The Seven Sapphires of Mardi Gras

by Vickie Britton

  Chapter Sixteen

  I opened my eyes slowly to find myself staring into a calm, vast expanse of blue. White feathers floated in the blue. After a while, I realized that the feathers were clouds and that I was lying upon my back, staring up at the sky.

  “She’s coming to,” said a voice, and two shadowy faces bent over me.

  “Louise? Louise?” I recognized Christine’s voice, loud and high-pitched with excitement.

  I tried to sit up. A dull, aching throb deep inside my head forced me to wince and lie back down again, feeling faint.

  “Why did you leave her, Christine?” demanded the deeper voice. Nicholas.

  “I only wanted to frighten her. I didn’t mean for her to get hurt! One of those wooden beams collapsed on her. Oh, is she hurt badly?”

  Lies—Lies! Thoughts drifted through a dismal gray fog. That wasn’t the way it had happened. No, that wasn’t right at all. Oh, yes! Someone had hit me. Christine! Had it been Christine?

  Then I began to remember. Once again, I was locked back inside that cell-like room. I saw an object glittering blue within the rotted lining of the old trunk. Something bright and shiny. I was about to pull it free from the faded silk when I heard the sound behind me. Still leaning over the trunk, I turned my head, expecting to find Christine. Instead, in her place, stood that ghastly, black-robed creature. Someone was wearing the voodoo mask! The creature raised its arm and then the club-like chunk of wood started to come down. Suddenly, from far away, I could hear a woman scream.

  “Oh, Nick, make her stop!” a frightened voice sobbed.

  “Someone struck me,” I tried to explain to the immobile faces that hovered over me. “Evil eyes and a ghastly face and there was blood all over—”

  “Delirious,” the deep voice stated. “Let’s get her into the house. Then you run down and fetch Cassa.”

  Strong arms lifted me effortlessly. I was aware of being cradled against Nick’s sturdy chest, my cheek brushing those curling dark hairs where his coarse white shirt had come undone. The shirt smelled like homemade soap and woodsmoke. The pain in my head seemed to drift away from me as I let myself relax against the masculine warmth of him, the steady, comforting hammer of his heart filling me with a sense of security.

  When I awoke, I was lying in the enormous bed of an unfamiliar room. It was a masculine room with heavy, rough-hewn furniture. A bent, dark-skinned little woman watched over me. I opened my eyes periodically, but my lids were heavy. I struggled against sleep, forcing them open long enough to see Cassa peering down at me with her familiar, gap-toothed grin. “Nicholas!” I heard her call in an excited voice. “Nikkielous!”

  Then he was in the room. I struggled to rise, bringing waves of pain crashing in upon my head. “Ohh—” I eased back down against the pillows. “Where is Christine?” I demanded. “We must be back in time for dinner. Edward will be angry.”

  A cool hand touched my burning forehead. “It’s well past suppertime and you’ll be staying here tonight.”

  “No! I can’t. Not in this house!” I could feel my lids growing heavy. The contents of the room began to waver and dance. My head was like a deadweight, and the pillows beneath me were growing more and more comfortable.

  I slept, and when I woke he was still there beside me. The small, wooden chair that had been pulled up to my bedside looked stiff and uncomfortable for so large a man. He sat with his long legs stretched out in front of him. Through half-closed lids, I watched him rise from the chair and come to stand over my bed.

  He was gazing down at me with such tenderness in his eyes. Feigning sleep, I watched through my lashes as he reached out to tuck the edges of the faded quilt gently around my shoulders.

  His hand moved to stroke my hair gently. I sighed, feeling soothed and comforted. “Louise, my love—” he whispered. I felt his lips rest softly upon my forehead.

  “Nicholas—don’t leave me!” I reached out to him, clinging to his shirt in sudden panic as the horror of what had happened in the cellar rushed back to me. The face! I had to tell him about that grotesque, evil face! “I saw ...” I began, realizing that my teeth were chattering. I was suddenly very cold.

  “There’s no telling what you think you saw.” A wan smile brought some light into those strangely dark eyes of his. “Cassa’s herbs and potions can cause fantastic visions, as-I know from my own experience. You have been talking out of your head since this afternoon, but at least you have been spared unnecessary pain.”

