Lucky’s Lady

CHAPTER 11

«CAN'T YOU DO SOMETHING, MASON?»

Shelby paced the width of the small study her husband had taken for his own use when they had moved temporarily into Chanson du Terre. It was a dark cubbyhole of paneled walls and wood floor, filled with masculine leather furniture and shelves of musty books. Portraits of stem men from the last century stared down disapprovingly from the walls. Shelby ignored them, crossing her arms tightly beneath her breasts as she paced and listened to the click of her heels in the silence.

Mason looked up distractedly from the papers on the desk, shoving his glasses up on his nose. There was a bland, slightly vacuous look in his eyes as he took in Shelby in her new red and black suit. «I'm not sure what it is you want me to do, darlin.'»

Shelby bore down on him, her dark eyes flaming with impatience. She braced her hands against the desk, her fingers newly manicured and decked with a garnet and diamond ring. «You heard what Burke had to say. He thinks we should have Gifford declared incompetent.»

«Now, Shelby,» Mason said, smiling benignly. He abandoned the papers he'd been going over and folded his hands neatly on top of them. «I have explained to you before why that won't work. In the first place, how would that look if I had my wife's grandfather declared incompetent so I might profit from the sale of his estate? That wouldn't do, sweetheart. The voters frown on that sort of thing. Secondly, Serena would never agree to it.»

«Serena.» Shelby spat out her sister's name like a curse as she pulled back from the desk to resume her pacing. «Blast her. Why did she have to come back just when things were looking so good for us? She's going to ruin everything for me. She always does.»

Mason tut-tutted at her from behind his smile. «Have a little faith, sugar plum. Serena may very well see reason when she hears the whole story.»

«She'll side with Gifford,» Shelby snapped, smoothing a stray hair back toward her neat French twist. «I'm sure he's been filling her head with nonsense. And who knows what that Lucky Doucet has been telling her.»

«Why should he be telling her anything? She only hired him to take her out to Gifford's.»

«Well…» she stalled, dodging her husbands vaguely curious stare. «Well… because he's crazy, that's why.»

Mason shook his head. «You're getting all riled up for nothing.»

«One of us had better get riled up. If we don't raise some cash soon, we're going to be in trouble, Mason. You need funding for your campaign and we have to close on the new house soon.»

«It would help if you could get the old one sold.»

Shelby stopped in her tracks, pressing a hand to her heart and looking wounded, as if her husbands suggestion had been a stake driven into her. «I am trying to sell the house, Mason. It isn't my fault the Loughton s financing fell through at the last minute. It isn't my fault the market is soft right now.»

«I know it isn't your fault, pet,» Mason hurried to assure her. «Of course it's not. I was just wishing out loud, that's all.»

He did the rest of his wishing in silence as he thought of the credit card Shelby had run to its limit even before she'd bought this new ensemble. He had a terrible sinking feeling the red leather pumps were exorbitantly expensive, but he said nothing. Previous suggestions for Shelby to curb her spending habits had been met with hysteria.

«I'll tell you what I wish,» Shelby muttered, putting on her most effective pout. «I wish I were an only child and that Gifford would come to his senses. That's what I wish.»

«You worry too much, peach,» Mason said. «Things will work out. You'll see. They always do.»

There was a sharp rap at the door, and Odille Fontenot slipped into the room. Her bony frame was painfully erect, her light eyes and thin mouth fierce and disapproving, as always. Her hair was a distressed ball of salt-and-pepper frizz around her head. She wore a cotton housedress in a bright flowered print that was subdued somehow by her general aura of gloom. It hung shapelessly from shoulders as sharp and thin as a wire hanger.

«You ought to wait to be invited in, Odille,» Shelby said defensively, not certain what the housekeeper might have overheard. «Your manners are atrocious. If you worked for me, I'd fire you for insolence.»

Odille sniffed indignantly. «Me, I don' work for you. Day I work for you, day I lose my mind.»

