The thuds were sharper now. No longer muffled. A clatter of wood against stone. She flinched as a cool mist dampened her skin. The shutters outside her window had blown open. A storm raged beyond them, sending sheets of rain sideways, driving water into her tiny room until everything it touched felt alive.
Celine stood. Almost slipped as her bare feet slid across the wet stone floor. She took the few short steps to the window of her cell. Then sighed.
“Merde,” she cursed to no one.
It couldn’t be helped. If she was to secure the latch once more, she would have to lean forward and be drenched.
Celine considered wrapping herself in a shawl. It would be appropriate to do so. Her nightshift was fashioned of thin cotton. If rain soaked through the garment, it would be inappropriate for her to stand beside the window and risk being seen.
Her expression hardened when she realized her shawl was nowhere within reach. The wind continued beating at her shutters, the rain gusting through her room.
Propriety be damned.
Celine battled a particularly harsh gale, then reached over the windowsill to grasp the wooden latch.
Signs of motion caught her eye. She froze, though the rain continued bearing down on her, soaking through her hair, seeping through to her skin. Celine blinked back the drops. It looked as though a figure hovered in her periphery, positioned beside a pillar near the gate of the convent’s wrought-iron fence. She blinked again.
The silhouette vanished.
Celine’s heart crashed through her chest, the blood thinning in her veins.
She yanked the shutters closed, latching them together in a seamless motion. Then she reached for a length of thick cotton. The blood continued pounding in her body as she stripped off her nightshift and pulled a clean chemise from her meager chest of clothing.
One thing was certain: something had shifted tonight.
Ever since that evening in the atelier nearly six weeks ago—when evil had taken refuge in her bones—Celine had felt torn. Certainly, between right and wrong. But more than that, between who she was and who she thought she should be.
Celine Rousseau was a girl who believed in justice. That young man had meant to rape her—to destroy her, body and soul.
Was it wrong for her to destroy him instead?
She knew the right answer. The one the Bible taught. Because Celine was also a girl raised on the Ten Commandments, and it was wrong to kill.
But were there ever times it could be right?
Could Celine Rousseau be a girl who valued life, as well as a girl who had taken it from someone, without a shred of remorse?
It was like walking the edge of a cliff. If Celine fell to one side, she would be good evermore. If she fell to the other? She would be consumed by evil and lose all chance at redemption. Celine knew it sounded silly, but to her it felt true.
It wasn’t possible for good and evil to reside in the same person.
Was it?
Celine blinked hard into the damp darkness. After the events of this evening, she shouldn’t be concerning herself with such things. She should be trembling in her nightdress, poisoned by a different kind of worry.
Tomorrow—despite her best efforts—Celine’s world could crumble like a castle made of sand. In the afternoon, Detective Grimaldi would come to the convent to finish questioning them. It had been his favor to the Mother Superior, a woman well acquainted with his family. Celine had watched in quiet shock as the elderly matron had advocated for her and for Pippa. Begged the young detective’s forbearance.
“Miss Rousseau and Miss Montrose are fine, upstanding young women,” she’d said. “They will be more than happy to cooperate. Of course they will answer any question you pose to them. But please grant them this night to mourn the loss of their friend. To reflect on the actions that brought about this unfortunate turn of events.”
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?