by Mia Sheridan
The night was humid and damp, the rain sprinkling the dirty windows as Clara rode the bus to the French Quarter.
The masquerade ball was part of her job and she needed to make sure she had something appropriate to wear rather than waiting until the final hour and finding herself with very limited options. Although she supposed two days in advance was the final hour and she said a silent prayer that the right costume would be waiting for her.
The sidewalks were filled with laughing, chattering people leaving restaurants and entering and exiting tourist shops, some wearing bright-colored boas and carrying colorful drinks in their hands.
It seemed that in New Orleans there was always a party going on somewhere no matter the time or the day of the week. Clara could get happily lost down here, people-watching and wandering from shop to shop.
A man laughed boisterously, bumping into Clara, the large plastic cup he was holding in his hand tipping precariously. He managed to right it but not before several drops splattered. The man raised his brows in apology, but continued grinning, as he ducked by.
“Crap,” she muttered, stepping into a doorway and brushing at the bright red droplets staining the front of the pink leotard she was still wearing under her light zip-up sweatshirt.
She sighed, pulling her sweatshirt closed and looking up at the door in front of her. Madame Catoire’s Palm and Spiritual Readings: Past, Present, Future.
Clara hesitated, curiosity getting the best of her as she leaned toward the smoky glass, gazing into the tiny shop.
She could see tables inside holding small trinkets and candles and other items and after a short hesitation, Clara pulled the door open to the sound of a tinkling bell and stepped inside.
It smelled smoky and cloyingly sweet, and what sounded like wind chimes and piano music filtered softly from somewhere beyond.
A slight breeze brushed Clara’s skin, though there were no windows open anywhere she could see, and the door was now closed.
Nerves cascaded through her, but she was too curious to turn around, her gaze snagging on one interesting object after another. She walked slowly around the shop, leaning in and looking at the assortment of crystals and geodes that glittered atop one table, and stopping to study the names on the tiny amber bottles on another. They were each labeled in handwritten print: Money, success, love. My, but there are so many ways to make wishes in this world, she thought.
“And what is it you wish for, dear girl?”
Clara spun around to see an older woman in a purple dress standing in a doorway half covered by a curtain at the back of the shop. What do you wish for, she’d asked. It was as if the woman had read her thoughts.
The woman moved closer, and Clara saw that though she was older, she was still stunning with large turquoise eyes and hair that was a mixture of white and a blonde so pale, Clara could only discern the difference between the two shades now that the woman was standing in front of her.
“It is love you wish for, no?”
“I . . . I suppose so.” Doesn’t everyone?
The woman tilted her head, studying her for a moment. “It is hard for you to wish for things for yourself? Very rare.”
The woman had phrased it as a question, but she turned away from Clara as if requiring no answer. “Come, I am closed, but I will read for you. No charge.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize—”
The woman waved her hand dismissively and held the curtain open for Clara. Clara hesitated, but the urge to hear what the woman would read for her was strong, her inquisitiveness overwhelming the unsettled feeling she’d had since she’d entered the shop.
Clara glanced back once, and as she did a shadow moved away from the doorway, leaning back as if he had peered into the shop for a moment.
She turned back to the woman, and the woman was watching the door where the shadow had been a moment before, too, a frown marring her beautiful face. But as quickly as Clara had seen it, it was gone and the woman gestured to her once more and then disappeared behind the heavy red curtain. Clara followed.
The back of the shop was dim and mostly empty, twinkle lights strung across the ceiling, a round table positioned in the middle of the floor, the woman already seated on one side. Clara took the empty chair opposite her.
“I am Madame Catoire. And your name is?”
“Clara.”
She smiled a thin smile and pulled a deck of cards from the middle of the table. “Shuffle these, please.”
Madame Catoire handed them to Clara and she did so, handing them back to the older woman who then shuffled them herself, peering intently at Clara all the while.
Madame Catoire laid the cards out one by one, each containing symbols and numbers that meant nothing to Clara. The fortune teller looked them over for a moment before sitting back in her chair.
“There is sadness in you. You have experienced a loss only . . .” The woman’s brows creased as if she was trying to find the right words. “It is not quite a loss.” She looked at Clara. “Someone you love is very ill.”
Clara nodded. “Yes,” she breathed. “My father.”
Madame Catoire nodded. “What the doctors have told you is correct.”
Clara nodded again slowly, sadly. Yes, she knew.
Madame Catoire studied the cards once more. “You seek answers to a mystery.”
Clara’s heart jumped but she took a slow breath, going for a casual response. Fortune tellers were like salespeople after all, weren’t they? Letting them see your excitement gave them an edge. “I am actually.”
The fortune teller didn’t look up at her though, as if she neither wanted nor needed her validation. She leaned forward, her eyes seeming to shimmer in the golden light cast from the strings of twinkling lights above. “Keep seeking. Do not stop. It is very important.”
“Okay—”
“Very important,” she whispered again before looking back at the cards, her full red lips tight and tilted downward.
Clara shivered, adjusting herself in her chair. Could Madame Catoire actually be talking about the riddle and how to set Angelina free? “Madame Catoire, can you tell me where to find more answers? Where to look?”
