Authors: Eugenia Riley
Julian returned to the bed and
poised himself above her. His hand reached down, spreading the moist petals of
her femininity, then he plunged in deeply.
Genevieve cried out in ecstasy and
tossed her head from side to side. No one could fill her as Julian did; each
time with him was like the first. He was so young, so splendid, so strong and
hard. Her fingernails dug into his back and she breathed in sharp, painful
gasps as he thrust into her again and again, fairly lifting her hips off the
bed. “Oh, yes, Julian, yes!” she cried. “Yes,
mon amour
!”
Genevieve’s wild panting and sexy
words excited Julian unbearably. He drove her to a quick, exquisitely sharp
climax and held her there as he, too, tumbled with her into sweet oblivion.
Afterward, they laughed and kissed like two shy adolescents who had just
discovered each other in a hayloft.
Julian had just rolled off Genevieve
when, suddenly, the door to the room flew open with such violence that the
resulting blast of wind blew out the candles. Both Julian and Genevieve jumped
in alarm to view the tall, ominous figure of a man looming in the doorway with
booted feet spread.
“Deny me yer favors whilst you
fornicate with another—will you, you lying slut?” the man bellowed in a voice
seething with outrage. “I’ll kill the both of you, I will!”
Later, Julian would wonder at the
speed with which everything happened. Now, he only heard Genevieve’s frightened
“
Mon Dieu
!” before the first terrible shot rang out. In the darkness,
she gasped, then fell limp against the pillow, even as the acrid odor of black
powder assailed his nostrils. He realized with horror that she had been
shot—perhaps mortally wounded. Yet he knew there was no hope of saving her
unless he disarmed the madman now stalking toward them—toward
him
—with
pistol again cocked and raised.
Julian sprang from the bed just as
their attacker fired a second shot. The shot missed Julian, hitting the window.
Even as the sound of shattering glass lanced his nerves, Julian leaped on the
man and struggled to grab his arm as he attempted to cock the deadly pistol a
third time.
The two men fought wildly,
desperately. Julian was assailed by the odor of sour whiskey, and realized that
his attacker was surely drunk. Still, the man seemed possessed of supernatural
strength; his grip was like steel as he attempted to aim his pistol at Julian’s
heart. No words were spoken as the two men fought on to the death, kicking and
scratching and wrestling over the gun, their expressions grimly intense.
Then a third shot rang out, and at
first Julian feared he’d been hit. His relief knew no bounds as he felt his
opponent become a dead weight and slide to the floor. The first thing he did
was to grab the pistol from the man’s failing fingers. Then he hurried to the
bed and lit a lantern, blinking at eyes that still stung from the smoke.
Genevieve sat up, her face
sheet-white as she looked down at her oozing shoulder. “Julian, I’ve been hit.”
The bullet had made a small tear;
Julian dabbed at the stream of red with the sheet. “It doesn’t look too bad,
love.”
Simultaneously, they heard loud
voices heading in their direction. Both realized at once that they were totally
nude. Julian grabbed a cotton wrapper from a nearby chair and hastily draped it
around Genevieve; then he made a dive for his own trousers. He was just
buttoning them when Madame Sophie and four others—two servants and a rumpled
couple from a nearby room—burst in.
Madame Sophie waved at the black
smoke still hanging in the air and stared aghast at the corpse bleeding
copiously on the fine Persian mg. “
Madre de Dios
—what is this?”
“We had a visitor,” Julian said
grimly to the ashen-faced group. He held up the Paterson Colt. “A crazed
drunkard intent on murder. He burst in on us and started shooting like a
madman.”
“But”—Madame Sophie again stared
flabbergasted at the corpse—“who is he?”
Genevieve, dressed in the wrapper,
now came forward gingerly from the bed. She stared dispassionately at the
corpse. The man was stocky, dressed in the scruffy clothes of a laborer, and
had rusty red hair and staring green eyes. “Him!” she cried in outrage.
Julian came to her side, placing
his arm protectively around her waist. “You know this man?”
