The baying of the bloodhounds on a warm trail was faint at first. It grew louder as the dogs neared the house, becoming a deep and clamorous howling with an undertone of such doleful menace that it chilled the blood. Mingled with it was the thin ring of shouts and the pounding of hoofbeats.

Letitia Margaret Mason looked up from the letter she was writing as her attention was caught by the sounds. An expression of amazement followed by disgust and distress rose in her wine-brown eyes. No doubt the dogs were being followed by men in white sheets, men intent on riding down some poor black man running pell-mell and terror-stricken through the warm summer night. She had been told that Louisiana was a place of violence and danger just now, while it was undergoing the chastening process of reconstruction. She had not expected to have evidence of it the first evening of her arrival.

She had also been warned that the state was no place for a woman traveling alone, particularly a Northern woman. She might well be subjected to insult and ostracism, it was said, if not worse. The protective attitude of Southern gentlemen toward ladies might not extend to females from above the Mason-Dixon line, certainly not to those who were headstrong and argumentative.

Her elder sister, and especially her sister's husband, had been astonished, even aghast, at Letitia's need to journey to the South. They had considered it madness enough when she had insisted on getting a teacher's certificate after the war, since there was no financial need for it. This new start of hers was beyond anything. It was her mother who had supported her. "Leave Lettie alone," she had told them. "She's only doing what she must."

Lettie had begun to think the tales and warnings greatly exaggerated. She had received nothing but courtesy and kindness during the long trip by train and stage here to Natchitoches. Inquiring about accommodations of the stationmaster on her arrival, she had been told about the large, square-columned, two-storied house called Splendora that was three miles out of town, where she was now settled. The man had even commandeered a seat in a wagon for her from a farmer going in that direction.

It seemed that only that morning the lady of the house, Mrs. Emily Tyler, had decided to take in a boarder. The older woman, who was plump and kindly, with graying hair and snapping blue eyes, had accepted Lettie at once. She had been so afraid, she had declared, that she would have to give houseroom to a swearing, tobacco-spitting carpetbagger! Lettie must tell her if anything was wrong-- she had never been a landlady before. But she had decided that money must be obtained somehow or the house that had been in disrepair since halfway through the War for Southern Independence was just going to fall down around their ears, those of herself and her nephew. She did hope that Lettie liked her front bedchamber. She must make herself at home, use the veranda and hall sitting room as she liked, and if she needed anything or if there was anything lacking for her comfort, she must not hesitate to say so.

So warm had been Aunt Em's welcome, so natural her chatter, that within five minutes Lettie had been made to feel that she was an invited guest, "company," instead of a boarder. The older woman had insisted on being called Aunt Em, since she was known that way to one and all, and Letitia had quickly become Lettie. Though used to more formality on first acquaintance, Lettie hadn't had the heart to repulse so friendly an overture. She had been pleasantly relaxed in her new surroundings, until she heard the hounds.

The sound of the bloodhounds came closer. They seemed to be on the road that ran before the house. The need to see what was happening brought Lettie to her feet. She glanced down at herself. She had already dressed for bed in a nightgown of pink cotton flannel and had taken down her hair so that it fell in a mass of golden-brown waves down her back. The nightgown, with a high neck and long sleeves, was heavy for the climate, so heavy and warm that Lettie had not been able to bear the thought of putting on her dressing gown. Still, as totally covered as she was, the risk of being seen in her present state of dishabille was not one she cared to take; her Puritan ancestors would rise up as a body from their graves to condemn such wanton disregard for decency. The problem was easily solved, however. Leaning toward the lamp on the table at which she had been sitting, she cupped her hand at the top of the chimney and blew out the flame.

Lettie moved swiftly toward the open window. It was a jib window that gave onto the long veranda that fronted the upper floor of the house. By unlatching and opening the small jib doors that formed the sill, then pushing the sash up as far as it would go, one could step through the opening as if it were a door. Brushing aside the muslin curtains, Lettie ventured out onto the dark canvas matting that covered the floor. The darkness of the night was a good cover for her. She moved to the railing and leaned over it.

