Day Dreamer (30 page)

“To save Celine? Most definitely.”

“We will be in the city by nightfall,” Auguste assured him.

The fetid smell of unwashed bodies, feces, and fear swilled around Cordero as he followed a jailer down a narrow hall lined with identical cell doors. Picturing Celine existing within these walls, he fought down the urge to retch and forced himself to keep moving. Outside, rain poured down upon New Orleans, turning the streets into ribbons of rich mud churned by cart and carriage wheels into thick goo. Steel clouds stained the sky a deep, depressing gray.

Suddenly, the guard stopped outside a door that looked like all the rest and unlocked it. Not a sound issued from inside.

“She’s in here.” The guard’s contemptuous gaze flicked over Cord and then dismissed him.

When Cord stepped into the dimly lit cell, he thought for a moment the guard had been mistaken. The room appeared empty. A slop bucket stood in a corner. A forgotten pan of food lay on the filthy floor near the door. He turned around, ready to exit the cell, when the door closed behind him with a loud thud and the key scraped in the lock.

A shape moved beneath a foul blanket on the narrow bunk. Cord watched, stunned with disbelief, as Celine’s head and shoulders appeared over the edge of the utilitarian wool. Her hair was matted and filthy, her cheeks were sunken, her skin was sallow. When she stared back at him without a hint of recognition in her eyes, a cold finger of fear raked down his spine.

“Celine?”

What hell had she suffered? What might he have spared her with a word?

She did not move. The blanket slipped lower, exposing the swell of her breasts. She shivered, but did not speak.

He went to her side and knelt on one knee in the filth, then reached for her and drew her into his arms. She lay limp in his embrace as he held her close and rocked her slowly.

“I’m sorry, Celine. So sorry. Please forgive me,” he murmured again and again.

Slowly he lowered her to the thin, stained mattress. He tried to brush her hair off her face, unable to miss the dried tearstains that made tracks down the dirt on her cheeks. He took her hands, then rubbed them between his, willing her to come back to him.

“Celine, speak to me.” He cast his gaze about the room and then back to her again. “Please,” he whispered.

“Am I dreaming again?” she whispered so low that he had to lean closer to hear. “I’ve imagined you here so many times …”

“We sailed two days after you left; it took me that long to sober up and come to my senses. I’ve been in the city two days trying to get in to see you. The authorities finally agreed.”

The slight tilt of her lips cut through him as swiftly as a hot blade. He traced the corner of her mouth. Her smile faded.

“Forgive me, Celine.”

“It’s too late,” she whispered before she closed her eyes.

His heart felt as if a stone had lodged there.

“I don’t blame you for hating me, Celine. Not after I told you I loved you and then let them take you like that. I should have never turned you over to Hargraves: I should have fought to defend you. Please, don’t say it’s too late for us.”

“I don’t blame you, Cord. How could I? Our love was too new, too fragile. What a chance you took that night, to tell me you loved me … and then to have those men show up like that, to be slapped in the face with the truth.” She sighed, all the sadness of the world reflected in her eyes. “It is too late for me, Cord. I hang tomorrow.”

“We’re going to get you out of here and out of New Orleans.”

“I tried running once. It didn’t work. Tomorrow I am to hang. I have to atone for killing Jean—”

“Listen to me!” Frightened by the resignation in her voice, he grabbed both her hands and held them tight. “I didn’t lose you to the swamp, and I’ll be damned if I’ll lose you to the hangman. My father and his men are here in New Orleans. So are Foster and Edward. They have been prowling the streets and skulking in every coffeehouse, tavern and market stalls, and along the wharf, questioning, listening, searching for any scrap of proof to clear your name.

“We have already learned that Perot was gambling heavily, that he was in debt to a cousin who disappeared the very day Perot was killed. This cousin might have come upon Jean Perot’s body and smashed his head in just to be certain he was dead. But Jean may have still been alive. You might not have killed him at all.”

Her gaze strayed to the wall. “I don’t want you there tomorrow,” she whispered. “Please, leave me some dignity.”

“Celine—”

“It’s my hanging. You are not invited, Cord.”

Cord pinched his eyes shut to ease the sting behind them.

“I am not going to let you hang, Celine.”

She raised herself up on an elbow and planted a finger against his breastbone. “I am happy that you and your father have reconciled, but I can’t allow you to do anything stupid, Cord. You’re not to put yourself, your father or the others in jeopardy.”

“Nag.” He bent to kiss her, but she turned her face away.

“I’m filthy,” she whispered. “Don’t humiliate me.”

