Dark Secrets, Deep Bayous

by Meg Hennessy

  As much as he hated to admit the truth, he smelled a trap. The price for the information included, not gold as he had anticipated, but an unusual list of staples and supplies that he was to bring to another meeting, nearly as costly, if not more.

  He hoped Aurèlie wouldn’t take notice of the backwater route but in her mood, it seemed to have passed disregarded. She remained locked in some inner struggle that she refused to allow to the surface. All the rapport he thought they had built in New Orleans had evaporated into the cool, salty mist of the backwater swamps.

  After several hours of winding through the bayous, the hired pirogue floated into dock. Jordan assisted Aurèlie to disembark, followed by Maisie. Regardless of the darkness, Aurèlie quickly walked the pier and followed the brick walk to the back stairs of Liberty Oak.

  “Aurèlie.” Jordan commanded her to stop.

  She did, but kept her back to him.

  Jordan handed Maisie off to Hattie as soon as the woman appeared on the lower loggia. Then he joined Aurèlie. “I’d like to see you in the library.”

  She was on the edge of tears. “I cannot. I will not. I must rest, n’est pas?”

  Before he had the chance to talk to her further, she pulled free of him and stormed up the remaining stairs. Jordan took her trunk from Loul. “Meet me back here as soon as we’re loaded. We’ve much to do to make that midnight meeting in the salt swamps.”

  “We are short on time, brother.” Loul nodded toward the upstairs, indicating Aurèlie could not hold Jordan back.

  “I’ll make it.” Jordan strode through the house directly to his library, depositing the baggage near the bottom of the stairs. He was angry that she had been ill treated by the American women at the shop, but even angrier that for some reason, she had directed her ire toward him.

  He tossed off his coat as he paced the floor after lighting a large cheroot. The smoke swirled upward to mingle with his angry thoughts until there was a knock on the door.

  Aurèlie stepped inside. She had changed her dress into plain muslin and had let her hair down and tied it back.

  He waved her forward and motioned for her to sit, wanting to take advantage of the first time he could speak with her about the incident without Maisie around.

  “Loul said you were in trouble. What happened?”

  “I know not.”

  “The American women, did they give you grief?”

  “Non, monsieur. I am tired, would like to rest.”

  Finally, Jordan gave in. He waved her away. Slowly she got up and in trance form, walked toward the door.

  “Why are you forcing yourself into silence if you felt such an injustice?”

  She stopped. “It is the times we live in, n’est pas?”

  “Live in hell, you still get angry.” He came up behind her and placed a hand on each shoulder. She stiffened from his touch. He withdrew his hands. “Aurèlie, you have misdirected your ire. I came as soon as Loul reached me.”

  “You left us, left us there, me and Maisie, non?”

  “I was not far away—”

  “You left us alone on the American Canal.”

  “Not only Americans are on that side of the Canal. I didn’t think—I—I guess I didn’t think. I left Loul there.”

  “To do what? He is of color.” She sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  “Aurèlie—”

  “Non! Je déteste ces Américains!” She screamed her hatred in French as she pulled free of him. Whirling around, she slapped his face. As he stood there stunned, she charged him, beating on his chest, swinging her arms with all her strength. “They have taken everything. What gives you the right? You thief! You thief!”

  While she screamed her hatred for Americans, Jordan wrestled with her, pushing her up against the wall. She kicked at him, wiggling to break free.

  “You can hate the times we live in and get mad, Aurèlie. You can get damned mad, but not at me. I don’t make the rules. I live in the same world as you. I left you in no danger.”

  “What do you know of this that I live? This land is not yours, but belongs to my people.” Tears rushed her face as she screamed, trying to free her hands to swing at him. “You not understand, vous êtes Américain!”

  “The hell I don’t understand, the hell I don’t.” By now, he was so riled, his breath ravaged his chest, remembering with clarity how her body responded to his touch. “I know one American you don’t hate.”

