The sultry darkness of bayou nights can no longer hide secrets, sin, and scandal (. In the South before the Civil War, it is an unspoken rule: slave owners can bed their female slaves, and their wives must look the other way. Uneasy in this society, the lovely Simone is a maverick: unmarried at twenty five, she is increasingly troubled by the hidden intermingling of the races, even at Bellefleur, her family's plantation. And then Simone falls passionately in love with Ariste Bruneau, master of a neighboring plantation. But their love is imperiled by Simone's increasing involvement with the Underground Railroad--and her fear that Ariste is just another abusive slave owner. It is when Simone goes upriver with a mistreated slave and her infant, endangering her reputation and her life, that their love is truly tested (and Simone will learn once and for all whether Ariste is the man she hoped he would be (. SECRETS OF BELLEFLEUR brings to vivid life Louisiana in 1857, with its teeming ports, cultured Creole society, aristocratic men, delicately beautiful women--and a legacy of slavery that would soon bring war (.