With One Look (48 page)

husband. The sight riveted her to the spot; for a long moment she couldn't move. She felt as if life, so profoundly generous, had decided to grant her every wish. Sebastian's love, and now Jade and Victor's happiness at last. An overwhelming joy brought tears to her eyes; she almost fell to her knees with gratitude.

She turned with a tremulous smile and with a sweep of her skirts, she left the room, quietly shutting the door. She found Carl and asked him to give instructions to the other servants not to disturb Victor and Jade until they rang the bell.

By noon it was raining, and still they slept, deeply, blissfully. Drops fell into a brandy snifter left on the balcony ledge. A cool breath of wind blew through the open balcony doors and into the bed, lifting the heavy drapes. Jade snuggled closer to the warmth. The rain began pounding on the balcony and the windows, and in her mind's eye it became the familiar thump of her plaits as she raced up the carpeted stairs and turned down the hall.

Her hand touched the latch. "Don't!"

She turned to see Victor standing behind her. "Don't go in there anymore, Jade." "Oh, but I must! I must!"

She pressed down on the lever and opened the door. Terrified green eyes took in her mother, hanging upside down with her throat slit, her blood in a pool on the floor, covering the bedclothes, spread across the wall and on the rope that held her at her feet, up twenty feet to the wood beams of the ceiling.

Her father lay on the floor, shot in the head.

The snake woman knelt at his side, blood covering her hands. This time Jade saw the pistol in the woman's hands as the hideous creature turned to see her standing there. Her terrible eyes, like blue ice, showed no emotion. All emotion had emptied with her mother's still warm blood.

Run, little girl, run ... Your mother is hanging Your father used a gun "No!" Jade screamed. "You shot him! You shot him!"

The snake woman whispered, "They think you're mad! I'll make you mad!" Run, little girl, run.

Victor bolted up with the sound of Jade's scream. Instantly he drew her tightly into his embrace, securing her in his warmth and his comfort. A loving hand soothed the tousled mass of

dark hair. She drew deep gasping breaths as she listened to her heartbeat slowly ease from the terror of her nightmare into the security and warmth of his arms. A sudden gust of cool wind blew through the open doors. He felt the shiver pass through her and, mistaking its source, he rose and shut the doors.

"Victor, the nightmare—I saw it so clearly. This time you were there, and you told me not to go in there anymore, but I knew I had to, I had to see something in the room, and I did. This time when I saw her kneeling over my father, she was ... oh, my God, she was holding the pistol."

He was having trouble concentrating on her words as his first waking thought had come with a rush of memory of the night, enhanced with the erotic scents clinging to their bed and skin. His effort was not helped at all by the sight of her. A thin sheet covered her nudity from the waist down, her hair fell in a tangled mess down her slim back, and his breath caught at the voluptuous sight of her rounded breasts. Dear Lord, he wanted her again! The idea that he could make love to her today, and tonight, and for the next hundred thousand days after, brought a profound lift of heart, a burst of joy-

He abruptly grasped the words. "What?"

"Don't you see? All this time I thought my father shot himself when he saw my mother like that. But he didn't. He didn't leave me like that. She shot him! And it was so strange this time." Her voice rose with urgency. "This time it was the snake woman and she shot my father!"

The blood left his head in a rush. He withdrew from the bed. He put on his breeches. She watched curiously as he went to the dressing water and splashed his face, twice, then again.

He would travel here slowly, very slowly.

"Oh, Victor." She gasped, the back of one hand to her forehead. "They have the same awful eyes. These pale blue eyes—like ice, or the opposite, the hot blue part of a flame." She shuddered. "And now when I have the nightmare, I see the snake woman kneeling over my father, and I can see the pistol in her hand. She shot him...."

He had two questions. He turned back around, surprised to find her standing behind him. She continued. "He didn't kill himself. All this time, I told myself that I forgave him, but only now do I see how much it hurt me, the idea that he shot himself and left me alone to walk into that room and see my mother. I thought he left me alone for her, but he didn't, he didn't. She killed him, too

—"

"Wait. Jade. We need to talk, sweetheart. Here." He led her back to the bed. He retrieved a robe for her, his manner so serious suddenly it alarmed her, scared her more as he knelt in front of her, lifting her long hair from inside the robe.