  He pressed her hard against the wall with his body, her breathing deep, and her fingers clutching his shirt. Her warm breath fluttered across his face as she drew gasping breaths through lips that were moist from tears and slightly parted with unsaid words.

  With hands wrapped around her ribs, he started moving them upward, cradling both heaving breasts within his hands, warm and giving, forming to his fingers. Her hands loosened their grip on his shirt and migrated across his shoulders.

  When she touched the back of his neck with the tip of her fingers, he pushed his knee in between her legs and forced them apart, working both hands upward until he held her arms pinned above.

  “Show me how you hate me.” He lowered his lips to hers, blending her tears and his anger into that moment of merged uncoiled desire as one man and one woman, no color, no race, just her and him, alone in their need for each other. Tears rolled from her eyes as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and parted her lips and met his kiss with her own desire, exploring his mouth with her tongue flickering against his lips.

  Hot as hell, he fought not to explode, tugging on her skirts, raising them higher with each undulation of her tongue inside his mouth. Her hands clawed at his back, crushing him to her. Having pulled up the hem of her dress, his hands searched out the opening in the bloomers, wanting to feel her body respond to him, to roll his fingers within her molten desire. But that damned pledge not to take her virginity raced through his mind, over and over. He tried to shake it loose, but the words of honor had been burned into his brain with the intensity of a branding iron. Would he honor his commitment or be the American she claimed to hate?

  Damn, I can hardly think!

  Damn I want her!

  Damn!

  He broke the kiss, standing away from her, barely able to breathe. The length of her dress slowly sank over her knees and again skimmed the floor. It was several seconds, maybe even minutes, she stared at him and him at her. A silent gauntlet had fallen between them.

  Her dark eyes reflected unspent tears. She held her lips partly open. Standing there dressed in a plain muslin dress with hair tied back, she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. She had not stopped him this time. He had.

  “You want to hate Americans. Well, I’m one, sweetheart, and I can be one hell of a cur at times.” He so regretted his actions, probably driving her further away from him. For some reason, the idea of Aurèlie pulling away from him, leaving him, tore right through his gut. “You just saw one of those times.”

  She said nothing as he swung her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest. He kicked open the door to the parlor and carried her through the hallway, up the stairs, and into her bedroom, closing the door behind them. He lowered her gently onto the bed. No sooner had he done so when a light knock sounded on the other side of the hall door.

  Frustrated with an ache burning deep inside of him that only Aurèlie could relieve, Jordan responded, “Come in.”

  To his surprise, a tiny hand struggled to push open the large cypress door to Aurèlie’s bedroom. Maisie poked her head around to peak inside. As she approached, Jordan could see she too had been crying.

  “Is Miss Aurèlie sad, Papa?” Wearing her night tunic and mobcap, she came up to the bed and brushed the side of Aurèlie’s face. “I don’t like her sad.”

  Aurèlie opened her eyes. “Hush, child, I am good.”

  Maisie held up her little princess doll for Aurèlie to take. “Take her, Miss Aurèlie; she’ll keep you happy.”

  Aurèlie smil
ed through her teary eyes. “You keep her, chérie. Your gift, bien…good. I sleep fine.”

  Jordan handed the doll back to Maisie and lifted the two of them into his arms. “You take her with you tonight, Maisie. Miss Aurèlie will be fine.”

  Carrying his daughter, he made his way down the hall to her room. Her tiny arms wrapped tightly around his neck as her small shoulders shook with tears. He pressed her against him, feeling inadequate as a father who had lost sight of this little person in his life.

  Hattie appeared, ready to take Maisie. “I will take the child.”

  “No, she is my daughter. I’ll take care of her.”

  “Yes, she is.” Hattie stepped aside to let him pass but not before Jordan caught her pleased expression.

  “Papa? Will Miss Aurèlie be all right, Papa?” Maisie asked between a gulp of air and rubbing her swollen eyes as he lowered her onto the bed.

  “Yes,” Jordan anchored himself on the side of the bed while unlacing Maisie’s slippers. “Feet under.”

