The Seven Sapphires of Mardi Gras (11 page)

A stab of terror raced through me. What if the last part hadn’t been a dream after all? What if there had been someone here in my room, standing over my bed? And now, that unknown presence was returning—

I caught my breath sharply, waiting as the footsteps halted just outside my slightly opened door. Then a worried voice whispered through the crack. “Louise?”

“Y-yes?” I felt my tension slowly subsiding as a figure in a long, flowing robe stepped into the room. I strained my eyes in the darkness as the lovely woman in her satin dressing gown swept nearer. It was Lydia.

“I thought I heard you cry out,” she said. She moved to light the lamp near my bedside. “Is something wrong?”

What could I say? That I thought I had seen some grotesque monster hovering over me as I slept? A creature with the face of a demon? Why, she would think I was mad! Only a short time ago I had been scolding Christine about letting her nightmares become too real to her. And here I was, shivering like some frightened child myself. Hastily, I reassured myself that the dream had no doubt been brought about by Christine’s talk. In my sleep, I had been living her frightening story about the burning house, the man who stood by the blazing draperies, a man whose face kept changing—

“A nightmare,” I confessed finally. “A new house, a strange bed—”

“Will you rest now? I have some drops that work wonders—”

“Oh, no thank you,” I replied, remembering Christine’s mention of Lydia’s weakness for laudanum. “I’ll be fine.”

“It’s chilly in here.” The light from the bedstand illuminated her pale lilac form as she stepped over to close the window. I noticed a spark of restlessness about her movements, the same flightiness that I had sensed just before her peculiar outburst downstairs in the parlor. The fancy porcelain doll of Edward’s was stirring to life once more.

“The nights can be deceptively cool, especially this time of year....” Her voice trailed off. She remained by the window, staring out into the darkness. Though my room afforded a breathtaking view of the gardens by daylight, I was certain that little or nothing could be seen in the black of night. Yet Lydia stood watchful and alert, as if waiting for some strange sound or happening to break the stillness.

“It’s the house,” she said suddenly. “Evangeline. Even in the darkness, I can feel it waiting, watching over us—”

“Christine tells me that you were at the masquerade the night of the fire.”

She turned toward me, her smile rueful, greenish eyes shining in the darkness. “Yes.” She paused for a moment as if suddenly lost in memory. “I knew Elica in happier times,” she said finally. “Ah, New Orleans! Just down the river, and yet it seems so far away—” Lydia seemed lost in a world of her own, reliving those better days. Was she regretting her marriage to Edward, which had taken her away from the city life?

I was curious about how Lydia came to be married to my uncle. I wanted to penetrate that glossy, doll-like facade of hers to find out what lay beneath the surface.

“Please sit with me a while, Lydia.”

She started to draw away.

“I don’t want to be left alone just yet. The nightmare was so real!”

Slowly, like a ghost in her flowing lilac robe, she flittered back toward me, sinking down upon the plump-cushioned little chair by my bed. “I know what it’s like to have nightmares, God only knows. Sleep has been a long time coming since I moved to this place.”

“How did you come to meet my uncle, Lydia?” I asked outright.

She gave a little sigh. “Elica and I were good friends back in New Orleans. She invited me to her wedding—and the masquerade. I remember how she pretended that everything was fine that night, but I felt there was something wrong. And then there was the fire—”

Realizing that she had drifted far away from the subject, she said, “I met Edward at the masquerade. After the fire, I helped him take care of Christine. She was hurt and upset. A friendship grew between Edward and me that night.

“He sought me out in New Orleans shortly after. I’m not going to pretend that it was a marriage of love. He was a lonely widower and I was unhappy with my life. It’s just that I feel so trapped here.” She shook her head, realizing that in the cover of darkness she might have spoken too much. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Christine showed me the locket that Elica gave her. A beautiful woman. Christine seemed very fond of her.”

“Christine adored her,” Lydia said simply.

A shiver crept over me. “It’s a shame that Christine had to witness—what she must have seen that night.”

“Elica’s horrible death has left a scar on her” Lydia agreed. “It’s left a mark on all of us.”

“Christine seems fascinated by Nicholas.”

