"You would have jumped ship, too, if they had informed you that they were going to hang you at dawn," I said sourly. "I'm glad my ferocity amuses you. Just be thankful I fought on your side, not theirs."
"Oh, I am, lady, I am." The laughing expression on his face softened and he kissed me deeply and tenderly.
"This is the longest time we've been together without quarreling," I observed.
"I know. Perhaps you're growing up."
"Me!" My eyes snapped and I tried to sit up. Then I saw the laughter in his eyes and I had to smile. "Why do you goad me into attacking you? Suppose I were armed?"
"I would disarm you."
"I would fight you anyway, with my bare hands."
"I would conquer you."
"By force?"
"By love."
Much later when we lay clasped tightly in each other's arms I felt that I was ready to tell him about our child. I felt so close to him, and I thought I could trust him not to hurt me.
"Garth, listen to me. I have something important—"
Savannah tapped at the door. "There's some men downstairs to see Mis' Elise," she called. "They want to see her right away."
"Tell them to go away and come back next week," Garth shouted.
"I did tell 'em," she said, "and they said they ain't goin'. They say they is goin' to wait until the Missy comes down."
"What do you suppose they want?" I asked Garth. I climbed out of bed and started to dress.
"God knows," he said. "They're probably old lovers waiting to welcome you home."
I felt strangely nervous. My hands shook as I drew on my stockings and picked out a dress to wear. I chose a modest pale blue morning dress with long sleeves and a matching fringed shawl, and as I left the room I heard an inner voice say, "You'd better take a bonnet. They might not let you come back."
They were standing at the foot of the stairs, three men, two in the uniform of Claiborne's militia and one in a black morning coat. Garth had said he would be down in a few minutes, and so I faced them alone now.
"Madame Fournier?" the one in the black suit asked.
"Yes, I was Madame Fournier. My husband is dead."
"We have come to arrest you for the murder of Jacques Fournier, Madame. You may bring anything with you that you might need while you are in prison, of course—"
I felt an explosion inside my head. Dizziness swept over me but I did not faint. I clung to the bannister and breathed deeply.
Savannah was shrieking, "She didn't do it! I swear it, the Missy didn't do it! I—I was there when they found him, and I know she didn't! Mister Garth! Mister Garth!" She ran screaming up the steps to our room.
"Are you coming, Madame?" the man asked softly.
"Give—give me a few minutes, please?" I asked quietly. "I promise you, I won't try to run away." I nodded at some chairs in the hallway. "Won't you sit down?"
All three men looked embarrassed and uncomfortable. "No, thank you, Ma'am."
I heard Garth on the stairs behind me. "What's all this?" he demanded angrily. "This charge is a fake, a fraud. It's nonsense! Now get out of this house before I throw you out!"
The two militia men stuck out their chins and rested their hands on their swords.
I put my hand on Garth's arm. "No, Garth, I have told them I would go with them. Please, don't make it any more difficult for me."
"This is ridiculous, Elise!" he said. "We both know who's behind this action, and she can't get away with it."
"She has gotten away with it," I told him sadly. "Even if they find me innocent, and I don't see how they can, she will have caused you great embarrassment. Perhaps she would even have made you doubt me. It wouldn't have worked out—"
"No!" He clenched his fists. "We'll fight it, Elise. I know lawyers, the best in the country. I won't let her—"
I put my arms around his waist. "Hold me, Garth. Hold me close. Remember, I'll always love you. Always." Then I ran upstairs to collect the things I would need.
They took me to the Cabildo, the Spanish-era prison not far from the St. Louis Cathedral where Jacques and I had been married. Savannah insisted on coming with me. My cell was damp and chill, and we tried hard to make it bearable.
"I sure hope they ask me about that man," Savannah fumed, referring to Jacques. "I could tell them a thing or two about him and that rat, Mister Arnold."
"Don't be too vehement, Savannah," I cautioned her. "You'll just be giving them the reasons why I should have killed him sooner."
