The Devereaux Legacy Read online

  Leah wondered how many mistresses of Devereaux House had walked along this path in years past. Was it from this tower that Marthe had waited for Timothy? Had she kept a pistol hidden in the folds of her skirt?

  Leah shivered.

  Merrick noticed at once. “Let’s go back. I’ll shield you from the wind.”

  She hesitated, drawn by the tower. “Can we go up in it?” she asked impulsively.

  “What?”

  “The tower. Let’s go up. It must have a marvelous view.” She moved ahead of him, turning toward the tower door. Then she saw the chain and stopped.

  Merrick caught up with her. “I keep forgetting that you don’t know us, that everything is new to you. The tower door’s been locked and chained for years. I’ve forgotten why. Rotten flooring or unsteady stairs, something dangerous. Cissy wanted to have the whole thing pulled down five or six years ago, but Aunt Carrie wired back from Nice to let it stand. It was built by a local architect of some renown.”

  Leah stared up at the glass windows at the top. The tower was even more intriguing close up. “Look at the funny sides,” she exclaimed.

  “It’s built in an octagonal shape,” Merrick explained.

  “It would be fun just to peek inside.”

  Merrick laughed. “You and Kent Ellis. He was asking about keys just the other day, but even the keys are long gone. We’d have to take a hacksaw to those chains to get in.”

  “Who’s Kent Ellis?”

  “You’ll meet him one of these days. He’s a protege of Aunt Carrie’s, and he’s doing some digging near the old slave quarters.”

  “What in the world for?”

  “Oh, he’s an archaeologist. He’s on the staff at Mefford Junior College, and he’s nutty about everything old. I mean really old. He’s digging up some refuse deposits and reopening a well. He’s especially interested in the area where the overseer’s house once stood. Aunt Carrie’s fascinated by all of it, and she’s let him pitch a tent on the far side of the hill, near the old slave cabins.” There was a note of reserve in Merrick’s voice.

  “Don’t you like him?” A bold question, but she felt comfortable in asking Merrick. She would never have asked Cissy or John Edward.

  He shrugged. “I have no reason not to like him. It’s just . . .” He paused, then said openly, “All right, I’ll tell you what bothers me. Three things happened here this summer. Aunt Carrie came home from Nice. Kent Ellis cozied himself into the family circle. And The Whispering Lady reappeared after an absence of nineteen years.”

  They walked on past the tower, down a curving path that led into the heart of the garden. Azaleas swept like open arms along the periphery. Weeping willows, their long slender fronds swaying in the night breeze, encircled a huge pond. Leah smelled the sweetness of jasmine, honeysuckle and oleander, but her mind was on The Whispering Lady. The magazine article said she had been seen again in the Devereaux gardens. Now Merrick lumped the ghost’s reappearance with Carrie Devereaux’s return and Kent Ellis’s arrival.

  “Where is she seen?” Leah asked, and her throat felt tight.

  “There.” Merrick pointed at the pond and its rustling guard of willows. “Across that footbridge. Can you see the gazebo?”

  A graceful summerhouse loomed ahead, darker than the shadows. So that was where a ghost moved in the deep of night. And if a ghost walked again, there was evil, Louisa had written. Evil, growing and spreading, reaching out to touch them all.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “Neither do I,” Merrick replied, but his voice had an odd sound to it.

  She looked at him sharply. “You have some idea about it, don’t you?”

  He was silent for a long moment. Then, finally, he said, “No. No, not really.”

  She experienced a twinge of disappointment. She had felt so close to him all evening—until now, when he’d made such a careful, noncommittal response. He knew or suspected something about the ghostly appearances. She was certain of it. But he wasn’t going to share his thoughts with her.

  “Come on, Leah, let’s walk down to the dock.” Once again, his voice was warm.

  He took her hand and guided her along the path. She asked him about the river, its depth and currents, and was glad that she managed to keep her voice relaxed and casual. Her heart was beating with excitement and something more, an incredible awareness of his nearness.

