With One Look (32 page)

"Yes suh ..."

Victor had discovered the whole of it. Tara had been freed some five years ago from the La Harpes' household, a colored family, a rather well-known shoemaker in the city. He had bought Tara from the Devon estate when it was sold off, but Monsieur La Harpe was eventually forced to free and dismiss the woman. His complaints were many. She refused to give up her voodoo practices, or to even keep them hidden, and she had begun to influence other members of the household in this unpleasant direction. He also said that she had suffered from terrible dark spells when she communed with these "spirits."

"I understand she hated Elizabeth Devon and she blamed her for turning you away from her. Now"—he paused—"I'd like to hear what happened in the years you were raised with the Bozoniers."

"They treat me fine, like I be one of them. We be poor, but we never even knowed it. Not really. We all be free, thank the Lord. My whole life I feel mighty thankful to Mistress Devon.

Mighty thankful. Things be fine 'ceptin' for them times my mama comes around. Got so I'se took to runnin' at of the sight of her." He paused nervously before his voice rose with feeling. "Times she just lay out in the road, a-whinin' and moanin', sayin' the devil done got me twisted up inside, and she curse the demon and whatnot. Not makin' a passel of sense. Master Bozonier finally started takin' to shootin' at her.... It got better after that. She don't come round much. When she does she

ain't hearin' no spirits. Says she feelin' better, taking in laundry for cleanin' and doin' pretty good. She says ... I made her proud. I pass her a coin or two when I can." He looked up. "Then she died."

"Yes, then she died. Jefferson, I have reason to believe your mother was threatening Jade Terese before she died. Jefferson," he said with a heightened tone of seriousness, "I have reason to believe your mother actually murdered, or at least was involved in the murder of, Elizabeth and Philip Devon."

The only person more relieved to be at the end of this story than himself was the Reverend Mother. She had been desperately searching for an explanation to how a dead woman could return to torment the living, and while she felt certain Philip Devon's dark mistress, the woman Juliet, had done the actual deed, she realized Juliet might have been helped. After all, the two women shared a connection with the voodoo doctor JohnJohn. The explanation fit the facts as they knew it.

Jefferson's dark eyes were searching Victor's face. He started to speak. He stopped. He looked away as a hand wiped his mouth, but then his gaze returned. "No suh. No suh. My mama be crazy, but she weren't never that crazy. I ain't never met the nigger crazy 'nough to kill white folks

—" He stopped with a gasp. Those were the wrong words. "What I mean—"

"I know what you mean, but the facts point to her. She hated Elizabeth Devon; she had reason—however twisted—for doing the deed, and you, yourself, know how insane she was. She practiced voodoo. The important fact," Victor continued, "is that the threats against my wife have ceased since her death."

There it was, the last chapter in the tragedy. He sighed as he glanced away. Why didn't he feel the Reverend Mother's relief? Why wasn't he glad to see the end of this?

He stood up and walked to the window to look out. The wide moving flow of water became a backdrop for his swiftly moving thoughts. Since the moment he lost his heart to that girl he'd had the unsettling feeling of some impending doom. The inexplicable sense of foreboding deepened as his love had: the more her laughter and love became the music and purpose of his life, the closer he felt to the waiting darkness. Now that they were to have their first child, the sense had magnified.

He had always attributed it to her parents' murderer threatening her. Only to discover now that the threat was buried, here no more, the sense of doom remained, unchanged, indifferent to the fact

Jade Terese, I love you....

The silence gathered, ticking off the minutes, and as Jefferson still stood there mute, too stunned to create a defense, Victor found himself asking, desperate to believe that his feeling still owed itself to some irrational, lingering doubt: "Give me one reason to believe she didn't do it."

A memory of his mother during a sane period when there weren't any beatings danced dizzily through Jefferson's mind. Him and his friends were runnin' through the woods with slingshots, pretendin' they be Injuns gone a-huntin'. He never meant to hit that blue bird, never dreamt he actually could. He done carried the bird all the way back home. He don't rightly know why it caused a knot of pain in his stomach when the thing dies, but it does. And he remembered his mama saying, real serious: "All of God's creatures be precious, boy. All of 'em: people or bears or the tiniest ant; they all be precious. They be put here for a reason. Like this here bird. God put him here to teach you it's wrong to be shootin' things you ain't meanin' to stuff your stomach with. It's just plain wrong to kill, boy, and don't you never forget it ..."