"He deserved to die, everyone knew that!" I didn't agree, but I didn't argue with her. "An' then not ten days after he was in the ground, that Mister Arnold married Miss Colette and moved right in and started actin' like La Rêve was his! I didn't stay around to see more; he was actin' crazy-like and sellin' everything he could lay his hands on, and I was afraid he might even try and sell me. So I took the money you left and lit out for New Orleans and got my job at the Hotel Marengo back again. I stayed there until Mister Garth came and got me, sayin' 'Mis' Elise goin' to need you some more, Savannah.' Oh, Missy, I sure hope they don't hang you. You tell him about the baby yet?"
"No, I didn't." I had meant to, and now I was glad I hadn't. He liked me well enough, I knew that, and he would be sorry to lose me. We had been good comrades as well as lovers. But in the depths of my heart I didn't really believe he loved me, that he was capable of love. The child wouldn't have meant anything to him, just another illegitimate bastard he had fathered. "And I don't want you to tell him, either, Savannah. I'll beat the living daylights out of you if you breathe a word to him!"
A lawyer came to see me immediately. His name was Howard Livingston, and he was tall and fair, with thin, pinched cheeks, kind brown eyes and a warm, worried smile.
"I've known Garth a long time. We were in school together, that is, when he deigned to attend school. He swears he'll split me in two if I don't get you off. I've never seen him so angry. Suppose you just tell me what happened, Madame Fournier—"
"You'd better call me Elise," I told him with a weak smile. "I'm not terribly fond of the Fournier name right now."
He grinned. "Elise. A beautiful name, for a beautiful woman. Now, your story, please."
I told him everything I could remember about that last, dreadful day at La Rêve. Then he started to ask questions about my life with Jacques. I confessed that our marriage had been a sham and a fake from the beginning, and that Jacques had had a deep passion for Arnold Charpentier.
Livingston shook his head slowly. "We can't prove any of that. We have no witnesses to their plot against you, only you and Madame McClelland—Georgette. And she swears she doesn't know anything about Jacques' death."
"Of course she doesn't," I said bitterly. "And neither does Arnold, I'll bet."
"You win your bet. They have witnesses, Elise, who will testify to having heard you threaten to kill Jacques. The family is eager to tell the world about how you wrested control of La Rêve out of poor dear Jacques' hands, how you humiliated him and exploited his good nature, how you embarrassed him in public by carrying on with a certain notorious neighbor. You had a hundred reasons to want him out of the way: complete control of the plantation, hatred, jealousy, your affair with Garth."
"It's preposterous!" I said. "If I was such a devil, why didn't I arrange the murder more cleverly? Why didn't I stay and inherit what was mine, instead of disappearing into thin air?"
The lawyer lifted his thin shoulders. "You were frightened, upset by what you had done. Perhaps you felt remorse. Perhaps you ran off to join your lover. You and Garth have been seen together in public, and already the story of your voyage from Washington to Grand Terre is making the rounds. In the eyes of the citizens of this city you are Garth's mistress, and you were even before you married Jacques. The Fourniers can prove that, too. There's a deed to a house on Rue St. Charles with Garth's name on it, and a hundred people can testify that you lived in that house."
"I can see Georgette's fine hand in this," I said.
"She saw me at the house a few weeks ago. I should have known—"
"She hates you, Elise. I met her socially not long before your arrest, and she started talking about you, vilifying you. She'll do anything in her power to destroy you. She'll try to protect Garth if she can—she's too fond of Highlands and of being a senator's wife to want to sacrifice him to the wolves—but sacrifice him she will if she has to, to get rid of you."
"You—you don't believe that I killed him?" I asked softly.
"No, I don't think you did, but Garth and I are about the only people in New Orleans who don't believe it. Don't you see, Elise, even your association with Lafitte is against you. You were a pirate, and therefore you are a violent woman accustomed to getting what she wants by the use of force. You know how to use weapons, and you have used them. The prosecution can probably produce witnesses who can swear they've seen you shoot a snake's eye out at a hundred paces."
I smiled grimly. "I can do it, too."