Shelby puffed herself up like an offended pigeon. «Of all the impertinence!»

«Was there something you needed to tell us, Odille?» Mason intervened tactfully.

Odille's narrow eyes shifted from Mason to Shelby and back. «Miz 'Rena home,» she announced ominously, then turned and stalked out without waiting to be dismissed.

Serena appeared a moment later. She'd left her bags by the door and gone directly in search of her sister, intending to clear up a few things immediately.

«Shelby, Mason, I think we need to have a talk,» she said as she stepped into the library.

«Serena!» Shelby gushed with a great show of worry. She rushed forward, wringing her bejeweled hands. «Are you all right? We were just worried sick about you! Anything might have happened to you out in the swamp with that madman!» Her gaze flicked over Serena's shoulder. «Did Gifford return with you?»

«No, he didn't.»

Mason came around from behind the desk, moving with the grace of breeding, a smile of welcome beaming across his face like the sun. He was attractive in the mild, unassuming way of all the Talbot's. He wore a rumpled blue oxford shirt and an air of good-natured distraction that had an immediate calming effect on Serena. She managed a smile as he reached for her.

«Serena, darlin,' it's so good to see you,» he said, giving her a brotherly hug, then standing her back at arm's length to get a good look at her. «I'm sorry I wasn't here to greet you the other day. I'm afraid my practice is a taskmaster. And then Shelby informed me you'd gone off on your own after Gifford.» He shook his head in reproach. «I must say, you had us concerned.»

«The situation with Gifford seemed to demand immediate attention.»

«Gifford. Yes.» He nodded, arranging his features into an appropriately grave expression as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his tan chinos. «Well, Shelby tells me she didn't get a chance to explain things adequately before you rushed off.»

«As I recall,» Serena said dryly, giving her sister a pointed look, «Shelby made no attempt to explain.»

Shelby summoned up the same wounded look she'd bestowed on her husband earlier and directed it at her sister. «That's simply not true, Serena! I practically begged you to stay so we could chat!»

«You told me you didn't know why Gifford had gone into the swamp.»

Mason stepped in to arbitrate like a born diplomat. «I think what Shelby meant was that we're all a little baffled as to why Gifford left instead of staying here and dealing with the situation in his usual straightforward manner. Things are in a bit of a tangle, as you may have gathered.»

«Yes, I figured that out somewhere in between shotgun blasts,» Serena said sardonically. «Can we sit down and discuss this from the top?' she asked, moving toward one of the big leather chairs.

Mason made an apologetic face as he consulted his watch. «I'm afraid I can't at the moment, Serena. I've got a meeting with a client at two. I really must rush now or I'll be late.» He consulted his reflection in the glass doors of a bookcase, buttoning the collar of his shirt and pushing up the knot of his regimental tie. «There will be ample time to go over it all tonight at dinner. Mr. Burke is coming, as well as Gifford's attorney. We thought perhaps Lamar might have some sway over Gifford in the event you weren't able to bring him back.»

Serena heaved an impatient sigh. She had wanted to tackle the problem immediately, the sooner to finish with it, but that wasn't going to be possible now. She looked at Mason and wondered if there really was a client. Her brother-in-law gave her another earnest, apologetic smile before he kissed Shelby's cheek and left, and she chided herself for hunting for conspiracy and deceit where there probably was none. Mason had never been anything but sweet to her.

«And I just have a million things to do today!» Shelby declared suddenly. She bustled around the desk, straightening papers into stacks. «I have an open house to conduct at Harlen and Marcy Stones. Harlen is being transferred to Scotland, of all places. Imagine that! And John Mason has a soccer game and Lacey has her piano lesson. And, of course, I'll have to oversee the dinner preparations.

«I asked Odille to fix a crown roast, but there's no telling what she might do. She's a hateful old thing. John Mason hasn't slept for two nights since she told him his room is haunted by the ghost of a boy who was brutally slain by Yankees during the war.»