“No. The cards do not answer questions nor communicate in specifics. They speak in shadows, and I know only what peeks through the mist.”
Well, that sounds . . . vague. Disappointment overcame Clara and she wondered if this was all some trick. If Madame Catoire couldn’t speak in specifics or answer questions, couldn’t generalities apply to almost everyone? Then again . . . the two things she’d given Clara so far hadn’t been things that would be applicable to just anyone. But they’d been very applicable to her. And she’d even insisted that Clara not pay her, so there wasn’t really a reason for her to trick Clara anyhow.
Madame Catoire looked Clara in the eye as her finger moved over another card, slowly, almost caressingly. “Be wary of the man with two faces. He’ll hurt you if you let him.”
Be wary . . . the man with two faces? Could she mean . . . Jonah? He was scarred, she knew that, but what did the fortune teller mean about two faces? His old face and his new face? He’ll hurt you if you let him? Jonah?
She shook her head, denying her own unspoken thought. She couldn’t believe Jonah would harm her. She trusted him. At least . . . well, at least as far as her safety went. Then again, maybe she was being naïve. She felt like she knew him, but could you really know a person from behind a wall? Yes, her heart insisted. Yes. But doubt continued to linger . . . he hadn’t come to meet her. Nor did he wait by the wall.
Madame Catoire said the cards didn’t answer questions so Clara didn’t ask her to clarify. “Is there anything else, Madame Catoire? Anything about . . . love?”
Madame Catoire sat back in her chair, looking exhausted somehow, which was surprising given they’d only been sitting at a table for ten minutes or so. “Your true love dances between moonbeams.”
What in the world? Dances? She was a dancer, obviou
sly, but other than that, Clara had no earthly idea what the words meant and opened her mouth to say so when Madame Catoire stood suddenly. “The reading is done.”
She gathered her cards with a flourish, and left through another door in the back of the small room. Clara heard her ascending stairs and stood, confused by the abrupt departure. Wasn’t she going to walk her to the door and lock up? She’d said she was closed . . .
Clara took a twenty and a five from her purse and placed the bills on the table so Madame Catoire would see the money when she came downstairs. There was no sign that indicated how much readings were, but she didn’t feel right allowing the fortune teller to work for free, and hoped the money she’d placed on the table was in the arena of what she generally charged.
The bell tinkled above the front door again as Clara opened it, closing it tightly behind her as she stepped out into the muggy night air. The street was emptier than it’d been before she entered the shop.
Clara pulled her phone out and glanced at the time, surprised to find that an hour had gone by. How did that happen? she wondered with a confused frown.
She turned right, hurrying down the street. She had ten minutes to rush to the costume shop. Ten minutes to find something to wear to the masquerade ball. And then another night alone. She knew she’d continue pondering the fortune teller’s words: Keep seeking. Do not stop. It is very important.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
January, 1861
“Mr. Whitfield, you look dashing this evening.”
John smiled, though it felt forced. If Mrs. Chamberlain noticed, she didn’t react. “Thank you, Mrs. Chamberlain. You look lovely as always.”
He turned to Astrid who was right next to her mother. “As do you, Astrid.”
Astrid blushed to her hairline and John felt a small, sinking feeling in his chest. He hated that he was using the girl as a means to spend time at Windisle—to spend time with Angelina—but at the moment, there was simply no other way.
“Is that Mrs. Holdsworth? I do believe it is. Why don’t you young people have a glass of punch, and I’ll be right back.”
She patted Astrid on the arm, giving her a quick look full of meaning, and John looked away, pretending not to have caught the not so subtle glance.
He cleared his throat, nodding at Mrs. Chamberlain as she breezed by him. “Punch?” John asked Astrid, raising an eyebrow.
She blushed, but a small apologetic grimace accompanied it. “Subtlety is not my mother’s forte. But, yes, thank you, I’d love some punch.”
John chuckled. He had no romantic notions toward her, but Astrid was a nice girl. And she was pretty. She resembled Angelina a little bit with their father’s same almond-shaped eyes and high forehead. She would catch the eye of some other man someday soon, and that man would be lucky if she looked back at him, despite her dragon of a mother.
He led Astrid to the punch table, pouring her a cup and then making one for himself. “Happy New Year, Astrid,” he said, clinking his glass to hers.
“Happy New Year, John,” she said softly, taking a sip of her punch.
A man in a top hat and a black mask laughed, walking past with a woman in a red boa and a dainty hat that looked like it was supposed to be a cardinal’s plume. “I didn’t realize people were dressing up in costume.”
“Oh, it wasn’t on the invitation. My parents had a New Year’s Eve costume party many years ago, and some people still dress up as part of tradition.”
“Ah, I see.” John took another drink of the watery punch, wishing someone had spiked it or that he’d brought his own so it would be easier to endure the social triviality of this night.
All he wanted to do was push through this crush of people, and burst outside into the night air. He wanted to go to her. He wanted her so badly he ached with it.
