“Catherine, go below. Now.”
She felt the stinging condemnation of Rafael’s tone like a blow, but, staring at his set face and the sword balanced in his hand, Catherine knew it was not the time to argue. She did as she was told.
Strained minutes passed, minutes made horrible by the jeers, the insults and catcalls that grew more than plain enough to be understood. Then the voices began to fade. Whether the men had not liked the prospect of a more or less even fight, the look of naked steel, or had simply decided the possible sport was not worth the risk, the other boat swept past without touching. The danger receded into the distance downriver, and was gone.
10
Long after the sun had dropped below the horizon and the shore on either side was shrouded in darkness, a pale, refracted light on the water allowed them to make headway. When that was gone they fastened a lantern to the bow and continued on. Catherine lay on her bunk, her arm thrown over her eyes, pretending to sleep. That harsh order given to her still echoed in her mind, mingling there with a sense of hurt and affronted pride. She was aware too of Solange’s tittering enjoyment of her discomfiture and Fanny’s unspoken sympathy. Retreating from both into a pose of quiet dignity, she prayed silently for this endless journey to be over.
The moon was striking a shining silver path across the water when at last they steered toward shore. The boat scraped with a screeching rasp of wood along a mooring pole, and came to a stop. A shouted command, and the boat was secured, bumping rhythmically against the landing with the wash of the current.
“We have arrived, ma petite,” Madame Thibeaut said to her charge in over-bright tones. “Come, let me help you. You will feel better once you are upon solid ground. Give me your hands and I will pull you up, so. And now an arm about my waist — there, that isn’t so bad, is it?”
“My head is swimming,” Solange moaned. “Where is my vinaigrette? I must have my vinaigrette.”
From the top bunk, Catherine saw Fanny motion to her. She slid down with alacrity, and together with the other girl’s maid they slipped from the cabin, out into the cool night air.
For a moment Catherine thought there might be some mistake. Though they were near the shore and a faint light glimmered through the trees, water surrounded the craft. Then she saw the signal lantern with its sides of red glass hanging from the pole to which the boat was moored, and she realized the landing was submerged by the high water. A skiff tied also to the mooring pole, suggested their means of getting to shore.
Giles stood with Rafe in the bow, a silver timepiece the size of a turnip filling his large hand. Rafe, with his hands on his hips, grinned derisively at his friend.
“I don’t need one of those tickers to tell me my time was better than yours.”
Giles squinted at the face of his timepiece in the poor tight “I make it an hour and forty minutes better,” he agreed with a shake of his head. “I don’t know how you did it. No one could make better time than we did today — or have better luck.”
“You owe me a drink,” Rafael reminded him. “I will collect it as soon as I set a few things in order. In the meantime, if you must have a culprit, blame the pilot.”
“What do you mean, you rascal? I’m the pilot.”
Both men laughed as they turned toward the arriving women.
It was with great reluctance that Giles and Fanny Barton finally accepted an invitation to stay the night. Plainly they did not like to intrude on Catherine and Rafael’s first night together in their home, and yet, as Rafael had pointed out, Giles was a prudent man, with no liking for the unnecessary risk of traveling the five or six additional miles upstream at night. Morning would be soon enough. Still it was only after Catherine added her earnest pleas for their company that Fanny and Giles agreed.
There was a brief argument over who should have the first use of the skiff, but Rafael would not be outdone in politeness. It was Giles who jumped down into the small unwieldy boat and lifted his sister and her maid over the side to join him.
They had not gone more than a half-dozen strokes of the paddle before Rafael leapt over the side of the keelboat, plunging above his knees in the water before he found a secure footing on the submerged deck of the landing stage. Laughing, he turned to Catherine, holding out his arms.
“Jump,” he invited, a dare in the mocking sparkle of his black eyes.
Catherine took a deep breath. He had practically ignored her all day. Did he now expect to be able to tease her back into humor with him? Of course there were other reasons for her ill-mood that she did not wish him to suspect. Moreover, it would be churlish to refuse such a handsome offer of transportation, wouldn’t it?
