by Shirl Henke
“I'll do whatever I wish with you—touch you, bed you, plant my seed in you. You're my wife, God help us both!” With that he threw her over his shoulder like a sack of rice, just as he had threatened to do that day at the Dueling Oaks.
As she kicked and writhed, he marched stiffly to the door, treating his thrashing burden as if she weighed nothing. Lily quickly opened the door and let them out. Her head was bowed in silence, but her downcast eyes glowed with triumph.
Around the corner of the house, Melanie hid, listening to the exchange and watching her papa carrying the beautiful lady to the waiting carriage. If she was his wife, then what was her mother?
Chapter fifteen
“I helped you once. Now I'm asking you to help me,” Deborah said simply to Caleb Armstrong as she sat across from him in his parlor.
Lenore stood behind Deborah, her hand resting supportively on her friend's shoulder. Looking at the two women, Caleb smiled despite the sadness of the situation. “And I suppose she's persuaded you to help her?” he asked his wife.
“I tried to dissuade her, Caleb. It's dangerous and I know she'll be lonely, but I can understand how she feels. I'd never share you with another woman.” She reddened at her bold statement.
“My mind is made up, Caleb. With or without your help, I'm leaving Rafael.” Deborah fought her urge to cry.
Caleb said in amazement, “I can't believe the man would choose to destroy a loving marriage over a mistress. He should provide for her children, of course, but end it with Lily Duvall.”
“Child,” Lenore corrected softly. “Only the girl is left alive. The boy died in the yellow fever epidemic three years ago.”
“You knew about them all along,” Deborah accused.
Lenore's eyes softened. “What was to be gained by telling you? I never dreamed you'd confront her. What made you do something so reckless?”
Deborah fidgeted and looked down. She had not told Lenore and Caleb that she was pregnant, although in the past weeks since her confrontation with Lily, she had missed her second monthly. There was no doubt now; but if they knew of her condition, they would never help her escape. “I asked her to leave New Orleans—I offered to pay her way to France and settle some money on her. My father...” she paused in mortification, remembering how Adam Manchester had warned her about marrying Rafael, “my father placed a great deal of money in my name in a bank here when we married. Rafael doesn't know about it.”
“I take it Lily refused your offer,” Caleb said grimly.
Wordlessly she nodded. “The marriage is over, Caleb.” She cringed, remembering the cold, shuttered look on Rafael's face when he answered her tearful pleas to pension off the beautiful octoroon.
“She has her place in my life and you have yours. Your position is certainly better,” he had said with finality.
“Rafael plans to keep her as he always has, and I'm to pretend his other family doesn't exist. I won't share him!” She stood up abruptly. “The emigrant party leaves March first. I plan to be with them even if I have to make the arrangements myself.”
“But, Deborah, Texas! It's so wild and dangerous. Why can't you return to Boston instead? I know your father would take you in.” Lenore shuddered at the thought of the violent land across the Sabine River.
“My father couldn't stop Rafael if he came and dragged me out of his own home,” Deborah replied bleakly. “I know the law and I know what my husband is capable of. If my father tried to stop him—oh, Lenore, Rafael might hurt him.”
Caleb cleared his throat as he watched Lenore blanch. Her brother was as violent as she was gentle. “Deborah's right, darling. The law is on Rafael's side. If he wants to, he can force her to live with him.”
“Only if he can find me,” Deborah said grimly.
“But then, why not some other eastern city—or Europe?” Lenore was horrified at Deborah's scheme to lose herself in the throngs of people emigrating to Texas.
“You could be caught in the middle of a war, Deborah,” Caleb said. “I know General Cos surrendered in December and the Texians think they'll win autonomy, but they're a long way from being free of Santa Anna. Sam Houston knows El Presidente won't give up.”
“I read that General Houston will whip Santa Anna the minute he dares show his face in Texas,” Deborah responded. In fact, she could not wait for the dust to clear in Texas any more than she could wait to take a ship for Europe. By the time anything like that could be arranged, her pregnancy would be obvious, and she wouldn't be able to travel. Then Rafael would have control of their child and he would never give it up. No, she must vanish now, before he could raise another generation of selfish Flamenco men or doomed Flamenco women. “I want to go with the Pettyjohn party to Texas, Caleb. Will you arrange it or not?”