There was an excellent view across the picket-fence-enclosed front yard of Splendora to the road stretching in either direction. The dogs had already passed the house and could just be seen-- long, lean shapes in the darkness-- loping away down the road to the left. Almost directly in front of the house was the troop of horsemen, two of them carrying pine-pitch torches that flared with the wind of their passage, the sparks flying back over their shoulders. In that orange glow could be seen, not the white of bed sheets, but the dark blue of uniforms. The men following the dogs were soldiers of the Union army, the occupation troops of the area. They thundered by with their faces forward, intent on their quarry, though there was no sign of who that might be.

Lettie stared in perplexity after the soldiers. After all the things that had been said before and during the war about the cruelty of hunting down human beings with bloodhounds, after the way it had been condemned in the papers, after the speeches against it at abolitionist meetings where the Southerners who practiced it were categorized as monsters, it seemed impossible that bloodhounds would be used for any such purpose by Union troops. It seemed unlikely that their quarry was of the black race. If he was white, however, the use of the dogs must be deliberate, a taste of their own medicine for the people of the area, or else there was hypocrisy involved. Both explanations were equally disturbing.

The noise of the pursuit died away. Silence returned, a silence with an undertone of the whirring of peeper frogs, crickets, and katydids. The night was balmy, with a soft, silken feel to the air. The moon had not yet risen. The stars shone bright, so close they looked as if she could gather a handful in a single sweeping grasp. The shadows under the trees were dense, gently moving in the breeze that meandered here and there. The night wind wafted across the veranda, and on its breath came, now faint, now strong, the rich lemony smell of the magnolias that starred the great dark-leaved tree on her left, just beyond the veranda.

By degrees, Lettie relaxed once more, lulled by the warmth and fragrance and caressing softness of the air. The soldiers forgotten, she stared around her at the Southern night, feeling it about her like an enveloping and seductive aura. It was entrancing, enticing, with a promise of hidden joys tinged with danger. Lettie felt the rise inside her, totally unbidden, of a slow, sweet yearning.

It was not a sensation she could acknowledge with comfort. Turning sharply, she moved back inside her bedchamber. She closed the small jib doors and straightened the muslin curtains, though she left the window open for air. She hesitated for a moment, thinking of her unfinished letter to her mother. It would wait until morning; her brain was too drugged with weariness and unaccustomed nighttime warmth to concentrate. She turned toward the bulking shadow of the tester bed, which was turned down for her comfort.

There came the scrape of a footstep outside on the veranda. It was a quiet sound, not furtive but not quite forthright. Lettie turned with quick alarm racing along her veins. A man's shadow loomed at the window, a black shape against the pale glow of starlight. In a single swift movement, he put his leg over the sill of the open window, batted aside the curtain, and eased into the room.

Lettie drew in her breath with a strangled sound. In an instant, the man was upon her, clamping his hand on her mouth and catching her against him in a grip so tight that she felt her ribs bend. There was a flash of fiery pain where her hipbone struck the holstered gun at his belt, then she was pressed to him, molded against his hard length.

Shock and surprise and something more vibrated between them. The man felt the slender, yet well-rounded form in his arms, smelled the warm female scent of her-- both things he had not experienced in some time. His first thought was for who she might be; his second and most virulent was for what in the name of living hell she was doing there in that room, at that hour.

"Keep quiet," he said, his voice a whisper that had a rough edge to it, yet was soft in its menace. "Don't make a sound, and I'll let you go."

Lettie, her throat aching with her trapped scream and her heart a pulsing knot in her chest, managed to nod. By slow degrees the pressure on her mouth lessened. She forced herself to remain still, though she was aware with every particle of her being of her breasts pressing against the intruder's hard chest and her thighs brushing the muscled lengths of his legs, of the vital strength and height of him. She was a woman of average size, even perhaps a little taller than average, and yet she felt overwhelmed in a way she had never known before by the sheer force of will she sensed in the man who held her.

