Wild Star (Star Quartet 3)

“You must be more careful, Laurel.”

She watched Drew lean gracefully down to pick up the blossom. He looked like an aesthete and a well-bred Southern gentleman who had never lifted his hands in work—slender, pale-skinned, his light brown hair swept back from a broad, clear forehead. None of the look of his brother, she thought, with his thoughtful brown eyes. But of course, she really didn’t remember all that well what Brent did look like, except for his midnight-blue eyes, penetrating eyes, so compelling and intense, even when he was only eighteen. Drew straightened and handed her the blossom with a flourish.

“Thank you,” she said. “Why aren’t you painting?”

“The beautiful day drew me out. That”—he paused a moment, his brow furrowing—“and a premonition.”

Laurel arched a perfectly plucked auburn brow. “You and that witch Sinda are more alike than I imagined.”

“Oh no,” Drew said easily. “I don’t wring chickens’ necks and dance about a fire preaching the end of the world.”

“That was something, wasn’t it?” Laurel shook her head, smiling at the memory. “I’ll never forget that incident. The slaves refusing to work because the day of reckoning was shortly to arrive. More fear for God’s wrath than Mr. Simmons’s whip.”

“Father and Mr. Simmons handled the situation very nicely, as I recall. Poor Sinda. When the earth didn’t end, she was severely flogged.”

“So what is this premonition of yours?”

“I’m not really sure,” Drew said slowly. “Something will happen today, something out of the ordinary.” He shrugged and looked a bit rueful. “Don’t mind me. It’s probable that my mind has heated up before the weather has. Perhaps my paints have finally reduced my brain to shadowy mysticism.”

“You need to leave the plantation more often than you do, Drew. There are so many very pretty young ladies here-abouts, just waiting for an offer from Mr. Drew Hammond of Wakehurst. Why, Melinda Forrester was telling me just the other day how she so much admired your paintings—”

Drew held up a slender white hand. “Spare me, Laurel. Melinda Forrester is—well, suffice it to say that I have no interest in the girl.” He got a dreamy, faraway look in his deep brown eyes. “I miss Paris,” he said simply. “Oh, all this is beautiful, but it’s not mine.”

“No, it’s all Brent’s now, isn’t it?”

Drew’s eyes focused on his beautiful stepmother’s face. “Why so bitter, Laurel? I don’t know why Brent left Wakehurst so long ago, but he is father’s heir. Of course the plantation must belong to him. The question is, what will he do about it?”

“And I was your father’s wife. How dare he make Brent my trustee? Why didn’t he leave me money in my own right, like he did you?”

Drew merely cocked an eyebrow at her. He’d been home for two years now, and wasn’t by any means blind. He’d discovered she was having an affair with another planter, the blustery Mr. John Lattimer. If he’d known, surely his father must have. The fact that his father hadn’t left her her own money seemed to be proof. Of course, to be fair about it, Laurel was young and beautiful and his father had been old and infirm.

He reached up and pulled down a piece of Spanish moss dangling from a low branch of an elm tree.

“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “you should consider remarrying—after your period of mourning is over, of course. I understand that Mr. Elias Standford is infatuated.”

Laurel shrugged. “He’s old and a bore. And his children hate me. No, thank you.”

“I seem to recall that Brent and I weren’t any too happy when father turned up with you on his arm. But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? Why don’t you visit New Orleans for a while? Good hunting there, I understand.”

“Drew, don’t be nasty. Lizzie?”

Laurel’s near-yell brought a small Negro girl running toward them.

“Yes, missis?” the girl panted, her eyes on her dirty bare feet.

“Take this basket of gardenia blossoms to Mammy Bath.”

“Yes, missis.”

“Tell her to make my perfume.”

“Yes, missis.”

“So, Drew, have you bedded her yet?”

“For god’s sake, Laurel, she can’t be over thirteen years old.” He stared after the girl, knowing she’d heard Laurel’s words.

“I’ve already noticed the head driver, Josh, eyeing her closely.”