The Seven Sapphires of Mardi Gras (36 page)

I attempted to keep my voice light. “I noticed that you didn’t waste any time finding a partner yourself. I saw you dancing with Lydia.”

“So you did!” His face was slightly flushed, perhaps from too much wine. “I took pity on her. Edward went home early, you know. Walked back and left us his carriage. He must be getting too old for this kind of excitement,” he added with a cynical twist. I studied him, noticing that he had abandoned the mask and crown, though the purple robe still fluttered about his shoulders. Of course! It must have been the flowing robe that I had seen in the darkness! I tried to decide which direction he had come from. He had crept up behind me so quickly, I could not be certain. But his appearance so soon after Lydia’s was enough to convince me that he had been the man in the shadows with her.

“And speaking of Lydia,” he asked innocently, “wasn’t she
standing here just a few moments ago? Where did she go in such a rush?”

His questions sounded so earnest that I had to remind myself what a good actor he could be. I was still certain that he had come straight from Lydia’s arms. “She went off to find Christine. She—seemed upset,” I added.

“And no wonder,” Ian exclaimed. “While Lydia and I were dancing, we saw this—woman—standing in the moonlight. She was dressed all in blue and from a distance—“

“She looked like Elica,” I finished for him.

“But how did you know?” he asked, one brow raised.

“It was only Christine.” Again, I explained how she had gone back to the house and put on Elica’s dress.

“I should have suspected as much. By God, but that girl is a trial!” Suddenly, the dread that I had seen upon Lydia’s face was reflected in his own. Unexpectedly, he clutched at my arm. “That man you were dancing with—the one in the black cloak—was it Nicholas?”

I felt my voice quiver. “I don’t know. I believe it was. But there was something different about him—I can’t be certain.”

“Mon Dieu!
Did he see her dressed like that?”

“Y-yes, he saw her!” I stammered.

“Then we’d better get Christine away from here as soon as possible! Wait here. I’ll go find Lydia and then well all look for Christine together.” I watched his receding back, purple robe flapping behind him in the wind as he hurried quickly away in the direction Lydia had taken. Then he disappeared into the trees.

The minutes seemed like hours as I waited for Ian to reappear. He must, I thought, be having trouble finding Lydia. I stood, keeping my eyes trained upon the grove of cypress near the water’s edge, watching for some sign of Lydia or Christine in the thinning crowd. Lydia’s frightened manner tonight worried me. Why was she so concerned about Christine now, when she rarely gave the child a second thought? Unless she knew something that Ian and I didn’t know—something that might put Christine in danger.

I didn’t know what it could possibly be. From the way Lydia was acting, it seemed to be connected in some way to Christine’s
wearing of the dress. Did she, like Ian, believe that seeing her in Elica’s dress might provoke Nicholas to some unspeakable crime of violence?

I was still anxiously awaiting Ian’s return when, out of the corner of my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a bent, ragged figure passing by in the moonlight. My gaze moved from the torn skins to the long, gray-white braids that framed her dark face. It was Cassa. I called out a greeting as she passed by, but she did not slow her pace. I doubted that she had even heard me. Carrying a load of empty pans under one arm, she made her faltering way down the vine-entangled path toward that lonely cabin in the swamp.

The sight of her brought back disturbing memories of Mrs. Lividais’s gossip. The unborn baby, Elica’s nocturnal visit to Cassa’s cabin, the potion—Again, I found myself wondering just how much of the story was true.

I tried to push the unsettling thoughts out of my mind, but they lingered. Again, I found myself remembering the shock of seeing Christine standing there in the darkness, the folds of velvet and satin flowing about her. That uncanny resemblance! The thought that Christine could have passed for Elica’s sister, a younger sister, kept returning to haunt me.

And then, the cloudy thought that must have been incubating deep in my mind ever since the first time I had seen Christine in Elica’s dress suddenly broke free. Not a sister, but a daughter. Elica’s daughter!

But that was impossible! Or was it? Elica had been no young girl. Mrs. Lividais had told me that she had been close to thirty when Nicholas met her for the first time. And if she had borne a child young—at the age of fourteen or fifteen—then wasn’t it altogether possible that Christine could be her daughter?

