Jesus, she could be your cousin Adrienne’s twin, Jacob sent.
“Yes,” Amelia whispered. That was it, exactly. Her shock of flaming red hair defiantly jutting out of every inch of her braid; her broad, blue eyes seemed to tremble with passion.
There was no doubt in Amelia’s mind, whatsoever. This woman was a Deschanel.
“By the grace our father’s second wife, yes, you do,” the woman asserted. Her pale skin beaded with the sweat of exertion. “I am Charlotte, once Deschanel, and now LaViolette.”
Charles laughed an overreaction designed to cover the growing disconcertment evident in his face. “And where is your husband, Madame?”
Charlotte smacked the arm of the slave to her left, and he straightened himself. “You are looking at him. Simon LaViolette, this is my brother, Charles.”
“You are not serious,” Brigitte hissed, scandalized.
“I am not your brother!”
“We share no mother, this is true, but we share a father, and this counts more,” Charlotte said. She lifted her blue taffeta skirt clear to her knees and approached the tea party. “Tea? I would love some.”
“Lower your skirts at once!” Brigitte demanded.
“Edwin,” Charles said through gritted teeth. The young man ran off, probably for reinforcements.
Marius stared with great interest at the untouched scone in the table center, while Victor practiced hiding his growing amusement.
Charles glanced in the direction Edwin had run. His agitation had spread from his face down to his limbs, which all twitched in unison. “Madame, your falsehoods are not welcome here. Nor is your humor. That man is not your husband, just as I am not your brother.”
“And yet, he is my husband, and you are my brother,” Charlotte said with a brief, pleasant smile before snatching the scone from a startled Marius, flashing him a wink. She chewed slowly, eyes thoughtful. “Not at the quality of a Parisian scone, but I would not turn it away if starving.”
Brigitte fanned herself, arms flapping. She seemed ready to faint. “What have we done, oh Lord, to invite such visitors to our home?” she squawked.
Jacob flashed her a scathing look.
“Seeing as you asked,” Charlotte replied, brightening. “I have come seeking my portion of the inheritance. Simon and I intend to settle by the river, and I have been informed you received the bulk of Papa’s money when you left France.”
“What inheritance!” Charles cried. He whipped around, mumbling Edwin’s name. “Lord and Lady Donnelly, please accept my apologies. I do not know this madwoman, or what she is going on about. She may have hysteria.”
“Hmph!” Brigitte declared. “A sister. If Charles had a sister, our circumstances would have been much changed. This cannot hardly be true.”
“Lord and Lady Donnelly?” Charlotte said, eyeing them both with twinkling eyes and a touch of playful suspicion. “We are well met, lord and lady. I do wish I had the time to hear your tale.”
Definitely a Deschanel, Amelia said.
Sees right through us, Jacob agreed. So why not call us on it?
She has bigger problems. Like talking Charles out of his fortune.
Did you catch the reason for Brigitte’s irritation?
The woman is always irritated.
Blanca, think about it. A sister? Brigitte only got to marry Charles because he had no sisters. She’s his first cousin, which was sort of a consolation prize. Don’t you see? Charlotte, whoever she is, is presenting some real competition here at Casa Incestivus.
Jacob was right. Amelia had been so engrossed in the unfolding drama that she hadn’t bothered to break it down. But that was Jacob, always. Always thinking steps ahead, always considering his surroundings. With his upbringing, he’d had no choice.
Charles and Charlotte continued bickering, with Brigitte layering in unhelpful exclamations every few verses. It was clear as day that not only was Charlotte a Deschanel, but she favored her brother strongly, too. And though Charles continued to lash her with denials, Amelia sensed in him an understanding of the truth, even if paired with a refusal to embrace it.
Edwin returned with a couple of footmen, who all rushed forward in a cloud of dust. “Monsieur, what would you like us to do?”
“Escort this harlot off my property!” Brigitte shrieked, rising so fast her chair fell back against the gallery.
“Madame LaViolette,” Charles said, weary, “I would please ask you to leave. You have unsettled my wife and disturbed my visitors.”
“Unfortunate, though avoidable had you welcomed me as your blood,” Charlotte accused, spreading her fingers over her hips. Beside her, Simon hung his head to his chest, hands folded before him. “And had you not ignored my half dozen calling cards, we might have avoided this scene.”
“She sent you calling cards? You knew about this?” Brigitte hissed.
My god, she really does look like Adrienne, warts and all.
Jacob nodded. And her husband could be Oz, good and whipped.
LaViolette… maybe it’s coincidence, but I wonder if she’s related to the New Orleans LaViolettes in our time.
You mean Senator LaViolette?
The senator and her huge family. They have a history of making their money through not-so-reputable activities and buying their way into society. Speakeasy owners. Storyville Madams. If Charlotte’s ancestors share the fire she has, I can see the connection.
Okay. Maybe. So why do you think we’re seeing this?
Amelia knew what he meant. He didn’t share her insistence that they were here for answers, but they both accepted they’d been sent here, to this specific period in time, one they did not choose for themselves. What were the odds they would witness evidence of a whole new branch of Deschanels not even Amelia’s mother knew about? And what did it mean?
