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Authors: Susan Carroll
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head.”
“He seemed lucid enough to me when I gave him the last rites. He grew so peaceful. He died with your mother’s portrait clasped to his heart. The last word he whispered was her name.
Evangeline
.”
The priest clearly expected Xavier to be moved by that. There was only one problem, Xavier reflected bitterly.
His
mother had been named Marguerite.
“I thought I had made it clear to you. I have no wish to discuss any of this.” Turning his back on the man, Xavier hunched over his desk again. “Now if you don’t mind, I have some letters to write.”
Father Bernard rose reluctantly to his feet. “I just thought this might be a good time for you to carry out your father’s dying wish for you to take his journals, his last bequest, to Faire Isle.”
Xavier gritted his teeth. “My father was delirious. He didn’t even know who the devil I was or he would never have entrusted me with such an errand.”
“No, I am sure he was—”
“Delirious,”
Xavier repeated with an edge to his voice. He glanced down and was annoyed to see he had mindlessly poked holes in one of the charts with the tip of his quill.
He
, who was never given to fidgeting, who never moved so much as a finger without some clear purpose.
He flung down the quill in disgust. “You want the journals delivered to Faire Isle, you take them.”
“Your father hoped that you would do it.”
“He’s dead. He can’t hope for much of anything now, can he?”
“That is true. Your father is at rest. I worry more about you, my son. I do not think you will ever know peace yourself until you fulfill your father’s request.”
“I have all the peace I desire. At least I would have, if you would leave me alone. And I am no man’s son.”
Father Bernard heaved a deep sigh, leaving the cabin with slumped shoulders and that sad look Xavier had come to think of as the young man’s wounded puppy expression.
Xavier expelled his breath in a savage oath. He could greatly sympathize with those Indians who had attacked the priest in the jungle. Damned fool, blundering in where he was not wanted, meddling in matters he didn’t understand.
For five years, Xavier had been separated, torn apart from his father after the Spanish attack on the French settlement. And for five long years, Xavier had searched, only to find his father dying in some remote mission in Brazil.
It had been his great misfortune that he had done so with that wretched priest at his side. Xavier would have preferred there had been no witness to those last hourswith his father, the painful culmination to what had been an often bitter and stormy relationship.
He had hovered over his father’s deathbed, searching for the words to prayers he couldn’t remember, hoping for he scarce knew what. A final blessing from the old man, that he would at long last truly acknowledge Xavier as his son?
Instead his father had attempted to load one more burden upon Xavier’s shoulders with his impossible dying request.
Whatever had possessed his father to request that Xavier carry his legacy to Faire Isle? No matter what that fool priest insisted, the old man had to have been out of his wits. For as long as Xavier could remember, his father had striven to keep his two worlds far apart, his life in Paris, his home on Faire Isle.
Why would his father have changed his mind and wanted Xavier to go to Faire Isle? The answer was simple. He wouldn’t have, any more than the old man had ever wanted to admit that Xavier was his son.
Xavier stared down at his desk and drew forth a blank sheet of parchment. He dipped his quill in the ink and after a hesitation, scrawled out his signature. The words glared against the whiteness of the page, like some guilty secret not meant to be revealed. His full name, the one he never used because he was not entitled to it. His father had made that more than clear to him.
Xavier scratched his quill through the signature several times, so hard he tore the parchment.
“He seemed lucid enough to me when I gave him the last rites. He grew so peaceful. He died with your mother’s portrait clasped to his heart. The last word he whispered was her name.
Evangeline
.”
The priest clearly expected Xavier to be moved by that. There was only one problem, Xavier reflected bitterly.
His
mother had been named Marguerite.
“I thought I had made it clear to you. I have no wish to discuss any of this.” Turning his back on the man, Xavier hunched over his desk again. “Now if you don’t mind, I have some letters to write.”
Father Bernard rose reluctantly to his feet. “I just thought this might be a good time for you to carry out your father’s dying wish for you to take his journals, his last bequest, to Faire Isle.”
Xavier gritted his teeth. “My father was delirious. He didn’t even know who the devil I was or he would never have entrusted me with such an errand.”
“No, I am sure he was—”
“Delirious,”
Xavier repeated with an edge to his voice. He glanced down and was annoyed to see he had mindlessly poked holes in one of the charts with the tip of his quill.
He
, who was never given to fidgeting, who never moved so much as a finger without some clear purpose.
He flung down the quill in disgust. “You want the journals delivered to Faire Isle, you take them.”
“Your father hoped that you would do it.”
“He’s dead. He can’t hope for much of anything now, can he?”
“That is true. Your father is at rest. I worry more about you, my son. I do not think you will ever know peace yourself until you fulfill your father’s request.”
“I have all the peace I desire. At least I would have, if you would leave me alone. And I am no man’s son.”
Father Bernard heaved a deep sigh, leaving the cabin with slumped shoulders and that sad look Xavier had come to think of as the young man’s wounded puppy expression.
Xavier expelled his breath in a savage oath. He could greatly sympathize with those Indians who had attacked the priest in the jungle. Damned fool, blundering in where he was not wanted, meddling in matters he didn’t understand.
For five years, Xavier had been separated, torn apart from his father after the Spanish attack on the French settlement. And for five long years, Xavier had searched, only to find his father dying in some remote mission in Brazil.
It had been his great misfortune that he had done so with that wretched priest at his side. Xavier would have preferred there had been no witness to those last hourswith his father, the painful culmination to what had been an often bitter and stormy relationship.
He had hovered over his father’s deathbed, searching for the words to prayers he couldn’t remember, hoping for he scarce knew what. A final blessing from the old man, that he would at long last truly acknowledge Xavier as his son?
Instead his father had attempted to load one more burden upon Xavier’s shoulders with his impossible dying request.
Whatever had possessed his father to request that Xavier carry his legacy to Faire Isle? No matter what that fool priest insisted, the old man had to have been out of his wits. For as long as Xavier could remember, his father had striven to keep his two worlds far apart, his life in Paris, his home on Faire Isle.
Why would his father have changed his mind and wanted Xavier to go to Faire Isle? The answer was simple. He wouldn’t have, any more than the old man had ever wanted to admit that Xavier was his son.
Xavier stared down at his desk and drew forth a blank sheet of parchment. He dipped his quill in the ink and after a hesitation, scrawled out his signature. The words glared against the whiteness of the page, like some guilty secret not meant to be revealed. His full name, the one he never used because he was not entitled to it. His father had made that more than clear to him.
Xavier scratched his quill through the signature several times, so hard he tore the parchment.
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