“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.
Chapter Two
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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.