With One Look (13 page)

"No, no, no ..."

"How do you know? You said you didn't speak with her."

Jade seemed unable to answer at first, then suddenly her whole manner changed—and frighteningly so. She stood very still, her already pale face blanched even whiter, and her empty eyes stared off into the distance, seeing some unspeakable terror.

"When the Madame found Mercedes and I in an embrace, she took me down to the cellar again. I didn't know at first. At first I just sat in a chair. Then I heard a hollowed scream from Maydrian. I tried to discover what had happened; I was so scared! I called for Maydrian but no sound came. Then the Madame ordered me to hold out my hand." Jade's hand lifted into the air with a slow, ghostlike movement. "I thought she... she was going to hit me like a schoolmaster or ... or governess, and I thought... I thought that she could beat me till I was black and blue, it wouldn't matter.... But she didn't hit me. She put something in my hand, pulled away a cloth and ... and ... she c-closed my fingers over it." She seemed to panic, her words rushed forward. "It was warm... and wet and I couldn't see what it was! She said to me, 'You don't want your maid to be as useless as you are, do you? Take care not to give me cause to ... to remove her other eye.'"

She heard a soft vicious curse before he pulled her back, her small body jerking against him, while her fingers dug into his arm as though desperately trying to hang on to something. In a carefully controlled voice, he ordered, "Wake Murray up to sit with her. I don't want her left alone. And bring something up to make her sleep."

She trembled with chills. She tried to rise above her confusion and dizziness, fighting still the lingering effects of the potion, but she couldn't. She felt precariously balanced on the edge of a steep cliff over a dark abyss. She needed ... she needed ...

Mother Francesca ...

He held her tightly in his arms, listening to the crackle of a dying fire tick off the minutes.

Gradually he felt her trembling slow, then stop, her eyes closed. He thought she was asleep. He pulled back the covers and gently lifted her up before setting her down again. Just as he was about to turn away, a hand reached out to touch him.

"Please ... I need, I very much want to return to the convent.” " "The convent?"

"Mother Francesca ... she will be so worried…”

Dark blue eyes searched the lovely pale face as his thoughts rushed to the mysterious place he found himself in. He knew. He also knew he should have known the moment he discovered she was blind.

"Your real name, love? Not Mary?"

She was falling over the side the cliff, falling down into the dark space where a deep peace awaited her. She struggled through the hazy swirl of darkness to whisper the last words, the important words: "Jade. Jade Terese Devon."

Jade Terese. His father's favorite student.

*****

The two lovers failed to notice the steady rain falling against the window. She dashed around the bed, trying to escape the greediest hands she had ever known. He lunged and tackled her, pinning her beneath him on the bed as uncontainable excitement burst forth in giggles.

"Tell me again!" he demanded.

"You are the best lover I've ever had!"

Sebastian had no reason to doubt Mercedes on this. "Then why don't you let me make an honest mistress of you?"

"Sebastian, you are teasing me."

"I am not teasing; I have never in twenty-nine years been more serious! I want you!" He showered her face with kisses. "Ah, you have bewitched me; I have no doubt of that. You are the first woman I've ever wanted as a mistress, the first I've ever asked. I will have you, Mercedes!"

"I do not believe this is happening to me." "It is happening. Now say yes!" "Sebastian!"

"Say yes!"

"I ... I can't, Sebastian."

"Why not? Has this not been the happiest, most wonderful night of your life?" She nodded; it was only too true.

"Do you not already care for me more than you ever cared for a man?" When she nodded again, he laughed. "God, I wouldn't be surprised if you were already in love with me, but if you are not yet hopelessly overcome by my charm, it will take at most a week! One week and I swear you'll be madly, passionately in love with me. I'll make you the happiest woman—"

Mercedes's eyes filled with tears as she turned away. She would always cherish this one night with Sebastian, the one night in which some god, either from benevolence, pity or both, breathed her most fanciful dream to life and set Sebastian before her. She had this one night of his laughter and love, of his sweet promises of a life she could never have, a life she should not dream of.

Sebastian watched the tear slide from the flushed cheek and found his finger stopping it, gently banishing it from her lovely face. "I made you cry. Why?"