It affected her like the scrape of a fingernail on a slate. The instant she felt his hold relax, the moment his hand left her lips, she twisted from him with a cry of outrage bursting from her.

She was whirled back against his hard body. He captured her mouth with his, stifling her outcry. She struggled, writhing, pushing at him, trying to turn her head away. His grasp was firm, inescapable. He brought his hand up and tangled his fingers in the thick silk of her long hair, holding her head immobile as he plundered the sweetness of her lips. His kiss was burning, implacable, and yet seemed to hold a trace of reluctant curiosity. The hard pressure grew less. She felt the brush of a mustache as his lips, warm and smooth and sure, moved on hers, soothing, savoring. He tasted the full, gently molded curves, awakening their sensitivity, testing the smooth, resilient surface of them, from one delicate corner to the other.

Lettie's movement slowed, then stilled. She felt disoriented, light-headed with the sudden leap of sensation along her veins. There crept in upon her a strange, primeval languor that seemed to promise an answer to her earlier yearning. She swayed, wanting, needing to move closer to the man who held her, though she fought the urge, tried to repress it. Desire and revulsion warred inside her, beating up into her brain until she shuddered with reaction, trembling uncontrollably.

The man released her with a quiet imprecation. There was a moment when the only sound was their breathing. Abruptly, he caught her arm and pulled her toward the table that had served as her, writing desk, pressing her down into the chair beside it. Before she could gather herself to protest or even to make a sound, he had removed some kind of scarf from his neck and was tying it over her mouth. She reached up to catch his arms, half rising. He grasped her wrists, pulled them down behind her as he forced her back into the chair, then fastened them to its back with lengths of grass rope that he took from his pockets. A moment more and he was kneeling in front of her to wrap the twisted rope about her ankles and tie them to the front rung of the chair.

Lettie tried to speak, to call him a dog, a sneak thief, an unprincipled ruffian. The words were muffled, though the intent was in her voice.

The man laughed, a low sound of real mirth that sent a strange quiver along her nerves. He rose to lean over her. Though she drew back as far as she could, he brushed a swift kiss across her forehead while one hand rested in a feather-light caress on her breast. Lettie stiffened with a sound of protest. He gave another soft chuckle, then straightened, backing away. His footsteps whispered on the Turkey carpet, there was a flickering shadow at the window, and then he was gone.

For an instant Lettie went limp with relief, then pure rage stirred inside her, rising in a rush to her head. She felt hot all over, and tears sprang into her eyes. The nerve of the man, the sheer, unadulterated gall! She had never been treated in such a way in her life. Never! How dare he mock her as well as attack her and truss her up like a sheep ready for slaughter. Who was he? Who was he?

So great was her fury that it took little effort to rock her chair against the table so that it butted the wall, then tip it forward again and again to make a regular thudding noise.

Everyone was sound asleep. No one was going to come. She was going to have to sit in this chair until morning, or later if no one thought to look for her when she failed to appear for breakfast. The ropes chafed her skin, rubbing it raw as she moved, but they were securely knotted. There was little hope of freeing herself without help.

A faint light shone into the room, coming from the crack under her bedchamber door. The glimmering brightness grew and there came the shuffling sound of footsteps. A soft knock sounded on the door. "Lettie? Are you all right?"

Lettie banged the table harder, making indignant noises around her gag. The door opened and Aunt Em put her head around it.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening. "Oh, my stars!"

She bustled into the room with her dressing gown of limp batiste flapping around her, the faded ribbons of her nightcap fluttering and the gray braids of her hair swinging on either side of her face. She set the oil lamp she carried down on the table, then began to work with energy to unknot the scarf around Lettie's mouth.

"What happened, child? Who did this to you? I just can't believe it. That such a thing could take place in this house with me not two doors away makes me so mad I could spit."

The gag fell away. Lettie answered the older woman as best she could while Aunt Em worked at the knots that held her hands.

"Came through the window? Well, I never! You must have been scared half out of your wits. Oh, dear, I may have to get a knife-- no, it's a slip knot. Right thoughtful of him." Lettie's hands were freed. Aunt Em moved around in front of her and plumped down on her knees to untie Lettie's feet.

