“Oui, I noticed that.”
“Mère, wouldn’t that mean the person who is trying to hurt us has been here for two months?”
“Or longer,” Stephen added. “Good deduction.” He nodded at Andre.
Mignon shook her head. “Why anyone would carry papers around about a political party is beyond me.”
“It’s about the White League,” I said, looking at Stephen.
“You are thinking it’s Mr. Hayes. I don’t think the man patient enough or calculating enough to involve himself in skulking around.”
I frowned. “You’re right.”
“What does the article say about the White League?” He picked up the newspaper.
“I didn’t read it all. Part of it is burned, anyway.”
“It’s an editorial piece suggesting the White League had a heavy hand in hanging a man to warn ardent republicans what fate awaits them. I’ve heard that before. Where?” Stephen asked.
“Miz Julie.” Papa John stood in the doorway; he looked aged and tired, and very upset.
“What is it?” I turned, immediately moving to him and setting my hand on his shoulder.
“We’ve a visitor.”
“Who?”
“It’s Captain Jennison. He has asked to see Miz Ginette.”
The man I held as an enemy was standing on my doorstep? “Bon Dieu. However did he take the notion to come here?”
“I telegraphed, asking him to,” Stephen said quietly.
17
I turned from Stephen, too shocked by his action to speak to him. He’d secretly invited an enemy to my home?
I could hear Captain Jennison loud and clear.
“Stand aside, sir. I have no quarrel with you, but nothing and no one will keep me from seeing Ginette, except her own word.”
The deep, emotionally wrought voice boomed up the stairs, and I quickened my pace. I had to face this man from my past who had taken over my home. A man who’d fought for the army that killed my father. A man my sister loved. I would deal with Stephen later.
At the top of the stairs, I saw Mr. Phelps blocking the way of a man that I hardly recognized. The youthful, dark-haired Federal officer had been replaced by a man who’d aged a score in a decade. There was gray streaking his hair and a dark somberness to his rugged features. I felt Stephen come up behind me, but I ignored him.
“Monsieur Phelps, Captain Jennison has a history of intruding rudely into our home, but this time he has been invited by Monsieur Trevelyan—whose liberties, it would seem, are as boundless as his glib tongue.” Even if Ginette had asked Stephen to send for Captain Jennison, the fact that Stephen hadn’t told me hurt.
Captain Jennison looked up the stairs, his handsome face starkly haggard. “Where is she? I have traveled four days without stopping, and I will not wait any longer. Shoot me if you must.”
I drew a deep breath. “There has been too much bloodshed already. She is in her room. You may see her, but then we will talk.”
Mr. Phelps stepped aside, and Captain Jennison took the steps two at a time, his determined chin set at a grim angle. “What happened to her? A fever?”
“Someone poisoned her.”
He blanched and a knife-sharp glitter hardened his gaze. “Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Why?” His voice rang sharply, as harsh and stark as his eyes.
“We think it was because of missing gold from the war. Men killed my husband for it, and apparently haven’t found it yet.”
“Will the curse of evil upon this country never end? God help whoever did this.”
Captain Jennison took one look at Ginette, swore as he crossed to her, then lifted her, covers and all, into his arms.
The nurse jumped up as if she was going to battle for her patient, but sat back down when Captain Jennison settled into the large wing chair, cradling Ginette against his chest. He kissed her reverently on her forehead and began talking to her in so low a voice that I could not make out his words. Given the tears flowing down his cheeks, I knew I was not meant to. Tears gathered in my own eyes and I turned away, quietly leaving the room.
Pulling the door closed behind me, I motioned Mignon, Andre, and Stephen down the hall so we would not be overheard.
“Yesterday, I inadvertently learned through some correspondence that Ginette has affections for Captain Jennison, and that for a number of years after Captain Jennison left our home, they wrote to one another.”
“I knew it!” Mignon’s face lit with interest. “I knew there was someone, but I could not figure out who. This is wonderfully scandalous. Dear, quiet Ginette and a Federal Army captain, no less.”
