«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.