  They reached the dock, which looked rickety and worn. Leah stepped out onto the weathered boards and looked out at the dark water, now a curving band of silver in the moonlight. As she trod on an uneven board, she twisted her ankle and began to fall.

  Merrick reached out to catch her, and then she was in his arms. She looked up, but the moon was behind him and she couldn’t see his face clearly. Her heart thudded wildly. She had an instant’s sense of the rightness of being in his arms, but at almost the same moment, they broke apart.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. She wondered if she heard a hint of breathlessness in his voice, but perhaps that was only her own feeling.

  “I’m fine. Thanks for helping me.” She looked around at the dark pockets of shadows beneath the willows. “So this is where The Whispering Lady appears. How many times has she been seen this summer?”

  “Three, I think.” There was a note of reserve in his voice again.

  “Has anything bad happened to Grandmother?”

  He stiffened beside her. “Why do you ask?”

  “She told me about her accidents when The Whispering Lady was seen . . . and my parents were lost.”

  “Oh. So she told you that.”

  Suddenly, Leah felt shut out, pushed away. Why didn’t he want to talk about the danger to Carrie?

  They stood there for a few moments, neither of them speaking. Then Leah started over the wooden bridge. “I’d better go in now.”

  “I’ll walk with you.” His voice was still slightly aloof. But when they had reached the house, he put his hand on her arm. “I’ll take you around tomorrow, to see the plantations.”

  Then he turned away and was gone in the night.

  A long moment passed before she walked up the back steps. Once inside the house, she hesitated, then returned to the library.

  Cissy looked up and studied her intently.

  Leah smiled. “Now I’ve seen the Devereaux gardens by moonlight, and I found them to be lovely. I’ve just come in to say good night. And, Grandmother, I’m so happy to be here.”

  Carrie Devereaux’s dark eyes sparkled. “You can’t know, child, what it means to us to have you here.” She began to struggle up out of her chair.

  “Don’t get up,” Leah said quickly.

  “I want to go upstairs with you.”

  Leah helped her to rise, and they walked slowly out of the drawing room, Leah holding her grandmother’s arm to support her. It was odd, she thought, how quickly and easily she’d come to think of calling Carrie Grandmother, the name that for so long had belonged to Louisa. But it came naturally, and she knew she was going to love this grandmother, too, hard and prickly though Carrie Devereaux could be. Leah felt certain she could bring happiness to her and ease some of the sorrow that still lay in her eyes.

  They took their time climbing the curving central stairs, stopping twice for Carrie to rest.

  “Tomorrow we’ll show you all of Devereaux Plantation, and you can see the gardens in the early morning. They are so lovely when the mists rise. That’s the time to imagine what it was like when Claude Devereaux first built here.”

  They stopped in front of the bedroom to which Henry had brought Leah in the afternoon.

  Carrie Devereaux looked up at her sternly. “It took great courage, child, to come into a wild land and struggle to build a home.”

  “I’m sure it did.”

  Leah’s grandmother thumped her cane. “We Devereaux have courage. You remember that.” Then she reached out, gently touched the ornate doorknob and opened the door. “I’ve not stood here for more than twenty yea
rs. This was my daughter’s room.” She took a deep breath. “And now it will be yours. Good night, child.”

  Leah stood in the open doorway as her grandmother slowly made her way down the hall. Then she went inside and closed the door behind her.

  A single lamp burned softly on the dressing table. The bedcovers had been turned down, revealing pale yellow sheets. A pitcher of ice water sat on the table by the bed, along with a cut-glass tumbler. The pale gray walls with their rose pattern seemed as muted as a seascape at dawn.

  Suddenly Leah had a vision of another room, a cheerful girl’s room in faraway Rockport, filled with modern white furniture, bright travel posters and a bulletin board thick with pictures, notes and all the happy memorabilia of her school years. She looked slowly around the elegant bedroom in which she stood, and had a sudden suffocating sense of what it would be like to grow up at Devereaux Plantation.

