Beau pushed himself away from the post. “You’re right,” he said, his words resigned. No one else was out here to hear them, save for the river and the night insects. And yet, what he needed to tell her was so terrible, he almost wished he could speak the words into a box, seal it up, and bury it.
Faith clasped her hands together, standing pin straight. “Then, pray tell, what is the truth?”
This was worse than the moment before he shot Desroches, when he thought the man might kill him. It was worse than the aftermath, because despite the policemen telling him it was clear self-defense, a guilt darker and heavier than anything he could have imagined had settled itself into his soul.
“The truth is something I try not to think about, else it will consume me whole. I wanted to tell you, and yet I didn’t want you to know. I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t want to know myself, but that’s impossible.”
Faith raised her eyebrows as she crossed her arms over her chest. She was growing impatient.
Beau drew in a breath of warm, dry night air, far less heavy than the air that sat in New Orleans this time of year. And he told her the story of the card game, LeClere and Desroches, the accusations of cheating, the way the man came after him and pinned him to the wall, and the revolver in his jacket.
She listened without moving even a fraction of an inch. “He died,” she said when he paused.
“Yes.” It was almost as if he could see Desroches again, lying upon the floor of that overdressed bawdy house, the blood beginning to seep through his shirt and vest. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the image from his mind. “The police assured me it was self-defense. It was, and yet . . .” He let the words drift off into the air, across the river, and away to parts unknown.
“And yet you chose not to share this information with me. I am supposed to be your wife, but it appears I don’t know you at all.” Her voice shook just a little, as if the emotion were leaking through the carefully contained words.
“Faith, I’m sorry.” He stepped forward then, but she backed away. He stopped, extending his hands and hoping beyond hope she would come to him.
But she remained where she was, arms protecting herself from him.
“I can hardly bear to think on it myself; I feared how you’d see me if you knew.”
“That letter.” She nodded at the paper that had fallen to the floor of the porch. “I presume it has something to do with all of this?”
He eyed the yellowed sheet on the carefully swept wooden planks. He wanted to grind his heel into it until it disappeared from this world altogether. “Yes. The fellow I . . . Well, he had friends. Men of the sort no one cares to meet. They threatened me before, and I left. I thought that would be the end of it.”
“They’re the ones who entered your mother’s house,” Faith said. “And the ones who wrote this letter.”
He nodded, wishing more than anything she’d let him come closer to her. If he lost her, he didn’t know what he’d do. The fear rose behind all of the worries he had for Maman, even sharper and more urgent.
Faith moved past him, to the open door. She paused, one hand on the doorframe. “For your mother’s sake, I hope that letter is untrue.”
“Faith,” he said as the desperate feeling that if she went inside now, he would lose her forever rose into his throat. It drove him to take a step forward.
She held up a hand, effectively stopping him in place. “Leave me be. Please.”
Beau watched helplessly as she slipped inside and out of reach.
*****
Beau couldn’t sleep.
His pocketwatch read 4:10 a.m., and Beau doubted he’d slept a single moment. He’d finally given up and spent the last hour alternately pacing the room and sitting and staring into the cold fireplace.
Maman could be in danger.
And he’d likely lost Faith.
Beau sat on the edge of the settee and dropped his head into his hands. Faith had disappeared into her room after she’d come inside, and she hadn’t emerged. She hadn’t asked him to leave, but that was only a matter of time. He hadn’t told her the entire, ugly truth, and now she was not only angry about that, but disgusted by what he’d done.
She’d unwittingly married a murderer.
He pressed his fingers into his scalp. That’s what he was, whether he chose to dwell on it or not. It didn’t matter whether he’d done it only to save his own life—he’d still ended the life of another man. If he hadn’t made such poor choices, he wouldn’t have found himself in such a position to make that terrible decision.
But he had, and now he was paying for what he’d done.
Did they have Maman? It was impossible to know. He’d telegraphed the police in New Orleans last evening, only to receive a reply that it appeared no one was home. That meant nothing at all. Maman could be on her way here—or she could be held somewhere else in the city. The only thing it told him was that Desroches’ friends hadn’t moved into Maman’s home. He doubted they had her at the address they’d given him. It would be too easy for him to alert the police to go there. They were somewhere else, hidden away in the city.