He threw up his hands. "You see what I mean!"
"What about the time I spent as a slave?" I asked him. "My—my brand?"
He thought hard for a moment then said, "It's a possible point in your favor. But there's always the chance that someone will connect you with the 'Frenchie' who killed her owner in Virginia, and that would only enhance your reputation for violence. It's too big a risk, Elise. The prosecution could claim that it was just your misfortune to be mistaken for a quadroon and made a slave. He would make it look like there was never any plot against you."
"But if you found Bose Niles, Jake—"
"The only way we could get the jury to believe them would be if we could persuade Arnold or Georgette to confess. And they'll never do that. I'm for you, Elise, but I don't want you to build on false hopes. This won't be an easy case, and it will probably become a celebrated one. Public opinion has a strong influence on the outcome of cases like this."
"You mean cases of murder and adultery?" He nodded. "Yes, I can understand that. It's such a simple thing to judge, not like disputes over property or—" My voice died away. I hid my face in my hands and sighed deeply.
"I'm sorry, Elise," Livingston said gently. "There's more bad news. Judge Hall refused to set bail because of your connection with Lafitte. He's had Lafitte and his men up in front of him too many times to trust them. He's afraid they might help you to escape, and he's probably right."
"I wouldn't go," I told him. "I am not a coward. I want to stay and see this thing through."
"I admire your sentiment, but I can't say I would feel the same if I were in your shoes. It would be very tempting to get away—" He stood up. "Well, I'll leave you now, Elise. I want you to try and think of any time when the jealousy between Arnold and Jacques might have erupted in public. Perhaps we can attack them from that angle. And Elise—"
"Yes," I said wearily, lifting my eyes.
"Garth wants to see you. He says you've refused to see him, and—"
"No," I said firmly. "I don't want him to see me here. I don't want to drag him down with me. It would be too painful for me, to see him and touch him and know I'm losing him forever. Tell him I love him. Tell him—tell him that it would damage my case for him to come here. You'll do that, won't you, Howard?"
He nodded and kissed my hand. "Yes," he said, "I'll do that. Good-bye, Elise."
A bleak despair settled over me. I had lost Garth, and Georgette had won. She had succeeded in keeping us apart, perhaps forever. I could picture her gloating triumphantly, her pale face twisted into a delighted grin, as it had been when Bose Niles took me away. She must have been furious when she discovered that not only was I alive, but that Garth and I were together again.
I sighed deeply. I felt too despondent to cry. Life was so unfair: just when I thought that the last of the nightmares had been vanquished, another, more horrible than all the rest, rose up and threatened to—what was Livingston's word?—destroy. And I couldn't even battle this monster. What was the use? When I was free I would be Garth's mistress, nothing more. We would never run away together. That was just a lovers' dream, the frail kind of dream that melts away in the harsh light of duty and necessity. I would be his until he left me for another adventure, another woman.
If he really loved you, my inner voice declared, he would divorce Georgette and marry you. The scandal wouldn't matter to him. He'd give it all up, if he really loved you.
The days before the trial passed slowly. One was much like another. Lafitte was forbidden to visit but he sent baskets of food and wine every day, which the guards examined thoroughly before they delivered them. He also sent letters filled with gossip, books he thought I might enjoy, even French newspapers. But I never heard from Garth. He never tried again to see me, never sent a note or even a verbal message through Howard Livingston. Out of sight, out of mind, I thought bitterly. He was too vital, too energetic a man to wait for a woman who was rotting in prison. He probably had a new mistress, or a dozen. A Marie, or Louise, or Annette. Sometimes I hated him, hated him for being free.
The trial began on the second day of February. Livingston asked if I wanted him to try for a postponement, and I refused. I was in my fourth month of pregnancy, and I wanted to get the spectacle over with before anyone knew. I had no wish to let the child I carried become an object of pity and sympathy. I thought about where the baby would be born. In prison? Would they let it be born at all if I was condemned, or would they wait until it was delivered and then hang me? Should I tell Garth, ask him to make a home for my baby? I thought of my child growing up with Georgette. I would kill it and myself before I would let it come to that.
