But already her skirts were growing heavier. She kicked harder, harder, the air tearing in and out of her lungs as she fought to keep her head above water. She went under, once, managed to fight her way back up, only to sink again. And then she knew rage, a rage so infinite, it left no room for fear, because she wasn’t ready to die, she refused to die, not like this. She struggled up, up to the air. She couldn’t even see it now, the sky, except as a dim light that shone through the darkness.
She felt something close about her chest, something strong and hard that hauled her tight up against a warm body. She struck out, blindly, weakly, thinking it was Jean-Lambert again, taking her with him, killing her. She heard a grunt, and a Yankee voice saying, “Do that again and I’m liable to drop you back in the lake.”
Then she closed her eyes, because it was a voice she loved, and she was safe.
They told Dominic his grandfather had drowned when the pirogue overturned, which was true enough, in its way. But one day, Emmanuelle swore, she would tell her son the whole truth, because secrets and lies could be dangerous things.
It wasn’t until they’d found Jean-Lambert’s body wrapped in the arms of his dead black slave, Baptiste, that Emmanuelle even remembered the big African who had been waiting onshore. But whether he had drowned trying to save Jean-Lambert, or had simply decided to join his master in death, Emmanuelle would never know. Looking at the African’s death-smoothed features, she found herself remembering what Marie Thérèse had told Zach about Jean-Lambert and the “tendencies” he had in common with his son, and Emmanuelle thought she understood.
Later that evening, when Emmanuelle was helping Rose repack their trunks, Marie Thérèse came to stand in the open doorway and said, “Will you allow me to see my grandson again?”
“Occasionally, yes,” said Emmanuelle, looking up. “But for his sake, not yours.”
For one, intense moment, the two women’s gazes caught and held. And Emmanuelle thought, You have been a part of my life for more than twelve years now. You are the mother of my dead husband, my son’s grandmother, and yet I neither know nor understand you. This woman had caused the death of her own son, sought to kill the man Emmanuelle loved, and stood by, silently, while Jean-Lambert tried to kill Emmanuelle herself. And yet all Emmanuelle could feel when she looked into the other woman’s pale, set face was pity, and a vague and disturbing uneasiness.
When they left Beau Lac, riding in one of the estate’s wagons with Zach Cooper at the reins, Emmanuelle looked back at the old, high white house to see Marie Thérèse standing at the top of the broad steps and watching them drive away.
They spent what was left of the night at an old inn not far from the Bayou Crevé. After the others had fallen asleep, they wandered out onto the wide gallery that wrapped the inn’s upper floor. The evening was mild, the sky starless and promising a rain Emmanuelle could smell on the warm, jasmine-scented breeze. From the railing she could see only a faint gleam of dull water that was the bayou, away to the right. The trees were black twisted shapes, silent against the thickening clouds. They were infinitely familiar to her, these things, the sight of moss dripping from giant spreading oaks, the primeval scent of the swamp, the high-pitched, ceaseless hum of a thousand locusts on a hot summer night, and yet it all seemed strange to her, and oddly new, and she wasn’t sure that was a bad thing.
“I still can’t believe it was Jean-Lambert killing all those people,” she said, leaning her back against Zach’s chest as he came to stand behind her. “I keep telling myself the seizure he had last May when he found out about Philippe must have affected his mind somehow.” His arms came around her, drawing her hard up against him, and she held on to him, her hands gripping his. “I have to believe that. The Jean-Lambert I knew and loved would never have done those things.”
“Huh,” said Zach, his breath warm against her ear. “What’s his wife’s excuse?”
She turned in his arms, her gaze searching his shadowed face. “What will you do to her?”
“Nothing. As far as the United States government is concerned, she’s a hero. After all, the information she gave led to the capture of five hundred thousand dollars in Confederate gold.”
“She tried to have you killed.”
“I have no proof of that.”
Emmanuelle pressed her cheek against his chest, her arms slipping around his waist. She could feel his heart beating, strong and steady. “Jean-Lambert knew. But he didn’t know she was the one who had betrayed Philippe.”
