“Madame Bristeaux?” he asked in a controlled voice. “Do you wish me to light the candle again?”
Mama’s eyes flew open. A ripple of her surprise went through the circle of hands around the table.
“No,” she finally whispered, sounding dazed and disoriented. “I sense the presence of an uninvited spirit.”
All present looked from one neighbor to the other. The room grew tense.
Christine held fast to the hands on either side of her. Was it growing colder, or was her imagination playing tricks? The parlor had stayed quite cozy after the Lewis boy and his cinnamon rolls departed, yet now the velvet draperies at the two tall windows were rippling—as though the windows behind them had been opened.
But that was nonsense. No one in the room had moved, and it was snowy outside.
On her left, Veronique began to sway slightly and murmur in Latin. Christine jabbed her hand three times with her thumb—this was no time to summon saints or angels! At least not until they saw whether Mama could summon the ghost of Owen Clark. This was not a part of their plan.
But the veiled woman beside her moaned loudly enough that everyone heard her. The temperature had dropped with the cold hiss of the wind coming in behind the curtains. The table began to vibrate, until the prisms dangling on the lamp whispered ominously—just as the guests were doing.
Suddenly Mama stood up.
“For your own safety, I must ask you all to leave,” she announced, dropping the hands she held. “William Henry has departed, and somehow a powerful spirit beyond my control has taken his place.”
The Granthams shoved their chairs back, as did the Merritt sisters, who looked frightened for their lives. Carlton Harte stood up beside Mama, his arm slipping protectively around her waist as he glanced around the shadowy room.
“Can you tell it to go away?” he asked her quietly.
Christine was having none of it. For three years she’d endured the disgrace of being abandoned—of living as Mercy Malloy’s charity case—of learning firsthand of her mother’s connivery. Christine refused to leave until she got the answers she’d come for. She sprang from her chair so fast it tipped over backward, landing with a loud whack against the floor.
“I didn’t get my turn!” she protested, all her pretenses fleeing in the emotion of the moment. “We came here to talk with Daddy—to be sure he was out of pain! To ask if he recognized the man who shot him! To ask him what to do, now that Leland Massena has foreclosed on the horse farm! Dammit, Mama, you will talk to me!”
The room felt suddenly airless, even with the wind still whistling at the windows. She’d made a grave mistake, but there was no going back. She yanked off the hat with its annoying lace veil and faced her mother squarely from across the table.
Veronique Trudeau sat like a statue in her chair. The other guests froze in place near the doorway, staring first at her and then across the table at the medium who so closely resembled her.
By the light drifting in from the vestibule, Christine noted a flicker of Mr. Harte’s waxed mustache—like the whiskers of a cat following a mouse. His eyes narrowed. He stood fast beside Mama.
And Mama . . . Mama’s pale, perfect face had lost its glow. She gripped the edge of the table, her eyes wide with amazement—or was it fear? Twice she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“It’s been three years since you abandoned us at the stage station, Mama,” Christine whispered. Every syllable tore at her throat; every vowel and consonant cost her. “I’ve come a long way to find out why. If you won’t answer to me, can’t I at least take an explanation back to Billy?”
A little moan escaped Mrs. Grantham. The Merritt sisters clasped each other’s hands, staring raptly.
“I’m sorry for your . . . inconvenience,” the medium replied in that same detached voice of moments before. “But you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
“No!” Christine slapped the table, leaning on it for support. “Even in the darkness, you know it’s me, Mama. Everyone in this room can see—”
“Carlton, will you please escort our guests to the door? The séance is over.”
For a moment, everyone seemed suspended in time and space. Mr. Harte looked ready to comment, while Anna, Justine, and the Granthams kept staring in shocked silence, not wanting to miss this unexpected drama. Christine was shaking so hard she couldn’t breathe, but by God she would not be dismissed like some inconsequential—
Footsteps crossed the room behind the parlor and went quickly down some stairs. The back door slammed.
