantel of the room's marble-faced fireplace.
"Then what was that sound I heard earlier?" he challenged. "That laughter? It came from the bayou, Mother."
She shrugged and turned to face him. "There are a lot of things in the bayou besides Sabrina, Lane, as you very well know. Or have you been living up North so long that you've forgotten what it's like here?"
"I haven't been gone that long, Mother, and I do remember quite well that there's nothing in the bayou that laughs like a human."
Elena took a step toward him, then paused and leaned heavily on the brass-topped lemonwood cane that had, because of gout, become as much a part of her in the last few years as her own two legs. Her look changed from one of patience to indignation that he should question or challenge her. "Sabrina promised me she would stop the voodoo meetings, Lane, and she has. I don't know what it was that you heard."
With those final words, she left the room.
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* * *
Randi lay in the huge poster bed and stared up at the sunburst pattern of the silk ciel de lit. In the faint glow of moonlight that streamed through the tall window beside the bed she could just barely make out the pale apricot color and design of the silk. She rolled restlessly onto one side. Across the room a tall armoire stood against one wall. In the daylight it was a beautifully carved piece of furniture, but in the darkness of night it appeared nothing more than a hulking black shadow.
Three hours had passed since Randi retired. Lane had seen that a tray of cocoa and biscuits and a hot bath had been sent up to her just after they'd said good night. Neither proved to relax her enough for sleep. Ever since her parents died, two years before, she'd been financially secure but alone except for Neena. But now she had Lane. Randi remembered Elena DeCroix's aloofness and obvious disapproval.
Or did she have Lane? That was the question keeping her awake. Yet it was more than that. For some reason, ever since she stepped foot on Bayou Noir, she'd been overwhelmed by the feeling that something was wrong, something was terribly, terribly wrong—yet she didn't know what it was.
Throwing the covers aside, Randi rose and walked to the French doors that opened onto the second-story gallery. The bedchamber was stuffy, the climate, Lane had said earlier, unusually humid and warm for so late in the year. Feeling the need for some fresh air, Randi unlatched the doors and pushed them open.
The sweet fragrance of jasmine, whose vines trailed their way up one of the pillars, assailed her nostrils instantly, along with the tangy and unique redolence of the bayou. A mixture of lily, magnolia, oak, dogwood, fern, and a dozen other scents Randi was unfamiliar with, floated on the air to meet
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her. She walked to the edge of the gallery and, placing both hands on the wrought-iron balustrade that ran between each pillar, looked out into the night. A thousand stars twinkled in the velvet black sky, and a silver three-quarter moon hung just above a ragged silhouette of the treetops. Yet the bayou remained steeped in shadows, unpenetrated by the soft moonlight or the glow of light that poured out from the open doorway behind Randi.
Unaware that she was even doing it, Randi strained to see through the night and into the blackness that had settled over the thick growth of shrubbery. A wave of shivers instantly swept over her skin and turned it to gooseflesh. She started. Someone was staring back at her from that blackness. She could feel it, and though she wanted to tear her gaze away, Randi found that she couldn't.
Her hands began to tremble. Someone was watching her. Fear clogged her throat and her heart began to hammer a horrified beat. She took a nervous step back. Then another, and another.
Hands suddenly encircled her waist.
CHAPTER THREE
Randi jumped forward as her heart nearly exploded with fear. A tiny shriek of terror burst from her lips, more the soft, frightened cry of a sparrow than the strong, instinctive scream of a terrified woman. At the same time, she whirled around to face her attacker.
Randi nearly fainted as she was pulled into his arms.
"Randi," Lane said, and laughed, "it's only me, chère. Whatever is the matter?" His arms tightened about her waist and pulled her deeper into his embrace.
Randi gulped hard and dropped her forehead to his chest in both relief and an effort to calm the trembling that shook her body. A moment later she looked up at him again. "You nearly frightened me half to death, Lane," she said, her voice still weak. "I didn't expect anyone in my room."
"Sorry, my love," Lane whispered. He brushed his lips across hers, but the devilish gleam in his dark blue eyes told her he had more on his mind than apologizing. "I just couldn't stay away from you a minute longer. You are my enchantress, Randi." He chuckled softly. "You've stolen my heart, and my senses." One hand seductively roamed her back. "And knowing you were just down the hall was too much for me to resist, chère."
"But your mother . . ." Randi protested weakly, her body already afire from his touch.
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"Has retired," Lane said huskily. Emotion filled his tone, each word edged with the heat of his desire.
Before she could utter any further protests, his head lowered and his lips claimed hers, velvet upon velvet, flame upon flame, an unhurried and gentle kiss that at once sought response and demanded surrender.
"Randi." Lane whispered as his lips moved down the long column of her neck, searing the taut flesh with the fiery touch of his kisses. "Randi, enchantress of my dreams, my love, my life." His lips pressed to the hollow of her throat. "I need you, chère." His head rose then, and he looked deeply into her eyes, blue fusing endlessly with blue, the wings of his soul reaching out to hers, promising her everything he had to offer, needing her acquiescence, conquering her apprehension, and demanding her love. "I need you, Randi," he said raggedly. "I need you now."
His lips descended on hers again, hard and hot, hungrily devouring her every response, ravaging her every sense, as his hands tightened about her, pulling her closer, and closer still, pressing her to his tall, hard length.
As every other time Lane had kissed her, Randi felt instantly swept within a firestorm of heated emotion, a volcanic eruption of sensations that left her mind reeling, her senses shaken, and the very essence of her being branded his forever. Even so, this time was different. He had kissed her before, a dozen times since they'd met, but not like this, with such force and vitality, with a soul-stirring intensity that now left her shaking with desire. Flames consumed her blood; and hunger for Lane, her spirit.
Never before him had she been held with such tender strength, or loved with such gentle fierceness, and never before this night, even with Lane, had she been kissed with such tormenting sweetness.
She felt his hands on her back, their roaming movements

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a sensuous caress to her already oversensitized flesh. His lips left hers to again kiss a path of fire down the side of her neck. His hand lightly brushed the thin fabric of her gown from her shoulder as his lips continued to press a series of exquisitely teasing kisses along its line. She moaned at the ecstasy his touch aroused within her.
Through the haze of her mounting passion, a spark of reason remained within Randi's consciousness. She knew that to make love with him now, before they were married, was improper. Yet she also knew she did not possess the strength or desire to deny any longer what they both so obviously wanted, and needed, this night. Her arms slipped upward, slid over his shoulders, and encircled his neck.
His tongue traced the line of her lips, and with a soft nudging, parted them and then plunged into her mouth. Randi trembled with pleasure as he probed hungrily, explored every curve and line of that inner sweetness, and flicked teasingly against her own tongue. He tasted of tobacco and apricot brandy, and unashamedly, filled with the fervor of desire his touch had stirred within her, she began to return his kiss.
As if they had been apart for months rather than mere hours, Randi reveled in his touch, in the warm feel of his body crushed to hers, of his arousal. She moaned in delight at the nipping forays his lips made over her body and shivered with rapture as they pressed to the curve of her breasts.
His mouth captured hers again, assaulting her senses and stoking her hunger for his caresses. What little sanity and reason she still possessed, what little thought and restraint toward propriety still lingered at the back of her mind, instantly vanished. This was what she had wanted, yearned for, all of her life, to be loved beyond reason, to love beyond reason. Nothing else mattered, not where they were, not that they weren't yet married, and not propriety and reason. Only Lane, this tall, dark passionate man who had swept her off

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her feet only a few short months ago, whose arms held her tightly, and whose love she would die to keep.
"You're so beautiful," Lane murmured. His lips moved against her throat as he continued to rain kisses on her. "My beautiful enchantress." With one sweep of his hand, Lane pulled the tie of his own robe and, shrugging his shoulders, let it fall away from him. He lowered her to the bed and his fingers deftly untied the tiny blue silk ribbons that held the front of her batiste gown closed. "Beautiful," he whispered again and again, and pushed the thin veil of delicate fabric from her body.
His hands roamed hungrily over her naked flesh while his lips feverishly claimed hers time after time. She writhed beneath his touch, feverishly arching upward in search of his continued caresses, entwining her legs about his, her arms holding his shoulders. Passion held Randi in its grip, as Lane held her in his embrace.
He had not intended to take her to his bed while under his mother's roof until they were married. But patience had never been one of his strongest virtues, and he loved Randi beyond all reason. He had always been a strong and determined man, his heart and manner carefree, but his mind ambitious and resolute. Now, since presented with her love, he  found those qualities in himself strengthened further, deepened and cemented. His plans were firmer, his dreams larger. Her love had given him a strength of will he had never known he possessed, an energy to accomplish the impossible, a desire to give her the world and anything else her heart wished to possess. She was the fulfillment of all his fantasies, and the obsession of his heart.
His hands caressed every curve and line of her body, sliding along the subtle curve of her thighs and over the taut flat plane of her stomach. He heard her moan in abandon, and a surge of white-hot passion swept through his limbs 

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and coiled, tight and burning, in his groin. His lips found her breast and caught one pebbled peak of nipple within their grasp. He flicked the hard rise of flesh with his tongue, taunting her as she arched upward beneath him, her body pressing to his and silently begging him not to stop.
Lane heard her moan again and thrilled at the rapture his touch spurred within her. He caught her lips with his in a feral kiss. His tongue plunged into her mouth, exploring, conquering, and inciting passion. The need to invoke within her the same gnawing, mindless passion that drove him fueled his kisses and sparked each caress. His fingers slid downward, over the subtle rise of her rib cage, the narrow breadth of her waist, the taut, flat plane of her stomach. With aching, teasing slowness his fingers slipped within the tangle of soft curls between her thighs. He felt her writhe beneath him, then stiffen at the intimate touch.
"It's all right, chère," Lane whispered. His hot breath settled over her ear as he nibbled gently upon its delicate, shelllike curve. "Let me love you, Randi, sweetheart ... let me pleasure you . . . pleasure us."
He felt her relax, and her thighs once again parted slightly. His hand slipped between the lithe curve of her legs, and his fingers disappeared as they sought entrance into her body past the silk folds of sensitive skin. She thrashed and twisted against him. Her legs tightened about his hand and held it in place. Then, as his fingers worked their magic, her body and mind lost their last shreds of inhibition. Her hips rose to meet his touch, her arms tightened about his neck, and she kissed him with the same urgency as he kissed her.
Randi writhed in his embrace, her body filled with a mind-searing hunger that was as much torture as splendor. Always his kisses had stirred her passion, always his embrace had left her heady with desire, but neither had ever instilled within her the blind ecstasy that his touches were invoking

