Нора Робертс - Midnight Bayou

In any event, the staircase was the focal point. It rose up, wide and straight to the second level, where it curved right and left to lead to each wing.

What a single man with no current prospects or intentions of being otherwise needed with two wings was a question he didn't want to ask himself at the moment.

The banister was coated with gray dust, but when he rubbed a finger over it, he felt the smooth wood beneath. How many hands had gripped there? How many fingers had trailed along it? he wondered. These were the sort of questions that fascinated him, that drew him in.

The kind of questions that had him climbing the stairs with the door open to the rain behind him, and his possessions still waiting in the car.

The stairs might have been carpeted once. There probably had been runners in the long center hallway. Some rich pattern on deep red. Floors, woodwork, tabletops would have been polished religiously with beeswax until they gleamed like the crystal in the chandeliers.

At parties, women in spectacular dresses would glide up and down the stairs– confident, stylish. Some of the men would gather in the billiard room, using the game as an excuse to puff on cigars and pontificate about politics and finance.

And servants would scurry along, efficiently invisible, stoking fires, clearing glasses, answering demands.

On the landing, he opened a panel. The hidden door was skillfully worked into the wall, the faded wallpaper, the dulled wainscoting. He wasn't certain how he'd known it was there. Someone must have mentioned it.

He peered into the dim, dank corridor. Part of the rabbit warren of servants' quarters and accesses, he believed. Family and guests didn't care to have underfoot those who served. A good servant left no trace of his work, but saw to his duties discreetly, silently and well.

Frowning, Declan strained his eyes to see. Where had that come from? His mother? As tight-assed as she could be from time to time, she'd never say something that pompous.

With a shrug, he closed the door again. He'd explore that area another time, when he had a flashlight and a bag of bread crumbs.

He walked along the corridor, glancing in doorways. Empty rooms, full of dust and the smell of damp, gray light from the rain. Some walls were papered, some were down to the skeletal studs.

Sitting room, study, bath and surely the billiard room he'd imagined, as its old mahogany bar was still in place.

He walked in to circle around it, to touch the wood, to crouch down and examine the workmanship.

He'd started a love affair with wood in high school. To date, it was his most lasting relationship. He'd taken a summer job as a laborer even though his family had objected. He'd objected to the idea of spending those long summer days cooped up in a law office as a clerk, and had wanted to work outdoors. To polish his tan and his build.

It had been one of the rare times his father had overruled his mother and sided with him.

He'd gotten sunburn, splinters, blisters, calluses, an aching back. And had fallen in love with building.

Not building so much, Declan thought now. Rebuilding. The taking of something already formed and enhancing, repairing, restoring.

Nothing had given him as big a kick, or half as much satisfaction.

He'd had a knack for it. A natural, the Irish pug of a foreman had told him. Good hands, good eyes, good brain. Declan had never forgotten that summer high. And had never matched it since.

Maybe now, he thought. Maybe he would now. There had to be more for him than just getting from one day to the next doing what was expected and acceptable.

With pleasure and anticipation growing, he went back to exploring his house.

At the door to the ballroom he stopped, and grinned. "Wow. Cool!”

His voice echoed and all but bounced back to slap him in the face. Delighted, he walked in. The floors were scarred and stained and spotted. There were sections damaged where it appeared someone had put up partitions to bisect the room, then someone else had knocked them out again.

But he could fix that. Some moron had thrown up drywall and yellow paint over the original plaster walls. He'd fix that, too.

At least they'd left the ceiling alone. The plasterwork was gorgeous, complicated wreaths of flowers and fruit. It would need repairing, and a master to do it. He'd find one.

He threw open the gallery doors to the rain. The neglected, tumbled jungle of gardens spread out, snaked through with overgrown and broken bricked paths. There was likely a treasure of plantings out there. He'd need a landscaper, but he hoped to do some of it himself.

Most of the outbuildings were only ruins now.

He could see a portion of a chimney stack, part of a vine-smothered wall of a derelict worker's cabin, the pocked bricks and rusted roof of an old pigeonnier-Creole planters had often raised pigeons.

He'd only gotten three acres with the house, so it was likely other structures that had belonged to the plantation were now tumbling down on someone else's land.

But he had trees, he thought. Amazing trees. The ancient live oaks that formed the allйe dripped with water and moss, and the thick limbs of a sycamore spread and twisted like some prehistoric beast.

A wash of color caught his attention, had him stepping out into the rain. Something was blooming, a tall, fat bush with dark red flowers. What the hell bloomed in January? he wondered, and made a mental note to ask Remy.

Closing his eyes a moment, he listened. He could hear nothing but rain, the whoosh and splash of it on roof, on ground, on tree.

He'd done the right thing, he told himself. He wasn't crazy after all. He'd found his place. It felt like his, and if it wasn't, what did it matter? He'd find another. At least, finally, he'd stirred up the energy to look.

He stepped back in and, humming, walked back across the ballroom toward the family wing, to check out each of the five bedrooms.

He caught himself singing under his breath as he wandered through the first of them.

"After the ball is over, after the break of morn; After the dancers leaving, after the stars are gone …”

He stopped examining baseboard and looked over his shoulder as if expecting to see someone standing behind him. Where had that come from? he wondered. The tune, the lyrics. With a shake of his head, he straightened.

"From the ballroom, idiot," he mumbled. "Ballroom on the mind, so you start singing about a ball. Weird, but not crazy. Talking to yourself isn't crazy, either. Lots of people do it.”

The door to the room across the hall was closed. Though he expected the creak of hinges, the sound still danced a chill up his spine.

That sensation was immediately followed by bafflement. He could have sworn he smelled perfume. Flowers. Lilies. Weddings and funerals. And for an instant he imagined them, pure and white and somehow feral in a tall crystal vase.

His next feeling was irritation. He'd only sent a few pieces ahead, including his bedroom furniture. The movers had dumped it in the wrong room, and he'd been very specific. His room would be the master at the corner, overlooking the garden and pond at the rear, and the avenue of oaks from the side.

Now he'd have to settle for this room, or haul the damn stuff himself.

The scent of lilies was overpowering when he shoved the door all the way open. Almost dizzying. Confused, he realized it wasn't even his furniture. The bed was a full tester draped in deep blue silk. There was a carved chifforobe, a tall chest of drawers, all gleaming. He caught the scent of beeswax under the floral. Saw the lilies in that tall, crystal vase on a woman's vanity table, its legs curved like the necks of swans. The chair was delicate, its seat an intricate needlepoint pattern of blue and rose.