The Seven Sapphires of Mardi Gras
turned away from me; only the shadow of his cheek and lashes were visible. “Perhaps it would be better if you saw Evangeline for the first time without another’s views to color your own feelings.”
    “You are right,” I agreed reluctantly, for curiosity was making me impatient. “But, are we far?”
    He shook his head. “Not far.” His eyes were dark and flat as the motionless waters of the swamp. All traces of the charming man he had been last night had vanished. He sat straight and silent beside me, as cheery as a hangman on his way to an execution. What could be bothering him?
    In an effort to lift the feeling of impending doom that was settling like invisible dust around us, I continued to talk. “It came as quite a surprise that Grandfather left the family place to me. I really thought he would leave it to Edward. After all, Edward was the one who stayed—Are you acquainted with the Dereux family, Nicholas?”
    The eyes seemed to grow even darker. “Of course. Almost as well as if I were a part of it.”
    “Mother also spoke of a second brother named Pierre, but I don’t really know much about him. She said—well, that he was a bit of a rake.”
    A dark brow raised with sudden interest. “A black sheep, eh? Now this is getting interesting.”
    “I can make it even more so,” I boasted, glad to see him smile. “Mother told me that he was involved in smuggling and other criminal activities before he got himself killed in the war. And that he left behind a son who was as much of a scoundrel as himself. Edward mentioned last time he wrote that the son thinks Evangeline belongs to him. I’m afraid he might contest the will.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Nicholas replied.
    “Oh, I’m not worried! Even if Grandfather once promised the place to Pierre, his son has no right to it. If need be, I’ll give him a fight. You see, he has no legitimate claim. Edward was careful to point out to me that he was a bastard son and not really a part of the great Dereux family at all.”
    “I see.”
    “At least Grandfather never claimed him as part of the family.”
    “Your grandfather,” Nicholas observed in a strange voice, “was not a very forgiving soul.”
    “No,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “But he must have had some redeeming quality. My mother never stopped loving him. She never forgot her life here. She wanted so much to return. If she had but lived—”
    “Is that why you have come?” I was taken by surprise by the roughness in Nicholas’s voice. “Tb live out her life for her? That can’t be done, you know.”
    “I only want to meet the people she once knew. I want to know the South as she knew it. Is that so wrong?”
    “That all depends on how you go about it.”
    How could I expect Nicholas to understand what I was ashamed to even admit that what I really hoped to find here was a sense of belonging. Mother and I had kept to ourselves, lived isolated and apart from the others in the small flat in St. Louis. I had no suitor, no friends. With Mother gone, I was without root or anchor. I was totally and utterly alone.
    “Things have a way of changing, you know.”
    “Mother said that Evangeline was the one thing in the world that would never change.”
    “Then you’re in for a rather shocking surprise.”
    What did he mean? The gloom in Nick seemed to sink deeper and deeper the farther we went along. The carriage seemed to move at a snail’s pace. “You’ve built castles in the air, Miss Moreland. I hope you will not be too disappointed when reality rears its ugly head.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    The carriage slowed. “When we make this curve in the road, Evangeline will be in view,” he said. His voice was heavy, thick with forewarning.
    “And, there it is,” he sighed wearily as the carriage lurched around the final curve. An air of mockery crept into his tone. “The beautiful Evangeline”
    I gasped in horror. The gaunt shell that loomed before us in the glistening

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