Нора Робертс - Midnight Bayou

"You don't have to. I felt some of it. Not as strong, not as clear as you, but … When you looked at me, when she was looking at me out of your eyes, I felt such grief, such regret. Such guilt. Drink your tea now, sweetheart.”

He lifted the mug obediently. "It's good. Pretty sweet.”

"Sweet tea and toast. It's good for you." She crawled onto the bed behind him, knelt and began to knead at his shoulders. "She was stronger than he was. It's not his fault so much. He was raised weak. But he loved her, Declan. I know that without a doubt. Even without knowing the terrible thing that happened to her, he blamed himself. For not being with her, not giving her enough of himself.”

"He deserted the child.”

There was such finality in his voice. "He did. Yes, he did," Lena replied. "And though it was wrong of him, wrong to take his own life and leave their baby an orphan, she had a better life because of it. She was surrounded by people who loved her, who valued the memory of her mother. She would never have had that life here, in the Hall." "She was entitled to it. He should have seen to it.”

She laid her cheek on the top of his head. "You can't forgive him.”

"I can't understand him.”

"No, a man like you wouldn't understand a man like him. Maybe I do, maybe I understand a man who'd run off with a woman rather than stand up to his parents. One who'd bring her back into a house full of resentment and shadows instead of making them a home. One who'd fall apart enough to drown himself rather than live with the hurt and raise his own child with the love and compassion that had been denied him. He wanted to be more than he was. With her, he would have been.

"You shouldn't despise him, Declan. You should pity him.”

"Maybe. It's hard. I've still got a lot of her despair inside me." Abigail's, he thought, and a good portion of his own.

"Can you rest?”

"I don't think so.”

"Why don't you try? I need to go change." She slid off the bed, then lifted the tray and set it aside. "Try to sleep awhile. I won't be long.”

He didn't try to stop her. It was probably best to be alone. He lay back, stared at the ceiling as the first birds began to sing.

Abigail had been broken, he thought. Body and heart.

He was feeling pretty much the same himself.

He must have dozed, for when he opened his eyes the sun was up. Still early, he decided, but the General and her troop of whirlwinds would be coming along shortly to storm through his house with mops and brooms and God knew.

Maybe the place needed to be cleaned up, shaken out. It was still his. He wasn't giving it up. Whatever had happened, whatever shared it with him, he wasn't giving it up.

And by Christ, he wasn't giving Lena up, either.

He sat up, scowling, and saw her sitting in the chair across the room. She wore jeans, a plain white T-shirt. There were three small bouquets lying in her lap.

"You up for a little drive?" she asked him.

"I guess.”

"Put a shirt on, and some shoes." "Where are we going?”

"I'll tell you on the way.”

She drove, and he kept the flowers in his lap now.

"I want to take flowers to her. To Marie Rose." As her ancestor, Lena thought, as her father. "I thought you might like to visit there, too.”

He said nothing.

"Grandmama told me," Lena continued, "how Marie Rose used to go to the cemetery once a year on her birthday. She'd bring him flowers. This morning, when I went over to change my clothes, she told me where we'd find his crypt, and we picked these from the marsh. I want to take flowers to Lucian, too.”

He picked one clutch up. "Your symbol of pity?”

"If that's the best we can do.”

"And the others?”

"Marie Rose took them to her mother, once a year as well. A part of her m/'ve known. She went to the river, every year on her birthday, and dropped flowers in the water. Grandmama told me where.”

She drove smoothly, a little fast, then slowed to turn into the cemetery. "I know you're still angry with him, and with me. If you don't want to do this, you can wait in the car. I won't blame you.”

"Why are you doing it?”

"He's part of me. Through blood, and more. If I can find a way to accept who birthed me, if I can live with that, then I can find a way to accept this. To live with it.”

She stopped the car, took two of the bouquets. "It's a little walk from here. It shouldn't take me long.”

"I'm coming with you.”

He got out, but didn't-as she'd grown used to-reach for her hand. They wound their way over the paths between the tombs, the ornate grilles, the marble angels and through shadows thrown by crosses.

She stopped at one of the raised tombs. There were many, simple and unadorned. Her grandfather rested here, and others who were parts and pieces of her. But today she had come only for one.

Her hands gripped tight on the flowers. Marie Rose, she read. Blood of my blood, heart of my heart.

"Grandmama, she told me Marie Rose was a happy woman, she had a good life. She was content with it. That might not be enough to make up for what was done, but if it had been done different … Well, I don't see how I'd be standing here with you this morning.”

She started to lay the flowers, and Declan closed his hand over hers on the stems. They placed them on the grave-the baby, the girl, the old woman, together.

"He's a ways from here," Lena managed. Her voice was thick, her vision blurry as she turned away.

They walked through the sunlight, through the shadows of the tombs, in silence.

The Manet crypt was a towering square, its porticoes carved, its doors thick and studded. Topping it was a fierce angel, holding a harp as a soldier might a shield.

"Cheerful," Declan commented. "I'd say none of them went gently into that good night." He glanced around, saw the plain concrete box on a raised slab. The plaque read:

LUCIAN EDUARD MANET. 1877-1900.

"He's out here?”

"He wasn't to be forgiven," Lena explained. "Not for his marriage, his child, his embarrassing death. They called it accidental drowning, though everyone knew it was suicide. But though Josephine wouldn't have him in the family crypt, she wanted him buried on consecrated ground. Otherwise, there would have been yet another scandal.”

Declan looked back at the crypt. "Bitch.”

"He had no grandparents, as I did, to love him. To soften the blows. He had a twin brother who loathed him simply because he existed. He had money and position, education and privilege. But no love. Until Abigail. Then they took her from him.”

She laid the flowers for him. "He did the best he could. It just wasn't enough.”

"You're stronger than he ever was. Smarter, more resilient.”

"I hope so. And I hope he rests soon. The flowers won't last long in this sun, but … Well, you do what you can.”

She walked away without another word. Declan lingered a moment more, staring at the plaque, then the flowers. Then he went with his impulse, took a single flower out of the bouquet, and laid it on top of the tomb.

Lena put her sunglasses on because her eyes were tearing. "That was kind.”

"Well, you do what you can." This time, he took her hand.

They didn't speak on the drive back. Nor did Rufus or Odette come out of the house when Lena parked in front of it. He remained silent as she led the way through the marsh. Silent, as he remembered the way in the night, with the chill in the air, the flitting moonlight, the call of an owl. And the panting breaths of a killer and his accomplice.

"Do you want to go back? You're awfully pale.”

"No." Sweat ran down his back despite the cold under his skin. "I need to do this.”

"It's not much farther.”

There were marsh flowers springing up along the edges of the narrow, beaten path. He concentrated on them, on the color, the small beauty. But when she stopped on the bank, he was out of breath and dizzy.