He brought up one hand to stroke her hair, his gaze fixed on the impenetrable wall of cypress swamp in the distance. “It’s a terrible thing,” he said softly, “to think that a woman could love her family’s name more than she loved her own child.”
“I always knew appearances were everything to Marie Thérèse. But I never thought even she could go so far.”
He closed his fingers gently on her shoulders, holding her away from him so that he could see her face. “What will you do now?”
She felt a sad smile curl her lips as she stared up at him. “Go back to Paris. Be certified as a doctor.”
“And then what?”
“Come back here. Everything Jean-Lambert owned is Dominic’s now. Besides, New Orleans is our home. I can’t imagine living anyplace else.”
“They won’t let you practice here.”
“Not at first. But someone has to fight them. Someone has to be the one to make them change.”
A silence opened up between them, a silence filled with the song of the locusts and the whisper of warm night air moving gently through the shadowy branches of the oaks. “My French isn’t very good,” he said after a moment, his voice oddly husky. “But I’m willing to learn. This war can’t last forever.”
Emmanuelle let her head fall back, her breath catching in her chest as she searched his face. “You would do that? Move to Paris, and then come back here to live? You would do that for me?”
“I would do that,” he said simply. A muscle bunched and hollowed in one lean cheek. “I love you, Emmanuelle, whether you believe in it or not. And I swear—”
“Don’t.” She touched her fingers to his lips, stopping him. “What’s the worst thing about yourself that you’ve never told me?”
His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed down as he thought about it. “You know how I told you my father is a sea captain?” he said after a moment, his lips moving against her fingers.
“Yes.”
“What I didn’t tell you is that he owns his own ship.” Zach paused. “Actually, my family owns the entire shipping company.”
“And how is this a bad thing?”
He kissed her fingers. “The shipping company was begun by my great-great-grandfather. He made a fortune running slaves from Africa to the Caribbean.”
“The sin was your forefather’s, not yours.”
“I still thought you should know, before you agreed to marry me.”
She shook her head. “You haven’t asked what’s the worst thing about myself that I’ve never told you.”
The edges of his eyes crinkled, as if he were thinking about smiling. “All right. What is it?”
“I lied to you,” she said, settling her arms around his neck.
“You lied to me about a lot of things.” His hands spanned her waist, gripping her tightly. “Which particular one are you referring to?”
“When I told you I didn’t love you. I lied. I do love you. Desperately. I don’t know if it will last, but I want it to. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.”
He crushed her to him, his words a soft murmur against her ear. “That’s all I can ask for,” he said. Then he held her face in his hands, and kissed her mouth so softly and sweetly, she felt a sting of tears start in her eyes.
She supposed there would be times when his ways would anger her, just as there would be times when she would frustrate or perplex him. He was a man of war, hard and violent and not at all the kind of man she would ever have
thought she might love. Yet no matter what the future might bring, she knew she would never regret this moment, this decision.
Sometimes . . . sometimes, she thought, a woman needs to take a chance on love.
EPILOGUE
The steps to the attic of the house on St. Charles Avenue were narrow and winding, but the little girl clambered up them two at a time, the rubber soles of her untied sneakers making soft squishing noises on the worn old wooden boards. Behind her, her grandmother came more slowly, one gnarled hand braced against the roughly plastered wall for support.
At the top of the steps, the little girl threw open the door, then paused, going uncharacteristically still as she stared in awed silence at the half-forgotten jumble of broken chairs and shadeless lamps and old leather suitcases only vaguely discernible in the dim, dusty light.
“There,” said her grandmother, nodding toward the big, camelback trunk that stood in an embrasure created by one of the old house’s high gables. “That was hers.”
The little girl, whose name was Emmanuelle, ran across the floor to fall to her knees before the arched, wood-banded lid. “It looks like a treasure chest.” She glanced up, her eyes wide with excitement. “Did it used to belong to pirates?”
