Kneeling on the floor beside Alex’s body, Cord felt as alone as he’d been before Alex had arrived in New Orleans. He stared at his cousin’s hand, more terrified to reach out than he’d been on the day Alex offered him friendship and brotherhood. But he could not let Alex go without reaffirming that bond.
Filled with dispair, Cord reached for his cousin’s hand. It was cold. Alex was already gone.
Cord looked at the pale hand he held in his own and was hit by the utter hopelessness of the truth. It was all his fault.
I should be dead. I should be the one lying there.
He buried his face against the back of his cousin’s hand, hardly aware of Foster’s gentle efforts to help.
“Stand up, Cordero. Your grandfather is waiting in the library. You don’t want ’im to see you like this.”
Numb with shock, Cord walked through the lower level and up the stairs to the library. He stood before the desk his grandfather used as effectively as a fortress wall between himself and those he summoned into this, his private lair. The old man was seated behind the desk, his cane propped nearby. A study in chilling hauteur, Henre gave no outward indication that his favorite grandson had just lost his life.
“Your behavior has cost me dearly, Cordero, to say the least. Just like your father before you, you have dishonored our name.” Henre never looked up at Cord as he shuffled through a sheaf of papers on his desk. His hands were steady. He showed no outward sign of grief, but his rage simmered almost visibly.
“As you are aware, Alex was to have married in two weeks time. Now you will have to fulfill the bargain …”
“Impossible. I am leaving New Orleans for good.” With Alex gone, he had no reason to stay in this place he hated. He would leave, sail home to the West Indies and, as a tribute to Alex’s memory, try to make something of the land he had inherited from his mother.
“You are penniless. Where will you go?”
“Home to St. Stephen. On the first available ship.” As soon as the words were out, a sense of relief swept through him that felt as strong and sure as the West Indian trade winds. It was time to reclaim his life.
“So you intend to flee like the coward you are and live on that run-down plantation your mother left you?”
“Exactly.”
“I have signed a contract with Thomas O’Hurley. His daughter is to wed my heir in two weeks’ time. Unlike you, Cordero, I am a man of honor. I will see my word upheld.”
“Marry her yourself. I don’t want your money. I never did. I did not come here of my own accord, remember? I should have left four years ago …”
“But then Alex arrived.”
“Yes. Alex arrived. I had expected him to treat me with the same disdain you have always shown me, Grandfather, but I was wrong. Alex befriended me. He made my life here somewhat tolerable.”
Henre Moreau finally looked up. If Cord had expected him to have been moved, he was wrong. He should have remembered that the old man used information to strike where it would hurt the most.
“You say you loved Alexandre? If you did, you would do the honorable thing and marry this girl in his stead. Alex never balked at the notion of this marriage, not even as he professed undying love for his little mulatto mistress, the mother of his children.”
“Her name is Juliette.”
“I don’t care what her name is. It is nothing to me. I should have known you would be too selfish, too much a coward to do the honorable thing.”
“Think what you will.”
“You will need money to reestablish that plantation on St. Stephen.”
Cord shrugged. “Who knows? I may just sit there in the jungle and drink rum with the Caribs.”
“I don’t doubt it. But then, I don’t really care what you do after you marry the O’Hurley girl. What I do care about is my good name, and Alex’s.” The only indication of the depth of his loss came when Henre’s voice broke on Alex’s name. It was a moment before he could add, “I will not have our honor besmirched.”
Cord remembered closing his eyes as he stood before his grandfather recalling Alex’s laugh, a joyous sound that could fill a room and lighten every heart in it. Honor? Cord had never once in his life done anything honorable. Not for himself, and certainly not for this man who had made his life miserable since he was eight years old.
But could he do the honorable thing, even for Alex?
“Well?” Henre waited. Eyes as fathomless as midnight stared at Cord. The old man, so adept at showing no emotion had leashed his temper, stowed his grief.
Cord let out a deep sigh. “For Alex. I will marry the girl—because Alex would have done so. Then I will sail to St. Stephen, with or without her. The choice will be hers.”
As memories of the past now faded into the mist of what was supposed to have been his rainy wedding night, Cord wondered what the O’Hurley girl would say when she learned that he intended to sail on the noon tide? That is, if she ever arrived.
All was quiet downstairs where he had left the only invited wedding guests, his two distant cousins Stephen and Anton Caldwell and Father Perez, the Jesuit priest. Cord knew the twins were no doubt fortifying themselves with wine and that Father Perez was stuffing himself with beignets. The priest had been a permanent resident for over two weeks now, summoned first to preside over Alex’s funeral, then bribed with Henre’s full pantry and a cook at his disposal to stay on until he saw Cord well and truly wed.
Cord was thankful they had all seen fit to leave him to his liquor. He hoped by the time his bride arrived he would be in enough of a stupor to greatly repulse her, not to mention further infuriate his grandfather.
He would uphold his cousin’s promise and claim the rich American merchant’s daughter and her dowry. Her father had paid for a Moreau heir, and so she would have one, but little else. By midday tomorrow, his bride would learn that this Moreau heir intended to walk away from the inheritance and sail home to the West Indies.
