“Oh, I’ve missed you too!” She kissed his cheek. “I’m good. We’re all good now that you’re here.” Many nights she was sad, wondering why she and her mother couldn’t live in the same house as her papa. When she would ask, the explanations she would be given didn’t make a lot of sense to her. But when he did come to see them, the joy he made her feel pushed aside all the sorrow.

  “I brought you a surprise, Jolie,” he said as he set her tenderly on her feet.

  “You did? What?”

  He stepped to the door and picked up a package. “Straight from Paris.”

  Louisa watched the scene play out with love in her eyes. “You spoil her, John.”

  “I intend to spoil you both.” He reached inside his pocket and drew out a small box. “For the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  Both Louisa and Jolie tore into their packages with delight. “Oh, John!” Louisa exclaimed when she found a gold filigree bracelet set with diamonds. “This is beautiful!”

  “Not as beautiful as what Papa gave me! Look, Mama!” Jolie held up a porcelain doll with long dark hair dressed in a pink silk gown. “Isn’t she wonderful?”

  Jean Marie stood back and surveyed her family. She shook her head, trying to drive away the dark cloud of foreboding that fogged her mind. Bad days were coming and she didn’t know how to forestall them.

  As all visits went when John Belmont spent time with the family of his heart, there was much laughter. They took a long walk, ate together, and Jolie took a nap when her parents retired to their room for a nap of their own.

  Later, as the evening wore on, John took Louisa’s hands. “I have another surprise for you. I want you to go to New Orleans with me to attend the quadroon ball.”

  “New Orleans?” Louisa couldn’t mask the excitement on her face. “It’s been so long since I’ve gone anywhere.”

  “Well, it’s time. You’ll be the most beautiful woman there.”

  “And one of the few places you can go together without raising eyebrows.” Jean Marie interjected from across the room. She sat in a rocking chair next to the window, embroidering a pillowcase for Jolie’s bed.

  “Don’t spoil things, Mother,” Louisa said lowly. “John and I need this time together.”

  “What about me, Papa?” Jolie asked. “Will I come with you?”

  He shook his head. “No, this trip is just for your mother and me. We’ll take you on a trip when you’re older. Maybe to Paris. Would you like that?”

  Clasping her doll to her breast, Jolie tried to picture what Paris would be like. She’d heard stories of the beautiful streets, the elegant shops and the picturesque river Seine. But since her world was condensed to the swamp and the bayou, an image was hard to bring to mind. “I’d love to go anywhere with you, Papa,” she told him with a smile.

  “We’ll go to New Orleans by boat?” Louisa asked, returning the conversation to the more immediate concern.

  “Yes, I have tickets. We’ll journey down river on the steamboat called the Bayou Queen and we’ll stay in my apartment in the French Quarter. Felix, my brother, is staying there now, but he’ll be going on a trip back East soon. We’ll have the whole place to ourselves. Let’s plan on staying for a week.”

  “Are you sure you can stay away from Oak Hill that many days?” Louisa asked with affection.

  “Yes, I can. The crops are in and I have some time to spend with my best girl.”

  “Oh, John.” Louisa threw her arms around her lover’s neck. “You’ve made me so happy. You’ve made both of us happy.”

  “Good.” John Belmont held Louisa to his heart, as their daughter looked on with affection.

  Jolie felt like nothing in the world could ever tear them apart.

  She was wrong.

  * * *

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Jolie yelled. Her grandmere was standing in the middle of the yard with her arms stretched toward heaven. Wailing.

  The noises coming from Jean Marie were terrible. Long, hard, agonizing screams tore from her throat. “They’re dead! They’re dead!”

  “Who’s dead?” Jolie asked, alarmed beyond measure.

  Abraham and his stepmother came running into the yard to see what all of the commotion was about. “What’s wrong?” Eula cried, catching Jolie up in her arms. “You’re scaring this child to death. Did you have one of your visions?”

  “Yes!” Jean Marie bent over double, placing her hands on the ground. “The steamboat has blown up. I can hear the roar. I can feel the heat, the fire, the rush of water as it pours in from the river. I see flour, clouds of flour in the air.”

