Bride of a Stranger (Classic Gothics Collection) (20 page)

“But Helene soon grew bored with motherhood. She began to look around her for amusement, and so she began a flirtation that lasted nearly twenty years, right under Marcel’s nose. What did you think, Justin? That it would be better for everyone to think that you had killed your uncle rather than for your father to bear the mark of Cain? Did you really think Marcel had killed his brother in a jealous rage?”

Claire stared at Justin. Not a muscle moved in his face. There was nothing to tell her whether it was he or his father who had killed his uncle.

“And so—I married,” he said gently.

“You married, and there was Claire, a beautiful, healthy bride, who would be sure to present you with an heir before the year was out, destroying my Edouard’s chances of succession forever. I knew of Belle-Marie and I knew of her connection with the voodoo priestess. The priestess was her mother.”

“It was you,” Claire said in horror, staring at the knife in Berthe’s hand, and thinking of the torn and bleeding face. “It was you who killed her.”

“Yes. It was not hard. Belle-Marie felt only contempt for me, too, and that was—fatal. I couldn’t stay to do away with you then, though I wanted to. The panther was about, hunting. I hoped he would find you and kill you for me.”

“Why did you kill Belle-Marie? What reason could you have?”

“She was so stupid,” Berthe said, her mouth twisted with scorn. “I sent a message to her in New Orleans as soon as I heard of the nuptials. I told her to come here and together we would rid ourselves of you, Claire. With a little judicious black magic, a threat to the coachman who died, poor man, we arranged for the coach to go off the bridge. Then that fool Belle-Marie tried to poison you without consulting me. I suppose she thought I might object to poison in the house, or perhaps it was the voodoo. She could be secretive about that at times. She believed in it. Not I! And her charms, her
gris-gris
, her power, where were they to help her when the time came? But because of the poison, I was fooled for a time into thinking that Claire was
en, ciente.
I had to hurry, and so the bungled attempt the night of the voodoo ceremony.”

Claire could feel Justin’s gaze on her face, but she would not look at him. She had not told him of that night.

“Then the silly fool, besotted with you, Justin, caught on that it was not only Claire that I wanted dead. I could not depend on you not to remarry. You had married once; you might do it again.

“But you wanted to know why I killed Belle-Marie. I was waiting in the swamp for you when she came. We quarreled and she said she would come to you and warn you, tell you what I was doing. I could not let her do that. She was not hard to kill. I waited until she began to walk away, and then I threw my knife. Then I savaged her with it, to make it look as if Claire had done it, a crime of jealousy, you know. I waited for you, Justin, but you didn’t come. I was going to kill you near Belle-Marie. It would look as if Claire had caught you together, then if the law did not take care of Claire, I rather guessed that it would not be hard to have her die later, an apparent suicide.”

“Justin,” Claire cried, as she saw him start toward Berthe. He stopped, but he did not take his eyes from Berthe’s face.

“No, don’t try it. I can’t miss at this distance. Gerard would be proud of me.”

“Proud!” Claire turned to her in disgust.

“Oh, yes. ‘Living is a game of wit,’ he always said, and he congratulated anyone, even himself, who played it well. Such as the game he played with Helene for so many years.”

Gerard. The man of the death mask.

“It was you,” she said without thinking. “The game Gerard played with Helene hurt you as well as Marcel. And you killed Gerard for it. You killed your husband.”

She saw Justin grow suddenly still, but she could not give him her full attention.

When Berthe’s voice came it was a whisper. “I did. I carried the case of dueling pistols with me, and when Helene left him, there in the woods where they had met, I loaded one of the pistols and I shot him as he came walking toward me. I didn’t hear Marcel coming. When he saw what had happened, he began to run, and then he clutched his chest and fell down, so it didn’t matter that he had seen. I thought he was dead, too; he might as well have been from the way he looked. So I put the pistol I had fired in his hand, and I loaded the other one and put it at Gerard’s side. Then I left the box lying there in the grass and walked away. How was I to know that Marcel was not dead? How was I to guess that Justin would be close enough to hear the shot, or that he would come upon them and rearrange it all so as to take the blame upon himself?”

“You let him think all these years that the man he considered his father had killed his own brother.”

