Blessed Assurance (49 page)

Gabe appreciated his grim humor. His parents led him down the hall toward the parlor where the four debs and Meg had been chatting. Before his mother preceded them into the suddenly quiet room, Nadine's hesitant voice stopped them, “But I don't understand, Miss Wagstaff. Why do you interest yourself so deeply with the son of a servant? I mean, we've all heard that the colored accused of murder was the grandson of your old nurse, but—”

“Ordinarily I wouldn't try to explain because you may not understand even after I do, but in these circumstances, in light of what you've heard, I'll try.” Meg paused. “Del and I were children when we moved to San Francisco only a few months before the nineteen-o-six earthquake. My father had gone away that horrible day, so I was home alone with Del and his grandmother Susan.”

Meg's voice took on a distant quality as though she were removed from them. “The quake hit at sunrise and Susan got us out of the house. She started to take us to the Golden Gate Park. On the way, she had a heart attack and died. No one would stop to help us,” Meg's voice faltered. “No one acted normally.”

Gabe watched Meg, his heart touched by her lost expression.

“An aftershock hit us. I thought we were going to die. When it finally ended, we promised to stick together. And we always have.” She looked up at them and her voice hardened. “Is that a good enough explanation of why I will stick with Del no matter what? Do you choose to believe that nasty gossip or me?”

“What gossip?” Gabe demanded.

Meg watched Gabe as Nadine, who obviously had a taste for melodrama, said in a hushed tone, “Someone started a rumor that Miss Wagstaff isn't a friend to Del, but his…his paramour.” The girl blushed a fiery red.

“I pay no attention to rumors.” Meg forced a relaxed smile. “My family has never lived like everyone else and this isn't the first rumor—”

Mrs. St. Clair spoke up, “Gossip is the hallmark of small minds. That's what my grandmother always said.”

“When did you first hear this rumor?” Gabriel's question sounded as though Nadine sat in the witness chair.

Nadine frowned. “The first time I heard it was at the celebration for the new mayor.”

Meg watched the wheels turn in Gabriel's head. She had a suspicion of who had started this rumor, but it didn't really matter. She would be in New Orleans only as long as it took to get Del out of jail. Somehow this thought didn't relieve her as much as it had previously. She found herself studying Gabriel's stern profile. She shook herself mentally. “Don't let it worry you—”

Belle declared, “If anyone says it within my hearing, they'll get a piece of my mind.”

“That is very loyal of you,” Sands said, “but remember Shakespeare, ‘Methinks thou dost protest too much.'”

“Exactly so.” Mrs. St. Clair sniffed. “Treat it with sublime contempt.”

Sands nodded. “Exactly so, my dear.”

Meg read the ill-concealed worry in Gabriel and his parents' expressions. She knew just what kind of reaction this rumor could bring. The KKK held sway in the South and was spreading north. Whoever had begun this rumor had done it to drive her from the
state. But Del stood in the greatest peril. A black man accused of killing a white man stood almost no chance of acquittal. If the jury heard of this rumor and believed it, Del was a dead man. Shaken, she stood up.

Gabriel moved to her side.

Nadine glanced at the clock. “Oh, it's eight! Time for us to get on our costumes for the Momus Parade.”

While the girls hurried out giggling, Belle paused at the door. “You'll still go see us in the parade?”

Meg nodded. “We wouldn't miss it,” Gabe added.

Belle grinned, then hurried out with Mrs. St. Clair close at her heels. Sands looked at them. “I'll be in my office. Gabe, if you don't want to escort the ladies, I'm sure we could manage to get me through the crowd some way—”

“Leave it to me,” Gabe insisted. Sands nodded once, then left. Gabe looked down at Meg. “Tomorrow is Mardi Gras. I'll have to take you to the French Quarter.” Trying to speak normally, he said, “How are you? I was worried when you didn't come to court….” He stopped.

“I wanted to be on time, but it took me so long to fall asleep after…” Meg braced herself. “Your mother didn't want to disturb me. You and Sands were long gone before I woke.”

“I was surprised that my mother accompanied you to court.”

“She insisted. She said she'd never had time to attend court to see your father represent a client and she wanted to see you at work as well.”

Meg's explanation sounded like pure fiction to Gabe, but he'd seen his mother in court—with his own eyes and for the first time in her life. Had his mother come to court to see his father or was it out of concern for Meg?

Meg asked, “You told your parents tonight?”

He nodded, his eyes devouring her, always elegant, always in black. Now he understood. She was in mourning for Colin. But her black silk dress with its sleek lines—he couldn't look away.

