With One Look (25 page)

She'd awaken to find her nightgown clinging to her front, a moist sheen covering her body, her nipples erect, wetness between her thighs. She'd fall against the pillows, desperately trying to think of anything but him....

Victor was still awake, anxiously turning thoughts over in his mind when he heard a soft cry from her room. Thinking it was a seizure, he flew through the doors.

Yet, it was not a seizure.

He took one look at her sleeping figure, tossing and turning with a dream, the nature of which was all too apparent

His weight came to the bed. She felt his strong body come against her, his hand pulling the nightdress over her flushed form. She woke, landing on the very real shore of her dream.

"Victor?"

"It's a dream, Jade Terese," he whispered, kissing her neck first, his breath catching with the potency of the feel of her soft slender shape beneath him, his huge body tensing with hot pleasure. "It's only a dream ..."

"Victor ..." She whispered his name before she felt his lips on her mouth and he was kissing her deeply. A kiss that made each breath drawn into her lungs fill her hot body with the sweet fire of desire. He turned on his side, freeing his hand, watching her as he ran his hand over die smooth soft rise of her breast, teasing her there with light brushes of the warmth of his palm before traveling over her flat stomach and lower, his hand slipping between her legs until she arched back with a cry.

Only to feel her sex swollen like a budding rose and wet with the sweetness of her willingness. Their lips melted into each other, and tongues sparred, teased, aroused. All the while he kept his weight from her, a prisoner to his pace, his pleasure. The pleasure made a whirl of color in her head as his mouth lifted over hers and words were whispered against her flesh as his lips moved down her neck to one breast.

His mouth took the nipple and rolled it in his tongue, pulling it with his teeth, playing, teasing until she tossed her head back and forth. Her heart pounded wildly and her thighs opened themselves before his tongue found her navel, slowly circling it over and over until she trembled with it, and his kisses moved over her belly and lower.

Tremors shot through her flesh and she cried helplessly as she let him lift her thighs, feeling a melting surging dizziness spread outward as he orchestrated a previously unimaginable pleasure. Hot waves slashed through her, rising and falling in shimmering tides, building higher and higher each time until she thought she would ... burst at the

slightest touch

When he tried to pull away, she reached weakly to draw him back, but he came over her again, her own scent on his mouth. She breathed his name as his lips found hers again. His groan died in their joined mouths. He felt her small arms wrapping around his neck as she returned his kiss with a burning passion that matched his own, and he slowly slipped into the hot waiting sheath of her femininity and thought he would die....

Jade stirred, turned in the pillow. The bed was empty. She came fully awake with a question. The hot blush on her cheeks, an ever so pleasant exhaustion and his lingering scent answered the question. She fell back against the pillows and smiled.

She remembered after his arms had wrapped around her, enclosing her in that irresistible exhaustion, she had asked if he was going to marry her. She had said, "You should because I love you." Either he made no reply or sleep had invaded the remaining sliver of consciousness because that was the last thing she remembered.

Later Carl told her Victor had left for the city.

The tightly corded muscles on the three men's backs tightened and relaxed, tightened and relaxed, as they rhythmically lifted moist dirt in the shovels, and tossed it onto a growing mound at the graveside. The air still felt warm and perspiration streamed from the shirtless men, though this stilled night was rich and heavy with the promise of rain. Again.

Sebastian circled the graveyard with three other men, to make certain no passersby came close enough to see that graves were being dug up.

Victor stopped a moment. Breathing heavily, he wiped the perspiration from his brow. This was their only hope. His agents had found nothing of interest in Philip Devon's affairs. Most of the documentation had been kept in a bank; the files were easily gotten to. Inheriting a fair-sized fortune of the estate and property, unlike most plantation owners, Philip Devon had had little outstanding debt. He seemed to neither gamble nor drink much, the most common curse of his class. Yet, for the last four years, the harvest had fallen short of balancing the books. Jade had inherited the property, which the Church, Mother Francesca acting as her guardian, had deeded to the bank to cover the family's remaining debt. He had owed only five businesses the year he died: the seeding company, a general merchandiser, a carriage maker, a local cabinetmaker for a house full of new furniture, and a relatively small sum to the bank for a loan from a crop failure about five years before.