“Why not? Marcel could not deny it. As soon as I found that out, I was safe, at least I thought I was until you said that Marcel could tell you about the mask. But after it was over, I was glad. Gerard would never be able to leave me. All those years, and Gerard had said it was a game. But then I heard them say they were going away together, Helene and my husband. Their children, they said, were grown. They no longer owed anyone anything. But they were only middle-aged lovers trying to breathe life into their tired love affair. So exciting, to run away together. It was disgusting. Gerard actually said he had nothing to hold him. Nothing! But he was my husband! Mine!”

 “And you kept him.”

 “I kept him!”

Possessiveness shrilled in her voice, the same possessiveness, Claire thought, that made her cling to Gerard’s belongings, his clothes, his jewelry, canes and wigs, and his centuries-old knives.

Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, Claire saw Justin’s fingers clenching into a fist. He was going to try to disarm Berthe. She could feel it. She must distract the woman somehow.

“But did you keep him?” she asked, raising her voice. “You don’t mourn him. You never loved him, only what he could give you. Helene is the one who has kept his memory alive in her heart, despite all your show of the things that were his. In the end it is Helene who has kept him!”

Rage burned in Berthe’s narrow eyes. “You—why isn’t the laudanum working. I gave you enough—but I don’t need laudanum to silence you.” She leaned toward Claire, vindictiveness in her twisted face. The knife rose glinting in the candlelight. Claire threw up her arm to protect her head, and then the blade began to fall.

At that instant, Justin reached her, spun her around, reaching for her wrist. But the knife continued its descent as he missed his grip, and slashed through his clothes. Claire saw with terror the spasm of pain that crossed his face, then the knife clattered to the floor and Berthe sagged, the wild, reckless courage of evil draining from her as she felt Justin’s greater strength.

Justin flung her into a chair, picked the knife up from where it had fallen, and reached out to draw Claire into the circle of his arm. “Claire,
ma coeur,”
he said huskily. “What is this that she gave you? Was it poison?”

“It is nothing. I didn’t take it,” she answered, the words rushing off her tongue. “But you, I saw her strike you—”

In a sudden flurry of skirts, Berthe, so slack a moment before, jumped to her feet and ran, leaving the french door open behind her.

“Justin!” Claire cried, but he shook his head.

“Let her go. There is no place she can run.”

They listened to her footfalls fading along the gallery. There was silence. Then a terrible scream split the night!

Before its last echoes had died, they were standing at the gallery railing. Nothing moved in the dark, there was no noise to show there was any living thing near. Then beneath them, a figure seemed to materialize from out of the darkness.

Claire recognized the Voodooienne the second before she began to speak. Her voice was soft and rich with sadness.

“Monsieur Justin, if you are worried about that one, that Madame Berthe, you need not worry anymore. I learned, me, that she killed my Belle-Marie in the swamp. I know, too, that she has killed the Monsieur Marcel’s man, Anatole, and then put the pillow over the Still One’s face until he, too, is dead so that she and her son can have all in peace without fear.”

“How do you know these things?”

“I am told.”

It was the only answer she was going to give. Justin did not press her.

“Berthe—we heard a scream,” Claire said, unable to resist the question. “What happened to her?”

“Ah, madame,” the woman said in a voice that could hardly be heard where they stood. “Ah, madame, it is best not to ask.”

A KNOCK SOUNDED on the bedroom door. Rachel, very subdued, but with the lines of tension gone from her face, moved to answer it. When Claire saw Octavia standing there, she smiled at the maid. “That will be all. I won’t need you until morning.”

“Yes, madame,” the girl murmured, and flashing a shy smile, stepped outside and closed the door behind Octavia.

The older woman was not the same either. She stood clasping and unclasping her hands. She still wore her Arabic robe, but it no longer seemed bizarre. Her eyes were shadowed and her lips were pale and trembling.

Justin spoke from the bed where he lay propped on pillows in the great four-poster bed, a bandage, white against his olive skin, spanning his chest. “Come in, Aunt Octavia. I haven’t thanked you properly for seeing to the slash on my side.”

She gave him a quick, hesitant smile, and glanced toward Claire before she looked back to her son.

“You look very well, considering. But you must not be surprised if you feel feverish tomorrow.”

“No, I won’t. But don’t stand there. Come and sit down.”

“Yes, let me get you a chair,” Claire said, dragging one of the slipper chairs forward. Octavia sat down, but she scarcely seemed to realize what she was doing.

“Justin, I—they are saying in the quarters—again after all these years—that Berthe said—Berthe told that—I—I am your mother.”

Justin was quiet for a moment. “Yes, she said that. Aren’t you?”

