Chapter 16 #2
The streets carry me along like a sleepy river.
I pass shop windows crowded with silks and boots, and salons where women sit under lamps while their hair is pinned.
Peddlers wheel carts stacked with oranges, melons, and pineapples, bright as lanterns.
At home, I might walk a mile and meet no more than a neighbor and a dog.
Here, I can’t take five steps without brushing against someone new.
I stop before a flower shop, its window so full of peonies and tulips it’s like a fairytale.
It’s all so exciting and overwhelming, but it’s tainted somehow.
Fruit of a poison tree. My great adventure began by Kodiak squeezing the last breath from Joseph’s throat.
Maybe even poison fruit can taste sweet for a time, before it sickens you.
I wander until I find myself in a market.
Rows of vendors stand in the open air, sheltered under faded canvas awnings that ripple in the breeze.
A barefoot child darts between the stalls, brandishing a stick like a wizard’s wand.
His clothes hang off his frame, likely hand-me-downs from an older sibling.
A woman nearby calls out, “Pralines! Fresh and sweet!” Her voice carries over the bustle. On the table before her sits a basket heaped high with toffee-colored rounds studded with pecans.
It has been days of nothing but beans and jerky, and the thought of something sweet melting on my tongue makes my mouth flood. The scent drifts toward me on a warm current of buttery air and draws me closer like a worm on a hook pulling in a hungry trout.
“I’ve never heard of a praline before,” I say.
She takes me in, head to toe, then grins. “Then you’re in for a treat,” she says. “Pecans, sugar, and cream made right here in the heart of New Orleans.”
She lifts one delicately between two fingers and a square of wax paper. “One for two cents.”
I reach for my purse, fingering through coins. Counting out pennies, I drop two in her hand, and feel a light thwack against my skirt. The boy has crept up beside me, smiling through gaps of gums and little teeth.
“Yah!” he cries.
“August!” the woman scolds. “What did I tell you about hitting people with sticks?”
He giggles and darts behind the table, pressing himself against her skirts.
“That’s all right,” I say. “He was probably trying to turn me into a frog with his magic wand.”
“A horse,” he corrects, peeking out.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, please excuse my boy. He’s been beggin’ his daddy for horse rides, and now he carries that stick like a crop, thinkin’ everybody’s part of his little game.”
I can’t help laughing at his imagination, though I cover my smile with my hand as not to encourage him. The woman shakes her head, her amusement edged with weariness.
“August whipped a lawman one morning, right here at my table. Didn’t find it one bit funny and cost me a week’s profit in fines.”
I force my smile to vanish. “Oh, that’s awful.”
She glances down at August, who is now poking holes in the dirt with his stick. “He ought to be in school, I know. But the schools don’t want a boy who can’t sit still, and the parish charges more than sugar money. So he stays with me, learns numbers at the till. That’s schooling enough for now.”
I tuck the praline into my glove and bid them good day. August is already chasing shadows with his stick, his mother calling after him in weary French.
I linger in the square before a grand cathedral, praline crumbling sweet against my teeth.
Carriages stop at the gates, footmen helping down the ladies in fine gloves and parasols.
Just beyond the iron fence, children hold out flowers and trinkets.
A girl no older than August offers a wilted bloom to a passing woman, who walks on without a second glance.
I turn away, praline wrapper crumpled in my glove, and let the crowd carry me back toward the Hotel de Chartres.
Using the room key from my pocket, I unlock the door and step inside. I take no more than a step before a jolt shoots through me and I freeze.
Someone stands at the window. A large man, dressed head to toe in black, broad shoulders sharp against the glass. My pulse leaps. Is this one of Kodiak’s enemies, come to finish what chains and bullets could not?
“May I help you?” My voice is firm, though my heart batters against my ribs.
He turns slowly. A hush fills me where breath should be. The face is familiar—oddly familiar—and yet mismatched. Hair combed flat and shining, jaw smooth as porcelain, only a trim mustache left in place. A jacket and waistcoat hug his frame, a bowtie knotted crisp at his throat.
The outlaw is gone. In his place stands a gentleman fit for a governor’s ball.
“I’m sure I could think of somethin’,” Kodiak drawls, the grin all devil despite the costume.
I cannot decide what is more dangerous—the way the fabric of his waistcoat fits taut against the firm swell of his chest and shoulders, tapering to the narrow fit at his hips, or the version of him that’s dressed in dust from the trail.
