Midnight in Ruby Bayou (29 page)

“Let 'er rip,” Walker called back. “Tiga just fainted. We're in the parlor.”

“Oh, no!” Mel cried. “Jeff, I need you!”

She yanked the kitchen door fully open, Boomer took off, and the library door swung wide at the same time. Looking disheveled and hunted, Jeff ran out of the library. Dog and man collided, skidded, windmilled.

Jeff caught himself and the hound with the ease of long practice. “Settle down, you big mutt.”

Boomer woofed softly and licked Jeff wherever he could reach him. Jeff strengthened his grip on the dog's collar and thumped his barrel amiably. He and the hound strode toward the front of the house.

“Didn't you tell them to come in the back way?” Jeff asked as Mel hurried to catch up with him. “I don't even know if the lights still work in front.”

“I forgot to tell them. Tiga fainted.” Mel hurried past her husband and the dog. “They're in the parlor.”

Jeff cursed under his breath. “Leave it to Tiga to put on a show for company. Heel, Boomer.”

The dog wagged his tail and leaned harder into his collar.

“You've forgotten everything we taught you,” Jeff complained to the hound.

“That would have taken all of five seconds,” Mel said over her shoulder.

“Slow down, darling. You might slip. Tiga's all right. You know what she's like.”

“That's why I'm worried about our guests.”

After his chat with Daddy, so was Jeff, but he didn't say anything. He was still reeling between disbelief and fear. He felt like a chicken thrown into an alligator pond. Until he figured a way to get out of it, he didn't have energy for frills like strategy. Survival was all that mattered.

As Mel hurried into the parlor, Tiga moaned and opened her eyes. She saw a dark beard, a hard-edged mouth, and deep blue eyes that were watching her intently.

“Are you a pirate?” she asked in a little-girl voice.

“No.” He smiled gently. “I'm just an ordinary Low Country boy, Miss Montegeau. How are you feeling?”

“Quite well, thank you. And you?”

“Fine. Do you remember fainting?”

“Did I faint?” She let out a long breath. When she spoke again, her voice was that of an adult. “Oh, dear. I thought it was one of The Dreams.”

Walker raised his eyebrows at the capital letters in her voice. “The dreams?” he asked politely.

“Tiga, don't you dare,” Mel said quickly. “You promised you wouldn't, uh, dream when we had company.”

“Did I? What was I thinking of? I don't choose the time to dream, child. It chooses me.”

Mel turned and looked over her shoulder. The eager Boomer had just towed Jeff into the ornate, faded parlor. The dog's nails scrabbled on the hardwood floor and then fell silent as soon as they bit into the beautiful old carpet.

“Hi, I'm Jeff Montegeau, but things will sort out faster if you meet Boomer first,” he added.

Faith looked up and saw a man who could have modeled for any up-scale men's fashion magazine, but it would have taken a woman to really appreciate his lithe build and beautifully sculpted face. Gray eyes. Blond hair. A smile that made you believe he meant it. A voice as supple and beguiling as a cello. She gave Mel a look that said,
Nice going, roomie,
and then turned back to Jeff Montegeau.

“I'm Faith,” she said, smiling at him. “That hundred-pound wonder is Boomer, I take it?”

Hearing his name, Boomer lunged forward, tail thumping against everything within range.

Just as the dog wrenched loose from Jeff's grip, Walker reached out and snagged the big hound's collar.

“Easy, boy,” Walker said, bracing himself. He jerked once on the collar. Hard. “Sit.”

The dog's butt hit the floor and he panted happily up at Walker.

“Good dog,” Walker murmured, running his hands appreciatively over the hound's short, smooth coat. “You're a handsome feller, aren't you? Long, strong legs for swamp running. Deep chest for stamina. Short fur to make it easy to find ticks, widely spaced eyes, enough forehead for the brains you never use.” As he talked, he squatted on his heels next to Boomer and scratched the hound's long, silky black ears.

Boomer's eyes glazed with adoration.

Walker glanced up at Jeff, who was almost as pale as his aunt Tiga. Nervous, too. “I'm Walker. What is he—black-and-tan, redbone, bluetick?”

“Yes,” Jeff said dryly.

Walker smiled. “One hundred percent hound. Two hundred percent knothead.”

