The Secrets Amongst the Cypress

by Cradit, Sarah M.

  “Lord Donnelly?” A small voice, one he didn’t immediately recognize in his fog, sounded behind him, full of distress.

  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he turned. Ophélie watched him, eyes wide with concern.

  “I’m fine,” he insisted, rising. “What are you doing out here?”

  Ophélie’s eyes momentarily traveled to the grave. She diverted them in a rush. “Enjoying an afternoon stroll,” she said. “I was to sit with Maman in the parlor for a Bible reading, but she retired to her room after your tea on the gallery.”

  Jacob smirked. “Did you hear what happened?”

  “I saw it!” Ophélie blushed. “I wasn’t trying to spy. I know that behavior is not becoming of a lady, but when I heard someone yell, I came out.”

  “I would’ve done the same thing,” Jacob said with a short laugh. “Not that I care much about what’s appropriate.”

  Ophélie grinned. “No?”

  Jacob shook his head. “Not especially.”

  “How nice that must be!” she exclaimed in wonder. “Is that a cultural nuance?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a Jacob thing, I suppose.”

  “Jacob,” she repeated. “A nice Biblical name.” Her face stained a deeper red. “Please accept my apologies, Lord Donnelly. I should not address you that way.”

  “Honestly,” he said, leaning down in silent conspiracy, “I prefer Jacob.”

  Ophélie’s head shook rapidly. “I could never.”

  “No harm if others are not around,” he said. Only then did he realize it was only the two of them, and his words suggested this was not only okay but implied an underlying secret.

  Ophélie clutched her hands over her chest in matched nervousness to his. “Where is Lady Donnelly?”

  Jacob hoped the darkness he felt come over his face was not so obvious to the young girl. “I had hoped she was with you.”

  “Oh.” Ophélie pressed her lips tight, face twisted in thought. “I see.”

  “What?”

  “Forgive me if I speak out of turn, but I sense… at least I believe I might… that you are concerned she might be passing time with the younger Monsieur de Blanchefort?”

  Jacob rolled his eyes, prepared to launch a firm denial. Something in her expression disarmed him. The look bordered on understanding, but how could she? “It’s complicated, Ophélie.”

  “Everything is,” she said wisely. “You needn’t worry about Lady Donnelly. She’s earnest in her devotion to you.”

  Such a sweet, but foolish, thing to say, he thought. The true idealism of youth. “Of course,” he replied, feeling silly for thinking he might be able to discuss this with someone, especially a young girl who knew nothing of relationships. “Would you like me to walk you back?”

  Ophélie planted herself firmly in front of him. “I am not a foolish young girl,” she insisted. Jacob went stiff. Could she read his mind? Had she? “My view of the world may be limited, but that does not make my opinion without value.”

  Jacob’s heart sunk. He reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder, squeezing. “I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. I didn’t mean to. I hated when people dismissed me when I was a kid, and if it seemed like I was doing that now, I’m sincerely sorry.”

  Ophélie blossomed at his words. “I don’t require your apology, Lord Donnelly. I only wanted you to know your wife has not done anything to be concerned about.”

  Jacob wanted to believe that more than anything in the world. “I wish I could hear that from her.” He didn’t know why he said it.

  She nodded in understanding. “The devil, at times, makes his home inside us, and try as we might, we cannot expel him. He does not allow us to attend anyone but him.”

  Jacob wondered how much she knew. Or was she talking about her brother?

  “Unspeakable evil,” she went on, “knows but one adversary. Love.”

  “She’s never had a deficit of that with me.”

  “Love requires a variance in form,” she said wisely. “Patience may be the form currently required.”

  Jacob laughed. “You think I should patiently watch her fall in love with another man?” There it was, said aloud, finally.

  “Fall in love?” Ophélie appeared completely scandalized. “Lord Donnelly, she is not in love with him!”

  “What do you understand about it? If you know something, you need to tell me.”

  She hung her head.

  “Let’s start with something else, then,” Jacob said. He gestured toward the fresh grave. “Who is this?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Cannot or will not?”

  “Are they not the same thing when the secret burns too deep?”

  Jacob’s voice dropped to a whisper, even though there was no one around but the two of them. “Was the baby yours?”

  Ophélie bit her lip and gaped at him with teary eyes. “Have patience with Lady Donnelly. I may not know her devil personally, but I know his demeanor. He has hold of her and will not let go easily.”

  Jacob reached forward, both hands on her upper arms. Blood surged through him; an itch for the fight. “If your brother did this to you—”

  “I cannot be rid of my devil,” she cried, breaking free from his grasp. “But Amelia can.”

  A breeze passed between them. The earthy, pitched scent of the trees grounded Jacob, pulling him back to reality. “Let me walk you to the house.” This isn’t appropriate. We shouldn’t be here, talking about this. I shouldn’t feel so comfortable talking to you.

  Ophélie shook her head, backing away. “You are a kind man, Lord Donnelly. I urge you, do not find yourself involved in matters that don’t concern you. There is no end to them not resulting in tragedy.”

  “Ophélie—”

  But she was off, running toward the house with her skirt in hand, stumbling through the fresh grass.

