My Cherie Amour Page 16

  from decent women. They were not supposed to usurp the rightful place of wives and

  daughters.

  Carlos watched helplessly as the soldiers left with Mademoiselle Cherie. He knew the

  He had to get to the duque, but he also knew he was being watched. He had to get help.

  Instead of heading out of town straight into whatever trap that waited him, he headed

  towards the seedy bars by the docks. The duque never went anywhere without suitable

  backup. Carlos had a feeling he would was going to need all the help he could get.

  ********

  “Señor Duque, I am so glad you are here,” Sister Asrid rushed to hustle Diego into a

  small parlor near the front entrance. “Sister Margaux and I have been most concerned.” Diego followed the nun without protest. He noticed she chose a room with a clear

  view of the staircase and the door. There was only one way into the room. They would not

  be disturbed without clear warning.

  “Please sister, tell me what troubles you.”

  Sister Astrid cast a worried glance to the staircase, working the rosary in her hands in

  an agitated manner. The sister was a petite older woman, probably entering her sixties, but

  her eyes were sharp. Diego doubted she missed much.

  “Father Manuel is not a man of God,” she said in little more than a whisper. “He is

  using the pricesa for monetary gain.”

  Diego sighed. Was that it? He had never met the man, and he was well aware of the

  so-called priests many, many sins. He had received missives from the overseer of the way

  the man made use of any woman under the age of eighteen. Diego was obliged to have any

  and all young females removed immediately, sending them to any of his other properties if

  that was their wish, or offering a stipend and free passage to Canada, France or anywhere

  else they wanted to go. The last he heard the priest traveled to Storyville three to four times

  a week, which was just as well.

  “I am aware of the father’s peccadilloes,” Diego ensured her. “Yes, well. If that were that all, I too would be satisfied to just inform you and move

  on. I have been a nun for many years; sins of the flesh, even when committed by men of

  God do not faze me.”

  Of course not, Diego thought. This was the Crescent City after all.

  “No,” the sister went on. “What he is doing is dangerous. The princesa is teetering

  on the brink of insanity, if you beg my pardon.”

  Didn’t he know it?

  The nun went on. “She is so very fragile señor. He uses this, encouraging her in her

  growing fanaticism. He tells her that your placée is a demoness bent on collecting your soul

  for Satan. He brings the evil woman, Agathe here. Together they convince her that if you

  lose your soul then she too is in mortal danger because she was once your wife and in the

  eyes of God you are still married. She is close to the edge of her sanity they are determined

  to push her over. As it stands right now, she cannot be in normal society. She sees demons

  and agents of Satan everywhere. She fasts too much to be healthy and is on her knees so

  much they are raw. Devotion to the Lord is a beautiful thing, but la princesa, she uses this

  to avoid all other aspects of life. To hide away in the cloak of faith. I just wanted you to

  know I have contacted the Mother Superior and she had ensured me she is sending word to

  the Bishop. She needs a nice quite convent, where the sisters can care for her around the

  clock and she would not be victims for men like that Father Manuel.” Diego wished he could be shocked, or even sad. The fact was Sister Astrid was not

  telling him anything he did not already suspect. He had hoped Maria-Teresa would get

  tired of waiting for him to attend her out here so far away from everything. He had been

  wrong. If she thought her immortal soul was irrevocably tied his, she would never give up

  trying to “save” him. She had to go back home.

  “Thank you, Sister Astrid,” Diego stood kissing the elder nun on the cheek. “I will

  get rid of Father Manuel and I will do what I have to in order to get the princesa to return

  home to Spain.”

  “I do not think she will go easily.”

  Neither did he. He knew what he must do. Nothing horrified Maria-Teresa more

  than being the subject of his sexual attentions. All he had to do was to convince her he had

  decided to stay with her, but he expected her to act like a wife in all ways. After all he did

  need a son, the king had decreed it. He only hoped he would not bring down the wrath of

  the king while making his point to his youngest child.

  “No, it will not be easy, sister. I ask that you please stay. I think she will need you.”

  Sister Astrid nodded in understanding. “You will find her awaiting you in the

  upstairs parlor.”

  “And Father Manuel?” “I believe the father has gone into town today. It had been a few days since his last

  trip.”

  Diego nodded as he escorted the sister to the door.

  “Thank you again, sister. I appreciate you coming to me with your concerns.”

  It was not surprising to find Maria-Teresa on her knees in a stark room with only a

  huge wooden cross adorning the walls, hard wooden bench with no pillows to soften the

  seat, a simple desk and a hard back wooden chair. It was every bit as austere as she in her

  shapeless black gown and her ever-thinning hair in a tight bun. Her head was bent, her

  arms were stretched toward the ceiling though her right hand worked her rosary without

  pause. He watched her for a few minutes, trying to remember if there had ever been a time

  in his marriage were they had just gotten along, accepting one another for who they were.