With a sigh, Caleb relented.
* * * *
Rafael stood in the bedroom, beside Deborah's dressing table, anger and fright suffusing his whole body. He trembled as he read Deborah's carefully worded letter.
Rafael:
When you find this I shall be gone. I ask nothing from our ill-fated marriage, neither your name nor your wealth, since you could not give me your love. Follow your parents' wishes and find a proper Creole girl to marry after you have secured an annulment. Everyone will be happier for it.
With regret,
Deborah Manchester
Cursing, he balled up the missive and began to throw it into the fire, then stopped. It might well contain the last words he would ever hear from her. He smoothed out the crumpled note and folded it, placing it in his coat pocket with trembling hands.
No. I swear I'll find you, Deborah Flamenco. No annulment, no other wife. Deborah Manchester, indeed!
* * * *
“I can have this house searched, you know.” The light in Rafael's eyes glowed like a cold black flame.
Caleb shrugged and waved his arm around the large entry hall. “Search. You need no warrant. Your wife isn't here, Rafael.”
Lenore stood beside her tall Yankee, gazing at her brother with anguish written on her face; but Rafael realized with a sinking heart that it was the anguish of broken family ties, not fear of Deborah's discovery. His wife was not here. He knew it with a sudden gut intuition that both infuriated him and made him despair.
“You only win a round. I know you helped her book passage to Boston, but it won't do her or Adam Manchester any good. I'll drag her back!”
Lenore watched his retreating figure, feeling the pain of this parting even more than when he had left this house the night of her marriage.
“Well, this will buy Deborah some time to cover her trail,” Caleb said.
“I only pray we did the right thing,” his wife replied in a tear-choked voice.
* * * *
The journey to Boston seemed so much longer than it had the preceding year. In the weeks since Deborah's disappearance, time had cooled Rafael's wrath. He considered how he would win her back. Despite his threat to the Armstrongs, he did not relish dragging an unwilling wife from her father's house and holding her virtual prisoner for the duration of her pregnancy. She might lose the child under such duress.
Rafael pondered his options. Perhaps, the best thing was to stay in Boston for the duration of her confinement. She might be more secure in familiar surroundings. While dreading the idea of a New England winter, he had decided that might indeed be the way to prove his love for her. Once she has a child to occupy hen she won't have time for worrying about Lily or Melanie.
Adam Manchester had read his daughter's letter a hundred times, reliving her pain. All the worst he had feared and predicted had come to pass. Resting his head in his hands, he considered once more how he would deal with her husband. He knew, even if Deborah had not warned him, that a man like Rafael Flamenco would not be inclined to give up his wife and his heir without a fight.
Yet how to fight? Certainly the law would be on Rafael's side. More than anything, he longed to bring his daughter home, to see her safe and loved
, her child loved and protected from the perfidy of the Flamenco family. But that was not to be. She was gone, off into the western wilderness, to Texas. Beyond that, she had told him nothing more specific for fear the information might somehow fall into Rafael's hands. Thank God I was able to provide her with sufficient money to see her through, but in time that will be exhausted.
His bitter musings were interrupted by a commotion in the hall. Hearing the strident voice of his butler and another with a thick French accent, Adam stiffened. “So, already he's arrived,” he muttered grimly.
“You've wasted no time getting here. May I take it as a token of your concern for my daughter?” Adam's voice was laced with irony but surprisingly level.
Rafael turned his attention from the stiff butler to his father-in-law. He bowed formally.
“I've come to talk with my wife.”
“Only talk with her, not bundle her off to your ancestral home forthwith?” Adam asked with one shaggy white brow arched.
Rafael smiled thinly. “In spite of what she may have told you, I do love my wife, monsieur; and I will not endanger either her or my child.” He waited, poised like a fencer on the balls of his feet.
When Adam hesitated, he added softly, “You know I have the proper documents from your courts to see her by force if necessary. Which is it to be?’'
