Paul followed his friend’s gaze; he paled, crossing himself. “The wife?”
“Dead,” Julian confirmed dully, stepping farther into the room.
Paul followed him, whistling under his breath. “Nom de Dieu! You mean the miscreant was out debauching, while his wife was—”
“Yes,” Julian finished. He nodded toward the far bedroom. “There’s a child, too—a daughter aged nine. Still asleep, I presume.”
“This is horrible, mon ami,” Paul said passionately. Setting the statement down on the dresser, he touched his friend’s sleeve. “But not at all your fault.”
Julian laughed bitterly, his eyes full of guilt. “Not my fault! Whatever way you put it, man, it was my hand that killed Brendan O’Shea!”
Both men were so involved in the conversation that neither had seen the small child stealing into the room. “Papa!” Mercy O’Shea exclaimed. “Papa is dead?”
The two men whirled, both wearing stunned expressions. Mercy was glaring at Julian with all the vengeance of hell gleaming in her green eyes. “Dear, I must explain,” he began lamely.
But Mercy was already enraged, and beyond hearing him. “Papa is dead and you killed him, m’sieur?” She whirled to the bed. “Mama, this man has—” And then, in horror, she screamed, “Mama!”
The scene that followed was the stuff of Julian’s nightmares for many months to come. Young Mercy raced to her mother’s side and beseeched the dead woman piteously, hysterically, demanding to know why she wouldn’t answer, why her hand was so cold, why she wouldn’t wake up. When Julian tried to pull her away, Mercy lashed out at him, kicking and screaming and calling him a murderer.
At last, Paul Rillieux took the child from Julian. The magistrate staggered under the weight of Mercy’s surprisingly strong blows. “What are we to do with her, Julian?”
Julian’s crazed eyes met his friend’s. “Take her to the Gray Ladies at Ursuline Academy. I’ll assume all financial responsibility. And while you’re gone”—his anguished gaze shifted to what remained of Corrine O’Shea—“I’ll see to things here.”
“Bien, mon ami,” Paul replied, carrying the flailing, sobbing child from the room.
Julian would never forget Mercy’s small fist waving over Paul’s shoulder as he carried her out, or the hatred and the tears shining in her bright green eyes as she screamed out at him again, “Murderer! I hate you, m’sieur! I shall hate you for the rest of my life!”
The words echoed through the walls of the unholy purgatory that had already closed around Julian Devereux’s heart.
Chapter Three
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New Orleans, 1851
Sitting in the elegant dining room of his town house on Royal Street, Julian Devereux scowled at the terse missive he had just received from the mistress of St. Mary’s School:
Monsieur Devereux:
I must see you at once on a matter of great urgency concerning your ward, Mercy O’Shea.
Mother Anise Simone
With a fierce sigh, Julian tossed the letter aside and took a sip of his cafe au lait. His breakfast of couscous and Cajun sausages lay untouched on the fine Paris china plate. He wondered what the “matter of great urgency” concerning Mercy could be. Certainly, the girl was a handful, had always been a trial for the good sisters. Still, she was shaping into a comely young woman.
Quite a comely young woman, he amended wryly. Too bad she still hated him.
Julian strode into the parlor and over to the window draped in mauve velvet and Belgian lace. His was a masterful figure, with the hard-muscled, robust physique of full manhood. He wore an impeccable brown velvet frock coat, a pleated linen shirt, a black silk cravat, and fawn-colored trousers tucked into gleaming black boots.
At twenty-nine, Julian sported not a streak of gray in his thick, jet-black hair; his features were hard-chiseled and arresting. Yet his blue eyes had lost the warm, trusting glow of youth; instead they gleamed with the penetrating cynicism of a man who had lost his illusions.
He idly watched a cala lady go by, chanting in her patois, entreating the passersby to buy the delicacies piled high on her sumptuous tray. He observed a dray lumbering past, loaded with sacks of grain. In the distance he could hear the sweet peal of the cathedral bells. The mid-May morning was still cool, and the scents drifting in the window were those intrinsic to New Orleans—French bread and Creole sauces, mingled with the ever-present odor of garbage rotting in the streets and the slight saltiness of the air.