  “This afternoon—”

  He nodded. “Curses, masks, voodoo! You’ve driven us half out of our wits.”

  “Nick “ I said slowly. “I did see something in that cellar.”

  His brow raised slightly. Interest mingled with skepticism as he waited, staring down at me.

  “I was looking at the doll—no, the trunk. I was looking inside the old trunk when—” It came back to me in a sudden flash—the glittering object that I had discovered there. “I found a necklace. Sapphires—”

  He touched a finger to my lips to silence me. He obviously believed that I was still confused. “Christine explained to me how she shut you up in the old cellar. I hope you won’t be too angry with her. I’m convinced she only meant to frighten you. She planned to walk around the house long enough to give you a good scare and then come right back and let you out. But when she returned, she found you lying crumpled in a heap upon the floor.

  “It didn’t take me long to figure out what had happened. A heavy piece of wood lay beside you—it must have fallen from high above. That part of the house is literally rotting away. That’s why I’ve warned Christine time and time again not to play in there.”

  Was that really the way it had happened? Had my injury, then, been in truth caused by a loose piece of wood, weighted by age and weakened by fire? Had I only imagined the rest?

  “Christine was babbling and carrying on like a madwoman,” Nick continued. “I couldn’t make any sense out of what she was saying at all until I followed her into the cellar.” His voice broke slightly as he looked down at me, a spark of some unidentifiable emotion in his black eyes. “You were lying so still. Oh, Louise, I thought I’d lost you!”

  Suddenly, he gathered me up into his arms, holding me tightly against his strong chest. I relaxed against him, savoring the comfort of his embrace. “If you had not been alive I never would have forgiven myself.”

  “But I am alive. Thanks to you, Nicholas.”

  He released me, turned slightly away. “It is fortune that you should thank.”

  “Please stay,” I implored, reaching for him again.

  With a sigh, he pulled me back into the circle of his arms. His lips moved against mine, his kisses tender, yet filled with unbridled passion. I sensed his reluctance to let me go. “You must rest,” he said firmly. “I’ll be back later.” I watched his broad shoulders as he stepped from the room, closing the door softly behind him.

  Much later, Cassa came in with broth and tea. “You drink, ya?” she insisted.

  The broth burned my tongue and the tea tasted like swamp mud, but I knew better than to try to resist. She waited, uttering words of approval in that guttural, half-French of hers as I finished one cup, then the other. I made a face and only then did she smile a satisfied, matronly smile and blow out the light.

  The sedative effect of the warm tea should have claimed me quickly. I felt drowsy and the room seemed stifling, and yet I couldn’t sleep. Restlessly, I tossed and turned upon the lumpy bed.

  I could still feel the warmth of Nicholas’s arms, the taste of his lips upon mine. His gentle kisses had awakened a need in me that left me yearning for something more. In the twilight of dream, I imagined he lay beside me.

  Time after time I woke, drenched in sweat, calling his name. But the chair near my bedside remained empty. With my restless sleep came the nightmares, real and vivid.

  The room seemed to fill with people and voices. Christine was in the background, and Elica, dressed in a white bridal go
wn. And there was Nicholas peering down at me, but this time his face was twisted, evil. His mouth moved as if he were reading passages from a book, but I could not make out the words. And then, in his hands I saw a badly singed black volume with the faded, gold-embossed beast upon the cover. The journal of my grandfather’s that I had burned!

  Cassa was there by his side, proffering a liquid that simmered and bubbled inside the cup, forcing me to drink a potion that smelled-of death and decay. Poison!

  I lay on the feverish border between wakefulness and sleep when a quick flash of movement from just below the window caught my eye. The people who had crowded my room only moments before faded into spectral shadows. But outside the window, peering in at me, was a face!

  Formless, disembodied, it floated in the air, that demon with its malevolent smile. Moonlight reflected eerily upon the stiff, unyielding skin, the wicked slash of mouth, the eyes that gleamed dark and silver, dark and then silver, burning with the raging fire of madness.

