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.
This was—by all rights—the look of a gentleman.
The boy’s eyes wandered over Celine, up and down. He let his gaze shift toward Pippa, whom he sent a slow smile. Then he bowed before stepping back, clearing the narrow path with a flourish.
And Celine was met—face-to-face—with le Fantôme. Pippa’s nails dug into Celine’s skin, eliciting a shudder of fear. Another jolt of heated awareness.
Le Fantôme glided closer, his movements soundless. He stood before Celine, his features absent any discernible emotion, the set of his shoulders easy. Strong. Though he wasn’t much taller than the boy with the monocle, his presence took up infinitely more space. She could well understand why their driver had yielded to him without thought. Celine stopped her eyes from widening, her lips from falling open. Were she to look upon this boy in the daylight, she would be forced to admit an unassailable truth:
The Ghost was the most striking young man she’d ever seen.
The skin above his cravat was bronzed, the muscles in his neck corded. Along his square jawline was the suggestion of stubble, its shadow accentuating the elegant symmetry of his features. It brought to light an aristocratic nose, which contrasted with his thick lashes and dark brow. Spanish maybe? North African perhaps? Regardless, he was an arresting mixture of the Old World alongside the New. A pirate bedecked in Savile Row.
He was . . . truly beautiful. Like a prince from a dark fairy tale.
Celine stood there a moment, words failing her. When she realized he’d rendered her speechless—stolen the very breath from her tongue—outrage coiled in her throat.
A glimpse of amusement flickered beside his lips. A slight indentation in his right cheek. The gesture reeked of arrogance. This boy knew full well what he looked like. Knew how to wield its power like a master of arms.
Celine narrowed her gaze at him.
When he spoke, his eyes flashed, granting his chiseled features a look of menace. “How may I help you this evening, mademoiselle?” he said in a low voice.
Since this fiend clearly enjoyed the sight of her flustered, Celine decided to ignore him, and instead turned toward the minion standing behind him, who propped one foot against the brick wall while inhaling from his cheroot.
“Does it make you proud to beat a helpless man, monsieur?” she asked him in a cold tone.
“Not in the slightest,” the other boy said in a British accent, around an exhalation of pale blue smoke. “But it does keep me limber for the boxing ring.”