"That's not the word I would use," Lettie said with some asperity. "The man was vile, utterly base. He meant to rob you, I'm sure."

"He wouldn't have got much. But whatever he intended, you seem to have changed his mind, and for that I'm grateful." The older woman loosened the last rope and looked up, her mouth opened to speak. She made no sound, however, but sat gaping as she stared at the front of Lettie's pink nightgown.

Lettie, rubbing her chafed wrists, looked down. There was an object clinging to the cotton flannel just over the soft and rounded peak of her right breast. Fragile-looking, a light tan-gold in color, it appeared to be the empty shell of some insect. It clung by its desiccated claws, which were still intact. It was quite whole except for the split down its back where the insect had emerged. Thrust into that split so that it came out the bottom was a tiny tapering spike that was polished to a shining black.

"What is it?" she asked as she detached the shell, turning it this way and that in the lamplight.

"A locust shell and a thorn."

The blood drained from Lettie's face. She dropped the shell to the table as if it had been a scorpion. A locust and a thorn, left attached to her where the man who had entered the room had touched her last. They were symbols of the man known simply as the Thorn, the vicious murderer who had killed her brother, the man she had come South to find.

The name rose unbidden to her lips, a soft whisper.

"It must have been him the hounds were after," Aunt Em said in agreement.

"Yes." Somehow, Lettie had not connected the man with the pursuit by the Union troops and their bloodhounds. It seemed obvious now. He had given his pursuers the slip by some trick and doubled back, looking for a place to hide. He must have thought he had found it until he discovered her. She had been close, so close to him. He had held her, kissed her. She raised the back of her hand to her lips, wiping them in sudden disgust.

"He might have killed me," she said in strained tones, "or-- or worse."

"Oh, no, my dear! Never think such a thing!"

"But I've heard such stories!"

Aunt Em shook her head. "I don't know what you've heard, or where such things get started for that matter, but the Thorn has done as much good as harm around here. I can't believe he would hurt a woman."

"You can't know that," Lettie protested. "The soldiers were after him. That must mean something."

"Humph. Probably means their officers needed something to keep them busy."

A quiet knock fell on the bedchamber door that Aunt Em had left standing ajar as she entered. Two people appeared in the opening, a man and a young boy. Lettie, her nerves still disordered, looked up quickly as the man spoke.

"What is it, Aunt Em? What's wrong?"

The older woman swung around. She caught hold of the table and pulled herself upright, puffing a little. Instead of answering the question put to her, she said, "Ranny, what are you doing up? This is no place for you. Run along now, there's a good boy."

The man stepped into the room. He was tall and broad and so very handsome, in the fashion of the sword-wielding archangels depicted by the old masters in their religious paintings, that he was beautiful. He was perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties; his forehead was broad and his golden-brown brows straight and thick above heavily lashed blue eyes. His nose was strong and straight, and in one cheek was a slight hollow that looked as if it might crease into a dimple when he smiled. His jaw was square and his chin firm, and his mouth had the chiseled molding and wide curves that spoke of strength and of strong desires held in sure control. His hair was soft and blond, shining with sun streaks, and combed back from his face in soft waves that at his left temple almost covered his single blemish, the jagged mark of an old scar that was silvery-gray against the bronze of his skin. The clothes he wore were old and faded: a pair of butternut gray pants and a soft blue chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows.

Lettie got to her feet and moved in haste to where her dressing gown lay across the foot of the bed. As she leaned to pick it up, she was acutely aware of the way the heavy material of her nightgown swayed against her, outlining her waist and hip. Grasping the dressing gown to her chest, she swung around with it in front of her as a covering. She held her chin high, but there was the heat of a flush across her cheekbones and an odd trembling in her hands that could only be reaction from the incident just past.

"I heard a noise," the man called Ranny said to Aunt Em before repeating his first question. "What's wrong?"

"This lady had a fright, a visit from the Thorn if you must know."

Ranny looked at Lettie. "The Thorn? But why?"