Serena sank down into a chair and dropped her head back, her sisters bubbling energy making her acutely aware of her own fatigue.

Shelby stopped her fussing, turning to face her twin with a motherly look of concern. «My stars, Serena, you look like death warmed over!» Her eyes narrowed a fraction. «What happened to you out there?»

«Nothing.»

«Well, you look terrible. You ought to take a nice long soak and then have a nap. I'd tell Odille to slice some cucumber for those horrid black circles under your eyes, but she'd probably take after me with a knife. She's just that way. I can't imagine why Gifford keeps her on.»

«Why didn't you tell me about Mason possibly running for office?» Serena asked abruptly.

Her sister gave her a blank look. «Why, because you never gave me a chance, that's why. You just had to run off into the swamp before I could explain a thing. And now I have to run. We'll tell you all about it over dinner.» Her face lit up beneath a layer of Elizabeth Arden's finest. «It's the most excitin' thing! I'm just tickled!» She checked the slim diamond-studded watch on her wrist and gasped delicately. «I'm late! We'll talk tonight.»

«We certainly will,» Serena muttered to herself as the staccato beat of her sister's heels faded down the hall.

As the quiet settled in around her, she thought longingly of Shelby's suggestion of a bath and a nap. She thought about lapsing into unconsciousness in the chair she was sitting in. But in the end she forced herself to her feet and went outside in search of James Arnaud, the plantation manager.

Chanson du Terre had once been a plantation of nearly ten thousand acres, but it had shrunk over the decades a parcel at a time to its current two thousand acres. Rice and indigo had been the original money crops. Indigo still grew wild in weedy patches here and there in ditches around the farm. There had been a brief experiment with rice in the 1800s, then sugarcane had taken over. For as long as Serena could remember, the fields had been planted half with cane, a fourth with soybeans, and a fourth allowed to lie fallow.

Growing cane was a gamble. The crop was temperamental about moisture, prone to disease, vulnerable to frost. The decision of when to harvest in the fall could be an all-or-nothing crap shoot, with the grower putting it off to the last possible day in order to reap the richest sucrose harvest, then working round the clock to bring it in. Once the freeze came, the came in the fields would rot if not harvested immediately.

Gifford had always said sugarcane was the perfect crop for the Sheridan's. They had won Chanson du Terre on a gamble; it seemed only fitting to go on gambling. But the gamble hadn't been paying off recently.

James Arnaud, found swearing prolifically at a tractor in the machine shed, informed Serena that the plantation was caught in a downward spiral that showed no promise of reversing itself any time soon. Arnaud was a short, stocky man in his forties who possessed the dark hair and eyes of his Cajun heritage and a volatile temper to match. He had been manager of the plantation for nearly a dozen years. In that time he had proven himself worthy of Gifford s trust time and again. Serena knew he would tell her the truth, she just hadn't realized how grim that truth would be.

Much of the previous season's crop had been lost to disease. Heavy spring rains had hurt die present crop's growth in several fields where drainage was an ongoing problem. As a result, there was no extra cash to replace aging equipment and they had been forced to cut back on help. All in all, Arnaud thought it was more than most seventy-eight-year-old men would care to deal with, and he said he wouldn't blame Gifford a bit if he did indeed sell the place and go to Tahiti.

What they needed, Arnaud said, was an influx of money and possibly a new cash crop to rotate with the sugarcane. But money was as scarce as hen's teeth, and Gifford was resistant to change.

Serena walked away from the conversation more depressed than she had been to begin with. Even after this business with Tristar Chemicals had been settled, the ultimate fate of the plantation would still be up in the air. She would go back to Charleston. Shelby and Mason would go off to Baton Rouge. Gifford would remain; an aging man and an aging dream left to fade away.

