Without further conversation André left the parlor. His footsteps echoed down the hallway, leaving Corlis no recourse but to let herself out of his elegant front door. While waiting for André’s carriage to appear, she stood on the veranda, gazing through a thicket of lush greenery toward the wrought-iron garden gate. Her mind whirled with events that had unfolded in stunning and rapid succession.
Preoccupied with her churning thoughts, Corlis was unaware that André soon reentered the parlor following a brief conversation with his groomsman. He immediately sat down at a small desk positioned against a wall to the right of the front fireplace. Taking quill pen in hand, he swiftly scratched an explanatory missive addressed to Julien LaCroix. In it he revealed the relationship of Julien’s father to Martine Fouché and Lisette, as well as Jeffries’s and McCullough’s blackmail and extortion plots. He paused for a long moment then commenced to write again.
And so, dear Julien, I ask your forgiveness for not acting sooner to protect both your interests and those of my beloved Henri. Use this foul information I give you concerning those two scoundrels as a battering ram against the American scum. Tell Ian Jeffries and Randall McCullough that you intend to show this letter to every banker in New Orleans, if you have to, to turn the blackguards’ shameful game against them and shut them up forever. As for me, I will no longer have to endure the infamy sure to be heaped upon me by my own class.
I am deeply sorry, however, that in revealing the truth to you of this damnable situation, I must also disclose the unholy links that connect you and Martine Fouché.
I have long believed that white men’s lust for an enslaved people will wreak havoc on generations that succeed our own. To live a lie, to live in the shadows as plaçage demands, may I say from sad experience, is to live a kind of slow death. In honor of Henri’s memory, I ask that you tell those two swine that if they do not leave New Orleans immediately, you will reveal to the weekly journals the story of how these wretched Americans extorted us, causing your father’s attack of apoplexy and virtually hounding to death two men who strove to live honorably, despite the unusual affection by which Henri and I felt ourselves possessed.
Let God be our judge and not the likes of those avaricious rogues with our blood on their hands. Let Him decide which of us has committed the greatest sins.
Yours in truth,
André Duvallon
André addressed the front of the letter to Julien LaCroix, Reverie Plantation. He secured it with molten sealing wax into which he pressed the flat surface of his gold signet ring. Next he summoned a servant, who swiftly put the missive into the custody of the waiting carriage driver with instructions to continue upriver after seeing Mrs. McCullough safely back to Julia Street.
Corlis had remained on the veranda, wondering why it was taking so long for André’s groomsman to bring the carriage around. Suddenly the loud, unmistakable crack from a discharging pistol rent the air.
She whirled in place, ran to the front door, and rattled the brass knob. It was locked. Just at that moment she heard the sound of horses’ hooves coming along the side of the house.
“Oh, God! No!” she cried over her shoulder as the driver brought the carriage to a halt. “Come here! Quickly! It’s Mr. Duvallon!” she screamed at the bewildered servant. She began to pound on the front door with her fists. “Let me in! Oh, André… please, please let me in!”
The groomsman leaped down from André’s carriage, and in three strides, reached the veranda. “Massa André tol’ me not to disturb him no mo’—”
“André!” she shrieked, continuing to hammer on the door with all her might.
She sprinted the length of the wooden porch, cupped her hands over her eyes, and peered into the front parlor through the glass window. There, on the floor near the armoire, lay the handsome young banker, a ragged bullet hole laying waste to the side of his silken dark head. Next to the body was an overturned glass of absinthe, its peculiar chartreuse color dissolving into the crimson pool of blood spreading across the floor.
A few feet away on the plush Persian carpet in front of the fireplace lay a blue-and-white Spode bowl that had been swept from its perch on the mantelpiece. Miraculously, the bowl was unbroken. The flower petals it had contained were strewn everywhere—almost as if André Duvallon were already in his grave.
Corlis did not recall the carriage ride back to Julia Street, nor wearily trudging up the stairs past the nursemaid, who was taking the McCullough children out for their daily walk along the riverfront. Numbly she closed her bedroom door and sank down, fully clothed, on the wide bed that she’d shared with Randall McCullough these last eight years.