Boomer's tail slapped the rug in happy agreement.

“How do you feel about dogs?” Walker asked Faith.

“Envious of everyone who has the time to take proper care of one.” She walked forward and savored the soft whuffing sounds as the loose-lipped hound sniffed her hand. When he began to lick intently, she laughed and petted him.

“I wouldn't get up just yet, ma'am,” Walker said, sensing movement behind him.

Tiga ignored him. She sat up and stared at Faith.
“Ruby.”

Mel rolled her eyes at Jeff, who sighed and tried to deflect his aunt before she got off into one of her loopy, semi-rhyming monologues.

“Aunt Tiga, this is Faith Donovan,” he said. “No one by the name of Ruby lives here anymore.”

Tiga gave her nephew a pitying look. “There are none so blind as those who won't see.”

“The original Ruby died more than two hundred years ago,” Jeff said patiently. “Ruby wasn't her real name. It was just a pet name her father gave her.”

Tiga shuddered. “She hated him. It was a different Ruby, anyway. She went away so long ago, far away, good-bye, I never got to know you. I'm a child, too, you see.” With a heartbreaking smile, Tiga turned to Faith. “I'm glad you came home to me, Ruby. I was so angry when Mama took you away. I looked for you a long, long . . . so long, good-bye, hello, now I'll know and you never will.”

Her laugh was gentle, musical, and gave Faith goose bumps even as tears burned against her eyelids. Tiga was fascinating, eerie, and frightening by turns. Her eyes were twilight gray, haunted by something unspeakably sad, unspeakably terrible.

Faith wanted to believe it was simple madness.

“Tiga,” Davis said from the door of the library. “Are you being silly again?”

Tiga jumped as though slapped. “Papa?”

Pain flickered across Davis's lined face. “Papa died, Tiga. I'm his son. Your brother.”

“Oh.” She sighed. Blinking as though coming into light after long darkness, she turned to Faith again. “Have we met?”

“I'm Faith Donovan,” she said gently.

“I'm Antigua. People used to call me Miss Montegeau, but now everyone just calls me Tiga. May I call you Faith?”

“Please do.”

Tiga nodded and stood with the agility of a woman half her age. “Dinner at eight.” Then she walked out of the room as though no one else was there.

When Davis heard pots and pans clash toward the back of the house, he let out a sigh of relief. “Welcome to Ruby Bayou, Ms. Donovan, Mr. Walker. Please excuse my sister. She means no rudeness. She isn't entirely . . . here. This hasn't been one of her better weeks.”

Davis was an older version of Jeff, more puffy and more hunted. His eyes were the same fog gray as his son's, but the whites were a road map of red blood vessels. His white hair was just beginning to thin on top. His skin was pale except for a flush that could have been embarrassment, fever, or booze.

“No problem,” Faith said, forcing herself to smile despite the emotions still ripping at her. “Sometimes things get a little hectic around the Donovan family, too.”

“Hectic.” Davis smiled like a man not accustomed to it. “Well. I'll show you to your rooms. After you freshen up, we'll eat. Tiga might be, uh, scatterbrained about some things, but there's no finer cook in the Low Country. We don't dress for dinner anymore. If you'll follow me?”

Don't dress for dinner . . .

For a moment Faith had visions of everyone sitting down naked to eat. Walker's grin told her that he knew what she was thinking. She didn't look at him, afraid she would laugh or blush. She didn't look at him when she saw that they had connecting rooms, either. If she had, she
would
have blushed, remembering her own threat to sneak into his bed and lick him all over.

Biting her lip, she concentrated on the accommodations. The suite had been designed for a visiting family. There were bedrooms on either side of a shared sitting room. A bathroom had been added on to the larger bedroom forty years ago, according to their host. That was when Mrs. Montegeau had been alive and they had entertained nearly every week.

“I'm afraid you'll have to share the bathroom,” Davis said apologetically. “The other ones on this floor just aren't reliable anymore, except for the suite Mel and Jeff use, which is on the opposite side.” With a hand that had a fine tremor, he gestured toward the far reaches of the second story.

“This is wonderful,” Faith said quickly. “It's very kind of you to have us on such short notice.”

