“You know your stars.”
“I know enough to find my way in the dark.”
He moved to stand in her way, closing one eye, which was somewhere between a sarcastic wink and a signal of possible sympathy. She’d seen him do the one-eye dance earlier and thought it was freaky. “I’m not finished studying them.” He picked up the pair of shoes, holding them by the heels. “How do you walk in these ugly things?”
“Ugly?” She reached for them. “Those are Christian Louboutin pumps.”
He pulled his hand back, keeping the Louboutins out of her reach, and gave her a challenging look, resembling Jack Sparrow without the eyeliner, mustache, braids, and beads. “I don’t care what they are. How do you walk in them? Show me.”
“Are you kidding? After what you’ve put me through, you want me to be a shoe model?”
His brows deepened as he stared at her. “I do not kid, mon Capitaine.”
If they weren’t her special shoes, she’d throw them at him. She gave him the stink eye while slipping on the pumps, grimacing from being punched in the gut. She took two steps up, two steps back. “See? Easy-peasy.”
His skepticism changed to wonder. “Let me try.”
She extended her arms, fists flexed. “No way. Your feet are too big. You’ll stretch them out. Get your own pair.”
He held out his hand, snapped his fingers. “Give them to me. I won’t put them on, but I want to study how they’re made, and how such a thin stem can support your weight.”
Call her batshit crazy, too, but she couldn’t help but smile at his innocence. No! There was nothing innocent about him. He’d sent her off to a brothel to be raped by his men. She should want to kill him or beat the shit out of him. He was the crazy one, after all. Reluctantly she removed the pumps and handed them over.
“Please take care of them.”
“You and your unusual pumps…are under my protection.”
His hand clasped her elbow, and he pointed her toward the door. Just as they reached the hallway, a man in his early sixties with graying hair walked out from another room.
“Jean,” he said in a soft French accent. “You’ve kept mon Capitaine Malone up much too late. She needs rest after her ordeal.”
“This is Dominique Youx,” Lafitte said.
She almost laughed out loud but contained it. She shouldn’t be at all surprised that a pretend Lafitte would have a pretend Dominique Youx as a sidekick. While Lafitte was taller than Billie, the swarthy Dominique was several inches shorter, yet twice as broad as Lafitte. Along with flashing black eyes and a hawk-like nose, he had powder burns on the left side of his face, which made him look ferocious. But she could tell from his concern for her that he had a soft side that most people probably never saw.
“Now come with me, mon Capitaine. I’ve already prepared your room and arranged for a bath.” His eyes grazed over her, and he tsked. “Jean has a warehouse full of trunks from France and Spain with gowns made of the finest silks and brocades. With the right gown, you’ll look like the Queen of Barataria. I’ll take you there tomorrow. You are too beautiful to dress like a man.” His gaze stopped at her feet. “And no shoes.” He tsked again.
“That’s very kind, Mr. Youx. I could use a new outfit to wear back to New Orleans.” A dress from Paris would be such a treat. She’d find one to complement her shoes.
He tucked her arm around his and escorted her to a winding sweep of stairs, and at the top of the staircase, he led her to a room at the end of the hallway. “I hope you’ll find this room to your satisfaction. Jean had it furnished with hope that…” Dominique paused and gave Billie a sad smile. “He had hoped a lady would join him here, but…” He didn’t finish. Instead, he opened the door and stood aside for Billie to enter.
The room was brilliantly lit with oil lamps in all shapes and sizes, exuding old-world élan. She gawked. Was this for real? She strolled across an Aubusson carpet, each step taking her further back in time. The room was feminine and refined, decorated in pastel shades in the sitting area near the balcony door and pale burgundy on the bed. The furniture was the French Louis XVI-style, using embroidered floral fabrics mixed with scrumptious silks. Before she escaped Barataria, she had to get the decorator’s name.
“This room is extraordinary,” she said. “It takes me back in time.” Behind a hand-painted privacy screen was an antique roll-top bathtub filled with steaming water. Hmmm. Definitely back in time. Not only did Lafitte shun electricity, but plumbing, too.
