The Beautiful (The Beautiful #1)(40)

Celine had looked away when she heard those words, her shame a dagger through her heart.

Not a trace of guilt could be found on the Mother Superior’s face. But the wizened woman had spared Celine. Offered her a pardon on the steps of the gallows.

Tomorrow Michael Grimaldi would renew his inquiries. What if the detective looked into Celine’s past with his eerie, colorless eyes? What if he asked why she’d journeyed across the Atlantic?

What if he learned she was a murderess?

It could be her undoing.

Celine’s hands shook as she wrapped the length of thick cotton around her hair, trying in vain to wring the waist-length strands dry. Her dreams taunted her. Her memories failed her. Her desires had become reapers in the dark.

She struggled to marshal her emotions. If she did not take control of her life—of these fears—they would be sure to control her. She could not allow this to happen. Succumbing to fear was the surest way to lose her footing.

Celine made her way back to her narrow rope bed, determined to fight for a measure of peace, so that she could prepare for what tomorrow might bring. When she reached for the coarse linen sheets at the foot of her mattress, she froze in her tracks. The golden petals. The embroidered handkerchiefs.

She blinked once. Twice. The length of thick cotton wrapped around her hair unraveled to the stone floor at her feet. Her body trembled.

Bastien had tucked away a folded piece of fabric in his trouser pocket. In the warm glow of the gas lanterns, it had looked like a buttery silk handkerchief.

In the bright light of day?

It would be yellow.

Like the ribbon missing from Anabel’s hair.





A SURPRISE VISIT




Celine’s dreams continued haunting her well into the waking hours. For the rest of the night, her sleep came in fits and starts. Amid the disquiet, she imagined she saw the silhouette outside her window draw closer, a splash of black in a sea of grey.

As a child, these kinds of indistinct dreams came to her in waves, often in times of turmoil. In them, everything seemed vivid and alive and possible, even her most twisted nightmares. Twice, she imagined her mother had visited her in the dead of night. Once, she’d been cloaked in lambent fox fur, her eyes aflame. The following occasion, she’d been accompanied by the briny scent of the ocean, a pearl glowing between her teeth.

Tonight Celine dreamed her mother whispered in her ear. She felt her draw near, the scent of safflower oil and incense thick about her.

“Kah,” she said, her breath a cool wash on the shell of Celine’s ear. “Bhal-ee.”

Celine shouldn’t know what these words meant. But her body froze, her eyes wide.

Flee. Her breath came in a gasp. Quickly.



* * *





As luck would have it, the next morning brought with it the clearest sky Celine had beheld since coming to New Orleans two weeks prior. As a result, the sun’s rays seeped unfiltered into every nook and cranny.

By ten o’clock, the temperature had become sweltering.

On top of that, one of Celine’s worst fears had come to pass.

She was stationed at the front of a classroom, gazing down at twelve smiling young faces, the eldest no more than ten. To her right stood Catherine, her hands folded before her, the bespectacled epitome of a genteel young woman.

Celine was expected to assist Catherine in teaching the young girls about proper comportment in society, in addition to instructing them on correct French pronunciation. S’il vous pla?t, merci beaucoup, je vous en prie, pardonnez-moi, and the like.

She supposed this was all a carefully orchestrated attempt on the part of the Mother Superior to shame her. To remind Celine of her place in life and in the world.

“Ladies!” Catherine clapped. “Pay attention to Mademoiselle Rousseau. She’s here to teach you exactly what to do to impress, say . . . a handsome young gentleman sometime in the near future?” She sent a kind smile Celine’s way, but in its depths Celine detected a stab of resentment. Of course Catherine knew what had taken place last night. All the young women at the convent had been informed, the truth spreading like wildfire through underbrush.

Unsurprisingly. One of their ranks had perished in horrifically violent fashion.

Perhaps Celine should not fault Catherine for the condescension shaping her brow this morning. If Catherine had been linked to Anabel’s untimely death, Celine would surely be sending her a judgmental look as well.

In an attempt to channel the confidence Celine lacked in this moment, she offered a toothsome smile to the roomful of waiting innocents. “Of course it is lovely knowing what to say and do in society, but you should also pay attention simply for the sake of learning how to speak another language,” she said in a heedless tone. “We wouldn’t want to feel like everything we do is an attempt to catch a young man’s notice, now would we?” She laughed softly.

A handful of the young girls in the room giggled with Celine, though most of them squirmed in their seats, their faces pinched in confusion.

Fury shaped each of Catherine’s features before gathering above her brows. “Mademoiselle Rousseau, may I speak with you for a minute?” she ground out from between her teeth.

Celine looked to the wooden beams along the ceiling, counting down from ten. She’d known it was a mistake for her to be teaching anyone anything. Especially a classroom of children under the watchful gaze of a former English governess. Jokes about Puritans and the Tower of Terror abounded in Celine’s mind before she silenced them the following instant.