Gwyneth Atlee (26 page)

Yvette’s head throbbed in time to the pounding of her heart. She began
to rouse, conscious only of the imperative to awaken, not the reason.
Her eyes slitted open just enough to see him. Darien Russell, bending
forward, his hands working at a strange knot in a long, looped rope.
Something about the knot alarmed her almost as much as the
presence of her sister’s killer. Something about the snakelike way it
coiled about itself, completely unlike the knots she’d seen on riverboats or the ones her brothers used to tie the horses.
Russell slid his hand into the loop, then pulled against it. She
watched in horror as the rope drew tight around his wrist. And then
she knew for certain why this knot had filled her with such horror. The
only place she’d ever seen it had been on a hangman’s noose.
At the actor, William Mumford’s, execution. Yvette closed her eyes,
overwhelmed by the memory of the only hanging she had ever
witnessed. In the hours after federal troops took New Orleans,
Mumford, Southern to his soul, tore down the Yankee flag atop the
U.S. Mint. Afterward, he’d been arrested, and to everyone’s disbelief,
General Butler had ordered his execution, earning himself the appellation “Beast” and the undying hatred of every citizen of New Orleans.
At the time, she had been seventeen and naively convinced that the
protests of the female populace could stop the outrage from occurring.
But she was twenty now, and she had learned that evil men had a
capacity for cruelty almost beyond imagination. She had learned it in
that moment a good man’s weight stretched the rope.
Darien glanced up and saw her watching.
“I’m afraid you missed the conclusion of your trial, Yvette,” he said
casually, as if he were speaking of the weather. “This court has found
you guilty of the deaths of Marie Augeron and Lt. Peter Simonton. I
can see by your expression that you’ve already guessed the sentence.”
She tried to straighten, to defeat the quicksand of inertia that
weighed down her limbs. He grasped her wrist almost before it began
to rise and backhanded her into the darkling haze.
“I’m coming around to get you out of here,” she heard him say,
though the voice sounded faint and hollow, as if it spoke from far
away. “Don’t try to run. I don’t want to have to shoot you. The proper
punishment is hanging.”
She wanted to ask what possible difference it could make, but her
tongue felt as thick and clumsy as the rest of her. Besides, something
had changed in Darien Russell since his days as an adulterous
dissembler. Something—perhaps the murders or his own fear of
punishment—had pushed him beyond the reach of rational thought,
into a state as dangerous as a dog white-jawed with foam.
Before she could guess how to react, he looped the noose around
her neck and snugged the knot against her throat. Without allowing
her a moment to loosen the rope, he used it to roughly drag her from
the shay. If he heard her strangled cries or felt her failing limbs, he
gave no sign of it.
The pulling stopped abruptly, and Yvette lay facedown, tearing at
the noose, in the dirt of a small clearing. She was barely conscious of
the nervous whinnies of the horse as Russell unhitched it. All she
knew was her body’s urgent need for air. The rope loosened, but she
was too exhausted to lift it from her head.
Despite her weakness, Yvette looked up at the pressure of several
light tugs on the noose. Russell, holding the unhitched bay with one
hand, was tossing the rope’s opposite end over the stout branch of the
chestnut tree that dominated the small clearing. With sickening clarity,
she realized exactly what would happen. He meant to sling the rope
over the branch, then tie it to the tree’s base. Then he would pull her
atop the horse and . . .
Black spots dotted her vision, then clotted thick as blood.
No!
She
mustn’t pass out now or she would never again awaken, would never
have the chance to see Gabriel or touch him, would never have the
chance for anything.
Suddenly, her need for revenge fell away, insubstantial as a straw
house in a tempest. She would gladly leave Darien’s punishment to
God, would gladly turn her back on every hateful atrocity of war if she
might only for a moment lie with Gabriel once more.
She knew then, beyond all doubt, that he had not betrayed her.
She wondered at her foolishness for believing that he had, even
for a trice. Fresh tears overflowed at the thought of the sacred
vows they’d not yet taken, the ones they’d never have the chance
to speak.
A burst of energy surged through her at the thought, and she once
more fumbled to remove the frightful noose. Not to escape to fight the
battles of her past but to forge a future for herself and Gabriel.
At the tree’s thick base, Darien was struggling to tie off the rope. But
the moment that he saw what she was doing, he pulled out the
revolver he’d stuck in the waistband of his pants. When he cocked the
weapon, its metallic clack sounded loud against the stillness.
“God damn you! Be still!” he ordered. “I don’t want to have to
shoot.”
He didn’t, did he? Why? Did he fear someone would be attracted
by the sound? Or did he truly believe this execution was something
nobler than an obscene mockery of justice?
If she ran, would he really shoot her? Or would that make this, in
his mind, mere murder?
She removed the loop and dropped it in the dirt beside her.
“Saint Jude, pray for me,” she whispered to the patron of desperate
causes. Slowly, she struggled to stand, and as she did, her voice rose in
both strength and volume. “That finally I may receive the consolations
and the succor of heaven in all my necessities.”
She kept her eyes locked onto Darien’s, hoping to read hesitation in
his gold-brown gaze. Dropping the rope’s end, he strode toward her,
still leading the bay mare.
She turned her back to him, guessing he was too proud to shoot an
unarmed woman in the back and praying fervently that her guess
was correct.
Her body jerked at the sound of the first gunshot. But it took only
an instant to realize that she had not been hit. Her teeth chattered as
if a winter storm had blasted through her veins, but somehow, after
a moment’s hesitation, she forced herself to walk. She didn’t run.
Her legs felt too unsteady, and her heart was pounding as if it might
at any moment burst. Instead, she put one foot before the other and
somehow managed to propel herself at the leisurely rate of a day
stroller back in the French Quarter.
She took seven steps before he fired several more shots. This time,
Yvette shrieked as a bullet creased the upper part of her left arm. She
glanced down at the blood that bloomed against the sling, and in that
moment’s hesitation, Darien grabbed her.
“Turn around,” he growled.
Her knees buckled, undone completely at his touch. She shook as if
she were afflicted with a drunkard’s thirst.
“Can’t walk,” she moaned, hoping desperately that he wouldn’t
replace the noose and simply drag her.
Instead, he picked her up as lightly as if she were made of feathers.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “You’ll never have to use your feet
again.”

