“No, fool that I am. It is not what I want.”
“Well, then, we are both fools.” She walked past him and picked up one of the curry brushes. “I am going to groom the grays. Then I will feed them. Then I will return to my quarters and wait until tomorrow’s dawn calls me free. Then I will do the same thing all over again.” She moved into the stall and began brushing the nearest gray.
Still outside the stall, he watched her with olive eyes that she thought looked sad and very, very old. “You are brave, Lenobia. And strong. And good. When you are a woman grown, you will stand against the darkness in the world. I know this when I look into your storm-cloud eyes. But, ma belle, choose battles you can win without losing your heart and your soul.”
“Martin, I stopped being a girl when I stepped into Cecile’s shoes. I am a woman grown. I wish you understood that.”
He sighed and nodded. “You right. I know you a woman, but I not the only one who knows this. Cherie, I heard talk today from the Commodore’s servants. That Bishop, he don’ keep his eyes from you all during dinner.”
“Sister Marie Madeleine and I have already spoken of it. I am going to stay out of his sight as much as possible.” She met his gaze. “You do not need to worry about me. I have been avoiding the Bishop and men like him for the past two years.”
“From what I see, there are not many men like the Bishop. I feel something bad follows him. His bakas, I think it turn against him.”
“Bakas? What is that?” Lenobia paused in grooming the gray and leaned against the big horse’s side while Martin explained.
“Think of a bakas like a soul catcher, and it catch two kind of souls—high and low. Balance is best for a bakas. We all have good and bad in us, cherie. But if the wearer is out of balance—if he do evil, then the bakas turn against him and there is darkness set free, terrible to behold.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“My maman, she come from Haiti, along with many of my father’s slaves. It the old religion that they follow. They raised me. I follow it.” He shrugged and smiled at her wide-eyed expression. “I think we all come from the same place—we all go back there someday, too. Just lots of different names for that place because there are so many different kinds of people.”
“But the Bishop is a Catholic priest. How could he know about an old religion from Haiti?”
“Cherie, you don’ have to be told about a thing to feel it—to know it. Bakas are real, and sometimes they find the wearer. That ruby he wear around his neck—that a bakas if I ever see one.”
“The ruby is a cross, Martin.”
“It also a bakas, and one that has turned to bad, cherie.”
Lenobia shivered. “He frightens me, Martin. He always has.”
Martin strode over to her and reached under his shirt, pulling out a long piece of slender leather tied to a small leather pouch that had been dyed a beautiful sapphire blue. He pulled it from around his neck and put it around hers. “This gris-gris protect you, cherie.”
Lenobia fingered the little pouch. “What is in it?”
“I wear it ’most my whole life and I don’ know for certain. I know there thirteen small things in it. Before she die, my maman she make it for me to protect me. It worked for me.” Martin took the pouch from her fingers. Looking deeply in her eyes, he raised it to his lips and kissed it. “Now it work for you.” Then slowly, deliberately, he hooked one finger on the fabric in the front of her bodice and pulled gently so that the shift came away from her skin. He dropped the little bag within, where it lay against her breast, just above her mother’s rosary. “Wear it close to your heart, cherie, and the power of my maman’s people will never be far from you.”
His nearness made it hard for her to breathe and when he released her, Lenobia thought she felt the warmth of his kiss through the little jewel-colored pouch.
“If you give me your mother’s protection, then I have to replace it with my mother’s.” She took the rosary beads from around her neck and held them out to him.
He smiled and bent so she could put them on him. He lifted a bead and studied it. “Carved wooden roses. You know what my maman’s people use rose oil for, cherie?”
“No.” She still felt breathless at his closeness and at the intensity of his gaze.
“Rose oil make potent love spells,” he said, the corners of his lips lifting. “You trying to bespell me, cherie?”
“Maybe,” Lenobia said, their gazes locking and holding.
Then the gelding butted her playfully and stamped one large hoof, impatient that his grooming hadn’t been completed.
Martin’s laugh broke the tension that had been building between them. “I think I have competition for your favors. The grays, they not share you.”
“Jealous boy,” Lenobia murmured, turning to hug the gelding’s wide neck and retrieve the curry brush from the sawdust on the ground.
Still chuckling softly, Martin fetched the wide, wooden comb and got to work on the other gray’s mane and tail.
“What story for you today, cherie?”