She nodded, her blue eyes blazing
with indignation. “He’s the Irishman who’s been making my life hell lately. I
brought him up to my room once, because I had to agree when he said his money
was as good as anyone else’s. But never again.” She spat at the corpse. “He was
a pig.”
Genevieve backed away, swaying
slightly. Alarmed, Julian swung the girl up into his arms, while Madame Sophie
gasped, “Genevieve! You’ve been shot!”
Genevieve looked down at the
creeping red stain on her wrapper. “It’s not bad, madame, really.”
“Still, we must call a doctor.”
Julian nodded. “Madame is right.
You should be in bed. You must rest until a physician can be brought to attend
you.”
“Pooh!” Genevieve said, waving him
off. “I’m too furious to rest right now.”
Nevertheless, Julian carried
Genevieve to the bed. Meanwhile, Madame Sophie was wringing her hands. “Oh,
dear—what will the authorities say when they hear about this? We’ve been warned
repeatedly that we must run a quiet establishment. If news of this gets out,
the mayor may be forced to shut us down.”
“I think I know a sympathetic
magistrate—a close friend of my father’s—who may be willing to help us,” Julian
interjected as he gently pulled the covers up over Genevieve.
“Oh,
bien
, Julian—you are a
prince, as always,” Madame Sophie said, beaming gratefully at him as he turned
from the bed. “But what I want to know is, how did this man get in?”
In answer, a sheepish-faced Alfred
ambled forward, rubbing the back of his grizzled head, which sported the
beginning bulge of a goose egg. He spotted the dead man and his eyes grew huge.
“I’m sorry, Madame Sophie,” he said contritely. “I know you told me never to
let that Irishman in again. Only, somethin’ hit me on the head harder than a
barrel of oysters, and the next thing I knew, I was pickin’ myself up off the
patio and hearing the bullets fly up here.”
“It’s all right, Alfred, I’m sure
you tried your best,” madame assured the servant. She turned back to Julian.
“Now—what about this sympathetic magistrate?”
“His name is Paul Rillieux. I’ll
send my manservant at once to fetch him.”
The two were discussing further
details when a second elderly black man hesitantly entered the room, his
tattered hat clutched in trembling fingers. This man’s clothing was even more
ragtag than that of the dead man. Spotting the corpse, he gasped and staggered
on his feet. “Oh, sweet Jesus! Master O’Shea!”
Julian turned sharply to the
newcomer. “You know this man?”
The slave nodded convulsively, too
frightened to answer.
“What’s your name?” Julian
demanded.
“I be Joseph.”
Julian regarded the servant
sternly. “Well, Joseph, a few moments ago, your master burst into this room and
tried to murder me and the lady. He wounded the lady”—Julian paused to nod for
effect at Genevieve—“and damned near killed me. So what do you have to say
about this?”
The black man gulped. “I wish I
could say I is surprised, sir, but I ain’t. Master O’Shea, he always been a
scrapper.”
Julian harrumphed. “An
understatement if I’ve ever heard one.”
The slave looked at the younger
man with moist, beseeching eyes. “But, sir—if Master O’Shea be dead, what I
tell his wife and child?”
“
Wife
and
child
?”
Julian Devereux repeated in a disbelieving hiss.
An hour later, Julian was again in
his coach, clattering through the cold streets of New Orleans. His coachman was
following the lead of Joseph, the O’Shea family manservant, who drove the rattletrap
buggy ahead of them. Just by the sounds and smells floating past, Julian could
map out the route they were taking—first, past the grogshops and restaurants of
the Vieux Carré, past an opera house where a lilting French aria spilled out;
next, past Congo Square, with its haunting drumbeats and native African chants;
then past the no-man’s-land of the Perdido, with its muddy roads and noisy
sounds of misery and brawling.
Morosely, Julian turned his
thoughts toward the last hour. Soon after the Irishman O’Shea had died at
Sophie’s establishment, a physician and Julian’s friend the magistrate had been
summoned. The surgeon had tended Genevieve’s wound; she had blissfully passed
out while he probed for the bullet. Paul Rillieux, the magistrate, had promised
a discreet inquiry regarding Brendan O’Shea’s death—and an even more discreet
burial.
