Нора Робертс - Midnight Bayou

It doubled him over, that hideous pressure, that shocking loss of air. "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. My baby's crying for me, and I can't breathe. He kills me. While my baby's crying in her crib. Our baby. While he's still inside me. He breaks me like a toy that belongs to his brother.”

He lifted his head, looked at her now. And when he spoke, his voice was so full of grief she wondered they both didn't die of it. "You didn't come. I called, but you didn't come.”

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

"She came." Declan got rockily to his feet. "She came, and she saw what he had done to me. She looked down at me like I was a mess that had to be cleaned up before the neighbors came to call.”

His eyes were dry now, and narrowed at the slamming of doors on the second floor. "Her house, her sons, and I was the bayou slut who'd trespassed. I watched her look down on me. It was like a dream, that watching. I saw her tell him to carry me out, down to the bedroom, while she cleaned up the blood, and the candle wax, and the broken crockery. He took my body out the gallery, but I watched her, watched her go over to my sweet baby, and I heard her mind wonder if it would be best just to smother the child. She considered it, and I believe if she'd tried, there was enough of me left that I could have struck her down like a lightning bolt.”

He walked back to the door. "She thought I was weak, but she was wrong. They could kill me, but they couldn't end me.”

"Declan, that's enough.”

"No, not yet." He walked down the steps, down the hall, opened the door to Abigail's bedroom. "He laid me on the bed in here. And he wept. Not for me, but for himself. What would happen to him? His hand had defiled me, and killed me, but he thought only of himself. And does still. For he's in this house, he and Josephine. Walking and waiting in their little hell.”

He crossed over to the wall where the armoire had been, opened the door of it in his mind. "They took some of my clothes. I had the gown in here for the ball. I was so proud of it. I wanted to be beautiful for you. Make you proud of me. She dropped my watch, but didn't notice. She had Julian wrap me up, and they carried me out, with the suitcase full of my things. They got old bricks to weigh me down, and they carried me away.

"It was hard. Even though there was moonlight, even though it was cool, it was a hard walk carting all of that. Julian got sick, but she brooked no nonsense. They would say I ran off with another man. They would let the gossip spread that my baby was a bastard, fawned off on you as your own. She told Julian how it would be as they put the bricks over me, as they tied the cloak around me with rope, as they pushed me into the bayou.”

He looked back at her. "You believed them.”

"No." Lena was weeping now. For him, for Abigail, for herself, for Lucian. "No.”

"Not at first. You feared for me. You searched for me. You wept for me. I tried to reach you, but you wouldn't let me in. You wouldn't let me in because some part of you already believed their lies. I loved you. With all my heart, my soul, my body. I died for you.”

"I couldn't stop what happened to you. I wasn't here to stop it.”

"No, you weren't here that night. And you were never really here again. Not for me, and not for our child. You broke your promise to me, the solemn vow you made to me in that bed the night she was born. More than death, that is what doomed us.”

"How did I break my promise?”

"You promised to love our child, to care for her always. I was always true to you, Lucian. You have to know.”

"I do know." She closed her hand over the watch in her pocket and felt the weight, the grief, the sorrow.

"How could you leave her alone? How could you turn from her? You were all she had. You swore to me.”

"I don't know. I was weak. I wasn't as brave or as true as you. Maybe … I think maybe you were the making of me, and when you were gone, I had nothing to hold me straight.”

"You had Marie Rose.”

"Perhaps I loved you too much, and her not enough. Forgive me. Forgive me for what I did, for what I didn't do. I can't go back and change it." She drew out the watch, held it face up in her palm. "No matter how often time stops, it's too late. If I could, I would never leave you. I'd take you and the baby away. I'd do anything to stop what happened to you.”

"I loved you. And my heart ached every minute since they took me from you. Ached with grief, then with hope, and then with sorrow. You chose death, Lucian, rather than life. Still you choose loneliness rather than love. How can I forgive, when you can't? Until you do, they've won, and the house that should've been ours still holds them. None of us will ever be free, until you choose.”

He turned, opened the gallery doors and walked outside.

The door slamming at her back made her jolt. It was, Lena thought, like a rude laugh aimed at someone else's misery. Ignoring it, she stepped outside, took a deep breath.

"Declan.”

He was leaning on the baluster, staring out at the first hints of dawn. "Yeah. I'm trying to figure out if I need an exorcist, a psychiatrist, or if I should cash in and see about starring in a remake of The Three Faces of Eve.”

He rolled his shoulders, as if trying to shrug off an irritating weight. "I think I'll settle for a Bloody Mary.”

Cautious, she stepped up behind him. "I'll make us both one," she began, and started to lay her hand on his back. He sidestepped, evading her touch, and left her standing there with her hand suspended.

"I don't need to be petted and stroked. Still a little raw here. Comes from getting raped and murdered, I guess." Jamming his hands in his pockets, he strode down the steps.

She waited a moment, struggling for balance, then walked down to join him in the kitchen. "Let me make them. I'm the professional.”

"I can make my own goddamn drink.”

It stung when he snatched the bottle of vodka out of her hand. Stung like a slap. "All right then, make your own goddamn drink. While you're at it, you oughta think about living your own goddamn life.”

She spun away, and when he grabbed her arm, she lashed out with her own slap. When her hand cracked across his cheek, the clock began to strike again, and the doors to slam.

Cold settled gleefully into the bone.

"You ever been raped?”

She yanked her arm free. "No.”

"Probably haven't been strangled to death, either?" Forgoing the niceties, he took a long drink straight from the bottle. "Let me give you a clue. It tends to put you in a really foul mood.”

Temper drained out of her. "Don't drink like that, cher. You'll only get sick.”

"I'm already sick. I need a shower.”

"Go on and take one. You'll feel better for it. I'm going to make some tea. Just let me do this," she snapped out before he could argue. "Maybe it'll settle us both down some." "Fine. Whatever." He stomped up the stairs.

She sat for a moment, just sat because her legs were still shaking. Then she took the watch out of her pocket, studied the face. The second hand ticked around and around. But the time never went beyond midnight.

Putting it away again, she rose to brew the tea.

She carried it up, along with the tidy triangles of toast. The sickbed meal her grandmother had made for her in childhood. He was sitting on the side of the bed, wearing a tattered pair of sweatpants. His hair was still wet. His skin was reddened from vicious scrubbing. She set the tray beside him.

"Do you want me to go?”

"No." When she poured a mug of tea, he took it, tried to warm his hands. Despite the blasting heat of the shower, he still felt chilled.

"I didn't just see it, or remember it. I felt it. The fear, the pain, the violation. The humiliation. And more-like that isn't bad enough-part of me was still me. That part, the big, tough guy part, was helpless, just helpless watching a terrified woman be raped and strangled. I can't explain it.”