Putting a hand on the gunwale, she sprang to a seat on top of it, then swung her legs over it. She balanced there an instant, then leaning forward with outstretched hands, let herself fall into his waiting arms.
He had waded half the distance to the shore when a cry rang out behind them.
“Rafe! Wait!” Solange screamed. “Wait for me. Don’t leave me, Rafe. Don’t leave me alone!”
He turned back, the grip under Catherine’s knees and across her back tightening. Solange leaned over the side of the keelboat, waving frantically, with Madame Thibeaut at her side trying to restrain her. At the stern, the Negro slaves were deserting the boat, following Rafael’s example. They were jumping one by one to the water-covered landing carrying with them the bundles and trunks.
Catherine could feel the tension in her husband’s grasp and the uncharacteristic indecision. “Perhaps you should go back,” she said, forcing the reluctant whisper from her throat
Abruptly he shook his head, swung about, and strode on to the top of the levee. There, he set her on her feet, pressed her hand for one brief second, then returned to the keelboat.
It was Solange he carried down the slope of the levee and up the wooded rise to the lighted house. His sister leaned her head against his shoulder, sobbing like a heartbroken child. Catherine, her skirts held above the dew-soaked grass, trailed after them.
A double, curving staircase led directly to the main rooms on the second floor of the house, bypassing the raised basement. As the procession mounted the stairs, the wide front door opened, spilling light across the darkened recess of the long front gallery. A manservant stepped out into the orange-gold shaft and bowed low with a ceremonial obeisance.
“Bienvenu, Maître Rafe, Maîtress. Alhambra welcomes you,” he said.
The voice, oddly accented, precise, without the slurred patois of most slaves, was a warning. As the manservant straightened to his full height, Catherine drew in a silent breath of surprise. That the blood of some ancient desert tribe ran in his veins was obvious. His face, with a metallic brass sheen on the brown skin, held a mask-like reserve. Deep-set brown eyes looked from under high-arched brows. The nose had the shape of an aquiline-ridged hook, while the full mouth beneath it was outlined with a harsh sensitivity. About his head was wrapped a small, neat turban.
Waiting for some acknowledgment of the greeting by her husband, Catherine hesitated. In that instant, Madame Thibeaut pushed forward.
“Go at once, Ali, and inform the maid of Mam’zelle Solange that we have need of her. Mam’zelle is unwell. She must be put to bed with a soothing draught and heat at her feet as soon as possible. Then inform Cook that we have arrived and desire a small repast to be served in the dining room in half an hour.”
The hard ring of authority in the woman’s voice, her determined assumption of the role of hostess, was intolerable. Only disbelief prevented Catherine from countermanding her orders at once. But the moment of reflection convinced her that that course would be unwise; it might even be to step into a carefully planned trap. Was she being overimaginative? Was it possible the older woman had no intention of usurping her place, that her impetuous action had been made solely out of habit and her concern for the welfare of her charge? No, Solange’s sudden queening, her tension in her brother’s arms, convinced Catherine of the jus
tness of her first suspicion.
“Wait,” she said quietly.
Ali had turned to do the bidding of Madame Thibeaut, accepting her commands with an unsmiling inclination of his head. Now he swung back.
“I think, Madame Thibeaut, that you are forgetting our guests,” Catherine said. “I’m sure my husband knows the way to his sister’s room. While he is installing her there, perhaps you will ring for her maid — or find someone to carry a message to her. Ali will then be free to conduct Mr. Barton and Fanny to the rooms prepared for them, and then to see to the housing of M’sieur Barton’s servants.”
As Fanny started to protest that she could find her own way, Catherine turned away. “Can you be ready for a light supper in half an hour, Solange? Good. Then, Ali, you may inform Cook that it can be served at that time.”