"I ain't got no reason to say, 'ceptin' I know she never be killin' no one. Even her most crazy spell, she never be killin' no one."

Victor was not convinced. He started to speak but stopped. Suddenly none of it mattered.

For his gaze caught sight of Carl racing through his working men, the older man's face marred with apprehension. Victor felt it as a physical jolt through his frame, tensing his body where he stood, and he knew before Carl could explain the terrible accident that had befallen Jade ...

Here at last was the dark and terrible future, the place where no rainbow reached across the

sky....

Jade Terese seemed to stare at her reflection in the looking glass over the divan. The glass

presented a picture of a lovely young woman seen through the light of a single candle resting on the table. Her face held an expression of haunting, turbulent sadness. The expressive eyes possessed a gloss from tears. Her dark hair was tousled and wild-looking from a restless attempt to find sleep, while her skin looked unnaturally pale, her lips darker because of it. The thin strings of a pale rose- colored nightdress dangled unnoticed from her shoulders, bent elbows kept her robe from falling, while her face rested in her hands to prevent a complete collapse into tears.

Wolf Dog lay at her feet, sound asleep.

She tried to keep her thoughts on the first five months of her marriage. Those months had been blissfully, wonderfully happy! Each day had been a renewal of their passionate and consuming love; their home had been filled with laughter. How he had loved her then!

"What does it mean?"

"Jade," he had chuckled, "it means I always want you. Always. Even when you're not with me, I have only to close my eyes and conjure a picture of you—in the bam or sleeping, laughing at a party, at a moment of ecstasy and surrender, or even bending over to pick up something—"

She laughed as she swatted him playfully. "And suddenly I'm in pain."

"Pain? Oh, please."

"Sweetheart, it's true. Ask any of my men how many dips I take in that cold river during the

day...."

"Does it help?"

"Nothing helps but this...." And then he kissed her even as his hands felt over her clothes,

impatiently trying to part her from them as he laid her on the soft cushion of their bed....

Like many men, Victor's shock at discovering she was already with child quickly succumbed to excitement. Sebastian and Mercedes postponed their trip to Austria until the baby would be born, though they couldn't wait to be married. Construction on their country estate had been started, and despite the fact that their home would take over a year to be completed, Sebastian had married Mercedes immediately in a grand New Orleans style, and Marie Saint's prophecy about Sebastian and Mercedes had come true. The wise woman had eliminated all of Mercedes's fears when she had said: "Sebastian is the city's hero: he is titled and rich, young and handsome, and somehow he is always slaying our villains. People will consider you the perfect fairy-tale complement to our hero. Yes, some people will inevitably learn of your sad history, but you will never know who these people are, for they will have the decency and manners to pretend as if they never heard it. You will see." And so Mercedes had. Society welcomed, even celebrated, Sebastian with open arms—and Mercedes as his much-adored wife.

Everyone had been so gay then! Every night had seemed a celebration and invitations never stopped—parties, charities and dinners, balls and theaters, those wonderful nights when Jade and Victor had been alone ...

Blessed were the days until the moment that shattered it all. Although the doctor promised there was no permanent damage, promised that she could have another child and, God willing, more after that, she could not forgive herself or blame Victor. Of course he had been loving and concerned at first, staying with her until she had recovered, but she could sense the darkness that

had slipped between them. For a while they had pretended it wasn't there, that nothing had really changed, but they loved and knew each other too deeply to honor a pretense. Soon they couldn't pretend.

He remained at the shipyard or in the country.

Time passed unmarked and she might have even dozed as she sat on the divan, but abruptly, from downstairs, she heard the front door open and close.

Could it be him? No ...

She refused to let hope burst in a rush of anticipation, refused to feel what followed. Yet Wolf Dog thumped his tail. She heard light footsteps, his footsteps, on the stairs

It was him! He paused outside the door. Please, please, open the door!

