by Azod, Shara
Wouldn’t a child of two orishas already know her name?
“Cherie, Cherie Bonnet.”
“Oui, that’s right. You were supposed to be Cherie Barbin, non? Well, you will be
Madame La Duchese, eh? You will be out of this place by the morning. The Marassa
Jumeaux have taken an interest in you for some reason. They want to make sure you see
justice, you and your men. You will of course have to be separated from the fierce one, but
only for a time. Sad he won’t see the birth of his garçon de bebé, but he will be back soon.
All loose ends must be tied up, non? I have decided to stay here until le Capet sees to your
release and puts the harpy, the governor’s wife in her place. Until then, we will sit and get
to
know one another, oui?”
Cherie had no idea what the girl was talking about. However, while she was not
altogether sure what Marie had said, but she decided to relax and let the girl’s chatter wash
over her, keeping her mind off the terrible reality of where she was and how she was
possibly going to get out.
******* Étienne returned to an eerily empty house. Not even a servant was about. Thinking
Cherie was probably at her parent’s house, he decided to meet her there. He had just
started out before he was stopped by an old friend.
"You must be thanking God you didn’t marry her,” the man gushed with barely
suppressed glee at the juicy gossip making its rounds across New Orleans. “That Bonnet
girl, I mean. Imagine shooting her own grandpére for refusing to trap you into marrying her
and raising the Duc de Mortel’s by-blow.”
Étienne’s fist connected with the unsuspecting man’s face before he even realized he
threw it. Cherie shot Gaspar? He doubted she had ever held a gun. If she wanted the old
man dead she would simply worry him to death. And as far as him marrying her, he had
every intention of doing exactly what the idiot now sprawled on the sidewalk had implied.
He would marry Cherie and give Diego’s child his name, but Diego would be every bit as
involved with the child’s upbringing as he was. Of that he had no doubt. And when the
hell had people began to call Diego the Deadly Duke?
“Name your seconds,” Étienne growled. “I suggest you think before wagging your
viperous tongue like a woman next time. Should you survive.”
He turned on his heel to jog to the Durand household. What the hell was going on?
It took less than five minutes to make his way there to bang on the door. Making his way
into the house, Étienne’s heart felt as though it stopped at the unnatural silence in the house. The servants scurried about heads down making not a sound. He was led to
Gaspar’s study, where Luc sat alone staring off into space.
“What are you doing here?!” Étienne demanded. “Why haven’t anyone gone to get
Cher out? And where is Diego?”
Luc’s head snapped to stare uncomprehending at the fuming younger man. “Get
Cher out of where? Isn’t Diego with her?”
Étienne was brought up short. “How is it you don’t know when the entire city is
buzzing of her arrest for shooting Gaspar?”
“That is preposterous! A deranged cross dressing psychopath shot Gaspar. He is here,
being detained in the basement in the watchful company of several guards. Cher is at home
with Diego.”
“Diego is not at home, neither is Cher,” Étienne informed him as he walked towards
the exit. “I have no idea where Diego is, but I am going to see what I can find out about
Cherie.”
“Hold!” Luc rose to his full height. “You need to go and find Diego. Take
Farnsworth with you, I believe you will find him in the kitchens. Try Diego’s plantation
first. I will take care of Cherie.”
*******
“You, there! Come with me!” Cherie swallowed hard, trying not to show how much her knees were knocking
together. It had not been an hour yet, so the guard that said he would inform her family
was still on duty. She saw him out of the corner of her eyes, red faced and furious. What
was going on? The guard who had summoned her grabbed her arm as she neared the door
of the cell. The girl, Marie, walked right along with her. Curious, but the soldiers paid the
girl no mind as she slipped her small hand into Cherie’s and smiled up at her. The sight of
the little imp with a cheroot forever dangling from her mouth gave Cherie some small
comfort. Surely it couldn’t be that bad if they let the girl tag along, right? This whole
situation would be farcical if it wasn’t so damn scary.
Cherie was pushed and prodded up narrow dank stair towards the same bolted
doorway she had entered the prison from. For a few precious minutes her heart swelled at
the possibility they might be letting her go. Instead of leading her to one of the carriage by
the side of the plain gray stone prison building, she was led to a tiny building directly
adjacent to the one that held prisoners. A chill rushed through her body to her very soul
causing tremors she couldn’t control. She had heard whispers of the hanging court, a small
mockery of a real courthouse set up for the sole purpose of hanging the undesirable with
little to no evidence. The judge would be real enough giving the faux trails a veneer of
actual justice, but that was about the only thing this charade of justice could lay claim. This was a place for revenge against those who would not be missed or could do nothing against
their accusers. They were going to hang her.
“Courage, ,” Marie whispered.