She shook her head, unable to answer.

Jade's words echoed dizzily through her mind. What if God was not punishing her? What if God sent Jade and Sebastian to force her to see how terrible her life had become? Because He knew she could not watch Jade become what she had become. She couldn't! She could not spend the rest of her life dreaming about Sebastian! She wouldn't!

So she had to stop it, she had to ... "Mercedes?"

His lips kissed her cheek, but she was hardly aware of the immediacy of Sebastian, the room, the house, as her thoughts rushed in a feverish intensity. Her heart started galloping. She had to do something to make it stop. It did not matter that she was killed in the trying. She was already dead; she could not lose more. She had to make it stop....

"Mercedes—"

"I have to go," she said. "Please. I will be back shortly. Would you wait for me? I think, I am quite sure, I will be needing you very soon. Would you?"

Sebastian twirled a strawberry blond curl around his finger, staring down at the lovely girl.

He rolled over, offering the girl her freedom. He watched as she quietly rose and slipped on a chemise and a plain gold muslin dress that laced up the front. She rushed to the dressing water and splashed her face before turning to the door.

She made her way down the hall and to the top of the front staircase. A light shone from a downstairs parlor at the bottom of the stairs.

The Madame was still up. Mercedes drew a deep breath and without making a sound she slipped down the stairs one at a time, her back pressed to the wall for support. The door to the parlor was open. Slipping forward inch by inch, with her heart thudding wildly in her chest, Mercedes peeked inside. The Madame sat at a desk with her money books, tallying up the evening's profits.

From behind the beveled glass, Mercedes spotted two men outside guarding the front doors. She darted across the front of the open parlor doors and into the now-dark entrance hall. She went through the doors to the gaming room. She heard a servant humming softly as he went about tiding up in the adjacent room. Bright hazel eyes spotted the still-lit lamp near the bar.

With a slight rush of skirts, she crossed the space.

She lifted the glass off the lantern. Careful to cup the precious light against the rush of her movements, she crossed the space and went into the barroom. Feverish hazel eyes came to the obscene tapestries hanging on the wall before searching the room for an occupant. It was empty.

She wove through the tables.

Mercedes set the flickering light at the very bottom of the tapestry. Small flames leaped to life. She stepped back, her eyes wide and frightened as the flames grew and grew, scorching two copulating nymphs before licking them with bright orange flames. With a swoosh of air the tapestry burst into bright fire.

The lantern dropped to the floor with a crash. She turned and fled the room.

"Mercedes!"

She stopped halfway up the stairs. She slowly turned to see the Madame standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at her suspiciously. "What were you doing downstairs at this hour?"

For a moment she couldn't speak, standing there mute and helpless, listening to the roar of her pounding heart in her ears. Then, from seemingly far away, she heard herself reply: "The Monsieur left his hat in the barroom. He asked me to retrieve it. I did not want to wake a servant for the task."

The girl looked flushed and guilty. There was something afoot. Something, Madame Charmane saw, more meaningful than the fact that she held no hat in her hands. "And where is this hat?"

The Madame watched Mercedes's red hands clutch her skirts tightly. "I lost it," she said. "I mean, it is lost. I asked... ah, ..." Oh Lord—she bit her lip—who was working still? Who?

"Yes? You asked who, Mercedes?"

"Edie to search the kitchen and bring it up if she finds it." She turned around and started up. "Edie retired two hours ago."

Mercedes stiffened dramatically. Thoughts clamored hard and fast for her attention but none of these louder than the rush of her blood through her veins. She wondered if she might faint from fright—

Sebastian had gotten up and stood listening to the curious exchange from an open door. He didn't understand what was happening, much less the manner and tone in which that women spoke to Mercedes.

He hurriedly set about dressing.

The Madame watched Mercedes put her back to her for but for a moment. She was already in a temper, what with Mary still at Monsieur Nolte's house and a whole two hours late. Her men had yet to return and she had just been about to call Constable Girod to the task when this happened

—Mercedes sneaking around downstairs and lying to her about it. "Get down here this—" The first awful scream sounded from the barroom: "Feu! Aider! Feu!"