“She’s obsessed with him!” Lydia’s voice was brittle, sharp-edged, “It’s hard for me not to blame him, you know.”

“For Elica’s death?”

“For everything.” Suddenly, Lydia rose and moved back toward the lamp. “Good night, Louise. Shall I put this out for you?”

“No, leave it burning a while. Good night, Lydia.”

The little light by the window was comforting, so I decided to leave it burning just a while longer. After Lydia left, I wandered restlessly about the room. I found myself staring out of the window into the darkness. Evangeline was barely visible, but I could feel its black, encroaching shadow, like some disaster waiting upon the horizon. As Lydia said, the old house seemed to be watching.

Lydia had not closed the door to my room and it was still swinging back and forth on its hinges, filling the room with the creaking sound of rubbing wood. As I moved over to secure it, a sudden, frightening thought made me stop, trying to remember. Hadn’t I closed the door before going to bed? It was an old habit of mine to close, then try a door, one acquired from many years of living in the city. And yet I distinctly remembered that Lydia had come in through an open door!

Perhaps I had absently broken my habit tonight. That was the only explanation, for if someone had been in the hallway tonight, Lydia would surely have seen them.

But the window had been open! Could someone have come in by way of the door and then escaped through the window? I walked back over to the window and looked down. Clinging vines from the garden crept all the way up the stone walls to the window ledge. They looked strong enough to hold a person.

I was suddenly tired—so tired. My imagination was surely running away with me again. Quickly, before I could catch a glimpse of Evangeline, I snuffed out the little light, throwing the room into darkness. Then I settled back upon the carved bed with its delicate lace coverlet, trying to forget the conversation with Lydia which had begun so innocently but had ended with disturbing talk about the fire and Elica’s tragic death.

Nicholas Dereux. My mind conjured up a sudden image of him. I remembered how firelight had danced in his eyes that rainy night in Cassa’s cabin. I saw a handsome man with black hair and a charming smile.

A shadow transposed itself over the image of the laughing man. I shivered a little, remembering that evil face peering down at me, that inhuman face glowing with a ghastly, unnatural light.

Closing my eyes, the two faces blended together—the one of the handsome, raven-haired man and the other of the demonic creature of my nightmare.

A dream. It was only a dream! I struggled hard to convince myself. It was impossible to believe otherwise. I would not allow myself to wonder, even for a moment, if the hideous thing I had seen in my half-sleeping, half-waking state could somehow have been real!

Chapter Eight

Edward and I sat opposite each other in his study. His drab, pinstriped suit seemed to match the somberness of his mood. So far we had exchanged only pleasantries and small talk, but the anxious gleam in his eyes made me suspect that he had summoned me here this morning for a definite purpose. No doubt he wanted to talk once more about the purchase of my inheritance.

“More tea, Louise?”

“Yes, thank you. I’ll just help myself.” Before Edward could rise from his seat behind the huge mahogany desk, I took the elaborate silver urn from its tray and filled both of the delicate china cups. The platter of thinly sliced cake that Mrs. Lividais had brought in earlier still waited untouched between us.

The portrait behind Edward’s desk was staring at me again. Uneasy, I glanced away, my eyes exploring the heavy, masculine furnishings of the room. Two more pictures hung upon the walls—one a landscape, the other a battle scene from the Civil War. Beyond the row of carefully polished bookshelves was a slightly opened door, no doubt the entrance to a small sun room or private parlor. Up above the doorway to this adjoining room hung two crossed dueling pistols.

Slowly, my gaze came back around to the captivating portrait just behind Edward’s desk. The young man in the painting had Edward’s steely gray eyes. In fact, at first glance, I had taken it to be an oil of Edward in his younger days. But upon closer inspection I found that I was mistaken.

The young man in the portrait had a narrow face and sharper, much more angular features than Edward’s large, blunt ones. Though the unidentified man was strikingly handsome with his dark hair and pale eyes, something about him disturbed me. Was it because he seemed so arrogant in his velvet and fine lace? An odd, intense glitter to the eyes and the bony cheekbones and narrow chin gave him a wolfish appearance. The thin mouth, so much like Edward’s, seemed hard and cruel.