  “What? I don’t understand?” Jolie sobbed. Her grandmere’s words were unclear. “Who is dead? And why is there flour?”

  “Shhh,” Eula tried to calm the little girl. “We don’t know anything, yet. We don’t know if anyone is dead. Your grandmother is having a bad dream, that’s all.”

  But Jolie knew the truth in her heart. Grandmere’s dreams and visions came true. Some said she was a prophetess.

  “Your parents are dead, child. Burned and drowned.”

  Jolie pressed her face to Eula’s neck and cried inconsolably.

  Two days passed before Jean Marie’s vision was confirmed to Jolie. Her papa’s brother, Felix, came to give them the tragic news. Just as the vision revealed, the steamboat had exploded on a bend of the river south of Baton Rouge. Slaves from a nearby plantation, Rosemont, had heard the noise and come running. The sight they beheld was horrifying. The boat was on fire and sinking. People were in the water, some holding on to debris, some with their clothes in flames. The slaves from Rosemont towed the victims to shore, placing them on sheets covered with flour to soothe their burns. Many died.

  Among the dead were Louisa Dumas and John Belmont.

  Jolie was an orphan.

  * * *

  Louisiana - 1819

  Jolie had always dreamed of visiting Oak Hill. She’d always envisioned she’d be holding to her papa’s hand when she did.

  This dream was not to be.

  Three years had passed since she’d lost her parents and now her grandmere was gone also.

  Jolie was alone.

  Abraham’s family had been looking after her, checking on her daily, until Uncle Felix had shown up and told her she was coming with him to her family’s home. In a sad daze, she’d packed her belongings and left the beloved bungalow to travel what must have been only a few miles. The distance might’ve been small, but the other differences made it feel like she’d traveled across a continent. When the carriage pulled up to the castle-like home, Jolie could not believe her eyes. The house was grand, three stories high. Huge white pillars flanked a wide veranda. “This is where my papa lived?”

  “Yes.” Felix answered offhandedly as he stared out the window toward the cotton fields. Jolie followed his gaze. She knew about people working in the fields. Abraham’s father picked cotton. She’d never seen such a big field or so many people working in one place. There must have been two hundred men, women, and children working in the boiling hot sun. “This is where the Belmont family has made its fortune…on the backs of…” He let his sentence trail off. “How old are you, Juliette Jolie?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Can you read?”

  “Yes.” She was so nervous, Jolie clutched the carpetbag to her middle. “Am I going to live here with you?”

  Felix sighed loudly. “Yes, with my mother, my wife, and my daughter.”

  Jolie’s eyes grew wide at the thought of meeting so many people she didn’t know. “How old is your daughter?”

  “Eleven, also.” He gave her a brief smile. “Her name is Charlotte.”

  Jolie didn’t get to ask more questions, because the carriage pulled to a stop. Her uncle didn’t move until a black man in a black suit came to open the door. When it came Jolie’s turn to disembark, the elderly man offered his hand to help her step down. “Welcome, Miss Jolie.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she mumbled, her eyes rising to take in the three other people awaiting their arrival at the top of the stairs. One was a dour individual, an older lady in a silver gown with a white shawl around her shoulders. The next was a woman with thin lips and light blonde hair. Jolie thought she was beautiful, or she would’ve been if her eyes weren’t so angry looking. But the third…the third person standing at the top of the stairs made Jolie smile. “Charlotte,” she whispered.

  When their eyes met, neither could keep a smile from their face. In an instant, Jolie’s world changed. The mischief shining out from her cousin’s eyes mirrored her own.

  Everything would be okay, Jolie had found a friend.

  “Felix, is there no other way?” the older woman asked, turning her back on Jolie to address her son. “What will people say?”

  “I don’t really care what people say, Mother. She is John’s child. What would you have me do? Put her on the auction block?”

  He dismissed his mother with a hand. “Lisette, how are you, my darling?” He greeted his wife with a kiss to her hand.