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now. Her body was an inferno, a fiery conflagration burning out of control, mindless and hungry. His touch both incited it further and satiated it. Her breasts ached to feel his touch, her nipples throbbed with the need of his lips, and every nerve, every cell of her body yearned for his caress.
Nothing in life had prepared Randi for this sweet, taunting, mindless torment, this delicious agony that she wanted never to cease. She felt his finger inside of her, its every stroke a teasing provocation of the hunger building inside of her, its every move stoking the raging fires of need that threatened to consume her.
Trembling with the desire that had turned his blood to fire, Lane nudged her thighs apart. He was aflame with the heed of her and was excited further by the wanton twistings of her body as she pressed against him, caught in the throes of her own passion.
A mockingbird sang merrily in the trees just beyond the open French doors, but Lane paid no attention. There was no other reality for him at the moment, no other world, than the one he and Randi were creating for themselves.
The hollow ache within him became overwhelming as Randi threw her head from side to side and moaned his name in a ragged whisper.
He had intended to go slow with her, to be the epitome of tenderness, but the erotic abandonment with which she met his passion overwhelmed his powers of restraint and rendered them lacking. He plunged the hard shaft of his need into her, lancing and filling her body with the turgid, hungry organ. He felt her suddenly cringe beneath him from the pain of his entry and the eradication of her virginity. A small shriek of surprise slipped from her lips as her fingers dug into his back.
"It's all right, chère," Lane whispered softly. He cursed himself for causing her even the briefest moment of pain
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even though he knew it could not be helped. "It's all right now, Je t'aime, I promise." His lips covered hers again in a kiss that was slow and tender, its urgency contained under tight rein. Rhythmically one hand began to caress her breast. His thumb moved continuously over its tip and brought her swiftly back to the near-mindless edge of passion where she had been only seconds before. Her legs entwined about his, and her arms held him tight. He felt her tongue in his mouth, imitating the movements of his own, and his desires were stirred further.
Moving slowly at first, carefully, he thrust into her once more, and as her hips rose to meet him, Lane repeated the motion over and over, each entry fiercer, deeper, hungrier than the last as he strove to give them both the release they sought. Their bodies fused, parted, and fused again, the golden flesh of Jus length melding with the ivory of hers. His tongue hungrily explored her mouth, his hands her body, his essence her soul.
Randi felt the fires raging within her intensify, felt the craving for satiation grow deeper, more desperate, each time he entered her. With every stroke, every move, every caress, the demanding ache he had created within her raged farther and farther out of control. It became ravenous and wanton until she feared she would lose her sanity if it were not appeased.
She twisted brazenly beneath him, and the longing in her loins blocked out every thought, every consideration but Lane DeCroix and the marvelous, unbelievable things he was doing to her body. A moan left her lips as he thrust deeper into her, and then another and another. The anxiety built within her like a searing tempest of volcanic lava, churning, roiling, filling every cell.
Randi clung to him, every emotion in her senses entwined and fused with his. They moved together, joined by both
30
body and soul in wondrous rapture, enmeshed in the erotic intoxication of their love for one another.
Suddenly an eruption of pleaure exploded deep within Randi, a fiery torrent, fulfillment so sweet, so all-consuming and delicious that Randi cried out in mindless wonder and joy. It spiraled outward through her body and swept through her limbs, a flood of ecstasy that left her body trembling with delicious shivers at the euphoric bliss.
Lane, having struggled to hold himself back until she was ready, felt his resolve shattered by her cry. He released the taut reins of self-control he had held over himself. His body shuddered violently as, with one last, desperate thrust into her, he was racked by a series of fierce tremors and his seed poured forth within her.
He clung to her then, limb entwined about limb, his heart thudding madly in his chest, his breath ragged and harsh. Passion faded from his body slowly, seeping away like the outgoing tides of the sea and leaving in its place a torpid serenity and all-consuming contentment.
Randi snuggled deeper into Lane's embrace and smiled to herself in the darkness, happier than she ever had been in her life. Lane DeCroix had stolen her heart the first moment they'd met at a soiree of a mutual friend in Boston. Not only had Lane been the handsomest man at the party that night, the dark good looks of his Creole heritage causing the other men in the room to pale in comparison, but he was also open, happy, and always smiling. She'd fallen in love with him instantly, and each day they'd been together since, she had fallen deeper until now she could not imagine a life without him in it.
A frown suddenly pulled at her brow. So why now, ever since coming to Bayou Noir, did she feel so utterly frightened? Randi thought of Lane's mother and the others in the family. Their disapproval of her had been immediate, and

31
though each had made some small effort to hide it behind a polite smile or cordial acknowledgment of their introduction, they had not truly tried very hard. Could that be why she felt so uneasy? So frightened? As quickly as the question came to mind, she discarded it as the answer to her anxiety.
But if that was not what was wrong, then why did she have this horrid, unshakably haunting fear that she was in danger of losing Lane?
She closed her eyes and, nestled safely within the circle of Lane's embrace, willed sleep to come.
******************
An hour later, while rolling over, Randi woke. A feeling of contentment swept over her instantly as the memory of Lane's lovemaking filled her mind and brought an onslaught of deliciously warm tingles rippling through her body. She moved to snuggle up against him, wanting once again to feel the long lean length of his body entwined with hers, to savor the feelings his arms around her brought. The heat of hunger sparked to life deep inside of her. Cool sheet met her thigh. A frown creased her brow as she found the space beside her on the bed empty. Her eyes opened, and she reached a hand out as if to confirm that he was not there. "Lane?"
His name hung on the still air.
Randi sat up and glanced around the room, her eyes straining to see into the dark shadows that still hung over everything. "Lane?" she whispered into them. "Lane?"
Fear, unreasonable, unexplainable, and unearthly, assailed her. He wouldn't have gone back to his own room without telling her—without saying something. Randi jerked the covers aside and grabbed the lace-trimmed wrapper she'd laid across the foot of the bed earlier. Slipping her arms into the flowing sleeves, she quickly tied the ivory wrapper secure about her waist, slipped her feet into the slippers beside her
32
bed, and hurried across the room toward the door. She stepped into the hallway and paused, her eyes scanning the long, wide passageway for any sign of movement, her ears listening for any sound to break the silence. On a table near the staircase landing, the flame of a candle flickered. The tiny orange and blue fire danced merrily in an effort to pierce the dense shadows but actually did little more than cast an eerie and weak yellow glow about its immediate area.
Moving quietly, Randi hurried toward the light. The table sat next to the door to Lane's bedchamber. Randi paused before the door, then opened it quietly. She peeked around its edge. The pale glow of light from the candle behind her flowed into the room and allowed her to see that it was empty and his bed still neatly made.
Lifting the skirt of her wrapper, an unreasonable fear gripping her heart in its icy, merciless clutches, Randi ran to the staircase landing. She clutched the banister and began to descend, but halfway down the stairs she stopped.
Moonlight streamed through the beveled panes of the fanlight window set above the entry doors. It sparkled within the several hundred teardrop prisms that dripped from the crystal chandelier hanging from the foyer's high ceiling, and glowed softly off the highly polished black-and-white marble tiles of the floor. But neither the moonlight or the room's furnishings were what drew her attention. Instead she stood with her gaze riveted on the front door. It stood open.
Randi hesitated, recalling the flash of intense unease she'd felt only moments before when she'd discovered Lane gone from her bed. Was he in trouble? Had he heard something outside and gone to investigate? Was there a prowler on the grounds? Or ... an alligator? Fear for Lane pushed Randi into action.
She raced down the remainder of the stairs and ran across the room toward the open door. As she neared it, the soft

33
sound of someone whispering met her ears, and Randi stopped dead in her tracks just before crossing the threshold. Her heart hammered within her breast as she peeked around the doorway.
Lane and a woman she had never seen before stood at the end of the gallery. They were holding hands. Randi felt the sharp knife of jealousy stab at her heart and tried to both ignore and deny it. Was that the woman Lane's mother wanted him to marry? Millie St. Clair? She drew back and stood with her body pressed close to the door. No. The woman was probably just an old friend, she tried to tell herself. She loved Lane, and that meant she trusted him. Her fingers tightly clutching the doorjamb, Randi peered around it again and stared at the girl with Lane, too curious to leave, yet hesitant to reveal herself and approach them.
The woman was small. The top of her head barely reached to the middle of Lane's wide chest. Her frame was petite, though at the same time, seductively voluptuous. A flowing mane of thick black hair cascaded freely down her back and reached her waist. There seemed an exotic cast to her appearance that might have been caused by the bright, multicolored pattern of her silk dress. Lane and the girl stood bathed only in moonlight, but from what Randi could see, she was quite beautiful. Her eyes were large and almond-shaped, her nose aquiline yet turned up at the end, cheekbones high, well-carved, almost aristocratic, and her lips were full and sensuous.
Randi's fingers nervously gripped the doorjamb, and her heart thudded madly within her breast as she stood within hearing range, but out of view of them. She had never eavesdropped before, and felt guilty doing it now, especially to Lane, yet something, some strange compulsion, kept her glued to the spot—listening.