“Mignon, your enthusiasm is not very heartening at the moment,” I said, feeling at odds. How could Mignon have suspected Ginette’s secret when I hadn’t? “Though I think Ginette better, her recovery is not assured.”
Mignon shook her head. “I think it more assured now than ever. How could love like that fail to save her? Dieu, it has been years since they have seen each other.”
“I agree, Mignon,” Stephen said. “How can love fail to save?”
“He’s a Yank?” Andre said, his brow furrowing. “Monsieur Hayes says they are taking everything over and need to be hang—uh—sent home.”
“I have to see Mr. Phelps about a matter. I will be right back,” Stephen said suddenly, his voice grim.
I focused on my son. “Andre, you were four years old when the war ended. There were many reasons, good and bad, for both the Confederate cause and for the Federal cause. Until you know what those reasons were, you cannot rightly make judgments. Monsieur Hayes and his ilk are looking for an excuse to further their own importance, by demeaning, defaming, and destroying others. You are a better man. You need not follow in the steps of another man’s poor choices.”
“Are you not angry over what they did?”
“Oui, but to what end? I’ve no wish to be like your Aunt Josephine. When all the issues on both sides of the war were brought to light, there were more wrongs on the Confederate side when it came to the rights of human decency. Yet it was in the Southern states in which President Lincoln abolished slavery, long before he did so in the North, which makes his reasons at the time related more to the war than to the just rights of men to be free. It is time we all move beyond the past, especially grown men like Hayes, who are still caught up in their own petty importance. Now—as it is getting close to lunch, would you go help Nonnie and Mama Louisa in the kitchen? I need to have a discussion with Monsieur Trevelyan.”
“Come along, Andre,” Mignon said. “We can even fix a special puppy treat for Mon Amie.”
I found Stephen in the center hall. “Monsieur Trevelyan, might I have a word with you in my father’s office?”
He lifted a brow at my curt tone and steered me toward the parlor. “I am in need of much more than a discussion with you,” he said, “but unfortunately, unless we can talk while we stroll in the courtyard, it will have to wait.”
“Why?” I felt miffed. Didn’t he realize how important this was?
“It concerns a hanging and a chunk of glass,” he said. “I think I know who killed Mr. Goodson and mistakenly murdered Miss Vengle.”
I stared at him a moment, my eyes wide and my mouth open. “Who?”
“I may be wrong, and this would ruin a man’s reputation. I’ll know more if I find what I am looking for in the courtyard.”
He hurried through the French doors and I barreled into the courtyard after him.
He began searching the ground by the fountain. Already the humidity threatened to make the day unbearable, but not as unbearable as my frustration. I thumped him on the head as if he were a melon.
“Reputation be damned, Stephen, tell me right now! Who killed Monsieur Goodson and Mademoiselle Vengle?”
He held up a rounded piece of glass to me. The sun glinted off the ring on his finger, and I suddenly realized where I had seen the design on the ring before. Shock slammed into me
, making my heart plummet. “That’s Monsieur Goodson’s ring, Stephen. He sealed his letters with it. Why do you have his ring?”
“Yes, Stephen, I think it is time for us to tell Mrs. Boucheron all, don’t you?” came a voice from behind me.
I whipped my head around to see Mr. Davis step out from behind the camellia bush, a pistol in each hand and a thick rope hanging over one arm.
“Nice of you two to make this so easy for me. I was just about to go to the attic and wait for the night. Drop your pistol into the fountain, Stephen, unless you’d like to see a bullet between Mrs. Boucheron’s pretty eyes.” Mr. Davis aimed his pistol at me, and the blood rushed from my head. I grabbed for the edge of the fountain behind me. Then I heard a splash—Stephen’s pistol was now useless.
“Both of you, move toward the gate. And don’t even think about calling for help. We wouldn’t want dear Mignon or Andre to come running into a bullet, would we? We are going for a nice walk in the park.”
Putting one unsteady foot in front of the other, I nearly stumbled over the courtyard’s stones. Stephen set a steadying hand to my back, drawing me close to his side. His chiseled features were frozen in a grim mask.
“You are never going to get away with this,” he said harshly.