"No reason," Aunt Em said, "just a mistake."

"People say he's a bad man. Did he hurt you?" Ranny's candid gaze was still on Lettie's face.

"No, not exactly," she answered, lowering her lashes, looking away.

"Your arms are red."

"It will go away soon. I'm fine."

"I'm glad." The blond man turned to his aunt. "Who is she?"

Aunt Em made a sharp sound with her tongue. "This is Miss Lettie Mason, Ranny. Lettie, my nephew, Ransom Tyler."

The man inclined his head, surveying Lettie once more. To his aunt he said, "Why is she here?"

"Really, your manners, Ranny! She's staying with us, our first boarder. You will meet her at breakfast, but just now she doesn't want to see you or anyone else. Go back to bed." Aunt Em's words, for all their astringency, had a coaxing undertone.

"Yes, ma'am. She's a pretty lady."

Aunt Em looked beyond her nephew to the young Negro boy who was his companion. "Lionel, please?"

The boy, perhaps twelve years old, with tightly curled black hair and huge brown eyes in a triangular face, stepped forward. He moved to the side of the handsome man and reached to catch his square, well-formed hand, holding it in his two smaller ones. "Come on, Mast' Ranny."

Ransom paid no attention. He stared at the young woman in front of him, inspecting the shimmering mass of her hair; the creamy perfection of her skin; the regularity of her features in the oval of her face; the rich, almost pagan, brown of her eyes with their sherry-wine tint around the pupils. Her form, even hidden by her enveloping nightgown, was magnificent, the slim proportions perfect. Her every movement held grace and confidence.

There was only one flaw. She lacked warmth. Her mouth, though beautifully formed, was pinched at the corners like that of a confirmed spinster, and her expression held reserve overlaid with suspicion. And yet there was in the depths of her dark eyes a hint of banked fires, almost, but not quite, smothered. She was, in fact, altogether intriguing. It was a good thing he had kissed her before he had seen her, otherwise he might not have dared.

Lionel tugged at his hand. "Mast' Ranny, come on, you making the lady blush."

Ranny looked down at the boy. He smiled. "I mustn't do that, must I?" He permitted himself to be led away. He paused at the door. "Good night," he said.

Without waiting for an answer, the two of them, the blond man and the black boy, stepped into the dark hallway of Splendora and moved out of sight, their footsteps slowly receding.

"Oh, dear," Aunt Em said, "I'm so sorry. I should have told you about Ranny, but I never expected-- I thought there would be plenty of time to explain in the morning. He had one of his headaches this evening. He doesn't see company, doesn't do much of anything except lie in a dark room until they are over."

"When you mentioned a nephew earlier, I somehow expected a small boy." Lettie made a valiant attempt to gather her self-possession enough to clarify the matter.

Aunt Em sobered. "Ah, well, you weren't so far wrong, but Ranny is the owner of Splendora, the house and land, everything. I just look after it for him."

Lettie returned the gaze of the older woman, saying with some delicacy, "I presume that's because-- because he can't look after it himself."

"He's like a child, the way he was when he was eleven or twelve. It just breaks my heart still, after all this time, but there it is."

"I see."

The older woman squared her shoulders. "He's a dear, sweet boy, wouldn't harm a fly, but I'll understand if you feel you can't stay here in his house, especially after your scare tonight. If you want to leave, I'll see that you have a ride into town in the morning. Your money will be returned, of course."

Lettie had certainly felt the impulse to flee, but with human perversity, the instant the means to do it was offered to her, she became determined to stay. Though the man Ranny was disturbing, she was not afraid of him. And if the Thorn had appeared at the house once, he might do so again. Her voice firm, she said, "I wouldn't think of leaving."

"I knew it!" Aunt Em exclaimed in satisfaction, her face beaming. "I knew you had gumption the minute I saw you."

Lettie smiled in return, a movement of her mouth that altered its curves, touching her face with classic and breathtaking beauty. "Thank you, but perhaps it would be as well if I knew a little more about-- about the situation here."

