"You worried?" Franklin asked, cocking his head, his pale blue eyes malicious.
"No more than for any living creature being made to suffer."
That was the way it should be, considering the way the man had used her for his own ends. It was not pleasant to know he would have taken her regardless of her own attraction for him, or lack of it. And yet, hadn't she used him in much the same way, reaching out for forgetfulness, an experience of passion with which to comfort herself in the long, barren years ahead, without more than surface consideration for him as a person?
"You're a liar," Franklin said, the words almost unintelligible as he tried to get them out around his thickening tongue while hiccuping in the middle of them. "I bet you'd like to know what else-what's goin' to happen to your…to your lover?"
She did not quibble with the description. And he was quite right; she did want to know. Still, staring at Franklin's flushed face twisted by a sneer, it seemed that saying so would be the least likely way to gain the information.
She shrugged with elaborate unconcern. "Your father will decide what is to become of him, I'm sure."
"He's already 'cided."
"How enterprising of him, when he's had so much else on his mind, such as seeing to his guests and the arrangements for the wedding without the help of a hostess. Speaking of which, how is your mother? I was disappointed that she did not attend."
"She doesn't…doesn't leave her room."
"So, I understand. I hope I will be allowed to meet her soon."
Franklin scowled, distracted by her chatter. "You were supposed to last night, but you wasn't well enough."
"No," she agreed graciously, "perhaps tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have time while your father is busy with his prisoner."
"And me. I'm goin' to watch."
"Are you?" She forced herself to smile as if at a child speaking of a treat in store.
"I bet he'll holler and squeal. The young boars always do, and the stallions, and the bull calves. They use a special tool sometimes, did you know? Or maybe just a knife. They hold 'em down and cut their-"
Sickness rose into Lorna's throat at his description, vile and artlessly vivid. A plantation was a large, self-sufficient farm, and she had seen and heard enough as she grew up on her uncle's acres to know that male animals were often castrated to prevent their urges toward procreation from interfering with their usefulness. There were names for such animals so treated; barrows, geldings, steers. Was there a name for a man? There must be, only she had never been allowed to hear it.
She got to her feet so quickly that she brushed the table, nearly upsetting the brandy decanter before Franklin could grab for it. With her hand pressed to her mouth, she turned away.
"That bother you, what I said? You don't like that?" he jeered behind her.
Exerting a great effort of will, she lowered her hand, speaking without turning. "Ramon Cazenave struck me as the kind of man who would kill anyone who dared do such a thing. He…will be dangerous when he is well again."
"If he gets well, maybe."
"What do you mean?"
"Can't do much when he's at the bottom of the river."
She swung around, staring at him. His words had been so garbled she was not certain she had heard him right. "What?"
"When we get through with him, we'll put him in a boat, set him loose."
"On the river? You can't do that! It would be murder!"
"He's got to be punished. You were promised to me; you ought to be punished too." He pushed himself to his feet, moving toward her. "I can do that. I can do anything I like to you now."
She took an involuntary step backward before she halted. Her head came up. "This is ridiculous, even speaking of such things. This…this is our wedding night."
"But, you didn't wait for me. You didn't wait." His hands were working, clenching and unclenching, and in his eyes was a feral, joyful gleam.
"Touch me, and I'll scream for help."
"Nobody will hear. They're all out front, listening to the banjos. Don't you hear?"
He was right. It was a favorite after-dinner entertainment, bringing musicians from the quarters to serenade the guests as they sat on the gallery. Besides the banjos, there would be homemade base fiddles and rattles of dried gourds. It was all too possible she would not be heard.
"Anyway, Papa won't care; he said you needed your ass blistered. And everybody else knows I'm your husband."
He was shrewd in his own way. That was the frightening thing. But, she would not submit to his chastisement. She had not recognized anyone's right to correct her physically since the death of her parents; she had fought her aunt for possession of the switches and paddles used against her as she was growing up, much to that lady's rage and chagrin. To meekly allow her husband the privilege was more than she could stomach, no matter what society said about his rights.
