Iron Lace

by Lorena Dureau

  Azema lowered discreet lids over the vivid green of her eyes. “I miss you, my dear,” she murmured. “It grieves me to think you’ve forgotten all those happy hours we spent together so soon.”

  “I’ll always remember fondly the time I spent in your company,” he replied gallantly. “You’re a very beautiful and charming woman, Zee. I hope we can at least remain friends.”

  “But you’re so serious!” she scolded laughingly. “What need is there really, all considered, for us to stop seeing each other altogether? You know you’re always welcome here. Of course, we can continue to be friends… and more, if you like, my sweet. After all, your getting married isn’t the end of the world. What’s between us needn’t change.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand, Zee. Mine won’t be a marriage of convenience. It’s a love match, and I hope to keep it that way by not provoking problems.”

  “My, but aren’t you the lovesick swain! I thought you more sophisticated than that, Miguel, but we all make fools of ourselves over the ones who are hard to get, don’t we? I hope you can keep all those fine resolutions once you’re well yoked and begin to get bored with your naive little ward.”

  Miguel sighed. He had no intention of discussing Monique’s more intimate qualities with his ex-mistress. He took Azema’s hand politely and brushed it lightly with a parting kiss.

  But suddenly she caught the’ hand that held hers and quickly drew him closer.

  “Ah, mon amour, I can’t let you go like this… so cold, so formal with me, your Zee who adores you so! At least let’s say goodbye the way two lovers should. Come, lie with me one last time, no?”

  She took the hand she held captive and deliberately cupped it over the mound of her breast, holding it there with a malicious smile as she watched him stiffen and flush uneasily.

  “One more time, no?” she repeated coaxingly. “What difference will it make? Am I suddenly so repulsive to you?” She was trying to steer him back to the sofa where the fire was blazing away cheerfully in the chimney.

  The feel of a woman’s breast warm and pulsating in his hand momentarily stirred his long-denied carnal desires, but even in that split second, the memory of Monique’s ripening body trembling with passion to his touch moved him all the more. Her sweet little face bathed in the ecstasy of her first and only love hung there in his mind’s eye…

  Suddenly he heard a gasp. There in the open doorway, the face that had been floating like a phantom before his eyes seemed to have materialized. Monique was standing there staring at them, her face pale and anguished in the frame of her fur-lined hood.

  He wrested his hand away from where Azema was holding it tightly pressed against her breast and stepped back, but it was too late. Without a word, Monique was gone.

  It had all happened so quickly, so unexpectedly… for a moment he wondered whether she had been there at all. He called her name and tried to rush after her, despite Azema’s obvious efforts to block his path, but only the slam of the front door answered him.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Monique ran and ran … straight down Chartres toward the main plaza. The biting north wind lashed at her cape until it whipped back the hood from her head and left her long hair flying loose in a golden stream behind her. She clutched the wrap closed at her neck to keep it from blowing away but didn’t slacken her pace.

  Some of the townspeople stopped and stared at her curiously as they stepped aside to let her race past them; others gave grunts of annoyance as she nearly knocked them off the wooden sidewalk in her blind haste.

  But Monique was completely unaware of what was going on around her. Her clouded eyes saw nothing save the image of Miguel standing there in the Ducole parlor with his hand cupping Azema’s breast.

  She hadn’t even realized where she was going until the huge flat-roofed cathedral with its hexagonal towers flanking it on either side suddenly loomed up in front of her. There was a quiet dignity in its simplicity, ornamented only by a balustrade around its terrace roof and a marble effect painted over the front of its plastered brick walls.

  She stood there in the massive shadow undecided where to go next. She could continue down one of the streets on the other side of the square, but sooner or later she would come to the palisades, and outside lay only the swamps. Of course, if she went down the Rue Royale, it would lead her back home to the town house, but she hated facing anyone at that moment. It was bad enough to have been made a fool, but worse yet for all the world to know about it!

  As she stood there vacillating, the brown-robed figure of Fray Sebastian suddenly emerged from the columned entrance of the church and held up a large bony hand to detain her.

  “I see you’re roaming the streets again, child,” he admonished in that dry, cracked voice of his. “And it’s blowing up colder, too. Perhaps you’d like to come in out of the wind for a minute and see our magnificent new cathedral, now that it’s almost finished?”

  She looked at him half dazed. He was only slightly taller than she was and looked as though he were slowly withering away within the dark recesses of his hooded habit. She wondered how long it had been since the light of day had struck him full on the face.

  “I… I don’t think…” she faltered, but the monk became more insistent. “It’s all right,” he assured her. “The church hasn’t been dedicated yet, but you might want to say a little prayer and ask God to forgive you your sins.”

  Monique could see the gold leaf of the main altar glittering in the dim interior beyond the arched entrance, and she suddenly felt a great desire to enter. Perhaps spiritual balm was what she needed to soothe the tumult raging within her at that moment.

  “Yes, I think I might like to go in and pray… just for a few moments, if you don’t mind.”

  A spark glinted in the dark hollows of the monk’s eyes as he stepped aside and motioned to her to go through the arched doorway.