Julian well knew that there was no
reason to fetch O’Shea’s body home, for as his manservant had convulsively
explained, even now O’Shea’s wife lay on her deathbed.
At the very thought, Julian ground
his jaw and pounded a fist against the richly grained leather seat. What kind
of animal would abandon his wife on her deathbed and go whoring? There was a
child involved, too, according to the servant. It was depraved, beyond
comprehension. The coward O’Shea had deserved to die, he decided
self-righteously. Then a shudder gripped him as he remembered the Irishman
lying on the floor in a pool of blood, his eyes wide and staring. Julian had
never before killed another human being, and this was not an action he took
lightly. Doubtless it was why he felt responsible now, at least in some
measure, for the wife and child, and why he was making this call to check on
their welfare.
Henrí halted the conveyance before
a ramshackle shotgun house not far from the waterfront, in a section occupied
mostly by Gascons, the impoverished French. Julian noted wan lights winking in
the front windows. Off to one side of the yard, a large, parked dray indicated
that O’Shea—like so many other Irish immigrants—had earned his living by
hauling freight. Julian wondered idly if O’Shea had been one of the thousands
of Irishmen brought over in the thirties to dig the New Basin Canal.
Henrí opened the coach door, and
Julian alighted, holding on to his hat as his body was battered by the icy wind
blowing off the river. The O’Shea manservant approached. “What we tell Mistress
O’Shea, sir?” he asked Julian, almost shouting over the howl of the wind. “She
be mighty sick.”
“At the moment—nothing,” Julian
replied. “I’ll be the judge of what is said.”
“Yessir,” the servant replied,
staring at his feet.
With Julian leading, the threesome
crossed the barren yard and climbed the creaky steps to the sagging porch.
Julian’s knock was promptly answered by a graying black woman in humble attire,
who glanced confusedly from Julian to Henrí to Joseph. When Joseph nodded to
her, she promptly admitted all three men.
Julian entered a surprisingly
neat, if shabby, parlor. He caught images of cheap, fraying furniture, a
Crucifix, a family Bible on a stand and, above it, a picture of the Holy
Virgin. The room was chill, the bitter wind penetrating the thin walls.
Julian handed his hat, cloak, and
gloves to the woman. “I would see your mistress.”
The woman again looked to the
manservant for guidance, and he inclined his head once more in the affirmative.
Drawing her ratty shawl more tightly about her frail shoulders, the woman
motioned for Julian to follow her. She led him through a doorway directly into
the next room. This room was slightly warmer; a couple of charred logs glowed
in the grate. Julian approached the low bed, where lay the shrunken form of a
woman. Her complexion was waxy, and her thin, pale hands lay listlessly on the
moth-eaten wool coverlet. Her breathing was shallow, labored—little more than a
death rattle.
Julian turned to the black woman
and whispered, “What ails her? The pneumonia?”
The woman nodded, fixing doleful
brown eyes on her mistress. “She already weak from the consumption. Then the
pneumonia, it take her three days ago. The doctor, he say it jes’ a matter of
time. And the priest, he already come and go.”
“What about the child?”
“Miss Mercy, she sleepin’ in the
next room.”
Mercy
, Julian thought. What
a lovely name for a child. “How old is she?”
“She nine.” The woman hesitated.
“Why you here, sir?”
Julian glanced away, running a
hand through his hair. “I’m a concerned friend,” he said at last, knowing that
the woman didn’t believe him for a second.
Yet she didn’t press him, saying
merely, “Yessir.”
Julian glanced back at the
prostrate figure on the bed. “Is there nothing we can do for her?” he asked,
knowing the answer full well.
The woman nodded sadly. “No sir.”
“Then I’ll sit with her awhile,”
Julian said. He glanced at the dying fire. “You must ask the manservant to
bring more wood.”
The woman lowered her eyes in
shame. “They ain’t none, sir. I use the last of the logs for mistress tonight.”