The door opened just as a tear slid down her cheek. It was all she could do to stop herself from flying into his arms first.

Victor expected Jade to be asleep, and finding her awake, obviously waiting for him, even after long weeks of separation, brought a swift surge of emotion. Her beauty, shrouded in candlelight, the tears from those translucent green eyes, pierced his heart. He suffered no resistance. Stepping to her, he said what words could not by pulling her into his arms, covering her face with kisses. The first touch of her soft, supple body felt like potent medicine, momentarily overcoming his struggle.

Tears fell from her upturned face. She could not help it. The strong arms that finally held her again, the warm lips that pressed tender kisses on her face, meant too much to her. He had finally came back to her; he did love her. He would forgive her—

Victor took both her hands in his, pulled her to the bed. He gently guided her on top of him, wondering if his love clouded his judgment or if she really was that startlingly beautiful. Her hair fell wildly around her and her night-clothes were in a seductive disarray.

"God, I want you," he whispered, rolling her onto her back, taking her mouth with a kiss that made time stop, suspended in an embrace that spoke hungrily of long denied needs. His lips spoke what words could not and she clung to him ardently, aware of every sensation she had longed for so desperately. Filled with his taste, feeling the momentarily freed desire consuming his powerful frame, she trembled and all but swooned with his love. His bare chest beneath an open

shirt brushed against her breasts, while one leg parted hers, and she felt his long muscled flanks beneath tight suede breeches, the hard press of his desire.

Victor kissed her neck, pressed his lips along the long line of her throat as his hand caressed maddeningly below her bosom, savoring the softness of her mouth, her body, drinking the sweet fragrance. "Jade Terese." His lips and tongue tasted hers. "I have missed you."

She could not stop the words or the desperation in her voice. "I was so afraid you'd never

—"

He stopped her instantly. "Never say never. I will always come back. I just needed to be

alone for a while. I love you. God, girl, you are in my heart, my blood…”

His lips brushed over her face and she closed her eyes, shaken by the words she needed to hear. He kissed her again, deeply and passionately, and began to untie the flimsy laces of her nightdress.

"Victor ... Victor." She had to tell him, so he knew, so they could start over again. She had to tell him because it was what she wanted more than anything in the world. "The doctor says I can have another baby now...."

She felt the tension enter his frame. A timid hand reached to his face. He gently kissed her fingers but he was shaking his head and if she could have seen his eyes she would have known to be afraid. "I can't go through that again," he said in an impassioned whisper. "I won't go through it again. From now on, I want you to take a potion that will rid your womb of my seed."

"A potion ... what do you mean?"

"It's a potion women take to force their bleeding so that if they carry a man's seed, it's removed."

She sat up slowly. Uncertain, frightened by these words, she asked, "You mean, if I were to carry our child again, this potion would wash it through me and kill our baby?"

"Jade—"

"No! You can't ask me to do that."

Ignoring the horror and confusion marking her features, Victor rose from the bed and walked over to the bureau. He turned his head back to her as he opened the cabinet and found the crystal brandy decanter. He poured a glass of the amber liquid as he, too, chose his words carefully. "I'm not asking you, Jade. I'm telling you."

Wolf Dog sensed Jade's escalating fear. The lithe, graceful creature sprung onto the bed, obediently assuming a place beside his mistress. His keen intelligence was at all times dedicated to the girl. Full-grown now, he was large for a dog, muscular and gray-blond. His small dark eyes watched Victor warily, unmoved by his affection for the man. Jade clung to him as to a lifeline.

"Please, Victor," she cried in a choked whisper. "Don't do this to me! Give me another chance. It was an accident, I didn't mean to ... God knows, I didn't mean to!"

Victor turned to face her and a long silence filled the quite room as he stared at the girl and her wolf, watching the tears fall steadily from her eyes. Her blind eyes.

Despite the resolution of her parents tragic mystery, he had learned these last few months that Jade would never be safe. He would have to live with the foreboding, the certainty of another accident from which he couldn't save her. The incidents were many: Jade cutting her finger as she sliced an orange, falling down stairs and bumping into things, the constant bruises and the daily "accidents." He had thought he could control it. He had been wrong.