“Clean or filthy, you are mine and I love you. You have been mine since the night you came to me out of the storm …” He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him.

“Cord, please don’t.”

She hadn’t any more strength to hold him off. Sensing this, Cord kissed her long and thoroughly. When he lifted his head, she sighed and lay back down.

“Tell me you believe in me. Tell me you will give me a lifetime to prove my love and make this up to you,” he begged.

A tear slipped down her cheek. Cord kissed it away.

“If I had a lifetime to give, it would be yours. Tomorrow at dawn they will bring me fresh clothing and I will be allowed to bathe. I’ve ordered gumbo with shrimp and plenty of okra.”

A tight knot of fear twisted his insides. He tried to uncoil it by running the back of his knuckles along her cheek.

“I have heard they will bring a bottle of whiskey to calm you. If they do, don’t drink it, Celine.”

“
You
are telling
me
not to drink?”

“I want you to have your wits about you tomorrow.” He took her hand again.

“If I knew how to keep my wits about me, I wouldn’t have ended up here.” She smiled again, and it broke his heart.

“Promise me,” he begged.

“You’re crushing my hand.”

“Say it.”

“I promise,” she whispered. “For you, I’ll go to the gallows as sober as a judge.”

Twenty-two

N
oon was the appointed hour for hangings.

With a quarter hour to go, the crowd packed into the Place d’Armes, hungry for Celine’s death. She encountered the boisterous mob as her nervous jailers led her out into the light of a bright, cloudless day. Freshly bathed, outfitted in a starched white cap, white shirt and pantaloons, and fortified by a meal of gumbo and shrimp, she felt stronger than she had in weeks.

Thomas O’Hurley had arrived earlier, as promised, but the man needed more support than she did, so Celine told him to go home and pray for her. And because she had given Cord her word, she did not touch the bottle of whiskey they had offered her.

She wished now that she had drained it.

The guards were jittery. None of them, not even the familiar fat one or the one she called Hawk-nose, would meet her gaze. To a man, they kept a constant eye on the crowd. Surrounding her, they moved as a tightly packed unit, forced to keep a slow pace because of the shackles around her ankles.

She scanned the route they would take and saw the gallows erected across the square. She focused on it rather than on the faces that swarmed around her. Unwashed, slovenly derelicts and undisciplined youths were the cruelest. They leered and jeered, pushed and shoved, threatening her with their upraised fists. The others, who stood back in silence or muttered to one another, were merely curious.

“Celine!”

She had not taken half a dozen steps outside before Cord had shoved his way between the onlookers and shouted her name. He was as near as the guards would possibly allow. The instant she saw him, she forgot that her wrists were shackled and raised her hands, trying to reach him. Bleak despair whipped through her when she realized she would never touch him again. She tried to smile at him, but could only manage a tremulous, wavering imitation.

She focused on the gallows, blinking furiously.

Cordero’s heart had lurched when he’d seen her step out of the Cabildo surrounded by a phalanx of guards. Doubt assaulted him, and he knew a moment of terror, even though his father and most of his crew were scattered throughout the crowd, ready to divert attention away from her so that he and Bobo, along with two of Auguste’s most trusted men, could spirit her away.

Last night, confidence had run high when Auguste had been able to bribe one of the Cabildo guards into outlining the details of the execution ahead of time—but it was one thing to go over and over the plan and escape routes and quite another to see Celine shackled and surrounded by guards only a few yards from the gallows.

He glanced around the horde jammed into the square and marveled at the way his father’s men blended into the crowd. All hands were present and accounted for except Foster and Edward, as the latter’s nerves had gotten the better of him. Terrified that something would go wrong and he would be forced to watch Celine hang, Edward was so hysterical that Foster suggested they wait along the escape route near the edge of the swamp.

Cord watched the guards walk his wife through the crowd and tasted his fear. Failure, he knew, would mean all of their deaths.

“Celine!” he called out again, demanding her attention.

He could only catch a glimpse of her between the burly guards. She turned her gaze his way, stunning him with the love in her eyes. Even now, he could see, she loved him.

“Trust me,” Cord shouted.

Celine watched him shove a man back in order to keep stride with her jailers. Suddenly, Cord’s eyes became wild and his gaze went everywhere and nowhere. She saw his brows meet and his jaw set. She glanced around, searching for the cause of his anger.

She spotted Henre Moreau ahead of them, head and shoulders taller than those around him. Two slaves stood beside him, flanking him like burly watchdogs. He had seen Cord, and the two were staring daggers at each other.