She moistened her lips, searching for something that might distract him, aware of his bulk between her and the door, of his undoubtedly superior weight and strength. "If you did that, would it make you feel more like a man?"
It was the wrong thing to say. His face turned purple and he lunged, grabbing for her forearm, fastening his fingers upon it with a biting grip. She smelled the fetid stench of his breath and the sourness of spilled food from his clothing. She jerked her arm up, breaking his grasp, whirling away, but his fingers caught in the muslin of her sleeve. It tore with a soft rasping, but did not part from her wrapper. She was dragged back toward him, stumbling.
Even as she came, however, she reached up to jerk free the satin bow cutting into her neck. She gasped for air as it came loose, then ducked, struggling, wriggling to draw her arms from the wide sleeve. As the loose garment fell from her, she evaded Franklin's ponderous lunge and, sidestepping, whirled away from him.
She skipped backward with the curtain of her hair whipping around her. Warily, she watched as he threw down her wrapper and stamped on it, then spread his arms, coming at her in a bull-like rush. At the last minute, she darted aside, twisting to avoid his clutching grasp. Her arm caught a chair with bruising force, sending it flying to crash against the wall. Thrown off balance, she stumbled to one knee. He flung himself at her, grabbing her around the hips as they fell. Lorna's shoulder struck the carpeted floor for a breathless instant sending pain through her. She felt Franklin's fingers digging into her, sinking into her flesh, pinching as he tried to drag her under him. She kicked out, catching him in the belly, so that the air left him in a whistling groan.
She kicked him again and, as his hold loosened, scrambled from him, crawling, hampered by the length of her gown. There was a door in front of her, leading into the sitting room. Pulling herself to her feet, she threw herself toward it and fell into the other room.
There was no outside door into the hall. The only entrance or exit was the way she had come. She jerked around to see Franklin pulling himself to his feet in the door opening, holding to the jam. She sidestepped behind a settee covered in wine brocatelle.
In that small room filled to overflowing with tables and chests, with urns and cuspidors and marble busts on pedestals and spindly Louis XIV chairs, all dominated by a towering black walnut étagère holding tier upon tier of china bric-a-brac, there was little room to evade the man who was her husband.
"You hurt me," he growled. "I'm goin' to hurt you bad. I'll make you cry. I know how, I do. Lizzie don't like it when I do it to her that way. She begs. I'll make you beg, but I'm goin' to do it anyway."
"You're mad," she said, her voice tight.
"I Aeneid," he shouted, shoving away from the door. "I Aeneid!"
The black walnut monstrosity of a china closet stood behind her. She stepped back without looking, closing her hand on a sharp-edged figurine. As Franklin staggered toward her, she threw the miniature shepherdess with all her strength.
He tried to duck, but was too late. It caught him above the eye, and a red line of blood oozed, tracking downward. He was more nimble the next
time, and the next, dodging as he advanced.
She turned over tables and chairs as she retreated, circling the room, heading for the door into the bedchamber. She had almost reached it when suddenly Franklin swooped, catching up a footstool. Paying her back in her own coin, he brought it around in a backhand throw.
It hit her in the ribs and she staggered. The edge of the settee caught the back of her legs and she sprawled backward upon it, landing in a tangle of skirts. It rocked, steadied, then rocked again as he threw himself upon her. Before she could move, he had straddled her waist, dragging her under him, grinding the hard swelling at his crotch against her and letting her see he wore nothing under the blue satin dressing gown. A vicious grin stretched his lips over his teeth, and the blood trickling through his bushy brows into his eyes gave him a wild, animalistic look.
She flailed at him, gasping as his weight compressed her lungs. He caught her wrists, turning them, squeezing until she gave a stifled gasp at the pain and was still. Taking one of her hands, he pushed it under him, sitting on it. He drew back and slapped her in the face, first one cheek, then bringing the back of his hand-across the other.
