Was it possible there was something in the perfume that could kill? Perhaps the same thing that could enslave?
No, no, it didn’t make sense. Elene herself had used it longer than any, and she was not dead.
She had been ill.
Fever, she had had yellow fever.
Suppose it wasn’t? Suppose it was simply that some people were weaker or more susceptible to the deadly ingredient than others? Or that some of the bottles had more of it, whatever it might be?
Suppose that the perfume Devota had made for her in Saint-Domingue was different from that they had made together in New Orleans? There had been that extra something Devota had added to the perfume mixture while she herself was gone from the room.
She was being foolish. Hermine and Mazent and Serephine had been killed by arsenic, not some secret Voudou concoction. Everyone agreed that was the cause of death.
What if they were wrong?
What if there was poison in the perfume, a decoction of arsenic that was absorbed through the skin to kill like the white lead of the face powder used by actresses? If that was possible, there might be other deaths. Unless Germaine had told the truth about the breaking of the perfume bottle, she could be the next to die. Or else whoever it was that had stolen Madame Pitot’s bottle.
If that were possible, then the full weight of responsibility for so many deaths must lie on Elene’s shoulders, for she was the one who had insisted on making the ill-fated scent.
Oh, but what possible reason could Devota have for putting such a thing into the perfume? With her knowledge of plants and herbs, it could hardly be an accident.
It might be possible that some container, either at the apothecary’s shop or wherever Devota had gotten the extra scents she needed, had been labeled wrong; that could happen to anyone. Devota had no cause to set out to kill anyone, least of all Elene herself.
Was that really true?
There had been many mulattoes in the slave quarters on Saint-Domingue who had risen to kill those related to them by blood in the big houses. Devota was half-white, half-black, something that could not be forgotten, however much they both might try. Because of her blood, she was forever relegated to the life of a servant. No, not a servant; that was a polite euphemism. Devota was Elene’s slave.
If Elene died, Devota would be without a mistress. Elene had no heirs to receive her property, had no legal document stating its dispensation, and with the colony of Louisiana in such a ferment of change, the government might well forget to take possession of her estate, which consisted entirely of one slave, Devota. Thousands had been killed on Saint-Domingue to ensure freedom for those enslaved.
Still, what earthly purpose could she have had for killing Hermine? Or Mazent, for that matter?
Did there have to be a purpose beyond the color of their skin? Could it have been that random? Serephine, however, was her own kind. Surely she would not have harmed her.
Such terrible suspicions to be forced to entertain, and all because of a memorable perfume. It was enough, almost, to make her wish never to smell it again.
There was a decision to be made. Elene could do nothing, and hope that she was wrong, that the deaths which had occurred had nothing whatever to do with her or her perfume. Or she could try to discover what Devota had put in the mixture they had made, to test the extent of Devota’s guilt and her own responsibility. She was horribly tempted to do the first. If she had caused the death of innocent people, she did not think she could bear knowing it. Nonetheless, she must know. The chance that she might save others demanded it.
Elene moved along the gallery in search of Devota. She could hear her humming somewhere, a rich, tuneful melody tinged with melancholy. She followed it to the dressing room off Ryan’s bedchamber.
The maid sat on a stool mending a small three-corner tear in the sleeve of one of Ryan’s shirts. Her head was bent over her work as her needle flashed in and out, and the expression on her soft brown face was absorbed, intent on the job at hand. Her tignon was snowy white, but shot with blue silk thread, and her dress of blue chambray had been carefully starched and ironed. Neat, competent, industrious, she was the picture of the perfect servant.
“Devota?”
The woman looked up, startled. “Chère! You will give me a heart attack, sneaking up on me like that. Why didn’t you call if you wanted me, or send that no-good Benedict?”
“There was something I wanted to ask you, in private.”
The smile faded from Devota’s face as she surveyed Elene’s features. She knotted her thread and snapped it off, then shook out the shirt she held before laying it aside. She got to her feet. “Yes, chère?”
“It’s about the perfume.” A tight knot formed in Elene’s throat, clogging speech. She looked at this woman she had known all her life, and the question she was about to ask seemed so wounding an insult she could not bring herself to give it voice.
Devota gave a slow nod. “I have been waiting, wondering when you would ask.”
“Have you? Then it can’t be true, you can’t have put anything in it that would kill. I knew you couldn’t have.”
The maid’s eyes widened with shock. “Kill!”
“I thought you were expecting—”
“Never! Never did I think you would ask such a thing!”
“It had to be done. People are dying, people who have had contact with our perfume. I can’t ignore that.”
“You think I killed them? I? Why should I do that? Tell me why!”
Never could Elene remember Devota being so belligerent. Never had she heard her raise her voice so high or seen such wrath in her black eyes. Evasively, she said, “I don’t know why.”
“I think you do. I think that like all whites these days, you look at the color of my skin and you see an enemy. You forget what has gone before, all the years of love. All you see is black, black, black!”
“Three people are dead! What I want is to know how it happened and who did it. Don’t you understand? If it was something in the perfume, I have to know. I have to, because if it was, I’m to blame. I helped to kill them.”