Then she saw Auguste, his leather eye patch making him easily recognizable to her despite the oversized hat he wore. As the crowed shifted to allow the guards to pass, Henre and Auguste recognized each other over the crowd.

Henre visibly blanched as he realized his youngest son was still alive. The old man stared for a moment longer, then briefly said something to one of the blacks. An instant later, he turned his back on Auguste and Cordero as his escorts began to clear a path through the crowd. By the time she had taken two more shuffling steps, all signs of Henre Moreau had been swallowed up by the throng.

Cord knew a moment of release as he watched his grandfather walk out of their lives. He took it as a sign that the past was indeed behind him, that it was time to focus on the present.

He kept his eyes on Celine. The closer they moved to the gallows, the less he could afford to be diverted. He saw her pause, then shake her head and stumble. A guard reached out and broke her fall. When she straightened, she had a bewildered look on her face. He saw her lips move and was almost certain she had mouthed the word
Perot
.

She halted abruptly and before the guards could make her move forward again, her gaze swung back to him. Her amethyst eyes were narrowed in confusion.

“What is it?” he shouted. They were nearing Auguste’s position now. The escape plan was about to be put into motion. There was no time for her to balk, no time for anything that veered from the carefully laid plan.

“I think I saw Jean Perot!” she called out to Cord. One of the guards had taken her arm, and she tried to shrug him off.

“Where?”

“I saw him through there!” she said, nodding toward the Mississippi side of the square.

“None of this, now, you hear?” The fat guard with his hand clamped above her elbow shook her. “Keep moving.”

Celine thought for a second that she had been hallucinating, and then she saw him again. The sight of the glassy-eyed man on the edge of the crowd caused her to lose her footing and stumble again. Her heart was pounding, her breath short. She knew without a doubt she was seeing either Jean Perot or his ghost.

“It’s him. He’s here, Cordero. Perot is
here
!”

The crowd sensed her panic. Those nearest her easily understood what she had said, and a cry went up. The name
Perot
began to be murmured, first by a few and then by many. The word spread through the mass of people like wildfire.

Cord understood, but was hesitant to leave her side. He didn’t intend to get very far away, in case she was mistaken. Agitated, he scanned the nearest faces in the crowd.

Auguste had moved into position on the other side of the guards and had seen what was happening. “Go!” he hollered to Cord, the meaning of their exchange lost on the surging tide of humanity around them. “Find him! If you fail, we’ll meet as planned.”

Cord stared at his father, unwilling to relinquish Celine’s life to the man who had walked out on him so long ago. Their gazes met and held across the huddle of guards, was momentarily cut off and then was reestablished as the blue-coated men shuffled slowly by.

His father was pinned on the far side of the crowd, away from the river. There was no way Auguste could follow Perot. If one of them was going to get to the man, it would have to be him.

“There!” Celine shouted again, trying to point. “With the beard, in the brown coat!”

The man she indicated was being jostled by the crowd. He was hunched over on his left side, his skin was pale and his eyes were bright but glassy, as if he were drugged. Some in the throng were still murmuring Perot’s name. The man’s gaze was darting wildly. Hemmed in as he was, there was no escaping the crowd.

The guards had almost reached the gallows. Cord lunged ahead of them. He nearly pushed over a toothless old woman with a chignon tied around her head and lost precious time as he made a grab for her and stood her on her feet before he shoved on. After nearly coming to blows with a burly Kaintuck, Cord finally reached the man Celine claimed was Jean Perot.

From two feet away, the man’s body odor was merciless. Cord ignored the stench as he clamped a hand on the padded shoulder of what had once been a well-tailored cutaway coat. The slight, dark-eyed Creole tried to pull away but lacked the strength to do more than lean back.

“Who are you?” Cord asked, giving the man a vicious shake.

“Let me go! Let me go, I say!”

Up close, Cord could see that the man was more slovenly and disgusting than he had first thought. He was also quite young. It wasn’t until the brown coat opened to reveal a dark stain low on the man’s shirtfront that Cord felt certain Celine had correctly identified Jean Perot.

Cord put one hand around the back of Perot’s neck. His captive winced and whimpered, favoring his left side, but could not escape.

“Please, let me go. I’ve done you no harm …”

“You think not?” Cord glared down at Perot as he dragged him toward the gallows. “That’s my wife they’re about to hang.”

“It’s Perot!” a hardy, suntanned youth beside Cord began shouting. The note of urgent hysteria carried above the din. “He says he’s got Perot. Stop the hanging!”

It took Cord an instant to recognize the youth as the cabin boy from the
Lady Fair
. Like the others in the ship’s crew, the boy had donned nondescript clothing and a wide-brimmed panama hat.