  It tapped upon the windowpane, ghostly fingers holding something out to me, something the color of the sea. I stared in fascinated horror at the liquid drops of blue fire. In its hand, the sapphire necklace glittered in cold moonlight.

  Nicholas’s voice was in the air, surrounding me. In a mocking tone, he read from the journal. I must talk to her tonight. Before the wedding. Before it is too late. Laughter, harsh and strange, emitted from behind the fixed mouth of the mask, Nicholas’s laughter. A lunatic’s laughter!

  “No—please no—” It can’t be! Nicholas—!” Shivering, I tried to rise from the bed, to confront that mocking shadow. But my head was spinning again, and I was weak, so weak. I could barely lift my head from the pillow. With Nicholas’s name still on my lips, I felt consciousness drifting away from me. Darkness closed in upon me like some thick, dark shroud, and I slept.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I opened my eyes the next morning, the distorted nightmare visions caused by Cassa’s magic tea were gone. A dull ache still throbbed in my head; brightness brought every aspect of the dark, somber room into painfully clear focus.

  On the heavy mahogany dresser near the bed my pale lilac dress, clean and neatly pressed, waited. Someone from the house had brought a few of my personal articles over. With unsteady feet, I rose and wandered over to the vanity. A tiny spray of flowers and perfume with a French label had been added to my meager supply. From Ian? I sniffed the perfume curiously; the scent was one that I had noticed Lydia wearing many times.

  I cleaned up with water from the basin, which had long since grown lukewarm. Wincing, I ran my brush through tangled hair. The pain of my injury was no longer severe. I had grown accustomed to the slight throbbing to such a degree that it took the accidental jostling of stiff bristles to remind me of the good-size knot hidden within my thick hair. To my surprise, a slight wave of dizziness overtook me as I stepped out of the dark room. How weak a short stay in bed had made me!

  I was lured into the kitchen below by the smell of the strong, Cajun-style coffee that Nicholas seemed to favor. There I found Cassa, struggling with a pan of hearth-baked corn cakes. Instantly, she began to scold and fuss over me, but despite her many threats, I refused to be herded back to bed. When she finally realized that I could neither be bullied nor persuaded, she threw up her hands in a futile gesture. Still fretting, Cassa pulled another chair up to the table and poured me a cup of coffee.

  As I sipped at the strong brew, she set out the corn cakes and a slab of butter upon the table. Feeling suddenly starved, I began to eat. The solid food warmed my stomach, filling me with new strength.

  I was helping myself to another corn cake when Nicholas, tall and handsome, appeared in the doorway. “Hungry, are you?” A smile lit his dark eyes. “Well, that’s a good sign. From the look of things, you are feeling much better this morning.”

  “My head still aches a little and I feel strangely weak,” I confessed.

  Nick’s expression sobered. “You have been very ill. After the head injury, you developed a bad fever.”

  “But I am almost like new again now. Thanks to you and Cassa. Will someone from Royal Oaks be coming for me soon?”

  “Edward sent Christine over in the carriage yesterday afternoon, but you were still resting. She’ll be back for you sometime this morning.”

  “I am grateful to you both. I feel I’ve been a terrible burden.”

  “Nonsense! It was a pleasure to have you as my guest.” He moved closer, adding in an low, husky voice, “I only wish your visit to my bed had been under more favorable circumstances.” His eyes, watching me with unconcealed desire, made no question about the meaning of his words. Color crept into my cheeks as I looked down, away from that playful smile and those mocking eyes. I stole a glance at Cassa, suddenly glad that she knew so little English.

  “Well, I’ll leave you two ladies now,” Nicholas said with some reluctance. “Christine should be here within an hour’s time.”

  “Wait.” Gathering up my courage, I rose from the table with only the slightest hint of unsteadiness. “Nicholas, I want to go back there—to the cellar. Will you come with me?”

  Nicholas raised one dark brow. He stood watching me silently, and I was afraid that he would refuse. “Very well,” he said finally. Taking my arm, he began to walk with me through the dark corridor that led into the ruined wing of the house.