Devota stared at her, her face calming. “Oh, God, chère. Oh, my dearest God.”
So intent were they on each other that they did not hear the quiet footsteps as Benedict entered the room. The clearing of his throat had the sound of thunder. He said, “There was nothing in the perfume.”
Elene swung on him with jangling nerves. “What do you know of it?”
“Nothing whatever, except that I have smelled this scent in the house night and day. I know this woman of yours is not such a person as could kill others by stealth, at random, the guilty and innocent alike. She has no such hate in her. She might kill in anger, but not otherwise.”
Devota looked at the tall, thin man with his impassive face through narrowed eyes. “I thank you, I’m sure.”
“I rather thought you would,” Benedict said, and bowed.
For an instant there was something vital, almost tangibly alive, in the air between the two servants. Then Devota turned to Elene.
“I will bring you what is left of the perfume. You will do with it as you will. Test it. Taste it. Use it. Pour it away. I don’t care. It was made for you, for your aid and pleasure. It has nothing to do with me.”
Devota left the room. Benedict melted away in silence behind her. Elene also moved from the dressing room, though she was hardly aware of what she was doing.
In the center of the connecting bedchamber, she stopped. She stood staring down at the mille-fleur pattern of the Flemish carpet in red and blue and gold with blank concentration. It did not help. Beyond Devota, there was Madame Tusard to suspect of these terrible deeds, and after her, no one.
Devota swept into the bedchamber with the remaining bottles of perfume in her hands. She set them down on the table nearest Elene, next to the bed, then turned away.
“Wait,” Elene said. “I mean no insult, no slight, but there is one more thing I must know.�
��
“Yes?” The word was stiff with hurt feelings.
“Is there no way, by accident or design, that anything harmful could have been put in the perfume without you knowing?”
“Perfume is all odor, a collection of pure essences both weak and strong. To those who have the nose to smell, any least thing added or subtracted changes the ultimate bouquet in greater or lesser measure. There can be no arsenic in this scent, for it smells of garlic and would overpower all other scents. So it is with most other things I know that might cause harm. Therefore, it cannot be. Cease torturing yourself, chère; you have no blame.”
“What is this? What’s going on?”
It was Ryan who asked, pushing into the room in time to hear Devota’s last words. Elene’s head came up as she turned to face him. “It was nothing.”
“I don’t think so. What is it about the perfume now? Has it suddenly gained the power to make the bureaucrats in Paris move faster? Or has it persuaded Salcedo and Morales to love the Americans so much they are offering apologies for abuses?”
His tone was bantering, but hard with impatience. It was also annoying. “Nothing so beneficial,” Elene said in caustic tones. “I was attempting to ease my mind on its role in these murders.”
Ryan made a curt, dismissive gesture toward Devota who went out and closed the door. Moving toward Elene, he passed her and went to lean against the end of the high mattress of the bed with his arms crossed over his chest and his booted feet crossed at the ankle. With deliberation, he said, “I believe I had better hear more of this.”
She explained as succinctly as possible, though as she spoke, she grew more and more attuned to how utterly beyond rational thought were the things she was saying. Still, she had to go on to the end in spite of her faltering logic, in spite of the flush of mortification that rose to her cheekbones as she saw the disbelief in his hawk-like face.
“You think,” he said slowly when she was done, “that this perfume of yours can not only make men behave in ways entirely contrary to their natures, but also cause disease and even death?”
“Not just the perfume itself, but something in it. There have always been whispers that poison was behind the ability of the priests and priestesses of the Voudou to wish death on a person. I know it sounds crazy, but I thought Devota could have — that is, that she might have wanted revenge or else been paid to cause those deaths. I don’t know exactly what I thought, if you must have the truth. It just seemed a possibility that could not be ignored.”
“Because, if it were so, you were at fault.”
She made a quick, embarrassed gesture, looking away from him toward the mosquito netting that draped the head of the bed. “Something like that.”
“You would be at fault because Devota was your slave.”
“Yes, and my responsibility.”
He pushed away from the bed, coming erect, and caught her arms in his hands. He drew her so close that she had to press her hands against his chest to prevent herself from falling against him.
“Once and for all,” he said quietly, “your perfume has no magic powers, for good or ill. It’s a nice smell, that’s all.”
She lifted her head to meet the clear blue of his eyes without evasion. “How can you know?”
“I know. The need I have for you comes from inside me, not from a few drops of liquid out of a bottle. It’s in my heart and mind and the part of me that longs to sink, hot and firm, inside you. Your perfume is no threat to me. I am no woman’s slave, not even yours, though I want you enough now, this minute, to give up my best hope of freedom in exchange for an hour in your arms. But I can walk away from you if need be. I can leave you, not without regret, but certainly without endangering my life or mangling my soul beyond repair. I don’t need you to live.”
His words dropped like acid into her mind, burning, eating away at her pride. The confidence in his tone brought the rise of rage. Her gray eyes dark with a mixture of pain and disdain, she said, “If you are so sure, then why don’t you go?”
“I will.”
“What?” She was so close to him she could feel the heat of his need, the taut muscles of his thighs. Underneath her hands spread over his chest, his heart thudded in mute denial of his calm words.