“I’ll leave you to your bath. If you need anything before you retire, pull the bell cord by the bed. One of the women will attend you.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
General Jackson had admired Youx’s skill and bravery and said he would, “…storm the gates of hell with Dominique Youx.” Youx had been bold and flamboyant, and Jackson appointed him commander of the artillery during the Battle of New Orleans. Billie could see in this man’s face what Jackson must have seen in the real Dominique Youx. He played his role exceedingly well.
“There is one thing. Could I use your phone? I want to call my friend and tell her I’m okay. I know she’s worried about me.”
For a moment, a blank looked crossed his face, and then his expression became animated once again, and his eyes brightened. “Tomorrow.” Dominique bowed his head and left.
She followed him to the door. Would he lock her in the room? Click! Yep. She didn’t have the energy to pound on the door and demand to be released. She escaped the whorehouse. Surely she could escape the main house, too. Tomorrow, if they didn’t let her use the phone or make arrangements to return to New Orleans, she’d find another way. She had to be within walking distance of a store with a phone to call an Uber. She didn’t care if it cost as much as her airline ticket to New Orleans, she just wanted to get the hell out of there.
A tingle of fear rippled down her back, but she shoved it aside and crossed the room to the tub. The steamy water was calling her name. She stripped and climbed in, thankful there wasn’t a mirror on the wall to see the ugly bruises and bite marks. She almost gagged at the violent memory of her attack.
And then she got pissed at the wannabe Lafitte who allowed it to happen. Son of a bitch. She wouldn’t let herself be swayed by his charm or that of the fake Dominique Youx. As soon as she was free of Barataria, she’d report him to the police.
For a few minutes, she put her head back, closed her eyes, breathed slowly, and relaxed in the heat. When the water temperature cooled, she reached for a bar of soap and washed, grimacing when she touched her breasts. Asshole.
If that son of a bitch was ever in her sights when she had a gun in her hand, she’d shoot him in that damn package he was so proud of. She didn’t want to kill him. Disabling him so he’d suffer the rest of his life was good enough.
Next to the tub was a provincial fruitwood rafraîchissoir without a wine bottle. A thin linen towel lay across the marble inlay, and draped over the back was a white silk gown as paper-thin as the linen. How could Lafitte give her to his men, then flip his mind like a pancake, feed her, and treat her like this? He was delusional and needed meds. A shiver fell across her skin and slid down her spine. Tomorrow he could change his mind again and either hang her or send her back to the brothel.
I’ve got to get out of here.
It was a toss-up, though, as to which was a better plan: slip out in the middle of the night or stick around to see if he was going to help her. But her mind wasn’t clicking on all cylinders. She’d be better off getting a few hours of sleep before she made a decision.
Dried and dressed in a clean, soft gown, she dropped onto the lumpy bed, yawning. As much money as Lafitte spent on decorating this room, why for God’s sake didn’t he order a Tempur-Pedic mattress? Although right now, she didn’t care. She could sleep on anything. Yeah, like a swamp bed in the trees.
Within seconds of laying her head on the pillow, she was a goner…
…until an oily rag was rammed down her t
hroat, yanking her out of a dead sleep.
17
New Orleans (1814)—Sophia
Sophia stumbled out of the dense fog that had flipped her upside down from one century to another on a dizzying ride, then dumped her out into an earth-touching cloud that carried the briny scent of the sea and cloaked the city in a dark shroud.
Today’s trip was the seventh time the fog had jettisoned her somewhere in the past. Each trip was disorienting, and this one was no exception. But unlike the other ones, her head had that drank-too-much-wine-last-night feeling that ibuprofen, carbohydrates, and hydration could fix. But for some reason, food, water, and pain meds couldn’t fix her now.
Then what could?
A map marked with a big X with an accompanying note—You Are Here!—would be a good start.
Was she even in New Orleans? Nothing about the street and buildings was familiar, but the stench of unwashed bodies and raw sewage certainly was. She was in the past, somewhere in time. The weather seemed wrong, though. The air was wet and chilly. Not hot and sticky. And she was sucked into the dampness.
And even more noticeable than the weather was that…
…she was all alone.