  He couldn’t think of one. It was sad really; two dramatically different people needs that

  conflicted in almost every way should have never been given to one another in marriage.

  “Diego!” Maria gasped, when she finally noticed him. “I did not think you would

  come,”

  “Well here I am. What was so urgent Maria?”

  When she scrambled to her feet Diego’s heart leapt to her chest. She had lost so

  much weight she was little more than skin and bone. She was noticeably weak, though

  when he reached down to try to help her to her feet she scurried away as if burned by his touch. Guilt weighed down his shoulders like boulders. Had he brought her to this? Had

  he asked too much of a gently bred princess, more than she could bear? Maybe if he had

  wooed her, if he had spent more time trying to find what she might have found arousing,

  things would be different. But Maria had not wanted to marry, not him not anyone. She

  obeyed her father’s dictate because there was nothing else to do. There was nowhere else for

  her to go. There had been no convent in the world would take her against the will of the

  King of Spain, cousin to the King of France, father of the King of Two Sicilies, father-in

  law to the Holy Roman Emperor, cousin to the Pope before their farce of a marriage.

  Maria had been trapped to be what others wanted to be. Now she was free to enter a

  convent, she didn’t want to.

  “Diego, you must…”

  “Señor ! Señor ! You must come quickly!”

  A mulatto boy no more than seven or eight wearing little more than rags ran into the

  room following much more slowly by a winded Sister Astrid, huffing apologies for having

  disturbed the c
ouple.

  “Señor ! Monsieur Gaspar has been shot and the soldiers have arrested Mademoiselle

  Cherie!”

  “Get out of here you little devil!” Maria-Teresa screamed flying towards the boy.

  Diego had to move quickly to intercept her before she harmed the boy. He was surprised by the strength in such an emancipated woman. “He is a demon seed! Diego you must see

  that. All of these people here, they are trying to steal our souls! Let the puta hang! It is the

  only way for you to be free!”

  Diego felt an ice cold fist grip his heart. What had she done?

  “Let who hang, Maria?” His words were slow and concise, afraid to unleash any of

  the emotions simmering right beneath the surface.

  “Your demon ! Agathe told me she would arrange for her to be arrested and

  hanged to help me free your soul, to free our souls. Don’t you see? It’s the only way! She

  must die so that our immortal souls will live on to be with God.”

  He couldn’t look at her. He had to physically take a step away from her. He was

  afraid he might wrap his hands around her boney neck and squeeze until he felt it snap in

  two.

  “She has done nothing deserving of death, Maria. To kill is a mortal sin. Helping

  facilitate the murder of an innocent make you just as guilt as the one that commits the

  murder.”

  It was so very hard to speak calmly. He wanted to roar in fear and fury. This woman

  was every bit as insane as Agathe, probably more so. This was no act of revenge, as was the

  case with Agathe. This crazed woman actually believed every word that came from her

  mouth. “She endangered our souls! She is not even human! You cannot murder a creature

  from the pit! It is our duty to destroy them.”

  Diego was holding on by a very thin thread. He had to tread carefully, but Maria

  had to be dealt with now.

  “So, Maria,” he said slowly, carefully, “this means you are ready to be a wife to me,

  sí?”

  “Have I not said so?”

  “And you will welcome me in your bed? Every night?”

  “Well, I…I…Surely that would not be…”

  “Necessary? But of course! You want to return to being my wife. I had thought to

  spare you from my intentions, but now there is no other way. You are right. I should cleave

  to you. I think we should share a room in fact.”

  “Share? A room? Diego, we must concentrate on the spiritual…”

  “Are we not tasked to be fruitful and multiply? There was only one way to do that.”

  He was right in front of her now. He started caressing her face then moved down to her

  shoulders. She tried to move away, but he held her still. “The king would want us to

  produce a child.” He leaned down to trail kisses across her forehead, then her cheek. He

  had to fight to keep his roiling stomach down. As much as he would like to slap her silly,

  he couldn’t. His patience was fast disappearing. He had to push her to break her, God forgive him. He needed to get to Cherie, but he had to assure that Maria wouldn’t go after

  her again. The only way to do that was to get her to see they would never be remarried. She

  had to give up on him completely. “We might have to try several times a day –“

  “NO!” Maria screamed breaking away from his hold. “No! No! No! Don’t touch

  me!”

  Reaching out to grasp her chin in a none-too-gentle hold he let every bit of his rage

  show on his face. Through clenched teeth he addressed the deranged princess, “You will

  stay out of my personal life. You will stay the hell away from me for the rest of your natural

  life, because I cannot promise you I will not kill you if I have to be burdened with your

  presence ever again.”