Claire looked away. She felt that she ought not to be here, witnessing this. It was too private. These two people, each wary of the other, each afraid of being hurt, were yet tied by the strongest of bonds. Justin had given Octavia a way out. She had only to deny him, to claim what Berthe had said was the hysterical ravings of a madwoman. She did not do that.

“Yes, I am your mother.” Her fingers were clasped in her lap, she sat straight, and suddenly proud, on the edge of her chair.

Justin sighed. “I’m glad,” he said, smiling.

Tears rose in Octavia’s eyes. “You—you look like the Lerouxs, you know, not at all like your father. I think I have regretted that at times. He was a good man, your father, of good family, a French nobleman, handsome, kind, and—you must believe me—honorable.”

“Yes, thank you—maman—for that.”

“It was not easy, giving you into Helene’s care. She loved you well enough, as a child, when she gradually grew used to the idea that she and Marcel would never have children of their own. But older children distress some women, make them feel their age, and they grow nervous and irritable with them. I have been afraid that you would hate me, but it seemed the best, to let you be Marcel’s son rather than my—mistake. I was always there. I would not marry, even when I could. I would not go away to another man’s house and leave you.” Her voice broke and she could not go on.

“Please,” Claire said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure there is no need to explain. Justin understands, and I also. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“I—I must. It is the price—” She stopped speaking, and fumbling with her wide sleeve, wiped her eyes and swallowed. “Marcel must have known he could never have children. We did not speak of it, but he registered your birth in Portugal under his own name with that of Helene as the mother. It was not hard. It was a small village and we were unknown. For all time you are legally his son. Only Helene could question it, and she does not dare, not so long as she is dependent on you for her comfort. So you see, nothing is changed.”

“Yes, I see. If that is what you want. It will be, always, as you say,
maman
. Come, don’t sit there across the room as though you were afraid of me. I am not so childishly moral that the matter of a few marriage lines are so great a tragedy. Smile and dry your tears and—” But Octavia had cast herself upon him, crying all the harder. Then she jumped up.

“Your wound!” she cried and kissed him, laughing through her tears as she stood back.

“You know it is little more than a scratch.”

“No such thing. You must be careful, or it will start to bleed again.”

“Yes,
maman
,” he agreed in a voice of exaggerated docility.

“And do not use those words in that tone or I will

—I will box your ears!” she said, but her laugh was shaky. She grew grave, then took a deep breath.

“Perhaps it would be best if—if you did not use the words at all. It is not such an important thing, to be called
maman
. Many people request their children to call them by their first names, and I have grown used to ‘Aunt Octavia’ on your lips. After all these years, shall we change? When so many of our friends and relatives are most definitely too moral to understand? If not for your sake and mine, then for your children and my grandchildren?”

“Have I not said it will be as you wish? Do not distress yourself, my dear aunt.”

She smiled at him tremulously, and he reached out and caught her hand, pressing it, before he changed the subject.

“So, Edouard has gone, at this time of the night?”

“About an hour ago. He did not look well. This has been a great shock to him. He had begun to suspect something, since Berthe was often gone from her room, walking. And once before he missed the knife from his collection that Berthe used to kill Belle-Marie. It was generous of you to offer to let him stay, but I think he will be much better, more his own man, somewhere else, especially with the stake you gave him.”

Had Edouard been so innocent of Berthe’s plotting for his sake, Claire wondered. She hoped so, but she was not sorry to see him go. If he had stayed, they would never have been able to forget. And also, though it pained her to admit it, beneath the veneer of politeness she had felt obligated to show him, she had never been able to forgive him for his mutilation of Justin’s face.

“I see you have not dismissed Rachel,” Octavia was saying.

“No, she never wanted to harm me. She was afraid, not of what Belle-Marie would do to her so much as what she might do to her family in the quarters. She was terrified the whole time. You remember that the coachman who died drove my carriage. Rachel knew he had been told to upset my carriage and make it look like an accident. She had been told to carry the poisoned food to my room and then to decoy me to the jail so that Justin could be lured to the swamp.”

“Only he never saw the note. It must have fallen to the floor where you found it.”

“Yes. But the point is, Rachel was frightened of being found out at the big house, but she was more frightened of failing at her assigned tasks. She said that everyone in the quarters thinks the coachman died because he failed, and so she lived in constant fear. I, too, have lived in fear. I know what she felt, and so I think she has suffered enough. Besides, the Voodooienne, Belle-Marie’s mother, is still very much alive. Rachel is afraid to go back to the quarters for fear of her.”