Mama blinked and pivoted, walking quickly toward where this distraction had come from. Carlton followed close behind her.
“Madame Bristeaux, in the interest of your reputation, I believe you should—”
“I don’t care what you believe!”
Christine let out the breath that burned her lungs. It came out as a sob when Mama disappeared into the next room with a swish of her fine skirts.
Then Veronique was beside her, steering her out of the dark parlor.
“We must leave,” she announced with quiet urgency. “There are indeed some powerful spirits afoot in this place, and a nasty storm is blowing in. You’d all best go home and forget what took place here tonight.”
Chapter Twenty-two
“You had to jump in with both feet—and that mouth!—and ruin it! We nearly had her—”
“Me?” Christine retorted, glaring at Mrs. Trudeau, who paced her hotel room. “If you hadn’t made the light go out—”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
Her mouth fell open. “Are you saying Mama did?”
“Maman, Christine, s’il vous plait,” Tucker said soothingly, although his patience was unraveling. “It’s late, and the other hotel guests, if they complain, we could be put out in this snowstorm, non?”
It was late, and she wanted to fall into her bed and sleep like the dead. But no, Veronique kept picking at her like a scab. As though she’d wanted the séance to go wrong. As though she’d gone there to be turned away by her own mother.
Her challenge was giving Tucker’s mother something to think about, however. Clad in her mismatched clothing, Veronique was once again the witchy woman who wasn’t happy unless she made everyone else miserable. She plucked Mama’s embroidered handkerchief from her pocket to study it.
“Your mother conducts one of the most convincing séances I’ve ever attended,” she mused aloud. “She’s a mistress of misdirection, which is why her accomplice—Mr. Wyndham, I suspect—could slip out from under the table he’d been tipping for the Granthams to play that hymn for the sisters. No doubt he keeps a number of things besides an accordion in that cabinet, to create such dazzling effects.”
Christine crossed her arms tightly. It irritated her that Veronique had such rational answers, for Mama’s performance fascinated her. “But how could anyone have gotten in? We were looking right at that cabinet the whole time.”
“It could have an open back, and there’s probably a trap door in the wall behind it,” the seer explained. “While we were focused on your mother’s face and smelling those cinnamon rolls, her helper could have crawled to that other room in the darkness. Then he ran out the back door when he heard you challenging her.”
Christine bristled, determined not to let mere logic diminish what had happened in that mysterious room.
But Veronique turned, her expression pensive now. “I haven’t figured out Mr. Harte’s motives for being there. Very odd, wouldn’t you say?”
How could this woman look like a shiftless Gypsy and speak with the eloquence of an orator? What was her secret—her motive—for analyzing all they’d seen this evening? Why was Veronique finally asking for her opinions after so many weeks of acting as if she wasn’t even there?
Christine slumped with exhaustion. Too many things had gone on tonight, and she was too confused to deal with them. Humiliated . . . and so very disappointed. But that would have to wait for later, too
, for she refused to break down while this Gypsy was watching.
“Maybe you should go to your room now, Tucker,” she murmured, hoping his mother would leave with him. “It’s been a very long day, and I have a lot to think about.”
His expression softened. Ignoring his mother’s raised eyebrow—for she despised having her questions ignored—he sat on the edge of the bed beside Christine. The dark dress she’d borrowed from Maman made her look older and unusually pale, although her dejection came from what he had not heard about the séance.
A dozen times he’d almost entered that house, to be sure things were proceeding safely for this brave young lady. But his intrusion would’ve ended the evening even sooner.
He brushed a strand of auburn hair away from her face. “What happened tonight, chérie?” he whispered. “After waiting so long to see your mama, what did you find out?”
Pain stabbed her heart like jagged glass. But Veronique’s hard gaze made her sit ramrod straight when she wanted to melt into Tucker’s embrace.
“Everything—and nothing,” she replied. “My mother refused to see me. She sent us all away, even though everyone knew damn well who I was.”