“No. Only my grandmother.” The climb had been hard on the woman’s knees, and she sighed as she sank down onto the fraying seat of a nearby caned stool. “Go on. Open it.”
Hinges squealed as the little girl carefully lifted the lid and peered inside. “What’s this?” she asked, lifting the worn and cracked black leather bag that rested on top of a jumble of ribbon-tied papers and faded, sepia-colored photographs.
The elderly woman leaned forward to take the heavy bag, and smiled. “This was my grandmother’s medical bag. She was one of the first women to be licensed as a doctor in the state of Louisiana, you know.”
The little girl nodded solemnly, for she’d heard the stories many times, although she never seemed to tire of them. “She’s the one who went to jail for fighting for women’s suf . . . suf . . .”
“Women’s suffrage. She was determined to live long enough to see women win the right to vote in this country, and she did.”
The little girl was rummaging again in the trunk. This time she came up with a large, cardboard-mounted photograph. “Look, Grandma. This must have been taken on the front steps of your house.” Squinting, she turned so that the light streaming through the dusty panes of the gabled window fell on the faded image. “Who are all these people?”
The elderly woman leaned forward, her cheek pressing against her granddaughter’s long dark hair. “That’s my grandmother and grandfather in the middle. I think it was taken on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Those are their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren around them.”
Eight-year-old Emmanuelle, who was an only child, sat back on her heels, her voice a stunned whisper. “They had a lot.”
Her grandmother smiled. “They were very much in love.”
Emmanuelle pointed to the thin, white-haired man who stood near the edge of the crowd, his weight balanced negligently on a crutch. “Who’s that man? He only has one leg.”
“That’s Uncle Antoine. We called him uncle, but he was actually a distant cousin of my grandmother’s first husband. He lost his leg in the war. My grandmother always used to say his wounds should have killed him, but he was just too stubborn to die.”
“Which war was that?”
“The one between the States, child.” Stooping, the elderly woman pushed aside a bundle of old letters with Parisian addresses, and carefully lifted a faded black felt hat, its ostrich plumes limp, the golden crossed swords on its crown now tarnished and threadbare. “This was my grandfather’s cavalry hat.”
Evidently, this was one story Emmanuelle hadn’t heard before. She sucked in her breath in a quick gasp. “He was a Yankee?”
“Mmmhmmm. Beast Butler’s provost marshal.” There was no need for the elderly woman to explain who the Beast was. Even a hundred years after the war, every schoolchild in New Orleans still knew—and reviled—the name of Spoons Butler. “After he married your great-great-grandmother, he rejoined his cavalry regiment.”
“And fought for the North?”
“Yes. But he left the army as soon as the war was over, and came back down here to set up a branch of his family’s shipping company in New Orleans.”
The little girl fell silent for a moment as she stared at the photograph of the proud, straight-backed woman who stood surrounded by her descendants, her husband’s hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “I’m glad I’m named after her,” Emmanuelle said suddenly. “She looks . . .”
The little girl paused while the elderly woman thought of all the words that could be used to describe the strong-willed, awe-inspiring woman who had been born Emmanuelle Maret. “How does she look, Emmanuelle?” prompted the little girl’s grandmother.
“Like she lived happily ever after.” Emmanuelle’s head fell back, her forehead crinkling as she stared questioningly up at her grandmother. “Did she?”
Her grandmother laughed. “Yes. Yes, I think you could say she did.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Until the beginning of the twentieth century, New Orleans was one of the unhealthiest places in North America to live. Yellow fever, typhoid, and malaria carried off thousands every year, which perhaps explains why the city became known, early, for its medical facilities. In fact, before the war, Louisiana was one of the few states that even bothered to license physicians.
