by Linda Ladd
While he watched her, wind whipped off the river, playing havoc with her newspaper. To his amusement, she rolled over onto her stomach and tucked the newspaper under her body to hold it in place, her apple-green skirts falling away to reveal shapely, naked legs that she bent at the knees, idly swinging her feet back and forth in the air. Not exactly a ladylike pose, he decided, then frowned as an unexpected, unwanted surge of desire sprang to his loins. He touched his heels to his mount, guiding the horse toward her.
At the sound of a horse, Bethany sat up quickly, hastening to pull down her dress when she saw Luke walking his big black stallion toward her. He wore buff breeches and black Hessian boots turned back at the cuff to reveal a doe-colored lining. A black leather vest covered his white shirt, and she wondered how she could ever have thought him to be a mere fur trapper.
She smiled uncertainly as he slid off the horse next to her, holding the reins idly in one hand. He returned her smile, looking so devastatingly handsome in that moment, with his white teeth and green eyes, that her heart skipped a beat. Could this big, virile man really be her husband? Her husband?
"What are you doing all alone so far from the house?" he asked.
"It's not so far," Bethany answered, realizing instantly that, despite his smile, he was in a bad mood. She had already learned to identify his tone of voice with a corresponding emotional state. "I just wanted to be by myself for a while," she added with a look that plainly indicated he was interfering with that wish.
Luke grinned. "Well, now you have company."
Bethany watched as he stretched out on the quilt beside her. He was so close she could smell the wonderfully masculine scents of leather, tobacco, and the faint essence of some cologne. It made her want to lean closer, a desire that made her uncomfortable. She watched him draw up one knee and rest his arm on it. He looked at the paper in her hand.
"What are you reading?"
"The newspaper."
"So, I see," he said dryly. "Anything interesting?"
Bethany blushed guiltily. She had been trying to read a section in which she had found Luke's name, but much of it was in French, which had her pretty well stymied. Le sauvage had been mentioned twice, however. She wondered if he had read the article.
"Well?" Luke prompted.
"I was reading something about you."
"Oh? How boring. Let me see," he said, taking the paper from her. He read the article, then looked at her, his expression unfathomable.
"You shouldn't waste your time on gossip, Beth."
Now, Bethany's curiosity was truly piqued. "Well, actually, I couldn't make out much of it, since it was mostly in French," she admitted. "Why don't you read it to me?"
"You shouldn't waste your time on gossip, Beth," Luke repeated pointedly.
But, she wasn't ready to be put off. "Are they telling lies about you?"
Luke shifted his gaze out over the river. "If you must know, they have found out about you, and they are saying my child bride will rue the day she ever married a savage like me. There's more, but it all boils down to the same thing."
He had spoken without expression, and the very lack of emotion made Bethany wonder if he was hiding his feelings from her.
"You're not a savage," she said softly. "Why do they say you are?"
"How would you know if I am or not?" he asked, turning his green gaze back to her. A subtle note of anger threaded his next words. "You don't know me. You don't know where I've been or what I've done. Perhaps, you should heed their warnings and not ask me so many questions."
"I know you grew up with the Indians, if that's what you're talking about."
She detected a flare of surprise in his eyes, then his face settled back into its usual impassive mask, so that she couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"I suppose Andrew told you. He talks more than he thinks."
"No, he doesn't," she said, quickly defending Andrew, whom she liked better every day.
Luke didn't answer as he idly tossed a piece of gravel into the water, and Bethany decided she would try to get him to talk to her. More than anything, she wanted to know about the circumstances of Peeto's birth and early years. The little boy deserved to know about his mother.
"Did you like it?" she asked him, bringing his attention back to her.
"Like what?"
"Living with the Indians."
Luke stared at her, then startled her by throwing back his head and laughing. But, his amusement didn't last long.
"Leave it to you to be different from everyone else," he said. "Believe it or not, that's the first time anyone ever asked me that. Most people either express revulsion or, at best, pour out a shallow dose of sympathy, but no one except you ever wanted to know if I liked it."
"Well, did you?"
Luke was silent. "I got used to it after a time."
"Andy told me you went back again after you came home the first time. Was it because of Petie's mother?"
"Where is Pete, anyway?" Luke said with an intentional change of subject.
Bethany met his gaze, not daring to pursue the subject further at the moment. But, that didn't mean she wouldn't do so at some other time, when Luke was in a more receptive frame of mind.
"When I left, he and Raffy were fishing on the dock with Jemsy and Michelle. She's much better, you know, though she's still afraid the Hacketts will come after her. They told her that if she ever tried to escape they would find her and kill her."
"Not if I find them first," Luke said, angry again at the mere thought of the men. "I offered a thousand dollars for them, dead or alive. Somebody will get greedy eventually."
Silence prevailed until Bethany felt the need to alleviate it. "It's very different down here in Louisiana, isn't it, Luke? I was just thinking a moment ago how much I missed autumn, the way it is up north, I mean, when the leaves turn all gold and scarlet and fall to the ground. Michelle says it rarely gets very cold down here, and it never snows."
Luke was amazed at how closely her thoughts paralleled his earlier musings. "Are you telling me you're too homesick to stay here?"