Mr. Davis laughed. “Oh, I think I will. The White League is going to have a little lynching party. Too bad Mr. Hayes won’t hear about the fun until it’s all over, but I think he’ll feel sufficiently avenged. The gossip of Stephen attacking Mr. Hayes is all over town. Nice of you to wrap this up so neatly for me.”
We exited the gate. Ahead were the mossy eaves of the rambling live oaks and the dark shadows of the park. The moment I reached the cover of the trees, I would run. The ghostly moss might be able to save us.
“Stop here and turn slowly around,” Mr. Davis ordered, just before we reached the trees.
Six more feet, I thought. So close.
Mr. Davis had exchanged one of his pistols for a long knife during our walk from La Belle. “I need a little insurance that you two aren’t going to take the notion to run in opposite directions.” He tossed the rope to Stephen.
“Put the noose around Mrs. Boucheron’s pretty little neck.”
Stephen threw the rope on the ground and stared at Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis’s face flushed red. “You just bought her some fancy artwork before she hangs. I only have to decide what to carve up first: her face or—”
“Sheriff Carr will be here shortly.” Stephen’s voice cut across the ugly threats with deadly calm. “He knows it’s you: all of the pieces fit. You called the cigars Flutas rather than Fuentas when Mrs. Boucheron and I came to your office, finding you with the humidor. But Sheriff Carr will undoubtedly find them to be Fuentas that belong to Mr. Maison, and to match the butt Mrs. Boucheron found in the attic.
“Then there’s the matter of the White League hanging during the spring. You mentioned it that day, too—perhaps forgetting that you had left the article about the incident with the cigar to set a fire in La Belle’s attic. Then there is the matter of your age and your comments about the war. You are the spy known as the Shepherd Boy, who worked with Jean Claude. You met Mr. Goodson for lunch at Antoine’s and then killed him on the steps of your office afterward. You must have hired someone to attack Mignon at the carnival. Playing Mignon’s hero fit nicely into your plans, except she didn’t fall lovingly into your arms. Your plan to poison Ginette, kill Juliet, and marry Mignon didn’t quite work out, did it?”
Stephen was right, the pieces fit with horrifying perfection.
“Not a jury in the world will convict a man on such flimsy guesswork.”
“No, but the lens of broken spectacles at the scene of a murder is evidence enough. Your glasses broke in the scuffle you had with Miss Vengle.”
“That is why you were so surprised to see me,” I gasped. “When you came yesterday, you came to comfort Mignon because you thought you had killed me. A cigar fell out of your coat when you threw it on the settee. Is Monsieur Maison alive or dead?”
“His ardent republican views caught up with him on his way to Washington. I’m sure his body will be identified as soon as they find it. Just think, I’ll have a prominent business, a lovely wife with a prestigious house, and the bloody gold, for I’ll not give up until I find it. The clue is in his journal, and I am sure once I live in La Belle, I will figure out what he wrote.”
“What journal?” I asked.
“Your dearly departed husband’s. I know some very intimate things about you.”
My skin crawled.
“Sheriff Carr knows,” Stephen said again, his voice like shards of glass.
“No, he doesn’t.” Mr. Davis nodded to the trees. “Mr. Phelps met with an unfortunate accident with my knife before he made it to town, and will likely bleed to death before anyone finds him. So I now have part of the lens and the letter you wrote to Sheriff Carr, and I will get the rest of the lens from your pocket after you swing.”
Mr. Davis laughed, enjoying his game. “Since we are hanging men on circumstantial evidence, let’s give you your trial now, Trevelyan. I’m sure it would interest Mrs. Boucheron to know you were acquainted with Mr. Goodson. She would love to know that he told you about the gold, wouldn’t she? Why else would you come here under false pretenses? Why else pretend you’d just arrived, when you’d been in New Orleans for a month?”
“Stephen?” My voice cracked.
I knew he wasn’t guilty of murder, but deep in my heart I knew he had lied to me about why he was here. I yearned for him to explain, say anything to refute what I feared to be true—but he didn’t say a word.