"Jade, never once in this whole thing have you asked me, indeed, never once have you discussed, who it was who did this to your parents. Your parents' murderer. The slave woman Tara?"

"Tara?" She looked confused, but only for a moment. "You mean Jefferson's mother? What has she been saying? Dear Lord, did she lose her wits again?"

"She died, Jade."

"Oh, did she?" The reunion of love coupled with the idea that her father had not left her filled her with the most poignant sentiments, and she was having trouble concentrating on another person, but she saw that he awaited her reply. "Poor Jefferson. He loved her, you know. In the end when she wasn't drinking and all, she had become quite lucid. She was so kind then. She forgave Jefferson, my mother, everybody. My mother, you see," she thought to explain, "had separated her from Jefferson. I was only a baby then. My mother signed Jefferson's free papers and gave him to another family to raise. Tara had been hurting him, seeing and hearing these—" She waved her hand in dismissal. "These spirits. She was trying to beat the devil out of him, something dreadful like that. But when she became well, and seeing how Jefferson grew into such a fine young man, she realized it had all worked out for the best.

"You know, before we were married, before I even knew you, I used to sneak over to Congo Square on Sunday—Reverend Mother never approved!—and Tara would sit with me and describe the dancing. I loved the music, the laughter, the wild abandon, the pictures that the music put in my mind. Oh Lord, those pictures ..."

Victor's hand spanned his forehead as if bracing for pain. He looked back into her eyes.

Slowly, gently, he said, "Jade, Tara murdered your parents." Her brows went cross with confusion. "What?"

He nodded. "As all this happened to us, to you—"He stopped, not knowing where to begin. "Jade, before I forced you to remember, when you were blind, before we were married, there was someone tormenting you—"

"Tormenting me?" The green eyes were intense, searching, confused.

"Aye. This person had you kidnapped and sent to that woman's house, and afterwards they, Jade, oh, sweetheart, I don't want to upset you but they hung your maid, Maydrian. Like your mother, Jade. It's how she died. You had a seizure as you came across her body. I could not tell you about it because ... it would cause a seizure. Then someone snuck into the bedroom where you were sleeping. Mercedes opened the door as they were going to kill you, singing a sick rhyme about your parents' murder. There were numerous small incidents as well. That's when we moved to the country estate. To keep you safe."

Jade's thoughts spun over his tale, trying to make sense of it. "Maydrian died like my mother? But, my God ... who would do such a thing? You never told me!"

"We couldn't tell you. Your seizures. Every time we tried to tell you, you suffered a seizure and lost the memory of it. It was how you protected yourself. Don't you understand—"

"I don't understand! All this time—" She stopped, trying to calm down. She bit her lower lip, anguish on her face. "This rhyme. 'Your mother is hanging'? That rhyme?"

He nodded, concern and worry in his eyes. "I hear it in my nightmares!"

"Jade, of course, I found out who it was. I was mad with worry; we all were. Marie Saint said it was a dead woman and so, just in case, I had my agents search the recent parish deaths until we found Tara. All incidents stopped after her death. Tara, who hated your mother. Tara, who had been known to practice the slaves' religion. Tara who was insane. She killed your parents, Jade. I wanted to tell you but you never asked—"

The hairs slowly lifted on the back of her neck. She was shaking her head slowly, then fast, as she said, "Tara did not kill my mother, Victor. I never asked you who murdered my parents because I know who did it. I saw her! I see her every time I have a nightmare. She is there every time I look into that room. She is kneeling over my father's dead body, her tears mixed with the blood covering her hands!"

His brows crossed, he jerked her up. "Who? Who do you see?" "Juliet, my father's long-ago mistress."

"That can't be! She's dead! She died long ago." "Yes," Jade said with feeling. "She is dead.” " "Wolf Dog! Wolf Dog!"

Jade stood on the patio, calling her dog and staring off into the star-filled night. Tomorrow they were returning to the city. Everyone would be leaving but Rolez, the groundskeeper. He promised to set out food for Wolf Dog, to try to lure him inside should he come home. He promised to send word immediately when, if, he saw him. "Ain't much hope for that, though. Once the wild runs in the blood—" He had stopped, noticing the effect of his words by her expression. "You know I be trying every night..."