Gabe could not be certain of the sound. Pulling the black horse to a
stop, he paused. His heartbeat thundered in his chest as he wondered:
Had he heard gunfire in the distance?

The gelding breathed heavily, tired from its gallop. Gabe strained
his ears for several seconds, then decided the noise must have been his
mount’s hoof striking a stone.

A split second before he urged the horse to resume his gallop, a
short series of shots echoed through the wood. His heart lurched, and
he prayed he was mistaken. He prayed to God Yvette still lived.

The animal responded with a surprising burst of speed. But not
even the fastest horse in all creation could outrun the sounds that
Gabe had heard.

He hung her from a chestnut tree, inside a beam of light that slanted
through the gathering clouds. After Darien hoisted her onto the
horse’s back, he looped the noose around Yvette’s neck again. But the
mare rolled its eyes toward the snakelike rope and bolted. Before
Darien realized what was happening, he saw Yvette suspended, dangling
in the air.

Wiping his own blood from his cheek, he watched her writhing,
strangling. Like Major Stolz’s executioner, he’d done a poor job
positioning the knot. Like Marie, Yvette’s death would be a
painfully slow process.

Thinking of Marie, Darien turned away, for watching Yvette’s struggles
brought back the horror of strangling the only woman he had ever
truly loved. He flexed his fingers, rubbed them, and noticed the smear
of Yvette’s blood across the back of his left hand.

“I hereby sentence you to death,” he whispered, hoping that the
words would obliterate his emotions. He must be an executioner,
impassive as if he’d been carved out of stone. But in spite of the
officious statement, in spite of the crimes Yvette had committed
and the proper method he had chosen, this felt nothing like the
future his grandfather once predicted. A future bright with promise
had once more been stained dark crimson.