Davis closed his eyes for an instant. The visions of disaster he saw awaiting him weren't pleasant. He opened his eyes and looked at the likeable young woman who was his future daughter-in-law's old friend.

And perhaps his own salvation.

In the meantime there was whiskey. With enough of it, he wouldn't think about all of his mistakes coming back to haunt him.

“My pleasure, I assure you,” he said softly. “We have drinks in the library before dinner, if y'all would care to join us.”

“Thank you,” Walker said. “We'll be down as soon as we have a chance to freshen up.”

“I'll bring up the luggage,” Faith said after Davis disappeared.

Walker was already out in the hall, heading downstairs. “You're in the South, remember? I'll get it.”

“But—”

“Unless you're wanting company in that bathroom,” he drawled, “you better hurry along. I'm not fixin' to be late to a Low Country feed cooked by Antigua Montegeau.”

* * *

Faith was relieved when the cocktail hour was over. She no longer wondered about the cause of her host's flush. Despite lethal looks from Jeff, Davis had consumed two whiskeys in short order and was hard at work on a third. Mel was looking strained beneath her generous smile. Walker was impassive, as though the sight of a man drinking way too much was familiar. Considering the little that he had told Faith about his childhood, she was pretty sure Walker's thoughts weren't happy, no matter how bland a face he put over them.

Exactly at eight, Tiga picked up an antique crystal bell and swung it briskly. Sweet sounds rang through the hall leading to the dining room.

Boomer had been curled asleep in front of the unnecessary but attractive fire. At the sound of the bell, the hound scrambled to his feet, bolted out of the library, and took up his station at one end of the table, just beside Davis's tall-backed captain's chair.

Except for dust on the extravagant chandelier, the dining room was much cleaner than the parlor. Time and use had turned the intricate, elegant lace tablecloth from white to gold, but the delicate threads were mostly intact. While the huge mahogany table, sideboard, china cupboard, and eighteen chairs could have used a good polishing, the woven seat covers were relatively fresh and glowed with rich jewel tones in the candlelight.

Despite tarnish, the ornate silver candelabra and silverware added to the warm light of the pale beeswax tapers. They looked like living satin glowing from within. The bone china was either as old as the house or an excellent reproduction. Faith guessed the former because the intricately designed gold border on each plate had been dulled by use. Cut-crystal pitchers filled with icy mineral water waited by each place setting.

No matter what the status of the present Montegeau generation, there had been real money around in the past.

Or real pirates.

Walker caught Faith running a thoughtful fingertip around the gold-rimmed crystal wine goblet and smiled. She didn't have to hear his low murmur of Black Jack Montegeau's name in her ear to know what Walker was thinking. The bad old days had been very good to some Montegeaus.

The dark, ostentatious, gilt-framed portraits on the wall announced just who had benefited from the legacy of piracy. Every generation of Montegeaus since Black Jack's had been painted in turn, except the two most recent.

And each woman was wearing one piece of ruby jewelry that would have suited an empress.

“None of them are the same,” Walker said, following Faith's glance at the portraits.

“What?” she asked absently.

“The rubies they're wearing. Either the necklaces weren't passed down or each generation designed new settings.”

“You have a good eye,” Jeff said. “The tradition was that after each portrait was painted, the jewelry went into the Blessing Chest to assure the fortune of that generation and the next. Once in the Blessing Chest, jewelry could be worn but never sold without bringing bad luck. At least, that's the family legend.”

Walker whistled softly and looked at the portraits with new interest. “That would be a chest worth opening.”

“Tell me about it.” Jeff's voice was bitter. “It disappeared in my grandparents' day.” He looked up as his aunt handed him a platter heaped with deviled crab that had been stuffed back into individual shells. “Thank you, Tiga.”

She nodded and took her seat. Though there were only six people at the big table, she sat down alone at the far end, opposite her brother, Davis.

“People were still talking about that when I was a boy,” Walker said. “A sad occasion all the way around.”

Jeff smiled slightly. “I thought I heard Low Country in your voice.”

“Born and mostly raised,” Walker agreed. He took a bite of deviled crab. “Lordy, Lordy,” he murmured. “Miss Montegeau, it's God's own miracle some man hasn't up and stolen you for your cooking skills.”