CHAPTER FOUR
"You must be careful, Lane," Randi heard the girl say softly. "You must. This was not a good time for you to return, not a good time to bring her here, to Bayou Noir, and announce your plans." The tone of her voice was urgent, almost pleading. "It's Allhallow's Eve. The same night, Lane, the same night. And she vowed—"
"Evangeline, please," Lane whispered. "Enough of this insanity. That was a long time ago. It didn't concern me then, and it doesn't concern me now. What you're saying is really too ridiculous to—"
"No, Lane, no." She grabbed at the lapels of his silk brocade robe. "You don't understand, Lane. Please, you must listen to me. You must believe what I say. Grandmère Majine told me all about it, about what happened then—both times. She'll tell you, too, Lane, she will, if you come to the shack. Please, come with me back to the shack."
"Evang—"
"She was there, Lane." She tugged on his robe, fingers clenched tightly about the shimmering black-satin lapels. "Grandmère was there when it happened, Lane. It's true, I swear. She was there—and saw her."
"Evangeline, please, this is absurd. It's just some voodoo nonsense made up to frighten people. You can't really expect me to believe that I've lived here nearly all of my life and have never known about—"
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"Lane, please, listen to me. No one is left alive who knows except Majine. Not even your mother, who was a baby when he took your grandmother away. And when you were a child, it didn't matter, she didn't care. But now you've grown, and you're back, announcing your love and intent to marry, and she doesn't know the difference. You must listen to me, Lane. She doesn't care that it's not right, that you're not the same man. To her you are."
Lane covered her hands gently with his larger ones. "Evangeline, really," he said, his tone one of forced patience, "I don't—"
"You're in danger, Lane," Evangeline pleaded. "What Grandmère Majine says, it is true. She knows. She saw. Liliandra—"
Randi peeked around the doorjamb as the conversation abruptly stopped. Lane had forcibly led the girl several yards away from the house. They stood in the center of the moonlit lawn, halfway between the house and the edge of the bayou. The green blades of grass at their feet shimmered emerald beneath the night's glow, while Lane's hair glistened richly, its ebony depths touched silver by the soft light of the moon.
Randi stared at them. Lane was in danger. The girl's words echoed in her mind and deepened her already growing sense of dread. Lane was in danger. But from what? she asked herself for what seemed the hundredth time. What—or who— was he in danger from?
Unable to hear any more, assailed by an intense sense of guilt for having listened at all, and more afraid now than she had been earlier, perhaps more so than she had ever been in her entire life, Randi turned back into the foyer, intending to go back to her room. But before reaching the stairs, she noticed the door of the library was also open. She walked toward it, then paused on its threshold.
The curtains that framed the room's wall of windows had
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not been drawn against the night, and now moonlight streamed through the small square panes. Across the room a bookcase covered one wall from floor to ceiling and corner to corner, its shelves lined with leatherbound books of every size. Perhaps she could find something to read. It was evident by the way her nerves were jittering after seeing Lane holding hands with another woman, and hearing her warn him that he was in danger, she wasn't going to fall back asleep by merely closing her eyes.
Randi hurried into the room, wanting to get a book and return upstairs before Lane reentered the house. Reaching to one shelf, she ran her fingers lightly over the book's titles, some indistinguishable in the dim light, but the gold-leaf lettering on many making their words clearly visible. She hesitated before one short, thin book. On its spine, imprinted in bold, swirling letters of gold leaf was the name DeCroix. Nothing else. Curious, Randi pulled the book from the shelf. There was no title on the front cover either, and the top of the book's gold-edged pages were covered by a light film of dust as if it hadn't been taken down from the shelf or even touched for a number of years. She opened the front jacket. The pages were yellowed and brittle with age. She turned to the first page. The name DeCroix was written across it in swirling script.
Excitement sparked within her heart, and she smiled. The book was most likely the journal of one of Lane's ancestors. She could read it and perhaps learn some of the DeCroix family's history. Perhaps this would impress Lane's mother. And maybe, just maybe, it might give her some clue as to what dangers lay about Bayou Noir for Lane ... if any.
Randi turned to leave the room and found her gaze drawn to a large, ornately framed oil painting that hung on the wall beside the door. Delight filled her as she stared up into the dark blue eyes.

37
Moonlight played about the finely etched lines of the artist's exacting strokes, deepening the dark hues and highlighting the paler ones. Randi smiled. It was a portrait of Lane. She stared up at the handsome face, admiring both the man who had sat for the portrait and the work of the artist who had captured those good looks. But slowly, almost unconsciously, Randi began to realize the portrait could not be of Lane DeCroix. As she continued to study the painting, her gaze proceeded to pick out the subtle differences she had begun to note between the man in the picture and Lane. As if to confirm her suspicions, Randi moved closer and looked at the small brass plaque that was attached to its frame. Small, intricately engraved letters identified both the man and the date of his sitting: Lane DeCroix, 1790.
Lane DeCroix, 1790? Randi frowned, then realized that it had to be a portrait of Lane's grandfather. Before venturing to Bayou Noir after their trip downriver from Maryland, they had spent two days in New Orleans, Lane insisting that he show her a little of her new home city. Over dinner one night he had told her a bit about his childhood home and family history. His grandfather had built the original portion of the house but had moved into New Orleans shortly after his marriage. Nobody remembered why, and Lane's mother always claimed she never knew. The magnificent old house had remained empty until Lane's mother moved back to the plantation upon her father and husband’s deaths. The fields had been worked the entire time the family was gone, so the plantation itself had remained prosperous, and the house had been well cared for by servants and an overseer.
But Lane hadn't mentioned that he'd been named after his grandfather.
Randi looked up at the portrait. Lane and his grandfather possessed the same dark blue eyes, the same black hair and

38
aquiline nose, and the same devastating handsomeness. But there was something missing from the man in the portrait, something in the strong face of the man she loved that was distinctly lacking in his ancestor.
Her eyes moved over the exquisitely painted canvas again, searching out the differences, and she finally realized why the two men looked the same, and yet did not. Lane's strength and fortitude were defined in the rough, granite-hard cut of his jaw, and intensified in the fathomless darkness of his eyes. The man in the portrait, though his features were, at first glance, nearly identical to Lane's, somehow lacked evidence of that profound vigor and character. The jawline, it seemed, held just a hint of weakness in its curve. The dark eyes, though filled with a depth of emotion just like Lane's, also revealed a spark of selfishness, while the slant of his lips testified to a subtle but distinct penchant for blind obstinance.
Randi turned away and hurried back upstairs, the journal clutched tightly in one hand. Debasing Lane's relatives would not endear her to his family. Especially his mother. And anyway, how could she possibly tell his personality from a painting? Lane's grandfather had probably been a wonderful man, just like her Lane, and she was merely allowing her imagination to run away with itself.
Hastily lighting the lamp next to the bed, Randi removed the wrapper and slipped back into her nightgown, then slid beneath the covers and, propping the journal open against her raised knees, opened it. She was surprised to find it was not actually a family journal as she'd thought, but a diary of only one DeCroix, the same one in the portrait: Lane DeCroix.
She settled back against the mound of pillows she'd propped at her back and turned the brittle pages, opening to the halfway point. Her attention was immediately riveted to the handsomely swirled script the moment she began to read.
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September, 1791
It has been almost a year since it happened, yet every day of that time, of my life, has been like a nightmare. Caroline carries my child within her, yet I stand by helplessly, as do the doctors, and watch, with each passing minute, as the time for my child's birth grows nearer and my wife's mind drifts farther and farther from reality.
Randi turned to a section deeper in the journal. The date at the top of it testified that it had been written a little over a month after the previous page's entry.
/ never thought the day would come when I would leave my beloved Bayou Noir, but we cannot stay here any longer, Caroline and I and our newborn daughter, Elena Noreene. I do not believe what Majine says, and yet I cannot deny that something happened on the anniversary of Liliandra 's death, only a few days ago. I can take no more chances, preposterous as it may seem, that Majine might be right, and that horror real.
Yet even though I find what she claims hard to believe, I find myself unreasonably, but intensely, fearful for my life, and for those of my wife and precious little daughter.
This situation is all my fault, I realize, yet I do not know how to correct it, or how to bring Caroline back from wherever it is she has gone.
Liliandra loved me desperately, of that I have no doubt. And I loved her. But it couldn't be, we both knew that from the beginning. At least I thought she did. Her dark blood, as little of it as she possessed, made it illegal for us to marry, and I knew I must have an heir. It has been my lifelong dream to have a child, and I
40
could not turn my back on that dream, nor on my way of life, not even for Liliandra.
Randi frowned at the long-ago written words of Lane's grandfather. What could have frightened him so that he would leave his own home? And what did Liliandra, obviously his mistress, have to do with Caroline and her evident madness? Her gaze dropped back down to the journal, but she didn't continue to read. Liliandra. That was the same woman the girl with Lane had spoken of. Randi turned the page and read on.
Caroline's demand that I sever my relationship with Liliandra before we married was a reasonable one, though one I knew I would find difficult to accede to. Liliandra had been a part of my life for almost two years, and it was a part I cherished, my time with her always a happy boost to my heart. However, as I have stated, Caroline’s demand was a reasonable one. She was a more than acceptable choice for a wife, and I was proud to have won her hand.
Caroline was and still is quite beautiful, possessed an excellent dowry and family lineage, and I felt certain at the time of our betrothal that she would provide me the heir I so desperately craved.
That I was in love with Liliandra was unimportant. Our relationship, I knew from the beginning, could never give me what I wanted most. I had every intention of conceding to Caroline's demand that night I went into the bayou. And I did.
There was no need for Caroline to kill Liliandra. No need at all.
Lane's grandmother had committed murder? Randi stared at the words in shock.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lane watched Evangeline disappear into the shadows. They had grown up together, she and her brothers, and he and his, and he had never seen her scared, not until tonight. A frown drew his smooth brow together as her warning echoed in his mind. Majine had made many predictions over the years, for Lane, for Evangeline, and for others, and all had come true. But this? If something like she claimed could be true, then why had he never heard of it? Why did his mother not know, even if she had been spirited away from Bayou Noir as a newborn baby? Why wouldn't her father have told her, warned her, if what Majine claimed was true?
Then Lane remembered the whispers about his own grandmother and her insanity. Did it have something to do with what Evangeline had just told him? The prospect was certainly horrible enough to drive a person from reality.
For several long minutes he stared into the fathomless blackness of the landscape. "What if it's true?" he murmured softly to himself. A dark shadow, like a shutter being closed, suddenly dropped over his blue eyes, and his lips turned downward in a bleak slant. He turned, irritated by the sudden darkness of his thoughts, and began to walk back toward the house.
******************
For the first time in almost seventy years, Liliandra's eyes fluttered open. A gnarled thing that some would call a hand,