“Madame Ti must come with me,” Solange cried, but her voice was too querulously, childishly, demanding to be heeded. A fortunate thing, Catherine thought. It would not have done to appear callous to the needs of Rafael’s sister when she had been ill.
As it was, Rafael answered her in a brusque tone as he carried her into the house. “Madame Thibeaut will be along as soon as she can.”
Solange retreated into a martyred pose as Rafael carried her out of sight.
They passed through a wide entrance hall, furnished as a sitting room, out onto a back gallery. The bedchambers could be reached by moving through the other rooms, but this narrow gallery overlooking the courtyard was the quickest way. When everyone else turned to the wing on the left, Catherine trailed along with them, realizing belatedly that she had no idea where her own room was located.
This inauspicious beginning did not improve. After finally being shown to her room, she found drowned gnats floating in the water in the ewer upon the washstand, and no face towels on the rack. The furniture had been dusted but it had also been oiled with something which, from the smell and the trail of ants devouring it, appeared to be bacon fat. The meal provided for their delectation consisted of a thin gruel which passed for soup, and ham between slices of buttered bread. The butter was rancid, the bread dotted with gray mold on the bottom of the slices.
Fanny and Giles took the deficiencies in good part, seeing them as evidence of the need of the firm hand of the new chatelaine. To Catherine they had a more sinister implication.
If Rafael had joined with them in bemoaning the poor fare and the tendency of a house to decline without a mistress, if he had indicated in any way that he supported her in her stand against his sister and her companion, she might have been able to view what lay ahead with some degree of confidence. He did not. Instead, he sat at the head of the table playing with his wineglass, drinking more than he ate. He scarcely spoke, and then only to Giles. Once Catherine looked up to find him staring down the cloth at her, a measuring expression in his black eyes, as if she had been tried and found lacking.
The gentlemen sat long over their cognac and claret. Fanny and Catherine, too tired, and by now too familiar with each other to stand on ceremony, did not wait, but went to their rooms immediately after coffee had been served in the salon.
Catherine was asleep when Rafael finally entered the room. She heard him stumbling about in the dark with something less than his usual sure-footed ease. His boots hit the floor with sodden thumps. He barked his shin on the footboard of the four-poster and his muttered curse had a thickened sound. The bed ropes sagged as he got into bed. He fell back heavily and was still.
Catherine lay without moving, staring wide-eyed into the blackness of the tester above her. She strained to maintain the even breathing of natural sleep. Her limbs felt stiff with tension, and slowly, carefully, she forced them to relax.
Rafael lay still. She could just sense the quiet rise and fall of his chest. Was he exhausted, in a drunken stupor — or was he listening, as aware of her as she was of him? Was he trying to decide if she was asleep?
A cold depression settled over her. She felt isolated, set at a distance by his attitude during the evening. It was not a feeling she enjoyed, and yet she would not have that distance bridged by anything less than a warm and personal desire. She could not bear the thought of being taken as casually, as coldly, as any kept woman.
Kept woman or unloved wife, where is the difference? she mocked herself. If there was one, it eluded her. Still, she knew instinctively there would be a great deal of difference in being drawn into the arms of Rafael in his most tender mood, and being taken by the surly stranger he had become today.
She need not have worried. Rafael made no move toward her. The leaden minutes crept by. The tiredness of depleted emotions invaded her senses, and she slept.
When she awoke the gray light of dawn filled the room. Rafael was gone. She was alone in the wide bed.
Sitting up, Catherine reached for the bellrope, a strip of tapestry ending in a silk tassel, banging beside the bed. The Bartons had planned to make an early start this morning. She and Fanny had said their good-byes the night before, but it was her duty as hostess to see that they had refreshment before she speeded them on their way.
Though she waited long, patient moments, her summons was not answered. Surely the servants were not all still abed? Such a thing was unheard of in her mother’s house. The cook should be in her kitchen; the houseservants should be up and about, for their morning meal must be out of the way early so they could start their duties. Many of the chores in the tidying of the main rooms should be accomplished before the master and mistress left their bedchamber.
