LITMIR.BIZ

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silence.

      “Louis Martin is our lawyer,” Vivian said. “He was due here this afternoon but he never showed up. We decided he’d forgotten the appointment. Now I don’t know what to think.”

      “I think your mother’s right. He drove here then changed his mind. Maybe he got a message and had to turn around.”

      “Without taking the trouble to tell us?”

      Spike looked at Vivian again and was uncomfortably aware that each time he did so was more disturbing than the last. He liked looking at her but she made him heat up. Ah, what the hell, he’d accepted her mother’s invitation because he wanted an opportunity to be with Vivian long enough to see if there was really a spark between them.

      There was a spark.

      “Should we check on your mother?” he said.

      Vivian nodded and walked ahead of him. Her straight black hair slid around her shoulders. She was one of those women with a tiny waist but plenty of curves north and south. But it was her face he’d kept right on seeing from the first time they’d been introduced, at Bigeaux’s hardware store in Toussaint. Her eyes were unforgettable and he’d spent serious time considering her full mouth. Exotic might be a fair classification, not that he thought she’d fit too easily inside any boundaries.

      His father’s sour reaction to this visit wouldn’t leave him. Homer Devol didn’t have much use for women and he didn’t think Spike had any reason to think of them kindly, either. Homer’s parting words this evening had been “Don’t listen to me, then. Go on and make a damn fool of yourself, you. They’re old money and anythin’ between you will look like you’re tryin’ to get above yourself.”

      Spike had come anyway, even with Homer’s “Don’t you go bringin’ another woman around if she ain’t gonna stay. Wendy don’t need that.”

      He wouldn’t do anything to hurt five-year-old Wendy, no way. But he was a man with a man’s needs and he’d been alone too long.

      Charlotte Patin had heaped fresh vegetables onto an enormous and worn cutting block in the center of the kitchen. The room was big and at the apex of the high ceiling was an old-fashioned window that could be opened with a chain on metal cogs and pulleys when the heat got too much. What looked like the original spits were still in a fireplace that had to be more than six feet wide.

      “Okay,” Charlotte said. “If you want to help, Spike, chop those.”

      He started rolling up his sleeves. “No problem. I’m an expert.”

      “Spike brought us flowers, Mama,” Vivian said, not liking the harassed expression on her mother’s face.

      Charlotte gave him a sweet smile. “Thank you. They’re lovely. We need something bright and cheerful around here.” She returned to pulling food out of the refrigerator.

      Foreboding slipped over Vivian like a cold shroud. What would make Louis turn away when he’d already gotten here? “Will you excuse me for a few minutes, please,” she said, avoiding Spike’s serious glance. “I’ll be right back.”

      She hurried from the kitchens with Boa at her heels. Where she thought she was going, she didn’t know, but she had to get somewhere and breathe outdoor air while she thought.

      On the other side of the main hall from the receiving room was a small, even more shabby sitting room with disappearing corners that made it seem rounded. Uncle Guy hadn’t been well for some years and he’d let Rose-bank go, but she and Charlotte would make it beautiful again. Vivian raised her chin. She couldn’t give up now. They’d find the money to carry on the renovations. This place was their only chance to make up for what they’d lost.

      In the sitting room she picked up the phone beside a gilt chair with an unraveling cane seat. She called directory enquiries for New Orleans and gave the name of Louis’s firm—never expecting to get a response at this time of day.

      “Legrain here.”

      She almost hung up. “This is Vivian Patin. My mother and I are clients of Louis Martin.”

      “Well yes, Ms. Patin. I know your name. I’m Louis’s associate, Gary Legrain. I believe we’ve met.”

      She didn’t remember. “Did Louis set out to visit us today?”

      A short silence. “Why, yes. He left this mornin’.”

      “He didn’t get here.”

      More silence. “That’s not possible. If something had happened, a car accident or whatever, we’d have heard.”

      “I was hoping he’d gone back to his offices,” Vivian said, the cold feeling intensifying. She hadn’t considered Louis getting in a car wreck after he turned back.

      Gary was quiet for too long before he said, “He didn’t come back,” and sounded funny.

      “Could he have gone home? Felt ill perhaps and decided to call it a day? Maybe Mrs. Martin—”

      “There isn’t a Mrs. Martin anymore. He has grown children but he lives alone—except for staff. Let me call them and get back to you.”

      “Don’t call,” Vivian said. “My mother’s a bit anxious. I’ll call you in five minutes.”

      They hung up and she waited, praying Mama wouldn’t come looking for her. Fortunately, when Mama cooked, she tended to forget everything else.

      Vivian called Gary Legrain again.

      “He isn’t there,” the man said and although he was obviously trying to sound unconcerned, she’d unsettled him. “Look, this isn’t too comfortable to talk about and the last person I should say anything to is a client but I don’t know what else to do.”

      Vivian waited.

      “Ms. Patin, recently I’ve been happy to know that Louis has a new companion in his life. Well, this is…hmm, apparently they don’t like to be parted. If I had to guess—”

      “You’d say Louis got to our front door and was overcome by a mad need to bang his girlfriend? Yes, I understand. When you see him, Mr. Legrain, please let him know I’d like to hear from him.”

      “Ms. Patin, I’m sure it wasn’t quite like that.”

      “Are you? Thank you for your help.” She hung up, disconcerted by her own bluntness and embarrassed at her sharp treatment of Gary Legrain who had been doing his best to smooth things over.

      She and Charlotte didn’t want to take on more loans, not without being certain Guy hadn’t planned this whole thing. He’d been principled, but a joker. It would be like him to let them have a taste of really wanting the place and not being able to afford it before help showed up in some form. When Louis had set up today’s meeting, he’d alluded to a considerable infusion of funds from Guy’s estate, “In a strange way.”

      Each time Vivian confronted the mess that was her life she thought about her father. He must have been frantic to put his business to rights. Family, his wife and daughter, came first for David Patin.

      She heard laughter, actual laughter from the kitchens and felt a rush of unfounded jealousy. Hearing her mother laugh should make her happy. Hearing Spike laugh did give her a lot of feelings, feelings she had no time for.

      Snatching the flashlight they kept at the bottom of the staircase in the hall, Vivian slipped quickly and quietly through a maze of corridors lined with closed doors until she found the one that led into an overgrown formal garden at the back of the house, behind the south wing.

      Warmth still clung to the evening and the sweet, sultry scents of honeysuckle and clematis blossoms sweetened the air. Crickets and frogs had taken over the soggy grass and sang out their raucous chant.

      She walked around the perimeter of the south wing, continued to the end of the west wing and finally reached the front of the house. Rosebank was shaped like an “H”

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