Suddenly, as if his thoughts had conjured someone who looked like her . . . or rather, someone who moved like her, his eyes snagged on a woman in a high-necked, pale pink dress wearing a full-faced cat mask that also covered the top of her head. John attempted to shrug it off, to move his gaze away, but no, she definitely moved like his Angelina. He should know, he’d spent long hours reliving every moment with her, picturing over and over every stretch of her lean body, every gesture, every small twitch of her muscles. But Angelina would never have been invited to this party or any other. She was somewhere very close by, yes, but God, she was a world away.
“So, John,” Astrid said, and John pulled his eyes from the woman across the room, to look at Astrid who was biting her lip nervously. “I’ve ah, enjoyed having tea with you very much. I hope, well, I . . .”
John’s eyes moved back to the masked woman, Astrid’s voice fading. The woman reached out with her gloved hand and took a bite-sized piece of cake from a passing tray, holding a hand over her lower face, as she discreetly delivered the morsel under her mask. Her spine bent back very slightly as she lowered her hand, chewed and swallowed.
That small spine bend . . . it was the same way Angelina experienced pleasure, arching back into it, feeling it with her entire body— Holy hell. The sound of the party exploded in John’s head.
“John? Are you all right? Did you hear what I said?”
“I beg your pardon?” he muttered. John looked at Astrid who was staring at him, her expression a mixture of hurt and concern.
“I asked you if—”
“Forgive my rudeness, Astrid, I need to speak to someone.”
“Oh, certainly, I—”
John moved around her, trying to walk as calmly as possible to the woman standing by the window, the woman—no, not the woman. Angelina. His Angelina, and she was playing with fire.
His gut clenched and he bit back a curse, plastering what he hoped was a casual smile on his face as he walked past her. “Follow me,” he said softly so only she could hear. Then he moved past, exiting the room and walking down the hall where he glanced back once to make sure she was indeed following him and that no one else witnessed them.
He entered the library at the end of the hall, leaving the door open a crack. When she slipped in a moment later, he pulled her into his arms, closing the door and locking it with a quick turn of his wrist. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“How did you recognize me?”
He removed her mask and flung it aside, tightening the arm that still held her and released a harsh exhale. “I’d know you anywhere, don’t you know that?”
She stared up at him, her lips tipping sweetly. She placed her hand over his heart that was thundering in his chest, part fear at the risk she’d taken, part joy in having her in his arms when it was the very thing he’d been wishing for so fervently.
“I wanted to be near you, John. I wanted to dance with you and drink champagne. I wanted to taste one of those cakes my mama spent all day baking. And I saw the masks and I—”
John crushed his mouth to hers and her words became a breathless moan. Their sounds of pleasure mingled as their tongues twisted together, their kisses frantic and full of longing, full of the knowledge that there would be no dancing, no champagne, not for them. But there is this. Ah, there is this, John’s fevered mind told him. Even if it wasn’t nearly enough.
“I don’t want to hide,” she said, her mouth breaking from his, “not in a cave or a burrow. I want to live in the light, John.”
Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck. This is madness, John thought. It was driving him mad, making him insane with the need to do something, to find a solution for them. But despite being unable to sleep for thinking about her, staying up late into the night just staring at the ceiling, he could envision nothing that didn’t risk her life. Her life, that was more precious to him than his own.
“Angelina,” he whispered, the word full of love and the helplessness he felt in his heart. He needed some time. What would they do?
He kissed her one final time, trailing a finger over her smooth cheek. “We’ll both drink that starlight you bottled up. We’ll shine for the wh
ole wide world.”
Angelina let out a small laugh that didn’t hold much humor. “Only that isn’t real and you know it.”
John looked into her eyes, this woman who had rearranged his soul somehow. “Isn’t it?” All he knew was that he felt brighter, hotter when she was with him. He felt like he could do anything if it meant caring for her.
Angelina let go of him, bending to pick up the mask that had landed on the floor as she walked to the nearby desk.
She picked up a book and glanced at it, her shoulders bunching before she placed it down. When she turned, her expression was still troubled but she quickly replaced it with a smile. She opened her mouth to speak when a key jiggled in the lock and before either of them could react, Astrid burst into the room. Her eyes were wide and she looked from John to Angelina and then back to John, an arrested expression on her face as John’s stomach dipped. Oh God, no.
John moved to stand in front of Angelina, an instinctive protective maneuver, when the sharp sound of heels clacked on the hardwood of the hallway seconds before Mrs. Chamberlain joined her daughter.
She looked from one stricken face to another. “What, pray tell, is going on here?”
John’s mind spun. They would hurt her somehow—perhaps not physically, but they’d find some way to hurt her. He wouldn’t let it happen.
Astrid stepped forward, a brittle smile turning her mouth up. “Mama, I asked Angelina to fetch one of my masks from my room and deliver it. I wanted to surprise everyone.”
She walked to where Angelina was standing and held out her hand for the cat mask.
John could see that Angelina was trembling and it caused his muscles to tighten painfully with the need to go to her, but he knew it was better that he didn’t. “Isn’t that right, Angelina?”
John stared, ready to move should it be necessary, wondering what Astrid was doing. Was she covering for them?