He held her close, shutting his eyes against such agony. Mon Dieu, how could that woman refuse to—how can this poor girl bear such rejection?
“Si désolé . . . so sorry, my love,” he murmured. Words couldn’t repair the damage her heartless mother had done.
Christine sank against his warm, solid body. “Why wouldn’t Mama talk to me?” she asked in a childlike voice. “She acted like she didn’t have a daughter—like she wished I’d never been born!”
Tucker’s empathy had cracked the wall of pride and self-preservation she’d built around herself. A hic turned into a cough, which could no longer camouflage her agony.
“Why doesn’t Mama love me anymore, Tucker?” she whispered as the tears streamed down her cheeks. “What did I do to deserve this?”
Pulling her into his lap, Tucker hugged her against his shoulder while he searched for answers. This wasn’t the right time to profess his deepest feelings for her. That was supposed to happen when there was moonlight and a joyful anticipation in the air—when he could kiss her without Maman watching.
“But I love you, Christine,” he whispered anyway.
Cradling her in his lap, he adored the childlike way her arms slipped around his neck. “My love for you is not the same as your mother’s—and I know how badly you need that, chérie. But it’s enough love to see you through this, ma belle. Enough love to last for all your life.”
She raised her head, sniffling. “H-how do I know you’re not just saying—”
“As Maman is my witness,” he said, eyeing the woman who watched them with her arms crossed tight, “I fell for you, ma petite, when you first came into my shop, and I have never recovered. Love at first sight, it was. And it has only grown stronger over time—no matter how badly my mother would like to change that.”
There, he’d stated his case before both women, despite how they would probably fight about it.
Christine’s eyes widened, green and lovely even when filled with tears—even more beautiful than usual, for she was usually too proud to show her face in such vulnerable moments. Her watery smile reminded him of the sun peaking from behind a dark cloud, with the inverted curve of a rainbow.
“You loved me even though you knew I was . . . fibbing about my age?”
“You were the bravest, dearest, strongest girl I’d ever met,” Tucker said, “and you still are, ma princesse. Few daughters would follow their mothers this far, knowing what you know.”
“We can’t tell Billy what Mama’s done,” she cautioned. “He’ll be crushed.”
Tucker smiled. Even now, in her hour of greatest heartbreak, she was watching out for her younger brother. Would things be different had Billy come along? Mothers had stronger feelings for sons, no matter how much their daughters pleased them.
“Maybe matters of faith don’t seem to fit right now,” Tucker offered in a thoughtful voice, “but Jesus, He had the same problem—a family who didn’t believe in Him as the Messiah, or believe He had any special power. His own brothers did not stand up for Him, even when He was falsely accused. Condemned by Pilate to die.”
“Ah, but his mother Mary was at His side on His most difficult days,” Veronique pointed out. “Mothers love that way.”
She was still across the room, still aloof, yet Maman hadn’t retaliated when he’d professed his love for Christine. Considering how the séance had ricocheted like a bad bullet, she was behaving with great restraint.
“She stood with Him at Calvary, despite the mockery of the crowd and the agony of seeing her perfect son—God’s gift to the world—hanging on the cross, with nails hammered through His hands,” she went on. “I—I cannot imagine her pain.”
The sorrow in Veronique’s voice made Christine peer over Tucker’s shoulder. His mother wiped a spot in the frosted window, to check the snowstorm. When she turned, compassion had softened those piercing eyes.
“Your mother is running scared, Christine,” she said. “When you revealed yourself tonight, I saw delight and pride on her face. For a moment, she wanted to rush over and hug you—but then she hid behind her lies.”
“But why—”
“Because something else is going on. Something your presence has threatened.”
Veronique sighed tiredly. A sad smile overtook her face. “I must give you credit, Christine, for handling the evening with more fortitude than I expected. Myself, I would have leapt across the table and grabbed that woman around the neck—or given myself away much faster than you did.”
