Chapter Four
Sweet Dreams Plantation House, Mal Chance Bayou
Lantern alight and rifle in hand, Grace left by the back door, as night defeated dusk.
Every evening for the last eight days, she’d gone to the dock.
The gentle lap of the bayou against the wood soothed, helping her relax while the moon rose.
Tonight, would be the same as every other night since she’d arrived. Except for that first night.
She found herself again searching the tree line for any sign of her visitor.
He must have taken me seriously. Surprising as that was, the captain’s continued absence was a blessing.
Right now, I don’t need or want any company, and certainly not that of some conceited stranger.
Grace didn’t care how handsome he might appear in the moonlight or how odd his attire.
Clouds scudded slowly over the pale orb, making her glad of the lantern.
Two steps from the house, a scent caught her attention.
She sniffed, cinnamon and…spent black powder.
The sulfurous scent was imprinted on her memory from a demonstration of antique canons in one of her graduate classes.
The odor wasn’t normal for a backwoods bayou.
Grace needed to seek it out and destroy it, before the irritating aroma destroyed her peace.
Moonlight pierced the cloudy curtain. A man stood near the dock. Ever present fear and worry froze her in place.
Run. Hide. I won’t. No matter how much I want to.
He faced the bayou, so she couldn’t tell if it was Flynn. However, her appraiser’s skills helped. She catalogued his appearance. Loose white shirt, tight pants, tall boots. The exercise helped suppress the debilitating emotions.
Only one man she’d ever met wore such an outfit.
He turned, confirming her analysis.
“Bonswa, chère.” The so-called captain executed a bow more suited to a royal court than a bayou.
The timbre of his deep voice layered anger over every other feeling. She set down the lantern, marching toward him, shouldering the rifle, aiming at his head. “I told you never to come back.”
“I know, chère. However, you are too intriguing to resist.” He smiled. The man had entirely too much confidence.
She snorted drawing nearer. “Stuff and nonsense. Who are you, and what are you doing on my property? Kiyès ou ye e kisa w ap fè sou pwopriyete mwen an?” she repeated in Creole, to be certain he understood.
He was tall, as handsome as she recalled, in an earthy sort of way.
In her mind’s eye flashed an image of the Luc from that odd dream.
Dark hair, blue eyes—shadowed tonight despite the moon.
His white shirt bore numerous ugly stains along with the oval tear she’d caused. Why hasn’t he changed his clothes?
The question was too intimate to ask of a virtual stranger.
The thin lawn fabric fell loose to his waist, revealing a well-muscled chest. His tight pants revealed his waist and hips to be attractively narrow, supported by thighs as deliciously muscled as his abdominals. The trousers disappeared into a pair of tall boots any swashbuckler would envy.
The clouds retreated offering a better look at his face. Sparks lit his blue eyes. He’s laughing at me?
Grace pursed her lips and threw him her hardest glare. A glare that had had any over-reaching client quaking in their patent leathers and spats.
Flynn’s lips parted. Straight white teeth gleamed in a smile he probably thought was charming at best and dis-arming at the least. Perhaps it worked, with other women.
He shrugged. “Would you consider lowering that rifle?”
She shifted her aim to his shoulder.
“Ou pa kreyol?” she asked.
“No, darlin’.You’re right. I’m no Creole.”
“Not Creole but, Irish.” She tilted her chin up.
The black brows rose. “You’ve a good ear, darlin’.”
Since he’d made no aggressive move, Grace pointed the rifle at the ground, but deepened her frown. She really didn’t want to shoot him. She did want to demonstrate she wasn’t happy seeing him again. “Where you learned to speak hardly matters. Answer my question. What are you doing at Sweet Dreams?”
“I stopped to visit a friend,” he said.
He’s lying.
Grace could see through his nonsense. “That’s rich. No one has lived here in more than twenty years.”
“Oh? Did I say she lived here?” Flynn arched an eyebrow, as if to make his innocence more apparent.
“Stop talking in circles. If you have a paramour waiting for you down the road, please go to her and cease trespassing.” The man defined irritating.
“Ah, darlin’.” He spread his arms wide. “I’ve a standing invitation from the owner.
’Tis no trespassing I am.” His accent thickened, and the laughter in his eyes became a laser sharp gleam.
“Since I am the owner, and we are not acquainted, you lie.”
His brows rose. “Is that so? You’ve been gone a long time. What brought you back? Are you here now to evict the spirits who haunt this place?”
“Pah, spirits, ghosts and such don’t exist. You aren’t as intelligent as you look, if you imagine I’d be frightened away by such idiocy.” She rolled her eyes.
His smile broadened. “So, you think, I am intelligent.”
“Looks are deceiving,” she quipped. His speech was that of an educated man. However, education did not equal intelligence.
He mocked a sigh. “I am devastated that you think me capable of deception.”
“When you say you know the owner, you lie. So of course, you are capable of deception.” Grace punctuated her hard statement by gesturing with her rifle, but she didn’t bring it back up to her shoulder.
“Mais non. I’ve known Sarah Alden for decades.”