The disorientation worsened as if someone gripped her spine with an ice-cold fist and shook her, puncturing her skin and the back of her neck with sharp nails, and screaming, “Danger! Alert!”
The people around her were all speaking French!
French? Shudders rocketed from her lungs out to her limbs, and panic danced along her spine. Paris? No, it couldn’t be happening again. But why not? With unpredictable brooches, anything was possible.
All-consuming and visceral images of explosions and death played on a loop in her mind. Shivering, she retreated into the wool of her fur-trimmed cloak, pulling the hood up over her head. But hiding didn’t stop the grotesque slideshow. The warmth of the wool reminded her of Pete. If he was caught in the mob too, they’d never find each other.
Her head snapped around to see if he was behind her. He wasn’t there.
She craned her neck to see ahead, her attention darting from one face to another. Pete’s height and muscular frame made him easy to spot in any crowd. But he wasn’t in front of her either.
The low crackle of thunder rolled across the rooftops.
No, not again.
Sophia covered her ears to block out the screams.
Pete, where are you?
Why wasn’t he with her? She couldn’t escape the waking nightmare without him.
What if Pete doesn’t make it? What if I’m stranded again?
Pete was a warrior. He’d take on dragons to find her. Wouldn’t he? He’d lost her twice. But he’d never lose her again. He promised.
Her body itched to run, but where?
If he didn’t come after her, she’d never get home. Never see Lukas again. Without a brooch, she’d be stranded in the past without a backup plan or the means to carry one out.
Each thought was worse than the last one.
No Pete.
No paint supplies to earn money.
No contingency plan.
No brooch…not even the unpredictable pearl.
Nothing…
I can’t…breathe…
Her mind played cruel tricks, and she was back in the Bastille’s courtyard, a burning torch inches from setting her afire, the crowd chanting, “Burn her. Burn her.”
Sophia broke out in a cold sweat and choked down the bile in her throat. She bent over, one hand on her stomach, the other holding onto the brick wall for support.
A light touch on Sophia’s shoulder startled her, and she shrugged off the hand.
“Mademoiselle, are you ill?” a woman asked.
“What?” Sophia gasped for breath. “No. I’m not ill.”
“My dress shop is at the corner of Rue de la Levee. Come with me, ma chérie, before the rain starts. I’ll give you a glass of eau-de-vie.”
Sophia’s breathing grew heavier. “That’s not thunder.” She was almost in tears. “It’s cannon fire.”
“Not yet, ma chérie. But the British will be here soon enough.”
Sophia’s memory was jumbled, confusing the past with the present. “I have to find my husband before they come.”
“You have time. Do you know where you left him?” the woman asked.
“We were holding hands, and now…” Sophia threw a furtive glance up and down the street again. “He’s gone!”
Jackson Square… If we get separated, meet there.
Scrambling to put thoughts and words together, she said, “He told me to meet him at…at…Jackson… No, the Place d’Armes.”
“I can see the parade grounds from my window. After the rainstorm, I’ll cross the street with you. We’ll find him.”
The dulcet tone of the woman’s heavily accented voice cast such a reassuring calm over Sophia that the rolling boom of thunder and rain pinging like bullets on the ground ceased to be terrifying. Sophia straightened and gave herself up to the woman’s persistence.
Shivering, Sophia said, “The thunder sounds like cannon fire.”
“If you’ve heard the roar of cannons, thunder in New Orleans sounds similar, but the British aren’t storming the gates yet.” The woman slipped her arm around Sophia’s waist and assisted her to the corner. “Here’s my shop.” The woman didn’t relinquish her hold on Sophia until she unlocked the door and opened it.
The aroma of fresh croissants served en terrasse with un café latte, along with a touch of tobacco and lavender, gave the shop a soothing French ambiance. Sophia’s stomach slowly unclenched, and the memory that had trampled over her reality receded at a turtle’s crawl.
She rarely relived those horrible memories of being stranded in Paris the day Parisians stormed the Bastille, but the second thunderstorm in two days had stirred up all the old terrors, and the engulfing fear left her unsteady on her feet.
She collapsed onto a deep-seated Louis XIV-style settee. In the middle of the cane back was a miniature, a hand-painted oil-on-wood image of a familiar young girl sitting on the ground in a garden, dipping her toes in a pond.
