Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets)

by Jennifer Blake

  Catherine got to her feet, moving to the rear of the box, unconsciously seeking refuge from the lorgnettes and quizzing glasses flashing in her direction.

  “You look ravissante tonight, chérie.”

  Startled at the whisper in her ear, Catherine swung around to face Marcus. Deciding on the instant that the banter of light flirtation was her best protection, she smiled. “Thank you, sir. You are most kind.”

  “And you are cruel,” he accused. “I see no other way to explain your behavior tonight. To let me hope there was a chance for me, then to plead illness, leaving me to escort your mother, was not kind. And then the final humiliation, to sweep in, wearing silk and pearls, on the arm of that damned corsair.”

  Catherine found his attitude of ill-usage irritating. Still, though it had not been her fault, she had to concede that he had not been treated well. He was still a handsome man with his chestnut curls falling over his forehead, his hazel eyes beseeching, and his arm held romantically across his chest in its sling. He did not excite her, but it was pleasant to feel that she was able to control the situation between them.

  “I’m sorry, Marcus. I did not mean to hurt you. Indeed, I did not mean to come this evening. But, you see, I had no choice.”

  “Do you mean Navarro constrained you to come? Mon Dieu, but he has been industrious. You cannot know, of course, but since his return to the city last night he has met three men over this business. Antoine Robicheaux last evening. This morning, young Marigny, and also my rattle-pated cousin, Bernard, whose only fault was to try to protect our family name.”

  “ — at the expense of the name of the lady involved—” Navarro interjected, his voice low.

  He stepped to Catherine’s side and taking her chill fingers, placed them on his arm. “This is not a subject which can be of interest to Catherine. The blame in this matter is mine alone — after you, Marcus, naturally. Catherine’s only fault has been her alluring loveliness, a fact which I explained to the gentlemen of whom you were speaking. I flatter myself that no one else will doubt it.”

  Navarro’s words were a challenge, one that Marcus declined with a bitter smile and a bow of acquiescence. But as Catherine turned away, obedient to Navarro’s guidance, the expression of murderous intent in the other man’s eyes sent a shiver of fear over her.

  “Cold?” Navarro asked. “I believe I have something that will bring the warmth back to your blood.”

  Catherine sent him an oblique glance, aware of an undercurrent in his voice that she did not understand. Then she noticed the door of the box opening to admit a liveried servant bearing a tray holding glasses which brimmed with champagne.

  When everyone in the box had been served Navarro faced them, his glass held high in one hand, the other gripping Catherine’s fingers. Yvonne Mayfield moved to stand beside them.

  “Ladies, gentlemen. To the future, and to the young lady who has consented to share mine with me, my future bride, Mademoiselle Catherine Mayfield!”

  7

  “I will not marry you, Navarro. I will not!”

  Catherine had managed to retain her rage until the play was over and they were alone together in his carriage.

  “Chérie?” he said, his voice coming warm out of the darkness beside her. “Do you think you could bring yourself to call me Rafael, now that we are to be man and wife?”

  “We are not to be man and wife. I told you, I will not marry you.”

  “You have a reason, of course, for this stubbornness?”

  “Stubbornness?” Catherine cried in a choking voice. “You are the most arrogant, conceited man it has ever been my misfortune to meet. You tell me you will not marry me, you go away for three days, and expect to come back and have me fall into your arms agreeing with any outrageous suggestion you wish to make?”

  “It sounds delightful,” he sighed. “But no, I rather expected you to be annoyed. As a matter of fact, I expected you to deny every word there in the box, and I had in mind a number of enjoyable ways of stopping your lips. Then you confounded me by saying not a word. I wonder why?”

  Catherine flung his shadowy form a look of intense dislike. “I did not want to make a scene — besides, I was watching your sister and her scarecrow of a duenna. They were horrified. There is no other word for it.”

  “Were they indeed?” he asked. “Did they say so?”