42
and others would call a claw, rose from the depths of the swamp where she had lain. It reached out to grasp at an overhanging tree limb. Seconds later, another, exactly the same, emerged from the murky water and dug its fingers into the soft earth of the bank. With some effort, her limbs stiff from years of unuse, her gown heavy with water and the silt of the bayou's floor, Liliandra pulled herself to the shore.
Her long hair, once lustrous and dark, clung to her form and draped over her thin shoulders in gray-streaked tangles. The thin vines of a water lily, caught up in her emergence, hung from within the disheveled strands, its delicate pink bloom a dissension from the grotesqueness in which it had been captured.
At one time the gown of lavender silk and ivory lace that draped her form had been beautiful. Now it hung limp and lifeless around her gaunt body, its color darkened by years of being buried beneath the earth's surface, beneath the black still swamp waters of Bayou Noir. The small bullet hole that had once been the only mar upon the elegant gown's bodice had become nearly hidden from view as, over the years, the silken threads had aged, rotted, and partially fallen away.
A grimace curved Liliandra's lips as she hauled herself up from the water. Lips that had once been full and sensual, that had teased many a man but given no promises, were now nothing more than thin shriveled pieces of flesh. Her face, once of such flawless beauty that every man in the parish had sought her as their place, was now skeletal, the flesh dark, withered, and horribly wrinkled. Her cheeks were sunken caves, her nose little more than a hole, and the ruche of black lashes that had framed mesmerizing eyes of violet were now scraggly wisps of broken bristles surrounding eyes that had grown black with hate and rage.
As she stepped onto the muddy, moss-covered bank,

43
Liliandra paused, sensing immediately that she was not alone. Her eyes scanned the surrounding swamp area, moving over every inch of bush and tree, every blade of grass and stream of water, but despite the persisting sense of being watched, she saw nothing. Perhaps, after all these years of enforced slumber, her senses were not as good as they had once been. Then again, considering what had happened that last day of her mortal life, perhaps her senses had never been that good to begin with.
A small chuckle of irony escaped her mouth. She threw her head back then, and her laugh grew louder, an ugly, evil sound, an unearthly, lifeless cackle that echoed through the cypress swamp to send a chill sweeping up the spines of whatever creature heard it.
Then again, her magic had worked well enough to allow her to return. Her eyes peered into the encompassing marsh toward the house of Bayou Noir, and she smiled.
He was back—at last.
******************
A noise in the hallway drew Randi's attention, and she snapped the book closed and hurriedly slipped it beneath her pillow. She stared at the door to her bedchamber expectantly, waiting for it to open, waiting for Lane.
Nothing happened.
After several long minutes, and unable to stand the curiosity of not knowing where he was, Randi slipped from the bed and tiptoed to the door. The house was deathly quiet. She pulled the door open a crack and peeked into the hallway. The first rays of dawn streamed in through a window at the end of the hall, its rays settling a golden haze over the wide but empty passageway.
Closing the door, Randi decided to dress without waiting for Neena to assist her. She ached to go to Lane's room, the

44
need to feel his arms around her, to hear him tell her he loved her, almost overpowering. But she refrained. She would see him downstairs at breakfast.
She took great care with her preparations. A glance in the mirror confirmed her choice of gown had been the right one. She wore a white taffeta imprinted with blue flowers, under which was a snow-white underlayer of silk. The skirt was full and plain, her waist encircled by a sash of midnight-blue velvet, and the slightly plunging neckline was trimmed with a flurry of velvet-edged ruffles that also hung over her shoulders but left her arms bare. Her dark hair she left loose and flowing, pinned behind each ear with a small pearl comb.
Half an hour later she walked into the dining room. The family was already gathered at the table, all except for Lane. He stood with his back to the others, staring out at the grounds through the tall windows that graced one wall of the dining room. He wore a suit of deep blue broadcloth, the thigh-length coat cut to the line of his lean form, the pants snug to his long legs and held taut by sous pieds beneath each highly polished black boot. As always, the pristine whiteness of his shirt served to intensify the bronze of his flesh and richness of his black hair.
Randi smiled a good morning to the others, who failed to return it, and approached Lane.
"Good morning," she said softly.
He glanced down at her, his mind obviously faraway. "Oh, good morning, Randi," he said absently.
"I missed you when I woke up this morning," Randi whispered softly, a little hurt by his aloofness.
As if pulling himself away from something that had hold on him, Lane shifted his shoulders and turned to her. He smiled and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her

45
close. "Sorry. I had something to attend to in the study." He looked toward the table. "Let's eat, shall we?"
Breakfast proved a trying affair. Elena continually snipped at the servants about the food, complaining that the eggs were undercooked, the toast too crisp, and her coffee too strong. Adam and Roland talked business while their wives chattered on and on about dress patterns and the latest fashions from Paris, and whether or not they would be able to still get them if the South went to war against the North. No one attempted to talk to Randi, including Lane, who merely ate and stared out the window, his brow furrowed, his eyes sparked with worry.
"Lane," Roland said, jerking his brother from whatever reverie held him spellbound, "could I see you in the study for awhile? There are some financial matters we need to discuss, especially if you," he glanced toward Randi, "will be moving back here from Boston."
Lane looked at Elena. "Mother, do you know why Grandpère moved from Bayou Noir?"
Elena stared at him, and then shrugged. "No. I suppose it was because of my mother."
"Because she went—"
"Yes," Elena snapped, cutting off Lane before he could finish his sentence. "And I don't want to talk about it. My mother was sick. She didn't like it here, and that's all there is to it. Father did what he thought he had to do."
"But it was only because of Grandmère's illness?" Lane persisted. "Nothing else?"
"Lane," Rollie said, his tone one of exasperation. "What other reason could there have been? Bayou Noir is a profitable plantation. Grandmère was ill and Grandpère did what he felt he had to do. Now, if you're through senselessly hashing through our family's history, I was saying that we need to talk."
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Lane nodded again, but said nothing further.
"There are some things the three of us . . ." Roland glanced pointedly at Randi again, then just as pointedly, with a turning of his face, dismissed her. "That is, Adam, myself, and you have things we need to talk over if you're moving back here. As you know, I've been handling the accounts for the plantation while you've been working at our ship's office in Boston. We'll have to see to a replacement for you there."
"Yes. Fine." Lane tossed his napkin onto the table and rose. "The library?" he said to Roland. Then, as if he had just remembered she was there, he turned to Randi. "Do you mind? It shouldn't take long."
She smiled, though inside she felt the same tinge of the fear she had experienced earlier. Something was wrong. She dould see it in his eyes, sense it in the sudden coolness of his demeanor. "Not at all, Lane," she said politely, more for his family's benefit than his. "I'll just take a walk around the grounds after breakfast."
A shadow suddenly darkened Lane's features. "Don't go into the bayou, Randi."
She laughed. "I don't think you have to worry about me doing that."
His expression remained somber. "Promise me, Randi. Don't even go near the bayou."
She frowned, puzzled and troubled further by his tone. "I promise, Lane."
******************
The day passed slowly. Lane remained locked within the study with his two brothers until well past noon, and then emerged only to request that Logan have their noon meal sent in to them. Barbara and Mary left to go to town, neither woman bothering to ask Randi if she cared to accompany them, and Elena locked herself up in her room. Randi had
47
seen the girl Lane had met the night before, Evangeline, near the slave quarters a little before noon, but she hadn't come near the house.
Randi took a walk through the gardens after breakfast, ate her noon meal alone, napped, then sat down in the parlor to await the others for dinner, even though it was two hours away. She tried to interest herself in a book of prose she found on one of the shelves, but her mind kept drifting away from the printed words. Finally, in exasperation, and when it seemed no one was going to join her at all, for supper or anything else, she rose and walked out onto the gallery.
The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky, just above the jagged line of treetops on the horizon. Randi flipped open the silk fan that hung from her wrist and began to flutter it absently before her face to create a soft breeze.
Nedrick, one of Roland's seven-year-old sons, suddenly emerged from the bayou and skipped across the wide expanse of green lawn that separated it from the house. Randi watched him approach.
"Hello," Nedrick said when he saw her, then abruptly stopped, his blue eyes filled with alarm. "You aren't going to tell on me, are you, Miss Randi?"
"Tell on you?" Randi echoed, amused at his seeming chagrin. "Tell what, Nedrick?"
"That I was in the swamp." He smiled. "I went to pick some flowers for my mama, but I forgot to take the flower-picking basket." He ran up onto the gallery and grabbed a basket that sat to one side of the door. At the bottom of the steps he stopped and looked back at Randi. "You won't tell, will you, Miss Randi?"
She smiled, an idea coming to her mind. Surely it would be all right if she went into the bayou with Nedrick. He knew his way about, and she really was so curious to see it. "No, Nedrick, I won't tell if you let me come with you."
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"Okay, come on then." He skipped happily toward the lush growth while Randi, startled at his sudden burst of speed, picked up her skirts and hurried to keep up with him.
Five minutes into the bayou, and so many twists and turns later, Randi found herself totally lost, and Nedrick nowhere in sight.
"Neddie?" she called out. "Where are you?"
"Over here," he answered.
She ran in the direction she thought his voice had come from, then paused when she found he wasn't there.
"Neddie?"
She heard him answer, but this time couldn't distinguish from which direction his voice came. Randi looked around the shadow-filled bayou. Each way looked the same as the others: a lush profusion of plants, the ground broken here and there by curving streams or wide lagoons of black water, tall, thick-trunked cypress trees, their bulbous trunks half submerged within the murky water, and their high limbs draped with long curtains of Spanish moss. Its primal beauty was in sharp contrast to the well-trimmed plants and shrubs of the fastidiously manicured gardens of both her own home in Maryland, and those which surrounded the DeCroix house.
Randi walked in the direction she felt certain would take her back to the house, stopping occasionally to look more closely at a flower, an especially pretty plant, or a delicate leaf. Having never experienced anything like it, the feral splendor held a certain curiosity and fascination for her. At the same time she felt a definite sense of trepidation. Only filtered streams of sunlight penetrated the dank forest, and she could tell that, with the passing of the last afternoon hours, even that was waning quickly.
Randi tried to locate the sun so that she could get at least some idea of her location by its setting, but the thick growth of limbs overhead offered her only small patches of sky. She