If she wanted to remain his wife, she would have to sail with him.
He turned away from the railing, nearly stumbled, and righted himself. He grabbed the wine bottle by the neck and hoisted it to his lips, then felt the warm wine rush down too quickly. Before he could contain it, the burgundy liquid spattered like blood over his shirtfront. When he tried to survey the damage, the stains wavered and blurred.
The door to his bedroom suite opened. From where he stood on the balcony, Cord could look through the room and watch as one of the twins walked in without knocking, glanced quickly around and then looked toward the open jalousies. Stephen walked into the room and closed the door behind him when he saw Cord. Cord moved up as far as the open double doors and stopped there, edging his shoulder into the door frame for support.
Stephen Caldwell was barely eighteen, but he and his identical twin, Anton, could have easily passed for twenty. Six feet tall and still growing, the broad-shouldered, golden haired Adonis was one of a pair, the products of Henre’s only cousin, Mariette, and her husband, a brash American naval officer who had died in battle at sea, following his wife in death shortly after she gave birth to the twins late in life.
Cord focused on Stephen, who was casually seated on the footboard of the massive tester bed, eyeing him thoughtfully.
“I see you’re still standing,” Stephen said, looking down long enough to straighten the fine linen cuff that extended exactly the right length beyond the sleeve of his coat.
“Not for long, I hope.” Cord took another swig of wine.
“Is this any way to greet your intended?”
Cord spread his arms wide, the contents of the bottle perilously close to sloshing out and over the whitewashed balcony floor. “This is the way I plan to greet my intended. If and when she decides to show up.”
Cord didn’t like the way Stephen’s hazel eyes darkened as he stared at him thoughtfully. “Marriage might be the best thing for you, Cousin.”
Cord’s hand tightened on the neck of the wine bottle. “Turning tra
itor?”
Stephen shook his head. “No. But at the rate you’re going, you’ll kill yourself before too long.”
“And you think a wife will be able to stop me?”
“Perhaps. If she is the right woman.”
“Then you still hold women in far greater esteem than I do. No doubt it’s because—”
“Of my American upbringing,” Stephen finished for him. The twins had been reared in the East by their father’s kin and had only recently returned to New Orleans. Moving in Creole society, they had embraced the casual elegance, the endless pursuit of happiness and the comforts of wealth that they had inherited from their mother.
Henre’s own wealth and influence had opened every door for the two young Caldwell men until Cord’s last and most grievous fall from grace had temporarily closed them. Cord reckoned it was for their own good more than his that the Caldwells wanted to see him quickly settled and gone.
The realization hurt. Cord took another swallow and continued to lean half in and half out of the room.
“She might be beautiful,” Stephen mused.
“If I could, I would relinquish her to you.”
“Her father parted with a small fortune in dowry money to see her wed the heir of one of the oldest, most established families in New Orleans. You do realize, of course, that you are the Moreau heir now.”
“A fact I would just as soon forget.”
Cord closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and felt a surge of satisfaction when the room began to swim. Thankfully, he would soon be incoherent, which was how he preferred to spend his days and nights lately. It was so much easier than facing the truth. He slowly opened his eyes again. Stephen still perched on the footboard like an overgrown cherub, his light eyes and hair the exact opposite of Cord’s dark features.
“O’Hurley thought his daughter was going to marry the most upstanding member of the family, not the black sheep. Perhaps she’s heard Alex is dead and has changed her mind,” Cord told him.
At the mention of Alex’s name, and the fact of his death, Stephen’s expression immediately sobered. They were all still hurting, Cord reminded himself. All of them.
Cord pushed away from the wall and strode back out onto the balcony. A ladder-back chair stood near the wall. He sat down, tipped back and balanced the chair on two legs. Resting his head against the wall, Cord upended the bottle and drained it dry.
A slight noise drew his attention to the door. Stephen had followed him outside.
“I don’t need a watchdog,” Cord said, refusing to mask the bitterness in his tone. He let go of the bottle. It dropped to the floor with a hollow sound and rolled a foot away. “Why don’t you go downstairs and play with Tony? Help keep Father Perez in beignets and claret?”
“Are you planning to drink yourself to death?”
Cord didn’t know which he hated more, the genuine concern in Stephen’s eyes or the undisguised pity in his tone. Ignoring both, he held his silence, and Stephen soon retreated along the galerie to his own room.
The rain was coming down harder now, falling in sheets of liquid color that reflected arcing prisms cast by lamplight. In the distance, fewer torches were visible.
Are you planning to drink yourself to death?
His cousin’s parting thrust haunted him.
“I wish it were that simple,” Cord said in a whisper that was lost to the rain-swept night.
He was too much a coward to drink himself to death when there was no guarantee that his nightmares would not follow him all the way to hell.
Three
Celine had only attended mass once or twice in her life, so she felt like an imposter as she took refuge in the deep shadows outside St. Louis Cathedral, praying to God to help her escape the city. She drew the edges of her cloak together and tried to catch her breath. Her hair was tangled and damp beneath her hood, her shoes were soaked through, and her skirt was splattered with mud. The only thing she carried with her were the coins hidden in her bodice. There had been no time to take anything more. She had paused to linger near the church for a few seconds, long enough to get her bearings and ease the stitch in her side.