  He would have liked to have ended the exchange by escorting her. That felt proper and right. The private chat by the secret grave was neither and left him with the strong sensation he’d done something inappropriate. Something he would not want Amelia to know.

  Ophélie had a manner about her that calmed him and made him susceptible to sharing his emotional turmoil. Only Amelia had ever offered him that safe space, and only with her had he ever taken it. This, above all else, was what left him feeling dirty.

  No matter how he’d felt in the presence of the young Ophélie Deschanel, though, he would walk away, because it was wrong. He couldn’t prevent the feeling, but he could cut off the behavior before it became a problem.

  So why couldn’t Amelia?

  Jean stood outside the house, bossing around a handful of horsemen who were working to prepare a carriage.

  “Lord Donnelly!” he shouted. His joviality put Jacob on immediate defense.

  “Jean.”

  “What are your plans on the morrow? Can your business spare you for a day?”

  Jacob glanced toward the house. Amelia was in there, somewhere. She might be alone. She might not. Either way, she’d never tell him.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Fancy a trip to town?”

  DAY

  FIVE

  XXI

  Amelia couldn’t believe Jacob had said yes.

  She wasn’t angry at him for going, not exactly. It might have seemed more curious to their hosts if he’d turned Jean down. But his choice surprised her, for it was evident Jean’s opinion of Jacob was somewhere between the dirt under his feet and the sugar stuck in his teeth.

  When she asked him, he shrugged and made a comment along the lines of… It makes me more useful than I’ve been since we got here. His face went dark when the words came out, and he was immediately contrite, clearly fearful of upsetting her despite his own justified frustration. In the end, it was moments like this that made her relieved to see him go for the day because she didn’t have the presence of mind to ease his. Besides, he would continue to vacillate between being
overly supportive and intentionally distant, searching desperately for whatever would appeal to her.

  Nothing, she thought. Nothing will change what happened.

  They left before the sun appeared. Jacob had only given her a light nudge, letting her know he hoped to be back by dinnertime. She didn’t realize until later he’d known he was going long before that. Before he went to bed. And he’d said nothing.

  How is that his fault?

  It wasn’t. Nor was it hers.

  But Jacob’s willingness to leave her alone for the day was a sign, or at least she chose to see it that way.

  Jacob needed to sort himself out, and she could pout, or she could use it to her advantage.

  Amelia had told him the day they arrived that they were here for a reason. She believed it then, and she still did, even if the answer eluded her.

  Fresh air and the first real night of sleep since they’d arrived helped clear away some of the fog that followed her. It hadn’t brought her closer to the answer, but it showed her there may be a path to get there.

  A path she needed the courage to navigate.

  Victor.

  Amelia knew next to nothing about Victor de Blanchefort.

  The de Blanchefort name was not new. She had seen it crop up from time to time in her mother’s genealogy archives. Several members of the Deschanel Magi Collective, Amelia included, were tasked with occasional research and to update the details of the files with paperwork and other supporting documentation as technology improved. She knew of Etienne de Blanchefort whose ancestress, the infamous Marianne, had married into the Deschanel family. His fortunes and the near-miss calamity on Saint Domingue were one of her favorite family stories growing up.

  Victor was his grandson, if he was to be believed about Marius being his father. But Colleen hadn’t tracked the de Blancheforts down the line and into the present since she had no evidence this branch of distant cousins was gifted. The Collective existed to catalogue and keep track of those who were, and paid little mind to the others.

  Amelia had no doubt in her mind that Victor was gifted. He knew too much about her circumstances to be ordinary, but she was not alarmed or bothered by what he knew. The man walked the earth with the ease of a creature who owned every last inch, reminding her of a more refined version of her cousin, Nicolas.

  Victor’s eyes were ageless and had seen more than his contemporaries. His knowledge was not limited to the present, either, as he’d made evident.

  What was Victor, then, a time traveler? A mystic? He made a point to demonstrate his knowledge to her but failed to explain it. He said she wasn’t ready, whatever that meant. Also not choosing to share the particular criteria he used to judge her.

  Rules of their travel through time dictated actions that couldn’t change the past. Even if they wanted to, they weren’t capable of it. Their impression on the past would not last once they returned home.

  But they could learn from the past. She and Jacob could take away knowledge that might change their future.

  Victor had been laying the signs at her feet, but she had mistaken them for misguided affection, hastily cataloguing him as a nuisance impeding their journey.

  But what if he was her journey? The purpose?

  Amelia peeked outside her bedroom window. The sky was dark above the lush green ceiling of oaks. A breeze passed through the leaves, rustling them in the dry air.

  On the horizon, a storm was brewing, though it wasn’t the season for it. Amelia hoped Jacob and Jean had no problems on their trip into town.

  As for her, she had a mysterious man to track down.

  Locating Victor was as easy as wandering down to the main story of the house. He turned at the bottom of the staircase, his arm outstretched to her, and smiled.

  “Late to rise this morning, Lady Donnelly,” he said, with a single cluck of his tongue. “Please, no apologies. We are defined first by our virtues—mine is patience.”