She walked along the crushed-shell path with her hands tucked into the pockets of her shorts, her wistful gaze roaming over the weathered buildings, looking past the pecan orchard to a field of cane. The stalks were already tall and green, reaching for the sky. In her memory she could almost smell die pungent, bittersweet scent of burning leaves at harvest time, when machines the size of dinosaurs crept through the fields and workers bustled everywhere. Harvest time was one of her favorite childhood memories. She had loved the sense of excitement and urgency after the long, slow days of summer.

It had been a good childhood, growing up here, she reflected as she climbed the steps to die old gazebo that was situated at the back of the garden behind the big house. She slid down on a weathered bench, glad for the shade, and leaned back against the railing, staring up at the house. Odille came out the back door wearing an enormous straw hat with a basket slung over her arm, and brandishing garden scissors and a ferocious scowl as she headed for a bed of spring flowers. At a corner of the house John Mason crept around a pillar, intent on scaring the living daylights out of Lacey, who was sitting on the grass playing with dolls. It was the kind of scene that brought memories to the surface-hot spring days and the unencumbered life of childhood in the shadows of Chanson du Terre.

It was the only home Serena and Shelby had ever known growing up. Their parents had settled in immediately after their wedding. An only son, Robert Sheridan, their father, had been groomed from an early age to take Gifford's place at the helm of the plantation. Serena couldn't help but think how different things would have been if he had lived. But he hadn't. He had died in a plane crash the day she and Shelby had turned fifteen.

His wife had preceded him to the grave by ten years. Serena barely remembered her mother except in random adjectives-a pretty smile, a soft voice, a loving touch. She remembered that her father had been devastated by her mother's death. She could still hear the terrible sound of his crying-wrenching, inconsolable grief confined to his bedroom while ladies from their church had placated everyone else with tuna casseroles and Jell-O. There had been no second marriage, no more children, no sons to carry on the line or take up the reins of the plantation.

What was it like to love someone that much? To love so that death meant the death of one's own heart. Serena couldn't imagine. She had never known that depth of emotion with a man, had never expected to. In her work she'd seen too many crumbled relationships to believe the other land came along very often.

Her thoughts drifted to Lucky. She told herself it was only natural. She'd just spent a long hot night in his arms. That didn't mean she was thinking of him in permanent terms. But she couldn't help but wonder if he had ever known that kind of love. He would deny being capable of it. Of that she was certain. He didn't want anyone to know there was a heart under that carved-from-granite chest. Why? Because it had been broken, abused?

He had known Shelby, had been involved with her to some extent. Every time she thought of it, Serena felt a violent blast of disbelief and jealousy. Had they been lovers? Had they been in love? Was it Shelby who had bred that distrust of women in him? The idea brought a bitter taste to her mouth. It was yet another perfectly logical, practical reason for her not to get involved with Lucky Doucet, but she had taken that ill-advised step anyway. She had seen all the warning signs and plunged in headfirst in spite of them.

What a mess, she thought, a long sigh slipping between her lips. She picked absently at a scab of peeling paint on the railing and shook her head. She'd left Charleston with nothing on her mind but thoughts of a pleasant vacation and had fallen into a plot worthy of a Judith Krantz novel.

That was another reason she had left Chanson du Terre to begin with. In Charleston she had no complicated family relationships to deal with. She didn't have to wonder if her own sister was up to no good. She didn't have to look at her ancestral home and wonder what would become of it after two hundred years of Sheridan stewardship ended. She didn't have to worry about falling short of Gifford's expectations. She didn't have to watch him grow old. She could come back for the occasional dose of nostalgia and leave before it became necessary to deal with anything as unpleasant as past hurts and old fears.

«You can't hightail it out of Lou'siana first chance you get, then come on back and try to run things on the weekend.»

Gifford's voice still rang in her ears. The old reprobate. He had hit a nerve with that line, had scored a bull's-eye, sticking the dart right smack in the center of her guilt. And even while he'd been doing it, he had been maneuvering her so she would either have to deal with the problems or dig her guilt a deeper hole. He had her right where he wanted her, in the last place she wanted to be, dealing with questions she had never wanted to face.