“How did they take it?”

Belle's small Victrola upstairs began with a sudden burst of song, “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.”

Gabe concentrated on Meg despite the loud music. “Mother is excited over Marie—her first grandchild.” He forced a wry grin. “I felt guilty for not telling them sooner.”

Recalling her own father's drawn expression the morning she'd left San Francisco for New Orleans, Meg wrapped her arms around herself, wishing Gabe would draw nearer.
Father, why didn't I tell you about France?

Gabe shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don't feel like the same man who traveled home from France over four months ago.”

“I know. I lost Colin in September. I came home for Thanksgiving. I wanted to tell my parents, but I felt like I was drowning in sensations and images from the trenches—”

He looked into Meg's warm brown eyes. “I took the job as parish attorney to give me a life, a reason to get up in the morning and get dressed. I thought I could forget by keeping busy.” His voice came out rough.

“I was so frightened. I thought I'd never feel like myself again,” Meg said.

Am I falling in love with this woman? Is that why I can't hold back? Or is this just shared experience and sorrow?
“I know. But I don't think we'll ever be exactly as we were.”

“If I were, it would mean that Colin had no effect on me.” She lowered her eyes. “My poor father—he has me to worry about, my stepmother's difficult pregnancy, and Del being arrested…” Meg didn't raise her gaze. “Did it feel peculiar to face your father in court?”

Gabe took her gloveless hand in his. In his pocket, he held information…possibly helpful information. Should he give it to her? Would it help her? He kissed her hand and wished circumstances were different. They couldn't talk about what separated them, but the barriers between them had tumbled down two nights ago in his father's study. He shuddered with awareness of her.

Meg spoke in a low, desperate tone, “What are we going to do?
I can't discuss Del's case with you. But something dreadful is happening in this city.”

The four girls clattered down the stairs and burst in on Meg and Gabe. Meg pulled away from him again. Gabe's frustration level spiked.
We need to be alone.
He swallowed his anger.

The girls posed in the doorway. “How do we look?” they chorused, then giggled at themselves.

Meg made herself smile though the muscles of her face and neck were taut like steel cords.

Belle was dressed as the Statue of Liberty—the other three were a black cat, a veiled harem girl, and a Japanese geisha with a powdered white face.

Meg kept her smiled in place. “What inventive costumes.”

“You girls, get your wraps now. The cars are in the porte cochere,” Mrs. St. Clair instructed from the hall.

Soon they all crowded into two cars. Mrs. St. Clair and three debutantes in the family sedan and Belle in the backseat of the Franklin behind Meg and Gabe.

In the darkness, Gabe slid his hand over the front seat till he touched Meg's hand. He clasped it in his. The agony of their situation twisted his gut.

What am I going to do?
Gabe asked himself.
I care about Meg. How can I prosecute her dearest friend with a flawed case?
What did a prosecutor do if he became convinced that the defendant was not guilty? It was the kind of question he would automatically want to put to his father, but how could he? His father was the defense lawyer.

The chauffeur drove to the corner of Canal and Rampart streets near the edge of the Quarter. The debs flocked out of the family car into the throng. “The parade is gathering here,” Gabe explained to Meg.

She nodded.

Squeezing out of the sedan, his mother pushed her way back through the crowd to Gabe's window. She had to shout to be heard
over the noise of the crowd. “A spot has been reserved for you on Felicity Street, you remember where?”

Gabe nodded.

His mother motioned broadly. “Our place in the pied-a-terre is on Rampart right over there!”

“I remember,” Gabe shouted back. “Meg and I will walk back and join you!” His mother nodded and turned away to push her way to the nearby pied-a-terre.

Gabe threaded the Franklin through the packed streets and found his spot at a friend's home and parked. He helped Meg out of the car. Only blocks separated them from the riotous celebration in the Quarter. But Felicity Street looked deserted. The night breeze rustled through the tall live oaks, the Spanish moss fluttering over their heads like tattered sleeves on an ancient shroud.

Meg looked up at him, her eyes pleading for…what? What could he give her? The piece of paper in his pocket weighed him down. It might put her in danger.

“I want you to hold me,” she murmured into his ear.

Pulling her against him, he closed his arms around her. With his forefinger, he tilted her quivering chin up. He kissed her. Again, the pain of the past fell away in the joy of Meg's kiss, the coming together of their lips.

Meg swayed in his arms. Gabriel's kiss shoved back the pain of losing Colin, the horror that she might lose Del. She pushed away from him. “We must go. Your mother will worry if we don't come soon.”

