Delphine was young yet and beautiful. As a widow with a tragic story, she would have no trouble finding another husband, a superior husband. Marguerite would see to it. Their ties to this godless, godforsaken island had been severed completely. Together she and Delphine would leave this place; they would make a fresh start in—not France, not till that revolt had been quelled. Charleston; yes, Charleston, in one or other of the Carolinas. Matthieu had an uncle who was a merchant there.
Marguerite sucked her fingers clean and passed Guillaume’s body as quickly as possible. She reached the spare bedchamber in the belvedere. Through the doorway of Delphine’s room, Marguerite caught a glimpse of a black face.
She flung herself against the wall and clutched the pistol. “Come out of there right now!” Marguerite ordered in Creole, pleased some of the strength had returned to her voice. “I have a gun!”
No response.
“Did you hear me? There’s nowhere for you to go!”
Still no reply. It had been only an agingmulâtresse, probably robbing her mistress.
Marguerite took a breath and strode forward, leading with the gun. In the dressing glass atop the small table on the other side of the bed, she met only her own reflection. Her own singed curls and haggard face, so smeared with dirt and ash that her skin was more black than white. Marguerite lowered the pistol and released her breath. She looked like azombi.
Between her and the mirror, the great canopy bed stood violated. It had been her and Matthieu’s gift to their daughter and son-in-law, with its beautiful mahogany posters carved like pineapples and its headboard like palm fronds. The rich wood had been shredded as if by the claws of a monster, the coconut husks of its mattress bulging out like intestines. At her feet, a smashed decanter filled the room with the tantalizing scent of rum, but it did not quite mask the reek of urine.
Across the soiled bed, that hideous reflection kept mocking her. Marguerite snatched up the decanter’s crystal stopper and hurled it at the dressing glass. The stopper hit its lower half, giving a satisfyingcrackand tilting the broken mirror to reveal what waited on the other side of the bed.
Delphine. Eyes and mouth gaping. Dark hair spilling down the front of her white chemise, framing the blood that had spilled from her open throat.
Marguerite staggered closer. In the fragmented glass, between her daughter’s limp arms where her great belly should have been,there was only more blood. Marguerite gripped the ravaged bedpost but slid to her knees.
This was God’s punishment. There was no other explanation. To lose the man she loved and every one of their children in a single night…even theirgrandchildbefore it was born… In one terrible swath, the scythe had destroyed every fruit of her sin. These savage negroes were merely the instruments of God’s wrath. Marguerite had been running from this judgment for half her life. She’d dishonored her parents and committed adultery for twenty-three years.“The wages of sin is death.”And death, and death…
So be it. Nothing mattered now. Not even damnation. She refused to spend eternity praising the God who had done this. She preferred Hell with Matthieu.
The pistol was still in her hand. It felt as heavy as a millstone, but she raised it. Beneath her chin, the mouth of the barrel was one last caress, not so very different from the ones that had brought her here. She did not regret one of them. What else could she have done?
Before she could pull down the cock, a child’s cry pierced through her labored breathing, coming from somewhere below. Still trembling, she let the pistol sag a few inches. Could—could Delphine’s child havesurvived? Marguerite wobbled to her feet, to the window. A mule stood tethered to the star-apple tree beside Guillaume’s office, where the unseen child was whimpering now.
Marguerite wheeled toward the stairs before she remembered she was nearly naked. She yanked open a drawer of Delphine’s wardrobe and found a morning gown. Marguerite fastened it over her ruined chemise, covering black with white.
She found a large pocket as well, tied it around her waist, and tucked the pistol inside. She might need her hands for the baby. She hastened down the stairs, past Guillaume’s body and into the yard. The mule did not look up from cropping grass. It was harnessed to a cart filled with calabashes, blankets, and sacks of supplies.
Marguerite crept up the steps of the office and peered through the open doorway. She saw a child seated on a skirted lap. Perhaps two years old, not a newborn. But he was beautiful, with a halo ofdark curls. Something in his small face was familiar, though he looked Spanish. What would a Spanish child be doing on this side of the island? He wore only a dirty shift that ended above his knees. One of them was skinned.
A female voice was cooing to him. Broad lips bent to kiss his forehead, and a brown hand offered him a piece of succulent orange fruit—mango, perhaps. The boy accepted it, and the brown hands lifted him from her lap to stand on the floor. With her back to Marguerite, themulâtressestrode toward Guillaume’s desk.
Silently, Marguerite crossed the threshold. Mouth still full, the boy reached for another piece of mango from the wooden bowl on the chair beside him. He saw her and hesitated, as if she might scold him, gazing up at her with huge blue eyes, blue as indigo, blue as?—
Themulâtresseturned then, as she wiped the knife on her skirt, and Marguerite’s breath caught. It was the girl who’d seduced Gabriel and Narcisse. Matthieu had banished herhere. For two years, he had lied, by omission, by concealment; Delphine and Guillaume too, every time Marguerite visited their plantation…
The girl looked her up and down, then smirked. “Madâme.” Without another word, she leaned over Guillaume’s closed fall-front desk, frowned at the lock, and poked it experimentally with the point of her blade.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting our papers.” The girl did not turn. She jammed her knife into the slit just above the fallboard. “If themaréchausséecatch us, I can show them we were going to be free.” She was running away, taking this beautiful little boy into the jungle to live with the maroons.
“You can’t read,” was all Marguerite could stammer.
“I saw what the master signed, the day René was baptized.”
“What who signed? Matthieu? Guillaume? They’re dead!”
The girl paid no attention to her. She only grunted with the effort of using the knife as a lever.
“They’realldead!”
With a great splintering of wood, the fallboard dropped open.