The big Yankee seemed to wither before Rafael's cold black gaze. He looked suddenly old as he replied in a flat voice, “Neither.” He motioned for his son-in-law to follow him into his study. Sitting down wearily, Adam slid Deborah's letter across the desk to Rafael and leaned back.
“It arrived two weeks ago, and I've been expecting you ever since. Do your worst, monsieur. I cannot produce your wife.” Manchester's eyes narrowed as he watched Rafael's swarthy face pale.
The young man sat down suddenly in a large leather chair behind him and read his wife's long, pain-filled letter to her father.
He really is shaken. Finally, Adam said softly, “Search the house if it will make you rest easier. I've already dispatched operatives to search for her—checking every means of transportation out of New Orleans. Ocean-going vessels, upriver boats, emigrant parties, any and every way a woman could hope to lose herself heading west...but it's a big frontier...” His words trailed off into hopeless silence.
“‘How could she do something so dangerous?” Rafael's voice sounded more bewildered than angry now, all the silky assurance of earlier evaporated.
“She was desperate—desperate to free her son or daughter from your way of life, from the taint of corruption.” Adam impaled Rafael with accusing blue eyes. “Go home to your mistress and tend to her children. I'll see to my daughter and my grandchild.”
Rafael stood up slowly. The rekindled anger coursing through him brought color back to his face. “You Yankee Puritans are always quick to cast the first stone. Or, more facile at covering your own vices.” He turned and began to leave, pausing at the door only long enough to say quietly, “If she comes here, my own operatives shall inform me. If I find her first, I'll inform you, a courtesy I somehow doubt you would reciprocate.”
The haggard, exhausted man who debarked in New Orleans harbor was a far cry from the self-assured youth who had set out a scant six weeks earlier in search of his wayward wife.
“I never believed I'd lose her, I guess,” he said to Claude that night at dinner.
Celine scarcely looked up from her plate but said between dainty bites, “I could discuss with the bishop—”
“No!” Rafael jumped up from the table and threw his napkin down. “When will you get it through your head? I will not dissolve my marriage. Deborah is my wife. She's carrying my child. There will be no annulment!”
Celine dropped her fork. “You never told me she was with child,” his mother accused.
“All things considered, there was scarcely time,” Rafael replied darkly. “I've wasted weeks while her trail grows cold. I think it's time to wring some truth out of my sister and her husband.”
Claude responded, “Nothing's to be gained by this, Rafael. That American will not tell you a thing.”
“He may not, but my sister will. I don't believe Lenore would let my wife go through the dangers of a frontier emigration if she knew Deborah was pregnant.” The more he had turned that thought over in his mind, the more convinced of it he became. He would learn the truth!
* * * *
Texas! Deborah was finally here, although her first sight of land was less than promising. At the mouth of the Brazos River, the Gulf plain was marshy and flat, seeming to stretch into the skyline. The overcrowded schooner that brought the Pettyjohn party of settlers to the banks of the Brazos had been becalmed for over a week. The water supply had run low and the humid heat had made Deborah's head ache. She was seasick despite the stillness of the ocean.
Exhausted, Deborah trudged up the muddy riverbank, dragging her trunk behind her with minimal help from Mr. Pettyjohn's surly son Thad.
“You got books 'n sech in this here box? It sure weighs 'nough,” he complained. Ever since she had rebuffed the lanky youth's unwelcome attentions on board ship, he had sulked.
“A few books, Mr. Pettyjohn, but mostly clothing,” she replied wearily.
“I told ya ta call me Thad, Deborah,” he said angrily, setting the trunk down abruptly in the mud.
“And I told you to call me Widow Kensington, Mr. Pettyjohn,” she answered waspishly.
“Jist cuz you got learnin' 'n plan ta be a schoolmarm in San Felipe don't give ya th' right ta look down yer nose at me, Mrs. Boston Prim!” His florid face was flushed with anger despite the drizzly weather.
Deborah had a backache, an upset stomach, and was thoroughly out of patience with the twenty-year-old lout. “Your manners match your grammar, Mr. Pettyjohn.”
