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My hair, my whole body, felt dirty at his touch.

Hugo and I stood on the porch, watching them go.

“What would happen if you tried to get out at the same time one of their SUVs does?” I asked.

“Don’t bother,” Hugo said. “The guards have been instructed to keep us in by force. You are not to put yourself at unnecessary risk.”

By force?

“When I leave, I’m taking you with me,” I said decidedly. “It is cruel and unjust to keep you here, and Étienne will agree with me once I explain it.”

“Perhaps,” Hugo smiled. “Let’s take a walk and then play a little mancala or belote.”

I didn’t want to bring my suspicions about Mano to him, so I let him distract me from my pain. Perhaps I was just overreacting. Later I wished I had told him everything I suspected. . .

Mano was back the next day, knocking on my door as I looked in Hugo’s bookshelves for something that would keep me from remembering, over and over again, how Étienne had looked when he wrote that horrible word on my forehead and what he had said to me.

“Come in,” I called, assuming it was Hugo.

“Here,” Mano said, stepping inside and holding out a brown grocery bag.

“Are those my clothes?” I asked, reaching eagerly for them.

“Say please,” he taunted, and suddenly I found I could not, could not beg the man who had set me up.

“Never mind,” I said. “I don’t want them.”

I turned away bitterly. There had been no word from Étienne. What if I didn’t get a chance to convince him I was innocent before the baby was born. . .

“All right, all right,” Mano said.

When I still didn’t respond, he put a hand on my arm and spun me around.

“Look at me when I talk to you, woman. I just did you a favor.”

“Who are you to order me around?” I retorted, feeling temper spark inside me. “You’re the one responsible for me being imprisoned here!”

“Oh, always so proud,” he snapped. “Proud Léonie Pinoteaux with her nose in the air and her legs snapped shut, always glued tight."

I stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Pretending to be such a good girl, and all the time you were a conniving little wide-eyed gold-digger. Nothing would do for you but the best.”

“What do you know about anything?” I cried, trying to shove him away because he had crowded me against the bookshelves, so close I could smell the sweat off him, his belt buckle brushing against my bump. “What do you know about how I was back then?”

“I know plenty,” Mano said, “But you only had eyes for Étienne.”

“Don’t touch me!” I shrieked as his lips descended on mine, hard and demanding.

I slapped him as hard as I could on the cheek, and then Hugo was there, leaning heavily on his cane but looking angrily at his brother.

“You need to leave,” he said.

“What are you gonna do about it, poule mouillée?”

Weakling.

Hugo took his cane and swung it at Mano, stumbling heavily against the doorway, but the blow landed hard enough on Mano’s ribs that the other man was forced to drop his fistful of my hair.