Free The Seven Sapphires of Mardi Gras by Vickie Britton Page A

by one of the many closed doors in the corridor. “It’s locked. Edward locked it the night of his death and no one has been in there since.”
    “Are all his—things still in there?”
    “It’s just as he left it.” She wrinkled her nose. “A real mess.”
    The door next to my grandfather’s room was wide open. “This is the main guest room,” Christine explained. “I guess it’ll be yours now.” I looked beyond her into a room that was spacious and elaborate. Though the windows were both open, a slightly musty smell hung in the air. The handsome furnishings had a blank, impersonal look about them, as if they had never belonged to any one person. The thick mesh mosquito netting and heavy four-poster seemed out of sorts with the white silk curtains that streamed and billowed from the open windows. In the middle of the room, near the imposing oak wardrobe and smaller, mirrored vanity, my trunks and hatbox already waited.
    I began to busy myself with unpacking my necessities, while Christine made herself quite at home upon the white bed, her dusty riding habit shedding a thin, powdery trail upon the lace coverings. As I began to hang up my dresses and arrange my toilet articles upon the vanity, she released a steady stream of questions about my mother.
    “I grew up hearing all about your Mama, May Dereux, how her Union soldier swept her away. What a wonderfully romantic tale,” she sighed wistfully. “To be banished from the family and give up everything for the one you love!” I remembered Mother’s loneliness, the restless unhappiness that she tried so hard to keep concealed from me. I had to remind myself that Christine was but an innocent girl, hardly more than a child. Obviously enthralled with dime-novel romances, she was too young to begin to understand the heartbreak my mother’s estrangement had really caused to both herself and the family.
    “My father was a great hero,” Christine boasted suddenly. “Racine Dereux. There’s a portrait of him in Edward’s study. And you’ll hear Edward talk about him.” She gave a little sigh and rolled her gray eyes. “Sometimes I think that’s all he talks about. He likes to ramble on about all those battles, and how terrible it was for Papa to have been killed just a few weeks before the war ended.”
    “And your mother, Christine? What was she like?”
    She shook her head, her expressive eyes clouding. “She died in childbirth. Both my parents died before I could even remember them. I don’t miss them—it’s almost as if they never were. Mrs. Lividais, the housekeeper, says that if I wasn’t so much like my father, she’d swear I was a changeling. You know what that is, don’t you? It’s when the fairies steal a baby and leave one of their own in its place.”
    “I see.” Anxious to change the turn of conversation, I asked, “Who was the young man I met in the parlor? He seemed very nice. Is he really your beau?”
    A flush spread over her cheeks and she turned away, shrugging. “Not really. I only say that to bother Edward. Edward doesn’t like Nathan,” she confided. “He says he’s not good enough for me.” Barely pausing to draw a breath, she added angrily, “Edward doesn’t want me to have any beaux at all. Did you see the way he acted about Nicholas? He wouldn’t even let me talk to him!”
    “I can see why Edward might not approve of Nicholas. After all, he’s a little old for you.”
    “Oh, that’s not the reason he’s ordered me to stay away from him. It’s because of what Nicholas did to our family name.”
    I felt my throat constrict. “Does Edward believe that Nicholas might have had something to do with his wife’s death?”
    Christine’s laugh was ugly. “Edward could probably have forgiven him for murdering Elica! He never liked Nicholas’s wife. In fact, he was so angry because Nicholas had the gall to marry her in the first place!”
    “Why didn’t Edward like Elica?”
    “It wasn’t the woman he