“Sarah Alden was my aunt. As my guardian and friend, she managed Sweet Dreams until she died two years ago.” Grace relaxed her grip on the rifle. Perhaps he wasn’t as much of a threat as she’d believed.
The smile and the gleam fled. Grief crept into the sapphire eyes, and—
Is that a tear?
“I’m sorry to hear it. She was a good friend.” His voice tightened, as if his emotion was genuine.
“You knew her?” She reared back in disbelief.
“For most of her life, darlin’.”
She frowned. “I know you mean nothing by it, but calling me darling is very inappropriate. Please stop.”
“As you wish.” Flynn tugged on his forelock and bowed. “What should I call you?”
“Nothing!” Grace straightened, setting her aim once more.
This man, this bringer of disruption had to be banished.
“If you won’t answer my questions, we have nothing to say to each other.
Now leave. If I find you here again, I’ll send for the sheriff.
” She waited. She would not allow him to frighten, intimidate, or cajole her.
Frogs and cicadas consumed the silence between them. “You’ve no one to send, Grace Thibodaux. However, I’ll honor your wishes, until I’m next able to visit. Bonswa, chère.”
He’d called her by name. Grace frowned. “How did you…?” She spoke to the air. Clouds had moved in, covering the three-quarter moon, stealing the light. Has he really left?
She tried to penetrate the gloom. Beyond the glow of the lantern, the yard and the bayou were pitch black. Just as before, she could almost believe she’d imagined the man. He’d known Sarah’s name and her own. How?
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The breeze finally rose.
Grace loved thunderstorms, reveled in them.
Years had passed since she’d last indulged her senses.
She might have done so with tonight’s storm.
However, her unwelcome visitor had stolen what little peace she’d gained from her visits to the dock.
The leaves rustled in the wind like a muted chorus of go now!
She smiled at her imagination. She’d had the same kinds of thoughts about disembodied voices as a child. Perhaps her older memories would return, with more time at Sweet Dreams. Grace paced slowly back to the house, retrieving the lantern on her way.
I should have shot him and tossed his corpse to the gators. Why didn’t I?
What was wrong with her that she let his cheeky replies interest her?
She tried to empty her mind, to regain some sense of calm. She failed. Grace couldn’t rid herself of the mental image of Lucien Flynn. He’d actually smiled when he’d seen the rifle.
Thinking about that smile was better than moping about the loss of her life in Boston and her tendency to cower first before fighting back. No one in Boston had truly been her friend, nor was anyone here.
Aunt Sarah had always said that dwelling on the past only kept a person from attaining their best future.
I want the best future I can get, but I’m not certain what that looks like.
Regardless, she’d do everything necessary to get what she wanted.
No attractive, smooth-talking stranger would stand in her way.
Grace settled into her nightly routine. Soon, the melody of Early One Morning floated from the keepsake box, and she opened the ship’s log.
The pages filled with ‘ship’s bells, longitudes, latitudes, daily discipline for minor infractions, and watch reports of ‘no change’ were fatiguing.
Something had to happen on the ship eventually.
She skipped about thirty pages, finding herself in the middle of the day’s events from 12 February 1814.
“Made Barataria shortly after mid-day. Left ship to make peace with LaFitte…”
***
Moments after Grace’s light went out, Luc made his usual rounds, checking to ensure Sweet Dreams remained undisturbed.
He’d caught sight of two men walking toward the entry gate.
It’d happened on other nights during the dark hours.
Folk sometimes mistook the turn into the property then retraced their steps back to the road.
A quick glance at the sky showed only a small change in the gibbous moon’s position.
He was returning to the Only Love and his nightly toast to the moon, when he caught the tinkling sound of mechanical notes. The tune, belonged to a song he’d not heard in nearly a century. He’d played it too frequently in his mind. However, tonight the sound was too real.
Luc drifted back to the house, up to the second story, and through the open French windows of Grace Thibodaux’s bedroom.
She slept in an aged bed. To one side stood a time worn table, supporting a keepsake box. Where did that come from?
Why didn’t I see or hear it before now?
Perhaps because he would never have expected it?
He’d done all possible to forget that box and everything connected with it.
The box was identical to the one he’d given Grainne the day he proposed.
He took a closer look. It even had a silver acorn that hid the hole where the mechanism key should be inserted to wind the box and play the music.
Using his spectral abilities, Luc turned the box on its side and peered at the bottom.
Both keys rested in the slots made for them.
He’d thought the box lost to time, like his beloved. How had it come into Grace’s possession?
Someday he would ask her.
Beside him, she stirred in her sleep, mumbling unintelligible words. His spectral senses told him she was troubled. Luc’s curiosity rarely roused. Given his decades of experience, he’d seen entirely too much, and understood people better than he wished.
He focused his energy, ignoring his body’s increasing pain.
Existing in two different states—physical and ephemeral—at one time hurt.
He’d had close to one hundred years of practice managing that agony, and could now maintain his focus for much longer periods.
Luc concentrated his energy closer to Grace.
She could have filled his arms. Before the curse, had they been lovers, he would have enjoyed waking her.
For now, he took great care not to touch her and focus only on knowing her thoughts, her dreams.