For a moment I stared, haunted by something familiar in those bold gray eyes. Of course! With a swift, sharp intake of breath, I identified the face in the portrait. “Why, that must be Christine’s father!”

“Yes,” Edward responded proudly. “That is Racine. And a good likeness, too. I’ve always been glad I had it painted.” Racine Dereux—Edward’s lost war-hero son. The resemblance to both father and daughter was there in Edward’s bold gray eyes and Christine’s sharp features. That would surely account for my haunting feeling of recognition.

As my eyes moved about the room, small mementoes suddenly took on a deeper meaning. Glimpsing a few book titles, I saw that most of them were about the Civil War. And the dueling pistols, surely they, too, had once belonged to Racine. In a small glass cabinet, I caught the glitter of a silver war medal. Edward’s entire study was a museum of sorts, dedicated to his lost son.

“You’ve heard of my Racine’s bravery, of course.”

“Christine told me a little about him.”

“Did she tell you that he rode at Lee’s side? Why, the general himself gave him that decoration.” Edward bowed his head. “My son was killed near the war’s end, you know.”

“How unfortunate.”

“Yes, in April of ‘65, Racine gave his life for his beloved South. Lost in battle, like so many of our brave boys. His body was never found.”

The man in the portrait looked like a true soldier. I could imagine him living for the excitement of battle and dying in the heat of its brutal glory. I peered at the likeness of Racine once more, noting the same lack of sensitivity I sometimes caught in Edward’s expression. I shivered, instinctively suspecting that I would not have liked this son of Edward’s. All the same, I regretted the waste of his young life.

“War is so senseless. So many promising lives lost.”

“War creates tragedy. But it also makes heroes,” Edward added with unexpected zeal. He turned again to beam at the portrait, and, with a shudder, I wondered if he didn’t love the idea of a brave, sacrificed martyr almost as much as he had loved his flesh-and-blood son.

“Our tea is getting cold, Louise,” Edward said, as if suddenly realizing that our talk had drifted away from the purpose of our meeting. “And please, do have some cake.”

“You’ve brought me here this morning to talk about the land.”

Edward cleared his throat. “Yes. But first I want you to understand that I have every intention of being honest with you. I’m hardly the ruthless scalawag that Nicholas tries to make me out to be. True, Evangeline was once a prosperous, thriving plantation. But that was long ago.

“Your land holdings are extensive,” he went on to explain. “But unfortunately, it’s not so much the scope of land that determines its value but the quality of it. For years the fields surrounding Evangeline have been neglected. It’s slowly turned back into swampland. Now it will have to be cleared and made ready for recultivation, and that will require money.” He paused to take a sip of tea, then turned his full attention upon me, the sharp gray eyes bright as they met my own. “Money that few, in these difficult times, are free to invest.”

He rapped his knuckles lightly upon the desktop. “Nicholas knows of my ambition. I want to build up a grand and prosperous sugar plantation such as the family had before the war. With my own life’s savings, I’ve managed to buy back most of the original land that your father was forced to sell during the hard times. Except, of course, the land around the old house, which is your part of the inheritance, and also the small bit of adjoining property that belongs to Nicholas.”

“Nicholas owns land?” I asked in surprise.

“Dereux land,” Edward replied, his eyes darkening. “He inherited a portion of land through Pierre, though he wasn’t even really his own son. My brother Pierre took Nicholas in, you know. As your mother might have told you, Pierre was a bit of a scoundrel, but he had a kind heart.” Gruffly, but with a look of fondness, he added, “If he hadn’t been killed in the war, my brother would probably have died in a drunken brawl over some card table.”

“Your son and Nicholas must have been near the same age. Did they grow up together, then?”

“Nicholas was off with Pierre most of the time during his youth. And Racine was away at school. But they were friends. Edward gave a hollow laugh. “In fact, Nicholas idolized my son. The two of them went off to war together. Toward the end, they both joined Pierre at his regiment. An ambush attack took the lives of both my brother and my son.”

“Nicholas was lucky to have survived.”

Edward spoke softly. “He survived because Racine saved his life.”

“I didn’t know—”

“Racine tried to shield both Pierre and Nicholas from the sudden shower of gunfire. Then he pursued the enemy into the swamps, where he was either captured or killed.”