“Miss Guidry.”
We both jumped at the volume and tone coming from the man in the doorway.
“Rett, we were just—”
He lifted his hand toward me as he continued staring at Miss Guidry.
Her lips came together and she stood. With a smile, she spoke to me. “Don’t you never mind this old lady.” She turned to Rett. “I was just fixin’ to get the dessert.” Her smile returned to me. “You deserved to know that your being here has made so many of us happy.”
Warmth crept up my neck to my cheeks. “Thank you.”
With barely another glance toward Rett, Miss Guidry hurried from the dining room.
Shaking his head, Rett took his seat. “Should I ask?”
“What happened between Isaiah Boudreau and Jezebel North? And what was her name before she changed it?”
Rett balled the cloth napkin he had half a second earlier placed over his leg and threw it on the table. “Christ, Emma.” He motioned toward the door. “She’s nuts. I should just insist she leave.”
“No.”
His stare met mine and his cadence slowed. “She speaks regularly to dead people.”
“Just like that little boy in the movie.”
“This isn’t a movie, Emma. I’ve lived with this all my life. Now it’s my mother. Before that it was my grandfather and grandmother.”
“Why doesn’t Miss Guidry speak of your father?” I asked.
“Because he’s dead.”
“So is your mother, or is she somewhere in this big house and you haven’t told me.”
Exhaling, Rett leaned back in his chair and buttoned his suit coat. “My mother—you’ve heard her name from Miss Guidry—was Marilyn Ramses. She passed away after my father. She and my father are in the family crypt. I assure you, she isn’t here nor does she talk with Miss Guidry.”
With Rett’s obvious annoyance at the subject, I avoided it until we were back in my suite and the blindfold was gone.
“What does Miss Guidry or anyone else know about what happened to me—recently?”
It was the first time I’d mentioned it since the meeting in Rett’s office with his men, successfully compartmentalizing the happenings away and concentrating on healing. Whenever memories surfaced, I made myself focus on something else. For over a week, it had worked.
Rett ran his thumb gently over my bruised cheekbone. Like my thoughts, my cheek was healing. No longer purple, it was a lovely shade of yellowish green, without makeup.
“She can see you, Emma.” He lifted my hand, indicating the bandages. “Miss Guidry is crazy; she’s not blind. She’s also intuitive and some would say empathic. In my opinion, she mistakes her ability to sense the emotions of others with speaking to spirits.”
“Did you tell her?”
He shook his head. “No. You told the men in my office.”
The scene came back—me, Rett, Ian, and two other men. “Would they have told her?”
“No. My people understand discretion better than most.”
I brought my lips together and walked to the window. The temperatures had cooled, not to a chilly degree but comfortable, and the humidity dropped. The window was open to the courtyard below. The fountain, a story below, was mesmerizing as its lights changed colors.
Rett came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Talk, Emma.”
I shrugged in his grasp before leaning my head back against his solid chest.