Free Orfeo by M. J. Lawless

each other on her lap and, seeing her friend and confidante, the most she could manage when he entered the room was a forced half-smile. She was wearing a light, cotton dress that made her look younger in its simplicity.
    “What is it?” he said, crossing immediately to her side and taking her battling fingers in his own hands.
    For a few seconds undecipherable emotions crossed her features as she struggled to find the words. At last, unable to hide the truth either from him or herself she said simply: “They’re going to kill him.”
    Baptiste was not such a fool as to require further explanation, but for a while he was stunned by the news and incapable of offering even the most trite words of comfort. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before asking: “Were they here?”
    Ardyce nodded.
    “And... did they see him?”
    She looked at him silently, her lips and nostrils trembling, her beautiful green eyes brimming with tears. She had never looked more lovely, thought Baptiste as he gazed at her. For a dreadful moment he understood perhaps just a little of what Earl must feel, how unwilling he was ever to let this woman escape from him.
    Shaking her head, she answered him at last: “No, no, I don’t think so. But they know .”
    He nodded slowly. To offer her false words now would be an insult: whatever Earl’s vices, stupidity was not one of them. Ardyce had locked herself away from all aspects of New Orleans society, no matter how briefly, and the mysterious singer who had attracted such attention had already disappeared. Minds much less sharp than Earl’s were already gossiping in Apollo’s and elsewhere.
    “They’re going to kill him,” she repeated in little more than a whisper, and now the tears began to flow, her shoulders shaking as she was unable to hold back her sobs any more.
    Comforting her as her head fell onto him, Baptiste placed an arm around her and rocked her gently back and forth. “There, there,” he murmured. “They haven’t got him yet, and I think this young man has more wits than you give him credit for.”
    Forcing herself into a more dignified state, Ardyce pushed her head back up and gladly accepted the handkerchief that Baptiste offered her. She nodded and smiled weakly.
    “I must say,” he mused at last, “this has somewhat reduced the pleasure of my own news that I was coming to bring you.”
    “What’s that?” she asked, frowning, stray locks of her auburn hair falling down across her pale, lightly freckled brow.
    Despite her distress, he could not resist a grin. “I’ve found him.”
    For a second Ardyce’s frown remained fixed but then, forgetting if only momentarily the cause of her fears and grief, a smile broke out like sunlight piercing the clouds. “Really?” she asked. “You’ve found Orfeo?”
    Baptiste nodded, his eyes twinkling with joy.
    “Where—where? You must tell me.”
    “Oh, foolish girl!” he mock reprimanded her. “I’ve been bursting to tell you since I found out. He’s currently in the Quarter. A place off the Vieux Carré for the past six months or so.”
    A look of ecstasy at this simple news passed over Ardyce’s face, and she squeezed Baptiste’s hands with her fingers. “How do you know?” she asked.
    Releasing one of her hands, he lifted a bony finger to his nose and tapped it above the trim moustache. “Never ask an old queen to reveal his secrets. I have my sources.”
    “Of course, of course! Not that it matters.” Abruptly, the shining light in her eyes faded and her face dropped to her chest. Stifling a sob, she spoke so quietly that her friend almost failed to hear her: “We must warn him. We must !”
                 

 
Chapter Seven
     
    Less than an hour later Baptiste and Ardyce were in a cab traveling toward the French Quarter. Their driver was not a native of the city, and spoke to them with some kind of European or Middle Eastern accent, probably Greek or Turkish Baptiste surmised from his