Tainted Love

by Nancy Morse

  His disbelieving laughter filled the room. “Can you be so blind? The bag, Prudence. How do you explain the bag I found in the armoire?”

  “You will say anything to malign him in the hope that I won’t fall in love with him. But it’s too late. I’m already in love with him. I love him. Do you hear me, Nicholas. I love him. For the first time in my life I’m in love, and I won’t allow you to ruin it for me.”

  His strange inhuman beauty looked distressed under the onslaught of her words. “He is a hunter,” he said weakly. “He can destroy you.”

  “You are the only thing that can destroy me,” she exclaimed. “You and your demon love.”

  Her barb hurt, as it was intended to do. There was a time when it wasn’t in her nature to be cruel. When had she acquired the ability to wound so deeply? Her insides shuddered with empathy, and for a moment she felt almost sorry for him. Blinking back the weakness, she leveled a long, hard look at him.

  He stood by the window, silhouetted against the light of the moon that shone through the panes of glass, looking melancholy—a dangerous misconception for one as wicked as he—his face pale, his green eyes darkened to icy shadows in the candlelight.

  “Have you anything else to say?” she said tersely.

  “Only this. I love you, Prudence. I would give my soul, if I had one, not to love you, for loving you has brought me nothing but heartache and pain.” He paused to weigh his words, his voice hardening. “But mark my words. The day will come when you will love me. All the mortal lovers in the world cannot give you what I alone can give you. One day you’ll realize that and come to me, and I’ll be waiting.”

  “I have told you before and I’ll say it again. I will never love you.”

  In a rush of wind that rustled the curtains he was standing before her. “Enough,” he said forcefully, taking her in his arms and seizing her face in one cruel hand. “Deny me the love I crave, but you will never deny me this.” He stroked her face and reached down into the bodice of her dressing gown to caress her heavy, full breasts and felt her quicken like lightning at his touch.

  She gasped when he buried his fingers in her hair and drew her head back for a savage kiss.

  Great shafts of evening light bathed the room and fell across the silken threads of the woven coverlet as he forced her to the bed.

  He took her with alarming suddenness while the candles sulked and sputtered within their bronze holders.

  When they were finished using each other for the carnal satisfaction they could derive nowhere else, he rose from the bed and straightened his trousers.

  “Remember that,” he said with a malicious grin, his molten green eyes fixed on her as she lay naked and panting on the bed, “the next time you fornicate with your pirate.”

  She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow. “Any animal can copulate.” Her voice was heavy with sated desire. “What does that have to do with love?” A sense of savage triumph swept through her at his wince, all but imperceptible except to one watching so closely.

  He strode across the room with panther-like grace, quick and deadly. “I will kill him if I must.”

  Pru’s voice stilled him at the door. “If you kill him, you kill me, as surely as it is possible to do so.”

  She heard him mutter under his breath before wrenching the door open and disappearing.

  After he was gone, she sank back onto the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. The fury that had flooded her earlier ebbed, and she felt herself dissolving into tears. This could not be happening. Of all the mortal men on earth, how was it possible that she had gotten involved with two hunters, first the pewterer, Edmund de Vere, and now the pirate, Stede Bonham? Long into the night she wrestled with her thoughts. Nicholas was jealous, that’s all. He would say and do anything to keep her to himself.

  She could not deny the pull he had on her. Never had she seen a man more beautiful. The moonlight caressed his face, etching his cheekbones, sharpening the strong line of his jaw, brightening the emerald of his eyes. His thick, black hair felt like ribbons of silk in her grasping fingers. And that mouth that brought her such infinite satisfaction, beautiful whether it bore a smile or a sneer. Sex with him was like no other, hard, driving, punishing sex that awakened every nerve and made her cry out like a wounded animal. It was lust at its most primal.

  And yet, lust was not love. Lust was for the moment. Love was forever. Or at least that’s how it was supposed to be. How she envisioned it with Stede Bonham.