  Was I making a mistake by asking him to take me back there? Uneasiness filled me as we wandered through the empty rooms. We emerged at the edge of the huge, deserted ballroom, near the base of the twisted, serpentine staircase.

  Nicholas’s footfall was heavy upon the old wood as he began to climb the stairs. “Nick? Where are you going. Nick?” Though he motioned for me to follow, he seemed barely aware of my presence. As if in a trance, he moved toward that dark room at the top of the stairs. The room where Elica had been trapped by the fire. The place where his wife of one day had met her death.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, I peered into a room so scarred and ravaged by fire that barely a trace of its former appearance remained. Only piles of broken boards, unidentifiable rubble. A crippled vanity tottered in the corner upon delicate legs. Pieces of the shattered mirror lay scattered beneath.

  I gasped, my dizziness suddenly returning as I looked down at the rotting stairs that we had just climbed. Nicholas had stopped at the head of the stairway. He stood looking downward, one hand resting upon the roughened balustrade, as if he heard faint music from the hollow expanse of the deserted ballroom below.

  What dreadful thoughts were going through his mind? Was he reliving that terrible night? I was as powerless to stop the questions in my heart as I was to quell my sudden shiver of fear.

  Why had he brought me up here? I stood motionless at the threshold of Elica’s room, waiting for him. Guilt, sorrow, anger—I was afraid of what I might see in his eyes as he turned toward me.

  When he spoke, it was in a quiet voice, a voice touched with anguish and a certain harshness. “Surely by this time you’ve heard the gossips’ tongues wagging.”

  I nodded, not daring myself to speak.

  “Come closer, Louise, so that you can hear my version of the story.” Cold sweat made a sudden dampness upon my forehead as I obediently moved toward him.

  “Elica was not who she pretended to be. I made a trip to New Orleans to verify the facts. I saw a portrait of her mother there. She was a very beautiful quadroon.” He turned to me, the corners of his lips curving into a smile, a skeleton of a smile laced with bitterness. “But, of course, you already knew that! And who told you? Surely not Edward. Dear Edward and his damnable family pride! And not Lydia. She loved Elica too much to reveal her pitiful secrets. Was it Christine, then?” He gave a rueful laugh. “Of course not. I doubt that she even knows herself.” A dark brow arched slightly. “But I am forgetting Mrs. Lividais. Now, who could keep a secret from Mrs. Lividais?”

  He leaned close to me, so close that I was overpowered by his nearnes
s. The hand that still gripped the edge of the scorched balustrade tightened. It was a strong hand, and powerful. “And the rest?” His eyes were shiny sparks in the darkness. “If you’ve heard one rumor, surely you’ve heard them all.” His laughter echoed eerily in the total silence that surrounded us. “Well, Louise, what do you think? The black eyes searched mine, the dark spot in his left eye, the devil’s mark, seeming to grow larger. “Do you believe me capable of murder?”

  I saw pain in his tense expression, pain masked by his mocking arrogance. “You do not need to answer,” he continued softly. “Your expression—it speaks for you.” Abruptly, he turned away. “Damn!” I heard him swear, and his hand came down with crashing force against the edge of the staircase.

  He moved to the top of the stairs, where he paced like a caged lion. Then he disappeared inside Elica’s room. I entered to find him standing by the window, partly in light, partly in shadow. Angel or demon? The thought came to me without words as I took a hesitant step toward him.

  “I want to believe in your innocence,” I said.

  He spun around to confront me, unbelieving. Then a faint ray of hope flickered across his gaunt face, softening the tight mouth, putting light back into those fathomless black eyes. “No matter what you have heard? In spite of what they must have told you?”

  “Yes.” My voice was barely a whisper. I was remembering my grandfather’s journal and the words I had seen written there—words that were almost tangible proof that Nicholas Dereux had murdered his wife!

  “Then I shall tell you the rest of what I know.” He ran a hand through his thick, unruly hair in a slightly distracted manner. “I met Elica in New Orleans ...”he began, his voice seeming to come from far away. “Only now I realize that ours was no chance meeting. She must have sought me out. There is so much I am just beginning to discover about her—so much I am only now starting to piece together.