  Bellowing for the overseer, he instructed that Maria-Teresa be locked in a

  windowless room until passage to Spain could be found. Taking the boy who had been sent

  by Carlos, Diego rode like the wind to find his love.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cherie shivered in the dank cell she had been thrown into. They had stripped her of

  her gown, leaving only her shift to protect against the draft. She didn’t know long se had

  been in this cell, only that hadn’t yet been a day. This was soon kind of holding cell. From

  what she could make out by hushed conversations of three officers across the room they

  would move her soon to the general population. Two of the three were wary of holding her

  here. They were afraid of someone she was attached to. Diego? She didn’t know. They did

  not use names. The ranking officer was more worried about his career if he defied the

  governor. The other two cast furtive glances in her direction but finally gave up the

  argument. Oh, God what was going to become of her?

  “Mademoiselle Bonnet? Please follow me.”

  One of the junior officers escorted her out of the holding cell through an iron door.

  The cells were quite a bit larger here filled with unwashed humanity in every shade. They

  passed the men’s holding cells first. Dozens of faces pressed against the bars shouting

  obscenities and reaching out to grab at her. Her young officer escort had to bang against

  the bars with a metal bar to keep the longer arms at bay. Several times a strange substance

  was thrown in her general direction. Was that semen? Her knees buckled. If it weren’t for the quick reaction of her escort she would have fell face first in the splatter one of the

  prisoners had thrown in front of her.

  “Try not to despair Mademoiselle,” He whispered against her ear. “I have one more

  hour on duty, then I will tell le Capet myself of this injustice. He will free you, never fear.”

  Le Capet?

  “I don’t know…”

  “Mademoiselle, please, don’t speak. Not to me. Not to anyone. Say nothing so that

  there will be no further witnesses against you.”

  But what had she done to have witnesses against her now?

  “It is better you don’t know why you have been arrested. Your innocence will shine

  without subterfuge,” the man continued as if reading her thoughts.

  He led her to the one cell for women. It was not surprising that all of the inhabitants

  were women of color ranging from deep ebony to dusky ivory. Most were probably a there

  due to infamous code noir, women whose only crime really was their lineage, though there

  were several street walkers unlucky enough not to belong to a “house” with the ability to

  bribe officials or attract important clientele. There were also a few mambos that probably

  pissed of the wrong patrons. People were forever looking for someone else to blame for

  their own mistakes and misfortunes. All of the women were in various states of undress

  much like herself; more for the titillation of the guards than any claim of safety. A couple of the rougher women approached her immediately approached her.

  Fingering the fine linen of her shift, insolently flipping a stray curl that escaped her

  coiffure. Cherie had never been more frightened in her life, but she refused to show it. Any

  sign of weakness and the she wolves would tear her apart.

  “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Une bonne dame, eh? We don’t get many

  placées in this place,” a haggard looking woman with blackened teeth breathed fetid air in

  her face.

  “Look at her shift, Lattie!” The other with equally bad breath and more than her fair

  share of body odor chim
ed. “And such pretty ribbons in those curls all done up gentil et

  assez! Like she’s so much better than us filles travaillantes, eh?”

  Cherie said nothing, keeping her head held high and staring straight ahead. Bravery

  was well and good, but to respond would only invite trouble. She did not need to have

  dealt with women such as this before to know it was probably better no to encourage them.

  She prayed they would tire of their sport and leave her alone, though she feared they would

  not be satisfied until they knocked her down a peg or two. Cherie wasn’t so blind to the

  realities of life. She understood it was only by luck of birth she was not one of these

  wretched creatures. It could have easily been her, and given a series of unfortunate events it

  still could. Look where she was now. Without Diego or Étienne by her side she was

  vulnerable to whims of society in general. This was the fate her parents and grandparents had tried to protect her from. Had she been the wife of ‘Tienne, no one would dare seize

  her from her home and throw her into a dank, dirty jail cell.

  “Leave her alone before I turn you into a frog.”

  Cherie turned around to see a girl, fourteen at most leaning against one of the walls,

  a cheroot hanging from her mouth. She was a striking figure, despite the undeveloped

  straight lines of her body. Her thick, straight hair fell below her waist in unrelieved black,

  she had strong arched brows a little too full to be feminine, but her lashes were long and

  curled. It was her eyes that held you; deep blue, bright green, frosty gray all mixed together

  gave her an eerie appearance. Eyes that saw far too much, eyes that knew too much.

  “Come here,” the girl told her.

  Seeing how the slip of girl stopped two of the hardest women Cherie had ever seen

  in her life she did not hesitate to make her way over to the girl.

  “I am Marie, daughter of Gran Maître and Papa Legba,” the girl told her.

  Cherie had no more than a passing knowledge of the Orisha, Voodoo gods, to which

  Marie referred, but she found herself believing every word.

  “I am, or will be a great mambo one day,” Marie went on, pointing to a cot against

  the back wall. “We will go and sit, oui?”

  Cherie decided not to point out the cot was occupied by four other women already.

  As soon as they approached the women got up and moved away. “Now, what is your name?”