  Maisie climbed to the top of the bed and slid her feet under the quilt, pulling the covers to her chin. “Papa? Miss Aurèlie still loves me, right?”

  Jordan had started to rise to his feet, but hesitated, amazed at the seemingly strong bond between Aurèlie and his daughter. “Did Miss Aurèlie tell you that she loved you?”

  Maisie nodded.

  “Love you, she does, New Orleans would not change that.” Jordan started toward the door but instead returned to the bed and pulled his little girl into his arms for a long hard hug. “Maisie, just so you know, I love you very much.”

  “I know, Papa.” Maisie smiled as he tucked her back into her cocoon. “And I know a secret. Aurèlie loves you, too, Papa.”

  …

  Aurèlie brushed the hair from her face, as well as her wasted tears. The pain and fear of what had happened in New Orleans had been swept away by those few moments in Jordan’s library. Her entire body throbbed as she rested atop her coverlet.

  Her outburst about Americans had been careless but perhaps more truthful than she had known of herself. In Paris, she had learned about freedom, speaking her mind, seeing past color. In Paris, she could legally marry a man like Jordan, but not in America.

  Her family had lived on the shores of Louisiana for generations. Her father was both French and Chitimacha. Her mother had been born in Saint Dominique; she was both black and French. Often times, Aurèlie was called a quadroon, but with her family’s dominant French blood, they considered themselves Creole, or free people of color, or more simply, nonwhite.

  As Jordan had said, it truly was the world in which they lived. She had no doubt that if she had complained, Jordan would have returned to the shop to chastise the woman but that admission, as painful as it was, shredded her denial that she needed a protector.

  She rolled to her side, drawing her legs upward into her belly that ached with something more than the viciousness of a racially designed world, understanding the incident had a whole new meaning since her marriage—her feelings toward Jordan had grown.

  She cared for him deeply. He, in need of love, and the little girl so in need of mothering. Yet, she had to be cautious; they were white and she was not. She would always stand on the periphery of his world. The woman’s assumption of Aurèlie’s status as a servant was more than a misunderstanding, but of a life she could never really have. She had begun to feel like a family, like two parents with a daughter while in New Orleans, but that had only been a pretense.

  What if things were different? What if she were white, or Jordan of mixed blood and race no longer stood between them. Would he love her? She could only imagine having married him as his equal, with no pretense, no barrier to breach, just the two of them, married for love.

  She rolled onto her back, allowing the tears to race down her face and soak the pillow, not exactly sure what she mourned more, her color or his. Today reminded her of just how fragile her relationship with him was and visions of walking the ramparts haunted her mind.

  Yet like an overheated candle, she had nearly melted into his arms and had wanted him to take her whether against the wall, on the floor, or in her bed. She wanted him. Desire was not part of her plan in this fake marriage. Only land. She thought she owned her heart and had kept it wrapped away in safekeeping with all her private possessions…until now. Now, her ravaged heart hung out of her chest gasping and craving his touch.

  A slight knock echoed from the door before it gently opened.

  “Aurèlie, are you still awake?” Jordan spoke through the door in a low tone.

  “Oui, monsieur, I cannot sleep.”

  Jordan came around the bed, reached down, and stroked her face. “Maybe I should have left Maisie’s doll with you?”

  His touch felt warm and comforting. “I would not want her without.”

  “You care for my daughter?”

  Aurèlie was surprised by the question and to her disappointment, Jordan pulled a chair over to sit next to the bed rather than on it, next to her.

  “I do, oui, much so.”

  Jordan nodded but looked uncomfortable. “Aurèlie, my daughter’s been through a lot. She lost her mother when she was just three. She desperately wants a mother. So much so she talks to her mother at night in her room, claims to have seen her. I don’t want her hurt.”

  Aurèlie closed her eyes and tried to anchor her mind to something tonight that would make sense. She would never hurt Maisie. He was the only one who had that power.