  Her nightgown lay across the pillows. Her hairbrush and comb were in place on the dressing table. She walked forward and watched her image in the mirror. She leaned close and stared into her eyes and thought of the portrait in the dining room. Her eyes. Her mother’s eyes. Dark pools in a narrow, pale face.

  Leah whirled away from the mirror, but she couldn’t escape her mother, not in this room suddenly laden with her memory. She faced the mirror again. She wasn’t Mary Ellen. Dark eyes stared back at her.

  She was Leah Devereaux Shaw—and didn’t she owe something to the shadowy figures who had been her parents? And to her newly found grandmother?

  Leah nodded slowly.

  So she wouldn’t let fear or the hint of horrors long hidden drive her away. She would face down John Edward’s enmity and Cissy’s limp welcome.

  She would not even let Merrick’s charm dissuade her from finding out about the ghost who was again walking in the Devereaux gardens.

  She undressed and put on her nightgown, then looked for a long moment at the old-fashioned bed, which her mother had used as a girl. Determinedly, she climbed into it and lay there watching moonlit patterns on the walls for a seemingly endless time.

  Chapter Six

  Leah woke up as the first streaks of dawn pearled the eastern sky. She got out of bed, pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the veranda to look out across the gardens, dimly seen now in the early-morning mist, the pinks and reds and yellows of the roses barely visible. How utterly lovely—and Merrick would be coming to take her to see the plantations today. A tingle of excitement pulsed within her. She was so eager to see him. Then she remembered how he had withdrawn last night when she’d asked about the accidents that had threatened Carrie.

  Did he think that she threatened her grandmother?

  It was an ugly thought. But ugly things had happened at Devereaux Plantation. Surely he didn’t suspect her of being part of any plot. He was wary about the archaeologist, Kent Ellis. Perhaps she should make it a point to talk to Kent Ellis as soon as possible. And she wanted to find out more about the night her mother and father had left on the yacht—and more, much more, about her mother. Her grandmother had said Old Jason loved her mother. If he was still alive, she would talk to him.

  She walked to the end of the veranda. From there she could see the pier where The New Star had anchored and the octagonal tower high on the bluff overlooking the river.

  Later, Leah would wonder what impulse drove her to return to her room and hurry, pulling on a blue cotton blouse, white shorts and sneakers. She brushed her hair and added a touch of lipstick, then slipped out into the hall and down the stairs.

  The house lay silent. Only the frenzied, cheerful chirp of the birds broke the early-morning quiet. Once outside the house, she stood at the top of the garden, looking down toward the small pond and the summerhouse. She had almost started down the path to the summerhouse when she heard the sound of footsteps on the crushed oyster shells. She swung around.

  Cissy moved purposefully, her hands swinging at her sides, her eyes on the path. When she looked up, only a few feet from Leah, her hand flew up to her throat.

  “I’m sorry,” Leah said quickly. “I’ve startled you.”

  Cissy drew her breath in sharply. “Not at all. I see you are an early riser, too. I often walk at this hour. It’s so peaceful, so lovely.”

  The sun was beginning its rise now. A pale pink-and-orange light touched the tops of the tall trees and the glassed-in tower. Leah thought it would be glorious to see the river and the house now from the tower.

  Impulsively, she reached out and touched Cissy’s arm. “Could we go up in the tower? Merrick says he doesn’t even know if there are any keys left. But didn’t you close it up? Surely there are keys somewhere—”

  The arm beneath her hand went rigid, and she drew away.

  Cissy’s face flamed. “Didn’t he tell you? The tower is unsafe. It’s dreadfully dangerous. I keep telling Aunt Carrie it must be pulled down.” Then she quieted her breathing and managed a smile. “You mustn’t listen to anyone who suggests entering it.” She took Leah by the elbow. “Come, now, I’m not being a good hostess—” She broke off abruptly and laughed. “There I go, forgetting that I needn’t feel responsible anymore. But Aunt Carrie was gone for so long that I got used to taking care of everything. Still, I’ll stand in for her this morning and insist we go in and have breakfast.”