Christine blinked. It was a major victory to hear Veronique Trudeau’s admission, but why now?
“If you’re a seer, why didn’t you predict all this?” she blurted out. “If you’re a healer, why can’t you fix the wounds Mama inflicted?”
The room grew silent, except for the wind that howled like a pack of phantom wolves outside.
Impatience flickered in those all-seeing eyes. Yet—even though her presence threatened Veronique, as well—Tucker’s mother didn’t turn away.
“We must believe God was showing us other forces at work, and that He’s in control of them,” she said in a low voice.
Gone was the Cajun cadence and the arrogance that had excluded her from the seer’s mystical world before now. “You are disappointed, yes. But when that candle went out, it might’ve been an answered prayer—God’s way of telling us, perhaps through His angels, that the situation was moving beyond our control.”
“Divine magic,” Christine whispered. It was the same goose-bumpy sort of revelation she’d had with that painting of Jesus and Mary. It sounded right.
Had they really reached an agreement? A truce? Christine was too tired to put all the pieces of this puzzle together, but a milestone had been reached. Better to let things settle on this positive note and get some rest.
“Thank you for going with me, Veronique,” she whispered. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“What does the Lord require of you, Christine?”
She shifted, realizing this was a dream yet feeling fully awake. That voice was unmistakably Judd Monroe’s, and as Mercy’s first husband spoke to her, she saw the dark log walls of the house he’d built—the home she’d despised, even though she’d yearned for the approval of the man who had taken in her and Billy. He looked vital and alive, his raven hair framing a face bronzed by hard work in the sun, and—excited as she was to see him again—he wouldn’t let her wiggle out of a tough spot now, either.
Judd pointed to Mercy’s embroidered sampler on the parlor wall. “I’m not asking you to recite a Bible verse, Miss Bristol. I’m telling you to live it,” he insisted.
It wasn’t real, yet it was. Judd Monroe was saying hello from Heaven in a way she didn’t dare ignore. Her body tensed, but she knew better than to wake herself before he’d shared his entire mess
age. In life—and in his afterlife—this man resonated with purpose. He always made her reach farther and aim higher.
“To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God,” she replied with the impatience of the girl she’d been then. “I have always wanted justice, or I wouldn’t have chased after Mama—”
“Whose justice? Yours? Do you consider that walking humbly?”
She swallowed her retort. Judd had the damnedest way of nailing her to her own pathetic, self-serving cross.
“Consider carefully what your mother lost when those Border Ruffians shot your father and made off with your brother. Not just a husband and a son, but her whole way of life. ‘Ripe and ready to fall’—remember that phrase?”
She nodded, but she didn’t like his sermon much.
Judd’s face softened, achingly handsome in the light from the little window in that log parlor. “Maybe she fell farther than she figured on, honey. Maybe she needs justice, and your mercy, more than you will ever know. And maybe she’s too afraid—too ashamed—to ask you for it.”
What could she say to that? She’d never looked beyond the flirtatious delight in Mama’s diary entries. Or how happy she’d looked with her arms around Richard Wyndham in that picture Tucker had taken. Judd’s suggestion echoed with what Veronique had hinted at. . . .
“The Lord has been with you on this mission since your mother left you, Christine. He’s had His reasons for bringing you this far. If you turn away from Him—from her—now, will you be able to live with your doubts and fears?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She turned quickly so he wouldn’t see them.
“I didn’t think so.”
When she turned again to quiz him, she was alone. “Wait—Judd! Don’t go! I—I need you to tell me—”
“Ask your mother.”
Shaken by seeing and hearing him so clearly, Christine awoke with a gasp—to find herself looking into a face framed with raven waves so much like Judd’s, she thought this might be the next phase of her dream. But this man had a beard along the line of his jaw, and the hands squeezing her shoulders were so strong and warm, their heat penetrated the sleeves of her nightgown.
Journey to Love (Angels of Mercy) Page 20