Gabe allowed her to draw him along. The tap of their heels on the paved banquette gave sound to their hurried pace, a counterpoint to the cacophony of human laughter and jazz trumpets in the distance. Gabe wanted to pull Meg into his arms again and forget about the parade, his mother…

Soon Rampart Street was in sight. Gabe drew Meg closer to him. Sometimes, a young man will try to steal a lady from her companion. No one was stealing Meg from him tonight. They had too
much left to discuss. Finally, he led her past the wrought iron double gate and inside the apartment, up the curved staircase to the noisy crowded second floor.

At the top of the flight, Dulcine gazed down at them. “Gabriel's here!” She ignored Meg pointedly and reached for Gabe's hand. “I've been waiting for you!”

Gabe evaded her hands as he bowed to her. “Good evening. Did my mother arrive safely?”

Dulcine looked disgruntled. “Yes, she's on the balcony.”

Gabe nodded his thanks. Taking Meg's arm, he led her to the balcony. He greeted his mother, then drew Meg to the end of the balcony where they could be more private.

Meg leaned close to his ear again. “It's fairly obvious Dulcine isn't thrilled to see me. Go back inside—”

A gin-flushed male voice came loudly from inside, “Did Gabe bring that Yankee with him? Doesn't he know the truth about her yet?”

Meg gripped Gabe's arm. “Go sit beside your mother. I don't want a scene.”

He whispered back fiercely. “No one will tell me who I may or may not escort—”

His mother rose majestically from her nearby wicker chair and reentered the room. “Charles DuPuy”—a hush fell over the festivity inside. Mrs. St. Clair proceeded—“You are, what we called in my youth, foxed. Please take yourself away until you've recovered your proper sense.” Then she returned and sat back down calmly.

“Bravo, mother,” Gabe whispered beside Meg's ear.

“You should still go inside. Dulcine might…” Meg drew in a dismayed breath. She hadn't meant to reveal she suspected Dulcine of starting the rumor Belle's friends had overheard.

“I'm to blame for encouraging her. I was so broken up I thought my mother was right and I should court Dulcine.”

Meg tucked her chin low. “Perhaps it would be advisable for you not to make a clean break with her just yet.”

“Why?”

“I believe—though I could be misjudging Dulcine—that if she thought we were romantically attached, she would spread more rumors.”

Meg's every word rang true. How could his mother have wanted him to marry such a pedestrian and spiteful woman?

The evening inched on. After his mother's attack, no one dared slight Meg. Gabe argued back and forth inside himself over whether or not to give her the piece of paper, the name he'd been given. At last, he and Meg stood, alone, back home in front of his parents' fireplace.

“I should go up,” Meg said with a weary sigh. She didn't move. “But there are things I want to say to you.”

“Say them.”

Meg drew in a ragged breath. “I feel such a presence of evil. Not just because of Del being wrongly accused.”

Gabe pulled her closer. “Two nights ago when they shot at you, it was too fresh—”

Meg's voice went on, steady and calm. “I think if they had wanted me dead, I'd be lying in the morgue today. I was too easy a target. Someone wants me to leave New Orleans and wants Del convicted.”

Gabe could say nothing. Frustration burned in his stomach.

Tears collected in her throat. “I feel like crying and I don't know why.” Meg buried her face in his stiffly-pressed cotton shirt. She breathed in Gabriel's distinctive scented shaving soap, so reassuringly masculine. Gabe kissed her hair. She fingered one of the round buttons of his coat. “I don't want you to suffer because of my friendship.”

He circled her tiny waist with his hands, drawing her against him.
Friendship? Meg, what I feel for you is much more than that. But how do I reconcile our relationship with my conscience over Lenore, over Del's case?
“I think my only course is to resign from the parish staff of prosecutors.”

“No!” She stepped back, out of his hold.

He gripped her shoulders and drew her closer again. “Now
I would much prefer to enter into practice with my father. That wasn't a possibility before…before you came.”

“I don't want you to resign.” She pulled from his grasp. “Don't you see? Resigning from the case could put you in danger.”

“Danger?”

“Mitch Kennedy was killed—by whom and why? Del was stabbed by his cellmate, but why? LaRae was killed probably because of her talking to me. Someone ordered that attempt the other night—”

“I'm not frightened!” Gabe's hands balled into fists.

“Of course you're not! You faced death in France! But what about your parents? You once warned me about kidnapping. Would your family be safe? What about Marie? She needs you. She needs to come to a calm, a happy home, not one filled with mourning—”

“Stop!” He wrenched her to him. “I refuse to be frightened by evil. I will do what is right. I will serve justice.”