  But what if what Nicholas said was true, and Stede really was a member of the Sanctum? There had to be a way to find out. She could reveal her true nature to him to test his reaction, but if he was a hunter, it could very well mean a stake driven into her heart. Even asking subtle questions might arouse his suspicions and put her in jeopardy. If only he were in love with her. Men in love often overlooked a woman’s shortcomings. But judging from what he’d said the night she was at his house, he wasn’t likely to fall in love so easily. She had to find a way to make him fall in love with her.

  In a fit of despair she got up and went to the window and watched as one by one the candles and whale oil lamps in the houses along Rue Bourbon went out. She felt lost and lonely. Soon it would be dawn, but not even the light of day could chase away the bleakness she felt within.

  She moved back from the window, the darkness following her, and threw herself down on the bed and wept into her pillow. Eventually, she fell into a sleep so deep it had a sound of its own.

  Shafts of pale sunlight poured through the tall leaded window, pooling on the floor. With the new day came the answer to Pru’s heartache, and it was Nicholas who had unwittingly provided it.

  Chapter 10

  Overhead, the sky faded from blue to pale violet. The twilight air was sultry and oppressive and scented with the pink and white blooms of oleander as Pru made her way through the narrow, muddy streets of the Vieux Carre where the remains of a few of the old French houses with their sloped roofs and cracked plaster stood between the Spanish facades.

  She found the cottage on Rue Ste. Anne, a few steps from Rue du Rampart and Congo Square. It sat low to the ground and had a roof of red tiles. Banana and fig trees afforded a degree of privacy from the alley that was crisscrossed with lines of cord for hanging laundry. A tangled growth of rose bushes gave the place an untamed appearance.

  When her rap upon the door brought no response, she followed a flagstone path to the rear of the cottage, where the aroma of marjoram and bay leaves drifted into the air from a small brick building whose window glass was broken and patched with cloth. Drawing in a supportive breath, she balled her fist and knocked on the door.

  The woman who answered did not have the demonic appearance of the powerful voodooienne Pru had witnessed in the bayou. She wore an ankle-length skirt made from an assortment of colorful kerchiefs sewn together. A heavy cord of blue twined kerchiefs was knotted at her waist. Her dark curly hair was tucked into a bright red tignon, the ends knotted high atop her head. Huge golden hoops swung from her lobes and bracelets of gold jangled at her wrists.

  At the sight of the white woman with unusually pale skin she recoiled, her ringed hand going to her throat as if to catch a breath. “You are not the slave who comes to clean my cottage,” she said.

  Pru suppressed a tremble at the weight of those black eyes upon her. “Madame Sejour, I would like to engage your services.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “To fashion your hair, perhaps? That is what I do for the white women.”

  Pru shook her head.

  The look on that beautiful black face changed from suspicion to curiosity. “Come in.” The bells she wore at her ankles tinkled as she led the way inside. She gestured to a cypress table laden with sweet potatoes, collard greens and a basket of fresh eggs, and pulled out a chair whose seat was stuffed with Spanish moss and horsehair, and said brusquely, “You can sit.”

  Pru sat down and glanced around as she unloosened the strings of her bonnet.r />
  Copper kettles simmered inside the open hearth. Atop the mantle was a breadbox and a pair of globes housing brass candlesticks. A live chicken roamed the room, head bobbing as it clucked. Two blue jays squawked inside a bird cage hung from the beamed ceiling. A butter churn and sugar chest stood on either side of a beehive oven. The kitchen was filled with the smell of baked bread, beans bubbling in the kettle, red hot coals, and the voodoo queen’s spicy perfume.

  The woman bent to retrieve a pot from the back of the oven. “I put the beans in here so that they cook slowly overnight.” Drawing out the pot, she hung it over the coals in the hearth.