My thoughts swept back to what Edward had told me about Racine’s marriage, about his wife’s death at childbirth. I had thought it odd that Christine knew so little about her mother’s family. It was as if they had never existed. Now I found myself wondering if they ever had.

What if Racine had never had a wife at all? The story could have been made up by my grandfather when he brought Elica’s illegitimate daughter here for Edward to raise! But why the deceit, the lies?

The Dereux pride! That damnable family pride! Grandfather must have known that Edward would find it impossible to accept his son’s bastard daughter, a daughter of mixed blood. And so, if I was correct, he had made up the story for Christine’s own protection.

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I was right. Christine’s sharp gray eyes, her arrogant little nose, and her stormy temperament had all come from her father, Racine. The Dereux family traits in her were so strong that they all but overshadowed the more subtle reminders of Elica. Barely perceptible similarities that might have gone forever unnoticed if she had not tried so carefully to imitate Elica’s dress and hairstyle tonight. The unfashionably tanned skin which I had attributed to Christine’s love of the sun, the long, slender neck and fine facial features, the thick, slightly wavy brown hair now gave clues to her origin. If I were correct in my assumptions, then Christine was the daughter of Edward’s dead son, Racine, and his quadroon mistress, Angelica Robinette!

But what could it all mean? Now I remembered what Nicholas had told me about their meeting in New Orleans, his mention that Elica had purposefully sought him out, his insistence that she had never loved him. It all seemed to fit! She had wooed Nicholas and married him to be near the daughter she had given up!

Who could hate a child?
The journal entry of my grandfather’s kept coming back to haunt me. And suddenly, something clicked in my mind. The journal entries, the talk in Cassa’s cabin about the unborn child—Cassa would know!

Desperately, I searched for her bent, fragile form. In the shadows, just a few steps away from me, was a woman who might be able to help me put the fragmented pieces of the story together!

“Cassa!” Calling her name, I plunged into the darkness after her. Breathless, I caught up with her on the trail. “Cassa, I must speak with you!”

She stood patient, waiting.

“It’s about Elica.”

She waited, a frown creasing her wrinkled face. “Mrs. Lividais told me that she came to your cabin just before her wedding. She said that you gave her a potion—” The creases on her face grew deeper. Shaking her head, she turned an ear toward me as if she was having difficulty hearing. It was obvious that she hadn’t understood a word I had said!

Tears of frustration burned at my eyes She must understand. Somehow, I must make her understand!

I forced myself to speak slower. “E-li-ca.”

She nodded, grinning her gap-toothed smile. “Elica,” she repeated.

“She come to you. Before wedding—Nicholas.” I imitated her fractured speech in hopes it would help her understand me.

Again she nodded. “She come to cabin. Ya. She do.”

“You help her.” I held my hands out in front of my stomach. Then, carefully, I made a shaking motion with my head. “To be rid of baby.”

The frown upon her face deepened. “She come to me, yes!” She shook her head emphatically. “But no
bébé.”

I formed my hands in the shape of a bottle or vial. “The potion—”

She stared at my hands blankly. Then, recognition lit her dark eyes, and she nodded. “I give Elica something—to make sleep.” Again, Cassa shook her head. “No
bébé.”

A
sleeping potion! Elica had come to Cassa’s cabin the night before the wedding for something to calm her frayed nerves! So my hunch had been right! I realized now what must have happened at Cassa’s cabin that night. Mrs. Lividais had seen Elica crying, had heard Cassa consoling her by saying, “Do what’s best for the child .” Then, she had seen Cassa give Elica the sleeping potion. Of course, she had jumped to conclusions. Quite naturally, she had assumed that Elica was carrying a baby, and had come to Cassa for something to induce a miscarriage.

But she had been wrong. So very wrong. There had been no scandalous affair with Brule, no unborn baby. In reality, Cassa and Elica had been talking about a child that was nearly a young woman now. Elica had come to Cassa that night for advice on whether or not to tell Nicholas about Christine!

“Christine is Elica’s child!”

Cassa looked closely at me, not moving a muscle. I saw the
wariness in her dark eyes. Though she did not answer, I had seen the glint of recognition at the mention of Christine’s name.

“Cassa, does he know? You must tell me! Does Nicholas know?”