  “Then you would have been patiently waiting for an apology,” she quipped, sliding her arm through his.

  “And your virtue is candor.” He nodded toward the front door, where the butler waited for their cue to open. “Are you still holding on to your concern of what others think?”

  Amelia dropped her gaze to the ground and laughed. “What does it even matter, when I’ll be back to my own time before anyone will really care?”

  A visible happiness spread over Victor. “At last, we drop the pretense. Perhaps you are ready, after all.”

  “If I’m not, then we need to get me there because I’m ready to go home.”

  “And?”

  “And I can’t…” Amelia faltered, so used to playing a part that she almost slipped back into character again. “I can’t until I figure out why we were sent here in the first place.”

  Victor nodded slowly. “Ahh. Then let us be off before the storm forces us back among less savory company.”

  The darkness from the Gulf rolled in closer. These were thunderclouds such as she had known her whole life. But through them ran an ominous undercurrent, one that gave her the shivers as she rushed across the dirt, keeping pace with Victor.

  He had a destination in mind but, true to his character, hadn’t shared it. While they fled across the property in the direction of the river, she thought she might have an idea.

  Victor laid a hand at the small of her back and guided her up the embankment. It was hardly a levee at all in 1861, only a few feet high, but the ground was marshy and slick, and she was not wearing shoes designed for the task. Mud sloshed over the sides, and down inside the soles.

  “Almost there.”

  He didn’t need to say where there was because she immediately noted a piece of the scenery that wasn’t intact anymore in the present day: a commercial-sized dock for ships.

  Attached was a steamboat that reminded Amelia of a cross between the Natchez that ferried tourists on the river in New Orleans, and something Mark Twain would have enjoyed.

  She realized she’d seen the vessel there before, but took it for a passing ship.

  “Were Charles and Brigitte expecting visitors?” she asked as they peered down upon the ship, bobbing ever so slightly with the current.

  “They were, and they’ve been here for days already,” Victor said. He gestured toward the dock. “This is mine. Or my family’s, if we are being specific.”

  Amelia gaped at him. “And you don’t think this is a bit… excessive for a single family?”

  “Look around you, Amelia,” he chuckled. “Is the Old South about anything else?”

  “You mean to tell me you and your father arrived here, just the two of you, on this ship that could carry at least a hundred people?”

  “The Dauphine’s maximum steerage is, in fact, a hundred and fifty, with an additional fifty in the saloon, but the answer to your question, now that we have the details straightened out, is yes.”

  Amelia stared at him, open-mouthed. She snapped her jaw shut and shook her head. “And you want us to hang out there?”

  “Do you know of another place we would remain undisturbed?”

  “I guess not.” When he sauntered down the dock, she followed with a light hesitance in her step. She’d been so sure, only a half hour ago, that seeking him out and hearing his story would be what she needed. The idea sounded very logical in her mind, despite there being nothing logical about Victor at all. Yet as she followed him toward another mystery, her certainty faltered.

  “You’ve come this far, Amelia. You know I would not hurt you, or you wouldn’t have joined me.”

  Her lips parted in reply as the first heavy drops of rain landed. Within seconds, she could hardly see Victor through the downpour.

  Victor appeared at her side, his waistcoat lifted over her head to provide a meager shelter. “Let us at least pass the storm in warmth, then you can decide if I am still the answer to your conundrum.”

  Amelia drew a steadying breath and nodded. Without asking, he lifted her into his a
rms, eliciting from her a strained gasp, and sprinted toward the stairs much faster than she could have on her own.

  He raised her up and over the bow of the ship before setting her down again, but his hand moved to hers. With a tug, he pulled her into the saloon.

  While Amelia, drenched and flustered, took in the flamboyant, plush furnishings she thought might be well-suited in a brothel, Victor rushed to find her something to dry off with.

  He returned with some rags and proceeded to dry her off himself before she shooed him away. She thanked him and took them to finish the job.

  Amelia caught a glimpse in a gilt mirror over the bar. Her white hair hung in painful, tangled clumps and the rouge Ophélie convinced her to wear each day was streaked, cutting jagged crimson trails down her alabaster cheeks.

  I look like a discarded China doll.

  “You look like no such thing,” Victor replied, unapologetic in his mind-reading. With a start, she threw up her block, wondering how long it had been down and what knowledge he’d gathered in the meantime.

  He drew up behind her. His own appearance hadn’t fared much better. Black hair plastered against his forehead in places and spiked in others. The cold had drained the color from his complexion, and his lips were the color of ruby red apples.

  “I don’t like how I feel around you,” she confessed, shivering beneath the blanket he pulled over her. “As if I’m always a step behind. Or at a disadvantage.”

  Victor’s face appeared next to hers in the mirror as he watched her. His eyes were sad. “How I wish that were not true.”

  Amelia turned and laid her hand on the side of his face. She didn’t know what prompted her to do so, only that she needed confirmation he was real. She dropped cold fingers back to her side.

  “I need you to tell me, Victor. I don’t know what it is you’re keeping from me, or why, or what it will mean when you share it, but I am here, for a purpose, and that reason matters even if it has evaded me for days. But it doesn’t evade you… does it?”