He’d best go to St. Mary’s Parish House, he thought wearily, and see what tempest in a teapot the girl had stirred up this time. Mercy’s education at the convent was pretty much concluded anyway, and he must start thinking about her future.
His mind drifted back to the tragic time when he’d first met Mercy. There had been so many changes, he mused, since that fateful night nine years ago when the girl had first come into his life. Following the demise of both of her parents, Julian had taken responsibility for the child. The municipal court of the Vieux Carré District, headed by his friend, Paul Rillieux, had been only too eager to dispose of the matter of Mercy, and had swiftly granted Julian’s petition and appointed him her guardian. Julian had established her with the Gray Ladies at Ursuline Academy, and later on with the Sisters of Charity at St. Mary’s School. He’d seen that she never lacked for anything. At first, she’d treated him with blatant hostility, then with cold suspicion, and finally with a grudging, detached respect that he knew mirrored a deeper, still-simmering animosity.
In due course, Mother Anise had told the girl the official version of how her father had died—ostensibly in a fight in a grogshop—and how the authorities had held her guardian, Julian Devereux, blameless. No matter. To Mercy O’Shea, Julian would always be the man who had murdered her father.
It was ironic, he thought. The girl still believed her father had died in a barroom brawl. To this day, she had no idea that Brendan O’Shea had also been a murderer—
For the minor wound Brendan had inflicted on Genevieve Dupree had putrefied, and, two weeks later, she had died of blood poisoning. Even now, Julian’s eyes gleamed with remembered anguish. Genevieve had known she was dying, and she had been terrified—beautiful, young, helpless, burning alive with the fever, sobbing piteously in his arms. And there had been nothing—nothing—Julian could do to save her.
Genevieve’s passing had shattered Julian’s youthful idealism forever . . .
Afterward, he had gone through a black period, for several years living the life of a rakehell. He’d gambled, womanized, and even fought duels beneath the Oaks. He’d quickly gained the reputation of “Julian the Terrible.” Indeed, a number of Belle New Orleans’s fairest sons had actually crossed the street to avoid his path, for soon his hair-trigger temper had become legendary.
Then Julian’s existence as a libertine had been brought up short when his father had suddenly died of a heart attack, and Julian had been forced to manage the family’s cotton commission exchange and supervise his mother’s affairs. A few months later, he had spotted lovely Justine Begué at a quadroon ball on Chartres Street; at once he’d been captivated by the beautiful octoroon. He’d installed her in a lavish bungalow on the Ramparts, and they now had a son together, four-year-old Arnaud.
A proud light gleamed in Julian’s eyes at the thought of his child. Ah, how he loved the boy. His son would lack for nothing, ever; and when Arnaud became a man, Julian would see to it that he walked among Creole society as a peer.
As for Justine . . . He sighed, his heart welling with tenderness toward her, and deep regret. At one time, when he’d discovered Justine was pregnant, he’d even considered marrying her. But here in New Orleans—alas, the die was cast. In the society in which he lived, she could be his mistress—but never his wife. Marrying Justine would have meant fleeing with her to France, away from the restrictive laws and customs here. It would have meant turning his back on his family forever. Indeed, when Julian had dared to broach the subject of marriage to Justine with his mother, she had threatened never to speak to him again, and even Justine had prevailed upon him to see reason.
“Is there anything you need, maître?” a voice now called from the doorway.
Julian turned to face Henrí. Over past years, he had come to depend increasingly on the man—as coachman, personal servant, and even as confidant. He and Henrí were about the same age, and Julian had often mused that the incident at Sophie Delgado’s bordello nine years ago had somehow bonded the two of them.
“I’ll be needing the carriage shortly, Henrí,” Julian replied. “It seems I’ve been summoned to St. Mary’s School.”
“I’ll bring the coach around at once.”
“Some nonsense about my ward, Mercy O’Shea,” Julian continued conversationally. “I’ll swear, she’s as much trouble at eighteen as she was at nine.”
Henrí wisely did not comment directly. Instead he said, “You do not see the girl much of late.”
Julian’s eyes narrowed. “That’s true. But then, she’s indifferent to my presence. She always has been.”