Dry-eyed, she stared at the ceiling, mesmerized by the intricacies of the sculptured plaster moldings that fanned out in a wheeled design from the chandelier. She was faintly aware that someone nearby was wailing, the sounds growing louder and more desperate in her ear, until she realized, with a start, that the shrill, keening cries were coming from her own lips by way of some despairing black hole piercing her heart. She shoved her fist to her mouth, scraping her knuckles, willing herself not to think about the way in which André’s head had been—
“No… no!” she cried silently. Everything would be all right if she simply focused her attention on the memory of the unbroken blue-and-white porcelain bowl that lay upon the floor. She should think only of that lovely piece of Spode that had been overflowing with fragrant potpourri…
And then she remembered the scattered petals, fallen like pastel snowflakes in all directions, their melancholy scent filling her with horror and regret, until she thought she would truly suffocate. All she could see was a crimson tide of blood washing over the polished cypress floor, engulfing the dried rose petals in a scarlet sea. And she was grateful that there was no one present in the flat on Julia Street to hear her mournful cries.
Only the walls.
Chapter 21
April 19
Corlis was startled to feel arms embracing her and a deep voice demanding, “Sweetheart! What’s the matter?”
In response, she pressed her moist cheek against the comforting surface of a zippered jacket. The fabric served as a convenient sponge for tears that were coursing down her cheeks for reasons that seemed unfathomable to her at the moment.
“Corlis… darlin’!” the voice persisted. “Why are you crying? What’s happened?”
She opened her eyes and found herself standing next to a table where the familiar blue-and-white Spode bowl sat heaped with dried flowers.
“Oh, glory…” she whispered, fighting off a vision of André Duvallon lying in front of the rosewood armoire that stood not five feet from where King now held her in his arms. Then suddenly that memory triggered another recollection: the terrible sense of sadness she’d experienced when King’s friend, Dylan Fouché, had entered her bedroom on Julia Street with a burning sage smudge stick and tinkling bell in hand… the very same room where her ancestress may well have mourned, alone, the tragic death of a man who had abruptly taken his own life with a pistol shot to the head.
“Corlis, what on earth happened in the space of ten minutes to bring you to tears?” King questioned softly.
“Is that how long you were gone upstairs?” she said, barely above a whisper.
“ ’Bout that,” he confirmed. He grasped her gently by both shoulders. “C’mon, now, sugar. What gives? Do we have ourselves a serious case of buyer’s remorse?”
“I saw your ghost just now…” she disclosed slowly. “You may think I’m crazy, but I saw André Duvallon right here in your living room. And he did shoot himself over near that armoire. If I’m not entirely out of my mind, I think he was the brother-in-law of some earlier Kingsbury relative of the Duvallons.”
“Well… well,” King said, putting a protective arm around her shoulders and guiding her toward a small settee covered in moss-green silk. “Aren’t you the clever reporter to find out all that information from the phantom of the parlor,” he teased gently.
“So the Kingsburys and Duvallons have gotten into each other’s hair twice in two different generations. How New Orleans.”
“Oh, God… who knows if a George Kingsbury was really married to André Duvallon’s sister, Margaret, in the 1840s?” She shook her head despondently. “This stuff’s getting pretty heavy, King.”
“What stuff—exactly—are you talking about?” he asked intently.
“The… ghosts… visions… trips back in time… whatever they are,” she said weakly.
“Here… sit down, sugar,” he urged. “Can I get you a glass of water?”
“No, nothing,” Corlis said, declining to take a seat. “Let’s leave, okay? I… I’d rather not stay… in this room,” she finished weakly.
King took her by the hand and led her down the hallway toward the back of the house. “I can now vouch for the saying ‘you look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’ By the way,” he asked gently, “how often do you encounter these otherworldly characters?”
Corlis halted midway to the kitchen door.