  “Tolerable, the heat is horrendous. Charlotte won’t do her lessons and Cook burned dinner. When can we go to Paris? I’m so sick of the south.”

  Jolie studied her aunt. She seemed so unhappy.

  “Psst. Psst.”

  Jolie jerked her head around to see Charlotte trying to get her attention. “What?”

  “I eat bugs.”

  Jolie giggled. “You do?”

  “Hush!” Lisette admonished them both. “Let’s get…the girl inside and make the best of things.”

  Jolie felt bad. She wasn’t dumb. No one had to tell her she wasn’t welcome, she heard it in their voices, she saw it on everyone’s face.

  Except Charlotte’s.

  She wrinkled her freckled nose at Jolie and stuck her tongue out. “I’ll show you my dolls. We can play hospital. Josephine has a broken leg.”

  Nodding her head, Jolie agreed. “I’m a good doctor. I have herbs.”

  “You aren’t bringing any heathen slave medicine into my house.” Lisette spat at her. “Felix, did you inspect her bags? I’ve heard about that grandmother of hers, she was a conjurer.”

  Jolie frowned and stopped in her tracks, but her uncle grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up to stand by him. “Enough, Lisette. Let’s just get in the house and work this out as we go along.”

  Before Jolie knew it, she was inside a house so big and fine that she couldn’t close her mouth. Her grandmother’s admonishment not to touch anything did not go unheeded. Jolie hugged the carpetbag in front of her with both arms wrapped around it, so she would be smaller and not bump into the big vases that seemed to stand everywhere. “Which room?” Uncle Felix asked. “Next to Charlotte?”

  “No!” Lisette barked. “The one off the kitchen.”

  “In the servant’s quarters?” he asked lowly.

  “Yes, it is a perfectly good room.”

  “I don’t mind.” Jolie offered, not wanting to cause problems. Her room at home had not been large. “I don’t need very much space.”

  “Very well.” Felix steered her to the left.

  “Charlotte, go to your room.” Lisette ordered her daughter.

  “I want to play with Jolie,” she whined.

  Jolie heard no more because she was led through a series of rooms to the back of the house where several women were standing over a wood-fired stove. “This way.” He pointed. They moved beyond the kitchen to a narrow hallway where Felix opened a door and pushed it ajar. “Here you go. I think you’ll be comfortable here.”

  “I will.” Jolie took in her surroundings, a very small room with one window, a narrow bed, and a chest with three drawers.

  “I don’t see a chamber pot.” He acted like he didn’t know what to do. “There’s an outhouse not too far from the backdoor. The one that the…slaves use.”

  Jolie could sense her uncle’s discomfort. She didn’t really understand it, but she tried to reassure him. “It’s okay, Uncle Felix. I’ll be fine. Thank you for letting me come. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I miss my family. I loved my papa.”

  Felix rubbed his hand over his forehead. Jolie noticed he looked a bit like her papa, but he had less hair. The coat that he wore looked new, but the collar seemed to cut into his neck. He didn’t look happy at all. “I know you did, Jolie. I know you did. I didn’t always agree with John’s choices, but he was definitely a good man.”

  “Yes, he was,” Jolie agreed, but he didn’t hear her. With a slight bow, her uncle left her alone. Not knowing what else to do, Jolie sat down on the bed to wait for someone to come and tell her what came next.

  * * *

  Oak Hill Plantation - 1819

  “I don’t understand.” Jolie held her bare arm next to Charlotte’s. They lay on the floor of the attic basking in a bright beam of sunlight. “My skin isn’t any darker than yours.”

  They compared their little arms. They did look the same - small, still baby round. The only difference they could see was that Charlotte had a smattering of reddish freckles where Jolie had only one or two darker freckles. “Mama called these freckles, but Grandmere called them moles.” She wrinkled her nose and let her finger trace over her skin. “I’m not sure why, moles are those blind little creatures that live in the dirt.” She turned her palm over. “I’ve got a birthmark. See?”

  Charlotte drew closer, staring at the dark blemish beneath Jolie’s middle finger. “It looks like a heart. Pretty.”

  “I think it’s strange.”