“Well, ya cud learn me what's proper if ya wuz ta try,” he said, glancing around to make sure his father and the other men weren't within earshot.
When he put one grimy hand on her arm, Deborah flung it away furiously. “What do I have to do to make it clear to you that your attentions are inappropriate and unwelcome?”
Ignoring her question, he grabbed a handful of silvery hair and pulled her suddenly into his arms. “If I was ta tell my pa ya made up ta me, ya bein' a lonely widder woman 'n all, he'd believe me. Put ya off th' train quick as ya cud blink.”
“Why, you cheap blackmailer,” Deborah hissed, twisting in an attempt to get free of his noisome breath as he tried to kiss her.
Their struggle was suddenly interrupted when a large, reddened hand yanked at Thad's collar roughly. “Mebbe yew should larn some manners afore yew go 'a courtin', youngun.” The loud voice belonged to a woman as sturdy and rough as a Texas sycamore. She was dressed in plain black homespun and wore her graying brown hair in a snarled knot of braids across the top of her head.
“Why don't ya mind yer own business. Deborah here's my sweetheart 'n I'll tend ta her,” Thad said peevishly, shrugging off the woman's hand and turning to pull Deborah to him once more.
The woman's wide face creased in a fearsome scowl as she fixed the offending youth with a fierce, brown-eyed glare. “Jehoshaphat! Ain't they any boys with manners in this land th' Lord niver knowed?” With that, she hoisted the thin youth by his armpits and sat him down several feet from Deborah. When he took a menacing step toward her, she stood her ground. “I'd do me a pretty considerable o' thinkin' afore I'd come closer, tadpole,” she said as one hand produced a wicked-looking hunting knife from the voluminous folds of her wrinkled dress.
With a muttered oath the youth took a step backward and tripped over Deborah's trunk. While he lay sprawled in the mud, Deborah's rescuer reached down and plucked up the heavy luggage as if it weighed nothing.
“Name's Obedience Jones 'n I be a widder woman, too. Yew with th' Pettyjohn bunch?”
“Not anymore, I'm afraid,” Deborah replied as she followed the Widow Jones up the slippery bank. “My name is Deborah Kensington and I do thank you f
or your help, Mrs. Jones.”
“Jehoshaphat! Call me Obedience 'n don't fret none ‘bou thet boy. I seen his kind afore. All bluff 'n no guts. Where yew stayin’?”
Deborah shrugged helplessly. “Mrs. Pettyjohn had asked me to spend the night with their family, but after this, I suspect I might not be welcome.”
“Yew be welcome ta share my tent. Right this away,” she said, never breaking stride or pausing to inquire if Deborah agreed to her offer of hospitality.
“You're very kind, M—Obedience,” Deborah replied, following the big woman through the ooze to a crude shelter constructed of log poles and canvas.
“Ain't nothin' fancy, but it's dry,” Obedience said as she ushered Deborah inside and deposited her trunk on the earthen floor. “Heerd th' commotion 'n thought yew might cud use a hand. I wuz fixin' ta eat afore thet. Pull up a crate 'n join in. Not as good as I kin cook with a proper oven, but it's hot.”
Obedience was better than her word. She served up crisp, steaming cornbread and sizzling smoked bacon chopped into a plate of savory beans. They sat amid a scattering of crates and boxes, which Obedience explained were supplies for her brother's boarding house in San Antonio.
“His wife 'n my husband, God rest they souls, both passed ta their reward ‘bout th' same time. Seth needed a woman ta cook 'n clean 'n I needed a place ta hang my hat. Whut yew fixin' on doin' in Mr. Austin's colony?”
Deborah took a sip of fragrant black coffee as she framed her answer. When Caleb had signed her up for the journey to San Felipe, he had assured Mrs. Pettyjohn that she would be a welcome addition to the settlement as a schoolteacher. Of course, he did not know that in a few months her pregnancy would keep her from fulfilling her duties. Assuming her mother's maiden name, Deborah had also added the fabrication about being a widow to explain her condition when it became apparent to the rest of the settlers.