What She Doesn't Know by Beverly Barton

apparently wove around every woman who knew him, young and old alike. She was no fourteen-year-old in the throes of her first mad crush on an older boy. Max Devereaux was persona non grata to her. As far as she was concerned, the man was the devil incarnate.
    The pipers had come from the church to participate in the Masonic burial rites and now they played again as the family departed. The mournful wail of the Scottish bagpipes spread through the cemetery and lingered in the soul. Max ushered his mother, sister, and uncle into the first limousine, then stood by the car and glanced back at Jolie. Their gazes met and locked for a split second. The look he gave her chilled her to the bone. Did she have more to fear from Max than she thought? Was that hatred she’d seen in his eyes? Or had it been a warning?
    â€œCome, dear girl,” Clarice said from inside the second limousine. “We must go straight to Belle Rose and be there to greet our guests.”
    Jolie nodded, then hurriedly slid into the limousine beside her aunt. She would rather walk over hot coals or swallow a cup of glass slivers than participate in the postfuneral reception. Of course, she could skip the grand affair, make an excuse to return to the hotel and then come back later for the reading of her father’s will. But what excuse could she give Aunt Clarice? No, it was too late to back out now, too late to have second thoughts about her return to Sumarville—and to Belle Rose.

    So Jolie Royale had shown up after all, and looking enough like her mother and aunts so that everyone recognized her immediately. She’d grown up to be a beautiful woman, more beautiful than her mother or Clarice and every bit as beautiful as Lisette, who’d been the fairest of the Desmond sisters. In fact, her resemblance to Lisette was uncanny .
    Why was she here? Why hadn’t she stayed away? She had washed her hands of Louis, of Belle Rose, and of Sumarville years ago. Undoubtedly she expected to be named in the will, perhaps given a huge slice of the Royale pie .
    Damn her for coming back, for dredging up all those old memories. People would start talking again, recalling the Belle Rose massacre. Word had it that Yvonne’s son Theron was stirring up trouble, probing into the old murder-suicide case. That boy needed to be stopped now before he stirred up a really big stink. Handling him might prove difficult, but it could be done. Handling Jolie Royale would be a different matter entirely. It was possible, wasn’t it, that she might already have remembered something significant about the murderer? Was that the real reason she’d finally returned to Sumarville? In the past, two attempts on her life had failed. If another attempt became necessary, failure wasn’t an option .
    What I did, I did because I had to. I had no other choice. It had been the only way. God forgive me, I hadn’t planned to kill them all. But the others had gotten in the way. I couldn’t let them live, not when they knew what I’d done .

    Yvonne moved from room to room, her presence subtle and nonobtrusive. Except for a warm hello from a few people close to the family, she was ignored, as all good servants were. It had long ago ceased to bother her that outsiders considered her nothing more than a housekeeper at Belle Rose. She had learned to accept what could and could not be in her life—something her son would never have to accept. Theron had no limitations, no unholy moments from his youth to taint his life or obligations that would hold him back from achieving his goals. She only hoped and prayed that his determination to prove Lemar innocent of the Belle Rose massacre wouldn’t ruin his political aspirations in Mississippi.
    Yvonne had hired the catering service from Vicksburg that she’d used on numerous occasions, but despite always having been totally satisfied with their work, she kept a close watch on every aspect of today’s