  “Do you wish to marry an American woman? Do you not want me to love Maisie, so that you might bring her another mother?”

  He shook his head slightly. “Aurèlie, you made your hatred for Americans quite clear. My daughter is an American.”

  “I cannot be a mother to her, non, because of my color?”

  Jordan rose out of the chair and slowly walked over to the window. He had taken great effort to stand, his broad shoulders rounded, weighed down by much worry. “She is everything you despise. I didn’t realize how you felt until tonight but that confuses her and eventually you’d hate her. I don’t think she could manage that. She adores you.”

  Jordan came to the edge of the bed and sat down, right where Aurèlie wanted him.

  Her hand immediately migrated toward him. He lifted a couple of his fingers to mingle with hers. She felt so ashamed of all that she had said in the library. Her chest felt heavy as a weight of injustice settled over her. “These things you say, like those women, unfair, non?”

  “No, not unfair. True.” He shook his head, his hand enclosing over hers. “I must protect my daughter, whether from physical harm or emotional.”

  “Perhaps, that is so.” She stroked the side of his face, feeling the roughened beard of a late night and sweat that moistened the tips of her fingers. She ran her damp fingers across her own lips, wanting to taste him.

  He reciprocated her advances by tracing his hand along the side of her neck and down across her breast. “You are a beautiful woman. The soft, deep tint to your skin adds to your sultry beauty. Dismiss the women in New Orleans. You are second to no one, Aurèlie.”

  “Now you are being very kind,” she whispered.

  He leaned down. His shadow covered her face, yet he hesitated a fraction from her lips. “I can be, when speaking the truth.”

  “Now you are very, very kind.”

  “I can be that, too.” He skimmed her off the bed and pulled her toward him.

  This time, he didn’t rush the kiss like he had in Vieux Carrè or a moment ago downstairs. He framed her face with his fingers and gently touched his lips to her forehead. She closed her eyes, feeling the velvet softness of his kiss brush lightly against her heated skin. He ran his thumbs gently over her eyes, followed by a kiss to each closed lid. He kissed the height of her cheeks and ran his lips down her throat and nipped ever so lightly in the hollow of her throat.

  She gasped for air in an effort to calm her hammering heart. The heat of his breath mixed with
her anticipation, rushed her body with wanton, sinful, sensations that screamed for him to kiss her.

  Finally, he raised his lips to hers, allowing his breath to bathe her mouth for only a second before he lowered his to hers. A gentle stroke across the seam of her mouth, then again and again, until her breath left her lungs and she hungered for completion.

  He knew the effect he was having on her. She felt his lips turn up into a smile before he met her desire with his, pulling her into him, crushing her against his body until they became one. Her mind floated upward, free and loving, as her body melded into his, allowing the reach of her heart to his—

  A knock on the door interrupted the kiss that Aurèlie had craved from the moment she had met Jordan. He broke his embrace, lowering her back to the bed. She waited a moment for their feelings to unravel from each other before she found her voice. “S’il vous plaît, entrer.”

  Hattie opened the door, brought in a tray, and set it near the bed. “I brought you some hot chocolate to help you sleep.”

  To Aurèlie’s disappointment, Jordan immediately stood and started toward the door.

  “Merci.” Aurèlie glanced over to the steaming brew before refocusing on her husband. “I love Maisie and will be her mère, Jourdain, if that is what you wish.”

  Jordan had turned to listen and though he graced her with a brief smile, there was something hollow about his gesture, something hidden within that little concession.

  “Sleep well, Aurèlie.” He again hesitated before glancing back at her. “Aurèlie, you called me a thief. What did I steal?”

  Aurèlie felt her breath leave her body weak and wanting. She so regretted her words said in anger and only wished to retract them. “I said much wrong tonight.”

  “The land? Is that what I stole?”

  Aurèlie closed her eyes a second before responding. “You are American.”

  “I understand that, but understand the Louisiana Purchase. You were sold to America. Nothing was stolen.”