  “There was no need. It was the look on their faces, a look of anger and disgust, but more than all, disbelief.”

  “You must learn, Catherine, not to allow other people’s emotions to affect your own. It matters little what they think or want. It is none of their concern.”

  “And then there was my mother,” she went on, unheeding, “looking as if she had been relieved of a great burden: myself, no doubt.”

  “I think you do her an injustice,” he said quietly. “But it makes no difference. I did not ask you to marry me for her peace of mind either.”

  “Forgive me my poor memory, I’m sure, but I do not recall being asked at all,” Catherine said.

  “So that is it. You feel cheated of a formal declaration.”

  The laughter quivering in his voice sent her temper climbing. “No, that is not it! I will not have you marry me out of pity or a sense of duty — or even for the sake of what you consider to be your honor!”

  “Take care, sweet Catherine,” he said quietly. “My patience is not inexhaustible.”

  “You need not threaten me. I quite fail to see what other harm you could do me,” Catherine cried. “Don’t you see? For us to marry now, on such short notice, would be like a public admission that we did indulge in all the reprehensible things people are supposing.”

  His voice was calm again, even reflective, when he answered. “May I point out that a marriage confers forgiveness for the — ah — previous indulgences and legalizes the later ones?”

  “I do not want to be forgiven,” Catherine said hotly. “I have done nothing of which I am ashamed.”

  “Bravo, petite. A fine attitude. But I feel sure that your mother and your friends will feel it is somewhat remiss of you when you take up residence in my house without benefit of the priest’s blessing.”

  Catherine twisted around so quickly that she caught the flash of his teeth as he smiled to himself in the darkness.

  “Speak plainly,” she said, her voice hard. “What is in your mind?”

  “I will spare your blushes, sweet Catherine, and tell you only that you will agree to be my wife this night, or you will be my mistress by morning. One or the other. Decide which. Now.”

  Navarro’s carriage swayed on its springs without a creak or a rattle. The hooves of the matched bays that pulled it made little sound in the dusty street. The blue velvet that hung at the windows and lined the body of the coach deadened the street noises. It was a different kind of journey from the one she had made with this man a few nights before, and yet it was the same. Frighteningly the same.

  “I do not love you,” she protested.

  “No? Then we are of a similar mind on that important question. We will start off even.”

  “Then why? Why are you doing this?”

  “It is simple. I want you. I want you, let us say, as a connoisseur, tasting a fine wine, desires to own the entire vintage.”

  “Surely you would not want an unwilling woman, as either mistress or wife.”

  “No,” he agreed reflectively. “It should be interesting to see how long you remain unwilling.”

  “You—” she began, then stopped, unable to put her anger and chagrin, her embarrassment, and yes, fear, into words.

  “I know. Arrogant, conceited, and probably a great deal more, but you will credit me with being willing to give our child a name, if there is a child.”

  Catherine stiffened with shock. She opened her mouth to deny the possibility then closed it again. What would she do if it were true?

  “Well, Catherine?” he asked after a moment. “Have you nothing to say?”

  “I —
find your sense of responsibility remarkable.”

  “No more than that? I would have said fantastic. But time grows short, ma chérie. Which shall it be?”

  Catherine remembered with irony her brave preference, not so long ago, for the life of a demi-mondaine. It had seemed a free life at the time, unfettered, without the confining restrictions of propriety; a life she could call her own, at the mercy of none. Now, with it presented to her for the choosing, it seemed merely a life without protection, at the mercy of all. There could be only one answer.

  Wearily, she leaned back against the cushions and turned her face away. “I will marry you.”

  “Rafael,” he prompted.

  “Rafael,” she whispered.