“I will prove that I can go. I leave for Washington City as soon as I can make ready, to bring back the official authorization for the double transfer of Louisiana. I go at Laussat’s request, to hasten this long, drawn-out process of change from one country to another, but also to convince you that I can.”
“All right, go then!”
She tried to wrench away from his grasp, but it was useless. He pulled her closer, encircling her in his hard embrace so that her breasts were flattened against his chest. He smoothed one hand down her back to clasp the curve of her hip while he lowered his gaze to the pink and moist surface of her lips that were parted with her quickened breathing.
“Ah, no, not without a last whiff of perfume and a proper and passionate farewell. Where would be the glory in riding away without that? Where would be the victory?”
It was a challenge, one Elene was loath to accept, but one her heart could not refuse. She flung herself against him as he pulled her closer, straining on tiptoe to meet the hard force of his kiss. Her lips trembled as they conformed to his firm demand, but she would not lessen the hard pressure of her own that bruised them both. She slid her hands up behind his head, tangling her fingers in his hair, clasping the corded strength of his neck. She thrust her breasts against him until they ached, and writhed her hips in slow and agonizing need so that the heated softness of her cradled the hard form of his maleness.
He caught a harsh breath. With hands that had lost their usual dexterity, he slipped the buttons of her gown from their holes and drew it from her shoulders along with her wide-necked camisole. She aided him, sliding the garments to her waist, loosening the tape of her pantaloons and single petticoat, letting them fall. Then moving close to him once more, she pulled his shirt from his breeches and unbuttoned their front flap while he dragged his shirt off over his head in swift divestment. As he levered off his boots, she kicked out of her own slippers. Then she hoisted herself onto the bed, where she began to unfasten her garters.
Ryan stopped her with a swift gesture as he stripped his breeches free and slung them aside. In magnificent nakedness, he moved to stand between her knees, spreading them wider as he released her garters one after the other, then peeled the silk of her stockings down over her knees and calves. He knelt to press his lips to the ticklish and smooth turns of her knees, then trailed moist fire along the sensitive inner surface of her thighs to their juncture. He toppled her backward onto the mattress with a deliberate push as he directed his attention there, and Elene, suffused with lovely wanton pleasure, let herself fall.
She should protest, should do something to regain the initiative, but she was lost in delight and difficult, painful fatalism. If this was the last time, and it might well be, men let it be special, a loving to remember.
His touch fired the blood in her veins to hot and thunderous desire. Like a scalding cataract, it poured through her, coalescing in the core of her being to form a whirlpool with an aching emptiness at its center. Nothing mattered except to have him fill it.
When he stood up, she reached for him, but he did not join her. Instead, he stepped to the side table and picked up one of the perfume bottles that sat there. Removing the stopper, he turned toward the bed.
Elene’s eyes widened. She sat up, turning to her side and lifting her legs onto the bed. Her voice husky, she said, “What are you doing?”
“The test would not be complete without this, now would it?” He hefted the bottle so that a few droplets of the scented liquid splattered over the lip. It dripped onto his fingers and fell to the sheet, releasing its familiar fragrance on the air.
It was disturbing that he was so detached while desire pulsed heated and uncontrolled under her skin. She moistened her lips. “I su
ppose not.”
“Then lie back down.”
She did as he directed while he placed a knee on the mattress, raising himself up on to the bed. The moment she lay flat, he sprinkled the perfume over her, beginning between her breasts and ending at her knees. Quickly, before the trickling rivulets could escape, he massaged the precious liquid into her skin with sweeping strokes, kneading the scent into the white mounds of her breasts, the narrow sides of her waist and the flat surface of her abdomen; into the fine-spun triangle of gold at the apex of her legs, and over the slender flair of her hips and the delicate white skin of her inner thighs. A shiver of reaction ran over Elene, and he smiled with bright and tender resolution before he lowered his body to cover hers.
His weight pressing her into the softness of the moss-filled mattress was welcome, gratifying in some manner to her sensitized skin. Their contours meshed, hardness and softness, in a perfect, if not quite complete, union. The odor of the perfume rose around them, heated by their bodies to a cloying richness. It blended with their own scents, male and female, to produce a mind-drugging ambience. He moved upon her, spreading the delicate oils that dewed her body over his own, absorbing it even as his prickling body hair, the hard contours of his chest and ridged thighs, sent frissons of delight spiraling through her. They glided together, titillating each other with gentle nudges, enthralled by the burgeoning, engulfing grandeur. Elene could feel the jarring of his heart, the taut strength of the control he imposed upon himself. She endured it, revering him for it, until on a crest of joy, she eased her thighs apart and took him inside her in a sweet, liquid slide.
The shock of fevered excitement rippled through her. She was suffused with it, so that a strangled cry caught in her throat and she arched her back to rise against him. He met her need, striving, driving deep and deeper still with infinite strength and inflexible will. She absorbed the jolting force of his strokes as her senses expanded. Her breath was ragged, gasping in her ears. Her heartbeat thudded in a wild rhythm. Still, she was held, firm and secure in his arms.
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