  “Grown-ups are strange. You look okay to me. I’m not sure why mother says you’re different. But you are, I guess.” She raised up on her elbows. “Do you feel different?”

  Jolie rolled to her back. “No, I feel like me. Abraham was darker, his skin looked like the fine obsidian stone Grandmere used to wear for protection. She said it came from a volcano that stood right behind her home on Martinique.” She raised her arm to study the color again. “When Abraham and I would run through the swamp and catch our skin on bramble bushes, the color of our blood was the same.” Jolie rolled over to gaze at Charlotte. “What does that mean? How can we be different if we’re all the same on the inside?”

  Charlotte sighed. “I don’t know, Jolie. I don’t understand a lot of things. Like ciphering. I hate numbers. And I don’t want to learn how to speak French.” A sudden smile lit up her face. “Was your grandmother a witch?”

  “No!” Jolie made a face. “She had a broom, but she didn’t ride it. She just swept with it and would wallop me on the behind with it when I acted ugly.”

  Charlotte giggled. “I wish you could come to Sophia’s birthday party with me.” She captured her cousin’s hand in her own.

  “Me too.” Jolie stared at the ceiling. “Grandmother Dora says I’m a shame and a disgrace. I’ve tried to be better. I stand up straight and I don’t talk back. I haven’t played in the dirt all week.”

  Charlotte sat up, placing her hands on her knees. “When we grow up, Jolie, we’ll go to parties all the time. We’ll have them right here at Oak Hill.” She spread her arms wide. “Grand parties and we’ll wear beautiful clothes and fine gentleman will come to call on us.”

  Jolie giggled. “Do you think we’ll ever get married?”

  “Oh, yes.” Charlotte put her hand under her chin and batted her eyes.

  “My mama and papa weren’t married. He loved her, though.” Jolie was certain of this. Although, the thought did bother her.

  “Charlotte! Charlotte! Come downstairs this instant. It’s time for you to get dressed!”

  Charlotte and Jolie stood, dusting off their dresses. They could hear Lisette ascending the narrow staircase. “Jolie, are you up here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I want you to get downstairs and stay in the kitchen. Help Cook get ready for dinner and don’t come into the parlor under any circumstances. Do you hear me?” By the time she finished her speech, Lisette was standing on the top step looking Jolie hard in the eye. “Charlotte, did you finish your lessons?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Cryer said I did a fine job. Why doesn’t Jolie have to take lessons?”

  “Jolie doesn’t get to take lessons. Why would we waste the money?”

  Jolie bowed her head. She didn’t like to be the topic of conversation. “I don’t mind. I’ve already completed the level that Charlotte is working on.”

  This bit of information didn’t seem to make Lisette happy. “You have no need for an education!”

  Jolie didn’t argue, she didn’t know if her aunt spoke the truth or not. All she knew was that she missed her family. Her real family. As she made her way slowly down the stairs, keeping out of Aunt Lisette’s way, Jolie wondered if she’d ever feel like she belonged anywhere again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Oak Hill - 1826

  When one is faced with difficult circumstances, one is forced to conform.

  Life for Jolie took a distinct turn after the death of her parents. She made her home with blood relatives, her papa’s family. Her presence was merely tolerated by her Grandmother Dora and her Aunt Lisette. Her Uncle Felix protected her, albeit unwillingly at times. He clearly saw her as an obligation. Only her Cousin Charlotte made her feel welcomed and loved.

  Today, however, she felt the winds of change begin to blow.

  Once more, she stood in funeral black at the grave of a relative.

  Uncle Felix was dead, killed in a duel by a neighbor. There were whispers about the reason for the challenge. Some said it was over a horse, others said it was because of a woman, and still others said the duel was fought over her. The very idea that her uncle might have been killed defending her honor was intolerable in Jolie’s mind.

  As the priest droned on, giving Mass, she let her eyes glance over the attendees of the ceremony. Many eyes were upon her rather than the man of God.

  Could the rumor be true?

  After the ceremony, once everyone was gone and they were back in the mansion, her greatest fears were realized.

 

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