She knew Victor had postponed their leaving as long as he could. Since the day he had discovered that Tara was not her parents' murderer, he or Sebastian was with her at all times. At all times. He never let her leave the reach of his arms, which seemed to mean he rarely let her leave the bed....

Even though there had not been an incident for nearly a year, he would take no chances. A dead woman had not hung Maydrian. A dead woman had not climbed over Jade's sleeping form with a raised knife. Whoever it was might well be dead now, but until they ascertained this as fact, he would take no chances.

They had to return to the city. Victor's three new steamboats were almost finished and he had to be there to oversee the final fitting of the new boilers. Governor Claighborne would be hosting a huge gala to celebrate the event.

"Wolf Dog! Wolf Dog!" If only he would return!

She searched the arch of the star-filled sky. A thousand pinpoints of light shone in the black velvet above her. No breeze stirred the trees; the air was still and quiet. Crickets chirped in the darkness and the great house behind her was quiet with sleep. In the far distance she could see the shimmering starlight over the pond....

She closed her eyes, trying to find comfort in the lingering warmth of his lovemaking. His sweet scent clung to her bare skin and she whispered the incantation of her heart: "Victor, I love you, I love you—"

A low howl drew her attention....

Her heart pounded with sudden hope. She called out as she raced to the well-worn path. It was a narrow path through the trees leading to the pond. She could find her way along it blindfolded, of course; she knew it by heart. Her bare feet touched the cool moist dirt as she ran and the dog's name sang in the silence.

She came to the edge of the water. The starlight was so bright, shimmering like party lights over the smooth unbroken surface. She called her dog again.

A movement caught her attention across the pond. "Wolf Dog! Wolf Dog!"

A dark shadow moved toward her from around the eastern edge of the pond. She watched, unalarmed at first. 'Twas too large for Wolf Dog. Upright like a person. "Who's there? Who is it?"

No answer came. Jade watched the ominous shadow move ever closer, her heart signaling the danger. She did not scream. She did not run. She stood at the edge of the pond as the dark shape disappeared like an apparition into the trees.

She heard the hiss before she saw her.

She emerged through the trees less than twenty paces away. The snake woman. She wore tattered rags. Dirt and leaves were smeared on her skin as if she had emerged from the swampy side of the pond. A snake curled over one of her arms and another wrapped a leg. Her hair was twisted into long thin plaits, but for all of it, what Jade saw, what she stared at, were the woman's eyes.

She stopped, watching Jade's terror mount.

Too frightened to move, Jade just stared as her breaths came hard and fast. "Who are you?" The small pained cry sounded as if from far away.

"You know me, little girl. You alone know me now that she's dead." The woman's gaze narrowed, and then she laughed. "I am the shape of your madness. I am your mother's murderer."

Chills raced violently up Jade's spine as she took a step back. "You are dead!?" Viciously: "You killed me! As your father!"

"No!"

"I will torment you ... like your mother!" The snake woman moved toward her.

"No," Jade cried, covering her ears. "No!" She spun on her heels, running. The haunting sound of laughter chased her but she never heard the rest above the pounding roar of her blood in her ears. “Run, little girl, run ..."

"I am so scared...."

Mercedes and Jade sat on the seat before the looking glass, and Mercedes stared at Jade's reflection as Tessie wound her long hair up. Mercedes stretched one hand out to cover Jade's hands, and squeezed them affectionately. "Everyone loves you. Just think of all the letters you have

received. And I will be right at your side. Victor will be at your side. I predict you'll have a wonderful time tonight."

Everyone was going. Governor Claighborne was hosting a huge gala to celebrate the first runs of Victor's new steamboats, the Comet, the Vesuvius and the Enterprise; Victor was more excited than a child on Christmas Eve. She would be seeing everyone she had never seen before but had counted as her friends and acquaintances for the first time.

She closed her eyes. The hideous image of the snake woman emerged in her mind, galvanizing her heart and pulse as she sat. Instantly she conjured the image of Victor: the thick hair that framed the fierce brows arching over the dark blue eyes, eyes filling with passion and love as he lowered his head to kiss her ...