“Promise me you don’t think I’m a complete loon?”
King gave her shoulders another squeeze. “Look, Ace… I’m the one who first saw this guy in my front parlor, remember? I don’t exactly advertise that fact to people on the street, but who am I to say you’ve lost your grip?” He guided her into the kitchen, adding, “I want you to sit here and tell me all about it.”
However, before she could elaborate further, a short, stocky figure suddenly appeared at the screen door in the pantry.
“Well, well,” declared the balding man who appeared to be in his midfifties. “Took the Jag to the funeral, did you?” The man gave Corlis the once-over as he advanced farther into the kitchen. “That must’ve impressed everybody. Did you give our regards to the Dumas family?”
“I did.” King nodded brusquely as a woman with perfectly coiffed hair and a brittle smile also stepped into the kitchen. “I thought you and Dad were on Patrick Ryan’s yacht this weekend?”
“We were,” King’s mother said shortly, “but your father wanted to come home early to watch some baseball game.” The couple exchanged steely-eyed looks. Obviously there had been words on the journey home from the Gulf.
“Mother… Dad… meet Corlis McCullough,” King said. “Corlis, this is my mother, Antoinette, and my father, Waylon.” To his parents he said, “We just came by to check on Bethany and Grandmother Kingsbury. Gotta run. I’m just going to drop Corlis off at… her office.”
“So you’re Corlis McCullough?” Antoinette exclaimed. “From WJAZ, am I right?”
Still feeling shaky from her recent ordeal, all Corlis could do was nod.
“You’re the TV gal that did the story about the wedding,” Waylon said accusingly. “And aren’t you also the lady, all the way from California, helping King here, stir up that bad publicity about the Selwyn buildings over on Canal Street?”
“I live in New Orleans now,” Corlis replied, wondering how best she and King could make a rapid exit without seeming impolite.
Antoinette took a step closer to Corlis and said with an expression of solicitude that set Corlis’s teeth on edge, “You were the one who did that real nice segment recently about the symphony’s annual luncheon, didn’t you?” She turned to Waylon. “There were some lovely shots of our floral centerpieces she showed on TV, Waylon,” she reminded her husband sharply. Then she smiled ingratiatingly at Corlis. “That was real sweet of you to give Flowers by Duvallon such a big boost.”
Corlis nodded politely at both Mr. and Mrs. Duvallon. “I’m glad you were pleased,” she managed lamely.
Just then King’s grandmother appeared in the kitchen doorway on her walker, flanked by Aunt Bethany. Antoinette frowned and said, “It’s not time for mother’s lunch yet, Bethany.”
“She heard your voices and wanted to come down to be with everybody,” Aunt Bethany said timidly. She nodded in friendly fashion at Corlis and added, “She also wanted to meet King’s friend, didn’t you, Mother? She likes to watch you on TV.”
“How do you do, Mrs. Kingsbury?” Corlis offered warmly.
“Very pretty,” the frail old lady said, nodding solemnly. “Very, very pretty.”
King’s mother plastered another smile on her face and directed Bethany, “You’ll have to organize Mother’s dinner tonight. The drive home just wore me out. I think I’ll lie down, and then I have my bridge club later.”
“Well, we’re off,” King interjected quickly. He deposited a quick kiss on the cheek of his grandmother and aunt. Then he nodded in the direction of his parents and swiftly guided Corlis out the kitchen’s back door.
They walked in silence to his car. Finally Corlis said, “King… can I ask you a question? Your mother and father saw the WWEZ-TV piece about Daphne’s wedding, right?”
“They sure did,” King replied, putting his key in the ignition and starting the Jaguar.
“Then why was your mother so civil to me, and why did she compliment me on the symphony luncheon story—which, by the way, was a totally worthless exercise in puff!”
King headed the car toward the Warehouse District. “Number one,” he said, staring stonily through the windshield, “when it comes to Flowers by Duvallon, Mother loves publicity. Number two, in Louisiana, a person might kill you, but they’ll be real polite doing it. And number three, it’s not a magnolia’s style to tell you what she really thinks.”