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began to feel afraid. What if it got dark and she was still in here? What if she couldn't find Nedrick? What if she couldn't find her way out?
Soft laughter echoed around her and hung on the air.
"Nedrick?" Randi called again, her voice edged with hysteria. "Neddie, is that you?"
Silence hung heavily on the air.
Randi looked about frantically, realizing how foolish she had been to venture into the swamp at all, even with Nedrick. Everything looked the same, and the humidity was horrific. Waves of heat and moisture wafted up from the ground to blur the horizon and create beads of perspiration on Randi's forehead. The bodice of her gown, along with her corset and camisole, felt glued to her body, and her legs were sweltering within the lacy pantaloons she had on beneath her hoop cage and petticoats.
She tried calling to Nedrick again—and again, and still received no answer. Randi felt her panic begin to grow more real, the situation desperate.
The sound came again, a lilting, almost taunting laugh, as if someone were watching, purposely trying to scare her, and reveling in her fear.
"Neddie?" she called weakly.
The bushes next to her rustled. Randi jumped away and stared at them, the slamming beat of her heart echoing within her ears. A small frog appeared from beneath a wide banana tree leaf and hopped toward the water. Randi nearly crumpled at the wave of relief that swept through her.
Suddenly something touched the back of her neck. Icy fingers strained to encircle her throat as claws dug into her flesh. Randi jerked away, twisting and whirling about at the same time, too terrified to face her attacker, and yet too terrified not to. A shriek of panic escaped her throat, and she gasped for breath. Her nostrils and lungs burned from

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the acrid stench that filled them. She coughed. The caustic smell permeated the air and made it almost impossible for her to draw a breath.
Randi stared at the bushes in front of her. Something was there, hiding, watching her. She could feel it. A shiver shot up her spine. It had reached out for her, grabbed her. She felt an overpowering sense of being surrounded by evil.
Grabbing her skirts and spinning on her heels, she ran blindly, stumbling and thrashing over the wild landscape, heedless of both her course and her footing. She ran past trees, smashed her way over and through bushes, and splashed recklessly through streams of black water. Unable to contain her fear, a series of screams tore from Randi's throat and echoed on the still air. Several times the skirt of her gown caught on the rough bark of a tree or a protruding branch of a shrub, and she was forced to stop and yank it free, tearing the fabric.
Laughter, evil, ugly, and chilling, sounded behind her, followed her, surrounded her.
She slipped off on the narrow, winding bank of earth she was following. Her foot plunged into the black water. Something moved from beneath a fern on the opposite shore and slid stealthily beneath the murky surface of the swamp. Randi jerked her foot out of the water and staggered on as fast as she could. Her foot hit a piece of tree branch half-hidden beneath the soil, and she fell forward. The heels of her hands, thrown out before her to break her fall, sunk into the soft moss-covered earth.
The laugh sounded again.
Hysteria threatened to overtake Randi. She pushed herself up and hurried on. Sunlight broke through the bounty of leaves before her. Randi ran toward it, praying. She broke out of the bayou and fell onto the smooth, well-manicured lawn of Bayou Noir.

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"Randi," Lane yelled from several yards away. "What happened? Randi?"
She looked up to see him running toward her.
He dropped to one knee and pulled her into his arms. "Good Lord, what happened to you?" The long flowing cape that draped his shoulders spread out on the ground around him, its red satin lining a brilliant contrast to the stark black and white of the rest of his clothes.
Randi went into his embrace eagerly, seeking his strength and needing his comfort. She took a deep breath in an attempt to slow her rapidly pounding heart and racing pulses. Terror swept through her senses. The same mordant, biting odor she had smelled only moments ago, that had filled the air upon her attack, clung to Lane.
She stared at him, frightened and confused. Why would Lane attack her? What reason would he have for trying to frighten her so? For terrifying her?
"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously. "Randi? Are you all right?" His eyes moved over her torn and mud-splattered gown. "What happened to you, Randi? Neddie came back to the house and told us you were lost in the swamp."
Randi found herself momentarily unable to speak. Her emotions were in a turmoil, suspicion clouded her mind, and the need to feel his love ached within her heart. Lane couldn't have attacked her. She wouldn't believe that. There was no reason. He loved her. Tears stung the back of her eyes. He did. He loved her.
"Randi?" A soft groan escaped his lips, and he pulled her back into his arms, holding her so tightly he nearly crushed the breath from her lungs. "God, I was so frightened for you."
Even through her fear and suspicion, Randi felt the comfort, the strength, and the love that had always enveloped and filled her with his embrace.
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But why did his cloak carry that odor? The same odor that had clung to whomever, or whatever, had tried to attack her only moments ago?
CHAPTER SIX
Randi walked into the parlor beside Lane and felt everyone's gaze immediately turn toward her. Each mirrored that of the others, an intense sense of disdain. Randi tried to hide her trembling hands within the folds of her gown, but kept her head held high, her own eyes full of defiance. Someone in this house was trying to scare the daylights out of her. They didn't approve of her, a Northerner, and were carrying out some diabolic scheme to frighten her away from both Bayou Noir and Lane.
At least she had answered the question as to why Lane's cloak carried that horrid odor. She'd asked him, terrified of his answer but needing to hear it, and had nearly sighed with relief at his answer. He'd loaned it to a friend, which Randi knew was true because she'd seen him wrap it around Evangeline's shoulders last night. Evidently the cloak had somehow picked up the strange odor in the bayou when Evangeline had been on her way home.
Randi's eyes met theirs. Well, trying to scare her away wasn't going to work. She would not be frightened away from the man she loved, no matter what they did.
Elena stood at their entry, her gnarled hands folded over the brass tip of the cane she leaned heavily upon. "Dinner has been announced," she said coolly, "if we are all ready now?" She glanced at Randi pointedly, her brows rising
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slightly at Randi's disheveled appearance. "We can proceed to the dining room."
"I'll just run upstairs and change," Randi said, and glanced down at the mudstains and jagged rips that marred her gown. She could feel her wet shoes sinking into the thick carpet. "I won't be long, but please don't wait." Turning before anyone could respond, including Lane, she hurried out of the parlor.
Ten minutes later Randi turned the corner of the landing and saw Lane waiting for her at the base of the stairs. A warmth of love for him spread through her. His eyes met and held her gaze as she descended toward him.
"Why did you go into the bayou?" he said the moment she paused before him.
It hadn't been what she'd expected him to say. Words of love, a compliment for how she looked, a whispered concern that she was all right. Those were the things she had expected to hear. Not this cool admonishing question.
"I ... I told you. Neddie was going, and I wanted to see it. I was curious."
She placed her hand on his offered arm and walked beside him toward the dining room.
"I told you not to go in there," he said curtly. "I warned you."
Randi looked at him queerly. Why was he acting so brusquely? She took the chair he offered her, but didn't look at him again as he settled into the one beside her. Ever since Evangeline had come to talk to him in the middle of the night, he had changed. He was no longer the happy, carefree man she'd fallen in love with. Instead, his mood seemed almost surly. Randi absently moved a fork about in her food and thought about what had happened in the bayou. Lane tried several times to include her in the dinner conversation, but Randi's mind was too preoccupied with her own thoughts.
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Finally the men adjourned to the study for cheroots and brandy while the women moved back to the parlor.
Randi walked to the open French doors while Elena worked on her needlepoint and Barbara and Mary compared dress patterns. The terror she'd felt only a few short hours ago had subsided, but it had not been forgotten. She stepped out onto the gallery, the need for fresh air and a little time to herself almost overwhelming. It didn't matter anyway that she left the room, since the others were obviously more than glad not to have to talk with her.
Randi took in a deep breath, then released it with a sigh. The night was peaceful, the air, though still humid and warm, almost refreshing in comparison to the stuffiness, both physical and emotional, within the house. As she stared into the bayou, a shadow moved amid the shrubbery, though it was only faintly visible in the filtered streams of moonlight that wove their way through the thick branches of the cypress trees. Randi started. Her fingers clutched at the gallery's balustrade as fear once again enveloped her. The sensation of being watched that she had felt the night before when she'd stood on the gallery and looked out at the swamp instantly returned. Someone was definitely trying to scare her, and though she hated to admit it, they were succeeding. She turned to look back over her shoulder into the house. The women were all there, still seated in the parlor. And Lane was with his brothers. Randi turned back toward the bayou and, drawing on courage that had just skittered away, she raised her chin defiantly. "Who's there?" she called out.
A soft fiendish laugh drifted to her from beyond the bayou's dense shadows. It echoed upon the still night air, at once light and musical, dark and nefarious.
Randi's heart lurched in terror. It was the same laugh she had heard while standing on the gallery with Lane the night before—the same laugh she had heard only a few hours ago,

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when something had attacked her in the swamp. Her limbs trembled violently, her legs suddenly weak and threatening to collapse beneath her.
"Who's there?" Randi demanded again, louder this time, and uncaring if those in the house heard her. She would not be intimidated. She might be scared half to death, but she would not be frightened away from Lane.
The huge lush leaves of a banana plant swayed slightly while below it the delicate lime-green fronds of a maidenhair fern rustled softly against the darker, spiking leaves of a palmetto.
Randi felt a shiver of fear skip up her back and, lifting the voluminous folds of the dark blue silk and ivory lace gown she had donned for dinner, turned and hurried back into the house.
Laughter sounded behind her again, this time high-pitched, cackling, and venomous.
The three brothers had come into the parlor while she'd been outside. Lane turned to her now, his eyes shadowed and unreadable. "Randi, what's wrong?"
She stared at him, her eyes wide.
He moved to her side and clasped her arms. "What's wrong?" he demanded again, his tone harsher this time.
"Something . . ." Randi gasped for breath. "Something is out there, Lane. Something is in the bayou."
"What? You went into the bayou again? After what happened this afternoon? I told you—"
She shook her head. "No, I was just standing on the gallery, getting some fresh air and . . . and it was watching me. It laughed."
Elena chuckled softly and looked at Barbara. "Northerners are always frightened of the bayou."
Barbara nodded, her blond curls bouncing about her shoulders.
Lane turned to glance over his shoulder and shot his

