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Beau asked, “What happened to your hand? Did you use it on Merritt, I hope?”
Drake glanced down at the bruised skin over his knuckles and flexed the slightly swollen fingers. “No.” He then told them what happened.
Both were outraged.
Beau said, “Your restraint is admirable, brother. I’d still be kicking their arses. Is the lady okay?”
“As well as could be expected, I suppose.” His mind floated back to the scratches and scrapes on her smooth brown cheeks and his anger rose again. “I told her I’d report the men to their superior officer, but I know him to be as useless as Merritt, so there’s no sense in it. He won’t reprimand them.”
“Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to come across them again. At night. In an alley.”
Drake chuckled and excused himself from his bloodthirsty siblings to go and say hello to their mother, Julianna.
At the Dumas residence, Val stared at Georgine in disbelief. “Madeline passed away this morning?”
“Yes. An hour or so after you left for the Freedmen’s Bureau. The doctor said her heart gave out. She’s with the undertaker.”
Val thought back on Madeline’s kindness to her and wished her soul peace.
“Which means I can now rid my house of you.”
Val stared. After the terrible day she’d had, this was the last thing she wanted to hear. “I received my stipend, so I have the money you’re owed.”
“Your things are there by the door.”
She saw her green embroidered carpetbag and brown leather valise. She was hot, tired, and still reeling from her attack. “Miss Georgine, please,” she begged. “I was attacked less than an hour ago. May I at least stay the night?”
“Go. I need to grieve.”
Fighting tears and the urge to shake the old crone until her false teeth rattled, Val picked up her things, left the crate with the chalk and slates behind, and walked back out into the night.
The convent was a short distance away. Gathering herself, she set out. She’d been warned against being out alone after dark. The streets weren’t safe, and as she now knew, they weren’t safe during daylight hours either, so she set a quick pace. Seeing the dark shape of the convent’s house ahead bolstered her flagging spirits. Reaching the gate, she pulled. It didn’t move. A second pull offered the same result. It was locked.
“No!” she cried softly.
Standing under the street lamp, she searched the elaborate ironwork for a bell pull or some other way to alert the nuns that she needed entry but there was nothing.Now what?She toyed with the idea of climbing the fence. She was once the best tree-climbing child in her neighborhood, but unlike trees, the gate had sharp arrowhead finials and she’d undoubtedly puncture her hands using them for balance to drop down to the lawn inside.
Discouraged and deflated, tears stung her eyes, but she wiped them away and started walking again. She’d only met a few people in the short time she’d been in the city, mainly friends and acquaintances of the Dumas sisters, but she didn’t know any of them well enough to ask for a place for the night, even if she knew where they lived. She thought about her rescuers, the LeVeqs. She didn’t know them well either, but they’d been kind. She hated the idea of having to lean on them twice in one day, but what else could she do? She reached into the pocket of her skirt and withdrew the small piece of paper she’d received from the captain. He said he and Sable were going to his brother’s hotel. The lack of light made deciphering the address another test. Taking a wild guess, she set out, praying she’d find it and that he and his sister-in-law were still there.
The street was as crowded as if it were noon. Vendors selling spirits plied their goods beneath the light of the street lamps, while girls of the night sold themselves on corners and in the dark doorways of brothels. She stepped around people sleeping on the walks. Saloons blared the music of horns and drums to the delight of the drunks dancing and swaying near the entrances.
“Hey there, lovely lady!” a man called to her. “Do you want to keep me warm tonight?” Laughter followed from his companions.
She kept her eyes straight ahead and ignored them as she pressed on. Her shoulders ached from the strain of carrying the heavy carpetbag and valise. Her ribs were sore from the attack. She was tired and felt terribly alone. She wanted to stop someone and ask if they knew of the hotel owned by the captain’s brother, but the attack was still fresh in her mind, and she was too wary. Off in the distance she heard gunshots, more gay music, and the laughter of New Orleans revelers. She kept walking.
Her hope failing, she came upon an old woman of color seated behind a table. Her position beneath a street lamp allowed Val to see her thin, aging, nut-brown face, and the colorful redtignoncovering her hair.
“Want your fortune told, miss?” the woman asked.
“No, ma’am, but can you tell me if I’m near this address?” Val handed her the paper.
The woman took the paper, eyed it, and handed it back. As Val reached out to take it, the woman gently took her hand, picked up a small lamp beside her, and studied Val’s open palm under the flickering light. “You will lose a love, reject a love, find a love.”
Val didn’t put much stock in the predictions of fortune-tellers. “Thank you. But the address?”
The fortune-teller smiled. “It’s there,” she said, and she pointed. “Right across the street.”
Relief filled her. “Thank you.”