  ~ ~ ~

  The banns were read in the cathedral the following Sunday. They would be read twice more, and then on the Monday following the final reading the wedding would be performed. Time was a factor in the early date of the wedding. The day after the wedding was Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, followed by Ash Wednesday, the first of the forty days of the Lenten season, the time of fasting and prayer before Easter. To be wed during Lent was a shabby proceeding at best; everyone would have to forgo the usual feasting and merriment. It was also considered to be unlucky, holding dire possibilities of a parsimonious future. A wedding on a Sunday was “common,” according to Madame Mayfield. Monday, on the other hand, was fashionable. Monday it was.

  Catherine spent the time of waiting gathering her trousseau. It was not too arduous a task. Creole girls spent their young lives hemming and embroidering the household linens and supplies they would need after marriage, the twelve dozen each of sheets, bolster covers, tablecloths, napkins, table-scarves, linen bath towels and cloths and dish cloths, even scrubbing cloths. Carefully copied recipes, curatives, preventives, and cleaning instructions were included along with the nightgowns and peignoirs made especially for brides by the nuns, beautifully, painstakingly, embroidered in white on white, cream on white.

  Outer clothing was not, in itself, a consideration for the trousseau. There would be no wedding trip. Instead there would be the custom of the five days, five interminable days spent imprisoned together by tradition, closeted in her bedchamber without visitors or outside amusements. For some couples it was a blessed privacy after the endless chaperonage of courtship. For Catherine it loomed as a desperate ordeal.

  Catherine’s one cause for gratitude as the weeks passed, was that it was not necessary for her to be alone with Navarro before the wedding. Solange demanded her brother’s escort morning and night as she rushed headlong into a round of frantic shopping and gaiety. Rafael would not often let Catherine cry off from accompanying them. They made an uneasy quartet, with Madame Thibeaut. Occasionally, when Catherine felt she could stand the concerted disapproval of the two women no longer, her mother would join them, charming them into smiles with effortless skill.

  Gradually Catherine became used to appearing in public on Rafael’s arm. She could not help being aware that they made a striking, even attractive couple. And, if she could not learn to enjoy the stir they made, she at least came to accept it as unavoidable.

  The dejeuner de fiancailles, or engagement breakfast, could not be called a success. It was a family occasion only, but the Navarro and the Villère families were large ones, and not a single member could be omitted, from great-uncle Prosper to great-niece Tine. As Catherine had penned the notes of invitation and piled them in a basket to be carried around by a servant, she had devoutly hoped that some few would make their excuses. Her hopes were short-lived. The families seemed to feel it was an opportunity for solidarity, and turned out en masse to support their beleaguered relatives. The gathering seemed more of a funeral than an engagement, however, and the ritual congratulations extended had the sound of condolences. Yvonne, in particular, received a great deal of sympathy, though there were those who felt she had brought the disgrace upon herself by marrying an Americain in the first place.

  There was a general feeling on both sides that the gathering was an embarrassment to be gotten through with as quickly as possible. They ate what was put before them, the mushroom omelettes, poached eggs on artichoke hearts, the delicate slices of ham, veal, and breast of chicken, the onion soup and orange sherbet, the currants and nuts, with dispatch. They drank the health of the bride in champagne, and after the presentation of the ring, a large traditional ruby surrounded by diamonds in a flat gold setting, they dutifully admired it. They then took their leave with awful politeness and due attention to precedence.

  Catherine, watching the exodus from her post at the doorway, was undecided whether to be amused or hurt at their attitude. Then Rafael leaned close to whisper with a grimace, “To think, all these sour faces must be endured again at the wedding.”

  Glancing up, she caught the hint of laughter lurking in his eyes, and she smiled. The future might be endurable, after all.

  On Friday before the wedding Rafael himself brought the corbeille de noce. The modiste, Madame Estelle, prided herself on the tasteful choosing of nuptial baskets, and Catherine had expected to have one of her creations delivered at any time. The basket Rafael placed in Catherine’s arms had much the appearance as Madame Estelle’s, but for the weight of it and a gold-gilt ribbon threaded among the white ones decorating the handles at each end of the wicker basket.

  Catherine, flattered at his attention to detail and irritated with herself for letting it matter, looked deliberately behind him. “Where is Solange?” she asked.