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mother a cold glare. "I doubt this has anything to do with Randi being a Northerner, Mother."
Elena smiled. "Oh, come now, Lane," she said, her words laced with sarcasm, "are you saying that something is out there? A monster of some sort? Here on Bayou Noir—and none of us know about it?" She laughed.
"No, I'm just . . ." He turned back to Randi. "Let me get you a drink of sherry."
Randi looked around at the others in the room, meeting each gaze. It was clear from their expressions that no one believed her, including Lane. She stared at him. What had Evangeline said to him that had put that look of worry into his eyes? That had turned his usually carefree and happy disposition to one of somber gruffness? To almost insolent sullenness? And it had been something Evangeline had said, Randi felt certain of that, because that's when he had changed. Right after he'd spoken with the girl.
The others openly regarded her now with a mixture of disdain and amusement. Lane, however, actually looked as if he was worried. Or was it frightened?
Randi frowned. Frightened. Did he know what—or who— was out there? An image of Evangeline swept into her mind. Had it been her? Had she come to meet Lane again? Was he afraid Randi had seen them together?
She felt a stabbing ache in her heart, then instantly damned herself for her suspicions, for not trusting him.
"Perhaps you should go upstairs and lie down, dear," Elena suggested a little too sweetly. "We can have some cocoa sent up to you."
Randi smiled, though her insides were still trembling terribly. "Thank you, Mrs. DeCroix, but I think I'll remain here. I'm all right now. Although I did see something out there." She walked beside Lane to a small bar set to one side of the room. "What kind of animals live in the swamps around
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here?" she asked, keeping her voice low that the others couldn't hear her question. "Are there any large cats? Or bears?"
Suddenly a bloodcurdling scream split the night, a sound filled with horror, pain, and terror.
Startled, Randi jerked around to face the open French doors, fully expecting to see something come flying into the room. Lane dropped the glass he was holding.
The sound stopped as abruptly as it had shattered the peaceful silence.
Roland gasped. "My God, what in the name of the saints was that?"
Every face turned white as every eye stared out into the night.
Lane brushed the sherry he'd spilled off his trousers and stepped away from the bar. "If you'll excuse me," he said hurriedly, "I have an errand to do."
His words broke the spell that had fallen over the room's other occupants. Elena's head whipped around so that she faced him. "Now? Where are you going?"
Randi stared at him. A shadow had been drawn over his features, making them unreadable, his eyes fathomless pools of blue that left her indecisive as to whether the look she saw in them was one of anger or fear.
"I . . ." He turned away from Randi and looked at his mother. "I have some business to tend to. And I might be late. Make certain to lock the doors when you retire." He looked back at Randi. "All the doors," he said, and with that he turned and strode from the house.
"Well, where in tarnation is he going at this late hour?" Roland blustered. "And what was that infernal screaming all about?"
Elena glared at him. "Why don't you go on into the swamp and find out, Rollie?"

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He blushed and walked quickly to the bar. "I'm not that curious, Mother," he said, and poured himself a glass of bourbon. "Anyway, it's probably just one of the slaves down in the quarter having themselves a good time." He chuckled softly. "They do tend to get carried away sometimes with their dancing and mating."
"Or maybe it's Sabrina again," Mary said. She stared at her husband's back, and Randi got the impression that whoever Sabrina was, Mary felt her husband had too much interest in her.
Elena glowered at her daughter-in-law. "It's not Sabrina." She rose. "Probably just one of those horrid birds who live in there. I believe I'll retire now," she said, and moved toward the door to the foyer.
The others promptly followed suit, and within minutes the parlor was empty, except for Randi. The moment she was certain the others were on their way upstairs, she slipped out the open French doors of the parlor and hurried around the house. She arrived in view of the rear door just in time to see Lane walking along the shell-covered path that led through the formal gardens to the stable area.
Was he leaving? Randi felt a surge of apprehension. She couldn't follow him if he left, and if she didn't pursue him, she wouldn't be able to find out what was troubling him. Moving stealthily, Randi trailed him, thankful that she had picked a dark gown that would blend well with the night and prevent her from being easily spotted. She was too curious and frightened by his odd behavior to give much thought to feeling guilty at spying on him.
Lane moved hurriedly across the lawn. Halfway through the garden, he stopped.
Randi stood within the shadows of one of the massive oak trees, the long, sweeping strands of Spanish moss that hung from its branches further obscuring her from view.

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Lane paced endlessly, his gaze straying every few seconds toward the bayou as if he fully expected someone to emerge from its growth. Finally, after half an hour, he turned and walked into the stables. Minutes later Randi watched him ride past her, his cape billowing out behind him as he disappeared down the long drive.
******************
Randi paced her room, lay on the big bed, and stared up at the ceiling, and then rose and paced some more. She'd been unable to sleep for wondering where he'd gone, and why. Concern over the change in him, the quietness, brooding, and nervousness she'd seen in him since he had spoken to Evangeline haunted her thoughts. Along with a growing 'fear that she was losing him.
Finally, hours after he'd left, she heard him return to the house. The galloping sounds of his horse's hooves on the crushed oyster shells that covered the drive broke the silence and alerted her to his arrival.
Minutes later a light knock sounded on her door. Randi slipped into a wrapper and hurried to answer it, praying it was Lane and not someone with bad news.
"Are you all right?" Lane asked the minute the door swung open.
Randi gasped in alarm. His clothes were disheveled and smudged with dirt, and his hair was badly tousled. "What happened?"
He brushed past her and into the room, pushing a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. "I don't know." He began to pace the room, then spun on one heel and pushed open the French doors. He strode out onto the gallery. "I can't find Evangeline."
"Who is Evangeline?" Randi asked.
"A friend." He moved to stand at the balustrade and stared

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out into the night. "We grew up together. One of her brothers was my best friend. Damn." His fist slammed down on the iron balustrade. "Where the hell is she?"
"Lane?" Randi said, feeling suddenly frightened by his mood. She moved to stand beside him. "What's wrong?"
He shook his head. "I'm not sure." He turned to her and clasped her arms within his steely grasp. "But I want you to leave Bayou Noir, Randi. I want you to go back to the hotel in New Orleans."
"Leave?" Her heart contracted instantly, and tears stung the back of her eyes. "Why?" she choked.
"Because . . ."
"Papa! Papa!" Nedrick screamed. "It's got Toddy! It's got Toddy!"
Lane released his hold on Randi and spun around to look down at the moonlit grounds as his nephew raced across the lawn.
"Oh my god," he murmured softly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lane whirled and ran through Randi's room.
"Lane?" she called after him.
The sound of footsteps pounding through the halls and down the stairs filled the house, accompanied by frantic voices and soft screams.
Lane was the first to reach his nephew, several yards from the house.
"Neddie," he said, dropping to his knees and grabbing the young boy by the arms to stop his frantic dash toward the house. Nedrick's twin brother Kairn collapsed on the ground beside his brother and uncle, and gasped for breath. "What happened?" Lane demanded.
Nedrick whimpered.
"Neddie," Lane demanded, "tell me what happened."
Randi ran out onto the gallery.
"The thing got Toddy!" Nedrick screamed. His entire body trembled. "The thing got Toddy!"
Roland rushed out of the house and hurried to stand before his sons. "What the hell were you two doing out at this hour? Haven't I warned you about this?" he bellowed. "You snuck out again."
Nedrick and Kairn both burst into tears.
"Not now, Rollie," Lane growled. He looked back at Nedrick. "What thing, Neddie?" he asked, softening his tone. "What thing got Toddy?"

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"Lane, I can handle my own sons," Roland argued.
"Ug . . . ugly thing," Nedrick said between sobs. "A lady. A witch." His tremors turned to violent shakes. "It got Toddy, Uncle Lane. It got Toddy."
"She came out of the water," Kairn cried, throwing himself at his father's legs and sobbing.
Randi gasped and slapped a hand to her mouth. Were the boys talking about an alligator? Had Todd been caught by an alligator?
Roland knelt and drew Kairn into his arms just as Barbara flew down the stairs and knelt beside her sons.
Adam appeared on the gallery, still trying to get his spectacles hooked over his ears. Mary stopped her frantic dash and held to his arm. "What's happened?" Adam asked. "What's going on?" He stared down at the two boys. "Where's Todd?"
"Take the boys inside, Roland," Lane ordered. He turned to Adam. "Todd's out in the swamp, Adam."
"Swamp? He's in the swamp?" Adam blabbered. "What's he doing out there in the middle of the night?" He glanced at Randi and hurriedly pulled his robe closed.
Mary looked suddenly about to faint and ran back into the house.
"Get down to the quarters and wake up the men, Adam. We're going to need them to help search."
"I'll get dressed," Adam said.
"Adam," Lane yelled, his voice a thunderous roar, "did you hear what I said? Your son is missing. He's in the swamp—in trouble."
Adam stared dumbly at Lane.
"Forget about getting dressed."
Adam nodded and ran toward the slave quarters, his slippers kicking up bits of shells behind him as he did.
Lane turned toward the edge of the swamp.

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"Where are you going?" Randi asked anxiously.
Lane looked back at her. "Hopefully to find Todd." He closed the distance between them and pulled her roughly into his arms. "I'll be back as soon as I can." He kissed her hard, his lips momentarily ravishing hers, desperately drawing her passion into him as if for the last time. "Remember always that I love you, Randi," he whispered harshly. "Never forget that, no matter what happens." He abruptly released her and turned toward the stable.
His last words sent a chill through her heart. "Let me go with you, Lane," Randi said, suddenly more afraid for him than she'd ever been of anything in her life. "Please. I can help search, too."
"No."
Lane . . . please."
He turned to look back at her, his features hard-set, shoulders stiff, and his hands clenched into fists. "Stay in the house, Randi," he growled. "Whatever you do, stay in the damned house."
******************
By the time Randi got upstairs and retrieved her cloak and shoes, she could hear a dozen shouts coming from the yard. She draped the heavy black garment over her shoulders and, slipping her hands through the slits at its sides, tied it about her waist, totally obscuring the batiste nightgown she still wore underneath. Lifting the cloak's heavy folds, she ran from her room, down the stairs, and out onto the drive, her eyes searching frantically for Lane.
A servant, one she recognized as one of the house butlers, ran past her.
"Logan," she screamed.
The old man stopped, his white hair picking up the glow of the moonlight.