“What a lovely painting.”
It was a miracle Sophia could pull down a coherent thought, but art was a place where she was unshakable. The miniature was a copy of a painting Sophia did of Polly Jefferson in the garden at the Hotel de Langeac. The original hung at Monticello, along with the others she’d done of the Jefferson family. But how did the furniture maker get a copy of it? Did he go to Monticello and copy her work?
She put her head down in her lap and rested her forehead on her arms, breathing in the comforting aromas while the shop owner fluttered around the room. A furniture maker wouldn’t have painted the portrait. He would have commissioned a painter to do that.
The sofa cushion dipped when the woman sat down next to Sophia. “Here, ma chérie… Sit up and drink this.” The shop owner wrapped Sophia’s fingers around the stem of a small cordial glass.
Sophia held the glass to her nose, sniffed the aromas, then sipped an evocatively perfumed brandy. “A perfectly ripe raspberry.” It would take more than a glass of brandy to boot the monsters out of her mind completely, but the drink would put some muscle behind her kick.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue. I’m haunted by what happened in Paris the day revolutionaries stormed the Bastille. I almost died there, and occasionally… Well…” She sipped more brandy, chastising herself for oversharing about her past ordeal.
The woman tilted her head slightly to one side, then the other, in a small mannerism that Sophia found peculiarly familiar. “The razing of the Bastille was twenty-five years ago,” the woman said.
“Was it?” Sophia’s voice sounded like she had a plugged nose—distant and distorted. “Oh! I guess it was. To me”—she pressed her hand to her chest—“it seems like only a handful.”
The woman brushed back the hood of Sophia’s cloak, and as it fell away, the woman cupped her hands over her mo
uth, her eyes glistening with tears. “Oh, mon Dieu.”
She gingerly touched Sophia’s face. “You resemble a woman I knew in Paris. She suffered terribly that day. They say she drowned later, but I never believed it. She would be an older woman now. Not young and beautiful as you are.”
Sophia gazed into the woman’s big, brown eyes, eyes Sophia knew so well, and her surprise morphed into something more, something marvelous, and, after all these years, totally unexpected. The woman’s heart-shaped face had a few wrinkles, and strands of silver peppered her dark hair, but she was still small and slender like a dancer.
“Marguerite? It is you, isn’t it?”
“Miss Sophia?” Marguerite went quite pale, and a sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead. “Are you a ghost?”
Sophia patted a hand around her face, shaking her head. “I’m not. Are you?”
“You look no different, ma chérie. Time has stood still for you.” Marguerite’s voice wobbled with emotion. “How is that possible?”
“Oh, you know me,” Sophia said, wiping away her tears. “I exercise and stay hydrated.”
Marguerite dabbed a few tears of her own. “Tai chi and lemon water. I remember. But where have you been all these years?”
“I…returned to Italy.” Sophia had to change the conversation before Marguerite asked a question that would force Sophia to lie to her—again. “Tell me what you’ve been doing. How long ago did you leave New York?”
“When my husband died, I wanted to return to Paris. But I’d been away too long. My brother died during the revolution, and I didn’t know anyone else there. Captain Colley…do you remember him?”
“Of course,” Sophia said.
“During his trips to New York City to visit his sister-in-law, he’d come to my shop. Since I didn’t want to move back to France, he said I should come here. I thought about it, and the next time he came to the city, I made plans to sail with him.”
“So, you came to New Orleans and started over?”
“Oh, no. Captain Colley had been selling my gowns here for several years, and my designs were in high demand. When I finally moved, I met a man who brought gowns to New Orleans from France, Spain, and Portugal. I told him I would sell his merchandise in my shop, and we would split the profits. He was difficult to bargain with, but I remembered everything you told me and stuck to what I believed was fair. He left and came back a few months later. He said he was taking the biggest risk and should get a higher percentage. I said it would take hours to alter the gowns to fit my customers. We went back and forth and finally agreed to split the profits fifty-fifty. But for hats, shoes, and undergarments, he gets a bigger percentage. It’s been a very profitable venture.”
The Topaz Brooch Page 21