  “I have sent her shopping with Madame Thibeaut. Your mother tells me that after today I may not see you until we walk down the aisle at the cathedral together. I thought it time to dispense with formality and chaperones, in the event there was anything that needed to be discussed.”

  Slanting him a quick glance beneath her lashes, Catherine answered, “I can think of nothing.”

  “Nonetheless, I do not think your mother will disturb us. Come,” he said, relieving her of the basket, “let us go into the salon.”

  “They are cleaning the salon in preparation for the wedding supper,” she said, apprehension making her blunt. “Will the sitting room suit you?”

  They mounted the stairs together. When they entered the small, yellow sitting room with its filtered sunlight, Rafael closed the door behind them.

  “Don’t look so alarmed, petite. Haven’t you noticed? I am on my best behavior.”

  “Yes,” she said with a wary smile. “I have been a most appreciative audience to your self-restraint these last few days.”

  “Have you? That is encouraging. But perhaps you should open your basket before we carry that subject any further.”

  The lace handkerchief, fichu, and fan were more or less expected, as was the lace veil, that favorite headpiece of the Creole women, worn in place of a bonnet while out of the house. The fine, loosely woven cashmere shawl shot with gold thread was a surprise, as were the bleached white doeskin gloves embroidered in a delicate design of bells and curling ribbon. The most costly gift, however, was in the bottom in several velvet-covered boxes. It was parure of topazes enclosed with seed pearls in a flower design, a necklace, earrings, a set of bracelets, and a pair of carefully fashioned hair ornaments that, when fitted together, formed a small, upstanding tiara.

  Catherine sat so long, staring at the lovely things spread out around her, each chosen with such care, that Rafael pushed away from where he leaned on the back of the settee with an impatient movement.

  “If you do not like any of it you have only to say so,” he said.

  “No, no. It isn’t that,” she assured him hastily. “It’s just that it is ... too much. There was no need for such extravagance.”

  He turned to face her, his mouth set in grim lines. “There was every need. I wished to give these trinkets to you. That is need enough.”

  “Is it?”

  With one of his lightning changes of mood he smiled into her defiant eyes. “Are you thinking I bought them merely to still th
e tongues of the old cats by a show of magnificence? No. I bought them because they pleased me and I hoped it would give you pleasure to wear them.”

  “In that case, I accept them, with gratitude.”

  “I am not sure I believe you,” he said, tilting his head to one side, his black eyes bright. “Perhaps you had better show me.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, nervously picking up the scattered articles, returning them to the basket.

  “I mean, my innocent, that I expect at least a kiss for my efforts at the milliners, the modistes, and the jewelers.”

  Catherine met his gaze squarely. “So that is the reason you wished to see me alone.”

  “Reason enough for the moment. Here, put that away,” he said, moving the basket firmly from her grasp, taking her hand and pulling her into his arms. “Don’t be shy,” he whispered as he lowered his lips to hers.

  Catherine yielded, allowing herself to be pressed close against him because she had doubted him, or so she told herself. It was some time before she stirred and drew away.

  “You are most welcome,” he said, laughing down at her.

  Staring at him, Catherine felt an odd pain move in her chest. By his own admission, this man did not love her. What he felt was no more than an ignoble physical desire. Then what moved her? Was she responding to the same kind of attraction?

  Turning abruptly, she moved across the room to stand with her hand on the back of an Egyptian armchair. “You will be happy to know you are not to be a father,” she told him without raising her gaze from the carved sphinx beneath her fingers.

  He was silent for so long that at last she looked up. When she met his eyes, he asked gently, “That will make me happy?”

  “Why not? You have shown no sign of caring for the responsibilities of a family before now.”

  Rafael took a deep breath. His mouth was set in stern lines and his eyes held an emptiness that was more frightening than anger. His fingers slowly clenched into a fist, then abruptly he turned on his booted heel and left the room.