Free With One Look by Jennifer Horsman

breaths, she rose and with an outstretched arm, she made her way to Mercedes's side at the window.
    Mercedes turned to find Jade there.
    The extreme wealth of Jade's compassion would not have been a surprise to anyone who knew her: it stretched to include all of humanity, from the uncouth drunkard lying in the mud to Mad King George himself and everyone between. Indeed, the Ursuline Sisters often watched Jade work miracles with it....
    Mercedes was unfamiliar with the largeness of Jade's sympathies, but the very love and compassion she spoke of marked her face. One look into the sweetness there broke something deep inside her.
    Jade held Mercedes in her slender arms, gently stroking her soft curly hair as she wept. Her thoughts turned this terrifying situation over a dozen times.
    It was impossible to escape. For now. For however long that beastly woman held Maydrian hostage. She would have to play this part until Maydrian was released or—
    Jade closed her eyes tight. Dear Lord, please save Maydrian! Do not let her suffer more or be killed!
    She thought of Maydrian's three daughters and that good woman's grandchildren, how much they loved the old woman. How much she herself loved old Maydrian. She would not shorten her life. No matter what....
    So she'd have to do this tonight, perhaps tomorrow and until Maydrian was safe. Or until somehow she could get a message out to alert Mother Francesca and Father Nolte of this hellhole and its suffering without endangering Maydrian.
    Tonight. She could do it. Many women had done it. Women bedded men all the time. She knew the bare facts of the physical act. She would just pretend she was somewhere else. For one night ...
    For she knew her fate had been tied to this poor suffering soul for the greater purpose. She had been sent here by a greater design to rescue Mercedes.
    It was all meant to happen Mon Amour,
    You must visit Madame Charmane's house tonight— the night of the full moon. Important. Marie Saint
    Victor took the note from the tray, read it and passed it to Sebastian. He had hired a new cook, an old woman named Chachie, on his father's recommendation. Tonight's dinner of fried oysters, red beans and rice, spicy corn bread and stuffed artichoke hearts was worth a month's pay.
    At least. "That lady is getting a raise," Victor said as he motioned his servant Reed to clear the plates. The men at the table: Murray, Sebastian, John and Steffan, two of their foremen, all growled agreement. "Reed, ask Chachie if she's married yet, if she wouldn't mind an older man who appreciates a woman's talents?"
    Reed cleared the table with a chuckle. "Will do, sir."
    Sebastian read the short note twice. Victor had never said what had been between him and Marie Saint, the beautiful quadroon woman and one of the city's most revered and eccentric citizens. Marie reserved the affectionate title "amour" for Victor, while the mere mention of Marie's name always brought a glimmer of fondness, mixed inexplicably with some secret regret or sorrow.
    Victor had known Marie Saint since he was a boy of twelve and Marie was a young lady of fifteen. Apparently, as Victor's mother, Claire, had become more ill, his father heard of Marie's mother's talents and, desperate to save his wife, they had journeyed here to New Orleans to seek the woman. Marie's mother could not save Claire, but her potions had given Claire six months of freedom from her pain, months Victor had said he would "remember always."
    Marie's mother had something to do with Victor's father's joining the priesthood too. Father Nolte had been a theologian teaching at Virginia's College of William and Mary when his wife had first become ill. All Victor would say about it was that Marie's mother had offered his father unusual counsel after his mother's death, counsel that led him by a roundabout path to a faraway retreat for priests in Scotland. Sebastian only knew part of the story. Apparently, Father Nolte had left his son in a boarding school