Charlotte shrugged off the men who, with helpless glances around the table, attempted to guide her away. “You know who I am, brother. I can see it in your eyes. And I will settle here, and you and your descendants will come to know me for my name, and my accomplishments. And you will one day look back on this moment of your life with great, astonishing regret.”
Victor’s brows flew up in delight. He winked at Amelia from his peripheral. Jacob pressed his jaw tight. She pretended not to see either.
“Mon Dieu!” Brigitte cried and flew off in a rage, rushing toward the front of the house.
“Madame,” Charles said when his wife was gone, in a low voice Amelia strained to hear. “I will call upon you when the time is more appropriate.”
Charlotte regarded him with flaring hostility, but she seemed to see something in him that cooled her. “One month, I give you. Would that we could be blood, Charles. How I would welcome it. But I am far more skilled as an adversary, and do not wish that upon you.”
“And I would not advise you to continue to attempt to snare me with threats,” Charles charged, moving closer, so close Simon finally looked up and affected a slightly defensive stance. “I will hear your words, Charlotte LaViolette, but I will do so on my terms. On my time.”
“And the clock begins now,” Charlotte said and turned on her heels, marching back where she’d come from.
Charles made a fuss of his suit, fidgeting, offering further apologies, though his mind was elsewhere now, likely making peace with a very new and important reality he had not asked for.
“Don’t apologize,” Jacob said, the first to find his voice after the debacle. “Lady Donnelly and I are ready for our afternoon nap, anyway.”
I’m not tired, Amelia sent. For once, she wasn’t. Her blood was hot with new data, information that might matter.
Then do whatever you want, Amelia. His tone, even in her head, was far colder than it ever had been. You don’t need my permission.
XIX
Ophélie pressed herself tight against the column, her tiny body fitting neatly behind it, offering a view of the unfolding chaos from a safe hiding spot.
She said nothing as the
petite woman with the flaming hair addressed her father with harsh words, with a claim she was his sister. She listened, carefully watching the reactions of the others. Her mother, unsurprisingly, threatened. Lady and Lord Donnelly, frozen in interest. The de Blancheforts, unimpressed. But it was her father’s reception that held her curiosity the tightest.
Jean startled her with his labored breathing, and she tripped into view. But none of the visitors saw either of them. Everyone around the table was engrossed in the scene.
“Hush!” she admonished, and he fell in behind her, obedient for a change.
“What the devil is happening?” he whispered back.
“That woman—”
“I heard it all,” Jean snapped back. “Same as you. What could she want? Father’s money?”
“Perhaps,” Ophélie said. “Or maybe she wishes to know her family.”
Jean laughed under his breath. “Your childish view of the world is delightful at times, sister.”
“You always resort to cruelty with me,” she chided, for once less sad than she was annoyed. “I know no more than you. I can only guess.”
“Very well,” he said. It wasn’t clear if he was addressing Ophélie’s claims of cruelty or their mutual lack of understanding of the situation.
The woman who had disrupted the tea party stormed away. With a light panic, Ophélie realized their attentions would be diverted back, and her hiding place exposed.
She turned toward Jean to usher him away, but he was already gone.
Ophélie found her father in his study. He slumped behind his desk, his cotton shirt half buttoned. His waistcoat had missed the jacket stand and lay in a heap on the floor.
Jean was a move ahead, already interrogating Charles about what they had witnessed behind the house.
“I do not know, Jean,” Charles said with a heavy huff. “I haven’t seen that woman in my life.”
“I see it in your eyes, Papa. You know her.”
“Papa, is it true?” Ophélie joined in, entering the room with careful steps. She couldn’t tell who she feared angering more: Jean or her father.
“I cannot say,” her father said, shaking his head. He closed his eyes and exhaled. “My papa… let this be a lesson to both of you on propriety.”
“What, Papa?” Ophélie pressed gently.
“Tell us!” Jean demanded.
“I should not, but I will because you are both embarking on the beginning of your lives as master and mistress of your own households soon. You will undoubtedly face trials, yet hopefully none that become scandals.”
Jean slipped into one of the chairs across from him. Ophélie followed suit.
“My papa, Alphonse, was not a terrible man,” Charles began. “You must take my word. He treated my maman like a queen and raised my brothers and me to be respectable men.
“We had barely broken ground on the construction of this plantation when I received word from France that my maman had passed from a sudden bout of consumption.” Charles’ eyes traveled to a painting on the wall of Adele Deschanel. “We had no chance to say our goodbyes. She was sick on a Tuesday and gone by Saturday.”
“That’s horrible, Papa,” Ophélie whispered.
“It was. I often lament had I stayed six more months, I could have been at my mother’s bedside in her final hours,” Charles said, casting his focus toward his fidgeting hands. “But my grief was to soon be supplanted by something worse, I am afraid.”
“A poor business agreement?” Jean offered.
Charles, before he could stop himself, shot his son a look so contemptuous that Ophélie had never loved her father more. “No, Jean. Papa took Maman’s nursemaid, who was once her personal servant and confidante, as his bride within a week of her death. And not a month later, they brought a child into their new family. A month, you hear?”