  The splendor that met her eyes was indeed impressive. The pews hadn’t been placed yet, so the broad expanse of the marble floor, interrupted only by occasional white columns, was like a giant mirror, reflecting the colorful paintings and sculptures lining the walls and the ornate galleries and balustrades high above it.

  Monique made her way slowly across the vast sheen of the empty church to where the main altar towered majestically above that sea of gleaming marble at the far end of the interior. Like one in a trance, she instinctively took her small lace headscarf from the pocket of her cape and set it atop her windblown hair while she gaped in wonder at the fresh, glittering beauty all around her.

  Although as yet unfinished, the main altar was near enough to completion to be impressive, promising to become a veritable masterpiece of marble and gold. A scaffold still spanned it, but there were no artisans working on it at that moment, so Monique stood staring up at it, marveling at the enormousness of it.

  There were few people in the cathedral just then, for it was not open to the public yet, but meanwhile the work continued. Off to one side of the entrance, two artisans were putting up a wrought-iron railing in front of a niche with a statue of St. Anthony, while two or three Capuchin friars were sauntering about leisurely in their brown homespun habits and peaked hoods like phantom shadows examining the progress of the work on the church and making random comments to one another. The murmur of their voices reverberated eerily in the vast emptiness of the interior, but their words were indistinguishable.

  “Would you like me to hear your confession, child?” asked Padre Sebastian suddenly. “The confessional hasn’t been installed yet, but—”

  “No, no,” she said quickly. “I’d prefer just to pray. May I?”

  “You’re in a building erected to the glory of God. That’s what you should do,” replied the friar dryly. “Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, you know. I suggest you say a special prayer to the Virgin while you’re at it.”

  He retreated a little from her as she made the sign of the cross and knelt at the railing in front of
the main altar, but he remained discreetly behind a nearby column, never taking his eyes from her. Shafts of light from the high stained-glass windows made crisscross patterns over her blue-cloaked figure and turned the disheveled mass of her pale blond hair into a shining halo as it shimmered through the delicate lace of her scarf and poured over her shoulders like liquid gold.

  Fray Sebastian stared at her in fixed fascination, glad that she was so engrossed in prayer that she was unaware of his scrutiny. He wondered how much longer he would have to wait before God would deliver the wench into his hands. He wished she didn’t have that cape around her, but then he had been observing her for so long now that he knew every line of that sensuous little body of hers, fashioned, without a doubt, by the devil himself to lure men to the sins of the flesh.

  Not that he wanted the girl for lustful purposes. To the contrary, his destiny was to cleanse women like that. He wasn’t like so many of those sacrilegious French monks there in the colony with their concubines hidden away somewhere. They were as lax in their vows of celibacy as they were in their vows of poverty and fasting.

  It wasn’t by chance that the colony was suffering so many calamities—that dreadful year of ‘88 with its devastating flood and all-consuming fire, followed by famine and pestilence; then another lesser conflagration, in ‘92, and three hurricanes in the past year and a half! And as if that wasn’t enough, even the crops were failing! How much more would it take to bring the sinful city of New Orleans to its knees? For it was an evil, seditious populace, rebelling against God and its rightful rulers.

  What was needed was the firm hand of the Holy Inquisition to take over and root out the sin abounding there on all sides.

  It had been a pity that his former superior, Padre Antonio de Sedella, had not been permitted to establish a branch of the Holy Tribunal in New Orleans as he had been commissioned to do by Madrid a few years back. But Miró, governor at that time, had wanted no part of the Inquisition in the colony and, at the risk of incurring the wrath of both the Church and his king, had ordered Padre Antonio deported back to Spain and hush-hushed the whole affair.

  But if Miró and now the new governor, Carondelet, thought that was the end of it, they were greatly mistaken, for he—Sebastian Montez de Barcelona— was still there to carry on his superior’s aborted work and keep the light of the Inquisition burning in New Orleans, undercover if need be, but at least carefully nurtured and ready to come out into the open just as soon as the right opportunity presented itself.

  For he wouldn’t be satisfied until he saw the Holy Tribunal firmly established and active there in the colony. A few autos in the Plaza de Armas were what this wicked city needed to make it fall to its knees and beg forgiveness for its sins. If its wayward citizens knew they would be dragged before the Holy Office to account for their acts of rebellion and heresy, they would no longer be so quick to stray from the fold.

  Meanwhile in his humble way, thought Sebastian, he would have to continue the work his unfortunate superior had begun but had never been able to put into effect. Of course, he’d have to be discreet until the moment came when he could operate freely. The fate of Padre Antonio had demonstrated the need for caution.

  Fortunately, however, no one seemed to suspect, even now, that underneath the calabozo there still lay that secret chamber he had helped his superior prepare years ago for those singled out by the Inquisition for special attention. Although there had been one other friar who had assisted in the project, the latter had died earlier that year, so now only one person was left in the entire colony who knew about that subterranean room. Fray Sebastian smiled complacently as he savored his secret in the dark recesses of his mind. He was proud of the way he had kept his silence and felt more than ever, with each passing day, that the divine mission of bringing the Inquisition to New Orleans had fallen upon his shoulders.