She must remember, however, that this was not a well-run household. Judging by last night’s fiasco, there could well be nothing more than a cold fireplace waiting in the kitchen. Sliding from the bed, she threw off her gown and began to dress.
Her fears were realized. When she finally found the kitchen, by treading the front gallery completely around the house and descending a set of steep stairs which led along a path to a small, detached building, there was no smoke rising from its chimney. Stale ash lay caked upon the hearth, and black iron pots of congealed food crawling with ants and buzzing with flies, sat upon the trestle tables lining the walls on each side. Roaches, dark brown and an inch long, rustled away at her approach to hide beneath the table edges. There was no kindling, and only a few misshapen chunks of wood in the woodbox. Less than an inch of sediment-clouded water filled the oaken butt beside the door. Was this the usual practice, or was this slackness due entirely to her arrival? The uncertainty of the question was the only thing which tempered Catherine’s disgust and indignation.
Something must be done, and quickly. Turning with a swing of her skirts, Catherine started back along the path to the gallery.
But as she strode along that shaded veranda-like porch at the front of the house, her attention was caught by a movement seen dimly through the trees. Finding an opening between the limbs of the live oaks, she stopped, watching the activity at the landing attached to the levee. There was a hollow feeling in her chest as she saw the keelboat moving out into the channel of the river, the polers looking like dream figures as the boat was swallowed up by the morning mist. Fanny and Giles were leaving. She was too late to bid them a final good-bye.
Rafael stood on the riverbank. Behind him a saddled horse cropped the fresh green grass just appearing beneath the trees. Perhaps it was just as well he had let her sleep. The departing couple were his friends, his guests. Her presence was not necessary — maybe not even wanted. That she had been unable to offer coffee and a croissant was not a tragedy. Fanny’s maid was equipped on the boat to provide that as well, even better, than she. It was irrational of her then, watching her husband mount his horse and ride away in the opposite direction to the house, to admit to a desolation such as she had never known before.
The sun was high before the house began to stir. By that time Catherine had mapped out her campaign in her mind. She must move warily, but she had no intention of letting the conditions she had found at Alhambra continue. Regardless of the
reason for them, they were an offense to her fastidious nature and her instincts as a housewife.
She waited patiently for some sign that Madame Thibeaut and Solange had arisen. When she saw coffee being carried to the wing across the court by a shuffling maidservant, she nodded in satisfaction. Grim-faced, she left her room and moved along the back gallery to knock upon the door which the maid had entered.
Madame Thibeaut turned in the act of handing a cup of coffee to Solange, propped in her bed. Her thin brows shot up in elaborate surprise as Catherine entered.
“My dear Madame Navarro!” the older woman exclaimed.
Her voice had an affected ring. She was dressed, her black gown buttoned tightly to her throat, and her hair pulled into a small hard knot on the top of her head. Spots of color, perhaps of irritation, burned upon her sallow cheeks.
Solange took a deliberate sip of her coffee. “What do you want?” she asked without pretense to graciousness.
Steeling herself, Catherine gave the girl a pleasant smile. “I’m sorry to intrude upon you at this early hour. I do hope you have recovered from the ill effects of yesterday’s journey?” At the girl’s reluctant nod, she went on. “Rafael has gone, riding over his acres I expect, and it seemed a good time to make myself familiar with the house. I thought I might persuade Madame Thibeaut to be my guide, since I am depending upon her to put me into the way of things here.”
“You must wait. Madame Ti has not had a morsel of breakfast,” Solange said.
“Neither have I,” Catherine reminded her gently. “A pity, is it not, that we must wait upon the convenience of our servants? Do you think, Madame Thibeaut, that this is one thing we might remedy between ourselves? Rafael, you know, is an early riser, in the ordinary way, and I do not like to think of him beginning the day with nothing to sustain him.”
Love and Adventure Collection - Part 1 (Love and Adventure Boxed Sets) Page 61