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"Where's Lane?" she asked.
He pointed toward a long row of cabins that sat on several acres to the north of the great house.
Randi turned to see Lane just disappearing toward the slave quarters. She raced after him but was no match for his long strides, which took him out of her sight within seconds. By the time she actually reached the quarters, everyone was up and standing about outside, their eyes filled with fright and question. Randi went from cabin to cabin asking after Lane, her gaze darting around frantically as she searched. Finally, just as she was about to give up and turn away, she saw him. He was standing at the corner of the last cabin in the row, almost hidden by the shadow of the building's overhanging roof. A woman stood before him, and they appeared to be in deep conversation, each gesturing widely.
Unlike Lane, the woman stood in the moonlight. She was at least fifty years of age but quite beautiful, and wore a long gown of purple silk. A sash of red and green was tied about her waist, its fringed tails trailing loosely down one side of her skirt. A turban of red-and-green silk was wrapped around her head.
Her exotic appearance instantly reminded Randi of Evangeline. She stepped behind the thick trunk of an oak tree, close enough to overhear them, but steeped within enough shadows so as not to be seen.
"What was that scream?" Lane demanded.
"Evangeline," the woman said.
"Evangeline?" Lane gasped. He grabbed the womanls arms. "What the hell do you mean it was Evangeline? Where is she, Sabrina? Is she hurt?"
"She is dead."
Lane sagged. "Dead?" he repeated. His hands fell to his sides. "How?" He shook his head. "Why?"
Randi started at the woman's words, but this time, rather

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than feeling jealousy, her heart went out to Lane. It was obvious he had cared for the girl very much.
"Liliandra," Sabrina said.
Lane threw up his hands. "That's preposterous."
Randi frowned in puzzlement at the name. When she had read it in his grandfather's journal, she had marveled at the beauty and unusualness of it. Did this Liliandra have a descendant? Maybe named after her as Lane had been named after his grandfather?
"She saw you with Evangeline," Sabrina countered. "And so she killed her."
Anger turned Lane's features hard. "Do you realize what you're saying, Sabrina? Do you realize what you're asking me to believe? It's impossible."
"It is true."
"How?" Lane demanded. "How can something like this be true?"
Sabrina shrugged. "She practiced the voodoo, Liliandra did. All her life. She was a queen. The best. Better than Marie Laveau even."
"No, Sabrina," Lane said. "No, I don't believe this." He started to turn away.
"Then more will die," Sabrina said. "Unless she is stopped, more will die."
Lane turned back and stared at her. "How can a woman who died eighty years ago come back to life, Sabrina? How? How could she kill Evangeline? And why?" He slammed a clenched fist against the house. "Tell me why, Sabrina? Even if it were possible by some quirk, why?" He stared at Sabrina. "And why Toddy? What does she want with Toddy?"
Randi felt herself nearly reel in shock and disbelief at the conversation she was overhearing.
"I only know what Majine says," Sabrina said. "She was there. She saw."

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"So tell me what Majine says," Lane growled. "Tell me what insanity I'm supposed to believe."
Sabrina looked about, as if suddenly she sensed that they were being watched and their words overheard. Taking hold of Lane's arm, she led him away from the cabins toward an open field.
Randi watched them, unable to follow without being seen. She raced back to the house and up the stairs, ignoring the questioning looks of Lane's mother and sisters-in-law, the two crying boys huddled in the parlor beside their mother, and the several dozen servants running about the lawn and lighting torches.
Slamming the door to her room, she retrieved the journal from under her pillow and hastily flipped through its pages. She didn't understand anything about voodoo or curses or black magic, but she did understand that something was horribly wrong and that there might be a clue to whatever it was, to whatever might fix it or make it go away, in the old journal.
Minutes later she heard Lane's voice below her window. She hurried out to the gallery and looked down at him. "Lane?" she called out to him.
He looked up. "Stay here, Randi. We're going after Toddy."
"Lane, wait," she said. "I have—"
"Let's go," Adam shouted.
Randi's eyes jerked toward the voice and saw him standing at the edge of the bayou. He held a torch above his head, the flames licking at the blackness and swathing him in a yellow glow.
Lane and several others ran across the lawn toward him.
Randi dashed back into her room. There had to be something in the journal. There had to be. She flipped through its pages quickly, her eyes quickly skimming the old writing. She stopped on a page whose writing looked as if it had

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been scribbled, or as if Lane's grandfather had been terribly afraid at the time he'd written it.
Majine swears it was Liliandra she saw. That she's come back for me, and possibly for Caroline and Elena, too. If it had only been me, if no one else had seen, then maybe I could convince myself that it wasn't true. That it had all been a hallucination spawned from my guilt. But Majine saw.
Randi's hand froze on the book's binding as she stared down at the words Lane's grandfather had written sixty-nine years ago.
Last night was a horror I cannot face again. I do not believe what happened, and yet I saw it with my own eyes. It is only a miracle I am still alive. A year ago today, on Allhallows Eve, Liliandra the woman I had loved, died. And last night, on the anniversary of her death, she came back.
"No," Randi whispered, unable to believe what she'd just read. Her heart pounded madly.
Majine says it is Liliandra's voodoo. That the powers she possessed in life have followed her into death. She came back for me, Majine says, and will keep coming until she has me—no matter how long it takes. I and mine are no longer safe here at Bayou Noir.
Terror, stark, cold, and penetrating, chilled Randi's blood. This couldn't be true. She looked through the open French door toward the dark bayou. It couldn't be. But something told her that it was. The book dropped from her hands, and she ran toward the door. Gathering her cloak, she gripped

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the banister and hurried down the stairs, whipping about the newel post and darting into the study. Her eyes sought and immediately found the portrait of Lane's grandfather.
"She thinks he's you," Randi whispered, horrified. "And that I'm Caroline." She turned and ran through the foyer and out onto the gallery. "Lane!" she screamed as loud as she could into the darkness. "Lane!"
Randi could hear the faint cries of the men searching the bayou, but their words were indistinguishable. Occasionally she would see the light of a torch, and just as quickly it would disappear, consumed by the swamp's overgrowth and shadows.
"Lane!" she screamed again.
"What are you shouting about?" Elena snapped, coming up behind her. "Don't you even have the good sense to know he doesn't have time to mollycoddle you right now. Let him do what has to be done."
Randi whirled on Lane's mother. "He's in danger out there," she said. "And you know it."
Elena's eyes shone with indignation at Randi's outburst. "Lane knows what he's doing. He grew up here and knows that bayou as well as anyone. Maybe better."
"But he doesn't know about that thing out there, does he?" Randi accused. "He doesn't know, but you do."
"Thing?" Elena glared at Randi hatefully. "What kind of ridiculous Yankee nonsense are you spouting now? Something to get my son to move away from here again? Maybe up North, to your home in Maryland?" Elena's words were laced with bitterness.
Randi stared at the old woman. She'd been wrong. Elena didn't know. She really didn't know. Randi turned away from her and stared into the bayou. He was out there. He was in danger, and there was nothing she could do to help him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Adam emerged from the bayou and walked toward the house, Todd's body cradled in his arms.
Randi watched them approach. Fear seized every cell in her lithe form. "Is he ... is he all right?" she asked softly.
Todd's clothes were stained and ripped in several places. His hair was tousled wildly about his head and caked with swamp muck, and several scratches marred one cheek. He lay huddled against his father's chest, his eyes squeezed closed, his hands, balled into fists and tucked firmly under his chin.
"He's fine," Adam answered, "except that he's half-scared to death and exhausted. Evidently he got himself lost in there and started imagining all sorts of things." Adam glanced down at his son and scowled. "And that's exactly what he deserves for sneaking out there in the middle of the night in the first place and frightening his poor mother and me."
Randi followed them into the house. "Imagining things? What things, Adam? What did he say he saw?"
"Monsters. When I found him, he was babbling about some monster woman rising up out of the swamp." Adam shook his head in disgust. "Probably saw a gator." He began to mount the stairs. "Logan, have hot water and bandages brought up to Todd's room," Adam yelled over his shoulder to the servant who had followed him from the swamp and into the house.

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Randi walked back onto the gallery. "Lane," she whispered softly, staring out into the blackness, "where are you?"
She heard a sound behind her and turned. Adam brushed past her and strode to the center of the lawn. He raised an arm, pointed the gun he held in his hand toward the sky, and pulled its trigger: once, twice, three times.
Randi started with each blast.
"Why did you do that?" she asked as he returned to the house.
"To let everyone know the search is over."
She stared at the dark border of the bayou hopefully. Lane would come back now. Minutes later several field hands straggled out from the thick growth and moved toward the slave quarters. Two more appeared a short time later. Then Roland emerged, followed by three more servants.
"Where's Lane?" Randi asked anxiously.
Roland mounted the shallow steps to the gallery. Perspiration dripped from his fleshy jowls, and the rich silk threads of his shirt clung to his barrel-shaped chest. He glanced at her dismissively and shrugged.
"Roland," Randi snapped, her tone one of intense fear. She grabbed his arm. "Where is Lane?"
"I don't know." He jerked free of her. "He went in a different direction than I did. Most likely he made it farther into the swamp and it's taking him a little longer to make his way back out. Stop fretting."
Randi continued to wait and stare into the darkness. An hour later she was still waiting, and everyone else had returned. She paced the length of the gallery. Her fear had mounted with the passing of each minute so that now she found herself terrified beyond reason. Lane was still out there—with that thing. She had to do something.
Whirling about, Randi stormed into the house and into the parlor where everyone was congregated around the three chil-