"You mean about Ranny. There's not much to tell, really." The older woman sat down rather heavily in the chair Lettie had vacated. "You saw the scar on the side of his head? He was wounded in the war like so many others. He was an artillery officer, Confederate, of course." The older woman sent her a quick glance, half-apologetic, half-defiant. "There was a skirmish during the last months of the war. One of the big guns exploded and a piece of the barrel cracked his skull."

"It's a wonder he wasn't killed."

Aunt Em nodded. "His men left him for dead, but he was found by a Union patrol and treated in a field hospital. He was unconscious for weeks and would have died most likely if it hadn't been for Bradley, his body servant from childhood who had been with him all through the war. Bradley went with him when he was transferred to a hospital near Washington. When peace came, he brought him home."

"And your nephew was ... like he is now?"

"No, not then. He had come to his senses in Washington, Bradley said, and was nearly normal, except he couldn't remember a lot of things. But the trip home was too much. He had terrible headaches all the long way. Somewhere in Mississippi he just passed out. By the time he reached Splendora, he was nearly gone. He stayed unconscious, perfectly senseless, for the best part of six months. When he finally woke up that time, he was-- was the way you saw him."

"It must have been distressing. He is, if I may say so, such a nice-looking man."

"Oh, but you should have seen him before the war, when he was full of his devilment, always laughing and carrying on, always pulling a joke or off on some wild rampage. The house was full in those days, boys and girls coming and going, a party every Saturday night, the boys-- young men actually-- acting like fools, the girls setting their caps all innocent-like for Ransom while he never noticed. They all used to dance and sing, to play charades and get up amateur theatricals-- why, there are still three trunks in the attic full of outlandish getups they used to wear. I filled 'em up with popcorn, cookies, and candy, and enjoyed it all as much as any."

"The boy Lionel, is it really necessary for him to lead your nephew about?"

"Not exactly. Lionel is Bradley's boy, raised by his grandmother, Mama Tass, our cook here at Splendora for thirty years. Not only Lionel's father, but his grandfather and great-grandfather had served the Tyler men in the past. The boy was always around, even after Bradley left us to go looking for his freedom. Ranny, in the early days when he was convalescing, used to forget sometimes where he was, what he was doing, and Lionel got in the habit of leading him back to the house, helping him dress and undress, taking care of him. The boy's a big help to me."

"I'm sure," Lettie murmured.

Aunt Em got to her feet. "Well, is there anything I can get for you? A glass of warm milk or maybe some of my blackberry cordial? I wish I could offer you something a bit stronger, but it's been years since we had spirits in the house. Such things are higher than a cat's back, I do swear."

When Lettie declined, Aunt Em offered to make up another room for her or even to let her sleep in her own bedchamber if Lettie was reluctant to remain where she was. Lettie thanked her for her thoughtfulness but finally convinced the older woman that she was not going to lie awake starting at shadows for the rest of the night.

Later, when Aunt Em had gone, taking away the lamp, Lettie lay wide-eyed in the middle of the great tester bed. She was not certain she should have been quite so intrepid. The curtains at the window shifted like pale ghosts in the night air that sighed through the opening. The house creaked and popped, while outside could be heard now and then the soft rustling of some night creature prowling among the shrubs and perennials of Aunt Em's door-yard garden. Lettie thought of getting up and closing the window, but the night was too warm for that. Besides, she was loath to go near it. She did not really think that the Thorn was lurking outside, waiting to grab her again, but her rational thought processes and instincts seemed to be at odds.

She had never felt so helpless in her life as she had in that moment when the Thorn had held her. She had never been kissed like that, so thoroughly, yet with such vital enjoyment. It was not an experience she wished to repeat.

In truth, with the exception of the chaste salutes on her forehead of her father when she was a child, she had only been kissed by one other man. Her fiancé, Charles Smallwood, had swept her into a dark corner once or twice, and had even driven her out into the country one spring day with just such caresses on his mind. Those caresses had never been particularly pleasant. His lips had been hard and puckered and his excitement so great that he had bruised her mouth and left her feeling mussed and indignant instead of ...