They had gone over every transaction going back fifteen years. Nothing unusual. Philip Devon had kept a mistress briefly before his marriage, but there had been no dependents issued from the liaison. After all the debts had been paid, Jade had inherited a small yearly amount, enough to keep her from poverty, that was all.

There was no trace or sign of anyone who would be seeking vengeance on Devon's daughter. And the mystery deepened the more Victor came to know the young lady Jade Terese. For, as Mercedes said to him one night, to know her was to love her. How true that was....

"There it is," John said, reaching the brass cover of the casket. He leaped down in the hole and brushed the remaining dirt from the coffin. Steffan tossed his shovel down and leaned over,

drawing deep breaths into his lungs as John uncovered the other coffin as well. The brass caught and reflected the dim light of the lamps hung on the overhanging branch of a dogwood tree above.

"They'll need a crowbar to 'em," Murray said, glad he wasn't the superstitious kind as his gaze swept the dim white crypts gleaming dully in the darkness. Two oil lamps lit the spot and gave life to the shadows. Even the incessant murmur of insects was banished from this place, strangely silent....

"Let's open them up," Victor said, jumping down at John's side. A light rain began falling from the darkened sky. The warm drops hit his bare back. He looked up. "How's that for a bit of luck?"

"Ain't no luck in a graveyard." John laughed.

Murray handed him the crowbar. Victor clasped it firmly in his hands and put it to the first casket. "Who does it say there?" Murray asked, squinting to see the name carved in flowing script on top of the casket. He reached to unhook the lantern and the light illuminated an eerie scene.

Lord, his heart kept thumpin' like a tired ole mule! "Philip Devon," Victor said.

A chill raced up Murray's spine, for no reason he knew.

Victor pried the lid open. "Well, here goes," he said as he pushed it back and looked inside. A collective gasp sounded as they stared.

The light gleamed and blazed over an empty coffin.

He found her in the empty church. Golden sunshine streamed through the tall windows and fell over the place where she knelt in the front pew beneath the altar. Her eyes were closed and so deeply was she lost in her prayers that she never heard the quiet approach of his footsteps.

"Mother Francesca ..."

She turned to him. For a moment, she studied the uncommon strength of his tall frame clad in a gentleman's gray riding pants, knee-high black boots, a black vest over a white shirt, an ivory- handled pistol secured in a shoulder harness. Not even he, Monsieur Nolte, could keep Terese safe. His presence here was proof.

She clutched the small precious statuette tight in her fist before asking: "What has happened?"

Victor made a list for her, including all their suspicions, the amulet, the empty graves of her parents, the terrible hunch that Jade saw a murder, that her seizures somehow blocked her memory, that this murderer was trying to kill her now because of what she had seen.

"Yes," she surprised him by saying, "I, too, harbored the same suspicions. I once tried to force her to remember her parents' deaths but—"

"She had a seizure," Victor finished. "The seizures somehow keep her ignorant. I know you know something more about her parents' murders. I need you to tell me. I must know what has happened to her." Softly, with feeling, he added, "For Jade."

She stood up slowly and took a seat on the pew, wondering wildly how he would react when she finally answered him. And yet how could she respond to those questions? "What if I said that I know who had committed the murder?"

"What?" His voice echoed like a profanity through the empty church. "You are shocked, I see."

'To say the least! Who?"

"A woman named Juliet Lalaurie." "A woman?"

"You must wonder why I have not told you sooner." She raised her hands to stop his objections. "I beg for your patience, Monsieur. I believe you will understand my hesitancy by the end of it."

The Reverend Mother paused as she studied the painted statue of Christ, but saw only a carved block of stone. For the first time in her life her religion was failing her.