As she leaned against the corner of the building, a carriage pulled up directly in front of it. She stepped back, careful to stay in the shadows, where she watched a coachman climb down off the box. He stood in the street arguing with the unseen occupant, and then finally, after a brief discussion, he shook his head, spat and climbed back up onto the driver’s seat. The carriage door opened with such force that it banged against the vehicle’s side.
Celine watched a woman in a dark-hooded cloak step out of the carriage. A gold clasp at her throat glittered in the lamplight. She held her hem out of the mud and quickly made her way toward the door of the church. Too late, Celine realized the woman would have to pass within inches of her hiding place.
She sucked in her breath and waited, hoping to blend into the shadows. The heels of the woman’s shoes rang out against the wet banquette. The image wavered as the cloaked figure ran through the curtain of rain. Celine was tempted to close her eyes and hold her breath as the woman passed by.
Just when she thought she would escape unnoticed, Celine was startled half out of her wits as the woman grabbed her wrist. Celine fought the urge to cry out, struggling to break free as the other woman flung open the door to the vestibule and jerked her inside.
A tall taper had been lit near the collection box for the poor. The flame nearly went out when the door swung shut behind them. The scent of lingering incense stung her eyes as Celine whipped around to protest. She found herself face-to-face with a young woman very near her own age. The girl was her exact opposite, as different from Celine as the moon from the midnight sky, with round blue eyes, fair skin and curly blond hair.
The girl shoved back the hood of her cloak and carefully eyed Celine up and down. Then she broke into a wide smile. When twin dimples appeared in the girl’s cheeks, Celine thought she was surely gazing at an angel.
“I can’t believe it. God finally answered one of my prayers, and just in the nick of time, too. I was beginning to give up.” The beautiful stranger unfastened the gold clasp at the throat of her cloak.
She whipped off the expensive cloak and held it out to Celine. “Here, take it and be quick. And I’ll need yours.”
“What are you talking about?” Celine felt as if she had just walked into the pages of a book.
“I don’t have all night.” The girl glanced at the door and then shook the cloak at Celine. “Take it and give me yours.”
“But—”
“Look, I know there’s some reason you were hiding out there all alone at this time of night, and my guess is that you are on the run. Am I right?”
The hushed whisper was resoundingly loud in the deserted vestibule. Celine glanced around, refusing to answer.
“Please, I’m begging you. You have to help me,” the girl whispered. The cloak hung forgotten in her hand. “I’m trying to get away, too.”
“I’m in no position to help anyone,” Celine said, intrigued by the girl’s quick assessment of her situation. “And you’re right: I am in a hurry to get away from here.”
“Good. Give me your cloak.”
Celine glanced into the dark recesses of the church. Votive candles shimmered at the side altars like golden tongues flickering in a constant prayer vigil. There seemed nothing sinister about the girl as she stood waiting impatiently for her to decide. Finally, Celine untied the plain cord that held her cloak closed.
“Why are you so willing to help me?” Celine asked.
“I’m offering you a way out of here in exchange for my own freedom.”
Celine held out her worn cloak and they traded. Donning the fine, ruby-colored, velvet cape, her fingers trembled on the gold clasp as she snapped it closed. She waited in silence while the other girl adjusted the green cloak.
When the blond girl smiled at her again, Celine was certain God had sent one of his angels dow
n to rescue her. Celine pulled the hood over her wet black hair.
The girl pushed her toward the door. “Keep the hood up, run across the street and get into the carriage.”
“But the driver—”
“He can’t wait to be rid of me. You, that is. Just don’t let him see your hair or your face. He’s a lout who won’t even bother to help you aboard. Just climb in and slam the door.”
“Surely I could never pass as you …”
“Where you are headed, no one has ever laid eyes on me. You will have a whole new life, if you decide to take it. By the time they find out you’re not me, it’ll be too late to do anything about it, and I’ll have gotten away.”
“Will I be safe?” Celine could not believe she was actually considering this outrageous plan.
“I would never send anyone into danger. So, you will do it?”
The girl had her hand on the door handle. She opened it a few inches and urged Celine out into the rain. The carriage was waiting. The driver sat hunched over on the box. Celine could not leave before she asked one last question.
“If I take your place tonight, what will you do?”
She would not have thought it possible, but the girl’s dimples deepened.
“I will fulfill my wildest dream. I want to be a nun.”
The girl was furtively watching the driver through the opening in the door. He glanced over at the church and placed one hand on the seat, about to climb down.
“Hurry! Before he sees us together. Keep the hood over your face.” She placed her hand in the small of Celine’s back and shoved.
“But—”
“Go!”
Celine raised the hood and pulled it close to her face. The girl gave her another shove and Celine felt herself propelled out into the rain. She took a deep breath and hurried across the street. If God had sent the angelic blond girl to save her, she was not about to turn down such a gift.
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