  Of course, until he could come out into the open, he would have to continue doing the best he could on his own. After the monastery had been destroyed in that devastating conflagration of ‘88, he had deliberately built his hut over the entrance to the passageway that led to that chamber under the calabozo, and there had been two or three times now that he had brought some sinner there and used the dungeon for the purpose it had been originally designed.

  Of course, with the Chausson wench he would have to be more careful than with the others. She wasn’t any street trollop like that last girl he had purged. This golden-haired temptress came from a distinguished family in the colony, with a guardian who had ties in Madrid. There would be an immediate fuss if a girl like that were to disappear. Whatever he did, it would have to be very carefully worked out. He’d have to have a good case against her when the time came to take her down to his secret chamber for questioning and purging… preferably a confession wrung out of her in which she herself admitted her complicity with the devil.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Monique clasped her hands tightly together over her rosary, fervently trying to keep her mind on her prayers, but Miguel’s face kept blotting out the altar.

  She found herself remembering how her mother had warned her never to put her trust in a Spaniard. How could she have forgotten and let Miguel Vidal make such a fool of her! That early Spanish captain-general had used deceit to trap her grandfather and the other French patriots. Now her guardian had deceived her, too. He had sworn to her that he’d broken off with Azema, yet less than half an hour ago she had seen him making love to that horrid woman.

  After all his passionate declarations of love… all his assurances that no other woman could satisfy him except her… that he was saving himself only for their nuptial bed! How he had mocked her! He and Azema must be having a good laugh at that moment over what a gullible child she was.

  She hated the thought of going home. How could she survive the pain of seeing Miguel again? Even knowing what she did about her guardian, her whole body still ached for him. A thousand fires were consuming her from within for want of him. She must ask the good Lord to take the anguish of that impossible love from her heart!

  Suddenly the stillness of the cathedral was shattered by the sound of wild shouts and the frantic clanging of anvils and bells just outside the square. The two men working near the entrance of the church were the first to react. Abandoning their tools and paints on the spot, they dashed off quickly.

  Unfortunately, that alarm had become all too familiar in New Orleans in recent years. That dreaded call for all able-bodied citizens to come help fight a fire or a flood always sent panic into the hearts of every man, woman, and child of the town. It could mean life or death… the loss of years of work and saving. In just a few moments, a lifetime—even life itself—could go up in a blaze of flames or be buried under torrents of water!

  Monique rose from the prayer rail bewilderedly. The cries of “Incendio!” could be heard above the din of bells and frantic shouting. She wondered where the fire had struck and hoped her home would be spared this time.

  The firehouse was there on the square, only a short distance from the church, next to the guardhouse, but the city only had six pumps and those were operated by hand, so they usually had to be supplemented by lines of bucket brigades.

  In those brief seconds that it had taken for her to rouse herself from her orations and realize what was happening, the church had emptied of its occupants. Only Father Sebastian remained now, standing there beside her with a strange elated look in his eyes.

  She looked questioningly at him. “Merciful heavens! Don’t tell me it’s another fire?” she exclaimed in dismay. Her heart was still heavy, but she wanted to be with her loved ones now. Her own problems suddenly seemed to diminish in size next to the greater emergency that threatened everything and everyone she held dear.

  Fray Sebastian stole a quick glance around him as he moved in closer to her. “Come, child, it’s shorter if we go out the back,” he said, grabbing her by the arm and beginning to lead her around to the rear of the altar. The grip of that bony
hand was surprisingly strong, and instinctively Monique resisted, but the monk pulled her along with him.

  “Come, we must hurry,” he insisted.

  “Please, I… I don’t need any help,” she told him, growing more annoyed by the minute over the monk’s arbitrary manner. There was something about him that frightened her.

  “Don’t argue, do as I say!” he chided impatiently. They were behind the altar now, and he continued to pull her along by the arm.

  Determined not to let him drag her any farther, Monique tried to break free and run away from him, but suddenly, with one sweeping gesture, he caught her to him, as though he were arresting the flight of a bird on wing. Deftly he twisted her arm behind her and pulled her back up against him, even as he clamped his other hand simultaneously over her mouth before she could utter a sound of protest.

  “Al fin!” he exclaimed triumphantly in her ear. “At last I have you!”

  The confused shouts just outside the church seemed to be echoing Monique’s inner turmoil at that moment. With muffled protests against the hand that covered the lower half of her face, she tugged desperately at those steellike fingers clamped over her mouth while she struggled in vain to work herself free of him, but the wiry strength of the seemingly frail monk surprised her.

  Her skirts whirled and her voluminous cloak tangled with the long loose habit and flowing sleeves of the Capuchin as she tried to kick and lash out blindly at him, but he wouldn’t release his grip. Instead, he forced her to the floor facedown and, still keeping her arm pinioned behind her, held her there with one of his knees in the pit of her back while he shoved a gag into her mouth and quickly trussed her hands together behind her with the cord-belt from his own habit.

  Finally he pulled her roughly to her feet and looked down at her jubilantly as she stood there swaying before him, whimpering and spent.

  “This moment was heavensent!” he rejoiced. “God has delivered you into my hands at last! Now we must get you below immediately while everyone is busy with the fire.”