“Stephen,” I begged softly.
“The little lady is heartbroken, because she can see that everything you put at my door can be placed at yours, even an acquaintance with Miss Vengle. Poor Mrs. Boucheron, doomed to love traitors. You’re as gullible as your husband was, madam. He never even saw my blade coming. I didn’t expect that he’d already stolen the gold.”
“You bastard.”
“Don’t sound so disgusted. Your lover here is no different than me. I would have married Mignon to get the house and eventually the gold. All Trevelyan had to do was get into your bed. Perhaps I picked the wrong sister.”
A crow flew from the oaks and gave a mournful cry, catching Mr. Davis’s attention.
Stephen lunged for Mr. Davis, who glanced back and feinted to the side. Stephen caught hold of his pistol hand, wrenching it. Mr. Davis slashed downward with the knife in his other hand, cutting a deep gash in Stephen’s arm and knocking him down.
I cried out in horror at the blood soaking Stephen’s sleeve. Mr. Davis jammed the pistol against Stephen’s temple. “Put the rope around your neck or he dies now, Mrs. Boucheron.”
“Don’t do it, Juliet. Run, damn it! Get the hell out of here.”
I picked up the rope because I had no doubt Mr. Davis would end Stephen’s life the very second I ran. I slid the noose over my head slowly, my heart fluttering wildly. Cold terror seeped into my soul, and I firmly resolved that I would defeat the odds even in the face of this evil.
“Tighten the noose.”
“No. Damn it, run!” Stephen cried.
Mr. Davis cocked the pistol.
I reached for the knot and fumbled with it. Then a deep chill struck me, causing me to shiver. The ghost! I couldn’t get the noose tightened. Stephen’s life hinged on my ability and I was failing. A gray mist seemed to hover over Mr. Davis. “It is stuck. I cannot budge it.”
“Tighten it or he dies.”
I jerked at the knot, forcing tears to my eyes as I struggled. “I can’t, I tell you! You do it,” I said, stomping toward him, holding the end of the rope out in both of my hands.
Mr. Davis’s eyes widened, but before he could react, I tossed the rope over his head and jerked it hard, pulling him off balance. Stephen came up off the ground, knocking the pistol from Davis’s hand and slamming his body against Mr. Davis. As I fell ba
ckward, Mr. Davis and Stephen dove for the pistol. The rope around my neck pulled taut. I reached for the noose, shoving my hands inside the loop, trying to keep the knot from sliding tighter.
The sound of a gunshot paralyzed me. I saw Stephen stagger and I screamed. I thought he would fall, but he wrenched around toward me. Mr. Davis lay on the ground, unmoving, his hand on the pistol.
Fingers shaking, Stephen loosened the rope and slid it from my neck. His gaze, filled with concern and love, branded my heart.
“Dear God, woman, if you ever do that again, I’ll die.”
He pulled me into his arms and I clung to him, thankful to be alive, as Captain Jennison walked toward us with my father’s rifle in his hand.
18
Over Stephen’s shoulder, I saw Captain Jennison check Mr. Davis’s pulse, then shake his head, and I realized for certain who had killed Mr. Davis.
“We owe you our lives,” I said, easing back from Stephen’s embrace. “How did you know to come help?”
“Hearing you shout, ‘Reputation be damned, Stephen, tell me right now! Who killed Monsieur Goodson and Mademoiselle Vengle?’ caught my attention. When I saw him”—Jennison nodded Mr. Davis’s way—“holding a gun on you, I exited the front of the house and cut through the park. Looks like I was almost too late. That’s a nasty cut on your arm.”
“Nothing compared to what almost happened,” Stephen said, as he pressed a handkerchief to his wound. “I owe you my life.”
“Count us even,” Jennison replied. “You telegraphed me. Ginette said that she only asked you to post a letter to me.”
“Ginette!” I interrupted, pushing to my feet. “She’s awake?”
“She woke just minutes after you left the room.”
“I must go to her.” I took a step, then remembered Stephen’s knife injury and turned back. “Your arm,” I said, bending to him.
His Dark Desires Page 20