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Chapter One
CANE RIVER, LOUISIANA—1834
On the morning of her ninth birthday, the day after Madame Françoise
Derbanne slapped her, Suzette peed on the rosebushes. Before the plantation bell
sounded she had startled awake, tuned her ears to the careless breathing of
Mam'zelle above her in the four-poster bed, listened for movement from the rest
of the sleeping household, and quietly pushed herself up from her straw pallet
on the floor.
Suzette made her way quickly down the narrow hall, beyond the wall altar, and
past the polished mahogany grandfather clock in the front room, careful to
sidestep the squeaky board by the front door. Outside on the gallery, her heart
thudded so wildly that the curiosity of the sound helped soften the fear. Her
breath felt too big for her chest as she inched past the separate entrance to
the stranger's room and around to the side of the big house where the prized
bushes waited.
Barefoot into the darkness, aided only by the slightest remnant of the Louisiana
summer moon, she chose Madame's favorite, a sprawling rosebush with delicate
pale yellow flowers and visible roots as long as her father's fiddling bow.
The task didn't take long, going ... read full excerpt from: Cane River ebook