«Serena, I don't believe you've met Mr. Burke from Tristar Chemical,» Mason said smoothly. He came forward, innocuous smile in place, and took her gently by the arm as she entered the front parlor.

«We haven't been formally introduced, no,» Serena said, extending her hand to the big man in the western-cut suit. «I'm afraid you mistook me for my sister the other day out at Gifford's, Mr. Burke. I'm Serena Sheridan.»

Burke let his eyes drift down over her, taking in the subtle lines of her figure revealed by the straight cut of her toffee-colored sleeveless linen sheath. He pumped her hand and grinned. «By golly, who'd a guessed there'd be two this pretty? It's a pleasure, Miss Sheridan?» His brows rose with a hope that made Serena loath to answer his implied question.

«Yes,» she murmured. She extracted her fingers from his meaty grasp and managed a twitch of the lips that passed for a smile. His gaze homed in on her breasts like radar.

«Now, what was a lovely young thing like yourself doing out in that swamp anyway?» he asked, settling a too-familiar hand on her shoulder.

Serena shrugged off his touch on the excuse of reaching up to smooth her fingers over her loosely bound hair.

«Serena is here on a visit from Charleston. She was trying to persuade Gifford to return so we might all deal with this offer in a proper manner,» Mason explained.

«And did you?»

«No, unfortunately not,» Serena replied. «As you no doubt realize by now, Mr. Burke, my grandfather can be a very stubborn man.»

«It goes a mite beyond stubborn, if you ask me,» Burke said, baring his teeth. «I have my doubts about his sanity.»

«Do you?' Serena arched a brow. «Are you a psychologist, Mr. Burke?'

«No-«

«Well, I am,» she said, her tone as smooth and cool as marble. «And I can assure you that while Gifford may be unreasonable and cantankerous, he is very much in control of his faculties.»

Burkes face turned dull red. His nostrils flared like a bull's and his chest puffed out. Mason intervened with diplomatic grace.

«Would you care for a drink, Serena?»

«Gin and tonic, please,» she said with a sweet smile, resisting the urge to lick a finger and chalk up a point for herself.

«Coming right up. And can I freshen that scotch for you, Len?»

Frowning, Burke followed him across the room to the antique sideboard that served as bar and liquor cabinet. Serena took the brief moment of solitude to survey the room. It looked exactly as it always had- taupe walls trimmed in soft white, faded Oriental carpets over a polished wood floor, heavy red brocade drapes flanking the French doors that led onto the gallery. The furniture was too formal to invite relaxation. It was a room Gifford never set foot in unless forced. He called it a place for entertaining people he didn't really like. How appropriate that they were gathering here, Serena thought as her gaze wandered over the people assembling for dinner.

Mason was already looking the part of the junior senator in a crisp shirt and tie and dark slacks, not quite as rumpled or distracted as he usually seemed. He made harmless small talk as he dug ice cubes from the bucket with tiny tongs. She had never thought about it before, but he would probably make a successful politician with his mild good looks and genteel manner.

Burke, in spite of the expensive cut of his suit, struck her as a man who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He had the predatory air of a man who had clawed his way up to his present status and had no intention of going back down. He wore a gawdy diamond pinky ring and a boulder-sized chunk of turquoise on a bolo tie, flaunting the rewards of his labors like a warrior brandishing the trophies of battle.

Serena hadn't liked what she'd seen of him at Gifford's, and her instincts were telling her not to like anything about him tonight, but she tried to be objective. It wasn't a fatal character flaw for a man to be vulgar or pompous or sexist, and she had to admit he'd had a right to his temper of the day before-Gifford had been shooting at him, after all. Still, there was something about him that made her uncomfortable. Something about his narrow eyes and the set of his mouth. Gifford had said the man wouldn't take no for an answer. Serena wondered what lengths he might be willing to go to to achieve his objective.