  Leah gave one last look at the tower, then followed Cissy up the steps to the second-floor veranda and a breakfast table with a commanding view of the garden.

  Hal pushed back his chair and rose to greet her. “Morning, Leah.”

  “Good morning.”

  As Cissy sat down beside her husband, Leah noticed how her hand touched his shoulder. It was the touch of a woman who cared, deeply and passionately. Cissy obviously adored her slender, aristocratic and, to Leah, somewhat boring husband.

  After she sat down in the wicker chair and accepted a cup of coffee from Henry, she felt a moment’s amusement. How odd life was. Perhaps she had been naive to assume that because Cissy seemed selfish and preoccupied with her social status, she wasn’t capable of love. Leah had been wrong about that.

  Cissy now appeared friendlier, more relaxed. “How long can you stay with us?” she asked as she passed a basket of fresh, hot blueberry muffins.

  Leah buttered a muffin, then looked up in surprise mixed with bewilderment. “Do you know, I hadn’t even thought about that. I work at a travel agency in Dallas. When Louisa died, I went home, of course, to take care of everything.” She didn’t want to talk about finding that just-begun letter and the magazine article. “Then I decided to try and find out more about what happened to my parents, so I called my boss and asked for two more weeks. So I suppose . . .”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  A man’s deep voice seemed to fill the veranda. Leah turned in her chair and saw Merrick approaching.

  “You can call him today and tell him that you won’t be coming back. You’re home now.”

  Home.

  The sunlight flooded around him, much as it had yesterday afternoon when she’d first seen him. Again he was in command, his voice resonant, his expression full of warmth. There was no indication that last night he had seemed aloof, even for a moment. He reached out and touched her shoulder.

  His arrival considerably brightened her morning. Breakfast was no longer a mundane, necessary activity. It was fun, and everything tasted like the ambrosia of the gods.

  Finally, Merrick waved Henry away. “Enough food, enough coffee. Our newest member of the family has much to see today.”

  “Where are you going?” Cissy asked.

  “We’ll start with the house. Then I want to take Leah to see all the plantations.” To Leah, he explained, “We have five, and I especially want you to see Ashwood, where I live. But first, a guided tour of Devereaux House.”

  He pulled her to her feet and held her hand a little longer than was necessary. Then he gave it a firm squeeze and led the way downstairs.

  In giving her a guided tour of the
house, Merrick recounted stories about the former inhabitants. As much as she loved the house and the stories, which gave her a sense of community with long-lost kin, she loved being with Merrick. She loved the eagerness in his eyes when he talked and the way his hair flamed like copper in the morning sun. She loved the feel of his hand on her arm and the deep sound of his voice. And she wondered if he felt at all as she did.

  Her uncertainty made her voice brisk. “I’ve enjoyed seeing the house with you, but I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

  “I’m taking the day off. Today is going to be all yours. I want to show you everything you’d like to see.”

  Leah hesitated, then asked, “Will you show me where The New Star was?”

  For an instant, the pleasure left his face; then he nodded.

  They went outside and headed down the avenue of trees. The Mefford River glittered in the sunlight. About fifty yards from the water, they came to the point where the country road intersected the treelined avenue. Yesterday—could it only have been yesterday?—John Edward’s Porsche had angled across the road, blocking Leah’s access to the house.

  She said it aloud without thinking. “John Edward didn’t want me to see Grandmother.”

  Merrick frowned. “I don’t know, Leah. That might not be true.”

  “I don’t think there can be any doubt about it,” she countered.

  Merrick was looking at her strangely. “You have to remember how much you look like Mary Ellen.”

  She stared at him, puzzled. “What does that have to do with it?”

  He took her hand and held it in a firm, strong grip. “Your mother was supposed to marry John Edward.”

  “John Edward!” she exclaimed. Carrie hadn’t told her that. Oh, how awful it must have been—the wedding planned, the dress bought, the guests invited, and her mother, driven to desperation, running to the man she truly loved.

  “Carrie didn’t tell you?”

  “No. It must have been dreadful.”