She shook her head. “Only Cassa.”

But she was mistaken. Grandfather had known. Now I realized that the child in the journal entries had been Christine. He had been aware that she was in danger and had been trying to protect her.

And Lydia knew. As a longtime friend of Elica’s, it was possible that she had known all along. Now I understood the reason for the naked fear in Lydia’s eyes when I told her that Christine was wearing Elica’s dress. She was afraid that someone else would recognize the similarity between mother and daughter tonight.

She needn’t have worried. With a twinge of horror, I realized that whoever Lydia feared had guessed Christine’s identity long ago. I remembered the fall I had taken that day, after Christine and I had changed horses. A near-fatal fall that had not been meant for me at all, but for Christine!

The threats, the ghostly manifestations, the blow upon the head I had received at the old house had been all too real. Yes, someone was intent upon frightening me away. But they were trying to murder Christine!

For some unknown reason, as Angelica Robinette’s daughter, she must pose a threat to someone. But who? A cold chill shook me as I thought about Lydia and Ian and their secret meeting in the garden. Ever since I had found Ian out as an impostor, I had been sure that they were up to no good. But murder? Lydia had seemed so concerned about Christine tonight. I weighed this against her usual indifference. She and Ian had both proven themselves to be sneaks and liars. But killers? I didn’t think so.

An image of Edward flashed in my mind. Edward who seemed obsessed with ancestry and family pride. A terrible thought began to take form. Christine was growing up. Boys were already beginning to notice her. In another year, she would be of marriageable age. What if Edward had just recently discovered the truth about Christine’s illegitimate birth, her “tainted” blood? How far would he go to preserve Racine’s
honor? Could Edward heartlessly plan to kill a young girl before she had a chance to bear a child with a few drops of Negro blood?

The entire idea seemed unbelievable—and yet the thought of Edward staring up at Racine’s portrait, proud to have sacrificed his son for glory, made a sick feeling in my heart.

Maybe it was not Edward at all, but Brule who was trying to harm Christine. After all, the riding accident had taken place just after our visit to Bride’s cabin. Brule had been with Christine when she had gone out to see to the horses. A vision of him appeared in my mind. I saw his cadaverous face and glittering eyes as he stood there in the doorway, the knife blade for the shrimp traps shining in his hands. Was he the one who had slit the saddle binding, the one working with Lydia and Ian to find the jewels. But what motive would he have to hurt Christine?

I was grasping at straws. There was only one person who had reason to despise Christine. Christine, the bastard daughter of a wife who had used him and a man he must have grown to hate. Nicholas! But surely the fact that Christine was Elica’s daughter was not motive enough for murder! There must be another reason.

And then I remembered Christine’s strange tale about the face near the burning draperies. The hideous, evil demon’s face that kept changing into Nicholas’s. I thought it had been only a dream, a figment of her fanciful imagination. But now it was suddenly all clear to me. She was describing his face as it would appear through a screen of smoke!

She had been up there the night of Elica’s death. Through the doorway, Christine had seen Nicholas murder her mother and set the room on fire! Nobody had believed her story, of course. They could not understand how anyone could have gotten out of that burning room alive. But they had not known about the trapdoor. The trapdoor that led to the secret flight of stairs that opened both at the hallway near the ballroom and at the cellar level. It was through these stairs that Nicholas must have made his escape and rejoined the masquerade.

With alarm, I remembered how Christine had mentioned feeling frightened earlier. She had never said what had upset her. Perhaps she did not even know herself. Maybe it was just a
vague feeling of being watched. Again, that blood-chilling laugh I had heard in the woods echoed through my mind, filling me with horror. Had the sight of Christine wearing Elica’s dress driven Nicholas mad? Was he out here stalking Christine at this very moment?

I had only been standing there a few moments, but it seemed like time had stopped. Cassa had left me. I could see her a short distance away, plodding down the trail toward her cabin in the swamp. I turned back to what was left of the dying masquerade. Ian and Lydia were nowhere in sight. But there was no time to look for them. I began to run through the cypress grove to where I had last encountered Christine, thankful that she was not alone, that she still must be with Nathan. For the first time, I realized that she might be in grave danger. I had to find her!