Page 94 of Frankly, My Dear

“Giselle’s half sister?” Selene asked on a groan. A headache the size of Vermont throbbed behind her eyes. And Selene began to see that this tap dance through time posed even more problems than she’d originally thought.

“Oui. She is a quadroon, of course, but she looks remarkably like a darker version of Giselle, except for the blonde hair, of course. I believe that Victor, in his evil, took great pleasure in bringing both sisters to his bed.”

Selene put the heels of both hands against her eyes, hoping to stem the pounding pain. Finally she looked at Mrs. Baptiste, who waited patiently, sipping her tea. “Okay, I think I understand. Now what do you want me to do?”

Mrs. Baptiste reached down to a tapestry reticule lying at her feet and removed a crisp parchment, brown with age. She handed it to Selene significantly, saying, “I give this into your care. I no longer feel it is safe with me. This is what Victor and Giselle sought all those years…what Victor continues to search for. Only this paper, or James’s death, will satisfy his greed.”

“What is it?” Selene asked as she unfolded the aged legal document. It was a will, dated 1810, signed by Marie Verdon Edmunds and Jean-Paul Baptiste and witnessed by Judge Rene Laporte. Eighteen-ten, Selene mused. That would have been before James’s birth.

While Selene read the brief document, Mrs. Baptiste explained, “I told you before that Jean-Paul loved me. When I discovered I was enceinte, and Jean-Paul was unable to marry me, I decided to go to England to stay with my father’s family. Jean-Paul begged me to stay. He promised to provide for me and our child…to give us a home and monthly maintenance. But, most important, in the event of his death, half of his estate would go to our child.” She pointed to the document in her lap. “And notice the codicil at the bottom…his will cannot ever be revised to delete this provision for James.”

“Now Victor wants it back,” Selene said with sudden understanding.

“Oui. Desperately.”

“And Jean-Paul?”

Mrs. Baptiste shrugged miserably. “I think he changed his mind, as well…if he ever had any intention of providing thus for James. In fact, he once asked me to give it back to him for safekeeping. Safekeeping! Why does everyone think women have syllabub for brains?”

“Why can’t you just give this will to James?”

“Hah! He would just tear it up. He wants nothing from his father.”

“Well, then?”

“Non. I have suffered too much…James has suffered too much. He deserves at least this,” she said, her hands shaking with emotion as she tapped her fingertips on the stiff paper.

“Okay, let’s suppose I hide this will. That won’t help you at all, because you already know that James is sending me away, and—”

“We cannot let James send you away,” Mrs. Baptiste said blithely.

“—and that still doesn’t solve the problem of the ghost.”

“Ah, ’tis simple, my dear,” Mrs. Baptiste said, patting her hand. “You and I are going to set a trap for the ghost—”

Oh, boy.

“—using voodoo.”

Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy.

No sooner did Selene step out of Mrs. Baptiste’s door a short time later than James grabbed her by the upper arms, lifting her off her feet, and slammed her against the wall of the garçonnière. The force of his shove caused tiny buds from the wisteria vines that covered the wall to flutter around them in an aromatic shower.

“What did my mother want with you?”

“James, let me go. You’re hurting me.”

He dropped his hands from her upper arms, but pressed his body up against hers with both arms braced on the wall above.

“James, is that you?” Mrs. Baptiste called, leaning out from the window above them. “Oh, I see you’ve found Selene,” she said in a sweet, pleased voice, deliberately misinterpreting his aggressive stance as an embrace. “Make sure you join me and your fiancée for dinner this evening, darling. I haven’t had a chance to talk to you much, mon cher.”

James sputtered, about to protest, but his mother had already closed the window. “You told my mother that we are engaged to marry?” he accused.

“I did not,” she said huffily, slipping out from his arms and walking toward the house. “I never told anyone that we were engaged. You did, you big…galoot.”

“What’s a galoot?”

“I have no idea, but you fit the description perfectly, I’m sure.”