Cherie wanted to laugh at the insanity of one so young calling her little, but she
couldn’t get past the lump in her throat. Being shoved before the bench she cast a futile
look around to see if there was anyone she could call out to. Anyone who knew Papa
Claude or Papa Luc that would help save her. Instead she saw the haughty governor and his
wife, with a smug Agathe at their side. The other occupants of the room were people she’d
never seen before. The judge sat hunched over as if his spine had a permanent bend. His
eyes looked beady behind thick spectacles that appeared too large for his face. His thinning
black hair had been pomaded against a shiny bald spot he could not hope to hide. His thin
mustache was uneven and unkempt. His eyes were cold as he glanced down at her, his eyes
lingering on her breasts. It had been cold in the cells her nipples were hard little pebbles
against the fabric of her shift. They could have at least given her a blanket to cover herself.
She tried crossing her arms in front of her, but Marie would not let go of her right hand.
“Don’t tell me you have an attack of modesty now, petite fillette.” The judge’s voice
was every bit as oily as his person. The man was actually leering at her causing Señora de
Gálvez to huff in disgust. “You and your kind are used to flaunting yourself in front of
decent Christian men, non?” “Say nothing,” Marie whispered harshly. “He is trying to goad you. Help will be
here soon.”
When Cherie obeyed the girl at her side, the judge frowned but went on determined
to get a rise out of her.
“It says here,” the weasel of a little man continued. “You have been seen in public
indecently flaunting your dubious wares trying to entice gentleman into indiscreet
liaisons�
�” Cherie wanted to laugh, but she started straight ahead saying nothing. “Also,
you tried to seduce a young man of decent family to into an unholy marriage using voodoo
charms and spells. You stole the seed of an upstanding member of society to impregnate
yourself…” How did one do that? Cherie wondered. The mechanics simply boggled the
mind. “And most heinously shot and killed one Gaspar Durand, Comte de Toulon when
he tried to stop you from working you demonic wiles of the unsuspecting public.”
Cherie stared uncomprehending at the awful man sitting on the raised platform in
front of her. Someone had shot grandpére? He was dead? She knew she should be crying,
but she was numb. She couldn’t move a muscle. She did not hear the judge asking the false
witnesses who had stepped up to testify against her, she didn’t hear the demands for her
death from the rowdy crowd behind her, she did not feel the rotten fruit and vegetables
being thrown at her. It seemed as if she was watching all these events from somewhere far
off, trying desperately to get to the ashen-faced young woman with one arm held protectively over her growing belly. She watched the so-called judge bang his gavel,
pronounce her guilt and sentence her to hang without delay. It was all happening to
someone else. She had done nothing wrong.
“You will hang my child over my dead body!”
The room collectively swung their heads to the door thrown open by a regiment of-
Carabiniers du Roi? But they were bodyguards of the king, the French King. Luc stood in
the middle of the elite fighting force as if he were born to it.
“And who are you to interfere with justice?” The outraged Señora de Gálvez
demanded surging to her seat.
Luc arched a brow towards her husband. “Control your woman, or I will.”
The woman gasped, turning an interesting shade of purple. Cherie watched in
absolute fascination as she literally puffed herself up to twice her size.
“I am…”
That was all she could get out before her husband slapped his hand against her
mouth.
“Please forgive her mon Liège,” the governor babbled. “We had heard rumors, but we
did not dare to believe.”
“I am not your liege, Espagnol,” Luc drawled. “I am the bastard of the French king.
It will be my half-brother, Louis-Charles who will reign after my father. I sincerely hope you don’t mean you suspected who I was but imprisoned my daughter anyway and was
about to…What exactly were you about to do to my child, Bernardo?”
The governor sputtered, trying to come up with any acceptable answer. Looking
into a face devoid of any emotions was like looking at your death. Why had he listened to
the incessant ranting of his wife and the harpy hanger on?
“It was this woman!” Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid, Vizconde de Gálveztown and
royal governor of Louisiana and Cuba thrust Agathe toward Luc in a panic. “She convinced
us that that girl…I mean you daughter was, was…”
“Evil? A seductress? A voodoo priestess?”
“They are called mambos,” Cherie wasn’t really sure why she had spoken. It was all
so unreal. Maybe the sound of her voice would wake her up from this horrid dream.
Luc simply smiled at her before ordering one of his soldiers to wrap her in his own
coat.
“We certainly did not know she was your by-blow!” Señora de Gálvez exclaimed,
eliciting a grown from her husband.
“My patience is wearing quite thin with your irritatingly bourgeois woman,
Bernardo. You will, of course, leave New Orleans. I find I cannot stomach the idea of you
alive and breathing in the same city,” Luc strode towards Cherie, throwing his arm around
her shoulders and holding her close. Cherie melted into the embrace of one of her cherished fathers. It felt good to be claimed here in front of the worst bigots in all of the
territory. “I will of course support you in your endeavor to succeed your father, as long as I
am never burdened with your presence or the presence of your rather plain wife.”