“Wow,” Corlis said on a long breath. After a pause she added, “Your father seemed a little…”
“Testy? Abrupt? Rude?” King inquired with undisguised sarcasm. He thrust out his chin and spoke in a voice that was a close echo of Waylon Duvallon’s. “‘How much you makin’ now, boy? How ’bout payin’ me back for bein’ your daddy all these years?’”
“I caught the dig about the Jaguar.”
“My daddy doesn’t approve of the way I spend and donate the money I’ve earned,” King said in an exaggerated drawl. “Says I owe him an early retirement.”
“He talks to you that way? And what about your mother?”
“She’s mainly interested in finding out if I’ve been granted tenure yet.” King flashed Corlis an ironic smile. “The son of one of her cousins is also up for the same slot. You remember him—Jonathan Poole.”
“Not the guy named to Grover Jeffries’s so-called Chair of Historic Preservation?” she said with a gasp.
“The very one.”
“A relative?” she confirmed philosophically.
“In Louisiana? What else?”
She reached across the Jaguar’s plush leather seat and patted his hand resting on the steering wheel. “They’d be crazy not to give you full tenure and a corner office!”
“Thank you, sugar,” he replied quietly. “Believe me, I appreciate the vote of confidence in a town where the opposition to saving historic buildings usually comes from my parents’ best friends and business associates.” Then he appeared to regain his even disposition and said with a grin, “Hey! Look at it this way. If I lose my teaching job over fighting for the Selwyn buildings, then I can give more time to the Preservation Resource Center—”
“Not to mention becoming a billionaire with your investments,” she teased.
“That depends on the crazy market.” He nodded judiciously. “And guess what else? I’d just be down the block from you!” His lighthearted tone reassured Corlis he’d at least partially recovered his morale. “Maybe I can stand under your window after midnight, and you can tell me more about André, the friendly ghost?”
“He wasn’t so friendly. He was depressed, big-time,” she replied soberly. Then, as dispassionately as she could, Corlis related the numerous instances in the last few months where her sense of smell had transported her to pre–Civil War New Orleans. Once again, she choked up when she described André Duvallon’s suicide.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” King said soothingly as he reached for her hand. “It must’ve been a real frightening experience for you today. Te
ll me why you think André Duvallon took his own life.”
To her relief none of King’s questions was facetious or skeptical, and he listened intently to her answers. “You know,” she mused as King turned his car into Julia Street, “André Duvallon clearly hated the Americans that were pouring into New Orleans in the 1830s and 40s.”
“The enmity between the two cultures is well documented,” King agreed. “Why would a man with André’s background feel any differently toward money-grubbing Yankees who were trying to take over everything? His despair about being extorted apparently drove him to end his life.”
“I can’t believe we’re talking so casually about my seeing some apparition of him in your front parlor! Tell the truth, now. You don’t think I’ve got a screw loose or am coming unglued, do you?”
“No more than I am,” he responded ruefully. King parked the Jaguar in front of Corlis’s front door and turned off the ignition. Then he tilted his head back, lowered his lids, and regarded her speculatively. “And even if you are, it doesn’t change one thing.”
“And that is?” she asked warily.
“You may be wacky, but you’re still a great kisser.”
“King!” Corlis protested. “Be serious.”
“Would you consider letting this source kiss you one last time before you turn into a pumpkin?”
“King… no! We made a deal, remember, and we’d better start getting used to it. Besides, I don’t trust either of us to exercise restraint in the kissing department.”
He arched an eyebrow and gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
“Okay… a deal’s a deal, but you’ll pay later, Ace. Big-time.”
“Fine by me,” she said, her spirits lightening a notch. She turned and held his gaze, yearning to touch him again. “However,” she added regretfully, “given the heat that the Selwyn buildings fight is bound to generate from here out, I don’t think you and I should be talking about ghosts—or anything else that isn’t strictly to do with the story.”
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