“So much for your papa loving your maman,” Jean quipped.
Ophélie’s eyes widened. “That woman out there? Do you really think…”
“Woman?” Charles laughed. “Ma petit, she is hardly older than you! The child I referenced was born the same year as you.”
Ophélie replayed the scene from outside over in her head and could not settle on this fact. Everything in Charlotte’s demeanor, from her confidence to how she demanded her place in the world, spoke of someone far wiser than Ophélie.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jean said, nudging her. “But you are far more of a lady than that presuming harlot.”
“Jean,” Charles warned. “It is never appropriate to speak of a woman in such ways. Especially not now, when you are so close to influencing your own family.”
“Maman did!”
“Maman was angry, and didn’t mean the words.”
Ophélie stifled a laugh. Papa had it all wrong. Maman meant every last word.
“Papa, do you really believe that woman is your sister?” Ophélie pushed on. She didn’t know why the answer was so important, but she had to know.
“The possibility is… present,” Charles said carefully. He ran his thumb over the knuckles on his right hand. “She is of the correct age. And I cannot deny she resembles my own grandmère.
“Even if she comes to us with the truth of who she is, children, it matters not to me.” Charles rose in a deliberate fashion, marking the coming end of the discussion. “Papa scandalized himself with his behavior, and any children of his union with his mistress cannot possibly find a place in this family. She is not wanted here, and I warn you not to welcome her in your own households.”
“We should find cause to drive her out of the riverlands,” Jean said. “Her and that negro she’s calling her husband.”
Charles shook his head. He reached down to retrieve his waistcoat from the floor, sighing. “We do not build our own empires by taking from others, son,” He slipped the tobacco tin into his pocket and patted them both on the head. “But we will not help build hers, either.”
XX
Jacob had suggested a nap, but it was now the furthest thing from his mind.
Amelia had blown him off. Again.
He wanted to understand. Even did, to an extent. They had both endured the horror together, but hers was unique, one he would never share with his wife, one she would carry alone no matter how he might want to take it from her. Jacob couldn’t tell Amelia that watching, powerless, was the worst moment of his life, because how insensitive and selfish would that sound when her nightmare had been so much worse?
For this, Jacob did understand, but without words, he was left to guess at the reason. Did she blame him for what happened? He blamed himself, and she had every right to as well. Had he not let her run off that night in the woods, she wouldn’t have landed in Baldur’s trap. Everything would have been different.
Was Amelia afraid of him? Jacob feared this more than the last hypothesis, because if true, he had no cure for it. If his wife associated him with what had happened to her—if she looked at Jacob, and saw only pain—he didn’t know how to take that and turn it back into the magic surrounding them before that night in the cabin.
Jacob had no answers. Amelia refused to give them, and he would never go looking around in her head, not ever. And even if he did attempt such a deception, she would catch him. He saw no point in even entertaining the notion.
Walking the perimeter of the property, beyond the oaks, past the eyes and ears of the plantation, he pondered the dilemma. If he was going to lose himself in overthinking, he preferred to do it alone.
All his life, Jacob faced uncertainty—even before his father killed his mother, siblings, and himself—insecurity had followed their existence. Sundays meant going hungry because his father didn’t receive his wages until Monday. When Jacob’s sister came down with pneumonia, there was no doctor. They couldn’t afford it.
Once shipped off to New Orleans, an Irish orphan without a pence to his name, Jacob moved from one tenuous situation to another, finding solace only in his fists. He had no friends and no hope for
a future any better than the life his father had led.
Amidst all this, Jacob never stopped to ask why. He never questioned the unfairness of the life he’d been given. And he never wondered when it would get better. It either would, or it would not.
Amelia changed all that. For the first time, he had something worth losing. He found his identity, not as an extension of her, but as a man worthy of being at her side, and having the right to say, “This is my girl. My wife.”
So now, he did question the horrible things that had befallen them. He needed reasons. He had to know why they were being thrown to the wolves, and if they could survive it.
Jacob came to an abrupt stop when his boot sank into the soft ground. Checking his footing, he recognized where he was: the old Deschanel family cemetery.
In the present, this small plot was the final resting place for a handful of graves, hardly tended beyond basic maintenance. Mostly the first generation Louisiana Deschanels, Charles and his brood. Jean’s daughter, Ophelia, was the first to check into the family crypt in Lafayette No. 1. From then on, all Deschanels from the heir’s line were sent there.
Now, as he stood before it, only a single grave existed. It was fresh… the ground not yet settled. Jacob backed up when he realized what had caused his foot to sink.
No headstone marked the area, only a tiny wooden cross, haphazardly nailed together and uneven. In splotchy ink, he made out the word, Enfant. His French wasn’t solid, but he recognized the word: child.
His thoughts immediately flashed to the nightly crying. Brigitte had shamed them for pursuing the sound, but both he and Amelia had heard it. They hadn’t imagined it. The sinister discussion between mother and son, one he’d nearly been busted for while listening in on from the ladder, all but confirmed it. It is done.
At once, Jacob put the story together. He fell forward, both hands on his knees, and retched into the nearby grass.
The Secrets Amongst the Cypress Page 14