His question surprised Bethany. "I'll stay as long as Petie needs me."
She said it with such sincerity that Luke had no doubt that his son came first with her. He stared at her, at the lovely, open way she was smiling at him. Before he could think to stop it, his hand moved toward her cheek.
Bethany stiffened as his fingers lightly traced the soft curve. "You can be so sweet sometimes," he said a little gruffly, and Bethany found herself caught spellbound by his warm eyes.
Her heart sped wildly as his thumb moved downward across her chin to caress her lower lip, making it tremble, and her mouth suddenly went dry. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue with such provocative innocence that even the very experienced man with her felt its effect. His hand slid beneath the silky blond curls at her nape, and her eyes closed with a natural, womanly instinct as he pulled her forward.
His mouth came against hers, gentle, soft, undemanding, and her heart began to pound, harder and harder, until she knew he must surely feel it. If he did, it didn't stop him. His lips gradually began to demand more from her, molding her mouth to fit his own, pressing, tasting, caressing, until a low moan of pleasure escaped her.
His arm shifted suddenly, and without warning, she was lying on her back, Luke bending over her, his mouth moving to the side of her throat. As his warm lips nuzzled her earlobe, sensations stirred deep inside her; no, they shuddered alive, provoking needs she had never before experienced. Instinctively, she slid her arms around his neck as her mind began to reel and shiver, just like her heart.
"Oh, Luke," she murmured, and it was as if her voice was a signal that he had been waiting for. Before she knew what was happening, he was gone, striding a few steps away and staring out over the river. Bethany struggled up, feeling weak and confused as the lovely feelings his touch had engendered dwindled away.
"I'm sorry, Beth," he said, without looking at her. "I
shouldn't have done that."
"Why did you, then?" she managed to say breathlessly, not understanding why he had stopped.
"It won't ever happen again, I promise."
"Not ever?" Bethany said with obvious disappointment, and Luke gave her a long look.
"I'm expecting a fur shipment, so I'll be spending the next few days in town. We have a house there on Toulouse Street. Your lessons are going well, but if you or Pete should need me, send a message with Jemsy." Then, he was in the saddle, galloping along the levee toward the house.
Bethany watched him go, but it took her a long time to control the thunder in her heart.
On the east side of Cantigny, just off the gallery beside the formal dining room, a curved flagstone terrace overlooked a long, rectangular goldfish pond. A breakfast table had been set there, its glass top supported by handsomely made wrought iron in the design of clustered grapes, and it was here that Bethany preferred to take her meals.
A week after Luke had kissed Bethany on the levee, Michelle Benoist sat alone at the table and watched Bethany and the boys playing blindman's bluff near the pool. She wore one of Bethany's wide-brimmed and beribboned straw hats to protect her face, which had almost completely healed during the weeks she had lived at Cantigny.
She sat quietly, her hands in her lap, but her mind was filled with haunting memories and relentless fears that kept her fingers laced together in a white-knuckled grip. What if Smiling Jack and Braid found her? she thought, the mindless panic beginning to rise once again.
Jack Hackett's face appeared in her imagination, smiling constantly as he hit her with his big fist. And, the horrible, dreadful smell of Braid when he had done such terrible, unspeakable things to her…
She came to her feet, her body shuddering uncontrollably, her eyes darting around the columned porch behind her. They had said they would find her and cut out her heart if she ever ran away. They had said they would come in the night when she slept and cut off her head. And, they would! She had seen them kill people with their big knives, women and little children like Pete and Raffy. She had seen them kill Etienne…
Tears welled, and Michelle sat down again as Bethany came running up the wide flagstone steps to the terrace. She owed Bethany her life, Michelle thought, tears burning in her eyes; she would do anything for her, anything she ever asked.
"Are you getting chilled out here?" Bethany asked, perching on the chair across from Michelle. "There's a bit of a breeze today."
"Non, I am fine. Merci," Michelle answered softly as Elise moved down the gallery behind them, carrying a tray of Tante Chloe's fancy petit fours and a silver pot of diluted coffee.
Michelle cast her gaze downward as the pretty Negro maid gave her a scornful sidelong look as she set the tray on the table.
Elise curtsied respectfully to Bethany, but as Bethany called out for the boys to join them, leaned close to Michelle. "Na pas savon qui tace blanc pou blanchi vous la peau," she whispered viciously.
Michelle bit her lip, and Bethany looked up as Elise hurried away. "What did Elise say?" she asked when she saw the dark flush staining Michelle's creamy skin.
"It is nothing," Michelle answered quietly.
"Please, Michelle, it is terrible for me not to understand what people say. I am trying very hard to learn Creole, so I can teach it to Petie."
"She said there is no soap strong enough to whiten my dark skin," Michelle said, very low.
"Oh, no. I am sorry, Michelle! Why would Elise be so hateful to you? She is usually so nice!"
"It does not matter. I am used to such sayings. The darker slaves have always hated the quadroons because of their pride and light skin."