Octavia shook her head. “This voodoo. Will it ever die out?”

“Not so long as ignorance lives,” Justin answered her.

And as if the subject reminded her, Octavia said, “Ben has gone. He had, from what the grapevine says, developed a
tendre
for Belle-Marie. It also says that her mother was not pleased. Whether her death has upset him, or the priestess has threatened him with worms in his ears, snakes in his stomach, or one of her more inelegant curses, he is no longer with us.”

“Our circle grows slimmer. You, Claire and I, and Helene. How will we manage?” Justin asked wearily.

“You mean how will we face each other over the dinner table?” Octavia smiled. “We will do well, we three. As for Helene, I think she will be better for the change. Half her brooding and her moods could be laid at Berthe’s door. She was good at subtle, poisonous reminders. Berthe knew that Helene blamed herself for turning Justin, so she thought, into a murderer. But instead of being contrite, it was Helene’s way to hide her guilt with defiance. Perhaps she, too, can have peace now, and can forget.”

“I was thinking of Marcel—”

“Don’t. It does no good, my son, to dwell on the things that cause us to suffer in the remembrance. Marcel hated his existence these ten years. Now he is free. Let him go.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Justin said, but looked away, his jaw tightening.

There was a moment of quiet. To Claire, Justin looked tired. Glancing at Octavia, she saw her smile as their eyes met in understanding, and she got to her feet.

The door had hardly closed behind her before Justin turned to her. “Now a few answers, if you please. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She did not pretend to misunderstand him. “I did, or at least, I tried to. I told you of the jail and of the
gris-gris
in New Orleans and here. But you acted as though you didn’t believe me. You looked at me as if you thought I was imagining things.”

“It was difficult to believe of Belle-Marie. I had grown used to—”

He stopped, and Claire, half in anger, finished for him. “—to a complaisant mistress bowing to your every wish.”

He did not answer, and color sprang to her cheekbones. She looked away, aware that jealousy rang in the remark. To cover it, she went on.

“I didn’t tell you of the poison, because I was never certain, never had proof. You knew I had been ill, however. It was the cause of those rumors.”

“Morning sickness.” He grinned with a lazy wickedness.

“It wasn’t funny to me.”

“Not then.”

“No, and now that you bring it up I don’t believe you were amused either, at the time.”

The grin vanished. “I heard nothing from you about this voodoo ceremony,” he accused.

“No, I—went with Octavia. The cat, Bast, was sick. Octavia seemed to think that the Voodooienne could cure him—and she did, Justin. He was poisoned, I’m sure. He had eaten my dinner.”

He shrugged. “If she knew the poison, perhaps she knew the antidote. For all their spells and bits of bones, there is some practical medicine, more than most people realize or care to acknowledge, in their art.”

“The ceremony was horrible.”

“I can imagine.”

She was not sure that he could imagine the savagery of Belle-Marie in that voodoo dance. She found it hard to believe that he could know of that side of his former mistress and still have kept her, but perhaps Belle-Marie had only become so wild after being turned out of his keeping.

“I ran away from the dancing and the drums, and someone followed me. Berthe, of course, but I thought at first it was one of the men. They were—excited. And then the knife was thrown.”

“And you came home and smiled and never mentioned the matter—to anyone.”

“I—thought after the attempt on my life that it had been Belle-Marie. She was there, dancing. I thought perhaps she had meant to kill me there, near the crowd, where the crime could be blamed on drunkenness and frenzy, and no one would be able to say who had done it. I brought the knife home with me, but I didn’t think you would believe me. And I suppose somewhere in my mind I was suspicious of Octavia, because she had persuaded me to go with her, you see, and then left me alone. Then I lost the knife, so I had no proof, and I didn’t know whom to trust.”

“Because the knife belonged to Edouard? If only you had told me—But no, I don’t know if I could have connected the knife to Berthe. All these years, and I never guessed. It seems impossible.” He paused a moment, staring into space before he went on.

“But you were wrong, I would have believed you. I did from the beginning, but I didn’t want to alarm you by appearing to be overly worried by it. I questioned Sylvest, the groom who rode beside the coachman. He told me that he thought the man might have deliberately backed the coach off the bridge, but the coachman was dead. He could neither defend himself nor tell me anything of who had asked him to do such a thing.”