Murmur of Rain — Patricia Vaughn

Attempting to support herself as a musician in 1890s Paris, headstrong Lauren Dufort attracts the attention of cultured Roget de Martier, whose family hides a troubled and evil history that eventually alienates Lauren.

He gave her an illustrious name, a vast plantation, and a steamy paradise...but at which price? In the lush tropics, a mysterious family, intrigue, and sinister forces threaten to tear apart a love beyond compare...

For a young woman with limited marriage prospects, Paris in the 1890s was hardly an easy place to survive. But Lauren Dufort, headstrong, lovely, and bursting with life, could rely on her exquisite gift as a pianist to sustain herself. When her fingers alight into a moving rhapsody, Lauren is the enchantress...until one evening she draws a man into her spell who will change her life forever.

Cultured, enigmatic, strong and sensuous as a panther, Roget de Martier sends Lauren into a furious tumult of passion, introducing her to an exotic world far across the sea. But beneath the opulent exterior of the Villa de Martier lies a troubling family history and a menacing cast of characters with a penchant for evil.

Caught in a web of familial decay, ostracized from the class-conscious elite, Lauren is soon cut off from her beloved husband who has apparently deceived her. Unable to abandon so powerful a love, Lauren vows to conquer the demons that haunt her husband and reclaim the passion and the glory that is theirs alone...