Shelby breezed in from the hall then, resplendent in an ultrafeminine dress done in a dark English-garden print with a square ivory lace collar and a flowing skirt. Her hair was neatly confined in an old-fashioned ecru snood that perfectly completed the picture of refined southern womanhood. The scent of Opium drifted around her in a fragrant cloud.

«Mr. Burke! How delightful to see you again!» She preened and sparkled, treating him to her most flirtatious smile as she came forward and offered him her hand.

«It's a pleasure, as always, Mrs. Talbot,» Burke said, treating her to the same once-over he had Serena. «I've just had the chance to meet your lovely sister as well.»

Shelby's smile tightened as she shot a look at Serena. «You're looking a little better tonight, Serena. Not quite as haggard as before.»

«Why, thank you,» Serena said, fighting a wry smile. She accepted her drink from Mason and sipped it, enjoying the bite of the gin a little more than she probably should have. This crowd was enough to drive anybody to drink. The room hummed with undercurrents.

«I've just been down to the kitchen to check on things,» Shelby said, batting her lashes at the big Texan. «We're having a lovely ham. I do hope you like ham, Mr. Burke. Our Odille's ham gravy is simply sinful!»

«What happened to the crown roast?» Serena questioned innocently.

Shelby flashed her a dark look. «That didn't work out as I'd hoped.»

«Pity.»

«Well, now,» Mason said expansively. «We're just waiting on Lamar and then we can go in.»

Shelby pouted, stirring the swizzle stick of the drink her husband handed her. «That doddering old fool. I don't understand why Gifford retains that man. It's an embarrassment that he won't let his own grandson-in-law handle his legal affairs.»

«Now, Shelby,» Mason cajoled. «Lamar has been Gifford's attorney since God was a child. I certainly wouldn't expect him to dissolve an old loyalty like that.»

«Well, I would,» Shelby said, fussing with one pearl earring. «What must people think? That he doesn't trust you to handle his affairs? It's disgraceful. I only hope it doesn't have an adverse affect on your campaign.»

Mason smiled at her benignly. «I'm not concerned about it, darlin.' Don't you be.»

«I'm sure securing new jobs for the community will more than outweigh it, Mrs. Talbot,» Burke said smugly, swirling the ice in his glass. «Bringing industry to a stagnant economy could take Mason here a long, long way.»

«Aren't you forgetting something, Mr. Burke?» Serena said mildly. «Our grandfather has no intention of selling his property to Tristar.»

Burke flushed again, his eyes narrowing. Shelby shot daggers at her sister with her eyes. Mason flashed a big politician's smile and said, «I do believe I hear Lamar's old Mercedes coming up the drive.»

Lamar Canfield was eighty if he was a day, a southern gentleman lawyer from the old school. He was a small, neat man with large dark eyes and thin white hair that now grew only on the sides of his head. He was dressed meticulously in a blue seersucker suit and starched white shirt with a jaunty striped bow tie at his throat and a fine Panama hat in his hands.

«Shelby! How good it is to see you again!» he said, beaming a smile as he came forward with the grace of Fred Astaire to take Serena's hand and plant a courtly kiss upon her knuckles.

«I'm Serena, Mr. Canfield,» she corrected him gently.

He pulled back, beaming a broad smile, his eyes gleaming with a sparkle that had set more than one female's heart aflutter in his day. «Yes, of course you are, my darling,» he said without missing a beat. «How lovely to have you home for a visit. You don't return often enough, you know,» he chided her, tilting his head in a look of reproach.

Serena couldn't help but smile at him. She had always liked Lamar. He was all flirtation and show and he had the voice of a snake-oil salesman-smooth and exaggerated, rising and falling dramatically. He displayed all the airs and mannerisms of a completely charming charlatan, all presented with a twinkle of amusement in his dark eyes that suggested he didn't take himself or anyone else too seriously.