Julian quickly withdrew some coins
from his pocket and handed them to the woman. “Kindly give these to my coachman
and tell him to go fetch firewood at once.”
At first, the servant’s eyes grew
huge as she stared at the precious coins. Then she smiled at Julian gratefully.
“Yessir.”
As she started to leave, he added,
“By the way—what is your mistress’s name?”
“Corrine, sir. Corrine O’Shea.”
The woman left, and Julian went to
sit in the ladder-back chair next to the bed; the rickety contraption groaned
beneath his weight. He studied Corrine O’Shea more closely. At one time, she
must have been quite a beauty. There was an aristocratic air about
her—something he found odd, considering her impoverished circumstances. Her
features were classically lovely—a long oval face, delicate nose, wide mouth,
and beautifully arched dark brows. Her hair was curly and raven-black, now
damp, due to her malaise, and streaked with gray—prematurely so, he surmised.
Fever spots gleamed on the hollows beneath her high cheekbones, and she was
frail to the point of emaciation. Again, fury welled in him that her husband
had gone whoring on this of all nights, leaving this unfortunate creature alone
to die.
Soon, Henrí returned with wood and
built up the fire, then discreetly slipped from the room. Then there was
silence, interrupted only by the piercing whistle of the wind and the occasional
thud of a log sliding in the grate. Julian had no idea how long he’d sat
there—an hour, perhaps even two—when Corrine O’Shea opened her eyes. All at
once, he found himself gazing into the loveliest cerulean-blue eyes he’d ever
seen.
The woman stared back at him, her
expression strangely lucid. “Brendan?” she murmured.
Julian felt a surge of guilt and
helpless frustration. He forced himself to smile gently at the woman and to lie
as convincingly as possible. “Your husband has been detained, madame. He bid me
come check on your welfare.”
Corrine O’Shea’s expression
brightened with a false hope that lanced Julian’s heart. “You’re a friend of my
husband’s, m’sieur?” she rasped, trying to sit up.
Julian gently pushed her bony shoulders
back down on the mattress. “Yes, madame. Now, you must conserve your strength.
May I get you something?” He glanced at the pitcher and glass on the
nightstand. “Some water, perhaps?”
She shook her head, as if speaking
required too much energy. She drew several labored breaths, then murmured,
“Mercy.”
“Mercy?” Julian repeated. “Oh,
yes, your child.”
“I must speak with her.”
Julian was glancing about in
confusion when he heard a frightened, childlike voice whisper, “Mama?”
He turned and stood, spotting a
little girl standing in the archway leading to the home’s farthest room. The
sight of the child stunned him, momentarily robbing him of breath. He felt
almost as if he’d seen a ghost. For Mercy O’Shea was a younger version of her
mother—delicately, aristocratically beautiful—but with Brendan O’Shea’s flaming
red hair and green Irish eyes.
Those enormous, lovely eyes were
now fixed with fear on Corrine O’Shea. “Mama?” she repeated anxiously. She
glanced suspiciously at Julian, then took a tentative step forward. She was
dressed in a handkerchief linen gown and was clutching a rag doll.
Corrine O’Shea again opened her
eyes. “Come here, child,” she said weakly.
As Julian tactfully stood aside,
Mercy hurried across the room on her bare feet and knelt by the low bed. She
flung down her doll and clutched her mother’s hand. “Mama, you look so ill,”
she fretted.
“Mercy, I must leave you,” the
woman said raspily.
“No, Mama! No!” Mercy said, her
eyes wide and terrified, her young voice tinged with hysteria. “I don’t want
you to leave me.”
“My darling, I have no choice,”
the mother whispered back through tears. “Don’t worry—your father will care for
you. He’s been . . . detained, but he’ll be here soon.”
“No, Mama, no!” Mercy cried. “I
don’t want Papa to care for me! All he does is shout at me, and come home
smelling of something so vile—”
Corrine continued to speak in a
halting, convulsive whisper. “It’s all right, Mercy. I know your father has
been through . . . hard times . . . but after I’m . . . gone . . . I’m sure
he’ll live up to his responsibilities. You’ll see.”