Its unhealthy situation and climate notwithstanding, New Orleans at the outbreak of the Civil War was one of the nation’s largest and wealthiest cities, and four times larger than any other city in the South. It was a city with a rich mixture of cultures, the old Spanish and French elite having been joined in recent decades by a flood of immigrants from both Europe and the northern United States. Out of a population of almost 170,000, only 4,169 people in New Orleans—among them, Creoles, Yankees, immigrants, and even freemen of color—owned slaves in 1860. Almost half of the city’s 25,000 blacks were free, while Irish and German immigrants outnumbered those of African descent by almost two to one. This large population of immigrants formed a cheap—and expendable—workforce: At one point, over eight thousand Italians and Germans lost their lives digging the short, six-mile stretch of the New Basin Canal.
Perhaps it was this ever-present awareness of death that combined with a unique cultural blend to produce a city like no other. When General Benjamin Butler officially took control of New Orleans on May 1, 1862, he had little understanding of its people, and no idea of how to handle them. By the time he was recalled eight months later, his rapacity and venality had made him a rich man, but he never came close to subduing the spirit of the people of New Orleans.
Read on for a sneak peek at the next extraordinary novel by Candice Proctor coming from Ivy Books in Summer 2003
The surf broke on the offshore coral reef with a boom that was like a continuous, earth-shuddering volley of deadly cannon fire. Sometimes, Jack liked to climb the cliffs at the head of the bay and simply let the power of the crashing waves reverberate through him in a primitive, drumbeat-like evocation of eternity that made him feel both humble and, oddly, exhilaratingly free.
But at the moment, Jack Ryder had a headache, and the endless bloody boom-boom-boom of the surf was about to drive him out of his bloody mind. Too much kava, he told himself as he staggered out onto the pandanus-roofed veranda of his bungalow. Finding the water bucket he’d left near the steps still half full, he upended its contents over his head, the breath wheezing out of him as the surprisingly cool liquid coursed down his bare chest and back, for he wore only a sarong wrapped low, native style, around his hips, leaving his legs and feet bare.
Shaking his head like a wet dog, Jack opened his eyes and squinted against the fierce tropical sun that turned the wind-whipped ripples on the lagoon below into a blinding panoply of diamond flashes. For a moment, he tho
ught he saw a longboat striking toward his dock from the rusty old steamer riding at anchor in the bay. But then he thought, Nah, couldn’t be, and shut his eyes again.
Above the din of the distant surf, the gentle patter of footfalls on the path around the side of his bungalow was barely audible. “I was wondering when you’d make it out of bed,” said a young, cheerful voice.
Jack opened one eye, saw Patu’s shining, smiling face, and groaned. Jack thought about leaning against the wall behind him, but the problem with woven bamboo walls was that you couldn’t use them as a prop in a pinch. He went to sit at the top of the steps instead, and lowered his aching forehead to his updrawn knees.
“There’s talk about an Englishman named Granger looking for you,” said Patu. “Simon Granger, captain of the HMS Barracuda .”
“I’ve heard.”
“They say he wants to see you hanged. In fact, they say he’s sworn to see you hanged.”
“I’ve heard that, too.”
“You don’t seem too worried about it.”
“You think I should be worried?” Jack asked, looking up to find that Patu was no longer smiling.
“I would be.”
The boy had been with Jack for almost four years now. Patu said he was probably around fourteen or fifteen years old, although no one knew for certain, and he was so small and slight that he looked even younger. His mother was Tahitian, his father one of a long line of Englishmen who had sailed through the islands and made love to a dusky skinned, exotic beauty and then sailed away again. Most people thought Jack had adopted the boy, perhaps as some kind of atonement for the child Jack himself had once abandoned, but the truth was that Patu had adopted Jack.
“I think you’ve been around the papalagi too much,” Jack said now. “You need to go back to the lotus-eating islands of Polynesia, where the days are spent laughing and swimming, and the nights are for making soft, sweet love on palm-fringed, moonlit beaches.”
“Huh.” Patu came to sit on the step below Jack. Unlike Jack, Patu wore canvas trousers, an open-necked shirt, and shoes on his feet. “I think you musta done too much lotus-eating in your day.” It was the irony of their friendship that while Patu had attached himself to Jack in order to learn the ways of that long-vanished English officer, Jack was determined not to let the boy forget the other part of his heritage, the Polynesian part.
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