Tears sprang into her eyes, shimmering in a mist of pain and humiliation, flowing slowing into her hair. Helpless rage glittered with sudden, uncontrollable hate in her gray eyes. Seeing it, he laughed.
He kept a careful watch then as he tried to unbutton the top of her nightgown. When he could not do it, he curled his fingers into the fabric, pulling at it, so that it cut into her neck, ripping the bits of mother-of-pearl that held it closed from their holes. Ignoring her arching attempts to unseat him, he placed his hand on the soft white mound of her breast he had exposed and slowly closed his fingers, tighter and tighter, his thumb and forefinger grasping the peak, pinching. She gave a strangled cry, and an excited, high-pitched giggle shook him.
Was it her pain or his perverted pleasure in it that brought cold reason rushing to her head? She did not know, but abruptly it was there. Ignoring the cruelties he was inflicting, she forced a sarcastic smile.
"I thought," she said, "that you were afraid of women like me."
"Me? I'm not afraid of nobody," he boasted, releasing her breast, reaching for the other one.
"No? Prove it. Make love to me, make me feel something no other man has. Let me see how you stand up against the lovemaking of Ramon Cazenave. Let's see if you are any better."
Uneasiness crossed his face. "I don't have to."
"What are you afraid of?" she taunted. "That I'll find out what a disappointment you are in bed. Your papa warned me you might be. Maybe hurting women is the most you can do!"
Did she imagine it, or was he less tumescent beneath the hiked-up hem of his dressing gown.
He cursed, backing down like a crab, positioning himself over her thighs. He snatched at the voluminous hem of her night gown, shoving it out of his way. He grabbed at himself, pushing a fist between her trapped legs, trying to force an entry.
"Be still," he muttered as she writhed, digging in her heels.
"Why?" The answer was short as she caught her breath in unfeigned disgust. "All you are doing is fumbling. Even gelded, Ramon would be a better lover than you!"
He pushed himself from her, shoving away, so violently that the settee went over backward. A leg splintered with a rending crack. The carved back slammed against the heart pine of the floor. Lorna was jolted from the seat, rolling with her nightgown about her waist. She smacked into the corner of a blanket chest, relic of some bride's long-faded trousseau, and lay there, stunned at her deliverance.
She heard Franklin's footsteps receding, crossing the adjoining bedchamber, moving into the dressing room. In the instant that she thought about it at all, she supposed that he was looking for something to use to clean the blood from his face. Slowly, she sat up, pushing down her nightgown. She got to her feet and, holding to the arm of the overturned settee, came fully erect by degrees. Moving to a chair, she lowered herself into it. With one shaking hand, she smoothed the hair from her face, pushing it behind her shoulders. She felt coolness against her chest. Looking down, she saw her bodice hanging open. With painstaking care, she began to push the buttons back into their torn holes.
At a scuffling sound, she looked up. Franklin stood in the doorway. He had left his dressing gown untied, so that the edges fell away, revealing the corpulence of his body with its thick chest, full belly, and short legs. He was covered in a thick pelt of hair, a coarse growth that, as it tapered under his belly, did not disguise his flaccid condition. His legs were spread, set, and his face was congealed in virulent anticipation. In his hands, he held a razor strap, the broad strip of thick leather used to hone a straight-edged razor before shaving.
His stomach muscles knotted as he began to swagger toward her. She could not remove her gaze from the strap that he slapped again and again across one hand, holding it by its hanging hook. She ran her tongue over her lips, rising to her feet. When he stopped before her, she faced him squarely and lifted her chin. Her voice shook as she spoke; still, she forced the words through the constriction in her throat.
"Touch me with that thing," she said, "and I will kill you."
He laughed, a high squeal of pleasure. "I'll touch you. I'll give it to you, you'll see!"
The strap whistled as he raised it high and brought it slashing down toward her hips. It did not strike. Like a dancer, she whirled, leaping away from him.