  The cooking fire glowed red along her face. She looked for all the world like a simple Creole woman sweating over a pot of red beans and rice. But Pru knew better than to be misled. Into her mind sprang the image of the woman who had danced to the beat of the drums in the misty bayou and then ripped out the heart of a man. But it was more than the power of a voodoo queen that cautioned Pru to tread carefully. It was the tale of an ancient witch who had been sacrificed on a stone alter when the world was young, a witch with the power to suck the life out of a mortal’s body, a witch who held the key to reclaiming a lost soul. The witch’s name hovered like a coward on the periphery of Pru’s consciousness, fearful of forming into cogent thought. Her eyes never left the woman. Did the ancient witch now inhabit the body of Sabine Sejour, the voodoo queen, as she suspected?

  “I make them myself,” Sabine said when she turned and caught Pru staring. “My tignon. I see you are admiring it.”

  Pru met the woman’s black eyes and did not flinch. “It’s lovely.”

  “There was a time when the white ladies did not like to see the gens de coleur libres with diamonds and pearls woven into their beautiful hair,” she said as she turned back to the pot of beans and stirred it with a long iron spoon. “Gifts from their wealthy white gentlemen. So it was decreed that a woman of color must wear the tignon. Most are of cotton, but I make mine of fine silk. I think they make us look even more beautiful.” She lifted her head proudly as she spoke, lengthening the smooth column of her neck, her delicately chiseled features gleaming by the light of the fire.

  “But you did not come to my cottage to admire my tignons.” She flicked a look at Pru from over a slender shoulder. “And you are much too well bred to dine on red beans and rice.”

  “On the contrary,” Pru said. “Our servant prepares it for us every Monday. It is one of my papa’s favorite dishes.”

  “Your papa, he is Creole?”

  Inwardly, Pru went aghast at having spoken without thinking. If Sabine was the witch, would she remember the old English music master whose life she attempted to drain for the unpardonable sin of creating beautiful music? “No. He is not.”

  Sabine set the spoon aside, turned around, and padded across the brick floor in bare feet, kicking the chicken out of her way as she did. With an indignant squawk and a flurry of feathers it landed across the room. Coming close to Pru, she asked, “Have we met before?”

  Tossing someone through a window wasn’t nearly as memorable as tearing a man’s heart out, Pru thought with veiled disgust. “I don’t see how that’s possible. We only recently arrived in New Orleans.”

  “And where did you live before this?”

  “Paris.”

  “That does not sound like a French accent to me. More like English.”

  “Yes, we are English.” She caught the breath in her throat. An inner voice cautioned against revealing too much to this witch in Creole clothing.

  “You do have a familiar look about you, though,” Sabine said, her look guarded.

  Pru forced a laugh. “The English all look alike.”

  “Eh, bien, at least you are not a stupide American. They are so crude and bad-mannered. All they care about is making money.” She raised a suspicious brow. “What do you care about, eh? Why are you here?”

  “I am in need some gris-gris.”

  Sabine’s dark eyes brightened. “Ah, a voodoo client. The whites come to me for oils and powders and my little bags. What is it you desire?”

  “A love potion.”

  Her look soured, and she said disapprovingly, “So, you have a young man and would like him to fall madly in love with you.”

  Pru inclined her head, feigning shyness. “I would like that very much.”

  “Are you in love with him?”

  “I think so.”

  “An honest answer for one as cunning as yourself.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, I think you do. Tell me, do you wish the potion to make your young man fall in love with you or to distract him when you bite him?”

  “Madame Sejour, what are you suggesting?”

  “Do not deny it. You are a blood drinker. I knew it the instant you walked through my door.”

  Nicholas was right when he said the witch would know her for what she was. But it also confirmed that she did not recognize her as the music master’s daughter, because the young woman hurled through the window that terrible night had been very much mortal. Feeling bolder, Pru said, “I cannot help what I am.” Unlike the witch, she caused no harm to innocents. “I want only for a certain man to fall in love with me.”

  “Men are such pitiful creatures. Often, they are blind to a woman’s flaws and will overlook even the most obvious ones. It would serve him right if you drained him of every drop of blood.”

  Aunt Vivienne had once voiced a similar disparaging remark about men, minus the part about blood. Of course, it hadn’t been Aunt Vivienne at all, but this loathsome entity that harbored a hatred of all men since the night centuries ago in ancient Dubh Lein when she’d been sacrificed at the hands of men.