Again he used his handkerchief to wipe away the blood; only this
time it was hers, from where his bullet had torn across her upper arm.
The smear was murder-bright against white linen, where it mingled
with the stain from his scratch-wound.

Shoving the handkerchief into his pocket, Darien turned to find the
horse. From the struggling he heard in the underbrush, he guessed its
driving lines had tangled. He hoped the leather reins held the mare
fast long enough for him to catch it.

Darien left the clearing. He was so eager to put this ordeal behind
him that he never checked the knot at the tree’s base, the same knot
interrupted by Yvette’s attempt to walk away.

The sight of her hanging from the huge tree made him want to
vomit. He’d been so close behind them. How had this been done
so quickly?

She hung so low that the tips of her swaying toes traced blurred
patterns in the dust. As Gabe leapt from the horse’s back, he caught a
glimpse of her face, dark with congestion. But he turned his back to
her to untie the rope from the bottom of the tree trunk.

The knot, which had already slipped considerably, yielded easily to
his frantic efforts, and he fed the loosened rope upward, lowering the
body to the ground.

Not a body, damn it!
He couldn’t think it yet. Maybe her neck had
not been broken. Maybe there was still a chance she hadn’t finished
strangling.

He ran to her and rolled her faceup, then worked the noose free of
her neck, his hands trembling so hard he could barely hold the rope.
She’s not breathing, notbreathingnotbreathingnotbreathing . . .

No!
He had to stop, rein in his panic, and swallow back the sob
that tried to burst free of his chest like a Minié ball in reverse. He
pulled her close, both arms wrapped around her body, rocking her,
while he fought to swallow back hot tears of rage and grief. He
couldn’t let go, not even for a moment, for that would mean that she
was gone. That would—

Cold suspicion radiated through his center as his gaze fell on the
shay. Still here . . . What did that mean? He couldn’t imagine Russell
would have left it.

Clumsily, his mind worked to fit the pieces into place. Russell
would have used the horse to hang Yvette, but where was he—and it?
Though he was still reeling with shock, Gabe knew he had to take
Yvette with him on the horse. They had to get away from here before
Darien Russell came back for that carriage. Ignoring the agony of his
burnt hands, he hoisted her over the black gelding’s withers and
climbed aboard the saddle just behind her.
Along the back of Yvette’s neck he could see a row of dusky bruises
already blooming where the noose had bit. He ignored the impulse to
lay his ear against her back to try to hear if her heart beat. God help
him, he couldn’t do it until they were well away from here, and even
then, he wasn’t certain that he wanted to. As long as he didn’t know
for sure, he wouldn’t have to face—
Cutting short the thought, Gabe dug his heels into his tired mount’s
flanks. But they never left the clearing.
A gunshot cracked only an instant before the black horse staggered
two steps and then fell, spilling both Yvette and Gabe out of the saddle.
Gabe rolled to his feet to face Darien Russell, who had a revolver
aimed toward the center of his chest.
“You killed her, you bastard!” Gabe shouted, too upset to give a
damn whether or not Russell pulled the trigger. All he had to live for,
all he had of hope, lay crumpled and unmoving at his feet. The only
thing that he had left to wish for was the chance to pound his fists
through Darien Russell’s face.
“She forced me to kill them,” Russell told him, and Gabe noticed
that his face was ashen, as if what he had done had left him nauseated.
“That made her a murderess.”
Gabe stepped forward. “You sick, lying bastard, I’ll send you
to hell.”
“You go on ahead,” Darien told him, a malicious smile warming his
tawny eyes, “and keep your little harlot company.”

Had Russell cut her down to inflict still more torture? Yvette
moaned with the pain that pounded through her head and surged
through her neck into her body. How her poor lungs ached with the
effort of refilling! Her soul, too, protested her return. She didn’t want
to leave Marie, who had embraced her warmly and then promised to
take her to see François. François?
Juste ciel,
but that must mean that
he had died, too. That was why the family hadn’t heard from him
since his unit had moved to Tennessee. She wanted to see her brother,
to ask him if the Yankees—