"It began long ago with Jade's father, Monsieur Devon, a Creole gentleman, a young man, unmarried—it was on the eve of his inheritance. Three years, I believe, before the senior Devon died, leaving him, as the only son, with the plantation. And this sad story begins when he went to the quadroon ball—" The good woman's voice rose with sudden bitterness. "The quadroon balls where mulattos and octoroons sell off their precious daughters to the highest bidder. With the unholy sanction of our entire society. Men take these girls as their mistresses, a kind of 'dark wife,' as they say. 'Tis a hateful practice, keeping these young women from the true sacrament of marriage and all that means to a woman and her children. I think especially of these children."

"It was her, Juliet Lalaurie. She was barely fourteen when he ... he initiated the liaison— with her mother's full consent, of course."

"Her father's mistress?"

"Yes. I knew the girl. She had attended our school for many years. She was a strikingly beautiful young woman, a colored girl who could easily pass. She had long brown hair and even, blue eyes. She was uncommon in many other respects. Her mother was an octoroon, a onetime beauty herself and quite well off. She paraded the little girl around as if she were a princess."

She shook her head. "We have had few girls like her. She was willful, impetuous, headstrong for her position and age—I think the result of all the admiration she had gotten over the years for this uncommon beauty. She was finally dismissed from our school for a rage she fell into, brought on when another girl was picked for a solo in a musical recital.

"Juliet was introduced at the quadroon balls when she was only thirteen. Thirteen ..." The Reverend Mother shook her head. "At the time I had spoken to her mother, desperate to dissuade her from presenting the girl so young. I demanded that she wait a year at least. I will not relate the shocking details of her mother's response to my plea. It is enough to say that she did not wait.

"Juliet was the star of those balls that year. Monsieur Devon made his offer. The mother accepted. He arranged generous living conditions: Juliet was given a house with two servants, an impressive allowance. And as often happens to such women, he became her life. She was passionately in love with Jade's father."

"Yes? What happened?"

"Within a year Monsieur Devon left, like so many young men of his class, for his sojourn to the Continent. He was a young man of twenty then. He was gone for two years. Juliet had one of our sisters, Sister Benedict, pen a letter every day to him. Every day. I was not aware of the situation. Sister Benedict felt that this attention from one's Negro mistress was ridiculous, and she never posted a single one of these heartsick letters. He had never written once to her; she had disappeared from his mind as soon as he had shut the door to her little house.

"And yet he lived and breathed in her heart. She created the impression in her own mind— as well as others—that Philip could not live without her. She was so young. She had even convinced herself he would never marry because of her.

"Yet Philip had met Elizabeth in Paris In a picture gallery. She was the only surviving daughter of a Lord and Lady Avington, a respected English negotiator on trade issues between the two countries before the war."-

"Jade mentioned her grandfather ..."

"Yes. Her mother had talked a good deal about her family. They had refused to allow the courtship. Monsieur Devon was French, untitled, and while propertied, the holdings were in New Orleans—all quite unacceptable." She waved her hand in dismissal. "Courtship, like marriage, was out of the question. So the two lovers met in secret for the year that Elizabeth's father was positioned in Paris. The month her parents were preparing to leave Paris, Elizabeth and Philip eloped.

"Jade's grandparents died within two years of each other and without ever forgiving Elizabeth, a thing of great hardship for her. Even after Terese was born, they refused to answer any of her letters."

Victor's gaze dropped to the Reverend Mother's lap as she paused and he watched her pale hands whiten more as she clutched her small statuette.

"So, Monsieur Devon returned with his new bride. I don't believe he saw Juliet again..."." She paused before adding, "He severed the liaison through his banker...."

Victor swore softly at this.

The Reverend Mother shook her head. "A banker's note. Juliet went... insane. Juliet considered herself bound to Philip forever more, a liaison that was her life. In the beginning it was constant suicide threats. The priest involved convinced Philip not to intervene for her, that it would only make it worse. He was beside himself, understanding too late the error so common to his sex: the masculine dismissal of a woman's love.

"It became worse the year when Elizabeth gave birth to Terese, the same year Juliet's mother passed on. At some point Juliet turned to a voodoo witch doctor. Dr. JohnJohn, I believe he was called. This man was said to have introduced Juliet to the voodoo arts. Over the years Juliet became ever more involved in the heathen worship and evil practice.