The Madame swung toward the sound and in the same moment Mercedes ran, dashing up the stairs and down the hall, shouting the only word that would be heard for hours. "Feu! Feu!" She pounded on every door. "Feu! Feu! Wake up!"

One by one people came out of their rooms, only to panic. Screams sounded from downstairs already. The fire had leaped to another tapestry, which fell to one of the wooden tables nearby, even as the flames continued climbing the wall. Smoke curled on the ceiling, billowing into the entrance hall and filling the staircase.

"Anna! Help! Alert the servants upstairs!" Mercedes shouted orders like a general. "Cecil!

Put down those clothes and race upstairs with Anna to get the servants out."

Anna froze as if uncertain, which was more important: her gowns or the servants. Mercedes ran to the panicked woman, snatched the clothes from her hands and screamed, "Now! Or they'll die!"

She burst inside her room as Sebastian leapt on one foot, managing to push the other one into his boot. Sebastian didn't think. Not now. Later he would try to discover why Mercedes had

disappeared from beneath his hot body to set this house on fire, but now he only acted. For there was no more deadly word in any language than fire.

"There are people in the basement—" He saw the plea in her eyes. "What?" "Hurry! We must save them!"

Cursing viciously, Sebastian raced after Mercedes. The stairs were swarming with people. A bell kept ringing. Cries and screams sounded. Black smoke continued to pour into the entrance hall. Shouts sounded from the neighbors nearby. Half the house filed down the stairs.

The Madame stood at the bottom of the stairs, directing everyone as they appeared. "Lisa, get the silver in the kitchen! Tara, drop that bag and start taking out the china. Rouge—help Manny with those pictures, and watch out—" She stopped with a gasp as she spotted Mercedes.

Her eyes widened with unnatural fury. "Why, you miserable—" "Quick!" Sebastian shouted. "There are people in the basement—"

An ugly scream sounded as one of the men's shirts caught flames in the barroom. He fell to the floor with frightened screams. A great cloud of smoke enveloped them all. The Madame closed her eyes and covered her mouth as she coughed, stepping back instinctively. When she looked up again Mercedes and Sebastian were gone. She spotted Lisa apparently rushing out to help them free the doomed wretches in the basement and she screamed, "Don't you dare, young lady. Go fetch my silver now!"

Within the next minutes, a chain of people passing bucketfuls of water went from the back well through the kitchen and into the barroom. Mercedes never knew how fast the fire moved. The entire barroom was in flames. Endless smoke poured through the doors.

Mercedes led Sebastian out the front doors. Until that moment, she hadn't realized it was raining. Rain fell from the still-dark sky, and seeing it, she stopped for but a second and raised her arms to it with a happy cry. As if it were a gift from God. The fire would not spread. If they saved the people in the basement, if there even were still people in the basement, then all would be saved.

Clad in sleeping clothes, neighbors rushed toward the house. Carriages clamored noisily in the distance, bells ringing out the alarm. Mercedes wasted no time, running as she explained to Sebastian: "We can reach the basement through the kitchen. This way!" They ran around to the back and entered the kitchen. Smoke filled the space. A row of people passed the buckets from the well outside in the back courtyard. Servants—Cecile, Lisa and Evert— hurriedly tried to remove

what could be saved. The flames leaped over the door leading to the ballroom. Mercedes shouted for help as she went to the cellar door. Sebastian grabbed a bucket of water and threw it over himself. Then he grabbed a wet blanket from the man at the end of the line, trying to keep the fire from entering the kitchen. "There are people in the basement. Hurry!"

Mercedes was already in the darkened narrow stairway, going down. Below came the sounds of weak, frantic cries. "Sebastian!" She looked behind her. "Hurry! I hear them!"

Sebastian rushed ahead of her. Heavy footsteps sounded from behind as two other men entered behind Mercedes, the Madame's bodyguards. A shiver raced up her spine and she panicked. "No! No!"

She reached her arms up to stop them. One man, Saul, held a lantern up, casting their faces in eerie shadows. "The Madame ordered you to stop the fire—"

The last thing Mercedes remembered that night was the soundless cry of Sebastian's name from her parched throat as she tumbled down the stairs and into the blackness edged by flames.