Read Lucky's Lady for Free Online Page B

a lily pond in a Japanese garden.
    Serena stepped into the house and made her way down the hall, regretting the fact that she didn't have time to take in the ambience of the home she'd grown up in. Aside from one major renovation in the early 1800s and modifications since then to install plumbing and electricity, it had remained largely unchanged over its long history. It was a treasure trove filled with heirlooms and antiques that would make a museum curator's mouth water. But there was no time to appreciate the cypress-paneled walls painted a mellow gold or the faded Turkish rugs that spilled jewel-tone colors across the old wood floor. She went directly toward her old bedroom, where earlier in the day she had done nothing more than deposit her suitcases before storming off in a stubborn huff to find a guide.
    “Going, did you say?” Shelby questioned suddenly, as if Serena's words had only just managed to penetrate through her sense of indignation. She rushed to catch up, plucking at the sleeve of Serena's rumpled jacket like a child trying to catch its mother's attention. “Going where?”
    “To see Gifford.”
    “You can't go now!” Shelby whined in dramatic alarm, following Serena into her room. She positioned herself well within her sister's range of vision and put on her most distressed expression, wringing her hands for added effect. “You simply can't go now! Why, you only just arrived! We haven't had a chance to chat or anything! I haven't had a chance to tell you a thing about our new house or about how well the children are doing in school or how I may very well be named Businesswoman of the Year by the chamber of commerce. You simply can't go now!”
    Serena ignored the dictate and began undressing, tossing her ruined clothes into a pile on the floor. She frowned at the suitcase on the bed, knowing there was nothing in it suitable for a swamp. She might have grown up dogging Gifford's heels around the cane fields, but the woman she had become in Charleston had no call to wear jeans or rubber knee-boots.
    “And Odille is making a leg of lamb for supper,” Shelby went on. She moved around the room in quick, nervous motions, flitting from place to place like a butterfly, lighting only long enough to straighten a lace doily or fuss with the arrangement of cut flowers in the china pitcher on the carved cherry dresser. “You can't know the battle I had to wage to get her to do it. Honestly, that woman is as churlish as the day is long. She has defied me at every turn since Mason and I moved in. And she frightens the children, you know. They think she's some kind of a witch. I don't doubt but what she told them she'd put a spell on them. She's just that way. I don't understand why Gifford keeps her on.”
    “He enjoys fighting with her, I imagine,” Serena said, smiling as she thought of the cantankerous Odille facing off with the equally cantankerous Gifford.
    Odille Fontenot was as homely and hardworking as a mule, a tall rack of bones with the hide of a much smaller person stretched tautly over them. Her skin was as black as pitch, her eyes a fierce shade of turquoise that burned as bright as gas jets with the force of her personality. She was dour and superstitious and full of sass. She had taken over as housekeeper after Serena and Shelby had gone and Mae, the woman who had helped raise them, had retired. Odille was probably well into her sixties by now, but no one could tell by looking at her and no one dared ask.
    Serena opened her suitcase and pulled out a pair of white crop-legged cotton slacks and a knit top with wide red and white stripes. A quick glance in the beveled mirror above the dresser confirmed her suspicions that her hair was coming down, but there was no time to fuss with it.
    “Besides,” she said, her voice muffled as she pulled her top on over her head, “Odille's brother is Gifford's best friend.”
    Shelby abruptly stopped rearranging knickknacks on the dresser and looked