“No, Mama, please, no!” the child
exclaimed, her voice piteous. “I don’t want you to go! I don’t want Papa to
care for me.”
Julian observed the poignant
exchange between mother and child with an aching heart. Now, recognizing that
Corrine O’Shea was near exhaustion, he stepped forward and placed his hand on
the child’s shoulder. “Mercy, your mother is quite ill. She must rest now.”
Mercy flashed angry green
eyes—eyes too old for one so young—up at Julian. “Who are you, m’sieur?” she
snapped.
Julian was amazed at the small
child’s spirit and forthrightness. “I am M’sieur Devereux, Mercy. A—a friend of
your father’s. I came to tell your mother that your father has been detained.”
“Then leave us, M’sieur Devereux,”
Mercy said angrily. “This is none of your affair. I shall care for my mama.”
Julian was again flabbergasted by
the child’s pride and mettle. Meanwhile, Corrine O’Shea said weakly, “Mercy,
you must not be rude to our guest.” Then she blissfully slipped from
consciousness.
The child turned to her mother
with alarm. “Mama! Mama! No! You must wake up! You must!”
Julian firmly drew her back.
“Mercy, you must let your mother rest.”
To his stupefaction, she turned on
him with fists flailing. “No!” she screamed, her small hands ineffectually
pummeling his thighs, his stomach. “I must not let her rest. I must not! If I
do, she’ll—”
Abruptly, the blows stopped, and
Mercy O’Shea became a child again, convulsing into tears. She didn’t resist
when Julian hauled her up into his arms and held her tightly against his chest.
Her small body shuddered with sobs, and her pain wracked his very soul. He
smoothed her silky hair and patted her back, wondering at how small and soft
and helpless she felt in his arms.
At last she drew back. She spoke
with her heart in her voice. “She’s going to die, isn’t she, m’sieur?”
Julian swallowed hard, finding he
couldn’t answer her. The desperate sorrow etched on her lovely face was more
than he could bear. Why did one so young and beautiful have to know such
unspeakable heartache? he wondered. He brushed a tear from her smooth cheek and
looked into her brimming eyes. “You’ll be cared for, Mercy. I vow it, my dear.”
She shivered and laid her head
against his shoulder. The trusting gesture filled Julian with an emotion so
powerful that sudden tears stung his eyes. He’d never had a brother or a
sister, but suddenly he felt a brother’s fierce protectiveness toward this
needy, precious child.
He carried Mercy back to her room
and laid her on her modest bed, pulling the heavy quilt over her. He fetched
her doll from the other room and laid it beside her. Mercy was already asleep,
her sweet face still streaked with tears.
Julian sat with Corrine O’Shea all
night. She became delirious. He held her hand and listened as she spoke
disjointedly, her mind going back to the happier days of her youth, when she’d
first met Brendan O’Shea, when he’d courted her. Though her account was
garbled, Julian surmised that Brendan and Corrine had met when she was a novice
nun working at a local Catholic hospital; he’d been a laborer, ill with yellow
fever, whom she’d nursed back to health. Corrine had forsaken her final vows
for Brendan and had married him. Corrine’s family had promptly disowned her.
Nonetheless, she’d been blissfully happy with her husband during those early
days—they’d even named their child Mercy, after the hospital where they’d met.
As the end grew near, Corrine
began to call Julian by her husband’s name, Brendan. He didn’t resist. She asked
him to promise to care for Mercy, to be a kind, attentive father—and he gave
his promise eagerly, his voice thick and hoarse.
Sometime during the night, she
died. He held her hand until it grew cold.
***
Sunrise found Julian, rumpled and
unshaven, sitting in the drab little parlor, drinking cafe au lait from a
cracked demitasse. His gaze was grim and bloodshot, and he was staring at some
unseen point in space. In the bedroom beyond, the black woman was dressing the
corpse.
Julian felt as if he had aged a
lifetime over the past night. Before yesterday, he had never witnessed
death—yet last night, he had watched two people die. In a way, he felt
responsible for the demise of both.