«How doubly fortunate for us gentlemen to have the company of both our lovely Sheridan ladies,» he said, turning and bowing to Shelby, who regarded him with wary petulance, for once not swayed by a compliment. He straightened and turned his hat in his hands, directing his attention toward Serena once again.

«Are you back to stay, perchance, Serena? Heaven knows there is an abundance of warped minds in the immediate area. You could certainly keep yourself entertained.»

«No,» Serena said a bit hesitantly. «I'm just here for a visit, I'm afraid.»

Lamar looked at her speculatively from under his lashes and clucked his tongue.

Mason stepped forward. «Lamar, you've met Mr. Burke from Tristar, if you'll recall.»

«Yes… of course,» Lamar drawled, dragging the words out and letting them trail away as if they pained him. «You're that man from Texas, aren't you?» He pronounced it takes-us, though whether he had done so as a deliberate slight or whether it was simply his extravagant drawl was impossible to tell.

Burke gave him a stony look, rattling the ice in his scotch.

Odille slipped into the room then and cast a baleful glare over them all as she announced dinner.

«Odille, my love!» Lamar said brightly. «Charming as ever. Tell me what I might be able to do to entice you away from Gifford s employ.»

Odille sniffed indignantly, squeezing her light eyes into slits of disapproval. «Nothin.»'

«Loquacious, isn't she, Shelby?» Lamar said, arching one brow as he took Serenas arm and tucked it through his.

Dinner was served in a formal dining room that had changed very little in a hundred years. They were seated at a mahogany table that had hosted planters from antebellum days. They used silver that had spent the war in a gunnysack in the bottom of the well to keep it safe from Yankee plunder. The oil painting on the wall above the sideboard portrayed a Sheridan standing on the lawn of Chanson du Terre, holding the reins of a prized race horse; a brass plaque on the frame dated it to 1799.

«Such a lovely home,» Lamar remarked idly as he cut his ham. «So gracious and full of history.»

«Yes,» Serena agreed. «It would be a pity to see it destroyed.»

«There are more things to consider here than architecture,» Mason said. «Chanson du Terre is a graceful old home, I grant you, but should it be placed ahead of the welfare of an entire community?»

«That's a good point, Mason,» said Burke. He looked across the table to Serena. «You don't live around here, Miss Sheridan. Maybe you don't realize how hard the oil bust hit. People moved out of Lafayette by the convoy. Many of those who remained in South Louisiana were faced with unemployment. The new Tristar plant will employ two hundred fifty people to start with and eventually many more.»

«But at what cost to the environment, Mr. Burke?» Serena asked. «I understand your company has a rather bad reputation in that area.»

Burkes eyes went cold. A muscle in his jaw twitched. «I don't know where you get your information, but it simply isn't true. Tristar has never been convicted of anything regarding violations of pollution standards.»

Serena lifted a brow, singling out the word «convicted.» Tristar had never been convicted, that wasn't to say they had never been charged or had never committed any crimes. They had simply never been convicted, a fact that made her wonder what lengths they may have gone to to keep blemishes from their record. If Len Burke was an example of the kind of man they hired to make their acquisitions, she could well imagine the sharks they retained on their legal staff to help them work around inconveniences like EPA regulations.

Her gaze moved to Mason, the fledgling politician whose campaign would rely heavily on Tristar. She wondered if he realized just how neatly he was being maneuvered. Tristar was providing him with a platform on which to run. Directly or indirectly they would be providing him with funding. Had it occurred to him that eventually they would call in those markers?

«Isn't it true Tristar would dig a navigation canal that would contribute to the demise of the swamp?» she asked.

Burke snorted and shook his head. «You'd put a few acres of worthless mud and snakes ahead of the lives of the people around here?»

«The swamp isn't worthless to everyone,» she said quietly, thinking of the look in Lucky's eyes as he'd shown her his special place that morning. «It's an ecosystem that deserves respect.»

Shelby laughed without humor. «My, you're the last person I would have expected to hear that from, Serena. Why, you've hated the swamp as long as I can remember. You moved all the way to Charleston to get away from it.»