“Keep it up, Raymond,” Cord mumbled to the youth. “This is a far better diversion than we could have ever hoped for.” He shoved Perot toward the gallows through the onlookers surrounding them.

Cord reached the base of the wooden platform at the moment Celine’s guards arrived at the steps. He saw Auguste at the stairs, standing but a few feet away from Celine. She was scanning the crowd, searching for him, so Cord called her name. When she saw him with Perot, a tremulous smile of hope lit her face.

Dignitaries from the Cabildo were in attendance, assembled in a roped-off area fronting the gallows. Cord pushed Perot up against the gallows platform and held him there while he called out to the men and the few women in the official viewing area. The uniformed police had begun to take notice of the disturbance behind them.

“Governor! Stop the hanging!” Cord shouted, thrusting Perot forward.

“Jean! Oh, my God, my son! My son …”

A frantic woman disengaged herself from the viewing area, arms outstretched, hands grasping for the creature Cord held like a bedraggled cat.

Celine was prodded up the steps of the platform until she stood directly below a thick rope fashioned into a noose. An ominous figured stood to one side of the platform. With his arms crossed over his chest, he stood as silent as death. A black velvet bag, unrelieved but for two small eyeholes, was draped over his head. Celine shivered as she exchanged a glance with the cold, dark eyes staring out at her from the shadowed interior of the hangman’s hood.

From her vantage point above the crowd she saw Cord refuse to relinquish Jean Perot to his babbling mother and his father, who now stood on both sides of their son. As the astounded officials looked on, the mob, led by Auguste’s crew, was chanting in unison. Cries of “Stop the hanging! Stop the hanging!” shook the square. The guards were milling about uneasily on the platform.

The governor himself raised both hands in the air and tried to quiet the crowd. Silence fanned out like ripples on water from the officials’ section toward the edges of the mob. There was a press to move forward, a collective strain to hear what was being said by the tight knot of officials near the base of the gallows.

Throughout the crowd the citizens of New Orleans began to speculate. Who had come forward to save the penniless fortune-teller’s ward? Were the rumors true—could she truly work black magic? Was she in league with some voodoo priest or priestess? Was that really Jean Perot or a zombie groveling beneath the gallows built to hang his murderess?

Celine recognized Jean Perot’s mother. Her be-ringed hands clutched her son to her breast, smoothed his oily hair, patted his back. If it had not been for Perot’s coloring and height, or for the fact that the frantic gaze in his eyes today was the same one she’d seen the night he’d tried to kill her, Celine would have never recognized him.

She was about to see Jean firsthand, for the governor and his deputies had persuaded Cord to relinquish the man to them and were now leading Perot and his family toward the Cabildo. Cord disengaged himself from the group and came bounding up the stairs.

Behind them, at a slower, more sedate pace, came Judge Bennett, who had presided over her hearing.

“Cordero.” She reached for him, but once more the shackles prevented her from raising her hands. Then she noticed Auguste standing beside Cord.

“Auguste, go!” she whispered. “Someone might recognize you.”

The distracted guards gave Auguste a quick once-over and said nothing. Like the rest of his crew, he had donned a panama hat, and kept it pulled low. With his head tipped down, the wide brim cast a shadow that partially shielded his face from the crowd.

“The only one who might remember me left the moment he saw me,” Auguste whispered back to Celine.

“Henre?” she asked.

“You are quite perceptive, dear Celine.”

Cord grabbed her wrist shackles. “Get these off her,” he said to one of the guards, who ignored him. When Judge Bennett issued orders for the men to escort Celine back to the Cabildo, Cord turned on him.

“I want these shackles off my wife.”

“Young man,” Bennett said, peering up at him over his gold-rimmed spectacles, “it will do you no good whatsoever to yell at me.”

“But Perot’s been found. This is ridiculous.”

“As ridiculous as it may seem, she was found guilty of two murders. One is still outstanding. I will have her unshackled when and if she is proven entirely innocent or I am good and ready. Now, might I suggest you go with your wife and these gentlemen here while I break the news to this mob that they are going to have to disperse without their afternoon’s entertainment?”

Jean Perot smelled even worse in the close confines of the judge’s chambers.

Sitting beside Celine, Cord wouldn’t have cared if the man reeked like a very dead horse. Her shackles had been removed after they were all closeted with Judge Bennett, the Perots, Jean and four of the police guards. At Celine’s insistence, Auguste had left them at the door of the Cabildo and disappeared into the crowd, though not before he’d kissed her on the cheek.