They both tempt a woman into trouble, but I cannot decide which tempts me more.
I press a hand to my chest, my heart slowing. “Do you care to explain the change in your appearance?”
“We’re goin’ to the opera.” He gestures toward the bed, where a gown is laid out. Pink taffeta, the corset embroidered with pearls. “Got you a dress. Lady at the boutique said it’s adjustable. Some kind of ribbons or—”
“What is the meaning of this?”
“Can’t a man take his lady to the opera?”
I step closer, astounded by the sharp line of his jaw. My God. I touch his face. He even smells different—clean, faintly spicy, nothing like gunpowder and sweat.
“Seein’ if I caught a fever?”
“You shaved…and you’ve been to the barber.”
“Don’t clean up half bad, do I?”
“Kodiak.” My mind is a blur of excitement, curiosity, and fear. “This is all so strange. Please, you’ll drive me mad if you leave me to wonder.”
His grin fades. “You ain’t the only one nearly mad. Came back and found you gone. I thought somebody’d taken you. You don’t know what that does to a man.”
He steps close, the scent of spice and soap wrapping around me. “Next time you get the notion to wander, remember who you belong to, and what I’d do to any bastard tried to take you from me.” He starts to set a hand on my waist, but I step back and smack it away.
“How am I supposed to know anything when you don’t say a word?
You disappear without so much as a goodbye, and I’m left staring at the walls like a fool.
I will not be shut away while you run off to God only knows where.
You can’t just string me along from one mystery to the next. Now, what are you up to?”
“Little lamb, I’m only askin’ you to enjoy’ an evening in New Orleans on my arm. There’s nothin’ for you to worry about.”
A parade of gentlemen pass in top hats, walking sticks in hand.
On their arms are ladies in gowns and jewels who glide along Bourbon and Toulouse.
On the brick street, the handsome theater curves around the block in Italian architecture, its facade aglow with lamplight.
A banner hangs from up high. Tonight: Gounod’s Faust.
We pause at the cafe adjoining the opera house. Inside, posters for coming operas line the ornate walls. The city’s elite rabble and gossip over champagne, their crystal flutes glittering like the chandeliers overhead.
Kodiak plays his part well, with a genteel disposition that suits the room. He takes whiskey neat in a heavy-bottomed glass, while for me, a waiter in a white jacket sets down a dainty goblet. The drink is pale and opalescent, tinged with green, the ice sparkling like frost.
“Absinthe frappe, madam,” the man says with a nod, before vanishing into the throng.
“What on earth is this?” I ask.
Kodiak smirks. “New Orleans specialty.”
I nearly push it aside, though the sweetness of anise drifts up like licorice candy. I taste it carefully. The syrup and herbs dance across my tongue, and a slow heat blooms in my chest.
“It is…rather pleasant,” I admit.
I cannot say if it is the bone of my corset binding too tightly or the way the allure of his darkness holds me from across the table, but I can hardly take a full breath.
“I knew you’d clean up nice in that gown,” he says. “But God a’mighty, you knock the air out of me.”
I smile despite myself. “It is a gorgeous gown. You have impeccable taste.”
“Funny you say that. It was your taste that gave me the notion. Told the lady at the shop my woman’s gown ought to be pink as a spring rose.”
The words lance through me and the cafe vanishes.
For a heartbeat, I see him, hand fisted tight around himself, jaw clenched as he groaned those very words.
The chandelier’s sparkle above me is sunlight flashing off the water.
The wet clink of bar glass is the sound of his slick hand stroking as he ordered me to watch.
Wicked heat floods me, and I shift in my chair, cheeks burning, body aching, the frappe turning to fire in my chest. How can he sit there so calm, sipping whiskey like a gentleman, while I drown all over again?
“Kodiak—”
He wags a finger at me. “No, no. Not tonight. Tonight, I’m William Archer.”
There’s something about this man. The way he carries himself makes a longing grow in my chest. I lower my chin, peering up at him through my lashes. “And who am I?”
“Suppose that makes you Mrs. Archer.”
“Does Mrs. Archer have a given name?”
He lifts his glass, takes a slow pull of whiskey, unblinking. “Depends what I’m callin’ her for.” His stare is dangerous and unyielding, singing through me.
I clear my throat to release the scandalous pit lodged there.
“I should hope Mrs. Archer has no need of a man’s definition at all.”