Peeto and Raffy chose that moment to run up to the table and grab several of the small iced cakes. They took off again at once, and Bethany sighed, looking at Michelle. "There is so much I don't understand about New Orleans and the Creoles. Luke expects me to fit in as his wife, but I don't even understand who the Creoles are or why they are so important here. There aren't any in St. Louis, and New Orleans is an American city. Yet, Andrew says the Americans worry constantly about what the Creoles are doing and saying."
"Perhaps, I can help you," Michelle offered shyly. "I was born here."
"Would you, Michelle? Could you teach me the customs and such? Luke and Andrew said I will have to meet some of these Creole people at parties and receptions and places like that, and I don't know how to act around them."
"Oui, I will help you."
"What are Creoles, anyways-I mean, anyway?" Bethany amended, remembering how Luke had once corrected her.
Michelle smiled. "They are descendants of the French and Spanish who first came to this region. Their blood is pure."
"Is that all?"
"Oui, but they are very wealthy and powerful here, and they hate the Américains for coming as foreigners and trying to change their ways. The Creoles do not wish to speak Anglais and be Américains. My father will not even learn your language, but he insisted that I be taught, along with his white family and servants, so that we could interpret for him. He is very stubborn."
"Your father is living?" Bethany asked in surprise, having assumed that Michelle had no family in New Orleans because she had made no effort to contact anyone since her recovery.
Michelle nodded without comment.
"Then, we must tell him at once that you are here! He must be very worried about you!"
Michelle's head dropped. "Non, I cannot. He would never agree to see me."
"But, why? You are his daughter."
"I am the daughter of his quadroon mistress," Michelle said, very low. "Mamam died of the yellow jack two springs ago."
"But, surely he would want to know you are all right."
"You do not understand, Bethany. It is different here in the Vieux Carré. I ran away with Etienne because I did not want to be kept in the way my mother was. My father treated us well and called us wife and daughter, but we weren't. He had a white wife and son whom he really loved."
"You mean he had two families at the same time?" Bethany said, scandalized. "Isn't that against the law or the Church or something?"
"Here, it is the way of the wealthy. Most Creole gentlemen own a quadroon mistress whom they keep in a different house. There are even balls given here on Thursday nights where the quadroons take their daughters. That's why I ran away with Etienne, so I wouldn't have to go there."
For the first time since Michelle had been well enough to be up and about, she let herself cry.
"Etienne was white and poor," she continued, "but he didn't care that I was a femme de couleur. He was taking me up the river where we could marry, but the Hacketts just rode up to us on the Trace. They shot him, Beth, and left him on the road to die, and there was nothing I could do to help him."
Bethany put her arm around Michelle's trembling shoulders as the girl wept heartbrokenly. Bethany well remembered those terrible men at Old John's. She could almost smell the rank, fetid odor of the one called Braid.
"They'll pay for what they did to you and Etienne, Michelle. Luke's got a reward out on them. He told me."
Michelle's body went rigid, and she squeezed Bethany's hand between both of hers. "They did such awful things to me. Awful, awful things," the girl said, nearly choking on the words. "I had not known a man, not even Etienne, and it hurts so much to be used by a man."
Bethany felt a little sick, remembering how it felt to have a man want her like that. She shuddered to recall how she had been held down on the bed while hard fingers bit into her shoulders, hurting her so much. Her clothes had been torn, her body bruised, and just the thought of it made her cold with dread. What if Luke wanted to use her in such a way? He was so big and strong. She fought down those thoughts as Michelle pulled away, wiping her tears with her handkerchief.
"I think you should go see your father," Bethany said suddenly. "I think he will want to see you."
"But, Bethany, I said such horrible things to him before I left wi
th Etienne! He surely hates me!"
"What if he doesn't? Didn't he take care of you and your mother when you were a, little girl?"
"Oui, he was good to us." Michelle raised tearful amber eyes to Bethany's gray ones. "Do you really think he might want to see me after all I've done, after what those men did to me-"
"Hush now. None of that was your fault. Your father doesn't even have to know about it. We'll go to his house, and if he doesn't want to see you, then you can come back to Cantigny and live with me. Luke's leaving, and I will be the mistress here." It still sounded strange to say that, Bethany thought, pausing. "You can help me learn to waltz, since I'm having so much trouble understanding my instructor's Creole. He hardly speaks a word of English. You can help me with that, too-speaking French, I mean-and then you can help me teach the words to Petie. Don't you worry I'll take care of everything."
Chapter 9
The fact that Luke remained in the city the following day gave Bethany the courage to give her first order as mistress of Cantigny. In response to her polite request to have a small carriage brought around to the river portico, Jemsy acted with as much promptness as if a command had been given by le sauvage himself. Clearly, Bethany's easy smile and courteous manner had already endeared her to each and every one of the servants.
She waited with Michelle at her side, hoping the gray dress she wore was suitable for a social call to a Creole home. Luke had said she would be expected to visit Creole families occasionally…
"Now, I want you and Raffy to behave yourselves while we're in town, do you hear me, Petie?"
Peeto nodded, but his green eyes searched her face. "You'll come back soon, won't you?"
"We'll be back later today, I promise. Stay close to the house and away from those bayous. Tante Chloe will be here if you need anything."