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dren. Nedrick and Kairn had made a rapid recovery from their terror and were sitting side by side on the floor before the fireplace happily munching cookies. Todd, however, lay cradled in his mother's arms, his eyes still closed tightly against the world, and his complexion pallid.
"We have to go find Lane," Randi said.
Everyone turned toward her.
"He hasn't come back." She balled her hands into fists to control their trembling. "It's been an hour since you signaled everyone to return, and he's not back. Something's wrong."
"Lane knows that swamp like the back of his hand," Roland said. "He'll be fine."
"But it's been an hour," Randi repeated, her voice rising with her fear. "It's dark out there, and the swamp's dangerous. He could be lost. Or hurt."
Adam whirled around to glare at her. "What do you know about anything down here? About getting lost in the swamp? Or even hurt?"
The others smiled smugly.
"Lane was born here," Adam continued. "He's used to things, knows what to do and what not to do. He's fine."
"Then where is he?" Randi asked, on the verge of losing her composure. "Why hasn't he returned? You fired those shots over an hour ago, Adam. Everyone else is back. Where's Lane?"
"Maybe the ugly lady got Uncle Lane," Todd said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
Randi closed her eyes for a moment, trying to maintain a grip on what little self-control she still had. She walked across the room and knelt down beside Todd. "Toddy," she said softly, "where did you see the ugly lady?"
"There is no ugly lady," Adam barked.
"She came up out of the water," Todd continued, ignoring
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his father. "We were playing next to that big hibiscus plant that Neddie likes. He picks its flowers for Auntie Mary."
Randi knew where it was. It was where Neddie had taken her and where she'd gotten lost. She looked up at the others.
"There is no ugly lady," Adam said again. "It's just an excuse, a tale, so that he won't get into trouble for disobeying the rules and sneaking out of the house."
Randi rose and hurried into the study where she'd replaced the journal. A moment later she returned to the parlor, the journal in her hand. She thrust it at Adam. "Look at this," she demanded.
"I'm really not in the mood to read right now, Miss Baines," he sneered.
For the brief flash of a second, Randi felt like slapping his face. His own brother was in trouble, life-threatening trouble, and he was acting as if nothing were wrong. She snatched the journal back out of his hand and flipped its pages until she came to the part about Liliandra, about the woman's return from the dead. "Here." She thrust it back at Adam. "It's all there, Adam. Everything Todd said." She felt her panic rising, threatening to overwhelm her, and knew she was powerless this time to stop it. "It's true," she cried. "And it's after Lane. That thing out there is after Lane. That's what this is all about."
Not waiting for their reply, Randi turned from the room and left the house. It was insane. Irrational. Unbelievable. But she knew, somehow, instinctively, that it was all true. She grabbed one of the extinguished torches that had been carelessly discarded on the drive and touched its charred end to the flame of the lantern that hung next to the door to light the gallery. Tongues of fire instantly burst to life about the wrapped fabric. Randi ran across the lawn toward the bayou and plunged into its depths, calling Lane's name loudly with each step.
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Adam and Roland ran to the gallery and watched her disappear into the lush overgrowth.
"She's crazy," Roland said.
Randi held the torch high in one hand. The flame lit the immediate area around her, turning the leaves of the darker green plants to shimmering planes of black emerald and the lighter ones to silver. But beyond the three-foot circle of light, darkness enveloped everything, the pale rays of the moon that broke through the thick limbs of the trees offering only weak illumination in spots.
Her cape brushed against the rough trunk of a tree, and the fabric caught. Randi tugged it free and heard the fabric rip. She crashed through the dank underbrush, trying at once to be both careful and quick. The heels of her slippers sunk in the soft earth with each step.
Something slithered across her path.
Randi stopped and screamed. Her heart hammered violently against her chest, and her breath turned ragged. "Oh. God," she whimpered and looked around. Was she even heading in the right direction? She'd only been in here once, and everything looked so different in the dark. "Lane?" she called. "Lane?"
Laughter echoed on the still night air. Randi's head jerked around to face the direction in which she thought it had come; directly ahead and just a little to her left. It sounded again, taunting and vile, and sent a chill of fear sweeping up her back. "Lane?" She hurried toward the sound, terrified of what she would find, or not find, but knowing she had to keep going until she found him.
Her foot slipped from the narrow, moss-covered strip of land she was traversing. It plunged into the murky water, causing Randi to fall to her other knee. Mud and black water immediately began to soak into her cloak and nightgown. She jerked her foot out of the water and staggered to her
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feet. A black shiny worm clung to the hem of her skirt. She forced herself to ignore it and stumble on.
A soft splash in the turbid waters just to her right sent another tremor of fear through her and caused her to hesitate.
The laugh sounded again, taunting and maniacal.
"Lane?" Randi screamed.
A soft groan emanated from the darkness to her left. Randi swung around to face it and held the torch out in front of her. "Lane?"
The groan sounded again.
She crashed past the thick leaves of a palmetto, heedless now of the danger, of where she stepped or what she ran into. She had to get to Lane. Swatting a thick fern aside, Randi staggered past it and into a clearing, a moonlit lagoon in its center. She looked around frantically, and then she saw him lying on the ground only a few yards away.
"No," Lane cried weakly. He held up a hand as if warding her off. "Stay back, Randi. Stay back," he gasped.
He lay on his side on the opposite shore of the tiny lagoon, the weight of his upper body supported by a propped-up elbow. His clothes were wet, torn, and covered with the quagmire of the swamp, and his usually lustrous black hair hung in limp, dirt-covered strands. A jagged line of torn flesh marred one cheek. Blood seeped from the wound and glowed crimson in the pale stream of moonlight that shone on him from above.
"Lane!" Randi screamed, and ran toward him.
"No!" he cried, putting all of his strength in the command. "Stop!"
Randi hesitated.
"It's me she wants," he said weakly. "Then it will be over."
She was here. Randi looked about frantically, sensing the danger, the evil that had lain in wait for so long, the diabolic malevolence that had risen out of the depths of the bayou to

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destroy their lives. Lane's grandfather had escaped it by giving up his home and moving away. But Liliandra had waited, her hunger for revenge unsatiated. She had waited for him to come back, and now she thought Lane was his grandfather, her long-ago lover.
"No," Randi said. She took a step toward Lane.
Suddenly the waters of the lagoon began to swirl, its moon-touched surface erupting into a maelstrom. The murky black depths churned madly, foaming water sprayed into the air, and a hand, its flesh like rotted leather, shot up from the center of the tempest.
Randi screamed and jumped away from the water's edge, her gaze riveted on the figure emerging from the lagoon. Terror held her immobile, clutched at her heart, at every nerve in her body, and left her helpless. She had read the journal and told herself she believed what Lane's grandfather had written. Yet now that she actually saw it—saw Liliandra—Randi knew that she hadn't really believed the jilted mistress and voodoo queen still existed.
Long tangled strands of dark hair spread out upon the water's surface, then drifted over bony shoulders as Liliandra continued to rise. Eyelids, little more than shriveled flaps of skin within deeply sunken sockets, fluttered open to reveal eyes dark with loathing and malice. Dried, twisted lips split in a smile, and a demonic laugh spewed forth.
Randi felt a scream tear at her throat, but no sound emanated from her trembling lips. A snake, its black-and-red body glistening beneath the moon's glow, slipped from around Liliandra's skeletal neck, writhed downward between shriveled breasts, and disappeared back into the water.
Suddenly, spreading her arms wide and whirling about, Liliandra turned her back on Randi and moved to stand beside Lane. The ragged folds of her gown spread around her

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in shreds, and the same acrid odor that Randi had smelled the night she was attacked filled the air.
She looked down at Lane, then over at Randi, and laughed. "He is mine now," she said, her voice little more than a gravelly groan. "He is mine." Turning back to Lane, Liliandra spread her arms again and began to lower herself over him.
"No!" Randi screamed.
Liliandra stopped and looked over her shoulder. "He belongs to me."
"No." Randi summoned every ounce of courage she could and, holding her spine stiff, took a step toward them. "That's not Lane DeCroix."
Liliandra looked back at Lane, then turned a cunning glance back to Randi. "You can't fool me this time."
"Randi," Adam said from behind her. His voice was filled with terror. "I have a gun."
"It won't do any good," Randi said without turning to look at him.
"Let us try," Roland said.
"No. There's no time." She took another step toward Liliandra and Lane. "Liliandra," she said, "listen to me. That's not Lane ... not your Lane."
Liliandra turned. "You can't stop me. We belong together, Lane and I."
"That's not Lane, Liliandra," Randi said again. "That's his grandson."
For one brief second, one millisecond of time, Randi saw confusion in the dark eyes, but it disappeared almost as abruptly as it had appeared.
"No," Liliandra said. "He’s mine."
"You killed Lane," Randi snapped. "You didn't love him. You killed him."
Liliandra whirled around, fury at Randi's words turning her eyes to burning coals of light. She bared teeth yellowed and
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half-rotted by silt and swamp water, her leatherlike flesh crinkling horribly at the gesture. "I loved him," she screamed suddenly, the words echoing endlessly through the bayou. "I loved him."
"No," Randi said again. "You didn't love him. At least not enough. If you had, you wouldn't have destroyed him. Love doesn't destroy, Liliandra, and you destroyed Lane DeCroix."
"I? I would never. It was her—you! He loved me. Me!" She whipped around and stared at Lane, who was attempting to rise to his feet. One bony hand swung out to touch him.
Lane staggered back to avoid her touch and fell to one knee. His complexion was deathly white.
Randi saw that he was too weak to move farther. She took another step toward Liliandra. "Your love destroyed Lane, Liliandra. If you had truly loved him, you would have wanted him to be happy, even if it meant giving him up to someone else. That's what love is, Liliandra—wanting the other person's happiness."
Liliandra's eyes glazed with hatred, but she did not move.
"But you denounced him," Randi continued quickly, "and because of your selfishness, because of the translucence of what you called love, your actions damned him to a life of misery, a life ridden with guilt."
"She—you tried to take him away from me."
"Caroline loved him, just as you did," Randi said. She knew she was fighting for Lane's life, and hoped, prayed, that she was doing it the right way. "But neither of you loved him enough. She went insane because of the guilt she carried inside of her for having shot you, and Lane died a broken, lonely, grief-stricken old man. And all because of you, Liliandra. All because you professed to love him. You killed him, Liliandra. The man you loved. You killed him."
"No," Liliandra said. She ran into the water and tilted her head toward the sky above. "No!" she screamed, over and

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over, her arms rising upward as if pleading for someone to denounce Randi's words. "I loved him. I loved him."
"Your love destroyed him!" Randi yelled into the maelstrom.
"No!" It was a soul-wrenching cry of denial that filled the bayou, shook every leaf and flower, echoed across the open pastures of Bayou Noir, and sent a chill racing up the spine of everyone who heard it
Her arms stretched above her head, her clawlike fingers reaching toward the heavens, rotting shreds of lace and silk hanging from her skeletal limbs. "Lane!" she screamed, the woeful, miserable sound more that of a wounded animal than a human.
Suddenly the waters of the bayou rose up around her like a swirling inverted whirlpool. Glistening black waves enveloped her, swelled, writhed, and churned, and instantly subsided. She was gone.
Randi ran to Lane and threw herself into his arms.
The others stood silent, watching, knowing that if not for Randi, their brother, and quite possibly they themselves, would be dead.
Lane drew her into his arms and held her tight. "I thought that was the end," he whispered raggedly. "Before you came she had taken hold of me. I tried to fight her, but she was so strong and I suddenly felt so weak."
He pushed to his feet, drawing Randi up with him. "I'm all right now, except I still don't understand what happened."
"It was her power," Randi said. "She was a voodoo queen. Evidently, once she had you in her grip, she knew how to drain your strength away."
"She would have killed me," Lane said. He looked down at Randi and pulled her back into his arms, back into that embrace of strength and virility that made her feel so loved and secure. He glanced toward the now-still water. "She

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would have killed me," he said again, "if you hadn't stopped her."
"I love you," Randi said simply, raising her head to receive his kiss.