I could feel the ripples of excitement when I entered the courtroom on the first day of my trial. I quickly scanned the crowd for Garth, and when I didn't see him I sat down and ignored the proceedings as best I could. Until I heard a familiar voice bellowing at the rear of the room.
"Tell the bastards the truth, Elise, they'll have to believe you!" It was Dominique. His voice was joined by others I recognized.
"Don't let them hang you for something you didn't do!" one of them shouted. "We'll save you, Elise. Have no fear!"
I heard the sounds of scuffling and then some pistol fire. The pirates were trying to rescue me. They were repulsed by the courthouse guards after Judge Hall rapped his gavel repeatedly and gave orders for their arrest. That evening the prison authorities changed my cell, placing me deeper in the bowels of the Cabildo so that the pirates wouldn't be able to reach me.
"I know they meant well," Livingston said with a worried frown, "but they've damaged your case before the trial has even begun. Judge Hall is prejudiced against you, the jury is looking at you like you were the original Lilith, and the prosecuting attorney is grinning so widely that you could get an alligator into his mouth—sideways. And I don't even know where Garth is. I haven't seen him in days."
"It doesn't matter, Howard," I told him. "Don't be upset."
He stared at me. "I don't understand you, Elise. Don't you want to go free?"
I thought a moment. "I suppose I do, Howard. I mean, prisoners are supposed to long for freedom, aren't they? But right now I don't even care. Garth doesn't care. If he cared he would be here, and he would be moving Heaven and Earth to save me."
"I'm sure there's a reason, Elise," Howard declared, not too convincingly, "there must be."
I smiled at him. "Of course, Howard."
He went away, shaking his head.
The parade of prosecution witnesses began the next day. James, the old butler at La Rêve, testified that he had heard me threaten to kill Jacques, and members of the Fournier family backed him up, even Colette, who gazed at me apologetically as she spoke her damning sentences. Livingston tried to reconstruct the incident on the stairs, but apparently none of them but Arnold knew that Jacques had pushed me, only that I had fallen and that I had shrilly blamed Jacques. Arnold lied, of course, and blandly suggested that I might have been slightly drunk, for he had thought at the time that he smelled wh
iskey on my breath. The day wore on, Livingston's expression grew more serious, the jury started nodding at the witnesses, as though they confirmed the general opinion that I was a whore and a schemer and that poor Jacques had been my innocent victim. I ceased to pay attention to any of it after a while. I could tell from the very beginning how the trial would end, and I found the details wearying and depressing.
After the third day of testimony Georgette McClelland came to my cell.
"So nice of you to receive me," she said, looking around her disdainfully.
"I wasn't consulted," I told her. "I suppose you bribed the authorities to let you in here, just so you could see for yourself what you've done to me? All right, you've had your chance to gloat. Now get out."
She drew her skirts around her and sat gingerly on the cot that I slept on. "I want to talk to you, Elise."
"I don't want to talk to you. Guard!" I called through the door. "Guard!"
"He won't come. When I bribe, I do it handsomely."
"I'm sure. Like the way you bribed Bose Niles to dispose of me, only he didn't do a very good job, did he?"
She shrugged. "I always say, if you want a thing done right—"
"And I suppose you've bribed all those nice witnesses we heard today. I never said or did half the things they're attributing to me. I suppose you even wrote out their scripts and coached them?"
She clicked her tongue. "Elise, you give me too much credit. I can't help it if these people have imaginations, can I? I couldn't begin to make up some of the stories they've told. But I'm not interested in them. I came here to make a bargain with you, Elise."
"Bargain!" I spat. "I don't make bargains with—devils!"
"Hear me out, please." She took a breath. "I don't want to lose Garth."
"Lose him!" I snorted. "You lost him long ago, woman. Do you think he'll even speak to you after this? He knows what you did to me. You'll be lucky if he doesn't shoot you down, like the dog you are."
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