He cursed, stumbling after her, whipping the air with the strap, his lunges wild and uncontrolled. As she eluded him again and again, his frustration grew and he screamed foul names at her.
She was tiring. The muscles of her legs quivered with the effort to keep beyond his reach, to avoid the obstacle course of overturned furniture and prevent herself from being trapped in the corners of the room. Once or twice she tripped, felt the rush of air as the strap fanned past her skin.
It happened so quickly there was no time to prevent it. She stepped on the pieces of a broken china dog and lurched into the étagère. The jar of her body striking it sent glass and porcelain cascading to the floor with the clatter of fragile, breaking ornaments. Franklin, close upon her, grabbed her hair, yanking her toward him. She fell, twisting in midair, catching herself on her forearms as she hit the floor. He leaned over her, a shout of triumph in his throat. The strap came whining down, striking, biting into her skin, and agony tore through her. He dropped to the floor beside her, hoisting one knee, pushing it into her back. Grunting, he brought the strap down again and again.
She went mad. Wrenching, turning her arm backward, she clawed at him, finding his vulnerable crotch. As her nails dug into him, he howled and shifted. In that moment, she dragged herself a part of the way from under him propping herself on one knee. In retaliation, he lashed her again.
The burning pain that surged across her shoulders raced to her brain. She leaped up, throwing him off balance. He beat at her, unable to swing the leather strap, but catching her a glancing blow along the jaw that made her head ring. She raised herself higher, reaching with her left hand for the strap. Her right hand touched a cold and knobby object on the floor and closed around it in a desperate reflex. Heaving upward, coming to her knees in spite of his trying to press her back down, she brought her right hand around in a wide swing, striking at his face with a strength born of outrage.
The thing she held in her hand was a small bust of Parian marble on a brass base. The corner of the base struck his temple, sinking in. He made a peculiar sound, something between a growl and a sigh, and toppled backward to fall thudding to the floor. The strap fell from his lax fingers. His muscles twitched convulsively; then, he was still.
Lorna sat with her head down, her chest heaving as she fought for breath. She was shivering, the tremors running over her in graves. She ached in every fiber, while the places on her body where his blows with the strap had struck seemed on fire. Her knee was stinging, and she saw with dull surprise that she was lying in broken glass.
It was an effort to move, to force herself to crawl toward him. On her knees at his side, she placed her hand gingerly on the wiry fur that covered his chest, pressing down to find the heartbeat. She could feel nothing. Only then did she glance at his face. His eyes were wide open, sightless and glazed like those of a kitten she had once seen run over by a carriage.
He was dead.
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Chapter 4
Lorna got to her feet. She moved away a few steps, then stood staring at the wall. Moments passed before, abruptly, she shook her head, as if the action would banish a measure of the numbness that gripped her. She had to think, she had to.
She should call for help, tell someone what had happened. It was too late to help Franklin, however. She was a murderess. She could explain that it had been an accident, that she had not meant it, had only wanted to stop him from hurting her. But, would they believe her? Might they not say that he had the lawful right to mete out punishment, to beat her if he chose; and she none to prevent him? Perhaps they were right? Perhaps after the liberties she had permitted Ramon Cazenave, she deserved it? Could it be that those few minutes of depravity the afternoon before had been but an indication of the crimes she was capable of committing?
No. She raised her hands to her temples, turning her head violently from side to side. That was the way her Aunt Madelyn would think, the way she would talk if she were here. She was not here. She and Uncle Sylvester had gone. She was alone.
What would Nate Bacon say when he knew she had killed his only son? He had loved Franklin in his way; she was certain of it. He had indulged him, made excuses for him, foisted him on the public, arranged a marriage in an attempt to steady him and provide guidance. Nate might well be responsible for the brutal, undisciplined conduct of his son. On the other hand, it might have been that he had been unable to accept what Franklin had become after the accident, and so had tried out of pride to treat him as though nothing had changed.
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