  “I have no intention of draining him of his blood. I want only for him to love me as a man loves a woman.”

  “Love,” Sabine huffed. “It is a sickness worse than yellow fever and the cholera. Ach! I would take the fever’s convulsions any day to the pain of falling in love.”

  “Be that as it may, will you make the potion for me?”

  “I will make it for a price. Come back in two days and you will have your potion.”

  Pru hesitated. “It is not enough that he should desire my body. I want him to fall deeply in love with me, so much in love that he would never hurt me.”

  “I will make the potion and he will fall in love, but there is no potion that can protect you from love’s pain.”

  “I will take my chances,” Pru said, turning to leave.

  “Does your young man know what you are?” Sabine asked as she walked with Pru to the door.

  “No, he does not.”

  “And will you tell him?”

  “Perhaps, one day, when I am certain of his love.”

  Sabine opened the door and sniffed the air. “The fever comes at this time of year. Last year it was very bad. People walked with pale lips and feverish eyes. And the dead were everywhere. Everyone kept their doors shut and their windows sealed with tar paper. The rich fled to their plantations. I was so busy making my little bags of camphor and herbs for protection, there was no time for grief. I would make you one, but your kind does not fear sickness, eh?” She cocked her head at the sound of tom-toms reverberating from the square. “The dancing has begun.”

  “You must be eager to join them. I’m sorry for keeping you,” Pru said as she stepped outside.

  “I do not dance in Congo Square,” Sabine said, her eyes flashing with fire. “I do my dancing in the bayou.”

  Oh yes, Pru thought with a shiver, your dancing and your killing.

  Sabine walked outside in her bare feet to the edge of the alley way and looked toward the sound from which the drumbeats were coming. “The French feared an uprising and prevented the slaves from assembling. Slaves were not even permitted off their plantations. The Spanish governors were no better. But now, with the Americans everywhere, the slaves can dance.” She chuckled.” Maybe the Americans are not so stupide after all,
eh? They let the slaves dance to keep them content with their lot. Have you seen the dancing?”

  “No, I have not.”

  “You will find them dancing on Rue du Rampart or Rue Orleans. Even the old brickyard on Rue Dumaine. But try Congo Square. It attracts almost as many white watchers as dancers. That is where you will find Squier, the Bamboula dancer. Go now, and return in two days for your potion.”

  “You are more than kind, Madame,” Pru forced herself to say. She turned to leave, but before she could take a step, the voodoo queen’s voice whispered at her ear.

  “Be careful, blood-drinker,” she warned, her voice vibrating with menace. “There are those who live only to destroy you. Some are closer than you think.”

  The mist was beginning to roll in from the river as Pru walked along the street in the pale light. The voodoo queen’s words beat in her mind like the drums coming from Congo Square. There are those who live only to destroy you. Some are closer than you think. Was the woman alluding to herself? Pru had not failed to notice the way Sabine had recoiled upon first seeing her, in much the same way Aunt Vivienne had recoiled at the sight of Nicholas. And Sabine Sejour was a beautiful woman. Hadn’t Nicholas told her that Lienore chose only the beautiful ones to inhabit? But what if Nicholas was right and the hunter who could destroy her was Stede Bonham? Her only hope was that Stede would not harm her if he loved her. Oh yes, she would return in two days for the love potion. First, she would gain Stede’s love, and then she would find a way to get Lienore-Sabine to chant the words to reclaim her soul and restore her mortal state.

  The slaves assembled beneath the sycamores in the square, the men strutting in the cast-off finery of their masters, the women wearing dotted calico and brightly colored Madras tignons. The dancers were performing a calinda, the men whirling to the rhythm of the drums, the women with hips and shoulders swaying and feet barely moving. The movements looked eerily similar to what Pru had witnessed in the bayou, part primitive dance from the African jungle, part contre-danses of the French. But there was little chance here of anyone having their heart ripped from their body.