either side of this poor soul, bracketing him like a pair of suited specters. Through the darkness, the shorter man lit a cheroot. A flash of firelight shone on a set of perfect white teeth and the bleached linen of his rolled shirtsleeves.
But it was not this man who caught Celine’s notice.
It was the taller one standing to his right, watching the violence unfold as though it were simple entertainment. A show performed onstage before a paying audience.
Atop his head, Celine recognized the tilt of a Panama hat.
Perhaps it was a coincidence. The boy she’d seen that first night—the one whose memory she’d struggled to conjure days later—could not be the only individual in New Orleans with a penchant for that style. But a deeper, more visceral part of Celine warned her not to put too much stock in coincidences.
“Please, Fantôme,” the man cowering in the muck begged. “Pardonnez-moi.” His voice trembled while he pleaded for forgiveness. He stretched a hand toward the figure in the Panama hat. The one he’d called the Ghost. An apt moniker for a creature so comfortable in the shadows.
“Apologies are nothing without amends, Lévêque,” the Ghost said in a richly rasping tone, his broad back to Celine, making it hard to discern any of his features. Even in the subtlest of motions, he carried himself as many young men of pedigree did in Paris: without a care in the world. As though the very air he breathed were laced with diamond dust.
The thought alone enraged Celine.
Continuing, he said, “You were warned what would happen the next time you behaved with such disrespect.” He nodded at the man smoking the cheroot, who rolled back his shirtsleeves to begin anew.
“Wait, wait, wait!” the cowering man said, his voice growing louder with each plea. He moved his forearm across his face to ward away the coming blows. “What do you want? Do you want me to apologize to her? I’ll beg on my knees for Mademoiselle Valmont’s forgiveness. I’ll—”
“Alas, Lévêque. You have nothing I—or Mademoiselle Valmont—want.” Leaning his right shoulder against the brick wall, he nodded again toward his compatriot with the cheroot.
Like a crack of thunder, a fist slammed into the trembling man’s face. As the beating continued, the Ghost pressed his fingers to the side of his throat as though he were checking his own pulse, then flicked away a speck of imaginary lint from his shoulder.
The sound of breaking bones splintered through the night, causing Celine to flinch.
This was cruel. Unnecessary. Appalling.
She moved to put a halt to the thrashing, but Pippa held fast to her arm. “Don’t interfere,” she said. “Please. Violent men are unpredictable.”
Her words stopped Celine cold.
Of course they were. She knew well what violent men were capable of doing. Her mind flashed to a late winter evening in the atelier. A wealthy young man offering to bring her hot tea and a warm blanket while she worked. The feeling of a clammy palm against her neck. How it shocked her in its uninvited wantonness. How a touch quickly turned painful. Nails digging into her arm. Fingers tearing through her hair. A roughened palm around her ankle.
No.
No.
No.
Then the smashing of a candelabra against his skull.
The silence that followed. The blood that flowed.
Celine stood frozen by this sudden wash of memory. In that moment, she’d become a murderess. The next, a fugitive. Now she lived in a convent across the Atlantic, each night sharing the word of God with other young women.
The irony.
Pippa gripped Celine’s forearm. “Celine?”
Celine shook herself from her thoughts as the man with the cheroot moved to exit the alleyway, wiping his bloodied knuckles with a silk handkerchief. Pippa inhaled sharply when Celine stepped into his path without thought, blocking him from proceeding farther, meeting his hooded eyes with her own cool gaze. He quirked a brow at her.
Even without the aid of a gas lamp, Celine could see his obvious youth and the fine stitching on his expensive waistcoat of English damask. A slender gold chain hung around his neck, a monocle dangling from its center. His copper skin was unmarred—indeed almost too perfect—his hair a mass of dark waves. If Celine had to guess, his family likely hailed from the East Indies. His hazel eyes were filled with interest and not a small amount of admiration. It was almost as though he’d come across her on an evening stroll through a garden.