Serena regarded her sister with a look that barely disguised anger and hurt. «Be that as it may,» she said, «we are getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we? The fact remains Gifford has strong feelings about heritage and tradition. He would prefer to see Chanson du Terre continue on as it always has.»

«How can it?' Shelby asked, tearing a biscuit into bite-size pieces. She looked askance at her twin. «Are you going to come back from Charleston and farm it, Serena?»

«Of course not.»

«Then what do you suggest? Masons future lies elsewhere. Who else is left to run it?»

«Shelby's right,» Mason said. «Even if Gifford doesn't sell now, he'll only be delaying the inevitable. He's going to have to retire in the not too distant future. He'll be forced to sell in the end. Taking Tristar's offer now is the only practical thing to do. It's a very generous offer, certainly more than Chanson du Terre is worth as a going concern.»

«The place is falling down around Gifford's ears,» Shelby remarked. «You can't help but have noticed. The house is in need of major restoration. Why, just look at the ceiling in this room for example.»

All eyes traveled upward and widened at the sight of the heavy brass chandelier hanging down from the center of a sagging, water-stained, peeling spot of plaster. It looked as if one good tug could bring the whole expanse crashing down on their heads.

«There are other alternatives to selling,» Serena said, bringing them back to the matter at hand. «The land could be leased to another grower. The house must qualify for historical status; there's the possibility of grant money being available to restore it.»

«But to what end?» Mason questioned. «When Gifford passes on, I trust he will leave the place to you and Shelby equally and Shelby has already stated she no longer wants it. Are you prepared to buy her out, Serena?»

«If you are, perhaps you'll just run along and get your checkbook, darlin,'» Shelby suggested archly. «I have a life to lead and I'd sooner get on with it than wait.»

Serena's mouth tightened as she looked at her sister. «What happened to your dedication to the preservation of southern antiquities, sister?» she queried bitingly through a chilling smile. «Did that committee meeting conflict with your facial appointments?»

Shelby slammed her fork down on the table and straightened in her chair, her mouth tightening into a furious knot. «Don't you talk to me about dedication, Serena. You're the one who lives eight hundred miles away. You're the one-«

«Now, ladies,» Mason interrupted with the borrowed wisdom of Solomon shining in his eyes behind his glasses. «Let's not regress to pointing fingers. The fact is neither of you will take over the running of the plantation. What we must concentrate on is how to deal with Mr. Burkes offer and how to deal with Gifford. Might you have any suggestions in that area, Lamar? Lamar?»

Canfield had dozed off over his mashed potatoes. Shelby rolled her eyes. Burke huffed in impatient disgust. Odille, making the rounds with a fresh gravy boat, gave the old attorney a bony elbow to the shoulder. He jerked awake, confusion swimming in his eyes as his gaze searched the table and settled on Serena.

«A lovely meal, Shelby,» he said with a smile. «Thank you so much for asking me out.»

Serena groaned inwardly. If there had been any hope of finding a valuable ally in Gifford's attorney, it had just faded away.

«There's no place for sentiment in business,» Burke announced, helping himself to another mountain of sliced ham. «The place will be sold in the end. Y'all might as well face the facts and take the money.»

«It's not our decision to make, Mr. Burke,» Serena said tightly.

He gave her a long look. «Isn't it?»

«What are you saying?»

He lifted his shoulders and looked away from her toward Mason and Shelby. «Just that Tristar's offer is firm. We want this piece of property. If you want to collect on that, I suggest you strengthen your powers of persuasion where your granddaddy is concerned- one way or another.»

The addendum had all the nasty connotations of a threat. Serena sat back in her chair, her gaze on Burke as he shoveled food into his mouth. Gifford had been right; a simple no was not going to deter the Tristar rep. She wondered as she caught her sister looking her way just what it was going to take to put an end to this business once and for all, and whether there would be anything left of her family when it was over.