“Of course, of course,” the governor tripped over himself stumbling towards the
door, pushing Agathe towards the waiting arms of any soldier on his way out. She tried to
follow, but was immediately stopped.
“Make sure she is chained and locked in one of the prisoner transports outside,” Luc
told one of his men.
“Cherie, my God we thought we were going to be too late!”
Cherie peeked over the shoulder the man holding her to see Diego and Étienne
rushing into the building with Diego’s men. Smiling in relieve she ran towards the two.
“Of course I am fine. Papa Luc saved me and the girl…”
She looked back to where the girl had been standing, but she was gone. Cherie,
feeling the sudden weight of all she had been through, promptly fainted.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Luc regarded Agathe seated so forlornly in front him. He leaned back in his chair,
drumming his fingers on his desk as he contemplated the guard standing behind her. With
Gaspar still recovering, Luc had taken it upon himself to head the family, which meant he
would have to deal with “the Agathe problem.”
No matter how mad he might be at the woman sitting stiffly, her back painfully
erect, Amélie’s admonishments before he had come down echoed in his head.
“She was wrong, oui,” she had said. “Dead wrong. What she did was evil. But what
we did to her was just as evil.”
“We never tried to kill anyone!” Luc had thundered.
But Amélie had continued unperturbed, being used to his bluster.
“No, we just took away her entire world. Not only did she walk in on what was then
her husband and her half-breed sister, she was forced into an unwanted annulment. And
for what? Her world crashed in on her and she had no comfort, no relief. She bore the
snickers and the whispers with no one to cry to.”
“She almost had our child killed!” Claude had interjected.
Amélie had sighed, grabbing both men’s hands pulling them all close together. “But she didn’t succeed. Cherie is fine. Had she succeeded, I might not be so
forgiving, but she did not succeed. She deserves a chance to live. Maybe not here in
Louisiana, but she does deserve a chance to find happiness. None of us here are innocent of
her pain.”
Luc hated to admit it, but Amélie was correct. The only person that been innocent
in any of this was the one who had suffered the most. While he could not tolerate any
further threats on Cherie’s life, he could not deny Agathe a chance to find peace.
“Where would you like to go Agathe?”
Agathe stared incredulously at the man before her. Surely she had not heard him
right.
“You are letting me go?”
Luc sighed heavily, disliking what he was about to do, but knowing it was right.
“You sister thinks we have done you a great disservice. I would not want her upset
anymore,” he answered simply.
Agathe was astounded. She had been so wrong, she had always known that. Her
fight was ultimately with Claude, who had used her. But to be honest, she had used him
for respectability and position in an unforgiving society. She had lashed back by trying to
take away his only daughter, which would also hurt her half-sister and the man before her
now. That hadn’t been fair to the child; she had no hand in her birth or the actions of her parents. The very idea of mixing races still rubbed her raw, but what she had done had
been unforgivable.
She would never see Amélie as a sister, but she was grateful for the other woman’s
mercy. Agathe knew she would have never been so lenient. But the fervor for which she
wished an innocents death had been shocking to her, now that she had been left alone with
her own thoughts. She had driven herself mad with longings for revenge. What had she
become?
“Perhaps Canada,” she said quietly. “There are still a goodly amount of proper
French society there.”
Plus it was far enough away so people would not know her past. She could live as the
aging spinster she was. Perhaps she should have left long ago. There was no joy for here;
there never had been. New Orleans was an albatross around her neck.
“We will give you the money to buy a suitable house, hire the appropriate staff. You
will become known as the widow to Claude’s dearly deceased brother. We will wire funds
to you at regular intervals. This will be done legally, the papers have been drawn up.
However, should you ever be seen in Louisiane again, I will show no mercy. I will kill you,
Agathe. Make no mistake of that.”
It was far more than she had ever expected, and truth be told, she was grateful.
“I will escort Madame of course.” Luc raised a brow at Farnsworth’s proclamation, but he said nothing. Farnsworth
was his own man, he could do what he pleased.
“And should we expect you back?” Luc asked his long time companion.
Farnsworth started at Agathe for a moment, before a smile that held many secrets
behind it spread across his face. “I think not.”
Agathe stiffened but did not gainsay the strange butler. She did not look at him
either. Interesting, Luc thought. Rising from his seat he regarded Agathe once more.
“I have to have you guarded until you are safely to your destination. I am sure you
understand.”
He was sure she did. What she didn’t know was she would be watched carefully for a
few years, just until he was sure.
Standing in front of her, he bowed. If he touched her, he might hit her and that
wouldn’t so at all.